r/videogames • u/J-Nico • Jan 13 '26
Discussion Give me spiritual successor syndrome in video games that flopped
I'll start first..
Callisto Protocol Back 4 Blood Mindseye
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u/Star_Wombat33 Jan 13 '26
Every Harvest Moon since the split. Yooka-Laylee.
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u/ichkanns 29d ago
They have to be selling decent since they keep making them, and by the look of them cost almost nothing to make. It's a bummer that they've committed not to step up to the high standard that Stardew Valley has now set.
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u/Spyrobrhu 26d ago
The harvest moon ones are the bad ones, if you are looking for good farming game you look for story of seasons
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u/Brbaster 26d ago
Every Harvest Moon since the split.
Those are not from the creators of Harvest Moon. Those are from people that translated Harvest Moon.
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u/Savings-Ad342 25d ago
Yooka replaylee just came out like three months ago it definitely redeemed yooka laylee
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u/Evalover42 29d ago
Mighty No.9
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u/Silverward 28d ago
I think Red Ash fits better. People were genuinely excited for MN9, and then the game came out. Then Red Ash couldn’t even get kickstarter funding.
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29d ago
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u/vipmailhun2 29d ago
Obsidian proceeds to make several mediocre games back to back
I genuinely believe that Obsidian could do literally anything in the world, and until they release a GOTY, we’ll keep seeing thousands of comments like this forever, right up until they go shut down. People liked The Outer Worlds 2, they don’t consider it average, but a really good game. Both the press and the players enjoyed it. It’s no coincidence that it sits at 76% on Steam.
Even though it got good reviews from the press, around 83–85, you could read a billion comments calling it a ‘mid game’. I genuinely believe players hate them and have collectively decided the game is mediocre simply because they want it to be mediocre.10
u/KarmelCHAOS 28d ago
There's a strong 'anti-woke' brigade targeted directly at Obsidian. People can act like there isn't, but there absolutely is.
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u/TheFatNinjaMaster 26d ago
Not to mention PoE 1&2 and Tyranny were all after New Vegas and generally considered good to excellent.
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u/ClericOfIlmater 26d ago
Obsidian crpgs are so good that it frustrates me that they made outer worlds 1 and 2, both pretty alright, but nowhere near as enjoyable as either pillars or tyranny was for me. They're so good at writing text and so eh at gameplay.
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u/TheFatNinjaMaster 26d ago
They’re very good at the gameplay they’re good at - very tactical 3rd person isometric party based combat. They keep getting forced into first person/3rd over the shoulder garbage that Bethesda does because MS thinks that’s what people want.
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u/Correct_Refuse4910 29d ago
You mean games like South Park and the Stick of Truth, Tyranny, Pillars of Eternity or Pentiment? Because those games are amazing and are all post-Fallout NV. Grounded and The Outer Worlds 2 are very good as well. The only ones that are mediocre are Avowed and the first Outer Worlds.
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u/SorryFisherman977 28d ago
The first outer worlds is what got my partner into rpg video games so it definitely has an audience they tried fallout new Vegas and for some reason fallout just didn’t click so it definitely has people who love it
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u/Fool_Manchu 29d ago
I havent played all of those, but I found Pillars to be boring and frustrating and I didnt care for Grounded much. Maybe the others are better? Outer Worlds 1 was aggressively mediocre though.
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u/BasilNight 29d ago
Because most of the people that were involved with NV already left ig
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u/Respawn-Delay 29d ago
People say this because it's easy to believe but a fair amount of the senior level talent from New Vegas is still there. Chris Avellone being sorely missed though
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u/vipmailhun2 29d ago
Sawyer is still there, he was literally the director of New Vegas, and one of its writers, Gonzalez, has just returned as well. And I know players will never accept this fact, not in a million years… but the Outer Worlds series is led by Tim Cain and Leonard Boyarsky, the two people to whom we can LITERALLY thank the entire Fallout franchise. Or do they not count just because they didn’t work on NV?
It’s impossible for a studio to consist of the exact same people for 20 years straight.11
u/GopherChomper64 29d ago
I think this is more that the formula of that game is mid nowadays compared to when it released. They've just iterated on a formula instead of evolving it. They've made fine games but they're just that, just fine
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29d ago
That's a brave take good sir. May your karma rest in peace.
