Spiritual Successor: Difference between revisions

** And so is ''[[No Ordinary Family]]''.

* ''[[The Middle]]'' is one to ''[[Malcolm in the Middle]]''. The creators don't even try to hide this by...at least giving the show a different name.

* ''[[Reed Between The Lines]]'' is intended to be a new millennium version of ''[[The Cosby Show]]''. Both shows even have Malcolm-Jamal Warner in starring roles.

* ''[[Hannah Montana]]'' is this to ''[[Lizzie McGuire]]'', due to the show's lead [[Miley Cyrus]] having [[Hilary Duff]] as her idol and reason why the show was made.

* ''[[All That]]'' was a spiritual successor to the early 90's Nick sketch show ''Roundhouse'', which was a spiritual successor to the immensely popular ''[[You Can't Do That on Television]]''.

** In a similar vein, ''[[Mad TV]]'' was a spiritual successor to ''In Living Color,'' being Fox's competitor to ''Saturday Night Live'' with there being only a year between the two. In Living Color is known for giving rise to the careers of [[Jim Carrey]], [[Jamie Foxx]], Jennifer Lopez, and Shawn and Marlon Wayans, while [[Mad TV]] arguably did the same for Orlando Jones, Phil Lamarr, Nicole Sullivan, Alex Borstein, Bobby Lee, and current SNL featured player Taran Killam.

* Drew Carey's ''Green Screen Show'' and ''Drew Carey's Improv-a-Ganza'' are this to ''[[Whose Line Is It Anyway?]]''.

** So is ''[[Mock the Week]]'', even sharing several identical games and a couple of guests.

* The first [[Video Games]] (and arcade games in general) can be seen as a [[Spiritual Successor]] to various carnival games such as the claw game, shooting ranges and [[Pinball]] as you spend little money for one game that is quickly over and in the case of [[Pinball]] you aim for a high score. It also helps that the only business experience Nolan Bushnell had before founding Atari was from maintaining these at a carnival.

* The ''[[Final Fantasy]]'' games set in the Ivalice universe (including ''[[Vagrant Story]]'', which technically isn't a ''Final Fantasy'' game) are successors to Quest's ''[[Ogre Battle]]'' franchise. ''[[Final Fantasy Tactics]]'', the first game in the Ivalice universe, was already a spiritual successor of ''Tactics Ogre'' in its gameplay. Not surprisingly, Yasumi Matsuno, the director of most of the Ivalice series, was also the director of ''Ogre Battle'' and ''Tactics Ogre'', as well as the script writer of ''[[Ogre Battle 64]]'', while Hiroshi Minagawa and Akihiko Yoshida were the illustrators in most of his games. After the release of ''Vagrant Story'', Squaresoft actually purchased all of Quest's assets and absorbed them into the company.

* The ''[[G.I. Joe]]'' arcade game by [[Konami]] is a spiritual sequel to an obscure pseudo-3D shoot-'em-up titled ''Devastators'' by the same company, which itself was loosely based on the 3D stages from the original ''[[Contra]]''.

* ''[[Umineko no Naku Koro ni]]'' is a spiritual sequel to the two-installment ''[[Higurashi no Naku Koro ni]]''. It shares many elements with ''Higurashi'': written by the same person, {{spoiler|[[Groundhog Day Loop]] that loops at the beginning of each new arc}}, and [[Wham! Episode|spikes]] from happy scenes to [[Nightmare Fuel]]; however, it's in an entirely new setting: instead of a small, secluded village, it takes place on an island owned by a multi-million-yen family with new characters. It does have a couple [[Continuity Nod|Continuity Nods]], however, in the form of {{spoiler|Bernkastel and Lambdadelta}}.

* ''[[Dark Souls]]'', with its near-identical gameplay, probably would be ''[[Demon's Souls]] 2'' if Sony didn't own the IP.

* ''[[R-Type]]'' had a line of actual sequels, but before most of these Irem made a spiritual successor titled ''X-Multiply''.

* ''[[Twin Cobra]]'' was a spiritual successor to ''[[Tiger Heli]]'', which in turn had a predecessor in ''Gyrodine'', whose programmers went on to found [[Toaplan]], the company which made the other two games. All three of these helicopter-based vertical shooters were distributed by [[Taito]].

* ''[[Skies of Arcadia]]'' is considered to be a spiritual successor to ''[[Phantasy Star]]'' since both were developed by Sega's Overworks studios, and they're both turn-based roleplaying games. In fact, some fans consider Skies to be more a successor to Phantasy Star than [[Phantasy Star Online]].