As far as I know, Mega Man didn't die because it was no longer making money. Capcom just dropped the ball. And on the topic of Capcom, let's not forget Street Fighter is still going strong. And how about every franchise Nintendo has ever made? Pokemon? Mario? Legend of Zelda? Yes there's some change ups to the formula now and than, and in the transition from 2d to 3d there has been some definite innovation, but people still enjoy paying money to Nintendo every few years for what is basically (and usually) the same experience.
Now, I feel for one to to say "very few games should go beyond 3 installments" is a very close minded statement that does not take into account certain genres or gameplay experiences. As I said in my first post, it depends HEAVILY on the type of game. A fighting game could take no less than 5 or 6 revisions and re-releases before everything is "just right" and it becomes the classic it was meant to be. Arcade style and competitive games (which includes single player games: scoring in shmups, speed running platformers, etc.) can benefit VASTLY from the amount of variety that a large number of installments can offer, as it gives people more options in finding the game with a playstyle and design that truly suits and appeals to them. There are of course a large number of other franchises that can benefit vastly from this, but this is just off the top of my head.
Megaman classic nearly died in the 90's because they made too many nes sequels and gameboy games. From the NES era alone you had to have 100's of hours of megaman games, and people were getting tired of the same thing, so they made megaman X. They slowed way down after that, you'll notice, only making 3 X games that generation and making only one classic megaman game. After that they kept trying to release megaman on the ps1, but they just weren't selling much, and they stopped. That was the first death of megaman, and it had everything to do with people getting tired of megaman games. Megaman 10 was arguably more about just being a lackluster game than fatigue, of course, but that's not really what I'm talking about.
And you're forgetting that I said that
most series shouldn't go past 3 sequels. Many of the games designed in the 80's and 90's dodged a lot of bullets here through minimalistic narrative, among other things, but to talk about the games you played:
Ones that can/should keep going:
Legend of Zelda: The main thing here is that, the story essentially starts with a clean slate on every release. The games are connected with some motifs and 3-4 recurring characters, but are rarely a straight sequel, and that's usually what keeps them running. It's a good structure since it actually gives the director freedom with the game.
Street Fighter: This one gets a free pass because every time there's actually a new game, it's more like a design/technological update than a new game. It's an esport, people don't want to run it on decades old hardware forever so they respond by updating the game. Obviously they change other shit too, but in the end that's the big reason that street fighter 4 exists.
Revisions also don't count as new games, they are the same game you had before except you have to buy it again for patch support.
Things that are probably going to die soon if they don't change things up:
Pokemon: There's already a massive fatigue surrounding the amount of pokemon we have, that's only going to increase until "more pokemon" isn't going to sell the new pokemon game. Not to mention the weird generational model they use is incredibly dated, and it would benefit everyone involved if they would just move on.
Things that might need to die but can't die and oh god what have we done:
Mario: Mario is nintendo's mascot. He can't stop making games. He's Mario.
I can't imagine mario dying, and obviously his games sell no matter how tired they are or how vague their relation is to him, but they've been riding the same wave since the 80's and by everything we know about economics there has to be an end. It's not going to happen soon, but it's going to happen. If you look at Disney's history there's a long part of it where mickey mostly took a back seat to other characters and ideas, and I think that will happen to mario sometime.
Most of the stuff that I was thinking of when I said that:
EA, Activision, Ubisoft, 2K, etc. They constantly throw out big series without thinking about how to sustain them for as long as they want. The only game I can think of off the top of my head from that massive group of game devs that can sustain itself well is Farcry. Literally the only thing I can think of.
Also, I should have mentioned this before, but another reason why the original Mega Man series got so "stale" was because the later installments on the nes (5 and 6 in particular, though some would argue 4 counts as well. I would personally disagree on that count) were simply terrible. Repetitive level design, bland boss encounters, and the same flaws as the rest of the series (hit and miss weapons etc.) Even reviewers who usually don't have a mind for the subtleties of level design usually remark that 5 and 6 feel poorly designed in comparison to the rest of the series when played back to back on the anniversary collection.
I personally don't like 8 either because of the sloooooooooooooooooww move speed, but a lot of people seem to like that one.
Anyway the point is that while you could argue that the franchise was getting stale, it also was having very serious quality control issues at the time as well.
