10 Gaming Franchises That Suffer From Extreme Over-Complication

4. Resident Evil

Putting aside the legendarily complicated control scheme for a second, for all the hammy acting and silly conspiracy theories at one point it was pretty easy to take Resident Evil (and more specifically its first sequel) seriously. The game oozed atmosphere and was to horror games what Terminator 2 was to action movies; trendsetting and bar-raising. But also like the Terminator, the 3rd entry in the series felt a little weak. Some of the spark was gone - it went from two discs to one, we no longer had Leon or Claire, and while good, the magic felt missing. From there the franchise began to fracture, with Code Veronica, Code Verionica X, Resident Evil 0, The Resident Evil remake on Gamecube, Game Boy editions... suddenly trying to keep track of the plight of the Umbrella Corporation and the folks attempting to unravel the conspiracy became a brain-mangling exercise. Eventually Resident Evil 4 released and was a wonderful breath of fresh air, defining the third person shooter in a way gamers hadn't seen before, delivering the atmosphere, terror, and unsettling adventures and scares we loved from the series. And then Resident Evil 5 was set in Africa and decided to deliver a control scheme that...was simply awful, then Resident Evil 6...happened, and it seemed the franchise simply lost whatever creative juices it had. Fast. See, Resident Evil was always good despite itself. The tank-like control scheme was always a pain in the rear, as was inventory management - the games were complicated, but we didn't care because the stuff surrounding those awkward controls was so entertaining. Once that entertainment factor dissipated into a awkward series of narrative events with no real drive behind them, we were left with just the tropes of a Resident Evil game without any of the flair, the complicated and off-putting nature of the franchise became the only thing we knew about it.