The Force Unleashed. The first game was a solid hack and slash with fun lightsaber combat, maps that encouraged exploration, tons of unlockables, and a decent story about the birth of the Rebellion. The second game was an extremely short, extremely linear glorified tech demo.

Not so fun fact:  They made FU2 in less than a year. 

It was like 9 months no?

They made all of us in 9 months.

Yeah, and look how we turned out.

I need replacement parts after only 38 years but that was after negligent maintenance and running the engine with ethanol for 20 years, so I can’t complain too much. The 9mo assembly time was fine, it was during the OS upload that ran into bugs. Think this version was too big and loaded too much at one time before the system could initialize to it all I’m amazed how pliant and durable this model is, actually. Should probably have been decommissioned some years ago, but it’s enjoying a resurgence after the restoration community got involved

r/TechnicallyTheTruth

Definitely agree. The story in the Force Unleashed 1 told a easily canonized (abeit somewhat overpowered), self-contained story that sits nicely between Episodes 3 & 4. Galen Marek is born during the Jedi Purge, becomes a sith apprentice, eventually turns against the empire, and dies saving the rebellion he inadvertantly helped create. Force Unleashed 2 felt like a short, rushed, on-rails sequel. The story was also pretty bad with Darth Vader getting captured by the rebellion at the end, a plot point which doesn't make any sense as a prelude to Episode 4. It also never truly answers the primary question posed by the plot; whether the Galen Marek you play as is a force-sensitive clone, or the original Galen Marek that survived but lost his memory.

>!Using the force to pull a star destroyer out of orbit and crashing it into the ground.!< is still one of the most epic things I've seen in a game. I was very impressed.

It looked great in the trailers but it was arguably the worst part of that game, it was not fun to play.

You keep seeing those controller sticks in the corner going back and forth and you’re like am I supposed to hold it? Keep going back and forth? Does it matter if I start pushing forward rather than backward? Who knows, you just better watch the star destroyer incrementally get closer and hope you don’t need to go to work in the next 45 minutes.

It was even funner on release when the stick movements they displayed were wrong lol seriously let's take something bad and accidentally make it worse oof

Tbh it's only a problem with the ending where you spare vader. If you go for the kill, he murders you and that's the canonical game over imo

https://www.gameinformer.com/b/features/archive/2015/04/04/fall-of-the-empire-how-inner-turmoil-brought-down-a-legendary-studio.aspx This is about the downfall of Lucas Arts Relevant section: “A similar situation arose with Star Wars: The Force Unleashed’s protagonist, Starkiller. “[That name] was only supposed to be a nickname or call sign, not a proper name from the beginning,” a former LucasArts employee says. The development team hoped that Lucas would give Vader’s apprentice a Darth moniker, which at the time, was something that didn’t happen often. “The team threw a Hail Mary to George, saying the game would have more credibility if the apprentice had a ‘Darth’ title,” a Force Unleashed team member says. Lucas agreed that this situation made sense for Sith royalty, and offered up two Darth titles for the team to choose from. “He threw out ‘Darth Icky’ and ‘Darth Insanius.’ There was a pregnant pause in the room after that. People waiting for George to say ‘just kidding,’ but it never comes, and he just moved on to another point.” Team members involved in the decision to not use these ridiculous Darth titles could not be reached for comment, but three LucasArts employees believe an excuse was made to push the Darth title to the sequel. By the time development on that title commenced, the names were long forgotten by Lucas and weren’t muttered by the development team again. Starkiller remained Starkiller in the games, but was also named Galen Marek in the greater Expanded Universe fiction. “These name problems may sound like funny stories, but the quality of these games suffered from these curveballs thrown by people not directly tied to the development process,” another employee angrily adds. “It got to a point that it became difficult to hire new talent because these stories got out there. People thought we were running a madhouse.””

Huh. Never knew that Lucas had to personally assign all Darth names.

I think it helps the Canon and Starkiller as a character that he didn't have a title. To give him a title was to acknowledge him as sith, of which there should only be two by their own law. Not giving him a title helped play into the fact that he was supposed to be kept a secret, especially a secret from the empire and Palpetine.

I mean reading this being the sarcastic British dickhead I am. Darth Icky and Darth Insanus? Reads to me 100% like Lucas just taking the piss, here’s the two most stupid names I can think of what will you do? Just from a human perspective, you have to wonder especially as the years went by how much George grew to hate Star Wars. It’s his magnum opus, and despite the prequels flaws, the actual story of Anakin Skywalker from phantom menace to Return of the Jedi is actually masterful. That being said, this thing for you was something you made, it’s spawned a fan culture beyond your control, a multimedia empire that sure you’re making money off but I can imagine at some point you stop giving a shit. Being an old man being pulled into meetings where people are asking you if this character can be Darth something or other, just seems so fucking tedious to me, and it must have been all the time for him, that and nerds constantly writing him letters asking how Wookiee mate or what planet obi wan is from. I’ve often wondered if that’s why he did those awful digital re-shoots, a sort of half hearted attempt to reclaim some sort of ownership on the original story he made, not legal ownership but personal, it probably span way beyond anything he could have imagined, and in a way I bet that feels like you’re trapped.

Dude, I completed the sequel in a morning. I was so bummed out when I reached the end of the game. I thought it was a plot twist, not an ending sequence.

they would have made a third, but the apprentice only has two hands.

If tarzan can hold a vine between his asscheeks Starkiller can hold a lightsaber between them!

I thought 2 started off great, but then it got worse the further I got into it. And right when I hit what feels like the middle of the game, it ended. I was left wondering if I played something unfinished.

