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Sequels that aged worse than their predecessors

Reinhardt

Arcane
Joined
Sep 4, 2015
Messages
29,246
Myth 3
 

Thal

Augur
Joined
Apr 4, 2015
Messages
413
Before answering this question, we ought to recall what aging well or badly means. Deus Ex vs. Invisible War is not a fair comparison because IW was vastly inferior at the time of release, and it is inferior now. It's not a question of aging then but quality. The games we are looking for should be the ones that were thought to be of similar quality at the time of release, or that the sequel was thought to be an improvement.

Therefore I nominate Fallout 2. I recently completed FO1 and was very impressed with how well-rounded and almost flawless it was in its own right. Excellent plot, probably the best world building of all time, good cast, at the times brilliant writing/acting ("You saved us, but you'll kill us. You are a hero, and you have to leave"). Holy fucking shit what an ending! I could go on, only the combat AI is a blemish to its greatness (IMO for the game to be 100% perfect you should be able to control the companions and redesign the battles to be appropriately tactical). When Fallout 2 was released, in a way it was an improvement. They really improved companions in every way, did some other QoL improvements, added shit ton of content, which improved the sandbox appeal. You had more weapons, some beefed up skills and even you own car. New Reno with its brilliant quest design is still one of the best rpg cities ever created. It had everything you could ask of a sequel to a brilliant game. I remember the game was very well received, except for the game breaking bugs and some concern for the "black humor".

Well if you play it now, it's still great but the tone is just off. FO1s has subtle humor but the shit is real, let me tell you. It's funny at the times but actually quite serious for the most part. In a way it's a bit like Conan the Barbarian, I don't ever let anyone tell me that it is just a stupid movie. Regarding Fallout 1, only Loxley character with the stupid accent sort of crosses the line to dumbfuckery. FO2 on the other had jumps over that line gleefully. The everpresent pop-culture references, that are dated to boot, are so in your face, that playing the game becomes jarring. Some of them are also CRITICAL TO THE PLOT and so you can't avoid them. As for writing, compare the caricature of stupid politicians and jingoist Americans of the Enclave to the character of overseer: one is juvenile and reflecting the simplistic anti-establishment political views of the author and the other one is funny, subtle, and even a bit thought provoking. Many of this stuff we didn't mind when we were playing it the first time, because we were engrossed in playing through the excellent new content. Another important factor was that most, even majority, of the people playing the game at the time of release were teens or even pre-teens. What was funny to them then, isn't funny now. People mature, but the game stays the same.

Fallout 1 was a mature game to begin with. It's amazing how diligently it executes its concept. Everything is balanced from systems to quest design to world building to art direction to plot to writing. It's one of those few games that is just marvel to behold, it just works. When you play Fallout 2 on the other hand, you enjoy it, but keep wondering what could have been. What if it had no pop-culture references? What if the villains weren't so cartoony? What if it didn't have Tom Cruise? What if it it was just one notch darker and just a tiny bit more serious? It's not even too much to ask, as the step you keep thinking about is so small. Most of the time Fallout 2 succeeds in what it tries, and at the times it even surpasses Fallout 1. But that makes the failures even more apparent. Comparing these two brilliant crpgs truly makes a case for "less is more".
 

BEvers

I'm forever blowing
Joined
Aug 14, 2018
Messages
808
Lands of Lore 2.

A very strong choice. That stinker was actually well received:

In PC PowerPlay, David Wildgoose hailed Guardians of Destiny as "perhaps the most complete game I've played" and praised its mixture of genres. He believed that it was "a new level" of quality for Westwood.

PC Zone's Jamie Cunningham called Guardians of Destiny "yet another Westwood masterpiece", and believed that it "dispenses with all the point-and-click statistical mumbo jumbo, and puts an end to the myth that RPGs are boring."
 

deuxhero

Arcane
Joined
Jul 30, 2007
Messages
11,328
Location
Flowery Land
Pokemon Diamond and Pearl: Spritework is much worse (most of the player sprite is now a head that has no animation) and the 3D looks terrible. The constant lag for everything you do only makes it worse.

Pretty much any sequel that made the jump from 2D to 3D in the mid-to-late 90s.

