Seven Games That Completely Changed Gears in the Sequels (With Excellent Results)
Sequels are a tricky business, which is probably why most of them tend to suck. If something is successful enough to warrant a sequel, how can you appeal to fans of the original while still keeping the idea fresh? In the case of these games, the developers decided the answer was to scrap almost everything and make a whole new game. And the results were pure awesome (as opposed to the games in my last post). Here are some games that completely revamped themselves for the sequels and still came out great.
7. Call of Duty 4
This one's easy. By the time, Call of Duty 2 came out, the gaming world was getting tired of World War II shooters, and developer Infinity Ward knew it. Even though the first Call of Duty and its sequel had received high critical praise and sales, they wanted to try something different for their next game. Unfortunately, publisher Activision wanted a new Call of Duty title on the shelves every year, which didn't leave enough time for Infinity Ward to completely revamp the franchise. So they cut a deal: they would get two years to work on their game, and Call of Duty 3 would be developed by a completely different studio, in this case Treyarch.
That deal worked out great for them, since Call of Duty 3 turned out to be dud, making their next game look even better than it already did. Essentially they took many of the main elements of the first two games and brought the whole thing into the modern world. Though short, the single-player story included an incredibly immersive story and some of the most memorable gaming moments in recent years (particularly that whole sniper level). That would have been great in itself, but then they created a deep multiplayer experience that rewarded hours played with more weapons and gear; a system that many other games have tried to imitate since, including the Treyarch-made Call of Duty: World At War.
6. Super Mario Bros. 2
Anyone who has played Super Mario Bros. and then Super Mario Bros. 2 noticed the stark differences quickly. Where to begin? In #2, you would choose from four characters with different abilities, kill enemies by throwing vegetables at them that you pulled from the ground, stand on most enemies and ride them like slow-moving horses, and fought none of the baddies from the previous game, not even Bowser. But there's a very simple explanation for all that: it was never intended to be a Mario game.
You see, Nintendo actually did develop a true sequel to Super Mario Bros., but decided not to release it outside Japan since it was basically the exact same game as before, but with EXTREMELY difficult levels (as anyone who has played Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels on the Super Nintendo can tell you). So instead they took a completely different game called "Doki Doki Panic," replaced the four playable characters with ones from Mario, and released it in the States under the Super Mario Bros. name. Meanwhile, they began work on Super Mario Bros. 3, which returned to the usual jump-and-hit gameplay as if the second game had never happened. So yes, Mario 1 and Mario 2 are drastically different because Nintendo thought we were too soft to handle their REAL sequel. Sadly, they were probably right.
5. Zelda II: The Adventure of Link
This falls into the same group as Super Mario Bros. 2 of "NES Sequels That Made People Think They Had Picked Up The Wrong Game By Mistake." The first Legend of Zelda is a classic that essentially served as the model for almost every Zelda game since (excluding those godawful unlicensed CD-i games). It makes you wonder why they chose to mess with that for the sequel, but they did. Instead of playing the whole game from a top-down perspective, you would wander the map this way until you encountered an enemy or a special area. Then the whole game would switch to a side-scrolling action view, where you could leap over baddies and obstacles, stab in multiple directions with your sword, and use some special magic powers. Adding to that, the game included some RPG elements like being able to upgrade special skills. It still retained the general "go to a dungeon, fight a boss, get a special item" formula, but there was no doubt that this was a drastically different experience from the first game.
4. Shadow of the Colossus
If you've played Shadow of the Colossus, you might be wondering just what the hell it was a sequel to. If you've actually beaten the whole game and also played the developer's previous game, Ico, then things might be a bit clearer. Unbeknownst to anyone until it was released, Shadow of the Colossus was actually a bonafide prequel to the development team's first, critically-praised title, Ico. That game tasked the player with guiding a princess to safety as a little boy with horns inexplicably sprouting from his head. Shadow of the Colossus involved playing as completely different young man tasked with defeating a series of giants that were literally the size of skyscrapers in order to bring an entirely different princess out of a coma. The only thing tying the two together was at the end, when (minor spoiler alert) the princess ends up giving birth to a baby with tiny horns growing from it's head. Apparently, this is a descendant of the protagonist from Ico, meaning the two game's were part of the same story all along. It's a distant connection, but going from guiding a princess to scaling giant monsters is certainly a big change across two games sharing the same storyline.
3. Street Fighter II
When people say they're a "Street Fighter fan," they're usually talking about the sequel and it's successors, and not the original arcade title. The first Street Fighter set up the basics for later fighting games -- health bars, special moves, three different types of punches and kicks -- but also had some dodgy animation, ear-grating sound, and only allowed you to play as Ryu versus several computer-controlled opponents. It wasn't bad for it's time, but it certainly looks that way when compared with Street Fighter II. For the second game, Konami decided to do away with all the characters except for three and then included the roster of colorful characters that the series is known for. But what really made the game stand out was the multiplayer, which now allowed friends to play as different characters; each with their own strengths, weaknesses, and special moves (as opposed to the original which only let you play against each other as Ryu or Ken). The game was so finely tuned that people still play it to this day, and it essentially set the stage for similar fighting games like Mortal Kombat and Samurai Showdown to follow.
2. Dune II
Dune 2 was one of the first real-time strategy games ever, whose format paved the way for great franchises like Command and Conquer and Warcraft. That's probably why very few people remember that the first Dune game was almost nothing like it's successor. Dune 1 was a basically an adventure game with some strategy elements added in. The story followed that of the book, with you playing as Paul Atreides who begins to learn some of his hidden powers, ally his family with the native Fremens, and eventually defeat the evil Harkonnen House. In the course of the story though, you were also required to manage the production of resources on the planet, train military forces, and recruit new groups to your cause. Oh, and if you didn't do all this quickly, you would eventually be wiped out by the Emperor you were working for. It was certainly fun in its own right, but didn't turn out to be the milestone that the sequel did.
1. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
When The Sands of Time was announced, people thought it was an awful idea at first. It's hard to blame them, seeing as the last game, Prince of Persia 3D, had brought the franchise into the the third dimension for the first time with glitchy and boring results. The problem there had been the game had stuck to its source material a little too much, which didn't translate well in today's gaming market. So the developers of the next Prince of Persia game went ahead and scrapped everything from the franchise except the name. Then they reinvented the main character as a smartass with some of the most acrobatic moves ever seen in a video game. Finally they topped it off by giving the Prince a dagger that could be used to speed up and slow down time, as well as reverse it to undo mistakes. The result was a game that didn't really resemble it's source material that much but was too awesome for anyone to really care.
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interesting.
I agree with them.....not with COD4 though....or SMB2....
