Your most-improved sequels

[217not237]

Silent Hill 2. The first was... okay, and all of a sudden, number 2 comes out, the best game ever made.

 

[Arkvoodle]

Zone of Enders 2 was a big step up from the first.

Better combat controls, more variety in weapons and missions, and the protagonist wasn't a whiny little brat.

 

[Master-Jedi]

Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. Its not a sequel to Majoras Mask and Ocarina of Time in a plot sense, but in a gameplay and visual sense its way better. The cell shaded graphics mean TWW looks good today, compared to OoT's early 3D graphics that look horrible. The sword combat has counters you can preform, and the Items are more varied. The sailing in the game lets you explore a world that is more populated and bigger than the ones in OoT and MM (There is a teleport move for the people that don't care for the sailing).

I have to say though, on the topic of ME2, I think it dropped the ball pretty hard. Yeah, the combat in ME1 needed to be improved. A lot of stuff in ME1 needed improvement. but ME2 didn't improve on the combat or the vehicle sections of ME1, it replaced and removed anything that people didn't like. The combat system was changed to a Halo/Gears of War style instead of fixing the more RPG style system. The Vehicle system was just removed, replaced by a resource scanning mini-game(Yeah, that was a good trade). So I would say that ME2 was a horrible sequel to ME1, in the sense that it didn't improve on the mechanics of the first game at all. ME2 was a vary different game in the sense of the mechanics, and I think that was a bad thing.

 

[Fox242]

Are we only counting games? Best sequel in general for me was Terminator 2. It just didn't fall into the usual traps sequels fall into at all. Making the T-1000 the protagonist added an incredible amount of depth and comedy in my eyes.

The T-1000 is the antagonist in that film friend. You're thinking of the T-800.

On to the topic at hand. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves. This game blows the first out of the water. Everything is improved. The mechanics, the characters, the graphics, the set pieces, the scale...it's an amazing leap forward. It's not only one of the ebst video game sequels ever made, it's one of the best games ever made period.

 

[Phlakes]

Just Cause 2. The fact that almost no one knew the first existed until the second one came out says it all.

 

[Savber]

Witcher 2.

My god, it was one of the biggest improvements on one of the most over-rated RPGs of the past decade. The first Witcher was poorly-presented, horrible voice-acting, and atrocious gameplay that was somewhat uplifted by excellent writing and deep C&C.

In the Witcher 2, everything was perfected, paving the way for CDPR to become of the top dogs of the RPG developers.

Seriously was shocked just how big of an improvement the second game was in comparison to the first.

 

[Bat Vader]

The Witcher 2, Mass Effect 2, Fallout: New Vegas, TES V: Skyrim, Batman: Arkham City, and Mount and Blade: Warband in my opinion are all improved sequels.

I think The Witcher 2, New Vegas, Mass Effect 2, and Arkham City are the best sequels on that list.

 

[Reiterpallasch]

dragon age 2, 1 was awful from the ground up, the whole game was shoddy, but 2 was brilliant not a single issue

Oh boy, you better put up your flame shield before it's too late for you.

[http://knowyourmeme.com/photos/91829-shitstorm]

 

[tacotrainwreck]

Mortal Kombat to Mortal Kombat 2... especially if you are regarding the SNES versions of the franchise.

 

[Bat Vader]

Witcher 2.

My god, it was one of the biggest improvements on one of the most over-rated RPGs of the past decade. The first Witcher was poorly-presented, horrible voice-acting, and atrocious gameplay that was somewhat uplifted by excellent writing and deep C&C.

In the Witcher 2, everything was perfected, paving the way for CDPR to become of the top dogs of the RPG developers.

Seriously was shocked just how big of an improvement the second game was in comparison to the first.

I was surprised to learn that the actor that played Geralt in The withcer 1 was the same actor that played Geralt in The Witcher 2. The guy really improved his acting for The Witcher 2. Having a good voice director pry helped out a lot as well.

 

[Zhukov]

+1 for Mass Effect 2, Half Life 2 and The Witcher 2

 

[octafish]

System Shock 2, it had a better story sure, and more terrifying enemies yes, but what set it apart from the first one was YOU CAN LOOK AROUND WITH YOUR MOUSE!

