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Gunstar Ikari · Jun 25, 2017

Nuu said:
Better controls and combat. Worse game design, pacing, and presentation.

The last boss battle felt like a joke. And the game lacked the self-awareness of the first. Margaret Moonlight and a few of the boss fights were the ONLY good thing about this game. It was so obviously not made by Suda.

There are many things that can be said about No More Heroes 2 compared to the first game. But worse pacing? No More Heroes 1 is loaded with blatant padding that I absolutely did not miss in NMH2.

Desperate Struggle lacks the soul of the first game, but is by far the better game from a strictly game design standpoint.

selo · Jun 25, 2017

Ubisoft, the thread (probably has already been said, I dont know)

SomTervo · Jun 25, 2017

True Fire said:
Far Cry Primal

Also nominating Assassin's Creed Rogue and Syndicate. Black Flag was definitely off the conveyer belt, but at least it was good.

Syndicate had a bunch of new systems and was awesome. Arguably more than black flag which was just AC3 but designed way better.

SomTervo · Jun 25, 2017

Harlequin said:
Tomb Raider 2013
Rise of the Tomb Raider
Assassin's Creed: Revelations
Assassin's Creed III
Assassin's Creed: Syndicate
Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands
Uncharted: Golden Abyss

So much insane in this post

TR2013 wasn't even a sequel

AC3 added tons of new features and systems to the series - eg forests for the first time ever - and that was it's downfall, it wasn't cohesive

As mentioned, Syndicate added a bunch of systems and provided a very different experience to rogue/Unity/black flag

Golden Abyss had whole new gameplay systems?

Revelations and Sands seem pretty on point though.

KageMaru · Jun 25, 2017

acheron_xl said:
Crackdown 2?
Dragon Age II?

Ha, these were the two games I was going to mention. These and Far Cry Primal as well.

Lady Gaia · Jun 25, 2017

acheron_xl said:
Dragon Age II?

If they had an assembly line they might not have butchered the environment design so badly. It's easy to get caught up in what DA2 did wrong, but after stewing in disappointment and coming back to it years later I was surprised to find how much the sequel did right. It's anything but a cookie cutter clone of the first installment for good and ill.

Some incredibly memorable characters were introduced, the story arc is fantastic, and the structure of the narrative is creative. If it hadn't been so rushed it might have been a great game.

Joey Jo-Jo Jr · Jun 25, 2017

All musou games seem like reskins that they cobble together in a matter of months to fit such and such license.

Every Lego "star wars/marvel/the movie/jurassic park/etc etc" game. Lego city is the only one that didn't feel completely cookie cutter.

katsubento · Jun 25, 2017

Devil May Cry 2

COD Ghosts

Madao · Jun 25, 2017

F-Zero GPL and Climax for Game Boy Advance.

thse 2 only exist to complement the anime that came out around the same time. they feel like they were only clearing checkboxes to fill a quota since the games do nothing to push forward the series (especially GPL. Climax at least has some interesting ideas)

nickgia · Jun 25, 2017

Flandy said:

AA6 is included in this. I don't know how people can think these games are amazing. I preferred the direction that AA4 took, and they completely took a dump on it.

rfield84 · Jun 25, 2017

TheGameshark said:
Third modern warfare game comes to mind.

I was going to say this as well.

Cmerrill · Jun 25, 2017

Dark Souls 3.

It's the most uninspired of the series and really lost the thing that made Demon Souls and Dark Souls 1(and to a degree 2)something special.

It checks the boxes, but lost that loving feeling.

hatchx · Jun 25, 2017

Aters said:
Good old Ubisoft can make new IP that feels like that.

Watch Dogs 1? Lol

EhoaVash · Jun 25, 2017

assassins creed since 2 lol. Since then the characters in these games have sucked, the worlds of these games have felt uninspired, boring, just by the numbers games

Pokemon core rpgs since probably gold and silver.
This year's Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon screams get this out the door by the end of the year so we can cash grab whats remaining of 3ds userbase before the system has officially rotton

NSMB 2 lol coins coins coins like wtf gimmick is this..but hey it worked, this game sold as much as mario 3D land. sad

Mario party series still has no online mode wtf

EA sports. actually i can't say anything about this series, i haven't played it in years. but fine i'll judge it, it looks same since this gen started lol

UraMallas · Jun 25, 2017

Crackdown 2 was the first game that came to my mind. What a let down that ended up being.

