Stilt Village
GBA
I think people could stand to view more things like the various Batman or TMNT cartoon series. They aren't really a continuation, each one is explicitly its own take. I think it's a lot more accurate to look at most long running series the same way.Thats how I feel about a lot of franchises. Staff have visions, and then they tell those stories, but corporate wants to keep things going. The actual staff move on and the stories change as new people come in.
Regardless of the quality, something is just kinda lost or else they kinda stagnate. Anecdotally I see a lot of people bitter about this. And I felt like that doesnt need to be the prevailing dialogue.
Moving on doesnt need to be always because you hate the current direction, but maybe its just different or not different enough and you got your satisfaction with it. And I just kinda wanted to see a lot of those.
Sometimes it really is the original creators going on for decades, and sometimes it's not always so clean a transition, particularly with Nintendo, but I think it's the case more often than not.
Most Castlevania games feel like their own thing that all look to past takes as inspiration, because that's basically what they were. Practically no one involved with creating Castlevania had any influence on Super Castlevania IV, or Rondo of Blood, or Bloodlines, or Symphony of the Night.
This one was actually the first thing that came to mind for me, but as a counter-example. I'm disappointed with the complete shift in Zelda's design in large part because I felt the original formula never really reached its potential. It would be a lot easier to let go if the Zelda game I wanted actually existed. Zelda has long been incredibly reactive in a way that tends to throw out all the strengths of the previous entry along with its weaknesses, and after making ALBW and seemingly zeroing in on a lot of what worked and what didn't by revisiting their past work, they fell right back into that habit with BotW as if Skyward Sword were still the most recent game to reverse course from and none of that introspection ever happened.I've been feeling this way about Zelda post TotK. I recognize the quality of the open air gameplay and the new direction to worldbuilding. But well, its not quite grabbing me like the old games did.
And well, as long as a new generation are enjoying it. I dont begrudge my own falling of interest. I was one of those people who felt the series was in a bit of a rut following Skyward Sword. I dont think Ill abandon Zelda, but I dont know if Ill pick each new game day one like I used to.