10 Great Video Game Franchises People Simply Abandoned
2. Ninja Gaiden
Nowadays, it's pretty remiss to call something "The Dark Souls of [hard thing]" and call it a day. It's gaming journalism for the unimaginative, to say the least.
But for those born before the Y2K scare, there was one that came before. And it was Ninja Gaiden... well, the 2004 revival, at least.
It was, to put it bluntly, hard. Fair at times, largely punishing for the rest of it. But for all of its controller-breaking frustration, it was a decent challenge wrapped up in a beautiful hack and slash action platformer package.
As was the sequel, Ninja Gaiden 2, in 2008. Better looking but still bastard hard, it was the next evolutionary step for the series. And then, like the Terminator, Back to the Future and Spider-Man movies, the "diminishing returns" rule kicked in.
Ninja Gaiden 3 wasn't just "a mess", it took away the challenge that gamers loved/hated about the first two. Stripping Ryu Hayabusa of an impressive arsenal was bad enough, but removing the challenge and making it easy just didn't resonate with the fans.
Perhaps the recent Master Collection will herald a continuation, but it doesn't look likely.