Your Favorite Spiritual Successor or Upcoming Spiritual Successors You Are Interested In. All Spiritual Successors Discussion Thread.
- Thread starter BrawlMan
- Start date
Slave Zero X looks like a throwback to Strider 2 and 2D/2.5D action platformers on Saturn, PS1, and Dreamcast.
Last edited:
- Apr 1, 2009
- 15,106
- 3,967
- 118
- Gender
- Whatever, just wash your hands.
Well, I mean it looks cool, but with the name Slave Zero, I was hoping it was a sequel to... Slave Zero.
It's a sequel-prequel. I never played the original, and from the synopsis, you don't need to know the original game to play this game. X could have been its own game.
I tend to not notice spiritual successors for some reason, until someone brings them up (like Callisto Protocol). That said, Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night is one of the best Castlevania games of the last 20 years, IMO.
Blazblue easily, it's the game I got competitive at fighting games with. Back in the day it was being compared to GG accent core which made it seem like baby's first fighting game but then it kept getting new versions meanwhile GG got dumbed down in Xrd and then Strive so now we have the amusing circumstance of BBCF being seen as the "deep, hard, complex" game and Strive being baby's first fighter. Sadly Mori left arcsys recently so I doubt we will see any notable sequel in BB but at least the ending it had was super duper satisfying.
GloomwooD as a spiritual succesor to Thief games, particulary first two(Dark Project/Gold and Metal Age).
Also, feel like i'm really reaching with this one: Disco Elysium - while it's very much its own thing - playing it reminded me of all these "spirirual Torment successors" and how none of them really came close to the real thing, and this one, while had no claims for being one, not only actually achieved being the greatest written wRPG of all time, but blew the previous contender out of the water.
Also, feel like i'm really reaching with this one: Disco Elysium - while it's very much its own thing - playing it reminded me of all these "spirirual Torment successors" and how none of them really came close to the real thing, and this one, while had no claims for being one, not only actually achieved being the greatest written wRPG of all time, but blew the previous contender out of the water.
I'm very excited for Rain Code, the new mystery game from most of the people behind the Danganronpa series. I pretty much binged DR recently and I was really into it. Rain Code looks really neat, from what they've shown so far. I believe it's supposed to release next summer.
Check out Peripeteia, an upcoming indie game. There's a pretty sizeable demo available. It's really good, it's one of my most anticipated games right now.
On that topic, Super Cyborg plays like Super C on NES. It's a great game I reccommend.
Depends on what franchise and series are talking about, and the opinions of different people. Me personally, I consider Evil Within 2 to surpass Resident Evil 4-8, in terms of modern over the shoulder survival horror, but also carries the essence of the classic PS1 titles. I know 7 & 8 are first person, but I still will take EW2 over either of those. Even when a spiritual sequel or successor doesn't surpass the original, it doesn't make the accomplishments or success of those successors any less important. I know quality is a factor as well. I've played many of the spiritual sequel or successor, that is just as good as original. Maybe not always better, but just as good. Though some are better than their original counterpart.
I'd say the problem most things that brand themselves as "spiritual successors" have is that its quite often one or two dudes with some level of fame, that consider themselves the singular and key component of whatever made the original brand that they can't use anymore notable.
That is ... very rarely going to be the case. And you'll often stuff equivalent to the "solo album" by the frontman of a popular music group which illustrates that the group was actually kind of important (The codifying example of this in music being Jimi Hendrix, all his work without "The Experience" rhythm section is largely forgotten, despite his obvious distinction in name value)
Most of the better ones out there are going to be ones that don't expllicitly reference themselves as such (IE : Remnant from the Ashes is Shadow Tower's, or Souls being Kings Field, or Elder Scrolls to Ultima (though ES has never really nailed the human elements that were present in Ultima as the core of the stories)
That is ... very rarely going to be the case. And you'll often stuff equivalent to the "solo album" by the frontman of a popular music group which illustrates that the group was actually kind of important (The codifying example of this in music being Jimi Hendrix, all his work without "The Experience" rhythm section is largely forgotten, despite his obvious distinction in name value)
Most of the better ones out there are going to be ones that don't expllicitly reference themselves as such (IE : Remnant from the Ashes is Shadow Tower's, or Souls being Kings Field, or Elder Scrolls to Ultima (though ES has never really nailed the human elements that were present in Ultima as the core of the stories)
True. This can even happen when it's more than two people and a specific group. As much as I like Code Of Princess, the game is nowhere near as fast paced as its spiritual predecessor, Guardian Heroes. Even on the Switch version, where they revamped the gameplay, GH is still faster pace and has the most replay value. Not that COP didn't have replay value. COP was developed mostly by ex-Treasure employees. A great game and I still recommend, but Guardian Heroes is still king. If it's any consolation, Code Of Princess is miles and leagues better than the official Guardian Heroes sequel on GBA.
