Nowadays, many games people are most excited about are just IP made several generations ago. Franchises like God of War and Call of Duty are ones that people grew up playing, and the developers just keep making them. Unfortunately, not every franchise gets that same credit. Plenty of franchises from the past simply don’t get to come back.
These franchises were beloved by fans, but something went wrong along the way. Either they didn’t have enough fans, or they made one too many bad games, or even they just lost the rights. Whatever the case, while these franchises might get the occasional remaster, fans will likely never get a new game from these series ever again.
10 Skies of Arcadia Was A Creative JRPG Of The Dreamcast Era
That there’s no Skies of Arcadia 2 is one of the great travesties of JRPGs. The original game was almost universally beloved, and widely considered one of the best games on the Dreamcast. The series is a turn-based RPG like most from that era, but it stood out by allowing players to control a group of literal sky pirates.
This is an idea that has endless potential and should’ve been followed up on by Sega ages ago. These days though, Sega is obsessed with creating more sequels to Sonic and Like A Dragon than following up on most of their classic franchises.
9 Tactics Ogre Gets Remasters But Never Any New Games
Tactics Ogre is a series that began back in the mid-1990s at the hands of Yasumi Matsuno. The series was noteworthy for its heavy focus on political drama and character writing. Its tactical-style combat is so good it feels fresh even decades later.
The original game has gotten two remakes over the years, but none have led to anything more substantial. This series could easily stand out from other JRPGs and tactics games, but Matsuno seems like he’s overdoing massive projects like this again.
8 Lunar Only Gets Remasters Instead Of New Games
Unfortunately, the Lunar franchise was never as alive as fans would’ve liked. The original games were made on Sega CD in the early ‘90s, and after that, GameArts simply remade them over and over. Tweaks were added to make the games more fun and add to the story, but overall they were the “same” game. They were two of the best JRPGs of all time, but they just never got many sequels.
That said, the last remake was Lunar: Silver Star Harmony for the PlayStation Portable, which was still received well. There’s always a place for legitimately creative fantasy JRPGs, so if GameArts ever made a Lunar 3, it would definitely work.
7 Virtual On Brought Giant Robots To Fighting Games
SEGA was really on fire with their games at one point, as it felt like everything they made was awesome. Virtual On is one such franchise—a series about giant robots that somehow mixed both single-player action and traditional fighting-game style combat. Though the series was never massively popular, it was creative enough to have an audience of hardcore fans.
The series vanished in the West after Virtual-On Marz was released on the PlayStation 2 in 2003. The series got a semi-revival in a crossover with the fantasy anime A Certain Magical Index in 2018, but that remained in Japan. These days, it’s just a great fighting game everyone forgot was even a thing.
Breath of Fire was Capcom’s JRPG series at a time when everyone was expected to have their own RPG, racer, and fighting game. The series garnered an audience, but it was never as big as some of the other major JRPG fanbases.
Part of this was a lack of promotion, but they also graphically never kept up with series like Final Fantasy. The last real entry was Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter for the PlayStation 2. Since then, Capcom has basically switched over to Monster Hunter, with the spinoff series Monster Hunter Stories for more story-heavy entries.
5 Turok Knew How To Have Fun With Its Dinosaur Hunting Concept
The Turok series was massively popular in the late ‘90s and early 2000s. Based on the popular comic book character, it placed players in a world overrun by dinosaurs. The games allowed themselves to have fun with their concept, making Turok a time traveler that fought dinosaurs, aliens, and other strange creatures.
First-person shooters are more popular now than ever, so a proper Turok game could easily turn into a hit. These days though, he’s just as likely to be tossed into Fortnite or a fighting game as a guest character most kids wouldn’t recognize.
4 F-Zero Seems To Be Forgotten By Nintendo
The F-Zero series is one series at Nintendo that seems to be truly done for. The franchise had tons of fans for its unique sci-fi look and challenging gameplay. However, since the release of F-Zero GX on the GameCube, Nintendo’s been weird about this franchise. They keep saying they’d rather wait until they had a “good enough idea” for the series.
Considering they just gave Mario Kart a bunch of anti-gravity karts, though, that “good idea” is a long way off.At this point, fans would be happy to see this franchise brought back at all, even if it was something outside its racing roots.
3 Sleeping Dogs Had Potential As An Open-World Series
It’s true; the Sleeping Dogs series is more like the True Crime series. However, few new IP from the HD era have left their mark quite as much as Sleeping Dogs. United Front Games did a fantastic job bringing the streets of Hong Kong to life in all their neon glory.
For a game that was supposed to be just the last remnants of a GTA rip-off like True Crime, this game had more soul than most open-world games released since. Square-Enix attempted to capitalize off its success with Triad Wars while they worked on a Sleeping Dogs 2 in the background, but ultimately both were canceled. It’s a shame, because a series of open-world games set in various East Asian cities could have easily been a smash hit.
2 Zone of Enders Never Hit Its Limit As A Mecha Franchise
Zone of the Enders was a space mecha game from the mind of Metal Gear Solid creator Hideo Kojima. Predictably, the series was massively popular with fans and has reached cult classic status in the years since the release of the last game, Zone of the Ends: The 2nd Runner, in 2003.
Konami isn’t interested in what the fans love at all, though. Instead, they’d rather release more ways to spend money on new Yu-Gi-Oh games and drop random remasters of beloved games. That said, how many people would even want this back without Kojima?
1 Parasite Eve Would Be A Massive Success In The Modern Era
Parasite Eve feels like the kind of franchise that missed its era. These days, in a world where Twitch streams have made horror games incredibly popular, the series would’ve easily found a home.
At the time, the franchise was like nothing else on the market. It felt like a cross between Resident Evil, with its horror and inventory mechanics, and Final Fantasy, its turn-based combat, and ability to use magic. The series could definitely find new life these days, but it’s tied up in rights issues. It’d be nice if Square could at least remaster the first two games, so people could at least try them out today.
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