The decline of various franchises

[edgeyhedgey]

As various franchises go on it seems (in some peoples opinions) they decline in quality. An example of this is that I hear some people say that sonic has not been good since the "classic" games. I disagree with this but i feel star wars has declined in quality since the original 6 movies. Is there any franchises that you all feel that have declined in quality?

Edited December 14, 2017 by edgeyhedgey

[Balding Spider]

I could go with videogames, but I'll go with an even more obvious one. Post T2 and not counting the Sara Conner Chronicles the Terminator series has been in a directionless mess. They have no interesting stories, and keep redoing the same movies over and over again.

[Mr Loopone]

One of the big ones that I can name that is declining is The Simpsons, sure it is still profitable for Fox and people still watch the new seasons but if you ask people about the show they just say Seasons 1-8 are the best then afterwards it is either mixed, rubbish or not bothered watching anymore. For me because of how long the show has been running, there have been 2 declining points and they are Seasons 9-11 and the current season (29?).

Seasons 9-11 are pretty known because of a different more wacky tone of the show, characters where they become unlikeable with Jerkass Homer being one of the most known and having plots that revolve around celebrities or quite unrealistic. They are seen as jump the shark in general. Season 29 for me has become rubbish and so far only one good episode because they wanted to be more hipster like of the show constantly using different styles of animation, recycling plots because they are running out of ideas (even though the recent one was good, it is sort of recycled the plot where Bart fell down the well and earlier in the season there was one that recycled Angry Dad just swap Homer and Bart with Marge and Lisa) and even less about the values of the show. The first episode of the season is enough to explain my point because they want to do a fantasy episode and wasn't advertised as a special like the Treehouse of Horror or the 3 short episodes that they are more fantasy like with the family bridging the gaps, it was treated as a normal episode.

[EzSonic01]

I would say Spongebob. Most people say the first three seasons are the best, then after the first movie (released in 2004) most agree that it has become mediocre, with some seasons, such as the seventh, being considered downright bad/terrible. Flanderization of the characters' personalities is also strong and considered one of the declining factors, others being the quality, animation, the episodes' plots, etcetera. Though it has become slightly better since Stephen Hillenburg has returned to the show.

 

[ZERO_ninja]

A lot of franchises have highs and lows. Sometimes they're more pronounced than in others. Sonic I view as more of a roller coaster than a consistent decline, but the narrative surrounding the franchise that it declined makes everyone act like the good is the exception even when it's maintained for periods of time.

Star Trek has been pretty all over the place from highs to lows. Doctor Who cycles a lot. Marvel and DC comics live their lives going from highs to lows. It's very rare for any sufficiently long running franchise to not suffer dips. But as long as they get the chance to I feel they do inevitably always turn it around for a time. (On the subject of series like Simpsons and Spongebob mentioned above though I view those a bit differently, since they're just single continuous series running themselves into the ground, rather than expansive franchises that are always changing).

 

23 hours ago, edgeyhedgey said:

I disagree with this but i feel star wars has declined in quality since the original 6 movies.

Star Wars declined after the original 2 movies. The prequel trilogy found impressive new lows after that.

[edgeyhedgey]

 

4 hours ago, ZERO_ninja said:

Star Wars declined after the original 2 movies. The prequel trilogy found impressive new lows after that.

Return of the jedi was not good?

[ZERO_ninja]

8 hours ago, edgeyhedgey said:

 

Return of the jedi was not good?

Starts good, becomes terrible then picks up to an okay end. Overall it's a mess of a film, easily the weakest of the original trilogy and a huge disappointment on the back of Empire Strikes Back. But overall still better than what the franchise would become in the prequels.

[Dizcrybe]

Gotta put The Fairly Oddparents in here. I remember really liking it as a kid, then when Poof was introduced it was just kinda okay. Then I stopped watching it for years until I saw one of the newer episodes online, and I was like, "Why does he have a dog?" Because he has a dog now, for some reason. Besides that, it hadn't really gotten any better. At least Spongebob in its latest season is more on the bland side than outright terrible these days; FOP just completely fell off.

[Mick]

I'm gonna go with MLP: FiM, that's another franchise that has declined.  I wasn't so into MLP: FiM by the 6th season, I lost interest.  I have not watched season 7 at all.  I have noticed the hype for MLP: FiM has died down.

[Ultimate Victory 64]

Star Wars really declined from the original 6 movies. I know we have the our opinions on the prequels but they never felt like products the way Disney Star Wars do. With their characters that are not even interesting, plots that shamelessly mimic the original trilogy (and if you want to stretch it the Expanded Universe), and ultimately making Return of the Jedi feel meaningless in the grand scheme of the things. The Last Jedi is a big reason of why I say these things. Ruining everything that made Luke Skywalker was in the original all to promote this Mary Sue named Rey (who I mind you still has no training whatsoever). The fact that the movie took everything that the Force Awakens establish and did absolutely nothing with it shows that this new universe has no clear vision and are writing it as it goes.

