In your opinion, the franchises that went down hill this gen?

Title says it all. What game franchises in your opinion have took a turn for the worse this gen? Off the top of my head resident evil and final fantasy for me.

Well... i think that the newest Splinter Cell are not as good as Chaos Theory.

Also, the new SSX is worst than SSX3.

And Metroid Prime+Metroid Prime Echoes >>>> The Wii Metroid games.

Overall I can't think of more franchises which got worst in this generation.
 
Mass Effect... I love the universe but nothing holds a candle to the first one in terms of story and characters.

For the new page -

I couldn't agree more.

2221841-liara1.jpg


Garrus_Character_Shot.png


Tali.jpg


2588304-wrex.jpg


Garrus, Liara, Talia, Wrex, all these characters, when I think about them, I can only remember the good amount of time I have spent with them with the quests, story or in the game, that chemistry.

The characters that we have from Mass Effect 2, haven't given that feeling that I had from 1. Whenever they had the same characters for the game in 2 or 3, I always picked the characters from the 1st one. So usually Garrus is always on my squad along with the the others.

I really feel like they added a lot more characters in the game giving less importance to them and I don't really connect to them like I did from the 1st one.
 
most franchises started degrading last gen really. FF is probably the only franchise I would point to this one specifically. I didn't care for XII because of the battle system but it's still a hundred times better than what we got with the FFXIII series.
 
Final Fantasy and Resident Evil are both givens.

Some that I don't feel is fair:

Metroid - Prime 3 and Trilogy were spectacular and Other M was fun even if the story was dumb.

Zelda - Each game has always been better/not as good as the iteration before them. But in the end, they are all fun games. Zelda technically ended this gen on a high note, as SS is fantastic.

To those that say Mario...why? Galaxy 1 & 2 were godly. The NSMB series may be by the books, but they are still solid Mario platformers.
 
Final Fantasy and Resident Evil are both givens.

Some that I don't feel is fair:

Metroid - Prime 3 and Trilogy were spectacular and Other M was fun even if the story was dumb.

Zelda - Each game has always been better/not as good as the iteration before them. But in the end, they are all fun games. Zelda technically ended this gen on a high note, as SS is fantastic.

To those that say Mario...why? Galaxy 1 & 2 were godly. The NSMB series may be by the books, but they are still solid Mario platformers.

Zelda, last gen:

- Link to the Past & Four Swords, GBA
- The Wind Waker, GC
- Four Swords Adventures, GC
- The Minish Cap, GBA

Zelda, this gen:

- Twilight Princess, Wii
- Phantom Hourglass, DS
- Spirit Tracks, DS
- Ocarina of Time 3D, 3DS
- Four Swords Anniversary Edition, DS
- Skyward Sword, Wii

I think if you tally up the quality of Zelda games last gen and Zelda games this gen, you can say this gen was, at the very least, comparable to last gen in terms of quality.
 
I honestly believe every single franchise went to the shitter this generation except Deus Ex, Fallout (some people even hate those) and the majority of the sports games.
 
I guess it's easy to say FF went downhill "this gen", but I imagine by most people's metrics, it's been going downhill since the SNES era.

Code:
        SNES
       /    \
      /      \
     /        PS1
    /            \
   /              \
NES                PS2
                      \
                       \
                        \
                         PS3/360

(something like that, anyway)
 
Final Fantasy: went from 3 great releases a gen to 1 mediocre release and massive milking that release, while SquareEnix tries to salvage FF14.

Resident Evil: although the commercially successful, the critical backlash is going to damage RE7

Metal Gear:

DMC: handed to NT.
 
4 is downhill from 2 and 3
Ground Zeroes is just a video
Peace Walker, while good, is downhill from 2 and 3
HD collection is 2 and 3
Who knows about Revengeance... looking forward to it but I can't imagine it'll be better than 2 or 3

All but the first of those are kind of ridiculous. Apparently everything is compared to 2 & 3. Might I remind everyone that a LOT of people used to hate MGS 2 and now they've changed their tunes.
 
Call if Duty.