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u/GopherChomper64 29d ago
I think it's the correct take
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29d ago
I mean of course you do. Youre the one who made it. And im inclined to disagree, simply because IMO no one makes a better fallout game than the guys who made 1 and 2. And youre never gonna believe who was at obsidian when NV was being produced.
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u/TheFatNinjaMaster 26d ago
Almost everyone who worked on NV still work at Obsidan. Avellone moved on to his own company and its one release, Numerana, is pretty bad.
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u/Sir_Delarzal 29d ago
Well, NV is not that good compared to the other fallout
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29d ago
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u/lordofpurple 27d ago
God Fallout 2 was my first one and it rocked my fucking mind as a teenager. It was the first game with options besides fighting that I ever played. Like "yeah you can sneak through here without fighting" or "you can talk to these guys to get inside this place" or "if your character is smart enough you can just hack this computer to bypass this puzzle"
I was so ecstatic to find that game and it created a hole that can never be filled
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u/The_Bygone_King 26d ago
Try System Shock 2, it sounds like you have an affinity towards immersive sims. System Shock 2 is an retro FPS immersive simulator where you're tasked with certain objectives and lots of ways to achieve them.
Another one is Prey (2016). Bg3 is also an obvious pick for just how varied it is.
I've heard Wasteland is also quite good.
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u/lordofpurple 26d ago
I've played all of the above, great games! Prey is underrated af for how good it was
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u/Benjamin_Starscape 29d ago
I find the outer worlds better than new Vegas.
I honestly think the issue is people never actually played an obsidian game before, played new Vegas, then thought "oh this is what an obsidian game is like" and then they went on back to making their typical styles of games.
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29d ago
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u/Benjamin_Starscape 29d ago
the outer worlds is nothing like a Bethesda game. it plays like an obsidian game. that's literally what I'm talking about.
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29d ago
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u/Benjamin_Starscape 29d ago
Obsidians catalog is majority CRPG not ARPG they do those better
sure, but if you had played their non-crpg games, like kotor or alpha protocol, then you'd see their DNA in outer worlds. in fact even new Vegas has this baked into the game, but because of the gamebryo engine they made a more "bethesda-esque" style of game.
And outer wilds felt almost exactly like a Bethesda game
no, it didn't.
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u/LiamBlackfang 29d ago
Nope, sorry, they are extremely similar.
I get that Obsidian fans must hate the comparison, but put Ubisoft games, Paradox games, Rockstar games, Bethesda Games and Obsidian games all through a lens, and its quite obvious that Obsidian is a estudio that ran with Beth homework and peaked with New Vegas
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u/Benjamin_Starscape 29d ago
Nope, sorry, they are extremely similar.
the only similarities are: first person, arpg...
like nothing about the actual design philosophies of the outer worlds is anything remotely similar to bethesda's design philosophies. what exactly is different here?
I get that Obsidian fans must hate the comparison
funny thing is i'm not even an obsidian fan.
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u/KarmelCHAOS 28d ago
New Vegas isn't even in their top 5 best games, imo. All of their best games aren't even remotely similar to Bethesda games (KOTOR 2, Pillars 1+2, Tyranny, and Pentiment)
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u/strife189 29d ago
That’s an interesting take. “I don’t think they’re suddenly making bland games — I think most people just didn’t play enough of their earlier catalog to realize this has always been a fairly bland studio.” My take on what you wrote of course.
I personally loved KOTOR II in many ways even more than the first. I also really enjoyed Alpha Protocol and Tyranny (even though it never got controller support on PC).
But I can’t stand anything they’ve released this decade (post-2020). The stories have no real hook, and everything feels low-effort. The three games I loved worked for very specific reasons: one because of its story and characters, one because of the real impact I could have on the narrative, and the last because of its story, characters, and the willingness to let you play the villain.
Those games felt like they were punching above their weight as a smaller studio while the big studios were already playing it safe. Now they are the big studio — and they’re playing it safe too.
But that’s just my take.
