Most popular title in a series often disliked by long time fans

This is an article I published a year ago on Gamespot.
http://www.gamespot.com/forums/topic/27 ... ans?page=0

Here is the whole article albeit with modifications and new additions

I noticed that the most popular installment of a huge franchise such as Final Fantasy seem to be strongly loathed by long time fans of the franchise who has been playing the game franchise prior to its most popular installment's release.Here are very BIG EXAMPLES I NOTICE:

1)The Elder Scrolls

The fourth installment,The Elder Scrolls 4:Oblivion,is the highest selling installment of this RPG series and is considered by many casual gamers to be the best WRPG ever.But long time fans who have been with this series since the first title,The Elder Scrolls Arena,considers this installment to be the worst in the whole franchise.Instead most long time Elder Scrolls fans agree Daggerfall is the best in the series.In fact Iam one of them .

2)Fallout

Fallout 3 has been a mega hit,having sold over 4 millionand is now beloved by casual gamers.But fans who have played the first 2 Fallout games back in the 90s really hate Fallout 3 and calls it a disgrace to the Fallout franchise.They will say notthing but bad things about Fallout 3.Iam also one of them .

3)Resident Evil

Resident Evil 4 is the top selling installment in the RE franchise and is considered by critics to be the best in the series.But longtime RE fans strongly dislike this game and criticize it for taking out key features of the franchise.Long time RE fans often say this game is the worst in the series(before the release of RE5).

4)Final Fantasy

As you all now,Final Fantasy 7 sold over 7 million copies world wide and is considered by many people who were introduced to the franchise by this installment to be the best RPG ever.But the more hardcore long time Final Fantasy fans who have been with the FInal Fantasy since the SNES days hardly calls Final Fantasy even near one of the best in the franchise.Instead most longtime FF fans consider Final Fantasy 4 or Final Fantasy 6 hand down the best in the series.The hardcore of the longtime FF fans will not hesitate at bashing this FF7 and will often post forums about how Final Fantasy 7 is overrated,how it sucks,how it is the worst in the franchise,and every other insults they could post about FF7.

5)World of Warcraft
We all know the craze of World of Warcraft.Over 7 million players worldwide paying for subscriptions with most of them thinking its the greatest game of all time.But longtime fans of the original Warcraft RTS including myself absolutely HATE WORLD OF WARCRAFT !We long time Warcraft lovers hate World of Warcraft as its not only delaying Warcraft 4's release but its completely alien to the original Warcraft RTS series.Warcraft is supposed to be an RTS not a gay MMORPG!We lovers of the Warcraft RTS truly hate World of Warcraft with a passion!

6)Alone In the Dark
The recent 2008 remaking of Alone In the Dark sold 1 million copies, which is much more than all the titles orignal Alone In the Dark Trilogy Combined.Basically the 2008 Alone In the Dark is the most popular and famed in the serious up to the point most people only think of that specific title when the series is brought up in discussion.Most long time Alone In the Dark fans who had been with the series starting with the original Trilogy absolutely hate the 2008 remaking(Iam one of them ). We absolutely hate the remaking as it made the series from a Survival Horror game to a pure action game lacking the Survival Horror elements we long time AITD fans absolutely loved that was in the original trilogy. I myself absolutely hate 2008 Alone In the Dark with a hellish passion .

Any of you noticed this too?That long time fans of a franchise tends to strongly dislike the most popular installment of the franchise and will do everything they can to bash and insult the most popular installment of their beloved franchise?

For non Video game examples I could think of.

1)Dragon Ball
Of course DBZ is the most popular in the series and the only one most casual DB fans watched.I will be honest,iiAM guilty of being on the casual side as I was introduced to the franchise with DBZ and when I try to watch the original DB I just couldn't stand it as its boring IMO when compared to DBZ. But longtime Dragon Ball fans who had been with the series starting with the original Dragon Ball tend to call DBZ overrated and inferior to the original.

