The Sequel That Let You Down

[randomdudeguy]

You loved the first one but the sequel fell flat. Name the game.

Inversely, the first one was trash but the sequel is amazing, name it.

 

[ojed4r]

This might be an unpopular opinion, but Bayonetta 2 was a huge let down for me. The first game is my favorite hack and slash of all time: stylish and addictive combat, great boss battles, killer music, and gorgeous levels that invited you to explore and find secrets. Bayo 2 keeps some of the essence of the first but the whole game felt like a huge "boss rush" for me. Almost no exploration at all, difficulty was toned down a bit, unspiring level design, the scenery felt empty with bland art direction (compared to the first game), and the great majority of the levels were boring and repetitive boss battles. Sounds weird to say that since Bayo 2 received more praise than the first one, but for me was a dissapointment. Haven't played the third one but seeing Platinum Games lose its luster in recent years, I don't have high hopes...

 

[Victor792019]

Personally, I'd say Shin Megami Tensei II for the SFC, for some reason I feel like the game kinda slows down your progression by sending you various times to previous locations to look for some things that were mentioned, like, a hour or two beforehand, or being overly specific with places and actions you need to progress. Also the endgame enconters get annoying very quickly. The first SMT is awesome in comparison, entertaining storyline and combat (yes, even the bugs), based OST and overall great immersion factor.

 

[bobobobo2]

pfft, new challenger, we've got a paladin knight thread on this

 

[bjork]

Phantasy Star Online 2. Part of it might've been coming in late and not seeing features and content as it was added, but I first played on Vita and then later when it came out in the US on PC and it was just overwhelming to me both times. Haven't gone back, but I have gone back to PSO on Gamecube pretty often.
Test Drive Unlimited 2. The idea of the whole new island and unlocking Oahu once you'd played enough was cool, but there was so much focus put on non-driving stuff like casinos and... getting plastic surgery? Just a weird thing. The newest TDU looks like it went down a similar path too, so that's a drag. I liked the first one a lot.

 

[Darrell42]

Valkyrie elysium counts as a sequel?

 

[Bonkers225]

Chrono Cross. Ugly, battles take forever, story is meh. Wicked soundtrack though.
PSO New Genesis. Killed the series for me.
Corpse Party: Blood Drive. Killed the series for me.
Breath of Fire V. Just ugly. Should have remained 2-D. Terrible gameplay choices. Killed the series.

 

[tenkaistar]

Deadly premonition was lightning in a bottle. The second was so bad

 

[Waffles]

Deus Ex: Invisible War, The Last Of Us Part II; Doom 3.

 

[LUNARMYTH]

I should preemptively say that I enjoy both of these games a lot.

But I like almost everything about Dark Cloud better than Dark Cloud 2, even though I can easily admit that 2 improves a number of things about it. I love getting the towns to 100% in DC1. Plus the weapon crafting mechanic is really neat.

 

[Karnik]

Alundra 2 is not only worse than the previous one, but completely different! They only share a name. Saga Frontier (psx) is also very different (and better) than the sequel, in my opinion.

 

[Clippy]

Blood->Blood 2. From one of the best DOS era shooters to a horrible, glitchy, unbalanced mess. I know that a lot of the blame lays with the publisher just shoving it out the door before it was ready but that knowledge doesn't make me enjoy the game any more.

Duke Nukem 3D->Duke Nukem Forever. I think everyone knows the story with this one by now. To be fair I don't think any sequel to 3D could ever satisfy the hardcore fans and what we got is not the worst game of all time by any means but it's mediocre at best, especially if you take into account the 14-year wait.

Age of Empires II->Age of Empires III. From an all time great to a meh game that sadly followed the trend of switching to 3D graphics much to its detriment.

Roller Coaster Tycoon 2->Roller Coaster Tycoon 3. Pretty much the same story as above.

GTA San Andreas->GTA IV. A major step back in pretty much every aspect when it comes to interacting with the game world. I get that it was a time of great changes when it comes to graphical fidelity and resolution but everything else suffered just so the game can look pretty. Also, the PC port was a disaster.

Desperados->Desperados 2. Same story as AoE and RCT

Worms World Party->Worms 3D. Same as above. On the upside, they actually managed to make the formula work pretty well by the time Worms Mayhem came out. Still, there's good reason as to why the latest releases in the series are 2D.

Mortal Kombat Trilogy->Mortal Kombat 4. Another switch from 2D to 3D. This time with a roster downgrade from 36 characters to less than half that and replacing some beloved characters with inferior counterfeits (vide Kano->Jarek). Bland stages, wonky combat, meh finishers (admittedly some characters had meh finishers before and it actually got worse later in Deadly Alliance and especially Armageddon)

I think that's enough for now. A quick mention goes to Little Fighter for being the opposite. The second game is so much better than the first one.

 

[SkunkyBeaumont]

Unpopular opinion: Diablo 3 was not as good as Diablo, let alone Diablo 2.
Torchlight and Torchlight 2 are much better followups to Diablo made by the original team.

 

[Clippy]

Unpopular opinion: Diablo 3 was not as good as Diablo, let alone Diablo 2.
Torchlight and Torchlight 2 are much better followups to Diablo made by the original team.

That's an unpopular opinion? I remember everyone dunking on 3 for years. Supposedly 4 is even worse but I haven't played it so I can't judge and we don't talk about the abomination that was Immortal. Haven't played that one either but I feel comfortable judging it considering what a filthy, abhorrent cash grab it was.

