Only The Creator Does It Right / Video Games

Only the Creator Does It Right when it comes to these Video Games.

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• While the Ace Attorney games directed by Takeshi Yamazaki — namely Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Dual Destinies, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Spirit of Justice, and the two Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth entries — have been reasonably well-received, you'd be very hard-pressed to find any fans who prefer his work over that of the series' creator, Shu Takumi (with the possible exception of Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney, although it wasn't even fully Takumi's anyway and suffered from admitted Executive Meddling).
• Out of all the Age of Empires games, the latest, Age of Empires Online was developed after Ensemble Studios was closed down. Much Broken Base ensued.
  • The HD version of Age of Empires II and its expansions were made without any involvement from Ensemble Studios. This leads to some of the changes being done out of favouritism (or lack thereof).
  • Ditto with Age of Mythology Extended Edition to the point that its expansion Tale of the Dragon is almost universally hated by said community.
• Anco's Kick Off series of soccer games for the Amiga dropped dramatically in quality when programmer Dino Dini left the company after the second game.
• Batman: Arkham Origins was well received overall, but is regarded by many as the worst of the Arkham series because it was filled with problematic bugs and was made by a different developer, WB Games Montreal. The games made by the creators of the series, Rocksteady, were renowned for how polished they were. With the release of Batman: Arkham Knight made by Rocksteady having a disastrous PC port (actually being taken down from online stores) and the industry having an unfortunate trend of buggy games, Origins is being looked upon a little more fondly, though detractors argue that unlike Knight it did not have the excuse of releasing for the very difficult-to-code PlayStation 4.
  • Arkham Knight fell prey to this in a different way. Because of prior commitments, the writer of the first two games Paul Dini was unable to return for Arkham Knight. A lot of people have found the story to be weaker than the previous entries. Notably, for all it was criticized for, Arkham Origins is considered to have a very strong story even without Rocksteady's influence.
• BioShock 2: Fans and critics alike concluded that it wasn't quite as good as the original, with many attributing this to the fact that it was developed by 2K Marin instead of Irrational Games. Irrational returned to develop BioShock Infinite, which has gained acclaim equal to if not greater than the original.
• Crash Bandicoot and Spyro the Dragon are best known for their original games developed by Naughty Dog and Insomniac Games, which are also near-universally considered where both series peaked. Anything after them (besides a few well received remakes of those very games) is extremely contested. The few games that have broken through and have significantly large fanbases arguing they are on par with the original series games (Crash Bash, Crash Twinsanity and Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time for Crash and Spyro: A Hero's Tail for Spyro) are for reasons varying from each game also extremely divisive.
• Long-time Command & Conquer fans have this in spades. Electronic Arts bought out the original creators of the series, Westwood Studios, while Tiberian Sun was under development, but they mostly didn't engage in Executive Meddling right away. The real danger came after Yuri's Revenge and especially Renegade, when EA liquidated Westwood outright and told its employees they could either relocate to Los Angeles or quit. The very first thing they did was slap the C&C label on an unrelated game, Command & Conquer: Generals. The second thing they did was retcon the franchise's Alien Kudzu, Tiberium, and pretend that most of the in-universe technological advances depicted in the previous game - burrowing units, sonic weaponry, amphibious units, etc. - never happened. And things got worse from there.
  • EA eventually invoked this trope, when they decided to remaster the first two games after the franchise had been dormant for several years. What they did first was to contact the original Westwood Studios staff members that worked on the series in its highest time and have them work on it with the order that it should be as faithful to the original games as possible. The result was a resounding positive reaction from the fans, since at least EA has learned that a faithful remaster wouldn't be possible without the original creators.
• When Konami outsourced the development of the two PlayStation Contra games, Contra: Legacy of War and C: The Contra Adventure, to Appaloosa, the results were universally regarded as a disaster, mainly due to poor gameplay. Konami realized their mistake, took Contra: Shattered Soldier into their own hands, and denied the PS games' existence. The fans were pleased with the results.
