As soon as a good game comes out, you will see people complain for a sequel. 'We need more!' They scream, unaware that there are many things that are too good a good thing. For a sequel to be good, it must often be more than just an iterative sequel. It must exander on the original ideas, while introducing a whole new hook of its own.
Unfortunately, games take a long time, and if you have not satisfied yourself with that hook early, your game will probably stay and constantly live in the shadow of its predecessor. It is not to say that all iterative sequels are doomed to this, but if you want to live up to a beloved game you will need more than just the same thing again.
Death space 2
That is good, it just doesn't have the same heart
Honestly, Kudos to Dead Space 2. It is still a very good game, albeit one that is much different from the original. It chose to take even more inspiration from the game that inspired the original, Resident Evil 4, by going even further down the Action Road. Environments felt more different in the design, although they mostly ended up as corridors, and weapons packed so much more of a place.
However, the thing is, the original dead space, both then and now, felt one-of-a kind. The map shown in the world, how the markers led you through Ishimura, the silent protagonist and the usefulness of each weapon. The sequel, although it was a much stronger action game, lost much of the charm that made dead space so iconically in the first place.
Kingdom Hearts 3
14 years mystery that captures up
After several years of development and over a decade away from a home console, it was expecting Kingdom Hearts 3 to be messy. And in its defense, it is a strikingly competent game considering the arches that it had to jump through to get to the finish line. It even has the strongest Disney worlds on average since the very first Kingdom Hearts 3. Toy box is a real stands out.
The thing is that it lost one of its biggest phone cards – Final Fantasy characters. In addition, even though it had a more diverse combat system, it lacked the density of combinations that defined Kingdom Hearts 2. It got worse by the fact that the vast majority of its story only occurs at the end, which made everything else feel like a hit to get to the keyblade grave.
Resident Evil 5
Co-op is just not so scary
Resident Evil can be mostly defined by its inconsistency. Very rarely the games remain the same, usually you try to change the formula dramatically after two games. After Resident Evil 3, the series was in need of a resume, and it came in Resident Evil 4's over shaft and a more action movie feeling.
Resident Evil 5 reintroduced Chris and decided to try to go back to fear more. At the same time as they retain the basics of the Re4 action struggle. And add co-op. It is a bit of a dissonance and one that is a service to the game. Although it is great fun to find here, especially in co-op, the lack of a coherent vision makes very much that the game feels less than what came before and after.
Mirror catalyst
Too much battle, not enough parkour
Mirror's Edge is a one-of-a-Kind game. There really is nothing else like that. The sharp art direction with bright color splashes really sold its gilded dystopia. Freedom of movement is what made the game so iconic, with well -designed levels that gave rise to a speedrunner's dream and movement that rewarded the knowledge of its boundaries.
And that's why Catalyst feels so smaller. It is a prequel and falls into the open world to try to offer more for it. Mirror's Edge distinguished himself because of how well designed its levels were. You received a specific challenge that you could overcome with skilled movement. In an open world, it becomes more a sandbox for tricks than a navigation puzzle you have to overcome. They also added even more battle, which was not good.
Silent Hill 4: Room
Good idea, intermediate design
Let's get this out of the way immediately. While it is often left unmanned when talking about the original set of Silent Hill games, Silent Hill 4: The Room, is a truly inventive game and actually quite good! Its question is that it came from the back of three games that had so much time to refine its game ideas and expand into deeper stories.
The room is divided between the first person's sections in the title room and the third person's sections in the second world. The room itself is a success for the game and presents a wonderful claustrophobic environment that is constantly evolving, but never really feels safe. The third person's sections, although initially, only become boring when you have to trap back through all of them.
Bayonetta 3
Man, it was certainly a story
The original Bayonetta is announced as one of the biggest character games available. It is the sequel is a refinement of it, which creates a much more beautiful world but also plays quite safe. Bayonetta 3 knobs in a completely different direction. It took bold steps to change things in dramatic ways. Some of these changes were pretty good. Others, not so much.
But unfortunately, none of these reason is that Bayonetta 3 feels so smaller compared to its predecessor. While stories are hardly the reason why people come to these games, the characters are. And unfortunately, the story of Bayonetta 3 feels like a storage against Bayonetta's character. Somehow is the fact that most of the story is simply not told, instead revealed to you after the story has already reached its conclusion. It's bizarre.
Spider-Man 2
Sometimes more is really less
We are now in a time of game development where even the simplest sequels cost an insurmountable amount of money and take five or more years to release. And since ideas have to be locked up so early, it doesn't give much rotary room to adapt to feedback. And so goes into Marvel's Spider-Man 2, one of the earliest PS5 exclusive substances.
The original Marvel's Spider-Man was great. No groundbreaking, but a cordial story with strong battle and some of the strongest web swinging in any Spider-Man game. Spider-Man 2 was more of it. And that's it. Years of development, $ 100 million, and it somehow felt less innovative than Miles Morales Spin-Off's games.
Dragon Age: Veilguard
You can really feel these live service roots
Oh man. It's easy to broken on Veilguard as there really are a lot of basic problems with the game. It is a very beautiful game with a strong art direction and surprisingly good optimization despite its messy development. But it is also by far the most incoherent written Dragon Age game, with the nature of one note that gets minimal development and a detailed Lore that goes over to motivate the story.
Veilguard has his brilliant moments. The battle can be quite funny, and some of the character moments are really good. But searching for greatness in Veilguard is like finding a needle in a haystack. Bioware's former pedigree in character writing was just as good as the writers as it used, and shooting these writers clearly left the writing for these special characters in shambles.
