Name a dying game series/franchise and a way to save it

[Starik20X6]

007 Games. Seriously, how hard could it be? Why hasn't there been a Bond game as fun as GoldenEye since, well, GoldenEye? It seems like a no brainer, as 007 already has so much in common with games: exotic locations, awesome gadgets and plenty of casual misogyny!

I'll go first...

Final Fantasy

Release Final Fantasy VII (or VI) with the graphics of the latest FF game.

Because damn, the latest games are anything but FF. At least the Tales series remains true to its roots.

Sadly, Square Enix has already said that they wouldn't be able to do that, because of the vast amounts of time and resources it would require to create FF7's world with their best graphics. Unfortunately, since SE doesn't seem too keen on the idea of dialing back their graphical quality, that statement also implies that they won't be giving us a game world with the same size and scope of FF7 for quite some time, if ever.

I remember reading somewhere that someone from Square said remaking FFVII is tantamount to 'admitting defeat', in that it would be an undeniable sign that they've peaked. What they should do instead is make a game that plays like FFVII but with a new world and set of characters.

 

[MetalDooley]

Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem

Nintendo is great but their systems are not really a good place for lovecraft style horror exclusives (main stream horror like zombies sure but not lovecraft style)
HD re-release on steam and ps3 THEN MAKE THE DAMN SEQUEL!

seriously put that thing on steam horror bitches love steam lol (if amnesia and Alan wake 's sales aren't enough proof then -shrug-)

for those of you who dont know of eternal darkness think of it as amnesia's lesser known big brother

basically take amnesia add weapons in limited number locked camera angles (ala resident evil) and turn the mind f*** dial to 11

Unfortunately not going to happen as Nintendo own the Eternal Darkness I.P.The whole reason Precursor Games are working on a "spiritual successor" rather than an actual direct sequel is because they don't have the rights to the I.P

Nintendo should give the franchise to Retro Studios.They've already proven they can do atmospheric FPS/adventure games and colourful 2D platformers.I'd love to see what they could do with a Lovecraft inspired horror title

 

[___________________]

Resident Evil. Go back to before Resident Evil 4. That game was crap and the ones after it crappier. They're ok "it does it's job" action games, but they are not Resident Evil.

I'll go first...

Final Fantasy

Release Final Fantasy VII (or VI) with the graphics of the latest FF game.

Because damn, the latest games are anything but FF. At least the Tales series remains true to its roots.

Correct. There is a reason why those games have so much acclaim and people constantly play them to this day. I know I do.

I'll go first...

Final Fantasy

Release Final Fantasy VII (or VI) with the graphics of the latest FF game.

Because damn, the latest games are anything but FF. At least the Tales series remains true to its roots.

Agreed, but I'd like the see IX over VII.

I realize that is your opinion...but you are wrong. At least you didn't say VIII though.

To the OP, I say let's get some new creative games out there, not retreads of past glory. Nostalgia often makes people think something was better than it was, and if it's a dying series, there is typically a reason for it.

You're wrong. If a game is great, then the game is great. Just like music and movies, some are timeless. Nostalgia clouds the minds of those who think something is great when it isn't. This is not the case mate.

 

[Arif_Sohaib]

None.
The Reason: I recently saw an interview about the new multiplayer Legacy of Kain game and all the comments were talking about remaking the first one or making the sequel. Why?
Think if everyone kept demanding a sequel or remake of Pong? We wouldn't even get Legacy of Kain. Instead just making them available on online services like Square Enix's Core Online would be a better and cheaper way to preserve them (making it like watching old movies on Netflex or Youtube) and full remakes should be left as in-house training project for new developers but if they are really really good, in only that training phase and not squandering resources, then they could be released after full polish.
If those old games were so good, the creative process behind them should be respected and used to make new and better IPs. Very few were made this gen compared to the PS2 era.

 

[The_Scrivener]

I'll go first...

Final Fantasy

Release Final Fantasy VII (or VI) with the graphics of the latest FF game.

