How Many Franchises Are Disappointing You at the Moment?

[Spirit]

Back in the day new installments for franchises were something to look forward to but recently they have been things to almost dread.

For me personally i can say that every franchise that i am a fan of is currently disappointing me and making me worried about what is to come next, be it Metroid with the (what i consider to be awful) Other M, Zelda over the last ten years, Silent Hill will probably never see grace again and Tekken and Soul Calibur are going down a slope very quickly, i can't really say im excited for anything coming out that is part of a franchise that i am in not some way reading in case it turns out to be continuing the recent downward spirals that i perceive these franchises to be having.

So how about you, which franchises are disappointing you at the moment and are you worried that the next installments will continue the disappointment trend?

 

[Igos du Ikana]

Not really, to be honest I actually prefer when a publisher does disappoint for such a long time; eventually they'll return with one of their best, if not greatest release. On a slightly less important point, I'm only "truly" disappointed with the DS Zelda's and parts of Skyward Sword, those parts being 30 minute cutscenes or Fi constantly telling you what you just picked up.

 

[A Link In Time]

2D Mario is past its heyday. While I enjoy the New Super Mario Bros. games, they lack the variety of their predecessors especially Super Mario World. When I compare these games with other contemporary 2D platformers like Rayman Origins and Legends as well as Limbo, I can't but help feel let down. Also, I'm waiting for the incorporation of online multiplayer in sidescrolling platformers.

Sonic the Hedgehog has consistently disappointed me recently as well. Most of the newer games are "broken" for lack of a better word. The series failed to transition to 3D. With the exception of Sonic Colors and Generations, 3D Sonic has been all misses.

 

[Viral Maze]

Diablo with Diablo 3

 

[Justac00lguy]

Hmmm there are quite a lot that are bothering me at the moment...

Zelda

Now I have got to admit that the recent announcement of Wind Waker U and a brief mention of Zelda Wii U did give me a little joy but I would have to say over the last few years the franchise has a whole has disappointed me! We got Twilight Princess in 2006 and 5 whole years later we got what we finally hoped for, Skyward Sword, however *now this is my opinion* but I was extremely disappointed ipwith this game! It promised up to 100 hours of Gameplay for one and I was expecting it too touch on a lot of unexplained questions in Zelda, like Ganondorf, the Sheikah, the Oocca Ect. However we got next to nothing in terms of information or background, now we did get a hint about the origins of Ganondorf but the Demise curse was just a poor and cheap explanation in my opinion!

Now I could ramble about SS all day but I would also like to mention my disappointment with the 2 handheld's as well, more so Spirit Tracks! For me these games just felt to gimmicky and they lacked the charm of the Zelda games imo, I wouldn't even go for the excuse that they were limited due to the capabilities of a handheld because The Minish Cap was one of the best Zelda games around....Overall I just get disappointed with the lack of news and updates from Zelda (excluding the recent one like I said before) It just seems to be that Nintendo keeps us hanging on a thread, I just hope that we get something good at E3

Assassins Creed

So much to say about this franchise! The first game was quite goood but it was AC2 that got me hooked The charm of the Italian Renaissance with the rich culture and architecture of the many historical towns of Italy, this all combined with a compelling story and great gameplay! Ac2 was definitely one of the great games of the Modern Era and Brotherhood really expanded on this if not actually better than AC2. However after Brotherhood I think it was time to move on but yet again we got another Ezio tale :/ Don't get me wrong I like Ezio it just felt like his tale was dragging on and it really left me with a sour taste for the series. Revelations felt like the same game we saw 2 years ago but a bit more polished, we got similar gameplay and control mechanics, similar structure of story and very familiar mission layouts! I literally dragged myself to complete that game in the hope that AC3 could revitalise the series...

After much anticipation I was so psyched for this game! Ubisoft revealed they were working on this for 3 years and the fact that now we were moving on from that era and the tale of Ezio just felt like a fresh start! The fact that now we were getting a huge overworld as well as new features such as hunting and there was a bigger emphasis on exploring due to the vast environments made me so exited! However straight away I was put in a prologue, this prologue was probably one of the most boring and longest prologue's I have ever seen in a game :/ So with a bad start it could only get better right! Well unfortunately this for me was one of the worst AC games! The environments didn't look nearly as good as I thought, there were a ton of glitches, the overworld felt very empty and there was little emphasis on the parkour aspects the series strived on before...

