To be fair, all characters in Gothic 3 look awful - especially those we know from the previous games.

Here are a few others:

Dragon Quest 5 (in comparison to DQ4):
* Removing the option to play as a female character.
* Reducing the active party size from 4 to 3 (why? at least this change was reverted in the remake)

Dragon Quest 8:
* Replaced the class system from 6 and 7 with a skill point system, complete with all the flaws associated with such systems (need to distribute all bonus points as soon as you level up, no way to respec)
* Added battle animations, which slows down the game
* In non-JP versions, accessing the menu requires a load

Ultima 4:
* Number of gender options reduced from 3 to 2 (can no longer choose Other)
* Need reagents to cast spells (one of my biggest complaints about the series, actually)

Ultima 5:
* RNG determines whether you can level up, even if you have enough XP
* No easy way to max your stats, and stat growth is random and miniscule.

Ultima 6:
* Inventory space now limited by your Strength (in previous Ultima games, there was no limit on inventory, except for a limit of 99 of each item)

Ultima 7:
* Replaced a decent turn-based battle system with a horrible real-time one
* You now need to feed your characters manually; combine this with a poor inventory system (in Ultima 6, food was mostly a non-issue; it's automatically consumed when you rest and is unnecessary otherwise (as it should be), but Ultima 7 forces you to pay attention to what should be an irrelevant detail)

Ultima 8:
* Can no longer play as a female character (this change was actually the dealbreaker for me)

Wizardry 2/3:
* Ability to create new characters removed; therefore you can't play either game unless you own Wizardry 1 (as there are no premade characters)

NES Wizardry: The Knight of Diamonds:
* Teleport traps can now teleport you into solid rock, causing your party to be gone forever; especially bad on the cave floor.
* In Japan, this version was called Wizardry 3, which creates confusion with computer version numbering; in the US, this version was called Wizardry 2 (as "Wizardry 2: Legacy of Llylgamyn" didn't see a US release for the NES).

Oh, an easy one: Plants vs Zombies 2

The original was a quite nice, funny and addictive casual tower defense game which I've played through several times (both the Windows and Android versions).

The sequel was turned into a "free-to-play" game where you are supposed to buy extra stuff for the game through microtransactions, and in the end this affected the gameplay a lot. The luck factor was increased a lot, now it became much more common that you'd end up in situations where you WILL lose... unless you buy some powerup (with real money) to overcome the situation.

If you don't buy it, then you have to retry the same level so many times that you finally get lucky and everything clicks in the right place and you are ready to proceed to the next level... which again will annoy you by making it sure you have to retry your luck dozens of times if you insist of not buying anything through the microtransactions.

Sure the original PvZ also had some luck factor here and there, e.g. did some hard enemy happen to come right in that lane where you have already built the best cannon. But the luck factor was in quite a different level on the sequel. It is obvious the gameplay is made annoying to those who try to play without paying.

I guess that is quite common with free-to-play single-player games, the importance of actual skill is lowered and the importance of luck is increased, so that you simply can't avoid paying for the game by simply becoming very good at playing it. Sure skill still counts some, but not as much as in regular games.


With online multiplayer free-to-play games it is a bit different, since all gamers are (potentially paying) customers, you can annoy them just making sure that free players are in some ways in a disadvantage. For instance in Team Fortress 2, the lack of inventory space becomes a real problem increasingly the longer you play, and they have intentionally made it so that your gameplay is distrupted if your inventory is full and you receive a new item. You can't wait until the end of the game to manage your inventory, but you have to manage your inventory right there during the gameplay, make decisions whether to discard the item you just received, or instead discard some old (duplicate?) item from your inventory.

Age of Mythology: The expansion introduced a new civilization, except that civilization is completely fictional rather than historical.

In one of the many interviews on Matt Barton's youtube channel, I think it was Feargus Urquhart(or was it Josh Sawyer) who said that Fallout ended up as an isometric RPG because of technological limitations, and that he would have liked to make a proper FPS sequel to Fallout, but that Bethesda got there first. He said that he didn't agree with all the things that Bethesda did to the franchise, but the FPS perspective was one that he was really excited about.

Knowing the great games these guys were able to create, and hearing his opinion on the perspective shift, made me less angry about it from that point of view, and more angry about the incompetent writing that Bethesda passes as a narrative in all their games(maybe not Morrowind).

Sorry but I can't remember the exact interview where that was said, so I can't link to the source.

that and the fact that they limited the potions you could carry to 8 and you could only replenish them if when to a camp. I mean if this was dark souls and you only had one character to worry about that would be fine but when you have 4 characters to think about that doesn't work so well.

Final Fantasy III and IV on the DS hate your guts for reasons which are not explained.

Final Fantasy III penalizes you for changing jobs (among other things), whereas Final Fantasy IV keeps the difficulty of the SNES original, and cranks it up a few notches.

Speaking of, the graphical changes in the mobile ports of the SNES Final Fantasy games.

Final Fantasy 6 Advance:
* Gogo can no longer equip the Merit Award.

FFIV DS had the original JPN difficulty restored, FFIV for the SNES (III its called in NA I believe) and the GBA port use the NA difficulty.

The game is called "Age of Mythology". Atlantis is part of Mythology. I mean, the fact that the "historical" factions had units like minotaurs, sphinxes and giants didn't bother you?

Obviously not, but all the Norsemen, Egyptians and Greeks were all actual existing civilizations.

I was disappointed with the Blood sequel. The atmosphere was changed far too much. The original had a gritty, gothic theme and great gameplay, but Blood 2 was changed to something more "modern" and the game was terrible!

If you want to play a better game with the LithTech engine, go play Shogo!

Dragon Age 2: introduction of the dreaded AWESOME button and all of its consequences. I recall seeing a poll in Bioware's site, when the game was about to enter production, asking fans what genre should the sequel be, with ARPG comfortably leading it. Of course, there was no "RPG" or "Don't change it" option available... Abandoned those franchises because of that.

To be fair the Atlanteans may have existed. There are a lot of various places and events which they think may have given rise to the stories of Atlantis, so they're not strictly fictional.

Probably not a popular choice, but I never played Age of Mythology because it went from 2D graphics to 3D. I thought the 3D graphics of the time were ugly, and I was disappointed to see so many strategy games seem to go in that direction.

Well, at least now 3D graphics look a lot better now than they used to, so it doesn't bother me as much. I also have a computer that can actually run them, so that helps.