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[epeternally]

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.)

 

[Jay Sosa]

New Vegas were also an incredibly buggy game when it came out. The design of it is pretty good, but it had other pretty significant issues.

Sure..but it's far from what the OP is talking about(I think). I mean sure, it uses the same exact engine and looked outdated even back then..but man the dialogue, the content, the humor. Compared to Fallout 3 it was a return back to form. For one game at least..

(Not that FO3 is a bad game..but it holds no candle to the second one)

 

[hikarutilmitt]

Much as I love them, this is essentially Mega Man 3-6 the thread. Starting with 3 they all used the same engine with some occasionally slight modifications for certain aspects. The same engine was even used for Darkwing Duck.

 

[SlipperyFishes]

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.

In with you. It just didn't feel like it was doing anything special. And it treated DLC as non important packaged content with no endings.

 

[Camper Van Beethoven]

Rock Band 4

Only it somehow was worse than the games before it.

 

[SmokedMeat]

Made in Wario/Mario Party 10: It's a shame the Wii U versions of these games were mailed in. Wii U deserved better.

Forza 5,6,7...feels like they're on an assembly line.

Ridge Racer Vita: Man, what a half assed turd. In the face of the incredible PSP entry, it's an embarassment.

Call of Duty Declassified: I guess it was the limitations of the hardware, but man, I wished it was better. I feel Activision needs to make it up to us with a strong Switch CoD.

Metal Slug 4,5: After 3, it was downhill city.

 

[requiem02]

Ratchet & Clank: Into The Nexus

Incredibly short and overall pretty unremarkable, especially when compared to the previous (and brilliant) entries in the Future Saga.

 

[Calm Mind]

Call of Duty since Black Ops 2 the thread

 

[CEJames]

Tales of Xillia 2. Too much asset reuse of the 1st in their attempt to make an explore anywhere open world.

 

[Lady Gaia]

Tales of Xillia 2 felt like it might as well have been a fan-made remix of the original. Not that the first game felt groundbreaking, but I was expecting far fewer shortcuts and less blatant reuse in the sequel. Ah, well. I've pretty much written off the series as a result.

EDIT: d'oh! I had just searched the thread to make sure it hadn't already been mentioned...

 

[Taco_Human]

How fucking dare you, no.

 

[MrGoomba]

The force unleashed was a great game, the sequence was short and mediocre in my opinion

 

[TheGameshark]

Third modern warfare game comes to mind.

 

[TetraGenesis]

InFamous: Second Son. Graphically it was a showcase for the new PS4 sure, but gameplay-wise it was just another InFamous game that felt like a carbon copy of the PS3 titles. Also had the same repetitive side missions copy pasted in every district of the city.

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.

 

[Toadthemushroom]

I agree with Dual Destinies. It was a dreadfully boring and uninspired game and I basically had to force myself to finish it. SoJ was almost as bad tho.

Only saving grace for me from Dual Destinies was the DLC episode Turnabout Reclaimed. I'd deleted the original game off my 3DS so I grabbed the iOS version and the DLC for it and it won me over, I loved the premise, how events unfolded and the final twist at the end.

Felt like classic Ace Attorney, and I think it being DLC helped the team just focus on making a great standalone case.

 

[guyssorry]

I love the game to death, but Dark Souls III felt like this to me. It lacked the imagination and creativity that I experienced in Dark Souls 2 SOTFS (only version I played) and reminded me of how Twilight Princess really tried way too hard to appease the Ocarina of Time fanbase (in this case, DSIII is TP and DS1 is OOT) after Wind Waker.

 

[Shpeshal Nick]

Crackdown 2 thanks to Microsoft's bullshit and piss farting around.

Ruffian had barely 6 months to make and ship that game. Poor bastards. Despite it, I think they did pretty well. Added the wing suit, Deluge multiplayer, zombie day/night cycles and even tightened up the gameplay a touch.

 

[Soul of the Beast]

Dark Souls 2 and 3 most definitely.

Feels like they just do it for the sake of it, they even came up with this idiotic ''cycle'' concept as an excuse to have an sequel.

If the cycles really exist then they would've mention it in the first game, and the first game would have had endings that doesn't end the fucking world. They are trying way too hard to continue the world of Dark Souls, they don't even care if Miyazaki is directing the sequel or not. They just want a sequel.

Bamco: ''Who cares if Miyazaki isn't making it? What's really important is that the game is called Dark Souls TWO, and fans will buy it. Okay?''

And you all bought it, most Souls fans don't even know who Miyazaki is until people start talking about how disappointing DS2 is as a sequel.

If DS2 wasn't so poorly received by the fans, they wouldn't even bother bringing back Miyazaki for Dark Souls 3. If Bamco really respect and give a shit about Miyazaki's vision they wouldn't DARE to made Dark Souls 2 without him directing in the first place. Bamco would've waited for Miyazaki if they care.
Miyazaki is only back in DS3 so you'll fucking buy another Dark Souls sequel and all the DLCs.

