Nowadays, we see games that try to capitalize on the success of previous ones on their respective franchises. Some of them become "spiritual sequels" while others are direct sequels to the games that precede them. In this top 5 countdown, we will see the top 5 games that should stick to their predecessor's style and features just adding new things instead of changing them. Now without further due, let's go to the countdown.
5) Bio Shock
I know what you're all thinking. "How dare you mess with Bio Shock!". Well, I'll start by saying I love Bio Shock. It's a great game, a good mix of horror, sci fi, action and dystopian fiction. Even though I love the game and I am eagerly waiting for Bio Shock 2 to be released, I won't hide the fact that System Shock 2 (it's "spiritual prequel") entertained me a little bit more. If we could put these two great games on a point scale, I'd say that System Shock 2 beats Bio Shock by a margin of 1.5 points.
The reason why System Shock 2 wins with that narrow margin is because it has, in the original formula the rpg'ish point system and classes. I could emphasize on battle or make my character a much smarter but weaker. That gave a sense of strategy to the game, and made the game world look more free and open to the player. Sure Bio Shock's game world is awesome. Picking stuff up out of pretty much everything and giving the player a reason to explore is good enough, but a point system would have made things even better. Maybe that would have opened the way for new skills (apart from the plasmid ones) and a stronger game world (stronger than it already is). Also a few strange and cryptic puzzles would have helped since the place is crazy, made by a madman.
4) Phantasy Star
Oh, Phantasy Star...The online games since Phantasy Star Online are cool but this franchise needs a classic style makeover soon. It needs the epic story line, the planet traveling, a real villain (one that has a strong presence in the game) with an evil agenda to defeat and doing more stuff than just killing monsters and bosses. The grind fest starts as a fun thing, but it starts to drag pretty quickly and becomes a matter of patience as to when the player will become bored of it.
This franchise needs to become Sega's rpg flagship once again. Like it was back then when it competed with Final Fantasy and earned it's good fan base. With gaming technnology been how it is now, I know that Sega can make a great masterpiece with a franchise like PS.
3) Silent Hill
The Silent Hill franchise started with a bang, followed with what I consider the best game in the series, kept things good with the third installment, went a little experimental with the fourth one and after all that success something went wrong. I am not saying that all newest Silent Hill games are bad, but the big ones (excluding Origins), seemed like a step in another direction that the game itself refuses to follow. Homecoming had the mood but the emphasis on action game play kind of ruined it. The new one, Silent Hill: Shattered Memories on PSP and Wii, seems promising but they scrapped the battle system and implemented a "run and hide"one. I know that this will have sort of a good effect because it will focus a little more in exploration (thing I love about Survival Horror games), but I think that they overdid it a little. Sometimes I want to feel threatened by monsters and guess what...I wanna fight back! UP until now, Silent Hill 2 is still the #1 Silent Hill game on my book.
2) Final Fantasy
The rpg franchise that almost everybody loves (I know I do). Have suffered some deep changes since Final Fantasy X2 (Yeah, I mention FFX2 because even though it wasn't as good as the previous ones, it is not as bad as people claim it is, so stop throwing tomatoes at me!). The first thing that hurt my Final Fantasy fan feelings was that they eliminated the ATB system and implemented an mmorpg/bioware rpg style hybrid that doesn't suit a Final Fantasy game. Sure it's great for games like KOTOR 1 and 2, Mass Effect, Dragon Age Origins, but for a Final Fantasy game is like making it so that if you strip off the name Final Fantasy from the game and put any other name to it, nobody would notice by playing it the first time until they see the title screen. I know it is a system that kind of works, but that type of implementation belongs to the mmorpg Final Fantasy games like FFXI and it's upcoming sequel. I really hope that with the new cannon Final Fantasy game they will make the old system return or at least make an hybrid of it that feels like the good old Final Fantasy games (1 to 10).
Now let go to the #1 game that changed so much that it degraded itself. I love this franchise but it wins the first spot on this countdown. That gaming franchise is...
1) Resident Evil
I really could spend hours talking of all the things that I miss about Resident Evil. The solid exploration, the cryptic puzzles, the backtracking, the slower but scarier creatures, the game going on from beginning to end instead of been chapter driven. The scares, the absence of quick time events, the stories that actually made sense, the awkward camera angles that made you think twice before advancing, the loads of items (non weaponry) to use among other things that made the franchise a classic.
The newest Resident Evil game (RE 5) is not bad, but it can hardly be considered a Resident Evil game. Resident Evil 4 was different but kept the essence of the classic ones alive. Once again the emphasis on action spoiled what would otherwise be an epic game. Even Shinji Mikami, the original creator of the franchise was not on that project and he himself said that he didn't wanted to play RE5 because he would feel umcomfortable with what they did to his baby. Sadly, he is no longer working with the RE franchise so who knows what will come next. I really hope that the Resident Evil game they are developing for the PSP and the future sequel will return the series to it's roots and be as fun and scary as it once was.
Final Comments:
I'm going to be brief with my final comments. I will only say that if something is not broken then don't fix it. If a game is still making money and selling like hot cakes don't change it. Afterall, it sells so well because gamers actually like it, so why re-shape it?
Well folks this is all for this top 5 countdown and I hope you guys enjoyed it. It would be awesome if you leave some comments on this one because I know the topic is highly controversial between gamers. Well, thanks for reading and see you all on my next article.
