Game franchises that don't seem to have a coherent lore/aesthetic

[Clownbaby]

Having a lot of spare time coming up has got me pissing about playing games I haven't played in a while, and obsessing about them more than they probably deserve. I thought I'd start playing the Rayman joy/abyss of a franchise, title to title, and my Christ, my Lord, Rayman doesn't have a shred of coherence from game to game, chronologically, tonally, visually, quality-wise. It's all over the map in a way I don't think any other fairly successful game franchise has been. I've got a soft spot for most of the main Rayman games, like the proper ones, but there's such a shift in identity between the games, especially between the first one and second one. And a consistent set of characters has just never been established the whole time Rayman has existed. It's like the people involved keep getting sick of most of the characters at the end of every game and drop them, then redesign everyone around Rayman from the ground up.

I was drawn to the first Rayman as a kid because of how strangely glittering and glossy it all looked. All the characters fit harmoniously together looks-wise even though they're obviously very bizarre. Everything sparkles and has big eyes and there's a strangely campy foreign feel to the whole thing. It's a coherently strange little world of imps n fairies, then there's the pointy sparkling abominations that want to kill you but are still very sweet and cute looking. I've always loved how this game looks. Also Rayman isn't the only character that looks like he does, and I prefer that. You've got the minor characters like the Tarzan lad and the musician and his wife and some of the baddies are limbless as well, then you've got Mr Dark who is presumably the same type of creature as Rayman. The camp lil Magician at the start is the same creature as Rayman. Betilla doesn't have a massive all encompassing nose but she's got floating hands n feet as well. They all look like they belong together in the game and they all look very distinctive. Apparently everyone FUCKING DIES apart from Rayman by the time Rayman 2 comes around though.

I know Rayman 2 is Rayman's move to 3D and I have no problems with actually enjoying playing the game, it's an alright game and Im a lot better at it that Rayman 1 but christ it's dull and muddy to look at. It's such a departure from the first one in every way. Rayman looks like Rayman but it's like the character has been dumped into another game universe. Suddenly there is nobody that looks like him in any way and it's very jarring after the last one. I wonder if the creators of the original Rayman were so disappointed with how the first one turned out (????) that they just binned it all. "Nah we're not tweaking anyone, wipe them away. Forget them. New characters. All new characters." Rayman 1 is Chuck Cunningham: the game.

Rayman 3 is just kind of Rayman 2 but with the most irritating voice acting ever and the whole Rayman idea repurposed by someone outside of the first two. Another thing that bugs me is how across all the Raymans the characters never have a fixed style of voice, because they're not fully fledged characters. I guess Rayman kind of sounds nondescript so that doesn't count but Murphy goes from impish and high pitched and fairly polite to G I L B E R T  G O T T F R E I D, making irritating fourth wall references and crass innuendos by Rayman 3. Which is it? There's a shit Rayman animated series as well that has the villain Razorbeard in it and he doesn't sound piratey or evil or robotic at all in it. He looks exactly the same but he's just kind of wimpy and also faintly Italian American and goes "capisce" occasionally and Rayman is a wisecracking little cunt who works at a circus (????) For some reason. Where was that in the games. Also there's a hideous bucktoothed alien rabbit that doesn't make any sense. The whole thing is like a horrible bad Rayman fanfiction by a 12 year old girl who has just discovered Tim Burton and tried to make her own original characters and then slot Rayman in there just cause she likes Rayman.

Then you've got the fucking Raving Rabbids that, again, upturn the whole thing of Rayman. They just come out of nowhere. They're a kind of trashy minigame-style mobile game angry birds sort of thing. It's like making an Angry Birds and Crash Bandicoot crossover, but just dropping Crash Bandicoot into the flimsy lore of Angry Birds with no explanation other than "they're bad and he must defeat them." Again, it's like pure shit fanfiction.

Rayman Origins apparently isn't actually a Rayman Origin story despite being called Rayman Origins. I don't know why they didn't just call it "Rayman Rampage" or "Rayman Reboot" or something. It's a lovely game and my favourite one to play and I was so pleased to see it be the first game in years to actually acknowledge the beauty of the first game, and it actually manages to tie in old and new characters nicely. It seems like they want Rayman to stand out as the only limbless character though for some reason because even though Betilla and The Magician are back, she's a slutty thicc ass girl and he's a Teensy, with no explanation. Why is he a Teensy? Is it even the same lad? He kind of acts the same. Why does everyone suddenly talk in Pig Latin? Where was that in the other games? See what i mean? Fucking Bedlam. But, I guess they all belong in the same game looks wise and it's sound. I wouldn't want to see them dismantle all this yet again if they're planning another Rayman any time soon, cause they kept it up alright with Rayman Legends as well. Keep going lads if you're gonna do any more Raymans, this is good

I'm not expecting the same level of ranting from anyone else about silly little videogame characters but anyone else have similar misgivings with another game franchise? As in weird tonal and aesthetic shifts per game? To be honest though I don't think there's one that is as much of a wildcard as Rayman.

I think what it boils down to is that Michel Ancel the creator of Rayman likes to try a lot of new things and drifts in and out of creative input into the Rayman's after the second one. I still like the core games. This isn't really a comment on how fun they are to play, just how oddly incoherent the world of Rayman is for such a long running and pretty successful franchise eh. That concludes my absolute tirade about the hot mess that is Rayman. Fuck I need to get out of the house.

