Sequels

[Gypsy]

And then there are sequels that are pretty much the same than their predecessors.

Dead Rising 2 and DR2 Off the Record, Dragon's Dogma and DD Dark Arisen ...

I felt this way with the Resistance games.

The truth hurts, crusher.

NO U.

Honestly I thought the sequel did improve upon most aspects of the original, including the soundtrack.

Please tell me you at least watched a play-through to see the ending! :O

<3

[Monofthedead]

This one is obvious to action game fans, or rather the gaming community as a whole: Devil May Cry 2.

It ruined all the good momentum of the first game. One of my biggest complaints were the lock on issues. This wouldn't be such a bad thing in similar game like GOW or Ninja Gaiden, but the fact that you needed to lock on to use Stinger and other useful moves that dispatched enemies quicker and kept you lookin cool made it very frustrating when you hit the wrong guy or used the wrong move do to Dante turning around upon pressing R1. Another big one was the camera. It wasn't always bad, but I specifically recall a mission where I could not see a door in a room so I assumed it was a dead end. After getting lost 80 times I called a friend who couldn't remember the way and told me he had to look it up, I did the same and their was a door in that "dead end" which naturally led toward the end of the mission. In its defense it was cool to have an alternate character although I didn't like her and the pre DMC3 Trickster moves were cool.

That leads into my next wall of text to end on a positive note. Then came Devil May Cry 3 and his superior brother the Special Edition

The reasons for improvement are many. More weapons, cooler weapons (imo), more missions, bloody palace mode, better graphics, cooler bosses (also imo), better story (possibly imo), arguably better music, slight rpg mechanic, an alternate char we WANTED to play as (SE only)

Not only was it leaps and bounds ahead of DMC 2, it was better than the original in all ways as well. It was what DMC 2 should have been. Perhaps DMC 2 needed to fail so they could test things out such as the Trickster moves, if that's the case or notas long as DMC 3 happens at some point, the gaming universe is in good shape.

[Raype]

more missions, bloody palace mode,

DMC2 has the most missions out of anything in the series.

It also had the first instance of Bloody Palace.

It's still shit though.

[garrendesares]

star ocean 3: people complain on the plot twist, but i actually liked it, battle trophies were a nice touch and the battle system was more involved so i have noticed. honestly i dont have any gripes on the game as i love the star ocean franchise. honestly that is the most unique game because of the story i ever played and i love it. forget the haters lol.

shadow hearts from the new world: i absolutly love this game! the fusions are cool, and yeah there arnt any new spells but you can now equip the ones you want to a character (if they are fire, give them nothing but fire powerups and what have you), where in sh2, you had crests with the spells in them which sometimes was confusing because if you had two spells on the same person, you would move it to give someone else the ability. yeah they got rid of yuri but it still has some hilarious characters like hilda.

edit: thanks gare, cant believe i forgot about ffx-2. eh i like having a party of girls and i love how you can change outfits and have interesting weapons and abilities. and the side quests are fun (and long for some of them). yeah its a different story than ffx, but who cares, i mean really?

[lestat2305]

AC1 was a proof of concept as wel: we take prince of persia, add some open world, cities, original and intuitive controls, stagediving and an some great finishing moves and tadaaaa great game
AC2: All the above+improve storyline, health system, add homebase, varied missions, new killer moves and more things to explore and collect. remove partially repetitive stuff
ACB:add brotherhood, remove multiple cities, simplify hombase, rush the story(suddenly the pope's dead and you didn't do it and next thing you know it's 5 years later and you're in some random city killing the dude you should have killed back in the first city where you went to all the trouble to get to him.
ACR: weaken story some more, change everybodys face so you can't relate to them, add silly tower defence, add hook combat and annoying bombs
AC3: Simplify all the above so that even someone who is braindead can understand the game:
-move location to the US cause everybody knows where that is
-only use 2 buttons because 4 can be difficult to handle now you basically have a run and a fight button
-reduce different enemies to 4 and make them appear out of nowhere if you're getting too good (jägers anyone)
-remove fun ceremony's cause that could be considered heresy you know so no more hot iron rods to the ringfiners sir
-remove functional weapon wheel and replace with annoying version
-remove great health system, change main char into a healthregenerating troll (with looks, emotions and voice to match)
-add Quick Time Events, cause everybody likes those (stupid wolfs)
-Increase the amount of fetching = longer game time woohoo
-organize missions inorderly to increase running around (ye gods the frontier missions )
-positive thing: fun ship combat system

so they where heading the right way for the first 2-3 games and then stated trying to trendhop with TD, QTE's, Fetching and oversimplifying things. I'm hoping that this years pirates of the caribean themed version might improve again, but I'm fearing the worst, especially since Ubisoft officially said that they don't expect it to sell as good as AC3

[Monofthedead]

I thought DMC 2 only had 18 missions, doesn't the third game have 21? It has been a few years for me though.
One of these days I plan to pick up one of them new fangled HD compilation colection majigs of the series. 2 great games for the price of one? You cant beat that! I wish they had included the fourth game as well but as I said, already a great deal.
Anyway thanks for the bloody palace tidbit of info, once I beat the game with Dante I was so burned out on it lol. I didn't try any other difficulties, secret missions or anything, it was an insta-sell.

