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Later Installment Weirdness / Video Games

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  • The first two games in the Bomberman clone Bomb It series starred robots. Bomb It 3 experimented with human characters, but it didn't take — future games went back to the robots and never looked back.
  • The Call of Duty series started out in a World War II setting until Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, the game in which the series mostly abandoned its WWII roots in favor of contemporary, near-future or even downright sci-fi settings, to the point that when the series finally returned to its original setting 9 years after the last outing, it had to specifically mention it in the title.
  • The ClueFinders:
    • 6th grade and Search and Solve featured only two "worlds", whereas previous games (Sans Math 9-12) featured three.
    • The Incredible Toy Store Adventure only featured one "World", both teams were gathering resources (Though only Joni&Owen traveled, Leslie&Santiago only did one challenge) and thus took turns giving hints. Additionally, Ali-trap (seen in Reading as a "Little Trap") accompanied the team.
      • The Incredible Toy Store Adenture (As well as Mystery Mansion Arcade) had different voice actors.
    • 6th grade and Reading 9-12 also used way more CGI and were darker in tone. Almost disturbingly so.
    • In the grade-based titles and Math Adventures, the sign-in screen is presented as a kind of contract in which you are putting your name down to help the ClueFinders on their adventure despite all the danger it will undoubtedly entail. This concept is dropped from Reading Adventures onwards, and Incredible Toy Store Adventure redesigns the sign-in screen entirely.
  • DanceDanceRevolution:
    • The 2013 DDR game no longer causes Goods to break combos or decrease "battery" life meters, which can come off as a shock to longtime fans of the series.
    • Games up to DanceDanceRevolution SuperNOVA use tracks from the Dancemania album series for licensed songs, due to the series at the time being a partnership with Toshiba EMI (now EMI Music Japan) which produced Dancemania; the idea being that DDR is a means through which the Dancemania albums are publicized. Additionally, because EMI handled the soundtracks for these games, licensed tracks could be included on DDR soundtracks. As such, it can come off as a shock to play newer DDR games, as 1. those games use largely different sources for licensed songs, and 2. these games do not have licensed songs on their soundtracks.
  • Etrian Odyssey:
    • Etrian Odyssey V: Beyond the Myth, despite harkening back to the traditional floor-to-floor gameplay progression from the first three games after the fourth installment (Legends of the Titan) overhauled it by distributing the dungeons across an added overworld and the Untold remakes took a story-centric approach with pre-defined characters, has some major anomalies that make it stand out from both the traditional entries and the non-standard ones:
      • It is the only installment in the series to lack the three signature Elemental Dragons that served as Optional Bosses in previous games. They're replaced by all-new opponents. This also means the classic Superboss music theme of the series ("Scatter About") is absent — this game's superbosses use instead a remixed version of the sea battle theme of The Drowned City (also heard in Legends of the Titan during mini-boss battles).
      • The sub-classing system from previous games (which allowed party characters to add a secondary class to complement their primary class and earn extra abilities) is eschewed in favor of the Legendary Title system: Each class can now be extended into one of two branches, each having its set of skills and features, after the second boss of the game is defeated. It is not possible to have both branches at a time, and the only way to switch from one branch to the other is by giving the character a rest (which is penalized by lowering their current level by two).
      • The weapon forging system works differently. In previous games, by collecting special hammers in the strata or mazes, it was possible to imbue attributes (like the ability to inflict a specific ailment, elemental input, or higher critical hit rate to enemies and bosses, or raising slightly a particular stat to the wielder) to existing weapons as long as they had available slots. Here, in absence of the hammers, it's no longer possible to imbue anything external to weapons; forging now increases the attack stats (physical and elemental) of the weapon, raising its level by one. It can be raised to up to Level 5, and it's no longer strictly necessary to apply the materials that were used to craft the weapon in the first place: If you run out of the required material(s) and don't feel like grinding, you can use metal-based ingots instead (be warned that those are rare, so it's best to only use them for weapons crafted with very rare materials). This change is retained in Nexus.
      • On a cosmetic level, the gameplay interface eschews the style used in all past games in favor of one that would not look out of place in a science fiction or Solar Punk game (especially considering the futuristic theme of the fifth and sixth strata), with heavy use of rounded edges and sans-serif fonts. This interface style is kept (sans a few changes) in Nexus.
      • Character customization has been greatly expanded on. Not only can you choose eye, hair, and skin color, but you can choose the former two color categories with RGB sliders, unlike in past games where each character design has only one alternate palette. You can also assign voices to characters; while the Untold games also have voices, they are only for Story Mode characters and not your made-from-scratch Classic Mode characters.
      • The TEC stat, which determines magic attack and magic defense, was split into two new stats, INT for magic attack and WIS for magic defense.
    • Etrian Odyssey Nexus: Many of its oddities can be chalked up to being a Megamix Game, but one that particularly stands out are how geomagnetic poles work in this game. In past games, they serve as save points and warps back to town. In Nexus, however, the poles are used to travel to new locations and only appear in Shrines, rather than in every major dungeon.
  • Fatal Fury:
    • Garou: Mark of the Wolves did away with the plane-shifting mechanic (where characters could sidestep into the background or foreground to dodge and counter attacks) present throughout the rest of the series, making it play more like a King of Fighters game than a Fatal Fury game. Real Bout Fatal Fury 2 eased into this somewhat, however, as some stages had no extra planes.
    • Real Bout Fatal Fury introduced Ring Outs, where a player could smash their opponent against the edge of the stage until they break through a barrier and fall out of the ring. This mechanic was immediately dropped in Real Bout Fatal Fury 2.
