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Note: This article lists examples which take place within fandoms; not TV Tropes's opinion as to whether a change is for the worse. TV Tropes doesn't have opinions about fans or works. The focus is on fans turning against a work or series as a result of changes, not on whether those changes were for the better or worse.


  • Some people complained the minor UI changes in version 3.0 of the PlayStation 3 firmware were bad enough that they would never update. What were those UI changes? Updating the PS3 logo to match the new style (as opposed to the "Spider-Man" font) and removing the "PlayStation 3" and jingle when a PS3 game is started.
  • The Nintendo Switch joining the club of having to pay to use online on your console. It wasn't added until September 19th of 2018, more than a year after the console's launch on March 3rd of 2017, and despite having to pay for it, the online itself doesn't seem to have gotten any better. Some say that introducing it after launch only made it worse, as the userbase had a year plus to get used to having free online before having to pay for it.
    • The Switch doing away with British English localizations of games. Not helped by the fact that French and Spanish still get separate localizations, as well as the introduction of separate localizations for simplified and traditional Chinese.
    • After October 2021, the Nintendo Switch added a new "Expansion" mode for the membership. Increased from $19.99 to $49.99 annually (and more for the Family Pack), the new Switch Online grants free DLC for select games, a Nintendo 64 and Sega Genesis emulator, and expansion specific content such as specialized Mario Kart 8 stages. A lot of fans were disappointed in the high price and the poor emulation for N64 titles, and, despite other consoles charging almost $60 for their annual memberships, fans were outraged at the price Nintendo asked and disliked the content they offered. The only saving grace that kept the backlash down was that the standard membership is still available.
  • The Ace Attorney fanbase has split over a variety of changes to the series over the years.
    • When the Phoenix Wright Trilogy was tied up in the Ace Attorney series, and a fourth game was made that replaced the protagonist with a new lawyer, the fandom FLIPPED OUT. It didn't help that Phoenix Wright had his lawyer badge taken away, and became a pianist. Ironically however, when Phoenix Wright was named as the title character of Ace Attorney 5, the fandom then complained that they were taking the spotlight away from Apollo.
    • Speaking of Ace Attorney 5, the announcement that the series was changing over from sprites to 3D models didn't go down well with a lot of people. Although that's all but gone now that it's been revealed the 3D models are done in a way as to resemble 2D sprites. The fact that this is the first of the games to have proper voice-acting also annoyed some fans, as well as the fact that the game features a new assistant, when fans wanted Maya back, and that the prosecutor is also new, when people wanted an old rival prosecutor to come back also.
    • The best part about this though, is that now that the game's come out and it's shown Apollo in a bigger role that's made him more of a prominent character, people have no shifted their hate onto the side-characters, saying that characters like Trucy were pushed to side. Even though such a thing was almost REQUIRED if they wanted to build up a story that would focus on all three of the main attorney's equally.
  • Ancient Domains of Mystery was stuck in version 1.1.1 for a solid ten years, during which players have figured out just about all the quirks and tricks and strategies that were even remotely possible to find. Due to the game's rather extravagant difficulty, they became a staple of many a player's attempts to actually reach the ending. The upcoming 1.2.0 has changed a lot of things around in its prereleases, invalidating many of the old tricks, causing much wailing and gnashing of teeth in the official forums as players are faced with the prospect of having to change the way they've played the game for up to a decade.
  • Angry Birds: Since the release of The Movie, the franchise began to deviate from the artillery gameplay of the original games, focusing more on Puzzle Games and spin-offs in the movie's universe. What really got the fans going was the discontinuation of several Angry Birds games released before the movie, causing many of the original fans to go as far as protesting to restore the original games and gameplay, referring to the newer games as "Candy Crush clones" and "milking the franchise".
  • Animal Crossing amiibo Festival got this on just the day of its trailer being revealed with the official YouTube video getting a 90% dislike ratio. Fans were enraged to see that the game was a board game title and not a traditional Animal Crossing game (this was first announced the same day as the spinoff game Happy Home Designer) and called the game an attempt to cash in on yet another amiibo line. Nintendo came to defense by saying the game was a spinoff game, and not a full title.
  • Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts was dead on arrival amongst fans when it was revealed they had completely changed the genre from action-adventure platformer to build-a-vehicle combat. Thus, the gameplay had to be completely altered to accomodate these vehicles despite the game otherwise keeping most of the structure of the previous game like completing challenges, collecting Jiggies, etc. It was made worse by how the game goes out its way to taunt fans for being angry about it after Rare intentionally misled people into thinking it would be a traditional-style third Banjo game: in the end, because of all this the game flopped so hard that it almost killed Rare, along with any hope of ever getting a proper Banjo 3 until mid-2015 when Playtonic Games (a new game studio founded by the same team behind the Banjo-Kazooie and Donkey Kong Country trilogies) announced a Kickstarter campaign for their first game, a Spiritual Successor to the series called Yooka-Laylee. Laylee even jokes in the first trailer that at least the creators did not choose to make the game about car racing.
  • In addition to the Nintendo-exclusive complaints involving Bayonetta 2, several fans are also very angry over Bayonetta and Jeanne's new haircuts and clothes. Especially Bayonetta, who now has short hair rather than a beehive hairdo. Funny thing is, many people thought that the beehive hairdo was what was keeping her from being sexy in the first game, but now they're complaining that she no longer has it.
  • Bravely Default had a major case of this when it was revealed that the Europe and North American releases would feature two slightly Bowdlerised costumes (one costume had a pair of panties replaced by shorts and another had shadows added to hide skin). Many fans declared that no matter how small this change was, any censorship was enough for them to not buy the game.
    • The scantly clad male outfit (Basically a pair of briefs and a scarf) was left out of Non-japanese versions entirely, strangely this seems to get far less complaints.
  • The major Jul 28, 2021 update of Bungo to Alchemist was met with much weeps from the fanbase for removing many major features including the Dining Hall with the removal of feeding and fatigue mechanics as well as Repairs with the removal of permanent damage/character death mechanic.
  • Burnout Paradise. Circuit racing was replaced with an "open world" city layout, races were point-to-point affairs that required an in-depth knowledge of the city layout just to give you an idea of which road to take, and the fan-favorite Crash Mode was replaced with the compromise "Showtime" Mode that didn't feature the exact same kind of fun puzzle mechanics as the previous games. Oh, and you can't restart a race you just lost; instead you have to drive all the way back to the starting point, which is miles away. Sure, the car selection may be the best the series has ever had, Stunt Runs are enjoyable, the open world lends itself to lots of wicked jumps and fun secrets, and there's the promise of (rumored to be free) updates, including new sections of the city, a day-night cycle, motorcycles and even airplanes — but enough longtime fans of the series were angered by this shift in gameplay focus to swear off the series entirely.
    • As well as the dropping of local multiplayer, which to a lot of gamers was probably the series best feature, as the game was perfect for a group of friends getting together wanting to see fast cars shoulder check each other off the road. Tropes Are Not Bad, after all. The Party Pack DLC would later introduce local multiplayer, but only in pass-the-controller challenges; there's still no way to play with multiple drivers on the same system.
  • The citybuilder series that started with Caesar has about 10 titles, all similar in theme. Ever since the release of Pharaoh in 1999, each and every new release has elicited cries of They Changed It, Now It Sucks! from the community.
  • Call of Duty: Ghosts allows the use of female soldiers. Some are taking the idea of women in special forces as very Serious Business, decrying such a move in a realistic or semi-realistic game, despite numerous aspects of realism taking a back seat to Rule of Cool.
    • After the first reveal of Call Of Duty Infinite Warfare the game was criticized by hardcore fans of the series for being "too futuristic" since it introduced outer space combat in zero gravity. This even comes after Activision said the game was re-tooled to incorporate outer space because they felt previous games were too similar.
  • Development for Civilization VI deliberately set out to create and balance new mechanics such that strategies that worked in previous titles would be ineffective at best, counter-productive at worst in an effort to avoid the series stagnating. Predictably, despite doing consistently well with critics (who praised a long-running series for breaking new ground with its formula), players immediately became a Broken Base over whether the changes were a breath of fresh air or a textbook case of Running the Asylum.
  • Command & Conquer: Tiberian Series:
  • Contra clearly has multiple phases where the fanbase cries out for a shift of gameplay, cementing that the fandom really loved the classical 2D run-and-gun type of gameplay. 
    • Everything began with Contra: Legacy of War, where it revamped the classic Contra gameplay with 3D gameplay due to the Playstation 1's 3D capabilities. It didn't work as well as Konami thought, especially when compared to Metal Gear Solid. Konami then changed the formula again with C: The Contra Adventure, where they added adventure and exploration elements. It didn't work well either, leaving Contra in an Audience-Alienating Era until the PS2 era, where Contra: Shattered Soldiers returned to its 2D run-and-gun genre with 2.5D elements surrounding it.
    • Right after Shattered Soldiers, Konami then decided to experiment again with Neo Contra. The gameplay is changed into an Ikari Warriors style overhead run-and-gun. While still received better than the PS1 Contra games, it was criticized for its short length and lack of difficulty compared to its Nintendo Hard predecessors. Konami saw the error of their ways and changed back to the classic style for Contra 4 on the DS and later Contra Re:Birth for Wii and Hard Corps: Uprising.
    • Afterwards, Konami entered a company-wide Audience-Alienating Era thanks to the controversy involving Hideo Kojima and their exodus to Pachinko. In this era, they outsourced Contra to another company, which resulted in Contra: Rogue Corps. Long story short, the controversy was just icing on the cake: The game can be summarised with 'The return to the PS1 era meets lootbox and seasonal pass grinding', with one particularly reviled mechanic. Thankfully, after years of staying out of the mainstream limelight (and multiple deals with Chinese companies like Tencent Games), by 2024, Konami was ready with the return of the classic run-and-gun Contra game with Contra: Operation Galuga, by contacting Wayforward Technologies who made Contra 4. The reception on the early trailers was positive and a return to form.
  • Counter-Strike suffers from this in loads with fans going to obscene lengths to remain pure. Version 1.6? They ruined it compared to 1.3! Version 1.3? They ruined it compared to 1.0! Version 1.0? They ruined it compared to the beta! Not to mention Condition Zero or Source. Some extreme fans even argue that Counter-Strike can only be played in a superior fashion (yes, they do mean performance-wise) with genuine pre-millenium hardware. The Orange Box engine update for Counter-Strike: Source update caused over 30,000 people to sign a petition (that was full of false and outdated information) to revert the update. Some also claimed that it was becoming "cartoony pre-school mush like TF2." With Counter-Strike: Global Offensive's release, the fandom hate and love got divided severely, just like with Source — to the point that even some Source players vehemently refuse to touch GO.
    • And then, again, when Counter Strike 2 beta started, some people started saying it looks too bright and cartoony, like [[Valorant]], while CSGO suddenly started to look old and not that bright, and it became obvious it's still Source 1 and it looks like Source 1 (just better than other Source 1 games) whereas Counter Strike 2 is not. Not to mention, it didn't launch with every single map and mode Global Offensive had.
  • The Crash Bandicoot franchise entered a controversial phase when the franchise was helmed by Radical Entertainment, which includes the likes of Crash of the Titans and Crash: Mind Over Mutant. Whether the changes are about game mechanics or character redesign, most of the older fans of Crash are not happy. But thankfully, Crash ends up revisiting the older style with Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy and Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time, pleasing the former detractors of change.
  • Fans of older DanceDanceRevolution games tend to be disappointed by newer DDR games, who feel that the removal of Dancemania licenses, beloved in-house composer and sound director Naoki Maeda leaving the DDR team to work on Dance Evolution and later leaving Konami to produce CROSS×BEATS, the increased focused on competitive play, and the lack of availability outside of the Asia Pacific and United States due to the always-online requirement of current games (alongside all other current Konami arcade games, including their other BEMANI games) have destroyed the series for them.
  • The gameplay of Dead Space 3 was drastically changed from the previous games - there was the added ability to roll, a cover system, a co-op option, human enemies, and the horror aspect was toned down. All those changes were stated to be made as a move to attract more mainstream players, and it succeeded. However, try to ask any hardcore fan of Dead Space about that third game and everyone will tell you that they've basically turned it into a Gears of War clone and it's not survival horror anymore.
  • Devil May Cry:
    • Devil May Cry 2's version of Dante is especially polarizing. Looks? Best in the series. Personality? Too quiet and serious. Greater exaggerated by the Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening crowd.
    • Despite being an attempted reboot and being in its own Alternate Continuity, DmC: Devil May Cry is getting the greatest amount of flak. Dante no longer has long white hair and instead has shorter black hair with a few graying areas in there, and because of his darker coat, has been mis-labeled as emo. Criticism is also directed towards his personality, with older fans being displeased at the completely different tone set by the previous games and the cursing at every opportunity the character gets. It had the typical They Changed It, Now It Sucks! release. It has an overwhelmingly positive critical reception, a 4/10 user score on Metacritic due to zero bombing with most concerns from before release turning out to be true (especially when it came to the new Dante), and even the obligatory petition, although in this case it was a petition to the White House arguing that the game's mere existence infringed the author's rights. In other words, just another Monday in the modern gaming industry. Vergil's role in the story had this effect as well. The hate is still strong since some fans weren't receptive of the idea of Vergil actually starting off and spending most of the game's plot being a good guy, until his Heel–Face Turn in the end.
  • Diablo III gets complaints that it's too colorful. They've even started a petition wanting to replace the entirety of Diablo III with act 3 of Diablo II. Numerous counter-petitions have already been launched, and Blizzard has pointed out why Darker and Edgier graphics would be implausible or unplayable.
  • Dino Crisis 2 was far more action-oriented than the original, a Genre Shift which some fans did not like compared to the first game that was basically Resident Evil with dinosaurs. Dino Crisis 3 took it to a whole new level by completely ignoring the first two games and set the game in a distant future out in space, which effectively killed the franchise.
  • Disgaea was originally released by Atlus, and eventually published on all subsequent games by Nippon Ichi Software. The first two titles were similar in design, but when Disgaea 3 came out, it was noticed that the entire weapon mastery system was overhauled to no longer resemble itself, but rather the weapon mastery system for Phantom Brave and Makai Kingdom, drawing the ire of many fans. While Disgaea 4 would be better remembered despite using the same mastery system, the general discourse over the difference was the strategic elements of Disgaea 4 being superior and Valvatorez being a better protagonist than Mao. Disgaea Dimensions 2 would return things back to normal.