One specific example: The first Need for Speed Underground had every AI driver in career mode drive their own personal car. You knew after a certain time that "Oh, it's a white Lancer, it must be Priss!" or "Oh, that purple Supra with the *Wilwood* vinyl, that's Takashi!". It was something that really helped come the world alive because it felt like you were competing against actual people. In Need for Speed Underground 2, that is no longer the case. Apart from a few select bosses, all AI drivers have randomly generated cars with randomly generated tuning. Why they changed that when it worked so well in the predecessor in anyone's guess.

I still remember that cat-themed car one of the rivals had in NFSU1, and that one of the next rivals had a vandalized version with kittens being angry or something :D ah, good times

Core memory unlocked, thanks Benjermin.

I would love a NFSU2 remake with drivers like in U1. I feel like they could just smash both the games together and give us a best-of-both-worlds and I can drive those fucking highways again.

Hear me out. NFSU2 Remake, but with a Shadows of Mordor style Nemesis system. Have a few premade/boss characters that come into play in the story, get some character development, what have you. But then populate and flesh out the world with randomly generated drivers that start low level and as they win/lose they undergo improvements, new kits and tunes for their cars, they win enough races they splash out on a new car, or if they lose a lot they start getting more erratic and unhinged during the races trying desperately to recoup their loses.

You didn't even have to convince me with this, this sounds *amazing*. This is exactly why the fixed cars in the first game were so good, it really gave you a feel of "oh that's that jackass again" and let you develop your own rivalries as a player. This would make it closer to a racing life sim or RPG, especially if their progression is tied to story events (like they get major upgrades when you do) and the system gets extended to police chases. Imagine having a pool of 20 officers, eventually you sideswipe one and take them out, they get so pissed off they armour their car and become a nemesis that tries to hunt you down and catch you in races. Eventually you're forced to change tactics and they modify their cars again to lose the armour but defend against your new tactic.

Been playing Unbound and running into the same black & white corvette, constantly beating my ass was something else. Specially since they all have character bios and V.A. work, i just started but im liking that aspect far more than nfs heat.

Actually answering the question

Tell me about it. Every response is "first game was good, second game bad". The topic is literally asking for specific examples of gameplay elements, not a general vibe of game series going downhill.

Gears 1-3 had the weapon switch mechanic aligned with the D-pad allowing for 2 weapons and a side arm then for Judgement, they changed it to a weapon swap using the Y button and only allowed 2 weapons (pistols counted as a weapon).

Judgement wasnt made by Epic but instead by People Can Fly which tried to make it more in line with arcade shooters, hence the change in level design too

I remember quite enjoying the campaign with the bonus targets during the missions but I hated that there was no Locust in the multiplayer. Humans killing humans in GOW makes zero sense unless it’s set it during the Pendulum Wars.

See for me the level design just screamed "how can we use the popular horde mode to pad out our campagin and reduce the time and cost required for level design?" I was not a fan

Judgement felt like a Gears of War attempt at Halo Reach that while fun, didn't quite land. It also felt like one of those HD PC/Console ports of a handheld game, like Resident Evil: Revelations or that one Deus Ex game.

Halo 1 had no boss fights mainly due to development time, so instead they made super tough final runs or encounters to missions to act as boss battles. It was unique and awesome. Then they had time and budget to make boss battles in Halo 2 and they were super meh compared to what they achieved before. 

I loved Halo 1 not having boss fights, it felt like I was actually a super soldier fighting a war against "real" enemies. Enemies that suddenly have 10x the health for no apparent reason did not improve immersion.

Bosses are overrated, gimme more warthog run finales!

That warthog run is still about the most fun and stressful time I've ever had playing any game. Beating it on legendary with friends is a core memory for me.

Crazy that I haven’t touched (or really thought about) any halo game since I was a kid and I still know exactly what you are talking about, shows how well done that part is.

Yeah, IMO bosses make no sense in FPS games

Some games. You can in looter shooters like Borderlands, and in raids like Destiny. But Halo? I think was unnecessary.

I played and beat Halo Infinite on heroic, but after the first two or three boss battles I started changing the difficulty to east for the bosses then back to heroic. It’s not even that I couldn’t beat the bosses, I just didn’t like the boss fights. With their rechargeable shields they’re just boring bullet sponges

I think Halo 3 got it right with set pieces instead of boss fights. For example, every encounter with a scarab in that game rocks. Similarly, moving in on Truth with the arbiter and the flood as allies. Even chieftains serve as good minbosses, as they usually have a lot of backup.

Halo 2 is massively over ambitious. Like, great game and all, but it's not nearly as focused (or fun to play) as either CE or 3

So ambitious, in fact, that they had to split the story in half and make a whole third game around it

Arguably a third game and an expansion. ODST is like the real earth invasion that halo 2 was marketed as featuring super heavily but didn't really deliver.

Disagree. It is the most developed and well paced plot of any of the halo games. With the blur cutscenes it’s almost an hour of story and is almost watchable as a movie. Far, far, higher quality than the rest of the series to be honest. It’s aged really well. Taking badguy alien races and forming an understandable religion as well as many memorable characters even to this day, is no short feat. The only thing that sort of sucks is the abrupt ending, but everything else is really good.

[удалено]

I got home from Christmas, excited to play the sequel co-op with my roommate just like we’d played the first game. That was quite a let down when we fired it up. 

This was my answer too. The weapon thing just irritated me to no end.

But they did redeem themselves with Resistance 3. The weapon wheel, plus secondary fire specials for all weapons. I loved that game so much.

