Do you judge some games more harshly because they're a weak link in a series?

[Emperor Megas]

I referenced Silent Hill 4: The Room, and Phantasy Star III a few times the past weeks as games that I didn't care for, mainly because I judge them as a part of the canon series whole. In short, if they were released as individual games, with different names, and independent of their respective series', than I'd probably enjoy them a little more.

The bizarre thing is, in most cases if they did something as simple as substituted the installment number for a subtitle, I probably wouldn't have have any issues with the game. It probably reflects more on my psychology than the developers marketing strategy, but something as meager as a number on the case and title screen can be the difference between me enjoying a game or dismissing it. For example, Final Fantasy Mystic Quest I've got no problem with, however if it was called Final Fantasy III, I'd probably dislike the game. Fantasy Zone: The Maze is actually one of my favorite Master System games, but if it was named Fantasy Zone III, I think it would bother me a little. Super Mario Bros. 2 was always a black sheep to me, not because of the Doki Doki Panic gameplay, but because it's actually billed as SMB2. I think it bugged me even more when SMB3 came out and was such a welcome return to what I came to expect from a SMB title.

I don't have any problems with an offshoot or an odd installment if it's billed as one (Resident Evil Chronicles, Metal Gear Acid, etc.), but making odd duck games like Silent Hill 4: The Room canonical by giving them an installment number makes me feel a little burned.

Do any of you feel this way too, or are you generally able to separate the odd or weak installments from the series and judge them as individual games? If not, what are some of the games you view as 'series black sheep'?

[Swamperon]

Hmmmm, I think I and people generally do judge games more harshly if it is a 'weak link' in a long running franchise but only because I/they expect a certain degree of quality from that franchise.

Everyone expects the next Mario, Zelda, Halo, Final Fantasy to be the near pinnacle of perfection in their respective genres, and perhaps rightly so. I think this is why 'weak link' games are often criticised years after their release date. Nobody is going to forget Mario Sunshine, Sonic the Hedgehog (2006) or Bomberman Zero in a hurry for example (despite how much they like too), even though some of those games may have been viewed as half decent if presented as a new IP.

[Ro-J]

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/9c/Pac-Man_2_-_The_New_Adventures_Coverart.png

I've never been able to accept Pac-Man 2 although I very much enjoyed to Pac-Man World games. Now that you mentioned it, maybe it had something to do with the "2" in the title.

[mobiusclimber]

I don't actually believe I do this. I was certainly disappointed w/ Mystic Quest, but after awhile I came to appreciate the things it did right. In fact, MQ is probably the only game I judged overly harshly b/c of the title. I hated the game for a long time and only recently was able to see that there was good in it. That doesn't change the fact that it's a fairly weak game. I put it on the same level as Lagoon. Awesome music, does a few things right, but gets more things wrong. And I used to tell everyone how much I hated Lagoon.

Silent Hill: The Room, for instance, I dislike b/c it's just not that great of a game. It's frustrating... maybe if it wasn't called Silent Hill I wouldn't be trying to kill everything? I don't know, it doesn't matter b/c other games that are like that are ones I really hate. Games were you run from everything are not fun to me (I'm thinking of Clock Tower, Haunted Ground, the like).

Phantasy Star III has been discussed to death by me already, but again, at the time it came out I thought it was decent. I don't think I would have thought it was any better if it had been given some other title. I don't tell people they shouldn't play it, I don't warn anyone away. I do make sure they know it's not as good as the rest of the series.. cuz it isn't.

Final Fantasy 8, tho, is horrible, and I tell anyone who'll listen that it's really really bad. Again, it doesn't have as much to do w/ the title of the game as it does w/ the convoluted plot, unlikeable main character and the retarded sequences that they piled on to make the game.

I liked Final Fantasy Adventure long before I knew it was a Seiken Densetsu game, and I hated Final Fantasy Legend long before I knew it was a SaGa game. Had nothing to do w/ the titles or anything, but it had to do w/ the games themselves.

Zelda 2 is another good example. I don't like the action sequences, and I doubt I'd like them in a game called Jenny's Legend any more than I do in a game called Legend of Zelda. Tho I can't totally pass judgement on the game as I don't feel I've given it enough of a chance. But... ugh... the random battles... just break the game. Every time I try to play it.

