Good Endings ruined by Sequels

I know there are far better examples than this but this topic came into my head when I was randomly thinking about Sonic Adventure 2. It was a pretty good game when as I remember and had a pretty interesting story. During the end Shadow, introduced in that game, and Sonic save the world by doing a special ability but in the process Shadow apparently dies. The characters then reminise, badly I admit, about Shadow's purpose in life among other things. Well as we know Sega not one to ruin a chance to exploit new Sonic characters made a bad game featuring him and also included him in a lot of bad games with Sonic in it.

Any media will do for this topic. It doesn't have to be a video game.

Gears of war 2. Just scrubbed all the hard work you did in 1. Only explanation is "Yeah it didn't work. I dunno, they musta been somewhere else".

The good ending of FFX was ruined by the after-credits sequence in FFX, but it was ruined more by FFX-2.

A lot of endings threads cropping up recently. But anywhoo:

Mass Effect 3, only because your ending choice during Mass Effect 2 then turns out to mean absolutely nothing. At all. There's maybe the odd divergence of dialogue depending on what you chose, but that's it. Even the choices during the ending of Mass Effect 1 then taken into Mass Effect 2 had more impact.

Brought up by @AndrewB fairly recently, which I agree to, is Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of A New World because it carries forth the ''Zelos surviving'' plot as canon.

Err, oh wow any media? I suppose the first film that comes to mind is REC 2 perhaps. That entire movie in general takes the series into the kind of direction I'm not particularly interested in following; I know it alluded to the religious aspects during the ending of the first, but I admittedly shrugged that off and just pretended it was some 'twist' to add a little intrigue. Plus it was massively inferior to the original at that.

Terminator 3 is another one. But I suppose I'm more peeved with how it actually just rehashed the entire second movie all over, just now with more comedy.

Alien 3 ruined the ending of Aliens for me. In the first ten minutes the entire latter half of Aliens is negated because the struggle to make it out alive with Newt and the corporal ends with them dying in stasis. Great.

@Veektarius said:

The good ending of FFX was ruined by the after-credits sequence in FFX, but it was ruined more by FFX-2.

That's a good one. I really love the combat system of FFX-2, but that story was a story that did not need to be told.

In the same vein, FF7. A lot of the sequel stuff is fun, but story-wise they really undermine the entire original FF7 experience.

MGS4 as well, for the heavy amount of retcons to the end of MGS2. Especially the things they did to Raiden; none of it made much sense. Though MGS2 kinda ruins MGS1 with the inclusion of "Liquid's arm".

@Yummylee said:

Brought up by @AndrewB fairly recently, which I agree to, is Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of A New World because it carries forth the ''Zelos surviving'' plot as canon.

And they further shaft Kratos by him being one of only two returning voice actors, yet he's apparently the only returning character to not be playable.

I can't say that the game sucks because I've never played it. It just seems like one of those sequels that shouldn't have been made or seen as canon because it didn't need to exist. Sort of like Golden Sun: Dark Dawn. The Golden Sun plot wrapped up just fine. Except where Dawn of the New World retconns what I consider to be the canon plotline, I can't really speak for Dark Dawn because I know next to nothing about where the plot goes from there.

@AndrewB said:

@Yummylee said:

Brought up by @AndrewB fairly recently, which I agree to, is Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of A New World because it carries forth the ''Zelos surviving'' plot as canon.

And they further shaft Kratos by him being one of only two returning voice actors, yet he's apparently the only returning character to not be playable.

I can't say that the game sucks because I've never played it. It just seems like one of those sequels that shouldn't have been made or seen as canon because it didn't need to exist. Sort of like Golden Sun: Dark Dawn. The Golden Sun plot wrapped up just fine. Except where Dawn of the New World retconns what I consider to be the canon plotline, I can't really speak for Dark Dawn because I know next to nothing about where the plot goes from there.

I also haven't played it nor do i have any desire to, and that's one such reason why. Kratos was my main man during the first half, then I played as Zelos because... well, he basically is Kratos as far as the battle system goes. But then of course Kratos finally returns to me complete with a new kickass angelic outfit of his <3 It was disappointing that he had only those two costumes, though, when everyone is dressing up as pirates and in swimming gear and such.

Anywhoo Dawn of a New World is essentially the equivalent of a direct-to-DVD sequel to a big theatrical release. It's there, and it's technically canon, but nobody pays it any attention and everybody goes along as it never existed.

Bioshock 2 is a good example.

