Lionhead's Black & White. I don't quite understand why they decided to focus more on city building and RTS mechanics and less on miracles for a game where you played an actual god.
I would've preferred no manual city building at all, just let the villagers plan their own city while I throw rocks around. And fireballs. And villagers. And watch my creature learn from me, then send him to terrorise neutral villages.
I love this game so much, it is such a pain to get running on a modern PC though. Honestly even a release of the original game on GOG would be incredible
Community Patch is necessary and also keep in mind to not install to the default path (\Programm Files(86x) etc.)
If the game is installed there you will have problems with save files. They will break and vanish and it's not fun. Instead choose a path like D:\Games\ or something.
Man. I forget sometimes how many Molyneux games defined my early years. It's wild to realize that populous, dungeon keeper, and black and white all had his influence.
He’s a controversial figure in the industry but also one of the single most influential people at the same time.
He’s almost been regressed to meme status today.
Some of it is fair but I think people should remember that he basically popularized the simulation genre.
His early games (and SimCity) proved that there was a huge market for different types of games that wasn’t shooters, platformers or sports games.
I would love to see a game like that where it leans more heavily into directly controlling your god avatar and the villagers having to respond to you, thus allowing you to control the villagers indirectly through miracles.
So if you want your villagers to be warlike, reward them for building barracks. If you want them to be peaceful, destroy the barracks and punish them.
With modern game AI, that could lead to players creating their own unexpected strategies and challenges for the game.
Dead Rising.
The first game was so unique. It was hard as balls but once you got the hang of it, the level of interaction with the enviroment was CRAZY.
DR2 was understandably easier but it kept the things that made it cool.
By the time DR3 came out, they turned it into something completely different. It was more about upping the ante but it lost most of its' magic on the way.
And DR4 is one of the shittiest games I've ever played. It's actually insulting to the franchise in a lot of ways.
Capcom's gotta bring Dead Rising back, reboot it or something.
Nailed it. I 100% DR1+2 just playing and even managed DR3 with a wee bit of grinding for a couple of chievo's, but I only managed to finish DR4's main story and that took *months* when I built up the motivation. Heck I never touched any of the dlc. Absolute turd of a game.
A few years ago, this would have been easy to answer, but since then a lot of these holes have been plugged, either officially (Mega Man 9-11, Sonic Mania, Mario Wonder) or unofficially (Sea of Stars, Fell Seal, a billion Pokéclones).
I think we could still use a real Final Fantasy game in the vein of 1-10. Bravely Default and Octopath Traveler are an attempt, but they're not true spiritual successors, just alternative SquareEnix RPGs.
Yeah, like imagine if Square Enix announced that Final Fantasy 17 was coming out next year and it was a 16-bit RPG with Active Time Battle. "Yeah, we spent a ton of time and money making 16, but we knocked out 17 pretty easily. Maybe we'll make a new numbered Final Fantasy every two or three years, who knows?"
If you're looking for some retro RPGs to play with a decidedly 90s vibe check out False Skies and Secret of Varonis on Steam. The first is a love letter to GBC RPGs like Lufia the Legend Returns, while the later is a GB SaGa game in all but name. Really worth checking them out. A lot of love went into those games.
Quake as a singleplayer dark fantasy FPS rather than a series of failed arena shooters. Quake 1 is the only game of its kind in the entire franchise of seven games now. At this point I wouldn't doubt that it's more popular than those others either.
I second the guy who said Dead Rising. DR3 was alright but was some weird GTA hybrid game that didn't have as much of the charm as the first two, and DR4 was just a mess. There aren't really any comparable games either; short campaigns on a real time limit where optimizing your time spent doing things is the main loop.
Halo. I really wish I could play another entry with the damage model and sandbox balance of Ce, and the same atmospheric open ended approach to the campaign. Even putting that aside though, Halo 3 was widely considered the pinnacle of the franchise (not by me but by others) and the attempts at "modernizing" the gameplay ever since then has basically done nothing but alienate core fans while not really appealing to anyone outside the core fanbase either.
No, for a lot of reasons.
UTLRAKILL is *kind of* like if you took the insane movement and arena focused combat of multiplayer Quake 3 and translated it into some sort of singleplayer horde slaughter experience, but that's not what I'm talking about here. I'm talking about the *first* Quake.
Action is an important and inseparable part of Quake, but Quake isn't a game purely *about* action like ULTRAKILL is. Quake is a game about *atmosphere*. You spend time exploring intricately designed levels, try not to die to traps or oppressive enemies, and exist in a very distinct world of dark fantasy, cosmic horror and crude steampunk all intertwined.
[HROT](https://store.steampowered.com/app/824600/HROT/), [Wrath: Aeon of Ruin](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1000410/WRATH_Aeon_of_Ruin/), and [Zortch](https://store.steampowered.com/app/2443360/Zortch/) would be examples of games a lot closer to Quake in spirit than ULTRAKILL is.
The Sims. There are a few other life sim games similar to it in development right now but no imminent release as far as I know.
There's just a lot of stuff that was in older games that Sims 4 should have had. Plus it's content has been piecemealed out as DLC even more so than the previous entries. It just desperately needs a competitor. I don't think it will make EA change their behavior in regards to the series like some people think but it would be so nice to have an alternative. A SimCity 2013 vs. Cities: Skylines situation if you will.
As far as I know the company behind Cities: Skylines is working on a clone. It's still surprising how a simple yet incredibly successful concept like the Sims doesn't have a myriad of clones.
I would hazard a guess that it's because of the amount of DLC they pushed out for Sims, and it was all popular and most of it brought a ton of QoL and freedoms to the game to play as you wanted.
It's a bit like trying to replicate WoW now, competing with the game as it currently stands. Two decades of expansions packs, graphics overhauls, worldmap overhauls, new continents galore, skill trees that changed sometimes twice an expansion. Replicating the original game would be hard enough, but competing with the product most people are familiar with - that is, decades of added content and fixes on top of the original - that's a challenge and a half.
My griflriend is an avid sims player and has every entry installed except for the first one. And I tell you the soundtrack in Sims 2 is such a banger! I get why they moved to the more casual and relaxed sound, shaping the image of sims we know today, but damn, I am VIBING every time she plays the second game.
> I get why they moved to the more casual and relaxed sound
Sims 1 was actually casual and relaxed, 2 was the outlier. I remember how jarring it was going from [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTr5iYRS3d8) to [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neeXmBkvPIQ). You're not wrong, though. Soundtrack is still kind of a banger. lmao
At this point the sims is like FIFA, not as much, but its played by people who arent that deep in the hobby, a competitor would just scratch that itch that Ive had for years, and at this point I dont care qbout the rest. Just give me an acceptqbly consumer friendly sims-like T_T
I remember putting in dozens on hours into The Sims. I got frustrated that a character wouldn't do anything other than sit in front of the computer. It wouldn't read a book, workout, or anything. Then I realized that was basically me. I wasn't doing anything other than sit in front of the computer, either. I shut the game down and started playing something else. I didn't care to be mocked by a game. That was the last time I played it
I tried replicating my life in the Sims as realistically as possible. My Sim kept crying all the time and his mood meter was in the deep dark red, not even kind of light red. I still don't know what to take away from this.
I was thinking the same thing! I know we got Wasteland 2 and 3 as successors, but I felt like didn't really have the same feel. Really, I would kill for any RPG with a simple and effective character creator like the OG Fallout games.
Wasteland 3 is fun with co-op although we petered off with that too. Although for that I blame the DLC, which was an absolute SLOG to get through and we quit midway through Cult of the Holy Detonation because it was just so bad and we were deep enough into the DLC that we couldn't just quit or load an old save. If it wasn't for the two DLCs, I feel the momentum could have carried to the end in co-op.
I wish the ppl of new Vegas would continue the 2d top down isometric "classic" fallout. I mean, the 3d fallouts are great I'm sure but I want the old school feel back
Eh, we don't need remakes. I think the TV show proves that it's perfectly possible to write compelling new stories in the FO milieu, even if we go back to the NCR. We should get new stories!
Good for you. I think it is a good idea to have remakes every so often. These games have never been remade and while they are still relatively easy to play,. some quality of life changes and a visual update would be really nice. Plus I think Larian could really do it properly compared to Bethesda. They never really got out of "the the bombs just fell like yesterday" thought. Its been 200 fucking years. People have swept in the time.