 

[ZeroDuplicate]

Tears of the Kingdom. It's a more complex game than Breath of the Wild, but Breath of the Wild is better designed in my opinion. And there's also some weird choices regarding the story and lore that made me not like the game as much.

 

[Patches]

Halo 4 and its been downhill ever since.

Valkyria revolution on one hand I am glad they tried something different on the other hand the fantasy alternate history wwi esque tactical combat was so much fun and so well done.

I could go without certain monster hunter titles, but majority of them are still good a few duds for sure.

A lot of xbox franchises owning an xbox one has been a hell of a humiliation ritual watching them bury and piss on the graves of forza and forza horizon, gears, halo.

 

[ATenderLad]

Suikoden 4, probably? It was inevitable with the behind the scenes changes, but abandoning the on-going landscape of the world at that point to go to the past was a serious let-down.

It also wasn't very good, which never helps.

 

[SkunkyBeaumont]

Suikoden 4, probably? It was inevitable with the behind the scenes changes, but abandoning the on-going landscape of the world at that point to go to the past was a serious let-down.

It also wasn't very good, which never helps.

I liked it, although I get why people would be disappointed with it.

 

[ATenderLad]

I liked it, although I get why people would be disappointed with it.

To be fair, so much of what I don't like has to do with moving away from the series up to that point. Four person parties instead of six, for example. (Although I think in a series where you recruit dozens of allies, getting to use less of them at a time is an objective step back.)

I also don't think I liked PS2 RPG's on the whole that much. The look, the style, the design sensibilities...I can go back and replay PSX and SNES games at the drop of a hat, but I really have to force myself with the PS2.

 

[Gorse]

And there's also some weird choices regarding the story and lore that made me not like the game as much.

Wow, really? It’s weird to hear that about a Zelda game! Without too many spoilers, would you mind elaborating? I haven’t played Tears of the Kingdom, but I thought BOTW’s story was awesome.

 

[moonbits]

You loved the first one but the sequel fell flat. Name the game.

Inversely, the first one was trash but the sequel is amazing, name it.

Dark Souls 2 was so incredibly disappointing in almost every possible way.

Most recently: Halo Infinite
What an absolute disaster.

 

[NanoSoft]

Sonic 4 Episode 1. I hated it so much that I mastered the game out of spite. I got some 700 lives in that game plus all the Emeralds. I don't know who it was made for, because it wasn't a good Genesis like Sonic game, but I don't believe it was good for modern Sonic fans either. It was a weird mobile game port that somehow got bestowed the legendary name of Sonic 4. What a let down.

 

[ZeroDuplicate]

Wow, really? It’s weird to hear that about a Zelda game! Without too many spoilers, would you mind elaborating? I haven’t played Tears of the Kingdom, but I thought BOTW’s story was awesome.

The thing is that there are some plot points of Breath of the Wild that could be expanded upon that are ignored or outright removed from the story. It doesn't mean that the game isn't a sequel to Breath of the Wild, but it feels that the devs didn't wanted to have people that didn't play the first game to feel left out, but went too far.

A lot of NPCs don't recognize Link. This isn't a bad thing by itself, and main characters don't have this issue, but sometimes some NPCs that should recognize Link talk to him like it was the first time. I thought that was just me being nitpicky, but seems that other people felt the same way.

But that's not that big of an issue compared to the Divine Beasts, or the Guardians.

Spoiler

They're gone, without a trace, and no one seems to mention it. Even the game director said that they just magically dissapeared somehow. I get that the game is set around 5 or 6 years after the first one, but because basically no one makes mention of a lot of events of the previous game, or directly address Link as part of what happened, it makes the first game feel disconnected to this one.
And come on, imagine if on this game you had to fight a guardian corrupted with malice, at least one on the corner of the map, but no, they're gone

Zelda games are disconnected from one another, except some references here and there, but this game being a direct sequel makes that disconnection feel weird.

Some of the storytelling is odd. People joke about the "secret stones" dialogue, but it's weird that you as a player have to hear the same story four different times, with minimal variation, and no one thought that was an issue.
There is also something mechanically similar to Link recovering his memories by going to a location. The non-linear aspect of that works great if you're discovering lost memories, but doesn't work great if you're following a very linear story, because you have to go out of your way to not spoil yourself.

And part of the "new" lore is taking plot points of Ocarina of Time and telling them differently. If it's a reference is fine, but this one borrows too much, and I feel that takes away from the uniqueness that Tears of the Kingdom could've had, with the Zonai and whatnot.

This game also pretty much disconnects Breath of the Wild/Tears of the Kingdom from the rest of the timeline. I felt that with Breath of the Wild you could make excuses to fit it somehow, but with this one is really difficult, because some things make it almost incompatible as a sequence of events.

To be fair, it's not a bad game. A lot of people like it more than Breath of the Wild, and I kinda get it. It's a huge game with a lot to do, and it has some really cool moments and sections. For some, it basically replaced the first one. But I think that BOTW is better, and not only because it was released first.

 

[kamille]

Dragons dogma 2 made me despise capcom and the re: engine

And i started hating from software as well when they turned armored core in to a soulslike.

 

[Cu-Neo]

Dead rising 4 and DA The Veilguard. The first is not a bad game at all (at least it has content) but man the Microsoft crunch really killed the game and almost the franchise (thanks god for dead rising 1 remaster) and the second not only they made Dragon age Keep (and also the player choices) useless but also the game was in develoment for nearly 10 years and they released a game that feels like a spin off at best