Because damn, the latest games are anything but FF. At least the Tales series remains true to its roots.

That's not saving anything. They've butchered everything since the merger, what makes you think they wouldn't screw up that entire project and hurt the entire legacy of those games?

The way to save that franchise is to stop pretending that cutscene color bukakke is interesting enough to carry a 50 hour hallway walking simulator. They have to want to tell an important story again instead of just throwing the entire paint palette at everyone's televisions. Make your game ABOUT something. Make it transcend anime aesthetic and fashion. Nobody gives a shit about how cool you're trying to look.

Tell. A goddamn. Story.

The only real way to save it is to find a time machine and go back and prevent the Square Enix merger.

 

[Carnagath]

Silent Hill
End it.

Yes.

Resident Evil
Go back to horror and get away from the action asplosions. Also, stop using Wesker.

I'd have to say "end it" as well. They can't do horror for one thing, also the game's basic theme (zombies, viral mutation) just isn't scary anymore. People might claim that they want a RE game like the old ones, but they really don't. If they make a game nowadays where the environment is just a house (and one or two more places) and the scary part is that zombies are around, it would tank really hard, people have seen this a thousand times, there is no way to scare them with that material in 2013. Especially with that gigantic cancerous tumor on the series' back, the "story", it has become so retarded, overblown and unintentionally comical over the years, that you can't expect to do anything genuinely scary with it anymore. There is no hope for the series if you don't get rid of the story up to this point altogether, and you can't scare people with zombies anymore. So, they might as well end it and attempt to do something new and hopefully less stupid. I don't have anything against them making more action-focused titles, but do they really have to be as schizophrenic and DUMB as RE6? Can't they make something like Dead Space 3? Those guys did a great job. True, it's mostly an action game, but it is extremely careful about its tension moments and its overall pacing, that game lasted 30 freaking hours and never stopped feeling intense for me, even if you don't particularly like the direction of the series, you can't deny that is one hell of an accomplishment. But no, they're Japanese, so they probably never even played it.

 

[Feraswondervahnn]

Heroes of Might and Magic

Release a game with more factions, not fewer, and fill out some of the empty areas (resource management), don't dumb them down.

Make a game pretty much the same as Three, but with the mobile guards and heroes in combat feature from Four, with a touch of Faction specific abilities from Five. Or just make a version of Three with WoG as WoG is awesome.

 

[face_head_mouth]

Silent Hill

Let Hideo Kojima take a crack at it like Konami wanted him to.
I mean, what the hell, especially after how badly Downpour did
commercially (even though I don't think it was a bad game).
Shattered Memories showed me that taking a different
approach to the series can work, and Kojima would certainly
do that.

 

[4RM3D]

...Can't they make something like Dead Space 3? Those guys did a great job. True, it's mostly an action game, but it is extremely careful about its tension moments and its overall pacing, that game lasted 30 freaking hours and never stopped feeling intense for me, even if you don't particularly like the direction of the series, you can't deny that is one hell of an accomplishment. But no, they're Japanese, so they probably never even played it.

Don't you mean: "Can't they make something like Dead Space"? Because DS got worse with each sequel. Heck, it kinda reminds me the path Resident Evil is following now.

 

[Odbarc]

I'll go first...

Final Fantasy

Release Final Fantasy VII (or VI) with the graphics of the latest FF game.

Because damn, the latest games are anything but FF. At least the Tales series remains true to its roots.

I read this and thought Final Fantasy as well. But 6 is way better. I want one of those graphical HD versions of that game!


Alternatively, drop all the stupid fan service costumes garbage. 7 is where the problem started, albeit only in the smallest dose.
Put dudes in ARMOR. Not clown outfits. None of those stupid haircuts either. No one is going to put that kind of effort into their hair and then kill a dragon or giant robot. All the future tech nonsense has no place in Final Fantasy. Speaking of course 1~6. If you started the series at 7, it's probably absolutely what it is and where it belongs.

If an RPG is going to have GUNS, it should be the clear and obvious choice. No sword should be doing more damage than a machine gun.

