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Franchises with the Lowest Percentage of Bad Entries


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21 minutes ago, DefaultGen said:

I also thought of Gran Turismo but I was outrageously hyped for GT5, preordered the limited edition, followed all the pre-release stuff, and it just kind of okay. Since there are so many amazing sim racing options I haven't played a GT since 😥

GT4 was definitely the best of the series.  I don't consider GT5 or GT6 to be bad games, but they didn't wow me the way GT4 did.  

However, I consider GT Sport to be a bad entry.  The VR aspect is cool, but the game itself was extremely disappointing.  Supposedly, the next GT game will be GT7 which means they don't consider Sport to be a mainline entry which sort of makes sense, but that also means there was no mainline entry for the PS4 which is pretty shitty considering that every home PS console before received two mainline entries.  

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Any RPG series that fit this bill?  I wish I could say this about Final Fantasy but, eh, you can't.  I've only played maybe 3 Dragon Quest games and they seemed to all be excellent.  I'm not sure if there's an out-right dude in the list, but at least of the mainline franchise, those might all be top-notch.

I'm going to throw out Tony Hawk's Pro Skater.  I'm not including the spin-offs like Underground, even though that was an alright game, but it did start to go down hill at that point (no pun intended.)

Guitar Hero/Rock Band were repeats of the same old play style and rarely offered anything "new", but it didn't matter for what they were.  I guess you could count those franchises too.

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3 hours ago, Gloves said:

Eeeeehhhhhh. Nightshade really wasn't very good at all.

Okay. I personally couldn't get into the mainline PS2 game either, but I thought both were highly regarding. 

Sticking with the Ninja theme, how about Tenchu? (I haven't played 2.)

Edited by Californication
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8 minutes ago, Californication said:

Okay. I personally couldn't get into the mainline PS2 game either, but I thought both were highly regarding. 

Sticking with the Ninja theme, how about Tenchu? (I haven't played 2.)

Tenchu is amazing, LOVE the series, but 2 is my LEAST favorite.

That said, there are a fair few people out there who would argue with me about its place in the series. I much preferred the grit of 1, and the polish of the PS2 titles. I've not played the Xbox exclusive. The Wii game was not very good at all.

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A lot of really good answers in this thread already. I'm actually kind of surprised by how many big series have maintained pretty high quality throughout their entire lifetime. Some that stand out for me:

  • Halo
  • Gears of War
  • Forza Horizon
  • 2D Super Mario Games
  • GTA
  • Uncharted
  • God of War
Edited by DoctorEncore
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2 hours ago, RH said:

Any RPG series that fit this bill?  I wish I could say this about Final Fantasy but, eh, you can't.  I've only played maybe 3 Dragon Quest games and they seemed to all be excellent.  I'm not sure if there's an out-right dude in the list, but at least of the mainline franchise, those might all be top-notch.

The original versions of Dragon Warrior I and II pretty bad and Dragon Quest X is an MMORPG basically nobody outside Japan has played.

In general most JRPG franchises old enough to stretch back to the 8-bit-ish era and expansive enough to be really worth talking about (if you only have like 3-4 games it's not very impressive that none are worse than okay: see Mother/Earthbound) had at least one stinker back then. Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy, Phantasy Star, Fire Emblem, Megami Tensei, Shining, Ys? Yeah, sane people (saner than me anyways!) should probably stay away from some of the earliest games in those and many produced at least a bad game or two later.

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46 minutes ago, Reed Rothchild said:

The loose "Xeno" series, maybe.  Elder Scrolls?  The collective Bioware stuff?

I’m not sure about it quite being “bad” exactly (haven’t played it) but whenever the subject came up it feels like I’ve heard people bitch about Xenosaga 2 for like 15 years.

WRPGs aren’t really my thing, Elder Scrolls especially, but I have never seen anyone bring up Arena as something worth caring about. Daggerfall, sure. Arena? Nope. Maybe it’s just overshadowed by all the later games but that bodes poorly.

Bioware though...

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lrpglqYeQBc

case closed

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On 1/17/2022 at 6:39 PM, Naked Warrior said:

MarioKart - 8 games and all of them within a stone's throw of perfection (for the time/system they were released).

Going to have to disagree on this one, I'd also happily throw Smash Bros under the same bus, run them both over, back up, and do it again to be sure.  I know it's me given the mind numbed types who are too into their clutches, but post-Gamecube both franchises went to shit.  Victim to the same culture that has damaged and watered down FPS and RTS games too.  Crap quality mechanics added in to a long in the tooth franchise coupled with a very intense push to feature the online mechanics over the campaign/single player jewels that used to exist.  I can't stomach either franchise anymore, totally went to the dump.

I want to make a case for Zelda, but unlike the other two it would be unfair to.  Where those are clear Zelda isn't, it's more based on tolerance of how much of things you wish would change or not.  Zelda until BOTW got super long in the tooth, very samey and wash rinse repeat.  There are good ways to do that like Dragon Quest does, and bad ways where you feel like you're just doing an overly done tv re-run.  Combine that with some checkered divisive titles like Majoras mistake, Skyward Sword with its busted controls, as did the 2 DS ones where you'd roll accidentally to death as much as walk, and it's a contender based on taste.

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6 hours ago, Strange said:

Maaaan whoever likes those games, specifically Shinobi III, is a nerd. If I met a guy like that on here I’d bully him

I'm deep on Revenge of Shinobi, Shadow Dancer, and Shinobi Legions, and your gf.

I had trouble getting into Shinobi lll, but assumed it would be good when I circled back. I didn't like Revenge of Shinobi until I figured the mechanics.

Edited by Californication
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1 hour ago, Californication said:

I'm deep on Revenge of Shinobi, Shadow Dancer, and Shinobi Legions, and your gf.

I had trouble getting into Shinobi lll, but assumed it would be good when I circled back. I didn't like Revenge of Shinobi until I figured the mechanics.

Shadow Dancer is a lot of fun. Legions is a game I had never heard anyone talk about until recently, but what little I’ve heard is good. I really need to grab a copy.

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  • 1 month later...

The X-COM (and XCOM) series have honestly been pretty spot-on. There is that one game that we don't ever talk about but, other than that, it's all pretty much great.

Streets of Rage only has 4 games to its lineage but they're all bangers. SoR3 is a little rough around the edges but it's still good.

The Metroid series has made out pretty well, even if you include the Prime games. A couple of non-starters with the spin-off games but otherwise, all quality.

Edited by Webhead123
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On 1/18/2022 at 12:13 PM, RH said:

Any RPG series that fit this bill?  I wish I could say this about Final Fantasy but, eh, you can't.  I've only played maybe 3 Dragon Quest games and they seemed to all be excellent.  I'm not sure if there's an out-right dude in the list, but at least of the mainline franchise, those might all be top-notch.

Maybe the Mario & Luigi series? I haven't played all of them but even the ones that I hear were underwhelming seem like they were still decent.

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  • 4 months later...

Kirby is the water with no ice of Nintendo. It isn't going to ever be terrible, but it can be uninteresting. Sometimes it is pleasant. If you trim the Mario series down to just "Super Mario" games, then it similarly isn't going to have many bad entries (maybe Super Mario Bros Special) though I personally think it is sort of cheating to just give Mario a free pass on almost every single spinoff the series had. If you do that, then you may as well just say Metroid and only count the 2D platformers

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