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

Devs know best, you silly consumer. What's wrong with you, trying to think for yourself. The nerve...

SpaceGandhi:
I would have to say the biggest disappointment I faced while playing a sequel was with KOTOR 2.

It's not Obsidian's fault they were given half the time Bioware received to create a game. Despite the massive amount of cut content, I enjoyed KoToR2 more than the first simply because of the story. If there is a KoToR3, I would personally much rather have Obsidian make it. KoToR was very good, and the better in terms of polish, but KoToR2 took it to a new level. I agree it was a disappointment, but for different reasons.

More on topic, Devil May Cry 4 and Final Fantasy X-2. I thought they were both good games, simply not as good as their immediate predecessors. I fortunately cannot recall any abominably aberrant sequel.

nilpferdkoenig:

It has sold more copies in the first week than any other game before / It didn't even need hype...

It's juxtaposed, utterly unironic statements like that that make me feel like my brain is folding in on itself.

avykins:
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.

Personally I consider both those titles the best ones in the series.

SR2 in particular I find it to have, hands down, the best plot in the series. And the level design wasn't shitty, it was just really repetitive (since you had to do it about a bazillion times).

So no, I don't agree with you there :P

As for the topic itself. I got to admit that looking at my game collection I don't have an awfully lot of bad sequels (mind you, I think the series with the most games I have is the above mentioned Legacy of Kain which have 5 games, and the sequel with the highest number is Warcraft 3), although whether they are better than the original or not is debatable, even more so because the original usually ushers a sense of nostalgia.

But yes, some series have been milked to death so badly that it is a surprise when they cough up a half decent game.

Ratchet and Clank Future: Tools of Destruction

I loved the original trilogy, but this one just seemed, well, different...

It goes against series continuity, the transforming weapon is no longer a weapon and cannot be upgraded, and it just misses the magic that made the previous games special.

A real disappointment.

Any Spyro or Crash Bandicoot game. Loved the originals, hated the sequels more and more.

Unreal comes directly to mind.
What an extreme pile of #@¤%?!" Unreal 2 was.
Even compared to all the other FPS released at the time the game was really mediocre at best.

The original Unreal game and its multiplayer was a pinnacle of the FPS-genre giving birth to serveral hallmarks of the series later on.

Unreal 2 was lame, weak, boring, linear, weak characters bleh.

I felt that the Megaman X sequels where; while not downright horrid - still very mediocre compared to the original Megaman X game. While Megaman X3 was a fun game with Zero in it, it's still nowehere near as good as the original Megaman X. HA-DO-KEN!

Zelda 2 definitely deserves a place near the top of this list, right next to Twisted Metal 3. Those where the two biggest let downs for me. Jak and Daxter 2 & 3 as well the follow ups to Secret of Mana should all have places on the list too, don't care where, just somewhere.

Onimusha Dawn of Dreams.
Loved 1 - 3 but DoD was just awful, not gameplay wise, but pretty much everything else ESPECIALLY that retarded 100 level demon realm which takes like a whole day to complete IF you survive, die at level 50 + and thats A LOT of time wasted.

quiet chaos:
Zelda 2 definitely deserves a place near the top of this list, right next to Twisted Metal 3. Those where the two biggest let downs for me. Jak and Daxter 2 & 3 as well the follow ups to Secret of Mana should all have places on the list too, don't care where, just somewhere.

I think my brain actively flushed out all memory of Zelda 2.

j-e-f-f-e-r-s:

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.

I agree. I really liked Ripto's Rage and the original, but I never did play any of the other ones. They didn't seem worth it. I have one for the GBA, and it was just ... bleh.

Wouldn't this be... every franchise? Except the Ouendan series of course.

Black and White 2 was a good game but worse than number one because it left out skirmishes and multiplayer.

Sasha Janre:

j-e-f-f-e-r-s:

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.

I agree. I really liked Ripto's Rage and the original, but I never did play any of the other ones. They didn't seem worth it. I have one for the GBA, and it was just ... bleh.

Three's definitely worth a look. The story doesn't have the charm of the first two, but in terms of level design and gameplay, it's more than a worthy addition. Plus, a special place is reserved in my heart for Sgt Bird .

MichaelH:

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

Devs know best, you silly consumer. What's wrong with you, trying to think for yourself. The nerve...

I can only apologise profusely to this brick wall here and that is exactly what I shall do. That and light my head on fire as penance. That'll teach me!

Simon_TR:
Deus Ex 2

You read my mind. Not to say it's a BAD game, but it's just not up to the standard that Deus Ex created.

PedroSteckecilo:

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 have to diagree. NWN 1 had good characters, and interesting story line and it was large with plenty of options.

NWN 2 on the other hand, had some good points such as a complex and interesting plot but fell down due to: Bugs, characters that started off well but fell away, rail roading the romance and generally the final chapter seems short and unfinished.

