The best (and worst) sequels

[hobbsyoyo]

What platform was the orignal FF tactics on? PS1? I *think* I remember it but never played it.

Tacics Advanced was a lot of fun, but I've got nothing to compare it to.

 

[Antilogic]

Hell sometimes you didn't even have to try to be abusive, some of the characters they gave you managed that very well all on their own without any input from you. Looking at you, Orlandu.

Yeah, using him in battle basically guarantees a win. He even makes the final boss trivially easy if you use the MP-draining sword attack on his first turn.

On the plus side, it's the first game I came across where I thought one of your characters legitimately earned a nickname like "Thunder God"--I fully believed Orlandu was a freakin' god.

What platform was the orignal FF tactics on? PS1? I *think* I remember it but never played it.

Tacics Advanced was a lot of fun, but I've got nothing to compare it to.

Right. There are also mods like Final Fantasy Hacktics that try to fix some of the broken elements of the gameplay and translation (and making it much harder, which veteran fans will appreciate), I started playing one last year but I haven't finished it yet.

 

[Thorvald of Lym]

I'm gonna go out on a limb and claim SimCity 4 as the best in the title. It was the first game in which I actually managed to turn a profit, thanks in large part to the UI and its extensive data projections. (Maybe I'm just not cut out for city planning. ) Transportation infrastructure was greatly expanded from the older games, and driving about the city in Rush Hour was just plain fun. It was the first game I played rather than planned.

Star Control II was the best sequel ever

THIS THIS A THOUSAND TIMES THIS

And I never played far enough into SC3 to deem it good or bad.

3 is far superior to 2. The economic simulation in 3 is the best and most sophisticated of any game I've ever played and quite possibly the best in any game billed for mainstream audiences (i.e. not an economic simulation game designed solely for business students)

Amen. RT2 was already solid, and probably my most-played game to date after Civ2. RT3 took that model and improved it in just about every way.

Speaking of Civ2, I still consider it the pinnacle of the series. It's clean, straightforward, and scriptable, and ToT added whole new dimensions (literally!). 3 and 4 built on different elements of the formula to the exclusion of others but neither carried the whole package forward. Alpha Centauri probably came closest, but it was more a spin-off than a sequel and comparatively handicapped in third-party modding (that, and its tech pacing was horrendously top-heavy).

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Right. There are also mods like Final Fantasy Hacktics that try to fix some of the broken elements of the gameplay and translation (and making it much harder, which veteran fans will appreciate), I started playing one last year but I haven't finished it yet.

The translation was broken?

 

[Wolfbeckett]

Certain parts of the translation were... not BROKEN, I mean it's not like they forgot to put the English in, but... let's just say they were perhaps not clearly phrased.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

But I can Engrish understand not bad.

 

[mechaerik]

What platform was the orignal FF tactics on? PS1? I *think* I remember it but never played it.

There was also a remake/port on the PSP, War of the Lions. It has a less bad translation, but one that tends to be very... flowery. Though from what I've heard, some prefer the original's Engrish to the over-the-top-medievaly one of WotL.

The PSP port has also since been ported to iOS and Android, although the latter is currently only available in Japanese.

 

[~Corsair#01~]

I think Rome: Total War was a great sequel, it really moved the franchise forward into new areas and had by far the best setting and faction variety of any TW game. The AI struggled a bit with the larger and more complex campaign map, but that's a worthwhile price to pay for so many improvements.

Orcs Must Die 2 is a very good sequel but it's basically just a more developed and bulked-up version of the original game rather than a true sequel. The same can be said for Portal 2.

 

[TheDanish]

I'll make some enemies with this one, I'm sure.

Worst sequel: TES IV Oblivion
Best sequel: TES V Skyrim

I really do not like Oblivion.

 

[Maniacal]

Skyrim didn't really improve that much on Oblivion. It did improve, and is certainly a better game, but its not like improving upon Oblivion is that hard either. Its biggest improvements were visual and aesthetic design though, it did a pretty decent job of that. Especially the faces!

 

[Azale]

The worst sequel that I have played was Star Fox Assault, the Gamecube sequel to Star Fox 64. It was a terrible game, not just a terrible sequel. To this day I have no idea why Nintendo handed over one of their Flagship titles to a third party developer and then let them publish a crap game. The franchise would've been better off if they canned it even though it was a finished project. Given the dearth of new Star Fox titles after that (there was only one new SF on the DS and then obligatory cross-platform ports of SF64) it is safe to say that Assault killed the franchise.

Ugh I forgot about that piece of crap. I'll second Starfox Assault and throw in every Megaman X after the Super Nintendo too.