I found the whole Sophia Lamb thing super weird. It completely broke the narrative to for me; here is this super influential woman who was never mentioned in one, but here are tapes of her debating Andrew Ryan.

@ShadowConqueror: i loved it.did it suck they died?yeah.it did. but it made the movie so much more depressing. thats why i love alien 3. its so fucking dark and sad. ripley goes from being this suprme badass to this frightend and tired woman,just trying to survive.but the ending does leave some hope. then alin 4 came around and fucked it all up.

@ShadowConqueror said:

Alien 3 ruined the ending of Aliens for me. In the first ten minutes the entire latter half of Aliens is negated because the struggle to make it out alive with Newt and the corporal ends with them dying in stasis. Great.

As someone who disliked Aliens, I loved this opening! Got rid of all the characters I fucking hated from Aliens, and the only one that I did like got a great send off later on. But then again, I really disliked Aliens with a passion, and seeing the characterless hicks and the stupid, annoying, unbelievable newt get picked off was super satisfying, and got me a far more depressing tone for Alien 3, which I like. I can't tell if I like Aliens or Alien Resurrection less, though. That's how much I dislike resurrection.

@AndrewB said:

@Yummylee said:

Brought up by @AndrewB fairly recently, which I agree to, is Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of A New World because it carries forth the ''Zelos surviving'' plot as canon.

And they further shaft Kratos by him being one of only two returning voice actors, yet he's apparently the only returning character to not be playable.

I can't say that the game sucks because I've never played it. It just seems like one of those sequels that shouldn't have been made or seen as canon because it didn't need to exist. Sort of like Golden Sun: Dark Dawn. The Golden Sun plot wrapped up just fine. Except where Dawn of the New World retconns what I consider to be the canon plotline, I can't really speak for Dark Dawn because I know next to nothing about where the plot goes from there.

Actually Golden Sun the lighthouse chronicles did end with a cliffhanger with Alex still alive and what not. Also, I just played through Dark Dawn and it was pretty damn awesome to see how fucked up the world became because of 8 kids and a old man!

I'd go with Final Fantasy VII. How do you follow up an ambiguous ending like that? With unambiguous sequels, of course!

@Tylea002 said:

@ShadowConqueror said:

Alien 3 ruined the ending of Aliens for me. In the first ten minutes the entire latter half of Aliens is negated because the struggle to make it out alive with Newt and the corporal ends with them dying in stasis. Great.

As someone who disliked Aliens, I loved this opening! Got rid of all the characters I fucking hated from Aliens, and the only one that I did like got a great send off later on. But then again, I really disliked Aliens with a passion, and seeing the characterless hicks and the stupid, annoying, unbelievable newt get picked off was super satisfying, and got me a far more depressing tone for Alien 3, which I like. I can't tell if I like Aliens or Alien Resurrection less, though. That's how much I dislike resurrection.

I'm dumbfounded. Opinions and all, and you're entitled to your own, but I've never heard anyone outright hate Aliens like that. Could you elaborate more on how Hicks was characterless and Newt stupid and annoying? As far as little girls in media goes, she seems the furthest thing from annoying.

Anyway, I can't think of anything at the moment, though I could probably come up with something if I thought about it a lot.

@ShadowConqueror said:

Alien 3 ruined the ending of Aliens for me. In the first ten minutes the entire latter half of Aliens is negated because the struggle to make it out alive with Newt and the corporal ends with them dying in stasis. Great.

This was my EXACT thought! It's like "Oh, thank GOD they survived the horror of Aliens, because otherwise they wouldn't...have had the chance to die in stasis...awesome.

God of War 3 immediately springs to mind. "Hey, you're a god again, great job with that...buuuuut, we're just gonna send you BACK to Tartarus and take your powers away...again..."

Dreamfall after The Longest Journey. I thought the ending to the Longest Journey was as close to perfection as you could get.

Mass Effect 3 is the poster child for this.

I wasn't a fan of what they did in Bioshock 2 to the ending of the first Bioshock, I would rather have left that page unturned.

I can't really remember much else, Max Payne 3 maybe, Rockstar just threw away everything pretty much and only made a few references to the first two games.

Though I ended up liking the game alright, Max Payne 3 was the first one that came to mind.

@ShadowConqueror said:

Alien 3 ruined the ending of Aliens for me. In the first ten minutes the entire latter half of Aliens is negated because the struggle to make it out alive with Newt and the corporal ends with them dying in stasis. Great.

This is the correct answer.

Matrix

@Draxyle said:

@Veektarius said:

The good ending of FFX was ruined by the after-credits sequence in FFX, but it was ruined more by FFX-2.

