Welcome to Coffee Talk! Let’s start off the day by discussing whatever is on your (nerd chic) mind. Every morning I’ll kick off a discussion and I’m counting on you to participate in it. If you’re not feelin’ my topic, feel free to start a chat with your fellow readers and see where it takes you. Whether you’re talking about videogames, Britney Spears’ new video, compilation, or your favorite Bangle, Coffee Talk is the place to do it.
I recently finished The 3rd Birthday for a Machinima review. As a big fan of the first Parasaite Eve for PlayStation, I was really looking forward to the third game starring Aya Brea. While The 3rd Birthday isn’t bad by any means, I’m terribly disappointed in the game (aside from its ridiculously beautiful graphics). On paper, it should be one of the best PlayStation games ever made. Instead, it’s “only” good.
The 3rd Birthday has an interesting history to draw from, but the game mostly ignore its two predecessors. The lead character is the same and a few minor details from the previous games are mentioned, but that’s about it. The game was directed by Hajime Tabata (director of Crisis Core) and written by Motomu Toriyama (event director of Final Fantasy X), with art from the brilliant Tetsuya Nomura. Aside from the stellar art, the game is pretty average. How could such an excellent team produce a game that’s just decent?!?
*sigh* Today I’m looking for people to hang out in the bitter barn with me. What are some of the most disappointing videogame sequels you’ve played? Why were they so disappointing? I’ll play some music by The Smiths for this miserable edition of Coffee Talk.
Megaman: Battle Network 5. Pokemon (anything past Johto). Sonic the Hedgehog (PS3, Xbox 360). Just to name a few.
Dude, Pokemon Diamond/Pearl is fantastic. The changes made to the battle system really took competitive battling to new levels.
I really don't like any of the Pokemon games past Johto. About at Hoenn, the series got a bit too repetitive for me, and the pokemon designs just got weirder and weirder as the series progressed (some are just downright creepy). For example, look at Black and White. You know what I mean.
What changes were made to the battle system?
Attack and defense were split into "special" and "physical". This was a huge change that required way different thinking, strategies, breeding, etc. It made combat much deeper and more interesting.
From what I understand, Defense has always been split into special and physical, and Attack got split either in Johto or Hoenn. I don't remember any stat changes in Diamond/Pearl.
You're not quite getting the change in mechanics. Here's a lengthy explanation from Serebii:
http://www.serebii.net/diamondpearl/battlechange….
Okay, I get that; not that there are new stats, but that the way moves are categorized. I never really paid much attention to that, but I understand how it works.
KotOR II : The story was never finished. There's a group of modders working to complete the PC version of the game. Need I say more?
Fallout: New Vegas: This game is a buggy, glichfest. Damn Obsidian is always getting my hopes up with good ideas and then dashing them with poor execution!!!
Final Fantasy X-2: This game was obviously aimed at the "grrrl power" movement or something, cause it wasn't for me. Singing Yuna, Dresspheres, and Rikku inexplicably wearing a scarf w/ a bikini top…..blah…..
X-2 did get kind of silly, but man that was a helluva ending.
IF you were willing to put up with the 200 hours of crap it took to get there……
Are you guys talking about Final Fantasy X-2 or XIII?
-M
X-2. XIII was different, (and certainly not my favorite in the series) but not horrible. Nor is it a proper sequel.
I keep telling myself that the scarf was some character designer's "idea" of how to explain how she could run around half naked and not freeze to death on the Mt. Gagazet levels.
http://www.creativeuncut.com/gallery-01/ff10-2-ri…
The scarf was obviously there to cover all her hickies.
Fallout New Vegas is one of my Khan's!
I played through X-2, but I missed one part of one quest and ended up just short of the 100% needed for the good ending… it was not good enough to go through a second time, even with new game plus. It wasn't bad, as I enjoyed the battlesystem and the different jobs (I refuse to refer to them as outfits or costumes), but overall… it was very pop when X wasn't. Yuna's transition from Summoner Supreme to Lady YuYu was really out there.
The Star Fox sequels on gamecube were disappointing, the N64 portion of that series is the pinnacle in my eyes. Most sequels seem to satisfy me for the most part in some way or another.
@Lunias
I didn't like the 3rd gen. for the longest time, not because it isn't good but because I was mad about not being able to trade pokemon up from 2nd gen. They are all great games though, you should really try out the 5th gen. and see how great the games are if you liked them in the past.
I cannot wait for Starfox on the 3DS.
Yeah that should be a really fun experience, I love that game on N64 and I really liked the DS version. I do wish that they would be making a new iteration of that game for the 3DS instead of a remake of the N64 version.
That was my favorite 3DS game at E3 2010. It seems perfect for the platform.
I'm waiting for it to drop before I buy one. Unless Snake Eater comes out before it.
Surprisingly, I SO don't give a crap about the 3DS. Part of it is that my iPad 2 is magical and part of it is that I hate dealing with a certain person at Nintendo PR. Thankfully, there's nothing too interesting on the platform yet.
Yeah the iPad is a great portable game device.
I tried out SSFIV for the 3DS, and I wasn't really blown away. Why make a system so that the main feature isn't required? They should make some games that need 3D to be used to showcase the system. As of right now, it has nothing particularly interesting except the AR.
