Disappointing Direct Sequels

[thePlinko]

We’ve all been there. We play a game, we love it, we find every aspect about it fascinating. Most importantly, we want more. Then a few years later, a sequel is announced, maybe its release date is far away, or maybe its just next month. Either way, we can hardly wait. The day comes, we hurry to pick up the game from the store we preordered it from, we open it up and put it in. The brand new chapter of our lives is about to begin as soon as we press this button and….

It’s terrible, or at the very least it just doesn’t hit the same highs that the last game did.

What games does this apply to for you?



For me, the most obvious answer is Super Mario Galaxy 2. The first game is one of my absolute favorites due to its grandness and tonal depth that you just don’t see in a Mario game. It feels quiet and times and loud at others. For every goofy Honeyhive galaxy theres another downright melancholiac Space Junk Galaxy. That’s just… not present in Galaxy 2. I mean, just look at Rosalina and her storybook and compare it to lubba and his vague at best relationship with Rosalina. Even disregarding that, Galaxy 2 is just the same game again. Sure there are a few new gimmicks here and there, but they’re almost never memorable enough to really justify the sequel’s existence. Galaxy 2 is literally just Galaxy 1 again without everything that made Galaxy 1 so amazing.

 

[GZ Zelda]

Red Dead Redemption 2. I know a lot of people liked it more than the original, but after playing BotW, something didn't work for me as well in the sequel. I thought it would be an OoT to MM situation where I would initially not like it but would do a replay and realize what I was missing that everyone loved, but that didn't happen and I still don't like the game.

Also Black and White to X and Y. I started Pokemon with Black and White and was completely blown away, and I was waiting for those same highs in X and Y, but I got to the end of the game and just felt unsatisfied and tried a replay and had to stop. Some gym designs were cool, but the whole thing felt stilted.

(The SMG2 slander hurts my heart a bit ngl).

 

[mαrkαsscoρ]

Also Black and White to X and Y. I started Pokemon with Black and White and was completely blown away, and I was waiting for those same highs in X and Y, but I got to the end of the game and just felt unsatisfied and tried a replay and had to stop. Some gym designs were cool, but the whole thing felt stilted.

I know it's nitpicky but XY weren't the direct sequels though? BW2 were, the ones that have the same title but w/ a 2 added

 

[thePlinko]

I know it's nitpicky but XY weren't the direct sequels though? BW2 were, the ones that have the same title but w/ a 2 added

Yeah I was thinking that too but I wasn’t gonna say anything.

 

[GZ Zelda]

I know it's nitpicky but XY weren't the direct sequels though? BW2 were, the ones that have the same title but w/ a 2 added

Wait TRUUUUE. B2+W2 weren't as good as B1+W1, but I wouldn't call them disappointing.

 

[Spiritual Mask Salesman]

Prince of Persia: The Warrior Within. It wasn't disappointing to me in terms of gameplay, just in narrative direction. I also didn't care for the Prince's character model in the game, or his voice actor.

 

[ExLight]

Wait TRUUUUE. B2+W2 weren't as good as B1+W1, but I wouldn't call them disappointing.

Wait why D:

 

[ExLight]

As for the thread's theme.

Any unplanned sequels made for the sake of milking the franchise are usually pretty bad. First one that comes to mind is Megaman X6, which is a direct sequel to the what was planned to be the last game of the series Megaman X5.

As a result the fans got a very rushed and uninspired broken game, with an absurd nonsensical plot that poorly retconned the somewhat bittersweet ending of the previous entry.

 

[the8thark]

For me this goes to Master of Orion 3.

The second game is legendary for how good it was. The 4th game is honestly not too bad. It is very playable and fun.
However the 3rd game is really bad. So back that most people just stopped playing it and went back to 2 or moved on to 4 when it came out.

The sad thing is MOO 3 ignores all the improvements of the second game and try to be a better MOO1. In some ways MOO3 does not even beat MOO1. Really disappointing.

 

[Mikey the Moblin]

If mother 3 counts as a direct sequel that's the first thing I can think of as disappointing

If dark souls 2 counts as a direct sequel it's disappointing
Dark souls 3 feels like much more of a comfy sequel than 2 does despite 2 coming "between" them

I'll go ahead and throw smg2 in front of the bus
It didn't feel remotely as boundary breaking as smg

Can't really think of other direct sequels

 

[mαrkαsscoρ]

it took some time but I thought of a few

Team Sonic Racing
I loved All Stars Racing Transformed and I just really wasn't feeling Team Racing. Even beyond getting rid of the Sega crossover aspect, the soul of it was never quite there with this game, I just didn't find it as fun even though it's perfectly fine.

Kingdom Hearts 3
It's a direct sequel to something alright. The gameplay is great but the story really comes apart at the end and it did not feel like it was worth this big climactic build up over multiple games. The fact that I can confidently say that KH2, a PS2 game from 2005 is better than this shows how much they dropped the ball here. But again, not bad.

Xenoblade 2
I'll never like this artstyle, it's too mechanically bloated for its own good, and I still remember how I grinded in Xenoblade 1 for fun, but grinding here felt like busywork. That being said, I don't hate it and still had a good time overall, but it's become apparent how disappointing of a sequel it was. 3 made it all better at least.

Super Mario Bros 2
It barely hit me that this counts, b/c I can go back and play Mario 1 or 3 anytime, but I've never felt the same way about 2. It's a great game still and the multiple playable characters is cool, but I hadn't really gone back to it much. I've only beaten it once so maybe I should give it another go.

 

[Hero of Pizza Time]

That is kind of how I felt about Mega Man X5. X4 is my favorite Mega Man game so I was excited to move on to it's direct sequel. But even though it had more or less the same gameplay, it was bogged down by irritating RPG elements that did not belong in this type of game.

 

[ExLight]

That is kind of how I felt about Mega Man X5. X4 is my favorite Mega Man game so I was excited to move on to it's direct sequel. But even though it had more or less the same gameplay, it was bogged down by irritating RPG elements that did not belong in this type of game.

Do you mean RNG?

 

[Bowsette Plus-Ultra]

Dragon Age 2.

DA2 is awful. Barring some better combat, everything about the game is worse than its predecessor. You spend the whole game running around reused environments alongside a barely realized plot. It's impressive that it was even made considering its development timeline, but the series would have been better off without it.

I'd go so far as to call it worse than Skyward Sword, and you guys know how I feel about that game.

 

[thePlinko]

Oh yeah, Metroid Prime 2: Echoes.

Despite how clunky it is, Prime 1 is my second favorite Metroid game, and one of my favorite shooters too. Prime 2 is perfectly fine in nearly every way. Even if I’m not particularly fond of the new beam ammunition mechanic, it’s hardly a dealbreaker. What is a dealbreaker is it’s stupid dark world gimmick. It’s literally just LttPs dark world, which is fine, only now it damages you for simply being there. The only way to consistently heal yourself is to sit in safe zones and wait for it to slowly tick up one point at a time. The game punishes you for simply playing it. This one gimmick ruined the entire game for me, and it’s the reason why this is the only mainline Metroid that I haven’t finished. The thing is, PH did the same gimmick infinitely better just 3 years later.