    • Disgaea 6 is a black sheep in comparison to the other games in the franchise for numerous reasons. Many fans were greatly displeased that Nippon Ichi moved away from 2D pixel art and instead used 3D character models. Additionally, Disgaea 6 contains the lowest number of custom units in comparison to the others. Fans were also greatly displeased at the brevity of the post-game along with the lack of a post-game story excluding the brief chapter where you face Laharl, Etna, and Flonne in similar fights, and the decision to remove weapon skills. Now any unit can utilize any weapon, even monsters, but you can no longer learn skills from using the weapons. Instead, every skill a character has, except magic, is innate to that character and can never be learned by another. It also didn't help the level cap was increased from 9,999 to 99,999,999, and the auto-battle function added to the game went hand-in-hand with unlockable increased speeds for the battle-skip function that must be purchased with mana from the Dark Assembly. Neither of these two factors helped when it was revealed that Nippon Ichi began selling single-use consumable EXP and Mana booster tickets on the online storefront.
    • While not the fault of Disgaea 6, fans of hololive on the Nintendo E-Shop can purchase a character pack that includes five characters based on four of their members. On other platforms, this has been changed to only include four of the characters, with Ruusha being removed. This was due to Rushia, one of the Hololive members, being let go from the company and her likeness being removed from merchandise following the incident that caused her removal. This change was enough for there to be complaints and demands that the original character pack be released on other platforms despite the likely impossibility of it happening.
  • Doki Doki Literature Club!: The Updated Re-release (DDLC Plus) drew criticism for the elements regarding Metaverse Enterprise Solutions, which explains the fantastic elements of the plot by suggesting that the game isn't just a Romance Game Visual Novel but somehow an experimental simulation with AI's, on the basis that this ruins the immersion created by the original setup and that it doesn't make sense as an explanation.
  • Donkey Kong:
    • Some were disappointed that the NES port of the first game removed the pie level, citing that the limited memory of the NES should still have been able to handle an extra level, a fact proven by the NES port for the second game, Donkey Kong Junior, retaining all four levels from its arcade counterpart.
    • The third game replaced Mario with Stanley the bug man, and changed it from a platformer to a shooter. Many were not pleased.
  • Donkey Kong Country and its ports have been subject to this for every game released
    • Donkey Kong Country on the Super Nintendo is regarded as one of the best games ever made, which caused some raised eyebrows when Nintendo intended to remake it on the Game Boy Advance. When the game came out, reception was initially positive, but resulted in a divisive fanbase. Fans of the GBA port argue that the ability to save whenever desired, the inclusion of minigames and photos, and the bosses having added attacks is nothing but an improvement. Those in favor of the SNES original argue that all of these additions dilute the original game, and make the game far too easy as you can collect large quantities of lives and save after every stage.
    • Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest opinions from fans tend to land closer to the original, with the addition of the story sequences in the GBA edition seen as unnecessary, and the Espresso minigame described as "frustrating". The new boss Kerosene is either loved as an addtion in place of a lack of a boss fight in the original, or absolutely disliked because of its simplicity.
    • Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble! on GBA is considered to be the weakest of the 3 GBA ports as they didn't add story elements like the other two, and only added one minigame to the game (at the former Wrinkly Save Cave locations). It also removed the original Swanky gallery minigame and replaced it with a 3D runner similar to the special zones of Sonic the Hedgehog 2. Even fans of the other two GBA ports admit that it is the weakest, but whether it is better or worse usually boils down to two arguments. The first argument is that the new world, Pacifica, actively adds content to the game. The second one, which is much more divisive, is dependant on which soundtrack you prefer as, unlike the first two titles, they did not remix the music from the original to the port, rather they totally remade a new soundtrack.
  • Donkey Kong Country Returns was very well received by fans of the original SNES trilogy, but many complaints about it ensued:
    • Replacing the Kremlings with the Tikis.
    • No more underwater levels
    • Absence of supporting characters like Funky Kong, Candy Kong, Dixie Kong and others.
    • Absence of animal buddies like Enguarde, Expresso, the only ones are Rambi and Squawks (Which acts like an item).
    • 3D graphics. Yeah, even though the SNES games had pre-rendered 3D graphics.
    • The Super Guide, which is totally optional.
    • Not being able to play with Diddy Kong outside of the multiplayer; he just acts like a power-up in single player.
    • Having to shake the controller(s) to perform actions like ground pound.
    • Most of these issues were addressed and rectified in Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze: the Super Guide was axed, underwater and ice levels return, and supporting characters were brought back.
  • The Dragon Age series isn't immune to this. Some fans of Dragon Age: Origins bemoaned Dragon Age II for the shift of plot away from the Grey Wardens (despite the threat of the Blight already being resolved) and the faster-paced combat. Dragon Age: Inquisition struck a balance between the two, and found major success in doing so...but still didn't satisfy the die-hard Origins fans.
    • There's also some who just don't like the Dragon Age games changing protagonists with each installment, as opposed to the Mass Effect trilogy.
  • Dragon Quest:
  • Elden Ring is widely acclaimed by most fans of FromSoftware and won Game of the Year in 2022. Despite its acclaim, the open world aspect was both praised and criticized. One of those criticisms even diehard Soulsborne fans had was the reuse of bosses. The Tree Avatar's, Sentinels, Magma Wyrms, Dragons, Gargoyles, Watchdogs, Bell Bearing Hunter's, Fallingstar Beasts, and Tree Spirit's are recycled numerous times for various dungeon and field bosses. No fan considers it a dealbreaker, but it is a common criticism towards the repetitiveness of doing dungeons again on NG+ knowing you'll be fighting ten of the same boss again rather that intricate and different bosses in each fight like the other titles.
  • The Elder Scrolls: Bethesda's tendency to build each new game from the ground up with wholesale changes from its predecessors tends to cause a pretty significant Broken Base. However, even much more minor changes between games can leave fans irked. To note:
    • The removal of polearms as a weapon type following Morrowind. Cries of "bring back spears!" have been prominent in each game since. This is, somewhat ironically, despite the fact that polearms were very much a Scrappy Weapon in Morrowind. They do damage akin to one-handed long blades of the same material, but are two-handed weapons, meaning that you cannot use a shield or light source in the off-hand.
    • The decline in the variety and power of magical spells in the series since its Daggerfall/Morrowind peak has irked fans of spell slingers. The sheer variety of spells combined with the customizations of Spellmaking services made for some extreme Exponential Potential. Oblivion cut down the number of available spells significantly while also placing skill level restrictions on them. Skyrim reduced the number of spells even further while removing the Spellmaking mechanic outright. The highest-level "Master" spells are Awesome, but Impractical due to long casting animations coupled with the fact that each requires both hands. Mages also hit a Parabolic Power Curve as spell damage is capped, but enemy health is not. Fans of magic in the series desperately hope to see this trend reversed with TES:VI.
  • Elite Beat Agents got a lot of this before it came out with fans complaining "It's not a Japanese setting!" (despite that it was supposed to not be this) and "Ashlee Simpson? Cher?!" Some even went as far as to call it a rip-off despite being made by the same company. When people actually got to play (and with the gameplay upgrades and still-goofy setting) this has abated significantly (and it helps that Japanese fans of the original game liked it as well).
  • Around 2003, the development team for EverQuest had been under mounting pressure to make the game's infamous grinding, lack of in-game guidance, and similar challenging components less punishing, as it was viewed as being off-putting to new players due to a somewhat sharp learning curve. Most of these traits were caused by EverQuest being a newcomer to the modern MMO dynamic or by technical limitations of the time. By the time World of Warcraft was released in 2004, the game had received several "upgrades" such as an in-game map, removal of class-based experience penalties, NPCs that could create waypoints to help new players, and changes that made starting off considerably easier. These changes were met with mostly negative feedback from veteran players, as they felt that developer Sony Online Entertainment was pandering to players that wanted an "easy" game by removing much of the game's perceived difficulty, while other players felt like SOE was trying to copy World of Warcraft as much as possible to the detriment of the game they'd come to love. Fast-forward to the present day, and very few of the veterans from the early days still play the game, as its current incarnation is barely even recognizable as the game it once was, even if you discount technological enhancements. The privately-run Project 1999 server was created specifically to recapture the feel of classic EverQuest as much as possible.
  • A common complaint about Fable III is that the game felt downgraded and streamlined the last games features. Specifically, the combat system which wasn't that complex to begin with.
  • Falcom did something similar to Zelda II with Ys III: Wanderers from Ys, and mercifully changed it back afterwards. It did, much later, receive an overhead remake in the form of Ys: The Oath in Felghana for Japanese PCs, which was later ported to the PlayStation Portable, with the latter version getting an official localization by XSEED Games as part of a partnership with Falcom.
  • Fallout:
    • Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel received a lot of flak from the fan base due to its radical change from a single-character post-apocalyptic adventure RPG into a squad-based tactical combat game with the option of real-time combat rather than the series' previous turn-based-only combat scheme.
    • Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel (not to be confused with the previous title) was almost universally panned by fans due to its radically different gameplay style. Many consider it to be a Fallout game In Name Only, and neither the current owners of the franchise nor the vast majority of the fan base consider the events of the game to be canon to the franchise at all.
    • Fallout 2 received flak when it first came out as well: it was much more lighthearted (or rather, applied dark humor much more liberally) and featured references to Monty Python and the Holy Grail, among others.
    • Likewise, a portion of the fan base was dismayed when they learned that Fallout 3 would be a first-person shooter with RPG elements in the same vein as the Elder Scrolls series (and, not surprisingly, made by the same developers). This led to Fallout 3 being referred to by many oldtime fans as "Oblivion with Guns." despite major differences.
    • Fallout 4 was relatively well received in general despite having lower ratings than New Vegas, it doesn't take much to find complaints about removing skill points, weapon repair, and traits along with the iconic Karma Meter. With the relative lack of roleplaying elements (especially when compared to its predecessor, Fallout: New Vegas), fewer options in quests, repetitiveness of quests (especially radiant quests), voiced protagonists, and focus on weapons and gunplay have caused many to compare it to Call of Duty or a similar franchise.
    • Fallout 76 continued the trend. This time, the removal of traditional NPC's and conversation trees, changes to the gameplay to encorage more selective looting, lore retcons to certain factions, and the addition of real money transactions in the form of cosmetics were all recieved poorly in major fan hubs. While many of these initial changes have been patched away or mitigated, there is a certain degree of fan resent that remains regaurdless of any changes being made.
    • As you may be able to tell, Fallout fans tend to like to complain a lot (not without good reason, mind you). Pretty much every game to come out has been criticized in some way (even New Vegas, the game many players nowadays consider to be the holy grail of the franchise, was extremely buggy at launch).
  • Final Fantasy:
    • When Square Enix games are ported, they frequently get new translations. If the old translations were completely incompetent (like Final Fantasy IV), no one really cares much. But heaven forbid the original was halfway competent, particularly if it was written by Ted Woolsey (who had to work within time constraints and the limitations imposed by the need to fit the game into a 24 megabit cartridge and Nintendo of America's censorship policies.) The script may be an outright improvement, but fans will whine left and right.
    • Final Fantasy Tactics got a new translation with the PSP port, with the original script having been notorious for Engrish and riddled with translation errors and widely criticised at the time of release for how utterly inept it was in light of the serious subject matter. Fast-forward to 2007 and the new script was immediately derided for not being as "campy", and the corrections to the numerous mistranslations and language errors completely ignored. Changing the names of characters didn't go well with fans either.
    • Final Fantasy Tactics Advance was scorned by many Tactics fans for the art style and the story becoming "too kiddy" compared to the first Tactics that was dark and gritty. This opinion has not changed for A2.
    • Reappeared for the new translation of Chrono Trigger. The script is a lot closer to the Japanese script now, which has led to some amusing diversions (namely that the "Good Morning, Crono!" advertising campaign is quoting a line that was changed for the new script), but also a few like Frog no longer speaking with Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe, which is a mortal sin according to some people.
    • Fans have been known to say that that the retranslation in the Game Boy Advance version Final Fantasy VI is "drier" and that Kefka has been made into a more serious character. This is an outright lie!! Exactly two of Kefka's one-liners were modified at all; one turned "HATE HATE HATE HATE (etc.)" into a long list of seemingly random insults, and the other is that after seeing Figaro Castle dig under the sand, he declares Edgar a "son of a submariner/sandworm" (depending on the version). What's more, Kefka gets new one-liners. The apparent source of confusion over this is actually a fan-sub that was produced for the game's SNES version, which was more faithful to the original Japanese version and did remove most of Kefka's more humorous moments.
    • The mobile versions of Final Fantasy V and Final Fantasy VI were met with absolute hatred since both games use the GBA scripts instead of the SNES originals and both games had their graphics updated, which also brought about changes to the character sprites that make them look more colorful and stylized. Fans were livid once again when the Steam release of both games were just the mobile versions, though a significant part of this is because the bare minimum effort was made to properly scale things.
    • Some aren't happy about Final Fantasy VII Remake changing the combat system from turn-based to real-time.
    • The radio drama Final Fantasy X-2 Will (which is included in the HD remaster of the game) had Tidus and Yuna, who were reunited in the game's Golden Ending seemingly break up over unexplained reasons other than Yuna met someone else and doesn't want to say who it is, which was dubbed as an Out-of-Character Moment by many and were angry that Yuna's character was completely changed and went against what she fought for. People were also angry at the ending where Sin, the Big Bad in the previous game, returns for no reason other than someone or something beckoned/wished it to come back and it didn't help that Word of God stated that the character in question is an integral part of Spira like Sephiroth was to his world in Final Fantasy VII.
    • Final Fantasy XIV heavily bombed when it first launched due to severs being prone to crashing or being under heavy loads, high quality graphics in a time when not everyone had a computer to run such a thing without choking, all actions being done server side (which included interacting in menus!), enemies and level design being too punishing at times, and having a severe lack of content (especially at the endgame). The game was scrapped and redone in order to save it and it paid off big time, but the Vocal Minority would tell you otherwise, citing that the game is now too easy and the graphics look like garbage.
    • The Pixel Remaster version of Final Fantasy removes the "Peninsula of Power" oversightnote  after it had appeared in every previous release and remake of the game. Considering most fans view it as a Good Bad Bug that alleviates a lot of the early-game grind, this didn't go over well.
