Game franchises where you like less popular entry the best?

blackdwarf

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Assassin's Creed

I think the first AC game knew what it wanted and did that really well. Making a game about assassinations. everything you did was building up to the next target. Altaïr was imo a way better character than Ezio. Altaïr had an actual character arc that was an arc, not the stairs that was Ezio, with his sudden changes.
 

Kyrian007

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I have a couple of these. Metal Gear, I still believe the best is the GC port Twin Snakes. Looks and plays better than the original, but has the original's better story than 2 (or 3 IMO.)

FF VIII. Yup, three I's, that's 8. Easy answer, they tried to minimise grind. It's the only FF title that did anything to erase samey, boring, grind.

Chrono Cross. Don't get me wrong, Chrono Trigger was fantastic. But Cross was so beautiful with amazing music and freaky huge playable characters and replayability. It remains one of my favorite all time games.

And I'm not sure it counts, but to me Icewind Dale > Baldur's Gate and ID 2 > BG 2... liked the setting and customizing better.
 

aozgolo

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Kyrian007 said:
I have a couple of these. Metal Gear, I still believe the best is the GC port Twin Snakes. Looks and plays better than the original, but has the original's better story than 2 (or 3 IMO.)

FF VIII. Yup, three I's, that's 8. Easy answer, they tried to minimise grind. It's the only FF title that did anything to erase samey, boring, grind.

Chrono Cross. Don't get me wrong, Chrono Trigger was fantastic. But Cross was so beautiful with amazing music and freaky huge playable characters and replayability. It remains one of my favorite all time games.

And I'm not sure it counts, but to me Icewind Dale > Baldur's Gate and ID 2 > BG 2... liked the setting and customizing better.
VIII just made me scratch my head to much like "Why is is every college in this game just teaches people how to fight for money?" That may be explained somewhere in the game but while generally I prefer when a game just tosses you into the world like you belong there, I don't recall much of the grandiose amount of exposition really touching much on how this world worked, it seemed to jump around too much without ever really giving you a bearing on what the background of the setting was. Maybe it's just me but many times while playing I kept wondering about things that everyone took for granted so they never explained. It wasn't a bad game just I remember it being very confusing. The entire functioning system also seemed needlessly complex, though I admit I passed on FFXII for quite awhile because I mistakenly believed it's battle system more complex than it really was.

I really should get back into Chrono Cross, I have it for PSN I just never managed to play it more than a couple of hours.


I didn't get to ID2 but I can't really call Icewind Dale my favorite, it definitely had a fun setting but the lack of characterization of your party or many NPCs at all with characterization kind of made the whole thing less fun for me, as I never really felt compelled to give much of an identity to these custom characters I made who had little way to express it in-game, making the roleplay a little unrewarding.
 

Drops a Sweet Katana

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Halo 3: ODST for me. It was really neat feeling at least a little less powerful. It made the Covenant feel like the threat they are.
 

spartandude

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CrazyJew said:
Majora's Mask, in my opinion, is leagues ahead of Ocarina of Time. Lynch me.
You sir have excellent taste in Zelda games. Dont get me wrong, i love OoT but my god does Majora's Mask surpass it in every way.
 

DanielBrown

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God of War
First game gets a shitload of praise, but it's my least favorite in the series(well, maybe above Ascension). God of War III, however, I really fucking love. As I recall it got quite bashed by the fans.

Final Fantasy would also one of those for me. FFX is by far my favorite. The combat system is the best in the series and the graphics/voice acting blew me away as a kid(first PS2 game, so nostalgia has a lot to do with it).
 

Anomynous 167

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Franchise: Myth
Game: III: The Wolf Age

Most tend not to like it for a variety of reasons: The Trow Iron Warriors were bullshit powerful to fight against, the narrator was a scholar and not a soldier like in the previous games, Wolf Age wasn't made by Bungie, the game lacked polish, not enough modding support, the atmosphere was too heroic and not dire enough, and the game was a prequal i.e. "What's the point in playing a game if I already know what happens.

Sure the 2-story high monsters with 1-foot thick iron plating and a mighty war hammer which could wipe out all who dare stand within a 120 degree arc infront of them, were a bit over powered, but at least they were slow... like slow enough for a warrior to get behind him to get a couple of whacks and run away before the giant can turn around to return the favour. You weren't supposed to merely plink them from afar with arrows, lead them into an ambush where you have prepared 16 satchel charges and a live grenade; because now you have no explosives left, a half dead Trow Iron Warrior, and at the very minimum 2 extra trow left unmolested on the map.

