Game Companies That Have Fallen From Grace

UnscathedFlyingObject · Mon Jan 26, 2009 4:58 am

There are some companies that I loved to bits back in the day. Now, I think almost everything they produce is garbage.

Nintendo
Oh, Nintendo. I loved so many of your NES and SNES games, but why did you suddenly turn kid friendly and start dumbing down your games? With few exceptions, every Nintendo game after the SNES era hand holds you too much. Wii Nintendo titles are the biggest culprits, so that even titles that seem interesting to me like Wario Shake and Metroid Prime 3 are unplayable. Let's not even get into their casual fare. Pure garbage.

Square
In the SNES and PSX era, I loved Squaresoft. I strived to own every one of their games in a time when I was a broke JH/HS student. They just couldn't stop piling up the hits. Around 1997, I saw an EGM two-page ad with an advertisement for their products and boy were those two pages full of awesome. It showed FF7, FFT, Parasite Eve, Musashi, Einhander and more but my memory fails me. I personally only managed to obtain FFT, PE and Musashi, so my balls didn't explode with the awesomeness that is Einhander. They had quality, variety, uniqueness; they had everything.

Now, 90% of their games either milk FF or DQ and can be best used to take a shit on. RIP Square. PROPER Einhander sequel or you can go burn in hell.

Feel free to add and discuss. I'll be back later with more.

Udderdude · Post by **Udderdude** » Mon Jan 26, 2009 5:14 am

Sega.

But there's allready several threads dedicated to that one. :/

Turrican · Post by **Turrican** » Mon Jan 26, 2009 5:17 am

UnscathedFlyingObject wrote:Nintendo
Oh, Nintendo. I loved so many of your NES and SNES games, but why did you suddenly turn kid friendly and start dumbing down your games? With few exceptions, every Nintendo game after the SNES era hand holds you too much. Wii Nintendo titles are the biggest culprits, so that even titles that seem interesting to me like Wario Shake and Metroid Prime 3 are unplayable. Let's not even get into their casual fare. Pure garbage.

I'm probably an heathen to say this but... Nintendo had begun on a dangerous road of endlessly repeating itself. If they were doomed to churn another Zelda like Twilight Princess (ie: "let's please Ocarina fans once more"), then they're probably better doing Dr. Kawashima or Wii Music. I support the idea that legendary franchises must be given a stop before everyone starts to genuinely hate them.

UnscathedFlyingObject wrote:SquareIn the SNES and PSX era, I loved Squaresoft. I strived to own every one of their games in a time when I was a broke JH/HS student. They just couldn't stop piling up the hits. Around 1997, I saw an EGM two-page ad with an advertisement for their products and boy were those two pages full of awesome. It showed FF7, FFT, Parasite Eve, Musashi, Einhander and more but my memory fails me. I personally only managed to obtain FFT, PE and Musashi, so my balls didn't explode with the awesomeness that is Einhander. They had quality, variety, uniqueness; they had everything

That Square is no more. They used all the money gained with FF7/8 to do a tragic movie. It bombed and the company was BOUGHT (called "merge" to not scare western fanboys) by Enix. Square had a policy of internal developers, Enix ooutsourced a lot - the latter policy was proven more successful and therefore a lot of teams disbanded. That said, there has never been a time when one should have striven to buy all their games: it's just the nostalgia effect. Musashi and Parasite were two duds. They began to suck big time very early: Cyberorg, Racing Lagoon, Bouncer, Driving Emotion... Lots of money thrown into the bin. Also a lot of their lesser RPG franchises range from pointless to downright mediocre.

Vexorg · Post by **Vexorg** » Mon Jan 26, 2009 5:18 am

Activision. They don't seem to be bothering to do much of anything besides endlessly milk the Guitar Hero and Call of Duty franchises anymore, and in the process they're almost even managing to make EA look less evil in comparison.

Turrican · Post by **Turrican** » Mon Jan 26, 2009 5:23 am

Team 17.

It's like fifteen years that they do only Worms. No matter how small you are as a company, or how much troublesome is, there's no excuse to commit only to Worms. It's a crime.

szycag · Post by **szycag** » Mon Jan 26, 2009 5:32 am

What problems did you have with Wario Land Shake It? I didn't get a casual-friendly vibe from it at all, it's about as challenging as some of the classic Mario games, nowhere near as bad as NSMB. Maybe if you're ignoring the secondary goals and secret stages.