    • Real Bout Fatal Fury 2 is incredibly stripped down in terms of presentation. No pre-battle or victory quotes, no intro animations, a victory animation only at the end of the fight, and a very quick and generic stage transition and vs. screen. The game feels like it's trying to rush you through fights as quickly as possible.
  • Final Fantasy VII Remake doesn't feature any character named Cid nor is the name Cid ever mentioned. The original Final Fantasy VII had a Cid, but he was introduced halfway through the game, and the remake only adapts the Midgar arc. Since the game is going to get two sequels which will recount arcs after Midgar, Cid is most certainly going to appear in at least one of them, but still, the change from a multiple-disc game to a full-on trilogy released separately made the remake the first game released after Final Fantasy II that doesn't feature any Cid whatsoever.
  • Final Fantasy XIV:
    • Shadowbringers was heavily beloved, but even it had a few flaws, and there was one thing that shocked and disappointed many fans: the new Gunbreaker and Dancer jobs had little to no awesome-looking gear for anything below level 60, and even then the only level 60 gear you get is the stuff they start with (which are simply recolors of existing gear) and the Shire gear from the very end of Heavensward, so fans couldn't get gunblades who chirp "Kupo!" upon unsheathing or chakrams infused with the power of Nidhogg. At the very least, the PvP gear helps to alleviate this issue somewhat.
    • Shadowbringers likewise eschews the Deep Dungeon and Hildibrand side content (a staple since Heavensward and A Realm Reborn respectively) in exchange for different content like the Ishgard Restoration Project (one of the first pieces of content to focus heavily on crafting classes since the Ixal beast tribe quests before Heavensward) and group fishing on a boat.
    • Shadowbringers also came with some major changes to the combat system, chief among them a rebalance to MP - now every class has a flat cap of 10,000 and every spell that uses it uses a fixed amount, rather than both fluctuating and increasing as you gain levels and put on better gear - as well as the removal or simplification of several skills and mechanics, even if the class once heavily relied on them (Machinist no longer having its ammo-management mechanic or any penalty for letting their weapon overheat too much, Astrologian's card-drawing buffs were simplified into simple damage boosts for either ranged or melee-focused classes) or the skill is a Final Fantasy staple (healers can no longer use Protect — something the devs were planning on removing in an earlier expansion, but didn't do so because it's such an iconic spell).
  • Five Nights at Freddy's 4 from the Five Nights at Freddy's series manages to completely reverse much of the series formula. In this game, the Player Character is not a security guard on night shift, but a little boy in his own bedroom. As such, there's no camera system to keep an eye on the animatronics, nor any finicky electronic tools to ward them off; the boy has to move from his starting position to check his bed, closet, and hallways to keep the animatronics from attacking. Whereas previous games in the series challenged the player's reflexes, this game challenges the player's patience.
  • F-Zero 99:
    • The Boost works similar to its appearance in F-Zero: GP Legend, where it takes Power but lasts a set duration. Unlike other F-Zero games, Boost OK occurs immediately upon starting the first lap.
    • To accommodate the significantly higher number of players, online races have an introductory segment prior to the start of the first lap where all racers start from the same position to give them a level starting field. The end of the intro segment launches the players onto the track proper to start the race. The only times this is removed are during the "F-Zero 25" and "F-Zero 50" portions of the early tutorial, as well as the final race of a Grand Prix (by which point only 20 racers remain). In said cases, the racers present line up behind the starting line just like in the original game in reverse order of rank.
    • In the first F-Zero game, being Ranked Out would have your machine come to a slow stop as the screen goes black. In 99, ranking out has a ship capture your machine, removing it from the race entirely.
    • Collision Damage and the effects of collisions are much lower compared to other F-Zero games, as the incredibly high number of players sharing the same space means that the track is incredibly cramped and thus next to impossible to go more than a few seconds without bumping into something.
  • Game & Watch: Of the twelve titles released after 1985, eight of them have only one game mode: the last two Multi-Screen games Gold Cliff and Zelda and both Crystal and New Wide Screen versions of Super Mario Bros., Climber and Balloon Fight. Gold Cliff and Zelda, two of the last games in the series, are the only ones with a Continue option.
  • Hitman: Absolution was where the Hitman franchise took a rather strange turn; whereas Blood Money was a wide open sandbox with stealth elements galore, filled with plenty of Replay Value, Absolution was Actionized Sequel with more mechanics leaning towards scripted gameplay events and cinematic moments. The story goes from Conspiracy Thriller and Spy Fiction, into a grindhouse-flavored direction, with increased emphasis on Hollywood-style action and sex appeal. This direction, while it actually did make the game fairly popular among casual audiences, strongly divided critics and dedicated Hitman fans, and it seems that even IO Interactive consider this a failed experiment in retrospect, as their next game went back to basics and iterated upon the gameplay of Blood Money, with the role of Absolution being relegated to using the same engine, retooling Instinct and reintegrating the secondary improvements that game brought. The game is still considered partly canonical, interestingly enough, but IOI have kept schtum on what degree.
  • jubeat's online matching used to put you in multiplayer score attack rounds with other players playing the same song, which is to be expected...but then jubeat clan changes matching so that the people you match with may not be playing the same song.