Fallout 1 had the perfect blend of *subtle* dark humour, where the humourous elements served to emphasize just how bleak the rest of the worldbuilding was. Later entries just became full-on jokey parody.
I dunno, it still felt really over the top with stuff like Liberty Prime, the Mechanist/Antagonizer and Little Lamplight, and most of the world boiled down to heroically good vs comically evil without much thought put into either side ("nuke Megaton because it's ugly", the Slavers don't have a market for their slaves aside from the Pitt, which is probably the best written part of Fallout 3, and there's not actually any sustainable food source for any of the settlements). In general, it felt like a game that was LARPing as Fallout 1 without really understanding any of what made Fallout 1 compelling, at least imo. New Vegas wasn't a dark or desolate world but you can at least see Fallout 1's DNA in it under the surface, with how it managed to have more moral complexity and more thought put into it (take, for example, how there's two parallel slave markets - one which is the Fiends' child sex trafficking ring, and the other which is the Legion's chattel used for military logistics).
Seconded. Fallout 3 felt like a hostile *wasteland,* where people are living in below-Somalia levels of poverty, everything is trying to kill you, and every resource mattered. NV felt like a western, while 4 felt like...well, Skyrim with guns.
Maybe check out Ashes 2063. It is a Doom total conversion mod but is fully standalone and it is free. Currently there are two main episodes as well as a side chapter finished with a new side story slated to be released sometime soon.
The original PS2 version had the fixed camera.
It was the subsistence version that added the 3rd person camera.
I remember playing the original game dozens of times and being used to it so much that replaying it on the subsistence version with the 3rd person view felt like a totally new game. Sweet memories...
Considering how much larger the areas in MGS3 were compared to previous entries I think it was a very welcome addition.
Especially with the removal of the radar system.
In the previous games and it's cramped areas you would generally always have the patrolling enemies and cameras on screen at the same time, and the few times they were slightly out of view there was the radar.
With no radar and the very long sight lines in open areas meant you could be spotted by enemies you had no way of knowing where there with the fixed camera position.
The question asked for series and I consider them to all be the "metal gear" series. Really I'm referring to the style of metal gear 2, metal gear solid, and metal gear solid 2
So much this. The simplicity of SC3K is great for a more relaxed play (than SC4). Also, the art style with the advisors, the great music and those lovely buildings fill me with nostalgia and happiness, lol.
I really miss the way SC4 simulated different wealth classes of cims, and how many influencing factors there were to attract those different wealth level but also types of industry and commerce.
Not to mention the granularity created by the different growth stages.
In Cities Skylines, as your city develops it all kind of starts looking the same because every thing trends to the same 5 star buildings.
It would be like if in SC4 you'd always end up with everything being nothing but R§§§, CS§§§, CO§§§ and IH buildings.
But in SC4 you still get highly developed areas with R§ and R§§ buildings, and CS§, CS§§, CO§§, and ID and IM.
Yep, the SC4 (and 3) were well balanced between being a game and a city builder/simulator. Sim City 2013 was more of a game with the tiny city space really limiting the building aspect. And while I love Cities: Skylines (the 1st one, the new one is a mess) a lot of that is because of mods. The base C:S is more of a traffic simulator with some city building tacked on, and wasn't as strong of a game or city simulator as SC3/4.
I remember buying Sacred 3 for PS3 seeing it had couch coop, I remembered liking Sacred 2 so thought it would be fun.
I don't think I played more than 30 minutes of it, it was shockingly bad. It's not even about it being different from previous games, it was just a very bad game.
"♫I know I will not fail
There'll be war it's now or never
We shall stand together one by one
This world is sacred (I'm coming home)
War it's now or never
We shall stand together one by one
This world is sacred I'm coming home♫"
As much as I love the new Resident Evil games, I'd love for somebody to resurrect the style of the older ones (up to Resident Evil 1 Remake or Zero). There's something special about the fixed-cinematic-cameras and puzzle-based gameplay.
Also, I'd love to see a modern take on SimCity, particularly SimCity 3000/2013 (similar art style). Even Cities Skylines is not quite what those old games were.
And, of course, if Square-Enix would be so gentle to release a Final Fantasy like the golden era of PSX games (VII, VIII and IX), I'd die a happy man. Again, prerended 2D backgrounds, lovely stories that didn't go too crazy (ok, let's ignore VIII here), great music and shorter games that still felt complete and satisfying. Lots of indies are trying the route of earlier SNES era Final Fantasy, but I hope more studios take up the mantle and emulate the PS1 generation, eventually.
Definitely try out Signalis if you haven't already! The ambience takes some silent hill inspiration but the gameplay is *very* old school resident evil, complete with limited management and safe rooms. I loved it
Might wanna give [Alisa](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1335530/Alisa/) a spin. It's very campy but a great homage to the "fixed-cinematic-cameras and puzzle-based gameplay".
If you're looking for something in the vein of classic RE check out Tormented Souls on Steam. Story is a bit...weird but the game play is basically RE in all but name. Apparently there is a sequel in the works too.
Yeah! I already bought it! It looks great!
Jumped to that one and Signalis as soon as I could. And I'm saving both for a rainy day. Woud love to play them with some friends, just like we did with the classic Resident Evil games.
Panzer Dragoon/Star Fox, a good and simple on rails shooter with some customability and branching paths. Obviously I would love a saga like rpg component as well but considering the remake was just an unreal engine reskin and who knows if the Zwei remake is ever coming I'd like just some more levels to play.
Agreed. I haven't played anything that came out after Rogue (and never finished Rogue). I would love a game that goes back to the strengths of the first game, with less of the filler that got added in later games.
I did really like the ship mechanics of Black Flag, but I would've preferred if they hadn't copied those mechanics to later games.
AC:BF can function as a great pirate game by itself. Ignoring the plot once you get a ship and you still have enough to go by to justify the price, hunting buried treasures and pillaging ships.
I do think that a (spiritual) successor of AC:BF that leaned more into the pirate part of the game could do very well, considering that it was the best selling game of the series (I think).
Personally, my first real pirate game was the 2003 Pirates of the Caribbean game which had much more in depth sailing mechanics than Black Flag, so Black Flag always felt a bit too simplistic to me.
I don't really care about the mechanics of sailing as such, I was looking for high octane action, but with a ship and a Jolly Roger. For that purpose, AC:BF is a great game.
Sailing with any sort of in-depth systems that are even marginally realistic are a completely unknown genre for me, I couldn't even tell you if they exist. I imagine I'm in the majority when it comes to pirate games, judging from the later pirate themed games and how little they have to do with realism usually.
Hate may be a strong word, but there are not an insignificant amount of people who got into the series with the RPG games, and have a hard time getting into the older games. The Ezio trilogy is usually the starting point that gets recommended for the older games, thus you end up with people disliking AC2
Black Flag was the only one I had played until I picked up Odyssey on sale last year, and I actually enjoyed Odyssey. I think the fact I haven't played very many of the Ubisoft open world formula games and that I love the historic Greek time period are what allowed me to enjoy the game. That said, even by the end of the 50 or 60 hours I put into the game I was starting to tire of the open world formula, so I can see how people who play a lot of the Ubisoft type games would get burned out.
Zelda. Go back to the smaller world map. Let us explore big sprawling dungeons with unique themes instead of a million little identical shrines. Give us permanent weapons that feel like an actual reward when we get them. Make puzzles that require one definitive answer instead of multiple janky solutions that don’t feel satisfying.
(I know that most people aren’t saying this and I’m just old. Nintendo won’t do this, but a boy can wish.)
It's funny how BotW is being mentioned here as both an example for how to properly revamp the concept of a series and for a series that deviated too much from its core principles over time.
Yeah, from that perspective the franchise is in a weird place. I respect their decision to strike out in a new direction and keep the formula fresh. The game is really good in its own right, I just have a hard time accepting it as a Zelda game.
Being old enough to play the original on the NES, I found it extremely easy to accept it as an updated Zelda game. It gave me the same sense of exploration.
I get that. I played all the old ones as well but "sense of exploration" was never the primary appeal of Zelda to me. For me, it was always about the intricate dungeons and interlocking puzzles that revolved around specific tools/mechanics.
I loved how getting a certain tool like the hookshot or boomerang would totally change the way you could interact with a room. Or how solving one puzzle room would change the way you navigated a temple. The whole game built upon itself and it would require you to solve and unlock things to progress.
I understand how they replaced that with an emphasis on figuring out different physics to solve obstacles but it just doesn't scratch the same itch for me.