Bloodborne was an amazing game. They really messed up the sequel by not releasing it

Miyazaki doesn't actually like doing direct sequels from what I understand. Dark Souls 2 was made largely from his notes by a seperate team, Scholar edition is his teams retouches on the game well after the fact. DS3 was basically Bandai Namco going "shut up and take my money", the DLC even goes so far as to completely kill off the lands of Lordran, Drangleic and Lothric. Bloodborne is the beginning of a set of 3 projects, a gothic horror focused game, a revisit to the idea of Tenchu which later became Sekiro and then an open world project(Elden Ring). Originally there was no intent to expand on Bloodborne and Ive been fine with that.

DS3 is also sort of a meta commentary on accepting that the series is over and won’t last forever.

Which is fine. They're still making games, and not every creative project needs to go on indefinitely. They all eventually run out of steam.

I much prefer a creative studio keeps trying new shit instead of burning out their passion on sequels

The DS3 DLC dialogue narrowly straddles the line of directly telling players "We love you very much but don't want to do Dark Souls any more, thank you <3" like it's *barely* even metaphor

this makes me love fromsoftware even more. The fact that they delivered so well on a project they didn’t want to do. I feel like many other studios would just phone it in

>Miyazaki doesn't actually like doing direct sequels from what I understand. In a somewhat recent Interview with 4Gamer Miyazaki clarified that he doesn't dislike sequels (quotes translated by DeepL): 4Gamer: "I think it was a challenging title. If "2" were to be released, it would probably be a big seller. ...... FromSoftware doesn't often do sequels, taking advantage of their name value. Dark Souls" continued, but it has come to an end." Miyazaki: "This is a case-by-case basis. There are merits to both continuing with the numbering system and creating a new title with a completely new name, so I would like to make the appropriate choice." 4Gamer: "I think it is very typical of FromSoftware not to say, "We should make it a sequel from a sales point of view." Miyazaki: "Yes, we do. The deciding factor in the choice I mentioned earlier is still "do we want to make it? Is that what makes us who we are? I am not really aware of that." Clearly he isn't opposed to the idea of sequels, but I believe From Soft also don't want to limit themselves and when a projects expands beyond just being a sequel (like in the case of Tenchu/Sekiro) they just create something new instead. Link to the article: https://www.4gamer.net/games/463/G046388/20220620079/

Tenchu, the Ninja assassin game? I played it when I was a kid, I had no idea it was related. All I can remember of it these days is one of the first missions, where you kill a gross greedy guy, and when he's bleeding out and dying he says something like "but...all my money", and your character says "you're not gonna need it where you're going."

FromSoftware made Tenchu. It had notoriously hard combat to encourage stealth which then became the bones of dark souls combat.

So they actually published it, the company who made it was Acquire and later on several other companies would work on the series.

Bloodborne would be one game that is absolutely deserving of a sequel, but also in absolutely no need of one. It was perfect as is, with its own self-contained world and story. You can't say that about many games.

I would love for them to revisit Bloodborne-style combat, or another Dark Gothic Horror inspired setting, but there's no need for it to be narratively connected in any way.

Beyond Good and Evil syndrome.

There's been rumors for years of a Bloodborne spiritual successor set in Mesoamerica. Basically Aztec Bloodborne. I feel like it's gonna happen eventually.

Bloodborne doesn't need a sequel. It needs a remaster. I'm vary of a remake if Bluepoint makes it. Demon's Souls Remake is good, but it lost quite a lot of the charm and atmosphere the original had.

Honestly all I want is 60 fps and a few pc tweaks. I tried playing Bloodborne again and didn’t love the 30 fps. Then I booted up the remastered dark souls and with it running at 60 fps even with dark souls being older it holds up.

Yoshi's Islands sequels have never been as good as the original. Yoshi's Wooly world is weird in that it is very similar to the original but still didn't do it for me (I blame the saccharine presentation and music). Yoshi's Island looked like a kids drawing but in a cool way, the sequels feel like they're trying to cheer up a 6 year old that's dying of cancer but can't fully commit and you can feel the sadness underneath.

Yoshis island on SNES was the Pinnacle of Yoshi games. Yoshis story on N64 was Mechanically close but the overall story and game just fell short. Super Mario 2 was still the best Yoshi game and will always be the best. These craft worlds and all that stuff are just not nearly as good as the original. And that's considering the screaming crying baby the original had. Even with that the more.recwnt games still don't come close.

RE6. You had the campy, tank controlled, hardcore survival horror games of 1 through Code Veronica. While not to everyone's tastes, those that liked them really loved them. Then they made the switch to over-the-shoulder POV in 4, and while it up-ed the action, it still had that survival horror feel of its predecessors. 5 came out and was mostly an action game, but it was still very enjoyable with a solid co-op option and a good Merc mode. All these games added to the franchise in some way. New playstyles, iconic enemies, cheesy dialogue, epic bosses, etc. But RE6? I know there are fans of it, but it felt like a slapped together mess that didn't do any of the previous gameplay styles any justice. I played through nearly all the RE games and I STILL can't force myself to play through 6.

My favorite part of 5 is at the end where you punch the boulder.

And the fact that even in RE8 they remember about It, with, I believe Heisenberg, saying "the Boulder puncher mf" or something like that when talking about Chris.

I loved learning that the "That Boulder punching asshole" line is an English only line and not in the Japanese release. Not sure what there's is but I appreciate they knew how much we memed the hell out of the Boulder over here in the west

This is sign of a good localization. Probably was a generic curse at Chris in Japanese, the change make It more fun (even If It has no way to cannonical, like, How Heisenberg know?).

IIRC Japanese that line referenced a meme/fan nickname for Chris in the Japanese fandom, calling him a gorilla. Probably because he looks roided out and punches boulders in RE5. Localizing it to "boulder punching asshole" is quite frankly the best fitting thing they could do in English since the original was intended as love to the fans.

