10 Video Game Franchises That Have Fallen Off

The saying holds that "all good things must come to an end." But that's not completely true, is it? Some good things keep going forever—they just stop being good after a while.

It's unfortunate that that has to happen to some of our favorite video game franchises ever, but it seems being around for decades can cause the creative wells to run dry. Some of these franchises have been commercialized, streamlined, or dumbed down to death. Others have simply outlasted their charm, yet somehow refuse to die.

Some—and these are probably the saddest—took big risks that didn't pay off. We're all for innovation, but maybe handing one of your key franchises off to a developer that's made no great games (and hardly any good ones) isn't the best idea? We're looking at you, NIntendo (you know what we're talking about).

Without further ado, let's take a trip down good memories / bad present lane and examine the top 10 franchises that used to be good but aren't anymore.

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Katamari is not our top choice because the most recent entry, Touch My Katamari on PS Vita, wasn't actually that bad. But the series really started going downhill with Me & My Katamari on PSP and, especially, Beautiful Katamari on Xbox 360. Series creator Keita Takahashi left after the first two games on PS2 to make other weird things like Noby Noby Boy, and the PSP and Xbox 360 games, along with all subsequent entries, suffered for it.

It doesn't help that the Katamari games these days feel like half-finished titles padded out with microtransactions.

Super Mario RPG was one of the Super Nintendo's most unikely hits. Despite the involvement of the then-peaking Squaresoft, it seemed a combination of Mario with turn-based RPG combat was doomed to fail.

But it didn't. In fact, it was incredible. And years later a follow-up arrived in the form of Paper Mario. Again, it seemed like a ridiculous premise: Mario is for some reason made of paper now. The commercials had Bowser holding Princess Peach over a paper shredder.

But again, it was amazing. It's too bad the most recent entry, Paper Mario Sticker Star, trashed almost everything that was good about the series (depth, fun combat, growth, story) in exchange for a shallow and lame sticker system. Once you realize it makes more sense to avoid every single battle in the game because there's no experience or leveling up it becomes slightly less fun.

Metroid has always been one of the greatest franchises in gaming history. That's what makes us so sure that it can bounce back from the epic failure of Metroid: Other M.

No, that one terrible game doesn't negate years of excellent ones. But it does mean that as of right now the franchise has completely degraded—the most recent good game in the series, Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, came out in 2007, and its developer Retro Studios is fully occupied making awesome Donkey Kong Country Returns titles.

Is it hypocritical to pan Metroid: Other M after complaining for years that Nintendo should take more risks? Maybe, but handing one of their most beloved franchises over to Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball developers Team Ninja is not what we meant.

Silent Hill gave us nightmares back in the day. Hell, it still gave us nightmares when we tried the HD remake on Xbox 360 recently—and not just because of the bugs. But let's be honest: it's been a while since any of the new entries in the franchise lived up to that standard.

Silent Hill: Downpour came closest, though its combat left something to be desired. It felt old school to a fault; obviously games should pay homage to what came before them, but a little innovation is nice as well.

It doesn't help that the most recent game in the series, last year's Silent Hill: Book of Memories, was an isometric action RPG spin-off for PS Vita.

Kingdom Hearts was one of those ideas that was so far out that it couldn't help but be amazing, like pizza bagels. And combining Final Fantasy with Disney definitely paid off for Square Enix.

Fast forward over a decade and there have been two official numbered games in the series, the original and Kingdom Hearts 2 in 2005. Since then the games have been released on mobile and handheld platforms. We're going to list them, and you'll tell us if any have been good at all:

Kingdom Hearts Re: Chain of Memories, Kingdom Hearts coded, Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days, Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep, Kingdom Hearts Re: coded, Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance, and Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 Remix.

Noooope. All crap. Kingdom Hearts 3 was finally revealed at E3 this year, but does anyone even care anymore?

Poor Sonic. He's been living in Mario's shadow since the beginning, and to this day he's yet to find a way to crawl out of it, despite all his speed. It doesn't bode well that the most we've enjoyed playing as Sonic in a decade has been in Super Smash Bros. Brawl.

They've tried everything: 3D Sonic games, kart racers, even complete old school throwbacks like Sonic the Hedgehog 4. But somehow they all manage to fail at capturing what made the original great. Hell, maybe it never was great—maybe Sonic on Sega Genesis was just flashy and colorful and fun, and that was good enough at one point.

Now Sonic is sleeping with the enemy for the upcoming Wii U exclusive Sonic Lost World, which we are once again super stoked for despite knowing better.

Fable's really not a bad franchise. It's more just a victim of the overpromising of it creator, Peter Molyneux. Okay, and it's sort of a bad franchise at this point.

The original had such potential—or at least we were led to believe that it did. What it was instead was a cute and fun RPG-lite with some very basic moral choices, and none of the sequels have gone beyond that. In fact, Fable 3 took some major steps backward by letting you be the worst king ever for the shortest reign of all time and then taking it all away. Lame.

And the latest? A spin-off for Kinect, the most accurate and responsive motion controller on the market in an alternate universe in which it works much better and is literally the only motion controller in existence. We hope sincerely that this series can pick up one day.

Resident Evil was once the king and queen of survival horror, but now it's become something much less enjoyable: a parody of itself with little inherent worth. And it seems Capcom was happy to hand the horror reigns to newcomers like Dead Space and Amnesia, taking Resident Evil in a completely different direction all in pursuit of "mainstream success."

Resident Evil 4 is hailed as one of the greatest games ever, but we think it hails something else: the beginning of the series' demise. It was great, sure, but it also marked the start of all the ideas that made Resident Evil 5 and 6 so atrocious: the mindless combat, endless enemies, and decided lack of zombies, to name a few.

We'll grant that Resident Evil: Revelations on 3DS was a pretty great throwback to the franchise's earlier days, but that's only because it forgot most of what the last three main games in the series changed.

Final Fantasy is the obvious choice here, and it deserves every bit of scorn that's been heaped on it lately. The early games in the series were, by necessity, aesthetically stark but mechanically complex; they featured basic visuals but deep gameplay, and up to Final Fantasy VI and possibly beyond (depending who you ask) some really touching stories.

You can stretch that as far as FFXII, maybe, but the fact is starting with the much revered FFVII Square Enix decided that flashy graphics are more important than anything else, including gameplay and story. The endless spin-offs and re-releases have not helped, nor has the MMOF (Massively Multiplayer Online Failure) known as Final Fantasy XIV.

Need we even mention FFXIII? The trailer for Final Fantasy XV that they showed off at E3 looked good, to be sure, but no one ever said Square Enix couldn't make a great cut scene.

Ouch! Yeah, this one is going to sting a bit. But most RPG fans who've been diving into Bethesda's massive open worlds since before Oblivion was anything more than a footnote in one of the series' in-game tomes knows that The Elder Scrolls is simply not what it used to be.

Games like Daggerfall were straight up revolutionary, and Morrowind, one of our favorite games of all time, features the deepest and most fascinating open world in any game ever. Compare that with the endless sameness, generic fantasy, shallow combat, and complete lack of consequence in Skyrim, and it's easy to see why some old school Elder Scrolls fans aren't as into the series as they once were.

Love Skyrim, go ahead—but when you're done, when you're bored sprinting through the same old dungeon over and over again, give Morrowind a chance and you'll see what we mean. Then tell us how excited you are about The Elder Scrolls Online.