  • Fire Emblem got hit with this many times:
    • When The Sacred Stones was announced for an American release, fans started shrieking that everything would be Bowdlerized to hell and back and every change from the Americanized names to a single stat change in an early boss was jeered at as "dumbing it down". And this also brought out many complaints and criticisms of the English Blazing Blade, specifically "Eliwood was too badass" and "Lyn was too feminist".
    • When Shadow Dragon was announced, many fan-named characters were given new names. Many fans were not please. The same thing happened in Awakening, when certain legacy characters from older games received new ones instead of their fan-preferred translations being used.
    • Henry/Olivia in Awakening. Many fans who read the direct-from-Japanese translation of the supports cooed over how cute and heartwarming they were, and threw many a shitfit when the American release changed the nature of the supports. Henry's character in general gets a lot of this, though; the localization changed him from a secretly depressed Stepford Smiler to a more ambiguous one who seems to actually be happy the way he is rather than faking his smiles.
    • Awakening in general gets a lot of this, thanks to its deviation from the series' usual fare: more anime trope-esque characters, more focus on marriage and children, Hotter and Sexier character designs, reclassing and level-grinding. This same outcry carried over to Fates, which features a lot of the same things and more.
    • Some fans are getting angry over the name changes in the localization of Fates, mainly Zero becoming "Niles", but before then a lot of people complained about Marx and Leon becoming Xander and Leo. Others are borderline offended that some of the Japanese names have been changed/shortened, accusing the localization team of "dumbing it down" and anyone who might find the new names more accessible of being unintelligent.
    • When the alteration of a feature named "Skinship" in the western release of Fates was announced, many of those who started with Awakening and its romance system were outraged over not being able to pet their Waifu/Husbando; some even declared that they would not buy it just because of that. Those who started with earlier games in the series, on the other hand, felt that such a questionable feature didn't belong in a strategy RPG in the first place. Ultimately, the feature was kept, but only for characters the Avatar is married to.
      • Really, pretty much every single change made by the localization has been met with this reaction. While disappointment or surprise is understandable considering the fandom's been exposed to only the Japanese version until very recently, some fans acted as though one name change or one dialogue alteration meant the game was being totally dumbed down and sanitized. Comparisons to 4Kids Entertainment have even been made.
    • Three Houses suffered criticism from the school aspect of the game, withg some diehard fans annoyed that it is practically mandatory on higher difficulties to utilize the functions around Garreg Mach to increase affinity between party members and gain new skills, along with having to teach the students manually to ensure best growth for the team. Those opposed to it have said that these changes drastically slow down the strategic elements of the game and the pacing of the narrative by constantly forcing you to mess around for weeks between major missions in order to get to the point. This is partially why opinion on the Cindered Shadows DLC is somewhat higher as there still is some use of this system, but there are numerous back-to-back missions where you're simply going from one battle to another without interruption.
  • Five Nights at Freddy's, despite most games in the series also being criticized for how similar they all were, did have a lot of complaints about a few changes. In fact, nearly every game in the series has faced criticism over this from at least a few fans.
    • The second game increased the number of animatronics, the number of actions the player had to do to keep themselves safe, and the building's power (which was unlimited.) This made the gameplay feel a lot more frantic and chaotic as opposed to the slow, more strategy-oriented of the original. While most welcomed the change, it certainly turned off a few fans of the original's more reserved gameplay.
    • The third game, in turn, was criticized before coming out due to it claiming to have only one animatronic. This turned out to be a slight exaggeration, as the other animatronics returned in the form of non-lethal hallucinations. It was also criticized for changing the method of defending against the animatronics; Springtrap was deterred by remotely playing audio in certain parts of the building, while the hallucinations were blocked by not looking at them, which was a big change from the doors or the mask present in the past two installments. The game also took place in a horror attraction instead of a pizzeria, which was a bit jarring to some even though it was still connected to Freddy's.
    • The fourth game was immediately criticized for a few aspects that became apparent upon the release of the trailer. The biggest target was definitely the complete absence of cameras and focus on confronting the animatronics head-on. While some fans viewed it as a refreshing change, the fact that watching cameras was arguably the biggest staple of the series' gameplay up to that point made it controversial to say the least. Otherwise, some were turned off by the game taking place in a regular house instead of a Fazbear location, despite 3 already straying from the formula by taking place in a building that was neither a pizzeria nor owned by Fazbear Entertainment. This particular point became more of a hot topic after release, with the game having a quite loose connection to Freddy's in general. Speaking of things that became controversial after release, the game's story became a huge point of contention when it was heavily implied that the main gameplay was All Just a Dream. Since-debunked fan theories suggesting that the entire series may have also been a dream certainly didn't help matters.
    • FNAF World is considered by many to be the black sheep of the franchise even today despite being a non-canon spinoff, with a Genre Shift to a more lighthearted RPG. While it's been Vindicated by History in the years since, quite a few people who like the series for its horror and dark themes still refuse to touch it.
    • The fifth game, Sister Location, deviated from the typical FNAF formula by far the most up to that point, leading several veteran fans of the series to lose interest and leave the fandom. The primary targets were the shift to point-and-click free-roam as opposed to being confined to a small area, the more comedic tone at times, and the continued lack of cameras in main gameplay. Surprisingly, there was also still some uproar over the game not taking place in a pizzeria, despite the past two games also taking this route and the game arguably having a stronger connection to Fazbear Entertainment than either 3 or 4.
    • Pizzeria Simulator was subject to extremely harsh criticism from some members of the fandom ever since its announcement. This was due to it appearing to be another spinoff like World and replacing the supposedly cancelled sixth main installment. In a hilarious twist, it turned out on release that the game was FNAF 6, disguised by Trolling Creator Scott Cawthon as a bad spinoff. While these complaints disappeared upon the true nature of the game being revealed, there were a few new complaints; namely the complete removal of cameras after Sister Location included them in bonus modes, the return of dry Black Comedy, and the large amount of daytime segments that focused more on minigames and spinoff-like gameplay than surviving against deadly animatronics. Meanwhile, some criticized the office segments for being objective-based rather than focused on surviving until 6 AM, and for being so heavily tied to the player's actions during the other segments. To this day, a few fans remain dedicated to the idea that "FNAF 6" and "Pizzeria Simulator" should have been entirely different games after all.
    • Ultimate Custom Night's approach of being a single customizable night without any type of campaign upset some fans, as they found it repetitive and thought the higher point values were far too challenging for casual players. The game also contained very little new lore, which disappointed the large number of fans who were interested in FNAF for its complex lore rather than its gameplay. Then there's the fact that most of what little story was present in the game was told vaguely through bizarre anime-esque cutscenes. The game is so different that much of the fanbase is divided on whether to consider it a main entry or a spinoff.
    • The VR game, Help Wanted, is one of the most praised installments in the series since 2, but is still subject to some nitpicks. The element that drew the most backlash was probably the story, which makes it clear from the start that the entirety of the gameplay is an in-universe VR game created by Fazbear Entertainment to cover up their past controversies. Like with 4, the idea that the main events of the game weren't actually canon was a major turn-off to some players, especially lore enthusiasts. That's not even getting into the fan theory that all of the past games may have also just been games within games, much like the early fan theories surrounding 4. Otherwise, some younger players without VR headsets seemed infuriated at missing out on the fun, bashing the developers for making a major entry in the series VR-exclusive. This died down completely after a few months due to the introduction of an optional non-VR version. Meanwhile, a few fans of the older games criticized the VR recreations of 1, 2, and/or 3 for having some gameplay differences from the originals, despite most of the changes being necessary for the transition to VR and making for a better experience.
  • Gears of War 2 has had some changes from the original which made the Shotgun a less desirable weapon, notably the general gameplay addition 'stopping power', which slows you down from being continuously shot from the direction you're running at, making flat-out charging at your opponent a disastrous idea. This was on account of how people were often quite content to practically only use it for an entire match, completely ignoring their other standard weapons. Some people weren't happy. Even when it turned out the shotgun was made to be better and more consistent within the close ranges it was supposed to specialize in.
    • The Gears 2 shotgun was initially bugged (eventually fixed), and blindfired shots would usually go straight into the ground. Although thought to be a purposeful and welcome change by some, most of the community went into an outrage because they actually had to aim the weapon to fire it accurately (OH NOES!!).
  • When GoldenEye (1997) was revealed to have a remake for the Wii, everyone started to cheer, but then the cheers changed to boos and hisses, saying the game was ruined because Daniel Craig was used as the model for James Bond instead of Pierce Brosnan.
    • A lot of the boos and hisses came from the fact that the remake was nothing like the original, at all. The only real similarity was that both games were called GoldenEye and both games were First-Person Shooters. Could have something to do with the fact that it's pretty obviously using Call of Duty's engine, which is a bit different from the original's.
  • In September 2014, Arenanet released a major update to Guild Wars 2 containing what they styled the "New Player Experience", which is intended to make it much easier for new players to learn the basic concepts of the game and increase the retention of new players, which had been an issue before the patch. However, many veteran and hardcore players objected to several core features of the new update, including the removal or nerfing of a number of well-known features in the various "starter area" maps. For instance, the actions of rabbits in one of the "renown heart" quests in the starter Norn area were changed so that they could no longer knock players down (or even knock them off a nearby high cliff to their death, as had occasionally happened in the past). Many players argued that this took all the challenge out of a quest that was not previously considered to be particularly difficult. The pace at which skills are unlocked and skill points earned was also changed significantly in an attempt to make it quicker and more rewarding for new players to level up their characters, but that change was also vociferously objected to by a number of veterans who didn't like the way in which their familiar method of developing new characters had been changed.
  • Since the unveiling of GunZ 2, the primary complaining among the fanbase has been about the removal of the glitch-based combat styles (K-Style and D-Style) that had risen to prominence in the first game.
  • The Halo series.
    • Although each game has its fair share of fans using this trope, this originated upon the release of Halo 2. There was an entire website dedicated to explaining how much Halo 2 "sucked", espeically in comparison to Halo: Combat Evolved. Halo 2 was a drastic leap in the series — arguably the most significant change between two mainline subsequent Halo titles, period. Many of the complaints some people harbor towards Halo 2's Campaign, weapon sandbox, and Multiplayer, are legitimate criticisms; others, such as making the Elites speak English or adjusting the graphics on the plasma pistol overcharge... aren't(and virtually NO ONE argued about those complaints during Halo 2's heyday, either).
    • Halo 2's BR was essentially a replacement for Halo: CE Pistol (also, Halo 2 introduced its own pistol — a much weaker varient of the M6D). Keep in mind that while many people found the Pistol to be an "overpowered" Game-Breaker, that's not how some dedicated and competitive fans view it. They view it as a great Utility Weapon, serving as the de facto equalizer between the Power Weapons, and the niche weapons. It's also a weapon every player spawned with and it took a good amount of skill to land a perfect kill, because three-shot kills weren't common between equally skilled players. Games from Halo 3: ODST onward restored the scope and elevated it from its Scrappy Weapon status, though people still maintain that none of those iterations could compare, especially since Halo: Reach also added reticule bloomnote .
    • Of course, when Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary came out with all the gameplay exactly the same as the original Halo: Combat Evolved, the response was generally positive note . However, to compensate for the original's lack of online play, 343 Industries decided to use Reach's MP and 1:1 remakes of CE's maps. instead.
    • Of course, the release of Halo 4, the first game wholly developed by 343Industries instead of Bungie, brought this out in full force. It was wildly derided for its update of the loadout and armor ability systems from Halo: Reach, with fans proclaiming it's now "Call of Duty IN SPACE! " on the basis that it has mechanics and features which are commonplace in the modern FPS genre. This label stems from how popular the Call of Duty franchise is, and Halo is not the only FPS franchise to be accused of being "like Call of Duty". To be fair, this isn't a serious complaint towards Halo 4, it's just a joke statement to egg on Halo 4 for deviating the formula by trying to "modernize" itself with Military Shooters instead of making changes that benefit both old and new fans without alienating the former with design changes that don't align with Halo's Arena-styled gameplay.
    • Halo 5: Guardians only exacerbated many of the issues fans had with Halo 4's gameplay and presentation. Whereas Halo 4 included loadouts and weapon drops reminiscent of Call of Duty, Halo 5 shifted the series towards an advanced movement-oriented gameplay flow. Gone were loadouts and armor abilities. Instead, players had a multitude of inherent abilities such as hovering, thrusters, spartan charge, ground pound, and smart scope. While not necessarily "abilities", new movement mechanics were also introduced in the form of sliding and clambering up surfaces. All these changes and additions created a much faster and "twitchy" combat loop. Whilst older entries emphasized the player conforming to the sandbox via the use of weapon pickups and vehicles, players had more control than ever before without the need for scouring the battleground. As such, many gameplay elements ahd to be tuned to compete with the new movement mechanics. Weapons across the board featured tighter bullet spread and faster projectiles. Maps were wider and larger with obstacles to defend players against the much more lethal weapon sandbox.
  • Heroes of Might and Magic IV made several changes to the format of the series. The old setting was blown up, you could now have armies without heroes, you could have multiple heroes in one army, heroes were actually vulnerable to damage within a battle and could directly enter combat, towns now had multiple choices between different soldiers to hire, soldiers appeared in their dwellings daily instead of once-a-week and the highly useful caravan structure was introduced, allowing you to hire minions from across the map without running a hero there and back. This was not uncontroversial in the fanbase, and HOMMV reversed many of the changes. In turn, the sixth game made a large number of changes which, again, have been... contested (except for the removal of town screens, which was nigh-universally regarded as a bad change. They returned in a later patch).
    • Both the fifth and sixth games were lamented (quite rightly) for being bug-ridden, and the DRM of the sixth game didn't help. The new writing style was also unpopular.
  • The Xbox 360 Updated Re-release of Ikaruga draws criticism from high-level players due to some enemy patterns being changed, something that can throw off high-scoring players, although it's not as much of a drawback for lower-level players
  • Initial D Arcade Stage 4 is a matter of debate among fans. Some welcome it as a fresh reboot of the series, but many others find it a pain in the exhaust pipe to get used to the weird physics. Worse yet, the game punishes high-speed cornering by "locking" the player's steering and making his or her car crash into the wall and suffer an acceleration penalty, and to fix this one must perform a "Penalty Cancel", which consists of releasing the gas, tapping the brake, and pressing the gas. Many players think of Penalty Cancel as a stupid technique—who the heck brakes on a straightaway?
    • As if that isn't enough, the "Version 1.5" patch of the game almost makes a new game out of an existing one by removing said exploit and steering lock, and replacing it with oversteer.