 

[Dryk]

I'm actually having a really hard time answering this. I'm going to have to look through what I played recently.

Mass Effect 2, the combat felt SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Much better. Seriously combat in ME1 felt like a disabled man trying to open a cupboard while climbing an escelator.

Huh... I felt completely opposite this. ME2 was smoother, I guess, but it just seemed like they realized that ME1 was too ambitious and nerfed the whole thing. Let's see... No grenades, only one cooldown timer, no advanced equiping (armour, weapon mods, etc...), no weapon stats, recharging health, totally cover-based, no long range combat, no vehicle combat, really no variety in combat at all, and it was super easy. ME1 was awkward as fuck, but at least once you actually got into to it it was tactical and challenging. ME2 was just: 1) hit cover 2) spam singularity 3) move to next waist-high wall. Once you have one power leveled up the single-cooldown-timer basically makes all the other abilities useless. Just take one squad member with biotics and one with tech so you can handle the different types of shields and you're good to go. Really boring shooter, imho. It didn't help that BioWare decided they didn't need loot - that totally unincentivized exploration and made the linear level design all the more apparent.

You forgot about the horrible continuity breaks starting to leak in, and paragon being just as dickish as renegade a lot of time, just passive-aggressive instead of cartoonish

 

[Grygor]

Well, let's see...

Mass Effect 2 - Gunplay is definitely better than the first game. Power revamp made it possible to use powers heavily without needing high-level gear and lots of talent points to reduce cooldowns to a spammable level. Classes are more well defined, with greater distinctions between related classes.

Street Fighter 2 - The first game is a forgettable non-entity. SF2 is the most significant and influential fighting game of all time.

Super Metroid - Greatly expanded moveset allowing for greater combat flexibility and new opportunities for sequence breaking. Larger, more immersive game world.

Super Mario Bros 3 - More varied and interesting power-ups. Larger moveset. Larger game world with more branching paths and more interesting levels.

 

[VoidWanderer]

Infamous 2.

Zeke became a character you want to accept, not fry till his muscles pop. The storyline was well-done and it ended so well... Good Side anyway did

 

[MuttyGrims1321]

Pokemon Gold/Silver were way better then Red/Blue. Better story, better graphics, more gyms, and more Pokemon. It was just awesome and great sequels.

 

[Yopaz]

How about Super Mario Brothers 3? I don't really count Super Mario Bros. 2/Doki Doki Panic or the real Super Mario Bros. 2/Lost Levels as the true sequel to the first game. The REAL Super Mario Bros. 2 is just a hard rom hack of the first game really. Anyway. SMB3 took everything from the first game and improved on it. The game physics are better, more levels, more variety in the levels, mini games, different bosses, a map screen, more power-ups, the ability to select and use power-ups before a level, and the ability to fly. A HUGE improvement.

I disagree that Super Mario 2 was that hard, but I agree that Super Mario Bros. 3 was far superior. So many power-ups and a lot of cool worlds, a really great game.
Also if Super Mario World can be considered a sequel to that game then that one too.

 

[JesterRaiin]

Without any doubt : Mass Effect 2 and Morrowind 2 : Skyrim

 

[Kingjackl]

To name a few:

Metroid Prime 3
Metal Gear Solid 3
Mass Effect 2 & 3
Halo: Reach
Portal 2
Wii Sports: Resort
Call of Duty 4
The Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle Earth 2
Ratchet & Clank 2 & 3
Destroy All Humans 2
Crash Bandicoot 2 & 3
Half-Life 2 (and Episodes)
Deus Ex: Human Revolution (though technically a prequel)
Spyro 2 & 3
Star Wars Battlefront 2

This is pretty much a list of my favourite games. Guess I'm just a sucker for sequels.

 

[Lovely Mixture]

Dead Space 2 was mentioned last page and I agree with that to the fullest extent. A friend bought my the two games on steam during a sale so I got to play both, one after the other. The really polished everything after the first, not to mention revamping the anti-gravity system to make it so much fun!

And just cause I'm on a Castlevania binge, Symphony of the Night completely renovated 2D Castlevania for the better.