2)Lawrence of Arabia

A beloved film(its one of my favorites) but long time T.E. Lawrence fans hate the move and often post rants on how much it sucks because its inaccurrate(in obscure sites). 
 
3)Sailor Moon 
Fans of the original Manga(before watching the anime) tend to dislike the big changes the anime made especially with all the filler they added and how much they weakened the protagonists(who are all FTL in speed and have destructive powers-at least being street buster with the stronger ones being planet busters.Hell Sailor Moon in the Manga CAN DESTROY A GALAXY)! 
 
Sailor Moon manga fans really dislike the (mega popular) anime. 
 
Whats your opinion on this phenomenon?

Video game hipsters are hilarious. "I liked Resident Evil BEFORE IT SOLD OUT!"

this will not end well.

Video game hipsters are hilarious. "I liked Resident Evil BEFORE IT SOLD OUT!"

3)Sailor Moon 

The stuff about RE4 never made sense to me, I absolutely love the Resident Evil series and every game before 4. And even I embraced the changes RE4 introduced, yes I love the old style of games, but anyone that didn't think that franchise needed to evolve is kidding themselves.

Gamers, especially on Giant Bomb it seems, are a type of hipster. It's cool to hate good games and even better to like bad ones.

Video game hipsters are hilarious. "I liked Resident Evil BEFORE IT SOLD OUT!"

You wouldn't know.

@Loose said:

Video game hipsters are hilarious. "I liked Resident Evil BEFORE IT SOLD OUT!"

Hahaha! Hipsters with neckbeards.

Daggerfall IMO is still the best ES game but Oblivion was great. Fallout was a great game but I love Fallout 3. 
The gaming community seem to have become such a bunch of pain-in-the-ass, whining bitches over the years. I don't know if its the fact that the industry has exploded since I started playing games, that games have become more accessible or that a lot of younger people (not all) are just assholes nowerdays but I don't much like it, no sir-e Bob. When so many people have so much choice and still complain about everything (especially when its free) and have become such a bunch of ungrateful little elitists with no real basis for their hate its a sad time. Enjoy games for the what they are, an experience like watching a movie or reading a book. They need to get over themselves and realize that like everything else its all about opinion and if you like one game series or sequel more than another it doesn't make the other shit (although there are exceptions to this rule).  When I was a lad we had to wait until the game cassette rewound, then wait 20 mins for it to load all the time screeching in my ears and blinking lines all over the place, and do you think we had Epilepsy warnings hell no, having a fit was what we did to pass the time. Once the game was loaded all we had was 1 colour and the black of the screen and even then we had to figure out how to invent electricity to play them. 
 
What was I saying again? Bah....
 
.....GET OFF MY LAWN n' stop bothering me.

My opinion on the phenomenon? 
 
It's simple: The majority of the public are not into complexity. When a dev has ambitions to be complex, they make a dedicated fanbase. When they decide to go for money, they streamline their games to appeal to the public. The new game becomes more popular than the predecessors because it appealed to more people, and the older dedicated fanbase becomes pissed 
 
fuck you Bad Company 2, fuck you. and fuck you Crysis 2, If you were a person i'd do mean things to you.

Things people forget, is that such popular reboots (like Fallout) will secure the game's future.
But I guess the old fans keep whining about how good things used to be, and let their favorite game fade into oblivion (><) just for the sake of memories.
Gaming isn't yours, its ours, everyone's invited wether you like it or not.

@CounterSwarmer said:

Warcraft is supposed to be an RTS not a gay MMORPG!

And with that I stopped reading.

This should be called "The FF7 Thread".

Whatever, man. The Sleeping Dragon totally ruined the Broken Sword franchise. I mean, block/crate/cube puzzles, stealth sequences, and awkward (decidedly not point-and-click) controls?! Bah! A pox on you, George! You used to be cool, man.

Most popular title in a series often disliked by long time fans

That's because Final Fantasy 7 sucks, and it will always suck.

