Game People Calling: A Sequel Used to Mean Something
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I love games, where sequels are simply more of the same... If I enjoyed the first, what should be wrong with getting more of that, in an even better produced package, where they have retained most, if not all, that which made the last game great, and maybe added a couple of ideas (Think the Total War series)?
On the other hand, I love my copy of Dawn of War 2 and Chaos Rising to death, even though they were a massive departure from the original (they basically went from a classic RTS to a squad-based RPG/RTS thingy, which I think works excellently btw.). It worked, IMHO, because even though it was different, it retained enough of the original's atmosphere and storytelling (It's WH40K, how could it not be fantastic?), mixed with a new and (again IMHO) exciting form of gameplay, adding co-op to the campaign, and a fast-paced MP-section to round it off with.
I guess, what I'm trying to say is, it depends on your taste... Adding new ideas, or perhaps even reworking the entire series for the sequel is all well and good, as long as you retain the spirit and atmosphere of the original... But sometimes, people just want more of the same... In a bigger, louder, more well-refined box...
Best Regards
On the other hand, I love my copy of Dawn of War 2 and Chaos Rising to death, even though they were a massive departure from the original (they basically went from a classic RTS to a squad-based RPG/RTS thingy, which I think works excellently btw.). It worked, IMHO, because even though it was different, it retained enough of the original's atmosphere and storytelling (It's WH40K, how could it not be fantastic?), mixed with a new and (again IMHO) exciting form of gameplay, adding co-op to the campaign, and a fast-paced MP-section to round it off with.
I guess, what I'm trying to say is, it depends on your taste... Adding new ideas, or perhaps even reworking the entire series for the sequel is all well and good, as long as you retain the spirit and atmosphere of the original... But sometimes, people just want more of the same... In a bigger, louder, more well-refined box...
Best Regards
Meh. We used to be able to do sequels. I was bought up on "Street Fighter 2", "System Shock 2" and "Jungle Strike". Now we have "Bioshock 2" and "Crackdown 2". Games cost too much to produce for the developers to take chances any more. Who wants to bet we'll never again see a game where knights ride ostriches and joust with each other?
On a conceptual level, sequels have three basic components:
The Familiar - A good sequel should invoke much of the same sensation and experience of the previous game.
The New - A good sequel should bring something new that the previous game did not have.
The Refined - A good sequel should fix the mistakes and half-steps the previous game made.
All sequels have a mix of all three, but it's the proportion of each that's hard to get right.
The Familiar - A good sequel should invoke much of the same sensation and experience of the previous game.
The New - A good sequel should bring something new that the previous game did not have.
The Refined - A good sequel should fix the mistakes and half-steps the previous game made.
All sequels have a mix of all three, but it's the proportion of each that's hard to get right.
I disagreeStraying Bullet said:
CoD1: OMG WW2 AWESOMENESS
CoD2: OMG MOAR WW2 AWESOMENESS
CoD3: Did anyone even play this since it was console only?
CoD4: OMG MW AWESOMENESS
CoD5: This is pretty awesome too
MW2: Meh
In my opinion its more like the Modern Warfare series fits the picture
I think we're kind of spoiled that we get sequels to games we like, at all. I say that as someone who remembers fondly many games in the late 80s and early 90s on PCs that I would have loved to see more of, and if I was lucky I got -a- sequel. Even if they'd just taken the same exact engine and simply added a new story, I would have loved to see more of several different franchises. A few, like Ultima, did all of that and more, advancing both the engine and the storyline, and we've had scant examples of that sort of progression since then.
Now, we've got quite the opposite, with a handful of extremely successful franchises cranking out sequel after sequel, and while I'm not always enthused with the latest incarnation of FF, CoD or the poster child of such behavior, Madden, I don't think it's a bad thing that we've got a PC and console gaming industry that can rely on steady revenue streams from proven products. I don't think it's a zero sum game that if AAA title sequel 8 is being made that some mythical new game wouldn't be made. Rather, when they're done raking in the cash from all their standbys, they've got the wherewithal to take a risk on a title that never would have seen the light of day otherwise.
