Surprisingly Improved Sequel: Difference between revisions

 

== Film ==

** The general pattern is summed up by the phrase "[[Spaced|Even-numbered ''Trek'' films don't suck]]", as ''[[Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home|IV]]'' and ''[[Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country|VI]]'' are generally considered good or at least decent, while ''[[Star Trek III: The Search For Spock|III]]'' and especially ''[[Star Trek V: The Final Frontier|V]]'' are generally considered...well...not so great. Comparatively, most fans consider ''[[Star Trek Generations|Generations]]'' (the seventh) to be an okay sci-fi movie, while ''[[Star Trek: First Contact|First Contact]]'' (the eighth) is a solid action film. That said, ''[[Star Trek: Nemesis|Nemesis]]'' doesn't have many fans, and the 2009 film ''[[Star Trek (film)|Star Trek]]'' (which isn't so much as sequel as an [[Alternate Universe]] story) is mixed among Trekkies, but loved among general audiences.

*** More specifically, the films tend to alternate upward and downward trends in quality. Just look at the [http://i.imgur.com/fBoQy.png IMDB scores]. (Until Nemesis, which only barely beats Insurrection and is far worse than the 2009 reboot.)

** Interesting mention of those movies, considering that [[Leslie Nielsen]], most famous for them, is also in ''Scary Movie 3''.

* ''[[The Pink Panther]]'' is widely regarded as a slightly above average '60s caper film, elevated by the presence of Capucine, [[David Niven]], and [[Peter Sellers]] in the (supporting) role of Chief Inspector Clouseau. Its sequel, ''A Shot in the Dark'', performs a bit of a genre shift (it's a [[Dolled-Up Installment]] that shifts the focus to Clouseau), and is widely regarded as one of the best comedies of that particular decade. It also introduced characters and elements that became series staples: manservant Cato and his karate attacks, former Chief Inspector Dreyfus and his being driven to madness by Clouseau, etc.

* There is this German teen comedy called ''Knallharte Jungs'' (''More Ants in the Pants'' in the English dub) about a boy whose penis can talk. It was actually brilliant and hilariously funny. Now, this movie was actually a sequel to another movie called ''Harte Jungs'' (''Ants in the Pants'' in the English release) And my god, was that one lame!

* Although not as well-regarded as the original trilogy, critics generally gave much better reviews to ''[[Star Wars]] Episode III: [[Revenge of the Sith]]'' when it was released in comparison to the first two prequels.

** Whilst the second game's campaign consisted of mostly [[Stand Alone Episode|stand-alone missions]], the sequel's has a much stronger, inter-connected storyline that culminated in the reveal of the [[Big Bad|series villain]]. Whilst not quite as fast-paced and [[Crazy Awesome|insane]] as the previous entry and with arguably weaker multi-player, the faults of both games balance each other out and they're often considered on par with each other, with which is better depending largely on [[Broken Base|one's personal preferences]] (most fans do consider them both great games however).

* It certainly happens in ''[[Dungeon Siege]]''. In the first game, the characters you could hire for your party were a bunch of one-dimensional mercenaries that came out of nowhere. In ''Dungeon Siege II'', the characters were given their own personalities, conversations amongst each other, and even their own side quests.

* ''[[Bloody Roar]]'' was an obscure, poorly-balanced mess of a game, with overly simple but awkward controls, poor AI, and a wannabe [[SNK Boss]], thus the only appeal of the game was its relative simplicity and novelty, and possible pandering to furries ([[Stripperific|or Alice]]). ''Bloody Roar 2'', however, was an elegant masterpiece, fixing the system into something much less cumbersome and very easy to play, yet empathizing mind games and strategies, and allowing the player (or Cpu) to easily counter fools who would try to button mash, the balance was much better (though still far from perfect..), Story mode was introduced, and the game's story improved tenfold, the AI was dramatically improved, the low levels still being fairly easy and welcoming to new players (you could button mash most of the opponents on setting 1 and 2, though if you tried it on the final boss you would be horribly beaten down) and the hard levels capable of challenging an experienced and intelligent player, and the Final Boss was extremely hard and clever, yet he was still balanced for VS play, and fought fairly (no reading your buttons, or moving at impossible speeds, or moves that take off half your life in one hit, though he could combo you painfully). Sadly the game only managed a small yet strong fanbase, possibly due to the first game, and the lack of a budget. The later games fell into [[Adaptation Decay]]; 3 and Primal Fury/Extreme are still fun, but 4 managed to kill the entire franchise.