[Aussie2B]

If anything, I think I'd cut a game a little slack if it's part of a series that I otherwise enjoy because I'd try extra hard to find the redeemable qualities.

[kupomogli]

Like Aussie2B said, I'd try harder to find something I like about the game instead.

[Baloo]

IMO if anything, Super Mario Bros. 2 is underrated. On it's own it's a lot of fun. Just because it doesn't follow the formula of SMB 1 doesn't mean it's a bad game. I'd take it over Lost Levels any day really, as SMB2 felt like more of a sequel, whereas Lost Levels might as well been a level hack.

I really think Knuckles Chaotix is underrated in this regard as well. Great game, but it's different, and people bash on it just because of the difference in physics. I mean really, must every sequel be the same thing but slightly better? That's boring.

If anything, I'll look at a game in a series that wasn't as good in-depth, to see WHY it wasn't as good. Did they go in a different direction? Did they change parts of the gameplay up from the status quo set by the series? Or could it have been true bad game reasons, say poor programming, poor hit detection, poor graphics/sound, etc. etc.

[ReTrO-pLaYeR]

My response is not at all. I favor Super Mario Brothers 2 just as much as the other titles, even if it wasn't technically even a Mario adventure to begin with. I don't have biases just because a title is weaker than its brothers.

[jdc]

Hmmm......my online gamertag is TurismoFan. I adore Gran Turismo 1 and 2 as much as you can possibly adore a videogame. Gran Turismo 3 was insanely satisfying and consumed endless hours of my time. I am still REALLY trying to come to grips with Kazanori Yamauchi's rolling piece of shit entitled Gran Turismo 4. The game feels rushed, incomplete and broken. The physics engine is a joke. And yes, I'm capable of 200-pointing the races, so difficulty isn't what I'm complaining about. At least he fixed whatever was broken before releasing Prologue 5, which I loved. So yes, I'm not afraid to judge a weak link harshly.

[Voliko]

I would argue that one shouldn't judge a game any more harshly simply because it isn't as great as the rest of the series. However, the expectations put upon a game in a series is what can make a good (not great), game in the series be lambasted by the fanbase. It's sad...

[gum_drops]

Metal Slug 5 for the Neo Geo. It always gets hammered on and compared to MS1, MSX, and MS3.

[Kiddo]

I really think Knuckles Chaotix is underrated in this regard as well. Great game, but it's different, and people bash on it just because of the difference in physics. I mean really, must every sequel be the same thing but slightly better? That's boring.

Sonic 4 got trashed by "fans" all over merely because it was -named- "Sonic 4". This is probably a bad example because they're crying foul without giving the game a fair chance, but yeah...
A few other games with "Sonic" tagged on them would also probably be judged less harshly were it not for Sonic's legacy, Sonic Unleashed, in particular, because many complained about it's very gameplay style during the "night" because it "wasn't like Sonic."

My own personal example though is Advance Guardian Heroes - horribly trashed by the press and many early players, I never actually saw what everyone hated in it, besides the lack of the original's heavily-branching story paths or maybe the lack of 6-player VS. Battle (which wasn't really feasible anyway). I just chalked it up as a victim of being a Beat-em-up in a time when no one liked them.

Adventures of Link is a bit of a lesser example, as it had some legitimate problems (mostly related to the puzzles pretty much requiring a strategy guide or drug addiction to figure out), but I always though the 2D Scrolling take on a Zelda game was interesting and probably could've worked if it's issues were resolved.

[kupomogli]

IMO if anything, Super Mario Bros. 2 is underrated. On it's own it's a lot of fun. Just because it doesn't follow the formula of SMB 1 doesn't mean it's a bad game.

I actually prefer SMB2 over the first, Zelda 2 over any other in the series, I think Mystic Quest is a good game, Secret of Evermore is better than any Seiken Densetsu, etc.

Games everyone bash because they're either not simiilar, or in Mystic Quest's and SoE's case, made by Square USA and obviously no one but the Japanese can make good RPG games(/sarcasm.)

[Orion Pimpdaddy]

I think you make a good point Megas. There's a certain expectation when a game has numerical sequels. Each one should be an improvement on the previous game(s), and each one should be something like the previous game(s) in appearance. When one of those conditons do not apply, I think we treat the game as a black sheep.

[Icarus Moonsight]

The essential question in nearly any case: "Compared to what?"