Fighting Iron Trow should be like fighting The Limper or The Dominator: it takes more than just a clever ambush and a rain of arrows to kill them. They need to be bound, gagged and jumped on by an entire company. And then you have to repeat it 3 more times after they break the chains, forcing you to flee in order to both escape their attacks and recover your stamina as a player. For those uninitiated, fighting Trow is like fighting Chuck Norris. Fighting Iron Trow is like fighting Chuck Norris with a hammer. When Chuck Norris has a hammer a round-house kick is the least of your worries.
Out of all the levels you fight Trow, they each give you a different way to kill them. The first level has you fleeing with your remnant of an army in a titanic route, while trying create as many landslides as possible to prevent the Trow from following you by blocking the passes in the mountains behind you with rubble. Your first lesson in Trow fighting is simple: Don't fight the trow. Run away from the trow... as fast as you can.
The second level has you defending the mighty city walls of Llancarfen with your archers, Heron Guard, warlocks, dorfen grenadiers, and footmen against multiple waves of Trow, zombies, and ogres. You must here use the high ground to your advantage, bombarding them with for quite a while with archers and dwarfs, and your warlocks' giant fire balls, as the Trow must waltze through the main gates while under intensive and prolonged fire from multiple angles. Another thing you can do to Trow is stun them with your Heron Guard's mandrake roots (which also heal a unit up till a certain percentage. For trow, 50%).
The fourth and fith battles involve charming the Trow's ogre allies with Myrdred the Avatara, then using his attack to stunlock the Trow while your ogres swarm the giant, and if you run out of mana toss a mandrake root from a heron guard on the trow to further stun the Iron Norris. This is where the dogpiles come in.

There is more about Trow I could be raving on, but you get the picture. My only gripe with trow fighting comes from that Warlocks can no longer confuse their enemies, causing them to temporarily wander aimlessly, uncontrolled by player or computer, unable to attack.
--

As for the Narrator: Each Myth game uses a framing device, and in the first two they were war journals. So the voice of the veteran has been done, and it is not necessarily a bad thing to have a new character with a new profession. It also serves to offer new perspective of the franchise with the narrator's voice being that of a monk. Plus this is the Wolf Age, a prequal, so it would be a bit of a stretch to believe that such a journal would survive a thousand years. After all, there wouldn't be much of a framing device if the document didn't survive.
On a tangent, since the narrator of the second game did start pondering about joining the Heron Guard, and the Heron Guard may perform the tasks of monks, it is a fun thought that the narrators of the second and third game are one and the same!

The "Not by Bungie" thing, just hurts my head a bit. If a product is in a franchise is published, and the publishee holds the rights to do the publishing, the events in said product are canon.
On the issue of pollish though. When I consider the game's short production cycle, rushed release, and the fact that it was MumboJumbo's first major game... I remember Croaker's words to Mogaba in Glen Cook's Dreams of Steel, "You've done wonders with nothing". And I feel like Myth III was still a great game despite its bugs.

Back to Myth III's plot:
Ofcoarse Myth III isn't dark!(, well, it is a little dark at the start,) Myth III is about Connacht "The Wolf" levelling the playing field by turning back the darkness which has plagued humanity for the past thousand years; and the dawn of a new age of enlightenment: the Wolf Age. To those saying the third Myth isn't dark enough are missing the point, besides which those people already know that the world of Myth will get a lot darker in a thousand years. As the Deceiver, Narayan Singh (not to be confused with The Deceiver) would say, "Darkness always comes"

As for the lack of surprises inherent in a prequel. Firstly I would like to say that it is not about the journey. Finally, there comes my point from the following quote.
Wolf Age said:
Through all the confrontation and arguments, Connacht had learned great respect for the emperor. Even with the knowledge gained from Mazzarin's Codex, he muttered to himself, "This was not written"
Connacht's very words, after a moral shattering (to him and his army) event happened, "This was not written", ring contrary to those that say a prequal is incapable of handing out surprises.
 

Mastemat

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4th gen in Pokemon

It seems to consistently rate the lowest by everyone. (Though gen5 gets a lot of hate for snowcones.... why doesn't gen6 get hate for perfume puff and cotton candy??? AND why aren't those snowcones ice-fairy????)

But seeing as how I've loved contests more than anything else.... And I've been playing since back in 98 and gen1...

It had the best contests, God, Cynthia, and I enjoyed the expanded Galactic plot with "the world sucks, gonna blow it up and start over".
Galactic, IMO, is the only team that has a legit and interesting goal.

