Games that have lost their way

[bug_of_war]

Mass Effect (went from RPG to action)

I've played all three Mass Effect games, and I'm kind of surprised people defend the RPG aspect of the first one so vigorously. I mean, if I had to choose between a simpler, yet more accessible, gameplay that had a greater focus on action, and gameplay that emphasizes "RPG elements" that just come off as obtuse and unnecessary , I'm pretty sure which one I'd choose. Personally, I don't think the "RPG elements" have EVER been that great in the ME series, but at least the last two didn't feel like shoving that shit down your gullet.

Agreed, the RPG elements were craaaaaaaaap in the first Mass Effect. If anything, the games got better when they dropped a majority of the RPG bits in favour for making the weapons and abilities feel powerful.

OT: As much as I love the Assassins Creed series, they have totally lost their way in the sense of it's origins. In the first game, most of what you did required you to be stealthy, while the combat wasn't difficult, it still pushed stealth so much more than the latter games. AC2 was alright, but some BIG assassination target missions made Ezio just walk up to them and force you to go into combat. Brotherhood lost it's way when they gave you the assassin button, as well as the introduction of the 100% sync side bonus things. Revelations was just Brotherhood only with tower defence. And AC3, while fun took away ALL stealth elements in favour of Connor being an unstoppable force in combat. There were missions in the third game that required stealth, but they were too few and far inbetween.

Assassin's Creed, love the games, but they totally should no longer be called Assassin's, as they are no longer stealthy, and you can use your assassin apprentices to do the work for ya.

 

[Bashfluff]

Zelda: Thank God I'm not the only one who hated Skyward Sword. It was lazy, cheap, and unfun.

Resident Evil 4: They had found nirvana--great controls, a nice blend of action and horror, good QTE's, and fabulous STYLE. And then they started taking it seriously, cranked up the action, spammed QTE's to the point where they were bad again, and they didn't change the controls to suit the new changes, making them horrible.

I could go on for hours, but at this point, it's hard to think of SPINOFFS that haven't lost there way! Paper Mario and Pokemon Mystery Dungeon (to a much lesser extent, but still), anyone?

 

[RevRaptor]

Shining force, Fans have been wanting a decent shining force sequel ever since the megadrive days and after the umpteenth lazy hack n' slasher we finally Get a new shining force in the shining series and the bastards don't release it outside of Japan.

 

[dmv]

It's funny because I feel like lost planet and deadspace are swapping genres. I think this is the effect of cod/bf of publishers experimenting to try and figure out how they could channel that type of success.

 

[votemarvel]

Well that's kind of the thing, people wanted the RPG aspect improved and polished, I don't think they wanted them to become stripped away (ME2) or simply tacked on (ME3) I'm willing to bet that the people who prefer ME1 are people who liked that ME was an RPG first and a shooter second. Warts and all.

Absolutely spot on.

I liked in Mass Effect 1 that stats were as important to the combat as my ability to place a cross-hair. I liked that the dice roll was involved. What I would have liked to have seen added was that to be taken into account when going for head-shot or aiming at limbs.

To be honest though other than people wanting only their skills at a placing a cross-hair to count, I don't see what was wrong about the combat in Mass Effect 1. You enter cover, you pop out to shoot and then drop back down when your shields begin to drop. Exactly the same as in the two sequels.

Also in ME1 I never entered cover when I didn't intend to, something ME2 and 3 enjoy doing if you are running and go anywhere near something that could be considered cover. A lot of the time that being an exposed wall in the middle of a fire-fight.

 

[Zetatrain]

what was so great about Mass Effect as an RPG anyway?....ME1 isnt exactly my favorite

I think people were pissed off not because they thought the RPG mechanics were great, but rather because they could have been great and instead Bioware scraped most of the RPG elements rather than improve them. For instance, the inventory system was shit but that could have easily been remedied by dividing the inventory into different sections (armor, weapons, mods, etc.) and by increasing the scroll speed. Another complaint I remember was that a lot of the planets you could explore were practically empty. I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be too hard add a bunch of wildlife or pirates to these planets and maybe decrease the size of these planets a little bit.

 

[BakedZnake]

Dead Space (went from Survival Horror to action)

It was never survival horror. It can't be horror if you are a walking death machine. It had atmosphere and jumpscares but nothing about it screamed survival or horror.

http://www.ea.com/dead-space
EA would like to disagree with you there.

Resident Evil and Command & Conquer are the poster boys for this thread.

