Worst Games in Great Franchises

[BrawlMan]

I actually really like the level design in GoW1. The Temple of Pandora for me is up there with Shadow Moses and the RPD in terms of iconic videogame buildings. It's also the best the series gets with environmental storytelling AND properly linking it to Kratos' own personal journey.

I'd say the only thing Gravity Rush 2 has going for it is that it's more colourful and maybe some of the enemy variety. In every other department it feels like a major step down. Instead of learning from some of the mistakes of the first game it decides to embed them further and turns the whole experience into a frustrating mess. I never thought I could get so angry trying to throw a goddamn frisbee for a dog.

I was more so referring to the Hades level and some of the late game stuff. The Pandora Temple I don't remember much cuz it's been too long, but I didn't have problems with it for the most part. But I am not that curious to go back and play it again. I don't have the game anyway so fine by me.

 

[laggyteabag]

To each their own, but Halo 5 is almost objectively worse in every complaint you've leveled at 4. Halo 4 at least felt like "the next Halo" whereas Halo 5 felt like "Halo Adjacent."

I disagree.

I believe that Halo 5 improves on many of the complaints that I had about Halo 4, but then went onto make different, but equally terrible choices in other areas.

Take the campaign for instance. The downfall of Halo 4's campaign was that a lot of the important context of who the Didact was, and what motivated him, was locked away in the books, so many players just ended up plaything through the game, with no idea why this evil guy was doing what he was doing. In Halo 5 though, the story was easy to understand, but the issue was that the game was marketed in one way, and then the game presented an almost entirely different story - not to mention that you barely even played as the Master Chief.

Different, but equally terrible.

Where Halo 5 does reach above Halo 4 though, was its multiplayer offering. Gone were armour abilities, loadouts, perks, and killstreaks, and back were equal starts, and on-map weapon pick ups. Halo had at least gained some of its identity, which Halo 4 quickly abandoned. And that is not even to mention the drastically improved Forge, and introduction of great community features, like a custom games browser.

But on the flipside, the entire progression system of 5 was based on microtransaction lootboxes. Swings and roundabouts.

Ultimately, I would say that Halo 5 is a superior game, solely because of its multiplayer, though that isn't exactly high praise.

 

[Xprimentyl]

I disagree.

I believe that Halo 5 improves on many of the complaints that I had about Halo 4, but then went onto make different, but equally terrible choices in other areas.

Take the campaign for instance. The downfall of Halo 4's campaign was that a lot of the important context of who the Didact was, and what motivated him, was locked away in the books, so many players just ended up plaything through the game, with no idea why this evil guy was doing what he was doing. In Halo 5 though, the story was easy to understand, but the issue was that the game was marketed in one way, and then the game presented an almost entirely different story - not to mention that you barely even played as the Master Chief.

Different, but equally terrible.

Where Halo 5 does reach above Halo 4 though, was its multiplayer offering. Gone were armour abilities, loadouts, perks, and killstreaks, and back were equal starts, and on-map weapon pick ups. Halo had at least gained some of its identity, which Halo 4 quickly abandoned. And that is not even to mention the drastically improved Forge, and introduction of great community features, like a custom games browser.

But on the flipside, the entire progression system of 5 was based on microtransaction lootboxes. Swings and roundabouts.

Ultimately, I would say that Halo 5 is a superior game, solely because of its multiplayer, though that isn't exactly high praise.

“Different but equally terrible.” So Halo 4’s multiplayer missteps were bigger than Halo 5’s in the single-player, canon story?

Halo 5’s story was easy to understand, but nonsensical given the fanbase had been experiencing the story of the Master Chief for 4 games leading up to it. I made this argument in Escapist V1: what sense did it make to spin a tale of intrigue from the perspective of a new guy/new main protagonist when everyone and their mother has already lived in the shoes of the character being villainized and we KNOW is not acting out of character? There was literally no point to my playing as the new guy seeing as his gameplay was all about chasing down a “bad guy” I knew for a fact to be the “good guy” for over a decade because I saved multiple worlds AS him?