Rocket: for the evulz. Boring.
Aqua/Magma: I'm gonna need these dummies to stop being tarded. Stupid. (I mean... 100% land or 100% ocean??? wtf)
Galactic: the world sucks, lets become God and push the reset button. (how is this Eva in my Pokemans?)
Plasma: PETA. But secretly just Team Rocket.
Flare: Um...... ?? I'm halfway through and I honestly have no clue as to what they're trying to do... are they pushing the pause button on life? But they talk like they're just doing that for the evulz like Rocket and Plasma.... So.... it's like Nintendo decided to go the Plasma route with "a noble goal but secretly Rocket".... only without the secretly part.
 

Simple Bluff

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The_Echo said:
In the Kingdom Hearts franchise, I tend to agree with the majority that Birth by Sleep is the best.

But I also consider Re:coded to be the most fun, and 358/2 Days to be the closest thing to garbage that the series has ever been. As far as I've seen, most people seem to consider Re:coded shit in some nondescript way, and think its plot has zero relevance to the rest of the series, while they praise Days for its plot and being... fun? somehow... Basically my opinions on the DS titles directly oppose those of the majority.
I'm really not quite sure where you got that impression, most people I know (including myself) hate Days immensely. The only nice thing I hear about it is that the ending was kinda sorta almost ok... when compared to the rest of it...
I agree with you on Coded though. The plot was pointless, but it easily had the best gameplay since the first KH.

While we're on the topic of KH, I think the first was the best in the series. While it's hardly unpopular, everyone seems to hold KH2 or BBS above it.
 

Quadocky

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Fable 3. It doesn't seem very popular among folks yet I consider it to be the best Fable game. While the whole housing thing was rather tedious and obviously half-hearted, I could not help but feel there was at least some semblance of strategy involved if you were aiming for the Good Ending. And honestly, I really love the game for the fact that getting the good ending requires.. well.. work! (By good ending I mean which that your kingdom adores you all over, none of that neutral stuff.)

I played the game like 3 times. And every time I did it was Fun. Even playing as the bad guy in this game is hilarious because you basically can dress yourself up as some sort of super villain anyway. Absolute power and all that. Running around in a dog suit while shooting lighting bolts from your hands was positively hilarious.

And that one fellow.. whats his name, was a really cool character. That one with the hat and gun and lives forever apparently.

Lastly, the sheer atmosphere of the game is really top notch. I really love how it has that sort of film-esque feel in the cutscenes.

Really, overall the game oozes such a wonderful quality, its such a shame that its rarely acknowledged.
 

The_Echo

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Simple Bluff said:
I'm really not quite sure where you got that impression, most people I know (including myself) hate Days immensely. The only nice thing I hear about it is that the ending was kinda sorta almost ok... when compared to the rest of it...
It seems like almost everyone I talk to that's played it really enjoys it. I don't understand why.
I agree with you on Coded though. The plot was pointless
I mean, I get where you're coming from, but I disagree on this note. There isn't quite as much development in terms of actual events, but I'd say that coded's plot is far from pointless. It further asserts the notion that hearts can be grown, and introduces the Datascape, which carries over into 3D as Maleficent's current goal.

While we're on the topic of KH, I think the first was the best in the series. While it's hardly unpopular, everyone seems to hold KH2 or BBS above it.
Honestly, my list goes (from best to worst) BbS and II, 3D, Re:coded, KH, CoM, Days.

I still adore the first game, but replaying it in 1.5 really highlighted all the ways its been improved upon over the years. Especially where mobility and combat are concerned.
Mastemat said:
I always thought that Gen IV was really forgettable. I mean, I honestly didn't even remember what Team Galactic's goal actually was.

The only thing I remember about Gen IV was the shape of the Sinnoh region and that you could dig for stones and things (which I did enjoy, to be fair). Can barely even remember most of that generation's Pokémon.

Also, on Team Flare, their motives become a lot clearer later on.
Lysandre is basically Hitler, Team Flare being the Nazis. He intends to destroy every human (and Pokémon) that doesn't share his view, in order to make a more "beautiful" world.
I think Team Flare's plot was actually pretty good, and also quite mature (Gen V also touched upon the more mature themes of animal abuse). X and Y also play with the lore of the Pokéworld a bit, which I appreciate.

So I guess either Galactic wasn't written quite as well as the others or it's just been too long for me (I only played through Pearl once before lending/losing it to a friend)
 

FoolKiller

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josemlopes said:
Portal 1, I think Portal 2 was to long for what it had to offer and overall it worked better as a more straightforward puzzle experience rather then having parts where there really wasnt all that much to do or try.
Umm... Portal is the most popular entry. Many people didn't like part 2 as much since it focused on story rather than puzzles. And the puzzles were shit sometimes. I spent 20 minutes in one of the underground chambers just trying to find a portalable wall.
 