  • The King of Fighters:
  • Kirby:
    • Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards, the final game in the "Dark Matter Trilogy" (a series of Kirby games directed by Shinichi Shimomura that feature Kirby repeatedly battling a mysterious entity known as "Dark Matter"), notably replaces the Animal Friends, who had defined the gameplay style of the previous two games in the trilogy, with the ability to combine Copy Abilities. The game also uses a 2.5D visual presentation rather than a 2D one, features a far more in-depth story than previous titles (using cutscenes between each world to show different parts of the adventure), and is set on multiple planets rather than being limited to Pop Star. As for the cast, the protagonists are much more varied and elaborate, with the use of narrative cutscenes allowing for the main and supporting cast to be better expanded upon; previous entries limited the protagonists to Kirby and the Animal Friends (and Gooey), who were noticeably flatter due to the more minimalist storytelling of Dream Land 2 and Dream Land 3. Overall, it's a very different game than previous Shimomura titles.
    • Games directed from Shinya Kumazaki's era onwards, would feature a permanent return to Super Star's ability movesets, as Dark Matter and Game Boy Advance onwards titles would still stick with mostly one attack abilities. In Return to Dream Land onwards, bosses would return to having two phases in their battles as Dream Land 3 and Kirby 64 would show. All the games forwards would start your player off with 7 lives instead of three or two.
    • Kirby Star Allies: Despite reusing the same engine and ability philosophy as previous games, Star Allies would deviate in major ways such as returning to the helper formula of Super Star, and placing a much bigger emphasis on Elemental Abilities and helpers, as various level puzzles will require the player to recruit a specific team of critters to claim its reward. The game's structure showed a major revamp, nixing the previous three games' formula of 7/6 thematic worlds with one boss on its end, now resorting to treating each world like a story chapter and featuring multiple bosses per world, as well as limiting the story to 4 worlds, closer to Super Star's subgame story formula. In addition, the Arena is replaced by The Ultimate Choice which features a difficulty slider that determines which bosses you fight. As of the final update, beating Soul Melter and clearing Heroes in Another Dimension gives you a password and punching this in on The Ultimate Choice screen with the difficulty set to Soul Melter unlocks Soul Melter EX which contains the True Final Boss, Void.
  • The Legend of Zelda:
    • The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword has a few oddities in relation to previous games in the series. Link starts with six hearts instead of three, his dash motion is regulated by a stamina meter, and the dungeons have all their own entrance cutscenes, lack compasses (the maps retain their properties) and boss keys (replaced instead with special objects that have to be assembled correctly into the boss gates). It's also the only Zelda game since the NES and SNES games where certain bosses are fought more than once, and one of the only ones along with The Adventure of Link and Majora's Mask where the Boomerang doesn't exist as an item (the Beetle serves its function instead). The exploration of the overworld's areas are more puzzle-based, as in the dungeons, and the saving process is relied on Bird Statues instead of a pause menu feature. Lastly, it's the second game (after Phantom Hourglass) to have a Real-Time Weapon Change, and the first to display an Inventory Management Puzzle for secondary items like bottles, shields and ammunition bags. Since the game still plays functionally like the others in the series, it's still far from an Oddball in the Series.
    • The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds gives Link access to nearly all items from Ravio's shop with the exception of the Sand Rod (which at first is being used by another character), not from the dungeons. Instead of getting them at certain points in the story for free, like you normally would, you have to rent the equipment (cheaper, but you lose it if you die) or buy it (each item is 800 to 1200 rupees). While all dungeons past the first four do have treasure items, they're of the Quest Status category (Blue Mail, Master Ore pieces, etc.); and since each dungeon's layout is already present for view on the 3DS's touch screen, only the Compass is in need of being collected to locate the treasure chests (as opposed to Skyward Sword having only the map). Lastly, A Link Between Worlds is the first game since A Link to the Past to have more than nine dungeons, and the saving process is based on using Bird Statues. It also allows players to tackle the main set of dungeons in any order they please, instead of following the more linear story structure the series usually employs.
    • The Legend of Zelda: Tri Force Heroes not only uses the mission-based levels of the Four Swords games, it also has a setting very much at odds with the rest of the series. There is no world-ending threat, just a princess in a fashionably questionable body sock which she seems to change her mind about in the end who got cursed by a witch out of petty jealousy or maybe not — there's some hints she may have genuinely wanted to help but had poor fashion sense. Many of the traditional elements like Heart Containers and permanent upgrades that even Four Swords had have been left out as well.
    • The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is odd in numerous ways.
      • Much of its weirdness comes from revisiting Early-Installment Weirdness, where the overworld is basically open to explore but different areas have their own Beef Gate. Dungeons can be completed in whatever order (baring rare instances of needing a specific item or ability to get in) and lots more secrets and hidden areas are said to be present.
      • Unlike nearly ever other Zelda game, which require collecting specific items to win the day, players can finish the tutorial, then quite literally immediately glide over to the final boss, potentially ending the game in an hour or two. Granted, this is an incredibly difficult task if you aren't already familiar with the game's combat and mechanics, but it is possible to defeat Calamity Ganon from the very beginning of the adventure.
      • Most puzzles in the Zelda series have only one solution. Breath of the Wild changes the formula—while certain key story beats must be done in a particular way, nearly every single puzzle or challenge has multiple solutions that allow the player to experiment until they find a method that works for them. For example, when faced with brambles that must be burned, Link might cut a rope holding a lantern to set them on fire, carry a lit torch to the spot, use fire-based weapons to light the flame, or lure an enemy with fire-conjuring abilities to do the work for him. The game encourages this kind of outside-the-box thinking, and it's clear that no two players will complete the adventure in the same way.