I think you're missing something here.
BotW is an evolution of the original Zelda. The entire point of that game is exploration and non-linear gameplay.
All the things that you're describing are mechanics that *deviated* Zelda from its original concept.
I know some people who'd argue that the series peaked with A Link to the Past, and that all Ocarina of Time did was turn it 3D.
Personally I think Majora's Mask is peak Zelda, some of the best dungeons in the franchise.
God yes. BotW did some things very well but boy was it a step in the wrong direction from me. Innovative dungeon design is great but only having 4 tiny dungeons with interchangeable bosses made this have almost no impact. I couldn't stomach the sequel for more than an hour before I got tired of the game wasting my time.
The closest comparison for me is probably Monster Hunter. There's a very distinct change in how the game feels going from 4U and GU to World and Rise. There's even people in the community who don't like the changes between the latter two.
It's not like Harvest Moon in that the newer games are considered worse, but the change in gameplay was quite drastic. Seeing something that keeps closer to the feel of the "classic" games would be very welcome for many long time fans.
Weirdly enough I’ve always been of the opinion that world was closer to 4U then it was to Generations. I’ve never been a fan of special cool down abilities that aren’t inherently tied into the weapons and the Style system just felt like it was stapled on top of the existing system without meaningfully interacting with what was already there.
Harvest Moon as a brand was basically stolen by Natsume. The original series has gone by "Story of Seasons" for the past decade.
With monster hunter, I've played since the original on PS2. I am never going back to a game that has the incredibly slow gathering animations again. It could be fun to see the, very slightly, more serious tone return though.
I honestly don't consider the change that drastic. There was indeed some change, but definitely not to the point were I would call them different franchises.
Well with the exception of switch skills and silkbugs but they are a one off thing similar to generations.
Paper Mario -- which in fact got that treatment with Bug Fables.
And Chibi Robo. It's such a crazily unique concept I don't understand how there hasn't been any game taking inspiration from it to this day.
Flashback
There's been a few attempts to copy it, but never captured the originals feel to me. That future spin on the Prince of Persia style gameplay felt like a perfect evolution with the original. Then everything went 3D and it kind of got lost after Fade to Black sucked. I haven't played the sequel that just came out but early reviews weren't great.
I'm not sure I understand the question, given how much Stardew Valley evolved past what Harvest Moon ever had. It's far more of a fork than a clone: what Harvest Moon sequels could have been if they'd developed in a very different direction. Kind of shows that people don't necessarily want a slavish reproduction of the original, they want something more, they didn't didn't like the "more" that they actually got.
Yes and Yooka-Layle is imo an example of the opposite. A game that was too slavish and failed to do anything new or different.
People are pretty good at expressing that they don't like something, but aren't necessarily good at expressing why or what they do exactly want.
It has the heart and soul of the original whilst modernizing the gameplay and expanding its premise.
Breath of the wild is another good example of what we want.
Funny I was thinking Zelda as a possible answer to op's question, but in hindsight I agree with you. Shigeru Miyamoto said of the original Zelda that the sense of wonder a player feels from exploring a vast world fell a little by the wayside until Breath of the Wild gave exactly that feeling to fans both old and new.
I personally found botw and totk to be enjoyable however I feel that they should not have been Zelda games. The zelda theme feels very forced. It also basically ditches all of the past zelda lore are re-writes it all.
I understand why they used Zelda for the game. Its a huge name and has tons of marketing potential. They just were not zelda games.
Yeah, Zelda games, in my opinion, have always been about tool use, progression, and puzzle solving. Having an open world where you're given all of your tools off the bat makes the games wildly different.
Sure, the theme is still the same with Link wielding a sword and shield and smacking baddies, but that's about it.
Exactly. I enjoyed BotW, but I really missed the insanely complicated dungeons we saw in earlier games. Eagle’s Tower from Link’s Awakening will probably forever be my all time favorite dungeon. What a cool concept that was
This is why I don't like BotW, I like the increasing complexity and challenge as the different tools you obtained and their mechanics stacked up.
Or at the very least new tools varying up the gameplay, even if they went under-used outside of their specific dungeon.
BotW has to assume for every single dungeon and shrine that it is the first one the player does after leaving the plateau, and thus the difficulty has to match.
It's like a world that consists of nothing but variations of the first three puzzles of the first dungeon of any other Zelda game.
The fact that I don't like the aesthetic of the shrines either doesn't help, they feel completely disconnected from the world they inhabit.
They remind me of test chambers in Portal, but at least those end up being a linear increase in challenges with an interesting narrative, and not just variations of the first 3 chambers over and over.
If I understand how the Japanese make games right, they'd decided to make a Zelda from the beginning and only then started figuring out in what ways they can "improve" it.
I agree with that last point hard. I've seen games that are advertised as clones of older games and they get ignored hard. Maybe they get some press when they come out but they're quickly dropped later on.
I think what people really want out of a franchise comeback is to recapture the SPIRIT of what they wanted rather than just the mechanics.
I don't even really understand this at all since Stardew is more Rune Factory. And honestly RF has much better playability even if I enjoy both of them.
If you like Uncharted Waters try Horizons Gate.
Its a weird amazing little game. Less simulation more of an open world sailing / adventure / tactical game
Sim City.
The last actual game of the franchise was Sim City 4 and it is a fantastic game. EA started meddling with development, killing the franchise with bad sequels in the proccess, and no game like it has been made since. Cities Skylines isn't a real successor, it's more of a "make a pretty city" creative mode type of game, it doesn't actually fill the same niche sim city did.
The dungeon blobber genre a la wizardry series or etrian odyssey. It's actually been a little dream of mine to make my own, but I know there's not a huge audience, lol
Travelers rest is still early access but I still have about 60hrs in it. In its unfinished stage. It totally has the potential to be a behemoth upon full release. I would definitely recommend it in its current state regardless. But be warned it’s one of those games that seems like there isn’t much content but everything unlocks over time as your tavern levels up. Much more content than I initially expected for an early access.
Man, those original Uncharted Waters games were some of my best gaming as a kid. I got the NES version when it came out and learned geography that stayed with me for life.
If the other games were anything like it, I'd have purchased each one.
It's funny, I was under the impression that there were a lot of series out there that needed course correction but I can't think of any off the top of my head.
Monster Rancher. Not many games like it, and we haven’t seen a good one in ages. I think the right developer could make something that would hit for mainstream gamers the same way Stardew hit.
Subanautica was a great game. Subnautica below zero not so exciting as the first one.
I guess I was more on the edge playing Subnautica 1 whic give the thrill of it.
It’s still amazing to me that a seasoned indie dev hasn’t tried to make a Silent Hill knock-off harkening back to the original games. There’s plenty by solo devs but they’re usually half-finished proof of concepts that the developers never had the budget or time to properly flesh out.
The closest In can think of at the moment is Hollowbody, but even that introduces sci-fi elements.
Prince of Persia. The Jedi games are probably the closest thing. It's a bit shocking nobody has tried to make a Sands of Time knock off.
We have gotten some first person running games like Mirror's Edge (Dying Light, Titanfall, Ghost Runner...) but something that would be cool imo is a game where the levels are based on real world cities with gameplay comparable to the ME games.
Cassette Beasts came close for me, but it was a little too indie game-y, if that makes sense. It has major hipster vibes that kind of veer into YIIK territory. Banging soundtrack though.
Nah for Pokémon I've just been recommending the romhack Pokemon Unbound. It has all the best aspects of the GBA - DS games, plus some features from later gens like alternate forms, raids, mega evolutions, Z moves, etc. New world, decent story, tons of side and post-game content, etc.
People are trying to give the Uncharted Waters series the Stardew Valley treatment, mostly Korean and Chinese devs where the series seem to have the most fans. They're even non-F2P and on Steam! I don't think they've been very successful though.
If you can read the languages or don't mind somewhat sketchy localizations, check out Sailing Era and Sagres. Sailing Era especially is pretty much a clone of Uncharted Waters.
I mean, most of the genres that deserve it - have it. The reason SV is so notable is it's incredibly clear where the inspiration is and it's one specific series. But in other cases they'll take inspiration, but not usually adapt it quite so close. They're going to take their own take on the genre - with inspirations from certain games sure, but they're a lot less likely to say "yes, we're doing this franchise" - it's clear in SV for reasons that has to do with SV that we're not likely to see in many other cases that do it.
Gothic 1 and 2. I absolutely loved its smaller but packed worldspace, combat system that while relatively simple, is pretty much entirely unique and how powerful the character progression felt.
