What is the gaming equivalent of "Bob Dylan changing to the electric guitar"?

[RE4-City]

What that means, what is the most notable game series that was known for providing something for years and then radically changed things to the point where it created many new fans but alienated fans of the classics?

My example will be Resident Evil. for nearly 9 years the franchise was known for two things. Fixed Camera Angles and Zombies

Since March of 1996 that was all Resident Evil was with the exception of the gun survivor games that was first person and Dead Aim.
But in January 2005 when Resident Evil 4 would release and change everything by adding an over the shoulder camera perspective.
Also Resident Evil 4 might not be the first game with QTE's (Shenmue and dragon lair) but it popularize it

Now you had new fans who were brought in to the series thanks to Resident Evil 4 however so many fans of the original games felt left out due to changes the franchise took with this RE4!

So I know what your thinking, did I really making this thread just to have another reason to talk about RE4? and while the answer is yes, please let me know what other examples you know of that fit this! I know a lot of people who were fans of the Gunpei Yokoi 2D Metroid games who were turned off with the Metroid Prime series due to them not having as many secrets to find as the 2D games.

Would GTA fit in this? I'm not to sure what the consensus is of the over the top 2D GTA games are!

 

[JAHGamer]

Outside of RE4, the only thing I can think of is FF16.

But I feel like most of the FF16 hate/criticism is so forced just because it was a PS5 exclusive.

 

[Nym]

What comes to mind for me is fighting games going 3D across the board more or less and abandoning sprite work, which didn't exactly alienate the old fans, but as we get further along the fighting game evolution they resemble the old games less and less and cater to newer tastes (comeback mechanics, lower execution barriers, slop padding)

 

[Dabaus]

NVM I misunderstood the Ops post.

 

[GachaMadeMeBroke]

I think you named a lot of the bigger ones but another one that comes to mind is the jump from Persona 1 and 2 to Persona 3. They’re still turned based JRPGs but the social mechanics and tonal shift not only defined the Persona franchise entirely going forward but we can even see how Persona seeped into games like Soul Hackers 2 and Metaphor.

The alienation isn’t AS bad with old school persona fans though as the series was relatively super niche back in the day but I do often see people online cite P2 as their fav Persona game.

Personally, I’m kiiiiiinda tired of the social link and calendar system and was quite disappointed to see both mechanics appear in Metaphor. I think Atlus needs to go back to embracing the grunge feel of older SMT titles like DDS a bit more. Not everything needs to be modern Persona adjacent.

 

[TubzGaming]

 

[Systemshock2023]

It's RE4, there's no way around it. To this day I kinda resent that game because it killed true survival horror and it's offsprings put the genre in coma 3 for a LONG while.

The over the shoulder camera just kills all sense of finesse and cinematography in a genre that should embrace that. While RE4 put the emphasis in gunning down monsters.

 

[xollowsob]

View attachment 5251View attachment 5252

Absolutely this.
GTA1 and 2 were great, zany, daft, fun. 3D GTA is 2cool4school and wannabe gangster to have the same amount of fun.

 

[ToTTenTranz]

God of War 2018.

 

[ksdixon]

Haha one and done, I was gonna say RE too.

I imagine Tomb Raider and Splinter Cells feel the way too with their different "eras" of gameplay.

 

[anonpuffs]

Final fantasy moving on from turn based combat has been controversial. Zelda going open world has been a big downgrade imo
The atelier jrpg series going mobile gacha was a travesty
Maybe modern controls in sf6?

 

[2spooky5me]

I do remember people getting upset about Splinter Cell - the new ones "play themselves; no skill required".
Final Fantasy 13 and onward - "press X to win".
Bare-bones action games now including RPG-lite elements. So, now every enemy has a health bar, or has become "sponge-like".

Another big "paradigm shift" would be in the classic point-and-click genre. If you know, you know.
Games like Maniac Mansion, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, The Curse of Monkey Island, Nancy Drew... those games you really had to dig deep into your brain. They had commands for Move, Push, Pull, Taste, Look At, etc... all of this was simplified when you got games like The Walking Dead Season 1, Life is Strange, etc. and even then, people were still too stupid (impatient) to figure out how to make progress, lol.

 

[RE4-City]

God of War 2018.

I cannot believe this one slipped my mind lol.
RE4 might be a paradigm shift where it introduced a lot of new fans to the series and GTA III might be a paradigm shift where it absolutely exploded the series into the mainstream but God of ware 2018 is the in the middle of those two.

It expanded the GOW franchise more than Re4 did you the RE franchise but not as much as GTA III did for its franchise.
It's also funny how GOW 2018 used RE4 and RE7 as inspiration for changing up the series!

How The Resident Evil Franchise Inspired The New God Of War

Santa Monica Studio's new God of War clearly draws inspiration from a lot of different places. Some of those inspirations, though, aren't so obvious. For instance, Director Cory Barlog referenced the

www.cinemablend.com

 

[xollowsob]

Syndicate turning into an FPS. Fuck you, EA.

 

[Kokoloko]

God of War 2018.

Yeah that was my first pick.

Yakuza changing from brawler to a Turned Based RPG

An even bigger change than RE 3rd person tank controls to RE4 over the shoulder 3rd person was…. RE7 going 1st person lol

 

[Ico]

Zelda maps always worked as a hub where you could enter many "corridors" that would lead you into smaller areas and isolated dungeons, but BOTW changed that, the open world approach added a lot of survival and sandbox that defined the core of the gameplay for 2 entries with less focus on big dungeons but with a lot of puzzles and things to do on the world map, even the shrines worked as mini dungeons, botw had 120 of them and totk 152. Ofc these 2 games also had main dungeons but to everyone who played older zelda games know that it wasnt the same (i will not say this is a good or bad thing bc i actually like the old and the newer games lmao)
But the main thing is, the old formula used to sell around 4 to 8 million, and the new ones are past 20+ million, so who know what will happen next

 

[Nhomnhom]

Outside of RE4, the only thing I can think of is FF16.

But I feel like most of the FF16 hate/criticism is so forced just because it was a PS5 exclusive.

I don't get how FF15 is any more of an RPG than FF16, to me both games are very similar (and I like both). Combat in the FF series is always changing anyway.

 

[Muddasar]

Resident Evil 4.

A game which revolutionised 3rd person shooters.

While killing Resident Evil as a survival horror in the process.

Great Game, Shit Resident Evil.

 

[Danja]

Burnout 3

 

[RE4-City]

I do remember people getting upset about Splinter Cell - the new ones "play themselves; no skill required".
Final Fantasy 13 and onward - "press X to win".
Bare-bones action games now including RPG-lite elements. So, now every enemy has a health bar, or has become "sponge-like".

Another big "paradigm shift" would be in the classic point-and-click genre. If you know, you know.
Games like Maniac Mansion, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, The Curse of Monkey Island, Nancy Drew... those games you really had to dig deep into your brain. They had commands for Move, Push, Pull, Taste, Look At, etc... all of this was simplified when you got games like The Walking Dead Season 1, Life is Strange, etc. and even then, people were still too stupid (impatient) to figure out how to make progress, lol.

By new splinter cell's which games do you mean? I believe the last splinter cell was blacklist and that is about to be 11 years old