Why do we hate the third installment so much?

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

We do? MGS3, Far Cry 3, DMC3, GTA3, Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood (it's a third installment, AC3 is 5th) etc.

Sometimes third installments suck, sometimes they don't. You see that people hate third installments all the time because that's what you focus on. You can find a lot of examples of people hating second installments if you cared to.

 

[Nomanslander]

Well, trilogies are almost always made like they're one giant movie following a three part act, and the third act is almost always the hardest one to make. You're wrapping the story up, and the conclusion needs to be befitting of what they're been building up all this time. The stakes are at there highest, and the auidence is at it's most impatient.

It's always easy to screw up the third act, especially when you don't know how you want your story to end.

But then again, a lot of games and movies make decent to great third act movies.

-The Return of the King
-Return of the Jedi
-Dark Knight Rises (IT WAS STILL PRETTY GOOD!)
-Back to the Future 3

Just to name a few.

 

[sanquin]

The third instalment of a series is 'often' (and I use that word cautiously) hated because the third instalment is more often than not the worst, if it's a trilogy.

Trilogy's generally seem to go one of two ways. First way is;
First one: Awesome.
Second one: slightly better.
Third one: About the same as second one in overall goodness.

Second way is;
First one: Awesome.
Second one: Worse than the first. People already complaining a bit but real fans or new people finding it okay/good.
Third one: Once again worse than the previous. Even the real fans and new people notice how it got worse now and start to complain as well. (Though there are always people that still think it's good.)

And the second version happens quite a bit more often than the first. Companies make a great first thing that's really apart from other games in the same genre. But with the second game they want to appeal to a larger market and want to make more money off of it. So things like bad DLC's and such are added, and with the appealing to a mass market the things that made the first thing different start to disappear. But since it will still be bought by enough people, the devs become over confident and decide to dumb things down and appeal to an even larger market still. So the game becomes even worse.

On the example of mass effect. The first game was unique in it's feel, had a good story, and tried to do some things a little differently. The second game dumbed the rpg elements down, had a far more superficial story, had far more action, and just played more like a shooter. The third game pretty much threw a large part of the established universe out of the window, went even more into the shooter direction, had lost most of it's uniqueness replaced with Michael Bay-like 'epicness' and explosions and just...wasn't the same game that got the series started any more.

With all of that being said, I think you're focusing too much on the 3rd installments that are disliked/hated. There are plenty of 3rd installments that are well received as well.

 

[Nazulu]

Because many of them are terrible and just exist to make money, some of them having such crappy story's that it fucks with the whole franchise (I've never seen sequel come back after something shit). Then there's those sequels who change a lot of things from the original and that annoy's a lot of people who aren't interested in the changes.

No one hates 3rd installments in general though, it just happens that a lot turn out to be crap.

 

[Exius Xavarus]

Prince of Persia: Two Thrones
Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves
Devil May Cry 3
Guitar Hero 3
Star Ocean: Till the End of Time
Xenosaga Episode III: Also sprach Zarathustra

I dunno, I kinda like third entries, typically. I only hate a third entry if it actually is, yunno...bad.

 

[Phlakes]

Because it's cool. It was already cool to hate sequels in general, and now that we've been getting a lot of thirds this year, they've become one of the main targets of the gaming hatewagon.

Personally I'm waiting until the next gen consoles are out so we can start hating those even when they have new IPs.

EDIT: But who am I kidding, we already started a long time ago. Maybe we should save some time and hate next-next gen consoles too.

 

[Raggedstar]

I want to defend it by saying the 3rd entries aren't always the worst in a trilogy. But then I look at some of my favourite trilogies aaaaaaand...

-Jak 2 is better than Jak 3
-Sly 2 is better than Sly 3
-Spyro 2 is better than Spyro 3
-Empire Strikes Back is better than Return of the Jedi

...let's cut it short there.

But then there's others.