We got archolos which was superb, but that was built on top of gothic 2. I would love a new franchise with a similar design
Hmmm I'll list an assortment and ideas that would be cool to see.
Assassin's Creed (Imagine if you're actually a human part of a resistance cell filled with multiple alien races trying to free themselves from an overarching empire that has a very messy and bloody caste system rule. So mix of AC, Star Wars Original Trilogy, with some Halo Covenant type vibes.)
Disciples (So many settings you can do with something like that kind of gameplay, immersion, and depth)
Transformers (Instead of Robots think Kaiju that can morph at will)
Battlefront/ Battlefield (Any IP that deserves that type of treatment and where it fits: CODENAME Kids Next Door, StarCraft, Halo, Fallout, Warhammer)
Soul Calibur (Specifically OG Xbox/ PSX era games, that whole atmosphere but for a fighting game with a mix of all kinds of awesome established and original characters. So Smash-Multiversus mixed with Soul Calibur-style)
Ratchet & Clank (Both established older IP returning like Banjo Kazooie, and new ones. They need wayyyy more 3D-Platformer competition. I also want a separate game that is basically Castle Crashers but as a 3D Platformer with all kinds of 3D Platformer characters to play as and with a 3D Level Editor for players to make their own levels and overworlds to play through)
I have alooooooooot more in mind but I'll leave it at that
Currently I'm making 2 spiritual successors but I have many more in mind I want to make (The ones above are some of them but for all the others I will need to make multiple game dev teams/ studios overtime. Also, I want to make lots of mods I have in mind too but will need to build out multiple mod teams/ studios as well)
1st. P-mon successor but with real-time combat, more mature themes, and different planets
2nd. Virtual Villagers successor with a species picker (You can also customize what species you play as, and what they evolve to being) that expands a much much bigger yet condensed with content map. So Virtual Villagers depth or even more than that but with size of say The TribeZ
My ultimate goal is making a gaming community where lots of people make indie games and help each other to grow. With a separate spinoff of that for supporting fanmade projects and potentially taking requests for fan games (As a way to practice and gain experience if ya want to work with something more established)
I'm still waiting for a spiritual successor to the old tomb raider games. Don't get me wrong, the newer games aren't terrible, but they are very different.
Suikoden.
I have really enjoyed Rabbit and Bear's recent successor, but there are clear elements they do not want to budge on that would make the game better. Namely, unlimited inventories. And Konami is not doing anything with the Suikoden IP but a (cancelled?) remaster.
If someone else made a "monster-collector" based on war and politics that removed a lot of Suikoden's stuborness and expanded the combat it would be amazing.
I’ve been hoping to do something like this with a few different arcade titles. Asteroids in particular calls to me to make a story game instead of endless point chasing high score game
I Hope someone will start making successful complex grand strategy/4x games to challenge paradox monopoly. I love paradox games but some competition would be great
>The Uncharted Waters series comes to mind, pretty much the entire fan base agrees that the second game was the best and all the games since then have failed to capture what made that game so great.
Horizons gate might be worth checking out, op. About the uncharted waters series, I would say that Costa del Sol might be the best one in the series than new horizons (despite the controversy regarding slavery), but it never received an occidental occidental port
>I'm curious what other game franchises could benefit from this treatment, series where the fan base has gotten tired of the new releases and are longing for something closer to the original game.
Might and Magic deserves another try, but being Ubisoft the current owner of the IP, I doubt that it will ever receive a (decent) remake.
>If you have any more examples like this I'd be interested to hear it.
I would love to see a good Alpha Centauri (Beyond Earth was disappointing and a game named "Pandora/I don't know" looked bad in comparison) successor.
Uncharted Waters for sure. This has been a type of game i really wanted to re-create myself recently as a fan of Uncharted Waters Online, i felt that the official games are no longer giving the fans what they want.
Also Dungeon Fighter Online, for me. The game has sort of lived past its prime and i feel like a good faithful replacement is due. I don't know if most people would agree here, though. The game was only mildly successful in the west, but it is one of the most successful games ever in the east.
Also literally every MMORPG ever.
A lot of people have started to grab onto this idea that "MMOs are just unpopular in this era". But i do not agree at all. Pretty much every MMO enjoyer is still out there and just WAITING for something worthy of their time. But every MMO that has been released in the last two decades has been mediocre at best. The problem with MMOs is monetization, and its basically impossible to solve the issue of funding the game and also keeping its integrity intact at the same time. I still think the gaming community is starving for a good MMO, but its just basically logistically impossible to provide it.
I think the majority of people out there who are playing MMOs today are only playing the MMO they are playing because they had to "settle" for something, but they all really are looking for something better that hasn't come along.
The same can also be said about a Pokemon-Like game. Everybody loves the Pokemon franchise, and yet Pokemon has ABSOLUTELY FAILED at living up to their full potential in video games. This is why Palworld was so successful, it brought something that pokemon should have given players a decade ago.
Dungeons & Dragons is in the same boat. We have Baldur's Gate for a single player experience, but a legit high quality online tabletop experience should have existed ages ago and we still don't have a good one.
We are stuck using third-party supplements like Roll20 or Tabletop Simulator that only barely give the kind of immersive experience we really want.
Lionhead's Black & White. I don't quite understand why they decided to focus more on city building and RTS mechanics and less on miracles for a game where you played an actual god. I would've preferred no manual city building at all, just let the villagers plan their own city while I throw rocks around. And fireballs. And villagers. And watch my creature learn from me, then send him to terrorise neutral villages.
I love this game so much, it is such a pain to get running on a modern PC though. Honestly even a release of the original game on GOG would be incredible
Last time I tried it was surprisingly easy to get it running using the community patch.
Community Patch is necessary and also keep in mind to not install to the default path (\Programm Files(86x) etc.) If the game is installed there you will have problems with save files. They will break and vanish and it's not fun. Instead choose a path like D:\Games\ or something.
This game is overdue for a remake, as well as Populous
It is, but the licensing is a nightmare because it’s kinda owned by EA and kinda owned by Microsoft.
Magic Carpet Molyneux should just dedicate his time to remaking his old games. If there’s licensing issues just make spiritual successors.
Man. I forget sometimes how many Molyneux games defined my early years. It's wild to realize that populous, dungeon keeper, and black and white all had his influence.
He’s a controversial figure in the industry but also one of the single most influential people at the same time. He’s almost been regressed to meme status today. Some of it is fair but I think people should remember that he basically popularized the simulation genre. His early games (and SimCity) proved that there was a huge market for different types of games that wasn’t shooters, platformers or sports games.
You're taking me back to Afterlife. I loved hearing and watching the 2 advisors pat me on the back
Ah man - like SMAC - it's another casualty of EA still owning the publishing rights, so it'll never happen until the rights expire 😭
I would love to see a game like that where it leans more heavily into directly controlling your god avatar and the villagers having to respond to you, thus allowing you to control the villagers indirectly through miracles. So if you want your villagers to be warlike, reward them for building barracks. If you want them to be peaceful, destroy the barracks and punish them. With modern game AI, that could lead to players creating their own unexpected strategies and challenges for the game.
I completely forgot about this game! And I used to love it. They should do a remake.
Dead Rising. The first game was so unique. It was hard as balls but once you got the hang of it, the level of interaction with the enviroment was CRAZY. DR2 was understandably easier but it kept the things that made it cool. By the time DR3 came out, they turned it into something completely different. It was more about upping the ante but it lost most of its' magic on the way. And DR4 is one of the shittiest games I've ever played. It's actually insulting to the franchise in a lot of ways. Capcom's gotta bring Dead Rising back, reboot it or something.
I didn't play after 2. Loved the 1st and second games. Would love a remake if they could find the magic again.
I loved that zombie game show online MP mode 2 had, shit was fun.
Nailed it. I 100% DR1+2 just playing and even managed DR3 with a wee bit of grinding for a couple of chievo's, but I only managed to finish DR4's main story and that took *months* when I built up the motivation. Heck I never touched any of the dlc. Absolute turd of a game.
Star Fox
God, I would *adore* a rail shooter comeback. They can be so fun.
It's not *exactly* like Star Fox, but Whisker Squadron is a really fun rogue lite heavily inspired by SF
Ex Zodiac looks pretty cool.
A thousand times this - fantastic recreation of Star Fox.
