The Sequel That Let You Down

[Yukyon]

I hate jak 2 with a passion, it's just too different from the first game UnU

 

[LiberoVulpesLiberoVulpes's icon]

This might be controversial, but i didn't like Parasite Eve 2, they dropped the cool battle system, and felt more like an action game rather than a survival horror.

 

[trickybus]

Ori and the Will of the Wisps. If I wanted to play Hollow Knight, I would play Hollow Knight.

It also lazily retreads the story and villain from the first one.

 

[dr grim]

from this...

to this...

... sometimes 2D, does it way better.

( and it's not only a graphical issue, but the themactics, the whole atmosphere is worse )

 

[dropsmegamega]

The Witcher 2. The combat of the first one wasn't good, but to simply replace it with generic action combat, with rolling and QTEs? No thanks. Even if it has a good story behind it, that's exactly the kind of game I don't care for.

Dragon Age 2. A cartoonish direction, dumbed down combat, poor encounter design and lazily designed areas, characters being basically retconned into very different personalities, just all around bad.

Deadly Premonition 2. (From my backloggd review) Feels like it was made by a completely different team that has no idea how to write an interesting character or story or developing a good game in general, even my favorite character from the first one is a total moron here.

 

[diapered]

Wild Arms 4. I randomly got WA2 as a gift and absolutely loved it, then I was so hyped for WA3 and also loved it. Then WA4 was such a letdown ;_; I'm sure it is fine as a standalone game and I don't entirely remember the problems I had with it (to be fair, I don't think I got very far), but this was the first thought that came to mind for me.

 

[King Koopa's iconKing Koopa]

Legaia 2, It feels so lame compared to the original.

 

[Deean]

This.

Most people love it because it's their first SB game(so they have soft spot for it).

But for someone who really loves Sengoku Basara 2, this one is such a let down.
A soft reboot with a lot character getting "kicked out" of the series.
And i don't like how they do the story mode,it felt so tedious to play it 4 times to unlock all the routes.


I rather play 3 Utage. hell,even SW3 than this.

 

[Skeetos]

Funnily enough, Crash Bandicoot 4.

I love the game too. It's the disappointment of Crash getting revived just to gain this false identity of being "the Dark Souls of Platformers" and Toys for Bob running off of that instead of tight level design. I agree with the fanbase that no dev that handled Crash after Naughty Dog understood their formula but for me they didn't have to. Every dev that had Crash prior to the series getting killed by Activision had something in mind with the franchise and did their best to make it unique, and that's what made me fall in love with the series as a kid. Every game felt different.

Crash 4 feels as if they really tried to ride off of the Naughty Dog trilogy without actually understanding what made it good compared to other games of the time, and so they tried to do that, while also catering to the big fans that are gonna point and say "Oh, I remember Oxide, and the Evil Twins." Half of these references aren't even done in cool ways. My boys Victor and Moritz got assigned to being a portrait of them in Cortex Castle and they just have some of the speaking characters say some instantly recognizable line, like N. Brio once again yapping about how no one takes him seriously as he lays an egg.

The level design is awful. They introduced a mechanic where you can move the camera a bit to see off in the distance, and areas where you need to use it still don't actually help you see whether or not something is hidden. And God, the hidden items and boxes. They put them in the absolute dumbest places just to artificially increase the difficulty. The originals had levels like Cold Hard Crash in 2 where there's a single box hidden above the camera, but where it's at even if you miss it once or twice they put it in a spot where you can be like "Oh, maybe there's something up there."

It's as if Toys for Bob saw that and tried to do that to a larger scale, without realizing that the game is still for kids. And that's the big problem. Why make a kid's game so hard and involved? Having to get all of the gems, which there are 12 to a level now, forcing you to play the level twice due to the new N.Verted mechanic, finish a level without dying to get the N.Sanely Perfect relics, collect all of the Flashback Tapes so you can play those levels, collect the 5 Color Gems that they no longer tell you which levels they are actually in, which they patched in later, collect all of the Time Trial Relics, which you are now forced to get Platinum to 106% whereas in the old games you only needed Gold, play the bosses twice, and a few others I'm blanking on right now.

