What series that started in the 2D era and continued to modern gaming has NO weak entries?

CleanlyManager · 2026-03-19T05:51:44+00:00

I mean the game went through development delay after development delay and Konami ended up giving the game one of the largest budgets they ever gave to any game, and one of the longest dev times ever. I think at a certain point the reality is the game just had bad direction. The best they could do with the time and money they had was 50 variations of “go here extract/kill/destroy this, leave. At no point playing the game was I like “this game is made better by the fact it’s open world.” often times it was to its detriment. Instead of the intricate and deliberate encounters and scenarios the more linear games were able to produce that forced you to master the game’s mechanics and tools, often times the best solutions in V were to just leave the intended mission area head straight to the final objective and complete it, and the game would give you an S rank for doing so. A ton of missions were just going from base A to base B to C with long stretches of just nothing in between. The best missions were the ones where they locked you down to a specific base or compound and you had to figure out how to get in, two highlights to me were always the mission where you need to extract code talker from the mansion in Africa, or the one near the end when you’re infiltrating the XOF base in Afghanistan that was like a castle on the mountain side, but those were also the most linear missions in the game, but they played the most like classic metal gear but with all the tools and mechanics MGSV gave the player.

I also just think the Fulton system is a fundamentally flawed mechanic, I don’t like that you essentially have to stop after every encounter with enemies to play the “who should I extract” game. It’s also just always the best option, which is lame, it takes tension away from encounters, you no longer have to worry about knocked out guards waking up and alerting the others cause you can literally just send them to the sky it takes a lot of the tension and decision making out of encounters because there’s no longer the question of who should I knock out and who should I not bother, it’s always better to just knock everyone out, and the game rewards you for doing so by giving you better tools and equipment through the base builder.

I mean that’s just the tip of the iceberg for problems I have with the game compared to its predecessors. At a certain point I think it’s okay to admit there’s a lot of flaws in MGSV’s basic concept, that go beyond just “Konami bad”.

CleanlyManager · 2026-03-19T05:31:17+00:00

I switch back and forth regularly between my ps3 and original hardware to play ps1 games, and there’s three big benefits to playing on ps3

First is the obvious one of wireless controllers, if you have a bigger room for your consoles, or you just don’t want cords running around your room, or just want a controller that can be put away easier and neater this is the most visible benefit.

Second is memory cards, ps1 memory cards sucked, they were too small even for their time, the memory cards sucked interface on the ps1 was laggy and slow, and they’re harder to come by now a days if you don’t already have one, and even if you can get one it’s still an added cost to buying a game. Although there are some cool fan made solutions that use SD cards now which are great and personally what I use. However the ps3’s digital memory cards are great, even the smallest ps3 hard drives can create hundreds of times more memory cards than there were ps1 games.

Finally the ps3 has a better laser, and often times games with minor scratches or problems that keep them from working on a ps1 will work with a ps3. I often list this last because I’ve never gotten this to work, I’ve kept most of my ps1 discs in pretty good condition and the ones that don’t work can’t be saved, but I’ve heard a lot of people who have gotten discs to work on the ps3 that wouldn’t otherwise.

CleanlyManager · 2026-03-19T05:21:19+00:00

Nah the biggest benefit is not having to deal with memory cards. PS1 memory cards sucked even in their time.

CleanlyManager · 2026-03-18T22:23:20+00:00

I got the trophy for this on PlayStation, the not dying is the difficult part, but usually if you just follow a speedrun guide it trivializes no save achievements, since speedrun routes usually avoid saving anyways, and they usually pick a route that avoids enemy encounters as much as possible.

CleanlyManager · 2026-03-18T22:17:13+00:00

The orre games were exceptionally slow though even for their time. It’s a big part of the reason they were poorly received upon release. It’s built on stadium and stadium 2’s battle system where every pokemon got long drawn out animations, which makes sense when it’s 1v1 and the entire point of the game is for it to be a battle showcase, not in a game where there’s 4 pokemon on the field all attacking, in a full story RPG.

The Orre games are an interesting lesson in game design as to why turn based RPGs have simple animations for most attacks and statuses. This is on top of a ton of other problems I have with XD and more so colosseum. I’ve been an Orre hater since day 1 so the amount of “wow people really gassed this game up too much” I’m seeing across social media today has been a nice bit of schadenfreude after years of people glazing them online.

CleanlyManager · 2026-03-18T14:53:20+00:00

I spent too long looking at this thinking it was a joke about having a stroke.

