Turnarounds for tits... ehhh sequels

[Brotherofwill]

Hey,

I was just thinking about the Jak and Daxter series and how dissapointed I was how it developed. The first game was a lovingly animated 3D plattformer, set on an island location. The usual focus was on running and jumping; the athmosphere was as lighthearted and enjoyable as possible. It was fun just running through the island, ocassionaly stomping enemies or diving into the water.
And this is how they changed it:
The next two titles of the series took a dark and gritty turn into a city along with sandbox gameplay...why the hell? The change in athmosphere was as useless as the one in PoP and the sandbox gameplay just didn't feel right for this game. The levels were too broad and not focused enough, and i just couldn't care about shooting or racing.

Without going into futher details now I ask you:
What franchises did you think took a wrong turn or were just made stale by bad designing decisions?

Also consider this:
How do you feel about developers trying to adapt other rising genres in their own game to adapt to current conventions?

Any games that pop to your mind that shat all over themselves?

Thing is I played Jak 1 for the plattforming and in that aspect it was brilliant. The changes just ruined it

 

[Brotherofwill]

Wow, this has been on for half a day and no comments?
Worst thread ever... Go Myself!

Intelligent disscusion anyone?

 

[Caimekaze]

In all honesty, I take games as they are. To me it's like a band changing their style somewhat. People will cry foul, but I respect that it's what they felt the need to do to develop, and respect that. I never really played much of the first Jak and Daxter, but I did enjoy what little I played, and the sequels equally as much.

Although, having said that... the Crash and Spyro series should probably return to trying to be fun, rather than mature and realistic and overall just plain rubbish. "Crash of the titans"? Nothing like the originals, which were just pure platforming (albeit occasionally difficult) fun.

In Spyro, the bosses and characters were just strange. And that was one of the reasons I enjoyed it~

 

[Brotherofwill]

In all honesty, I take games as they are. To me it's like a band changing their style somewhat. People will cry foul, but I respect that it's what they felt the need to do to develop, and respect that. I never really played much of the first Jak and Daxter, but I did enjoy what little I played, and the sequels equally as much.

Although, having said that... the Crash and Spyro series should probably return to trying to be fun, rather than mature and realistic and overall just plain rubbish. "Crash of the titans"? Nothing like the originals, which were just pure platforming (albeit occasionally difficult) fun.

In Spyro, the bosses and characters were just strange. And that was one of the reasons I enjoyed it~

I do respect the development process of a game, but that doesn't mean I don't like the result.
Yea I miss the old Spyro and Crash days too, these games were incredible when they first came out. Things like games changing because they want to pretend maturity is exactly what is wrong in some sequels. It's often that I think they try and change or adapt so much that they forget what made their original games fun
And thanks for the post

 

[oliveira8]

Honestly I think that Jak 2 is the best of the series.

While Jak and Dexter 1 was Crash Bandicoot with new coat. Jak 2 was a completly new game. The mix of GTA with Crash for me worked. And honestly the story in 2 is awesome! I loved the final plot twists.

Spoiler

The one were you find out that the fat dude sold out the metalheads AND the Crimson Guard was ace. The old guy being the Metal leader was also a pleasent suprise. And finally the time travelling was also well done.

 

[Brotherofwill]

I think the title of your thread is what stopped people looking at it much

Without going into futher details now I ask you:
What franchises did you think took a wrong turn or were just made stale by bad designing decisions?

Age of Empires - in the 3rd installment, they announced they were aiming at a 'casual' audience. Same applied for Civ IV. Some of the worst sequels of all time in my opinion. Fifa football games just became about inventing a new 'innovation' each year, sacrificing depth, graphics, and overall quality/polish. Fa shizzle. MAH NIZZLE.

I think that Zelda is an interesting case, btw: I think that when they went to the cel-shaded graphics of Wind Waker they had made a great, great decision - the style was unique, the graphics were not going to age (still look better than Twilight Princess to me) and they had given the franchise a new selling point/distinction from other random franchises. Then they ham-stringed themselves by going back to the boring, outdated, old style of graphics of Ocarina of Time etc with Twilight Princess (I challenge you - look at the title-page cinematic for OOT and TP and try to differentiate between the two. It won't be easy.) now the game just feels like it's gone a step back from the gamecube title - and that's a pretty depressing thing to consider.

Also consider this:
How do you feel about developers trying to adapt other rising genres in their own game to adapt to current conventions?

It's understandable, but it just makes me want to play their games less and less.

Another example of this in real life: Foreign Buyers with shitloads of money buying out Premier League teams - i.e. of course: Man City - sure it's understandable, it's a good thing and, let's face it, pretty soon man city will go the way of Chelsea after they got bought by the Roman er i mean the Russian, but really it's not an exciting rise to the top of the league, and it's just not a hero-story, just a deus-ex machina'esque story. If u know what i mean.

