Small changes that f****ed up a sequel

[Nouw]

Dawn of War 2. I like my base-building thank you!

 

[Skoldpadda]

Neverwinter Nights 2 had a similar thing to the OP's problem.

In the first game, when two guys were duking it out, their swords would clash, they would hit each other's shield, they would sidestep and parry. It was all well animated and fun to watch.

And then in the sequel, those animations were gone. Those two same guys would now just take turns hitting each other over the head till one collapsed.

I was pretty annoyed by this.

ADDED: oh, and in an inversion of this, they recycled most of the music from the first game. Granted, it was stellar, but I was looking forward to something new.

 

[ColeusRattus]

Rainbow Six 3 ----> Rainbow Six: Vegas.

They switched from a challenging, but semi-realistic hit model where you normally die after 1 or two bullets to the system in Vegas where you just have to hide and wait to heal. What made the series special in the first place was the difficulty. Also, being able to plan your team's route before playing the level.

Whether people were fans or not, at least it was different.

You missed Rainbow Six: letd... er LOCKdown, which made one of the most awesome tactical FPS series into a shooting gallery. After LD, even Vegas seemed decent.

Honestly, the only good that came of the new R6es is that they make the Ghost Recon Advanced Warfare games seem like actually good games.

Oh how I miss those good old Red Storm games

And to add something new:

Need for Speed: Porsche Unleashed --> NfS Hot Pursuit 2 (yeah, the new one simply is called NfS Hot Pusrsuit, not to be confused with NfS III: Hot pursuit)

Going from a semi realistic sim that portrays a great car make to an arcade fest that omitted the cockpit view.

NfS Hot Pursuit 2 --> NfS underground
Going from a series of racing insanely expensive exotic cars to an abysmal ricefest to appeal to the Fast and Furious crowd. No thanks. It pains me even more when people think that Need for Speed is originally about customizing your car.

 

[MarkDavis94]

When they pretty much got rid of the Citadel in ME2

In ME1 it was ace to walk about the Citadel,in ME2 you had 3 or so floors and an office.

 

[Proverbial Jon]

Condemned 2: They pretty much started explaining things (with an absurd plot) the beauty of the original Condemned was not knowing what the fuck was going on. Too many support characters as well. I think they just tried too hard and failed.

Fable 2 and 3: Woah Peter Molyneux, just slow down! Stop overloading me with pointless minigames and ridiculous token activties, just give my game more substance and less filler please!

I'll also add some obvious ones for your viewing pleasure...

Metal Gear Solid 2: Raiden is main character, urgh!
Halo 2: The Arbiter levels (I don't hate the idea, they just could have been better.)
Mass Effect 2: The dumbed down RPG elements and less of an "open" world.
Bioshock 2: You're a Big Daddy now... what is there to be scared of?

 

[Irridium]

Mass Effect 2 was removing the feeling of an open world. It felt a lot more closed in.

Really, just keeping the cutscenes and the ability to enter the Normandy's decon chamber would've done me. Planet exploration was cool too, but I'd at least have liked that.

Although that would have helped, it would not be enough to phase the clamped in nature the game possessed.

Just setting some levels in open areas rather then closed-in spaces would have done volumes.

A mission outside with perhaps a wider field of battle with more then 1 approach would have done wonders. It's still not the same as driving around on a planet in a mako, finding resources, discovering wreckages, running into surprise enemies with cool bosses. Wouldn't be the same, but it may help in me forgetting as to how linear it felt.

Indeed. Although the planets themselves and the bases were rather barren and bland. Some more variation would have been nice... And less 90 degree cliffs that you had to drive the mako up...

What would be really sweet is if ME3 has ME1's planets, but you use the Hammerhead to explore them.

I know ME 1s worlds were bland, but they still have their spots in them that made it worth it in my eyes (Also helps that I had 0 problems controlling the mako on PC, and was infact rather agile with it).


The planets still neded work, but a step in the right direction. What annoyed me was that instead of refining that exploration, they just gave it a big snip and removed it, when it had a potential. Be interesting what ME3 does in that regard as you started prior.

They did that with quite a few things as well.

Instead of tooling the inventory/weapon upgrades a bit, they removed them. All they really had to do was stop every enemy from dropping stuff, and perhaps limit upgrading weapons/armor to the ship.

They also removed the shortcut buttons for the journal, squad, and all the other things. No idea why they thought to do that. I also wasn't too keen on having sprint/activate/take cover bound to the same button. Plenty of times I tried to sprint and instead ended up talking to some guy I didn't care about. Yeah its a small issue, but it happened enough to where it started to piss me off.

 

[Xaositect]

Oblivion: They removed loads of variance from the game after Morrowind. I mean really. Spears? Crossbows? TELEPORTATION? Crappy clone towns? Hardly any unqiue settlements elsewhere in the game?

I find the best way to compare Oblivion to Morrowind is just to look at the paper maps. Morrowinds is full of vibrance and character. It might not look as "clean" as Oblivions, but it sure as hell doesnt look as bland and empty as Oblivions map.

No gameplay reasoning for it whatsoever. Just Bethesda being lazy, and trying to be funny about it in game with that stupid Maiq character. Pity he didnt make jokes about "lazy ass developers" skimping on content, just thinly vieled jibes about "whining fans". I dont remember him being so insulting in Morrowind.



Mass Effect 2: Obvious really. Everyone else has said it a million times, here and on thousands of other sites.

