Any games where you liked the sequel more than the first?

[Talvrae]

Baldur's Gate 2... Fallout 2... Vampire the Mascarade: Bloodline (if we consider it to be the sequel of Vampire the Mascarade: Requiem) Mass Effect 2, Assassin Creed 2

 

[NickCaligo42]

Surprised you have to ask. Most of the time the second game in a series is a lot more refined.

My picks:
Assassin's Creed 2
First one was just horrible, the second one's close to perfect in comparison.

Star Wars: Battlefront 2
Don't really like the Battlefront games to begin with, but I'd still say the second one better satisfies peoples' expectations of what the game should've offered. "Hero" characters were an excellent feature, and they all wade into combat pretty nicely.

Mega Man Zero 2, 3, and 4
Better, betterer, betterest. The music just kept getting better, the story got more interesting, and the customization features got a lot stronger from one game to the next.

Devil May Cry 3
Much more refined and much less clumsy than Devil May Cry 1. Dante's Fighting Styles are exactly what the game needed to round him out. The story's a lot more coherent, and the acting--for such an incredibly cheesy game--is a lot stronger and more believable.

Ratchet and Clank: Up Your Arsenal
The perfect R&C game. None before it was half as good, none after it has achieved its greatness. Best variety of weapons, best variety of missions, ranging from war zones to infiltration to good old fashioned exploration.

Kingdom Hearts 2
Oh, I'm sorry! I must be on crack. This game sucked. The first one was way better in every respect. The only thing this game has going for it is Drive forms. Never mind.

Jak II
There'll be more than a few people who disagree with me here, but I'll just come out and say it: Jak and Daxter, the original, sucked. Its world had a lot of classic platformer charm to it, but all in all it was a wholly inferior clone of Banjo Kazooie. Its story was really weak, bordering on lazy, and its levels ranged from "nothing special" to "frustrating" to "THIS IS PAINFUL TO PLAY IT'S SO BAD." It wouldn't be so bad if there were a stronger sense of reward to it, but Jak never obtains new abilities, and new levels never offer anything new or interesting to explore--whereas Mario 64, another game with no abilities or upgrades to unlock, makes up for it by creating a host of unique challenges in each level to give you a fresh way of thinking about the abilities Mario's been carrying with him from the start of the game. Jak? Same 5 or 6 challenges in each level, different layout, some horrible, frustrating new gimmick to piss players off. Piece of shit game.

Jak II, however: the atmosphere and the story are a lot more interesting, sort of reminding me of Final Fantasy 7 or the Lucasarts adventure game Full Throttle. Jak obtains new abilities both in the form of new weapons and new powers for his Dark Jak form, both of which offered Naughty Dog the opportunity to develop more interesting and more challenging enemies to fight. In a way they were kind of jumping on the sandbox game bandwagon by including guns and giving players cars to hijack, but these were each taken with a unique spin, the weapons were legitimately well-designed--and for that matter worked a lot better than guns ever did in any Grand Theft Auto game before it--and the game still felt like it was being true to its platformer roots. Platforming sections were more straightforward, didn't overstay their welcome, and were more memorable, and with the addition of the hoverboard it gave the game a very "complete" feel, like it was really squeezing the lemon for all it was worth when it came to utilizing the futuristic setting for gameplay ideas. Simply put, a much better game. Of course Naughty Dog couldn't make bosses to save their bloody lives and STILL can't, but whatever.

Okay, got a little overly analytical with that one...

Mass Effect 2
Much tighter game than the first in just about every way. Showcased what was unique about the Mass Effect setting a lot more easily and a lot more early on than the first game did; comparatively the first one just felt like a shallow ripoff of--somehow--both Star Trek AND Star Wars, like Bioware was just phoning in Knights of the Old Republic. ME2 changed my mind on that.

Sonic 3 & Knuckles
Much tighter controls than Sonic 1 or 2. As in: actually tolerable to play.

Meh, I'm done now. I'm gonna go get some sleep.

 

[Sampler]

Didn't really get into Resident Evil 1 but loved the second one so much I went back and played the first again.

Now I love the first one more but at the time..and code veronica on the DC was better than both..(nemesis wasn't bad, not played 4 or Zero and five was ok).