The basic idea i'm trying to get across here is game developers spreading over multiple genres, as well as football teams getting shitloads of money, are just a few examples of the world getting into a frenzy of over-entertainment and over-stimulation that can only end with a bubble-burst. I wonder when/how it'll happen...

Any games that pop to your mind that shat all over themselves?

Well nowadays my mind is just full of examples of games that have started off bad; like Gears of War and co. But okay let me think about it...

World of Warcraft - all it's expansions completely diluted the game and made it about as focused as Second Life. Bigger became better and they are no longer happy unless they've got at least one building in each zone that's 50-100 meters high. You know quite well how much I liked that game, but what u may or not know (i forget how often we talked about it) I always whined about how crap the expansion - The Burning Crusade - was.

I think most game titles that continue onto the Wii crap all over themselves because they feel a need to use the gay motion-sensor system to have funky new control innovations. Zelda, again, has gay-ass controls because you need to swing the remote to draw/use your sword, but sometimes it doesn't register your movements and you're standing around getting hit by enemies without pulling out your sword/shield. One game that used the new controllers well was Metroid Prime 3 - but it didn't use them as well as everyone thinks they did.

Thing is I played Jak 1 for the plattforming and in that aspect it was brilliant. The changes just ruined it

only ever played one level of the first one, but i know how you feel.

Wow, this has been on for half a day and no comments?
Worst thread ever... Go Myself!

Intelligent disscusion anyone?

awww!

ps. Listen to 'The Lyre of Orpheus' by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - it's pretty cool

Wow, all the disscussion I expected pretty much came from you alone. Totally get what you mean with Wind Waker, even though I never played it. I liked the cell-shaded style and ideas, really turned around the idea that Nintendo was just sitting on their asses and pleasing old fans without innovation.

Franchises should stick to a defined and refined experience and not go for "over- entertainment" like you said.

And the Wii sensors...well, yea.

Finally someone that thinks before he hits that post button, awesome R-Dawg.

ps. listen to Animal Collective- In the Flowers
Really relaxing, slightly drgy song perfect for walking or just looking at the sky

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SY8WH8qgBLM

 

[Brotherofwill]

Honestly I think that Jak 2 is the best of the series.

While Jak and Dexter 1 was Crash Bandicoot with new coat. Jak 2 was a completly new game. The mix of GTA with Crash for me worked. And honestly the story in 2 is awesome! I loved the final plot twists.

Well, Jak 2 isn't a bad game by no means, but it just didn't feel like a natural or even working extension for me. The story was practically non- existant in the first, so in that aspect you might be right.

The mix of GTA just diluted the plattformer for me. I enjoyed the vehicle sections and stealing those fast little speed-bikes, but overall the sandbox wasn't as good as a GTA and the plattforming was no longer as good as Jak 1; felt like they made some compromises to get the mix.

I was all over the first 3 Crash titles, so maybe that's why Ic liked the first Jak, too.

Spoiler

The one were you find out that the fat dude sold out the metalheads AND the Crimson Guard was ace. The old guy being the Metal leader was also a pleasent suprise. And finally the time travelling was also well done.

Can't really remember the story, cause usually I don't really care in these games.

 

[oliveira8]

Like someone said here already Age of Empires 3 was a turn for the worst. The combination of Age of Mythology and Age of Empires 1 & 2 just didnt work...they removed the challenging factor ofthe main campaign, and everything else felt like AoM with muskets and no god powers.

I remenber how hard the Historical campaigns of Age of Empires 2 was, trying to destroy the wall of China with no siege equipment, stealing and protecting a relic from a bunch of angry crusaders, without going into the 3rd age, taking the remains of your king trough an infested map of enemies, it was hard and chalenging. AoE3 didnt had anything of that..not to mention the Portuguese dudes when you moved them around, sounded like they were cursing...in Portuguese...

 

[Brotherofwill]

I think the title of your thread is what stopped people looking at it much

Yea, you might be right there, thinking about changing it now to meet the intellectual level for some people here

World of Warcraft - all it's expansions completely diluted the game and made it about as focused as Second Life. Bigger became better and they are no longer happy unless they've got at least one building in each zone that's 50-100 meters high. You know quite well how much I liked that game, but what u may or not know (i forget how often we talked about it) I always whined about how crap the expansion - The Burning Crusade - was.

Yea, forget to mention that earlier. I recently listened to a pretty interesting discussion about why big level design is almost never better level design.
I really prefer small and concise maps and objectives. Games that go for size usually lack the refinement or overall quality due to their compensation for the level-designer's small peni...ego (ohhh!).

