Sequels that are at least debatbly better than their predecessors? (All genres and mediums)

Hassknecht said:
Edit function. Use it, Phipps.
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I bet you feel silly!

I DID IT BEFORE YOU POSTED THAT.

Black Angel said:
I will attribute the problem of him not interesting enough in the original was because they didn't adapt the topic of authentic living beings that's so heavily evoked in the book at all. The stuff with synthetic animals being a commodity in the market, and genuine living animals being a thing of rarity and the most sought-out commodity in the world depicted by the book, AND also Mercerism.... this two topics is what made Deckard an actually interesting character in the book.

Alas, the movie adaptation decided to shift the focus on the synths (Rachel, and Roy Batty and co), and so does 2049 building up upon the ground laid by its predecessor, instead of taking cues from the book (or perhaps there were elements of the book present in 2049, I need to rewatch it).
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Well, the movies are literally opposite in their points so you can't really adapt them well. The Replicants are "fake" humans in the Dick novel and meant to evoke Nazism as people who are not people. They don't possess empathy and are a bunch of Uncanny Valley people who shouldn't exist. Ridley Scott made the somewhat justifiable observation that if you have a book about Nazis, maybe the Nazis should be the people exterminating the enslaved underclass.

And once you have that happen, all the other topics fall to the wayside.

As for 2049, I have the opinion it's inferior because it kind of does nothing with the premise. It takes it as a given the Replicants are all human and there's nothing really questionable about it. The most interesting character choice is the fact JOI is probably NOT sentient.
 
CT Phipps said:
As for 2049, I have the opinion it's inferior because it kind of does nothing with the premise. It
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What are you on about it does way more with the premise than the original did. even ignoring joi, dave Bautista, and the underground it does more with the replicants just with Joe than the original did with roy batty.
 
R.Graves said:
What are you on about it does way more with the premise than the original did. even ignoring joi, dave Bautista, and the underground it does more with the replicants just with Joe than the original did with roy batty.
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I'm just saying the issue of "human or not" kind of hits the wall when it shows, yes, they are. So if that's resolved as a question, what is there to say?
 
CT Phipps said:
I'm just saying the issue of "human or not" kind of hits the wall when it shows, yes, they are. So if that's resolved as a question, what is there to say?
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The original confirmed they had emotional connections and a will to live. They were already people. What do you mean what is there left to say? That's the problem with the original in the first place. Rather than telling a good story it was more concerned with themes and symbolism.
 
Hassknecht said:
It's very good that it didn't take any cues from the actual Blade Runner 2 novel, which was utter garbage.
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There's a Blade Runner 2 novel???? Oh well, but my point was about 2049 not taking any cues from Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, since there's still no topic about synthetic animals and Mercerism.

R.Graves said:
What are you on about it does way more with the premise than the original did. even ignoring joi, dave Bautista, and the underground it does more with the replicants just with Joe than the original did with roy batty.
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Please elaborate how 2049 explored the premise 'way more' than the original, or how it does with Joe 'more' than Roy Batty. I think it's not right to compare the original to 2049 this way, because obviously the original was centered much more on Deckard, of whom the directors were vague whether or not he's a synth but let's completely assume he's a human, while 2049 is centered on K, who's confirmed to be a synth.

R.Graves said:
The original confirmed they had emotional connections and a will to live. They were already people. What do you mean what is there left to say? That's the problem with the original in the first place. Rather than telling a good story it was more concerned with themes and symbolism.
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You're saying as if you can't tell a good story by utilizing themes and symbolism. Or that the original's focus on themes and symbolism were a 'problem'.
 
TerminallyChill said:
@ironmask While I love the original, I feel Human Revolution is just a bit more polished overall. Aside from the release version of the bosses...

Adam is also my fucking spirit animal. Not that JC wasn't great too.
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I definitely do not agree with you on that one.

For one DE HR focused way to much on the whole biomechanical enhancement/transhumanism stuff to the point that prostitutes in the streets were talking about it while it was just one of many plotlines in the original Deus Ex in which other global matters such as decline of the environment, growing gaps between rich and poor, corporations becoming more powerful than governments, and increase in terrorism and secession movements also played more of a role than in HR where it was sometimes just casually mentioned.

The conspiracy stuff was perhaps silly but it added to the charm and provided us with the transgenics while DE HR in general was rather "joyless" in that, perhaps because the designers thought that the transgenics were ridiculous. They could have played with the idea of augmented animals designed for various purposes.

Adam. Truth be told I did not care for the guy at all and when we finally met up with his disappeared fiance I really wanted to punch her.

Invisible War was a victim of making consoles dedicated target platforms with the PC being an afterthought.


Regarding Fallout 2 and New Vegas (which really is better reserved for the Fallout forums). I agree that New Vegas falls short when it comes to recreating the gameplay of the original Fallout 1 and 2 such as certain skill uses and the player now directly controlling the combat.
But story wise it was much tighter together than Fallout 2 sometimes was, some parts could have used a little more polish though.

I would also much rather have had Van Buren with New Vegas perhaps being a spin off as I mentioned in another thread designed for both console gamers and PC gamers.

