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Post by Snake on Feb 9, 2023 11:59:11 GMT -5
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Post by spanky on Feb 9, 2023 12:05:17 GMT -5
I feel like there's tons of these but Final Fight springs to mind. Tastes drifted away from beat-em-ups in the 90s and Capcom didn't really know what to do with the series. There was the lousy fighting game and the extremely misguided Final Fight Streetwise in the mid-2000's that killed the series completely.
The original game is still popular as it still sees re-releases, and the characters are common fixtures in Capcom fighting games. I think a Street of Rage 4 style revival for the series has the potential to be pretty good and welcome.
Speaking of beat-em-ups, Double Dragon might be even worse off.
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Post by dsparil on Feb 9, 2023 12:58:26 GMT -5
"Damaged" is such a nice euphemism for mismanaged. I'm not sure if there are any game series that even come close to the lack of care Disney put into Star Wars.
Metroid between Other M and Samus Returns maybe comes closest. The series finally came back to the forefront with so many games over a decade only for it all to come crashing down nearly overnight. For it to be rescued by the studio that also semi-drove Castlevania into the ground is very ironic.
Speaking of Castlevania, that seems like it definitely could make a real return if Konami actually started caring about non-sports and non-arcade-Bemani games. The non-freemium Grimoire of Souls on Apple Arcade is actually decent but it still gatcha driven just without any purchasing. It'd be nice to see that get a wider release that toned down the randomness.
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Post by excelsior on Feb 9, 2023 13:21:41 GMT -5
Can somebody please explain to me why the Star Wars brand is 'damaged'? I haven't followed the franchise since the prequels and don't have a clue what the situation is. It might help me get an idea here as to what we're looking for.
Assuming though I've got the right idea without that explanation I'm thinking this is basically Level 5 the thread? Mismanaged properties due to the decision to tie products to greater media projects and general oversaturation across the board. Inazuma Eleven has been delayed for years and undergone several restructures. Yokai Watch went from a Pokemon contender to a nothing due to the inability to find new audiences and connect to older ones. Professor Layton was also oversaturated, with too many games that were also too long. Of course the puzzle designer passing away doesn't help in that case.
Another that had oversaturation issues was Guitar Hero and Rock Band.
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Post by dsparil on Feb 9, 2023 13:40:24 GMT -5
Basically, Star Wars had George Lucas as a mastermind and then Disney didn't replace him with anyone. The current president of Lucasfilm is ridiculously successful movie producer Kathleen Kennedy (#3 of all time by box office), but there's no one taking a creative lead.
The sequel trilogy had no planned arc going into it. The writer of the next episode basically just got some notes on what was being done for the previous one.
The initial Episode IX was canceled. Colin Trevorrow got hired to do IX after Jurassic World was a big hit, but Disney dropped him after his next movie, The Book of Henry, was a huge flop. Then Rise of Skywalker was complete and utter garbage.
A second announced sequel trilogy was also cancelled. It was going to be done by David Benioff and D. B. Weiss, the creators of the Game of Thrones show. Ironically, Disney dropped them because they phoned in the last few seasons of GoT because they wanted to get to Star Wars!
They pulled back and tried to retool planned prequel movies after Solo underperformed, and what they've done as TV has been hit and miss. The Obi-Wan show was originally going to be a movie and the move to TV just dragged things out.
My pet peeve is that Disney decided the entire Expanded Universe was non-canonical but them didn't actually make anything better than what got chucked and was frequently worse.
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Post by lurker on Feb 9, 2023 13:51:11 GMT -5
They do seem to be re-inserting bits and pieces of the EU back into the various side media, like the comics and books, which may be the best way to handle it.
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Post by lurker on Feb 9, 2023 13:52:58 GMT -5
Yeah that's most likely a rumor. Bounding is very much a tabloid, so I'd take any thing they say with a grain of salt. |
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Post by spanky on Feb 9, 2023 13:55:33 GMT -5
I liked the Mandalorian, probably the only Star Wars media I've really enjoyed in decades, though they kinda ruin it for me at the end by having a CG de-aged Luke show up at the end. You just KNOW they are waiting for the tech to get good enough that they can do a live action movie starring CG and AI-voiced versions of the OT cast.
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Post by lurker on Feb 9, 2023 14:03:03 GMT -5
Looking forward to Visions again because they're bringing in Aardman and Cartoon Saloon this time around.
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Post by excelsior on Feb 9, 2023 16:02:45 GMT -5
dsparil - Thanks for the explanation. So to put it in the simplest terms Star Wars lacks a greater creative vision and/or direction. I can think of video games like this; Star Fox comes to mind, for instance. I think though that usually video games are more malleable and capable of shifting gears between entries fairly comfortably. Although Star Fox specifically could certainly be in a stronger position had it been approached with any degree of consistency over the years it's not like a new entry would perform badly for this reason should it offer what players are looking for. Sonic perhaps is an easy go to, but Frontiers seems to be performing admirably.
