Games that nearly ruined beloved franchises –

Even the sun has its spots, as they say. But it is still the sun, a star that still reliably provides heat. This is also the case in the world of gaming, albeit on a smaller scale. For the fact is that even our most beloved and celebrated game series have black sheep in their history that have been so bad that they have threatened to drag the entire brand into the abyss.

But that didn’t happen, and having said that, I thought I’d take a look back and see the black sheep that almost ruined the beloved game series.

Bomberman: Act Zero (Xbox 360 / 2006)
What do you do when you have a beloved and colorful multiplayer series full of charm and revelry, but you want to extend the concept to a console known for western action? Well, you throw everything fans love out the window and turn Bomberman into a dark, sweaty cyberpunk killing machine. Act Zero comes across as a brain dump of epic proportions where no decision was right. Everyone hated the dull environments, grotesquely boring design and worthless gameplay put the Bomberman series in the freezer until Konami finally realized what had gone wrong and how to reach new gamers namely, by making good games.

Castlevania: Judgment (Wii / 2008)
Looking back, it is easy to understand why Konami lost all its developers and eventually half left the gaming world. After the PlayStation 2 era and the entry of Wii and Xbox, they were completely lost. Instead of more games in the style of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, we got a fighting game with motion-sensing game controls for the notoriously flaky Wii. Judgment managed to alienate old fans and potential newcomers alike, and was a total sideshow that took the series nowhere, except perhaps directly into silence.

Mass Effect: Andromeda (PC, PS4, Xbox One / 2017)
It was supposed to be the beginning of something new – a new captain, new adventures, new mysteries. But Andromeda instead became a lesson in how to sink a brand with too much ambition, technical problems and watered-down design. The only thing that really made us happy were the remarkably worthless facial animations that became popular memes, and Andromeda single-handedly turned Bioware into a studio that people laughed at and made Mass Effect feel like a cheap sellout. What should have been a rebirth became more of a farewell.

Metroid: Other M (Wii / 2010)
Maybe it was a good idea when Nintendo decided to have Samus Aran run by Team Ninja. Now she would have a voice and more emotional depth. The problem? They turned an iconic, independent heroine into a passive character who took orders from men in the background who acted completely irrationally. This was crowned with a muddled story structure and game controls that looked more like a group test of frustration, and the result caused the longest hiatus of the series since Super Metroid appeared on the Super Nintendo market.

Resident Evil: Survivor (PlayStation / 2000)
How could Resident Evil feel threatened by a single game, you might think? Well, in 2000 the series was only four years old and this was the fourth game released. Capcom got it into their heads that it was time for a light shooter. But the graphics were bland to say the least and the voice-acting was so terrible that this was very well where the term “cringe” first appeared. Fortunately, Resident Evil survived the abuse, but unfortunately Capcom has continued to regularly abuse the series with other similar games and even multiplayer titles in what I assume are attempts to see how much the fans can have before abandoning the series.

Star Fox Zero (Wii U / 2016)
Fans had whined, whined, whined and waited ten years for a new Star Fox. And finally it happened. But Nintendo does what Nintendo does, and surprisingly, it often delivers something very different from what fans were hoping for. Instead of something inspired by Lylat Wars, we got some kind of two-screen game control experiment with a particularly tiresome setup. Instead of fast-paced space action, this was a game we struggled with rather than enjoyed. The Wii U was already in its final stages and Star Fox Zero didn’t exactly help its popularity. It was a missed opportunity and a bitter example of how Nintendo fell too much in love with its own gimmick – and no other Star Fox has been released since, despite the whining and whining and whining of fans.

Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness (PlayStation 2 / 2003)
After five more or less similar games of declining quality, Lara’s popularity began to wane. Angel of Darkness, however, would remedy this by capitalizing on the dark ‘n gritty trend of an era when dark equaled good. In practice, this meant a Lara with lots of eyeliner, but her ambitions were crushed under her own weight. Details such as substandard controls, bugs, lousy voice-acting and lousy trajectories caused the game to pierce Lara once and for all. It got so bad that Core Design lost the series and eventually led to Lara Croft going through reboot after reboot and re-releases before finally finding her form in 2013 in what was simply called Tomb Raider.