You always hear people complaining about movie sequels. Always. That's because movie sequels take something beautiful and then ruin it by trying to milk it for more money. Video games are the opposite, because if a game is any good, people can't wait for the sequel because it's likely to be even better. From Street Fighter 2 to Grand Theft Auto 2, sequels in video game world tend to kick the ass of the original game.

At least, usually. Sadly, a few games still follow the movie industry model and put out crappy sequels, which we cover here in the second part of our top ten disappointing sequel list:

5) Super Mario Brothers 2

And I don't mean the Doki Doki Panic with the new paintjob that we got in America. No, I mean the actual Super Mario Brothers 2 released in Japan, which we received much later as Super Mario Brothers: The Lost Levels. This was not a sequel. There was no improvement on the original game. This was just Super Mario Brothers 1 with a few extra levels. If it were released today, it would be a downloadable extra, or a patch, or an update to the gold box edition. In order to qualify as a sequel, you're supposed to do something to make a different game.

I'm sure I'm going to surprise some people here by saying that I loved the Super Mario Brothers 2 that we got in America. By which I mean, Doki Doki Panic. Sure, it wasn't technically supposed to be a Mario game. But it was interesting. A hell of a lot more interesting than Mario 1. There were keys, and doors, and you could *gasp* backtrack if you accidentally ran past something you wanted.

Not to mention that your character could pick things up and carry them around, occasionally even lending a tiny puzzle element to this game. And when we say "your character", we mean, whichever of the four you selected for that particular level, because you could choose between four characters with different abilities. Some fun stuff, for sure.

I know I've complained before about Japan hiding the good sequels from us (and I've still never forgiven them for giving us Final Fantasy Mystic Quest instead of Final Fantasy V), but frankly I'm glad that SMB 2 never made it to the US and we got Doki Doki Mario Panic instead. Eat that, SMB 2.

Which game would you rather play?

4) Bomberman: Act Zero

Bomberman in this incarnation is more of an overdrawn cliche modern fighting robot than a cute guy with a helmet. Okay, fine.

The really fun kick and throw powerups have been removed. This makes me very sad, but it's still bomberman, so it's bound to be worthwhile, right?

The elegant simplicity of the 2-D maze has been replaced with a 3-D maze where you fight in a more close-up 3rd person view, and crappy camera work ensures that you won't be able to see what the hell you're doing. Why the heck would they do that? I know I complained in the first half of this list about the damn sports game franchises always being the same, but Bomberman was great! If you wanted to change it, add more crazy power-ups like a Portal Gun, or a Velociraptor, or something else to make up for the fact that you removed the best two powerups in the game. Don't just make it hard to see what's going on.

It's like Bomberman without the fun!

And you have one life in single player mode, so if you die a single time in the single player campaign -- which is likely, given the aforementioned bad camera work -- it's game over. Hope you like starting again from Stage 1. Well, who cares, it's all about multi-play, right?

Ha-ha! You fell for it! You thought that just because Bomberman is all about multi-player madness, that there would be a multi-player mode. Well, my friends, you are more wrong than a Michael Jackson Day Care Center. Bomberman: Act Zero comes with zero, count 'em, zero capability for you to have friends over and play Bomberman with you. Which, as any Bomberman fan knows, is the whole damn point of Bomberman.

"No sweat, the marketing guys said gamers like multi-player, so we included an online mode." NOT THE SAME. It's like the difference between having sex and watching camwhores. Playing a round of Bomberman 3 with a few buddies over is like making sweet, sweet love to the video game, while playing Bomberman: Act Zero leaves you with that same empty and shameful feeling when you're done, wondering why the heck you paid for it.

3) Psychonauts 2

"Wait a minute, there was no sequel to Psychonauts!"

Exactly.

2) Final Fantasy II

I know what you're thinking, "Final Fantasy II was a great game!" Well, you're wrong. You're thinking of Final Fantasy IV, which was released in America as Final Fantasy II. And that, indeed, was a great game. Final Fantasy IV was the first Final Fantasy for the SNES, offering a vastly expanded plot, a wide bevy of fascinating characters you cared about, a huge world to explore (including two underworlds and the moon), great music, and the best video game insult ever:

Final Fantasy II, on the other hand, was only available on the Famicom, and featured the most dumb-ass leveling system since your fraternity's RPG drinking game ("Drink a cup, level up!"). The way you got more powerful in Final Fantasy II was repeated use of your stats. This meant that the only way to improve your defense and HP was... wait for it... to get hit a lot.

This made combat very stupid. In fact, the most efficient way to level up was to enter a combat and spend a half-hour punching yourself in the face and then casting cure. Which is funny, because after a few hours of playing this game, I also felt like it would have been more efficient to just punch myself in the face. Thankfully, most of the subsequent sequels (with a few notable exceptions -- I'm looking at you, Mystic Quest) have been wonderful games, and between FFIV and FFVII, every game was a classic.

Final Fantasy II was re-released in a slightly less sucky form along with the original Final Fantasy on a disc called Final Fantasy Origins, where playing the two games side by side lets you appreciate how you'll want to replay Final Fantasy a dozen times to try different parties, whereas Final Fantasy II remains the only Final Fantasy game that I haven't beaten (FFXI notwithstanding).

1) Legend of Zelda: Adventure of Link

The granddaddy of disappointing sequels. The original Legend of Zelda was one of the best games ever, for any system. Period. Even in today's world of 5-D graphics, you can hand a kid the original Legend of Zelda and he'll be forced to appreciate its greatness.

It's dangerous to go alone! Take this!

From the incredibly catchy theme music that you're probably humming in your head right now, to the open-ended exploration, Legend of Zelda was an instant classic. When the franchise moved to the SNES, Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past took its cues directly from the original, and also became an instant classic.

And then there was the Adventure of Link.

Cookie-cutter towns filled with pointless townsfolk?
Yes please!

This side-scroller wasn't much worse than most of the side-scrollers produced for the NES, and was even better than many. But the fact of the matter is that side-scrollers were a dime a dozen. Or at least two for $20. Anyway, the point is that there were already a metric fucktonne of mediocre side-scrollers for the NES, and Adventure of Link just joined the pack.

Yes, there was technically an "overworld" screen, but it was basically a senseless waste of time between side-scrolling levels. Most of the game consisted of entering dungeons where you would jump over pits and hit things while monsters flew at you. How original.

Adventure of Link wasn't a bad game, but compared to Legend of Zelda, it has no right to bear the name.

Post a Comment

User Comments (3)