On Sequels

[evilmiera]

Original developers , like creators or leaders of every kind, ought to keep around a trainee they can impart their ideas and concepts in. Not merely to make him start liking those kinds of ideas (because a certain hint of admiration has to exist when building something in the image of something else), but to make him understand WHY the original concepts worked. How the creator thought the idea should evolve, how it came to be, and so forth. Giving the person whom should succeed the creator a full view of just how things should come to a head in future installments, if any. Not that they ought to become proper clones of said men/women, but so that they can continue the work they left behind, should they wish to.

And there are quite a few sequels made with not a hint of fandom in them that have been disastrous (as Yath already pointed out). We're already hearing disturbing things about how Syndicate may be getting a new iteration , and how it's completely over the top in all the wrong ways.

 

[mollemannen]

Sequals can, and must be done right. No need to change the team behind it if they know what they're doing. Then it's just an opinion what a sequel is. Im thinking primarily on the longrunners as the supermario games (not the sport/party/other spinoffs) or perhaps the final fantasy.

One great example when a sequel is done right is the twisted metal series. The first game was an arena based vehicle combat game wich players bought, played and then said things like nice/great game and then bought another game. Then twisted metal 2 (world tour) arrived and players bought it, played it and said "awesome" and some continues to play it to this day (<-)

Then, if i'm not mistaken, another company was placed to work on the twisted metal series and ruined the third and fourth game. Black was ok.

Point being if done right sequals can be better and just becuse they seldom are we can't just wish they'd go away(wow, i got a wierd picture of yahtzee sitting in his couch and reapeting "no more sequals please" wile writing this )

 

[Lord_Kabuto]

What about Starcraft II and III? Because, it was announced that they can't fit the whole story in the second game, they decided to make it a trilogy.

 

[Sanaj]

I don't understand why people care about the .5 dimension comment...
These people can't understand when something is a joke?

Tales of Monkey Island didn't have Tim Schafer writing for them... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_of_Monkey_Island
I'm thankful for that, I can't wait for another original game written by Tim Schafer.

 

[Norman Rafferty]

I would submit that you have a point, but it should probably be amended as follows:
"Sequels should be made by someone who has a grudge against the previous games, and has to prove how the original can be better."

Because I can't get the Neon Genesis Evangelion anime out of my head. Later material was made specifically to mock the fanbase.

Applying this to video games ... well, you've reviewed the Sonic games. For the latter-day games, they can't be accused of catering to their fanbase. A human love interest? A silver hedgehog from the future? A werewolf that rips off God of War? A lack of high-speed running? Heck, Team Sonic could just crank out a bunch of forgettable 2.5D Sonic games for XBLA or Wii Store at $10USD a pop, for 1/10 the effort of their other bloated product, and everyone would be happier. But no, instead they make these bizarre games that don't please anyone. That sounds too much to me like the new Sonic games are being made by folks who hate Sonic. And who also feel like they have nothing to prove, since fanboys will buy anything.

 

[Zefar]

As much as I don't like to have complete hardcore people doing the Sequel because they will NEVER EVER change anything.
Try getting Counter Strike 1.6 people to change or Team Fortress Classic people to change.

But letting a person who do not like the game, make the sequel will do a lot of bad things.

For example, drastically change the gameplay to maybe something more noobish. Or get rid of key things that made the first one good. Change the story to something else.

Both TF2 and Counter Strike Source would receive so many changes that the people who originally liked the game might now hate it with a passion.

When a game have bad things in it, it can be fixed by the one who did it. Or even fans. But to rely on haters to fix it? :/ Sorry that's going bit a into the wrong way. You are most of the time going to doom the game.

No, these haters will not magically fix up the game so that it will be better. They will change it even more.

 

[Hyperactiveman]

Quote - "Sequels should only be made by people who didn't like the original."

^ I find it hard to find a common term with this statement purely because if this law was to be taken seriously then movie/game sequels would have nothing to do with the original.

^ In a way that means Mr. Croshaw wins in his belief for a utopia of no sequels because they pretty a completely different thing.

^ Whereas if someone didn't like the way the original but like the concept in some way (characters, story etc.) they'd try to perfect it or portray in a better way.

^ I disagree because I KNOW sequels only fuck up when people go for something completely unrelated to the original. The sequel is only sparked/created by the success/satisfaction of the original anyway. That's why building on things, polishing and play-testing works because it's those improvements then put into the sequel that receive more approval.

Saints Row 1 had a good core gameplay to it and the options/availability to dick around and blow up sh!t. Then SR 2 perfected that by adding more options, objects and expanding on the sandbox map. This is an example of making better of whats there.