GaijinPunch · Post by **GaijinPunch** » Mon Jan 26, 2009 6:06 am

SNK? They had some excellent non-fighting games in the arcades. Then, the Neo Geo came out.

UnscathedFlyingObject · Mon Jan 26, 2009 6:19 am

szycag wrote:What problems did you have with Wario Land Shake It? I didn't get a casual-friendly vibe from it at all, it's about as challenging as some of the classic Mario games, nowhere near as bad as NSMB. Maybe if you're ignoring the secondary goals and secret stages.

Big ass lifebar scares me away. I can't imagine dying at all if it takes 10 or so hits to kill me and Wario Land 4 wasn't particularly hard. It is anal to not buy a game for something like that, but platformers are like a puzzle to me and easy puzzles are not fun. I'm not demanding Ghouls and Ghosts level of difficulty (though that'd nice,) just something to keep me from sleeping while driving. Difficulty is as important to me in platformers as level design and music.

Elixir · Post by **Elixir** » Mon Jan 26, 2009 6:46 am

I don't think SNK has fallen from grace, but rather that they ended up dying out over a lengthy period and only thanks to Playmore have we seen more from them. It doesn't seem to be the same as what SNK were prior to Playmore, though.

I'm going with Hudson. Like Team 17, all they know is Bomberman, and half of the time they're not even doing that right. The latest Bomberman for the Wii lacks some very important modes (not going into detail) and the PS3 version called "Ultra" looks nearly identical to Bomberman Live. This doesn't bother me, as I like Live, but it's going to bother a lot of people. So yeah, they make Bomberman games. And that's about it. Sad. If Squaresoft wasn't mentioned, I would probably end up bringing them into discussion.

I wouldn't mind at all if they continued to make Bomberman games, but they keep ruining it by adding pointless items and other things which can be abused. I'm reminded of Backbone Entertainment, who have a plethora of crappy games on their resume. Letting them handle Bomberman with such a resume wasn't a good idea to begin with; Hudson have really poor judgment in managing their games.

Ganelon · Post by **Ganelon** » Mon Jan 26, 2009 7:15 am

NCS/Masaya: Creator of the greatest SRPGs and a whole bunch of shooters, died, now a tech development company with a game division content with VC and mobile phone games... (for weirdness, their website is actually ncsx.co.jp)

Tamsoft: Once the creator of the most prolific 3D fighting series in the US and now relegated to creating one budget game after another.

UnscathedFlyingObject · Mon Jan 26, 2009 7:20 am

Turrican wrote:
UnscathedFlyingObject wrote:SquareIn the SNES and PSX era, I loved Squaresoft. I strived to own every one of their games in a time when I was a broke JH/HS student. They just couldn't stop piling up the hits. Around 1997, I saw an EGM two-page ad with an advertisement for their products and boy were those two pages full of awesome. It showed FF7, FFT, Parasite Eve, Musashi, Einhander and more but my memory fails me. I personally only managed to obtain FFT, PE and Musashi, so my balls didn't explode with the awesomeness that is Einhander. They had quality, variety, uniqueness; they had everything
That Square is no more. They used all the money gained with FF7/8 to do a tragic movie. It bombed and the company was BOUGHT (called "merge" to not scare western fanboys) by Enix. Square had a policy of internal developers, Enix ooutsourced a lot - the latter policy was proven more successful and therefore a lot of teams disbanded. That said, there has never been a time when one should have striven to buy all their games: it's just the nostalgia effect. Musashi and Parasite were two duds. They began to suck big time very early: Cyberorg, Racing Lagoon, Bouncer, Driving Emotion... Lots of money thrown into the bin. Also a lot of their lesser RPG franchises range from pointless to downright mediocre.

I know they're called Square-Enix now, but I call them just Square 'cause it's shorter. As for striving to own all their games, I meant that for the games that I knew at the time, which weren't all of them. I really like(d) Parasite Eve and FFT, and love(d) Musashi. My friends all thought I was nuts because I liked Musashi more than Zelda 64 back in the day but to each their own.