 

[Vykrel]

Medal of Honor.

campaign: make it a much more personal story, and not just some linear hoorah shoot fest. i think the best route would be to make it semi-open world like The Witcher 2. you would play as one or multiple members of a squad, you would have to accomplish some mission in a certain hot spot, then move on to the next when youve completed the main objectives there. maybe it would be similar to what Six Days in Fallujah was going to be.

multiplayer: they need to stop trying to convince the CoD crowd to buy MoH. the majority of people who play Call of Duty dont just not care about Medal of Honor, they dont really care about video games in general. CoD, and maybe Madden/rhythm games are all they play, and all they ever will play. they need to be trying to get the Battlefield fans to also buy Medal of Honor. make the maps bigger, and make the gameplay slower and more methodical.

 

[vIRL Nightmare]

I'll also name final fantasy, but I'll say have the new one coming up, XV it's called now I think, be successful.

I'd say COD but it sounds like Ghosts is actually going to bring life into the series, I say this has someone who vehemently despised the series for it's stagnation.

Assassin's Creed, but again Black Flag may just save it.

Soul Calibur. My favorite fighting series. Hit it's peak at game 3 and has been down hill ever since. Their problem is, although they make the actual gameplay and character creation better every time, they are limiting the game modes severely to support online play. Bring back chronicles of the sword, the 3 or 4 different arcade modes that they got rid of for that crummy challenge tower, a deep and involved story mode like the used to have ( How do you go from 25+ stages for every character with multiple extra paths, hidden fights and bosses to 5 fights for everyone with almost no customization per character in their story?). I'm just saying Soul Calibur has superior game mechanics to other fighters simply for being a well done 3D fighter, and they're shooting it to death in the barn.

 

[WhiteFangofWhoa]

Breath of Fire. Not a cell phone game for pity's sake, but a full-blown console adventure, and set in the war-torn era many games have referred to but never portrayed- the age of the Dragon Empire when people still trusted the Goddess Myria. I always pictured it to be the natural result of the power imbalance between an active Dragon Clan and all of the other races. Even a portable would be better than the current status quo.

Lots of Final Fantasy talk, but I got the impression their target audience is still gobbling up Fabula Nova Crystalis like mad. Different tastes, and they'd be foolish to discard their more loyal customers. I once proposed a spin-off series calling back to FF6's graphical style (only more detailed sprites and backgrounds) and FF5's class system, perhaps that would go over better in NA.

Yes to a 2D/2.5D Metroid on the 3DS. Lots of people including myself were psyched for Metroid SR388 (fan mod remake of Metroid II with all of Super Metroid's moves and lots of new areas/bosses), they'd gladly embrace another official release.

 

[Khymerion]

Alpha Centauri

New coat of paint, retain the unit customization and terraforming, and push it out to the hungry 4X/Grand Strategy masses. Civ 5 shows that there is a demand for this game.


Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War

Up the scale to either table top true to codex scale or up it further to the Apocalypse scale. No need for mere half codex squads shooting lamely at each other when there should be platoons of Leman Russ tanks, tank destroyers, and artillery hammering away at massed ork battle wagon and attack bike formations. Why should we have the customized heroes who are better off showing up in LOL or DOTA when we could have a thunderhawk gunship blasting an entire squad of eldar off a landing zone while dropping a fully loaded Land Raider with it's cargo of Terminators. Why have some silly ability like reinforcing a tiny squad Company of Heroes style when there should be instead be on the scale of lines of Tau battle armor and hammerheads trying to repel a massed Zerg swarm.

The universe is too massive in scale to have an RTS that is not at least as large as the table top game... or bigger. The fact that GW constantly updates the table top game with new models should be an open invitation to developers to keep pushing out DLC and updates to a suitably large scale game. There is no reason someone can not push 3 obilisks in a Necron apocalypse army. No reason someone can not see a company of tanks, super heavy or not, or a rush of APCs across a good sized battle field. Hell, bring in the Forge World toys in... really let players have fun damn it.