I think they mentioned Banjo and Kazouie as a prime example. The first one was refined and awesome, while the next ones usually touted something like : "The world is now like 5 times bigger, bro rock on, yea!" which led the game to have the "Burning Crusade" syndrom.
Because of you avatar, I thought you might know something about that... never really played them so I don't really know.

 

[Brotherofwill]

I really liked Jak 2 and 3, the story was becoming more mature and the gunplay actually worked well, along with the dark gritty atmosphere.

The gunplay actualy wasn't too bad in the realms of a platformer, and it was kind of fun blasting the shotgun. The thing that annoyed me was the importance of the guns. You pretty much only used them, the awesome attacks from the first one were pretty much forgotten beneath the gunplay (you could string combos together like spin, punch, jump and bounce on them and to finally finish a nice shoryuken).
The attack moves just fit better for the plattforming since they were an extension of running and jumping.

 

[LordMarcusX]

Star Ocean ought to have stopped at 2. That they didn't, and the sequels resulting, make me sad.

 

[Brotherofwill]

Like someone said here already Age of Empires 3 was a turn for the worst. The combination of Age of Mythology and Age of Empires 1 & 2 just didnt work...they removed the challenging factor ofthe main campaign, and everything else felt like AoM with muskets and no god powers.

I remenber how hard the Historical campaigns of Age of Empires 2 was, trying to destroy the wall of China with no siege equipment, stealing and protecting a relic from a bunch of angry crusaders, without going into the 3rd age, taking the remains of your king trough an infested map of enemies, it was hard and chalenging. AoE3 didnt had anything of that..not to mention the Portuguese dudes when you moved them around, sounded like they were cursing...in Portuguese...

I agree, it seemed like they dumbed down AoE 3 in the historical aspect. The second part was nothing short of amazing and the third one was just a resounding meh for me.

I thought AoM worked in it's own way, but shouldn't have been included in the formula for AoE3.

Well now they've ended up making Halo Wars and going bankrupt... foreshadowing at it's finest.

 

[Littaly]

I always liked Jak and Daxter, especially the lack of loading screens, back then it was really cool. Never really cared for the other games though.

For a franchise that took the wrong turn... Star Fox. I'm not talking mainly about Adventures, I was OK with that game although the formula was different. It's Assault and Command that messed everything up by not sticking to the concept that made the series popular in the first place but needed to shoehorn in unnecessary stuff.

 

[Brotherofwill]

Why did you change the title from Turnarounds for IPs to tits... I hate when people do that crap just go get more thread views. -.-;;;

urprobablyright:
I think the title of your thread is what stopped people looking at it much

Yea, you might be right there, thinking about changing it now to meet the intellectual level for some people here

It was a joke, and it's not like it matters anyway

 

[quack35]

Blasphemy! Jak 2 and 3 were ballin'!

 

[Brotherofwill]

Blasphemy! Jak 2 and 3 were ballin'!

Care to explain why?

 

[Brotherofwill]

I always liked Jak and Daxter, especially the lack of loading screens, back then it was really cool. Never really cared for the other games though.

Yea, the lack of loading was brilliant, it gave you complete immersion on the little island.

For a franchise that took the wrong turn... Star Fox. I'm not talking mainly about Adventures, I was OK with that game although the formula was different. It's Assault and Command that messed everything up by not sticking to the concept that made the series popular in the first place but needed to shoehorn in unnecessary stuff.

I loved the Star Fox for the SNES, after that I stopped caring. Strangely I still enjoy the one for the SNES, the graphics are a minor annoyance with that awesome gameplay.

 

[GloatingSwine]

Jak II took everything that was good about the first game. Finely tuned controls, memorable level and character designs, humour, and challenge, and made everything bigger and more varied, added new gameplay without breaking the old (and in some cases, like the vehicles, massively improved it), and topped it off with a cracking script, with some of the best acting in a videogame.

Jak 3 wasn't quite as strong as Jak II, but it's still a cracking game.

 

[Nazulu]

SSBB and the latest Mario Kart, epic fail in gameplay and the design wasn't really thought out well either!

It must have been given to another developer because it was just plain awful, I reckon it would have been all good in the hands of the original creator.

Well thats one fighting and racing genre down the toilet, I could go on about EA but it's just the same old crap, how could all these professionals suck so much ass?

 

[IsoNeko]

Halo Combat Evolved, focused on Storyline, and gameplay. Since MLG got involved, it's focused more and more on competitive style gameplay, even down to a highly competitive Trueskill ranking system (That unfortunately is flawed and Broken).