It's all about the Kefka.

@Loose said:

Video game hipsters are hilarious. "I liked Resident Evil BEFORE IT SOLD OUT!"

This is so true. Granted sequels can suck but some people are so damn sensitive.

[...] [...] [...] [...] [...]

@ajamafalous said:

@CounterSwarmer said:

Warcraft is supposed to be an RTS not a gay MMORPG!

And with that I stopped reading.

Same here.

Also, is it just me or do the forums seem extra ripe with extremely low post count users putting up troll or semi-troll posts?

The thread title came from here, right?
http://gb.geoffkimball.com/thread.html# 
 
It must have done.

I don't think this is just about hipsters hating something when it gets popular. Many of these most popular releases of games are huge departures from the originals. World of Wacraft and Fallout 3 are very different games than the earlier entries in their franchises. If you like RTS games there's no reason that would translate into liking WoW. I'm sure there are many people who just don't like what the new games are.  Of course there are still people who are angry if anything about something they like gets changed or anything that becomes more mainstream. Those people need to grow up.
 

@mylifeforAiur

Whatever, man. The Sleeping Dragon totally ruined the Broken Sword franchise. I mean, block/crate/cube puzzles, stealth sequences, and awkward (decidedly not point-and-click) controls?! Bah! A pox on you, George! You used to be cool, man.

@Loose said:

Video game hipsters are hilarious. "I liked Resident Evil BEFORE IT SOLD OUT!"

This, a thousand times this.

Daggerfall was bigger, but in no way as good as Morrowind. In fact, it was literally impossible to finish, because of the amount of bugs. Fallout 2 was massively inferior to Fallout 3, New Vegas and even the original game. Final Fantasy VII gets a lot of hate from the "hardcore" FF fans for the same reason these old games you mentioned get praised. VII was very popular in the mainstream and therefore, not cool. Instead people like to claim they were part of the series "before it became popular". These people are dicks. If you honestly enjoy these games more, fine, but don't claim they're better just because they're less well known.

Having played an older game in the series/before it became mainstream does not instantly make the older games better, obscure or cooler. This is one of the most ridiculous threads I've seen on here in a long time.

I tend to like a game for what it is. Just because a sequel changes things doesn't make it bad. 
 
That said, I can point to a few glaring newer takes on old franchises that piss me off to no end for many reasons. 
 
FF13 - Seriously wtf.. linear until the end? Story that made little to no impact on the game until after the final boss dies. 
RE5 - Just fuck this game. I could put up with non zombies but the horseshit that is the rest of the game is what ruins it. 
New Street fighter games - 10 steps backwards in terms of depth and fun. Long live SF alpha 3. 
Bionic Commando - Just broken, not fun repetitive stupidity. 
 
The list goes on. 
 
I can think of a lot of new versions of older series I love. 
 
RE4 - canned the robo walking and movement, did get rid of zombies but it was really fun. 
Fallout 3 and New Vegas - Love these games, New Vegas more so cause they addressed aiming issues and I liked the story more. 
Deus Ex Human Revolution - I am about 20 hours in and adore this game. It isn't perfect but it has surpassed all my hopes. 
 
 
I can actually think of a big handful of old stuff I would kill to see remade or updates. At the rate we are going they will probably get new incarnations as well. I hope for the best. 
 
I'll leave with one last thing.. 
 
Hipsters are fucking clown shoes. No one really cares what they think no matter how much they bitch and moan.

Why do gamers have to constantly become stuck in the past and think titles of their childhood are only way to go?

• Resident Evil sucked. The controls were terrible, and the combat was horrible. They "remade" these titles because of that, the restrictions of our hardware, controllers, and gaming experience was low back then and couldn't stretch.
• Another "WoW stalled WC4?" Do you realize that Blizzard may have given up on Warcraft as a franchise if WoW failed.

I could go into others, but while I was typing this I realized it is not worth my time. Gamers like you are just stuck in some form of Nostalgia limbo and cannot find a way to get out.