  • Jagged Alliance: Back in Action. Even before it was released, fans complained that the turn based style was replaced with real-time action, that you are not bound by fields anymore and so on. Unfortunately, going by the game's mediocre Metacritic rating, the fans had a point.
  • KALPA:
    • The game has a story snippet in which Arcyone receives a letter from Sylvia, a hostile ex-friend of hers, that simply reads "Go fuck yourself," with Arcyone's response being an unfazed "Hehe...bitch." When this was changed to "Go play with yourself" and "Hehe, bad girl" in an October 2022 update, not only was it seen as an unnecessary Bowdlerisation, but many consider it even more dirty than the original and carried strong erotic undertones that weren't there in the original text. This change was later reverted but with the swear words nominally censored out, which is seen by players as an acceptable compromise.
    • The version 1.5 update added the Astral Rating system, in which the player's personal rating increases or decreases depending on a combination of their best and recent performances. This new mechanic was widely disliked by players, as it turns what is generally considered one of the more forgiving rhythm games on the market (while still having mechanics that support high-level play) into a much more pressuring experience that can demotivate players. Not helping matters is that many of the charts are considered inaccurately-rated, making Astral Rating not really indicative of the player's abilities. The 2.0 update would then solve this by allowing the player to hide their rating as well as the option to opt out of having performances apply to the player's rating, satisfying both players who do use the rating system and those who dislike it.
  • Kid Icarus: Uprising got this around its release for being a "Star Fox copy" rather than the 2D platformer/shooter that the original was. People claiming this probably only watch the on-rails sky portions and comment before even seeing the ground portions (which make the game more akin to Sin and Punishment). Even then, there are people who bash on the game for deviating too much from the original, calling it a generic third-person shooter. However, even just a few years later, such sentiments were quickly forgotten, with much of the discourse around the game shifting to the comedic brilliance of its script that brought life to Pit and Palutena, and gave them a large cast of characters to bounce off of; a good majority of the Kid Icarus fanbase now consists of those who were brought in because of Uprising's clever reimagining of the series.
  • NS13 in Kingdom of Loathing was disliked by many players because, despite adding content, it basically nerfed every efficient (perhaps too efficient) strategy people were using as well as one or two that weren't actually that efficient. Most people have gotten over it, however. Some of the success of the "Hobopolis" content dump was in fact attributed to it not "pissing in anyone's bowl of Cheerios", to quote Jick.
  • League of Legends: The community's reaction to Riot Games changing the name of Lux's ultimate from Finales Funkeln to Infinite Light. Not only were people upset about the removal of a reference to Touhou games that Lux's creator Shurelia intended, but people believed Infinite Light was a very uncreative name.
  • The Legend of Zelda:
    • Zelda II: The Adventure of Link received a lot of flak for going from an overhead perspective from the first game to a side-scroller with RPG Elements.
    • The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past:
      • Although the GBA version is mostly considered a Polished Port, it has some minor quirks that make the original SNES version superior to some. Just look at the comments on the comparison videos!
      • The most complained-about is the music, which a lot of SNES-to-GBA ports seem to suffer from (such as Super Mario World and Yoshi's Island). It's sometimes excused due to technical limitations.note  However, detractors cite the Final Fantasy VI SNES music restoration patch, stating that it proves that it's possible to 1:1 port SNES music to the GBA.
      • Like the Mario ports, some people dislike the addition of voice acting. Link's voice clips are recycled from Young Link's from Ocarina of Time, and some people think a 9-year-old's voice doesn't fit a teenager.
      • The brightened palette was not well-receivednote  but people found out that you can change to the darker SNES palette in the options menu.
    • The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening got a remake for the Nintendo Switch. Fans of the original were displeased that the game still only has movement in four cardinal directions, yet enemies move and attack in three-dimensions. Additionally, the visual aspects of the game on the gameboy were accepted as limited, while the visuals on the remake were considered to make the game appear too childish and non-threatening. The final complaint was the changing of instrumentation in various musical elements of the game, although this likely comes down to interpretation given the original game's limited musical palette was due to the design of the Gameboy soundfont choices.
    • To accomodate gamers who typically play with the Wiimote in their right hand, the Wii version of The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess not only featured a right-handed Link (who, in nearly all other games, had been left-handed), but flipped the entire game horizontally, geography and dungeon puzzles included. Many fans were up in arms over this change.
    • Wind Waker received much fan outrage for the cartoony cel-shaded graphics, with rants about how "Celda" had destroyed the series forever and made it Lighter and Softer or too easy, feeling it didn't help Nintendo's reputation as being for kids compared to the more mature games other consoles were becoming known for at the time. Not helping was a previous tech demo featuring a more realistic style similar to Ocarina of Time. Of course, these complaints came about a year and a half before the game was released. When the game came out, it got further flak for changing things, from making the game take place on an ocean, to using a boat instead of a horse, etc. Basically, it wasn't Ocarina of Time, so it sucks. Twilight Princess brought back the horse and the realistic adult-looking Link, but it got complaints about some other things.
    • Also in The Wind Waker, Link had a reduced ability to swim, having an air meter that slowly ran down until he would drown and return to wherever he entered water. People complained. Then, in the sequel, The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, Link completely lost his already-limited ability to swim, instead gaining Super Drowning Skills. People complained more. Note that in some previous games, Link couldn't swim at all or only when you got a certain item.
    • Phantom Hourglass used stylus controls without the option of button or D-pad control. Immediately, there were cries of how the touch screen on the DS was a gimmick that gameplay would be dumbed down for, and that Nintendo should have just used D-pad controls or at least made them an option. In the game itself, there's a Take That! against complaining fans in the form of a ghost who laments he wouldn't have died if he could have used the D-pad.
    • The train in The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks attracted much ire, for being linear and thus limiting the freedom of the game (since you're literally on rails) and for being too advanced of a technology that some felt didn't fit in the fantasy theme of the universe.
    • Once Spirit Tracks was out, fans found another reason to complain: The dungeon length was significantly cut down in comparison to other games, even to Phantom Hourglass. Part of the people who complain about this, claim that It's Easy, So It Sucks!.
    • After a short gameplay demo was shown at E3, The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword somehow managed to become both this and It's the Same, Now It Sucks!.
    • People also complained about Link's starting health being at 6 hearts instead of the traditional 3 hearts. Complainers assumed the game was dumbed down for the casual crowd because of it, but many changed their mind when they saw that the damage output from enemies took a significant leap and a player new to the game wouldn't survive on 3 hearts alone.
    • When Miyamoto revealed that he had felt guilty for years that he had made the Water Temple in Ocarina of Time too difficult and so had taken measures to make the Water Temple easier to navigate in the Nintendo 3DS remake, some fans were angry that the Water Temple had been made slightly easier and a few claimed that it ruined the entire remake. Those changes turned out to be a fancy decorative border, each a different bright vibrant color, over the doorways leading to the areas that change the water level, and the mechanics behind the various types of boots were also changed, though this impacts more than just the Water Temple. Both the Iron and Hover Boots were turned into items, akin to The Wind Waker and Twilight Princess. Since this did nothing to reduce the overall challenge but merely removed the tedium of constantly switching items in the pause menu, not many complaints emerged from this change.
    • Majora's Mask's 3DS remake received complaints due to a number of changes made to the boss fights, letting the Song of Double Time skip to any hour instead of just the next 6AM/6PM interval in the cycle, and allowing Owl Statues to permanently save the game. While this is frequently accused of "dumbing down" the game, Gyorg and Twinmold's boss fights were arguably made harder, and the Song of Double Time/save system changes are mostly just for convenience sake. More controversial are the changes to Zora Link's swimming mechanics, his base swim speed was considerably slowed down, and the faster original speed was folded into an ability that consumes magic to use. Word of God states the reason why the changes were made was to make it easier to navigate in tight corridors.
    • While The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild was largely well received, some criticize it for making major changes compared to past Zelda games, skewing heavily to a more non-linear, open world experience. Some fans felt the game was focused on this to the detriment of other aspects of the series. For example, fans who enjoy finding new items that allow them to reach previously inaccessible areas were disappointed with Breath of the Wild's almost complete lack of it in favor of making every area accessible from the start, claiming that the game goes too far towards pleasing those who enjoy Zelda for exploration (with a bone throw towards puzzle solving) over the series' other core elements, leading to a game that can only be fully enjoyed by one type of Zelda fan to the exclusion of others. Breakable weapons in particular drew many complaints, as traditionally the player always has a standard primary sword that is unbreakable. Another common complaint is the lack of traditional long dungeons with a unique theme and a mix of combat and puzzles, and the lack of enemy variety is also often criticized. Many of these complaints are less about disliking the game itself however, so much as concern the wild success of the game could prevent Nintendo from revisiting the traditional formula. In some cases, the complainers even do enjoy Breath of the Wild, but feel it could be even better if certain traditional elements from the series were implemented. Some other people, particularly those who dislike open-world games in general, think it's a case of the series following the leader.
  • Since 2012 TT's LEGO Video Games have been using voice acting, they caused many fans to be put off by the games because they find the voice acting cringeworthy and thought they were a lot funnier when the characters just did mumbling, laughing, groaning and miming instead of talking. TT seems to have taken note and added in a Mumble Mode to LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga as free DLC.
  • A lot of people were upset about the removal of custom music making in LittleBigPlanet Karting, leaving you with just the story music for your custom levels. Good thing it's Awesome Music, but you'll be hearing the same songs A LOT.
  • The M2 ShotTriggers line of shmup ports was generally well-received by the shmup community for taking classic shmups like Battle Garegga and Ketsui and giving them not only releases on modern consoles with painstakingly accurate detail but also adding a wide variety of new features to aid new and old players alike. However, Kyukyoku Tiger-Heli, a Compilation Rerelease of Tiger Heli and Twin Cobra, was met with much more mixed reception, due to the seemingly out-of-nowhere decision on M2's part to dedicate the M2STG line to reviving Toaplan games for the next several years. Toaplan games, including Tiger Heli and Twin Cobra, are known for being Nintendo Hard and having what is perceived as outdated game design thanks to elements like respawning at checkpoints (as opposed to just coming back where the player died), harsh penalties to player firepower for dying, "sniper" enemies, and enemies striking at unusual angles, so for M2 to commit to porting these games is a turn-off for many folks who feel that the team could better put time and dedication into porting more modern shmups instead.
  • MapleStory has a significant number complainers on both sides of nearly every issue. Apparently things were better when there were only four classes and it took days of grinding just to gain one level. Or not.
  • Among the many complaints of Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite, one of the biggest was all of the "Marvel" themes getting replacements that were underwhelming.note  Exceptions include the new themes of Iron Man, Rocket Racoon, Thor, and Venom which are all amazing.
  • Mass Effect 2:
    • The game was generally praised by fans and new players alike, but a decent contingent of Mass Effect 1 players decried the shift from weapons that had infinite ammunition (and used a cooldown to control rate of fire) to disposable heat sinks that act, in the view of many players, as little more than an excuse to introduce clips and ammo to the series. The shift from outfitting each member of the team fully with weapons, armor, and the like to a system of researching Shepherd-specific and squad-wide upgrades was also flamed by some as being too simple and depriving characters of similar class of uniqueness.
    • There was also the matter of exploration. In Mass Effect, gaining resources for improvements came in the form of driving the Mako around small planet maps. Many fans disliked these segments as both boring and hard to control. Mass Effect 2 replaced them with a planet-scanning mini-game that directly reaped resources to spend on upgrades. While possibly an improvement (at least in terms of time), general consensus still disliked it. This ended up being a case of They Changed It Now It Sucks even though the replaced element wasn't well received anyway.
    • The unwieldy inventory system from the first game. Fans wanted it improved, instead Bioware ripped it out completely and you only rarely stumble across new weapons (and when missed are lost). The weapons weren't clear upgrades either, while better in certain areas they were worse in others, with a common example being more powerful weapons having a much lower maximum ammo count.
    • Powers now only work on enemies who have been stripped of shielding and armor. This was an obvious attempt to rein in the overpowered Adepts from the first game, who got the good end of the Linear Warriors, Quadratic Wizards equation, but was ill-received because it balanced out the classes.
    • It even happens to the characters. While fans rejoiced at the return of some of the Mass Effect cast for the sequel, forum wars on par with a Reaper attack can start if you express like for some of the new cast members, especially if they fill roles resembling past teammates. Grunt gets this the worst, having replaced Wrex, a fan-favorite, in the role of team krogan. To a lesser extent, fans of Kaiden's unflappable niceness sometimes don't take well to Jacob filling in the role. (Samara took over the role of team asari, but is sufficiently different from Liara that few people compared the two.) Bioware seemed to have taken notes: Mass Effect 3 doesn't have a krogan teammate, just an extremely tanky human. And, amusingly enough, so many people enjoyed his character that the main complaint was about how he wasn't romanceable!
  • Before its release, Mass Effect 3 was criticized for being more shooty and less RPGy, and for the announcement that Co-Op Multiplayer would affect one's likelihood of getting the Golden Ending. It took a tour through the "Misblamed" trope as well, with EA supposedly trying to attract "the Call of Duty crowd"note , despite the fact that the game has more weapon customization than its predecessor, and it's entirely reasonable for Bioware to want to improve the "Action" part of their Action RPG even though it started out as classic RPG with the "Action" part only really being introduced in the second installment—or, for that matter, the gameplay overall, which was rocky in both titles. In the end, the complainers were disproven: Mass Effect 3's combat experience was heralded as being the best of the franchise's, and people are still playing the "tacked-on" and "useless" multiplayer modes, purely for the fun of it, years after release.
  • When re-releasing Super Meat Boy on the PS4 and PSVita, Team Meat couldn't secure the rights to the original soundtrack. This led to a new score being composed, which is already getting flak from people on the internet simply for being different and perhaps not as memorable as the original soundtrack.
  • When the demo of Mega Man 11 was released, players were dismayed to find that the long-time Player Tic of jumping through boss doors had been removed. They can still be opened in midair, but Mega Man will drop to the ground before walking through. A downplayed example considering this is the first new Mega Man game in years and the rest of the game is well-received, but many fans still mourn the loss of this little detail.
  • Mega Man (Classic) had a weird retroactive version of this, as a result of an inversion. When the nostalgic, old school clone Mega Man 9 was announced, a major reaction was "It's back to it's platformer roots, now it's good again," implying that Mega Man games in the meantime had been They Changed It, Now It Sucks!. The problem was, with the exception of some 3D experimentation that was not received well and quickly dropped, the main timeline had remained platformers until that point (the X games even using the exact same formula).