And this is exaclty why I like 3 better than NV. 3 was different than the usual questing in other games. It seemed somehow more real, disregarding the scifi setting. You could really get immersed into the game.

NV has the same things though, as far as little storylines for every area etc. You just liked FO3's aesthetic better.

Another thing to keep in mind, FNV seemed to have quite a bit more voice actors. It's sometimes hard to immerse when you're hearing the same 4 people over and over again.

There was also a remake/port on the PSP, War of the Lions. It has a less bad translation, but one that tends to be very... flowery. Though from what I've heard, some prefer the original's Engrish to the over-the-top-medievaly one of WotL.

The PSP port has also since been ported to iOS and Android, although the latter is currently only available in Japanese.

The PSP version was great, but it adds Balthier & a Dark Knight class which makes the game even easier.

FFT is just one of those games you have to make challenging on your own. Avoid using Calculators and Orlandu. Don't power level. Try beating Wiegraf WITHOUT the accumulate trick.

 

[Antilogic]

But I can Engrish understand not bad.

Some traditional over-the-top melodramatic dialog, sand ra-at-ts?, all the dragon breath attacks were mistranslated as "bracelets" (so a dragon would use "fire bracelet" on you), two of the characters were sexually abused as kids and it's actually kinda important to understand their motives but the dialog is translated and censored in a way that makes that whole segment of the game really confusing. There were a few other things that were a little off.

FFT had a great concept, especially for how the class and customization system worked, I just wish it was a PC game so they could have released a patch to fix some of the dumber things about it. But you can't have it all, unfortunately.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Hm that's all very intriguing. Too bad it's only on PS1 and PSP, I really enjoyed Final Fantasy Tactics Advanced - it is the only FF game besides FFVII that I ever finished.

I almost beat VIII [Best Sequel Evah!] but at the very end I got stuck and sick of having to level up [but never getting ahead due to the flawed 'the enemies level up with you' system] so I bought a game shark. The Game Shark promptly corrupted my save files and then stopped working altogether and I never got back into VIII after that. Come to think of it, I had 2 PS1 Game Sharks and they both crapped out on me and did horrible things to my saves within a week of buying them, yet my N64 game shark worked reliably for years. I expect now to be mobbed by the anti-cheating/bot crowd for being a bad boy and a terrible gamer.

 

[mechaerik]

The PSP version was great, but it adds Balthier & a Dark Knight class which makes the game even easier.

FFT is just one of those games you have to make challenging on your own. Avoid using Calculators and Orlandu. Don't power level. Try beating Wiegraf WITHOUT the accumulate trick.

On the other hand, you get to kill Algus/Argath a second time in the PSP version.

I never actually used any of those things when I first played, mostly because I didn't realize how powerful they could be. Plus I didn't use any actually named characters I wasn't required to (although Agrias was on my secondary character rotation, used if I had an extra slot or two). It was more ignorance than an attempt to make the game more difficult.I don't even know what the accumulate trick is.

Both versions of FFT are on PSN I think, if you have a PS3.

All this makes me want to play FFT again, but I lost the disk a while back.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I don't have a PS3.

 

[Azale]

I don't even know what the accumulate trick is.

All the accumulate trick entails is running around out of Wiegraf's range, using accumulate. Once you've done it about 20 or so times, one hit Wiegraf then one hit Velius and boom, Riovanes Castle complete.

Well, accept for that tricky assassin battle

 

[GAGA Extrem]

Good sequels:
Europa Universalis III (at least after some patches and addons)
Victoria II (at least after some patches and addons)
Shadow of the Colossus
Anno 1404
Age of Empires II
Warcraft III
Orcs mus Die! 2
Trine 2
Torchlight 2
Freespace 2 (I can has FS3, plx?)

Bad sequels:
Diablo III (Why Blizzard... WHY?!)
Heroes of Might and Magic 4
Silent Hunter 5
Starfleet Command III (talk about dumbing down a game)
Stronghold II
Sword of the Stars II (Q_Q)

 

[Maniacal]

Sword of the Stars 2 was bad when it was released, since it wasn't finished, but it is definitely playable now and a lot of fun. Some of the changes seem to have been made more just to change something rather than a real improvement, but it works, it builds upon SotS1 and has even more glorious and fantastic battles!

It might not be the best sequel ever, but it is definitely not the worst.

 

[carmen510]

Worst sequel ever:

Empire Earth 3.

That is all.

 

[Serutan]

Best :

Civ 2
MOO 2
Diablo 2
Hearts of Iron 2
Morrowind (ES 3)
Divinity II (a.k.a. Dragon Knight Saga)

Worst:

Diablo 3
Moo 3