@sirdesmond said:

Also, is it just me or do the forums seem extra ripe with extremely low post count users putting up troll or semi-troll posts?

No, that's not just you. Shit's getting out of hand.

@sirdesmond said:

Also, is it just me or do the forums seem extra ripe with extremely low post count users putting up troll or semi-troll posts?

No, that's not just you. Shit's getting out of hand.

Add Splinter Cell Conviction even though I love it with the new features (just want body dragging back). It's not the worst in the series, that easily goes to Double Agent. 

@Abyssfull: Yea, that's what I was thinking.

To be frank, I agree with most of this.
 
Oblivion, compared to Morrowind, is a game that is watered down, with a less interesting setting, and less interesting plot points. Closing all of those gates was not very fun, either.
 
Fallout 2 is one of the most immersive games of all time. Fallout 3 was slowmotion gore porn.Fallout 2 tread heavily in the grey area, while Fallout 3 was always very black and white. It doesn't help that it played like a modded Oblivion.
 
Resident Evil is just a personal preference. I always loved those games, for their cerebral puzzles, their wacky narrative, and for their punishing gameplay (Excluding 2, which is pretty much easy mode). While I love RE4, it's just not a Resident Evil game, in my eyes. I thought RE5 was dicks.
 
I dislike FF7 because it started most of the tropes that I feel are making JRPG's stale and terrible.
 
I love World of Warcraft, to play. I love the social aspects, I love the polish. What I don't love is that it took every bit of Lore from the Warcraft universe, and sodomized it with the parody and murder sticks.

@Mmmslash said:

To be frank, I agree with most of this. Oblivion, compared to Morrowind, is a game that is watered down, with a less interesting setting, and less interesting plot points. Closing all of those gates was not very fun, either. Fallout 2 is one of the most immersive games of all time. Fallout 3 was slowmotion gore porn.Fallout 2 tread heavily in the grey area, while Fallout 3 was always very black and white. It doesn't help that it played like a modded Oblivion. Resident Evil is just a personal preference. I always loved those games, for their cerebral puzzles, their wacky narrative, and for their punishing gameplay (Excluding 2, which is pretty much easy mode). While I love RE4, it's just not a Resident Evil game, in my eyes. I thought RE5 was dicks. I dislike FF7 because it started most of the tropes that I feel are making JRPG's stale and terrible. I love World of Warcraft, to play. I love the social aspects, I love the polish. What I don't love is that it took every bit of Lore from the Warcraft universe, and sodomized it with the parody and murder sticks.

I could fap to this.

This thread bothers me with its elitist attitude. Not anyone except CounterSwarmer, though.

Starting to think the Elder Scrolls/Fallout thing might be related to the Mario Kart phenomenon.

Resident Evil 4 is kind of undeniably great, it's just the one game in the series that isn't a Resident Evil game. It doesn't have the over-the-top insanity of RE0, Code Veronica, or RE5, and it doesn't have the horror of the original trilogy. I get why RE fans might be disappointed, but there are also, like seven traditional RE games and two that are action games (and one of those is not even very good.)

Final Fantasy VII is still a great game even if IV and VI are better. Anyone who claims it's the worst in the series needs to spend way more time with III or X-2.

World of Warcraft is completely unrelated to Warcraft the RTS. However, it also legitimized Warcraft's future, as without it Blizzard might as well have abandoned WCIV to StarCraft development. Also, this?

@CounterSwarmer said:

5)World of Warcraft
We long time Warcraft lovers hate World of Warcraft as its not only delaying Warcraft 4's release but its completely alien to the original Warcraft RTS series. Warcraft is supposed to be an RTS not a gay MMORPG! We lovers of the Warcraft RTS truly hate World of Warcraft with a passion!

Not cool at all. Also, plenty of people like WoW that like WCIII, so cool your fuckin' jets.

