Most disappointed sequel?

[Drops a Sweet Katana]

Mass Effect 2. The first Mass Effect is probably one of my favourite games of all time, if only for the sheer scope of the world building. It took itself seriously. It didn't play fast and loose with its own rules and tailored the story and events to them, not the other way around. Sure the shooting was clunky, levelling up was a chore and the graphics, not the aesthetics, were kinda janky. For me Mass Effect 2 had some serious big shoes to fill. And what did it do? It pissed in them. All that world building that happened in the first game, gone. Internal consistency, gone. Subtlety was exchanged for bombast. The Reapers went from ancient, unknowable machine gods to mustachio twirling Saturday morning cartoon villains. Paragon and Renegade options went from being fairly subtle and able to switch between the two and still have a pretty consistent character, to space Christ and passive aggressive to downright psychotic. The world is essentially a series of corridors as opposed to the sprawling open levels of the original. Side missions end up being a series of minigames and shooting galleries with no sense of what you were do or why, and often end with artificial and contrived binary morality choices that don't mean anything. I'm also confused why Cerberus is now a big deal when you only encountered them in maybe three side missions in the original. There really was no reason for them to be a big deal. In fact, it would have made more sense if Shepard stayed with the Alliance in the second game than to be killed off and brought back to life by Cerberus. You can keep the Collectors in, as pointless as they were, and have Shepard investigate missing colonies for the Alliance, as dumb as that plot was. Actually, that nicely sums up my thoughts on the game: just kinda dumb. That being said it wasn't a bad game. The combat was tightened up significantly and the classes felt pretty distinct.

I would also say Halo 4, but to be disappointed would mean that I wasn't expecting it to be an obvious cash-in.

 

[PAGEToap44]

Fable 3 of course. Why Lionhead, WHY!!!??? Looking forward to a good sequel now Molyneux's left.

Halo 4: disappointing as hell.

Hitman Absolution: took all the fun out of the series.

 

[NoeL]

Most disappointing sequel eh... well, the worst offender in recent memory would have to be Skyward Sword. The world felt small, the fetch quests were tedious as hell (I wanted to throw my controller through the wall when I got up to the tadtones part), I'm pretty sure I saw all the game had to offer on my first playthrough, the way they "fixed" the timeline was weak sauce, the controls were cumbersome, and that fucking whore, FI!... just didn't deliver for me. No desire to replay that one.

 

[Maximum Bert]

As a lover of fighting games, Street Fighter IV is the pinnacle of heartbreak. Fighting games aren't for me anymore. They're for Xbox Live ten-year-olds and their mommies' money, and Street Fighter IV is responsible. What kind of fucking fighting game rewards you for losing. Honestly.

I feel ya I enjoyed SFIV for a while despite hating the atrocious art style but the game quickly lost my interest its just not as good as SF2 or 3. I wouldnt judge all fighting games on SF4 though there have been much better ones released this gen also Injustice rewarded rage quitters until it was patched which was ridiculous go in to a fight disconnect and you get the win and it also counts against your opponents disconnect rate. Capcom really got left behind this gen on 2D fighters by SNK and especially Arc who both really stepped up their game although thats just my opinion.

OT dissapointing sequels er Crash Nitro Kart just what the hell was that piece of junk?, Guitar Hero 2 now with worse songs and 3 and 4 etc also DMC every game after the first was a disappointment I didnt even bother finishing 4.

Not sure what my most dissapointing one would be maybe Halo 3 that just killed the series for me I thought 1 was ok 2 was good and 3 just WTH its terrible.I physically could not force myself to play it and I even bought the collectors edition I was waiting months to play it as it was released when I was out of the country I read all the awesome stuff about it and then I finally got home sat down turned it on and instant dissapointment we are talking GTA3 levels of disappointment so yeah Halo 3 and GTA3 are probably my 2 most disappointing sequels because I had such high hopes for them and they failed me on every level.

 

[Tom_green_day]

Monster Hunter Tri.
Monster Hunter was alright, Freedom, Freedom 2 and Freedom Unite were, in my opinion, great games. Then they moved the series to the Wii, and it was one of the worst games I've ever played for that reason. Shoddy controls and gameplay because it was on the wrong console. I didn't even bother looking at 3 Ultimate.

 

[SlaveNumber23]

Halo 4. After playing countless hours of Halo 3 and Halo Reach, Halo 4 felt like a downgrade from its predecessors in almost every aspect. I found this game to be disappointing enough to douse my remaining interest in the series. That and the fact that I'd have to buy a new console I don't want to play any future Halo games. I absolutely love the Halo series, but Halo 4 completely failed to persuade me to invest in the future of the series.