Turrican · Post by **Turrican** » Mon Jan 26, 2009 7:35 am

UnscathedFlyingObject wrote:I really like(d) Parasite Eve and FFT, and love(d) Musashi. My friends all thought I was nuts because I liked Musashi more than Zelda 64 back in the day but to each their own.

FFT is a work of genius, but for all it's worth, there should be written "Quest" on the cover, not Square. Ditto for Vagrant, FFTA, and FFXII of course.

Udderdude · Post by **Udderdude** » Mon Jan 26, 2009 7:35 am

Ganelon wrote:NCS/Masaya: Creator of the greatest SRPGs and a whole bunch of shooters, died, now a tech development company with a game division content with VC and mobile phone games.

Man, what I wouldn't do for a next-gen Cho Aniki game. >_>

mikehaggar · Post by **mikehaggar** » Mon Jan 26, 2009 7:59 am

For me, this is clearly Rare.

Back in the 90's, they were the greatest developer ever.

They amde some of my favorite games of all time:

Battletoads (NES)
Donkey Kong Country 2 (SNES)
Killer Instinct (Arcade)
Blast Corps (N64)

There were many other great ones, but these were the most amazing games of their era for me. They went straight to hell during the 64 era, and Nintendo was wise to get rid of them at that point. It was clear the magic was gone.

adversity1 · Post by **adversity1** » Mon Jan 26, 2009 8:05 am

Square is so bad lately their games are hard to even look at. The World Ends with You is an exception, and hopefully FF13 will be too...but that fucking afro character. Goddamn.

No one dissapoints me as much as Square. I was an RPG whore in the SFC days, playing FF5, Seiken Densetsu 3, Romancing Saga 2 and 3 etc. etc. in fact played most of the RPGs on the system. All of my favorites were Square games. Then all of a sudden FF7, a total departure...that was still OK, but after that it's like they fell off a cliff. Now they are just wallowing in a pit of their own arrogance and blindness. I wonder what it will take to finally shake their fan base enough to realize what shit they're putting out.

kengou · Post by **kengou** » Mon Jan 26, 2009 8:22 am

Epic: The Unreal Tournaments, while all good, have gotten progressively worse since the masterpiece of '99. Aside from that, all their singleplayer games have been crap and getting worse. And lately they've abandoned the PC market in favor of appeasing the dumb xbox kids. Gears of War sucks but they're focusing on that, and they already said they're making Unreal Engine 4 specifically for consoles and then porting it to PCs. I say screw them for abandoning the fan base that made them what they are.

Lucasarts: You might think I'm talking about my nostalgia for the point-and-click adventure genre, but actually no. Being a big Star Wars fan, I grew up on games like Dark Forces, X-Wing, and Jedi Knight. I've played nearly every PC Star Wars game and many of them were excellent. I was a co-leader in a clan in Jedi Outcast for something like 5 years and it's easily my favorite multiplayer game of all time, with very deep combat mechanics and a great community. It's a shame that Lucasarts just hasn't done that many good games since Star Wars Episode 1 came out. Force Unleashed was inferior to Jedi Knight in pretty much every way except the graphics. Also the fact that they didn't release it on PC pissed me off, even if the game wasn't amazing. It's the principle of the thing, same as Epic.

Parallax: After making Descent, it's just sad that they died.

Shalashaska · Post by **Shalashaska** » Mon Jan 26, 2009 9:15 am

mikehaggar wrote:For me, this is clearly Rare.

Back in the 90's, they were the greatest developer ever.

They amde some of my favorite games of all time:

Battletoads (NES)
Donkey Kong Country 2 (SNES)
Killer Instinct (Arcade)
Blast Corps (N64)

There were many other great ones, but these were the most amazing games of their era for me. They went straight to hell during the 64 era, and Nintendo was wise to get rid of them at that point. It was clear the magic was gone.

Don't forget Goldeneye, Perfect Dark, the Killer Instinct games, and the lesser known but fantastic Conkers Bad Fur Day. They were the only reason I kept my N64 around. WTF happened Rare!

Skykid · Post by **Skykid** » Mon Jan 26, 2009 11:31 am

Konami.