      • Besides that, it also eschews a lot of items in favor of upgrades to the Sheikah Slate; and even then, the player has most of their important abilities by the time they've completed the tutorial. Weapons are acquired off the field as opposed to a standard sword that is always carried with Link (in other Zelda titles sometimes Link can pick up weapons from enemies but only as a temporary supplement to his primary weapon and he won't be able to use it anywhere but in the local area) and have limited durability (in the past only shields had durability ratings).
      • The game also requires players to pay close attention to the environment, which will kill you if you are not prepared. The temperature, time of day, geography, and weather must all be considered when setting out for a new area (exploring a desert means surviving scorching heat that will drain your health, for example). Players must either use item crafting (in the form of elixirs and foods that prevent adverse effects) or equip armor sets that offer protection against various dangers—and even then, the base-level equipment isn't enough to help. Instead, Link must restore Great Fairies hidden across the land and use their own brand of magic (another type of item crafting) to upgrade his armor to offer permanent shielding against cold, heat, and fire.
      • Finally, dungeons (long the primary focus of the series) are downplayed in favor of a larger, deeper overworld. There are only five main story dungeons (plus a huge number of much smaller, more focused shrines), and they have noticeably less focus, scale, and variety compared to previous installments, with the vast majority of gameplay focused on exploring and traveling across the overworld instead. All dungeons except Hyrule Castle also end up becoming permanently inaccessible when cleared, something that rarely happened in past titles.
  • The first few Medal of Honor games were about members of La Résistance in Europe and/or OSS members fighting the Germans behind enemy lines, usually in the form of a Stealth-Based Mission. Starting with Medal of Honor: Allied Assault however, it became more actionized, complete with fighting on the frontline alongside American Paratroopers and Army Rangers. Then the final few installments, namely Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault, Medal of Honor: Vanguard and Medal of Honor: Airborne, removed the OSS and Resistance aspect entirely, and instead focused on elite soldiers and Marines fighting in Europe and The Pacific, with nary a Stealth mission seen... and then the series performed a Time Skip (even having characters that were descendants of those who appeared on the first games) and managed two games set during The War on Terror (Medal of Honor (2010) and Medal of Honor: Warfighter, which was also more arcade-style in gameplay) before seemingly giving up the ghost.
  • Mega Man:
    • Mega Man 8 removed a lot of staple features in the Classic series, including Rush Coil and Jet (the only time Rush Jet appears is in an Unexpected Shmup Level, while Rush Coil is replaced by Tornado Hold and a secret secondary function for the Mega Ball) with Rush gaining brand new modes instead, and doing away with E Tanks. It was also the first and only time (discounting the infamous DOS games) that Mega Man was able to swim underwater instead of sinking like a rock. All of these changes were reverted in Mega Man 9 and 10, but at the expense of two other mainstay mechanics: sliding and the Charge Shot.
    • Mega Man 11 has a heavier focus on story and character development than most other Classic-series games, but is also the first 2½D game in the Classic series, displays Mega Man's Power Copying using a different model instead of a Palette Swap, and features Robot Master bosses that turn red (literally and figuratively) and switch up their patterns and attacks midway through the fight, instead of using the same one all the way, something only seen previously in Mega Man X8 and Mega Man Powered Up.
    • While the previous Game Boy games recycled Robot Masters from the NES games, Mega Man V featured an all new cast of bosses in the form of the Stardroids (who also broke the Something Person naming convention previous bosses had in favor of being named after planets), introduced Tango the cat as a new robot animal companion, and replaced Mega Man's Charge Shot with the Mega Arm.
    • As for the music of the Classic series, of all 12 mainline games (including Mega Man & Bass), 11 is the only entry that reuses the same BGM theme for all post-Robot Master stages. Prior to that, 7, 8, 9, and 10 went the extra mile and had different themes composed for each of their corresponding post-RM stages. This is in comparison to the first 6 entries and MM&B, which would have 2 or more stages accompanied by one theme and the other stages would have another.
    • Mega Man X5, meant to be the Grand Finale of the X series, made numerous changes to the X formula. Changes include X's Fourth Armor from the previous game being available from the get-go (albeit with a few Nerfs); multiple armor sets for X that can be swapped out, but also function differently from past games in that all of the parts need to be collected before the armor can be used, instead of being able to wear part of an armor set and get the benefit from that specific piece; the ability to change between X and Zero in a single playthrough, only used previously in X3, in a limited capacity where Zero could only be used once per mission and would be made unavailable if he took too much damage; most of the game being a Timed Mission; the nixing of Heart Tanks in favor of choosing between an upgrade to your max health or max weapon energy after beating a boss, alongside gaining certain equippable parts; the ability to crouch and ride on electric wires and the inability to shoot through walls; the introduction of Alia as Mission Control, who delivers information about the current stage you're on; variable boss HP levels, where bosses will get more health as you get closer to the time limit, but will also drop better parts; and, in the Western localization, once again breaking boss naming conventions in favor of naming bosses after members of Guns N' Roses (though the X Legacy Collection opted to give the X5 bosses names closer to the original Japanese).
    • Mega Man X7 was not only the first 3D entry in the series, but the title character wasn't even playable for most of it (new character Axl took his place instead). Unfortunately, the game (among other glaring issues) is considered to have poorly executed its Video Game 3D Leap, and Mega Man X8 both brought back X as playable from the start (Axl was given some gameplay changes to differentiate him from X) and settled for 2½D gameplay instead.
