Name black sheeps in their franchise

[Immortal Weapon]

I don't think JRPGs really became a big thing until the mid 90s, and both were a bit ambitious for the limited NES hardware as well.

JRPGs were huge in Japan from the first Dragon Quest game which was in the NES.

[CraigTheCylon]

Tekken 4

The game is largely held down by it's stage design. The stages had obstacles in them, many of them had uneven ground and and move properties changed depended on your character's elevation. If you managed to get the high ground you had the match won. I was happy when follow up games returned to having even ground.

Mm-hmm. That, plus they changed side-walking, and added those weird, largely pointless position-change throws, and it all disappeared in time for Tekken 5. And yet, the thing that always bothered me the most was Nina's neutral stance. They made her a hunchback. Do her breasts weigh THAT much?

Oh, thought of another one: Silent Hill: Shattered Memories. For better or worse, Silent Hill 2 pretty much set the style book for the rest of the series (even Silent Hill 4: The Room, which apparently didn't start life as a Silent Hill game, feels indebted to 2) in terms of how the town and its otherworld should look, not to mention the monsters, the clumsy-ass combat and so on. Shattered Memories was the one time the book was definitively thrown out, with the otherworld realized as the town and its residents freezing over instead of rusting and peeling away. Plus, they radically changed the combat...by not having any. I've got more than a few issues with Shattered Memories, and its therapy-session gimmicks aren't as clever as it thinks, but it's probably my favourite entry in the series.

[KCJ506]

Super Mario bros 2 is kind of an interesting story.

Super Mario Bros 2 was actually a re-skin of a totally different Japanese game, although one still developed by Miyamoto, Doki Doki Panic. There's a Japanese Super Mario Bros II, but it was decided that it was too similar to the original game and too difficult to import, so we ended up with the Doki Doki stuff, explaining in part why the game is largely different from pretty much every other mario game (although some elements of it would end up in later games of course). The 'proper' Mario Bros II has of course been released a few times over here in various forms (although it didn't get a true port until 2007 with the Wii).

Plus if the US version of SMB2 was the same as in Japan(The Lost Levels), the Mario games afterwards most likely wouldn't have had Shy Guys, Bob-ombs, Pokeys and Birdo.

[DragonKent17]

For fighting games i go with:
Bloody Roar 4
King of Fighters 2001
Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe
Street Fighter The Movie: The Game
Clayfighters 63 1/2
Soul Calibur V

[Immortal Weapon]

Oh, thought of another one: Silent Hill: Shattered Memories. For better or worse, Silent Hill 2 pretty much set the style book for the rest of the series (even Silent Hill 4: The Room, which apparently didn't start life as a Silent Hill game, feels indebted to 2) in terms of how the town and its otherworld should look, not to mention the monsters, the clumsy-ass combat and so on. Shattered Memories was the one time the book was definitively thrown out, with the otherworld realized as the town and its residents freezing over instead of rusting and peeling away. Plus, they radically changed the combat...by not having any. I've got more than a few issues with Shattered Memories, and its therapy-session gimmicks aren't as clever as it thinks, but it's probably my favourite entry in the series.

Silent Hill 4 is the black sheep of the Team Silent developed games. It placed a limit on your inventory, had a greater focus on combat, introduced breakable weapons, the goddamn ghosts and last half of the game became an escort mission. Story-wise the game's villain was the main character while Henry didn't contribute much. He was kinda just there not reacting to all the mess up crap happening around him.

[the illustrious mr. kenway]

DmC: Devil may Cry
Prince of Persia 2008
Sly 4: thieves in time
Ninja Gaiden 3/Yaiba Ninja Gaiden Z
Jak X combat Racing/Jak The lost frontier
Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days.

[SuperiorIronman]

Arkham knight. I'll ignore the tank cause that one was already covered but it relied too much on a passing knowledge of Batman lore to reveal who the Arkham Knight was. I like the idea behind the Arkham knight, but the problem is that it had no weight to it. Why should I care about somebody I've never seen but is super important to Batman, why are they important to me the player? Sure, I know who he is, but I don't know this specific instance of him. We only see what turned him into the Knight, nothing pre-Knight transformation so I have a harder time wanting to see him turned good again if I don't know what the baseline is. As narrative driven games, Arkham Knight's big reveal and villain kind of falls apart compared to the others.