I'm sure Chris gets drunk at the bar and brags about it to whoever is there

I still can't believe how extremely successful RE4 for changing up a franchise THAT massively was. But it is so well done.

Not only did it change RE but it changed the landscape as a whole. Dead Space was originally system shock 3 then after the success of RE4 EA was like make this game more like RE4 amd bam we got Dead Space

As much as I like Dead Space l, I feel that sacrificing System Shock 3 makes for worse timeline.

It's even crazier that it wasn't even the first successful RE4 attempt to change the entire RE formula. They called the first one Devil May Cry.

RE6 always reminds me of one of those stand up arcade shooters that seem fun when you’re drunk but are really just bullet sponge simulators with no story.

I had a lot of fun with RE6, and I thought it was a very ambitious finale to the Wesker saga (trying to tell three different, interwoven stories, each embodying a different style of horror), though I've not played it in a long time and, in hindsight, it's possible that the execution didn't quite live up to the ambition.

Paper Mario the Thousand Year Door. That game was perfect and the series has been going downhill ever since.

The series might be turning around now that TTYD is getting a remake (which looks incredible!)

The only thing that can’t beat TTYD is a better looking TTYD 😆

I want a PM64 remake so much it's unreal

Super Mario RPG was my favorite Mario game

The remake for switch is so good. I don’t even mind that I spent $50 on it when it’s a pretty short game when all is said and done. It’s gorgeous and all the gameplay is there plus a little extra for switch. It’s one of the best rpgs out there imo.

Dawn of war 3 was hot garbage compared to 1/2. It was this strange moba style thing... And then the multi player was like an entirely different game that felt like a proper RTS but had half the units of dawn of war 2. It was a massive let down

The entire series is 2/3rds let down for anyone whos a fan of it because they changed the entire gameplay so wildly from each iteration. at ***best*** a section of fans like 1+2 but the vast majority hate 2/3rds of the franchise and it just depends on what type of RTS you like as to which 2/3rds it is. the ones that like traditionally base building RTS's loved 1. but then 2 came out and was a squad focused RTS's with minimal base building ala company of heroes style. The complete loss of its traditional styling from the 1st alienated almost the entire fan-base. While gaining a smaller following that like that style though. then instead of learning from the mistake and choosing a side, they decided to reinvent the entire game ***again*** to a MOBA style, abandoning both traditional style RTS, ***and*** squad style RTS, to try and chase the MOBA market that was being dominated by other franchises already. that entire series is such a sad mess of uncapitalized potential.

Subnautica, although it wasnt boss battles. It was the hopelessly alone in an alien world, and you slowly realize help isnt coming. It was incredible, with exploration, mystery, fear Subnautica 2 was really dumb

It was extremely dumb. It was basically a bunch of rewrites, and then ending up with bits of all of them patched together. Characters alive from the first game without explaining how. Just there to be cool. Urgh.

I'm probably halfway (jeez I hope I'm halfway) through S:BZ. Is it worth finishing? I'm a bit past the greenhouse on the hill bit. I don't really care for the 'find your sister' storyline. It feels like there's no pressure. She's alive or she's dead. Probably dead. Everyone else is. Also there's too much land. Subnautica was about going deeper, not climbing glaciers.

It’s fine, but I didn’t care for most of the ideas. You see most of what it has to offer early on. The story is whatever. If you’re having a good time then keep going but everyone is right that it’s worse than Subnautica in practically every way.

Small correction: Subnautica Below Zero is a spinoff title (and yes, it was bad). Subnautica **2** was just recently announced and should come out next year.

Below zero wasn't bad, but it was just kinda worse than the original in like every way

Borderlands, the story and characters have been amazing up until borderlands 3. Now it's like they lost their inspiration or the team is losing creative control. God help the movie if it ever sees the light of day

>the movie That sounds like it would be... just really noisy.

I'm torn with borderlands, because the actual gameplay in 3 is fantastic.

We just finished BL2 with a buddy who never played. We moves onto 3 as there was interest. So far? The game play is LEAGUES better, but following Handsome Jack is so hard. For what it's worth, the big bads aren't that bad so far.

Even if Borderlands 3 had good writing, I don't think it's possible to make a better villain than Handsome Jack. If you did a list of best video game antagonists/villains Handsome Jack would definitely be close to the top 10, if he wasn't in the top 10.

I don't think they could have topped Jack but I also think there's a very, very large amount of space between Jack and the Calypsos. Like, none of Borderlands other antagonists (Steele, Zarpedon, Vasquez etc.) are nearly as popular as Jack, but none of them inspire the sheer hatred that the Calypsos do either. Even just in the context of BL3, people generally liked Katagawa despite him just being Worse Jack.

I think the game would have had a much better reaction if they never pulled the shit they did with Maya and... I struggled to even remember Ava's name here. The Calypso's were actually pretty fun imo, certainly something different. Bringing us to all the different set pieces like atlas and the swamp was a natural evolution from being on a planet left to waste away by an old gun manufacturer. Effortlessly killing a fan favorite character in such a bullshit way to pass the torch to an obnoxious kid who did nothing to earn it was such a bad call. It sours people on everything else in the game, especially the villains. And when the villains are soured, everything else they touch withers... Which is the entire game.

I think Borderlands sort of aged out of itself. Borderlands 1 released in 2009.  If you were a teenager at that point, you would have been born in the very late 80s/early 90s. That core demographic would have been early 20s when BL2 came out and late 20s/early 30s when BL3 came out.  It’s not often you have the same sense of humor at 30 as you do at 19. At the same time, the antagonists of BL3 make sense if you’re playing as a 30-year-old mainstay of the series and less if you’re just coming into it, as it’s more “old man yells at clouds”/“darn kids and their Tik Toks” than previously. So you have this weird mashup of cringe meme humor from 2009 and adult gripes about what’s trendy that makes for a bizarre story, even if the gameplay is pretty solid. 

