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Awful Games In Awesome Series *SPOILERS AHOY!*


Jax Mandrake
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Remember about a month or so ago I started a similar conversation? Here's a refresher in case you need it. Anywhichway, I've decided to expand on that idea a bit.

You've had it happen. We all have had it happen. You've become attached to a game series because it's everything you love short of multiple orgasms. The publisher (sometimes developer) announces that there's a new entry due out, and you can't wait for that day to finally arrive... and then you buy it... (or rent it, demo it, borrow it or get your fingers on it in some fashion depending largely on your available finances) and it

just. plain. SUCKS!!

Sometimes it's just a stumbling block and the series then gets back on its feet, dusts itself off and gets back to rocking your world. Other times, that sucky game is the pivot that turns the series from awesome to oh no, and you know nothing good is ever coming from that name again.

There are plenty of well-known examples already. I will list a few, and some reasons that has been so poorly received.

Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts (CAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARS?!?!?!?!!)

Bionic Commando [360/PS3] (Terrible controls, "arm wife")

Castlevania II: Simon's Quest (the morning sun hasn't vanquished this horrible game)

Sonic the Hedgehog [360/PS3] (broken game, furry fetish)

Super Mario Bros 2 (this isn't a fDERPing mario game, idiot)

Zelda II: The Adventure of Link...

Actually, most of the Zelda games have their attackers and defenders, so let's just pass over those right now. Also, I liked Castlevania II and Super Mario 2. I can't defend the others I listed, though.

So I turn the topic over to you, dear friends. What game series were ruined by, nearly ruined by, or had to overcome a huge glaring error that was one single game? While I'm at it, let me also ask if there was a game that turned your attention to a series or franchise about which you previously didn't give two scoops.

Go!

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Super Mario Bros 2. is an excellent action game, Mario or not (personally if it is made by Nintendo and says that it is a Mario game on the front cover and stars Mario characters it is a Mario game, end of story. Nintendo dictates what is Mario in what country, not fans.

Zelda 2? Engaging, unique, weird, and under-appreciated just like the game above. Sure it has wonky controls and is frustrating as hell for the average gamer but it is a hardcore player's wet dream once you get on its level.

I agree with you on the other ones. Double Dragon 5 sucked. I didn't like Actraiser 2 much either, but I'm not sure if its a truly awful game as it is playable if you're willing to die a million times. A lot of people say that Double Dragon 3 on nes is bad but I think it's a lot of fun if you master it, much like Street Fighter 2010, although the last level of that game was designed by Satan.

A lot of people put down games because they are too hard for them to beat or because they are not what they expected. Double Dragon 5 truly sucked though. Total shit game hands down.

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Jax you make good threads.

Super Mario Sunshine is awful, FF13 did nothing for me, and AC: Wild World was a huuuuuge disappointment for me. After Wild World, I knew the series contracted Pokemon syndrome.. it's the same game.

Someone will put Nuts and Bolts in this list when it doesn't deserve it. EDIT: Haha, I just read your first post. Called it!

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I can list a few others from past experiences. :)

Now, out here in this corner of the web, I'm arguably OCR's biggest fan of Crash Bandicoot. True, the series saw a slight dip of quality coming through the PS2 days (though the blow was easened with Vicarious Vision's good-yet-safe handheld entries), but there's one game in that entire series that came off as a bigger disappointment than anything else - Crash Boom Bang! on the DS. I was expecting the series to finally show some improvement through the hands of Dimps, whom I respected well with what they did through Sonic Rush, but with such an awkward execution all around and most of the mini-games themselves being broken as hell, not to mention the weakest overall soundtrack for me, it came off as just a bland party game with Crash's mug plastered all over it. Thankfully the series redeemed itself with the Titans titles, which introduced my younger cousins to Crash (albeit considerably re-designed), though with no new game since 2008 I'm waiting anxiously to see if anything more can be done with it.

And onto his PS1 little brother, Spyro the Dragon. Like Crash, that had some great PS1 titles and some off-moments in the next generation upwards. Enter the Dragonfly tried to cripple my sanity, but then I played the GameCube version years later and found it to be a lot less broken. But Spyro: Shadow Legacy on the DS (again...), on the other hand, seriously went through very little testing and could be seen as more broken than even the PS2 version of ETD, and a lot of the charm for the Spyro series tended to have watered down considerably just by looking at the levels and story progression, which in itself was bland as heck. Heck, they apparently turned Spyro into a silent protagonist - not the spunky little guy that I went through my adolescence with. I almost abandoned the series outright there and then, but thankfully the Legend of Spyro trilogy rekindled my interest in spite of the rift it caused between the fanbase.

