Franchises that need to take a LONG rest.

[elchevalier]

Sonic

So i heard Sonic Colors is pretty decent, havent played yet, but it will take no time to Sega to release another really bad game. As long as kids and furries keeps buying them the franchise will go on.

The King of Fighters

Aside from the usual (crazy) snk fans, i can't imagine anyone caring at all for this buggy mess of a franchise. Put it to sleep already.

Silent Hill

This will be more for a topic of "japanese companies that should stop giving their franchises to shitty western developers" but Konami doesn't care about this franchise anymore. Since it's more popular in the west they are just giving it to whoever raises their hand i guess.

Soul Calibur

The more naked the girls get, the more things go down the toilet with this franchise.

Final Fantasy

After the FF14 fiasco i had hopes, but now that FF13-2 is coming i guess this franchise will just keep going and going.

[ECM]

Oops, somehow missed this thread...

Yeah, I gave up on Soul Calibur after II, and I didn't even enjoy that as much as (DC) Soul Calibur.

SEGA *needs* to put Sonic on ice for a good while (they won't because it's basically the only thing they have that sells in meaningful numbers¹) and maybe take a more Nintendo approach: keep featuring him in spin-offs, but main Sonic games (which is a pretty blurry line anyway) like Colors and Unleashed, etc., need to be put on a slightly less whore-like schedule, say, once every two years instead of nearly every year. Sure, the furries will cry bitter tears (all the better!) but the rest of us will likely be rewarded w/ much, *much* better games. (Anyone else remember when a new Sonic game was an event on par w/ losing your virginity? Me either but, man, it was close!)

As for the rest, I either don't play them really at all (KoF, Silent Hill) or am generally ambivalent about them (FF), so, eh, whatever.

Personally, I wonder why we need a new Call of Duty *every* year. Yes, I understand: money to be made, but do we *need* it, i.e. are the people who play that series only moving on because of inertia or because the game really improves by leaps and bounds every November or so? Wouldn't they be likely to keep on playing the current version for another year if a new one didn't show up every annum?

And before anyone asks: why do I care if there's a new one every year? Because if they're spending tons of money developing a new CoD every year, they could probably finan,ce two (or more) *new* IPs w/ the money spent on a single CoD which, I think benefits most of us (including Activision who might find out that, hey, we actually have more than one franchise (two if you count WoW) to prevent us from going completely and utterly bankrupt should one of those pull a Guitar Hero).

I guess you could also lump *all* the yearly iterations of sports games in there, too. For example, how is it possible, after nearly 20 (!) years of annual revisions of Madden, that we don't have the perfect football game yet?! Maybe the answer is EA has no competition and that the fools buying it are buying it on auto-pilot even if the 'upgrades' are about as meaningful as adding a fourth cupholder to an SUV.

I also think Animal Crossing, short being turned into a true MMO, also fits in this category. Yeah, yeah, I enjoyed it, for a time, on Gamecube, but then you get the DS and Wii versions that are, essentially, the same game! Even w/ years between chapters! And sometimes with *less* content than previous versions, e.g. the NES games on Cube.

Maybe also Harvest Moon which I used to enjoy *a lot* but there just isn't enough ways to improve a farming sim without it turning into a half-baked RPG in the process, which is what has been happening for years now, to the point that it has a spin-off (Rune Factory) that's an ARPG w/ light farming elements (the new one even *dumbed down* the farming side so that it's almost non-existent).

I'm sure there are others, but I'm tapped and need to get back to work

¹ Sorry Yakuza fans, but that game, iirc, usually only manages to, roughly, break even.

[elchevalier]

Yakuza does sell very well....in Japan that is. Sonic just keeps selling well for some reason, well, for disturbing reasons mostly.

Also, i might be one of the few that liked Soul Calibur III, it had it's problems for sure, but it was still enjoyable. Certainly a lot more than the borefest that was SCIV.

[Justin]

Castlevania - If captain Picard can't breath new life into your series, nothing can.

[ECM]

I started to reply to this post w/ a scathing indictment of Hideo Kojima's storytelling ability that led (I like to think inexorably) to a 'Hitler and the Jews' joke but, for once in my life, sanity prevailed!

[ECM]

Geeze, even an allusion to such a joke just clears the place out...

[ECM]

I'm actually waiting for chevalier or hero0flight to come storming in here, guns blazing, over even the intimation that Hideo Kojima might not be the reincarnation of Tolstoy. (Though it's probably unlikely in chevalier's case.)

[ECM]

Yes, it's a very strange aesthetic he has going but, man, *a lot* of people love his games *and* his storylines

[elchevalier]

I had posted something here, but the board was acting weird, either that or the shitty pc at my local cyber place. Kojima's name slapped into the latest castlevania was just damage control from Konami, trying something desperate just to be sure the game would sell. As for Kojima, he is at his best when gameplay is involved, not so much with stories.

[Justin]

I liked Zone of the Enders, although to be fair it is pretty hard to screw up fighting robots in space.