Which franchises had a great beginning but lost their touch?

My choice: Crash Bandicoot and Halo

Devil May Cry

Halo
Crash Bandicoot
Possibly Final Fantasy

GTA and silent hill

Donkey Kong

DDR

Tony Hawk

Resident Evil

My favourite is number 4 but still I think its not really Resident Evil any more..

Tony Hawk springs to mind, i loved Tony Hawks 1 and right up to Project 8, but boy did Proving ground suck. (Annoying challenges, boring challenges that involved you editing ect)

Still, i do hope they return with a new Tony Hawk soon (And not with damn analog controls like every other extreme sports game seems to be doing lately grrrrrrrrrrrrrr)

Sonic

I'll definitely sign on for donkey kong. Whew, what a fall from grace. Totally lost its point in later games.

Kirby. The first one was great, new and fresh. The next added his signature Copy Ability. Every subsequent game was exactly the same. Same enemies, same music, same gameplay. The only one in recent times that was new was Power Paintbrush, and even that featured Dedede, had every one of the 40+ music tracks remixed from previous games, etc.

Super Mario
Devil May Cry
Crash Bandicoot