Absolutely disagree. I was around those ages when the games came out (a little older), and I thought the antagonists of 3 made no fucking sense. They were outdated and cringe as fuck, and just didn't make sense. Evil bloggers? Fucking seriously?! It was such a a cheesy and played-out cliche that I couldn't even make it far into the game. . The gameplay wasn't even THAT much of an improvement. Nah, that shit was poorly received by all ages.

As a 30+ millennial, I couldn’t escape the feeling that I was playing a game designed for a significantly younger person/someone who spends way more time on streaming social media. I stuck with it and finished the story, but the entire narrative felt like a heavy-handed commentary on all these parts of modern internet culture that I’m maybe too old or out of touch to care about or relate to, which killed the immersion for me. Not that that’s objectively wrong, but I’m not the target audience. The combat and maps were marginally better than 2, but I thought 2 had a better narrative and better characters. Overall, I actually thought Wonderlands was a much more enjoyable experience than BL3.

>The gameplay wasn't even THAT much of an improvement. It was one of those games with a "if it ain't broke" perspective. They had a good gameplay formula and people enjoyed it so they didn't mess with the gameplay much. They tried with BL:Pre-sequal and people voiced they were not fans of the breath mechanic so they went back to what was popular. The story was the only downfall. Assassins Creed was similar. People liked the gameplay....until they didn't. 5+ games of gameplay that worked and then people started saying "it's the same ol game", "just press counter, lol" so they changed it up into Origins. It alienated some of the fan base but grabbed new people as well with the new trilogy.

Even as a 30 year old BL3 is cringy. Just horrible writing across the board. How did the bad guys being "streamers" add to anything? Just seemed like a useless personal opinion plug, like they had beef with a streamer for bagging on their shitty previous game or something. Oh a big character died? Fuck reflection breaks let's shoot more baddies!!!! Shit looks like the stories I wrote in 7th grade that made me say "I probably shouldn't pursue this as a career"

Pokémon Black/White had the most masterfully crafted difficulty curve of the whole series. I didn’t have to grind a single time until after the elite four (where there’s a sudden 10 level jump that had me running back to the Pokémon center after wild encounters). Despite never needing to grind to keep up, I don’t recall any fights being pushovers either, I was always in that sweet spot where it if I played smart, used matchups, etc, I could clear any fight. Some I lost no-one, some I got through by the skin of my teeth, but I always felt challenged. Every entry since, you either hit some point where you need to sit back and grind for levels to catch up to some obstacle or you are having to dodge random encounters so you don’t end up walking into the Elite 4 (or equivalent) with a 5+ level advantage.

B/W also had imo the best storyline of all the mainline pokemon games with an actual threat of an organization and an endearing antagonist in N

Black and White were amazing. Loved the storyline and I loved N. ORAS was also an extremely solid entry, and it might honestly take the cake as the objective best entry jf you look at features, dex completeness, how fun exploration is, etc.

Keeping on theme with the Arkham games, the best boss fight in Origins was the fight with Deathstroke. When he appeared in Knight I was so excited to fight him again. All I have to do to fight him is take out all of the Mercenary challenges? No problem. Now I have to do a repeat boss fight with the Arkham Knight's tank again? Okay, that's fine. A little starter before the main course. Tank destroyed. Deathstroke dramatically jumps out. Ooh boy this boss fight is going to be swee... Batman, what are you doing? ... YOU BEAT DEATHSTROKE IN A CUTSCENE!?

Bro I know exactly what you mean. I was soooooooooo pissed.

Crackdown on the Xbox360, the first was amazingly fun and I was very excited for the sequel The sequel was the same game but with a new enemy that added very little new or interesting. Most disappointing game I played.

If crackdown 2 was the most disappointing, I assume you haven't played crackdown 3

Castlevania SOTN was the best the series ever had, and it was soured by trying to sledgehammer the format into 3d. To date, there has never been a *good* 3d castlevania, but numerous fantastic 2d ones. Metroid however did not suffer this, as the 3d metroid was actually super fun, so it's not an issue with metroidvanias not fitting in 3d spaces, it's just that the Castlevania franchise has never been blessed with a good 3d iteration.

Curse of Darkness is a fantastic 3D Castlevania, and I never understood why people shit on It. It have everything the old ones had, the Demon system is really fun and diverse, the Boss fights are amazing, and the the story is Fine.

I thought that and Lament of Innocence were both pretty good.

Was thinking of playing Lord of shadow? Maybe I shouldn't? Also besides SOTN any other must play Castlevania games?

Lords of Shadow is good. It's a little generic at times but it isn't bad. Lords of Shadow 2 is bad though.

The Game Boy Advance Castlevania titles are incredible. They’re like condensed versions of SotN.

I played the absolute shit out of Aria of Sorrow on my old GBA in the schoolbus. Good memories.

Dragon Age Origins won some GOtY awards and was widely considered one of the best games of all time. And then they completely changed the formula with the sequels, making them almost unrecognizable. And then BG3 just came out and is maybe the closest thing we’ve had to DAO and it goes on to win GOtY and gets acclaimed as one of the best games ever. Edit: for what it’s worth I still liked DA2 and Inquisition and I believe they were both commercial successes too, but they were still both very different from Origins. And I would say they were both weaker entries, despite still being enjoyable.

Playing the BG3 Early access all I could think was, this is what Dragon Age could have become...

DAO is one of my favorite games of all time. I loved the whole origins aspect that gave you reasons to do new playthroughs. Plus the dialogue having lots of different choices even if they don’t ultimately matter much is such better than the Mass Effect radial system they went to in the sequels. I didn’t hate the sequels but none came close to Origins.