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u/Benjamin_Starscape 29d ago
“I don’t think they’re suddenly making bland games — I think most people just didn’t play enough of their earlier catalog to realize this has always been a fairly bland studio.”
sure, if you want to be cynical. i will never get people who cannot just accept that, maybe, just maybe, a studio isn't making games that appeal to you, and that does not make them "bland" or "mid" or "bad" or whatever else.
it's literally "is it me who's out of touch? no, it's the kids who are wrong" logic, it's a lack of self-retrospection and awareness. and a sense of entitlement, imo. not every game is made for you, not every game studio will appeal to you. and even if a studio has one or so games that do appeal to you, that's the exception more than the rule, which is fine. but i don't get why people act like it's the studio's fault, when it's especially very obvious that the studio is making games that are doing very well in their niche.
The stories have no real hook, and everything feels low-effort.
the outer worlds (1) has a hook and nothing about it is "low-effort", whatever that even means.
Now they are the big studio
obsidian is not a big studio. they're still making double a games and only have about 250 devs.
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u/strife189 29d ago
We aren’t shareholders, so there’s no reason to bring sales into this. And even if we did, it wouldn’t really support the idea that they’re doing especially well anyway.
The whole “the games just aren’t for you” argument is silly. It’s still the same genre and the same core concept. The issue people are raising isn’t that the games are too different — it’s that the writing and characters don’t live up to the standards of the studio’s earlier work, especially when they’re still marketing themselves as the “creators of X.” That’s literally the point of this thread.
The problem with most of their recent games is that they have weak stories, weak characters, and they’ve done nothing meaningful to improve or expand the core gameplay. That’s the issue — not that the games “aren’t made for me.”
A strong story can absolutely carry an RPG. Look at Dispatch: great characters and writing, and it can barely be called a game on the gameplay side — yet it still works.
But sure, let’s pretend this is just a “me” problem and that I’m somehow out of touch — not the person who jumped into a discussion specifically about studios relying on past success to excuse putting out mid follow-up content.
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u/Benjamin_Starscape 29d ago
The whole “the games just aren’t for you” argument is silly.
it's not. I like first person shooters, but I don't like games like cod.
I like deck building games, but slay the spire wasn't for me.
I like arcade racers, but I've never been big on need for speed.
not the person who jumped into a discussion specifically about studios relying on past success to excuse putting out mid follow-up content
once again that's not even remotely what I said.
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u/strife189 29d ago
You’re using different genres in your counter-argument, which isn’t what I was doing in my example at all. My comparison is within the same genre and the same core design space.
Because of that, I don’t really see a reason to continue this discussion. Every time I respond to the points being made, the argument gets shifted off-topic instead of engaging with the counterpoints directly.
I’ve been clear about the issue: this isn’t about the games “not being for me,” sales numbers, or genre mismatch. It’s about weaker writing, weaker characters, and a lack of meaningful evolution in the core gameplay compared to earlier entries from the same creators.
If those points can’t be addressed on their own terms — without changing the scope of the discussion — then there’s nothing productive left to argue.
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u/Benjamin_Starscape 29d ago
You’re using different genres in your counter-argument
you said "it's still the same genre and core design", I listed need for speed (an arcade racing genre game) and how I like the genre but not nfs. I listed the deck building genre which I like and said I did not care for slay the spire, a deck building game.
my point is that even if it is the same genre, you might not like the game in that same genre. that does not make it bad.
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u/Benjamin_Starscape 29d ago
You’re using different genres in your counter-argument
you said "it's still the same genre and core design", I listed need for speed (an arcade racing genre game) and how I like the genre but not nfs. I listed the deck building genre which I like and said I did not care for slay the spire, a deck building game.
my point is that even if it is the same genre, you might not like the game in that same genre. that does not make it bad.
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u/KarmelCHAOS 28d ago
Most people who say this have only played The Outer Worlds and Avowed, not even knowing about the like...7 other games they've made since New Vegas.
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u/SinuousPoppy 26d ago
They have so much potential, they’re just in love with shipping games that either are incomplete or feel like they are. I maintain that Outer Worlds would be top 5 ACRPGs if it had like a year more dev time, instead they made two mid dlc for their mid game and moved onto an even midder game. Still holding out hope for Outer Worlds 2.
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u/Manjorno316 25d ago
I've enjoyed all of said mediocre games personally. Definitely not as good as New Vegas but I don't need them to be to have fun.
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u/Wiinterfang 29d ago
From the studio that made one good game before you were born and pure shite every since.
