Michael and Duane discuss game sequels, good and bad.
There are different types of sequels, with some games taking a literal numeric approach to the sequel naming, while others taking on entirely new names such as Galaga, which was a sequel to Galaxian. Other sequels take place within the same universe, but are completely different in every way. Super Mario Bros. is a sequel to Donkey Kong, as it was spawned from the same universe and has the same character of Mario.
What is the most famous sequel? Street Fighter II is a contender for the most famous sequel, as most people cannot even picture what the original Street Fighter looks like. Silent Hill was a great example of a game that was wildly successful, and Silent Hill 2 was arguably better in every way. There is a commonality to great sequels, and that is they improve upon what worked in the original, but are careful not to change it in any drastic way. When players are used to the way in which a character moves and jumps, they expect the controls to be the same or very similar in the sequel.
Can sequels stand alone? Metal Gear Solid 3 was a popular sequel that didn’t require the player to know anything about the previous two games in the series. These stand-alone sequels can bring new gamers to the franchise, and they often span across different generations of PC and console gaming.
There are a multitude of awful sequels as well. Some sequels are straight money grabs by the developers and suffer from a short or lackadaisical production. Duke Nukem is a notorious sequel that lost a lot of momentum in gamers’ minds by taking so long to be released. Castlevania II is one of the least liked sequels, as the developers changed the gameplay too much by creating a night and day cycle as well as adding confusing progression-halting issues.
Are sequels a thing of the past? Games like Minecraft have lived successful lives for years without a sequel by continuing to add great content and updates. Sequels come when interest in the original game starts to wane. While they say that “there will never be a Minecraft 2”, Michael is not so sure.
What is your favorite sequel? Let us know in the comments and check out the many other episodes of Legion Talk, here on the Legion Gaming Community site!
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Top Comments
Some sequels are good. But if developers focused on putting new content and updates current games, sequels wouldn't be needed.
Konami really dropping the ball on Silent Hill franchise... we need a come back of the games.
This is such an interesting topic in an era of live service games. I think there is definitely a place for sequels but not every game needs them now. Any story driven game can easily have a sequel as long…