  • Bring up the voice acting in Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes and you'll likely get people proclaiming that the removal of the accents in Naomi and Mei Ling made them sound worse. The opinion on the voices remained the same when the two characters were brought back in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots and kept their neutral accents from Twin Snakes.
  • Big Boss's voice actor change in Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain got this reaction from 95% of fans, even though Big Boss is starting to get old in this game. Even stranger is the fact that Big Boss wasn't voiced by David Hayter in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots either, and the fans were perfectly fine with it, but when they heard word that Hayter wouldn't be voicing him in MGS5 as well (instead being voiced by Kiefer Sutherland, best known as playing Jack Bauer,)...well, saying that the fanbase went ballistic would be a massive understatement.
    • The argument for him getting old, however, is tenuous as best, since his clone, Solid Snake, had the same voice actor way past the age Big Boss is in V. Going by his artificially sped-up aging, Solid Snake was likely, physically, the same age by Metal Gear Solid 2. Speaking of Metal Gear Solid 2, oooooohhhhh boy, don't even bother getting into that. While nowadays it likely would have been better received, gamers in that day and age were not ready for massive philosophy, Deadpool-levels of Breaking the Fourth Wall, and discussion of memes as they were originally presented by Richard Dawkins. Add Raiden to the mix and you have a flustercluck. Luckily for Kojima, the same message, along with new discussions on AI, transhumanism, cybernetic bodies and more were able to be put into Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, and Raiden is no longer hated, because he's now a Cyborg Ninja. The philosophy elements were far better received, lending to the idea that gamers weren't ready for Metal Gear Solid 2. Also, this paragraph perfectly sums up the Metal Gear Solid games. Philosophy, fandom rage, deep conversations and absurd wackiness.
  • Metroid:
    • Metroid Prime initially sparked fanboy backlash when it was shown to be a pseudo-First-Person Shooter, with even more level-headed critics being skeptical about this being the way Nintendo was bringing back the series after skipping the Nintendo 64. While there are still Metroid fans who look down on the Prime sub-series, most fans (even those who prefer the mainline 2D games) would quickly come to see the first entry as a worthy installment that managed to faithfully translate the franchise's signature sense of isolation and exploration to the third dimension.
      • The PAL version of Metroid Prime was met with a lot of people upset at the changes that were made compared to the first version released in North America. Many exploits that made speed running and Sequence Breaking easier were squashed. The Chozo lore that references Samus (the Hatchling) were rewritten to be a more vague and generic "savior", which makes the relationship and backstory between Samus and the Chozo that raised her look very disconnected. The cutscene that shows Samus obtaining the Phazon Suit after defeating the Omega Pirate was also changed, going from Samus quickly rising out of the Phazon pool in pain before ending in a pose with her arm cannon to Samus slowly rising from the sludge in a rebirth motif that looks soft in comparison to the old animation. The Metroid Prime Trilogy re-release was based on the PAL version, which didn't please many fans and North American fans that played the original version first found the new changes jarring.
    • Metroid Prime: Hunters focused on multiplayer. While the days have passed where you'd be hit with numerous rants about how this violates the heart and soul of Metroid and never can be erased from its history, Hunters is still seen as an odd addition to the series; especially since the closing of the Nintendo DS Wi-Fi service means that all that's left if you don't have anyone local to play the game with is a bland and repetitive single-player mode.
    • Metroid: Other M fell into this weeks before it was even released due to trailers and gameplay footage. Then the game came out. Years later, thoughts on the gameplay have settled into the realm of love-it-or-hate-it. The story, on the other hand? Even a decade later, even mentioning Other M in passing in a forum conversation will automatically derail the topic for several pages while every Metroid fan in the immediate vicinity jumps in to talk about how poorly the game handled the characterization of main character Samus Aran, retroactively damaged the story of Metroid Fusion, and whether knowing what creator Yoshio Sakamoto's creative intent was with some of the more egregious scenes even matters when the execution was so terrible. Do not start conversations about how Other M handled Samus lightly, no matter what side you're on.
  • Minecraft goes through this every time something in the game changes. The bone meal item, which makes plants instantly grow, was nerfed so that you had to use several bone meal to get the plant to fully grow. People complained it was too much work and made farming tedious. Mobs were also reprogrammed to (mostly) stay off mine cart tracks so that players that are riding in a mine cart would not suddenly stop because of a sheep blocking the way. People then complained about how the rails were now overpowered because it acted as monster repellent while ignoring the fact that crafting rails is more expensive than just using blocks of dirt for barricades.
    • The fan base also complained loudly when the sun and the moon were changed from squares to circles. Mojang switched them back to squares shortly after.
    • The additions of potions and enchantments caused complaints from people who felt Minecraft was becoming too much like an RPG.
    • The addition of the Warden drew ire from some groups annoyed by the inclusion of an overpowered enemy that moves faster than anyone else, has ranged damage, and powerful melee along with insanely high health. The enemy was included as a form of stealth enemy to add danger back into the game and keep players from simply charging down any enemy that encounter (it is meant to only be avoided, not fought), which is not something some fans wanted implemented.
  • Monster Hunter has its own fair share of detractors beginning with the third generation of games (Tri-, 3 Ultimate and Portable 3rd). From issues such as the additions to weapon and combat mechanics, new vs. old monsters, new maps, the new style of graphics, the difficulty level and even to issues such as the main console series having switched publishing hands between Sony and Nintendo are major points of contention. In particular, one can expect the main dividing line to be between Freedom Unite on the PSP and 3 Ultimate on the 3DS. By comparison, the spinoffs Frontier, MHO and Stories, plus the myriad other MonHun spinoffs that never made it outside Japan, get much less flak due to being—well—spinoffs, although Stories got its fair share of undeserved heat due to being a turn-based RPG with anime-style cel shaded graphics, something a number of players mistakenly thought would be the new norm for the series as a whole.
  • Mother 3 has recieved this sort of reception in Japan due to it not taking place in the contemporary Eagleland setting that its predecessors went for. Outside of Japan, however, it's gotten pretty high acclaim from fans.
  • Need for Speed:
    • This audience reaction perfectly describes the series' fanbase reaction to Need for Speed: ProStreet doing away with the cop chases in Most Wanted 2005 and Carbon in favor of something more realistic and organized to rival Gran Turismo 4 and Forza Motorsport 2. EA responds by going back to the well with Need for Speed: Undercover. Undercover also happens to be the worst-reviewed game in the series. Take That!, fanbase!
    • Fans of Need for Speed: Underground 1 and 2, Most Wanted (2005) and Carbon complain about Hot Pursuit (2010), The Run, Most Wanted (2012) and Rivals for the facts that they lack detailed customization and play a lot like the Burnout games unlike the second era Need for Speed games. This led to EA's decision to look back to those tuner-focused games with the 2015 series reboot. On the flip side, fans of the NFS games before Underground complained about the addition of car customization, replacing exotics and cops with tuners and cities (though Most Wanted 2005 did bring back the cops, but not the ability to play as them). EA responded to those fans with the rebooted Hot Pursuit back in 2010.
  • NEO: The World Ends with You has a particularly amusing in-universe case near the start of the game. In The World Ends with You, a present but incidental piece of setting lore stated that Players of the Reaper's Game could only use pins and Psychs corresponding to their Psych Level; this is why Shiki can only control Mr. Mew to attack since she is limited to the Groove Pawn Psych, while Neku being able to use all pins and Psychs is considered an exceptionally unique trait. When Rindo and Fret find a Pyrokinesis pin dropped from a random Noise near the start of NEO, Minamimoto initially stops them to explain this plot point, but when Rindo shows him their Shockwave and Force Rounds pins, Minamimoto discovers that the concept of Psych Level has been nixed and every Player can now use every Psych, causing him to express audible disgust at pins being watered down to be usable by anyone before huffing off.
  • Overwatch suffers from this 24/7. When the developers constantly change the game in an attempt to balance it properly, you're bound to upset a few people here and there.
    • Probably the most notable instance of this is the 2017 rework on Mercy; removing her Resurrection ultimate and replacing it with the ability to fly. In turn, her Resurrect became a regular ability, turning her into the most overpowered hero in the game, bar none. This nearly turned the whole Overwatch fandom into a Broken Base as the players who preferred older Mercy clashed with the players who preferred the new Mercy. 11 months of nothing but Mercy nerfs later and the debate on whether the rework was successful or not still rages, with Mercy stuck in a strange limbo between underpowered primary healer and overpowered secondary healer.
  • Pac-Man purists tend to be freaked out by the Championship Edition games due to introducing new mechanics that they perceive as being not what Pac-Man is about, such as Smart Bombs, ghost trains, brakes, and a focus on earning as many points as possible within a fixed time limit rather than surviving until you run out of lives or hit the Kill Screen.
  • Purists of Puzzle League/Panel de Pon/Tetris Attack should stay very far away from Planet Puzzle League, which, in addition to providing the tried-and-true directional-pad-and-buttons gameplay, also offers the much easier stylus control. Though, when there's an online mode and no mode that restricts gameplay to the D-pad and buttons.
    • Planet Puzzle League also received this reaction for its choice to axe the use of its original cute fairy characters (Dr. Mario & Puzzle League for the Game Boy Advance was first in this regard, but PPL has a higher profile). Kawaisa being what it is, this led to no small amount of negative fan backlash over in Japan. Lip's stage is unlockable with enough time (but only if you live in Japan) as a sort of consolation prize, but that didn't help much.
    • Some of the series' Western fans have this reaction to Nintendo's continued refusal to showcase any of the original Panel de Pon characters outside of Super Smash Bros. despite the growing popularity of moe in the western world. Thankfully, in May 2020, Nintendo released the original game for Nintendo Switch Online worldwide.
  • Parasite Eve 2 has never gotten the full treatment of this, but some fans hated the switch to the Resident Evil style of gameplay, what with the tank controls and what have you.
  • The sequel to PAYDAY: The Heist generated complaints for so many small changes based on just the previews alone. Some claim the new aesthetics that use brighter and more vivid colors make the game look "cartoony". Other people hated the new heads up display for looking too large compared to the old one and how the screen tilts slightly when the player carries a body or a heavy bag. The biggest complaint was the use of a hit marker when aiming at an enemy.
    • Once the game was released, the complaints grew louder; people complained how they could no longer unlock everything as they could have done in the first game and they also complained how the Crimenet system doesn't allow them to choose a level freely. The release of light machine guns via DLC also generated complaints due to the fact that said weapons could not use iron sights, compared to the light machine gun in the first game being able to do so.
    • All of which was nothing compared to the FROTHING that was generated when Crimefest 2015 introduced stat-increasing microtransactions. Thousands of fans instantly quit the game and the outrage even spread to mainstream gaming media that covered the whole fiasco and heavily damaged Overkill's reputation. Months later, the developers released an apology and promised to do better by being more transparent with their fans. Overkill kept their word and went the extra mile by making all safes in the game (except the first generation ones) free to open and the rare skins no longer had stat boosts attached.
  • The Persona series had always faced this trouble with additions and change ups to the main story of the games in the rereleases of the games.
    • Persona 3: FES added in two things that weren't in the original that fans felt had ruined the story. One is during the month after the last Full Moon operation and being betrayed by Ikutsuki, on specific days in the evenings, you can talk to Junpei, he'll talk about Chidori and feel worried about her and you can encourage him to keep seeing her by picking the correct options, but by doing so on all of the specific days and picking the correct choices in them, instead of staying dead for good during the scene when Chidori gives up her life to save Junpei, she would go into a transmogrify state and then wake up in January during the preparation to fight Nyx, but her memories since she had her Persona had vanished, including all of her memories of Junpei. Even though the rest of the game from there is exactly the same and doesn't seem like it affects the story all that much, fans still hated it because of how it contradicts the game's main message. This would be carried over to Persona 3 Portable. The other added thing is the epilogue campaign The Answer, which in terms of the story, many players felt it ruined the original story anyways, despite that everything that happens here is the point of how the main message of The Answer is about looking at the past and knowing when to move on from it.
    • Persona 3 Portable adds one new Social Link in the female protagonist route with Shinjiro where in order to max out the Social Link, you have to go to the police and retrieve Shinjiro's pocket watch, which he mentions that he had lost at Rank 9. But maxing out the Social Link results in Shinjiro not dying when being shot by Takaya to save Ken like in the original, but instead, being put into a coma and taken to the hospital, while the rest of the events afterwards were altered and worked around to make sure the plot stays the same. People really despised the outcome of it with how they felt that a major part of the story had been ruined for them.
    • Persona 4 Golden adds in a new character named Marie whom people felt was too shoehorned in, even though the only major appearances she makes in the vanilla storyline is through her Social Link and the romance part of her story is only present if the player chooses to romance her in her Social Link. There's also the fact that Marie's true role in the story is actually to add more to the true grand finale in the original storyline since in the original game after defeating Adachi, the game moves to Christmas and then to the final day when the player sees all the Social Links they've made over the past year before going home, many players who have played the original version on the Play Station 2 would actually not pay attention to the details at the beginning of the game that hints at the true grand finale and they end up thinking the game is over from there and thus, to many, either they miss out on it completely or it feels like it came right out of nowhere, while Marie's inclusion in the story in Golden fixes this problem, and yet, people still think she's a bad inclusion, even with this.
    • Persona 5 originally had a very infamous scene which was present in the original Japanese version of Persona 5: The Animation too where in the Shinjuku scene, Ryuji is approached by two men who are looking to do sexural things with him, and then they show up later in the beach scene where they're once again looking to do sexural things with both Ryuji and the protagonist. Because of how bad the scene was, it was rewritten for both Persona 5 Royal and the official English dub of Persona 5: The Animation where the two men instead drag Ryuji into a cross-dressing pagin. Despite this, many fans hated the rewrite of the whole scene and wished they hadn't touched it, despite the fact that the original scene was hated and rewritten because of it.
  • The 2021 remake of the Pinchcliffe Grand Prix Licensed Game got a lot of flack for cutting many of the original's mini-games.
  • Come to a Pokémon forum just after the release of a new generation, and you'll see this yelled a lot. New mon designs are the biggest cause, but a lot of things tend to come up, like gameplay changes, changes in how moves and natures work and how various mechanics affect Pokémon performance, etc.
    • Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire got this pretty heavily for its lack of any inclusion of Emerald-exclusive content, such as a plot that explored the conflict between Team Magma and Team Aqua rather than having one party sit on the sidelines the whole game, the more challenging gym battles, and the Battle Frontier, as well as removal of the character customization that was possible in the previous games, Pokemon Xand Y. However, others enjoyed the more fleshed out characters and various Pokemon being made more viable through the inclusion of Mega Evolution and the Physical/Special split. To this day, the fanbase is split on whether Emerald or ORAS are better.
    • Pokémon Sword and Shield are the most infamous. The games have become something of a Contested Sequel among the fanbase as many hated the games for not being able to use every Pokémon in it like previous generations, even if you had them in a previous game and want to move them forward. While less despised, there are also occasional complaints about not being able to turn off the Exp. Share.
    • Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness received complaints about it being somewhat easier than its predecessor Pokémon Colosseum and for the decision to go back to a young teen protagonist rather than Wes or another older character like Colosseum had used.
  • The ultimately unreleased Professor Layton spinoff Layton 7 got this reaction as soon as the first details dropped. Seriously, when the fans of the earlier games heard it was a puzzle/RPG spinoff starring seven random characters (including a zombie) who have to compete for points, the reaction was somewhat confused at best. Just look at this thing! These fans ultimately got their wish when it was quietly canceled after missing its release window.
  • Punch-Out!! on the Wii became this trope and It's the Same, Now It Sucks! at the same time. What was the change that gotten many fans upset? The exclusion of Mike Tyson, who was the Final Boss in the original NES version and that version was the one everyone grew up with while a few others had to deal with Tyson's fictional replacement, Mr. Dream, after his contract with Nintendo wasn't renewed.
  • Puyo Puyo
    • Sega's Retool and Soft Reboot in its entirely receives this from a small number of fans, with said fans believing that the soul of the series was lost when Sega turned the cuteness up to eleven.
    • Cranky Food Friends received endless flak when it was (very quickly) discovered to be a cheap reskin of Puyo Puyo!! Quest. Zigzagged with Puyo Quest itself: it was initially met with a lot of skepticism, but has since become the most popular topic of conversation in the English fandom. However, the general disdain for mobile games by western gamers definitely crops up at times, and Puyo Puyo announcement teases invariably attract snarky comments claiming that the announcement will be about Quest or another mobile game.
    • The Fever cast, aside from Amitie, falling increasingly Out of Focus is a sore subject for Fever era fans. This is not helped by a unfortunate combination of unresolved plot points, Sig and Raffina losing their positions as main protagonists and everyone else either vanishing from the franchise with the sole exception of Quest or having their playable status frequently sacrificed, to make room for more returning Compile characters or new additions to the cast.
    • A truly bizarre (and, for much of the fandom, extremely frustrating) variation where those who played Puyo Puyo Tetris are upset that Puyo Puyo Champions does not feature Tetris in any fashion.
    • The western fandom was generally receptive to Sega America's name changes (aside from Dark Prince) until the icon list in Champions revealed the "official" English names for the vast majority of the cast. This includes the likes of "Dapper Bones", "Ragnus", "Possessed Klug", "Alter Ecolo", and especially "Demiserf", which rubbed the fanbase the wrong way. This has lead some to mix-and-match which official names they accept and which ones they reject, similar to how Dark Prince is treated by many of the pre-Tetris fans; this includes Puyo Nexus Wiki, which has yet to take an "official" stance on the matter and currently uses a mix of of pre- and post-Champions names.
    • Puyo Puyo Tetris 2 changes a function that was much appreciated in the previous game, which was the ability to set free play rooms as only playing Puyo or Tetris. In Tetris 2, these filters do nothing to stop any other player from selecting which game they want, which can make finding random Puyo only games or random Tetris only games (especially if you want to play more than 2 rounds at a time, or with non-standard rulesets) next to impossible. Most people believed it was a glitch before the official English Puyo Twitter account confirmed this was intentionally changed. Bizarrely, "Puyo Puyo Lovers" and "Tetris Lovers" room tags already do the same exact thing as indicating without enforcing, which made this change unnecessary and disappointing to quite a few players.
    • Another change that Tetris 2 brought was the way that the auto feature worked in cutscenes. In the first game the text moved along with the dialogue, here the text moves independently of the dialogue. This often leads to rather long pauses during the cutscenes since players now have to wait for the text to catch up with what was just said.
  • The main criticism of Raiden III is that it scraps the signature Bend Plasma a.k.a. "Toothpaste Laser" in favor of the less-flashy Photon Laser. While there are other complaints to be made, like the change of development team resulting in significantly different level and boss design, the replacement of the Bend Plasma is by far the most common complaint.
  • Resident Evil fans were outraged when Resident Evil 4 didn't have ink cartridges, obscure camera angles, Umbrella, or difficult controls. Resident Evil 5 kept the same gameplay style and kept some old wounds open, but changed back to the earlier games' inventory style, which has opened a whole new can of worms. Resident Evil 6 kept the co-op gameplay and added more Quick Time Event sequences, causing fans to trash the game and some even wanting the series to go back to the classic gameplay style.
    • For the remake of the first game, many fans hated how the voice acting improved and how it lacked the narmy and cheesy dialogue.
    • When Resident Evil 2 (Remake) came out, one of the biggest complaints from fans was the confusing story. In the original Resident Evil 2, both Claire and Leon had different stories. Route "Leon A" and "Claire B" were one narrative, as was "Claire A" and "Leon B". This was kept for the remake, but now there are narrative details that make little sense, such as seeing Mr. X outright die to William Birkin as Sherry and Claire jump in the elevator, only for him to still be alive and chasing Leon later in the game. It also meant bosses that one would face would still be fought in the B scenario, which would be confusing as to how you could kill William Birkin after watching his wife die, only for the other character to show up and do the exact same thing. Theories such as there being two Mr. X tyrants or the scenario's being interwoven have been jossed by the creators, leaving fans extremely confused as to how the story even works anymore.
  • Roblox received a lot of this when they removed some features they liked.
    • Even worse with the new logo. Players were criticizing it because they thought it was made in MS Paint.
    • Some said that Rthro would completely ruin Roblox when in reality, it's just a body type that almost nobody uses.
  • Like most MMOs, RuneScape suffers from this with every update, warranted or not. The biggest, however, are the PvP updates of December 2007note , the trade limit update of the same month and yearnote  and the Evolution of Combatnote . The former two were undone after being in the game for a long time, but Evolution of Combat is still around. To combat this, servers based off an August 2007 backup of the game were released in 2013 for people who still liked RS, but couldn't stand EoC. Considering the backup's - referred to as Old School Runescape - massive playerbase, they mitigated the damage for the most part.
  • Saints Row fans have been expressing their seething hatred for the direction the series has taken since Saints Row: The Third. Many are upset that the games left their 'gangsta' style behind, while others are so upset about the death of Johnny Gat they want him to return despite being canonically killed off. They got their wish in Saints Row IV, which retconned Johnny Gat's [offscreen] death into a He's Just Hiding situation, but still many others complain that the increased silliness and things like superpowers are childish and don't belong in the series.
    • The 2022 reboot attempted to go back to the roots of previous games, but it was met with heavy backlash the moment the first trailer dropped. Most of the criticism came towards the story and the completely new Saints members - Neenah, Kevin and Eli. The new Saints members earned flak for feeling more like sitcom characters instead of gangsters, while the dialogue and story were criticized for shoehorned social commentary and plot points that go nowhere, such as the Saints paying rent for their apartment.
  • Second Life was heavily criticized when Linden Labs released Viewer 2. Complaints ranged from a clunky interface, forced side tabs that took up the right side of the screen, the pie menu being replaced by a more standard menu, and the program itself being more resource intensive than Viewer 1. Viewer 3 did address the interface issue by allowing people to rearrange the toolbar as they pleased, but everything else remained the same.
    • Viewer 3 also generated hate from people who created their own viewers because Linden Labs forced them to adapt to the company's coding of Viewer 3, which also means that 3rd party viewers can't have any feature that would give someone an advantage over people who don't have the feature and the 3rd party viewers would have the same shoddy coding as Viewer 3.
  • Shadowverse This is one of the common complaints for the sudden decision since Tempest of the Gods to change the voice actors of many previous cards, especially if the players and fans favored the previous voice acting than the current.
  • Shin Megami Tensei: There is a very vocal minority of people in this fanbase that hate anything that isn't Nocturne by virtue of the fact that isn't Nocturne. Shin Megami Tensei IV with its colorful and well-developed cast of characters? Bad because it isn't Nocturne. Shin Megami Tensei V with the most refined combat and exploration in the entire series that makes it really good for 50 hours of mindless fun even if the plot sucks? Bad because it isn't Nocturne. The "Nocturne Purists" are so vocal that Atlas became convinced it was a good idea to have a $50 "HD Remaster" of Nocturne that was basically a glorified port of a 20 year old game with even the most bare bones of quality of life improvements, namely being able to manually select what skills are inherited through Fusion, only being added in updates after intense backlash from normal people. And if you can believe it, some Nocturne Purists turned their noses up even at that.
  • Silent Hill:
    • The series has suffered ever since the second game came out (it was dramatically different in theme and tone from the first game) and every new game in the series inspires rage in a certain segment of the fanbase. There's even a 'documentary' series called The Real Silent Hill Experience half of which talks about the first four games, the other half a non-stop series of complaints about every game in the series after the fourth.
    • Silent Hill 2 is widely regarded the absolute best of the series amongst the community and is usually shown as an example of what the fans want from the series... which is why the port on the PC is loathed as it has so many technical issues and gameplay bugs that it constantly breaks the immersion and atmosphere of the game, upsetting the community almost universally. As such, fans vehemently refuse to play the PC port without mods, and often recommend playing the original PS2 release on original hardware or emulation (The Enhanced Edition mod for PC eventually averted this, fixing every issue with the original port, and becoming the definitive way to experience the game).
    • Silent Hill 4: The Room, although a good game in its own right, had gameplay way too different from the rest of the series, partly because it wasn't originally supposed to be a SH game, and lacked much of the horror atmosphere of its predecessors (e.g. no darkness requiring a flashlight). The funny thing about this is that Wordof God stated that the game was always supposed to be a Silent Hill title, albeit a Gaiden Game. Depending on who you ask, it's either the last good Silent Hill game or the first bad one.
    • Silent Hill: Homecoming is viewed this way by fans of the first three games. It changed the combat system to be less clumsy, and didn't stick precisely to the original trilogy's "mythology". Though it's still a good game and is viewed by about half the fanbase as a worthy addition to the series, the other half (rather loudly) says that the American developers just don't get the series — which is a bit odd, as Silent Hill is and always was, according to the developers, intended as an homage to American horror and was inspired by such American films as Jacob's Ladder and Eraserhead.
    • This seems to be the fate of the "re-imagining" of the first game on the Wii, which has changed the formula far more than either of the previous two games. Oddly, many fan complaints focus on the inclusion of a touch-screen phone rather than any of the more drastic alterations.
    • There's already complaining from fans of the series that since Akira Yamaoka is not composing the music for Silent Hill: Downpour, it's "not really a Silent Hill game."
    • People are already screaming it's ruined with the announced ninth game Silent Hill: Book of Memories, which is just an action-packed multiplayer game that has nothing to do with the original storyline.
    • And in one of the few justified cases of this, fans were dismayed at the cancellation of Silent Hills, only to become outraged when hearing that the beloved franchise was being leveraged for a pachinko machine.
  • Some of the early information revealed regarding the 2014 SimCity game was, to say the least, disconcerting to the fanbase. Some of the complaints include: always online and multiplayer-focused gameplay, pre-built regional transportation networks that predetermine neighbour connections for each city, "dead zones" around each city that make each one look and feel isolated, terraforming limited on a civil scale (i.e. no God Mode terraforming) and small map sizes compared to SimCity 4. After the game's release, it turned out that yeah, they did change it and yeah, it does suck. The game's release has been nothing short of disastrous.
  • The Sims 4 had a number of justifiable reasons to catch flack for the base game (most of which are now fixed), but the real Complainers leapt on it for a very different reason - its art style. Despite CAS being more interactive and faces more customisable than ever, and all hairstyles and clothes finally being available for both genders, what's their favourite complaint? Hairstyles. They don't just dislike the new, slightly cartoony style, but claim it is an actual step back in quality.
  • Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves removed the bottle collecting sidequest that was in the first two games. Fans were not too happy with its removal.
  • The Sonic The Hedgehog fandom has expressed this frequently, often over changes that only mildly affect gameplay:
    • One of the loudest criticisms of the franchise was the relevance of other characters prior to Sonic Unleashed—some people hate everyone but Sonic, to the point that some fans even hate everything in the series but the first game, only because of the presence of other characters. It ultimately came to a head in the Milestone Celebration title Sonic Generations, where fans and even some critics whined about the presence of other characters, and in the case of the latter viewed it as a flaw that justified docking points from the game's review score as a result, despite said characters not having any major impact on the game whatsoever-aside from some missions, a cutscene of a few lines of dialogue between them and one of the two Sonics, they are otherwise just imprisoned characters for Sonic to rescue. A lot of these complainers also ignore the fact that there were plenty of characters before the game went 3D with the Adventure series, and rival franchise Super Mario Bros. had certainly a heck of a lot more characters prior to that point. It's worth pointing out that Mario started out with more characters in its first few games! From this logic, Sonic Underground would be a faithful adaptation.
    • Although in fairness the Adventure games and later titles do have their fair share of problems, there are some people who think the transition into 3D was a terrible idea, although which game it was that caused this is heavily debated. Some believe it was Adventure, some think it was the changes in Adventure 2. some think it started with the team aspect of Heroes, some believe it was Shadow, etc. It's extremely easy to find Sonic purist fans who hate 3D as easily as it is to find fans of said titles arguing which was the straw that broke the camel's back.
    • Shadow the Hedgehog was slammed by fans for its Darker and Edgier tone, most notably embodied in Shadow packing heat and cursing.
    • When it was first revealed, Sonic the Hedgehog 4 was the tip of the mountaintop in terms of trivial complaints. Among the loudest complaints of the three seconds of gameplay footage were "plastic graphics," "horrible running animation," and, of course, the presence of "green eyed-Sonic"note . The critique over time did grow more legitimate though-the gameplay felt nothing like the Genesis games, a lot of features and gameplay advancements made over the past games were stripped out, the music sounded different, among others. The second episode did not help to alleviate those problems, thanks to the reveal of Tails being demoted down to a required co-op character compared to the past Genesis titles. Sonic 4 is also a special case of the game being this and It's the Same, Now It Sucks!.