Evonisia

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I loved Gears of War 1 much more than the other three games. Now Gears of War is never celebrated for it's story or world building so by most fan's standards 1 will be the worst in the series but since I do praise story and world building, 1 stands high and proud compared to it's successors. 2 had better gameplay but it took away from the desperate, fighting for each life feel of the first game. 3 improved on the gameplay again but it ruined 1's take on the Lambent and the story was absolute shit. Judgment was better than 3, but the gameplay was more modern military shooter style and the plot was essentially non existent.

FoolKiller said:
josemlopes said:
Portal 1, I think Portal 2 was to long for what it had to offer and overall it worked better as a more straightforward puzzle experience rather then having parts where there really wasnt all that much to do or try.
Umm... Portal is the most popular entry. Many people didn't like part 2 as much since it focused on story rather than puzzles. And the puzzles were shit sometimes. I spent 20 minutes in one of the underground chambers just trying to find a portalable wall.
When Portal 2 came out everyone kept going on about how brilliant it was and how much better it was than Portal 1. I don't agree personally but I couldn't escape that at the time.
 

Gizmo1990

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Shaun Kennedy said:
For me my favorite less than popular entries:

Final Fantasy XII, hardly unpopular but placed against the juggernauts of the series like VI, VII and even X, Final Fantasy XII rarely gets a mention and I can't understand why. It's an amazing game with an amazing setting, great story, and tons to do. I haven't even beaten the game yet and it's easily my favorite Final Fantasy. Though as a runner up before playing XII I actually liked V the best, something about the story I really enjoyed, it was simple, fun, and didn't take itself too serious like some of the other games, and while it was kind of basic, the job system made it lots of fun.

Legend of Mana. Secret of Mana is a great game, the sequel if you can find a way to play it is also amazing, but Legend of Mana, not even an official numbered Seiken Denetsu game (it's a Gaiden) is by far my favorite in the series for the sheer amount of things you can do in it. Some people get turned off by the apparent nature of having a bunch of seemingly unrelated side quests in lieu of a full story but the beauty of the game is it does have a massive connecting story that you only really become aware of half-way through. It's also a beautiful game.

Harvest Moon Magical Melody: For most people, Harvest Moon 64 or Back to Nature (or even Friends of Mineral Town) seems to be the favorite in this series, but for me Magical Melody wins just by being the best sandbox Harvest Moon out there, in addition to the standard farming and mining, you could buy land, build any kind of buildings anywhere, cut down trees, buy furniture and arrange it, and had tons more options for who you wanted to marry, and the game even had a sort of achievement system with the magical notes you collect.

Toejam & Earl. For some reason everyone seems to love the sequel sidescroller game, for me though I much prefer the classic top down adventure game, it was just so fun and felt very laidback while still being challenging.

Thief Deadly Shadows, perhaps because I played it first and have trouble getting into the first two since they are very dated and I fail to see what they had going for them better than Deadly Shadow, but nonetheless I enjoy the bastard child the best in this case.
I half agree with you. I have been mostly indifferent to the gameplay of Final Fantasy, liked IX for going back to each character having one role and I liked X as it let me control summons but I really loved the gameplay of XII (except for the summon system). Unfortunatly for me it is the story that makes Final Fantasy and XII was just a bad Return of the Jedi clone so it loses points for that.

OT:
Continuing with Final Fantasy my top 5 list has me at odds with most older FF fans as VI and VII are 4th and 5th respectivly behind VIII,X and IX at 3-1.
 

Sing

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<..>

Final Fantasy X. Yeah, I said it.
I loved the setting, I loved the characters and I loved the story. I didn't even hate Tidus. Music was great, whole game felt like an epic journey. Also, turn-based battles was still a thing in JRPGs.
 

CarlsonAndPeeters

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Agreeing with all of the people who sounded off on the first Assassin's Creed. That game actually made me feel like an assassin. Analyzing the intel and then picking a path to the target wasn't necessary, but it was fun. I also just liked having a sword and knives instead of a massive arsenal. Plus call me crazy, but I liked the dead-guy monologues.

Yet more echoing, gotta say that Majora's Mask is my favorite Zelda. Though that is mainly because of how it overlaps with Ocarina of Time (Oh look that guy's back! Oh my god he's terrifying now!), so I guess the two kind of go together to be my favorite Zelda.

Not sure what the standard opinion on GTA games is, but GTA IV is my favorite. I tend to see it get bashed for me more limited in scope than San Andreas, which is valid, but I got sucked into the story and the world. One of my most-replayed games.