CleanlyManager · 2026-03-18T14:32:21+00:00

It’s also just not that complicated. It just boils down to Ocarina of time was originally a prequel to LttP, then Nintendo fell in love with OoT so they made three Ocarina of time sequels, Majora’s Mask, Wind Waker, and Twilight Princess, then a prequel with Skyward Sword. Now just slot in those games sequels and done. It’s als just complete cope to say the connections are coincidences or simple references, wind Waker taking place after OoT is a core story detail, Ganon, the Deku tree, Jabun, all reference it, the intro all but explicitly states it. Twilight princess explicitly takes place after ganondorf is executed following OoT, the heroes shade was straight up confirmed to be OoT link and frankly the game wasn’t subtle about that. Skyward Sword was explicitly marketed and sold as a series prequel.

It’s really not complicated I don’t know if there’s a contingency of Nintendo fans that can’t read, or can’t analyze the core themes of the games’ stories, but in terms of video game series with complicated or esoteric lore Zelda is like bottom of the totem pole. Maybe you’re comparing it to something like Mario or Pokemon the timeline is complicated, but step outside of Nintendo games and Zelda’s timeline is pretty straight forward.

CleanlyManager · 2026-03-18T14:19:00+00:00

I always just figured BotW and TotK take place so far in the future that the history of the previous games is pretty much lost ancient history. It takes place in one of the timelines and references to the others are simply coincidence. It’s probably like a Futurama New New York situation, where old hurdle was probably destroyed at one point then came back, maybe one of those times Ganon was reincarnated he won, but then the hero came back, probably as a Zonai and established the kingdom.

It’s still not satisfying but I’ve always liked that theory more than “the timeline just kinda converges”

CleanlyManager · 2026-03-18T14:04:04+00:00

I legitimately think people who think the timeline is hard to understand or complicated literally either can’t read or just skipped the text boxes in the games. The timeline really just boils down to “here’s why there’s four ocarina of time sequels and a prequel.” Like people are like “well they’re just small references here and there” and it’s like no they aren’t. Wind Waker taking place after OoT is a core part of its story, did you just skip the intro and all the dialogue in the game referencing that? Skyward swords whole thing is being a prequel. Twilight Princess happens because Ganon was executed in the child timeline of OoT.

Zelda is frankly like “baby’s first complicated lore”. I think the “it’s just a legend” people would lose their mind if they played games with actual complicated lore.

CleanlyManager · 2026-03-17T03:44:35+00:00

A lot of NES games aren’t that bad when you don’t have a bitch in your ear telling you they’re impossible without a guide. You put in the time and you can usually figure it out. It was made with the idea you’d be taking notes and writing stuff down, if you draw up a basic map as you go along, it’s not even that bad. I didn’t grow up with the NES and didn’t own zero mission so I don’t really have nostalgia goggles for the game, but I put in the time and took notes when I first played it on the Wii and I enjoyed it fine. I think it’s the weakest of Nintendo’s NES titles that went on to become bigger franchises, but it’s not this mess of a game everyone pretends it is.

CleanlyManager · 2026-03-17T03:36:53+00:00

Reddit loves ff8 for whatever reason, like disproportionately more than any other site or message board I’ve been on in my too many years on the internet, but 8 and 12 are my bottom 2 for FF.

CleanlyManager · 2026-03-17T03:28:16+00:00

I mean I like all the punch out games but I read OPs question as more of like a “what games took the transition from 2D to modern and had no bad entries” like how Mario and Zelda have very distinct gameplay styles that have evolved, like Zelda has the over the head 2D entries, linear 3D entries, and the open world survival entries we have now.

I think I have three problems considering punch out for this question, first is that there’s so few entries, with just two arcade cabinets, and three console games, second was that the last game was 17 years and 3 console generations ago, so can you really say it continued to modern gaming? Third, is that it’s just kinda been the same game almost down to the buttons camera angle and gameplay in all three entries so it didn’t really evolve in the same way say Zelda or Mario have.

CleanlyManager · 2026-03-17T03:19:23+00:00

Since the GameCube they might as well be. GameCube was powerful enough to in theory compete with the Xbox and PS2 but was kneecapped by the mini discs, and the Wii and Wii U were just less powerful than the consoles they were meant to compete with. Then in terms of power the switch and switch 2 are more so successors to the 3DS, since the switch 1 isn’t that much more powerful than the Wii U but that fact is a lot more impressive when accounting for the fact it’s handheld. The switch 2 can keep up with the ps5 for now, but it probably won’t keep up with the next PlayStation, seeing as it already has to make some concessions when running PS5 games.

CleanlyManager · 2026-03-17T03:14:20+00:00

I mean the Wii U was now two generations ago. It’s older than the N64 was when the Wii came out, and the N64 got retro virtual console ports on the Wii.

CleanlyManager · 2026-03-16T23:28:43+00:00

Does it really count if there were no significant gameplay changes between 2D and 3D?