Grand Theft Auto had an awesome sandbox gameplay style to it with loads of options and didn't disappoint in color and caliber. Then Grand Theft Auto "4" screwed it up completely by taking away almost every reason why we play the damn series. This is an example of starting again from scratch.

I'd go with "sequels shouldn't be made by the fanboys... But then again shouldn't be made by the haters".

 

[Common Knowledge]

The only sequal that I can ever think of as being better than the original is Terminator 2. Every other one just seems to be the milking of a decidedly lucrative cash cow - you only need to watch the recently released "The Final Destination" to see how much milking that particular franchise has undergone.

 

[LesIsMore]

Enjoying the columns more and more, but his argument here is invalidated by three words: Silent. Hill. 2. If one were to completely abolish sequels, it would remove the game he has come within a hair of describing as the best game ever. Between Silent Hill 2, Thief 2, Fallout 3 and Half-Life 2, there's enough examples of wonderful sequels to forgive the endless string of Tomb Raiders and Sonics and Metal Gear Solids.

That being said however, I do have to agree with the idea that giving a sequel to people who are complete devotees of the series has more potential for harm than good. A few references are fine as long as they're subtle, but bits like Pyramid Head's inclusion in SH: Homecoming just feel like baiting fans rather than rewarding them. You can't make a game for the sole purpose of inside jokes or paying homage to the original.

What there needs to be is an understanding of what made a game great rather than a devotion to it, figuring out how to hold the best concepts in for sequels and improving the tone. I cite Thief II as the best example of this - it replaced the ruined cities and undead with more urban settings like banks and rooftops, keeping combat to a minimum and enforcing the need to be quiet.

And an aside on Monkey Island as another point. I hold that "Curse of Monkey Island" is as good as 1 and 2, because it preserved the right things: the quirky islands with individual character, interesting puzzles, insult fighting (annoying but funny), the strongest recurring characters and managed to make the series feel like it had a happy ending as opposed to Monkey Island 2's somewhat bizarre ending. It had all the same elements but had a different spin on them, which I think is the right way to go. "Escape from Monkey Island" suffered both for its updated graphics (really hideous in reflection) and that its locales all either completely revisited the original game without variation or just weren't that interesting.

 

[Akai Shizuku]

I find many sequels to be obnoxious, even if some are truly awesome. Can't disagree much with Yahtzee here.

 

[Ninja_X]

Enjoying the columns more and more, but his argument here is invalidated by three words: Silent. Hill. 2. If one were to completely abolish sequels, it would remove the game he has come within a hair of describing as the best game ever. Between Silent Hill 2, Thief 2, Fallout 3 and Half-Life 2, there's enough examples of wonderful sequels to forgive the endless string of Tomb Raiders and Sonics and Metal Gear Solids.

Endless string of metal gear solids?

There aren't that many Metal Gear Solid games and every one of them so far has improved upon the last one greatly.

Not so much MGS4, but MGS1 was good, MGS2 smoothed out the controls, gave us a new character to play and made the enemies smarter. MGS3 had the best gameplay, the most responsive cntroles and another new character and story.

I simply refuse to allow Metal Gear Solid to be put on the same level as Tomb raider or Sonic. The series constantly improves and changes and has a great story.

 

[Deacon Cole]

I agree and disagree with Mr. Croshaw. On the one hand, letting fans create a sequel to a property in no way guarantees quality. But I don't think there is any correlation in the quality of a sequel and whether fans make it or someone else.

Making a good piece is difficult and sturgeons law of 90% of it being crap applies. With sequels, that percentage grows in power. So 90[sup]2[/sup]% of first sequels are crap, 90[sup]3[/sup]% for the second, and so on.

The reason why is because since a sequel follows a previous story, much is already in place. this hampers the quality. This seems unintuitive as one would expect that once the original establishes the major elements, it's then piss easy to just continue the story. And indeed it can be piss easy if you're willing to accept a decline in quality, or in the case of things like Friday the 13th where the original wasn't very good in the first place, and thoroughly mediocre series, this can be done. But any attempt at quality will by definition be difficult because of the constraints of the original property.

This is getting to be a bit long, so I'll just sum up my point. It's not because fans made Tales of Monkey Island that is sucked. It's just because they were talentless hacks. Which is likely to have been the case if the people who make this game were not fans. It would have sucked because they were talentless hacks.

 

[kurokotetsu]

Although i don't comment that much, Extra Punctuation brings some very interesting points.

