The 'good game but bad sequel' predicament.

N

Nemphtis

Hunter
Okay, let's get some game discussions going here. The industry is flooded with sequels. Some will argue that sequels are good while others will counter by saying they aren't, that isn't the point of this particular topic though. I'm sure many of you have experienced the annoyance where you purchase a game that's very enjoyable, but once the sequel is released you're not impressed with it at all. It gets even more complicated when a third game is released which is actually good, so now you have a few choices.

You can force yourself to play the second game which was simply crap just so you can understand the third, or you can completely skip the second and play the third. Also, would you personally spend the money to buy that bad sequel just to put it into your collection in order to make it complete, or would you just purchase the first and third, ignoring the second all-together? I'm curious to see how others handle this kind of situation.
 
I play what i like, if the second game sucked but the third ruled I'd only buy the second, for example, I don't own NFS Underground as its slow and lacks modding options but I do own every NFS game after that due to the style of gaming being to my taste.

The same with GTA games I never bought GTA 2 as the first was aweful however I did buy GTA 3 and ever one released since then, all except for the latest Vice City Stories which I found to be far inferior to Liberty City Stories and lacked both story and game play and concentrated more on gimmicks like building bases which were not a necessity in any way.

So as I said at first if the game is good I'll buy any copy of it but if it sucks I won't lay a finger on it.
 
X_nick_X said:
devil may cry 1 great game
devil may cry 2 bad game

But they managed to make dmc 3 a great game.
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No they managed to make Devil May Cry 3: Special Edition a great game, DMC3 was only slightly better than DMC2 when it was first released
 
I dunno i only played se but it has to be better than what dmc2 was.

I mean someone aspects of dmc2 was pretty good in some places but definetly didn't live up to dmc1
 
GTA 3 up to SAN Andreas was fantastic.

GTA, 2 & London 69 were average games. They were not the must buy games but they at least were semi enjoyable

LC & VC Stories are shite however cause they never bothered their as to update the gamesplay, especially for LC PS2 release, with the loss of swimming, planes, bikes etc annoyed my happiness. The story was shite, with some areas tailing off with no proper ending
 
McIcy said:
X_nick_X said:
devil may cry 1 great game
devil may cry 2 bad game

But they managed to make dmc 3 a great game.
Click to expand...

No they managed to make Devil May Cry 3: Special Edition a great game, DMC3 was only slightly better than DMC2 when it was first released
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I've played them all and to be honest the special edition doesn't warrant anywhere near enough features to make it so much better than DMC3. I think DMC3 was great, I enjoyed it a lot more than DMC2. The special edition felt like a waste of money because I had to pay full price mainly just to play as Vergil.

The DMC franchise is a good example of this because it's one of the games I had in mind when making this topic to begin with. I bought DMC2 because I wanted to finish it in order to better understand the plot of the franchise, because in my mind it just feels odd to buy one and three but not two. The Final Fantasy franchise is the best example because it changes completely each game, there's always at least one game a Final Fantasy fan will dislike, but will they buy/complete it just for the sake of the series as a whole? That’s the question I want to know from you guys, rather than turning this into another _____ was better than _____ debate which we seem to see in many other topics.
 
I'm a huge final fantasy fan so I'm a sucker for anything with it in the title.
Or though my first dmc game was dmc2 so that was the standard it was set at and i was pretty content with it of course i brought dmc3:se and found it to be way better,then dmc1 and i noticed the difference.

So if i really enjoyed the series i'd probably keep the game even if it is really bad.
 
thekendyman said:
GTA 3 up to SAN Andreas was fantastic.

GTA, 2 & London 69 were average games. They were not the must buy games but they at least were semi enjoyable

LC & VC Stories are shite however cause they never bothered their as to update the gamesplay, especially for LC PS2 release, with the loss of swimming, planes, bikes etc annoyed my happiness. The story was shite, with some areas tailing off with no proper ending
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GTA 3 to san andreas where not fantastic imo. I enjoyed Vice City, but once i started on San Andreas, i found it..meh. It just got boring very quickly.
 
woops I had to post this as I am editing the next posts double as I posted it twice,once not finished so just ignore this post and go on to the next one.
 
Another good example of this would be the Prince of Persia franchise or Metroid Prime.
The sequels were in my opinion not as good as the original.
The main reason is obviously the feeling of familiarity.You simply wont be as surprised unless there is a fundamental shift in the direction the game goes.
And although I would prefer new and better games sequels are undoubtdadly an extremely important part of the industry and not just games either.
For a lot of people, when the original is as good as the games I mentioned, then more of the same is often enough.

And of course we cant forget the sequels that are actually better than the original that further back up the need for sequels.
Timesplitters in my opinion is a great example of this.
I felt TS2 was 100 percent better than the original in every way and although TS3 wasint as much of a leap there is no doubt looking back that it is the superior game.

The other side of the coin is of course the other reason for bad sequels and sequels in general.MORE MONEY.
Whether the sequel is better or not the chances are the target audience will lap it up thus making the developers......yes,EVEN MORE MONEY.*cough EA cough*
Well thats all I have to say for now.
Later.
 
I agree with a lot of things.. although games like Metroid Prime 2 was better than Metroid Prime, Onimusha 2 was better than one, and three better than two.. four about the same as two..

A lot of people consider sequels worse because they just compare it non-stop to the previous.. it can be a good game, but people will say it sucks because it is not as good as its predecessor.
 
Daggar said:
I agree with a lot of things.. although games like Metroid Prime 2 was better than Metroid Prime, Onimusha 2 was better than one, and three better than two.. four about the same as two..

A lot of people consider sequels worse because they just compare it non-stop to the previous.. it can be a good game, but people will say it sucks because it is not as good as its predecessor.
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I just have to point this out, but the developers of Metroid Prime actually admitted in a past interview that they weren't happy with Metroid Prime 2 and that they were hoping Metroid Prime 3 will help them correct the mistake.

I guess the same can be said about Bungie as well, since they also stated in an interview that they weren't happy with Halo 2, because it could have been so much better if certain things were corrected. Although this could just be a marketing tactic to help convince gamers that their new game is going to be the real thing, just like saying "our last game was **** but this one's going to rock, for real."
 
Nemphtis said:
Although this could just be a marketing tactic to help convince gamers that their new game is going to be the real thing, just like saying "our last game was **** but this one's going to rock, for real."
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Probably. They were doing it before Halo 2's release as well, promising to have far, far less repetition in the game. They delivered, but only at the expense of laming the other game in other areas instead. Feel sorry for Bungie really: the franchise has become too important to XBox sales, and the games end up half the games they should be. Microsoft just picks up the slack with PR and the magazines get too scared to be the ones criticizing the game (compare review scores for the X-Box and PC versions. True, the PC versions are inferior, but not THAT inferior). But this is a thread about Good games with bad sequels, so I'd say talking about Halo is grossly off topic :p

Most disappointing game sequel ever is probably Deus Ex Invisible War. What on earth were they thinking.

edit: Oh wait, there was Unreal II: The Awakening and Homeworld 2 as well... All three games were so poor that they apparently killed all prospect of a further sequel.
 
Soul Reaver was a awesome game, but its Sequel was boring, prolly because the Soul Reaver weapon was a lot crapper, using it too much and it start sucking on your soul.
 
thekendyman said:
Tomb Raider Series:

Tomb Raider - Great
Tomb Raider 2 - Great
Tomb Raider 3 on Wards Shite
Tomb Raider Anniversary Back to Brillance
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Errm... Tomb Raider : The last Revelation is the only sequel before Legend that managed to keep its Tomb Raider feel. The rest were shite
 
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