Longrunning series that gradually worsened badly enough you like entries you previously didn't? - Perhaps I treated you too harshly, Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance

[SSj_Ness (Yiffed)]

I was thinking about replaying Kingdom Hearts 2, and it got me thinking about how badly KH3 dropped the ball. Final Fantasy characters took a backseat, modern Pixar trash got mixed in (inevitable), and it just doesn't seem fun.

I remember tolerating Dream Drop Distance enough to finish it but got burnt out on the series by that point. But thinking back, at least it had some neat ideas like its Pokemon-esque mechanics and introduced non-Final Fantasy Square-Enix characters into the series for the first time with Neku from The World Ends With You. I expected that to continue and maybe see Chrono Trigger characters or something, but no. Now it seems pretty good compared to KH3.

What series comes to mind for you?

 

[Fag Albert]

Heroes of might and Magic 6 & 7 has me a little less critical of the fourth game. It's still an absolute mess but I've grown to appreciate some of the stuff they tried doing with it.

 

[Croaking Spider]

I was thinking about replaying Kingdom Hearts 2, and it got me thinking about how badly KH3 dropped the ball. Final Fantasy characters took a backseat, modern Pixar trash got mixed in (inevitable), and it just doesn't seem fun.

Kingdom Hearts 3's release was such a kick in the nuts. My biggest gripe is how it feels like an expansion for KH2 that showed up a decade too late. I didn't play pretty much any of the handheld games except Chain of Memories, so image my shock when I start the game and have a whole slew of cast members that the game expects me to know/care care about thrown at me. It really feels like the game is starting mid-story, including having key abilities and equipment tied to significant plot points in the old games from the get-go.

As for my franchise, it's probably Serious Sam. Siberian Mayhem is on Gamepass, so I figured I might as well get my money's worth. The gameplay isn't bad, it's definitely a Serious Sam game. The humor has always been kind of quippy, but Sam has taken the same nosedive the Duke has over the years. I wouldn't pay full price for it.

I wouldn't say it's improved my opinions of other titles I didn't think highly of already (Serious Sam BFE is still mid), but it's made me appreciate the first 3 or 4 games in the franchise more.

 

[You gain Brouzouf]

Kingdom Hearts 3's release was such a kick in the nuts. My biggest gripe is how it feels like an expansion for KH2 that showed up a decade too late. I didn't play pretty much any of the handheld games except Chain of Memories, so image my shock when I start the game and have a whole slew of cast members that the game expects me to know/care care about thrown at me. It really feels like the game is starting mid-story, including having key abilities and equipment tied to significant plot points in the old games from the get-go.

As for my franchise, it's probably Serious Sam. Siberian Mayhem is on Gamepass, so I figured I might as well get my money's worth. The gameplay isn't bad, it's definitely a Serious Sam game. The humor has always been kind of quippy, but Sam has taken the same nosedive the Duke has over the years. I wouldn't pay full price for it.

I wouldn't say it's improved my opinions of other titles I didn't think highly of already (Serious Sam BFE is still mid), but it's made me appreciate the first 3 or 4 games in the franchise more.

A month or two before KH3 came out I replayed all of KH1 on proud mode, did a level 1 Critical mode run of KH2 and then played the handheld games/watched the cutscenes from that one game about the girl whowho's friends with Roxas that they made up.

Spoiler: sperging about how shit KH is after 2

What I discovered during this was that, while KH1 and 2 were as silly as I remember, the core of the story was pretty straight forward, had characters with understandable motivations, actually handled the crossover stuff very well and paced teh story out pretty well too.
The handheld games that came after KH2 felt a lot like watching a 1000 episode anime like Naruto where they just need to keep introducing new threats or new powers . Every bad guy is a puppet to another bad guy and slowly the things you liked about the character s turn out to be gifts given to them or borrowed from other people.
The writing got noticeably worse and then KH3 completely shat the bed by completely undoing the character arc Roxas had in KH2 and trying to juggle 30 pointless plot threads while not actually moving them along until the last hour of the game.
There were moments in KH2 that I thought actually hit the right notes emotionally but KH3 has to undo them by bring characters who died back to life and with little to no setup at that.
about a quarter of the way through the game I was annoyed by how uninteresting the gameplay was but by the end I was actually steaming about how poorly handled the story was.
Don't get me started on how shit all the worlds were.

I'm trying really hard to avoid also sperging out about the souls games so I'll leave it at this.
I think the games got extremely samey after Bloodborne and started focusing on the worst aspect of the souls games, that being the combat and bosses.
I never disliked Dark Souls 2 at all, but after 8 years of nearly identical slaphappy games with different coats of paint I've been revisiting DS2 more and more and have come away with a new appreciation for it each time to the point where I now rank it just under Dark Souls 1 as my favorite.