NWN 2 also highlights a flaw with your favoured 'party system'. In No. 1 while you only have 2 characters this is important because if forces you to make a descision as to who you wanted to play as and who you wanted to quest with. NWN 2 had cake syndrome where you can have it all. There is also a problem with death. The more memebers of the party you have, the more dangerous you have to make the fights to keep it challenging. However this also means that the likelyhood of a character being ganked increases which in turn created problems with resurection. You either have to allow the characters to spam reserection spells or let them respawn after fights. Sure, in NWN 1 there were things I could not do. Too bad, I bore it. Its the price of being the most heavily armoured entity in existance.

I always get nervous about sequels. Often they are good enough, as good as or better than what precceded it, but there is always that fear that a game is going to screw up the series royally.

+1 for Deus Ex 2. It's not that it was that bad but the original was so much better.

lego starwars two. first time I tried playing it single player, The other guy ran off in the wrong direction And I couldn't even start a level

Thief: Deadly Shadows was a major disappointment. Hell, it doesn't even have III in the name!

Medieval: Total War>Rome: Total War and some people say Shogun was better than Medieval. I haven't played it so I don't know. Also, I've heard bad stuff about Medieval 2, but as I haven't played it, I'll not judge it.

Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.

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.

That's true, if you think about it technologically, like how improved hardware can handle better graphics and physics. But parts of the game like story, artstyle, weapons, level design, originality, gameplay balance, user interface, voice acting etc. aren't improved much with better hardware.

Actually, focusing on hardware-bound features might take development time from other crucial features, which might lead to devs cutting features which were in the original. Story might be done by different people than in the original and even the whole company doing the sequel might be different and they might have inferior skills, less time and funding or they just don't grasp what made the original so good.

And there's games which exist just to ride on the original's fame to get as much money as possible. Then, if the developer does a sequel to that game, they'll promise everyone they'll not do the same mistakes again and people will again buy their game.

Sequels to Rare franchises made under Microsoft have sucked so far, and give the indication that they are gonna suck even harder with Nuts and Bolts.

I second Oblivion, Morrowind was a much superior game.

Silent Hill 4. Also Pokemon Gold/Silver onwards, except for Fire Red/Leaf Green. I havent played it enough to judge myself, but i assume Perfect Dark Zero falls into this category. Oh, and not as its a bad game at all, but Metroid Prime 2 for me as well, since the first one is near perfection.

Actually, i think maybe part of the reason games dont have the sequel curse as badly could be because they generally DONT keep the same characters and setting each time. In my experience very rarely do you have both the same set-up AND same characters in a sequel. You might get one or the other (Resident Evil 2, Mario Sunshine), but in some ways a lot of game sequels probably wouldnt necessarily be movie sequels, just "another film from so-and-so". For example the Final Fantasy series always has characteristics that are recognisable as Final Fantasy, in the same way John Woo's films are instantly recognisable, but what might be a Final Fantasy sequel would just be a completely different film by John Woo. Thats not very well explained but hopefully you get my point.

COD 2 was less fun then COD 1/UO, but COD 4 was better then any of them(and I never played 3. I'm informed I missed very little).

Dreamfall: The Longest Journey isn't as good as The Longest Journey, mostly due to the fact Most of the plot threads and characters fates are unresolved due to the game ending on 5 seperate cliffhangers. On the plus side, the FUNCOM development team has already received funding for the Dreamfall conclusion. Now it's whenever the Dreamfall team gets finished with all the Age of Conan stuff to go back and finish the Saga.

KOTOR II, mostly due to the game becoming fragmented and incomplete near the end of the game. Of course, this was because they got royally screwed by Lucasarts, who offically confirmed that: Making a quick buck by milking a franchise >>>>>> Making a quality Product. And that Lucasarts is offically run by retarded monkies. How far the mighty have fallen.

Thief >> Thief 2 >> Thief:DS. The levels in Thief 2 were just too big(The Bank heist sounded like a cool idea until I relized how fucking huge that building was) and Sabotage at Soulforge was just annoying(It's more like being at work, running around working on machinery while my boss yells at me). Thief: DS just didn't have the same feel. Plus the special Keeper Assasins turned out to be incredibly sociopathic and bloodthirsty, which leaves one to wonder exactly how the keepers have them themselves out of the public eye for so long.

Does X-wing Alliance count as a sequel? Because it's nowhere near the level of Tie Fighter, and the whole Battle of Endor was horribly done. Not to mention the need for another family mission to tie that up.

Prisoner of Ice was arguably worse then Shadow of the Comet, for many reasons.(I bet nobody knows what I'm talking about).

For those old adventure game fans among us: Escape from Monkey Island is the worst game in the Monkey Island Series. Ditto Quest for Glory 5, Kings Quest 8, Gabriel Knight 3, Space Quest 6 for those respective series.

I'd be hard pressed to find anyone to argue any Alone of the Dark sequels was better then the original.

Doom 3 was a lot like Doom, except it sucked.

Broken Sword 4: Secrets of the Ark. They got rid of the box puzzles from the previous game, only to fuck everything else up.

If Fallout: Tactics counts, then it was obviously an inferior sequel.

I would personally argue Max Payne 2, but only a little bit. I personally found the first game better if nothing more then due to atmosphere and lack of annoying fucking escort missions, but Fall of Max Payne was quite good.