Again, to each their own, but the multiplayer in Halo 5 did nothing to save the single-player experience which is arguably why iterative Halos exist. I wasn’t particularly bothered by Halo 4’s changes to MP, but neither was I much dealing within it; I shifted away from MP long ago, and was only looking for the next tale in the greater arching story. That story being Master Chief has apparently gone rogue, and you’ll spend most of your time in the game playing as this new guy (identifiable only if you watched the Halo cinematic shorts) chasing him down? No, thank you.

 

[Hawki]

Oh goody, is this another chance for me to explain why Halo 4 is terrible and Halo 5 isn't?

I disagree.

I believe that Halo 5 improves on many of the complaints that I had about Halo 4, but then went onto make different, but equally terrible choices in other areas.

Take the campaign for instance. The downfall of Halo 4's campaign was that a lot of the important context of who the Didact was, and what motivated him, was locked away in the books, so many players just ended up plaything through the game, with no idea why this evil guy was doing what he was doing. In Halo 5 though, the story was easy to understand, but the issue was that the game was marketed in one way, and then the game presented an almost entirely different story - not to mention that you barely even played as the Master Chief.

Different, but equally terrible.

I disagree. Halo 4's campaign is worse.

You're right to point out the issues with the Didact, but that isn't the only problem Halo 4 has with its narrative. The other problems are...well, everything. Seriously, it's easier to list what Halo 4 does well (the relationship between John and Cortana) rather than what it doesn't (pretty much everything else). For instance, you're right that it doesn't explain the Didact well...nor does it explain why the Covenant is apparently your enemy again, or how John knows Lasky, or why human tech has improved so rapidly in just a few years, or, well, anything.

Halo 5 isn't without its own issues, but the marketing isn't among them. Yes, the marketing was misdirection, but that isn't the fault of the game itself. To borrow a tired metaphor, if my friend tells me we're going to a steakhouse, and instead takes me to a salad bar, while I may be disappointed, that has no bearing on the quality of the salid itself. I'd also point out that Halo 2 had similar misdirection (hyping up the invasion of Earth, when we quickly leave the planet in the game's story), but even that aside, if the marketing was misdirection, again, that's a criticism of the marketing, not the game itself.

Also, I really don't get the idea that in a Halo game, we're obliged to play as John. At this time of writing, there's 13 Halo games. John's been playable in 5 of them. The series is called "Halo," not "Master Chief." Even if you revise that argument to include only the core games (whether Reach counts as core is debatable, but I'll let it slide), then yes, he's been playable in each of them, but we split time between him and the Arbiter in H2, and no-one complained then. Well, I mean, I have, but only in the gameplay sense. I don't like most of the Arbiter's levels, but it definitely serves the story.

Where Halo 5 does reach above Halo 4 though, was its multiplayer offering. Gone were armour abilities, loadouts, perks, and killstreaks, and back were equal starts, and on-map weapon pick ups. Halo had at least gained some of its identity, which Halo 4 quickly abandoned. And that is not even to mention the drastically improved Forge, and introduction of great community features, like a custom games browser.

But on the flipside, the entire progression system of 5 was based on microtransaction lootboxes. Swings and roundabouts.

Ultimately, I would say that Halo 5 is a superior game, solely because of its multiplayer, though that isn't exactly high praise.

Again, I don't think these 'sins' are equal.

This is very subjective, but I LOATHE the loadout system of Halo 4. I'm not against loadouts or class-based FPS, but Halo is an arena shooter. So you've got this weird mix-up of arena maps where you can find weapons, while also having loadouts at the start of the match. It was stupid in Doom 2016, and it's stupid here. Halo 5, on the other hand, goes back to arena FPS, and gives the player new movement abilities, from the jetpacks to the ground-pound. And if we're talking about microtransactions, again, this is pretty academic. The only way they can affect the gameplay in any manner is in Warzone, and you still need to earn the right to use them. I mean, yes, I can splurge on Scorpion cards for instance, but in the match itself, I need to get my character to the right level to deploy Scorpions. And the drop rate is so generous, even people who've never purchased anything are on pretty equal terms. I mean, speaking personally, I haven't spent a cent of real-world money in H5, and I've never felt outmatched by the opponent - least not as far as access to vehicles goes.

That story being Master Chief has apparently gone rogue, and you’ll spend most of your time in the game playing as this new guy (identifiable only if you watched the Halo cinematic shorts) chasing him down? No, thank you.