I fell in love with COD4 because it had a great SP and fresh new MP ideas. I grew out of the franchise because the little tweaks on what made COD4 so great really rubbed me the wrong way. The COD series became something safe and tired rather than something fresh and new that was changing the way we played COD like COD4 did when it first came out.
 
Resident Evil: Seriously disappointed the franchise has strayed so far from its survival horror roots and the fanbase that made it successful in the first place. At least revelations was pretty good.

Metroid: Prime 3 was worse than the previous two entries in the trilogy (though still a good game and I absolutelyloved the IR pointer control implementation.) It was then followed by Other M which was just overwhelmingly disappointing, not only in terms of characterization/story which I have no problem ignoring, but in actual gameplay and design as well. Here's hoping for a rebound on the 3DS or Wii-U.

F-zero: For not existing :(

Final Fantasy: everyone else has done well enough explaining why there.
 
I would argue Metroid, Prime 3 and Other M I feel are some of the weakest entries in the series.

Kingdom Hearts really has lost a lot of its charm, now being so convulted and oh so many spin-offs...

Silent Hill and Resident Evil I only semi-agree with. I do think they've taken hits, but then I actually liked Silent Hill Shattered Memories and Downpour, I don't think Resident Evil 5 was that bad and I rather enjoyed Revelations and RE6. But they have had a step-down in quality from last-gen, but I don't think they're the disasters many think they are.
 
I disagree. GT5 was a disjointed mess of a game at launch, and in that regard isn't much better now. It's like a load of different features, or separate games thrown together via an appalling menu system, rather than one game full of content, like GT4.

The time just compounds the matter when looking at what was done with it, not the reason people have a problem with it.

I completely agree. GT4 is one of my favorite games of all time. Sure lots of things got patched in GT5, but that unwieldy menu alone lowers the experience enough for me.
 
console Final Fantasy:
From my most hyped ip to a ip I don't care. FF13, 14, sequels that no one asked for and the versus vaporware. Type 0 is decent but it's a handheld title afterall.

Resident Evil:
Worse and worse.

Assassin's Creed:
I loved 1, 2, brotherhood and revelations, 3 dropped the ball, mainly due to boring and predictable characters this time around.

Mass Effect
The last 10 minutes from the original ending. No i cant unsee it. Nothing can heal that first experience.
 
Wait... people think everything went downhill this gen??? Seriously? Almost everything went uphill if you ask me. Barring FF and RE, every other franchise game I've played is better than the previous installments in the previous generation.

This includes Gran Turismo, Metal Gear Solid, God of War, Red Dead, Halo, Elder Scrolls (I hate to admit this one), ect...
 
A lot of franchises fell off this gen. Mario and Pokemon are two exceptions that I can think of though.
 
Wait... people think everything went downhill this gen??? Seriously? Almost everything went uphill if you ask me. Barring FF and RE, every other franchise game I've played is better than the previous installments in the previous generation.

This includes Gran Turismo, Metal Gear Solid, God of War, Red Dead, Halo, Elder Scrolls (I hate to admit this one), ect...

Oh... Oh dear.
 
Tony Hawk games
Resident Evil
Splinter Cell
Final Fantasy
Halo(started with Reach though, not H3 or ODST)
Devil May Cry
Ratchet and Clank after ACiT
Metroid
 
I was gonna name a few, but seriously, the answer truly seems to be every single fucking one of them. I can't think of a single one that proves otherwise, other than things like Red Dead and Spec Ops that are just using the name and aren't really the same franchise.

That doesn't mean I hated every new entry in series I like. MGS4 is great, but MGS3 was way way way greater. I didn't hate FF XIII nearly as much as others, but it doesn't even begin to approach X.
 
Declined:

Zelda
Metroid
2D Mario
Ninja Gaiden
Devil May Cry
Grand Theft Auto
Bioshock (from System Shock 2)

On par, or improved:

3D Mario
Half-Life
Halo
God of War
 
Final Fantasy.

Truthfully it went down last gen with the trifecta of shit (FFX, X-2, XI), but it ended with a possibility of hope with FFXII. Only for Toriyama to piss all over it.

Also Kingdom Hearts. Too many stupid handheld games. KH1.5 HD will probably be the best KH game this gen, and that's just sad.
 