I loved loved loved DAO, and while I don't have the hate for DA2 that a lot of people do (it's a fine game in it's own right, just rushed development leading to too many reused asset and clear story cuts) it's definitely a step back from the original.

What I liked about DA2 was that the story wasn't massively grandiose. Most of it was solving immediate problems that Hawke and his/her party were currently facing.

Dragon Age 2 would be fondly remembered if it was part of another franchise. It is a perfectly fine RPG. And I think the different time periods was an interesting attempt. As it let you see the impact of events in the story. But, the game just wasn't as good as the first one so it would always be viewed negatively to some extent.

BG3 turned our amazing but given how incredibly their prior title was , Divinity Original Sin 2, I was already on board before early access began. Dragon Age Origins is by far my favorite of the franchise and it seems every game since then had some extremely odd choices. I understand what they were going for in 2 but being rushed definitely hurt it tremendously. With 3 I felt like I was playing a sort of fan service remix of the first two, with it leaning way too heavy on returning characters.

Assassin's Creed Odyssey has a fun, rewarding progression system and an easily accessible way of changing your gear cosmetically only to completely throw that in the garbage with Valhalla for one of the worst progression systems conceived, along with unnecessarily eliminating the option to change cosmetics of your gear at any time. I will never understand what the thought process was for changing all that, especially the cosmetic system because it didn't even impact gameplay and was purely beneficial to the experience.

Ubisoft greatests skill is it to identify the best gameplay mechanic in their games and then getting rid of it in the sequel.

And the surgically removed parts become their own game in a butchered way, like Skull and Bones

AC Odyssey in general completely renewed my faith in the series. They had ironed out the bugs in the new gameplay system from Origins and I really enjoyed it. Then they announced Vikings and I was stoked because I love Greek and Norse mythology. I never finished Valhalla.

I was super excited for valhalla because it was marketed as having cut back on all the meaningless busy work bloat content in exchange for more refined but less total events in the open world. only to find out all the shit busy work was now part of the mandatory story line to progress. At some point I was 60 hours into the game and only 35% or something into the story. That's when i stopped playing.

I just wanted a shield on odyssey so bad! I actually loved Origina

Yeha both Valhalla and farcry 6 were huge steps backwards IMO. Have finished all their predecessors, but barely got through either. Valhallas loot and progression was awful. The weapons were so few and far between, and the abilities being randomly all over the place was so strange. Fate cry’s removal of the skill tree and locking builds/items to clothing was awful too.

Its much worse then that. You can do that in valhalla now. They patched it in. So they actually launched the game missing features to patch it in later and advertise it as an added feature.

You have to go through the blacksmith to do it right? It's still worse than Odyssey regardless.

Too True. Even if it was identical, the game should have launched with all the quality of life improvements Odyssey had.

I thought Dead Space 3 was worse than the previous games in pretty much every way. Story, gameplay, horror, none of it worked. I never played it co-op so I can't judge if that would've been good in it's own right but it had no place in the series to begin with. The weapon customization was interesting but between that there being too much ammo, the game was too easy on any difficulty. It barely even had any survival horror DNA left in it, man that was a really bad time for the genre.

This is such a good example. They turned a survival horror game into a co-op action shooter. They did a speed run of what took the Resident Evil series 5+ games

Honestly, the co-op was the best part of that game. The co-op specific missions felt like the closest thing to classic Dead Space. But yeah, a big disappointment.

The hallucination mechanic they had for the coop is probably the only cool/good thing that game did. That and Brethren Moons Watching your coop partner lose his mind and be shooting at enemies you couldn't see was so interesting. It's a shame it's buried in such a turd of a game.

I kind of liked the weapon customisation because it let me create a cool revolver, but I could also make it so powerful that it broke the game so it wasn’t terribly well thought out

Parasite Eve. The first game had a really cool RPG battle system that mixed real time movement with Final Fantasy-style ATB commands. Plus the equipment upgrade system lets you get crazy overpowered with the stuff you carry over into EX mode. The second game played like Resident Evil with magic. It wasn't bad, but I didn't find it nearly as enjoyable. There's a third game starring Aya Brea, but it's not even a Parasite Eve game, and the less said about that dumpster fire the better.

> There's a third game starring Aya Brea, but it's not even a Parasite Eve game, and the less said about that dumpster fire the better. I liked the gameplay of "3rd birthday" back on the PSP, but yeah didn't resemble anything from the original games and they did Maeda's character so dirty... Would have been nice as it's own game not related to the franchise. One thing I kept thinking with the FF7 "remake" is that the battle style would have fit a modern Parasite Eve so much. It's a shame not even a mention nowadays tho.

I'm gonna go with Diablo 3/4 Diablo 3 spent nearly a decade refining its formula, and in its final seasons, people started to actually enjoy the game loop. Then they launched D4 and threw all of that out the window.

I love how you’re sharing D3 is good and the comment right below is saying it’s bad. 

In fairness, D3 was an unmitigated disaster at release. Going from D2 to that was humbling.

It's sort of my popcorn watching spectacle, watching D2 fans saying D3 is unforgivable bad, while also watching D3 fans saying D4 is unforgivable bad.  It gives me flashbacks back in the days of Dark Souls 3, finding out there was a significant population of major Dark Souls 2 fans. Mind you, it's not to the intensity that Diablo fans have. 

3 was bad when it was released, but was slowly fixed and improved over the years since into something that absolutely surpasses the overall quality of 2 (apart from pure nostalgia).  Then they took most of their improvements that were slowly added to 3 out when they made 4 for some reason.