    • After prior games in the Mega Man Zero series gave the player a multitude of collectible single-use Cyber-Elves that can provide a multitude of boosts when used (though some of them penalize your end-of-level ranking), Mega Man Zero 4 only gave the player a single permanent Cyber-Elf at the start of the game with adjustable persistent boosts, and penalties are only incurred if you make it too powerful. In fact, a lot of Zero 4 is kind of different from the previous three games in general: the Shield Boomerang and Rod weapons are removed in favor of the Z-Knuckle, which lets you strip foes of their weapons or grab on to certain ledges and ropes; elemental chips are gone in favor of making certain EX-skills and stolen weapons with the Z-Knuckle have elemental properties; a boss using their EX-skill for you to copy is dependent on the stage's weather rather than your ranking; you operate from a mobile trailer unit rather than the Resistance base of the previous two games; all eight normal bosses are available from the beginning, rather than in specific sets of four split by the mid-mission stage; even the musical style is different, such as Dr. Weil getting a new leitmotif that is noticeably more bombastic than the ominous one he had before. In a more meta instance, Zero 4 having a proper conclusion also marks the Zero subseries as the first to be allowed to finish properly, compared to previous Mega Man subseries either just being Left Hanging (the Classic series until Mega Man 9, Legends) or given finales that were immediately undone and then leaving the story hanging (Mega Man X5; even Zero was originally supposed to end with 3 the third game).
    • Mega Man Battle Network 6: Cybeast Gregar and Cybeast Falzar adds a secondary elemental wheel, has two entirely separate transformation mechanics instead of just one (with the returning mechanic being heavily reworked), and introduces new folder-building rules such as each chip's MB becoming relevant to the number of copies of said chip can be used. Story-wise, Lan and his family move from ACDC Town at the start of the game.
  • Metroid:
    • Metroid: Other M is highly story-focused with hours of cutscenes and character dialogue, is far more linear and boasts less exploration than any of its predecessors, power ups are gotten by authorization instead of locating them in the environment, and enemies no longer drop collectibles (meaning that Samus has to use Concentration to refill).
    • Metroid Prime: Federation Force is a linear, team-based, mission-based multiplayer FPS with very few puzzle elements, no permanent upgrades (aside from optional MODs), little exploration, and focuses on the Galactic Federation Marine Corps rather than Samus Aran.
  • Monster Hunter: World, in spite of all the changes it makes to traditional series fare — seamless sub-maps, a return to consoles, Drop-In-Drop-Out Multiplayer, more "Westernized" elements, and the like — Capcom has stated that no, it's not a spinoff of Monster Hunter, but the fifth main game in the series. This is attested by many of its changes being carried over to Monster Hunter: Rise instead of just being one-offs. Its differences from previous games include:
    • You can now go on open-ended and self-determined Expeditions that have no time limit, perfect for exploring an unfamiliar area or gathering materials and/or Research Points at your leisure.
    • Sub-areas are now seamless rather than transitioning between loading screens.
    • There's actual voiced English and Japanese dialogue now, where as previous games had human characters Speaking Simlish backed by subtitles. Fans of the original Monster Hunter Language need not despair, you can swap it back through the options menu.
    • Instead of continually tracking down the monster and hitting it with paintballs to mark its location, the player uses "scoutflies" to automatically track the monster by finding footprints, scales, dead carrion and other traces of the monster's presence.
    • Blademasters and Gunners now use the same armour, rather than distinct versions. Equipping a close combat weapon increases physical defence and equipping a bowgun or bow increases elemental defence.
    • Base-camp has been upgraded substantially; you can now restock supplies, change your weapons and armour, and eat at the canteen.
    • You now see colour-coded damage numbers for attacks, providing clues to monster weak spots and letting you see how your weapon's damage compares with another's.
    • Armour skills work differently now. Rather than gear having relevant Skill Points that only activated the skill when you built up enough, simply equipping the armour piece gives you the skill outright. In addition, equipping multiple items with the same skill enhances the skill's effects.
  • Mother 3:
    • While the game still retains the series trademark wackiness, it is also has a lot of much darker content compared to the previous games in the series. For starters, Hinawa, Lucas' mother, is brutally Killed Offscreen in the very first chapter of the game, animal cruelty is played very seriously, the threat the Big Bad presents is much more present than Giygas' was in EarthBound Beginnings and EarthBound, and at the end Lucas' brother, Claus, commits suicide in-battle.
    • The story is structured by chapters, something that was not seen in previous games, and the first 3 chapters take place in a far more rural environment than the modern America-inspired continent in the previous two games. There are many areas in the game in which you are never allowed to return past a certain point as well.
    • The four main characters are not four kids, but a kid, his dog, a teenage princess, and an adult thief. Unlike Ness, Paula, and Jeff, who are expies of Ninten, Ana, and Lloyd respectively, Lucas, Kumatora, and Duster do not resemble the characters from the past game nor share their personality or traits. In regards to Boney, he is the only pet dog in the series that is a permanent party member (King does join Ness during his adventure if the player desires so, but only briefly). You also don't get to play as Lucas until chapter 4.
    • The objective of the game (introduced in chapter 7!) is not to collect 8 different melodies, but to pull the majority of the seven needles that are sealing away the Dark Dragon beneath the Nowhere Islands before the bad guys do so. That said, each needle is guarded by one of the seven Magypsies, whose names are a reference to the seven musical modes in order to keep up with the theme, with these being Aeolia, Doria, Lydia, Frygia, Mixolydia, Ionia, and Locria.
    • The main antagonists are not aliens from outer space, but humans dressed up as pig soldiers, meaning that the iconic Starman enemy is not present in this game, and neither is the series' original Big Bad, Giygas (the latter being understandable given that he was defeated for good at the end of EarthBound).
