The Black Sheep

[Wolf Kanno]

When playing any series with a long history, there is bound to be a dud or two, so let's find out where everyone stands on some popular series. Which particular entry do you consider to be the black sheep of some of your favorite series and why?

[Karifean]

Final Fantasy XIII. Just... yeah. Talked about this a lot. It's not without its merits. But it is what it is.

Touhou 13: Ten Desires. It's really not a very fun game. Good enough for a single full playthrough sure. But it does kinda stand alone in the series.

Ys ... hmm, none so far. Will come back to this when I actually finish the series.

[Lord Golbez]

Final Fantasy is long enough to have multiples for me. FF2 would be the first for it's awful growth system. FF12 would be next for never going anywhere interesting with the plot, having bland, lifeless characters and stultifying gameplay. FF13 is possibly worse but I wouldn't know because I lost interest too much by that time to finish a game I wasn't particularly enjoying.

Suikoden IV - Completely took away all interesting gameplay aspects of the series with the four member party with pretty run of the mill skills. Terrible plot. Annoying characters. Interminable sailing. Suikoden Tactics gets on this list too, because while the gameplay is better than IV, it doubled down on IV's awful plot with even stupider stuff.

Breath of Fire VI - I mean, I didn't play it, but just look at that trout.

Zelda II - What were they thinking? Even Ocarina at least attempted to make a Zelda like game and wasn't this bad.

Pacman 2: The New Adventures - Oops. Sorry, this game is awesome. I meant all other Pacman games are the black sheep. Why couldn't they be more like their younger brother?

[Spuuky]

Breath of Fire VI - I mean, I didn't play it, but just look at that trout.Not sure what you're talking about, Breath of Fire VI doesn't exist. Nope, I'm certain there was no game after Dragon Quarter. Oh well, long live Breath of Fire.

[WarZidane]

I would've said Breath of Fire 5, but BoF isn't that high on my list of favorite series. Same with Suikoden 4.

For KH it would be Coded/Re:coded for adding absolutely nothing of value to the franchise.

FF2, mostly for the growth system

Wild Arms 4 for that story

Assassin's Creed Unity: The story was mostly uninteresting (and ditched the modern-day aspect), the map was at its worst here and the game just felt more clunky. I'm not even going into the technical difficulties the game had because I personally never encountered much of them.

Zelda: Breath of the Wild - Now, I *would* have put Zelda II here, but at least that game didn't influence the games to come afterwards. BotW with its popularity absolutely will and already has, with the direct sequel announced already. Down with bland open worlds with a checklist of shrines and yahahas to collect, with four out of five actual "dungeons" being plain and boring (at least Hyrule Castle was okay) and that trash durability system.

[Lord Golbez]

I thought about Dragon Quarter too, but I didn't actually play it so it seemed unfair. In the case of BoFVI, it still seems perfectly fair to judge it even without playing it. I missed that it had to be favorite series but BoF ranks highly enough for me (Pacman doesn't but that was basically a joke anyway).

[Fynn]

Y’all denouncing Dragon Quarter are straight up delusional. That game was fantastic.

Off the top of my head: FFXIII, KH re:coded, Persona 4, Devil Survivor 1&2 for SMT in general, the Witcher 2, Neverwinter Nights base game (if we count old isometric D&D RPGs as one series - they do share a setting, after all), Dragon Quest IX, Pokémon Diamond and Pearl, Zelda II. Not all are actually bad games - most just fail to deliver the same level of enjoyment as the rest or differ significantly enough to feel out of place.

[Psychotic]

Metal Gear Solid 4. And I appreciate strong cases could be made for V and 2 as the black sheep but something just didn't click and feel right with 4. It didn't really feel entirely like Metal Gear even though it was really, really trying. I think it tried too hard.

Resident Evil 6 which had no idea what the smurf it wanted to be and came out as an unmitigated troutshow.

[Ayen]

Zelda II. I just hated that game with a flaming passion and it's nothing like the other games of the series. I also agree with MGS4.

[Wolf Kanno]

Let's see...

Mega Man - Probably Mega Man 6, it feels like the most phoned in entry and has one of the weakest collections of bosses in the franchise.

