What is the black sheep of a franchise

[McMarbles]

FF2. No experience? No levels? Gain HP by beating yourself up? That weird keyword thing that had potential but never got used again?

 

[Manji187]

Resident Evil (Gun) Survivor 1 and 2.

At least Capcom has learned the lesson. RE and first person shooting do not mix well.

 

[C F]

Halo Wars. Completely fucked over the timeline; the Flood were only discovered on Halo. Also RTS and that bullshit.

well if you recall at the end of the game the spirit of fire and its crew were put into stasis and have since never be found, they were the first ones to learn of the flood, but have not returned to human space.

also I find the gameplay enjoyable, but in short bursts at best.

but it is the worse game of the halo series so far.

Plus what the Prophet of Truth said in the opening of Halo 2 ("You were right to focus your attention on the Flood...") indicates the Covenant have some prior knowledge of the Flood. It's just that no word got back to the UNSC.

I'm willing to give it a pass because I like RTS games, but I don't like the fact that Spartans have shields. That screws up the timeline. I'd rather my Spartans simply be broken units with monster health that are all around better at dodging and shooting than any other UNSC unit. Is that too much to ask? The Covenant have their übers in full play.

Anyway, that game was just wasted potential.

On topic: I know it's only the third game in the installment, but Supreme Commander 2. A step down in every way (except characterization, but I'm here to command giant automated armies, not weave a mediocre romantic tale). Whose idea was it to let Square Enix work on an already brilliant sci-fi RTS?

 

[SoranMBane]

Half-Life: Decay. I haven't played it, but I've barely heard anything good about it, mostly because no one seems to talk about it at all. It's also the only exclusively co-op Half-Life game, the protagonists were female, and it was a console exclusive, so it really stands out.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

Too many unwanted changes overcame and buried the potentially-glorious return to theme, leaving us series fans with a disquieting vision of Microsoft's plans for the future.

agreed. i just re installed AoE 3 a couple weeks back...loved every second of it, man i really wish there was a sequel to it...

 

[Fappy]

Since everyone is mentioning Sonic games I'll have to throw in Sonic Shuffle. This little bastard popped up in the wake of Sonic's transition to 3D platforming (as painful as it was) and the success of the Mario Party franchise. It was an abomination. To say the least.

 

[Doog0AD]

Mass Effect 2. This was the point in which BioWare adapted what I like to call the "Bethesda" approach to storytelling, which is to throw a lot of big numbers and "wtf" moments at the player hoping to keep them entertained without keeping them engaged and without any internal logic.

 

[Ultress]

Tales of Legendia, It had the misfortune of following Tales of Symphonia and went back to a 2-D fighting system along with everyone looking like precious moments figurines.It's is a shame it gets so much scorn because the soundtrack is amazing and the game play isn't that bad.

Persona 4 could probably be considered the black sheep of SMT for it's decidedly light hearted tone and having bright color motifs.

 

[Korten12]

Halo Wars. Completely fucked over the timeline; the Flood were only discovered on Halo. Also RTS and that bullshit.

Technically it doesn't, as in Halo: Reach, it even mentions that ONI knew something of a third faction from Covenant Chatter and they were never able to tell the UNSC about the flood as the Spirit of Fire never returned to tell them about it.

 

[Zantos]

I always found Red Faction to be an odd one. Four games, three of which being futuristic military FPSs and one open world sandbox. I loved both styles, I just wasn't really sure where Guerilla came from.

 

[Leemaster777]

Gotta go with Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories.

So, you've got Kingdom Hearts, an action RPG. And then Chain of Memories came out, and it was a card game... wait, what? Oh, it's still an action RPG... but it's also a card game. And, somehow, also a dungeon crawler.

God, that was a weird game. Easily the worst Kingdom Hearts game, in my opinion... but not really THAT bad.

 

[xvbones]

Heroes of Might and Magic IV - I think it's a good game and the campaigns are very well written, but the fans are really divided.

I would say HoMM VI well over 4.

The fans are divided on 4 mostly because they ditched hexes in favor of squares that act like hexes and a handful of other combat tweaks and alterations, but it is seriously the loss of hexes that have incensed most of my HoMM-playing friends.

HoMM6, though, on paper is brilliant, the hero and town building are more streamlined but in a manner that comes out great, combat, the story, everything works better.

It should have been a coup and instead I can barely bring myself to play it because the computer cheats like cheating is its job.

Precisely one style of play is supported by the ridiculously aggressive NPC and that is Wild Fucking Rush.
If you fail to rush soon enough (and I mean you need to be at the NPC's main city' gate within 2 months), the computer will show up at your door with a literally impossible army - impossible because very often it will have numbers of units that the maps' resources simply do not permit.

In essence, NPC players get free unit spawns and at such an alarming rate that it is no longer enough to break a primary hero in order to cripple them and get some breathing room, because the next spawn cycle they will have another hero with an identical army.

Oh and ubisoft packed about a fourth of the total multiplayer/custom maps as they had in any previous game.