    • Some people slammed Sonic Lost World for overhauling a few staple aspects of the franchise, most notably the artstyle, which quickly became a favorite target. It didn't help that word-of-mouth from people with early access to the game, and subsequent lackluster reviews proved their criticisms valid that the game was essentially riding the coattails of Super Mario Galaxy.
      • Ironically, Lost World is a bit of a remake of the never-released, never-finished Killer App for the Sega Saturn that people had been wanting made for literally over a decade.
    • Sonic Boom has been met with complaints on the day the trailer was revealed. People complained not about the game itself, but the character redesigns; Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, and Amy have been tweaked to look older (around the ages of 14-18) and Knuckles had the biggest change by becoming taller and gaining a lot of muscle mass in his upper body. Sonic's arms was also changed from flesh colored to blue fur so it would match the rest of his blue body. There are now also complaints about the change up in gameplay, with the game taking on some Rachet and Clank styled beat'em up portions. Despite the fact that they still included trade-mark speed-sections, where the aim is to speed along them, fans aren't taking kindly to these new elements. All this, despite the game being a westernized spin-off.
    • This video by Jim Sterling involves this trope, saying that SEGA in its current state just doesn't have the raw talent to make these rapid fire changes work to the franchise's benefit. Compounding the problem is that Sega may chance upon a good idea for gameplay in one title, but then completely abandon the idea instead of refining their earlier success.
  • The official forums for StarCraft II are constantly flooded with complaints about changes being made to the graphics, army unit rosters, and interface. Most of the released changes are improvements to make the game simpler and more efficient to play, but a very vocal segment of the player base thinks of compensating for the slow, clunky interface as part of the challenge of the game, and that the changes will remove physical skill from multiplayer. Another segment thinks that strategy games should be about strategic decisions, not about who can click faster. These complaints have been around almost since the moment the game was announced to the public, and persist to this day. One of the most popular complaints among self-styled pro-gamers (opposed to actual pro-gamers, who have remained relatively quiet) is that units gather minerals and gas much more intelligently, and move in formation, which dramatically reduces the overall amount of necessary clicking. How to mine and how to move units are the very first two things players learn when making the transition from complete newbie to even the lowest tiers of casual play. Adding to the irony is that Blizzard added a multitude of activated abilities to each faction which do require skill and planning to use properly, which compensates for the loss of action in micro and macro. The game has gained a lot of post-release backlash and hate. People say that the changes Blizzard made are bad like making country music for the Terran, splitting the campaign in one third, changing the way the missions are played.
    • Every new campaign got some level of ire thrown at it by an Unpleasable Fanbase. Heart of the Swarm was lambasted for removing permnanent choices (you could swap most mutations on zerg yet during Wings of Liberty, purchases were final which incentivized careful use of money). Legacy of the Void removed permanent choices altogether and any upgrade can be swapped around, leading to further claims of making the game "too easy". Then came Nova Covert Ops, and the removal of a hub area to interact with NPCs was considered boring and disappointing.
  • Star Trek Online has been in this mode since January 2014. First was the utilization of the Arc game launcher, which pissed many players off because they didn't want to play PWE's other games and went to use completely untrue claims as to why the launcher was bad. Then game the 4th Anniversary of the game, which put a special ship within a time-gated grind, which made players angrier. Then came the revamped Mirror Incursion PVE match, which punished high-powered players blowing through the event like crazy. Then came Season 9, which not only altered the Reputation System so that all of the Rep powers didn't stack, but also made ships devoted to the Undine (that's Species 8472 from Star Trek: Voyager) available to players, thus making a Sacred Cow no longer sacred.
  • Star Wars: Galaxies was once a thriving MMORPG with lots of devoted players. Right up until the Combat Upgrade and New Game Enhancements were released and almost everyone quit in disgust. The worst part being that the NGE came only a few months later, rendered most of the previous upgrade useless or replaced, and basically boiled the entire leveling system into World of Warcraft with Jedi. It didn't help that the new interface and mouse were simply dumped into the patch, without support being added for many items. They effectively changed the entire game's UI without bothering to change the game world. A great example of Nostalgia Filter as well, since Star Wars: Galaxies was considered one of the most poorly balanced, poorly implemented systems out of any MMO by the active player base prior to the combat upgrade. Both the CU and NGE systems were far better balanced and more functional, even if both had additional flaws. The problem being less than the CU and NGE made strictly worse games, but that they made significantly different games, out of one that the existing fanbase had put a lot of time and money into.
    • The issue was not that they balanced the game, the issue is that they completely changed major underlying mechanics about the game and made some very popular play styles difficult/impossible. CU required 2 combat classes in your build to avoid being murdered by CR 90 mobs (as anything 5 levels above you could just outright destroy you). One combat class gives you CR 45 level. Crafters had a CR of 1. Good luck getting to your harvesters or getting resources anywhere but in cities.
    • The NGE on the other hand outright removed the 20+ classes and simplified them down to 9 (12 if you count the four kinds of traders as their own classes). When it was released it felt like it was rushed out in a couple weeks (the number of bugs was ludicrous) and there was no real balance improvement. It took over a year for the majority of these new bugs to be addressed, and while eventually NGE had some fun things (PVP and Invasions were eventually fun and balanced) they should have just made a new game if they wanted to change things so drastically.
    • Also, immediately prior to the release of the NGE, they sold a new expansion, the Trials of Obiwan, which was marketed with things like a Creature Handler skill improving necklace (which was a reason many players bought the x-pac). The issue? They removed Creature Handler in the NGE.
  • In Street Fighter Ibuki has had the same general moveset and personality but V decided to make her Take a Level in Dumbass in terms of cutscenes, downplaying her skilled when she wants to be persona, and her moveset was altered significantly to the point she doesn't feel like the Ibuki of old. Oh and they also nerfed her breast and hip size for good measure. Many historical Ibuki fans dislike the new default outfit as it doesn't fit her personality of balancing her teenage life and ninja work and rather blends it all together.
  • Super Mario Bros.:
    • Super Mario 64 split the fan base between people who liked the game and people who hated how Mario was no longer a 2D platforming game and hated the Camera Screw.
      • The remake on the DS gained notable criticism from the diehard fans of the original, noting the inclusion of three additional playable characters as unnecessary, and the controls being clunky or broken. Despite the vitriol against the remake, there is an equally-as-diehard community around this version of the game exclusively that defend against these arguments and say that the original was the bad one.
    • Super Mario Sunshine was trashed for trying to have a story and for being too different from 64. F.L.U.D.D. was dismissed as a gimmick, and many hated the island theme used instead of traditional stock Video Game Settings.
    • Super Mario Galaxy generated similar complaints, as well as complaints for the focus on motion controls which some considered an unnecessary forced gimmick.
    • Super Mario 3D Land and Super Mario 3D World essentially took the traditional 2D Mario gameplay into 3D. While fans of that gameplay style were happy, those who preferred the more open-ended exploration style were disappointed. Interestingly, there was also overlap with It's the Same, Now It Sucks!, since the 2D Mario formula was considered stale to many fans due to the New Super Mario Bros. series.
    • Mario Kart has this trope for nearly everything the series did after Mario Kart 64. Mario Kart: Double Dash!! was blasted for having a gimmicky two player per kart system, Mario Kart: Super Circuit was blasted for not fully retaining the features of the retro tracks. and Mario Kart Wii was blasted for including bikes in a kart racing game plus having 12 racers instead of the usual 8. Mario Kart 7 was met with general positive reception, but many people trashed the game for removing Waluigi, especially when it included Unexpected Characters like Honey Queen and Wiggler as racers.
    • Mario Party:
      • Mario Party 9 was met with mixed responses but was also trashed by the hardcore Mario Party fans for changing the basic gameplay after the series had played out the same way for the past 8 games, basically the original games were board games were everyone moved between spaces individually, but 9 changed into everyone being in a car and moving together.
      • Mario Party: Star Rush flat out removes turn-based gameplay entirely. Instead, all characters have the ability to move around the board freely. This led fans to complain that the true formula of the game was destroyed since no longer having to take turns means the game is no longer a "board game".
      • Mario Party: The Top 100: Minigames that had a variation and which came back in this game now only have one version. The background music from a few minigames has been changed, too.
    • Paper Mario is a spin-off RPG of the Mario series, with its first two games (Paper Mario 64 and Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door) known for complex stories (well, complex for a Mario game, at least) and original characters that were both memorable and lovable. But then the series started getting experimental...
      • The third game, Super Paper Mario, was a 2D platformer/RPG hybrid instead of a traditional RPG and replaced partners with Pixls. While the game's story is well-regarded, the completely different and gimmicky gameplay put a lot of people off.
      • The fourth game on the Nintendo 3DS, Paper Mario: Sticker Star, brought back the turn-based battle system from the first two games, but eschewed both plot and original characters in favor of a Lighter, Softer, more simplistic Excuse Plot and only used pre-existing characters from the main Mario universe (with the exception of Kersti, the only original character in Sticker Star, as well as a few nods to characters from the past games), to the point where you could essentially call it "New Super Mario Bros. RPG". Also, the turn-based system itself was stripped down with the removal of partners and leveling up in favor of sticker-based combat. And Bowser is now The Voiceless, much to the dismay of those who enjoyed his quips in the previous three games and the Mario & Luigi series. The smaller plot and lack of original characters was done at the request of Shigeru Miyamoto, who accused the beta of being too similar to The Thousand-Year Door. Ironically, many unhappy fans accused the game of not being similar enough.
      • The same criticism has come for Paper Mario: Color Splash with fans calling it a "clone of Sticker Star" (though most admit that it at least improves on Sticker Star's excesses) and concluding that a game similar to The Thousand-Year Door will not happen unless Tanabe is replaced as the director.
      • The issue has become a full-on Broken Base as of Paper Mario: The Origami King. Most at least agree that it's a continued step in the right direction after Sticker Star and Color Splash, but fans of the first two games believe that the new direction is still inferior to the originals, while the new style has picked up its own fans that accuse the first group of being blinded by nostalgia. It was also revealed around the game's release that Executive Meddling is partly to blame, and the dev team is effectively banned from using certain types of characters that were central to the first two games.
    • When Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga was remade for Nintendo 3DS, many of the more cartoonish animations were toned down, and those who played original game felt the remake lost most of its charm because of it.
  • Super Smash Bros. Melee is known for its fast-paced duels involving very technical combos, along with exploits such as lag-canceling and wavedashing. All of that was changed in Brawl, which was designed to be less reflex-demanding; the gameplay is slower, the physics don't allow for the combos that worked in Melee, and wavedashing and lag-canceling from were removed. Some were also disappointed at the removal of certain features or characters, like Race to the Finish and Mewtwo, although most of these had some kind of replacement (Subspace Emissary, Lucario). Granted, not everyone's happy with the replacement. It's worth noting that Lucario isn't a direct replacement. Evidence in the game's code shows that both Mewtwo and Lucario were considered for the game at some point.
    • More examples from Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U . Corrin from Fire Emblem Fates was just added in, making that six Fire Emblem characters smashing together, possibly due to the recent popularity of Awakening and Fates. Fans were less than pleased with the inclusion to the point that some have said that they will never play Smash Bros. again! And perhaps nothing made fans more angry than the somewhat suspicious inclusion of Cloud Strife from Final Fantasy VII, as cries of "Sellout!" quickly followed. Hell, and would you believe that there have been some cries for Sakurai to be fired? Seriously, just go to the comment sections on Nintendo news sites and other big name gaming sites on articles about Smash 4, and count how many comments are among the lines of "I liked Smash Bros. BEFORE Smash 4."
    • The first game in the Smash bros series contained a simple "Classic Mode" where you face various challenges ending with a fight against Master Hand. Melee improved on this with the All-Star and Classic Modes along with the "Adventure Mode" containing several platforming areas and unique challenges ending with a fight against Bowser and a hidden fight against Giga Bowser. Then came Brawl, and the opinion of the Smash community for "Subspace Emissary" is greatly mixed. The side that had been vocal over their displeasure explained that clearing SSE to get all the characters was an extremely long slog, and the changes to a platforming beat-em-up with bosses and various smash fights ultimately ruined it. Then came Smash 4 where the game was criticized for not having a mode similar to SSE. Finally comes Smash Ultimate with "World of Light" and suddenly that is worse than SSE, with detractors stating that WoL is just a series of challenge fights, and that said mode is even more lengthy than SSE. This time, fans of SSE came out with disappointment that WoL has a barebones story comprised of three cutscenes and no explanation regarding the villains. While Tabuu was not well explained either, arguments pointed out that Galeem and Dharkon basically come out of nowhere, sit still for the remainder of the game while you slowly beat numerous challenges, then you fight Galeem and Dharkon and the spirits fly off into space... the end.
  • Certain die-hard fans of the first two System Shock games were displeased with how BioShock turned out, complaining that it was "dumbed down" for more mainstream audiences via streamlining certain aspects of the game (such as making the player a jack of all trades rather than leading it down a more specialized path).
    • BioShock 2 and BioShock Infinite also received flak for being dumb-downed versions of their predecessors. Infinite gets this to a lesser extent than 2, which included a multiplayer mode, something many fans consider to be antithetical to BioShock's single player, narrative-driven appeal.
  • Inverted if unbeknownst to the fanbase with the official translation of the GBA re-release of Tales of Phantasia, which is hated by the fans of the DeJap translation of the SNES version for being more accurate, and not containing a bunch of adult humor that was never in the original. Also played straight with the reaction to not use the romanization in the Japanese version There's also the whole "Ragnarok/Kangaroo" thing, but other then a couple errors it's a largely faithful translation (almost boringly so).
  • Team Fortress 2 is in an interesting position: Valve constantly adds content to the game, which ships automatically with regular updates and cannot be opted out of. The addition of unlockable weapons that sometimes function very differently from the defaults and gave experienced players more gameplay options was the big one. Every new set of unlockables deviates further from the defaults ("items" in place of weapons, multiple options for the same slot, etc.), giving players a new reason to complain every time.
    • Valve always tweaks the game's mechanics from time to time to fix balance issues; players who favored a suddenly-nerfed or otherwise altered weapon or whole class will inevitably be upset.