  • Sadly subverted with Rogue Corps; Nobuya Nakazato was the series director up from Contra III: The Alien Wars until Shattered Soldier, which is considered the hey day of the franchise by series veterans. So when Nakazato returned to helm Rogue Corps, fans were hopeful only for the game to get hit with a massive Sequelitis for a variety of reasons.
• A common criticism leveled against Dark Souls II. The director of the first game and its Sony-produced predecessor Demon's Souls, Hidetaka Miyazaki, had only a minor supervisory role in Dark Souls II, as he was busy directing Bloodborne (which would eventually become acclaimed in its own right). Many fans attribute Miyazaki's absence as one of the main causes behind the game's many shortcomings, though an interview that clarified that the game had a Troubled Production lessened this a bit. Even with the DLC content, which is considered superior to the main game, many fans denounce it and DSII as a whole to be inferior to the Miyazaki-helmed games.
• Many fans of the Destroy All Humans! series pinpoint the Franchise Killer to when the third and fourth games, Big Willy Unleashed and Path of the Furon, were developed by two separate studios after Pandemic Studios folded in 2007. The drastic style changes, the lowered difficulty, and Flanderization of the main cast didn't help either. These may be the reasons why THQ Nordic (the current owner of the series) have not ported the aforementioned two games to the PlayStation 4. However, the remakes of the first two games by Black Forest Games are generally agreed to be better than the originals.
• Deus Ex: Human Revolution received a lot of this kind of sentiment when it was first announced, but the end product ended up being a lot better than expected. Of course, Deus Ex fans should be reminded that the original creators brought us the divisive Deus Ex: Invisible War. That said, plenty of people say the prequel games can't hold a candle to what a hard-hitting "conspiracy theory simulator" the original is still known for, if they aren't dismissing it for being "too triple-A schlock".
• Diablo and Diablo II were made by Condor, AKA Blizzard North. The main creative people behind the franchise (David Brevik, Erich Schaefer, & Max Schaefer) quit some time in the early 2000s, Blizzard North was liquidated, Diablo III was made by a different group of people with a different set of beliefs about what a Diablo game should be like, and the result was... controversial. Meanwhile, the original team went on to make the Torchlight games, which were much better-received.
• The Endless Space 2 expansion, Awakening, is widely hated by the playerbase for adding an extremely frustrating mechanic that makes the game actively unfun for every single player involved, and the new added faction is generally seen as unimpressive. Awakening was outsourced to NGD Studios, which many players blame for its serious shortcomings.
• Fallout 3 and Fallout 4 are hated by some of the more die-hard fans of the first two games because they were created by Bethesda Softworks and not (the defunct) Black Isle Studios. Especially noticeable when you consider that Fallout: New Vegas was given a more accepting reception and that some of the old employees of Black Isle incidentally worked on it.
  • Fans of the original games often point out that the storytelling and roleplay is less interesting in the games made by Bethesda. This is more or less true — Black Isle were renowned for their writing and would later go on to produce Baldur's Gate and the monumentally verbose Planescape: Torment, whereas Bethesda arguably have a more action-oriented approach to game design.
• Some fans think the Fire Emblem series has never been the same since the fifth entry, Thracia 776, due to the departure of series creator Shouzou Kaga.
• The first six Five Nights at Freddy's games were all effectively made entirely by a single man—Scott Cawthon—with complete creative control, only occasionally receiving additional help for voice acting or music. The seventh game was made in close collaboration between Scott and Steel Wool Studios, and received very favorable reviews as a VR Spin-off. However, for the next game Five Nights at Freddy's: Security Breach, Scott would leave halfway through the project and Steel Wool completed a majority on their own. This game received a significantly more mixed reception, with an incredibly buggy release and numerous story/tonal decisions that made for a far more Broken Base.