Now, we've got quite the opposite, with a handful of extremely successful franchises cranking out sequel after sequel, and while I'm not always enthused with the latest incarnation of FF, CoD or the poster child of such behavior, Madden, I don't think it's a bad thing that we've got a PC and console gaming industry that can rely on steady revenue streams from proven products. I don't think it's a zero sum game that if AAA title sequel 8 is being made that some mythical new game wouldn't be made. Rather, when they're done raking in the cash from all their standbys, they've got the wherewithal to take a risk on a title that never would have seen the light of day otherwise.
Only applies to stories. Try to consider a computer game in a similar vein to....lets say....van Gough's Sunflowers series.SAMAS said:
Each is done in a different style with a different subject based around a central concept; advancement of technique and appeal are the important factors.
They don't need to have the same feeling, in fact it's advantageous for each piece to stand distinct from it's sisters.
Fixing mistakes may not be relevant with a new subject and with a different tone and style the 'mistakes' may even be an advantageous fit. If you can't do better then make it a part of your work.
A series can simply be a conceptually unified series of works not a progressive story in which case all that matters is that each new iteration is different.
Does anyone remember the Journeyman Project Games? I especially loved 3: Legacy of Time, where it is revealed that aliens destroyed three previous human civilizations for the Legacy, an alien pyramid device that provided power to the civilization. The three civilizations were Atlantis, Shangri-La and El Dorado. And your character, Gage Blackwood, Agent 5, must track down the pieces of the Legacy to rebuild it before the aliens come to earth and destroy it again.
Now there was a sequel!
Now there was a sequel!
Genuine innovation... in Haze?! I wonder what it is. Nectar? Are you joking? Feign death "feature"? Not funny - I remember it from Team Fortress Classic of 1999. Changing factions half-way through plot?
Overall, it's like the author thinks that grass was greener, and the sky was brighter back in the 198x/9x. I remember old sequels, and they quite often were like their predecessors - remember fantastic Fallout 2, remember DOOM 2 and many others.
Sequel should NOT surprise gamers by some radical change in gameplay or concept. I buy a sequel because I like the original and want more of it, with better quality or just continuation of the story, not because I want something radically new.
If developer/publisher wants to experiment, it's great, but don't you dare to experiment with my dedication and money by making completely different game of sequel to something I like very much! It's a plain deception, it's exploitation of the old name to sell something completely unrelated. Make new franchise, promote it and sell instead.
Overall, it's like the author thinks that grass was greener, and the sky was brighter back in the 198x/9x. I remember old sequels, and they quite often were like their predecessors - remember fantastic Fallout 2, remember DOOM 2 and many others.
Sequel should NOT surprise gamers by some radical change in gameplay or concept. I buy a sequel because I like the original and want more of it, with better quality or just continuation of the story, not because I want something radically new.
If developer/publisher wants to experiment, it's great, but don't you dare to experiment with my dedication and money by making completely different game of sequel to something I like very much! It's a plain deception, it's exploitation of the old name to sell something completely unrelated. Make new franchise, promote it and sell instead.
This article definitely needs to be read by the Dragon Age fan community right now. When the game was announced a week ago (and with all the sparse details that implies), everyone immediately started panning it for the changes its bringing to the series. Personally, I think there's too little info to judge it on. And sequels should change and evolve anyway. I played DA:O and loved it. I don't need to play the same thing with the names changed. Bring on the innovation.
I agree wth this.
However, i still cling to a certain series whose sequels never cease to make me happy, but sadly the rest of the fanbase is in a love-hate relationship with them, so blame the fans.
However, i still cling to a certain series whose sequels never cease to make me happy, but sadly the rest of the fanbase is in a love-hate relationship with them, so blame the fans.
I can accept a certain amount of change in video game franchises, but when you take away the basics that made the game unique just to fit in with the current standard, that's when I have a problem. I'll go ahead and request anyone to play the very first Final Fantasy game on Nintendo, then play the latest version. Skip all the stuff in the middle, and go by those two games within the same franchise. You'll see some similarities from the original in the newest version, but they are so distant on all other aspects as to nearly make them completely different games, just joined by a similar title.
