Least favorite in a series

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Least favorite in a series

Postby Wolf Bird » Sun Jul 5, '09, 11:58 pm

Many games are part of a series. What is one of your favorite series of games...and your least favorite(s) in it and why? As much as I gush and gush about Earthbound and the Mother games in general on this forum, I still have negative things to say about them. And to answer my question, I'm focusing on...Mother 3. *Armageddon commences.* I may mention others though.

Mother 3 is probably my least favorite game in the Mother series and I have several reasons for it. One...now, every series needs to change and evolve some. I don't like developers that keep repackaging the same thing, but all the same, you have to be careful lest you distance one too much from the others, and I feel this is the case with M3 in many ways. Like enemies - M3's enemies are still pretty goofy and many return, but some of the strangest were missing. No more New Age Retro Hippies, Dali's Clocks, Abstract Art, possessed every day items, Starmen, random robots or aliens. It's all chimeras. The chimeras are interesting but towards the end, they started getting a bit bland and same-y. M3 is also just plain SAD, quite opposite Mother 1 and Earthbound and it lost a lot of the goofy absurdity and surrealism. Often times, I was forgetting it was a Mother game at all, but thankfully, just as I started thinking that, something just downright stupid would happen and I'd think 'Oh yeah, this is a Mother game.' But I wish I hadn't gotten that feeling at all. I was also really disappointed that there was no Magicant in some form, a place that had played an integral role in both the previous games. So while it does evolve the series and is its own thing, for me, it feels too distant at times and more like a typical RPG.

My other big gripe in M3 is motion. It locks you in and this really started annoying me while playing through. Many times, once you got to an area, you were stuck there until you got through it. Once you got through, you couldn't go back. M3 is rife with place locks and unexpected points of no return, making backtracking for exploration and levels impossible. The entire game also revolves around Tazmily village, and you keep returning there to go somewhere else. This limited variety. All this contributed to unpredictable difficulty spikes instead of a smooth increase. This got frustrating occasionally, and Lucas, unlike Ninten and Ness, never learns PSI Teleport, so moving around the game's world is generally much less free. By point of comparison, Mother 1 never completely locks you in (that I can remember), and Earthbound only locks you in four places (Zombie-ful Threed, Moonside, Magicant and the Cave of the Past, the final area), and only the latter three are points of no return. And since Ninten and Ness both learn how to teleport, backtracking is easy if you get in over your head or want to explore a previous area some more. M3 loses this.

Mother 3 is still an incredible game and WELL worth playing. But despite its greater maturity than its predecessors, it's still my least favorite of the series for feeling too distant and the lack of freedom. I also have some other little problems with it, but these are the two big ones.
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Re: Least favorite in a series

Postby Tweeg » Mon Jul 6, '09, 12:56 am

"Strike" series
I was really disappointed with the 32-bit generation games. Desert Strike, Jungle Strike, and Urban Strike were all really fun games. But, Soviet Strike and Nuclear Strike both changed in some seemingly benign way that managed to kill the fun factor. The game play was essentially identical still and the graphics had been greatly improved, but something in the mechanics of it all had changed in a negative way.

Mario Bros. Series
I really do not like Mario Land (GB), Super Mario Brothers 2 (NES), Mario Golf (N64), Mario is Missing (PC/SNES), or any of the Mario Party games.

Cool Spot series
There's only two games in the series, but that should have spoken volumes to the powers that be at 7 Up. The first, Cool Spot (Genesis), game was an incredible 2D platformer. The second game, Cool Spot Goes to Hollywood (Genesis), though was an isometric overview platformer which suffered from poor viewing angles that made the game very frustrating to play.

NBA Jam series
I'll admit I haven't played every game, nor each and every single console version of each game in the series, but there are two specific console ports that stood out as simply terrible; NBA Hang Time for both SNES and N64 were both rather un-fun. The SNES version suffered from slowdown. And, the N64 version has an overly complicated control scheme and a hideous rap music soundtrack.
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Re: Least favorite in a series

Postby hugues » Mon Jul 6, '09, 1:51 am

Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures is the only game in the series I didn't really care for. Yeah it was fun but it was also way too short and easy. I played through it in a couple of nights and doubt I'll ever try it again.

Final Fantasy VIII was the first game in the series I tried and I really didn't get into it. I got a couple hours in and quit. Later on I tried some of the originals and ended-up enjoying them. Now I'm thinking of going back and trying that one again.

