Do bad (or at least worse) sequels sour your admiration to the -

previous installment? I hate when I can't add all that I want to the title, whatever though. Anyways, I just mean for games, not books or film. My example, and for me personally, I think it does just a little bit. The one series that springs to mind most is Ninja Gaiden, I love the original Xbox Ninja Gaiden, but three? Fuck no. I think the sequel was kind of a letdown as well. Now, when it comes to three, I haven't played it, and I don't plan to, so some may say I shouldn't be passing judgment, but still, I can feel this way anyways.

It would have been nice if they had just kept the same stuff that was going on in the first, but improve on it, which I don't believe the sequels even attempted. It's not exactly the first game that I dislike any less, that's impossible I think, but it really hurts the series as a whole for me. The reason this topic springs to mind is because I thought back to the soundtrack, and now I'm listening to it. Anyways, what about you? Are there any series that you feel started out great and then got a raw deal in the end, and for it, it hurts the series reputation even if just a little, for you?

Can't say as they do. Great games stand on their own.

@upwarDBound said:

Can't say as they do. Great games stand on their own.

Exactly.

I think you have to take each game as a separate entity. I thought devil may cry 2 was horrible but I still played the third one which is the best of the series in my opinion.

@upwarDBound: That's very true I guess. I just think it's kind of sad that such a great series went down hill.

Nope, I hated Dragon Age 2 but I still rank Dragon Age: Origins as one of my favorite RPGs I've ever played.

No, NG Black is still the best game ever. No pile of shit released this year can change that.

No, however, I do have a friend who says he will never recommend ANY Mass Effect game purely on the fact he didn't like the ending of the third. I think all the hype of everyone crying blasphemy when it came out got to him. ME used to be his favorite series. I find this to be pretty petty.

@EmuLeader said:

No, however, I do have a friend who says he will never recommend ANY Mass Effect game purely on the fact he didn't like the ending of the third. I think all the hype of everyone crying blasphemy when it came out got to him. ME used to be his favorite series. I find this to be pretty petty.

I kind of get it in that case. Mass Effect 2's quality partially hinged on the expectation that ME3 would make good on some things. I don't take his position (ME3 was one of my 3 most emotional gaming experiences, pants-on-head-retarded ending or not), but there is a tangible relationship between those games that makes the value of one more important to the others. For example, I would probably have enjoyed Mass Effect 3 more if ME1 had been better, because I would have played through the whole series at once. Playing ME1 was hard enough the first time, so that didn't happen.

Anyway, in my case I wish that there weren't any sequels to Myst. No this is not rational, but there it is.

@xobballox said:

Nope, I hated Dragon Age 2 but I still rank Dragon Age: Origins as one of my favorite RPGs I've ever played.

This is a better example than the one I came into the thread with.

I haven't ran into this. If anything it makes me appreciate the first one a lot more. Two that stand out are Dragon Age 2 and Bioshock 2. I remember rushing to the end of Dragon Age 2 during the final act just so I could go back and replay the first one. Same thing with Bioshock 2. I didn't even finish that one. I stopped playing and swapped the disc for the original.

I will say though that sub-par sequels can definitely sour my opinion of the future installments in the series. Dragon Age 2 did that. I'm skipping DA3 unless I see some major changes. The ridiculous full mat ads on Fight Night Champion is keeping me from buying more of that series as well.

@SockemJetpack: You should go back to it. The ending of Bioshock 2 is pretty great despite the weak first two thirds.

@dopplerganger said:

I think you have to take each game as a separate entity. I thought devil may cry 2 was horrible but I still played the third one which is the best of the series in my opinion.

This is harder to do for some series. If a series has many games in it and they are all similar, it's useless to debate which is the best and worst since generally nobody would choose one of them specifically without intending to play the rest at some point.

This also means that the bad games in the series actually do detract from the others in my opinion. If you played DMC 1 and 3 and liked them, of course you're going to play 2. In that way, DMC2 is an inseparable part of 1 and 3. and thus, if it is a terrible game, this actually makes 1 and 3 worse.

No, but I often find that despite my intentions I never return to the first game. I have a weird OCD number supremacy issue that makes me want to play the latest game regardless of quality or even if I've played the others. (I'm playing 1 but I could be playing 3.)