Hello once again my video game bretheren. Well the Newgrounds redesign has come, people have had time to praise it and bitch about it, so this sort of got me to thinking, how is it that people are so excited for a change to come and are ready to embrace it, but when it comes they throw a bitch fit about it?
It seems that this does also have its affects in the gaming world as well with it's sequels. When it comes to a game that reaches success a lot of people are either content with it or want a sequel and when that sequel is announced, that is when everybody who loved the previous game get excited. Also those who only liked it are also excited for anything that didn't impress them about the last game to be fixed or made better in the sequel.
The purpose of a sequel is to either continue the story, make the features of the last game better, or both. However a lot people seem to not like a lot of the sequels that come out nowadays for either not progressing the story or not expanding on the foundation that it's predecessor laid down. Now there are a lot of you new gamers out there who like myself were around during the 90's and some of you are still new to the game being born in the late 90's to early 2000's and frankly the blame of this goes back to our forefathers.
You see during the 80's there were three big games on the NES at the time, Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda, and CastleVania. 80's gamers certainly know these games and knows them well. However all three decided to try something different with their sequels. Super Mario Bros. 2 (the one in USA) was radically different, and got a lot of heat for changing a lot of stuff to the Mario formula, but nowadays that we know it wasn't the real SMB2, people shrug it off (despite the game giving us Birdo, Shy Guys, and Bob-ombs.
Zelda II: Link's Adventure was another one that rubbed people the wrong way because it took Link out of his top down perspective and put him in a 2D side-scrolling RPG style-esque game. This style wouldn't become fully appreciated until The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time came out, yeah Ocarina of Time was built off of the foundation of Zelda II.
Then CastleVania decided it wanted to be an adventure RPG with CastleVania II: Simon's Quest. An interesting concept, but not executed entirely well. It too changed the formula of how CastleVania worked.
Now my point here is that all three of these games do have their fans to them, but there are a lot of people who look at these games as black sheep of their series. Although each one was the first sequel in each series, they all seemed to break a familiarity that was set by the original game. In which case the third game in each series would be known as the true definitive sequels.
Super Mario Bros. 3 would be said to be one of the best Mario games of all time if not the best one. It went back to the formula of the first game and upped the ante with many creative levels, enemies, power-ups, and boss battles. Not to mention the music soundtrack was brilliant and masterful.
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past would be said as the best Zelda game of all time, that was until Ocarina of Time came along, but there are people who still say to this day that A Link to the Past is still the best Zelda game of all time. It took its predecessor and breathed a lot more life into it, with two different worlds to explore and many dungeons crawling with monsters. The upgrades and secrets were unbelievable and truly served the first game proud.
CastleVania III: Dracula's Curse would go back to the formula in the first game and give you multiple characters to switch from as you trek through Dracula's Castle, take branching pathways, and would become a lot harder to get through with new traps and monsters to face.
Now the third game in each one of these are heralded as masterpieces of gaming, but we see those past two games. Imagine if these games were around during this time with the gamers we have now. Would they be called as nothing but money grubbing pieces of shit who just re-do the same shit over and over with minor tweaks?
People say that they want something different in a sequel, but most people are lying. If they got something different then they would bitch and moan about the change. The goal is to make a game with change, but still have it be familiar. Some sequels that shine brightly because of this would be Banjo-Tooie and Mass Effect 2.
You hear people beg for a sequel, beg for another release, and then once they finally get it they whine and complain. One game that received this treatment was Duke Nukem Forever a game that was through developmental hell, it's no wonder it came out the way it did.
So I have to ask people something. A lot of people are clamoring for a sequel to Conker's Bad Fur Day. I ask you this... in our day and age, do you really want a sequel to this game? Do you want a sequel to Conker? I doubt you really do and if you got it you might tarnish it.
People want change, they want something new, but they also want familiarity. It's not something that is easy to do, especially if your first game is hard to top in the first place. It can be done though, but at times we as gamers don't always know what we want, we can wish and say whatever we want, but that doesn't mean it will come to be.
Questions of the Day
1. What do you look for in a sequel?
2. What's your most favorite sequel?
3. What's your least favorite sequel?
4. Would you want Conker's Bad Fur Day?
5. How many rupees can I get for 10 coins?
