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Anime Where Game Series Should Have Ended

Lemming42

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There's plenty of game series that have dragged on too long, becoming sad hollow zombies. With all the remakes and sequels and remakes of sequels coming out lately, I've been thinking a lot about points at which game series "should" have ended.

For example, where would you have stopped the Fallout series? After New Vegas? After Fallout 2? Maybe you're even one of those people who thinks the first Fallout stands alone, and never needed any sequels.

And what about Thief? Would you have ended the series with Thief 2, or Deadly Shadows? Or even just had Thief TDP stand on its own as a masterpiece, no sequels necessary?

List your opinions, the more controversial the better. Whoever gets the most retarded ratings wins the thread. I'll start:
- Fallout should have ended with New Vegas. I think New Vegas is worth having to deal with Tactics, BoS, and Fo3 as weird spinoff-y abberations.

- Diablo didn't need any sequels.

- Final Fantasy should probably have stopped at FFX, if not before that.

- Tomb Raider should have ended with Tomb Raider 2, but 2 is an odd number for a series so maybe throw TR3 or TLR in there as a third entry depending on which you like more.

- Don't know how controversial this is, but Resident Evil didn't need to become such a huge franchise. The first game stands fine on its own as a great Alone in the Dark knockoff with a fantastically funny B-movie feel, and it didn't need any sequels. A lot of the subsequent games are fun and technically better than RE1 in a lot of ways, but they all feel sort of superfluous and unnecessary since the first game already basically got the formula perfect, I dunno.

- Half-Life never needed any sequels, or even expansion packs.

- Here we go, big controversy time: System Shock didn't need a sequel. Come retard-rate me.
 
Self-Ejected

Thac0

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Whoever gets the most retarded ratings wins the thread. I'll start:

Drops this as a starter and begins to list literally the most mild and agreeable opinions possible lol.


Baldurs Gate should have been a standalone title. BG2 is a fine game, it would have been better with no connection to BG1. It barely has one to begin with, your Bhaalspawn only matters because Irenicus wants it. This is not true for Throne of Bhaal, which should have been the real BG2.

Final Fantasy should have branched after FF6. FF7 was the first title to cater to the overseas market, and the first title that sold less than expected in Japan as a result. It blew up with the Americans tho, since they like androgynous anime swordsmen with oversized swords in black leather more than the Japanese do. FF6 should have become it's own series called Original Fantasy or some shit with only FF9 staying mainline, called OF7. The rest should restart ordering at FF1 for FF7 since Final Fantasy is a pretty strong name for the international market.

Gothic II and Risen I had garbage Sequels, I am not very sure if making more new IPs would have lessened or solved that. In any way the comparison would be less glaring.

Dark Souls did not need a sequel. Demon Souls, Sekiro and Bloodborne are proof that FromSoft is much stronger creatively when they make a new IP each game.

Pillars of Eternity 2 should not have been a sequel, it should have been a standalone story, in the same world if they really want to. I think a big factor for people not buying that game, despite it being vastly superior to Pillars 1 and almost a good rpg, is that it directly continues the wankery about their lame gods with shitty names. Imagine Pillars 2 was just a story about a Kraken cult or some other conspiracy on the islands.

HoMM III needs a sequel but not from Ubisoft. HoMM IV can stay on a tree smoking crack, its good as a breath of fresh air. I take those russians that made HoMM V, I do not know to this day how they got that incline past Ubisoft.



But this is all asuming the studios would have made a game of similar quality if they did not make a sequel. How cucked would have one to be to just literally want to erase options from the market as a consumer?
You need a game like Underworld Ascendant for that that genuinly insults the license it was made for.
 

ekrolo2

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Halo should've stopped at 3. I really like Reach, it might be my favorite of the whole series and while I also dig stuff about 4, I'll take not getting either if it meant leaving it well the fuck alone.
 

kangaxx

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Red Dead should have stopped at 1. The second is the most overrated load of rubbish I've ever played. I stopped playing games of any kind for a few weeks after I finally slogged my way through it (plus epilogue(?!?!?)).
 

Lemming42

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Oh, since there's discussion going on in the Max Payne thread right now, here's another one:
- Max Payne didn't need any sequels.

