Sequels: When One Just Isn’t Ever Enough
The games industry needs to stop relying on sequels or risk developers and consumers losing interest, Harvest Moon creator Yasuhiro Wada has warned.
The Harvest moon creator said this? Ouch.
In a recent article on Eurogamer the creator of Harvest moon, Mr. Wada, talks about why companies need to start focusing on new IPs and not sequels. I find it kind of ironic that the creator of what might very well be the most sequeled game of all time (Harvest Moon), is now all of the sudden “anti-sequel.” Now he’s not saying all sequels are bad (but lets be honest, it’s very rare that a sequel is good), but rather that if a person is playing a certain game, and the same game keeps getting released, people will lose interest. To that I say, not exactly. There are plenty of games that will just never stop being fun. As much as I dislike the people who play it, the Halo series is a brilliant example of that. It still has millions of people that play it on a regular basis. Why? Because it’s still fun. And I’m only talking about Halo 3. I’m sure there are people who still play Halo, or Halo 2.
However, Halo is hardly the rule and more like the exception. Does anyone remember Turok: Evolution? No? I didn’t think so. Bad sequels are everywhere. Some aren’t bad, just boring. I’ve made it very clear that I was not a fan of GTA IV, I found it boring. It didn’t grab my interest. It seemed the same as GTA 3, or Vice City, or San Adreas, or Liberty City Stories, you get the picture. Game companies are far too scared to try something original, for the fear of failure. It’s fear of the unknown, and what does big business do when something is unknown? Wait for a tiny developer to do something great, and then steal it.
The other problem with sequels, is the developers confidence in them. Games need to STOP being made as a “trilogy.” Who else bought Advent Rising hoping it would be awesome and that the second and third would be great? Yeah, I said “else.” What about Too Human? Or even Mass Effect? These games were developed as a 3-game-title. Neither Mass Effect or Too Human did exceptionally well, although I’m still pretty sure they’re both still going to get their sequel at least one. But what about if the second one is (and it USUALLY is) worse then the first? Will there be a third? It’s doubtful. Then where does that leave loyal fans, all 3 of them.
I think the point has been made, so I will here give you a list. Everyone likes lists.
Brandon’s worst 5 video game sequels ever!
5. Super Mario Bro’s 2. — Seriously guys, I mean, seriously it was bad.
4. Banjo-Tootie — Banjo-Kazooie was mediocre at best. A sequel was just plain dumb.
3. Turok 2 (and all iterations after) — Just, no. Seriously. Stop.
2. Unreal Tournament 2k3 (and all iterations after) — Unreal Tournament is my favorite PC shooter of all time. However, they had to go rape it with 2k3 and forward.
1. The worst video game sequel of all time, in my humble, but correct opinion, is The Legend of Zelda 2: The Adventure of Link. If you actually liked this game, you deserve to be beaten. Thank god Nintendo got things right with this series, because we all know Ocarina of Time is the best game ever created.
You left out guitar hero, and it’s twenty seven thousand sequels. Some games are good as a series and some aren’t. Even the ones that are good as a series suffer at times. I point you to COD 3 and 5 as prime examples.
I would argue that Spyro 2 is another example of the sequel being better than the original but after that the series went downhill fast. Spyro 3 was poor as was Enter the Dragonfly and I haven’t played another Spyro game since then.
I really like Turok the Dinosaur Hunter. One of my most fond memories as a young lad. Although I would like to point out one good thing came out of Turok 2, the Cerebral Bore, the single most brutal weapon ever.
Its a real shame that the crappy new Turok I dodged like a plague ridden bullet appears to be getting its own sequel.
SMB2 doesn’t even deserve to be on the list. It wasn’t originally intended as a Mario game, hence why it was so fucking goofy. It just got a Mario makeover at the last minute, for whatever reason. It was good for what it was, but it wasn’t Mario.
And UT03 may not have been that great, but in my opinion, 04 was pretty awesome, and UT3 is even better, IF you have the hardware to play it. The detail in everything in UT3 is just amazing, even at a frantic pace… so when you do find that good sniping spot, the scenery is gorgeous. UT was never about the story, it was just frantic killing. Quake did it very well, UT followed with similar results. UT just took it to the next level.