-Crash 3 is better than Crash 2
-Ratchet and Clank 3 is better than 2
-DMC 3 is better than DMC 2 (never played them but it's one of those things you can just TELL)
-Last Crusade is better than Temple of Doom
-Return of the King is better than Two Towers
-Assassin's Creed 2 is better than 3
-Ratchet and Clank: A Crack in Time is better than Quest for Booty (well ok, so that one was a bit unfair of a comparison)

Etc etc.

So personally it doesn't have a huge pattern to me.

 

[Blackdoom]

Typically the 3rd installment of a trilogy has to conclude the story which has been told and often times this fails to occur as the 3rd part usually has no real start to it as the start is based off of the previous one and so the plot sort of has to build up to a climax which the predecessors were building up to. Often times the climax in the 3rd installment isn't that satisfying for whatever reason such as being underwhelming compared to expected result.

 

[Mrkillhappy]

Third thing in a series being bad is coincidental I can find several that are amazing.
MGS3
Legend of Zelda Link to the Past
DMC 3
FF 3 for the snes (Though really 6)
God of War 3
Super Mario Bros 3
Resistance 3
ect...

 

[DrunkenMonkey]

They run out of the creative spark, create a world after 2 parts that is simply too hard to close up with finesse. It's a bunch of these things. I think now the public is wary of 3rd parts and may be subconsciously hating part 3s without even knowing it.

 

[Ryotknife]

goes either way. Either the third installment sucks horrendously or saves the series

DMC 3
Farcry 3
fallout 3

etc etc.

 

[The_Scrivener]

1. Inspired new idea that gains traction.
2. Polished and more budget to make original vision realized. Usually the zenith.
3. Pressure, too much money, not enough of the original spark, misguided feeling of infallibility--the break-up phase. This entry ranges anywhere from puttering-across-the-finish-line to unforgivably "what the hell happened?!" horrendous.

 

[Squilookle]

Toy Story 3, anyone?

Far Cry 3?
Back to the Future 3?
Goldfinger?
Timesplitters: Future Perfect?
GTA 3?
Star Wars and LOTR? (extended ROTK ending aside)

While there are some truly terrible 3rd editions of some things, like Mad Max, Pirates of the Carbbean, Driv3r, Matrix, Alien and so on, there are more than enough examples that throw this trend to show it's complete hogwash.

And Mission Impossible shows it's also possible to make an excellent 4th iteration, too.

 

[crimson sickle2]

The OP question is a stereotype that doesn't hold very well. It's not a matter of how third they are, it's what they do with the series. Most third installments can't rely on character development, without introducing new characters, so the characters we love get less time and sometimes feel static. The games/movies that transcend this, and become good sequels, are usually only tangentially related to prior installments, except maybe in gameplay (FF, Megaman, Mario, Metroid, Zelda, Far Cry, etc); or the game/movie moves the focus to a character already integral to the story, but not yet expanded on, accompanied with beneficial changes (DMC with Vergil, MGS with Big Boss, potentially Star Wars with Darth Vader/Emperor).

 

[mrhappy1489]

snip

Dude I'm going to have to call you on something, Bioshock 3 has yet to be released. I admit it looks, Fucking Awesome, but still, you can't put something in a list when it has actually been released. I'm jumping on the Band Wagon for this game and believe it will be great, but you cannot claim it to be a great sequel when it hasn't been released. I agree with the other things you say and thoroughly agree with the other 3rd instalments that you've put up.

 

[Sir Thomas Sean Connery]

I guess I'm the exception.

Dark Knight Rises was excellent, ME3 was great and I even like The Matrix Revolution the most out of all the Matrix movies. Not even kidding.

Although come to think of it, there are even widely accepted exceptions.

Toy Story 3, Far Cry 3, Fallout 3 and many MANY others.

 

[EHKOS]

Because the second one worked out all the kinks from the first one so the second is perfection. The third is pushing the series way to far and changing it too much. Like Jak 3. They had to finish the story (and what a story it was, holy shit) but they really changed up the formula and the game atmosphere felt different.

 

[Fijiman]

I think that that is actually only a small percentage of the time. And most of the time when it does happen it's either because the game actually sucked or we're just kind of tired of the series at that point. Although I can only imagine what the reaction will be if games like Half-Life 3 or Battlefront 3 ever get released.