Drops this as a starter and begins to list literally the most mild and agreeable opinions possible lol.

Well I'm a mild and agreeable person. :positive: The System Shock one has got to get at least a couple people mad though, surely. The System Shock 2 revisionism where everyone inevitably one day realises that it's kind of shit hasn't kicked in on this site (yet).

I agree about the idea of devs starting new IPs instead of making sequels. Half-Life 2 is one that I think would have worked much better as a new IP (which it almost basically is anyway) - Half-Life would get to stay on its own as a complete and self-contained thing without anything else weighing it down, and Half-Life 2 would have been maybe a little bit more free to try other things.
 

Vlajdermen

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Thinking about what to say here, I realized that most of my favourite vidya aren't a part of any series. Still, to give my two cents:

-Dark Souls 2 was good, but didn't need to exist

-Aria of Sorrow should've been the last castlevania because that's where the series was perfected, everything past that was factory-made trash

-Doom should've ended with Doom 2. Even the expansions like Plutonia were pointless

-the Sonic series is like a never-ending car crash which I want to see through to the end

-Call of Duty should've ended with Black Ops 2*. I can't escape the feeling that that series went out of style with the troll face

*
That's not to say modern warfare 2 and 3 were any good
 
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Butter

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Some of these are pretty obvious and non-controversial.

Deus Ex should have stopped after the first game.

Starcraft should have stopped after Brood War.

Fallout should have stopped after Fallout 2.

Grand Theft Auto should have stopped after San Andreas.

Ultima should have stopped after Serpent Isle.
 

DalekFlay

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If we're talking about sequels that weren't good and hurt the story, I'll say Half-Life 2's episodes. Half-Life 2 ended pretty well and set up the premise of Freeman being bounced around time solving problems, with a great sacrifice from Alex, but then the episodes retcon all that and keep Freeman in the same spot with Alex just fine. This then led to the VR sequel thing again being in the same area, with the same characters, doing the same shit. Half-Life as a series has now become Half-Life 2 the series, basically, which annoys me.

I think you can always make a good sequel though, pretty much, so I wouldn't say anything is off limits. Nothing about Thief 3 screams "they should never make another one," they just happened to make a bad modern one (supposedly, I haven't played it). You can definitely drive a series into the ground with too many meh sequels too fast though, like the original Tomb Raider series.
 

Butter

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I think you can always make a good sequel though, pretty much, so I wouldn't say anything is off limits. Nothing about Thief 3 screams "they should never make another one," they just happened to make a bad modern one (supposedly, I haven't played it). You can definitely drive a series into the ground with too many meh sequels too fast though, like the original Tomb Raider series.
Thief 3 is good, but once you start making the games for console, you never go back. The series was only ever going to decline from there.
 

Erikkolai

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Lands of Lore 3, and Legends of Kyrandia 3 (Malcolm's Revenge), should never have happened. At least not the way they did.

I'm still traumatized from crossing into the 'Command & Conquer dimension' in LOL3 (muh immersion!).

The Kyrandia-series went from being a traditional adventure series with some comic relief, to being a full-blown comedy game with a... laugh track.

:negative:
 

Zed Duke of Banville

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Gabriel Knight should have ended with Sins of the Fathers rather than delving into the short-lived FMV fad for its first sequel and then creating a poorly-plotted 3D game for its finale.

9884-gabriel-knight-sins-of-the-fathers-dos-screenshot-title-screen.gif
9886-gabriel-knight-sins-of-the-fathers-dos-screenshot-bookstore.gif

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Ghulgothas

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F.E.A.R. Extraction Point. The whole series is a great case study of modern industry trends seeping into what was once a really novel idea!

Halo Reach. Wereafter true franchise Zombification begins.

Dead Rising 2: Off the Record. What-if Scenarios can be fun and all, but can you imagine a more horrible fate that being at the mercy of French-Canadian developers?

Monkey Island 2. Or 'How far one can go walking backwards'

Oddworld Abe's Exoddus. Because the Oddworld Quintilogy was just too grand of an idea to be realized...
 