Son Of Sparda · Jun 25, 2017

I agree with everyone who said Dark Souls 3. Felt like a very uninspired sequel.

Also Devil May Cry 2. Capcom started developing that without even telling Kamiya.

Funyarinpa · Jun 25, 2017

Dead Space 3. More specifically, it felt like a product line reject.

ProgenitorCastle · Jun 25, 2017

Psychoward said:
If anyone says Bioshock 2 or New Vegas we're no longer friends.

Anyway my answer would probably be all Tony Hawk games post-THUG. Just completely uninspired and got worse with each release.

DayEnder said:
I think Bioshock 2 would fit this. It's by no means a bad game, but it just didn't have that totally fresh feeling either. It filled the gap until the next game, but I don't think they had any idea how successful the first one would be and just cranked out a sequel quickly.

Edit: ^^ oh shit, sorry.

LMFAOOOO

Fewr · Jun 25, 2017

Given the direction they seem to be taking, er... Destiny 2?

I hope not, but we'll see.

EDIT:
oh! Monster Hunter! I like them, but they feel the same to me.

Hoho for breakfast · Jun 25, 2017

From what we know so far and have seen, Destiny 2 looks like it fits the bill.

We already know there's areas where they've arguably regressed like pvp going 6v6 max down to 4v4 max. There's no new class at all as far as we know, they took out the heavy machine guns, and graphically it looks like the same game as Destiny 1.

Dammit someone beat me. Prove me wrong Bungie I want to believe, but I absolutely don't at this point.

Exodust · Jun 25, 2017

Assassin's Creed. Cool settings and ideas wasted on a now trite formula with the same checklist bukkake map and automated gameplay you played back in 2007.

LowlySmokeGuy · Jun 25, 2017

Maple-Tech said:
Crackdown 2 used the exact same map as the first game.

For real? Damn I would have felt that's a scam if I paid $60 on bullshit like that.

The12thGripper · Jun 25, 2017

Zukkoyaki said:
- Every entry in the New Super Mario Bros. series
- Pokemon Black & White 2

Excuse me???

Flandy · Jun 25, 2017

nickgia said:
AA6 is included in this. I don't know how people can think these games are amazing. I preferred the direction that AA4 took, and they completely took a dump on it.

I miss hobo Wright

arigato · Jun 25, 2017

EhoaVash said:
assassins creed since 2 lol. Since then the characters in these games have sucked, the worlds of these games have felt uninspired, boring, just by the numbers games

Pokemon core rpgs since probably gold and silver.
This year's Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon screams get this out the door by the end of the year so we can cash grab whats remaining of 3ds userbase before the system has officially rotton

NSMB 2 lol coins coins coins like wtf gimmick is this..but hey it worked, this game sold as much as mario 3D land. sad

Mario party series still has no online mode wtf

EA sports. actually i can't say anything about this series, i haven't played it in years. but fine i'll judge it, it looks same since this gen started lol

Quite baffling once you have come to the realization where there still isn't any online mode in the Mario Party games.

Papo Swing · Jun 25, 2017

Yoshi's Story

I love the game, but it felt so disappointing after Super Mario World 2. The music is awesome but the way the stages work it was a really short game and it bummed me out a lot.

I remember a couple of N64 games giving me that rushed/cheap vibe.

Also Crackdown has always been dissapointing. It was always branded to be made by some ex rockstar or something and I always expected a game with a good narratice and SP game. Don't get me wrong it is a fun game, but felt really shallow/rushed presentation/story wise. Same for 2 and I exprct ir for 3.

Edit: I think the demo of the 1st Crakcdown was a contributor to this because it gave out too much of the game.

unknownstranger · Jun 25, 2017

TheMagician said:
New Super Mario Bros - The Thread.

My first thought. NSMB2 was especially bad. It lacked the power-up variety of NSMBW and had maybe the blandest level design in the series (including the DS one). They tried to rectify fans by bringing back the original leaf power-up after 3D Land (which gets an honorable mention for this thread), but it didn't add a whole lot to the game. The only thing I give it credit for is having one of the best final bowser fights in the series (only have it slightly behind NSMBW).