• The Halo franchise ended up being sold to Microsoft in return for Bungie being able to split from them. Microsoft Studios created a studio for making new Halo games called 343 Industries, and an already Broken Base split even further.
• Most of the Legacy of Kain series is considered inferior to the original Blood Omen, since its designers — Silicon Knights — were cut out of the loop, the trademark seized by the publisher. Among fans of the sequels, Blood Omen 2 (actually the fourth game in the series), the only Kain game Amy Hennig had no involvement in, is widely considered the worst.
• Many fans of the original Mafia dislike Mafia II particularly because very few of the original staff were on the Mafia II team, and most of them left during production.
• Obsidian Entertainment's sequels to two of BioWare's games, Neverwinter Nights 2 and Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords, received positive views, though not as high as their predecessors—although this has more to do with them being horribly buggy (or, in KotOR II's case, unfinished due to Executive Meddling forcing a premature release).
• The Dawn of War expansion Soulstorm was not made by Relic, and is coincidentally considered to be So Bad, It's Good.
• Max Payne 3 received flak for its pointless additions and tonal shift compared to the prequels, due to Remedy having no real involvement with the series and Sam Lake not being the storywriter.
• The Mega Man series gets this as well.
  • First there were the official-but-subpar Mega Man (Classic) games for the PC and the Game Gear that were not developed by Capcom. Most of the later Mega Man X games also tend to receive this treatment, since Keiji Inafune intended to end the series after X5 but it was continued without his knowledge or input. And with Inafune's departure from Capcom, faith in the series dropped to an all-time low, though that might've had less to do with Capcom's potential ability to do the series justice, and more to do with the fact the company seemed like it was trying to bury the series. ^note At least, until Mega Man 11 was released.
  • Thankfully not the case with Mega Man: Dr. Wily's Revenge and Mega Man III-V for the Game Boy, and the Mega Man Zero series on the Game Boy Advance; while they were outsourced to other developers, the developers in question (Minakuchi Engineering for the Game Boy games ^note as well as The Wily Wars for the Sega Genesis and Inti Creates for the Zero series) actually understood the series, ensuring that the games were well-received by fans.
  • The Game Boy Mega Man II wasn't so lucky; not only was it not made by Capcom, but the game wasn't made by Minakuchi Engineering either. Instead it was farmed out to Biox (then known as Japan System House), who didn't understand the series at all and ended up producing what is pretty unanimously regarded as the worst 8-bit Mega Man game. Fortunately, Capcom were smart enough to go back to the original developers for the next three games.
• What many fans think about the modern Ninja Gaiden games, and one of the reasons there was so much skepticism about Ninja Gaiden III — now led by Yosuke Hayashi, also director of the first two games' PS3 releases and of the Nintendo DS episode Dragon Sword. Any game not directed by Tomonobu Itagaki can only be a pale imitation. It doesn't help that before leaving Tecmo, Itagaki himself said that he didn't like Sigma, that NG2 was the definitive version of the game and that he was the only one legitimate to continue the series.
• One of the most infamous examples are the Zelda CD-i Games and Hotel Mario, produced by Phillips. While other companies have tackled these franchises before and since to favorable reception, the terrible quality of these games, to quote Nintendo Power, instilled the idea that "nobody should make Nintendo games except Nintendo."
• Silent Hill:
  • There's been a Broken Base since the breakup of Team Silent, even as far back as Silent Hill 4: The Room, only made worse by the series being outsourced to Western development teams. The only game not widely hacked and bashed since then was Silent Hill: Downpour ^note even then, the most frequent reaction is that it's So Okay, It's Average, and the absence of Akira Yamaoka's soundtrack work on it is a discussion all on its own.
  • Hideo Kojima and Guillermo del Toro's take on the franchise (or at least the playable teaser for it) was generally well-received. Whether or not the full game would have lived up to the hype, we'll probably never know, since Konami cancelled it and recalled all copies of the playable teaser.