Halo 5
Much of the goodwill from 4's narrative is lost when you shift villains and make them interchangeable. There is no reason 5's big bad couldn't have been the Didact especially if you change the A.I thing to restored Forerunner. Further that the narrative really has no reason for being. It's been asked what this game accomplished and it's that it's setup for 6. Except the evil A.I could've just shown up in 6, because they just do in 5. The game just ends because all 5 is concerned about doing is getting rid of the Covenant, Didact, Spartans, while establishing somebody who had a definitive death in the prior game as the franchises big new villain with no clear end goal.
The multiplayer is fine at least but not as involved as 4.

[Immortal Weapon]

DmC: Devil may Cry
Prince of Persia 2008
Sly 4: thieves in time
Ninja Gaiden 3/Yaiba Ninja Gaiden Z
Jak X combat Racing/Jak The lost frontier
Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days.

How is Sly 4 a black sheep? It's exactly what a Sly Cooper game should be.

[the illustrious mr. kenway]

How is Sly 4 a black sheep? It's exactly what a Sly Cooper game should be.

Storywise it's considered to be the weakest by some of the fans. A lot of people didn't like how they handled certain characters etc.

[SuperiorIronman]

One that I kind of forgot about was the EA Starwars Battlefront

I can't decide which is more the "Black sheep" but arguably I would say the second one is. Not only due to how unplayable the multiplayer can get to lag but the lootbox controversy and the devs not listening to the community. Sure removing the lootboxes was a thing we asked for but that became a problem when it went to court. Keep in mind that other releases like Injustice 2 do the same thing and didn't get the same kind of treatment. EA simply could've added a playlist that forgoes lootboxes but simply chose an option because it had to do something or face legal action. Further the plot isn't that great and a complete lie from the marketing. Not to mention that anything asked for like new heroes, prequel content, skins, they are getting sidelined for content nobody asked for. They do somethings right but a majority of it is wrong, hence why this game truly is dying. We simply wont know if it will get a second life once the April update will hit but barring that this game is as good as bad and dead.

[Starter Set]

Battlefront 2, no question.

The king of fighters 12 also.

[Immortal Weapon]

King of Fighters 12 is straight up garbage. That game was an incomplete alpha sold as a full game. KoF11 is more of a genuinely black sheep. It has tag mechanics which make it completely different from other games in the series and many mainstay characters were absent.

[DragonKent17]

For Sonic The Hedgehog:
Sonic 1 (GBA port) (Game has messed up sounds and a messy gameplay)
Sonic 2006 (game was straight up incomplete and rushed, Storyline was the worst i've seen)
Sonic Free Riders (Chaging the game remote control gameplay of previous games into a Kinect Garbage)
Sonic The Hedgehog 4
Sonic R
Knuckles Chaotix
Sonic Shuffle (Straight ripoff of Mario Party)

For Mario:
Mario & Luigi Partners in Time (The Weakest entry of Mario & Luigi RPG franchise)
Super Paper Mario (while the game is good and a good darker stroyline but ditched RPG gameplay in favor of Platform)
Paper Mario: Stickers Stars (Worst entry of Paper Mario)
Mario Party Gamecube games

Other games:
Metroid: Other M and Prime Federations (Both Almost killed the franchise)
Mortal Kombat: Special Forces (worst MK spinoff game and caused John Tobias left the MK team)
Assassins's Creed Unity (Game was straight up garbage with mess of bugs and glitches)

[KOSLOX]

Assassins Creed 3 and Unity.

Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3 and Command and Conquer 3 & 4. I guess C&C: Renegade as well. C&C: Generals was a bit of a departure from the rest of the series, but I liked it all the same.

[TomServofan]

Super Mario bros 2 is kind of an interesting story.

Super Mario Bros 2 was actually a re-skin of a totally different Japanese game, although one still developed by Miyamoto, Doki Doki Panic. There's a Japanese Super Mario Bros II, but it was decided that it was too similar to the original game and too difficult to import, so we ended up with the Doki Doki stuff, explaining in part why the game is largely different from pretty much every other mario game (although some elements of it would end up in later games of course). The 'proper' Mario Bros II has of course been released a few times over here in various forms (although it didn't get a true port until 2007 with the Wii).

Both Castlevania II and Adventure of Link were a bit ahead of their time; while ambitious (and intended to be Castlevania and Zelda games from the start), I don't think JRPGs really became a big thing until the mid 90s, and both were a bit ambitious for the limited NES hardware as well.

Sure SMB 2 was a different game reskinned as Mario 2 but i felt it was an improvement over the hard as hell actual 2 and was a damned fun game.

and Super Mario Land for Gameboy was also different just like SMB 2 and 3 went back to the formula with improvements.