What's Something a Game Did Better Than Its Sequel?

[Moonface]

Right now I'm watching BarbarousKing on Twitch playing Elden Ring, and he made a comment I found really interesting:

I think each of the Soul's games do something better than the rest of the Soul's games, rather than say Dark Souls 3 doing everything better than Dark Souls 1 or 2. For example Demon's Souls has some of the most creative boss fights across the entire game, while a lot of the boss fights in other Soul's games feel like they just copy the core concept of the Penetrator boss fight. Dark Souls 1 meanwhile I think has some of the best world design and the progression between areas is executed incredibly well in that game.

Sequels tend to be an advancement on what came before (unless they're just really bad), so I'm curious what other examples people have of something in a game that was done better than the sequels that followed it.

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Keeping in tune with world design/progression, I think the original Crash Bandicoot has the best world building over any of the other games. All the others up until Twinsanity just have level themes with no connection to each other that populate each warp room, whereas CB1 starts you off on N. Sanity Beach, travelling through the jungles and native fortresses of the first island, then the temple ruins and cliffs of the second island, and then going through the third island that gets progressively more built up with Cortex's operations until you're exclusively in levels that take place within those and all the island theming falls away.

CB2 onwards though changes from doing each level in order to just picking whatever of the five available to you to do in any order, although even if you do do them in order there's still no progression to the themes. The first warp room for example has Jungle > Snow > River > Jungle > Snowy Mountain, and unlike CB1 the river theme doesn't really tie in with the others, especially when two of the levels feature some degree of snow which doesn't fit in with any of the jungle or river themes at all.

However, I would argue CB2 has the best platforming. Crash's move set is fully realized in this game and all the moves he can do in this game remain the staple in every game going forward, but unlike CB3 there are no vehicle levels and no powerups, so every level features some amount of platforming and you can't make it easier by coming back later with a powerup, which is something CB3 suffers from.

[ShiraNoMai]

Huh, yeah that's quite an interesting point Barb made there. I agree with your Crash take, too.

There has been no Yoshi game to top the original's music compositions. Woolly came the closest, but every iteration that followed the original, with the advancement of the musical capability (moving outside chiptune/MIDI range) they have not quite captured the same vibe the originals did, and instead led heavy on the child-like instruments and melodies.

[Moonface]

There has been no Yoshi game to top the original's music compositions. Woolly came the closest, but every iteration that followed the original, with the advancement of the musical capability (moving outside chiptune/MIDI range) they have not quite captured the same vibe the originals did, and instead led heavy on the child-like instruments and melodies.

This reminds me of the Ratchet & Clank series. To me the music was at its peak on PS2, and then has slowly devolved into just generic sounding stuff that lacks the personality the OG series had. Like this is the first track heard in every game:

• Ratchet & Clank
  
• Ratchet & Clank 2
  
• Ratchet & Clank 3
  
• Ratchet: Deadlocked
  
• Ratchet & Clank: Tools of Destruction
  
• Ratchet & Clank: A Crack in Time
  
• Ratchet & Clank (PS4)
  
• Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart
  

It's not that it gets bad, but it just feels progressively more towards any other heroic sounding music an action game would have. I also think the level design got worse as the series went on too, particularly after ToD which is also to me the last time the soundtrack is somewhat okay. There's actually very little outside of gameplay mechanics that I think has really been better in recent games than it was in earlier ones.

[Kyng]

Civilization V seemed to have higher production values than its successor, Civilization VI.

In Civ 5, each civilization had its own leader screen, with a full background, and realistic-looking leader artwork (here is what the England leader screen looks like). Meanwhile, Civ 6 dropped the full backgrounds, and cartoonish-looking leader artwork (here is what that game's England leader screen looks like). Of course, "realistic vs. cartoonish" is a matter of subjective preference - but I really don't Civ 6's goofy-looking artwork fits the tone of the series very well :-/ . Cartoony artwork is great in a game that's going for a more humorous tone (such as Team Fortress 2) - but IMO it's out of place in the Civilization series.

[Moonface]

Looking at those screenshots you shared @Kyng I feel like Civ 6 looks like a mobile ad in comparison to Civ 5. It's not even because it has a cartoonish art style but more that the style just isn't even executed well; it looks like some uncanny valley stuff plucked from Polar Express.

Changing art styles is probably one of the biggest debates when it comes to the Legend of Zelda games. The backlash to Wind Waker's cel shaded style was so bad that Nintendo leaned fully into a darker realistic look for Twilight Princess, but I think it looks really bad. I think the games with a less realistic approach in the LoZ series all look better than those that don't follow that style, but I also know there are plenty who will think the realistic style is better. I wouldn't be shocked to learn LoZ has the most polarizing views when it comes to the art styles chosen for the games over the years.

[WR91]

I know I keep going back to it but the way The Walking Dead: Season One made me feel compared to all the other "seasons" of the franchise is just on a whole other level.

[Moonface]

I know I keep going back to it but the way The Walking Dead: Season One made me feel compared to all the other "seasons" of the franchise is just on a whole other level.

I wouldn't be surprised if quality went down on most of the sequels Telltale did since they kept piling on more and more projects and going for quantity over quality which ultimately contributed to their closure.

I understand that this one is largely fueled by what each game in the overall series focuses on, but I feel like Need For Speed Underground 2 did car customization better than anything that followed. They tried to recapture it with Carbon, but something about it didn't click with me even though it was more robust than Most Wanted, which came between both of those games. I feel like Underground 2 did a lot of stuff better though now I think on it, since an underground night time racing scene makes more sense for street racing than the daytime stuff Most Wanted did, and it felt more like a racing scene with how every race in both Underground games ended with a crowd cheering around the winning car at the results screen. It just felt like a more believable world in the Underground games compared to the others I played after them.