* ''[[Dynasty Warriors]]'' 1 and 2 were bashed by reviews and many gamers alike, but from the 3rd game onwards, the line was well received for a while. Recently, it's become mocked by reviewers (but still maintains a base of hardcore fans) [[It's the Same, Now It Sucks|because it remains a similar game in every incarnation]].

* ''[[Metal Gear Acid|Metal Gear AC!D]]'' was ambitious, but very unrefined, with potentially broken gameplay. ''AC!D 2'' sharpened the graphics, tidied up the engine, and added a lot of depth and spontaneity to the gameplay. Also, the story made sense this time around.

** ''AC!D 2'' also played to the fans of the first by bringing back what many would acknowledge as the first game's best moment - as the final boss of that game comes back (and, in a masterful bit of foreshadowing, you ''run on top of it'' without noticing unless you ''really'' paid attention), only tightened and with a potentially nasty time limit to make it harder.

* ''[[The King of Fighters]] 94'' was a very good game, but [[The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard]] and the controls are tough to get used to, although the music is awesome. ''95'' has some improvements, but the AI is even worse. ''[[The King of Fighters]] 96'' is widely considered the point where everything really took off.

** ''KOF XIII'' made up for ''KOF XII'''s deficiencies in a major way, keeping the high-definition visuals and bringing back some of the fan-favorite characters that were left out of ''XII'', as well as a tutorial mode and a story mode that chronicles the final events of the Tales of Ash Saga.

** For that matter, the first ''[[Initial D Arcade Stage]]'' had a poorly done multiplayer mode which, among other problems, required the second player to insert his/her coin(s) within 9 seconds of the first player, and had no incentive whatsoever to play a head-to-head battle over just playing Time Attack mode. ''Initial D Arcade Stage Ver.2'' significantly improved the multiplayer mode.

* If we were to follow the oddball retconning of ''Scramble'' into the ''[[Gradius]]'' series, that would count.

* By many accounts, the second ''[[Dark Cloud]]'' (''[[Dark Cloud|Dark Chronicle]]'' overseas) is an immense improvement over the original. One area is the fact that the weapon system was fixed. In both games, [[Breakable Weapons|weapons break if you use them too much without repairing them]]. In the second game you could fix broken weapons, but in the first they'd be gone forever. Several other things were fixed as well.

** And then there's ''[[Sonic Colors]]'': the game managed to get all the way through its development cycle to its release without ([[Fan Dumb|most]]) people in the [[Unpleasable Fanbase]] raising a huge stink and calling [[Memetic Mutation|"SONIC CYCLE!"]] Unlike the previous games which included [[Scrappy Mechanic]]s (like [[No Sidepaths, No Exploration, No Freedom|automatically running forward]] or [[Unexpected Gameplay Change|the Werehog]]), no one is finding too much to complain about with ''Colors'', and generally agree that [[And the Fandom Rejoiced|it's finally broken Sonic through the]] [[Polygon Ceiling]]!

** ''[[Sonic Generations]]'', being basically a love letter to the best levels of Sonic games past, is also excellent fun.

* The first ''[[Fable]]'' game had an infamous amount of hype during development. When it was finally released in 2004, it received mostly positive reviews, but it ultimately failed to live up to it's hype, as others were disappointed by the lack of many promised features, a somewhat small, restrictive game world and other flaws. Along comes ''Fable II'' in 2008, with more refined gameplay, a larger, more detailed world with more quests, and deeper sandbox gameplay that implemented many promised features from ''Fable''. It received better reviews from all.

