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Top 5 Worst Sequels of All Time
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Wed, 17 Feb 2010 14:54:43
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I originally planned on doing a month of Top 5 lists, but for various reasons I keep getting side tracked or just get too busy with life.  So I'm going to give it a shot.  Anywhere here we go

Top 5 Worst Sequels of All Time

5.  Tao's Adventure: Curse of the Demon Seal - Azure Dreams may not have been the best known game of all time, but it was well reviewed and developed a good cult following due to its mish-mash of so many game genres (dating/rouge/city sim/monster training/etc.  So when the sequel was announced 8 years later for the DS, fans of the games were ecstatic (all 32 of us).

What we got was pure crap. Tao's Adventure abandoned virtually every aspect of the original was tossed out or completely dumbed down.  What was left was a game that was virtual unplayable and appealed to no one. No more randomly generated dungeons, no more dating, no more city building. Just a weak monster training system and a magic system that just didn't work.

There was some justice mind you. Game Informer ranked it was the #1 Worst Game of 2006.


4.  Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly - Say what you will about the original Spyro game, but Insomniac crafted a pretty good game series that appealed to kids and adults that were willing to give it a chance. There was a very dirty yet subtle sense of humor, and the original 3 games did the 3-D platforming/hunting game as well as anything on the N64.  But when Insomniac sold the rights to the game to Vivendi/Universal the word quality would never be used to describe the franchise again.

Enter the Dragonfly was the first post-Insomniac Spyro and easily the worst.  All elements of challenge were removed from the game.  There were no penalties for death.  Plus it was a technical mess. Slowdown, bad framerates, clipping.  It was like Vivendi just gave it to some highschool interns and said, "do you best kids. This assignment won't be graded."


3. Final Fight: Streetwise - "The game that will show how to transition the brawler genre from 2-D to 3-D." "The game that will set the standard for what modern day brawlers will become."  Well in a way yes it was.  

Streetwise was just a bad game.  No two ways around it.  It looked ugly, combat was mindless, and the camera was awful.  The only thing worse was the side missions/mini-games that just felt completely out of place.  Ultiamtely the only thing the game really proved was that the brawler may truely be a dead genere, depending on your opinion of MadWorld.


2.  Sonic the Hedgehog (HD) -  The game was awful.  I think enough bad things have already been said about it so we can just move on.  The only thing that kept this game from topping the list was the steady decline the series was already doing down by the time this game came out.  After Adventure 2, Sonic Heroes, Shadow the Hedgehog and all the other terrible spin-offs no one was really shocked to see this piece of crap come out.

1. Children of Mana, Heroes of Mana, Dawn of Mana - Choose your poison here.  I don't think there has ever been an A-list franchise that was ever shit on to the degree as the Mana/Seiken Densetsu series. Even Sonic was completely given up on like this series.

Here we have what was once a key franchise for Squaresoft that was pushed to the side (so they could make fabulous games like the Bouncer, Unlimited SaGa, and Crystal Chronicles).  Eventually someone remembered that the Mana games were popular though and tried to bring back the franchise in a grandiose way with the "World of Mana" - multiple installments of the Mana series that will flesh out the world and give new life to this once great franchise. . . and in the process will create a series of games that have nothing to do with any of the things that made the originals good.

First up they released Children of Mana for the DS, a pseudo dungeon crawler that lacked any challenge and anything resembling fun. Next up Heroes of Mana, a Real Time Strategy on the DS which was almost good but unfortunately gets bogged down by its speed. Everything just moves at snails pace and introduces players to an entirely new level of frustration.

ANd worst of all, Children of Mana... the game that was billed as the first true sequel for the series.  It was a very beautiful game, but ultimately unplayable. The camera was disasterous, the leveling system was terrible, and the gameplay itself just seemed to be focused on throwing and breaking jars as your primary combat. . . At any rate it killed the franchise and sadly or perhaps mercifully is probably the last we'll see of it.

Edited: Wed, 17 Feb 2010 15:04:38
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Wed, 17 Feb 2010 18:43:28
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Can't really say much about the games you mentioned, so I'll throw some of my own in the pile.

Prince of Persia: Warrior Within springs to mind.  I didn't even play the first one and feel safe in assuming it beats the crap out of it.

Another sad one is All-star Baseball 2002.  The ASB franchise was awesome on N64, and easily the frontrunner.  A new generation comes around and it is universally worse.  Dark and ugly visuals, no game modes, poor mechanics.  The series quickly got slaughtered by EA's MLB series, and is now just gone.  ASB 2004 made big strides, but it was buggy and much too easy.

Final Fantasy II sucked.  Not the American version (Japanese equivalent Final Fantasy IV), but the second NES game.  It never got released outside of Japan (until later remakes and rereleases).

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Wed, 17 Feb 2010 19:30:08
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robio said:

I originally planned on doing a month of Top 5 lists, but for various reasons I keep getting side tracked or just get too busy with life.  So I'm going to give it a shot.  Anywhere here we go

Top 5 Worst Sequels of All Time

5.  Tao's Adventure: Curse of the Demon Seal 

 What console was that one on?  