I agree that Fallout has fallen quite a bit from the first two in the series. I don't think every single game needs to be modernized when there was nothing wrong with it in the first place. Slapping a new GUI or graphics engine doesn't really constitute a great sequel. GTA is one of the few games I can think of that actually benefited from that change and helped to make the game more deep for the player. Fallout didn't need a to become a FPS in order to survive for me. The third-person isometric view was fine for me, and I'd have been happy to see it continue along that path, maybe with the option of being able to turn the camera. People crapped on Fallout Tactics, but they did little to change the game itself. You were dropped in an area, given the same format as the previous two games, but now you had to consider the factor of line-of-sight when attacking an enemy. There was still a story, maybe not the one you were totally familiar with since it took the angle of the Brotherhood of Steel. I played the hell out of Fallout Tactics, and even enjoyed the multiplayer on occasion (when my brother didn't mind getting his ass handed to him with a Neostead from a robot when he tried to rush my team in a house). It was a slightly different flavor of a franchise we'd known and were familiar with.
How about the Harvest Moon franchise? The basic game mechanic hasn't changed over the years. You still farm, try to balance a social life and make money. Some of the faces and scenery have changed, but the fundamentals are all still the same. When they attempt to add gimmicks to change the game from the original formula, I think that's where people tune out. You need to add a few subtle changes in order to stay somewhat with the times, but keep it within the right context. I didn't really want to talk about CoD, but it's pretty hard not to within this topic. I haven't seen a lot of innovations in the last three games. They change a few weapons around, but that's basically it. Maybe a minor graphical tweak here and there, but they are still pumping out the same generic shooter they've always put out, and it is just getting stagnant.
Saint's Row has done a good job in the last two games of keeping the story straight and remaining faithful to what kept people coming back to play the game without getting annoying about it. Adding more speech to the main character was a nice touch over the first game (where you only spoke two lines in the whole game), and they took out the bonus you got from having to color all your cars purple to impress the gang (I did get a little tired of that color after a while). The city didn't change so drastically that you couldn't tell it apart from the first game, they changed the names of the gangs around to reflect the progress you made in the first game, and just stuck with the same familiar game and changed little things here and there to make it stand out just enough as a new game without having to reinvent the entire franchise. More companies need to pay attention to this example and do what they can to follow suit if they want to keep up the popularity of their franchises.
I agree that Fallout has fallen quite a bit from the first two in the series. I don't think every single game needs to be modernized when there was nothing wrong with it in the first place. Slapping a new GUI or graphics engine doesn't really constitute a great sequel. GTA is one of the few games I can think of that actually benefited from that change and helped to make the game more deep for the player. Fallout didn't need a to become a FPS in order to survive for me. The third-person isometric view was fine for me, and I'd have been happy to see it continue along that path, maybe with the option of being able to turn the camera. People crapped on Fallout Tactics, but they did little to change the game itself. You were dropped in an area, given the same format as the previous two games, but now you had to consider the factor of line-of-sight when attacking an enemy. There was still a story, maybe not the one you were totally familiar with since it took the angle of the Brotherhood of Steel. I played the hell out of Fallout Tactics, and even enjoyed the multiplayer on occasion (when my brother didn't mind getting his ass handed to him with a Neostead from a robot when he tried to rush my team in a house). It was a slightly different flavor of a franchise we'd known and were familiar with.
How about the Harvest Moon franchise? The basic game mechanic hasn't changed over the years. You still farm, try to balance a social life and make money. Some of the faces and scenery have changed, but the fundamentals are all still the same. When they attempt to add gimmicks to change the game from the original formula, I think that's where people tune out. You need to add a few subtle changes in order to stay somewhat with the times, but keep it within the right context. I didn't really want to talk about CoD, but it's pretty hard not to within this topic. I haven't seen a lot of innovations in the last three games. They change a few weapons around, but that's basically it. Maybe a minor graphical tweak here and there, but they are still pumping out the same generic shooter they've always put out, and it is just getting stagnant.
Saint's Row has done a good job in the last two games of keeping the story straight and remaining faithful to what kept people coming back to play the game without getting annoying about it. Adding more speech to the main character was a nice touch over the first game (where you only spoke two lines in the whole game), and they took out the bonus you got from having to color all your cars purple to impress the gang (I did get a little tired of that color after a while). The city didn't change so drastically that you couldn't tell it apart from the first game, they changed the names of the gangs around to reflect the progress you made in the first game, and just stuck with the same familiar game and changed little things here and there to make it stand out just enough as a new game without having to reinvent the entire franchise. More companies need to pay attention to this example and do what they can to follow suit if they want to keep up the popularity of their franchises.