Erikkolai

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Gabriel Knight should have ended with Sins of the Fathers rather than delving into the short-lived FMV fad for its first sequel and then creating a poorly-plotted 3D game for its finale.

9884-gabriel-knight-sins-of-the-fathers-dos-screenshot-title-screen.gif
9886-gabriel-knight-sins-of-the-fathers-dos-screenshot-bookstore.gif

9885-gabriel-knight-sins-of-the-fathers-dos-screenshot-the-first.gif
9890-gabriel-knight-sins-of-the-fathers-dos-screenshot-napoleon-bar.gif

I agree about GK3. Loved the writing and characters in GK2 though. It had some very memorable moments.

unnamed.jpg


Joanne_Takahashi03%40Erotic_Confessions_Chinese_Take-Out-LunarScan2684_2-500.jpg
 
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DalekFlay

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F.E.A.R. Extraction Point. The whole series is a great case study of modern industry trends seeping into what was once a really novel idea!

I found the second expansion better honestly. Was surprised since most say it's the worst. I agree FEAR 2 is meh, and FEAR 3 is terrible. Recently replayed the whole series.
 

Morpheus Kitami

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May 14, 2020
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Maybe I'm in the minority, but I felt that Tomb Raider was fine until Angel of Darkness, and the only reason that was shit was because it didn't have enough time in the oven.

Alone in the Dark should never have had sequels. I haven't played any of them, quality isn't the issue, but rather the original idea was better. The anthology idea.
Starcraft, Age of Empires, Warcraft, any RTS that got a sequel/expansion/remake twenty years after their relevance.
Quake's sequels are basically different games, for some reason they tacked the Quake name onto those.
 

Alex

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(...snip)

Ultima should have stopped after Serpent Isle.

I actually liked a lot of things about Ultima 8. Possibly because it was my first Ultima. But, of course, it was a very flawed game with problems all over. Nevertheless, it wouldn't have made sense to stop Ultima after Serpent Island, since it ended with a cliffhanger. Despite how badly it ended, the Black Gate, Underworld 2 and Serpent Island games were planned as part of a bigger series from the get go.
 

mogwaimon

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I'll opt to begin with narrative approach rather than a 'this is where the decline happened' one, I think. All the Kingdom Hearts games after 2 probably should have never happened, the second one tied up the story nicely in a satisfying way and while I liked what KH3 did with the Pixar worlds it ultimately dropped the ball in more ways than one...and we're talking about a series that was never objectively great to begin with; despite my enjoyment of the series I acknowledge it's not really the best in anything. now the story is a convoluted mess with huge revelations hidden in a goddamn mobile game of all things and apparently this was just the first saga and it's like...i was fine with how it was left before, thanks.

The Saints Row games after 2. 3 and 4 had some neat ideas but I feel like they tried too hard and lost a lot of charm and soul with the direction they went in, and ironically enough they went too far in the wacky direction because the devs wanted to set their own identity apart from being 'that edgy GTA clone' while GTA went further towards realism and away from the nice balance that was present in San Andreas/Saints Row 2. I often wish that Volition had continued putting out San Andreas clones and that Saints 4 was a much more refined game of that type instead of what it was.

Doom games after 2. Maybe Doom 64. Doom 1 and 2 were perfect and still get great mods/TCs today, and Doom 2016 is basically a glorified arena shooter which...isn't really what Doom is. The appeal of Doom is partly the action itself, yea, but it's also tight level design and encounters. I feel like in modern Doom that's been totally lost, because by the end of that game they basically just toss waves of monsters at you ad infinitum without any real nuance or cleverness. Haven't done Eternal yet but based on what I've seen it's going to be more of the same but better, mostly.

Gears of War should have ended with 3 as well, probably. who the hell wants to gib robots in a game famous for blood and guts anyway? and while we're talking about Epic franchises, Unreal Tournament 3 shouldn't have happened either. shoulda just took UT2004 and turned it into UT2010, 2016, 2020, whatever. somehow they lost the magic between 2k4 and 3...

finally, agree with Dead Rising Off The Record. I love Frank West but with how little they really changed things it should have been a DLC of some kind rather than a full blown side game.
 

JDR13

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F.E.A.R. Extraction Point. The whole series is a great case study of modern industry trends seeping into what was once a really novel idea!