@BSU:
You mean Black and White versions? I dunno about that; I kinda lost faith since Hoenn, and I love that they did Gold and Silver remakes. However, I don't really understand something; why don't they remake Yellow or Crystal versions? Those were my personal favorites! Except that my Crystal was so buggy it wouldn't save…
I got Leaf Green and Fire Red, but for some reason my game bugged up; not only can I not trade my pokemon to anything, but I can't fight the Elite Four!
PS: Has anybody else heard about the MIT's hack of a giant 3DS card?
http://www.pcworld.com/article/224297/giant_ninte…
@Lunias
I'm not sure why they never released a third version when they did remakes, other than I think the original intent of the third installment was always to enhance something in the gameplay and when they were doing a remake they were already adding in all of the enhancements into the standard two games they were remaking.
That's too bad you had that streak of bad luck with buggy games, I've never really had a problem like that in mine. Definitely is discouraging I'm sure.
I was really disinterested in the Hoehn region at first for some of the same reasons you mentioned. I skipped that generation and then got into it again when Diamond/Pearl were released. I haven't been let down since then. Like Ray mentioned above, the battling system is much more complex now, and especially in Black/White versions there is a great story and I thought it was a really fun playthrough. There is so much more to do in those games story wise that there hasn't been in a Pokemon game before that I think you could really enjoy them.
ps- that giant AR card looked pretty cool, it's a shame the school took it down.
Thanks to the internet, I don't play any bad sequels. Muah, ha, ha, ha, ha!
Oh, wait- Gabriel Knight 3: Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned. The second one was a “point-and-click” interactive movie/game that was so ridiculously bad that it was fun to play. The third one just tried to hard to be an actual game and failed. Plus, it did away with the live-action actors that made the second game so hilariously entertaining.
Also, (I'm probably going to take some heat for this) Super Mario Galaxy. I enjoyed Mario 64 more than I did Mario Galaxy. I don't know why. Maybe because it was the first "3D" platform game I ever played or maybe because I was younger and more easily entertained. I played through that game dozens of times. I got all 120 stars more than once and found Yoshi on the roof. It was a blast to go through some of the levels and just screw around. When I got Mario Galaxy, I played through it once, beat the game, got all the extra stars (minus one) and then put it down and never touched it again. It was a pretty forgetful game for me. It felt like Mario 64 but with better graphics and a worse controller. Also, the camera system seemed worse since it was more disoriented (and you had less control over it) than it was in Mario 64.
Oh, and now that I think about it; the Metroid Prime Series. The first one was awesome. The second one was "meh" and pretty much more of the same with the whole "light/dark" gimmick. The third one was almost completely forgettable to me, aside from a few features.
Lastly; Halo 3 should have been better. I'll give credit to Bungie for trying very hard to tie up all the loose ends they created from the "bit-off-more-than-you-can-chew" Halo 2. The problem is when the poop's out of the rectum, you can't clean up the mess by shoving it back in, if you know what I mean.
-M
I'm thinking that your tastes just changed. Most longtime Mario fans I know love Galaxy. As you said, perhaps you just grew out of it.
Riddick: Dark Athena. Butcher Bay was great so I expected the sequel to be right there with it. Very disappointing.
All Devil May Cry games beyond the original. Perhaps they just couldn't replicate how awesome the first was. I was pretty disappointed at metrosexual Dante as well.
Gran Turismo 5.
Super Mario Sunshine.
Devil May Cry series is kinda funny to me, as I always get all excited when a new one is announced an always feel let down after I play it. You'd think I'd have stopped that after the first one didn't do a whole lot for me.
See I thought the first one was fun as hell for the most part. The boss battles is what did it for me.
Oddly enough I find myself very disinterested in those types of high action, no story games.
Stay away from Bayonetta, then.
-M
I tried it. Thought it was neat but it couldn't keep my interest.
Disappointing Sequels –
Sly Cooper 3 – I think Sucker Punch really kind of lost it on this one. They tried to put to many friends with too many combos of people doing missions, and left the "Sly doing his thing" motif behind. Some of it was entertaining, but I have yet to finish it.. which is kind of disappointing.
I commented on Fallout New Vegas already. Screw Obsidian. Hard. With a spoon. So it hurts more.
Did you play inFamous? Did you notice how all the characters still move like Sly Cooper with a different coat of paint? All I could see when playing it was a blue raccoon shooting lightning….
@Smartguy
Perhaps you have already watched this documentary, but I just finished watching The One Percent on Netflix. It was pretty interesting to hear so many wealthy people talk about wealth and taxes, etc. I haven't seen many other documentaries or interviews that talked to so many wealthy people, or had the same angle as this film. If you haven't seen it yet I think you might enjoy it.
@BSU
I'll check that out.
For me the most recent let down was UFC 2010. I remember being extremely pissed off with the game Tao Feng: Fist of the Lotus for the original xbox.
Tao Feng huh? I need to look that up. Sounds familiar.
Btw, i'm on season 7 of x files now. That Cancer man makes me want to pick up smoking.
Lol! He smokes a lot dude! As for Tao Feng it had all the right pieces but not enough glue.
Tao Feng had one of the funniest boxes ever. It just looked flat-out stupid.
<img class="alignnone" src="http://xboxmedia.ign.com/xbox/image/object/482/482069/641078boxart_160w.jpg" alt="" width="160" height="242" />
Yep that's it. Wow I wish I didn't pay $52 for that.