Gamers are blessed in a way that is rare in entertainment consumption in that almost without fail, the sequel to a game will be at least as good and usually better than the original. Be it for tightening of story or better technology, this is a genre which doesn't follow the usual Kiss of Death rules to which movies, television spinoffs, even book sequels adhere.

So what games haven't followed suit and proved worse than the originals? To fit the criteria, they have to be true sequels (Resident Evil 2, Super Mario Brothers 2) and not simply games within a franchise (Umbrella Chronicles, Mario Tennis).

MichaelH:
Gamers are blessed in a way that is rare in entertainment consumption in that almost without fail, the sequel to a game will be at least as good and usually better than the original. Be it for tightening of story or better technology, this is a genre which doesn't follow the usual Kiss of Death rules to which movies, television spinoffs, even book sequels adhere.

You are joking, yes?

Just off the top of my head I can think of many sequels that are lacklustre compared to their predecessors. Condemned 2, Devil May Cry 2 and 4, Guitar Hero 3, Grand Theft Auto 4, Neverwinter Nights 2, Knights of the Old Republic 2, (although admittedly that was more due to technical issues), Final Fantasy X-2 - need any more?

Super Mario Bros. 2 wasn't a Mario game and therefore can't be regarded as a true sequel. But I personally think that it is by far the best Mario game ever and far,far better than the original Super Mario Bros.

Deus Ex 2

nilcypher:

MichaelH:
Gamers are blessed in a way that is rare in entertainment consumption in that almost without fail, the sequel to a game will be at least as good and usually better than the original. Be it for tightening of story or better technology, this is a genre which doesn't follow the usual Kiss of Death rules to which movies, television spinoffs, even book sequels adhere.

You are joking, yes?

Just off the top of my head I can think of many sequels that are lacklustre compared to their predecessors. Condemned 2, Devil May Cry 2 and 4, Guitar Hero 3, Grand Theft Auto 4, Neverwinter Nights 2, Knights of the Old Republic 2, (although admittedly that was more due to technical issues), Final Fantasy X-2 - need any more?

Joking? No. I never joke before noon.

The point was not that bad sequels don't exist, but that the vast majority are better than the originals. And I think you're going to have a very hard sell trying to convince people that GTA is better than GTA IV.

MichaelH:

nilcypher:

MichaelH:
Gamers are blessed in a way that is rare in entertainment consumption in that almost without fail, the sequel to a game will be at least as good and usually better than the original. Be it for tightening of story or better technology, this is a genre which doesn't follow the usual Kiss of Death rules to which movies, television spinoffs, even book sequels adhere.

You are joking, yes?

Just off the top of my head I can think of many sequels that are lacklustre compared to their predecessors. Condemned 2, Devil May Cry 2 and 4, Guitar Hero 3, Grand Theft Auto 4, Neverwinter Nights 2, Knights of the Old Republic 2, (although admittedly that was more due to technical issues), Final Fantasy X-2 - need any more?

Joking? No. I never joke before noon.

The point was not that bad sequels don't exist, but that the vast majority are better than the originals. And I think you're going to have a very hard sell trying to convince people that GTA is better than GTA IV.

For balance, why not suggest some sequels that are as good or better than their older siblings?

Chrono Cross, fine when judged on its own merits but aweful when seen as a sequel to Chrono Trigger.

Devil May Cry 2

Metal Gear Solid 2, while not awful it WAS worse than the original, thankfully 3 made up for it, though it also wasn't as good as the original.

Shadow Hearts: From the New World, worse than both the original and the sequel with no returning characters and an uninspired plot.

Suikoden IV, an unfortunate low point in an otherwise excellent and consistant series.

nilcypher:
For balance, why not suggest some sequels that are as good or better than their older siblings?

Lessee...I'll forgo the numbers and just list series.

Mortal Kombat, Warcraft, CoD, Doom, Half-Life, Baldur's Gate, Dead or Alive, Virtua Fighter, Civilization, Sim City, Burnout, Ratchet and Clank, Resident Evil, and Tomb Raider up until the last three.

I really wanted to put another provision in this discussion that included something along the lines of "until the franchise was milked into extinction," but couldn't figure out a way to word it properly.

MichaelH:

nilcypher:
For balance, why not suggest some sequels that are as good or better than their older siblings?

Lessee...I'll forgo the numbers and just list series.

Mortal Kombat, Warcraft, CoD, Doom, Half-Life, Baldur's Gate, Dead or Alive, Virtua Fighter, Civilization, Sim City, Burnout, Ratchet and Clank, Resident Evil, and Tomb Raider up until the last three.

I really wanted to put another provision in this discussion that included something along the lines of "until the franchise was milked into extinction," but couldn't figure out a way to word it properly.

That last sentence saved you there, because several of those franchises got ropey towards the end. The problem with this discussion is that people's perception of a game's quality is subjective. As you rightly pointed out, I'm going to have a hard time convincing people that GTA4 isn't as good as the other GTA games, but I enjoyed it less, so I chucked it into my list.