 

[Mega Black]

Starfield was bad enough over the ten or so hours I played it that I've been looking back fondly at Fallout 4 of all fucking games.

 

[Terror Sandwich]

When Dark Souls 2 came out it was heavily criticized for being uncreative, doing almost nothing new and feeling like a rehash of DaS1.
Then DaS3 came out and made DaS2 look like a breath of fresh air, filled with creativity and innovation.
Gameplay-wise, I still prefer 3 over 2, just because the engine they used in 2 is such a piece of shit that makes you feel like you are playing on the moon. But the areas and mechanics of 2 are much more appealing, they feel unique for the series even if they were unfinished.

 

[Judge Dredd]

What series comes to mind for you?

None. I stick to my honest opinion and fuck peer pressure to hate/love current thing. So far, it's never steered me wrong. Source: I own three copies of Resident Evil 5, and loved that game since release. I enjoyed watching everyone sweep RE5 under the rug when RE6 was the game they accused RE5 of being. I still defend Dino Crisis 2 as the best in the series.


But in the spirit of the thread. MRC: Multi-Racing Championship comes to mind. My brother convinced me to get it instead of some other game, and it was really bad. But over the years I look back fondly at it. It's still a bad game, but the style, vehicle designs, road car v off road racing, and overall weirdness to it makes me grateful for having to play that shit during my childhood.

But strictly by the title. I'm going to say Left 4 Dead 2, Payday 2, and Vermintide. I liked those games, but they each have major flaws. Left 4 Dead gets bland, Payday 2 had dumb DLC, and Vermintide's loot system. Yet each new co-op shooter from Destiny to Back 4 Blood make me appreciate them because despite their flaws, they at least got the basics right.

 

[Fastest Hand In The East]

I don't think it's a big revelation, but Victoria 3 made me appreciate previous Paradox map painters more.

 

[skykiii]

These examples might not precisely fit the topic, but...

When I first played Resident Evil 4, I did not like it. So I went and played the more traditional-styled Resident Evil Zero. Within hours I was going back to RE4. I still don't care for the RE4 style of gameplay but Zero was just so incompetent that freaking playing Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde would've been better.

I also used to not like Final Fantasy VII, but that's a case where the entire JRPG genre got so bad that FF7 is now a good game in comparison.

And sort of a weird example, lately I've been playing Breath of the Wild again but my moods fluxuate--when I first began, I was awash with nostalgia like "I remember when this first came out and how impressive it was!" and was addicted such that I actually missed sleep playing it.... but after awhile I started to remember all the issues I had with the game and remember all the ways it kinda sucked and....

Well, here's the thing: I never was a huge classic Zelda fan. Outside of nostalgia for the earlier entries, I find it hard to go back to them (especially 3D installments like Ocarina of Time) without getting annoyed at the series idosyncracies--I might say more in the Zelda topic itself--but BOTW made me sincerely want to play classic style Zelda. Even the first time I played it, after a week I found myself flipping over to the Switch's N64 library to play some Ocarina. More recently I've been flipping over to A Link to the Past.

The thing is, its not necessarily that I hate BOTW or anything (depending on the phase of the moon). Its a game that is good in short bursts or if you can mentally stay on task (despite it being so open I find its strongest if you play it like a tradiitonal Zelda game and just do the divine beasts and Master Sword). But for some reason it just drives me back to the classics, in a series I was never a huge fan of. Make of that what thou wilst.

 

[Dr. Geronimo]

Mega Man X is all I have to say on this matter.

 

[WelperHelper99]

I mean Halo. Reach was the last good game all around. The only saving grace of 5 was its multi-player, after tons of updates. Infinite just got boring and I gave up half way thru the campaign. Might pick it up again to play with my out of state buddy, but other than that, 343 and Microsoft took it out behind the shed and shot it. Which is sad, they released some cool action figures. Might give one of them to my nephews tbh.

 

[Tequila Jong]

Command and Conquer. The first three games are incredible, and in my head the series always ended with Tiberian Sun. I never liked the Firestorm expansion for Tiberian Sun, I thought the whole storyline about the Nod AI going rogue with all the cyborgs blew ass. After the series declining from Red Alert 2 to CnC4, I went back to Firestorm and actually really enjoyed it.

 

[Acrid Alchemist]

Pokemon easily. When Black and White were new I hated the new designs, the change in art style all around and how much endless talking there was. And then I played the 3DS games. Now while I still don't like Gen 5, I'm still a lot more positive on it than I am on Gen 6 onwards.