• Some of the fans of the first three Heroes of Might and Magic games, developed by New World Computing, aren't too thrilled about the fully 3D Heroes V (Nival Interactive) and Heroes VI (Black Hole Entertainment). Of course, there's also Heroes IV, the last game to be developed by NWC, which many fans simply ignore. The biggest complaint is not with the gameplay changes but with the fact that the storylines of the last two games have nothing to do with The 'Verse of the first four games (and first nine games in the series Heroes was a spin-off of).
• U.S. Gold and Tiertex, who had licensed Strider and other Capcom arcade games for European home computer ports, went on to produce a sequel known as Strider II (later remade as Journey From Darkness: Strider Returns on Sega consoles). Fans were underwhelmed by the colors, controls, level design, and Strider Hiryu being renamed Strider Hinjo for no reason. It was known in some circles as a "spectacular crapfest" for these reasons. When Capcom decided to make a sequel themselves, they denied Returns' existence, which they weren't even involved with anyway, and simply titled the game Strider 2.
• Metroid:
  • Some feel this way about every game following the death of producer Gunpei Yokoi, who is considered to be the co-creator of the franchise. This is bolstered by an unsourced claim that Yokoi himself originally wanted the series to be a contained trilogy ending with Super Metroid.^note While there's evidence of Yoshio Sakamoto (director of Super Metroid) saying this, there is no proof that Yokoi held the same thoughts on the matter.
  • While fans were concerned by the idea of some random American studio developing an entry in the series, the release of Metroid Prime actually averted this trope, with a fair number of fans actually coming to view Retro Studios as the new keepers of the franchise, especially after the poor reception of Metroid: Other M and Metroid Prime: Federation Force.
• The 989 Studios-developed Twisted Metal III and 4 received a very mixed reception among the fandom, compared to the SingleTrac-developed (and their successor companies, Incog Inc. and Eat Sleep Play) games. David Jaffe said that while the 989 games were good games on their own, they were just bad Twisted Metal games.
  • One of the slogans for 1997's Critical Depth was "From the Developers Who Know Vehicular Combat!", referring to SingleTrac, the developers of the game.
• Langrisser Millennium was developed without the team that had worked on all previous installments of the series. Hardcore Gaming 101 describes it as "a filthy charlatan, masquerading as an installment in one of strategy gaming's finest series."
• Freespace fans have been known to do this pre-emptively. As it stands there is little chance of the series being continued, but if it did it would probably not be by the original developers (Volition). Some fans have taken the mantra "If it ain't V, it ain't Freespace 3!", as they believe that no one else would ever be able to continue the series satisfactorily.
• Mass Effect:
  • After the release of the third game and the resulting controversy regarding the endings, many fans blamed Mac Walters, and claimed that Drew Karpyshan, who was the lead writer on the first game and co-lead with Walters for the second but worked on Star Wars: The Old Republic instead of Mass Effect 3, would have presented a more satisfying conclusion. Mass Effect: Andromeda had next to no involvement from any of the first game's developers, and was not kindly received by fans or gamers in general.
  • As far as music goes, the first two games were scored by Jack Wall, who is universally agreed to have done a fantastic job; the third game, although it featured a few original pieces from Clint Mansell which the fanbase says are quite good in their own right, is generally agreed to not quite reach the quality of Jack Wall, due to largely recycling music from the previous games with a few new pieces from supporting composer Sam Hulick.
• The Yoshi's Island games developed by Artoon/Arzest instead of Nintendo are considered nowhere near as good as the SNES original developed by Nintendo themselves, with many fans feeling as though Artoon's staff wouldn't know good game/level design if it hit them. It wasn't until Good-Feel became the developers of Yoshi games, starting with Yoshi's Woolly World, that fans began to believe a good follow-up was even possible.
• While each Umihara Kawase game has been developed by an at least nominally different company, the only one made without the participation of original programmer and game designer Kiyoshi Sakai was Umihara Kawase Portable for the PSP, which fans of the series have widely denounced as a Porting Disaster.