Honestly, it wasn't really having BIG quality drops. I have no doubt that if megaman 6 had dropped earlier people would have been fine with it. It's just that it came super late, and everything it did had been done. There were no really new tricks, there was just more nes megaman... and that doesn't make it a terrible game, but it doesn't make it very good either.
It's like pokemon. Technically every new game is almost objectively better than the last; they add new pokemon and bells and whistles and it's the game you loved before but more, but if you ask nearly any fan what their favorite game of the series is, it's the one they grew up with; younger fans say ruby/saphire and older fans say red/blue or gold/silver. And if you give it a few years, a bunch of 12 year olds will say that Diamond/Pearl were the best. That's because those were the games that they played before pokemon had been done a million times.
To use another shmup example, let me put it this way:
Eschatos and the rest of Qute Corps games are very innovative. Qute takes the bullet hell genre, usually known for "micro dodging" and fine movement through dense patterns, and instead creates games with dense patterns but a much greater emphasis on extremely high speed movement, enemies with more in depth ai, back to basics scoring systems, and patterns that remain extremely challenging without restricting movement the way most bullet hell patterns do.
Do I like Qute because they are innovative? No. I like them because their playstyle is what I was already looking for in the genre before I even heard of them. When I say I don't care about innovation, I don't mean that I'm against it. I mean that when I go out shopping for games, I'm not making my picks based on what has the newest concepts, but rather what has the concepts that are most aligned my with my play style and interests.
What I want is not for Qute to throw out what they already have for the sake of "innovation" but to continue refining and perfecting it (I don't think the formula or style is perfect yet, I have a few minor complaints) and than churn out as many well designed and varied sequels with that play style as will satisfy a lifetime of competitive score play (which maybe isn't as many as you think since each individual game can take a vast amount of time and dedication to even approach true mastery).
I can see where you're coming from, but it's silly to think that they've just found the perfect shmup formula. There are billions of possibilities even in the niche shmup genre, and it's not only possible but pretty likely that some creative person who likes shmups will come up with something new that's just as good or better than what is available.
What I'm trying to say is that, you don't have to specifically buy games because they're innovative, but you should still support those games because they're the only significant method of progress any genre has.
Like, for example, everyone here.
Obviously not enough people to make it the next *INSERT POPULAR FRANCHISE HERE*, but hey, these are already niche genres and franchises we are talking about, designed with a very competitive and dedicated fanbase in mind.
Much like the Castlevania fanbase was happy with Order of Eclessia, the Touhou fanbase is pretty much happy with Touhou 14 (which actually is probably more like Touhou 20 since the spin offs aren't counted in the main series)
With every sequel that doesn't really introduce anything other than a level pack, the series loses fans. It will definitely lose fans, because not everyone can keep up with it. It then has to pick up and get enough new people to sustain itself. If it fails to do that, it degrades a bit. If it degrades too much, it dies because there aren't enough sales to keep going. The number of people leaving rises exponentially with each sequel that fails to introduce anything.
Remember that "fans" doesn't mean people who go on the forums and talk about the game, fans are the people who consistently buy your product, and a good 90% at least never touch the forums. Fatigue doesn't usually result in a bunch of people hitting the forums for an angry rant either, they just stop getting excited over releases and eventually just stop caring at all until they stop buying them.
Touhou doesn't really have to worry about this though, since economics doesn't really apply to freeware. I can say that I used to follow touhou releases religiously until like 2008, when I slowly got to the point that I just don't care. Now I check up on them like once every 6 months maybe, and if there's a new game I usually play it for like 10-20 minutes and get bored.
unpopular opinion
i think other peoples' opinions should be respected and not argued violently just for being different or disagreeing with my own
There's a pretty silly idea that passes around the internet a lot now that opinions are some innocent pure thing that evil debates devour in an attempt to satisfy their bloodlust.
It's a load of shit.
A bad opinion is, frankly, one of the most damaging things you can hold. For you, for everyone you know, for society, for the entire world. Pretty much all of it. The majority has the power to change things, and that can make things great or it can fuck everything up. It all depends on their opinions.
A respectable argument can strengthen your opinion or make you realize that you're wrong. You're either gaining confidence or losing ignorance. That's beneficial either way.