MX7 · Post by **MX7** » Mon Jan 26, 2009 11:52 am

Square had an absolute golden age around the late 90's. Final Fantasy 7 through to 9 pretty much got me into RPG games, but Final Fantasy 10 was so horrible I couldn't even get through the first 6 hours. Front Mission 3 was a glorious SRPG with an incredibly rich backdrop to explore via the network function, a la Snatcher. Parasite Eve 2 hasn't aged well, but to my mind it was better than any of the first 3 Resident Evil games. And Vagrant Story was awesome altogether, with by far the best graphics on the playstation. I still fire it up from time to time just to admire the detail.

Aside from Final Fantasy 12 a few years back, Square have really lost their touch. I'll prob still get FF13 for shits and giggles, but only when I can pick it up for a tenner second hand.

ForceDevice · Post by **ForceDevice** » Mon Jan 26, 2009 12:48 pm

MX7 wrote:Square had an absolute golden age around the late 90's. Final Fantasy 7 through to 9 pretty much got me into RPG games, but Final Fantasy 10 was so horrible I couldn't even get through the first 6 hours. Front Mission 3 was a glorious SRPG with an incredibly rich backdrop to explore via the network function, a la Snatcher. Parasite Eve 2 hasn't aged well, but to my mind it was better than any of the first 3 Resident Evil games. And Vagrant Story was awesome altogether, with by far the best graphics on the playstation. I still fire it up from time to time just to admire the detail.

Aside from Final Fantasy 12 a few years back, Square have really lost their touch. I'll prob still get FF13 for shits and giggles, but only when I can pick it up for a tenner second hand.

Except for the part about Vagrant Story having the best graphics on the PSX, you pretty much said it all for me. I loved Square in the PSX era, but FF10 was like a big "fuck you, we don't need your love" to me. And after that it only got worse. I loved Front Mission 4 and liked 5 quite a bit, but every other Square-developed game was like an insult, or maybe a reminder of how great Square (and 32-bit RPGs in general) used to be.

Also, Media Vision. I got Wild Arms and fell in love with them. Then I got Wild Arms 2 and loved them even more. Then I got Wild Arms 3 and it was the best fucking game I played in my whole life. Then I got Wild Arms 4 and wanted to fucking kill those bastards. Ever since Alter Code F they have been releasing one piece of crap after another. WA5 kinda made me regain a bit of my trust in them, but RIZ-ZOAWD and XF made me lose it again. I hope they realize someday that there's a line you shouldn't cross between "innovating and making it better" and "changing everything that made it good in the first place".

Lordstar · Post by **Lordstar** » Mon Jan 26, 2009 12:48 pm

companies do this a lot of the time they get in a comffy zone and thats when new blood rises up and starts snatching there precious fans and money away. its just a natural process of things. If your going to survive in busnises you need to pick up the pace a little. but then FF sells like fucking hot cakes so why fucking change same goes for worms :-S

Dragoforce · Post by **Dragoforce** » Mon Jan 26, 2009 1:00 pm

Cave.

I mean, wouldn't it be great if they started making just one incarnation of each game again instead of all those black, death and yada yada labels?

PainAmplifier · Post by **PainAmplifier** » Mon Jan 26, 2009 2:35 pm

kengou wrote:Epic: The Unreal Tournaments,

Agree x Infinity on Epic totally screwing over their original fanbase.

Id may have gradually slid into gameplay mediocrity over the years, but Epic went and committed gameplay suicide without even getting emo about it first. Ut2003 did a whole slew of spit-takes, that totally screwed the franchise.

Most blatantly they went from Blade Runner type dystopian imagery...to WWE day-glo hokiness. (Voice over announcer included.) Then they took their signature weapons and watered them down in the name of 'balance' and at the same time changed the physics, looks and models to the point it was blatantly obvious that they were jealous of the 'pro' reputation Quake 3 had and wanted in on that pie.

It would be remiss not to mention the wholesale change from the UWindows interface to the consolified abominations that came afterwards. (UT3's dropping any pretenses at being anything but console trash.) And to add insult on top of that, the addition of 'adrenaline' complete with key sequenced combo's tipped Epics hand towards their future full blown consolitis disease.