 

[angelous_lecter]

God of War was always an escalation process... then there is.. POP... and a few others actually... its not a case of liking more but more that its a growing pace...

 

[Oinodaemon]

I seem to be one of those rare mutants that actually liked Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2 better than the original.

I liked #2 better also....Donkey Kong: Diddy's Kong Quest...

 

[Jonatron]

Mass Effect 2. Within a few months of each other I had played Knights of the Old Republic, Mass Effect and then Mass Effect 2. Every single one was a step up from the one before and every one made me feel emotional. I played through ME1 several times and I've played through ME2 several times and will probably continue to until ME3 comes out. Getting enough playtime to justify buying every measly DLC, too. Including that worthless appearance pack - bought purely for Garrus' sake. (And anyone who says Mass Effect 1 isn't just KotOR 1.5 is an outright liar.)

 

[kingcom]

Baldurs gate 2 was better than baldurs gate 1 imo.

 

[The Amazing Tea Alligator]

I didn't mentioned AoM, but I will give you my opinion.

I loved it. I just plain loved it. I replayed the singleplayer so many times I cannot count, I used to have a whole lot of maps, some like the Tower of Babylone by The Vandhaal, the Art Contest Map, etc, etc, etc. It had extremely fun units which I never got bored of them for the most part, the story, while somewhat weak to my standards, was good enough to keep the game going and to make it interesting. The civilizations were nearly completely different to make enjoyable to play as each faction. And the God selection with God Powers made it sometimes difficult to decide which to choose depending on the situation.

I played a whole lot of MP, but I got pwned a lot as I am not much of a strategy person in this game. For me it's one of the few RTS that I enjoyed.

AoE3 was a disappointment. The Metropolis, while it was interesting on shipments and stuff like that, lacked personalization and for some reason it allowed you to zoom in into some individual structures but just for that, only zooming.
The story was not good, especially for an RTS, units were not fun and lacked special abilities that made the mythological units from AoM fun. Also for one reason no formation except the default one worked in my game. The civilizations had the same issue that with AoE2, not very different and not enough unique units. Even with future patches it didn't got fixed the formations nor unique units. The map editor felt like a screwed up version of AoM, the units had extremely confusing names that made it a chore to find, and it included units that were only animations!

It just felt like a chore to play that game and it wasn't just as fun like AoE2 nor AoM.

What do you think about AoM BTW? I felt you asked like wanting me to bash it.

Oh no, you misunderstand me. I love it, and now that I think of it, I might hold it as the best in the series. I felt that myth powers should cost favour (25 for a level one, 50 for level 2, and so on) as opposed to simply one use only, but besides that, it's great. The only reason I wanted your opinion on AoM is because you didn't give it despite your talking about the AoX series

 

[Breaker deGodot]

Half-Life 2, Postal 2, Doom 2, the list goes on.

 

[Duck Sandwich]

Starcraft 2. Cool new units (some favourites include Banshees, Vikings, Roaches, Banelings, Reapers, Colossi, and Phoenixes)

Massively improved controls and visuals (I like how you can now tell whether or not a Protoss building is powered without having to click on it, and how you see a lightning bolt icon over Marines' heads whenever they use Stimpacks).

Massively improved campaign mode (I liked buying/researching upgrades, the branching mission trees, and how the missions were far more varied than SC1's "turtle, build up a huge army, and then either kill all your enemies, kill a specific building (and kill all enemies in your way), or kill enough of your enemies to land a unit safely on a beacon)"

Mega Man Zero 2, 3, and 4
Better, betterer, betterest. The music just kept getting better, the story got more interesting, and the customization features got a lot stronger from one game to the next.

My order of preference is 2, 3, 4, and then 1. Two had the hardest difficulty, and the forms and Chain Rod were awesome. Hard mode's "dish out and receive twice as much damage" made the Chain Rod useful as a projectile weapon, in addition to being a sweet grappling hook. 3 was the easiest, but it had awesome level design, music, and EX Skills. 4 was harder, and I liked the weather system. 1 was just bland compared to the sequels. Generic sounding music for the most part, (eg, the Factory missions) too many reused areas (there was what, 3 missions where you had to go through the same desert?), and no EX Skills or Forms, or any kind of special attacks besides charging your weapons and that jumping spinning slash. Oh, and the grinding to level up your weapons was lame, too.[

 

[Doctor Glocktor]

I preferred Pokemon Firered/Leafgreen to the Original Red/Blue.