Knowing there is so very much more options out there than what is ever put into any of the games is infuriating.

 

[Carnagath]

...Can't they make something like Dead Space 3? Those guys did a great job. True, it's mostly an action game, but it is extremely careful about its tension moments and its overall pacing, that game lasted 30 freaking hours and never stopped feeling intense for me, even if you don't particularly like the direction of the series, you can't deny that is one hell of an accomplishment. But no, they're Japanese, so they probably never even played it.

Don't you mean: "Can't they make something like Dead Space"? Because DS got worse with each sequel. Heck, it kinda reminds me the path Resident Evil is following now.

Dead Space, again, it was mainly carried by its theme and a couple of cool original mechanics, I don't think they can really make something like Dead Space, it wouldn't be RE. That's why I really think they should end it and make something new. As for Dead Space 3, I really liked it, for the same reasons that I liked RE4. Yes, it is more action oriented, but it's well put together and maintains constant tension through 30 hours of gameplay, which is quite amazing.

 

[EHKOS]

KotOR: Give it to Obsidian with no deadline and a good budget. Also hire a department that concentrates solely on fixing bugs.

 

[JiMin Seo]

The OP did not bring up a way to "save a dying franchise".

As much as I would love to see a FF6 remake, I've been seriously underwhelmed with the handling with other classics. Chrono Trigger and FF Tactics were games I grew up with and adored, but I did not feel their rereleases and "updates" were necessary. Also, the main franchise has derailed far away from the reasons why I originally liked it.

So, in order to save a garbage company and a now defunct series, here are something(s) I propose to help this once industry giant.

a. Fire Tetsuya Nomura. Have him go back to making monster designs. His characters were cool in 7, ok in 8, now he's just artistically bankrupt. I'm fucking tired of every cast of characters looking like they stepped out of an J-popstar vending machine.

b. Write a good story. Good characters. Sitting though FF13 was worse than Chinese water torture. I did not like the characters, didn't care for them, or whatever was going on in the background.

b2. Stop it with the cliches. I remember an article in Game Informer(God forbid) saying that all these other games(action, adventure, fps) evolved and matured to "grow up" as us gamers grew up. Jrpg's didn't. They were stuck in what was comfortable and kept on regurgitating the same "save the world/rag tag band of unlikely heroes/beat the ultimate bad guy" shtick for years. Drop it. Something new, something fresh. Please.

c. Square-Enix is now corporate focused. The artists who make the games no longer have a say in the company. The suits who pay signs their checks have all the final says. They don't care about making compelling sofware, they just want what's in your wallet. My fellow "Escapees"... this is a message for you. If you want to send them a message, stop funding their mistakes. Bring back my Squaresoft. Thnx

 

[Mr. Eff_v1legacy]

I'd have to say "end it" as well.

I see your points, especially on how convoluted the story has become. However, I'm playing the REmake again, it it's scared me quite sufficiently. It's not so much the threat that exists, but how that threat is presented. The Spencer Estate is a really creepy location.

I'd say they should remake RE2 just as they did with 1. See how that does, and take it from there. Nemesis and even Code: Veronica could use updates too.

To be honest, I'm not big on Dead Space, and not too eager to see more games like that in the place of more traditional horror.

Fatal Frame: Make more games, that aren't buggy Wii exclusives?

I wouldn't say that FF is dying. I like that the releases have been spaced out a bit - gives the audience time to miss the series. I must say, IV really suffered from being on the Wii. I want to see the next entry not retread the old plot of

Spoiler: Fatal Frame Plot

Sacrificial ritual went wrong, everybody died.

 

[tardcore]

whoops! wrong thread! Gotta stop opening multiple tabs.

 

[FinalHeart95]

People are literally basing the death of Final Fantasy on one game that wasn't even that bad. Jesus, hyperbole is abound here.
I would personally say something like Star Fox, although the recent Star Fox 64 remake bodes well (hopefully). Haven't had a true Star Fox experience since the Nintendo 64.