And I've enjoyed playing the Guitar Hero series over the years as well - definitely a good thing to blast through on a casual basis on those plastic instruments. But I got to say I wasn't really won over with Guitar Hero Van Halen - not so much due to the guitar charts (hey, at least I can pass Eruption on Expert!), but more likely due to the terrible graphical presentation in comparison to other titles in the series and really poor song choices on the band's part. So it's fair to say it didn't get much love from me in comparison to other games. o_O

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Master of Orion 3 The first two games in the series were fantastic, classic 4x space strategy games. The second, while similar in the basics to the first, added additional depth to the gameplay from the first (micromanagement could get a bit overwhelming in late game, though). Both are different enough for me to enjoy going back to play either one every once in a while.

But then came MOO3. While still a 4x game, the game mechanics were so badly implemented that the learning curve was far steeper than even an avid fan of the series would tolerate. They replaced the turn-based battle system with an awkward real-time pseudo 3d environment which was more confusing than fun. Even if you took the time to finally learn how to play the game properly, it didn't retain the fun & interesting elements that made the first games enjoyable. Super huge disappointment after buying it right off the shelf without knowing what I was getting into.

I still hold a tiny amount of hope that a MOO4 will arrive someday and resurrect the series. It's been a long time, though...

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Devil May Cry 2. Man...to think that a sequel to a great game would be this bad? Other than fluid new moves for Dante, everything else about this game sucked.

Final Fantasy XIII, for reasons the world knows why by now. I played it for 30 hours...felt dis-attached from everything except for the good battle system.

Star Ocean 3. One of the first PS2 games announced yet arrived much later than usual. I was hyped by the initial batch of screenshots. Coming fresh out of the epic that's Star Ocean 2, I expected a lot out of this game...I just couldn't get into it after 10 hours of play. Additionally, over the years the infamous plot twist has been spoiled for me. The worst cop-out ever in the series! I really did like Star Ocean 4 though despite the negativity it received. A lot better than SO3 in my opinion.

Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days. Very disappointing from my end. I expected a lot more.

I actually liked Mario 2 and Zelda II. They were really well developed despite the shocking change in gameplay mechanics. They were the good kinds of black sheep games in my opinion.

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I don't get the Mario Sunshine criticism. The only problem with that game was it took a little more effort to get into, you couldn't just turn it on and play like every other title there was.

It was more challenging, it had a gimmick and it was ever slightly less accessible than Super Mario 64. That's literally all that was wrong with that game.

Edit: And anyone who mentions Castlevania 64 can straight up eat my ass. That game was also far more criticized than it deserved for much of the same reason. Once you got a hang of it and got to some of the better levels, it was quite a meaty 3D game for the 64 and an interesting twist on Castlevania.

Sorry to be negative on that but people who expect to fall in love with games barely 10 minutes into playing it piss me off with their whining. It's stupid to miss out on a good game because certain expectations were not met and it had an acquired taste. If you call yourself a gamer, put some fucking effort into it. ***us.

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Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days. Very disappointing from my end. I expected a lot more.

I liked that one!

Considering it was for DS I think it was really well done.

The only thing that bothered me about it was the lack of interaction with the Disney characters and a certain amount of repetitiveness as it progressed.

Apart from that though, it's one of my favorites in the series.

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If this thread had been made two months ago. I would have put Mass Effect 3 in here

HOWEVER. After Extended cut PLUS DLC 1. The ending actually made sense. You can still go on and on about the indoctrination theory but the fact of the matter is the storytelling isnt so JARRING your head explodes. And with that out of the way the ME trillogy is in the pantheon of gaming as the new standard.

Now to get back on topic.

FF13. FF11 FF14.

I personally liked 12 for its setting the window of history view it takes with the character you start out with.

Dragon Age 2 i didnt like personally.

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Less challenging than New Super Mario Brothers Wii?

I would say so, yes, just because 2D games are prone to higher difficulty being limited to two axes. I also acknowledge people play games differently and 2D may feel more natural to some (I didn't game much during that era)

FF13.