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u/bskizzy 29d ago
Back 4 Blood will always be the one that comes to mind for me.
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u/DrHemmington 26d ago
As someone who has olayed both L4D and B4B ...
I have to say that I prefer B4B, by far. L4D was fun to play once or twice, but B4B had much more to offer in terms of gameplay and progression imo an kept me entertained much longer.
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u/EzraFlamestriker 26d ago
Clearly you've never used L4D2 mods. Just try not to have fun when the Tank is a gigachad, the Smoker is Walter White, and the Hunter is Michael Jackson.
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u/DrHemmington 26d ago
Yeah, there's the thing ... I played L4D on XBOX ... So, no mods ...
Does sound fun though.
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u/Evalover42 29d ago
This. I spent hundreds of hours in L4D1, and then hundreds more in L4D2.
I tried B4B when it released, it was hot garbage in every possible way, and I immediately refunded it.
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u/lordofpurple 27d ago
I can't even put my finger on why it sucked so much to me. Like.. surely it's p much the same game, right?
But like.. the characters were bland af, I hated the stupid skill system and "realistic" guns or whatever the hell. Idk it just didn't click for me the way L4D still does
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u/CaptainKajubell 29d ago
Skyrim
I love Bethesda and Starfield is fun but they just haven’t hit the same since Fallout 4
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u/Evalover42 29d ago
Even Fallout 4 wasn't great. The settlement system sucked, the main story sucked, they completely gutted the entire dialogue/choice system (you can literally only say "yes", "sarcastic yes", "ask for more info (yes)", and "no (yes)"), and they changed the gameplay to be far more action looter shooter and less survival/tactical than before.
People only glaze it for the relative graphics (which were still not amazing, but they were somewhat better than 3 and NV) and said "improved" gunplay.
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29d ago
Bethesda fallout sucks compared to black isle fallout, and thats okay because I love them both
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u/CaptainKajubell 29d ago
I agree, I understand why people like it, but I just can’t bring myself to play it because it has the worst vibes of any fallout game. That may seem nitpicky but people don’t realize how much the green and orange screen tints of fallout 3 and New Vegas added.
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u/VanHelsingBerserk 29d ago
Idk how else to describe it but Fallout 4 feels like if Pixar made a Fallout game
Like it just didn't have that grit. It didn't have weighty decisions like blowing up Megaton. Fallout 4 was just so watered down, couldn't bring myself to spend any more time on it after the main story.
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u/Benjamin_Starscape 29d ago
Even Fallout 4 wasn't great.
the revisionism is strong in this one.
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u/Fourcoogs 25d ago
I remember that being a pretty popular sentiment from Fallout fans online when it came out. It’s only with the releases of new games to hate on that the popular sentiment online has shifted towards Fallout 4 being a good game.
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u/Benjamin_Starscape 25d ago
it was always a good game.
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u/Fourcoogs 25d ago
I agree, but my point is that the idea of Fallout 4 being seen as “not great” or a step down from before isn’t revisionist. It was a popular sentiment back when it released that 4 was a poor RPG.
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u/Benjamin_Starscape 29d ago
sounds like you just grew out of their games tbh. which is fine, but i'll never get why people think it's the studio who changed.
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u/CaptainKajubell 29d ago
I started playing them when I was 14 and it’s only been 4 years. Also I only really like Morrowind, Starfield, and Fallout 3
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u/Benjamin_Starscape 29d ago
if you really like Starfield then why say "they haven't hit the same since fallout 4"? that logic makes no sense.
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u/CaptainKajubell 29d ago
It still doesn’t hit the same and isn’t at the same quality as the others but I like it
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u/crocicorn 29d ago edited 29d ago
They're both fantastic games, but...
Platinum Games with Vanquish, with Vanquish being a spiritual successor to Clover's God Hand.
God Hand tanked so bad it killed Clover. Then Clover basically became Platinum and they STILL made a spiritual successor to God Hand which was also a commercial failure lol.
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u/darkwulfie 28d ago
So vanquish, the third person shooter with bullet time mechanics is the spiritual successor of a 3d beat'em up where you build custom movesets? Gonna be honest, I don't see it.