In a nutshell basically gutted most of the game to make way for "TEH VIZZYRAL SHOOTEH COHMBAHT!one!!1o!1!!" Instead of a more seamless open galaxy with admittedly long but wonderfully charming elevators with BANTER (!!!!) and cool news updates, we got lots and lots of bland shooting galleries seperated by load screens and shitty mission complete screens.

Again, its partly the same thing that is responsible: laziness. Also with ME2 its a lot of greed as well.

 

[Mallefunction]

Bioshock 2's little sister adoption system. A ridiculous amount of work in comparison to just killing them and getting the bad ending. Seriously, it only served to add on several hours of pretty much useless gameplay to a rather tacked on ending.

 

[Catface Meowmers]

Devil May Cry 2.

What the fuck? Instead of an interesting variation in weapons, they decide to just give us a few swords of slightly different shapes. I think that game was one of my first ever purchase-before-playing games, and I still get pissed off about it. And then my stupid pill-head roommate stole my copy of DMC3 so he could sell it.

Don't do drugs, kids. They turn you into an asshole.

 

[Woodsey]

What annoyed me about AC Brotherhood was getting the full synchronisation for each memory (for example, I have to kill an enemy a certain way or I won't fully synchronise).
It annoyed me because I liked the freedon in the first 2 games to play a mission how you wanted. I know that some missions in ACII had stricter requirements (like don't get spotted by guards), but Brotherhood had them on every mission, it really ruined Brotherhood for me.

Huh? You don't need full sync to continue, and most missions you can play how you want. The full-sync challenges were just there to add some replay value.

 

[DEAD34345]

From Morrowind to Oblivion, they removed several skills, including two of my favorites: Spear and Medium Armor. What the hell guys? How am I supposed to play my Argonian assassin without a spear? That's what made Blackscale who he was; his penchant for poking people in the neck! What am I supposed to do now, club them with stick?
Bastards.

(The Captcha is telling me that something is from Donet... what? Who the fuck is Donet?)

Wow, that is exactly the same character i usually used in Morrowind... weird... (apart from the name of course)

OT: Another from Morrowind to Oblivion is level scaling. The more levels you gain in Oblivion the weaker you become compared to your enemies, it really defeats the purpose of leveling in the first place.

 

[Adamc-mh]

Changing the protagonist to a bad ass unarmed fighter to a pussy with a sword

 

[ELPiranha]

Of all the changes in bioshock 2, the thing that pee'd me off the most was the water. It became hyper reflective like looking into a mirror. I much preferred bioshock 1's water, despite it being 3 year older tech. I also didnt like the addition of cutscenes, i preferred it when everything happened "Live action" style (like in metro 2033), it helped maintain flow.

 

[ELPiranha]

EDIT
after entering the Captcha code, it double posted me, not sure why, apologies. I also cant find the delete post button.

 

[Kaytastrophe]

I completely agree with the 100% synchronization aspect of Assissins creed brotherhood. , let me execute my assignment the way I want. The ones that irked me the most was when you had to let your assassin apprentices kill the target. It's like: why am I even here? to command npc's to do the fun stuff. I know you might say you don't have to get the full synchronization but you do if you want to unlock the ezio back story missions. I hope the next AC gets rid of the 100% synchronization

 

[OliverTwist72]

Mass Effect 2 didn't have a proper Villain, no equivalent to Saren.
The game did other things that made it less great then the first one (IMO) but having no good villain is the biggest problem in my opinion.

Assuming direct control!

I will agree with you tho, Harbinger wasn't as big a part of the storyline as Saren was. He just seemed like another guy.

I will say this as a general thing and the lay out specifics but it seems that JRPGS seem to be leaving more and more customization out of their sequels. FF, Armored Core, Suikoden, are just a few I can think of off the top of my head. As the series progressed the amount you could do in the game lessened (oooh but prettier graphics...feh).

 

[Neverhoodian]

From Morrowind to Oblivion, they removed several skills, including two of my favorites: Spear and Medium Armor. What the hell guys? How am I supposed to play my Argonian assassin without a spear? That's what made Blackscale who he was; his penchant for poking people in the neck! What am I supposed to do now, club them with stick?
Bastards.

(The Captcha is telling me that something is from Donet... what? Who the fuck is Donet?)

Wow, that is exactly the same character i usually used in Morrowind... weird... (apart from the name of course)

OT: Another from Morrowind to Oblivion is level scaling. The more levels you gain in Oblivion the weaker you become compared to your enemies, it really defeats the purpose of leveling in the first place.

Yeah, I disliked how they removed those abilities as well. I thought one of the big draws of the Elder Scrolls games is being able to create any type of character you want. When you remove choices like spears, halberds, crossbows and a handful of magic spells, you are hindering that process.

And the level scaling, the goddamn level scaling. More than anything else, that was what finally caused me to throw my hands up in disgust. Not only did it feel like I wasn't getting stronger, but it helped kill the immersion factor for me. Common bandits should NOT be decked out in ebony armor because the game wants them to stay competitive with me.

I probably wouldn't have minded so much if it wasn't an Elder Scrolls game. As its own IP I might have cut it some more slack, but it felt like a step backwards in so many ways compared to Morrowind.

 

[baddude1337]

When a driving game changes it's handling even though it was perfect originally. I'm looking at you CMR 2005.

 

[mariofan1000]

I dislike the on foot approach to driver after the first game.