It seems like the more entries there are in a series, the more divided the fanbase becomes. In some cases, it can be hard to find someone who loves, or even likes, every entry in a series of games.
Take Sonic the Hedgehog, for example. It’s generally accepted that there are some pretty bad Sonic games out there. After series creator Yuji Naka left, the Sonic games kind of lost their way. That’s not to say they’re all bad, though. Sonic Rush, for example, has a Metacritic rating of 82. Still, there are some Sonic fans who absolutely hate everything after Sonic 3 & Knuckles. (In fact, I recently learned that there are Sonic fans who lump Tails and Knuckles in with characters like Big the Cat in terms of “crappy friends.”) On the other end of the spectrum, there are Sonic fans who love Sonic’s friends and the newer story-focused 3D games, and are willing to overlook gameplay problems in games like Sonic Unleashed or even Sonic 2006. (That side also contains a creepy subset of Sonic fans who draw terrifying KnucklesxRouge porn, but the less said about those types, the better.) Sonic Colors launches next month and, according to Nintendo Power’s recent review, the Wii version is incredibly good. It will be interesting to see how fans react.
My absolute favourite game series in the world is The Legend of Zelda. I love them all. Sure, there are a few that I’m less likely to replay (like Zelda 2, or Spirit Tracks because of all of the train stuff), but it’s one franchise that has never really gone wrong. Unfortunately, loving these games makes them hard to discuss. It seems like every time someone tries to talk about Zelda games on the internet, it’s to sing the praises of their favourite and say “At least it’s nothing like The Legend of Zelda: X, which was clearly the worst game ever made.”
Zelda love seems to go through a cycle. People get excited about the next Zelda game (because there’s always a next Zelda game in the works) and love it when it’s released. For about six months, anyway. After that, suddenly the latest game retroactively becomes a huge unplayable mess. Then the next Zelda comes out, and everyone loves the new one like they loved the old one, but again, after six months, the newest Zelda becomes a mess, and the one before it, which fans reviled until the release of the latest game, suddenly becomes the paragon of quality for the Zelda series that did everything right and which all future Zelda games should strive to live up to. Currently, it’s Twilight Princess which is getting spat on for being the same as every Zelda game before it and Wind Waker that’s getting fondly remembered as the One True Zelda.
The Metal Gear Solid series seems to have two types of fans. The ones who love Metal Gear Solid 2, with its crazy story and Raiden fakeout, and the ones who love Metal Gear Solid 3, with its melodrama and hilarious theme song. (Everyone hates Metal Gear Solid 4. Probably because it’s kind of a combination of the two previous games. I like it.) This one is kind of understandable, since both of these games are pretty different in some pretty extreme ways. One takes place a few years in the future (well, now it takes place in the past, but it was the future when the game originally came out) and focuses on a young newbie to the world of Tactical Espionage Action. The other stars an already somewhat-grizzled Big Boss during the Cold War, and focuses on his relationship with his mentor and just what it means to be a soldier. Also, a bored-sounding movie buff, which is the most important part. If one game was your entry point into the series, the other might alienate you. (This is all saying nothing of the hate Metal Gear Solid 2 gets from fans of Metal Gear Solid 1 for promising more Solid Snake and focusing mostly on a new character.)
Another franchise that has somewhat-understandably divided fans is Final Fantasy. Final Fantasy has evolved a lot over the years. Play Final Fantasy I and then Final Fantasy XIII. Aside from the names, it would be hard to tell that they’re from the same series. Hell, some Final Fantasy games are MMORPGs. Some fans prefer the old games, from I to VI, and other prefer the more cinematic games, from VII on. The transition between VI and VII was pretty big. VI was the last of the 2D games, as well as the last game to use Yoshitaka Amano as a character designer. VII moved the series into 3D and replaced Amano with Tetsuya Nomura. The basic gameplay doesn’t differ much between the two titles, but the presentation is another story. The dreamy-looking character art was replaced with something that would be easier to bring into 3D (since Amano’s art was adapted into simple sprites, while making 3D models that look little like the character sketches is harder to get away with). The CGI scenes were almost revolutionary at the time, and no character who had died in a previous Final Fantasy elicited the same response from gamers as Aerith did in VII. Suddenly, the story seemed like a much bigger deal.
Final Fantasy only got more random from there. IX was like a 3D throwback to the SNES games, but VIII revamped the character growth and magic systems entirely. X did away with levels all together and replaced the Active Time Battle system the series had become known for with a simpler turn-based battle system. XI was an MMORPG and XII integrated an MMO style of battle system and exploration without actually being an MMO. Final Fantasy XIII might be the most divisive game yet, even among reviewers. XIII doesn’t even have towns, and focuses largely on its battle system which, again, has been completely revamped. At least we can all agree that Final Fantasy XIV is terrible.
You can probably think of more largely-beloved game franchises that have divided fanbases, like Fallout or Dragon Quest. I guess it’s impossible to please everyone, even by giving them their favourite thing.