Overall AC3 felt like it was rushed to get it out for the holiday season, as even though the game was set in a new era, had a new protagonist and it was set in a completey different environment the game just felt more of the same! Missions again very familiar and there was little change to combat and moving through the world... One other thing I also thought it lacked was the true charm of the AC series, I loved the fact that in AC2 and Brotherhood you were out in a striving busy historical city with many large and diverse architectural building's to navigate through, AC3 didn't capture the charm of the series for me and overall I feel like that Ubisoft should give it a few more years before attempting another AC game..

Rant over lol!

 

[Castle]

Every last one of em.

Developers have gotten stuck in "sequel rut". This is a "Bad Thing" (tm)
because sequels only get worse as they go... even the Big N has been slipping with Zelda a bit. I am anxious to see if ZeldaU turns out to be better form.

 

[Ventus]

Zelda
All I really have to say is that the games are too damn limited and too damn easy. Been this way since TWW.

Sonic
The games just feel fundamentally broken. I do not like the concept of "modern sonic"; I hate the boost mechanic and just wish the 3D games would play like the Adventure games do.

Soul Calibur
Been dead since IV, and V definitely didn't do the series any favors. Namco rushing Project Soul out the butt just isn't a good thing. Doesn't help that PS had actually disbanded, and the team that worked on V wasn't really in their right mind. Seriously, the games are needing some depth as far as the gold is concerned, and they need a Weapon Master/Chronicles of the Sword type of mode to reinvigorate the series once more.

Mario
2D Mario just isn't what's "in" anymore. NSMB2, NSMBU, NSMBWii, NSMB...they're all the same game as far as I'm concerned. Where's my 3D Mario, huh?

Call of Duty
Unlike most people, I thoroughly enjoyed Call of Duty: Black Ops...for the multiplayer portion of the game. It felt like the most complete rendition since CoD4; BO has the best maps, best guns, best recoil, best fundamental qualities all around in my opinion. It could've used some better hit detection...but I'm digressing. The problems with every CoD since BO are these: the maps are freaking terrible, the guns vary from stupidly good to horribly bad and, more recently, SMGs are so overpowered.. MW3 has one good map, and that is Hardhat. Seriously every other map is balls! BO2 has one good map, and that is Hijacked! What the heck? I could thoroughly enjoy every map in BO! In MW3, every gun is well-rounded, but check this out: get the MP7 and you broke the game! In BO2, all SMGs >>>> any other gun AT RANGE! And what's more? They hold...wtf, 50 ammunition per clip? That is completely broken.

Eh, CoD could do so much by way of improving. Need better, NON-DLC maps to survive.

 

[Wolf Sage]

None. Sorry, I've just never been the type to gripe, whine, and complain about every gosh darn thing in a game, yet continue to play it anyway. If I am legitimately disappointed in something to the point where I detest it, I simply move on. It also helps that I rarely hold my hopes too high for future releases, and accept that there is a sizable chance that a game may not be all its cracked up to be. This method has yet to fail me. That is all...

 

[Sir Quaffler]

As a general rule, I like what I play and I like the series of a game I liked, and if I don't like a certain game, then I don't get into the franchise and move on, end of story. When talking about franchises that continually disappoint me, there is only one answer...

Final Fantasy.

This is because I WANT to like it, but am increasingly put off by all the crap that they do. Unlike the others where it's either wholly good or wholly bad, this one is just... frustrating, really. It has the potential to be this grand epic series like no others, but it squanders that potential more than any other series out there. Each game, disregarding direct sequels, are completely new adventures and completely new opportunities to wow the player, but they either stay with the same tired tropes over and over or needlessly change what wasn't broken to begin with and majorly screw it up in the process.

This goes for the modern AND the classic games.
The modern games are filled with meandering plots that don't make any freaking sense whatsoever, endless droning on from the protagonists, plot holes a mile wide each, stupid anime cliches that never needed to be there to begin with, stupid character designs, spectacle without any substance to them, a constant upheaval of their battle systems to make them even less engaging, and antagonists who go on and on about how oblivion is the fate of all things and how there's so much suffering and the only way to stop suffering is to kill everybody and how it's not fair that people get to live after they die and gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawd.
The classic games, on the other hand, almost all stay in this sterile, safe zone. They don't do much to differentiate themselves from every other fantasy setting. There are 4 crystals that hold the powers of earth, fire, water, and air, just like everything else is. The heroes are chosen to save the land because of fate or whatever. The villains are elemental forces of oblivion or chaos or some ****. I am on autopilot when I play them and am not engaged to the story whatsoever.

