Some series I want to know what happened:
Castlevania - The series used to be about originality. Each game used to be done by a different group and it used to be Konami's showcase series to test new talent, with such names as Treasure and Tose having their hand at developing games for the series back in the day. Then came one man that came everything....Igakura. Suddenly he made one successful game in the series and they just 'gave' him the series and it was like the series became nothing but watered down Symphony of the Night clones and weak 3D titles with bad plots. What the heck happened?
Suikoden - Suikoden I-III was some of the best JRPG titles ever made. Original concepts in gameplay, great characters and stories and all around fun. Then....the creator up and left without warning. And the series went downhill FAST. More than any other game series, I've been waiting for a 'revival' of this RPG series, but every new title has been more disappointing than the last. How can one person leaving a production influence the quality so much? What the heck happened?
Dance Dance Revolution (DDR) - I'm not really a fan of this series, but it still begs the question. This series was all the rage of arcades and 'casual' music game players before there even was a music gaming or casual gaming market. And its as if the series disappeared overnight around the time the PS3 and Wii came out.
Zone of the Enders - Now while this game may have come out as an afterthought to the Metal Gear Solid titles on the PS2, and its sales never exploded, it still doesn't change the fact that the games were still fabulous and many people have been asking 'Where is the next Zone of Enders game'?
If it looks like I'm picking on Konami, there's a reason. Over the last 10 years, Konami has gone from an amazing company with some of the most powerful series out there from the NES all the way to the PS2 to virtually ignoring or killing their best series currently. ANd I would like them to fix that, as they use to be my favorite third party company. But as it stands now, I can't even enjoy any of the past series I use to love as they're either not making games for them anymore or the games have severely dropped in quality.
Some other series I want to know what happened:
Sim City - One of the pillars of PC gaming for years, as of late, it seems the series has become an afterthought to EA just to make money. Sim City 4 lacked substantial balance, Sim City Socienties felt like a lackluster version Sim City 3000 with 'online' and there's little word on the future of the series with the mad success of 'The Sims' overtaking it. Is Will Wright leaving this once famous and ground breaking series to die at the altar of his dancing, rubbish speaking Avatars?
Final Fantasy - Ah, the ever ending, ever costing sinkhole that is Final Fantasy. Every year they make more titles, and every year they make less money. Its not hard to see what led them to this 'if you build it, they will come' concept of game development. What I want to know is, why they're focusing so many millions on those titles. Its obvious SquareEnix has never focused on long term profits (look at how they handle all their other series), so this total negligent waste on the Final Fantasy series in both development and advertising seems not only wasteful, but destructive. All I can think is their concept is, if they make more titles, it'll cover the cost of the last one. And all I can come to a conclusion is, its going to bankrupt them in the end.