And then I went through the same thing again with the Switch games. It took me like 2 or 3 tries to get through the first few hours of UltraSun because no one shuts the fuck up for the first like four hours but at least eventually you are allowed to actually Pokemon. I then played Sword and literally the whole game is the first four miserable hours of USUM where you aren't allowed to walk 5 feet without everyone telling you their life story and gossip or whatever dumb bullshit. And the designs keep getting worse and worse.

 

[The Last Stand]

I'd say Call of Duty: Ghosts. Story takes itself so seriously with plot holes that you can just laugh at. Its art direction is actually consistent with its apocalyptic, drab setting with hidden gems sprinkled around the maps. And it has Snoop Dogg as an announcer for $2.99.

DLC back then was fairly priced in hindsight.

 

[Kiwi & Cow]

Surprised nobody said "Paper Mario" and used "Super Paper Mario" as an example of a game he or she hated, but not anymore.

Personally speaking there's literally no game franchise I liked that fit OP's description. Sonic is the closest, but even then that didn't make me like the trashfires that were made before. I think all it did is make me appreciate the classic gameplay more.

 

[You gain Brouzouf]

Surprised nobody said "Paper Mario" and used "Super Paper Mario" as an example of a game he or she hated, but not anymore.

Personally speaking there's literally no game franchise I liked that fit OP's description. Sonic is the closest, but even then that didn't make me like the trashfires that were made before. I think all it did is make me appreciate the classic gameplay more.

I've always enjoyed Super Paper Mario even if I was really thrown off when I first bought it and found out it wasn't an RPG.
Not a perfect game but I thought it was fine for what it was and did a good job of utilizing perspective in fun ways.

When Dark Souls 2 came out it was heavily criticized for being uncreative, doing almost nothing new and feeling like a rehash of DaS1.
Then DaS3 came out and made DaS2 look like a breath of fresh air, filled with creativity and innovation.
Gameplay-wise, I still prefer 3 over 2, just because the engine they used in 2 is such a piece of shit that makes you feel like you are playing on the moon. But the areas and mechanics of 2 are much more appealing, they feel unique for the series even if they were unfinished.

I feel like you notice how slidey DS2 is initially or if you are watching someone else play it but it pretty quickly fades into the background.
DS3 is more responsive but it's also incredibly shallow and linear. It's idea of good combat is the same as every other game post BB which is to say you spam light attack and sometimes spam your dodge or other main defensive option ad nauseum.
New Fromsoft games just feel extremely superficial to me and the most meaningful thing Elden Ring did was swap narrow hallway level design for giant fields that make replaying the game a nightmare.

 

[UCT]

None. I stick to my honest opinion and fuck peer pressure to hate/love current thing. So far, it's never steered me wrong. Source: I own three copies of Resident Evil 5, and loved that game since release. I enjoyed watching everyone sweep RE5 under the rug when RE6 was the game they accused RE5 of being. I still defend Dino Crisis 2 as the best in the series.


But in the spirit of the thread. MRC: Multi-Racing Championship comes to mind. My brother convinced me to get it instead of some other game, and it was really bad. But over the years I look back fondly at it. It's still a bad game, but the style, vehicle designs, road car v off road racing, and overall weirdness to it makes me grateful for having to play that shit during my childhood.

But strictly by the title. I'm going to say Left 4 Dead 2, Payday 2, and Vermintide. I liked those games, but they each have major flaws. Left 4 Dead gets bland, Payday 2 had dumb DLC, and Vermintide's loot system. Yet each new co-op shooter from Destiny to Back 4 Blood make me appreciate them because despite their flaws, they at least got the basics right.

The only truly based way of thinking to have. Fuck other opinions and like what you want nigga.

 

[Michael Wade]

I still think remind redeemed the disappointment of KH3, but yeah that did have a bad launch


FF13 is a clearer example plot wise. I remember watching spoony reviewing that, mindlessly agreeing with it, and then later watching the plot on youtube and being shocked how much I liked it. 13 had a lot more overall variety, color depth and character then FF15 and 16.

 

[Gender: Xenomorph]

Heroes of might and Magic 6 & 7 has me a little less critical of the fourth game. It's still an absolute mess but I've grown to appreciate some of the stuff they tried doing with it.

Never got why people hated HOMM4, besides it being completely different than 3, it was a good game

 

[11 Herbs and Spices]

Battlefield 4.

It was worse than 3 in most regards but damn, would I love to have it back instead of a retarded hero shooter with frontline grannies.