Fans: ''Man screw Dark Souls 2, Miyazaki is back directing Dark Souls 3! Hell yeah! Even though he just finished Bloodborne and still has to work on a huge DLC and it makes no sense that he has to direct a game this big under a year but I don't care. He is back directing DS3! He TOTALLY directed the whole game within less than 10 month! No doubt!''

Bamco got you twice. And you still think the sun you're praising is the same one you always loved. The sun already died after the first game, silly.

 

[Toadthemushroom]

I'd probably file that one under "sequel that didn't need to exist" or "disappointing sequel".

 

[TheBowen]

Probably been mentioned but FF 13-3 was literally made in like a short amount of time purely out of unused assets from 13 and 13-2


Just thrown of the production line out of spare parts

 

[Toadthemushroom]

Another AQ Interactive special. Marvelous probably conceived this one in a boardroom at the time, in an effort to throw the Vita a bone in its launch window.

 

[Orochinagis]

Dark Souls 3, a sad attempt to please Bloodborne players while trying to keep Dark Souls players into a epic finale that never happened, misleading screenshots and boring, dull, repetitive cliches, empty world settings what you would probably saw and experienced in previous games

 

[Nostremitus]

Are the Fire Emblem games just rolling off an assembly line at this point?

 

[Mediking]

Are the Fire Emblem games just rolling off an assembly line at this point?

No. Fire Emblem games remain amazing.

 

[requiem02]

Are the Fire Emblem games just rolling off an assembly line at this point?

They've maintained their high quality, but Nintendo are walking a fine line between promoting a great series and making us sick of it. Kirby is in a similar position.

 

[Zeel]

Pretty much every Ubisoft game of the past few years. I think Black Flag was the last Ubisoft game I played that you could categorize as a real video game with artistic effort instead of just another soulless product.

 

[Toadthemushroom]

No. Fire Emblem games remain amazing.

I don't know, you can have a good game that felt like it rolled off a production line.

As much as I enjoyed Fates Conquest's skirmishes, there was definitely a cynical feeling that Intelligent Systems was forced to 1) ensure a story that would fit around three games and 2) crank out three games using the same content.

We never used to get one (or more!) Fire Emblem games a year either, like you say though the games are good, so I wouldn't put them high up the list. And Echoes is a superb example of how to build on an existing engine that's already been brought out twice already.

 

[mclem]

I don't think it's a bad game in any way, but XCom:Terror from the Deep feels way more like an expansion pack to the first game than a straight sequel. That said, there are very logical development reasons as to *why*.

Thinking about it, is there any source port or mod that unifies the two games?

 

[Triforce141]

A lot of mainline Mega Man games, 4-6 & 10, every X game post X5, and the second half of the Battle Network Saga

And every Katamari game after Keita Takahashi left the series' development

 

[Toadthemushroom]

They've maintained their high quality, but Nintendo are walking a fine line between promoting a great series and making us sick of it. Kirby is in a similar position.

Basically this, Yoshi is also in this position. Yoshi's Island on SNES was a perfect game, and didn't need to become a series of games, yet Yoshi's Island 2/DS and New Yoshi's Island were entirely unnecessary sequels given the first game's quality, only really made justifiable by the fact that Artoon/Arzest wouldn't have much else to produce anyway.

I'm sure the Switch Yoshi game will be good too, but I was disappointed to find that that was what Good-Feel was put to work on after Woolly World. There isn't really anything wrong with derivative 2D Kirby platformers and Yoshi games, but they aren't the kind of game I expect to see in a new platform's second year.

 

[Poimandres]

You know, people are going to hate me for this, but honestly Dark Souls 3 feels a bit like this to me. Im glad From are giving the series a break for a while.

 

[Wibblewozzer]

Probably been mentioned but FF 13-3 was literally made in like a short amount of time purely out of unused assets from 13 and 13-2


Just thrown of the production line out of spare parts

I have a really hard time thinking this appears it came off an assembly line as they drastically changed the gameplay loop, battle system, and the settings really don't feel like they were pieces of the previous two games. I didn't play a ton of it but I fully explored the first area and visited the others and I felt like I was seeing new stuff and experiencing something different from the previous two games.

I'm not crazy about the game but it felt pretty unique and seemed they actively tried to mix things up from the previous two games.

 

[Maple-Tech]

Crackdown 2 used the exact same map as the first game.

 

[Ogodei]

Hmm? It refined the gameplay, added characters, and made a conscious effort to address what made the first game weak. I wasn't a fan of a lot of the minigames, but the ones that did work were gold and better than the equivalent on the original NMH, and the story made more sense.

You're right that it misses a certain something that No More Heroes 1 had, but on paper its a superior game by far.

It gave us Margaret Moonlight, after all.

 

[Mass Effect]

All Camelot sports games post-Nintendo 64 feel like that

No way dude. The GameCube Mario sports games were great and so is the 3DS Mario Golf.

 

[Toadthemushroom]

Hmm? It refined the gameplay, added characters, and made a conscious effort to address what made the first game weak. I wasn't a fan of a lot of the minigames, but the ones that did work were gold and better than the equivalent on the original NMH, and the story made more sense.