Also Mass Effect 2, it wasn't a bad game by any means, in fact I'll say that its generally a good or even great game. But it was devoid of many of the aspects I loved the first Mass Effect for. I was so disappointed with the direction they took with this game that I never even touched Mass Effect 3.

 

[TreuloseTomate]

The obvoius Mass Effects have been mentioned, but I will give you Metroid: Other M. I have never seen a worse characterization, story and gameplay logic. Wasted potential for a big 2.5D Metroid. This came after the excellent Prime trilogy, and we haven't heard anything about Metroid since then (apparently Retro Studios had to spend years developing DKCR2).
Many fans deny its existence. You might even say, it ruined the franchise.

 

[Tyrant_Valvatorez]

Metroid: Other M ... people have complained about it to death but for good reason. One thing people seem to miss about the story is, even if by some miracle it had turned out to be the best story ever written it still would have ruined the game since that style of story telling is not suited for Metroid.

The best way to explain this point is to look at what is the most important aspect of the series discovery: pretty much with the exception of Fusion each game had a minimalistic plot which took a back seat as the real focus was exploring alien worlds, with the real reward being the discovery of little details or hidden items heck at times a lot of the story was told through the gameplay itself.

To cut the rant short pretty much instead of giving another game that allows us to discover and explore an alien world without being beat over the head with the story, they gave us a grand space opera that not only lacked subtly but overly relied on bringing back past enemies and ironically said plot has so much irrelevance despite it being forced on you.
Basically the only thing the story did was retroactively screw with past games and make aspects of Fusion make no sense whilst at the same time contributing nothing at all, Im even trying my hardest to not rant about screwing up Samus herself but the saddest part is this mess came from the same man who brought us Super Metroid... I guess this is what happens when he has full control.

 

[Pink Gregory]

And, obviously, Final Fantasy 8.

Can you really call a Final Fantasy game a sequel?

(Y'know, apart from the direct sequels to X onwards)

 

[Ryan Hughes]

I was surprised when XCOM:Enemy Unknown called me on the phone and told me how disappointed it was in me for not finishing it on "impossible" difficulty with "marathon" mode switched on. Also, I think Devil May Cry 3 was horribly disappointed in me when I stopped playing halfway through. I could hear it whimpering on the shelf at night.

But I think the worst of all was when BioShock took offense at my criticism of its rather heavy-handed take down of Randian philosophy, then emailed my literature professor in college and told him to give me a failing grade.

 

[LostAlone]

DeusEx: Invisible War
Not a bad game, no.
I even managed to enjoy it.
But so much wasted potential

I have to agree.

Most of the other things posted here were games that were either parts of extremely long running series that had been out of gas for the better part of a decade by the point, making whatever game people picked out to be simply the culmination of a lot of badness. Final Fantasy and Resident Evil are certainly in this category. People bitching about Mass Effect and Dragon Age don't even know their born in terms of bad sequels. I didn't like ME2 or DA2 either, but they didn't exactly make me cry tears of rage either.

Deus Ex 2 on the other hand was riding off the back of what is hands down one of the best games ever created both in terms of narrative and game play that provided a unique experience to everyone who played it. Deus Ex changed the way a whole generation of gamers saw what games were and what they could do. System Shock 2 laid the ground work, Deus Ex polished it and made all the parts work together in near perfection.

So when Invisible War came out, it was almost call for a moment of silence. Not because it is actually all that bad, but simply because it was so much more facile than it's older brother. It was full of sillyness and had a crappy story and practically every change was for the worse. It was still good enough to play through, and is an alright game in its own right, but in terms of which sequel has had the most potential to be amazing and failed to live up to that, nothing else so far mentioned comes even close.

 

[Something Amyss]

This can be answered in two words. Fable 3.

"Fable 2" would have sufficed. I loved the first, but the second was so...BORING.

also, Saints Row 3, Dynasty Warriors 4, the last Army of Two....

 

[Denamic]

Invisible War.
There's just no comparison. Games like Dragon Age 2 and Fable 3 were at least decent in their own right; they just paled in comparison to their predecessor. Deus Ex: IW wasn't just outclassed by Deus Ex. It was outright bad. It was a joke and an insult.

 

[Suicidal Zebra]

For me it would have to be Unreal 2. I didn't get into Deus Ex the first time around otherwise Invisible War would almost certainly get my vote, but equally after Unreal was such a notably ground-breaking title in terms of graphics and AI, Unreal 2 was just a huge pile of ass.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

Metroid: Other M ... people have complained about it to death but for good reason. One thing people seem to miss about the story is, even if by some miracle it had turned out to be the best story ever written it still would have ruined the game since that style of story telling is not suited for Metroid.