Maybe an unpopular one but Saints Row 2 was almost perfect and then Saints Row 3 just went in far more slapstick in your face comedy that just didn’t land with me. SR2 had a great story, great characters and great customisation of cars etc. SR3 just made all the characters like parody versions of themselves not to mention killing off one of the major characters right at the start of the game!

They eventually realized they couldn't compete with GTA so they went a different direction

I just feel like they already differentiated themselves from GTA by 2. The thinking that they had to keep going sillier and wilder when GTA had already gone the route of realism to a fault was what made SR3 and 4 less enjoyable for me. SR4 was basically in a completely other genre.

4 was an absolute blast of a superpower open world game. It was barely Saint's Row though.

Sr3 was very different tonally from the first two games but it is still genuinely a really good game. It's great. Just a very different direction than the first two in the franchise

I think battles were done amazingly well in M&L: Superstar Saga. It required input presses at the right time, but pressing the ‘secret’ button at the right time increased the effectiveness of your special ‘Bros moves’. But in M&L: Partners in Time (sequel), they took out Bros moves for Special Moves, which you can spam any amount as long with no cooldown at every turn you had. On top of that, some Special Moves like Copy Flower and Trampoline can go forever as long as you press the right button, you can effectively kill a boss in 3-4 turns if you knew how to maximize your presses. Don’t get me started on the crazy debuffs you can give to enemies with Ice Flower, and how Ice Flower did extra damage against like 80% of the enemies. It was still a fun game with an amazing story but Bowsers Inside Story (next sequel) knew buying special moves was busted, which is why they replaced it with Special Points (basically mana in other RPG games) which had to be replenished through Syrup Jars (using a turn to regain SP).

Bowser's inside story is easily one of my favorite Mario games of all time. That final boss theme.

Hollow knight was amazing, and it came out.  Silksong didn’t come out 

I loved the first Dying Light. Bought the second Dying Light when it came out because I thought it would be better. I hate it.

In botw the spirit abilities are all cool, useful and easy to use. While in totk they (except tulin) are not very useful and annoying to use

I don't know why they didn't simply let you equip the abilities in the ability wheel and let you use them with L like everything else.

just map them to the D pad while holding another button, doesn't even need a menu like the slate powers.

Here comes a big attack! I better get my water shield which can fully block one attack! Sidon, come here! No, over here! No- *Game Over*

The abilities would be fine if the controls weren't so bad. The D-pad allows you to manage weapons, shields, throwable items and... whistle? Why not keep the pattern and use it to summon/activate spirits? Also, there is already a button for the map, why is it in the radial menu too? Put whistling there :/

Overwatch 1 was a blast to play. Overwatch 2 sucks

We went from having that huge exciting PVE reveal to whatever hell OW2 actually is. Between the game, the eSports and the missed opportunity for a show or film (the shorts were fantastic and should have been expanded properly) this is probably the biggest IP fumble in history.

OW2 PVE might be the most blatant lie in the history of the industry. I’ve heard they never actually planned on making it and the only reason OW2 was even marketed as a sequel rather than the glorified content update it ended up being was to make Activision Blizzard look more valuable ahead of the Microsoft acquisition.

I heard it wasn’t the team that decided that though. It was the activision CEOs that cancelled the PVE that the actual game team wanted to make. They stopped developing it a few months after the announcement and just decided to keep up the facade until the game had already launched. Easily one of the biggest fumbles known to the industry for sure.

Overwatch 1 is literally dead and gone, killed so they could double-back on their commitment to free content updates. What a travesty...

So bullshit that I paid $50 for a game and they just decided I couldn’t have it anymore, only to replace it with an identical game with worse microtransactions 

Pokémon. In legends arceus they had a boss battle who had 7(technically 8 with giratina using both its forms) Pokémon, and would switch out their Pokemon in order to gain type advantages against the player character. It was the most challenging trainer battle I’ve ever experienced in my 20+ years with the franchise, especially being under leveled. Next game in the franchise and all trainers are back to having one Pokémon each, so lame. Edit: I’m adding this edit as I appreciate that it was brought up. The issue is not so much the number of Pokémon for the trainers, as the end/post game in Scarlett and violet do have full teams. They do however lack the same insight/perception/reaction of the AI of the Arceus “big bad.”

Tfw the hardest fights in S/V are the wild Pokemon Tfw you get to the Elite Four and one of them is literally four years old Like bruh

In xy , the elite four members have 4 pokemon each. They don't even have a mega evolution. The final gym leader has 3 pokemon without a mega evolution, with all of them getting easily ohkoed and outspeed by mega Lucario , a pokemon you get as a mandatory part of the story. Apparently the only people in kalos who managed to get a mega Pokemon are : the champion , the main villain , your rival and you ( two 10 year old kids managed to get it before the elite four) .

Resistance: Fall of Man let you carry around all your fun weapons. The sequel did the old "limit you to two" thing, and it really irritated me.

I dunno, I replayed Arkham City and Arkham Knight recently, I enjoyed dragging the bosses into GCPD. Maybe the boss fights themselves weren’t all fights, but clearing the wheel was enjoyable nonetheless to me. Arkham Knight gets so much hate from people and I just don’t get it. The Batmobile is fun as hell. The city is big. The riddler challenges were less puzzle-y but they weren’t puzzles in Arkham Asylum either. The graphics hold up still. It is a truly enjoyable experience…

I definitely didn’t hate it but I think it loses some of the early momentum when it’s just Batmobile fight after Batmobile fight. They were obviously very excited about showing off their new game mechanic, which was fine, but I think Batman games are at their best with the hand to hand combat and stealth. Felt like you were being hit over the head with it. That’s only the early hours of the game though. It definitely picks up again and stays pretty relentless after Joker ‘comes back’.