That's a good one. I really love the combat system of FFX-2, but that story was a story that did not need to be told.

While I am totally fine with you guys having that opinion of X-2, I just want to point out how I have the wholeheartedly opposing view.

@Video_Game_King said:

I'd go with Final Fantasy VII. How do you follow up an ambiguous ending like that? With unambiguous sequels, of course!

Oh gosh, I hate Advent Children. It should not exist.

@Draxyle said:

MGS4 as well, for the heavy amount of retcons to the end of MGS2. Especially the things they did to Raiden; none of it made much sense. Though MGS2 kinda ruins MGS1 with the inclusion of "Liquid's arm".

As much as I love the MGS series, there are a lot of plot points that really suck. Liquid's Arm in 2 was pretty awful, but I got over it quickly. What I'll never get over is the further explanation given in 4. I really, really dislike what 4 did to the MGS universe. The series took place in world only slightly more supernatural than our own, and I loved that aspect of the series. In 4, they explained away the supernatural with nanomachines, and it took away a lot of the magic.

Don't have one. If I don't like a sequel, I just pretend it doesn't exist. Problem solved.

Prince of Persia Warrior Within. The gameplay was fine but tonally it ruined a lot about what I liked from Sands of Time.

@paulwade1984 said:

Gears of war 2. Just scrubbed all the hard work you did in 1. Only explanation is "Yeah it didn't work. I dunno, they musta been somewhere else".

This

@BoG said:

As much as I love the MGS series, there are a lot of plot points that really suck. Liquid's Arm in 2 was pretty awful, but I got over it quickly. What I'll never get over is the further explanation given in 4. I really, really dislike what 4 did to the MGS universe. The series took place in world only slightly more supernatural than our own, and I loved that aspect of the series. In 4, they explained away the supernatural with nanomachines, and it took away a lot of the magic.

Other than the arm thing, you still had all Psycho Mantis's stuff from MGS. His damn ghost appeared in MGS4. Ghost-ghost. And you always have The Sorrow. No nanomachines back then. I just wish Vamp was some kind of android...

@WickedFather said:

Matrix

I can't think of a better one than this.

@Draxyle said:

@Veektarius said:

The good ending of FFX was ruined by the after-credits sequence in FFX, but it was ruined more by FFX-2.

That's a good one. I really love the combat system of FFX-2, but that story was a story that did not need to be told.

In the same vein, FF7. A lot of the sequel stuff is fun, but story-wise they really undermine the entire original FF7 experience.

Came in here to post pretty much this. Though, for some reason I can forgive FFX-2 much more than the FFVII extended universe. Maybe it's because of the fantastic combat.

@Alkaiser said:

@WickedFather said:

Matrix

I can't think of a better one than this.

Yup. This and ME3. The fight scenes (most of them) and music in Reloaded and Revolutions were fucking epic, but god damn did the plot get stupid after Reloaded.

@WickedFather said:

Matrix

@LTSmash said:

@ShadowConqueror said:

Alien 3 ruined the ending of Aliens for me. In the first ten minutes the entire latter half of Aliens is negated because the struggle to make it out alive with Newt and the corporal ends with them dying in stasis. Great.

This is the correct answer.

Yes.

Does the Phantom Menace count?

@believer258 said:

@Tylea002 said:

@ShadowConqueror said:

Alien 3 ruined the ending of Aliens for me. In the first ten minutes the entire latter half of Aliens is negated because the struggle to make it out alive with Newt and the corporal ends with them dying in stasis. Great.

As someone who disliked Aliens, I loved this opening! Got rid of all the characters I fucking hated from Aliens, and the only one that I did like got a great send off later on. But then again, I really disliked Aliens with a passion, and seeing the characterless hicks and the stupid, annoying, unbelievable newt get picked off was super satisfying, and got me a far more depressing tone for Alien 3, which I like. I can't tell if I like Aliens or Alien Resurrection less, though. That's how much I dislike resurrection.

I'm dumbfounded. Opinions and all, and you're entitled to your own, but I've never heard anyone outright hate Aliens like that. Could you elaborate more on how Hicks was characterless and Newt stupid and annoying? As far as little girls in media goes, she seems the furthest thing from annoying.

Anyway, I can't think of anything at the moment, though I could probably come up with something if I thought about it a lot.

@Tylea002@believer258

I despised Newt not because of the character, but because of that ear grating, cacophonous, unwavering scream and cringe-worthy dialog delivery. And Resurrection was garbage. Hicks I have no problem with though. That was a serious wtf moment when I saw it for the first time.

