History Main / OddballInTheSeries

* Strangely, away from video games completely, the {{Halloween}} franchise had Halloween 3, which had nothing to do with any of the other movies. Where every other movie is a slasher flick about Michael Myers, the third installment is inexplicably about a crazy Halloween mask maker who wanted to use [[NoodleImpliments magically bombing masks and ''Stone Henge'']] to kill children.

*** ...which itself took most of its cues from ''[=RE4=]''.

* ''FireEmblem Gaiden'' holds this distintion. While the others are completely linear games where you go from one chapter to another, this one has a map you move around on, which wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't because of the ForcedLevelGrinding you need to do every often in a while (On a series that has no LevelGrinding at all). Furthermore, UnbreakableWeapons is NOT {{averted}} (When the series does) and magic is CastFromHitPoints (Instead of being regular weapons that hit another defense stat). Furthermore, you face off monsters often, instead of just humans aside from some bosses/{{Elite Mook}}s. And each class grants a choice between two [[PrestigeClass promotions]]. Most of these ideas were recycled for ''The Sacred Stones'', which combined with ItsEasySoItSucks, makes it widely considered the worst of the [[NoExportForYou exported]] ''Fire Emblem'' games. (YourMileageMayVary)

* What, you mention Gundam in the description and don't even talk about GGundam? For Shame. As mentioned in the article, it drastically departs from the RealRobot genre and war themes to delightfully and shamelessly embrace {{Shonen}} and SuperRobot. Still manages to be popular and loved despite, or perhaps because of, this.

*** ...which itself took most of its cues from ''RE4''.

* [[DevilMayCry Devil May Cry 2]] - so much of an oddball even the producers generally try to ignore its existance. Namely by making all games made after the second game set chronologically before it. Between a lowered difficulty and the protaganists personality change from [[MemeticBadass Badass]] [[TrashTalk Trash-Talker]] to an [[{{Narm}} unintenionally-and-hilariously-cringe-worthy]] guy. The fanbase was largely dissapointed.

* ''FireEmblem Gaiden'' holds this distintion. While the others are completely linear games where you go from one chapter to another, this one has a map you move around on, which wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't because of the ForcedLevelGrinding you need to do every often in a while (On a series that has no LevelGrinding at all). Furthermore, UnbreakableWeapons is NOT {{averted}} (When the series does) and magic is CastFromHitPoints (Instead of being regular weapons that hit another defense stat). Furthermore, you face off monsters often, instead of just humans aside from some bosses/{{Elite Mook}}s. And there are split [[PrestigeClass promotions]]. Most of these ideas were recicled for ''The Sacred Stones'', which combined with ItsEasySoItSucks, makes it widely considered the worst of the [[NoExportForYou exported]] ''Fire Emblem'' games. (YourMileageMayVary)

*** Regarding the SaGa games in their own right, the third one is by far the oddest one out. It's the only game in the series to utilize a conventional levelling system, and it does away with many of the unusual game mechanics that made the first two games unique (such as breakable weapons and the ability to carry more of them at the cost of being able to carry less other equipment). It also features a number of rather... weird things that never appeared in any of the other games - even by the standards of Saga's typical medieval/techno settings - the least of which was a [[spoiler: sentient]] time-traveling battleship.

** Similarly, the ninth installment of the main series falls under this trope, and much for the same reason. Both Heroes 4 and M&M 9 were meant to serve as story reboots by moving the series to a new universe, just as Heroes 3 and M&M 6 had done. Unfortunately, an acute case of AuthorExistenceFailure prevented this from happening. The main series died a sadly unspectacular death, while the Heroes series attempted to harken back to the glory days of its third installment.

* ''EccoTheDolphin'' is famous for bizarre plotlines and NintendoHard gameplay. Perfect series to slot in an edutainment title where you can't die, then!
** It's got ''dolphins'', doesn't it? Kids love those things. If anything, the odd choice was to make the rest of the series too difficult and bizarre for children to enjoy.
*** Perhaps, but that doesn't stop the edutainment title from being the oddball of the ''series as a whole.''

* ''{{Ys}} III: Wanderers from Ys'' is the only sidescrolling game in the series. It also differs from its two predecessors by having a dedicated "attack" button, rather than attacking by ramming.

** In the regular series, the {{Silent Hill 4}} sticks out. It features a much heavier emphasis on melee weapons as opposed to guns, first-person segments, almost no boss battles, and unkillable ghost enemies that atalked you through the levels. It wasn't well received.
*** It was orginally developed as an unconnected game before the developers decided to work it into the SilentHill mythos, hence the variation from the norm. Not well received is an overstatement, there was certainly some fan backlash but it reviewed pretty well.

* ''{{Halo}} Wars'', a Real Time Strategy Game amongst a family of first person shooters.
** Also made by a different developer than the shooters.

* The ''StarFox'' series has ''StarFoxAdventures'', an [[ActionAdventureGame action-adventure]] fantasy game in the Zelda mold.

* Depending on who you ask in the ''HarvestMoon'' fandom, it's either ''Save The Homeland'' (with its lack of marriage and emphasis on horse breeding) or ''A Wonderful Life'' (with its ramped-up difficulty, episodic format, and overall emphasis on your child's ultimate fate)

* ''[[ArmoredCore Armored Core: Nine Breaker]]'' the [[ArcNumber nineth]] entry in the ''Armored Core'' series is particularly odd duck even for an ''Armored Core'' game. It has no plot to it -- at all -- and is simply 250~ tests designed to acess how well you understand the gameplay mechanics of ''Armored Core''. Yes, the '''ninth''' iteration of the series is an in-depth tutorial for a game engine that hasn't changed one iota from its very first incarnation. Some of the actual tests are NintendoHard, the arena is pathetic, you can buy or earn all the parts introduced in ''Nine Breaker'' in ''Last Raven'' anyway so there's no need to even play it for ''that'' and the mission where you actually fight Nine Ball, the selling of the game, is only unlocked after you've beaten every other test in the game. Why was it even released? [[TheyJustDidntCare Maybe From Software needed the money]]?

** Yes,[[TheLegendOfZeldaIITheAdventureOfLink Zelda II: The Adventure of Link]] was truly [[TheLegendOfZeldaCDiGames the black sheep of the Legend of Zelda franchise]]
*** [[Discontinuity Did Not Happen!]]

*** As a general rule the most recent installment is always the [[TheyChangedItNowItSucks worst]] and the second most recent is far superior if not the best.