WARNING: LONG POST AHEAD
As a general rule, I would say that games are getting better, but some series REALLY took a nose dive.
As much as I liked Skyrim at first, and as much as I used to think it was an improvement over Oblivion, (I can't believe I'm saying this), the reality hit me pretty hard when I realized that Skyrim is THE most unbalanced and broken elder scrolls to date. Every Elder Scrolls game had some exploitable thing in it, but Skyrim's BS takes the cake. It should NOT be possible to deliver trillions of damage with any weapon, using nothing more than what the game offered as mechanics. No cheats, no mods are necessary.
Then there's Diablo. Oh boy, where do I start? Diablo 1 came out in 1995, which at the time was hands down THE best hack' n slash RPG. Online gaming wasn't really a big thing yet, and this game delivered quality multiplayer gameplay, especially for it's time.
Then Diablo 2 came out, along with all the expansions years later. They changed the mechanics around quite a bit, but they didn't take away any depth from the first game, in fact diablo 2 was much much deeper and more complex than the first game. The equipment system alone was mindbogglingly deep, along with the awesome options for character build customization. This game was an improvement in EVERY way imaginable to the first game. I had literally played diablo 2 for 10 years until I finally got bored with it. Farming and trading was addictive on Battle.net. I consider this game to be one of the best video games of all time.
In diablo 2, even if you pick the same character twice, there were always multiple possible builds that were completely distinct from one another within the same class. I could go for a bone necro, then when I got bored, eat a respec token and change it to a summon necro if I wanted. I did this all the time. And if you're into dueling with other people, there were even more "viable" builds that worked best in PVP mode. there were 7 classes to chose from, and each class had at least 2 different viable ways to build them, some with 4 even. The end result was about 20 different character builds to chose from. This game had TONS of options.
Then there's diablo 3, a huge step backward. All that depth and character customization options went out the window. There are now only 5 classes, you don't get to customize how they level up, you level up, you get a new skill, end of story. No thinking involved. Now, if 2 people play the same class, they will always end up being virtually identical, with only minor differences in equipment. Diablo 3 is also online only, which was a HUGE mistake. Single player mode in d2 was always more balanced because you didn't have unlimited access to the best gear that people duped, botted, or otherwise cheated to get. towards the end of my days playing d2, I stopped trading with people and only used what I found myself because there was no way of knowing if that ZOD rune was duped or not. Only using what you found made the game challenging and balanced again.
I guess they decided that the next generation of gamers were too stupid to handle all the depth that d2 offered, so they completely and utterly dumbed this game down. "dumbing the game down" is not something I use lightly, but in this case it's just plain obvious. If you don't believe me, then listen to the majority of hardcore Diablo fans giving horrible reviews for d3. Just Google Diablo 3 and at least 70% of the shit that comes up is negative.
There is another genre of games that I feel took a nose dive. First person shooters. I blame COD for the downfall of it all. Back in the day, the majority of FPS didn't have regenerating health, and instead you were given a percent of life left, and the only way to heal was to pick of health packets of some kind. Every shot you took left permanent damage (unless you find health), whereas now in most FPS, all you need to do is duck and cover and your health goes magically back up. This means that I can enter a room guns blazing, and as long as I duck and cover in time, there is no penalty for being shot. This is fucking stupid. COD started this path to scrubbiness, and now almost ALL of the FPS have regenerating health. Wolfenstein, a once great series known for it's classic FPS (ID software), now adopted this regenerating health, and all this other supernatural nonsense that is really only a superficial layer of strategy. If I wanted "veil powers" to be in my game, I would play an RPG. Every FPS is trying to be a COD clone, and it's sickening.
Truth is, every series must necessarily reach its pinnacle at some point, and then it falls downward. I suppose it's only natural. The thing is, when game developers see a series going downhill, they should just discontinue it. Make way for a new series to make it's mark I say. These days, I feel like they are trying to continue dead series too much and not enough brand new games. The same could be said for movies I would say.
FG's seem to be making a comeback, so this is good. BTW DEX I disagree completely about Chronicles of the sword being a good mode. The horrible AI killed it for me. That mode would have been 10X better if the AI was actually somewhat decent like in sc5. The only reason I did this mode at all was to unlock all the bonus styles.
Sc5 may have shortcutted us on SP modes, but with what little resources they had and little development time, they truly focused on the things that really matter in a FG: Gameplay and Balance. Sure, it's not perfectly balanced, but I'm actually quite pleasantly surprised with how well they achieved this. The only character that truly needs fixing is Viola. Even if the SP modes are lacking, they are still 10X more fun than any previous game simply because the AI is much more realistic. Truth be told, I don't think PS could have done much better with what they had to work with. It's a damn shame that SC doesn't get the love and attention that Tekken does, because if it did image how much more awesome it could have been.
Most of this I'm sure, is nostalgia. I often revisit old games just to see if this is true. Half of the time, it ends up being MUCH worse than I remember it, the other half, I'm thinking "where did they go wrong, this older game was so much better".
But don't worry man, there are plenty of series out there that are always improving and innovating, just gotta find the right ones. Be extremely picky about what games you play, I am.