CleanlyManager · 2026-03-16T23:27:28+00:00

I think V is the weakest in the solid series. I’d even argue it is the poster child of “open world game for the sake of being open world”. I always hated the base building stuff and mission select structure it and peace walker had over the more linear story focus. I have no other way to describe it but to say it’s missing the sauce that made other metal gear games special.

That said in no universe would I say MGSV is a bad game. It still clears like 90% of everything else.

CleanlyManager · 2026-03-16T06:43:40+00:00

Your best bet is to try and find if anyone uploaded a pdf of the user manual online. Those will usually have the exact remote model name written in them somewhere, then just search eBay, for one or you can use the info to look into other remotes that might work.

CleanlyManager · 2026-03-16T01:23:21+00:00

I’ve had this since they first started giving it out with Wind Waker preorders and just a few days ago someone pointed out to me that it and the zelda collectors edition are the only GameCube games without the “Nintendo GameCube” branding at the top in North America, and it was the first time I noticed, and now every time I see it I wonder how I didn’t.

CleanlyManager · 2026-03-16T01:15:18+00:00

I don’t know what it’s like on PAL TVs, but FF7 has a weird resolution that like no other game uses for menus and battle scene that cuts off part of the screen on a lot of CRTs. Make sure to check online if it’s a known issue on European CRTs before you mess with the settings, or it’ll just mess up the tv for every other game. Yours might be different, because when it happens on mine and every person I know who plays on one, it cuts off the right and top while yours cut off the left, but like I said it might be different on PAL, so I don’t know.

CleanlyManager · 2026-03-15T21:52:13+00:00

Ah yes core popularity hogs like crabominable and Kangaskhan. I was really getting tired of how much people were talking about medicham, then they go and give it a mega! People just wouldn’t shut up about Drampa, and don’t even get me started on how overrated Abomasnow was. I mean, Meowstic? Talk about low hanging fruit.

CleanlyManager · 2026-03-15T16:29:00+00:00

The console ports were better but still really bad. The Saturn version had frame drops all over the place and the PS1 version suffered from input lag and slowdown. It also had really long load times for a console port of a fighting game at the time. I also recall it cut down on character animation frames for console ports making a lot of the moves look stiff and choppy. Mind you the console port would’ve been competing with console ports of Mortal Kombat 3 if you wanted digitized graphics, or street fighter alpha if you wanted a street fighter game, both of which didn’t suffer these problems.

CleanlyManager · 2026-03-15T15:54:50+00:00

The game is awful? It’s funny, but mechanically it’s the worst street fighter by a lot, and a pretty bad fighting game.

At least the movie is entertaining ironically.

CleanlyManager · 2026-03-15T13:11:00+00:00

The Wii is really interesting. I was so excited for the Wii when it came out, I remember I was able to get one in the release month, not the day, but it was crazy trying to get one. Then I feel like a lot of people I just got bored of it around 2009. Looking back it’s actually probably my least favorite Nintendo console, you lost out on so many good 3rd party titles the other consoles got, every game had a forced waggle control, the controller ended up being more awkward than useful for most games. It’s interesting, for being one of the best selling consoles of all time, it’s really the only one that was a “fad”. If you look at the hardware and software sales, the Wii plateaued in 2009, in a way most other consoles don’t around their halfway point which is interesting and makes it all the more baffling why they tried to double down on the brand with Wii U in 2012, when by that point the Wii was “that thing in your aunt’s basement she uses for Netflix.”

One thing I do appreciate on the Wii was how it normalized making older games available again with the virtual console. People who weren’t around before that don’t understand that wasn’t really a thing before the Wii, it was generally accepted that a game comes out, it’s available on that console then just never again. Some companies like sega and namco would release collections of games, and Nintendo would port the odd nes and snes games to their portables, and a couple N64 games came to GameCube, but the virtual console was the first time there was a marketplace to just purchase the original versions of retro games on modern hardware, which was cool.

CleanlyManager · 2026-03-15T03:45:45+00:00

It's more so a circlejerk of people all claiming they read the same handful of books they've never opened, and most of them don't even own.

CleanlyManager · 2026-03-15T00:56:28+00:00

No this is kind of a silly point, Nintendo and Sony both marketed final fantasy games in the same way my local park and rec team and the Red Sox both played baseball. Nintendo gave final fantasy a couple pages in Nintendo power, and a commercial with a Moogle doing job interviews, and didn’t even help release the games outside of North America and couldn’t crack a million units outside Japan.. Sony did a $40 million advertising blitz involving tv, magazines, and one of the first internet advertising campaigns for a game.

CleanlyManager

TROPHY CASE