I'll mention NSMBU as well but it had the best level design in the series and tried something a little different with the overworld compared to the rest of the series.

Edit: Also NSMB2 came out like 9 months after 3D Land so it shows how much time and effort they put into it.

Offline · Jun 25, 2017

Flandy said:

I think this game was inhibited more by catering to the 3DS's unique tech features and bad focus testing that made the game too easy compared to the other games. I felt part of the artstyle was lost due to the hardware increase too.

Toadthemushroom · Jun 25, 2017

Where to start with this one...

...Well, here are the games:

Katamari was never intended to be a concept, or even series, to be milked as a cash cow. In fact, creator Keita Takahashi even called it a comment on consumerism.

He also explained why he left Bandai Namco:

"I find it quite boring that if a company creates one thing that sells really well then obviously the company is going to work on almost similar types of things to make more profit," he said.
"I can't deny the fact that people work on sequels. After all, it's a business. But at the same time, in the past decade or so, I've only seen most companies working on the safe side making more sequels.
"I haven't seen anyone trying to make something really new out of the profit they made from those sequels."

As for the games themselves, we know Namco greenlit them because they knew the series sold, even though its creator never had the intention to work on them. Indeed, the last game Takahashi did work on was We Love Katamari - the second PS2 game.

I remember David Jenkins' review of the Vita launch Katamari game encapsulating the problem well:

David Jenkins said:
We hate what Namco Bandai has done to Katamari Damacy. The whole point of the original game on the PlayStation 2 was that it was completely unique: a one note joke that nevertheless proved how unusual and inventive video games could be in the hands of an inspired creator. Since the original was never released in Europe a single sequel made sense.

But for us to now be enduring the ninth (including three mobile iterations) regurgitation of the exact same game makes other yearly updated sequels look like paradigms of innovation by comparison.

Although creator Keita Takahashi was involved in the sequel We Love Katamari he's had nothing to do with any of the subsequent games – in fact he long ago left Namco Bandai in disgust. As a result all the other games have been soulless reruns of the original, turning the absurdist humour into a painfully unfunny production line of non sequiturs.

...

The only slack we're willing to cut Namco Bandai is that it's not their fault that they haven't expanded the concept in all these years, it's simply that it has nowhere else to go. The original game was a statement against unoriginal sequels and crass commercialism, and yet it's now become exactly what Keita Takahashi was reacting against in the first place.

Kresnik258 · Jun 25, 2017

Gonna get a little retro in here.

- Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex. It's effectively Crash Bandicoot 3.1 made by a different development studio. Pretty much just a rehash of the third game, except nowhere near as good and has absolutely no heart or soul.

- Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly. Exact same situation as Crash. "How can we innovate?" "Let's make him breath electricity and ice!". Well nope, that doesn't make for a good game when it's so poorly optimized; so badly designed and lacking so much content. A literal cash-in sequel.

- Twisted Metal 3 & 4. As soon as SingleTrac were pulled off the franchise it just went to shit. A "rolled off the production line" pair of sequels of the highest order.

To some extent, I feel like Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters and Jak: The Lost Frontier are soul-less sequels as well, but I did at least have more fun with them than the above games.

Basically: this happens often to ex-PlayStation franchises once the original developers do something else.

pennypincher said:
Tomb Raider in the 32Bit era.

That's a good shout. iirc, one of the developers literally said Chronicles was a phoned-in sequel:

"Tomb Raider 5 was effectively a load of old shit. That was the most depressing one for us. We were effectively just doing that for a paycheck because no other team wanted to take it on. So we had to do it, basically. By that time it had taken its toll. Three years of hammering it, and we were burnt out. That shows in the product."[

laxu · Jun 25, 2017

epeternally said:
Dark Souls III. It's painfully derivative and feels like an inferior rehash of the first game. DS2 may be a less focused Souls experience but at least it had no shortage of imagination.

Usually I end up feeling the opposite of this about games, most of today's AAA output is completely underappreciated by the enthusiast gaming scene. Our standards have gotten so alarmingly high that some people have lost sight of what great experiences so-called 'mediocre' games can be. (And in all fairness, I had a very good time with DS3 despite finding it to be unoriginal.)

Dark Souls 3 turns up the fan service up way too much with the numerous references and re-visits. It's a really, really good game that I have played thru several times but it's also a real shame that they threw away nearly all the good parts of DS2.