Earlier this year I started Grandia Xtreme but didn't finish it, I don't think I will. I like the rest of the series but something about this one isn't working for me, maybe it's too many cut-scenes.
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Re: Least favorite in a series

Postby GhostVoices » Mon Jul 6, '09, 2:06 am

I am sure to get a lot of grief from this, but I have disliked when a lot of 2D series have turned to 3D. A few examples for me would be recent Mario and Zelda games, all Phantasy Star games after the numbered series, and so on. All of these games just felt too different from the games that I loved growing up.
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Re: Least favorite in a series

Postby Thoul » Mon Jul 6, '09, 4:53 am

Legend of Zelda: Oracles: These games aren't too bad, but there's lots of little things I didn't like. The biggest is that one of the games has this sequence where you have to push buttons in a certain order with a certain timing. The visual cues for it are very, very bad. Plus, it's not optional in any way: you have to do it completely successfully to continue the game. If you mess up, you have to start over from the beginning. And worse, you technically can't finish either game totally because to do that, you have to beat both and then link them up. It took me a very long time to get lucky with the timing; more than once I had to set it aside and try again another day.

Grandia III: This game looks great. It's clear that the development team spent a long time on the graphics. The backgrounds are spectacular. Unfortunately, the story suffers for it. The game feels unfinished; it left me wondering after the final boss, "so, what's next here?" Two of the best playable characters with the most story potential leave halfway through, kind of like Phantasy Star IV. Unlike that game, these people aren't seen again until the credits are rolling. It ruined one of the characters and made the other pointless because he was only in the game for a brief time.

Even the world feels smaller; there's less to explore, less to see and do. It's like the game is on two large islands instead instead of a world map. There's many hints of story pieces in the game that go unresolved, like this huge flying whale in the sky that has no purpose at all. Overall, the game was a big let down after the sprawling stories and worlds of Grandia I & II.
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Re: Least favorite in a series

Postby hugues » Fri Jul 10, '09, 2:54 am

Caged Wolf wrote:Many games are part of a series. What is one of your favorite series of games...and your least favorite(s) in it and why? As much as I gush and gush about Earthbound and the Mother games in general on this forum, I still have negative things to say about them. And to answer my question, I'm focusing on...Mother 3. *Armageddon commences.* I may mention others though.

Forgive my ignorance but is Mother 3 the same as Earthbound 3? I recently stumbled across a preview for it in an old magazine:
huguesjohnson.com/scans/random/GI-Nov99 ... bound3.jpg

It would have been nice if it was released in the US because the N64 seriously lacked in the RPG department.
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Re: Least favorite in a series

Postby Wolf Bird » Fri Jul 10, '09, 3:07 am

Maybe. Mother 3 was originally going to be for the N64 (called Earthbound 64) but the project was scrapped, picked up for GBA and became what's Mother 3 today. That looks like what was going to be Earthbound 64. Mother 3 is sometimes referred to as Earthbound 2, due to the fact that only second game in the Mother series was released outside Japan, and they renamed the game Earthbound for that release.
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Re: Least favorite in a series

Postby Darkil » Fri Jul 10, '09, 1:52 pm

For me it would have to be Resident Evil 0. The story was an awesome idea! I loved how it fleshed out things beginning before the 1st game. However I have never been keen on having to control 2 characters at the same time. It's really aggrivating when you get a game over screen because the other character has no brain whatsoever and just sits there and get's killed while you're busy protecting yourself. In real life [which obviously these games are based on :D ] your partner would defend himself better and actually work with you to get things accomplished. It's this reason why I stay away from games like GRAW where you have to babysit your entire team. I'd rather do my own thing and have them do their own thing to accomplish the goal.
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Re: Least favorite in a series

Postby Lemina » Sun Jul 12, '09, 8:21 pm

Thoul wrote:Grandia III: This game looks great. It's clear that the development team spent a long time on the graphics. The backgrounds are spectacular. Unfortunately, the story suffers for it. The game feels unfinished; it left me wondering after the final boss, "so, what's next here?" Two of the best playable characters with the most story potential leave halfway through, kind of like Phantasy Star IV. Unlike that game, these people aren't seen again until the credits are rolling. It ruined one of the characters and made the other pointless because he was only in the game for a brief time.

Even the world feels smaller; there's less to explore, less to see and do. It's like the game is on two large islands instead instead of a world map. There's many hints of story pieces in the game that go unresolved, like this huge flying whale in the sky that has no purpose at all. Overall, the game was a big let down after the sprawling stories and worlds of Grandia I & II.