On a semi-related note, I hated Avatar so much, it made me like Aliens less. Still up there though, after Alien obviously. But... just... gah... Dances With Smurfs. Such pandering to a specific, trendy political message strictly for ticket sales. And then the DVD/BR release on Earth Day? Beat me over the head with your allegories more, Mr. Cameron, I'm not understanding the message yet DURRHURR.

Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker

@FengShuiGod: I would say that whole trilogy counts.

I despise Valkyrie Profile 2 for this very reason. The game starts as a prequel to the original game, set in the distant past, but a necromancer from the first game fucks with the timeline, and in the process negates the events of the first game from ever coming to pass. As someone that deeply enjoyed the true ending of Valkyrie Profile, I have never been more disappointed by a sequel to anything.

@Grimhild said:

@believer258 said:

@Tylea002 said:

@ShadowConqueror said:

Alien 3 ruined the ending of Aliens for me. In the first ten minutes the entire latter half of Aliens is negated because the struggle to make it out alive with Newt and the corporal ends with them dying in stasis. Great.

As someone who disliked Aliens, I loved this opening! Got rid of all the characters I fucking hated from Aliens, and the only one that I did like got a great send off later on. But then again, I really disliked Aliens with a passion, and seeing the characterless hicks and the stupid, annoying, unbelievable newt get picked off was super satisfying, and got me a far more depressing tone for Alien 3, which I like. I can't tell if I like Aliens or Alien Resurrection less, though. That's how much I dislike resurrection.

I'm dumbfounded. Opinions and all, and you're entitled to your own, but I've never heard anyone outright hate Aliens like that. Could you elaborate more on how Hicks was characterless and Newt stupid and annoying? As far as little girls in media goes, she seems the furthest thing from annoying.

Anyway, I can't think of anything at the moment, though I could probably come up with something if I thought about it a lot.

@Tylea002@believer258

I despised Newt not because of the character, but because of that ear grating, cacophonous, unwavering scream and cringe-worthy dialog delivery. And Resurrection was garbage. Hicks I have no problem with though. That was a serious wtf moment when I saw it for the first time.

On a semi-related note, I hated Avatar so much, it made me like Aliens less. Still up there though, after Alien obviously. But... just... gah... Dances With Smurfs. Such pandering to a specific, trendy political message strictly for ticket sales. And then the DVD/BR release on Earth Day? Beat me over the head with your allegories more, Mr. Cameron, I'm not understanding the message yet DURRHURR.

I didn't particularly care for Aliens, either. Yes, the space marines are supposed to be meatheaded braggarts, but I couldn't stand them. Not even their inevitable deaths eased that feeling. I mean, yeah, they die horrible, but they also ruined every scene that they were in.

Wauw there are a few people on this forum I don't like, just because their opinions are stupid as fuck.

Most of you guys/gals are cool though, except for the two morons I have in mind.

@believer258 said:

@Tylea002 said:

@ShadowConqueror said:

Alien 3 ruined the ending of Aliens for me. In the first ten minutes the entire latter half of Aliens is negated because the struggle to make it out alive with Newt and the corporal ends with them dying in stasis. Great.

As someone who disliked Aliens, I loved this opening! Got rid of all the characters I fucking hated from Aliens, and the only one that I did like got a great send off later on. But then again, I really disliked Aliens with a passion, and seeing the characterless hicks and the stupid, annoying, unbelievable newt get picked off was super satisfying, and got me a far more depressing tone for Alien 3, which I like. I can't tell if I like Aliens or Alien Resurrection less, though. That's how much I dislike resurrection.

I'm dumbfounded. Opinions and all, and you're entitled to your own, but I've never heard anyone outright hate Aliens like that. Could you elaborate more on how Hicks was characterless and Newt stupid and annoying? As far as little girls in media goes, she seems the furthest thing from annoying.

Anyway, I can't think of anything at the moment, though I could probably come up with something if I thought about it a lot.

I CAN! Also, it's worth pointing out that you can't hate films simply because they're bad, there has to be something to get you passionate. Sometimes, as with Kick-Ass, it's the butchering of the source material, and with Aliens it's a combination of shitting on the original and the unbridled love, which completely dumbfounds me. There are worse films, no doubt, but that's why I get passionate with my dislike of Aliens and not say with a GI Joe, because whilst that is awful, I just don't give a fuck.