Sometimes a specific name is tacked on to a project for completely indecipherable reasons (name/brand recognition = sales, excepted). Sometimes it's a case like the CDi SMB and Zelda titles. If the naming or the content, or even worse, both of what I'm experiencing is detectable as put together in even a somewhat arbitrary fashion, I'm real likely to be put off by the whole thing rather well.

Phantasy Star 3 even when dropping the pedigree and compared to other JRPGs of the time is left lacking. It's most notable feature is the somewhat-jawdropping "Dark City" reveal. It's like being bored to death talking to someone that goes on and on about inane and vapid things, then you feel nut-shot when they segue into an interesting topic all of the sudden. Even if they manage to half-bake anything said on the subject, you're astonished that they even were conscious enough to not only bring it up, but also to actually have went there all on their own. That can make matters worse too. Because that single instance just made all the rest that much worse to have gone through, by comparison.

[Aussie2B]

Games everyone bash because they're either not simiilar, or in Mystic Quest's and SoE's case, made by Square USA and obviously no one but the Japanese can make good RPG games(/sarcasm.)

Mystic Quest was made in Japan, not by Square USA. They specifically developed it for the US, though. It was about a year later when they released it in Japan as "Final Fantasy USA".

[MarioMania]

The US version of Super Mario Bros. 2

I thought back in the day Nintendo was trying to do something different with the Sequel..

But I found out way later it was because of the Japanese version being the same thing & harder

I don't really like Super Mario Bros. 2 US

[Push Upstairs]

I'll always have a fondness for SMB2. Playing it *always* takes me back to when I got sick over x-mas break and played it while fighting off a fever.

Ironically, SMB2 US actually comes off as a sequel despite its non-Mario origin and gameplay. "Lost Levels" really just seems like some upped difficulty rush job.

I'm glad we got SMB2, I didn't care for it at first...but that fever helped. LOL

[kedawa]

It's easy to be dissappointed in a good game when its lineage gives you expectations of greatness.
Wind Waker is a good game that never met my expectations of a Zelda title because it has fewer dungeons than OoT, doesn't have that games swimming or fishing elements, and has a much less interesting overworld.
Taken on its own, it's still a very good game, probably in the same league as Beyond Good and Evil, but it never lived up to the standard of its predecessors.

[SpaceHarrier]

I was always lukewarm on Resident Evil 3 because it just didn't feel like the huge jump that existed between 1 and 2. More of a side-story kind of thing. Nothing really lacking in the quality department though.

[kedawa]

I can see how RE3 might seem like just an expansion on 2, given the setting and all, but Nemesis actually changed the pace and feel of the game quite a bit. You could argue that he isn't much different than those Tyrants in trench coats from 2, but if you play both games one right after the other like I did, the differences might seem more significant.

[mobiusclimber]

It's weird but in many ways RE3 is my favorite in the series. It has the most inconsequential storyline, sure, but I liked all the little improvements both to the battle engine and just to the game in general. I also loved the branching paths. It seemed to be the most "play over and over to get everything" out of the first three games, and the only one that I actually DID play several times over to discover everything in it. I'm sure part of it has to do w/ the fact that I could never beat the other two games w/ the female characters. Not really sure why but I'd always get to a certain point and just not be able to get further.

[duffmanth]

I judged Need for Speed: Pro Street very harshly because it was such a piece of shit. Most of the games that preceded it were some of the best arcade racers ever. Pro Street suffered first and foremost from glitches galore, poor controls, and poor driving physics. Shift is a huge step in the right direction though.

[exit]

I know I'm in the minority but I actually really enjoyed Silent Hill 4 and found it to be a lot better than Silent Hill 3, which I thought was boring and tedious for some reason. I also thought Earthbound 2/Mother 3 wasn't that great, I played it for a bit and lost interest, which is kind of ironic in it's own way since I signed countless failed petitions to get the game released here.

[Emperor Megas]

I know I'm in the minority but I actually really enjoyed Silent Hill 4 and found it to be a lot better than Silent Hill 3...Wow, yeah you are.

[Rickstilwell1]

I don't judge the games this way. When I play numerical series, I like to do them in order even if I don't like certain installments as much. I realize that every game is usually going to have substantial differences although some are similar. It's even easier to accept the differences if the sequel is released for a new console rather than the same one though.