SAMAS said:
Sunflowers in this case is too broad. The subject in each picture is a different sunflower or arrangement of sunflowers it would be like having entirely different plots for each game but each based in the same sort of world.
ie: in a Fantasy realm in which magic use is rare but was once everywhere, the balance of nature is kept by crystals and society is at a medieval level. It's specific but allows for vastly different stories.
The sunflowers show little to no refinement they were painted in quick succession purely for display next to each other, and he never finished the series. Each was done simply to be interesting.
Refinement is a natural process not necessarily something to strive for in your sequels trying too hard has ruined many things and sometimes just ditching the whole lot and playing with a whole new concept gives better results.
For instance final fantasies skill\ levelling systems they could have stuck with the original system and striven for better balance slowly refining the system over the years instead we've seen jobs, materia, spell junctioning, summon junctioning, that strange map system in ten and so on. It's far more interesting, shows what can be done and keeps things fresh.
You can see final fantasy to be a conceptual series rather than a progressive one and it's part of what makes it success, people play them to see what's new and learn about an entirely new world and a new set of protagonists. Well until recently, now it seems they just ***** that things have changed.
Honestly I wish there were a lot less direct sequels in all forms literature, it's nice to see writers, filmakers and gamemakers explore their limits and create interesting works within an existing framework.
But look at C&C4, from what I can tell it's suffered a mass rejection for abandoning the core series gameplay. The ridiculous story certainly didn't help though. For the most part I think the fanbase of a certain series would rather have gradual refinement to gameplay and the continuation of story than new gameplay mechanics.
Pardon my bluntness, but says who? You mention the Final Fantasy series below, in which the similarities between one game in the series and another vary. IV and V are more similar to each other than VI and VII, but there are still similarties.Unrulyhandbag said:
You mean like.... Most JRPG series'? Final Fantasy, Tales, Phantasy Star (which actually takes place on the same world(s)), Wild Arms, etc... The first 75% of every game is different (naturally, that last 25% always seems to be "Save the World").
This seems like the first half of a comparison. Compared to what?
I would disagree. As my evidence, I would point to the Wikipedia article on the series. Compare the first sample one (not sure if it was first) with the ones shown elswhere on the page.
But that natural refinement is improvement in and of itself. Compare Super Mario Bros 2(Lost Levels) and SMB 3.
Naturally, the fandom complains about every single one. Seriously. If anything, that's usually the least welcome change in any Final Fantasy. You can garuntee an assload of complaining.
Final Fantasy and most other JRPGs are conceptual in that there's little connection between games other than concepts (and sometimes the same character designer(s)). In their cases, the Familiar is shared elements such as Tonberries, Fire/Blizzard/Thunder a/ara/aga, certain musical pieces, and somebody named Cid. The New is each setting and characters, and the Refinement is all the new battle systems and graphical improvements.
I honestly don't see much difference between the two. Neither method is inherently superior to the other.
Sometimes it's good for sequels to be straight rehashes. Personally, what I want out of a new Mega Man or Castlevania game is the same 8-bit inspired platforming in a new world with a different arrangement of weapons. (Thankfully Capcom and Inti Creates have been giving me exactly that with new Mega Man games.)
They're more the exception that proves the rule, though. The Bubble Bobble argument is a good one, and it's good to see things done differently. There's always a danger of changing too much, though, as suggested in the Final Fantasy comments above. Sequels are always a bit dangerous, and it's almost impossible to please everyone whichever path you take.
They're more the exception that proves the rule, though. The Bubble Bobble argument is a good one, and it's good to see things done differently. There's always a danger of changing too much, though, as suggested in the Final Fantasy comments above. Sequels are always a bit dangerous, and it's almost impossible to please everyone whichever path you take.
neither is superior each has it's place but we almost always get direct sequels.SAMAS said:
However in gaming it often takes years to make each game and previous efforts are sometimes unplayable on modern systems so a non sequential series can be a benefit and if it's been a long time since the first game a large part of the audience may have never played it.
Publishers know this it's why every now and then we get a 'reboot' of an old series that takes only a few gameplay or story elements.
If you have a good story to tell or have a long term aim with a game series then clearly a sequential run with only minimal or required changes is going to be what you want, but not everything has a good story and sometimes the next game stretches the story way past breaking point.