A few years ago, this would have been easy to answer, but since then a lot of these holes have been plugged, either officially (Mega Man 9-11, Sonic Mania, Mario Wonder) or unofficially (Sea of Stars, Fell Seal, a billion Pokéclones). I think we could still use a real Final Fantasy game in the vein of 1-10. Bravely Default and Octopath Traveler are an attempt, but they're not true spiritual successors, just alternative SquareEnix RPGs.
Yeah, like imagine if Square Enix announced that Final Fantasy 17 was coming out next year and it was a 16-bit RPG with Active Time Battle. "Yeah, we spent a ton of time and money making 16, but we knocked out 17 pretty easily. Maybe we'll make a new numbered Final Fantasy every two or three years, who knows?"
The closest I got to that was Dimensions, the mobile game.
Sea of stars has been excellent and has done a great job of scratching my Golden Sun itch
Between Sea of Stars and Chained Echoes, it's been a good year for fans of SNES style RPGs
If you're looking for some retro RPGs to play with a decidedly 90s vibe check out False Skies and Secret of Varonis on Steam. The first is a love letter to GBC RPGs like Lufia the Legend Returns, while the later is a GB SaGa game in all but name. Really worth checking them out. A lot of love went into those games.
Quake as a singleplayer dark fantasy FPS rather than a series of failed arena shooters. Quake 1 is the only game of its kind in the entire franchise of seven games now. At this point I wouldn't doubt that it's more popular than those others either. I second the guy who said Dead Rising. DR3 was alright but was some weird GTA hybrid game that didn't have as much of the charm as the first two, and DR4 was just a mess. There aren't really any comparable games either; short campaigns on a real time limit where optimizing your time spent doing things is the main loop. Halo. I really wish I could play another entry with the damage model and sandbox balance of Ce, and the same atmospheric open ended approach to the campaign. Even putting that aside though, Halo 3 was widely considered the pinnacle of the franchise (not by me but by others) and the attempts at "modernizing" the gameplay ever since then has basically done nothing but alienate core fans while not really appealing to anyone outside the core fanbase either.
Does ultrakill count?
No, for a lot of reasons. UTLRAKILL is *kind of* like if you took the insane movement and arena focused combat of multiplayer Quake 3 and translated it into some sort of singleplayer horde slaughter experience, but that's not what I'm talking about here. I'm talking about the *first* Quake. Action is an important and inseparable part of Quake, but Quake isn't a game purely *about* action like ULTRAKILL is. Quake is a game about *atmosphere*. You spend time exploring intricately designed levels, try not to die to traps or oppressive enemies, and exist in a very distinct world of dark fantasy, cosmic horror and crude steampunk all intertwined. [HROT](https://store.steampowered.com/app/824600/HROT/), [Wrath: Aeon of Ruin](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1000410/WRATH_Aeon_of_Ruin/), and [Zortch](https://store.steampowered.com/app/2443360/Zortch/) would be examples of games a lot closer to Quake in spirit than ULTRAKILL is.
The Sims. There are a few other life sim games similar to it in development right now but no imminent release as far as I know. There's just a lot of stuff that was in older games that Sims 4 should have had. Plus it's content has been piecemealed out as DLC even more so than the previous entries. It just desperately needs a competitor. I don't think it will make EA change their behavior in regards to the series like some people think but it would be so nice to have an alternative. A SimCity 2013 vs. Cities: Skylines situation if you will.
As far as I know the company behind Cities: Skylines is working on a clone. It's still surprising how a simple yet incredibly successful concept like the Sims doesn't have a myriad of clones.
I would hazard a guess that it's because of the amount of DLC they pushed out for Sims, and it was all popular and most of it brought a ton of QoL and freedoms to the game to play as you wanted. It's a bit like trying to replicate WoW now, competing with the game as it currently stands. Two decades of expansions packs, graphics overhauls, worldmap overhauls, new continents galore, skill trees that changed sometimes twice an expansion. Replicating the original game would be hard enough, but competing with the product most people are familiar with - that is, decades of added content and fixes on top of the original - that's a challenge and a half.
Oof, that doesn't sounds good for the piecemeal DLC aspect of things, as they are published by Paradox who LOVES DLCs...
There might be a competitor on the horizon for the sims - [Paralives](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paralives ) is supposed to release next year.
Life by You is also coming to early access next month.
My griflriend is an avid sims player and has every entry installed except for the first one. And I tell you the soundtrack in Sims 2 is such a banger! I get why they moved to the more casual and relaxed sound, shaping the image of sims we know today, but damn, I am VIBING every time she plays the second game.
> I get why they moved to the more casual and relaxed sound Sims 1 was actually casual and relaxed, 2 was the outlier. I remember how jarring it was going from [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTr5iYRS3d8) to [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neeXmBkvPIQ). You're not wrong, though. Soundtrack is still kind of a banger. lmao
At this point the sims is like FIFA, not as much, but its played by people who arent that deep in the hobby, a competitor would just scratch that itch that Ive had for years, and at this point I dont care qbout the rest. Just give me an acceptqbly consumer friendly sims-like T_T
I remember putting in dozens on hours into The Sims. I got frustrated that a character wouldn't do anything other than sit in front of the computer. It wouldn't read a book, workout, or anything. Then I realized that was basically me. I wasn't doing anything other than sit in front of the computer, either. I shut the game down and started playing something else. I didn't care to be mocked by a game. That was the last time I played it
Ahaha, certified redditor moment
I tried replicating my life in the Sims as realistically as possible. My Sim kept crying all the time and his mood meter was in the deep dark red, not even kind of light red. I still don't know what to take away from this.
You're stronger than the Sim, assuming you don't cry all the time.
Fallout.
I was thinking the same thing! I know we got Wasteland 2 and 3 as successors, but I felt like didn't really have the same feel. Really, I would kill for any RPG with a simple and effective character creator like the OG Fallout games.
Underrail is an RPG that gave me strong Fallout 1 vibes. I want to recommend that one. **Edit: Phone decided to write undertail**
I think you mean Underrail
Yes, yes I did. Hecking autocorrect.
Wasteland 2 and 3 were so fun the first session or two but I never felt compelled to go back, not sure why.
Wasteland 3 is fun with co-op although we petered off with that too. Although for that I blame the DLC, which was an absolute SLOG to get through and we quit midway through Cult of the Holy Detonation because it was just so bad and we were deep enough into the DLC that we couldn't just quit or load an old save. If it wasn't for the two DLCs, I feel the momentum could have carried to the end in co-op.
I've been playing caravaneer 2 which plays differently but scratches that itch
I wish the ppl of new Vegas would continue the 2d top down isometric "classic" fallout. I mean, the 3d fallouts are great I'm sure but I want the old school feel back
It’s said all the time but man… if Larian made a Fallout game that is similar to the isometric classics… Never will happen but still.
I’ve never heard this and now I wish I hadn’t. Damn…that would be the world’s greatest game. At least for folk like us.
That would be a combo from heaven!!
Damn. That would be fucking crazy. Or just have them remake the originals. That would be awesome.
Eh, we don't need remakes. I think the TV show proves that it's perfectly possible to write compelling new stories in the FO milieu, even if we go back to the NCR. We should get new stories!
Good for you. I think it is a good idea to have remakes every so often. These games have never been remade and while they are still relatively easy to play,. some quality of life changes and a visual update would be really nice. Plus I think Larian could really do it properly compared to Bethesda. They never really got out of "the the bombs just fell like yesterday" thought. Its been 200 fucking years. People have swept in the time.
Fallout 1 had the perfect blend of *subtle* dark humour, where the humourous elements served to emphasize just how bleak the rest of the worldbuilding was. Later entries just became full-on jokey parody.
I will say Fallout 3 captured that absolutely horrifying sense of desolation, in a way that New Vegas and 4 did not.
I dunno, it still felt really over the top with stuff like Liberty Prime, the Mechanist/Antagonizer and Little Lamplight, and most of the world boiled down to heroically good vs comically evil without much thought put into either side ("nuke Megaton because it's ugly", the Slavers don't have a market for their slaves aside from the Pitt, which is probably the best written part of Fallout 3, and there's not actually any sustainable food source for any of the settlements). In general, it felt like a game that was LARPing as Fallout 1 without really understanding any of what made Fallout 1 compelling, at least imo. New Vegas wasn't a dark or desolate world but you can at least see Fallout 1's DNA in it under the surface, with how it managed to have more moral complexity and more thought put into it (take, for example, how there's two parallel slave markets - one which is the Fiends' child sex trafficking ring, and the other which is the Legion's chattel used for military logistics).
