4 Game Franchises that Need to Die Already

Death is a part of life. It comes to everyone and everything, eventually. And just like how some game franchises seem to take a life of their own, so too, do they need to die. Most of these entries are series that could quit while they’re ahead and save their dignity. Of course for some of them, it may be too late. They’ve already gone into Tomb Raider territory.

4. Grand Theft Auto

Quick! What do you think of when you think of GTA? Shooting cops, the hookers, and wanton vehicular manslaughter? Yeah, what games don’t have that? While Rockstar deserves credit for making the first awesome, open world, sandbox crime spree simulator, it’s time to retire it.

When GTA3 came out, it was a HUGE improvement over its predecessors. GTAIV, not so much. I still remember the story from GTA3. After that, it starts getting fuzzy quick. It’s forgivable though; there have been eight of the damn things since GTA3. The plots are always forgettable and start in the realm of possibility before diverging suddenly and without warning into wacky, zany, “WTF-Are-You-Serious?“ moments.

Rockstar still has plenty of use for the formula though. Red Dead hasn’t been tapped out, but with its sales success, it will be eventually. L.A. Noire was also a breath of fresh air. But of course, since this isn’t a perfect world where huge multi-million dollar game companies listen to game critics about what to release, GTAV has already been announced.

3. Final Fantasy

This is one where we could argue all day exactly when the end was, but at this point, only the most die-hard fans would argue that the series has lost some glory. It’s a shame. Final Fantasy was one of the defining series of the RPG genre. But Sqenix has spewed out over 60(!!!) games with the Final Fantasy trademark. Did you even know there were that many? That’s as bad as Mario, and at least his games are good.

That’s what the smart people call brand dilution. There are so many games, on so many platforms, how can you really have effective quality control? And at this point, it doesn’t even matter how old you are. If you’re reading this, you’re old enough to have played one of the core games either originally, or after it was re-released on every single platform ever.

No, Final fantasy has spiraled way out of control, and needs to be reined in. Personally, it could have died at the end of FFX, or before. I skipped school to play FF7, but barely noticed FF12 coming out. Square, you need to make the next Final Fantasy live up to its name.

2. Metal Gear

If you think the first Metal Gear game was on the PSX, shut up for the rest of this entry. Then go buy an NES and learn your place.

The original MG was a great NES game. Metal Gear Solid was a great game as well. Then MGS2 came out, and it was cool, but all the warning signs were there. We just ignored them. Then MGS3 was released and shit got weird.

But the crowning achievement in the Metal Gear franchise was MGS4: Sons of the Patriots. Less a game, and more a 10 hour movie with snippets of game play that are really only there for you to save. This towering monstrosity of self-indulgence can be placed right on the shoulders of Hideo Kojima.

MGS gave us a lot of great stuff. It influenced a tremendous number of games that followed it. But Hideo has zero respect for classics, and keeps pumping out more bloated copies of the originals with each console release. And we keep buying them. While Hideo got our hopes up prior to the release of MGS4 by saying it would be the last, recently it seems that is not to be the case. What the hell more do you have to say?

1. Pokemon

That’s right, everyone’s beloved cartoon/game-series/card-game/money-printing-machine. Question: Which version of Pokemon did you play first? If your answer isn’t plain “Red” or plain “Blue”, then you missed out. Originally there were 151 of the beloved animal gladiator slaves for you and your friends to collect, trade and viciously fight for no good reason other than entertainment.

But the smart guys at Nintendo eventually caught on to the fact they were running out of ways to keep selling you the same damn Pokemon. So they starting adding more. Do you know how many Pokemon there are now?

646.

Naming every Pokemon is no longer a rite of passage, but proof you are the next Rainman. How is the average 11 year old going to remember all of them? He just learned to count to 646 a few years earlier! And there are so many Pokemon games and associated spinoffs, no one at Nintendo has played them all, much less caught them all. No, the Pokemon franchise has become a bloated beast that needs to just stop.

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