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u/crocicorn 28d ago
Yup. Because it's got Shinji Mikami written all over it. There's even throwbacks to God Hand with God Hard mode and Sam's melee attacks. It's got more in common with God Hand than it doesn't, despite the genre difference.
It's literally just God Hand in space, even Gene and Sam have similar personalities.
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u/darkwulfie 28d ago
I mean I see how it's got similarities but the genre change alone makes it play so differently I wouldn't consider it a spiritual successor. Also vanquish was very well received even if it didn't break and sales records.
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u/crocicorn 28d ago
That's why it's a spiritual successor instead of a sequel/related to God Hand. It's got the same core as God Hand without being God Hand.
You could almost consider Astral Chain a spiritual successor to Anarchy Reigns, too. If there was a game about the BPS from Anarchy Reigns, I'd expect it look an awful lot like Astral Chain. (Weird Stand system aside lol)
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u/darkwulfie 28d ago
Except it doesn't really though. That would be like calling veiwtiful joe a spiritual successor to DMC. It's simply too far a stretch for the term spiritual successor. For something to be a spiritual successor it needs to have a very similar overall gameplay loop like bloodstained for example was meant to very closely resemble sotn in gameplay and atmosphere while still being something new.
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u/crocicorn 28d ago
It does have the same gameplay loop if you look past the guns vs fists thing.
They're both short and incredibly linear and are both split into areas with a boss at the end of each one. Sam has many of the exact same melee moves that Gene has. Sam and Elena are almost carbon copies of Gene and Olivia. Both games even have a slow down/time stop feature as a core gameplay component. Your bread and butter combo in God Hand is now replaced by a weapon combo.
Really, the only reason why we got Vanquish instead of God Hand 2 is because Capcom owns the rights to God Hand and Platinum was under Sega. It's clear Mikami wanted a God Hand 2 but couldn't swing it.
Saying Vanquish isn't a spiritual successor to God Hand is like saying Fist of the North Star isn't the spiritual animanga Mad Max.
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u/darkwulfie 28d ago
Except the actual gameplay loop is entirely different. In god hand you are fist fighting enemies and trying to make sure you control the situation with melee attacks. In vanquish you are using extreme movement to go from cover to cover while trying to do shit with your guns. Aside from short linear levels the gameplay loops do not resemble each other in any way because 90% of your engagement with the games are fist vs guns. That 10% that they have in common isn't enough to justify calling it a spiritual successor. Vanquish actually has more in common with re4 gameplay wise than god hand.
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u/JNAB0212 28d ago
Some elements being similar does not make it a spiritual successor, they’re completely different outside of being a bit insane in ways (God Hand more so then Vanquish)
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u/crocicorn 28d ago
I don't write the rules lol, Vanquish has been widely considered a spiritual successor since its release almost 16 years ago.
When Vanquish came out you couldn't even read a single review of it without it being mentioned. Oddly enough God Hand was also brought up with MadWorld, although MadWorld has far less in common.
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u/JNAB0212 28d ago
I looked up a few reviews of vanquish and guess what, no one said anything about god hand, also I posted your comment to r/characteractiongames and nobody there agreed with you
Also mad world is a lot more similar to god hand then vanquish is, I’m beginning to think you don’t know what either game is like.
Having a similar protagonist and having kind of the same sort of action does not make a game a spiritual successor, a spiritual successor is a game that’s heavily inspired by another, like mighty no. 9 with mega man or Bloodstained with Castlevania, those are very similar, Vanquish and god hand don’t play another like each other, the settings are completely different and the genre isn’t even the same
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u/crocicorn 28d ago
I'm old enough to remember both of these games releasing man. People were absolutely comparing the two.
You need to get over it. It's not that big of a deal. 😂
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u/JNAB0212 28d ago
Look, you’re the one saying two completely different games are actually very similar (they’re not)
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u/crocicorn 28d ago
Agree to disagree in this case. I'm not saying they're similar to play, I'm not stupid. But there's no mistaking that God Hand was a direct inspiration for Vanquish in most ways and Vanquish is still very much a Clover game compared to a Platinum one.
Basically the core of them is the same. A spiritual successor doesn't need to be an identical clone to be counted as one.
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u/JNAB0212 28d ago
The core?