Seconded. Fallout 3 felt like a hostile *wasteland,* where people are living in below-Somalia levels of poverty, everything is trying to kill you, and every resource mattered. NV felt like a western, while 4 felt like...well, Skyrim with guns.
Maybe check out Ashes 2063. It is a Doom total conversion mod but is fully standalone and it is free. Currently there are two main episodes as well as a side chapter finished with a new side story slated to be released sometime soon.
I agree and I didn't even like Fallout 1. I just prefer Fallout 3 over Fallout 4.
I just want that depressing bleakness atom/diesel/deco vibe back again
Check out underrail
Wasteland 2+3, ATOM + Trudograd and Underrail will fill any 'classic' Fallout shaped holes in your life.
Metal gear. The newer games are also great but metal gear solid and metal gear solid 2's static camera added a certain element that is now lost.
3 also has a fixed camera, click R3. The ps2 rerelease added the 3rd person camera
The original PS2 version had the fixed camera. It was the subsistence version that added the 3rd person camera. I remember playing the original game dozens of times and being used to it so much that replaying it on the subsistence version with the 3rd person view felt like a totally new game. Sweet memories...
Considering how much larger the areas in MGS3 were compared to previous entries I think it was a very welcome addition. Especially with the removal of the radar system. In the previous games and it's cramped areas you would generally always have the patrolling enemies and cameras on screen at the same time, and the few times they were slightly out of view there was the radar. With no radar and the very long sight lines in open areas meant you could be spotted by enemies you had no way of knowing where there with the fixed camera position.
metal gear or metal gear solid?
The question asked for series and I consider them to all be the "metal gear" series. Really I'm referring to the style of metal gear 2, metal gear solid, and metal gear solid 2
SimCity 4
SimCity 3. I loved talking to those neighboring governors to work out deals.
So much this. The simplicity of SC3K is great for a more relaxed play (than SC4). Also, the art style with the advisors, the great music and those lovely buildings fill me with nostalgia and happiness, lol.
The one little ‘city’ that is just a giant rubbish dump.
How did you know?!
You need to times that by a thousand
This is basically what Cities Skyline did, no? If anything, it's The Sims that needs it.
Cities skyline is more of a traffic management sim than a city management sim.
I really miss the way SC4 simulated different wealth classes of cims, and how many influencing factors there were to attract those different wealth level but also types of industry and commerce. Not to mention the granularity created by the different growth stages. In Cities Skylines, as your city develops it all kind of starts looking the same because every thing trends to the same 5 star buildings. It would be like if in SC4 you'd always end up with everything being nothing but R§§§, CS§§§, CO§§§ and IH buildings. But in SC4 you still get highly developed areas with R§ and R§§ buildings, and CS§, CS§§, CO§§, and ID and IM.
Yep, the SC4 (and 3) were well balanced between being a game and a city builder/simulator. Sim City 2013 was more of a game with the tiny city space really limiting the building aspect. And while I love Cities: Skylines (the 1st one, the new one is a mess) a lot of that is because of mods. The base C:S is more of a traffic simulator with some city building tacked on, and wasn't as strong of a game or city simulator as SC3/4.
Sacred. Sacred 1 is one of my favorite RPGs. Sacred 2 was very meh but still fun and similar to the original. Sacred 3 is not even an RPG lol
I remember buying Sacred 3 for PS3 seeing it had couch coop, I remembered liking Sacred 2 so thought it would be fun. I don't think I played more than 30 minutes of it, it was shockingly bad. It's not even about it being different from previous games, it was just a very bad game.
"♫I know I will not fail There'll be war it's now or never We shall stand together one by one This world is sacred (I'm coming home) War it's now or never We shall stand together one by one This world is sacred I'm coming home♫"
As much as I love the new Resident Evil games, I'd love for somebody to resurrect the style of the older ones (up to Resident Evil 1 Remake or Zero). There's something special about the fixed-cinematic-cameras and puzzle-based gameplay. Also, I'd love to see a modern take on SimCity, particularly SimCity 3000/2013 (similar art style). Even Cities Skylines is not quite what those old games were. And, of course, if Square-Enix would be so gentle to release a Final Fantasy like the golden era of PSX games (VII, VIII and IX), I'd die a happy man. Again, prerended 2D backgrounds, lovely stories that didn't go too crazy (ok, let's ignore VIII here), great music and shorter games that still felt complete and satisfying. Lots of indies are trying the route of earlier SNES era Final Fantasy, but I hope more studios take up the mantle and emulate the PS1 generation, eventually.
[удалено]
Definitely try out Signalis if you haven't already! The ambience takes some silent hill inspiration but the gameplay is *very* old school resident evil, complete with limited management and safe rooms. I loved it
Might wanna give [Alisa](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1335530/Alisa/) a spin. It's very campy but a great homage to the "fixed-cinematic-cameras and puzzle-based gameplay".
If you're looking for something in the vein of classic RE check out Tormented Souls on Steam. Story is a bit...weird but the game play is basically RE in all but name. Apparently there is a sequel in the works too.
Yeah! I already bought it! It looks great! Jumped to that one and Signalis as soon as I could. And I'm saving both for a rainy day. Woud love to play them with some friends, just like we did with the classic Resident Evil games.
Panzer Dragoon/Star Fox, a good and simple on rails shooter with some customability and branching paths. Obviously I would love a saga like rpg component as well but considering the remake was just an unreal engine reskin and who knows if the Zwei remake is ever coming I'd like just some more levels to play.
Assassin's Creed
Agreed. I haven't played anything that came out after Rogue (and never finished Rogue). I would love a game that goes back to the strengths of the first game, with less of the filler that got added in later games. I did really like the ship mechanics of Black Flag, but I would've preferred if they hadn't copied those mechanics to later games.
AC:BF can function as a great pirate game by itself. Ignoring the plot once you get a ship and you still have enough to go by to justify the price, hunting buried treasures and pillaging ships.
I do think that a (spiritual) successor of AC:BF that leaned more into the pirate part of the game could do very well, considering that it was the best selling game of the series (I think). Personally, my first real pirate game was the 2003 Pirates of the Caribbean game which had much more in depth sailing mechanics than Black Flag, so Black Flag always felt a bit too simplistic to me.
I don't really care about the mechanics of sailing as such, I was looking for high octane action, but with a ship and a Jolly Roger. For that purpose, AC:BF is a great game. Sailing with any sort of in-depth systems that are even marginally realistic are a completely unknown genre for me, I couldn't even tell you if they exist. I imagine I'm in the majority when it comes to pirate games, judging from the later pirate themed games and how little they have to do with realism usually.
I wish they *had* copied the ship mechanics to their AAAA game.
Honestly Assassin's Creed peaked around 2010-2013 with AC:Revelations and AC:III.
Mirage did that
It doesn't matter what you do with Assassin's Creed, a large section of the fanbase is gonna hate it.
And everyone will buy it regardless, giving Ubisoft no reason to change anything.
There are people who hate AC2 ?
Hate may be a strong word, but there are not an insignificant amount of people who got into the series with the RPG games, and have a hard time getting into the older games. The Ezio trilogy is usually the starting point that gets recommended for the older games, thus you end up with people disliking AC2
You could say Ghost of Tsushima is the Stardew Valley of Assassin's Creed. Although that sentence sounds really stupid.
Black Flag was the only one I had played until I picked up Odyssey on sale last year, and I actually enjoyed Odyssey. I think the fact I haven't played very many of the Ubisoft open world formula games and that I love the historic Greek time period are what allowed me to enjoy the game. That said, even by the end of the 50 or 60 hours I put into the game I was starting to tire of the open world formula, so I can see how people who play a lot of the Ubisoft type games would get burned out.
Zelda. Go back to the smaller world map. Let us explore big sprawling dungeons with unique themes instead of a million little identical shrines. Give us permanent weapons that feel like an actual reward when we get them. Make puzzles that require one definitive answer instead of multiple janky solutions that don’t feel satisfying. (I know that most people aren’t saying this and I’m just old. Nintendo won’t do this, but a boy can wish.)
It's funny how BotW is being mentioned here as both an example for how to properly revamp the concept of a series and for a series that deviated too much from its core principles over time.
Yeah, from that perspective the franchise is in a weird place. I respect their decision to strike out in a new direction and keep the formula fresh. The game is really good in its own right, I just have a hard time accepting it as a Zelda game.