The best way to explain this point is to look at what is the most important aspect of the series discovery: pretty much with the exception of Fusion each game had a minimalistic plot which took a back seat as the real focus was exploring alien worlds, with the real reward being the discovery of little details or hidden items heck at times a lot of the story was told through the gameplay itself.

To cut the rant short pretty much instead of giving another game that allows us to discover and explore an alien world without being beat over the head with the story, they gave us a grand space opera that not only lacked subtly but overly relied on bringing back past enemies and ironically said plot has so much irrelevance despite it being forced on you.
Basically the only thing the story did was retroactively screw with past games and make aspects of Fusion make no sense whilst at the same time contributing nothing at all, Im even trying my hardest to not rant about screwing up Samus herself but the saddest part is this mess came from the same man who brought us Super Metroid... I guess this is what happens when he has full control.

Yeah, I got to agree with this one. The story was an atrocity. How is it for example that Samus, who although very little characterization had been done up to this point, was established to be at the very least to be a farily seasoned bounty hunter, be suddenly be breaking down and becoming this subservient little whiny *****? "Adam's words pierced my heart" What? We're talking low level fan fiction levels of bad here. Never mind that the story was shot full of holes. How is it that Adam figured he was saving Samus' life by shooting her in the back while a Metroid was hovering overhead ready to snack on a Samus sandwich? And then he gives some bullshit story about Metroids being engineered to be immune to cold and he needs to go blow up the Metroid wing to the ship with him inside. Ok, putting aside the amount of bullshit in his story, couldn't he have just shot the Metroid before going "Hey Samus, don't go in there!" instead of shooting her. What's worse is that she eats up his story without question, not even questioning why he had to shoot her to stop her going to the Metroid wing of the damn ship. ...oops sorry now I went off on a rant.
Anyway the gameplay wasn't so bad, except for the absence of health and ammo drops and that the first person missile thing didn't really work during boss fights.

 

[RedEyesBlackGamer]

Dragon Age II

Oh my god!!!! Way to get our hopes up to take a giant crap on them, Bioware!

This.

I wanted a top down strategic RPG with deep combat. They gave us the awesome button.

I wanted a large range of conversation choices and a range of backgrounds. They gave one specific protagonist with the 3 vague choice conversation wheel. (That isn't a slight on Mass Effect, that was a justified for that series)

I wanted to make decisions that had an effect on what happened. They gave us a plot that railroaded every major plot point.

I wanted to explore the world of Thedas. They gave us one city and one dungeon.

I wanted interesting characters and mind messing dilemmas. They gave us people with only one defining trait each and not much to think about.

The sequel to "the spiritual successor to Baldurs Gate 2" took a great big whizz on its gravestone.

The game that made me sever my connection to Bioware. Laidlaw, frankly, doesn't get it. And if he doesn't get it, then I won't get anymore of his games.

 

[rednose1]

Chrono Cross does it in for me.
Chrono Trigger was just pure awesome. Great story, every character made you feel for them, battles were well done.

Then Chrono Cross comes along and back flips into a pool of suck. Countless characters that just became copies of previous characters, a story that is convoluted, and an entirely new battle system that just feels like it was done on the cheap.

Chrono Trigger was too awesome to count Cross as it's sequel, I am waiting for the real one to come out!

 

[Mahoshonen]

Mass Effect 2
I was so mad at bioware, ruined the trilogy for me. Took a cautious approach to me3 and I am glad I didn't buy it.

.

Exactly the same for me.

Mass Effect 1 was awesome, absolutely loved it. I actually enjoyed the combat and the story arch really drew me in. Then they pissed in my face in just about everyway with #2. Never even bought #3 and don't plan to. Which is a pitty, I was really interested in the Prothean facet.

While I don't hate ME2, I do agree that it was the most disappointing. It was fun and interesting, but I could see where the series was going and I didn't like the direction.

 

[Inquisitor Slayde]

Saints Row The Third.

With the exception of graphics it was inferior to Saint Row 2 in every way. Significantly less content across the board, a huge drop off in quality in the writing, a horrid misstep in the shift in tone, the deeply disappointing way established characters were treated, and so much more.

I'll readily admit some of my complaints are subjective and others enjoyed SR3. I was very let down.

I would have said Max Payne 3 but that game wasn't disappointing so much as it was infuriating. I hate that game so much. I hate it.

 

[b.w.irenicus]

The most recent that comes to mind is Hitman - Absolution. I liked every Hitman to that point and loved Blood Money, but Absolution just took everything fun about Hitman and replaced it with Splinter Cell-wannabe.