I don't fully agree on the total ban of sequels. Sequels should try to improve on an existing fanchise. And it should be given to the people that think that way, wether they are fans or not. The problem is fans that think the way that were analysed this time around. If you think that a game is perfect, then don't add a sequel, don't even try it. But even as a fan, you want to try to improve your loved franchise go ahead. A fan that wants to improve the thing that they love can be very positive. Why? Because they know what they loved and keep it while try to get new things into the formula, not the extremes of only trying to replicate and to come with a completly new concept, which could be better in it's own game, without the burden of the name. I'm thinking of Metroid Prime or Silent Hill 2. Play the strengths of the originals, but do it your way. That is a good sequel.

And to those vocal about fractal dimensions. Yes they do exist, and are an important part of modern mathematics, but it is a pretty obsucure knowledge that a videogame reviewer shouldn't be asked to know. The normal dimensions are usually integers, and until after the first half of the past century, they were the only ones. It isn't the same as say getting wrong the location of the Mona Lisa, which a little research can avoid.

 

[Naheal]

Perhaps a better sollution to this rather explosive topic would be to change the statement of "Only people who didn't like the game should make a sequel" to "People who made the sequel should have liked the premise but disliked the execution".

For all you fucks who think that listing off certain sequels are better then the originals, here: I'll list some bad ones.

KotOR 2

to the guy who listed Civ3: Civ2 outstripped that game, so saying that a sequel to a sequal has improved on what a previous game in the series has put out isn't really refutable.

Starcraft 2. Yes, it's starcraft. But, this is also from the company who is bringing out shit content in the "expansions" which should be improvements and, oh, I don't know, make things a bit harder are instead catering to the crowd who happens to be bad at the game. Case and point: Naxx at level 60 vs the crap that's now called Naxx.

While I'm beating on the Blizzard horse, the Warcraft series.

Star Ocean 3. Normally, this would be counted as a sequel to a sequel, but, considering the fact that the US didn't get to see SO1 until fairly recently, it was more a sequel to one of the best JRPGs there is out there in SO2.

Scratch that, SO2 is the ONLY JRPG worth even looking at.

Again, remaining topical, the entirety of the Final Fantasy series past the original one for the NES.

The Adventures of Link.

 

[randommaster]

Lots of RAEG here.

But forget posting in forums. I'll make my own national monument, with rocket launchers, and hookers! In fact, forget the rocket launchers!

 

[SilentScope001]

For all you fucks who think that listing off certain sequels are better then the originals, here: I'll list some bad ones.

KotOR 2

Keep in mind that I consider KOTOR 2 to be better than KOTOR 1. So do several other people. And Starcraft 2 ISN'T EVEN RELEASED YET!

Nice try though.

 

[towelie06]

good points but you would have been better using the Dino Crisis series as an example. The first one was really good, kinda of Resident Evil like, the 2nd gained a bit more action and was different but still good. Then the 3rd was actually dinosaurs in space!wtf was that about!

 

[WickedArtist]

I think the best way to see it is that sequels should be made by people who have something to contribute to the series.

If all we're going to get is a watered-down copy of the original, in some developer's failed attempt to replicate its success, then we're not looking at a sequel made with the right mindset. We're looking at a recycled game with a larger number stamped on the title, with no new and potentially interesting/enjoyable content and experience. That game can only hope to to aspire to the standards set by its predecessors, and even if those standards are fairly high, it will always be limited by them, running the same course but never reaching the finish line. That's what I would call a bad sequel.

Unfortunately, people will always try to replicate success. It sounds good on paper: if something was successful, then more of the same thing will garner more success. In a fanboy's mindset, it probably sounds a bit more like this: if something is good, then more of the same thing will be just as good or better. Either way, this kind of mindset would prevent a developer from taking a sequel in its own direction, rather it will leech off the success and quality of its predecessor to some varying degree.

Clones are all over the place, and they're not usually good. I don't like it when one game is merely the clone of another game, and whether its a sequel or not makes no difference to me.

 

[Wolcik]

I'd say Hellriser is a good example for a sequal continuation - nearly each movie bring new xenobites and the story was very diffrent. Call of Jhuarez could be called a good sequel since the story is good as Yathzee himself noticed - and I'm proud becuase this game was made by polish develpers which is also funny because what polish people know about being a cowboy except how to treat a cow properly - and it seems a lot XD

Some games like NBA, Pro Evolution Soccer and such are remade every year with slitly better graphics and new stats for all teams (or most of them). At least Mario games try new gameplay mechanics from time to time.

 

[Diggah]

Because, much like the film industry, the people with the money (ie publishers) have little to no creative mojo and only see the numbers. If game-x made £x then game-x2 with nobs on will make twice as much.

A game may start out as a great idea with some innovative hooks and a great storyline but by the time the army of muppet publishers has go their hands on it, it will be a shadow of its former self.


..... sorry is my industry experience / jaded bitter hatred showing again?