The biggest disappointment isn't even the game itself. It's the developers. Activision hit it out of the park with N.Sane Trilogy, even if some hardcore fans don't agree. They successfully revived the franchise. And why was that? They had Vicarious Visions handle that remake, which VV had prior experience with the franchise. They made Crash Nitro Kart and the GBA games, which were good except for Crash Purple/Spyro Orange. So they kinda already understood what they needed to do. Toys for Bob on the other hand prior to Spyro Reignited and Crash 4 were known for garbage shovelware titles, and being a COD support dev, and Crash 4 was the first real big solo project they had. They just very obviously didn't get it from the start, and now with Crash Team Rumble they kinda put Crash back into his moldy grave. I'd be surprised if we ever get another Crash game under Activision.

Crash Bandicoot 5 was in development in 2023, Toys for Bob still being the lead, but that game seemed to be a lot better conceptually. It would have been a crossover game with Spyro, with Crash and Spyro working together to stop Ripto and Cortex (kinda like a better version of the aforementioned bad GBA games) and they had levels where they were solo or together with Crash riding Spyro like he does the wild hog and Polar. It got cancelled for Black Ops 6. RIP my G.O.A.T once again.

 

[ObscureJigglypuff]

- Summon Night : Swordcraft Story 2 in my opinion is worse than the first one.

- Didn't like Soul Reaver 2.

 

[SolemnlyDoc]

I've never been able to put my finger on why, but Life is Strange: Before the Storm.

The first game came out at a formative time for me and I enjoyed it thoroughly, but the sequel just disappointed me. Maybe its because the first game wrapped itself up in such a nice bow that this "prequel" felt wrong.

 

[Skeetos]

I've never been able to put my finger on why, but Life is Strange: Before the Storm.
View attachment 25071
The first game came out at a formative time for me and I enjoyed it thoroughly, but the sequel just disappointed me. Maybe its because the first game wrapped itself up in such a nice bow that this "prequel" felt wrong.

Honestly I don't think any of the Life is Strange games hit the highs that the first one did. That game was just really good, and it came out at the perfect time too.

 

[MasterEn]

I've never been able to put my finger on why, but Life is Strange: Before the Storm.
View attachment 25071
The first game came out at a formative time for me and I enjoyed it thoroughly, but the sequel just disappointed me. Maybe its because the first game wrapped itself up in such a nice bow that this "prequel" felt wrong.

Honestly I don't think any of the Life is Strange games hit the highs that the first one did. That game was just really good, and it came out at the perfect time too.

sometimes, a story is meant to be a one off. there is no "before" and there is no "after"; only the "here and now".
this game seems to fit that perfectly, based upon both of your thoughts.

 

[Skeetos]

sometimes, a story is meant to be a one off. there is no "before" and there is no "after"; only the "here and now".
this game seems to fit that perfectly, based upon both of your thoughts.

This guy gets it.

 

[Jeff]

Mario Strikers Battle League: Censoring Peach and Daisy's Strikers uniform was a wrong move and also a bad idea, Tournament mode got botched, lack of stadiums, Nintendo not caring about Mario Strikers.

 

[MasterEn]

This guy gets it.

thanks. i've been studying stories for several years at this point. sometimes, a story hits its end and that's it. can't go no further. and adding a prequel is usually pointless. it's possible to do, but it's very hard to do successfully.

Post automatically merged: Feb 12, 2025

Mario Strikers Battle League: Censoring Peach and Daisy's Strikers uniform was a wrong move and also a bad idea, Tournament mode got botched, lack of stadiums, Nintendo not caring about Mario Strikers.

i'm pretty sure that game helped form my love for daisy. her official art work and that wonderful victory pose. she's too hot for nintendo to handle.