Shinji Mikami suffered from this with the first Evil Within. The first game is just RE4 meets The Cell. That in itself is not a bad idea, but the team and Mikami lazily reused a lot of ideas from Resident Evil 4. What doesn't help matters is Bethesda just told them to make another RE4 and assumed it would be great. Not to mention all the technical issues when the game first launched. The patch definitely helped things out, but they were still some glitches here and there. More so on pc. Shinji step down as director for the sequel and only acted as a producer and advisory role. He let the new blood do their own thing, and it was the best decision for it. EW2 is definitely the better game and more fleshed out with what it wanted to be. I still like the first game, but 2 is definitely the best game. I always recommend people to still play the first one just so the moments in the sequel have a bigger and even better impact.
Last edited:
Ya know, I've had the experience of playing RE4 not in its heyday as one of the only "serious" games/shooters on the Gamecube. If that sentence didn't already give it away, I wouldn't say it stands out from a hundred other games when the nostalgia goggles are off.
Like horror games don't work me and never have.... RE4 isn't even trying to be a horror game though. Its cludgy controls, generic (And reused by the hundreds with occasional pallete swaps) enemies. The environments are dull colourless cliches and the level design gets through maybe one level before it spirals into nonsense that doesn't even form coherent structures.
Compativiely, I'd even put the first Evil Within as a better game, as much as it was trying to be mind-fuckery for the sake of mind-fuckery and never really tying it into a plot, or even a character metaphor. Though I'd say it was trying to be a slightly more actiony Silent Hill then an RE.
RE4 always sold itself as action-horror, but has a few tense/scary moments here and there, depending on player. There were a couple of moments that got me. I admit it, but it's nothing like when RE5 is just a straight up co-op action game with some minor "horror", and RE6 failed to please everyone.
RE4 and DMC3 (to a minor extent with some of its early levels in the tower) foreshadowed what would be the standard color palette for many AAA and some AA games during the 7th generation.
That's considered blasphemy to Yahtzee and the RE4 over defenders. I love you and respect you for it. Speaking of which: in the video I posted earlier today. Surprise, surprise! Yahtz's main problem with Dead Space 2 is that it "copies too much from RE4!". And that's a bad thing because...? First of all, what shooter didn't copy RE4 back on the PS2, PS3, or 360? Second, you can do so much worse than Dead Space 2. Anyone remember dark Sector? That game copied RE4 verbatim combined with Gears of War. Yahtz relented somewhat when he mentions how good the Dead Space games are upon retrospect, and in comparison to Calisto Protocol. That is the smartest and most sensible thing he said in that Slightly Something Else episode.
Evil Within was more about Ruvik than anything else. Including the mind-fuckery. The DLCs involving Kidman make it much less of a mind-fuck and explain what the fuck is actually going on.
The Keeper is pretty much an expy of Pyramid Head. There are definite elements of SH, and Evil Within 2 uses them to better effect. Though Evil Within 2 is when you combine the best parts of RE2, RE3, RE4, SH, and System Shock 2 together, but the game still does more than enough to stand out on its own.
Last edited:
Yeah, the James Bond setup switching into a Shadow over Innsmouth was fun enough as a concept. (if you ignore that you don't interact with creepy slightly off villagers and instead end up gunning them down by the dozens). It doesn't take too long before they wipe that out for "Here's the 100th dude who you headshot and a parasite popped out" then it starts to spiral into what I will call "zany" stuff that is no longer scary, and the gameplay certainly isn't very solid from an action perspective. And the adapative difficulty neuters any real sense of the survival-horror genre.
I'm sure some of its technical limitations, but any sense of the horror really falls off quick. I mean, 6 years earlier Half Life was pulling off scary stuff in a shooter much better with that not even being a focal point.
And guess how many RE4 fanatics are going to go, "the zaniness is part of the charm and intentional!"? Especially the usual vocal suspects. The "greatest game of all time!". One of the most ported games of all time, but not my greatest game of all time.
In order, we have Strider 2 + Metal Gear Rising, Shinobi III, and Ninja Gaiden + Mega Man. I welcome the return of ninja action platformers.
Hi-Fi Rush looks like a lost PS2/XBOX/GC title combined with DMC, Guitaroo Man, Jet-Set Radio, Rez, Viewtiful Joe, and every Jak & Daxter style platformer from that era. Great job Tango Games!
Wanted: Dead comes out on Valentine's Day. The game is marketed as the successor to Ninja Gaiden and Devil's Third (the 360/PS3 version before being completely overhauled on the Wii U).