What is with people putting Devil May Cry 2 on their list? DMC2 does not exist, it was just a bad dream. Everyone knows that they went straight from 1 to 3, and as such I have no idea what abortion of a game you are talking about.

On topic, I'm gonna go with any Spyro The Dragon and Crash Bandicoot games that came out after the PS1 titles. Why must this bastardization continue? I'm also going with any DBZ game after Budokai 2. The first two were fun novelties which made up for so-so fighting with being able to fly around and blow shit up, sort of like Mortal Kombat, only with explosions instead of blood. But everything after 2 was just beating the proverbial dead horse.

nilcypher:

MichaelH:

nilcypher:
For balance, why not suggest some sequels that are as good or better than their older siblings?

Lessee...I'll forgo the numbers and just list series.

Mortal Kombat, Warcraft, CoD, Doom, Half-Life, Baldur's Gate, Dead or Alive, Virtua Fighter, Civilization, Sim City, Burnout, Ratchet and Clank, Resident Evil, and Tomb Raider up until the last three.

I really wanted to put another provision in this discussion that included something along the lines of "until the franchise was milked into extinction," but couldn't figure out a way to word it properly.

That last sentence saved you there, because several of those franchises got ropey towards the end. The problem with this discussion is that people's perception of a game's quality is subjective. As you rightly pointed out, I'm going to have a hard time convincing people that GTA4 isn't as good as the other GTA games, but I enjoyed it less, so I chucked it into my list.

Some levels of suckitude are universally agreed upon. For instance, on the film front, no one but those suffering severe head trauma are going to say that Back to the Future II was a superior sequel.

"Ropey." Heh.

Actually, I really like Back to the Future 2, but then again, I really like hoverboards.

Actually I thought Sim City 2000 was far more fun than its sequel, which seemed to regard the player as a henpecked husband and itself as a nagging wife (anybody remember the irritating cartoon characters who constantly used to pop up to tell you what you were doing wrong?) I daresay SC2000 was far better than the original Sim City though. Never played the original so can't judge, but SC2000 was so brilliant in its own right that I think it's a fair assumption!

TheMadDoctorsCat:
Actually I thought Sim City 2000 was far more fun than its sequel, which seemed to regard the player as a henpecked husband and itself as a nagging wife (anybody remember the irritating cartoon characters who constantly used to pop up to tell you what you were doing wrong?) I daresay SC2000 was far better than the original Sim City though. Never played the original so can't judge, but SC2000 was so brilliant in its own right that I think it's a fair assumption!

At this point, it would be very difficult to judge the original Sim City on its own merits. When I was 12 and it came out, it was the biggest mindfuck a 16-color Amiga had ever seen. But today if someone were to play it for the first time, it would be a rare gamer who would pronounce it as fun.

Civilisation stopped being fun around Civ 2, and started being work. In fact a lot of games, NOLF included decided that adding timesinks makes a game fun.

Note : THEY HAVE NEVER MADE A GAME FUN.

MichaelH:
Some levels of suckitude are universally agreed upon. For instance, on the film front, no one but those suffering severe head trauma are going to say that Back to the Future II was a superior sequel.

That's a pretty sweeping generalization. I know some otherwise perfectly intelligent and well-adjusted people who like Postal and Leisure Suit Larry, for example.

Beyond a certain point, the "quality" of a game becomes more a matter of personal preference than anything else. A sequel that one person thinks of as worse might appeal to another person more than the original did. Sometimes, BITS of a game appeal more. If Invisible War had retained its predecessor's inventory, implant complexity, skill system, and had kept lockpicks as well as multitools, but kept the universal ammo, storyline and combat, I'd have been very happy.

Sometimes, we have to compromise.

MichaelH:

TheMadDoctorsCat:
Actually I thought Sim City 2000 was far more fun than its sequel, which seemed to regard the player as a henpecked husband and itself as a nagging wife (anybody remember the irritating cartoon characters who constantly used to pop up to tell you what you were doing wrong?) I daresay SC2000 was far better than the original Sim City though. Never played the original so can't judge, but SC2000 was so brilliant in its own right that I think it's a fair assumption!

At this point, it would be very difficult to judge the original Sim City on its own merits. When I was 12 and it came out, it was the biggest mindfuck a 16-color Amiga had ever seen. But today if someone were to play it for the first time, it would be a rare gamer who would pronounce it as fun.

I'm not sure about that. As long as this hypothetical gamer could look past the aged graphics, then there is still plenty of fun to be had with the original Sim City, even if it's just demolishing the scenario cities with floods and earthquakes.

Any Spyro game. Even Ripto's was worse than the original.

Well apparantly the sequel to the original Getaway game wasn't as good as the original, although I've played neither.

All attempts to make an X-Com sequel.

Actraiser 2

Anytime you take away the part that makes a game fun, like building towns. And add a gimmick, like having wings. You spell doom.

The worst sequel ever has definetely got to be Red Faction 2. It did everything worse than the original Red Faction. The destroyable enviroment has been cut down to merely being able to blow up one particular wall in about every level (Not quite as much fun as destroying an entire guard tower in Red Faction), the graphics had also gotten worse (because it was also released on consoles and they didn't enhance the graphics for the pc), the story was meh, the line-up of weapons horrible. And don't yell at me for buying such a lousy game, it came free with some game magazine.