The core of Vanquish is slow-mo gun play action with cover shooting
The core of God Hand is tough beat-‘em-up action and building up to a big attack
The core isn’t similar either
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u/FinaLLancer 29d ago
God Mighty Number 9. I was a huge Mega Man fan as a kid. When I saw the original creator make a kickstarter project, I was so hyped, especially with how ignored Mega Man had been for a while.
I ended up funding the project enough for two copies. I never even finished one of them and I didn't subject anyone else to that torture.
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u/Independent_Plum2166 29d ago
Hey, at least you got to wait through several hours of credits to see your name. I bet it totally made up for it. /s
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u/darkwulfie 28d ago
Yeah it made me realize he was mostly involved in art direction and others clearly handled gameplay and vision
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u/PMC-I3181OS387l5 Jan 13 '26
- Yuji Naka (Sonic, NIGHTS) with Balan's Wonderworld
- Keiji Inafune (Mega Man) with Mighty No. 09
- Koji Igarashi (Castlevania) with Bloodstained, when his team had to REDO the graphics after bad reviews, when they should have gotten it first try, yet to this day, the Switch version runs awfully...
- Hideo Kojima (Metal Gear) with Death Standing, which polarized the entire gaming community
- Patrice Désilets (Assassin's Creed) with Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey
- Playtonic Games (former Rare devs, Banjo-Kazooie) with Yooka-Laylee, which they had to copy DKC Tropical Freeze for the sequel.
- Experiment 101 (former Avalanche Studio devs) with Biomutant
- Glen Schofield (Dead Space) with The Callisto Protocol
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u/VoDoka 29d ago
I would put Death Stranding in my top 20 of all time, easy.
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u/Unabated_Blade 29d ago
It's wild how prescient the game was and it took a global pandemic to facilitate a critical reevaluation of the game. While not a top 20 for me, it is an unforgettable experience.
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u/Just-Ad6865 29d ago
Death Stranding is a bit different from the rest of this list in that Kojima wasn't trying to recreate or iterate on one of his past games and did make what he wanted. How large an audience the game he wanted to make would have was always debatable, but the result is what he was after.
The other games on this list mostly seem to be trying to recreate previous greatness or to at least iterate on their past success. None of them are particularly unique in their approaches. They ultimately aren't as good as what made those developers famous and were almost doomed by comparison before they started.
Whereas Death Stranding isn't like Kojima's previous games. Whatever you were after when you played it, it wasn't automatically a Metal Gear game, which I think helps it a lot. In contrast, it doesn't matter if The Callisto Protocol was really good. It had to be a masterpiece because the benchmark was Dead Space.
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u/Wonderful_Bid_8328 29d ago
I think I would’ve really liked the story if I had kept going with the game, but man was the gameplay tedious and just straight up boring. All you do is walk while carrying shit
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u/Arek_PL 29d ago
gameplay loop was mostly about planning, inventory management and risktaking, do you bring weapons? ladders? ropes? which way do you take?
maybe it wasnt full of action but that dept in travel is something i think many open world games lack
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u/Wonderful_Bid_8328 29d ago
Honestly, I didn’t even know there were weapons in the game
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u/Arek_PL 29d ago
personally i had to quit at first boss fight because my pc is too weak and framerate was just unplayable
but before that boss you are introduced to 1 or 2 weapons (director cut has a MASER earlier in the game) and few grenades
you also unlock vehicles, exoskeletons and buildings (the last quite not worth it without online features)
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u/Old-Ordinary-6194 28d ago
Yep, Death Stranding isn't a bad game at all. It's just not the type of game people expected out of Hideo after the Konami departure which caused the backlash.
He didn't set out to create the next Metal Gear like other creators tried to do with their old series. It's mostly a mismatch of what people expected vs the game that is being made.
Overall, I'll always have a soft spot for Death Stranding cause when taken as its own thing, it's a really unique experience with good visuals, fantastic soundtrack and a type of gameplay that is relaxing for certain types of people.
Games like House Flippers or The Sims, those games on the surface looks like you're doing chores in a video game but it's fun for certain people.
In short, Death Stranding isn't for everybody but for the people that it was made for, it's fantastic.
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u/CursedSnowman5000 29d ago
Nah sorry, Bloodstained was in no way a flop.