  • Pac-Man 99: In the Championship Edition games, sleeping ghosts are triggered by passing next to them, causing them to wake up and join the ghost train. In 99, you instead pass through sleeping ghosts to activate them, and ghost trains aren't inherently hostile save for the lead ghost.
  • Persona:
    • Persona 3 was a massive retooling of the franchise. Along with the shift to 3D, it introduced many staples of the series going forward, such as life sim elements, Social Links, All-Out Attacks, randomized dungeons, and the Wild Card and Velvet Room only being accessible to the protagonist instead of everyone in your party. Philemon and Nyarlethotep also disappeared from the story, and the residents of the Velvet Room would all adopt a cohesive style going forward (white hair and yellow eyes, and blue and black clothing) and all be siblings of each other. All the Persona games after the 2 duology are so radically different from their origins they might as well be a different series. Indeed, the series after 3 rarely acknowledges the early games outside of a few subtle nods such as a recurring news segment in 3 and Philemon's butterflies serving as save points in 4.
    • While Shadows were a recurring element in the series ever since 2, defeating and accepting your own Shadow to access your Persona was only a thing in Persona 4.
    • While 3 introduced visible enemy encounters, and allowed you to sneak up on enemies and get a surprise attack in before the fight proper starts, Persona 5 turned it into an entire stealth mechanic, allowing the player to hide behind cover to get the drop on enemies who made patrols like they were in a proper stealth game.
    • In 5 the arcana have a red background with a white outline instead of the blue background and outline used since 3, and feature the subject in the cards doing something humiliating, like the Fool getting bitten by the dog, and Justice taking a bribe, possibly because Yaldabaoth gave them to the protagonist instead of Igor
    • Also in 5, all playable characters now have a melee weapon and a firearm of some sort, whereas in previous games characters only had one weapon that they carried, which might be a gun for certain characters. The melee weapon is infinite use but the firearm has limited ammunition- only two or three reloads per visit to the Cognative World in the vanilla game, updated to one magazine per battle in Royal.
  • Pokémon:
    • While Pokémon Black and White don't change up too much compared to Sun and Moon, they do have some weirdness in them as being the only games besides the Kanto games to only have Pokémon introduced in its generation. They're also the only games where you don't battle the League Champion (Alder) as the final boss. Instead, Ghetsis of Team Plasma serves as the final opponent in the main story. You do get to battle Alder after completing the story, though.
    • Starting in Generation VII, the villain teams are no longer the main antagonists of their respective games, instead being more benign Anti-Villain groups (if even that). Team Skull in Gen VII is a group of Laughably Evil street thugs who aren't taken seriously even in-universe, with their leader being manipulated by the actual Big Bad; Team Yell in Gen VIII are the rowdy fans of one of your rivals with traits of punks and Football Hooligans, and mostly function as NPC Roadblocks; and Team Star in Gen IX mostly consists of outcasts and misfits who became scapegoats for the school's bullying problem, with the conclusion to that plotline seeing the school's principal decide to legitimatize it as an official club.
    • Pokémon Sun and Moon, in addition to replacing the HM system with Ride Pokémon, ditches the "gym" system of previous games in favor of a rite of passage known as the island challenge. Instead of facing eight bosses before facing an Elite Four and Champion, you now do a series of eleven trials where instead of fighting a small number of Trainers before facing a boss, you instead partake in a number of various tasks before hand. And instead of a Trainer, you fight a Totem Pokémon: a powerful, intelligent Pokémon that will call for an ally during battle, placing you into a 2 v. 1 fight. Also unlike Gyms, trials cannot be left once you start them. After completing all the trials on a particular island (except for the last one), you fight the Island Kahuna in a traditional battle before proceeding to the next island. The Pokémon League is done a little differently as well: while battling the Elite Four is the same, after the first two runs the Final Boss is randomly-chosen from a pool of Trainers, since you are the Champion and are now defending your title. The National Pokédex is gone as well, leaving over half the Pokémon without their numbers in their summaries and removing any incentive for catching a lot of post-game only Pokémon. On the subject of the Pokédex, you don't actually get a diploma for completing the Regional Pokédex and the four Island Pokédexes — you get stamps for your Trainer Card indicating their completion instead.
    • Pokémon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon are the first games to introduce entirely new Pokémon in the middle of a generation, that can't be obtained in the original Sun and Moon.
    • Pokémon Let's Go, Pikachu! and Let's Go, Eevee! has this all over the place, especially considering the game is made in the style of Pokémon GO:
      • Random Encounters are out and replaced with Pre-existing Encounters instead. Wild Pokémon battles are also largely taken out (the only ones you get to battle are the two Snorlax, the four Electrode at the Power Plant masquerading as items, and the Legendary Pokémon) and the game instead uses the catching minigame from Pokémon GO as the main method to capture new Pokémon.
      • Local Co-Op Multiplayer is introduced for the first time, allowing a second player to drop in with a second Joy-Con and play the main campaign alongside the primary player and participate in Double Battles.
      • You now carry a Box to store Pokémon with you via your Bag in addition to the six Pokémon you carry on-hand. In other games, Boxes were restricted exclusively to the PC.
    • Pokémon Sword and Shield expanded on a few of the changes introduced in Generation VII, combining the traditional Random Encounters with Let's Go's Pre-existing Encounters. But in addition to removing the National Pokédex, Pokémon outside of the Galar Pokédex aren't available at all in the game, and many of them can't even be transferred. This means that for the first time in a main series game, players can't catch 'em all, legitimately or otherwise. Due to the frequent Christmas Rushed releases and the ever-expanding roster of mons, the plan going forward is to make a handful of older mons available in each new game and hope your favorite makes it into the next one. The game in addition has two DLC packs instead of third versions or sequel games.