[Dewt]

That is the most anybody has ever written about Rayman. This is an endorsement, not a criticism.

[Clownbaby]

That is the most anybody has ever written about Rayman. This is an endorsement, not a criticism.

Chillingly, I have more in me

[samadriel]

Obvious answer is Quake, only 2 and 4 have anything substantial in common.

[Ferris]

Red Faction is completely different from II, which is totally different from 3 or Armageddon or whatever it's called.

[bgmnts]

Does the Final Fantasy series of games count? There are recurring characters sort of like Cid, but they are all vastly different.

Fallout series is possibly one due to Bethesda having no understanding of the games at all.

Unsure about Mortal Kombat or Resident Evil either.

[evilcommiedictator]

Dark Souls is laughing at your pitiful examples

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

Resident Evil maintained a consistent aesthetic and tone for the first three games, with a fairly straightforward plot. Then, apparently, someone spiked the water supply at Capcom and it all went increasingly nutty, until they were sent to rehab and we got Resi 7.

The two Prey games have nowt to do with each other, beyond the arbitrarily reused title (and genre, obviously).

Red Faction is completely different from II, which is totally different from 3 or Armageddon or whatever it's called.

I wouldn't say the first two were completely different. They took place on entirely different planets, but it still felt like a fairly coherent overall setting. The Earth seen in 2 doesn't feel like anything I wouldn't have expected from the first game. The biggest difference was going from the Half-Life rip off style progression of the first game, to discrete levels in the second.

[Ferris]

I tried to play resident evil 4 last night but the controls were so clunky I gave up. One joystick is move and turn and aim, while the other does nothing.

Will try again tonight maybe.

[KennyMonster]

Wizball/WizKid[nb]One for the young 'uns there.[/nb]

[The Crumb]

Need for speed. Beyond 'features cars' there's not much limit to what they'll stick the name on.

[Consignia]

Wizball/WizKid[nb]One for the young 'uns there.[/nb]

Was WizKid even consistent within it's own game? Like each level wildly different in gameplay and whatever the fuck is going on with it.

[Space ghost]

Does the Final Fantasy series of games count? There are recurring characters sort of like Cid, but they are all vastly different.

It was the first answer that occurred to me so I'm going to go ahead and say that it definitely does count and is the best answer in the thread.

[KennyMonster]

Was WizKid even consistent within it's own game? Like each level wildly different in gameplay and whatever the fuck is going on with it.

I never owned Whizkid, didn't have an Amiga at the time so I never really got to know it well.

There was the main game, brick destroying, like breakout/Arkanoid but then when you completed a level you went on some surreal Arcade Adventure where nothing made any sense and you couldn't work out the rules before being dumped onto the next level IIRC.

(I loved Wizball on the C64 though).

[madhair60]

Fucking Sonic the Hedgehog, mate

[H-O-W-L]

The two Prey games have nowt to do with each other, beyond the arbitrarily reused title (and genre, obviously).

Word on the street (IE all but officially confirmed truth) is that it's all Bethesda/Zenimax's doing, and that Arkane had a totally different title in mind.

[bgmnts]

Fucking Sonic the Hedgehog, mate

Do Sonic and Mario even have plots and lore? Never even thought about it.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

Word on the street (IE all but officially confirmed truth) is that it's all Bethesda/Zenimax's doing, and that Arkane had a totally different title in mind.

I assumed that was the case. I dunno why they bothered though. It's not like the first one was a smash hit.

[beanheadmcginty]

Played through the opening of Metal Gear Solid V really enjoying it, big flaming demons and all sorts of exciting mad shit. Got dumped in a desert with a horse in what turms out to be the actual game and it's boring as fuck. Switched it off and never went back. Two entirely different games in one game there.

[Pseudopath]

Do Sonic and Mario even have plots and lore? Never even thought about it.

Of course they do.

[Bazooka]

Do Sonic and Mario even have plots and lore? Never even thought about it.

It fucking does, good versus evil, animal liberation to name a few.

[bgmnts]

Fucking hell just imagining Knuckle's cloaca made me all sexy.

[Zetetic]

Tropico, sort of. The first game has a fairly gentle and subdued sense of humour, and feels like it's trying to cultivate a sense of place or something[nb]I never found an open-ended city-builder/government-game that gets anywhere near it on this basis. The closest being DF-like stuff, I guess.[/nb], the second is something quite different, and the rest are knock-offs of the first without any sense of coherence or vision.

Far Cry has the oddness of just being a name that was reused for the first three before settling down to be roughly the same game with different skins after that.

[Lemming]

Far Cry does have one cohesive theme in that you're trapped somewhere in every incarnation and can't easily leave. As I remember it:

Far Cry: Trapped because there's just no apparent way off the island that isn't guarded by mercenaries
Far Cry 2: I can't remember the game too well. Trapped by malaria or something
Far Cry 3: Trapped because the islands are locked down by pirates
Far Cry 4: Trapped because the evil government militia closed down all the airports
Far Cry 5: I can't remember if they actually explain why you can't just leave, but presumably it's because you can't abandon your captured friends