That isn't the story though. It's how the story was advertised, but it's not the story itself.

Again, it's fine to resent the misdirection, but that isn't an inditement on the story itself. Again, take Halo 2 - its story was falsely advertised as well, but it's generally held up as being one of the strongest in the series.

Also, if the actual story of H5 boiled down to "Osiris has to bring in Blue Team," maybe, but we know that isn't all that's going on, ranging from the collapse of 'Madama's Covenant, to the emergence of the Guardians. The apprehension plot is a pretty minor one in the greater scheme of things.

 

[Xprimentyl]

t an inditement on the story itself. Again, take Halo 2 - its story was falsely advertised as well, but it's generally held up as being one of the strongest in the series.

Also, if the actual story of H5 boiled down to "Osiris has to bring in Blue Team," maybe, but we know that isn't all that's going on, ranging from the collapse of 'Madama's Covenant, to the emergence of the Guardians. The apprehension plot is a pretty minor one in the greater scheme of things.

The apprehension of Blue Team is literally the back bone of Halo 5. Outside of that, it's an ancillary tale within the Halo universe, should have been relegated to an ODST-esque installment, NOT the fifth major installment of the franchise. Halo 5 would have been fine as Halo "insert whatever subtitle suits your fancy save the next major Halo." As the fifth Halo, it left fans wanting.

We don't have to get into again; you like Halo 5 and I don't; that's perfectly fine. But pretending it's an acceptable next major step in the progression of the tale we've been following since the early 2000s is patently naive.

Imagine a Super Mario Brothers wherein Mario is suddenly the bad guy; Bowser is painted as some guy with a different, sympathetic perspective on the larger narrative. Would that be acceptable as Super Mario 97 (or whatever number we're up to?)

 

[EvilRoy]

Adding on to that they also tried to make Heroes into actual units, giving it this weird pseudo-tactical RPG vibe (or possibly cribbing notes from Warcraft 3) that didn't really work out, with the Heroes landing on the extremes of pitifully weak (if you built them with management skills) wastes of a unit slot, or horrifically overpowered.

I remember that. It basically made the game easymode because once you had a hero with a lot of movement and fairly strong attack the typical approach was to bumrush the enemy hero and kill them. The enemy army would lose all their bonuses and just instantly fall apart. All you had to do was tank damage and let your team pick away at him.

For me...

Dark Souls 2 for sure. The game suffered from having different directors who were trying very hard to create a followup to DS1 without really understanding why the original did so well. They went as far as aping things that probably should have been left behind (and later were in DS3), and struggling to produce a connecting thread to the first by just sort of referencing stuff.

Borderlands the Presequel as well. It was kind of hamstrung right off the hop by not really expanding the gameplay that much and bringing back a lot of samey enemies. That said it played competently and was fun enough as a "more of the same" situation if you were looking for that, but it drove right off a cliff trying to write Jacks backstory. Characters do awful shit to him justifying it by saying "I've run against him in the past, you don't know what he's like", but the purpose of the damn game was to show me what he was like and how he fell into villainy. You can't sell me a game about a guys backstory and then in the backstory make reference to other backstory you're never going to show me.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

That's the problem. So many people had a big ass backlash towards 6, that they would take and accept anything while nearly ignoring or downplaying the flaws of 7. 7 may have have been a return to "Classic RE horror", but the game has a lots of flaws people tend to ignore or downplay. Bonus modes that would have been unlockable in the past are separated or locked behind DLC. The Gold Edition that later came out made getting the vanilla version even more pointless. For reference, the Gold Edition came out three or four months later. Unskippable scripted sequences that get annoying on repeat playthroughs. Ethan and Mia I find the least interesting RE protagonists outside of the nobody from Gun Survivor. There is not much enemy variety and Ethan is sluggish and too slow for a guy that young. Gaming Brit sums up most of my problems, though I would never go the great lengths to defend RE6 like he did.

​

I’ve seen people defend RE6 as simply a great action game if you are willing to accept the detour the series took from survival horror.

