Submitted 1 month ago by Novamdomum@fedia.io to games@lemmy.world
You fell in love with a game and it's characters, sunk hundreds, maybe even thousands of hours into it. It became a comforting, immensely satisfying part of your daily life. Then you heard a sequel was coming and got really hyped but when it came out it was utter rubbish...
Which game(s) was that for you?
Metro Exodus. Opening up the map was a mistake. The linear levels were fine, that gives you tight pacing and you always know what’s next. The confined underground spaces were part of the soul of that series. I only played maybe 8 hours of Exodus and can’t be bothered to play more.
it gets pretty good as you go, but i see your point. the first two games followed the books almost perfectly as well.
Beloved is a REALLY strong word.
But, Mortal Kombat 11. I had always enjoyed the MK games (it helped that my sister owned the N64 so I only played maybe a grand total of two hours of the wannabe Tekken ones…). And the timeloop reboot had reinvigorated the series and I was a much more accomplished fighting game player and actually understood how to push through projectile spam.
Then they randomly recast Sonya Blade with (sandy hook truther and terf) rhonda rousey and it was just… ugh. Even ignoring she is a hateful and evil shitbag… she is just a REALLY bad actress. Could never bring myself to grab 11 and by the time “1” came out I had also realized that I actively disliked the x-ray attacks and finishers since they were just boringly gorey time sinks.
And honorable mention to Splinter Cell Double Agent. But apparently the OG xbox/wii u (?) version of that was actually good and it was just 360/PC that was a steaming pile of shit. And Conviction was a very different game but also I still think about the aftermath of the EMP every so often.
Renegade III: The Final Chapter.
Renegade on the ZX Spectrum was good, the sequel Target: Renegade was one of my favourite games for years, but the third game was a cynical cash grab, badly executed, barely playable.
My first experience with this was Last of Us. I wasn’t expecting good things for part 2 after hearing things about hostile takeovers but killing off the main guy just ruined it for me.
Dragon age 2, Mass effect 3
ME3 is particularly bad cause most of the game is exactly as it should have been, and then the ending is pure unadulterated trash.
I was a Siren main in Borderlands.
Every new game in the franchise made me hate Lilith more. I think I may have cheered at the end of BL3.
Why? Lilith was the best siren gameplay in the series. Yeah, ol Randy fucked her up real good with their dogshit writing, but her character never really changed. I’ve never been able to seriously pick up another siren character because nothing compares to phasewalk.
Resident Evil 2 Remake left me very disappointed. The moment-to-moment gameplay is good, great even! But the complete lack of soundtrack (despite the original game having a lot of iconic tracks), two thirds of the story being cut, and the characters just acting as imbeciles for half the screentime was upsetting. Worst offender was Leon leaving a man to die inside his cell because “I have to speak with the chief first”. Like, what? You don’t even know if the chief is alive, and even if he was, you don’t know where he is, and you don’t have the certainty that you can get back in one piece to free the poor guy from his jail. You really want to leave him like that at the mercy of whatever monster lurks inside?
Don’t get me started on 3 Remake.
couldnt even finish 3, 2 was alright, 4 was obviously the best out of the remakes.
Probably unpopular opinion but Prey is clearly on that list ! Not because the new game was bad, but they just took everything that was interesting and original in the first game, throw it away and just made it another doom-like game :/…
The original Prey wasn’t a GOTY or whatever, it just felt different and something new and original… Something I liked and they just made a total reboot with nothing in common on what made prey original/interesting !
It never was planned as a sequel/reboot of Prey by the studio. The publisher insisted on the name in hopes of more revenue from „long time fans“.
And in the end that totally backfired. I never touched it because of that even though it is supposed to be a great game.
What aspects of the newer Prey make it more like Doom than the older Prey? To me, that’s kinda like saying, “System Shock was just Wolfenstein 3D 🎶 in space 🎶”
I know the atmospheric design is doom like (aliens, weapons, paltforms…etc.) but gameplay mechanics were totally inovative and original (wall walking, portals, spirit walk) and chracter focus was also cool (native american).
I’m not saying Prey 2016 is a Bad game, I just found it sad that they totally changed the franchise spirit 😄
A future prediction as I won’t be buying it - Subnautica 2.
Lords of the Realm III
1 was great, though the economy was overly complicated. 2 fixed all the issues of 1 and made combat more fun. 3 removed everything I liked and replaced it w/ a weird realtime RTS system.
I spent a ton of time on LotR II and it’s expansion. I distinctly remember finding the box for 3 a few years later and just being confused that they didn’t seem to know what was good about their game.
Had a complicated time trying to get 2 running a few years ago, I think I ended up setting up a Win95 VM specifically for it. But now it looks like they’re just on GoG and Steam. Might have to grab it there.
I replay it every couple years because it has so much nostagia for me, and it runs perfectly on Steam on Linux (and I assume GOG). They even fixed the incredibly annoying mouse issue that I dealt with for years where it wouldn’t scroll down or to the right.