As for the one below, this is a game that I acidentally bought two copies of, and man does it suck.  And I think the highest outrage was that the 2Player was in some way gimped.  I think it was unlockable -- like you coul only play it if you beat the single player mode (which due to the games "quality" was impossible).  Keep in mind also that this was before the rebirth of the side scroller whih came about from XBLA, so this was a much anticipated title.  

robio said:

3. Final Fight: Streetwise - "The game that will show how to transition the brawler genre from 2-D to 3-D." "The game that will set the standard for what modern day brawlers will become."  Well in a way yes it was.  

Edited: Wed, 17 Feb 2010 19:36:38

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Wed, 17 Feb 2010 19:40:16
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Yodariquo said:
Another sad one is All-star Baseball 2002.  The ASB franchise was awesome on N64, and easily the frontrunner.  A new generation comes around and it is universally worse.  Dark and ugly visuals, no game modes, poor mechanics.  The series quickly got slaughtered by EA's MLB series, and is now just gone.  ASB 2004 made big strides, but it was buggy and much too easy.

Final Fantasy II sucked.  Not the American version (Japanese equivalent Final Fantasy IV), but the second NES game.  It never got released outside of Japan (until later remakes and rereleases).

 I played FF2 on the GBA remake, and I didn't mind it at all (this was just after playing the GBA FF1 version).  I noted the differences in chr development, but it didn't bother me.

As for ASB2002, that is one of the few games I have returned.  ASB99 on the N64 was a spot on baseball simulator, but after that that game went downhill faster than a Georgian luger.  Sports games on new consoles are always tricky, and I used to always be the hump to buy them. WSB on the Dreamcast? (Shudder).  MLB2KX on the 360 (Another one I returned).

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Wed, 17 Feb 2010 19:52:42
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aspro said:

robio said:

I originally planned on doing a month of Top 5 lists, but for various reasons I keep getting side tracked or just get too busy with life.  So I'm going to give it a shot.  Anywhere here we go

Top 5 Worst Sequels of All Time

5.  Tao's Adventure: Curse of the Demon Seal

What console was that one on?  

Tao's Adventure was on the DS, and as I've said a major disappointment.  Just nothing good about it at all.  

Yodariquo said:
Final Fantasy II sucked.  Not the American version (Japanese equivalent Final Fantasy IV), but the second NES game.  It never got released outside of Japan (until later remakes and rereleases).

I wasn't real disappointed by FFII either. It was very similar to the first two Final Fantasy Legend games, so the individual stat leveling that caught most people off-guard didn't seem so bad to me.  

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Wed, 17 Feb 2010 19:56:24
+1

Well, not putting too much thought into it.

1. The entire Tony Hawk Pro Skater Series after THPS3.  If Activision were a person they would be a compulsive gambler/ shopper/ coke addict.  They just don't know when enough is enough.  At least Ubisoft seems to know to stop at three per franchise per generation, then rest the series until the next console.

2. Guitar Hero 3.  I did not realize it until I was about 15 hours in, but at around that time I knew that was the day that music died.  Activision had changed just enough about the game to make it much, much worse than GH2.  Maybe it was the songlist, maybe the higher difficulty, maybe the slicker graphics... somewhere along the way it lost it's soul.

3. Shadow Hearts 3.  After the second one there was no way any sequel was going to top it, but at least it could have equaled it, but the third one was lost in translation.  XSEED failed on the localization front where Midway has excelled on the prior game.

4. River Raid 2.  Another game that lost it's soul and just couldn't measure up to the original.

5. Pokemon Pearl. I was expecting much much more from the series jump to a new console.  They changed enough to annoy, but not enough to give the franchise a reset (which it doesn't need).

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Wed, 17 Feb 2010 19:58:16
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aspro said:

5. Pokemon Pearl. I was expecting much much more from the series jump to a new console.  They changed enough to annoy, but not enough to give the franchise a reset (which it doesn't need).

 +1 for you, good sir Nyaa

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Thu, 18 Feb 2010 03:11:44
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Half-Life 2.

It was as bad as the first game. Nyaa

Metroid Prime 3.

Happy

FFXII.

Sad

Resident Evil 5.

And I've not even played it yet! But its' going to be a huge disappointment after 4 no matter how good it is. (Yes I'm too lazy to think of any better worse sequels!)

KOTOR II.

SO BORING.


Edited: Thu, 18 Feb 2010 03:13:50

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Thu, 18 Feb 2010 18:29:19
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I cant really think of many bad sequels because I tend not to buy them.

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Thu, 18 Feb 2010 20:07:19

gamingeek said:

I cant really think of many bad sequels because I tend not to buy them.

Oh c'mon! Endless Ocean 2? Animal Crossing Wii? 

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Thu, 18 Feb 2010 20:21:41

aspro said:

gamingeek said:

I cant really think of many bad sequels because I tend not to buy them.

Oh c'mon! Endless Ocean 2? Animal Crossing Wii?

heath-ledger-joker-menacing.jpg

Keep talking.

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Thu, 18 Feb 2010 20:35:47

^Oh BAD sequels. Hey look over there ----> 










(makes quick getaway).

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Thu, 18 Feb 2010 20:42:37

aspro said:

^Oh BAD sequels. Hey look over there ---->










(makes quick getaway).

*Goes to animated-gifs.net*

Hey.

WAIT-A-MINUTE

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Fri, 19 Feb 2010 02:38:31
LOL

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