[General Discussion] What the heck has happened with the Mana/Seiken Densetsu franchise? Where's the magic

Well, as stated in the title, what the heck has happened to this series of great games that were released in the past? Ok, I don't know if I'm the only one who has this opinion, but after Seiken Densetsu 3 (which is one of my all time favorites in games) all the Secret of Mana games have turned into pure crap in comparison to the two released on the SNES. I've played Legend of Mana, Sword of Mana, and taken some quick plays at Children of Mana and Heroes of Mana, but I've gotten disappointed at every one of them. I haven't played Dawn of Mana, but I have heard that it's not very good and I really don't feel like trying it neither. The magic that was all there in the early games have just disappeared and they have turned the great fighting systems that were in the SNES games into shit. Why do they keep massacring the name of this once great game series? I'd rather have them not release any more of these games than getting more of these horrible games.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Man, I hate it that gaming has in a way gone so far so that it's almost not about the games any longer. They better up the graphics and controls, but that's all (in most cases). My favourite console of all time is SNES, and is it because of the graphics and control? No, it's because of the GAMES.

But still, I understand that the game developers just want money, but couldn't the ones actually working on the game try to make a good game? Don't they have any desire to make a good game? Sometimes I'm wondering if they're just blindly making a game because of how bad it can turn out.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Oh yeah, how could I forget about Secret of Evermore? I guess since I haven't really regarded it as a Seiken Densetsu game, because it really isn't right? Anyways, I thought it was a really good game, not as good as SoM but still it was good although different. The alchemy ability or whatever it was called was very cool, maybe a bit lacking in some aspects but still very cool.

And I really don't think SD3 was boring and stiff as someone stated, maybe it was not as flexible in the same way as SoM with the changing of weapons, but I just simply LOVED the good/evil class system. I just can't get enough out of it! I have played the game so many times, and it's still fun because I just create another kind of party setup, with different characters and different classes. And I actually thought the story was really great, it was nice that you got different endgame scenarios and bosses from different lead characters, which rose the replayability factor even more. I just can't get enough of this game! I feel like playing it right now in fact

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.