 

[Hawki]

The apprehension of Blue Team is literally the back bone of Halo 5. Outside of that, it's an ancillary tale within the Halo universe, should have been relegated to an ODST-esque installment, NOT the fifth major installment of the franchise. Halo 5 would have been fine as Halo "insert whatever subtitle suits your fancy save the next major Halo." As the fifth Halo, it left fans wanting.

We don't have to get into again; you like Halo 5 and I don't; that's perfectly fine. But pretending it's an acceptable next major step in the progression of the tale we've been following since the early 2000s is patently naive.

I'm sorry, but no. This isn't a question of liking Halo 5 or not, there's no way it can be considered a side story. Heck, Halo 4 is more of a side story if we're measuring levels of impact.

The apprehension of Blue Team isn't the backbone. Yes, it's what Osiris is doing for a large portion of the game, but that's not the main point of the game. You'd have to ignore everything that's going on around you, from the Prometheans turing on Jul's Covenant, to the emergence of the Guardians, to AIs going rogue, to Cortana's return, to the shit hitting the fan by the end of the game.

But, let's say for the sake of argument that the apprehension angle is the main plot. Even then, you can't really call Halo 5 a sidestory, because a sidestory is something that can generally easily be skipped as part of a wider arc. ODST is a sidestory, because you can go from Halo 2 to Halo 3, skip it, and not miss anything. Spartan Strike & Spartan Assault are sidestories. Halo 5 however, has a massive shift in the status quo. By the end of the game, Jul's Covenant is defeated, Cortana is back, scores of human AIs have defected to join her, and the galaxy is at the mercy of the Created. That's a huge shift in the status quo.

Imagine a Super Mario Brothers wherein Mario is suddenly the bad guy; Bowser is painted as some guy with a different, sympathetic perspective on the larger narrative. Would that be acceptable as Super Mario 97 (or whatever number we're up to?)

I don't think Mario is the best point of comparison. Mario doesn't have an overarching plot, doesn't have much, if any real worldbuilding, and it operates under the principle of "status quo is king." A Super Mario 97 that had that plot would be perfectly fine, because I could play it in the knowledge that everything would be back to normal by the game's end.

Also, in Halo 5, Blue Team is never painted as "bad guys." We know why they've gone AWOL. Osiris is uneasy about it. But it's not the main thrust of the story. Blue Team goes AWOL because John wants to find Cortana. Osiris follows Blue Team because to the UNSC's knowledge, they've gone rogue. The plot gets the teams into the places they need to be to convey the actually important plot threads, namely the recall of the Guardians to Genesis, the AIs going rogue, and the collapse of Jul's Covenant. There's plenty to debate as to how well the plot is conveyed, but the plot is clear in of itself.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

Silent Hill Homecoming. At least disregarding any phone games, dungeon crawlers and arcade games no one has actually played. Of course, that being said, calling the Silent Hill franchise great is probably very generous, considering 1, 2 and Shattered Memories are the only genuinely great games in it. 3 is already a pretty mixed experience.

Zelda Skyward Sword is a no brainer. It sure failed to capture anything that's appealing about the Zelda series. I have no fucking idea what that game was even going for. No exploration, gimmicky combat, the most annoying sidekick in a series that also brought us Navi and an artstyle undergoing a devastating identity crisis. My entire time playing it I was waiting for it to get good. It didn't.

Metal Gear Solid 4. To be fair, MGS V was a slog too but at least that had the excuse of an obviously very troubled development. See, Kojima games tend to have long cutscenes, outside of V where he literally ran put of time to put them in, and I don't think that the cutscenes in MGS 4 are, categorically, too long. It's just that there's not nearly enough gameplay inbetween them. The whole thing ist just a pacing nightmare. Might have gone easier on it if the story had at least been good but more than anything it felt like Kojima throwing his hands up and coming up with the most contrived plot devices he could think of to finish the series. Maybe one could make a point that MGS 4 is some super ironic meta commentary on unnecessary sequelization and jumping the shark. That would redeem the story in these cutscenes, but I still wish there would have been more of a game between them.

If you solely treat it as fan service, then there really isn’t much else that can compete.


From a comment,

Pedro Alvarez
I remeber Hideo Kojima said in an interview, he put all the long cutscenes in the game so he wouldnt feel regrets if he left them out; so real fans were not disappointed.