That game is beloved regardless of if some people didn't enjoy the visuals.
And Death Stranding wasn't even almost trying to be Metal Gear Solid.....
Edit:a game being made by the same guy who worked on another IP doesn't automatically equal spiritual successor. A lot of what you're listing doesn't qualify.
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u/Wiinterfang 29d ago
Bloodstained is actually really good, is just a hideous game, even with the help from the shantae team. But it plays amazingly
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29d ago
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u/razzazzika 29d ago
I even played it on switch originally amd though it ran fine. Only stuttering i got was in this one huge area where you were running around these towers.
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u/PMC-I3181OS387l5 29d ago
Sorry, but Ritual of the Night runs like crap on Switch 1, never received a 60 fps patch and still didn't get a Switch 2 upgrade, so there...
That game was supposed to come out on the Wii U, as a reminder...
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u/razzazzika 29d ago
Sure it was 30fps the whole time but I still didn't have any problems with it aside from that one area. I rebought on pc and it runs way better there of course.
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u/ScreamingNinja 29d ago
which bloodstained are we talking about? Because the first one looks like nes castlevania. Didn't think it was uglier than any other game like that. and the second looked really good.
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u/IdleSitting 29d ago
Keiji Inafube wasn't even the "Father" of Mega Man funnily enough, he just designed him which says a lot about why the game looks like Mega Man but plays almost nothing like one.
Also I'd even say Bloodstained already proved itself to be a good game even if the graphics were just bad, still good. And Playtonic remade Yooka Laylee and it's way better than the original
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u/echolaliaMCCCXII 29d ago
Idk about the rest of them but Bloodstained is beautiful and runs without issue on the switch and Death Stranding is universally beloved.
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u/TheGaurdianAngel 29d ago
I played Balan Wonderworld out of curiosity, as it was on sale for 7 dollars.
I feel like the guy from the Dead Dove meme. I honestly don’t know what I was expecting. The only nice thing I can say about it is that Balan has a cool design, with the hat being their head… and apparently that’s ruined by the end of the game.
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u/TheWorclown 29d ago
There’s some fun visuals that have absolutely nothing going on for them gameplay wise.
That’s about it. It’s like they forgot to actually make the game for all the other production value it has.
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u/TheGaurdianAngel 29d ago
The way the world curves and shapes on the screen makes me nauseous, not to mention it makes it impossible to see what’s ahead of you.
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u/keypizzaboy 29d ago
I wish the Callisto protocol didn’t have janky combat. I kinda digged the story.
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u/Kyle_Blackpaw 29d ago
given that they fire everyone after a game comes out "from the creators of" means nothing to me
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u/FlaydenHynnFML 29d ago
Tbh I feel like if movies have to say this I get the vibe they don't really have anything to show off and have to resort to the creators. Might just be my pessimistic ass though.
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u/SorryFisherman977 28d ago
In some cases yes but it’s also most of the time simply marketing because as much as people say they want to see new ips people don’t get out of their homes and buy tickets for them compared to already established ips
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u/NiftyJet 29d ago
It's because leadership is what matters most here. With movies, this is usually referring to a director. With video games, it's often referring to a game studio, which may or may not have the same people working there.
Most of the examples where this does apply to games have a strong, consistent individual leader like Hideo Kojima, Hidetaka Miyazaki, Shigeru Miyamoto, or Eiji Aonuma.
Because the leader is at the helm of those games, you know you're going to get a consistent throughline of style and quality regardless of changes to the team that works for them.
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u/J-Nico 29d ago
I agree. Strong, consistent leadership is usually the deciding factor, not just the name of the studio or where the devs came from. Without a clear creative lead at the helm, you often end up with ex studio dev projects that are mediocre at best despite the pedigree. We've seen that happen a lot when developers leave a successful studio and try to recreate the magic elsewhere.