So I wasn't the only one disappointed by this game. I loved Grandia II and liked Grandia I a lot ( I played them in that order. ;P) so I was highly anticipating Grandia III. When I played it, I liked it okay at first, but then I quickly grew to dislike it. The music is nowhere near as good as the first two; the characters are bland and boring for the most part, if not, annoying. :glares at Alfina: The story was more boring to me than most SNES games that I've played, I don't really remember any of it other than the fact that Yuki wanted to be a pilot at first. The battle system was okay, but the main four characters that you can use in battle seemed mediocre compared to the temporary party members.
Another thing that I disliked about the game was the dialog. Grandia I and II had all of these meal scenarios and extra dialog with the NPCs while III felt lacking to me. Perhaps that was just my imagination though.
The graphics and the cutscenes were gorgeous, and the battle system, despite my gripes, was pretty good. However, I really couldn't get past the bland story along with the bland characters to really enjoy it.

I like the "Tales" series, a somewhat underground real time RPG. Kaloes has mentioned on this site before, I believe. However, one of the entries in the series that I strongly disliked was Tales of the Abyss. To sum up my feelings for it: The graphics were muddled; the characters grated my nerves; the story was erratic and convoluted; and flying the flying plane thing was a nightmare due to some glitches and off limit places.
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Re: Least favorite in a series

Postby PathfinderCS » Thu Oct 8, '09, 11:24 pm

In the Spyro series, Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly would win that award hands down. This game is what happens when you put together high expectations, a popular character, a rookie game developer, and a pushy game publisher. The so-called 'game' was RIDDLED with bugs and software glitches. At any random times, polygons would appear out of the heads of any NPC character. How can you screw that up!? Equinoxe Digital Entertainment and Check Six Games were no Insomniac. Heck, Digital Eclipse did a FINE job of the GBA Spyro games. There was no excuse for that.

What else? Frame rate that would go from alright to unplayable at times. The script was just lazy, and felt almost kindergarten (I'm sorry, but calling Spyro a purple * only works for so long). Even without the glitches, the graphics were mediocre at best. Let us not leave out the fact that the game would randomly freeze every so often. Lastly, elements that were wonderful in previous Spyro games were nothing like they were. For example, Tom Kenny, who played as the voice of Spyro in Spyro 2, 3, and ETD, just...never felt natural here, like he did in previous outings. Even Stewart Copeland's soundtrack, which was always memorable in the previous trilogy, just fell short, even though it was one of the better elements of ETD.

Overall, Enter the Dragonfly is a good example of why time, patience, and experience is critical in game making.

Another Spyro game that falls short would be one of the more recent titles, though even it still rates FAR better than ETD, IMO. In The Legend of Spyro: The Eternal Night, the main complaint I have is that the enemies are just CHEAP. It's way too easy to die because once you're down, the enemies will just keep on attacking you. Granted, I can live with this system, but still...could've been better.

Getting away from Spyro, another game that disappoints me in a beloved series would be Prince of Persia: Warrior Within. Now, don't me wrong. It's not a bad game by any means. It has a great story, the gameplay is excellent, and is one of the better games for the PS2/Xbox/Gamecube in general. Why does it fall so short with me then?

Simply because of the fact that the game it follows, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, is an epic masterpiece. SoT was great because of just how magical and wonderful it felt. The gameplay, graphics, storyline, characters, character interaction, the musical score, etc all fit together beautifully like an artistic puzzle. The overall presentation was just so...it's hard to describe. In comparison, Warrior Within is much more darker and grittier. There's blood in plenty, the Prince is no longer lovable or sympathetic (typical tough guy), the female characters were scantily clothed (pushing the sex appeal), and they decided to introduce profanity. Why is this?

Business. SoT didn't sell as well as the upper brass wanted, so things were changed in the sequel. Guess what? It did sell better, but wasn't as critically received. It's kind of sad, but it is what it is. I am just thankful that the second sequel, The Two Thrones, went back to some of the aspects of SoT while keeping certain elements of WW. All in all, TTT is much better than WW, but still misses out on SoT, but not by much.

Plus, we have the Prince of Persia game released last year, which reminded me a LOT of SoT. A GREAT addition, but not the subject of this thread. :mrgreen:

Anywho, that's my story. :wink:
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