I still wouldn't say it's a paint by numbers game in any way.

jptuo · Jun 25, 2017

Company of Heroes 2

laxu · Jun 25, 2017

Exodust said:
Assassin's Creed. Cool settings and ideas wasted on a now trite formula with the same checklist bukkake map and automated gameplay you played back in 2007.

Pretty much. The only break in this cycle so far has been IV as the ship battles were a lot of fun. AC Origins based on the alpha gameplay vids does not look like something I'll bother buying.

The developers of the series have been good in providing new areas to explore but haven't bothered fixing the main issue with the game which is horrible side missions and the lack of variety with them. A common open world issue that also plagues the Far Cry series. Witcher 3 is the only recent game that has been able to mask the issue by having good storytelling even in the side missions and less obvious "this is mission type X".

Garrett Hawke · Jun 25, 2017

Human Trashcan said:
Dragon Age 2, which I liked more than most, definitely felt cheap and quick based on how often they reused maps and how poorly designed combat encounters were with the monster closets.

Imo it def didn't feel rolled off a production line, you could see they genuinely TRIED to make something actually different from DA:O. They just weren't given anywhere near enough time.

Creamium · Jun 25, 2017

TetraGenesis said:
If it was a carbon copy of Infamous 2 it would have been a much better game.

The problem with Second Sun is the stuff it didn't carry over from its predecessor.

What was that again? I don't remember what was added/removed in between entries. Most people felt I2 was superior over the original but I didn't really feel that way, still like the original best.

When I read this in the OP: "or you get the feeling that it's really just been cranked out to fill the gap in a platform holder's release schedule", my mind just immediately went to SS. Really felt like a rushed sequel, even First Light was better because it was a short and focused experience.

Steroyd · Jun 25, 2017

Id say Assassins Creed, but I'll extend that to Ubisoft open world games in general, they feel so similar in structure it feels like they've all come from the same assembley line but customising the odd part here and there.

Splinter Cell Blacklist had the same stealth HUD as Far Cry 3 ffs.

Wolf Akela · Jun 25, 2017

Toadthemushroom said:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/60/Ridge_Racer_2_psp.jpg[IMG]

A phenomenal game, but it shares so much in common with the (also phenomenal) Ridge Racers that you'd be forgiven for thinking Sony printed the wrong game on the UMD upon starting it up.[/QUOTE]

It's pretty much a Ridge Racers 1: Special Edition.

It's the [i]exact same game[/i] with a some extra tracks, cars and music. Luckily it was the first and only Ridge Racer game I played on the PSP! Super awesome game.

hotcyder · Jun 25, 2017

Does every Guitar Hero and Rock Band game apart from the first entries count (or are they totally obvious choices) ?

Fbh · Jun 25, 2017

Honestly, if feel like most Sequels made by Ubisoft fall under this.

Most of their games in general feel like they were designed by executives in a meeting room following a checklist.

Whompa02 · Jun 25, 2017

God Ubisoft is just shameless with its design mirroring previous games.

The worst part is that it works.

MrBadger · Jun 25, 2017

Kirby Squeak Squad is basically just rearranged assets from the previous two games with a couple of new ideas that don't work properly or aren't effective enough to matter.

Offline said:
I think this game was inhibited more by catering to the 3DS's unique tech features and bad focus testing that made the game too easy compared to the other games. I felt part of the artstyle was lost due to the hardware increase too.

I disagree, I think they did a fantastic job converting the art style into 3D, and it's the writing that makes this game bad.

nickgia said:
AA6 is included in this. I don't know how people can think these games are amazing. I preferred the direction that AA4 took, and they completely took a dump on it.

I thought AA6 was decent, but the whole series would be far better if they didn't do a complete U-turn on everything Apollo Justice set up. Phoenix doesn't need to be a lawyer anymore.

Harlequin · Jun 25, 2017

SomTervo said:
So much insane in this post

TR2013 wasn't even a sequel

AC3 added tons of new features and systems to the series - eg forests for the first time ever - and that was it's downfall, it wasn't cohesive

As mentioned, Syndicate added a bunch of systems and provided a very different experience to rogue/Unity/black flag

Golden Abyss had whole new gameplay systems?

Revelations and Sands seem pretty on point though.