    • Pokémon Scarlet and Violet is a full Wide-Open Sandbox game with full Pre-existing Encounters that replace the Random Encounters and that offers three or rather, four storylines for the player to do at their leisure. There is a level order to make sure the player doesn't accidentally stumble on a higher leveled fight, starting with the Bug-type gym and ending with the Fighting-type Team Star base. In addition, Shadow Claw is no longer TM065 and most of the healing moves with the exception of Heal Pulse and Wish have had their PP reduced to 5 instead of 10.
  • Professor Layton:
    • Though Professor Layton and the Azran Legacy retains the gameplay, feel and themes of previous Professor Layton games, while still serving as the last released game starring the eponymous character, it sets itself apart from all of them by featuring multiple playable locations instead of only one or two (this is justified by the story — they have to travel all over the world in order to collect the egg-shaped pieces of an ancient key that gives access to the ultimate Azran technology, of which bits and pieces were discovered in Last Specter and Miracle Mask, as well as the anime movie Eternal Diva). And each location related to the Azran egg hunt has its own mystery or case which has to be solved so the characters can succeed in their overarching quest (this system would later inspire the case-by-case progression in Layton's Mystery Journey). It also has the fewest story episodes, with only six instead of seven and beyond (though the fourth episode is so extremely long that the game is estimated to have an equivalent total amount of ten episodes, thus staying only behind The Unwound Future as the longest game in the series). Lastly, thanks to its open-ended nature, the game introduces sidequests in the form of World Times news, and interestingly not all of them are completed by solving puzzles.
    • Many of the changes seen in Layton's Mystery Journey: Katrielle and the Millionaires' Conspiracy are to be expected given the different protagonist (Katrielle Layton, instead of her father), who employs a less rigorous (but still effective) methodology to solve cases (as that's what she does instead of investigating one huge, overarching case), and interacts with a different cast of supporting characters. But there's one major novelty that calls for attention: Whereas the previous games progressed as the player completed the chapters one by one, in this game multiple chapters will be unlocked at once at one point, and they can be completed in any order — this was likely inherited from the open-ended concept of the fourth chapter of Azran Legacy.
  • Raiden V deviates quite a bit from past Raiden games:
    • It is console- and PC-exclusive, skipping the arcades.
    • Instead of being a One-Hit-Point Wonder with multiple Video-Game Lives, your ship now has only one life per credit and a Life Meter.
    • There are multiple ships available, each with their own weapons, somewhat like in Raiden Fighters but not like in past main-series games where the most customization you get are ships with different movement patterns (Raiden DX), whether checkpoints are in or not (the PS1 port of Raiden), or what purple-icon weapon you get.
    • There's an actual plot and a lot of voiced dialogue with faces to go with those voices, unlike past games which just have an Excuse Plot and no characters to speak of.
    • This game has social elements: When performing certain actions (such as reaching a target score, clearing a stage, or beating your personal best score), you may receive "cheers" from other players, and likewise you may "cheer" on other players doing the same. When the Cheer meter is full, you can perform a special attack.
    • There are various widgets on the sides that show things like the text log, your weapon levels, and a histogram of your score.
    • There is no vertical-orientation mode; past Raiden games in arcades are vertical by default, with console games having it as an option (in addition to horizontal pillarboxed mode, the only screen orientation V offers).
  • Resident Evil up until Code: Veronica was a slow-paced Survival Horror game with emphasis on solving puzzles, managing limited health, ammo, and inventory space, with a goal of staying alive long enough to escape whatever virus-contaminated hellhole you've found yourself thrust into. As of Resident Evil 4 the series became much more action-oriented and went on to focus on saving the world from megalomaniacs and ancient conspirators. The seventh game shifted again back to slow-paced horror, but in a far different vein from the original series, and then the eighth game shifted again into more fast-paced action spectacle than ever before featuring an honest-to-god battle against a dragon atop a gothic castle and a man who essentially has Magneto's powers.
  • Rhythm Heaven Megamix has a completely different structure than previous games in the series, having different worlds instead of just sets of mini games, with each one having a different theme and the game having an actual story. There's also no rhythm toys, and medals aren't used for unlocking extras, rather you earn coins from playing the mini games and spend them on extras. The scoring system is also different, showing you an actual score from 1 to 100 instead of just showing the feedback and your rank.
  • The Richman series since its revival in 2019 has omitted the coupon system that has been a staple since the third installment, and instead requiring cash to buy cards. Word of God has confirmed that this is done to speed up the game progress.
  • Shin Megami Tensei:
  • Sonic the Hedgehog:
    • The games from Sonic Adventure and on took the series in very different directions both in tone and gameplay, especially in the mid-2000s. Having human characters appear on a regular basis, the tone generally becoming more serious, the Chaos Emeralds being significantly played up in importance, and having new superpowered villains taking the center stage away from Eggman are just some of the many ways the later games contrast the Classic era of the series.
    • Despite Sonic Mania being a throwback to the 2D era of Sonic games in every other way, it bucks the trend of the old games of having Eggman be the boss fought at the end of every Zone with rare exceptions. Instead, Eggman shares the boss spotlight with the Hard Boiled Heavies and Metal Sonic.
  • Splatoon: The second game establishes that, due to the Great Turf War forcing Octolings to live underground for several generations, Inklings have come to assume that their sister race had gone extinct and thus deem the new and growing Octoling population to just be a bunch of exotic-looking Inklings. The third game would quietly retcon the Great Turf War as only affecting the region of Inkadia as opposed to the Splatoon world as a whole; the neighboring Splatlands where Splatoon 3 takes place was uninvolved in the conflict, and so its Octoling population was never ousted from the surface.