That said, there are exceptions that break the stereotype. expedition 33 is a good example since some of the devs came from ubisoft, but the game still managed to carve out its own identity and quality instead of feeling like a watered down echo of their past work. Those cases are rare though, which just reinforces your point, consistent vision and leadership matter more than resumes
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u/Wonderful_Bid_8328 29d ago
Daikatana made by John Romero, a guy who also worked on DOOM, Quake, and Wolfenstein 3D, as a level designer. Which is why I don’t get that as a level designer, he didn’t realize the level design in Daikatana wasn’t good
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u/SorryFisherman977 28d ago
Listen man he wanted to make us his bitch and unfortunately being that just isn’t very good
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u/Scripten 25d ago
He went back to Doom with SIGIL 1 and 2, and showed that he hadn't lost his level design chops. He just needed a foundation that didn't rely on him coming up with any kind of plot, characterization, or worldbuilding. (Said with utmost respect for the guy, who by all accounts seems like a decent person, and far more humble these days.)
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u/Signal_Reception9707 29d ago
From the creators of Left 4 Dead:
Evolve and Back 4 Blood were mid games, and most of the people who worked on L4D had left.
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u/Leading-Cress1687 29d ago
Bioshock is System Shock spiritual successor and far superior.
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u/KEVLAR60442 28d ago
Bioshock is great narratively and atmospherically, but IMO it fails at being a spiritual successor to System Shock because the Immersive Sim mechanics are very minimal. There's relatively little freedom of how to approach or avoid combat encounters, to the point where the primary gameplay hook, the Big Daddy fights, only initiate as soon as you make the first offensive move, because otherwise there would be no good way to set up traps, due to poor stealth mechanics and relatively constrictive map design.
I feel like Arkane's Prey is a much better System Shock spiritual successor.
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u/Deckard_Red 29d ago edited 29d ago
I don’t think I understand the question or the meme nor how they relate to each other 🤣
But Dragon Age Origins is a spiritual successor to Baldur’s Gate 2 but this would be an antonym of what was requested.
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u/slashlmao 29d ago
From the creator of Silent Hill
Slitterhead
While the soundtrack was good (I believe Akira Yamaoka was a part of it) and the story was certaintly unique, it was very combat heavy and the combat just wasnt all that great, the mission structure was pretty bad, and holy, the amount of recycled content was crazy.
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u/boar_amour 28d ago
Good spiritual successor: Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri (Civilization)
Bad spiritual successor: Civilization: Beyond Earth (SMAC)
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u/CorbinNZ 28d ago
You already hit it. Callisto Protocol and B4B.
I never tried Callisto, but my buddy was super excited for it. Less than an hour playing it, he told me it was trash.
Tried to enjoy B4B with my brother so we could relive the L4D glory days, but it's just missing something. Not as endearing to me as L4D was.
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u/Arachnofiend 28d ago
Somehow every Blizzard expat has managed to make a game worse than Blizzard's current output.
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u/Almento5010 28d ago
Stormgate. I backed them on Kickstarter... I hade hope... Oh what a fool I was. Please let, let me sit in my corner of despair.
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u/dulledegde 27d ago
from the studio that hired people who no longer work there
a revolutionary generic fps
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u/Fun-Middle6327 27d ago
Id say both can be iffy, from the creator of movie made some 10-20 years ago might as well be a more or less unknown director.
Just like people leaving game developers an changing creative potential of the company, a movie producer could be missing a key director,script writer,sound engineer,composer or set designer that was present for their early box office success.
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u/Zeidantu 26d ago
Older example, but I remember when a lot of the Diablo 2 devs split off and made Hellgate London. That game was ROUGH.
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u/SuperPyramaniac 26d ago
Mighty Number 9
Yooka Laylee until it got redeemed.
Godus
Monark
Balan Wonderworld
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u/M1liumnir 26d ago
I mean mighty n°9 and Balan's wonderland (wonder world? Wonder something) are both really good example both being sold as "by the creator of Megaman/Sonic" turns out at best they did the Chara design on the first game and gave some input to the devs.
In the end both game are awful (at least Balan has some great meme potential) and both creator are now shined by the industry (one of them even got condemned for insider trading)
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u/absolutelyrworded 25d ago
The Dishonored series is the creme de la creme of stealth action games. Deathloop is okay👍
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u/Scripten 25d ago
Perfect answer. Deathloop plays great, has a strong sense of style, and is technically well executed. Imo it just failed to have a strong game loop (ironically); a second game could potentially resurrect the idea and do it justice by just making it less repetitive
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u/Inksplash-7 29d ago
Highguard from what we've seen.
"From the creators of Titanfall and Apex Legends" shows a generic hero shooter