• Blaster Master 2, outsourced to British developer Software Creations, is a pale shadow of the original game, despite being made for a more powerful console. Sunsoft returned to develop the next two Blaster Master games, which were better received.
• The Tony Hawk's Pro Skater series is a Neversoft creation. However, the company would relegate other companies to work on the various ports of the series, and said ports are nowhere near as high quality as the ones done by Neversoft. For many fans, Shaba Games brings to mind cheapness, poor graphics and glitches, most notably in the PS1 port of Tony Hawks Pro Skater 4. Neversoft pulled out of the series entirely after Proving Ground, and Activision gave the following installments to other subsidiaries, to the point the series was killed twice — first with Ride and Shred, with its unresponsive peripherals, and then a terrible THPS 5 that dragged down any momentum raised by a well-received remake of the original.
  • Thankfully averted by Vicarious Visions, whose remake of the first two games has been universally lauded as a much-needed return to form for the ailing series, to the point that the THPS community was massively disappointed when VV's absorption into Blizzard by Activision effectively killed off any chance of later games in the series seeing a similar treatment.
• Neversoft found themselves on the other side of the spectrum with Guitar Hero, which they inherited from Harmonix once it was sold to Viacom and went on to create Rock Band. Their games, which started with Guitar Hero III, had many good reviews and better sales, but are still divisive exactly for turning the series into a Cash-Cow Franchise that Activision ran to the ground.
• Monkey Island: Ron Gilbert worked on the first two games, which are beloved by fans, after which he left LucasArts. The first game he didn't work on, The Curse of Monkey Island, took a dip in art style, though Gilbert says he enjoyed it despite having had a different plan for Monkey Island 3. The fourth game, Escape from Monkey Island, was a disaster, and had many fans feeling that LucasArts were doing a disservice to Gilbert's creation. This was largely due to the glitchiness of the game (which was ironed out somewhat in the PS2 port), the non-point and click controls, the retconning, the unfunny and stereotypical humor, the reliance on time and memory-based puzzles, and nonsensical portions like Monkey Kombat. Ron Gilbert was involved with the first two games' remakes and oversaw some of Tales of Monkey Island (which was a step up from Escape, though not to the degree most fans wanted). He would later return to the franchise in Return to Monkey Island, which was generally well-received.
• Duke Nukem 3D's Nuclear Winter expansion pack is generally considered the worst, and is also the only one 3D Realms didn't work on. Though it's not without reason — the first two levels are just slight rehashes of the first two levels in the base game in reverse order, and the music for every stage is Christmas carols. The level designs are also fairly boring in comparison to the other packs, and some parts are fairly similar to other levels from the original game.
• In 2014, Natsume developed and released Harvest Moon: The Lost Valley, as they lost the rights to import future Bokujō Monogatari titles from the original developer Marvelous to XSEED Games, but still having the rights to the Harvest Moon name (this meant that Connect to the New World and subsequent titles are now under a new name,Story of Seasons.) However reception for The Lost Valley had been met with negative reception compared to Story of Seasons.
  • That said, it's not without reason. While some of the hate is because Natsume developed it, the game is of noticeably lower quality compared to the games made by Marvelous. While there are many complaints, the largest of them are the lower quality and super deformed art (and using 3D models instead of hand-drawn portraits for conversations), and that the three (compared to the typical five/six) bachelors/bachelorettes are blatant copies of ones from previous Harvest Moon games.
• Metal Gear combines this trope with the fact that Hideo Kojima says he is never making another one after making every single game from Metal Gear Solid 2 onwards. His eccentric design philosophy and personality is a very strong influence on Metal Gear, and attempts to imitate it by committee tend to come off poorly.