Haha, yeah :P

FF11

I WILL END YOUUUUUUU

FF14.

Haha, yeah :P

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I would say so, yes, just because 2D games are inherently more difficult being limited to two axes. I also acknowledge people play games differently and 2D may feel more natural to some (I didn't game much during that era)

Limiting axes would usually make games less challenging, except for intentionally difficult games. In 2D, everything's mostly right there on the screen - either left or right or up and down. It's much easier to organize than in 3D where the possibilities of placements are exponentially greater.

Obviously there are lots of example and mechanical exceptions, but in general examples, I can't think of how a 3D game would somehow be simpler than a 2D game.

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It can go either way depending on the game's design. I shouldn't have said "inherently", that's wrong.

But more to the point, a game's difficulty isn't everyone's parameter for judging how good a game is. I just use difficult games to build my self-esteem, so I tend to enjoy them more. For me, games are more of self-actualization tool instead of an entertainment source.

Haha, joking.

Totally.. joking... mmhm :-?

where are my pills

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I don't get the Mario Sunshine criticism. The only problem with that game was it took a little more effort to get into, you couldn't just turn it on and play like every other title there was.

It was more challenging, it had a gimmick and it was ever slightly less accessible than Super Mario 64. That's literally all that was wrong with that game.

I really enjoyed Mario Sunshine as well. It's a unique entry and the FLOOD/Water mechanics were fun to use. It's one of the very few GameCube games which used the L/R double triggers effectively and it felt very nice doing so. The levels without the waterpack were insanely cool and difficult. I remember being so frustrated finishing up those.

My only criticism to Sunshine is its abundance of Blue Coins scattered around the worlds. It's the dumbest and most frustrating collectable in the history of the series. You literally had to splash every single conspicuous thing so you can obtain all the blue coins. The problem is...they're mandatory for 100% completion. If there was an alternative use for them other than getting shines, I would see no problems. But because they're needed to obtain all the shines, I obviously couldn't find them all in my first run...and I was as sure as hell not going to backtrack through all the worlds just to find the remaining few I skipped. So I finished the game at 117 Shines I believe. Maybe if we were given any hints or a blue coin tracker upon completion, I would forgive the game for it.

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Jax you make good threads.

Super Mario Sunshine is awful

Quoted for truth! This was such a baffling step backwards after Mario 64. It's like they sat around and said, "How can we Mario 64, but totally not fun?"

RE: SMB 2, I've always been kind of disappointed most of the enemies never returned in future Mario games.

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Quoted for truth! This was such a baffling step backwards after Mario 64. It's like they sat around and said, "How can we Mario 64, but totally not fun?"

Yeah, because that's totally how companies work in the real world.

RE: SMB 2, I've always been kind of disappointed most of the enemies never returned in future Mario games.

Uh, what? Except for the bosses, most of them did. Particularly in the Mario RPGs and Yoshis Island games.

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FF13. FF11 FF14.

Actually, FF8 is what almost killed the series for me. (And apologies in advance to those of you who absolutely love the game.)

To understand, I picked up the Final Fantasy series around the time that 10 came out; and I definitely played them out of order. For me, I first played 7, then Tactics, followed by 9, 8, 6, 5, and then 10. And to be honest, I disliked 8 so thoroughly that I almost didn't give those last three a chance (which I am eternally grateful I did decide to later play them, particularly 6). Oh, and I guess you could technically put Legends 3 in between 7 and Tactics, depending on if you count that as a true FF game or not.

Now, don't get me wrong, I did enjoy parts of 8. Music was good, battle system was actually pretty fun, and the card game was extremely enjoyable. The item refinement system didn't bug me much, either. But the story... man, that story, I just did not feel it in the slightest... again, apologies to those who did. Which made me wonder (since 7, Tactics and 9 were the only three recommended to me by the guy that got me into the series) if it was really worth my while to try the others, since I play games primarily for story.

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Final Fantasy 8 was a risky experiment that came at the wrong time. They changed too much too quickly and while they genuinely deserve accolades for being ballsy in trying them, they should've waited until Final Fantasy X to really do them.

Now it's easier to look back on it and appreciate it for what it was, but man, they just should've made them more like Final Fantasy VI and VII and changed it gradually instead of hitting that high wave with a brickwall of changes.

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