Poll: Good Sequels that play entirely different then the predecessor

[babinro]

Resident Evil 4 is clearly the first game that comes to mind here. Completely different from the prior installments yet amazing even to this day.

I'd personally say Dragon Age 2 (though I consider the first better), however, people hated that game and I can understand why. I loved the combat system and found it far improved to the original. But the characters and plot were not as strong. Not to mention the obvious design mistakes of repetitive use of zones and mobs spawning over and over from nowhere.

Mass Effect 2 - Similar to Dragon Age 2 really. Better combat...worse story...better if not the same quality of characters this time around. Fewer flaws to boot.

Metroid Prime is the most perfect 2d to 3d transition of a game I've seen to date. Highly recommend Prime 1 & 3.

WarCraft 3 - Changing the focus to hero oriented game play could have been a huge failure but it paid off big time. To this day, WC3 is my favorite RTS I've ever played. (Though the level design in SC2 is far superior).

 

[fezgod]

Fallout New Vegas was a great sequel to Fallout 2, even though the gameplay was vastly different. I loved all of the little callbacks to Fallout 2: Cass, Marcus, etc.

Fallout 3 was a good game, but it wasn't really a sequel to the other games.

 

[Angelblaze]

Geneforge V....in a way.

Sure, you're still a summoner/shaper in the middle of everything but the numbers and gameplay are alot different now - there are so many more spells and paths to take its ridiculous.


To give you an example...

Geneforge - you got your first tank monster within 7 hours, with enough questing + gameplay. Crawlers? The fuck are those?
Geneforge 5 - you got your second tank monster (Crawlers) in 7, when you quest, plus you can summon at least 4 at a time at this point, if you got your int up.


The point was...Geneforge V had such larger battles and numbers (Lvl 20 in geneforge? 100 health. Lvl 20 Geneforge 5? You're god. Congrats.) and such a sleeker system that it was...frankly remarkable.

 

[Jason Rayes]

I found Darksiders 2 was quite a bit different gameplay wise from the first. Whereas the original was pretty much a straight up 3rd person action game the sequel was much more of an action RPG with experience points, random loot drops and skill trees.

 

[Neta]

Wizkid. Sequel to Wizball. I loved that game, it was so zany and fun and completely different to Wizball, which was one of my favourite games when I was little.

I don't even know how to describe it, it was so unique.

Ahh, nostalgia. It's not like it used to be.

 

[Shamanic Rhythm]

Warcraft III. The base game may have been fairly similar to its predecessors and Starcraft, but the addition of a leveling and item system gave so much extra scope for modders and custom maps. There was a huge, immensely creative custom map scene I used to be part of. Plenty of people almost never played the base game, instead you could play everything: RPGs, DOTA, tower defense, survival, arena, life sims...

Some people have mentioned Civ V. I'm honestly in two minds about that: I think the combat definitely benefited from moving on from 'stack of doom' warfare, but replacing governments with tech-trees has made your style of gameplay awfully deterministic from the get-go.

 

[Zak757]

Kid Icarus: Uprising was released on the 3DS in 2012 while the original Kid Icarus was released on NES in 1986. The original one is a side scrolling shooter that plays pretty much the same as Metroid, while the new one plays like Star Fox in the air and Serious Sam on the ground. And it's fucking fantastic, absolutely love it. Getting used to the controls takes about an hour, but it feels really intuitive once you've mastered it. Having a Nintendo game with near-constant amusing dialogue with no regard for the fourth wall is refreshing as well, Pit's my favourite Nintendo protagonist now. I have no idea where Jim pulled that 5/10 from, I'd give it a solid 8, maybe a 9.