Now I don't get the hate for NWN 2. I loved that game! What's wrong with it?

Deus Ex 2 bears repeating. The original was my favorite game ever!

nilpferdkoenig:

GTA IV has been proven scientifically in my eyes to surpass all of it's ancestory by far so...

Scientifically? One has to wonder what kind of experiments you conducted to prove that hypothesis. Was the control group playing Tetris?

nilpferdkoenig:

nilcypher:

MichaelH:
Gamers are blessed in a way that is rare in entertainment consumption in that almost without fail, the sequel to a game will be at least as good and usually better than the original. Be it for tightening of story or better technology, this is a genre which doesn't follow the usual Kiss of Death rules to which movies, television spinoffs, even book sequels adhere.

You are joking, yes?

Just off the top of my head I can think of many sequels that are lacklustre compared to their predecessors. Condemned 2, Devil May Cry 2 and 4, Guitar Hero 3, Grand Theft Auto 4, Neverwinter Nights 2, Knights of the Old Republic 2, (although admittedly that was more due to technical issues), Final Fantasy X-2 - need any more?

GTA IV has been proven scientifically in my eyes to surpass all of it's ancestory by far so...

I think that we arn't talking about what we think personally is worse than the predecessor but what the gaming media and gamers have declared worse, like Halo 2 being worse than Halo 3 and Diablo 2 being better than Diablo 1.

if we're just talking about what gaming media has to say, then why have a discussion?

Do you guys remember Robocop 2 for the NES? God that game was awful, not that the first one was solid gold, but at least it was kind of fun; but goddamn Robocop 2 sucked big time.

laikenf:
Do you guys remember Robocop 2 for the NES? God that game was awful, not that the first one was solid gold, but at least it was kind of fun; but goddamn Robocop 2 sucked big time.

I really try not to remember that series. But you're right. RC2 managed to make a terrible game worse, a rare feat.

I would say Blood Omen 2 but as that was created by a different team to all the others not to mention that the Legacy of Kain creator did not write the store it is generally considered a non canon spin off.

Although I will damn Soul Reaver 2. A only okay storyline and absolutly shitty level design.

I just remembered Twisted Metal 3. Sigh...

Twisted Metal 2 was the game that got played more than any other in college. My roommate and I must have logged 400 hours on that game, and the sequel was anticipated with a fervor that was only a hair short of unabashed fanboyism. When it was released, bought, and played, we weren't through one level before a sinking feeling dug icy fingernails into our stomachs. Star Wars fans will recognize it as the same feeling that came over them when the Trade Federation aliens came onscreen in the first two minutes of Episode I, a feeling that says the long months of anticipation and hope are going to be dashed utterly, a feeling of "Jesus God, this is going to suck and suck hard."

VRaptorX:
Any Spyro game. Even Ripto's was worse than the original.

Nah, I reckon Ripto's Rage (or Gateway To Glimmer as it was called over here) was actually a little better than the original. Number Three, though a good game, is where things started to slide. Anything after Three just isn't worth the money.

Singing Gremlin:
Now I don't get the hate for NWN 2. I loved that game! What's wrong with it?

I also don't understand this, I HATED, I mean HATED Never Winter Nights 1...

The story was... generic
The characters were... non-existant
The gameplay was... annoying, because DnD was NEVER meant to work with only one (or two) Characters and you end up with tactically boring battles that are overhard because you don't have the Fighter/Mage/Theif/Cleric combo that you almost need to make DnD 3.0/3.5 work.
That's another one, NWN1 was based off of Broken 3.0, as opposed to much more well balanced 3.5.

I don't get the hate for NWN2, it had great characters, more tactically interesting battles, choices that mattered to the story, Better class building and a 4 Character Party.

I would have to say the biggest disappointment I faced while playing a sequel was with KOTOR 2. KOTOR is still one of my favorite games and quite possibly takes the top spot, but the shift to Obsidian Software from Bioware showed all to clear that the magic was gone. The story was a complete mess and had one of the worst endings to any story in any medium I have ever seen. The truly upsetting thing about this is that a large chunk of KOTOR 2 was left on the cutting room floor in order to be able to ship the game out in time for Christmas. Now that Bioware is working on the Mass Effect trilogy I severely doubt we'll see them restoring KOTOR to its former glory.

Driver 3 or however they bloody well spelt it. SHOCKING. Shocking...

Ooooooh... Card Fighters Clash on the DS... if it strictly counts as a sequel - mess with the game mechanics and you're basically telling all the fans to piss off and go play with a Rubiks Cube. And insert it up their anus afterwards for jollies. How could they do it?! HOW! WHY!!!! SNK?! WHY DID YOU DO IT!!!!!

Sonic Rush Adevnture - A tutorial. Really? Really?? Do I need a tutorial to play a game I've been playing for SEVENTEEN YEARS? Jesus.