Gonna be controversial but Monster Hunter World for me. Don’t get me wrong, I liked the game a lot at first and put 100+ hours into it. But it marked the departure from the silly, cozy, slightly under-the-radar franchise to something that’s just too big for my tastes. I feel like each entry is trying to top its predecessor in new mechanics, bigger maps and stuff and end up getting lost in the sauce.
I started playing on PSP with Freedom 2 and Freedom Unite and moved over to 3DS when the games came out for that. The games were never unpopular per se, especially in Japan where they’ve been a staple since the PSP days, but they always felt a little more niche and unknown. They felt more focused, more streamlined, tighter. All the new combat mechanics added in newer installments definitely help the fluidity of the gameplay and add a lot of fun and variety. But that’s it for new additions that I’d miss when going back to older titles. These huge open-world-esque maps just don’t cut it for me.
Rise would likely have been last MH that I could enjoy since it’s a good mix of classic MH with good QoL features added in to make the game more modern, but even that one didn’t quite catch my attention for too long.
I don’t know, I feel like Monster Hunter kinda lots its charme in chasing industry trends of open world games and more realistic graphics and physics in favour of character, silliness, and focus.
I know The Division 1 flirted with seasons, but I hated TD2’s season pass crap.
It was not rubbish, but what Xrd did to my main character, Zato, irreparably damaged my relationship with any future Guilty Gear game, and Strive just finished off whatever hope I had left.
And to be clear: I'm not talking about power level here—fuck that. I'm only talking about how much fun I had with the character, and still do in Guilty Gear Plus R.
Might & Magic IX. I love Might & Magic VI - VIII but IX killed the franchise for me. Wrong vibe, terrible Bugs. I tried X when it came out, but it is also a different game.
FF Cotw why in the everliving fuck put that idiot in the game. Sure you can make millions by putting CR7 in the game same as you can make 10 grand by sucking dicks for a 20 in an alleyway. I can’t believe how many shit decisions they make and still have enough money to burn on it.
Loved MK 1 then 2 blew my mind 3 was good 4 blew my mind again. Then until 9 I didn’t touch anything too goofy I haven’t been able to play the single player much (of DA Deception and Armageddon) but didn’t click anyway. MK9 was goated. Then MKX didn’t liked it at all (cant handle a game with such bad animations). Loved 11 and now MK1 is like meh.
Wasn’t a sequel but I used to love League until Yone and the healing meta. Sylas saved it for a while; like I love gimmick chars and a rebel to boost, sign me TF in. But all in all the BS balance the toxicity the lack of respect for my time, it was too much. Switched to WF and couldn’t believe how chill it was.
Destiny. Played the heck out of 1, and 2 is just… Annoying. I still play, but I actively disuade people from picking it up.
It went from a mechanically fun game with garbage storytelling but amazing lore, to mechanically complex and hyper specialzed, still mostly garbage storytelling, and lore that is trying to constantly one up itself or nonexistent. The seasonal model was a mistake and it’s grindy for the sake of money. It really took a terrible turn down sitcom alley of having the seasonal content need stakes, but also not really change anything drastic. So it just feels like tasks for the sake of tasks… Which it is. A neverending treadmill where grinding has only very short lived rewards.
Don’t play many sequel games, so it’s hard to say.
Evil Genius 2. I loved Evil Genius 1 as a kid. It was far from perfect and had a lot of bugs, but it was a blast. I’m fully aware there’s a lot of rose tinted goggles going on for it in my mind. But I thought the new one would fix problems and be more enjoyable. It did improve on the first in a lot of ways, but it was so so grindy.
In EG1 you could send you minions into the world to steal money and complete missions (that gave points or loot, like stealing the Eifel Tower). I’m EG2, they kept this mechanic, but anyone you send to the world map is just gone. They cannot come back. This leads to just an annoying constant flow of recruiting more minions, training them to upgrade, and them being sent to the map forever to never return. It would perhaps be slightly better if you could increase the rate you recruit minions like the first game, but instead they always come at a constant rate and there is a button to recruit more but it’s buried in a menu. So many things in this game are buried in a menu.
Another frustration, they added a feature to automatically tag enemy agents that come to your base (to be killed, captured, distracted, etc) but they’re all under different research tiers. Why require the research at all? Right clicking agents and saying “tag for capture” is just pointless busy work. Even in the original you could hold control when you did it and it would flag the whole group. Not anymore. You can only tag one at a time.
There are just so many little things like this that made the game so annoying to play. I wanted to like it. But I just couldn’t enjoy it. The new art style is worse, too. It keeps the spy fi aesthetic but it’s much more cartoonish. The game is more diverse which is nice, the original was like all men. I also liked what they did with John Steele, the main antagonist more or less. Canonically you beat him and killed him but they pass on his mantle to new agents and train them to be like him. And they’re relatively weak, but like a constant threat.
Castlevania Lord of Shadow 2. Loved the first one and 2 was just bad. I wish they would have kept it as a God of War clone, with stunning visuals, game play and music
Wahots@pawb.social 1 month ago
Hal0 4 and Below Zero come to mind. Facebook buying beatsaber and ruining it with their filthy little hands, too. It took a huge nosedive in quality.