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Post by Snake on Feb 9, 2023 20:15:05 GMT -5
I liked the Mandalorian, probably the only Star Wars media I've really enjoyed in decades, though they kinda ruin it for me at the end by having a CG de-aged Luke show up at the end. You just KNOW they are waiting for the tech to get good enough that they can do a live action movie starring CG and AI-voiced versions of the OT cast.Same. It's like Jon Favreau made a "Part-Lone Wolf and Cub, Part-spaghetti western" themed Star Wars side story. With Bill Burr cameos. Definitely have to say Castlevania has been mismanaged for me. I never did get deep into any of the games from Lords of Shadow, onward. Final Fantasy has been feeling "damaged." Different development teams, complete rehauls to the gameplay scheme. Final Fantasy XI, XII, XIII, XIV, and XV really strayed from the original turn-based foundation. |
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Post by 🧀Son of Suzy Creamcheese🧀 on Feb 10, 2023 9:19:59 GMT -5
A damaged brand AFAIK means that a brand has been getting a couple of bad products/installments or has some kind of image issue to the point where its reputation has suffered so much that it's not as attractive anymore for a company to put out new installments. So merely having one or two bad entries doesn't really count I feel. I think there's still enough goodwill on gamers' parts for a new Castlevania (though perhaps not from Konami, but that's a Konami thing, not a CV thing), Contra, Star Fox, etc. Metroid doesn't work either. So I can't really think of a gaming-related one from the top of my head. Perhaps it's finally happening to Harry Potter, but that series has a pretty rabid/dedicated fanbase. Then again, so does Star Wars despite it all. I think as long as they actually put out good Star Wars stuff, people'll keep watching/buying.
It's honestly surprising Sonic isn't one.
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Post by spanky on Feb 10, 2023 9:30:17 GMT -5
I was about to say that Sonic would be a good candidate for this but Sonic Mania (though that's several years old at this point), two well regarded m movies and the mostly positively received Sonic Frontiers has done a lot of good for the franchise.
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Post by shelverton on Feb 10, 2023 17:25:48 GMT -5
Personally, I couldn’t care less anymore if Konami released a new Castlevania. And I used to be pretty much obsessed up until circa Judgment and all the trash that followed. To me, it’s definitely damaged and I think I’d rather play Bloodstained from here on out.
I also think Seiken Densetsu has had maaaany rough years, to the point where I almost forgot the first two or three games were part of the series at all. But then the Trials of Mana remake was actually very impressive IMO, so maybe it doesn’t count.
But the very worst offender in my humble opinion was always the Shining series. It started off so very good, peaked with the Shining Force trilogy and then just went downhill fast from there.
What do we think of Silent Hill? Everyone seems pretty hyped for its resurrection, but there was a time, around Downpour and/or Homecoming (can’t remember which one is which) that the series had lost pretty much all it’s glory? The only reason people seemed to start talking about Silent Hill again was the P.T demo and, more specifically, the cancellation of what we all believed would’ve been a fantastic game (we don’t actually know that though, if we’re being completely honest…) But as it stands, I think Silent Hill is deeply damaged and if these new games aren’t great, I think the franchise is going to die again, maybe for real this time.
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Post by lurker on Feb 11, 2023 11:44:06 GMT -5
Personally, I couldn’t care less anymore if Konami released a new Castlevania. And I used to be pretty much obsessed up until circa Judgment and all the trash that followed. To me, it’s definitely damaged and I think I’d rather play Bloodstained from here on out. I also think Seiken Densetsu has had maaaany rough years, to the point where I almost forgot the first two or three games were part of the series at all. But then the Trials of Mana remake was actually very impressive IMO, so maybe it doesn’t count. But the very worst offender in my humble opinion was always the Shining series. It started off so very good, peaked with the Shining Force trilogy and then just went downhill fast from there. What do we think of Silent Hill? Everyone seems pretty hyped for its resurrection, but there was a time, around Downpour and/or Homecoming (can’t remember which one is which) that the series had lost pretty much all it’s glory? The only reason people seemed to start talking about Silent Hill again was the P.T demo and, more specifically, the cancellation of what we all believed would’ve been a fantastic game (we don’t actually know that though, if we’re being completely honest…) But as it stands, I think Silent Hill is deeply damaged and if these new games aren’t great, I think the franchise is going to die again, maybe for real this time. Though I don't think we've had an actual Shining game in a long time. |
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