What Makes a Good Sequel? | Semi-Ramblomatic
This week's episode of Semi-Ramblomatic is now available!
Comments (9)
I feel the issue of sequels with video games in particular is complicated with the factor that they are often both narrative and technical pieces of work, and for the second part in particular, iteration tends to be an improvement. Good video game sequels often do indeed refine what works about the original, smoothing out flaws, fixing or even removing what doesn't work and expanding on what does. Though IMO that often leads to the third game in particular being bloated from feature creep and a perceived need to be bigger and fancier.
Jak and Sly both did a weird thing where the second game was such a refinement, that the third games ended up being mainly mini-games. Jak 3 wasn't so egregious. A lot of the extra bells and whistles felt superfluous, but there was still a good balance between the core gameplay and the set-pieces. Sly 3... I mean it was still fun, but Sly 2 just had such great open hub level design, so it was a shame that the levels in 3 mostly feel like a connector bridge between a series of mini-games.
Left 4 Dead 2 remedied this conundrum of making the original obsolete by just absorbing all of the original levels, character and content to redistribute it with the refinements of the sequel.
Great essay as always!
I don't really demand a whole lot from my sequels, some of my favorite games end up being "this would be perfect if it was refined" so a sequel that's just a 1.5 version of the previous game sounds great. Even for something like a sequel to Titanfall 2, all I would want is just more Titans, maps, weapons, specials, etc. to play around with. The campaign was perfect though so I'm not sure what else they could even do with that.
It's a weird case where IMO sequels that do the Super Mario Bros 2 (the USA version) thing of being almost an entirely different game with a skin can, if the publisher responds correctly (a rare thing) be a surprisingly healthy addition to the overall series as they mix things up with different mechanics and let the devs know they can actually do different things and the audience won't riot.
If I can get away from video games for a second, nothing encapsulates this problem more than the Dune series. The first Dune is a great self-contained novel with a full arc for all the characters and a clear prediction of the terrible fate that will befall the universe because of Paul’s journey. Herbert made all the points he needed to make and Dune as a standalone novel worked perfectly. But then, Herbert wrote a thoroughly pointless sequel that rehashed all the themes and messages of the original, all to kind-of-but-not-really depict the terrible future prophesied in the first book. Even then, he could have wrapped up the series with the sequel serving as a short epilogue. Then we get to the cult of genocidal dominatrixes with magical psychic sex powers and it only gets worse from there…
Tenshun? Doesn't that come before Elevenshun?
Obligatory valve fanboy callout that Yahtzee has a steam deck