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Top 10 Most Improved Same Platform Sequels on a Nintendo System [top ten]
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For better or for worse, we live in an industry ruled by sequels, where taking risks on brand new IPs is becoming rare, replaced more and more often by regular iterations of established franchises. At least, this is the case on the “AAA” level, and Nintendo is certainly not excluded from this observation. However, I’m not going to get on a soapbox and rant about sequelitis; I’ll save that for another day. And the simple fact is, at the end of the day, developers wouldn’t make sequels if consumers weren’t buying them. When you truly love a game, it is hard to not want more.
Same platform sequels (sequels that appear on the same piece of hardware as the previous game) are interesting to me in the sense that they (generally) give developers a chance to focus less on making their core game engine work, and more on polishing the gameplay and adding new ideas. Because of this, you often find same platform sequels that outshine the originals in many ways. However, in most cases this results in a sequel that has refined many elements of the original, but has not really taken the franchise to the next level. That kind of leap is often reserved for a sequel on a brand new platform.
But not always. So I’ve put together a top 10 list of same (Nintendo) platform sequels that, in my opinion, did not just refine their respective franchises, but took them another step beyond, whether utilizing familiar gameplay while taking a clear leap forward, or coming up with something brand new entirely. So sorry Super Mario Galaxy 2, you’re one of my favorite sequels of all-time, but you just don’t qualify for this list. This is for same platform sequels that really made that extra effort to step up their game. I have also decided to exclude games where the originals just weren’t very good games. I’m more interested in sequels that took something already great and made it even better.
I’ll admit right now, I took a few liberties in deciding where to draw the line between refining and a true step forward, but in my opinion, these games all made a definable leap. And my opinion is law! Bow before my mighty opinion!
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10/14/13, 07:09 Edited: 10/14/13, 21:31
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Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse (NES) |
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The original NES Castlevania was a pretty good horror-themed action / platformer game, and Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest introduced uh… well, basically it introduced a lot of annoying junk that nearly breaks the game. However, Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse is the Castlevania game that, in my eyes, really showed that Castlevania was a series worth paying attention to. Various playable characters, character swapping, transformations, increased variety in weapons, branching paths, multiple endings, and some of the tightest gameplay the series had seen to date made Dracula's Curse truly stand out.
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Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest (SNES) |
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I’ve gone back and played both the original Donkey Kong Country and its sequel, Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy’s Kong Quest, many times now, and I have to admit, a part of me wonders what exactly I saw in the original at the time. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still a fun game, but it’s not really quite the spectacular game that it felt like at the time, and when you take away the awesome graphics (which haven’t aged well) and awesome music (which has), the game behind them is a fun but fairly basic platformer. Some people make this claim about the original trilogy as a whole, but I have to disagree; Diddy’s Kong Quest is still excellent to this day. It’s tough to quantify exactly what it does that the original did not, but it feels vastly more nuanced and a lot more complex. Pretty much everything good about the original comes back kicked up a notch, while a bunch of new stuff (including some awesome animal buddies like the spider) is added to the mix. And the already great soundtrack somehow managed to get even better for the sequel.
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A lot of people are going to disagree with me on this one, and those people simply love being wrong. Ok, maybe that is a bit harsh, but when I look back on things, it feels to me like getting Pikmin near the launch of the Gamecube was the equivalent of getting a sweet little appetizer before the huge and delicious main course of Pikmin 2 arrived. You can argue against the Nintendo’s decision to remove the day limit in Pikmin 2; I might disagree, but fair enough. However, what you can’t argue against is that Pikmin 2 is a much meatier game, including a new playable character, new pikmin types, 200! treasure pieces to collect (next to 30 in the original), 30 additional challenge stages that can be played either single player or co-op, and a competitive battle mode. All of this culminating in not only one of my favorite Gamecube games, but one of my most played as well.