      • Players also complained a few times when a weapon wasn't really nerfed or buffed, but instead turned into something totally different. Especially so if the weapon was something that they had invested a lot of time in practicing, only for that practice to go to waste.
    • The May 2009 update added hats to the game, which have absolutely no effect on gameplay whatsoever. As Valve made their fortune on those and added more and more cosmetic items to the game, fans complained that the game was becoming "Hat Fortress 2".
    • Some fans were also angered by the release of the "Jarate", a secondary weapon sidegrade for the Sniper. It is a throwable jar of urine that debuffs enemies, detects invisible Spies, and extinguishes fire from teammates. It was announced on April Fools that year but when it was revealed to be a real weapon, players complained about the toilet humor.
    • Let's not forget all of the hat drama with the halo. When players started getting free items just for playing without having to win, players started idling (entering a server, then doing nothing and getting free items anyway), a practice that Valve has made many attempts to stop but never did. When players started to use programs designed to idle, Valve considered this a cheat, and in September 2009, they decided to delete all the items from players who used idling programs, and rewarded everyone else with the "Cheater's Lament". The community went berserk and some players refused to help out teammates who had the Cheater's Lament and vice versa, and some servers even banned players depending on whether they had the Cheater's Lament.
    • When the Mac update rolled out, the front page's layout changed. I'm sure you can guess what everyone said about it.
    • September 2010 had one of the most controversial updates, on par with that of the introduction of hats and weapon sidegrades. When Valve added the Mann Co. Store (where players could use real money to buy virtual weapons and cosmetic items), players complained that now those who paid extra money would have an unfair advantage over those who refused to pay. Valve made sure to avoid that as all weapons (except some promotional items, which are purely cosmetic and function exactly like the stock counterparts) are obtainable through "random drops". This is further balanced by the fact that hardly any of the unlockable weapons are ever straight upgrades, and are sometimes even seen as inferior to the stock weapons. This update also allowed trading between players, so it's possible to get anything without spending a cent.
      • The game also introduced Mann Co. Supply Crates and the Mann Co. Supply Crate Keys. The crates are free items that players can get just by playing, but to open them, they need to buy Keys with real money. The prizes are weapons, cosmetics, and occasionally very rare "Unusual" hats that have particle effects, but this new system also made players unhappy because of a new way to scam players and also fill their inventories with unwanted items. It helped that in the early days, weapons that came in these crates were the same you could get for free and there was a huge risk to get low-tier items, but when "Strange"-quality weapons were introduced (weapons that worked just like the regular ones, but have a counter that tracks the amount of enemy players you kill), they were seen as a way for Valve to make even more money.
      • This update also added "Item Sets", meaning that wearing a specific combination of certain cosmetics while wielding specific weapons gave the wearer perks such as higher maximum health. This was seen as "paying to win", and after much backlash Item Set Bonuses were removed from the game. They were instead replaced with Calling Cards, a purely cosmetic effect where killing an enemy player while wearing an Item Set produces a gravestone.
    • The June 2011 'Uber Update' added a pile of new weapons and gear and made the game Free-to-Play with any financial investment being purely optional. While the game had been inexpensive (retailing on Steam for around 10 USD) for a long time, the free-to-play line brought in a deluge of new players. Many veterans complained about the sudden influx of incompetent, novice players undermining the teamwork aspects of the game or crowding up the max headcount on beloved servers. Others felt the opposite way, reveling in the herds of inept novices running around ripe for the slaughter. Interestingly, the update also revived many of the long-since-forgotten They Changed it Now it Sucks! comments from when TF2 first came out, as hardened TFC players come see what the game is all about now that it's free and feel out of place. Some people were simply mad that the game they had paid for was now free, denouncing this as a dirty and underhanded tactic by Valve to steal their money. They demanded refunds, and claimed they never would have paid for the game in the first place if they had known it would be free eventually. This even included people who had been playing since the game released four years earlier.
    • On September 2011, Steam Trading was released, a feature where players could trade items between each other without being stuck into a single game. Players could trade items from many different games at once, and Team Fortress 2 was included. The old trading system that required you to start the game was removed; players could even trade actual games they bought on Steam as gifts for game items, but some players complained that Valve was going too far to allow people to trade virtual hats for games.
    • The Mann vs. Machine Update brought about a whole slew of new complaints despite it not affecting any part of the existing game. Most notably, several people complained that Valve finally made a game mode where you had to pay to play; Mann Up. What makes this one particularly head-bashing-in-y is the fact that Valve released a FAQ along with the update to specifically state that the Boot Camp version was every way identical, gameplay wise, to Mann Up. The only difference was that in Mann Up you got a item drop at the end of it in return for having paid, as well as having a tick mark next to a special badge you got. It didn't help matters that two achievements were mislabeled as needing Mann Up to achieve (but they have since been changed).
    • In June 2014, the game added new taunts. This update added the Conga, which makes your character conga. What made this taunt unique is that any player, regardless of whether they are in possession of the conga taunt, can join in... including enemy players! Some players were extremely annoyed by this, because now everyone was dancing instead of shooting each other like they were supposed to... but didn't stop more similar dance taunts to come.
    • Basically, TF2 was only good when you started playing. Every update since then has ruined the game entirely by introducing horrible things into the game like variety and unfamiliarity. Someone might do the unspeakable and catch you off guard with a weapon you're not familiar countering and ruin your K/D ratio FOREVER!
    • Also, fans of the original Team Fortress mod and Team Fortress Classic have HATED Team Fortress 2 ever since its final aesthetic style and game design decisions were unveiled — namely the new cartoony look (to draw attention away from the game's less realistic aspects such as Rocket Jumping great lengths and heights yet being unable to vault over a three foot-high fence) and removal of grenades (to emphasize individual class abilities and make it easier for new players to get into the game). Luckily, the Half-Life 2 mod Fortress Forever exists for people who want to play the original, or something very close to it, with more modern graphics.
    • High-level TFC play relied on exploiting physics and mechanics. In the early days, TFC was fairly close to the game's intended design. However, as time went on, more and more exploits were found. For example, the "Medic" class was more likely to be found flying around the map running the flag than actually healing people. Valve's Team Fortress 2 is essentially an attempt to recreate Team Fortress Classic as it was originally designed, not as the game became after exploiters ran rampant. Having played TFC in the days before bunny hopping and the like took over, TF2 is more like TFC than Fortress Forever or any other attempt by the old guard to recreate Team Fortress.
    • There's a mod in development for TF2 that re-adds grenades into the game.
  • Tetris fans who grew up with Nintendo's 1989 Game Boy version tend to dismiss later versions of Tetris strictly because they don't have the "A-Type theme", even if the version has new content on top of what Game Boy Tetris offers. If not that, then the games being made easier and much faster.
  • To keep with the whole Magic to Steampunk shift in the game's background, Thief II: The Metal Age replaced the scary zombies of Thief Dark Project with extremely creepy automatons. Gameplay-wise, they fit the exact same niche: both made a lot of creepy noise, both were very hard to kill, and both were very slow (to be fair, the automatons managed to be a real danger since some were fitted with cannons, while zombies only had creepiness to their name and could be outwalked). Then the game was released. Then the forums started spewing toxic ash and lava. Also, they completely removed the Burricks (cute little acid-spitting dinos), but that's a goddamn crime.
  • Despite Tiny Tina's Wonderlands being specifically stated to not be a Borderlands game, it is set in the same universe, uses several of the characters, and has the exact same gun system as the other titles. The major changes to spells, added melee weapons, dchoosing classes and sub classes, and the other equipment you can equip do set it apart somewhat from the other titles, but because of the glaring similarities has some diehard fans of the original formula upset at the inclusion of an Overworld, random battles, and the Chaos Chamber in place of True Vault Hunter Mode. Despite the detractors, Gearbox stated the game was a great financial success and intend to support it with additional DLC releases, however even these drew some complaints as they aren't full campaigns like in other Borderlands titles, but rather short half-hour challenge runs that end in a boss fight.
  • Tomb Raider:
    • While almost universally regarded as an improvement on at least the last couple of games before it, Tomb Raider: Legend saw a lot of contention among both the fanbase and others, for very linear level design, easy puzzles, too much action and spoon-feeding sidekicks. Along with some considering Lara's changed personality too much in the direction of Lighter and Softer... and accusations of her getting too much character development (really).
    • Tomb Raider: Anniversary went a long way to satisfying those irritated by most of the above things, but causes some division over certain character design and storyline changes from the game it is based off. Plus there are certain room cuts that are near-impossible to defend as anything other than being due to time constraints; especially when they contrast with brilliantly remade sections.
    • While well-received Tomb Raider (2013) has its share of detractors, who feel the change in combat and mechanics, as well as the tonal shift and changes to Lara's character are not a fit with the older games' style.
  • If you are to believe the forums, there are only three groups of Total War players: those who played the first two games and don't like the new engine because they're anal-retentive wrinkled tossers who can't deal with change; those who discovered the series with Rome and are therefore brain-dead console jocks and SEGA fanboys who wouldn't know bad design if it shat in their eyes from a great height and should therefore go back to Counter-Strike; and those who are adamant that only Shogun exists and anyone who disagrees with them most probably walks on their knuckles.
  • It's almost a given that any time a new update is made to Urban Dead, any of three groups (the pro-survivor faction, the pro-zombie faction, and the PKer faction) will complain about game balance. Of course, given the high regard most players hold the game's creator in, they'll instead tear into one another for having made "bad suggestions."
  • Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning has already begun to receive vast amounts of flak from various elements of the fandom for making alterations to the plot of Warhammer Fantasy, ostensibly to facilitate gameplay. In all fairness, Warhammer Fantasy/40K players are possibly the whiniest anywhere, complaining when any change is or isn't made (the Rhino Rush was a huge example of this. Players didn't like the fact that it was possible in 3rd Edition, and then when 4th Edition came around and removed it, the very God Damned same players complained at its removal).
    • It took big flak when they made several classes male-only (only one is female-only, and it's pretty obviously not designed with actual females in mind).
    • Never mind that all but one of these male-only classes are for the Greenskins, who have never been shown to have females outside of the gag Spin-Off Blood Bowl. However, if they had made female Greenskin classes, they would probably have gotten complaints from the same people who complain that the Dwarf classes aren't male-only because of some lore issue. Most complaints are aimed at the Choas male-only (the Chosen and Marauder) because they were planned to have female versions but cut due to time reasons and were praised for being not very fanservicey.
  • Game & Wario. Many people have complained about this game no longer relying on microgames like the WarioWare titles used to, and instead using full-fledged minigames. It's called Game & Wario for a reason, in case you haven't noticed. Never mind that WarioWare games have always had minigames like these. Pyoro, for example.
    • However, 9-Volt and 18-Volt's stage, Gamer, is focused on playing microgames. Watch out when you're playing as 9-Volt, though...
      • But 18-Volt can still play them regularly, so let's not act like all is lost.
    • Some character designs, namely Mona, are getting slammed for being a "de-evolution" of the art style.
    • One major flip side of this is that it actually does more with the other characters in the series. Too bad most of the same people who complained are also the ones who claim to be fans of the characters. (If anyone actually cared about Ashley, they'd play her stage in this game all the time.)
      • Not only that, but even the original WarioWare title for GBA had a few character-centric minigames. Even from the beginning, they were always good for something.
    • Above all else, the Iwata Asks has confirmed that this was not even trying to be a WarioWare game at first. Almost a new IP where every level was connected with a story, but that didn't work for them and they decided to put the Wario characters on it instead.
  • A lot of Webkinz fans were unhappy with what the development team called "Webkinz X", released in July 2015; not only was it just too much for some older computers to handle, there was also the dumbing down of some of the game's concepts (pets can no longer get sick) and the fact that your pet attempts to command you into doing certain activities.
  • The Wii in general has been complained about that there were not enough hardcore games, despite that puzzle games and "casual games" with a staff of maybe 30-100 people can be produced for a fraction of the time and money of a "Hardcore" game with a much larger staff and budget...or that the PC actually is covered in "Casual games" like Diner Dash and Bejeweled and has been since it emerged as a gaming platform.
  • The new XCOM had this originally when the first leaked trailers showed it to be a first person shooter based in the 1950s. In fact, the rage was so powerful that they changed it.
  • X-Universe:
    • Some hardcore players were up in arms over how easy it is to earn money in X3: Terran Conflict compared to previous games in the seriesread as:  ... by doing the entirely optional randomly generated missions.
    • The X fanbase isn't sure it likes the changes made in the latest installment, X: Rebirth. The major complaints are: The game restricts you to flying one roughly corvette-size ship, the Albion Skunk, as opposed to any manned, non-Khaak ship in all its predecessors except the original X: Beyond the Frontier. Some players prefer full-size capital ships, while others like to fly fighters.
    • The Skunk carries attack drones in lieu of space fighters. You can control them remotely, but if the drone you're controlling is destroyed you return to control of the Skunk instead of dying. This takes the danger out of being a fighter jock, for those who enjoy it. The game is only going to be available on Steam, a platform that's divisive to the point where the moderators have basically banned talking about it anywhere but the tech support board.
    • An honorable mention goes to the minor Flame War that ensued over a rumor that Rebirth would be an MMORPG. ("It'll be an EVE clone!" "No it won't! It'll expand the player base!" "No it won't! It'll wreck the modding community!") By far the biggest worry was that it would open the noob-friendly X community to griefers and other such trolls who pwn noobs For the Evulz and then brag about it over public channels. Thankfully the flames promptly dissipated when Egosoft stopped laughing long enough to confirm the rumor was false.
  • Yakuza: Like a Dragon was met with skepticism for its rather dramatic Genre Shift going from an open-world beat-em-up to a turn-based RPG. That said, the series may have never considered turning into an RPG if people didn't express interest in wanting to play a Yakuza RPG from seeing the April Fool's video, and the creator was willing to change the mainline series back if the game wasn't well-received. That said, it's managed to avert this trope. People who were still longing for the old style of games were at least relieved that its spin-off series, Judgment, would continue its beat-em-up tradition.
  • Zuma Blitz: The Facebook game relaunched with a new version called Kroakatoa Island in September 2012. A lot of players on both the official forum and their Facebook page are complaining that they want to go back to the old version, largely because the ability to earn mojo (currency) during games to buy power ups has been removed. Mojo, coconuts and idols have all been combined into one currency, coins, which are only earned on level up. Cue cries of this trope. It was officially shut down on March 31, 2017, and ended up being a Franchise Killer, as there hasn't been a new Zuma game since.

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