Mario 64.....uuuggghhhhh...........:negative:

Honestly, Mario 64 is one of the best due to Mario's appearance being geared for low fidelity anyways. SMW's graphics remain much prettier, but Mario 64 isn't repulsive looking (as a lot of that era is) and nothing gameplay wise feels all that dated either. Graphics aren't as nice for their time though. I'd say it and DN3D was among the best to leap to 3D (though Duke is largely sprite based).
 

DalekFlay

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Oct 5, 2010
Messages
14,118
Location
New Vegas
Honestly, Mario 64 is one of the best due to Mario's appearance being geared for low fidelity anyways. SMW's graphics remain much prettier, but Mario 64 isn't repulsive looking (as a lot of that era is) and nothing gameplay wise feels all that dated either. Graphics aren't as nice for their time though. I'd say it and DN3D was among the best to leap to 3D (though Duke is largely sprite based).

I recently fucked around with Zelda and Mario's N64 versions on an emulator and the graphics were fine, it was the locked low as hell framerate that sucked. I literally couldn't play them.
 

Falksi

Arcane
Joined
Feb 14, 2017
Messages
10,538
Location
Nottingham
Pokemon Diamond and Pearl: Spritework is much worse (most of the player sprite is now a head that has no animation) and the 3D looks terrible. The constant lag for everything you do only makes it worse.

Pretty much any sequel that made the jump from 2D to 3D in the mid-to-late 90s.

Mario 64.....uuuggghhhhh...........:negative:

Honestly, Mario 64 is one of the best due to Mario's appearance being geared for low fidelity anyways. SMW's graphics remain much prettier, but Mario 64 isn't repulsive looking (as a lot of that era is) and nothing gameplay wise feels all that dated either. Graphics aren't as nice for their time though. I'd say it and DN3D was among the best to leap to 3D (though Duke is largely sprite based).

It's just a shit game.

Went from fast paced, simplistic fun with a ton of depth in Super Mario World, to a lethargic 3-D slog. Felt like a kids game.
 

Ezekiel

Arcane
Joined
May 3, 2017
Messages
5,374
Half-Life 2
Soldier of Fortune 2
Ground Control 2
Max Payne 3
GTA IV
Max Payne 3, mechanically, is a lot better than newer third person shooters. Wish they'd remaster it, fix the shitty matchmaking and balance it so I'd have new people to play with. The more open nature of the multiplayer is where I really started to appreciate all the mechanics, but it was covered in a layer of shit (exploits, poor balancing, a bad kick system, awful networking, auto-aim servers, DLC maps that non-customers were automatically kicked from). Rockstar's later games just aren't fun.
 

Zarniwoop

TESTOSTERONIC As Fuck™
Patron
Joined
Nov 29, 2010
Messages
18,651
Shadorwun: Hong Kong
Mass Effect 2.

Strip away all the more RPG based elements which the first had, and you're left with a lot of combat & little else. Which is a kicker because the combat in the game is pretty fucking wank.
Again, ME2 was shit from day one. It didn't "age poorly". In fact, the mists of time have convinced many people that it was somehow better than the original :retarded:
 

MpuMngwana

Arbiter
Joined
Sep 23, 2016
Messages
336
Pokemon Diamond and Pearl: Spritework is much worse (most of the player sprite is now a head that has no animation) and the 3D looks terrible. The constant lag for everything you do only makes it worse.

I disagree (though I mostly played Platinum). While you do have a point about the 3D, and the new 'mons designs have taken a nosedive since at least gen3, gen4 games are the most mechanically sound (introducing the physical/special split), and FWIW the Sinnoh games are the most difficult of the main series. Also, Platinum's Battle Frontier is by far my favorite piece of Pokemon post-game content.
 

DalekFlay

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Oct 5, 2010
Messages
14,118
Location
New Vegas
Again, ME2 was shit from day one. It didn't "age poorly". In fact, the mists of time have convinced many people that it was somehow better than the original :retarded:

Same for others mentioned like Deus Ex: Invisible War. If anything that game is slightly better now because it doesn't run like dogshit anymore (it just plays like dogshit! Zing!).
 

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