Sadly we can continue on this argument for infinity. We will never have a copy of the originally planned Van Buren to compare FNV with.
 
Blackadder on the telly. The first series was just awful in every way, series two and three are where it really worked, then it fell into self reference and died in the fourth.

F1 '97 on the PSX. While it had a significantly shitter two player mode, the single player game was a huge improvement over Formula 1, and is still probably the best driving game to date.

Sensible World Of Soccer on the PC. It was better than Sensible Soccer, though mostly by being exactly the same, but bigger.

Speedball 2 - pretty much as above.

Hitchhiker's Guide novels - Life, The Universe, And Everything is better than the first two.

Or the best answer to this question is, of course, Doctor Who. Any Doctor is arguably the best. Obviously, the Seventh is really the best, but you'll argue the toss if you happened to be born slightly earlier, or slightly later than I was, and we have been arguing this for over half a century already. As far as debatably goes, there is no better answer than Doctor Who.
 
Terminator 2 was better than the original Terminator
Super Mario Bros. 3 is absolutely better than the first two entries in the SMB game series
Torchlight 2 beats the first Torchlight handily in just about every way, I think
MechWarrior 2 is absolutely better than the first MechWarrior game was, to say nothing of how good MW2 Mercs was
Command and Conquer: Red Alert 2 is better than the first Red Alert in pretty much every way (but especially play balance)
 
The Dutch Ghost said:
For one DE HR focused way to much on the whole biomechanical enhancement/transhumanism stuff to the point that prostitutes in the streets were talking about it while it was just one of many plotlines in the original Deus Ex in which other global matters such as decline of the environment, growing gaps between rich and poor, corporations becoming more powerful than governments, and increase in terrorism and secession movements also played more of a role than in HR where it was sometimes just casually mentioned.
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You're right in saying the sequel didn't tackle as many issues as the original did. I guess I was more willing to forgive Human Revolution since I liked the way they handled what topics they did bring up. Truthfully, I feel like it gave the game more of a thematic focus since the story complimented the mechanics well. I get how people could be upset with his change, though. Whenever you remove aspects of a work, someone somewhere is going to miss them. Personally, I'd still much prefer a good story solely about transhumanism than a bad one about transhumanism, economic inequality, and corruption all rolled into one. At that point it's about quality over quantity. Realistically, having both isn't always an option.

The Dutch Ghost said:
Adam. Truth be told I did not care for the guy at all and when we finally met up with his disappeared fiance I really wanted to punch her.
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As with any branched writing, the quality of the conversation may vary with player choice. While I'm not suggesting you entirely disliked Human Revolution's characaters because you picked worse dialogue options than me, it is a possibility with these types of games. I could be unkowingly biased for leaning towards sarcastic answers.
 
Twin Peaks: The Return is a lot better than The Original. Maybe it's due to context and when both were released.

Metal Gear Solid 3

Silent Hill 2

Marvel Zombies vs Arny of Darkness is probably one of my favorite comics of all time.
 
Pariah Dog said:
Terminator 2 was better than the original Terminator
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I always felt otherwise. Same with Alien and Aliens. With both series', the first movies were more like rather minimalistic, but effective scifi horror flicks. The second entries, both by Cameron, went more towards a grandiose action spectacle (both great movies, but... kind of off in tone compared to the first ones).
 
Millim said:
Twin Peaks: The Return is a lot better than The Original. Maybe it's due to context and when both were released.

Metal Gear Solid 3

Silent Hill 2

Marvel Zombies vs Arny of Darkness is probably one of my favorite comics of all time.
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MGS 3 might be a better game but MGS had a better story imo. MGS 3 felt more like Bond, less like Snake Plisken, and I can't have that.

:cool:

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Earthbound is better than Mother if that has not been mentioned yet.

Dawn of the Dead is better than Night of the Living Dead.

The Dark Knight is better than Batman Begins.

The last two are debatable for sure, but I don't see how anybody can prefer Mother to Earthbound.
 
TerminallyChill said:
You're right in saying the sequel didn't tackle as many issues as the original did. I guess I was more willing to forgive Human Revolution since I liked the way they handled what topics they did bring up. Truthfully, I feel like it gave the game more of a thematic focus since the story complimented the mechanics well. I get how people could be upset with his change, though. Whenever you remove aspects of a work, someone somewhere is going to miss them. Personally, I'd still much prefer a good story solely about transhumanism than a bad one about transhumanism, economic inequality, and corruption all rolled into one. At that point it's about quality over quantity. Realistically, having both isn't always an option.
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I really liked DS HR, but as someone who also loved the first Deus Ex, HR never struck me as a 'Preqeuel' infact it actaully see it as a bad one, and I am not even talking about the difference in style and technology here but actaully about the characters and story. The parts that made an appearance in Deus Ex only played very little if any role in HR there have been just a handfull of instances where I thought, huh I know that from Deus Ex! I expected a lot more here, particularly in terms of back story. As far as I would say HR is closer to a completely stand alone game and almost a reboot with Adam Jensen beeing somewhat the new JC Danton - albeit he's a great character, he's not a good replacement for Denton.
 
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