  • Later Story of Seasons titles feature a shift from an idealistic, relatively down-to-earth rural story to a more fantasy-centric one. The series always contained Magic Realism, but over time it's increased and become more focal. The general character design has also changed to go along with the shift. The colour palette is brighter and the characters are less realistically "small town" looking. Around the DS-Wii era is where the series' now-signature Cast Full of Pretty Boys started. The shift mostly correlates with the change in a producer of the series. The original creator, Wada, moved on during the DS era and the current director, Hashimoto, started with Grand Bazaar. Grand Bazaar has more of a children's storybook aesthetic than previous games. The games have gotten Lighter and Softer since Wada left, with none of the Dysfunction Junction of games like 64 and AWL.
  • Street Fighter Alpha played like an advanced and expanded version of Street Fighter II, but the third installment, Alpha 3, is probably one of the strangest games in the entire franchise. Not only did it pack a ton of characters (by the home releases, it had so many that it took until Ultra Street Fighter IV to surpass it in 2014), but it packed two features that wouldn't really be seen the same way again or reused in any fashion: the Guard Gauge, which controversially made you stun if it ran out from blocking too many hits in a short time frame, and the ISM System, which gave every playable character three variants of play style between playing more like II (no counters, air guarding or air throws, simplified movesets, but higher raw damage), the Alpha standard, or the infamous Game-Breaker of the V-ISM that let you chain so many different attacks together that several characters outright got touch-of-death combos. Guard Gauge would be removed at minimum and reworked into a visible stun gauge at maximum for later titles, and all future games either had no replacement for the ISM System, or simply allowed players to pick a couple Special Move or situational combat action decisions that didn't alter the core of the character themselves.
  • Streets of Rage was a very slow game and it focused more on being strategic on when you should attack. The second game more or less kept the core gameplay the same while changing very little. The third game changes a whole lot of stuff: unlike the previous games, the third game has a detailed story and cutscenes, gameplay is very fast paced with emphasis placed on quick combos, players can perform dodge rolls to avoid enemy attacks, and the game has Multiple Endings.
  • Super Mario Bros.:
    • Super Mario 3D World, being the thirteenth console platform game in the Super Mario Bros. series, is the first core game since Super Mario Bros. 2, itself an Oddball in the Series, where Princess Peach is not a Damsel in Distress but rather a playable character. The Sprixie Princesses take her usual place as the ones to be rescued. The same game also promotes Rosalina and Captain Toad to playable characters, who were non-playable in previous games and still in need of Mario's help despite not being kidnapped. In terms of gameplay, it also follows the style of Super Mario 3D Land, with both games following the format of the 2D Mario games rather than the more sandbox-design of other 3D entries: that is, making the main objective of each stage not about collecting stars, but simply reaching the flagpole at the end. That said, collecting star coins/stars is still required to progress. In terms of narrative, there are no spoken dialogues, with the communication between characters limited to gestures and expressions.
    • Super Mario Odyssey:
      • 1-up lives and Game Overs are completely done away with for the first time in the core games, instead having Mario lose 10 coins upon death.
      • While the game does use the exploration-based gameplay of 64 and Sunshine, the game does not boot players out of the level after collecting a Power Moon, making it more similar to collectathons like Banjo-Kazooie. Also in that vein, there are no selectable story missions for each moon — instead, the area's plot advances permanently upon collecting certain primary objective moons. This also means that one cannot redo certain major objectives or refight certain bosses, until the rematches in the post-game, including the Dark Side for the Broodals and the Moon Kingdom on re-visit for Bowser.
    • Mario & Sonic at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games on Wii U does quite a few things different from previous console installments. These changes include replacing the Dream Events set in Mario and Sonic locations with Duel Events set around different locations around Rio, the Main Menu is replaced with a Hub Plaza and you can also unlock Guest Characters who become playable when you beat them.
    • Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam has a few differences from the previous four games. Save points are not present in the game at all since saving can be done at any time from the menu, the characters do not receive a bonus when they level up, and the Spin Jump is not present, instead replaced by the Trio Grab.
  • Super Robot Wars:
  • The Tom Clancy-brand video game franchise is a Shared Universe that, as crazy as it gets, is Like Reality, Unless Noted, all of the technology that has appeared so far is based on gear actually experimented on by DARPA, and the enemies are realistic (terrorists, foreign military, narcotics dealers, ultranationalists, and the like). And then two limited-time events in Ghost Recon Wildlands and Ghost Recon Breakpoint had the heroes facing off against a Predator and The Terminator.
  • Uncharted 4: A Thief's End is the only game in its franchise to not contain any fantastical elements, instead being focused on a lost pirate colony. It also has a lot of new gameplay additions (like updated stealth, a grappling hook, and a vertical attack) because it's the only one to have come out on the PS4.
  • The English title logo font for Uncle Albert's Mysterious Island, the last Uncle Albert game translated in English, uses a font similar to but different from the original French logo. The other two translated games use the exact same font as the original French games.
  • Yakuza: Like a Dragon: Despite what the English title may suggest, this game is not a spinoff. The series concluded the story of its protagonist, Kazuma Kiryu, and shifted gears to a new protagonist, and with that, the game went from a Beat 'em Up with mild RPG elements to a full-blown turn-based RPG. Another thing to note is this is the first mainline Yakuza game to be dubbed in English since the first one.

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