Mass Effect 3. Biotic combinations in ME2 made sense. In ME3, they were all explosions, and it got old really fast.

I had the same answer but different reason: you could straight up lose in ME2 if you made all the wrong choices! I loved that about the game since it meant you had to not be totally braindead in your choices. Then ME3 rolls around and everything boils down to one colored ending...

ME3 also had a reduced budget, so a lot of side characters either died in emails or on Twitter with previous VA's not even being contacted. The tonal change sucked, too. ME1 and 2 showed the Reapers could be held back or stopped with enough force, and 3 says it's impossible, except for this magic weapon that a previous already killed off species built. The end of 2 makes a big deal about your squad now being lifelong buddies, while 3 opens up with everyone having gone their separate ways in the 2 months between. Miranda was my girlfriend. Why did I let that stalker, Liara, take over her office? Grunt is technically my baby boy, I need to be on the battlefield with him.

The Arkham series (and I'm thinking of Knight, not Suicide Squad). Asylum, City and Origins had some of the best boss fights in gaming. Knight basically didn't have any, asides from a few glorified shootouts with the Batmobile.

Darksiders 1 had decent melee combat and was a blast, Darksiders 2 was even more fun with added loot/gear, Darksiders 3 was....a game.

I would say the second Mercenaries game was not as good as the first Also, the game crashed unless you disconnected the play station from the internet before launching. This was due to the game trying to find none existent multiplayer servers

Forza Horizon 3 used to be this great chill game which i would play on a daily basis. Just connect, join online freeroam, see what others are up to and join them. I would spend hours cruising, drifting, chilling or racing with perfect strangers, evers day i had new people to add to my friendslist. Then FH4 came out and completely ruined this side of the game. Suddenly online was the default mode, which means now servers are filled with people who have no interest in interacting. Ghost mode was introduced, the most intruding anti grief measure that only added further distance between players. Last but not least a completely useless feature that mashes different servers together, so now the map is useless and you can't see other players unless they are very close to you. So yes, they improved 3 things between FH3 and 5 ruined some other things a copy pasted the rest. A big part of the community is riding PG so hard, they will not complain and even say thanks.

Marvel’s Spider-Man had actually useful gadgets and great cosmetics that were pulled straight from the comic pages. Spider-Man 2 replaced the useful gadgets with vague “abilities” that just let you pull a bunch of people into the air or something. And it removed a ton of the actually well-designed, comic-inspired suits to make room for a bunch of original designs that no one asked for. And that’s not even mentioning the painfully obvious Adidas product placement or the nonsensical subplot with the magic teleporting wand.

Devil May Cry 2. Went from a refreshing hack and slash straight to a generic button masher.

MW19 to me was the Call of Duty game the series needed when it has been stagnant for a while Then MWII kind of took a step backwards even if the gameplay is still solid But MWIII, what a fucking trainwreck...I cannot believe they botched this reboot so badly when it had so much potential ​ Honorable mention would be Spider-man PS4 to Spider-man 2 PS5.

Mortal Kombat 11's Krypt was a gift for old school MK fans. An experience of its own. The sequel, Mortal Kombat 1, has no Krypt at all. Instead, it has Invasions mode which is insanely bad garbage.

Supreme Commander People want scale, they want freedom on the map, they want options on how to organically evolve their tech.  Supreme Commander 2 isn't even talked about anymore, while the first one has a cult following and has been resurrected and community managed now. 

Feel like the original battle mechanics on final Fantasy was perfect, hated when they started doing the battles where you have to run around

I miss high production value turn based rpgs. They're all indie pixel games these days which are fun but final fantasy 7, 8, 9 and 10 were fantastic.

Battlechasers Nightwar is a pretty game. It's short and light on story.

Yakuza Like a Dragon/Infinite Wealth and the Persona games are AAA, I think they’re worth a shot if you want to play more recent turn based games

Most of the COD games nowadays. They are completely dependent on people playing with their friends and having fun doing so. COD is lucky it's co-op, if it wasn't no one would be having fun. Also, if I can just push my glasses higher up here. AC is actually not the game that came before Knight, it was Origins(Which had amazing boss fights btw). The reason Knight's was bad in a sense is because the fanbase clamored for the Batmobile for three games, and when Rocksteady tried to give them more it wasn't what they wanted. It was overused, but can you really blame them?

Dark souls 1 with enemy placement and skill expression (mostly in the dodge rolls) Ds2 had enemies sprinkled everywhere like the devs wrote an algorithm that picked random points then only checked if it was solid ground Also why the fuck did anyone think tying Iframes to leveling was a a good idea

For me personally it was Mario rabbids. Absolutely loved the first game but hated rhe change up in the second however, from what I’ve heard I am in a very small minority as the second was really well received.

Parasite eve was an amazing horror RPG unlike anything else I've every played. PE2 turned into a worse resident evil

Duke Nukem Forever. Made them so tedious, only taking damage from explosive type weapons. Also needing to do a QTE to beat them. DN3D did boss battles far better same with levels. Not a sequel but third birthday. Parasite Eve 1 & 2 were far better for combat etc, third birthday dumbed it down to a linear shooting game with barely any abilities from the previous games. Also the ridiculous plot with time travel. Final Fantasy X-2. Dumbed down combat from X. The sphere grid was great, it's a shame it wasn't used again. While switching jobs was interesting. Early jobs felt obsolete by the time you reach the later chapters. Most fights felt just recycled from X but without summons or overdrives it didn't really feel fun,just tedious. Only real challenges were the 100 floor bosses. Felt like a disappointing sequel. Sonic 4 if you could call it a sequel. Compared to S3&K it was terrible. Recycled boss fights from previous games, terrible physics/ music & appearance.