  • The NES version of Metal Gear, which was developed by another team without Kojima's involvement, is considered a lesser take on the MSX2 original, although it did well enough in North America (where the MSX2 version was never released) to inspire a sequel. Said sequel, Snake's Revenge, which was also made without Kojima's involvement, was a considerable improvement from the first NES game, but didn't really add much new to the formula other than the addition of side-view sessions that play very differently from the main top-down portions. A member of the Snake's Revenge development team realized that it was far from the ideal sequel and asked Kojima to make his own sequel as well. Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake for the MSX2, which Kojima did develop in response to this request, is regarded as a cult classic, featuring completely redefined stealth gameplay and a more fleshed-out storyline much closer to what the later 3D Metal Gear Solid games would become.
  • Metal Gear Ac!d goes for its own brand of campy madness unique to director Shinta Nojiri (who also worked on the fan-favorite 2D side-entry Metal Gear: Ghost Babel), but a quirky and overcomplicated card game system and a bizarre Gothic Horror plot did little to endear it to most players. While its sequel was better received, Nojiri was being groomed by Kojima as a potential replacement on the mainline Metal Gear Solid series, but left Kojima Productions rather than accept the poison chalice.
  • Shuyo Murata (who previously directed Zone of the Enders: The 2nd Runner) was initially announced as the director of Metal Gear Solid 4, but after a bit of backlash and some apparent death threats over his lack of involvement, Kojima was brought back as the director once again (with Murata being reassigned to co-director).
  • Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops for the PSP was a solid, well-received game, but with much lower production values than the console entries and a Strictly Formula plot which only serves to conveniently tie everything for the first Metal Gear (by being a FOXHOUND origin story), while providing a set-up for Metal Gear Solid 4. Kojima later wrote and directed the next PSP game, Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, which featured production values much closer to the console entries and served as a direct sequel to Metal Gear Solid 3 that mostly ignores Portable Ops, outside a single Discontinuity Nod at the start of the game. Portable Ops was considered a really good game at the time of release and had glowing reviews, but once Peace Walker came out it started to be remembered much more negatively. The game still has its fans that would defend it, though.
  • Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance was the most successful game in the series not directed by Kojima and is even praised by some Kojima purists, but is still somewhat controversial due to the fact that it was outsourced to PlatinumGames after the original internally developed version of the game, Metal Gear Solid: Rising, was canceled when the resulting product was not up to Kojima Productions' usual standards. The original plot planned to cover the timeline gap between Metal Gear Solid 2 and 4, showing how Raiden ended up becoming a cyborg. The plot in the final game is set after the events of 4 and is mostly inconsequential to the overall narrative, with Kojima himself even admitting that it's very different from what he would've envisioned for a game set after 4.
  • Metal Gear Survive was met with near-universal mockery and disdain when it was announced, mostly due to the fact that it was the first Metal Gear game developed after Hideo Kojima's unceremonious sacking from Konami, following allegations that Metal Gear Solid V was shipped unfinished against Kojima's will (as a result of the "Kingdom of the Flies" bonus video that was included in the limited edition of the game, as well as the Chapter 3 title card that was found inside the game's files). Even the fans who might have liked the premise were unwilling to give it any good faith, due to the fact that it wasn't more MGSV-related content. The game eventually received very mixed reviews, although many acknowledged that it was better than expected.
• Layton's Mystery Journey: Katrielle and the Millionaires' Conspiracy was the first game in the lauded Professor Layton series that was made without the assistance of series puzzle master Akira Tago, who had passed away just before development began (the puzzles being headed up this go-round by newcomer Kuniaki Iwanami). Long-time veterans of the series noticed a considerable drop in puzzle quality, with the overwhelming majority of the game's puzzles being either insultingly easy or infuriating trick questions that often suffer from an additional case of vague or ambiguous writing. The bad word-of-mouth this generated among the Layton community resulted in abysmal sales in comparison to the games that came before it, nearly leading to the game becoming a Franchise Killer - as it was, the series would lie dormant for eight years until the announcement of Professor Layton and the New World of Steam in early 2023.