Not that anyone had long to wait for that. The console spawn Unreal Championship saw that happening at warp speed. Although the stated attention of Epic to 'copy' the whole EA-Sports yearly release complete with year naming conventions was more than enough to send up big warning signs to anyone who wasn't decieved by the platitudes coming out of Epic's PR people.

And despite all the lies, despite all the evidence that the 'core' players didn't like way things were headed, what did we get? UT2004, UT3 and then Gears of War.

Modern games don't get made overnight folks, it's obvious to anyone with hindsight, that Epic went console even while they kept telling their original players otherwise. In short, they sold out and like most crappy businesses, they denied everything all the while chasing the cheapest buck.

If Gears hadn't done so well among the pre-teen & console commando crowd, Epic would be hurting. Sure the Unreal 2 engine brought them in a lot of cash, but the Unreal 3 engine doesn't have the same polish or acceptance it's predecessor had, and the Unreal 2 engine is getting old. On top of that, Epic has squandered away just about every last bit of good will the still playing PC community ever had for them.

Sure, lots of other game studios, companies and teams have crashed and burned over the years and Epic hasn't imploded quite yet, but the complete loss of any quality or integrity they once may have had is undeniably gone.

ZOM · Post by **ZOM** » Mon Jan 26, 2009 2:45 pm

I'll add Climax to the mix; Landstalker was such a great ARPG, IMO it has so much more awesomeness than the Zelda games...
*hides in bunker from rabid Link fanboys*

What happened to them, do they still make games?

Pixel_Outlaw · Post by **Pixel_Outlaw** » Mon Jan 26, 2009 3:08 pm

Namco, for the same compilation released 20 different ways.

gabe · Post by **gabe** » Mon Jan 26, 2009 3:32 pm

Perhaps a thread listing game companies who have NOT "fallen from grace" would be better suited to the users of this forum?

jonny5 · Post by **jonny5** » Mon Jan 26, 2009 4:19 pm

Dragoforce wrote:Cave.

I mean, wouldn't it be great if they started making just one incarnation of each game again instead of all those black, death and yada yada labels?

have you played any of them?

Frederik · Post by **Frederik** » Mon Jan 26, 2009 4:49 pm

jonny5 wrote:
Dragoforce wrote:Cave.

I mean, wouldn't it be great if they started making just one incarnation of each game again instead of all those black, death and yada yada labels?
have you played any of them?

It´s not like they make these label games INSTEAD of new titles, so I don´t see the problem. And I think variations of games is a great idea, because quite often certain details put you off in one version that gets changed in the label version (and vice versa). This might seem like milking existing titles, but I would gladly have some spiced-up versions of my favourite games (not just shmups, but every genre).

The n00b · Post by **The n00b** » Mon Jan 26, 2009 4:58 pm

Polyphony Digital = Turn 10 jacked their best ideas and improved upon them. Now all PD does is rely on recycled physics engines and a fanbase that truly will buy any crap PD puts out. Everything past GT 3 was just phoned in.

Simbin = Another gmotor 2 sim? This company has become even worse than PD when it comes to recycling. In fact there's so much recycling going on that it can be said they do more modding than actual game creating. Their high point was GTR 2.

Tecmo = I loved the original ninja gaiden series and ninja gaiden: black. I also liked Ninja Gaiden 2 but to a lesser extent. However management at this company seems to have taken a turn for the worse. Their best designer, Itagaki, was seemingly forced out and it shows in the lack of polish featured in Ninja Gaiden 2. I don't even what to know what's going to happen to NG 3 without Itagaki...

Dragoforce · Post by **Dragoforce** » Mon Jan 26, 2009 5:10 pm

jonny5 wrote: have you played any of them?

Yeah, played both Ibara and DOJ a year ago or so.

All these extra labels kind of gives me the same feeling as the LOTR movies did when they where released on DVD. First they release the original movie, and a few months after that a directors cut. The whole thing just strikes me as quite greedy, I would rather see that they would put that effort into making a whole new game.

But, yeah. "Fallen from grace" is perhaps a little too strong phrase, but the whole thinhs just bugs me a little bit.

shmups.system11.org

Game Companies That Have Fallen From Grace

Game Companies That Have Fallen From Grace

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