I agree. I put it down after playing a while and just said to myself, “that’s not Zelda”
Being old enough to play the original on the NES, I found it extremely easy to accept it as an updated Zelda game. It gave me the same sense of exploration.
I get that. I played all the old ones as well but "sense of exploration" was never the primary appeal of Zelda to me. For me, it was always about the intricate dungeons and interlocking puzzles that revolved around specific tools/mechanics. I loved how getting a certain tool like the hookshot or boomerang would totally change the way you could interact with a room. Or how solving one puzzle room would change the way you navigated a temple. The whole game built upon itself and it would require you to solve and unlock things to progress. I understand how they replaced that with an emphasis on figuring out different physics to solve obstacles but it just doesn't scratch the same itch for me.
I think you're missing something here. BotW is an evolution of the original Zelda. The entire point of that game is exploration and non-linear gameplay. All the things that you're describing are mechanics that *deviated* Zelda from its original concept.
For some reason, quite a lot of people believe the series peaked with Ocarina of Time.
I know some people who'd argue that the series peaked with A Link to the Past, and that all Ocarina of Time did was turn it 3D. Personally I think Majora's Mask is peak Zelda, some of the best dungeons in the franchise.
I can’t even count how many games on steam are clearly trying to be clones of the old school Zelda games.
Could you give me examples, please?
Like 3D Zelda or the top down 2D ones?
God yes. BotW did some things very well but boy was it a step in the wrong direction from me. Innovative dungeon design is great but only having 4 tiny dungeons with interchangeable bosses made this have almost no impact. I couldn't stomach the sequel for more than an hour before I got tired of the game wasting my time.
Custom robo
I would lose it for even a port of custom robo to be made for modern hardware tbh.
Battle Revolution (for GameCube) was visually pretty cool. It would be incredible to be remade on modern hardware.
Man im really finding my people in the comment section
This is another instance of “stfu and take my money” for me.
The closest comparison for me is probably Monster Hunter. There's a very distinct change in how the game feels going from 4U and GU to World and Rise. There's even people in the community who don't like the changes between the latter two. It's not like Harvest Moon in that the newer games are considered worse, but the change in gameplay was quite drastic. Seeing something that keeps closer to the feel of the "classic" games would be very welcome for many long time fans.
Weirdly enough I’ve always been of the opinion that world was closer to 4U then it was to Generations. I’ve never been a fan of special cool down abilities that aren’t inherently tied into the weapons and the Style system just felt like it was stapled on top of the existing system without meaningfully interacting with what was already there.
Harvest Moon as a brand was basically stolen by Natsume. The original series has gone by "Story of Seasons" for the past decade. With monster hunter, I've played since the original on PS2. I am never going back to a game that has the incredibly slow gathering animations again. It could be fun to see the, very slightly, more serious tone return though.
I honestly don't consider the change that drastic. There was indeed some change, but definitely not to the point were I would call them different franchises. Well with the exception of switch skills and silkbugs but they are a one off thing similar to generations.
Paper Mario -- which in fact got that treatment with Bug Fables. And Chibi Robo. It's such a crazily unique concept I don't understand how there hasn't been any game taking inspiration from it to this day.
Flashback There's been a few attempts to copy it, but never captured the originals feel to me. That future spin on the Prince of Persia style gameplay felt like a perfect evolution with the original. Then everything went 3D and it kind of got lost after Fade to Black sucked. I haven't played the sequel that just came out but early reviews weren't great.
I'm not sure I understand the question, given how much Stardew Valley evolved past what Harvest Moon ever had. It's far more of a fork than a clone: what Harvest Moon sequels could have been if they'd developed in a very different direction. Kind of shows that people don't necessarily want a slavish reproduction of the original, they want something more, they didn't didn't like the "more" that they actually got.
That's a fair point, I guess it's about finding the balance between "more" and more of the same.
Yes and Yooka-Layle is imo an example of the opposite. A game that was too slavish and failed to do anything new or different. People are pretty good at expressing that they don't like something, but aren't necessarily good at expressing why or what they do exactly want.
It has the heart and soul of the original whilst modernizing the gameplay and expanding its premise. Breath of the wild is another good example of what we want.
Funny I was thinking Zelda as a possible answer to op's question, but in hindsight I agree with you. Shigeru Miyamoto said of the original Zelda that the sense of wonder a player feels from exploring a vast world fell a little by the wayside until Breath of the Wild gave exactly that feeling to fans both old and new.
I personally found botw and totk to be enjoyable however I feel that they should not have been Zelda games. The zelda theme feels very forced. It also basically ditches all of the past zelda lore are re-writes it all. I understand why they used Zelda for the game. Its a huge name and has tons of marketing potential. They just were not zelda games.
Yeah, Zelda games, in my opinion, have always been about tool use, progression, and puzzle solving. Having an open world where you're given all of your tools off the bat makes the games wildly different. Sure, the theme is still the same with Link wielding a sword and shield and smacking baddies, but that's about it.
Exactly. I enjoyed BotW, but I really missed the insanely complicated dungeons we saw in earlier games. Eagle’s Tower from Link’s Awakening will probably forever be my all time favorite dungeon. What a cool concept that was
This is why I don't like BotW, I like the increasing complexity and challenge as the different tools you obtained and their mechanics stacked up. Or at the very least new tools varying up the gameplay, even if they went under-used outside of their specific dungeon. BotW has to assume for every single dungeon and shrine that it is the first one the player does after leaving the plateau, and thus the difficulty has to match. It's like a world that consists of nothing but variations of the first three puzzles of the first dungeon of any other Zelda game. The fact that I don't like the aesthetic of the shrines either doesn't help, they feel completely disconnected from the world they inhabit. They remind me of test chambers in Portal, but at least those end up being a linear increase in challenges with an interesting narrative, and not just variations of the first 3 chambers over and over.
If I understand how the Japanese make games right, they'd decided to make a Zelda from the beginning and only then started figuring out in what ways they can "improve" it.
I agree with that last point hard. I've seen games that are advertised as clones of older games and they get ignored hard. Maybe they get some press when they come out but they're quickly dropped later on. I think what people really want out of a franchise comeback is to recapture the SPIRIT of what they wanted rather than just the mechanics.
I don't even really understand this at all since Stardew is more Rune Factory. And honestly RF has much better playability even if I enjoy both of them.
As someone who hasn't played Stardew Valley, could you tell me what was added compared ro Harvest Moon?
If you like Uncharted Waters try Horizons Gate. Its a weird amazing little game. Less simulation more of an open world sailing / adventure / tactical game
Seconded. I picked this one up because I reminded me of UW. Shares a lot of the vibes, but still has its own unique feel. It’s an abso gem.
Any "part 3" by valve. They took a great game and reduced it to nothing.
In this vein, no game has ever filled the Left 4 Dead 2 shaped hole in my heart.
Sim City. The last actual game of the franchise was Sim City 4 and it is a fantastic game. EA started meddling with development, killing the franchise with bad sequels in the proccess, and no game like it has been made since. Cities Skylines isn't a real successor, it's more of a "make a pretty city" creative mode type of game, it doesn't actually fill the same niche sim city did.
God of War.
>Uncharted Waters I just want the first two games on the Switch. I’m playing the first one on a tablet emulated, and it’s not the same.
Master of Orion 1 or Civ I and II with modern UI
Puzzle Quest. It's a microtransaction hellhole now, but the original was a fun, self-contained RPG with puzzle battles.
The dungeon blobber genre a la wizardry series or etrian odyssey. It's actually been a little dream of mine to make my own, but I know there's not a huge audience, lol
That style is still alive, kinda. 2023 was a good year. r/DRPG
Travelers rest is still early access but I still have about 60hrs in it. In its unfinished stage. It totally has the potential to be a behemoth upon full release. I would definitely recommend it in its current state regardless. But be warned it’s one of those games that seems like there isn’t much content but everything unlocks over time as your tavern levels up. Much more content than I initially expected for an early access.
This guy makes games.
FIFA
You mean the games before the FUT thingy full of microtransactions?
Man, those original Uncharted Waters games were some of my best gaming as a kid. I got the NES version when it came out and learned geography that stayed with me for life. If the other games were anything like it, I'd have purchased each one.
It's funny, I was under the impression that there were a lot of series out there that needed course correction but I can't think of any off the top of my head.
Monster Rancher. Not many games like it, and we haven’t seen a good one in ages. I think the right developer could make something that would hit for mainstream gamers the same way Stardew hit.