I would have to disagree with you on C&C if you picked up red alert 1 and then played red alert 3, they both play the same (mass a lot of your toughest unit - attack other base - spam more units) and same old campy story with hawt girls in next to nohing. Just to prove red alert 1 was only good for its time, and they've done nothing to improve upon the gameplay. So in fact C&C series stick soooo closely to what it was to begin with that it sucks now due to lack of movement away from the path or some shit along those lines

 

[elvor0]

Just out of curiosity, what games to people believe have lost their way from their original intended audience?

In my opinion, some of the biggest culprits are:


Dead Space (went from Survival Horror to action)
Final Fantasy (went from open-RPG to linear-action-RPG)

Dead space is as much Survival Horror as Doom. Amnesia and Silent Hill? /They're/ survival horror. Not that dead space 1 and 2 weren't good games, 3 isn't out yet so can't comment, but I suspect it shall be as solid as the first two. Given I doubt you've played it either beyond the demo and that's likely what you're on about having lost it's way, I'd say it was being unfair on the series as a whole.

Final Fantasy, while also having slid considerably down hill, carved a hole in the ground then kept going has hardly turned into an "action RPG" series. There's TWO action ones, Dirge of Cerberus and Lightning returns, which are both spin offs from the main series anyway.

Dead Space (went from Survival Horror to action)

It was never survival horror. It can't be horror if you are a walking death machine. It had atmosphere and jumpscares but nothing about it screamed survival or horror.

http://www.ea.com/dead-space
EA would like to disagree with you there.

Ah, EA said so, it must be true. So would you call Doom 3 survival horror? What about the flood levels on Halo? Just because a game has creepy music and a bit of tension, that doesn't make it survival horror. In fact it's extremely difficult when you're blasting aliens with a laser rifle and then curbstomping them in the face while wearing power armor.

 

[White_Lama]

Call of Duty went from a good WWII shooter with tanks, to a game with no tanks and then it just went downhill from there.

Hasn't been good since United Offensive.

 

[The White Hunter]

Both Adventure games are very over rated, the first is fun but the second is easily the second worst 3D sonic game I've played after that 2006 abomination. Shadow the Hedgehog is playable but it's far from good. Heroes is okay but the dodgy grinding, extremely long levels and the fact every story has the same levels in the same order detract from a decent experience (brilliant music though, one of my favourite Sonic OST's). Unleashed is... good, but it requires already knowing the levels in their entirety to not die constantly to your own sub-godly reflexes. Colours and Generations are brilliant. Need more 3D from them though.

The inherent problem with 3D Sonic is that trying to not just run straight into obstacles is harder when you have to move from side to side as well as up and forwards. Trying to do it without resorting to something like the quickstep is even more difficult. It can be done, but I don't really know if it has yet.

Sonic 4 is appalling and I will not forgive Dimps for it.

Secret Rings is dreadful.

Haven't played either.

The Black Knight... y'know, it would have been good if not for the terrible control? The waggle is atrocious, I'm no motion control hater but Black Knight would have been much better with a gamecube or classic controller or just an ATTACK BUTTON rather than relying on the standard wii remotes imprecise shaking.

I haven't played Black Knight, but I know that the accelerometer, while fine for detecting how tilted it is (Super Mario Galaxy requires you to tilt the Wiimote a few times), falls to pieces with actual movement - especially if it's required in a specific direction. The biggest example of this is Warioware: Smooth Moves - there are some games that are just impossible due to dodgy detection.

Almost all of the Sonic games have a saving grace in having brilliant soundtracks though.

Agreed. And arguably, the final boss' music was the ultimate insult of Sonic '06 - imagine if that had music had been in a good game...

My issue with SA2 is that everything except the Sonic and Shadow stages are boring as hell. I kinda get why Robotnik has shooting stages and what have you, but it doesn't fit Tails at all. Knuckles treasure hunting was fine in SA1 because the radar just locked onto whichever was closer and the stages were more compact, in SA2 you have this enormous place to find these hidden items in a very specific order and it's easy to get lost, confused and waste an hour on one level.

SA1 is fine, it's a lot of fun and I do replay fairly often, it's just a bit glitchy and unfinished and hasn't aged well.

Colours and Generations dealt with it quite well and I rarely found myself crashing into things at full speed, the stage design in both was excellent though both do feature a quick-step it's nowhere near as vital as it was in Unleashed. I recommend checking those two titles out if you can.

Don't play either of them. They suck.