 

[mr.aravaro]

I thought Half-Life 2 was better than Half-Life1

 

[Chris^^]

Timesplitters 3
Gears 2
AoE 2
SW Battlefront 2

all sequels I prefer

[edit] how could I forget Fallout 3? My favourite game by a mile

 

[Lord Beautiful]

Mass Effect
Knights of the Old Republic
Assassin's Creed
Gears of War
Zone of the Enders
Diablo
Kingdom Hearts
Chrono Cross

 

[NickCaligo42]

Starcraft 2. Cool new units (some favourites include Banshees, Vikings, Roaches, Banelings, Reapers, Colossi, and Phoenixes)

Massively improved controls and visuals (I like how you can now tell whether or not a Protoss building is powered without having to click on it, and how you see a lightning bolt icon over Marines' heads whenever they use Stimpacks).

Massively improved campaign mode (I liked buying/researching upgrades, the branching mission trees, and how the missions were far more varied than SC1's "turtle, build up a huge army, and then either kill all your enemies, kill a specific building (and kill all enemies in your way), or kill enough of your enemies to land a unit safely on a beacon)"

You know, I was really skeptical, but I actually agree. Starcraft 2 is fantastic. I didn't even enjoy Starcraft 1 all that much, but I'm loving this one for all the reasons you just stated. Blizzard must have implemented every single campaign feature they could possibly have thought of--research, mercenaries, equipment upgrades, it's just crazy. Meanwhile I'm genuinely shocked that the story is engaging me as much as it is; usually when I play an RTS the characters just feel like blips on my radar, but here I'm getting a lot more of a connection thanks to the segments in-between.

Mega Man Zero 2, 3, and 4
Better, betterer, betterest. The music just kept getting better, the story got more interesting, and the customization features got a lot stronger from one game to the next.

My order of preference is 2, 3, 4, and then 1. Two had the hardest difficulty, and the forms and Chain Rod were awesome. Hard mode's "dish out and receive twice as much damage" made the Chain Rod useful as a projectile weapon, in addition to being a sweet grappling hook. 3 was the easiest, but it had awesome level design, music, and EX Skills. 4 was harder, and I liked the weather system. 1 was just bland compared to the sequels. Generic sounding music for the most part, (eg, the Factory missions) too many reused areas (there was what, 3 missions where you had to go through the same desert?), and no EX Skills or Forms, or any kind of special attacks besides charging your weapons and that jumping spinning slash. Oh, and the grinding to level up your weapons was lame, too.[

2 also still had weapon-grinding. It was easier to do than in 1 since it adopted a more traditional Mega Man structure and let you dive right into the intro level, but it was still there and still annoying as hell at the beginning of a new playthrough. I keep feeling obligated to spend about 20 minutes just grinding at the start, and that sorta' brings it down for me. The forms were admittedly a neat addition, but I honestly just stuck with default Zero most of the game as the other forms limited his attacks an awful lot and I preferred to keep his versatility intact. As opposed to this one, I actually got some use out of the customization features in 3 and 4 and was very happy that they broke the abilities up between different chips in one and different armor pieces in the other. It's the difference between providing pre-packaged playstyles and letting the player build one for themselves. Same thing with Starcraft 2, actually. In the third mission alone--the evacuation mission, specifically--you've got a huge variety of strategies you can apply to protect the roads in spite of very restrictive resources.

 

[Amphoteric]

Rome total war

 

[AvsJoe]

A few, yes.

Vandal Hearts 2, Final Fantasy 7, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, Romance of the Three Kingdoms 7, Civilization 3, Red Alert 2, Worms: Armageddon, and Shining Force 2 have all spent time as my favourite game and all are still in my top 20. They are all also better than their previous games IMO.

 

[Tsunimo]

Half Life 2
and i have a feeling i will like Dead Rising 2 and Guild Wars 2 better than the originals