• The first two Star Control games were well-received and beloved by fans. The third, developed with no involvement from the original creators was... not.
• Ask most longtime fans of shmups and they'll tell you that the best Raiden games are the original three games by the development team Seibu Kaihatsu (Raiden, Raiden II, and Raiden DX), with the MOSS-developed games (Raiden III, Raiden IV, and Raiden V) being regarded at best as "good, but nowhere near the Seibu games" due to the polarizing leap to 3D graphics, the different weapons with the biggest complaint being the removal of the iconic Bend Plasma in Raiden III, and the differing level designs.
• The Resident Evil games made after Shinji Mikami's departure have continued to receive divisive reception. A common complaint in these later games has been the focus on action, mainly turning the series into a shoot'em up with only a few horror elements. While the more action-heavy elements did start with Resident Evil 4 (the last game Mikami oversaw), many argue that it still managed to keep a heavy horror atmosphere.
• Many fans of Drakengard reject the second game, on the basis of Yoko Taro not being involved, claiming that his absence led to the game's story and characters being much more irritating and uninteresting. Subsequent games in the series, including the Gaiden Game NieR and Drakengard 3, were better-received, culminating with the Breakout Hit that was NieR: Automata.
• An odd variation happened with the Wing Commander series, where the fifth game, the only one to be made without any involvement from series creator Chris Roberts, is usually considered the worst game in the series by far (not counting spin-off titles). However, Roberts was responsible for the Wing Commander movie, which got a reception even worse than that of the fifth game.
• Possibly the reason why Insomniac Games made Ratchet & Clank (2016). From a broader perspective, most non-Insomniac depictions of the title characters, such as PlayStation Move Heroes, PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale, and both games made by High Impact Games, don't quite nail the look, including Clank in the movie.
• Tetsuya Nomura has stated that he feels Final Fantasy V writer and VI-through-VIII director Yoshinori Kitase is the person who most understood Hironobu Sakaguchi's vision, but also acknowledges that replacing Sakaguchi is impossible.
• D.W. the Picky Eater, the final entry in the Living Books series of interactive storybook CD-ROMs, is considered very shallow and cheap compared to the series' earlier entries, and doesn't use the Mohawk engine. Most of this results from the game being outsourced to Media Station, a company previously known for producing generally cheaper quality Living Books clones and the Disney's Animated Storybook series. As a result, a fair amount of fans pretend that D.W. the Picky Eater isn't a Living Book, and that the series instead ended on a high note with Arthur's Computer Adventure.
• Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time was developed by Sanzaru Games instead of Sucker Punch. While the game was initially praised for being faithful to the original trilogy, it was eventually panned by fans and critics alike for Penelope's nonsensical Sudden Sequel Heel Syndrome and having a Downer Ending that the creators won't resolve with a sequel. Most fans have since shunned Sanzaru and disowned the game, and it quickly became a well-known case of Sequelitis. Sanzaru was bought out by Oculus in 2020 following the failure of Tron RUN/r, rendering the cliffhanger moot, and a Soft Reboot continuing from where the third game left off more likely.
• A sizable portion of Cave Story fans believe the original freeware version, the only one developed entirely by Daisuke "Pixel" Amaya, is the best one, and consider Aeon Genesis' Fan Translation to be far superior to the official localisation by Nicalis, who also handle the commercial ports. For some of these fans, it can all come down to Balrog's iconic "Huzzah!" being changed to "Oh Yeaaah!", a reference to the Kool-Aid Man, but the Aeon Genesis translation has also been noted for doing a better job conveying emotion compared to Nicalis' overly-literal translation. Nicalis has also developed a poor reputation for sending DMCA takedowns to fan ports of the freeware version, the publication of an expose revealing exploitative and toxic business practices at the company, and allegations of taking advantage of Pixel not understanding English (he's Japanese) to trick him into giving them the rights to the IP instead of merely the license to port it (not confirmed, but not unconfirmed either), further accentuating this mindset.