Why is it that FF6 is the ONLY one to have done it right!? It ditched the tired elemental crystals in lie of a plot to overthrow a power-hungry empire. It has an antagonist who manages to get players riled up against him and is actually successful in his endeavors, good character design and deep development from all its protagonists (well, 12 of the 14, but still, that's a LOT),and a fun-as-hell combat system.
I'm not really mad about it so much as depressed about it all.

 

[Awesome]

I don't care to list the others, but I'm going to go with Lost Planet.

The first Lost Planet was so much fun. There was a great story, the game was hard, and the world actually felt like you were exploring it. Yeah it was a pretty linear game, but it gave the feeling of being exploreable. I loved traversing the snow covered world and having to manage my thermal energy the whole time. However, with the second one this all went to ****.

Instead of doing something similar to the first, they decided to get rid of all the snow. This meant that you no longer had to gather thermal energy to the extreme of the first. Instead they decided to focus on multiplayer and make it a Call of Duty clone. Seriously what the **** Capcom? You make such great games and then either ruing them with ****** sequels or with ****** DLC. RAWARAWRSJFKDHSCAPCOMWHYYOUHATEMESOREAEQRESAZ!!!!!! Needless to say I haven't been able to finish the first as the story line might as well be non existent and the game is just not fun. It doesn't capture the magic of killing the Green Eye for the first time.

Apparently there's a third.....I want to have hope, but you know Capcom. Always hit and miss.....more miss as of late though.

 

[Krazy4Krash]

None. I enjoy what is to be enjoyed from a game, accept it for what it is and move on. Anything else I say would be regurgitating Wolf Sage's comments, so ditto to that.

 

[Reaca]

Final Fantasy. Since XIII.

I'm not saying that FFXIII is a bad game, but honestly, I'm tired of all of the sequels it's getting. I could maybe understand XIII-2, but with Lighting Returns on it's way, the XIII series is just getting old.

Square Enix just needs to release Versus XIII, the FFX Remake, and a medieval Final Fantasy XV.

 

[Keeseman]

Pokemon didn't do very well with Gen 5, IMO. That really let me down.

Otherwise, I haven't been having a huge problem with gaming franchises that I frequent, but I haven't played AC3 yet. :bleh:

 

[isaix]

-Metroid(I enjoyed Other M,but its far from being as good as all the other Metroid games and I'd really like to see a new 2D Metroid game,on the 3DS or Wii U I don't care because the 2D Metroid game are very different then the 3D games,I like the 3D games,but they should release some 2D games as well,like Mario and Sonic,they make 3D AND 2D games as well.)

-Final Fantasy(Square Enix doesn't seem to remember how to do a REAL Final Fantasy game like 1-10.I understand that they like to try some new stuff,but that what spin-off are for and I don't understand why they stopped developing VS XIII and why Type-0 is not translate,no one care about FFXIII so why make THREE game of it instead of the games that people really wants.I know that they said that they were still making VS XIII,but I after 6 or 7 years I gave up on,I'm sure its already cancel,but SE is afraid of the fans reactions or something like that. )

-Sonic The Hedgehog(Bring back the friends for the story.Since Sonic unleashed they focus the story only on Sonic,Tails and Eggman and that's boring,I want to see Knuckles,Shadow,Silver and all the others,they don't need to be playable,I just want them in cutscenes.The games are too easy and too short,I understand why Colors and Generations are easy(For the 3D Stages at least),because Sonic runs really fast and its can be hard to control at time so it would be frustrating if the game was Megaman hard,but for Classic Sonic and Sonic 4 they have no excuse the games shouldn't be that easy,they should at least add more stages the make up the lack of difficulty(LOTS more) ,the Old game on the Genesis had more Levels and they were harder so that really disappointing)

-Super Mario(Too easy)

-Soul Calibur(I don't understand the idea of removing content from each games,and removing all the characters we loved to replace them for no reason)

-Star Fox(Why did they stop making games? they were all fantastic)

 

[surferguy7]

[Insert your favorite franchise here] blahblablah changed too much blahblahblah didn't change at all blahblahblah.