Yeah that's the big issue with black knight, it tries to do sword combat kind of like Skyward Sword, with particular movements corresponding to particular attacks and the like, but without the motion plus add-on or a motion plus inside wii remote it just doesn't work well enough. The music is good and the stages are fun, just the control is unreliable, maybe try it if you see it for under £10 because it's not awful, it's just finnicky.

06 has a brilliant soundtrack. My favourites are Black Knight, Heroes, Colours and probably Shadow the Hedgehog.

 

[BakedZnake]

Call of Duty went from a good WWII shooter with tanks, to a game with no tanks and then it just went downhill from there.

Hasn't been good since United Offensive.

Only CoD 2 had tanks for what 1 mission, and that mission was so poor anyway

 

[GrimHeaper]

I would say DmC has done so.
It's not over the top enough or exciting.

Just out of curiosity, what games to people believe have lost their way from their original intended audience?

In my opinion, some of the biggest culprits are:


Dead Space (went from Survival Horror to action)
Final Fantasy (went from open-RPG to linear-action-RPG)

Dead space is as much Survival Horror as Doom. Amnesia and Silent Hill? /They're/ survival horror. Not that dead space 1 and 2 weren't good games, 3 isn't out yet so can't comment, but I suspect it shall be as solid as the first two. Given I doubt you've played it either beyond the demo and that's likely what you're on about having lost it's way, I'd say it was being unfair on the series as a whole.

Final Fantasy, while also having slid considerably down hill, carved a hole in the ground then kept going has hardly turned into an "action RPG" series. There's TWO action ones, Dirge of Cerberus and Lightning returns, which are both spin offs from the main series anyway.

Lightnign return is 13-3.
We don't know if it's fully action yet.

 

[PAGEToap44]

Fable. Surprised this hasn't been mentioned. I love the Fable series, they got me into gaming. However, they diverged from fun and original to repetitive and designed to be a game for the whole family to enjoy. Ugh. I still enjoy the first two but the third one is shockingly bad. They've lost their charm.

As for Fable: The Journey, it's not really worth mentioning. Let's hope they release a fourth one that fulfills our expectations.

 

[BakedZnake]

Just out of curiosity, what games to people believe have lost their way from their original intended audience?

In my opinion, some of the biggest culprits are:


Dead Space (went from Survival Horror to action)
Final Fantasy (went from open-RPG to linear-action-RPG)

Dead space is as much Survival Horror as Doom. Amnesia and Silent Hill? /They're/ survival horror. Not that dead space 1 and 2 weren't good games, 3 isn't out yet so can't comment, but I suspect it shall be as solid as the first two. Given I doubt you've played it either beyond the demo and that's likely what you're on about having lost it's way, I'd say it was being unfair on the series as a whole.

Final Fantasy, while also having slid considerably down hill, carved a hole in the ground then kept going has hardly turned into an "action RPG" series. There's TWO action ones, Dirge of Cerberus and Lightning returns, which are both spin offs from the main series anyway.

Dead Space (went from Survival Horror to action)

It was never survival horror. It can't be horror if you are a walking death machine. It had atmosphere and jumpscares but nothing about it screamed survival or horror.

http://www.ea.com/dead-space
EA would like to disagree with you there.

Ah, EA said so, it must be true. So would you call Doom 3 survival horror? What about the flood levels on Halo? Just because a game has creepy music and a bit of tension, that doesn't make it survival horror. In fact it's extremely difficult when you're blasting aliens with a laser rifle and then curbstomping them in the face while wearing power armor.

Considering EA made and published the game, if they marketed to be a survival horror game then its still a survival horror game no matter if it lives up to its promises or not.
Because with your logic I should call all MGS & FF interactive movie games. Because I spend more time watching shit happen in cut scenes than playing the game

 

[Frozengale]

Mass Effect (went from RPG to action)

Hold on there. I don't think that the Mass Effect series ever lost its course. The Mass Effect series was and always has been a Narrative RPG. The focus was never so much on the combat mechanics but on the creation of a deep world and deciding your role within it. RPG is a HUGE overarching term that can be used to describe so many games today, so you have to be more specific. Bioware has always been focused on rich lore filled worlds with you deciding your role in them. It's a common element throughout all their games ever since KotOR and even Baldur's Gate. Just because the combat system become streamlined with a few added twitch mechanics does not mean it "went astray". I could go on all day about the stupid decisions Bioware has made mechanics wise throughout their games (though personally I prefer ME2 and ME3 combat over ME)but the main objective was never the combat. The combat has always been the secondary element framing the primary goal.