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WarioWare: Twisted! (Game Boy Advance) |
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One of the limitations same platform sequels have is that they need to try to impress gamers in new ways using the same ol’ hardware that they already used. WarioWare: Twisted! got around this by saying fudge it, we’ll just add new hardware onto the game cartridge itself. Twisted! came with a gyroscope built into the cartridge, which allowed players to manipulate the game world by actually twisting their Game Boy Advance itself. Of course, this could have just come off as a cheap gimmick, but a pretty brilliant WarioWare game was designed around it, which included, among other things, a “boss” stage that involved keeping a man from falling over, which, through subtle manipulations, would have you holding your Game Boy Advance upside-down by the time it was over. That’s the kind of neat innovation that you don’t see in too many same platform sequels.
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I actually like the original Mega Man a lot more than most people do, at least, if you trust that our ratings here at Negative World reflect the greater Mega Man playing population in any way. However, there is simply no denying that Mega Man 2 is a superior game on every measurable level. It’s bigger, it’s better designed, it’s better balanced (except for the super cheap metal blade), the robot masters are more interesting, the power-ups are more fun to use, it controls (a bit) better, the graphics are better, and the music, my god, the music! Mega Man 2 is a perfect example of how to take a great game and make the sequel into a spectacular one not through a reinvention of the core principles, but by taking what works and just plain making it all that much better.
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Final Fantasy VI, known as Final Fantasy III in the West until subsequent rereleases that reverted it back to the original name, was the third Final Fantasy game to hit the Super Nintendo, although only the second Final Fantasy to hit the Super Nintendo in the West, the first being Final Fantasy IV, known as Final Fantasy II here. Confused yet? Final Fantasy V eventually made it over on the PlayStation and Game Boy Advance, but for the sake of this list (and also because I’ve never played it), I’m not counting it in my thoughts here. Final Fantasy IV was a great RPG, no doubt, but Final Fantasy VI is one of the defining RPGs of the SNES generation. Among the strong points of the game were a battle system where each character had a truly unique moveset, an en epic storyline with a very memorable villain and an equally memorable cast of characters, and one of the best soundtracks of the 16-bit era. Also the opera scene. Can’t forget the opera scene.
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Resident Evil 4 (Gamecube) |
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Most of the other games on this list (actually, all of them) follow the same core formula of their previous iteration and simply take things to another level. Resident Evil 4, however, was a complete redesign of the Resident Evil formula. In fact, it’s a bit disingenuous to even call it a same platform sequel, because it could be argued that Resident Evil 4 is so far from the previous Resident Evil games that it is essentially a brand new franchise. But hey, Capcom stuck a 4 in it, so it counts! And man, what a game Resident Evil 4 was. A nearly perfect blend of action and horror, and one of the few (generally) linear, single player games that has a good 20+ hours of content in the main campaign and yet never feels old, Resident Evil 4 is just continual excellence from start to finish. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy the older Resident Evil games as well, and I wouldn’t mind seeing that style return some day, but Resident Evil 4 was something on another level entirely.
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Super Mario Bros. 3 (NES) |
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I often say that Super Mario Bros. 3 is the best same platform sequel in video games, period, but I have to admit that Resident Evil 4 is pretty darn close, and it was tough to decide which one should get the top spot. However, as far as sticking to the basic formula of the previous game (I’m counting the original Super Mario Bros. as the previous game here, ignoring the West’s Super Mario Bros. 2, which wasn’t a true Mario game) and crafting a fresh and exciting new experience from it, Super Mario Bros. 3 has simply never been topped. It may not seem as impressive nowadays to younger gamers who didn’t experience the game back when it released, but the leap from the original Super Mario Bros. (or the true, previously Japan-only Super Mario Bros. 2, if you want to count that) to Super Mario Bros. 3 was unprecedented at the time. From several huge worlds to explore to tons of new items and suits to franchise defining (and unfortunately a bit overused in current Mario games) settings and enemies to excellent graphics and yes, much like Mega Man 2, a spectacular soundtrack, Super Mario Bros. 3 excelled on every level. It gets my top spot, and I feel pretty comfortable in saying that it deserves it.
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10/14/13, 07:09 Edited: 10/14/13, 21:31 |
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