I thought everyone agreed that Alone in the Dark '08 was awful? Maybe I've got that confused with some other '08 reboot.

Stop being a hipster and making threads to garner hate, you're not cool for liking old-school PC games and being a complete dick about new ones. If you want to legitimize your older choices, talk about why your games are good and not just about how "your favorite game sucks."

Got the wrong person if you all mistaking me for Troll.I'm new here 
 
.Nor does this have anything to do with Elitist attitude.Just observations I noticed from Gamespot and wikis. 
 
 
I'm a pretty casual guy when it  comes to gaming.I just found this phenomenon interesting. 
 
If you all think I'm trolling, then tell me if this is trolling: 

http://www.narutoforums.com/showthread.php?t=756838

Up until recently the video game industry was owned and run exclusively by the niche hardcore crowd, and up until then that's what all games were made for. Since it's become popular with the mass market that's what games get made for now, and the mass market likes different games then the core people that have been playing since before it became popular. So when you see these franchises that you grew up loving, and wouldn't exist if it wasn't for people like us, you get annoyed when companies turn their back on that fan base and change what they loved about the game to appeal to the mass market. If you are lucky you enjoy the same thing the masses do, but if you don't your basically shit out of luck because they don't make games to appeal to people like that anymore.
 
The thing that pisses me off more then anything is whenever you mention that you liked an older game in a franchise, and that you hate a direction the newer game is taking, and you're instantly called an elitist hipster douchebag for having the audacity to not like the new game. Doubly so in the case of stuff like Fallout or X-Com when they completely change the genre of the game from one iteration to the other. 
 
I think the real elitest snobbery is from this new generation whenever they tell people to fuck off because they prefer an older style of game to a new one. Just because you like games being played a certain way doesn't mean I have to.

@CounterSwarmer: I think you confused Dragon Ball Z with Dragon Ball GT.

The only things here that I'm sort of involved in are Warcraft, TES and Fallout. I think Oblivion is a clearly inferior game in comparison to Morrowind. It just lacks soul, feeling and that large world that you loved in Morrowind. Also, that game looks like shit.

Regarding Fallout, I can't say I ever got in to Fallout 1 and 2, I was simply too young. FO3 was my entry to the series pretty much, and I think that it's a much better game then Fallout 1 and 2, even though the world and characters clearly lack all the charm in Fallout 1 and 2 (played them after 3). And I think WoW is dimensions superior to Warcraft 2 and 3, which were both good RTS, but nothing in comparison to CNC and StarCraft. WoW is on a whole other level.

Regarding this whole thing, I do believe a lot of people live with the very wrong notion of 'everything was better before', which has never been true except during the goddamn dark ages. Especially when it comes to gaming, I might add.

thinking way too damn hard broseph, if it's fun people play it, if it's different than what most people are expecting they don't like it, that's all.

That was a very poor 'article'.

Why do gamers have to constantly become stuck in the past and think titles of their childhood are only way to go?

@csoup said:

Why do gamers have to constantly become stuck in the past and think titles of their childhood are only way to go?

I think more people are reverting to older technology because there seems to be a stagnation in original, or at least, mechanically compelling and challenging videogames. Sometimes the new stuff just really isn't as good as the old stuff. This isn't a blanket policy, though; it depends on the game, the genre and the franchise. I still play the shit out of Genesis beat'em ups - on my computer, though. Those games still hold up and are still incredibly fun so many years later.  Everything should be handled on a by-case basis. Blanket statements, and shit like 'nostalgia goggles' needs to stop.

I have played every Fallout game ever made, even that weird console one, and I love Fallout 3....

@CounterSwarmer said:

3)Sailor Moon 

Jesus Christ.

So if game is not good as other games we should praise it cuz public loves it? Fuck that I aint going to listen to Justin Bieber and watch Twilight while reading womens magazine and eating diet shut cuz its popular with people that have no idea and taste.

i really dislike hipsters...  but ive been called one many times so i dont know what to think anymore