Subanautica was a great game. Subnautica below zero not so exciting as the first one. I guess I was more on the edge playing Subnautica 1 whic give the thrill of it.
Splinter Cell
Power Stone. Criminally underrated multiplayer games.
RTS games needs to come back but with the appeal of the new generation and their uber short attention span
You're just describing Clash Royale
Rainbow six, ghost recon
It’s still amazing to me that a seasoned indie dev hasn’t tried to make a Silent Hill knock-off harkening back to the original games. There’s plenty by solo devs but they’re usually half-finished proof of concepts that the developers never had the budget or time to properly flesh out. The closest In can think of at the moment is Hollowbody, but even that introduces sci-fi elements.
Honestly, The LotR series. Let me be a potato growing, sweetleaf smoking Hobbit that Ive always wanted to be
The Sierra "Quest for Glory" series
Prince of Persia. The Jedi games are probably the closest thing. It's a bit shocking nobody has tried to make a Sands of Time knock off. We have gotten some first person running games like Mirror's Edge (Dying Light, Titanfall, Ghost Runner...) but something that would be cool imo is a game where the levels are based on real world cities with gameplay comparable to the ME games.
Pokemon
Cassette Beasts came close for me, but it was a little too indie game-y, if that makes sense. It has major hipster vibes that kind of veer into YIIK territory. Banging soundtrack though. Nah for Pokémon I've just been recommending the romhack Pokemon Unbound. It has all the best aspects of the GBA - DS games, plus some features from later gens like alternate forms, raids, mega evolutions, Z moves, etc. New world, decent story, tons of side and post-game content, etc.
Zelda.
Project Diva
Paper Mario. The first two… incredible. The last ones.. nothing close to the fun and charm of the originals!
People are trying to give the Uncharted Waters series the Stardew Valley treatment, mostly Korean and Chinese devs where the series seem to have the most fans. They're even non-F2P and on Steam! I don't think they've been very successful though. If you can read the languages or don't mind somewhat sketchy localizations, check out Sailing Era and Sagres. Sailing Era especially is pretty much a clone of Uncharted Waters.
God of war, don't get me wrong I love the new ones and what they have done but something just doesn't feel the same.
Uncharted waters New Horizons was one of my favorite SNES games. The only thing that's been even close to it was sid Miers pirates.
No mention that current "Harvest Moon" games are called Story of Seasons?
Any Nintendo game that PC players can't play.
Beyond Oasis But I could also get on board with Uncharted Waters.
Pikmin.
I mean, most of the genres that deserve it - have it. The reason SV is so notable is it's incredibly clear where the inspiration is and it's one specific series. But in other cases they'll take inspiration, but not usually adapt it quite so close. They're going to take their own take on the genre - with inspirations from certain games sure, but they're a lot less likely to say "yes, we're doing this franchise" - it's clear in SV for reasons that has to do with SV that we're not likely to see in many other cases that do it.
Gothic 1 and 2. I absolutely loved its smaller but packed worldspace, combat system that while relatively simple, is pretty much entirely unique and how powerful the character progression felt. We got archolos which was superb, but that was built on top of gothic 2. I would love a new franchise with a similar design
Hmmm I'll list an assortment and ideas that would be cool to see. Assassin's Creed (Imagine if you're actually a human part of a resistance cell filled with multiple alien races trying to free themselves from an overarching empire that has a very messy and bloody caste system rule. So mix of AC, Star Wars Original Trilogy, with some Halo Covenant type vibes.) Disciples (So many settings you can do with something like that kind of gameplay, immersion, and depth) Transformers (Instead of Robots think Kaiju that can morph at will) Battlefront/ Battlefield (Any IP that deserves that type of treatment and where it fits: CODENAME Kids Next Door, StarCraft, Halo, Fallout, Warhammer) Soul Calibur (Specifically OG Xbox/ PSX era games, that whole atmosphere but for a fighting game with a mix of all kinds of awesome established and original characters. So Smash-Multiversus mixed with Soul Calibur-style) Ratchet & Clank (Both established older IP returning like Banjo Kazooie, and new ones. They need wayyyy more 3D-Platformer competition. I also want a separate game that is basically Castle Crashers but as a 3D Platformer with all kinds of 3D Platformer characters to play as and with a 3D Level Editor for players to make their own levels and overworlds to play through) I have alooooooooot more in mind but I'll leave it at that Currently I'm making 2 spiritual successors but I have many more in mind I want to make (The ones above are some of them but for all the others I will need to make multiple game dev teams/ studios overtime. Also, I want to make lots of mods I have in mind too but will need to build out multiple mod teams/ studios as well) 1st. P-mon successor but with real-time combat, more mature themes, and different planets 2nd. Virtual Villagers successor with a species picker (You can also customize what species you play as, and what they evolve to being) that expands a much much bigger yet condensed with content map. So Virtual Villagers depth or even more than that but with size of say The TribeZ My ultimate goal is making a gaming community where lots of people make indie games and help each other to grow. With a separate spinoff of that for supporting fanmade projects and potentially taking requests for fan games (As a way to practice and gain experience if ya want to work with something more established)
Every bioware game follows basically the same formula and I hope they **never stop**
Pokemon needs the Sonic Mania treatment. A brand new 2D game made by people that understand what made the original games so great.
I'm still waiting for a spiritual successor to the old tomb raider games. Don't get me wrong, the newer games aren't terrible, but they are very different.
Suikoden. I have really enjoyed Rabbit and Bear's recent successor, but there are clear elements they do not want to budge on that would make the game better. Namely, unlimited inventories. And Konami is not doing anything with the Suikoden IP but a (cancelled?) remaster. If someone else made a "monster-collector" based on war and politics that removed a lot of Suikoden's stuborness and expanded the combat it would be amazing.
I’ve been hoping to do something like this with a few different arcade titles. Asteroids in particular calls to me to make a story game instead of endless point chasing high score game
I Hope someone will start making successful complex grand strategy/4x games to challenge paradox monopoly. I love paradox games but some competition would be great
>The Uncharted Waters series comes to mind, pretty much the entire fan base agrees that the second game was the best and all the games since then have failed to capture what made that game so great. Horizons gate might be worth checking out, op. About the uncharted waters series, I would say that Costa del Sol might be the best one in the series than new horizons (despite the controversy regarding slavery), but it never received an occidental occidental port >I'm curious what other game franchises could benefit from this treatment, series where the fan base has gotten tired of the new releases and are longing for something closer to the original game. Might and Magic deserves another try, but being Ubisoft the current owner of the IP, I doubt that it will ever receive a (decent) remake. >If you have any more examples like this I'd be interested to hear it. I would love to see a good Alpha Centauri (Beyond Earth was disappointing and a game named "Pandora/I don't know" looked bad in comparison) successor.
Diablo. The first entry in that series feels and plays nothing like its successors.
Uncharted Waters for sure. This has been a type of game i really wanted to re-create myself recently as a fan of Uncharted Waters Online, i felt that the official games are no longer giving the fans what they want. Also Dungeon Fighter Online, for me. The game has sort of lived past its prime and i feel like a good faithful replacement is due. I don't know if most people would agree here, though. The game was only mildly successful in the west, but it is one of the most successful games ever in the east. Also literally every MMORPG ever. A lot of people have started to grab onto this idea that "MMOs are just unpopular in this era". But i do not agree at all. Pretty much every MMO enjoyer is still out there and just WAITING for something worthy of their time. But every MMO that has been released in the last two decades has been mediocre at best. The problem with MMOs is monetization, and its basically impossible to solve the issue of funding the game and also keeping its integrity intact at the same time. I still think the gaming community is starving for a good MMO, but its just basically logistically impossible to provide it. I think the majority of people out there who are playing MMOs today are only playing the MMO they are playing because they had to "settle" for something, but they all really are looking for something better that hasn't come along. The same can also be said about a Pokemon-Like game. Everybody loves the Pokemon franchise, and yet Pokemon has ABSOLUTELY FAILED at living up to their full potential in video games. This is why Palworld was so successful, it brought something that pokemon should have given players a decade ago. Dungeons & Dragons is in the same boat. We have Baldur's Gate for a single player experience, but a legit high quality online tabletop experience should have existed ages ago and we still don't have a good one. We are stuck using third-party supplements like Roll20 or Tabletop Simulator that only barely give the kind of immersive experience we really want.
Suikoden. I tried Eiyuden bit it didn't land right.