 

[Skeetos]

thanks. i've been studying stories for several years at this point. sometimes, a story hits its end and that's it. can't go no further. and adding a prequel is usually pointless. it's possible to do, but it's very hard to do successfully.

Post automatically merged: Feb 12, 2025

i'm pretty sure that game helped form my love for daisy. her official art work and that wonderful victory pose. she's too hot for nintendo to handle.

I wish they'd go back to Daisy having that darker skin shade. I always thought it made sense considering the climate of Sarasaland. They should just make another game in that kingdom. Super Mario Land is one of my favorites.

 

[MasterEn]

I wish they'd go back to Daisy having that darker skin shade. I always thought it made sense considering the climate of Sarasaland. They should just make another game in that kingdom. Super Mario Land is one of my favorites.

she's supposed to be Egyptian, from what i read, hence the darker skin tone. but miyamoto didn't create her, so he gives no fucks about her. that's why rosalina is in more stuff than the best princess ever.
i would say, technically, it's a good thing that there isn't another game. it means that daisy has her shit together and can keep her empire and her citizens safe, while peach goes through another temper tantrum because she can't admit that she fell for a bad boy.
bowser deserves better.

 

[Skeetos]

she's supposed to be Egyptian, from what i read, hence the darker skin tone. but miyamoto didn't create her, so he gives no fucks about her. that's why rosalina is in more stuff than the best princess ever.
i would say, technically, it's a good thing that there isn't another game. it means that daisy has her shit together and can keep her empire and her citizens safe, while peach goes through another temper tantrum because she can't admit that she fell for a bad boy.
bowser deserves better.

 

[MasterEn]

that, is the most perfect music video that i've ever seen.
it is 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000% on the money.
absolute ?

 

[Tezca]

Dragon Age 2. A cartoonish direction, dumbed down combat, poor encounter design and lazily designed areas, characters being basically retconned into very different personalities, just all around bad.

Came here to post this.

I played DAO to death on my old 360, so when I heard there was a second game, I rushed to Gamestop, brought it and the DLC's in the live store before firing the game up.

....That was a pretty big blunder.

I actually enjoyed Inquisition though. DLC's an all. Taking on dragons with my warrior mage was too fun an I liked the Dread Wolf stuff. Shame the next game never came out. Nope, it didn't. Never heard of it. Inquisition was the last one.

 

[SolarSpectre]

unpopular opinion but.. MGS2. sure the gameplay was vastly improved but listening to an annoying foil whine for hours on end was just too much. it was clearly a middle finger to the fans. fortunately MGS3 was a lot better.

 

[Somnia]

I hate jak 2 with a passion, it's just too different from the first game UnU

As an aside it is always interesting to hear people say "I can't believe Naughty Dog view themselves as too mature for Jak games now" when Jak 2 changed so drastically in tone and structure purely because Naughty Dog was chasing GTA's demographic. Naughty Dog always just chased whatever genres/age brackets they feel are the most relevant within the industry.

 

[Nidoking's iconNidoking]

I know I'm in the minority for loving Dark Souls II, but I do. I love most games I've played by From Software though, so...

A sequel that did let me down... Kingdom Hearts II. Between the story stuff (making it extremely confusing and requiring you to play a spinoff game on a totally different system to even understand it) and the radical shift in gameplay style... it just really wasn't for me. To this day I can't get into it, and I've completed it twice just to be thorough. Birth by Sleep, though... Bravo.

As for a sequel I loved to something I didn't care for... Chrono Cross. CC is tied for my favorite game of all time and will always mean the world to me, but I just cannot get into Trigger. I don't even think it's a bad game by any stretch, I just don't click with it and always lose interest. It's a shame, but I even ended up spoiling most of the plot for myself after a while because it's the only way I was ever going to experience it... and it really is a great story. Just wasn't meant to be.

 

[Kid Dynamite]

Dragon Warrior II. If a character dies you have to pay an exorbitant amount of gold to resurrect them. The encounter rate is also frustratingly frequent.