I couldn't agree more. It went downhill pretty fast after that.. especially with FEAR 2.

Doom games after 2. Maybe Doom 64. Doom 1 and 2 were perfect and still get great mods/TCs today, and Doom 2016 is basically a glorified arena shooter which...isn't really what Doom is. The appeal of Doom is partly the action itself, yea, but it's also tight level design and encounters. I feel like in modern Doom that's been totally lost, because by the end of that game they basically just toss waves of monsters at you ad infinitum without any real nuance or cleverness. Haven't done Eternal yet but based on what I've seen it's going to be more of the same but better, mostly.

The newer Dooms really aren't bad. You just have to accept that they're very dfferent from Doom 1 & 2.
 

JDR13

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- Final Fantasy should probably have stopped at FFX, if not before that.

I'd say FF 7. Almost everything after that is pretty shit imo.

- Don't know how controversial this is, but Resident Evil didn't need to become such a huge franchise. The first game stands fine on its own as a great Alone in the Dark knockoff with a fantastically funny B-movie feel, and it didn't need any sequels. A lot of the subsequent games are fun and technically better than RE1 in a lot of ways, but they all feel sort of superfluous and unnecessary since the first game already basically got the formula perfect, I dunno.

Nah... that series is great. Not every game but a lot of them.

- Half-Life never needed any sequels, or even expansion packs.

I mean... the game literally ends on a cliffhanger. So no.

- Here we go, big controversy time: System Shock didn't need a sequel. Come retard-rate me.

I won't retard-rate you, but it's a very odd opinion considering how good System Shock 2 is. Have you actually played it?
 
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Thac0

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I'm very into cock and ball torture
From a
narrative approach

All the Kingdom Hearts sequels
especially
should have never happened

Kingdom Hearts 1 was a charming game, that was more rpg than action and told a small and finished arc around a boy from an island travelling disney worlds to stop the darkness. KH2 starts with said boy emerging from a cyberpod on a foreign world, having been digitalised by a pedo in read and there is a troupe of 13 greater faggots around, since the god damn GBA sequel Chains of Memories has vital lore to the story.
 

Generic-Giant-Spider

Guest
Wasteland 1 is the most obvious to me.

Red Dead should have stayed on the trajectory Revolver set as a big homage to spaghetti Westerns and not yet another boringly cinematic slogfest it became.

Symphony of the Night/Circle of the Moon. My big issue with every game after COTM is it felt like it tried too hard to deliver SOTN all over again but it never succeeded. COTM was a great merger of an IGAvania and Classicvania and then it became walk-in-the-park difficulty games that was too much like little bro trying to dress up like big bro. Harmony of Dissonance was forgettable, Aria of Sorrow was good but again nowhere near SOTN levels and the lack of actual Dracula is a disgusting sin, the DS games were decent but nothing special. There was one where you had to draw sigils on the screen to kill bosses which was one mega retarded mechanic and is nearly impossible on emulator, but I'll chalk that up to Nintendo probably forcing every single developer having to incorporate their latest gay hardware gimmick.

And you want a CONTROVERSIAL one? I'll give you a CONTROVERSIAL one...

Neverwinter Nights 1.

Oh yes, MOTB and shit, but listen up... the whole strength of NWN was the creation tools to make your own campaigns and share them online. NWN2 threatened to split the creation community up which always ends up feeling like shit and thus I never liked it or agreed with it. I also remember thinking back then it was just an unnecessary sequel to a game that was seeing a good fan following that was doing what was intended and that's creating your own adventures and it wasn't like it came out ten or fifteen years later but only a few years had lapsed and by that point we were seeing people become much more comfortable with Aurora.

I just think the whole point of NWN was forgotten with NWN2. It would've been better if NWN2 was named something entirely different.
 

deuxhero

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Flowery Land
From all I've heard about Mega Man X, it should have ended at 3, MAYBE 4.

Fire Emblem should have ended with the remake of New Mystery of the Emblem. Waifu bait ruined the series.
 

Butter

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tl;dr "games that other people like shouldn't exist because I don't like them"
Or "the prestige of a series would be maintained if it didn't include duds".
 

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