Unlike MGSV I appreciate the fact he was allowed the time and resources to do so, seeing as how it technically does mark the end of the series. In terms of gameplay, it has depth in terms of experimenting with different tactics, weapons, stealth vs guns, that the earlier games lack, and that MGSV may have more of but ends up feeling too bloated and repetitive. As cheesy as it may often be thematically, MGS4 is the penultimate swan song for one of gaming’s most iconic series. It also has a plethora of cool Easter eggs.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

I really hate when people say FF13 is too linear, because most FF games are fairly linear. Especially 7,9,10,12,13, 7-R. The series is more linear than it is free and usually the titles only open up towards the end when you have a side quest bonanza and 13 does the same thing.

Maybe it's because13 is so cinematic heavy that the linearity feels bad, on top of the story being dogshit, which compounds. So the linearity is made into a negative because the rest of the game is kinda weak. Which is why the other games get away with linearity and nobody even mentions it.

Which isn't on you, because you aren't the only person going "lol 13 is a hallway", it's all over the place and I don't think it's fair to be THE factor that people rip on.

I should clarify that’s what I’ve always heard about it anyways. That the PS1 games at least kept the classic overworld map in which you could explore as you see fit before getting into those linear story sections.

 

[NerfedFalcon]

What I dislike the most about Resident Evil 6 is that I can see how it could have been a good game, or at least as good as 5 was, but every flash of brilliance was immediately followed up by a dive back into shit. The split campaigns also mean that none of the characters really have any time to shine, and the writers didn't seem to know what to even do with most of the characters, turning Leon into Chris and Chris into a broken alcoholic, which doesn't really suit the tone of the series at all. Locking most of the actual plot behind collectibles rather than actually telling it as part of the story didn't help at all, either.

7 loses a lot of steam in its third act, 5 has unneeded co-op elements and too much influence from Gears of War, 3 is lacking in content and has mechanics that don't add nearly as much as they claim to - but none of them come close to the unmitigated garbage that is Resident Evil 6, and it's all the worse because it could have been so much better.

 

[sXeth]

I should clarify that’s what I’ve always heard about it anyways. That the PS1 games at least kept the classic overworld map in which you could explore as you see fit before getting into those linear story sections.

It was.... rare that the overworld map really had any side areas, though. Even back in 4/5/6. At best you'd maybe find a town or cave that was sort of a Chekhovs gun for a later event. Mostly you were just trudging through, until some near endgame point where you finally had all the requisite vehicles to get wherever.


X specifically was where they ditched the Overworld though, in the series.

 

[Dalisclock]

Dark Souls 2 for sure. The game suffered from having different directors who were trying very hard to create a followup to DS1 without really understanding why the original did so well. They went as far as aping things that probably should have been left behind (and later were in DS3), and struggling to produce a connecting thread to the first by just sort of referencing stuff.

Not that I'm excusing the many flaws and missteps in the game, but I've gotten the impression(some of the things I've heard I've been unable to confirm but they track with what I've heard) it was a series of poor decisions made early on that no doubt seemed like really good ideas at the time that caused the development to go off track.

-Miyazaki wanted to make Bloodborne and went off to work on that before DS2 started development, but was overall supervising. He's said he wanted to remain hands off as possible to let the directors be as creative as they wanted.

-The Development was being spearheaded by two directors who shared responsibility for the project. Both were FROM veterans who had worked on previous games and apparently Miyazaki thought highly of them.

-They wanted DS2 to be bigger and better than DS1, so the world was planned to be much bigger, time travel was gonna be a lot more involved(and it feels like the intro movie is a holdover from this) and they wanted it to look photorealistic. Apparently Light and Darkness were also going to be much more tied to actual gameplay(the torch would have been far more integral to getting around, far more than in the released version).

-Because of the above, they started working on a new gameplay engine, and apparently, this did not go well. Apparently, by the midway point of development, the game was basically an unplayable mess on then current consoles(it probably would have been fine for the PS4 or Xbox1, but not for the XBox360 and PS3). The higher ups at FROM realized this was going to end badly if nothing changed.