Newt was annoying as fuck, in terms of the fact that all she did was scream for Ripley. This is a fine and believable character trait for a little girl - if your character hasn't survived on their own already. She screams so often and gets caught so much that it undermines the believability of her ability to evade the Aliens in the first place, and that's my big reason for why Newt sucks, she's a walking contradiction, a horrible mishandling of the old film making adage "Show, don't tell." Hicks, on the other hand, is just bland as hell. He's so super super bland. None of the characters in the original were bland, even those that had few lines, you could tell thought had been put in by the actors into making it believable, but it felt as if no such thought was put into Aliens, save for maybe Bishop.

I didn't care for any of them how I cared for Clemens in 3.

So that's a brief summary of just a few reasons why I don't like Aliens, and why I seem to hate it so much :P.

I think Metal Gear Solid 4 ruined some of the earlier games, particularly 2 with how much revisioning they did.

ME3, enough said.

The Force Unleashed 2 fucked everything up pretty good.

@ShadowConqueror said:

Alien 3 ruined the ending of Aliens for me. In the first ten minutes the entire latter half of Aliens is negated because the struggle to make it out alive with Newt and the corporal ends with them dying in stasis. Great.

I will never forgive them for this. I don't care if the producers/director wanted to get back to the horror aspects of the original. The way they tossed those two characters out like trash was callous.

@Crixaliz: I agree 100%. I still enjoyed the game though.

@BoG said:

@Video_Game_King said:

I'd go with Final Fantasy VII. How do you follow up an ambiguous ending like that? With unambiguous sequels, of course!

Oh gosh, I hate Advent Children. It should not exist.

Advent Children has some of the best fight scenes in media history. For that reason alone it should exist. I do agree though that the story was bullshit.

@ShadowConqueror said:

Alien 3 ruined the ending of Aliens for me. In the first ten minutes the entire latter half of Aliens is negated because the struggle to make it out alive with Newt and the corporal ends with them dying in stasis. Great.

I know what you mean, but that's why it's such a shocking thing that they're dead.

Men in Black 2 pretty much ruined MIB 1 cause they felt the need to bring Tommy Lee back, which was jsut stupid and...oh video games?

While I would never say it ruined anything, I didn't like that they brought Glados back in Portal 2. It was such a cool fight to destroy her in 1 and then just to be like "Oh well, nope. You just need to flick some switches to bring her back, sorry" was kinda lame. Then again Portal 2 without Galdos might have been pretty lame as well and......I don't know what I want

@Draxyle said:

@Veektarius said:

The good ending of FFX was ruined by the after-credits sequence in FFX, but it was ruined more by FFX-2.

That's a good one. I really love the combat system of FFX-2, but that story was a story that did not need to be told.

In the same vein, FF7. A lot of the sequel stuff is fun, but story-wise they really undermine the entire original FF7 experience.

MGS4 as well, for the heavy amount of retcons to the end of MGS2. Especially the things they did to Raiden; none of it made much sense. Though MGS2 kinda ruins MGS1 with the inclusion of "Liquid's arm".

I think it was MGS3 that led to all the MGS2 stuff becoming retconned in MGS4. There was a big struggle in that game trying to link the characters and events of MGS3 (and to a lesser extent Portable Ops) to the rest of the series and I think the game suffered because of it.

The game would have had less to address if it was the direct follow up to MGS2 and MGS3 hadn't happened.

@samcroft90: But then we'd be out MGS3 which is, for my money the best one.

@BoG: I had forgotten about how overused the nanomachines were as a plot device but damn if you aren't right. At times it was kinda like they were going down a FAQ of plot holes/questions/mysteries and just answering "Nanomachines" to everyone. MSG4 is weird in a way because despite all of its flaws, I had a blast playing & watching it. That thing was a fucking ride. Though, it was also my first PS3 game so maybe that made me a bit biased.

@ShadowConqueror This was my answer. That was the film equivalent of someone just flipping you off in the first 15 minutes. I never saw Alien 3 until DVD and was unaware that happened. Nearly pulled the disc out right then.

@Dixavd: To be specific, I wanted Tidus to stay dead.

@Draxyle said:

@Veektarius said:

The good ending of FFX was ruined by the after-credits sequence in FFX, but it was ruined more by FFX-2.

That's a good one. I really love the combat system of FFX-2, but that story was a story that did not need to be told.

While I am totally fine with you guys having that opinion of X-2, I just want to point out how I have the wholeheartedly opposing view.

The Metal Gear Solid franchise, Mass Effect 3 making Mass Effect 2 seem meaningless in the continuity, and Prometheus having sequesland franchise ties.