* The first ''[[The Elder Scrolls|ElderScrolls]]'' game, ''[[The Elder Scrolls: Arena|Arena]]'', wasn't bad for its time, featuring things like day/night cycles, seasons (with changing weather), holidays, and an advanced lighting engine, but despite having a rather large world, there wasn't anything particularly interesting to see or do, with a fairly generic setting and a clichéd plot (evil chancellor usurps emperor, have to collect 8 magic staff pieces to beat him). Then along came [[The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall|Daggerfall]], which expanded the world (both in size and in richness) by several orders of magnitude, and added tons of things to do (dozens of factions to join! Vampirism! Lycanthropy! [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking|Real estate!]]), one of the most detailed character creators seen in a CRPG, and a well-written plot with twists and political intrigue galore (as well as [[Obvious Beta|bugs and glitches galore]]).

* ''[[Backyard Sports|Backyard Basketball]]'' on the [[PlayStation 2]] improved on everything ''Backyard Basketball'' on the PC, released two years earlier, had. There were no glitches, the game never freezes, there are NBA teams, and there are 9 more playable characters (while removing 1). There are even unlockable powerups!

* ''[[Contra]] 4'' came after four consecutive installments that sat poorly with fans of the series (two lame PS1 releases and two so-so PS2 releases) and whipped the series back into what it should be.

* ''[[Assassin's Creed (video game)|Assassin's Creed I]]'' had really good [[Le Parkour]] gameplay and the beginnings of an interesting [[Ancient Conspiracy]] story, but was burdened with boring characters and levels, padding, and repetitive side quests and assassinations. ''[[Assassin's Creed II]]'' had a likable main character, levels that were memorable, and missions that were actually fun.

** The one thing most people hated was the ''actual'' player character, the clueless whiner from the future descended from the actual assassins in both games.

* Compare ''[[Fire Emblem]]: [[Fire Emblem Akaneia|Mystery of the Emblem]]'' to the original ''Dark Dragon''. While the latter was a good game that helped [[Trope Codifier|establish]] an entire [[Turn-Based Strategy|genre]] it was plagued with a terrible inventory system, staves didn't give EXP, and the graphics and story were rather bland. Then the former comes and fixes most of the gameplay flaws as well as much needed character and story development and wraps it up with a more streamlined version of ''Dark Dragon''.

* ''[[Red Steel]]'' was an ambitious shooter / swordplay launch title for the [[Wii]] marred by bad swordplay controls and an overall rushed presentation. With the implementation of the Wii MotionPlus allowing for more precise controls, ''[[Red Steel 2]]'' is being hailed as what its predecessor should have been and even being regarded as one of the best-looking Wii games.

* ''[[Just Cause (video game)|Just Cause]]'' was a [[Wide Open Sandbox]] game with a few nice ideas (like giving you a parachute you can use at almost any time) and some beautiful vistas, but had clumsy controls, kind of boring characters and was definitely not something you'd want to pay full price for. ''Just Cause 2'', however, vastly improves your ability to use the grappling hook in conjunction with the parachute, all but allowing you to ''fly'' around the landscape, and has tons of things for you to blow up whenever you want, making it a solid A-list title. It's worth noting that the first ''Just Cause'' was Avalanche Studios' first ever release, and they obviously spent a lot of time learning from their mistakes for the sequel.

* In America, the early parts of the ''[[Metal Gear]]'' series were a minor success, held back on the NES by its [[Blind Idiot Translation|extremely questionable translation]], bugs, and frustrating puzzles. It wasn't until ''[[Metal Gear Solid]]'', with its improved localization, that the series took off in the US.

* ''[[Touhou]]'': In-between the standard danmaku games, which have been slowly improving, ZUN has done a bit of experimenting. The concepts he reuses tend to be much better the second time around:

** ''Phantasmagoria of Dim. Dream'' is, bluntly, terrible, suffering from cheating AI, little plot, ugly graphics, and boring battles. ''Phantasmagoria of Flower View'' still isn't great, but is at least reasonably passable. The AI cheats less blatantly, a fairly interesting story, it's fairly pretty, and you're actually dodging your opponent's patterns instead of stage enemies.