Just replaying Metro Exodus and it's just so clear how much of the game's soul is missing compared to previous games because it sought out "broad appeal" and made creative decisions based on that rather than trying to just make a good Metro game.
It begs the question - we've seen so many games sacrificed at the altar of "broad appeal" but has a game ever been made better by stepping out of their niche to try get a better audience?
No, story always become lost in generalization. Writers love this because writing is now a political position and actual talent is considered a disease.
If I could think of an example, it would be older and a rarity. I'd probably think the thought process was a bit different and it was just happenstance that broad appeal turned into a good formula because games were changing a lot then.
As someone who liked the first two Metro and have read the books, I just played Exodus back in June. It had it's moments, but I really only put the part I didn't like on the open world. It was unnecessary and took me away from the story to go pretend I was playing Fallout 4 for a bit. The gunplay was also pretty lackluster IMO but that's not why I considered the game meh.
Another game series I don't like the broad appeal shift was God of War. It's a little more tricky to talk about because the new God of War was one of my favorite games on PS4 and something I would put down as the gold standard third person open world RPG. While that's great and all, the problem is the old school God of War hack and slash games are now gone forever. There are plenty of good third person RPGs, but if I want new hack and slash I'm almost stuck with Devil May Cry, and I didn't really enjoy it.
Believe me, I could ramble for hours about how much of a mess Metro Exodus was compared to 2033 and Last Light, but it in particular did stick out as a game which decided to jump out of its niche (and what made it great) to try be like every other game we've seen in the past 5 years.
Unfortunately judging by some chatter I see on the discord server, Exodus brought in a generation of kiddies who see buzzwords like "open-world" and "multiplayer" and jump at them without any regard for how good of a game they will be, which doesn't bode well for future releases.
I talk like I'm old but I literally only discovered the franchise last year and even I can tell that 2033 and LL were just that much better, and I know it's not nostalgia talking.
I also talk like I'm old most of the time. Starting to feel it too, have that "you young kids" mindset.
I tend to do the opposite of that. Open world in particular gets shoved into too many games where I don't think it belongs.
That's what I mean. For Metro, a clasutrophobic horror series set in the very interesting environment of the post-war Moscow Metro, literally noone asked for the next entry in the series to be "open-world" and set in a field in the middle of nowhere. It was fantastic as a linear game where the devs could intricately design all parts of it.
But now all the kiddies see "open world" and think that's how the game should be. They see "coop" and can't shut up about how cool a multiplayer mode will be. Forcing Metro away from where it's best and to be just like every other game released in the past decade.
There's a low budget game I just tried a demo for called Ultra Age. There's also that Soulstice game that was just announced. Both look meh, but might be fun.
That's where I'll be going at some point I'm sure is to the small devs. Big devs have failed to gain my interest almost at all in the last 2 years. At the moment I manage to go into the past to find what I like. I haven't played enough button mashing slashers to run out of old games yet.
I can say FFXIV was improved by trying to get ANY APPEAL WHATSOEVER. Have you seen the trainwreck that was 1.0?
"We're trying to not be FFXI"
Proceeds to make LITERALLY EVERYTHING except graphics quality worse than FFXI
-Experience points for your class were obtained AT RANDOM during attacks.
-Five regions, but each one of them was basically four land tiles copy-pasted repeatedly.
-System was SLOW AS SHIT. No, that wasn't congestion, that was the speed things run regardless!
-"Another failure of this degree will destroy the company"
Who thought this was a good idea? Just reading it gives me precancerous brain lesions.
In FFXI, it was used as a matter of "weapon skill" levels, which were an entirely different thing from experience points for classes, improving your "attack and accuracy" as you use said weapons. I was okay with that. Using it for the class entirely was bullshit, and whoever decided on that should have been fired from the company entirely.
if memory serves right the original dev through it would be a good idea to make a numbered FF flagship title a sort of gacha casual game where you log in, do some clicks here and there and log off.
Yes...
https://i.imgur.com/VXE3zNr.png
Nothing has ever been improved by dumbing it down. It might sell better, but that doesn’t make it better.
Except for Demon’s Souls original weapon upgrade system, that’s one thing I’m glad they dumbed down for the future games.
Shadow Warrior 2013 a decent enough FPS in its own right. They tried a little too hard to make new Wang inoffensive and succeeded, although at the expense of the MC now being boring. The sequel went for broad appeal and turned into a tedious looter shooter. Shadow Warrior 3 is looking like it's trying way too hard to be "wacky", as the marketing types would say. I plan on avoiding that one, although that's not the only reason I won't be giving 3 the time of day.
Which is to say, mass appeal is a cancer in and of itself. Trying to pander to the lowest common denominator makes sense from a money making stand point. Unfortunately it pretty much always winds up with everything being repetitive as hell at best. Just look up any Ubisoft title post Farcry 3.
Honestly I'd make the same argument for Shadow Warrior to 2013, but this is mostly subjective. Guess I'll stay far away from 3.
Dark Souls > Demon Souls.
Sorry not sorry.
Then they went too far, DS >>> DS3. But on the first iteration of broader appeal and approachability, worked well.
Broader appeal is like adding salt to a dish. Everyone likes salt, even those who say they don't would very much miss the pinch of it in baked goods that help bring sweet flavors forward. But it's all too easy to add way too much.
I think there's a fair balancing act between iterating for improvement, and then changing things to be "broadly appealing".
Dark Souls iterated features that improved on Demon Souls, without necessarily being the catch-all "broadly appealing" spin-off.
However, the Dark Souls sequels tried to be "broadly appealing" rather than improving on the core mechanics but maintaining the core elements that made the property popular in the first place.
Another good example is GTA: Vice City and San Andreas. They become more broadly appealing not necessarily because Rockstar was trying to hit every consumer demographic out there, but because they simply iterated on and improved every single mechanic from GTA 3, from graphics to audio, to weapon handling, to vehicle physics. So, by proxy Vice City and San Andreas became more broadly appealing because they were mechanically improved upon in areas that made the game(s) more fun and engaging, rather than making them more "broadly appealing".
GTA 5 is a good example of the series dumbing down its mechanics to be more broadly appealing, getting rid of the more realistic vehicle handling and soft-body deformation from GTA 4 to make the vehicle handling more accessible to a broader audience. In turn, it made people like me lose all interest in GTA 5, because I actually liked the skill-based driving mechanics and soft-body deformation in GTA 4. But it worked wonders on the sales front, so Rockstar/Take-Two don't care if they lose a few people to gain a few thousand more.
Depends what you mean by 'improved.'
I think system shock 2 is a better game than bioshock but bioshock sold way more copies.
Depends on which broads, really.
Have they got gams, pins, getaway sticks?
Mass Effect 2
Adding ammunition did not make the game better.
That was the only system to get a complete overhaul for "broad appeal".