[garrendesares]

I thought DMC 2 only had 18 missions, doesn't the third game have 21? It has been a few years for me though.
One of these days I plan to pick up one of them new fangled HD compilation colection majigs of the series. 2 great games for the price of one? You cant beat that! I wish they had included the fourth game as well but as I said, already a great deal.
Anyway thanks for the bloody palace tidbit of info, once I beat the game with Dante I was so burned out on it lol. I didn't try any other difficulties, secret missions or anything, it was an insta-sell.

18x2, dont forget the second disk.

[Gare]

I'm surprised no one's hopped on the FFX-2 nerdrage train yet (not me, though). Also, MGS3 > MGS2, YEAH CRUSHER YOU LIKE THAT HUH.

Also, obligatory mention of Assassin's Creed 2?

Obligatory mention of Assassin's Creed 2.

[garrendesares]

I'm surprised no one's hopped on the FFX-2 nerdrage train yet (not me, though). Also, MGS3 > MGS2, YEAH CRUSHER YOU LIKE THAT HUH.

Also, obligatory mention of Assassin's Creed 2?

Obligatory mention of Assassin's Creed 2.

thanks for reminding me

[gezegond]

Obligatory mention of Assassin's Creed 2.

I am quite unaware of what the internetz think about this. I personally liked AC1 more from watching. I have played neither but I watched my brother play both a lot.

[Gare]

The general internet consensus is that 2 has a better setting (subjective, though I do love Italy), better protag and more varied and improved gameplay (more tools at your disposal, better sidequests, bonus "dungeons"/indoor locations to explore, etc.). I agree with all of that but I personally thought AC1 was garbage, so that's not saying much.

Edit: Here goes one more - Mass Effect 2, better than 1 in every single way. The things that were removed (what people were whining about) were removed for a reason. No inventory system? Good riddance I say. **warning, controversial opinion**

[gezegond]

The general internet consensus is that 2 has a better setting (subjective, though I do love Italy), better protag and more varied and improved gameplay (more tools at your disposal, better sidequests, bonus "dungeons"/indoor locations to explore, etc.). I agree with all of that but I personally thought AC1 was garbage, so that's not saying much.

I see. I hate AC1's health system (Let's a copy CoD), but AC1's Altair looked like a real killer while AC2's Ezio... didn't.

[lestat2305]

I see. I hate AC1's health system (Let's a copy CoD), but AC1's Altair looked like a real killer while AC2's Ezio... didn't.

Altair was a great killer from the beginning, while ezio had to grow into it, it takes pretty much a full game for him to become an assassin and 2 more to perfect on that so yeah I get why you're saying that. But Ezio is a person you could relate with much easier than with altair. Altair is just a pompous elitist d*ck in the beginning of the game and he doesn't change all that much.

opinions I guess :p

[Cookie Monster]

The general internet consensus is that 2 has a better setting (subjective, though I do love Italy), better protag and more varied and improved gameplay (more tools at your disposal, better sidequests, bonus "dungeons"/indoor locations to explore, etc.). I agree with all of that but I personally thought AC1 was garbage, so that's not saying much.

Edit: Here goes one more - Mass Effect 2, better than 1 in every single way. The things that were removed (what people were whining about) were removed for a reason. No inventory system? Good riddance I say. **warning, controversial opinion**

The first AC was the beginning of something that felt new and refreshing at the time, it is true that the gameplay lacked many features that were added later with the multiple sequels, enriching the experience, but I feel that all that was new then was lost soon after (like the cultural mix in AC; Florence, Venice, looked lovely in ACII, but Rome just ruined it for me, too vast, too full of nothing). The gameplay is still enjoyable but the franchise is more than milked now and the story is a nonsense (the last game I played was Brotherhood and I felt like if they were pulling my leg, the whole story was a fodder. That's the reason why I still haven't tried Revelations, despite owning it).
And Ezio was always way too bland and not too interesting for me. Bearable in ACII but forgettable while playing Brotherhood and you start to don't care what happens to him and what they do with the apple :/

As for ME, they oversimplified some aspects of the original game when they released ME2. I'm sure the crowd (always avid for rapid action) applauded it since they made it more accessible for more people, but at the same time, they killed one of the features that made the original game special, the feeling of exploring a new planet. Instead or removing that experience, instead of giving up, they should have tried to make it more enjoyable..

EDIT: I consider the games I've mentioned all excellent games so it's not that I'm hating on them or something

[ponury_indor]

Shadowhearts 2 - everything is just better.
Gothic 2 - continuation of great story, bigger world, more abilities, more, more, better. Plus great add-on that could be separate game.
Xenosaga Ep 3 - kills ep 1 and ep 2 with graphics, story and two separate battle systems for character and A.G.W.S.
GTA: Vice City - BEST GTA EVER.
Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped - 'vehicle levels', unlocable abilities, time trials.
Borderlands 2 - more everything. (But no zombie dlc...), better graphics.