[Mad Convoy]

I'm inclined to agree with @ZERO_ninja about Sonic. All franchises have highs and lows, unfortunately, Sonic's tend to tend towards extremes. When Sonic's doing well, it tends to be incredible and everybody loves it. When Sonic's not doing well, its suddenly never been good and always been in decline since the 90s. Lather, rinse, repeat. Once I figured out the pattern, it made it really, really difficult to take people's (or at least, the people who aren't actually in the video game biz) prospects for the franchise seriously-- they're so often influenced by that darn pattern that they not only repeat themselves to the point of exhaustion but don't even come true almost every time.

As for franchises that have declined from my perspective, I'm going to go with something more obscure but still near and dear to my heart-- Super Monkey Ball. And for those who say, "Super Monkey what-now?"-- its a fun puzzle/adventure/platformer series from Sega. You have some cute monkeys inside hamster balls that you have to guide to the goal using physics and whatever objects the game offers you. It got started off with two gamecube games which were very well-regarded and that people were really attached to-- and that were noted for being utterly merciless in the later and bonus stages. You couldn't jump in those games, and so had to hit bumps and other raised terrain at the right place, speed, and time to get past abysses/obstacles and take shortcuts to the goal. Actually, beyond the similar "monkeys in hamster balls" concept, those two titles were pretty different from the ones that could come after it. Character's distinguishing traits were very clear and posed a challenge-- for example, the game wasn't joking when it said that GonGon is the heaviest choice, and you will have to factor his poor acceleration and powerful momentum when you play as him. Super Monkey Ball 2 even expanded a bit on the original's formula-- some new monkeys, a story mode (with a creepy ass villain to boot), new levels, and much more interesting and consistent level themes. It was different than the first but in a good way.

And then the decline came with Banana Blitz. Banana Blitz isn't a bad game. I have very fond memories of it and still enjoy playing it. However, it screams wasted potential. All characters can jump now, but the level design seldom takes advantage of it, so the game winds up being a flatter, easier version of Super Monkey Ball 2. And speaking of which, yeah, the engine hasn't really been fine-tuned enough to accommodate the new jump. So while the physics are by no means bad, they are slightly inconsistent and it takes longer than it should for you to get used to how the jump affects your momentum and the like, as its stiffer than it looks, especially with the poor jumpers. As for multiplayer, the minigames are greatly expanded (compare Super Monkey Ball 2's three minigames to Banana Blitz's 50 minigames and you'll see what I mean), but maybe only 20 of them are good, while 10-15 of them are hit or miss and the others are crap. Like, that may not seem so bad at first glance, but that means that only roughly 40% of the games are guaranteed fun at your next party. That is a really low number. You have two new characters that are unique, and have very interesting backstories, personalities, skills, goals, and good design, but they never get fleshed out anywhere outside of the instruction manual. Granted, the game is very good at conveying personality in their actions and abilities in-game, but you don't really get to see more than that and some parts of the backstories-- such as YanYan's crush on AiAi that makes MeeMee jealous-- don't even get hinted at in the game.

Given how the penultimate boss for story mode bears a startling resemblance to YanYan but with a different color and texture scheme, on top of having similar acrobatic abilities and the fact that said boss summons and uses balls for attacks, its hard not to speculate if the story was much more fleshed out but was cut last minute for whatever reason. Or alternatively, this could be the result of the developers running out of time to make a unique character for the penultimate boss and so having to reuse a bunch of assets if they wanted time to make sure the boss fight is at least fun. Either way, something probably happened.

After that though, the game quality got worse, though never exactly bad. A game called Super Monkey Ball 2 Sakura Edition was released on the iPad, but it played more like Banana Blitz than Super Monkey Ball 2. While the gyroscope controls in this game aren't quite at the badness of Lost World 3DS's special stage, they can get pretty darn close in terms of frustration when you get to a section where you need to go really fast or make a sharp turn. Not to mention that it was a little buggy-- it would crash if you played it too long and there is a rather infamous segment in Ultra Heaven where a bunch of tiles on corner that is supposed to be solid simply isn't, and you only get to find out once your character slides right through it. And then there was the 3DS Monkey Ball game-- again not bad, but it had much of the similar issues with Banana Blitz in terms of lack of difficulty, etc. only amplified. At least Hideki Naganuma came back for the soundtrack and the minigames were scaled back. And that basically killed the franchise to my knowledge... not through games that were necessarily bad, but simply wasted potential once too many times for franchise that wasn't exactly a household name to begin with and only got as far as it did because of a small core of dedicated fans that didn't enjoy the more casual direction.

[Chaos Incarnate]

I gotta go with the Mass Effect series. 3 felt like such a step back from 2, and Andromeda was so mind numbingly boring. Now it's dead! Fuck the rEApers for destroying a once great series.

If we can count Star Wars video games as a series, then EA again takes the cake for damaging a fantastic IP. Nothing of value  has come from them, which is no big shocker. I miss Lucasarts.