Mega Man X - X7 for sure, the move to 3D was not kind to this game and the awful voice acting and questionable story changes did it no favors. Of anything it's a surprise that both X8 and Command Missions were good considering how awful this game was.

The Legend of Zelda - Probably Four Swords of the entries I've played, but to be fair, that was meant to be a side game to go along with Link to the Past GBA, so it blows my mind that the game has a bare bones plot and is sort of canon. Of a more major title, while I would agree that most fans would ranks Zelda II as the winner, I actually have a soft spot for it. For me personally, I'd say Phantom Hourglass. The story is serviceable but restricting the gameplay to the stylus input caused a number of problems the most annoying being the game being way too simplistic for my taste and wonky in execution.

Super Mario Bros. - Probably Mario is Missing, an odd educational game that would have been more enjoyable if I was half my age at the time I played it, which would have been about six years old. I also have no real love for Mario Galaxy but that opinion puts me in the minority it seems.

Dragon Quest - Probably DQIX of the actual main series. Its way too grindy for my taste. The main plot is okay, but it can also be beaten with the first team you roll and you can ignore most of the game's content in order to beat if you choose which is not how I feel a game should be made.

Final Fantasy - All the Bravest will likely always be one of the worst games SE ever produced. Not counting spin-offs though, I'd say XIII is the worst entry with a game that feels way too stripped down in both gameplay and story. It still boggles my mind the development team felt this was acceptable.

Metal Gear Solid - Definitely MGS4. I know some of the fanbase is trying to switch this around and make MGSV the black sheep entry but MGS4 is pretty much when I felt the series broke Kojima. The game has a lot of problems and is way too self-indulgent for its own good.

Kingdom Hearts - Eh, probably Dream Drop Distance at the moment, though part of me really wants to say KHII.

Breath of Fire - I usually don't like dissing games I've never played but, BoFVI has a pretty bad rep regardless. It apparently was aquite the flop and was cancelled fairly early for mobile title.

Suikoden - Probably Suikoden Tactics for me. There is some good here, but the bad outweighs most of it.

[FFNut]

In FF universe though I think XIII is the worst, the black sheep has to be VIII. Square really was trying something new out with it. Replaying it now I wouldn’t say it was bad though. In fact the game is better then I remember. However it is still the black sheep of the series in my opinion.

[Slothy]

I also have no real love for Mario Galaxy but that opinion puts me in the minority it seems.

Ignoring spinoffs and such I think Mario Galaxy might be the worst Mario game for me. It even edges out Sunshine just a little I think and I hated Sunshine.

[Wolf Kanno]

Yeah, something about the game just didn't click for me.

A few more I thought of:

Persona - While I'm sure Persona 1 will always be the black sheep among the general fanbase, P4 was the one for me personally. It just dove way too far into the slice of life activity part of the game for my taste which is probably a large part of why P5 was such a pleasure for me because it kind of did a 180 and leaned heavier on the dungeon crawling aspect of the game.

MegaTen - Probably Devil Survivor for me. The game tried too hard to mash together a basic MegaTen plot with the more anime TV series sensibilities of Persona and the results weren't great. The gameplay for the most part was pretty good outside of the silly Auction mechanic and lost of the compendium, but the story and cast are some of the most grating in the series for me. I honestly don't know too many people who have played this entry and liked it.

Lufia - Ruins of Lore, for mostly not actually feeling like a part of the franchise since it's an unrelated gaiden title and overall a very generic RPG in general.

Xenosaga - Probably Episode 2. I've come around on a few elements for it, but overall this is the entry where the overall plot became unsalvageable for me. The gameplay has FFXIII's stripped down issue as well.

Dark Souls - Probably DSII, though I actually did enjoy it. Its biggest problems were mostly focusing on quantity over quality in terms of content, some questionable additions and changes to healing mechanics, and the game sort of being the inverse of DS1's design where the first half of the game is this open ended mess that eventually becomes much more focused in the games stronger second half. The plot/lore is also just not as strong or good as other entries in the series as well.

[Spuuky]

I don't have a problem with the plot of Xenosaga 2, but I do have a problem with the plodding, boring gameplay.