 

[BakedZnake]

Dead Space (went from Survival Horror to action)

It was never survival horror. It can't be horror if you are a walking death machine. It had atmosphere and jumpscares but nothing about it screamed survival or horror.

http://www.ea.com/dead-space
EA would like to disagree with you there.

And if Nintendo would call Pokemon X and Y 'Real Time Action Shooter Flight Simulator' then this would be true as well...

Dead Space has, like I wrote atmosphere. But the mechanics are just another 3rd person shooter where you are a walking death machine. EA can call it 'survival horror' but by their definition Farm Simulator 2013 is the pinnacle of survival horror and thus I would rather call it by what it is: A 3rd person shooter.

Well you would be fighting for your sanity if you choose to play farm sim 2013, can't think anything more frightening to do than that

Also in this case I should call all FF and MGS games as cgi movies, because I watch more shit happen in cut scenes than playing the damn game

 

[Nazulu]

Most. Literally most. Some times the changes benefit it like X-COM, but I really don't like how most has changed.

Metroid is one that really disappoints me. Super Metroid and Metroid Prime being some of the most amazing games ever made. The other Primes were also pretty good, but I reckon the series was better with just you being alone with that lonely atmosphere taking on the world. That's what I knew it for, then they added in all this forced text, cinematics and completing the game in segments, it's just not Metroid any more.

 

[ComradeJim270]

Rainbow Six. Went from being a punishingly realistic and serious squad-based shooter with strategy elements to just another bland military shooter focused on moving you from one absurd spectacle to another.

Comparing the mechanics of ME1 to the later ME3 is difficult. Most people say that ME3 is mechanically superior (Or even ME2 for that matter) and generally speaking I would agree.

That said, Bioware did take a step back in a few places (Such as using the god damn space bar for everything, or having to navigate the map with that stupid normandy replica rather than just clicking where I want to go and then going there...) I can appreciate the polish that went into the combat for the later ME titles (Though in comparison to other shooters it still isn't very good) but I don't believe for one moment that it was worth jumping the shark mechanically speaking.

I saw improvement in gameplay mechanics with each game, especially when I went back and played through all three. Mechanically I'd consider each to be better than its predecessor. It probably helps that I always perceived the series to be "action RPG" so I judged the games based on that perception. The only reason I don't consider ME3 the best in the series is because I love games with good stories, and in that regards ME3 shat the bed.

Fable. Surprised this hasn't been mentioned. I love the Fable series, they got me into gaming. However, they diverged from fun and original to repetitive and designed to be a game for the whole family to enjoy. Ugh. I still enjoy the first two but the third one is shockingly bad. They've lost their charm.

As for Fable: The Journey, it's not really worth mentioning. Let's hope they release a fourth one that fulfills our expectations.

I'm going to have to disagree with you there. Fable seems to me to be quite consistent. To me Fable III feels a lot like Fable II, which feels a lot like Fable. That creates its own problems but it definitely doesn't describe something that's "lost its way".

 

[Ultress]

Most. Literally most. Some times the changes benefit it like X-COM, but I really don't like how most has changed.

Metroid is one that really disappoints me. Super Metroid and Metroid Prime being some of the most amazing games ever made. The other Primes were also pretty good, but I reckon the series was better with just you being alone with that lonely atmosphere taking on the world. That's what I knew it for, then they added in all this forced text, cinematics and completing the game in segments, it's just not Metroid any more.

I won't defend Prime 3(outside of saying it was fun) or Other M but I will say that Prime 2 which had a few NPC's actually helped the games atmosphere as despite them being there you were still alone. Plus those translation doors aided the pacing of the game. As for Fusion yeah Adam is a polarizing figure but to me the game is still pretty fun with some really cool/frustrating bosses.


OT:Wild Arms: the first 3 were creative in puzzles and setting with great characters.while 4 and XF were neither creative/had good characters and a FF Tatics ripoff respectively.

 

[laggyteabag]

Dead Space was never really a survival-horror game. Sure it has its creepy music, brutal dismembering, and a good helping of jump scares, but that makes it tense, not survival horror. I see Dead Space as a 3rd person shooter, with a creepy setting. Its bound to keep you on your toes, but its not going to make you scream and want to turn the game off.

Halo. Halo (multiplayer wise) was a game where everybody started with the same weapons and everybody was equal. Now in Halo 4, we have perks, loadouts and armour abilities. This makes the player who is lvl 50 have more of an advantage over the player who is lvl 1, because the lvl 50 guy has access to more equipment.