Fucking all of them. Real talk.

All of them.

Some more than others.

This sounds like such hyperbole, right? But as I think about it, I can't help but agree. Even franchises that started out this generation have become empty shells of their former selves.

With that said, I think there are a few examples:

-Forza
-FIFA
-NBA 2K

Usually it's franchises that don't have any real need for storytelling or depth outside of basic gameplay systems, or at least systems that don't need any sort of creativity involved with them, outside of good presentation and graphic-design.

The problem this generation is really two-fold; the first is that graphics are getting to the point where developers such as Square-Enix, are chasing after photo-realism or something near it, and absolutely kill any sort of creative or interesting art-style in the dust. The second problem is that most developers/publishers think that "streamlining" games to the point of holding your hand or changing the game completely (Splinter Cell series) will garner new fans, but it usually only loses the former fans, sinks the franchise and developer who made it, and leaves dumb questions like "I wonder how that happened?" I'll tell you how it happened, you did it to yourself. We're losing content and character because of the lack of creativity, and the lack of wanting to push boundaries or give meaningful, deep experiences.

Also, I think it should be said that it's a shame that all these new and old IP's are chasing after that CoD dollar (Splinter Cell). Mainly because in a world where CoD exists, and people want CoD, they'll buy COD, and not your game. I think it's funny seeing FPS become the dominant genre, because when everyone was chasing after, say Mario, it allowed for there to still be creativity in control and design, but they were still all platformers at heart. With FPS's, you have that creativity severely handicapped, mainly because you're stuck in a certain perspective, and you have to

A.) Have guns

B.) Shoot dudes

Which almost all FPS's follow. This is compared to older games having to really only be platformers and have enemies. There could be different camera angles, different means to deal with enemies, puzzles, multiple characters with special abilities, etc. but now we're stuck behind the eyes of another guy, with another gun, looking to kill another swath of enemies, waiting to rub the jelly off the screen when we're hit, and waiting to reach the next-cut-scene down the hall.
 
Assassin's Creed & Mass Effect don't count. I believe we're talking about franchises that have gone downhill since their previous generation incarnations.
 
Final Fantasy just because the plummet between FF12 and 13 is almost unreal

Yup. Pretty much this. Final Fantasy was once associated with the pinnacle of what gaming could offer. It stood on top of fucking Mount Video Game and very few franchises had that reputation. Final Fantasy XIII was the first mainline game in the franchise to be released on current-gen consoles and holy shit did it tarnish the brand. I've never seen anything like it. Not even in books or movies.
 
Final Fantasy, I used to hold the series in high regard and even had a little hope for its future but the Lightning Returns trailer just killed it for me.

SSX: Blur was nice but it didn't feel complete. The last one however, It played fine but the whole "survive it" aspect is probably the most frustrating thing I've delt with all gen. Character customization was limited to some color swaps and I'm not a fan of the autolog-esque system that EA puts in all their extreme sports games nowadays. Just give me a handful of mountain ranges with a crap ton of slopes all connected together with some awesome music and particle effects everywhere and I'm happy.
 
Franchises I feel went to the shitter this generation:

1. Zelda, Hated both Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword.
2. Metriod, Other M shattered my perceptions on Samus.
3. Resident Evil, It went from perfection in 4 to whatever the hell 5 and 6 are.
4. Final Fantasy, From being the franchise that all other franchises are measured to the only ff ive never finished.
5. Suikoden, Whatever the side stories games are.

These are the ones at the top of my mind im sure there are more.
 
Halo -- starts off with the most underwhelming "AAA" game I've ever played in Halo 3. Slightly rebounds with a fucking spin-off in ODST. Comes back just a tad with Reach, and then drops like a rock again with Halo 4. Although 343i's first outing isn't nearly as disastrous and downright bad as Halo 3, it's still extremely disappointing.
halo 4 is trash,halo 3 was the last good one.
 
Assasins creed and uncharted

Number 2 was the pinnacle for Assasins and the first game was easily the best Uncharted.

They also didnt exist before this gen. Surely they dont count?

For me its Final Fantasy - It was my favorite game series, now....not so much
 
Top Bottom