• Quake IV and Enemy Territory: Quake Wars are probably the least well-received of the Quake games. They also happen to be the only ones not made by the creators of the franchise.
• In a publisher variation, due to how NIS America handled the initial localization all the way to its PC Porting Disaster of Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana, Ys fans will likely not accept another publisher that isn't XSEED Games for future installments announced for an international release due to the latter's more favorable track record and consistency with Ys, but also because of their long-time partnership with developer Falcom.
• Sonic the Hedgehog: Shiro Maekawa is considered the primary creator of Shadow the Hedgehog, being the one who created his final design and wrote for his debut game Sonic Adventure 2 and several other games Shadow was in prior to Maekawa's departure from Sega. The portrayals of Shadow the Hedgehog that had Maekawa's writing involvement (Adventure 2, Heroes, and, ironically, the infamously hated Sonic '06) are considered by some to be Shadow's only good showings, while other games waste his potential. The Shadow the Hedgehog game gets particular scorn for trading any sense of coherent character arc for a poorly implemented Story Branching system, while games in the Colors era and beyond that include Shadow portray him as a shallow Stock Shōnen Rival.
• Fans of DanceDanceRevolution are generally of the belief that the games made when Naoki Maeda was the sound producer are the best ones, due to having a much more memorable set of licensed songs, as well as Naoki's own compositions for the games, with some of his most well-known songs for DDR including the "PARANOiA" series and the "MAX" series. When Naoki resigned from Konami (to work for Capcom on CROSS×BEATS), many felt that the quality of DDR games going forward took a significant decline.
• Fans of The Sims generally feel that The Sims 2 is the best Sims game, as this was the last game that Will Wright personally worked on. The same mentality also extends to SimCity, as every game had less and less involvement from Will Wright.
• The Shin Megami Tensei franchise has been receiving the sentiment that the series is losing its way after the original creators, Cozy Okada and Kazuma Kaneko, stepped down from having any kind of real involvement in the series. Cozy left the company after Nocturne and the DDS games while Kaneko only provided the drafts for Shin Megami Tensei IV. Not coincidently, fans have come to see IV as the last true, if flawed, game of the series golden age with subsequent titles being seen as derivative or creatively lacking even if they tend to be mechanically sound. Specifically, the impression is that the older games were willing to take risks and push the envelope of the genre while the newer ones instead seems intent on following modern trends and clichés, lacking the spark that made the series so distinct. Shin Megami Tensei V as an example of this received high praise for its refinement of the series combat and new Wide-Open Sandbox structure. But by contrast received harsh criticism for its incredibly undercooked story that was just a derivative copy of Nocturne with some of the series usual law and chaos themes added. Meanwhile the combat system that was introduced in Nocturne was as stated previously just a refinement, it was still the same that the series had used for almost 20 years with very little actually having changed or been innovated upon. Even the open world aspect of the game was something that Kaneko had originally envisioned for Nocturne but had to cut it due to technical limitations of the time.
• Mario Party: Many fans felt the series took a sharp decline in quality after NDCube took over from Hudson Soft. In particular fans disliked their emphasis on experimenting with the established formula (especially notable with the shift to everyone being in one car in 9 and 10) and their board design being lackluster. While Superstars did achieve reception on par with Hudson Soft’s games, it still received criticism for only having 5 boards and some feel calling it their best Mario Party is technically cheating due to it being a Mega Mix Game that takes most of it’s minigames and all of its boards from Hudson Soft’s games.
• Richman: The first five installments in this series were created by Crazy Boys, a division of Softstar before it disbanded in early 2002. With the exception of 5 which was highly controversial because of the total reshape of the game mechanics, the first four games are very well-received by the fans. The games after this are generally less popular, because many fans find most of them not having much improvements from 4 while having removed a lot of features like being able to run companies by owning most stocks of the company. They feel that only the members of Crazy Boys were able to relive the best parts of the franchise.

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