2013 wasn't a direct sequel to any one game but it was a sequel in a long-running franchise. As for games adding new features, that's not necessarily what I understood the description in the OP to mean. I'll have to go and re-read it but I think I understood it more as "does this game feel like it was made off a checklist" or "does this game feel like it was cobbled together just to have something to release".

FAKE EDIT: Here, this is the description from the OP:

You know the feeling. Sometimes a series receives a new entry, but it lacks that spark, or it's lacking content, or it's obviously been made to tick a box, or you get the feeling that it's really just been cranked out to fill the gap in a platform holder's release schedule. Or maybe there's something else about it which makes it feel like it's kind of rolled off an assembly line, tell us why you think your chosen games feel like they rolled off a production line.

It's obviously not just asking for games that didn't innovate on their predecessors' feature sets.

Forward · Jun 25, 2017

Street Fighter 5 feels like it just rolled off of a production line. Like, off the first stretch of conveyor belt, even.

Randdalf · Jun 25, 2017

MrBadger said:
Kirby Squeak Squad is basically just rearranged assets from the previous two games with a couple of new ideas that don't work properly or aren't effective enough to matter.

HAL's Kirby team churn out games like crazy. I can't comment on their quality though since I haven't played any of them.

Sami+ · Jun 25, 2017

Flandy said:

Yep. I don't get the praise. I didn't care much for it at launch and definitely don't now.

FUNKNOWN iXi said:
Smash 4

Nah. Smash 4 they definitely made an effort on.

They went out of their way to take Brawl and made it faster to give the fans some lip service, then manually took out literally every single advanced technique and combos and heavily nerfed most offensive options while buffing shields and recoveries.

DACUS (Dash Attack Cancelled Up Smash) was a cool offensive option that was heavily used in Brawl and Project M that was in the 3DS version... for like a month, before they patched it out.

Then Sakurai went to a Japanese tournament that some American top players flew out to and later said in an interview that he was surprised to see people playing so defensively. Like yeah no shit y'all went out of your way to kneecap like 90% of the previous two games offensive techniques and made defense practically impenetrable. 😒😒

Shift Breaker · Jun 25, 2017

A lot of the GH games and spinoffs may be considered this, but it's a tough call to say which is the most. Probably either Greatest Hits or Van Halen. The latter didn't even have its songs export to GH5.

Camper Van Beethoven said:
Rock Band 4

Only it somehow was worse than the games before it.

I love RB4. But definitely this, at least at launch. Featureless, not streamlined, pretty much churned out on the new consoles, probably released when it was to compete with GH Live. But there's been a lot of post-launch support, and not just adding stuff that should be there in the first place. Brutal Mode, Missions, the Rivals Expansion and the free songs that go with it. RB3 is probably the people's favourite, but once it was released, it was basically done with. The PS3 version of RB3 didn't even get the latest patch and practice mode was often unusuable as it booted you back to the XMB.

prag16 · Jun 25, 2017

RPGam3r said:
Black Flag may be the worst selection of the series to say it is "off the conveyer belt."

Eh. Gaf hates AC3, but AC4 has almost nothing actually "new" coming off of 3.

And I personally preferred the story and setting of 3, so.. ¯_(&#12484

_/¯

The Last Wizard · Jun 25, 2017

InsaneTiger said:
No, gameplay felt more muted. The smoke power was super underwhelming and the gamw didn't get interesting until you got the Neon powers. Killing off Cole was a mistake.

Going with the good ending to 2 was a mistake. Should've done the evil ending.

The Boat · Jun 25, 2017

People dismissing NSMB 2 probably missed that playing for coins in the other modes (or the normal mode) is a complete game changer in terms of how you progress and how the levels are built and offer challenge. I thought the game was way too safe until I started playing the other modes, then I saw what's really good about NSMB 2. It is a hard sell though, "basing a whole" Mario game around an optional mechanic.

People dissing the whole New series are just cray cray and can't see beyond art style. From multiplayer and massive improvements in level design as the series went on to the challenge mode and accessibility features like the bubble and super guide, these games always brought something important to the table and evolved the series.

The Boat · Jun 25, 2017

unknownstranger said:
Edit: Also NSMB2 came out like 9 months after 3D Land so it shows how much time and effort they put into it.

Made by different teams.
Edit: um, double post, sorry!

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