You're right that it misses a certain something that No More Heroes 1 had, but on paper its a superior game by far.

It gave us Margaret Moonlight, after all.

I found it vastly inferior to the original game, but that's because I always thought NMH was more than the sum of its parts, and messing with some of its design in favour of appeasing complaints about the original game ruined that fun.

But yeah, it's definitely not something that was cranked out of the factory line, even with Suda51 no longer directing, as it's clear a lot of effort was put into it in order to make it a game that fans wanted. While it lacked the zing the first game had (I've played through NMH 3-4 times now and I still find it more exciting than 2) it doesn't give off an unambitious, corporate feel in how it might have been put together.

 

[Harlequin]

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

 

[Soul of the Beast]

You know, people are going to hate me for this, but honestly Dark Souls 3 feels a bit like this to me. Im glad From are giving the series a break for a while.

You can tell that Miyazaki isn't even having fun creating DS3.
Most of the concept are reused and forced.
Onion knight, Artorias-like warriors with a wolf relationship, linking the fire, becoming dark lord, Anor Londo back without a reason (the detail isn't even accurate), chaos demons, Izalith that looks like a rehashed catacombs....

Wow, what a sequel. Might as well just play Dark Souls 1 again. It's a much better game.

To be honest I don't even think Miyazaki directed most of DS3.
Think about it, Bloodborne was released March 24th, 2015. The Old Hunter DLC was released later same year in November 24th. DS3 was first released March 24th, 2016 in Japan.
Miyazaki have less than 12 months of time to work on DS3. Not to mention he also have to direct BB's DLC which he clearly put most of his focus on. The level design, boss design, story and atmosphere is simply unmatched. On par with Artorias of the Abyss DLC, if not better.

 

[Toadthemushroom]

I haven't played it yet, but apparently chunks of Codemasters' DiRT 4 give away that impression.

 

[Glowsquid]

My to-go example for overly-safe sequels is

-Plays identically to the first game. Controls, moveset, move properties are all the same. The game introduces two new characters to replace Guy and Cody but they play identically to their predecessor despite their different design and backstories (the Cody equivalent has a sword he doesn't use, for instance).

-Enemies are direct analogues to the cast of the first FF in term of behaviors, except their appearance aresuper-uninspired and the Hollywood/El Gato equivalent is dumbed down by removing his ability to throw knives

-The one returning boss is the one guy who wasn't in the SNES version of Final Fight.

-Stages are empty, devoid of interactive objects or weapons.

Compared strictly to the SNES port of FInal Fight, it's not completely pointless since it does have three playable characters and multiplayer, but compared to any of Capcom's post FF arcade beat em ups or (god forbid) Streets of Rage 2, it's a lackluster effort.

 

[tenderbrew]

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.

Nobody should as those are the two best entries in both their series'.

 

[Double Donut]

Ruffian had barely 6 months to make and ship that game.

Holy crap, for real?

Making a game of that scale in six months sounds impossible.

 

[Gunstar Ikari]

All of the mentions of strategy games reminded me of Super Robot Wars. While highly polished aesthetically, they've been phoning it in on the gameplay front for, at the very least, the last decade.

Though, to be fair, they last time they tried a major shakeup it turned out terrible.

 

[g11]

I loved it but you could tell they phoned it in somewhat.

First game that came to my mind. GRAW2 as well from what I remember.

 

[BossDarkseid]

I'm not sure how anyone could have played all the Pokemon games to date and not be bored of the same old formula. The series is in desperate need of a reboot. Hopefully the Switch Pokemon game will be a refresh for the series.

...Sun and Moon didn't use the same old formula and the series has tried to become more story focused to varying degrees of success.

Anyway, I'm not sure this is entirely applicable but...Final Fantasy XIV 1.0?

Obviously a lot of people worked on it tremendously hard for many years but considering SEs attitude was "let's repeat the tricks from XI" and refusing to play MMOs like WoW to see how the genre had moved on..it feels like a production line kinda sequel. It's weird because A Realm Reborn is easily recognisable as a game that's been designed by people who play MMOs beyond FFXI, yet it feels like a love letter to the series and the SNES titles in particular that it's a wonder it was made in 18 months rather than 5 years.

 

[psychowave]

ATLUS loves to reuse engines and rerelease games, to an almost ridiculous degree.

I'm playing SMT IV Apocalypse now and I'm enjoying it but I swear to god the whole thing must've cost like 30 bucks to make.

 

[Village]

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.

The sound track is strait FIRE Though

 

[Zen_Arcade]

All Camelot sports games post-Nintendo 64 feel like that

Not Toadstool Tour. Love Toadstool Tour.

 

[Aters]

Are the Fire Emblem games just rolling off an assembly line at this point?

No. I hate where FE is heading but I have to say at least IS put enough effort to differentiate each entry.

 

[Nuu]

This was one of the best in the series though. Especially the DLC case.

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.