-As a result, sole responsibility was given to one of the directors to fix the mess. They apparently downgraded the graphics to make the game run smoothly and took the stuff that was working and further along and began patching everything together as best they could to get the game out on time. Which totally explains some of the bizarre location transitions(the infamous Windmill elevator). People deep diving the code and the alpha builds have found evidence of unused and unimplemented connections between areas and an entire area that eventually became the gutter meant to be part of the castle sewer systems and provide an alternate entrance.

Don't get me wrong, I really wish they could have finished the original vision for the game and it's a shame how patchy the end result ended up being in places. It's still the weakest game in the series by far.

 

[meiam]

It was.... rare that the overworld map really had any side areas, though. Even back in 4/5/6. At best you'd maybe find a town or cave that was sort of a Chekhovs gun for a later event. Mostly you were just trudging through, until some near endgame point where you finally had all the requisite vehicles to get wherever.


X specifically was where they ditched the Overworld though, in the series.

I wouldn't say it was common to have optional area, but it wasn't rare either. They all had a couple of side area, some completely optional and some where you could explore much earlier (like town and buy high end gear mid game). FF6 is choke full of them, especially second half since it's like 75% optional content. FF9 you could push hard for chocobo and mid game have access to a couple of cool areas.

I think 10 is almost as linear than 13, but because the plot/character/gameplay all have interesting aspect it's not seen as a big problem, unlike 13. But even there once 10 open up there's a lot of optional stuff to do, all of which are more integrated into the story/world than 13 surface which is just... nothing.

 

[BrawlMan]

I’ve seen people defend RE6 as simply a great action game if you are willing to accept the detour the series took from survival horror.

Even by action game standards, RE6 is not good nor great.

 

[Elijin]

I feel like naming the first game in a franchise as the stinker is sort of dishonest.

It means they took the concept and ip and built upon it, creating better games. That's what sequels are ideally supposed to be doing.

It's notable when a later entry nose dives, it's business as intended if the later entries make the original seem clunky, archaic or superfluous.

 

[sXeth]

I wouldn't say it was common to have optional area, but it wasn't rare either. They all had a couple of side area, some completely optional and some where you could explore much earlier (like town and buy high end gear mid game). FF6 is choke full of them, especially second half since it's like 75% optional content. FF9 you could push hard for chocobo and mid game have access to a couple of cool areas.

I think 10 is almost as linear than 13, but because the plot/character/gameplay all have interesting aspect it's not seen as a big problem, unlike 13. But even there once 10 open up there's a lot of optional stuff to do, all of which are more integrated into the story/world than 13 surface which is just... nothing.

Eh what you're calling second half of FF6 i'd call the near endgame.


Prior to World of Ruin, you can visit Stragos town once you get control of the Airship after the Vector crane boss, but nothing of note is available there until the story catches up. The only kind of seocnday diversions are visiting the Opera House (Which is closed) before Zozo, and picking up Mog in the Narshe.



In World of Ruin, you're prettymuch on rails. Your only real decision is if you want to go grab Sabin or not. Other then that its a set linear path to Daryls Crypt with a fixed party. Then you get the airship for the endgame sidequest marathon/regrouping everyone. (This being where you can highly dispute Terra's main character status, because the mandatorys are Celes, Edgar, and Setzer)

 

[NerfedFalcon]

Even by action game standards, RE6 is not good nor great.

That snowmobile section. That goddamn snowmobile section puts the lie to the idea that Resident Evil 6 is a good game.

(I mean, it's not the only thing, but it's the worst of a lot of things.)

 

[sXeth]

Don't get me wrong, I really wish they could have finished the original vision for the game and it's a shame how patchy the end result ended up being in places. It's still the weakest game in the series by far.

Almost the sort of thing you could do in a Remaster lol.


Then again, they didn't consider the unfinished Lost Izalith area with literal copy-pasted placeholder enemies worth fixing when they did DS1.

 

[Dalisclock]

Almost the sort of thing you could do in a Remaster lol.


Then again, they didn't consider the unfinished Lost Izalith area with literal copy-pasted placeholder enemies worth fixing when they did DS1.

It would have been a lot easier to fix Lost Izalith(or at least clean it up a bit) then to restore the original vision for Dark Souls 2, I imagine. Besides, if the DLC didn't patch those holes, nothing is going to at this point.

And yeah, I'm kinda surprised they didn't attempt to unfuck the Bed of Chaos fight.