except the third one is supposed to do what the first one did, but better.
Only the first two games have a story worth anyone's time, IMO. And the second one gets neglected far too often. In many ways I preferred it to the original.
D3 did certainly try to capture D1's magic, though.
That's because Mystery was just a remake/sequel to the original. FE4 went off in some crazy gameplay directions of its own. And a lot of Gaiden mechanics ended up coming back in one way or another over the years until they finally remade it as Shadows of Valentia with the thought of just going all-in on everything that made Gaiden what it is.There's Fire Emblem, where Gaiden abandons most of what makes the series good, before Mystery returns to it.
A lot of folks dislike FFII for it's weirder systems too, which III walks back.
If this was a Mass Effect thread it should be called "The first game is a flawed masterpiece, the second game is greatest game ever crafted by human hands and the third is a crime against humanity from which it will never recover".
Just in terms of style, not quality, Halo is this for me. Halo 3 has a lot more imagery evocative of the original, but it's more refined.
Halo 1 is still way better
Sun bros go!
Technically, Resident Evil did this on a bigger scale. The first three games followed the same formula, then 4-6 took off in a weird action era, and now we're back to horror/survival oriented focus with 7, RE2make, and presumably 8.DOOM, Resident Evil, Sonic The Hedgehog all come to mindas examples of series that didn't do this.
Resistance FoT is one of my favorite shooters ever, love the gameplay and lore! The PSP 3rd person game was also very good. At the same time, I never disliked so much a sequel as Resistance 2. The singleplayer was a generic Halo/CoD inspired piece of trash that 100% butchered the story (the multiplayer was okay though). Hated that game so much that I completely ignored Resistance 3. I wonder if I should have given that game a chance...
If Nintendo doesn't see SMG as a continuation of SM64, I don't think it applies.Both 2D and 3D Mario might qualify here (latter is a bit harder to justify, though):
SMB1 -> SMB2/USA -> SMB3
SM64 -> SMS -> SMG
Mario 3D 1: Traditional platform --> Mario 3D 2: Island Waterforming --> Mario 3D 3: Traditional platform
I physically cannot articulate how wrong this is.Generation 1 Pokemon.
Everything Else.
Pokemon Let's Go.
I can explain.....
Came to post this!
Honestly, it is definitely a sight to see on PC at 4K 60FPS. A decent bit better than Bloodborne in that way, best Souls has ever looked.
Resident Evil 1/2/3 are this as well, I think.There's another noticeable trend as well: first game is the original, second game does the first again but better, third game is kind of bloated and aimless (but not necessarily bad) because the developers already blew their load on making the second game perfect.
Examples:
Mega Man X1/X2/X3
Spyro 1/2/3
Crash 1/2/3
Ninja Gaiden 1/2/3 (NES)
...guess it's just a thing that happens with platformers because those are the main examples I can think of.
Most people seen to forget that MGS2 is the fifth game in the franchise. The "weird" one is obviously Snake's Revenge.
... I'm struggling to think of a game where the sequel is what they really wanted to make, but I know I've read examples.