10 Sequels That Are Better Than The Originals (P1)

Well, I'm back. By which I mean my computer's working again and I have access to Photoshop and all the images I wanted to use for this post.

My original plan was to make a simple Top Ten list (expanding on one I sent in to GameFAQS a while ago) and post all of these in one go. But I realized that even while I was trying to keep each entry relatively short, it still would have been quite a bit of reading.

So I figure I'll get some more updates out of the idea by posting them as a 10-part ongoing thing.

So. Without further not getting to the point...Leko presents...

The idea of this may seem a little redundant. After all, isn't a sequel supposed to be better than its predecessor? Well, yes. But very few actually are, and some turn out to be even worse. 

The intent of this list is to highlight 10 examples of sequels that I feel completely outshine the game that came before. Sequels that are so much more than a simple number tacked on to the original title.

I will now begin.


#10: Dragon Ball Z: Legacy of Goku II (GBA)

Yes, yes, I know. It's a game based on a pre-existing franchise, so of course the original sucked ass!

But MAN did Legacy of Goku suck ass!

Imagine the first Legend of Zelda with Goku in place of Link. Now imagine it slower and clunkier. Imagine the enemies aren't knocked back when you hit them, but rather they stay within attack range and continue hitting you for much higher damage at the same time. Imagine you can't tell important items apart from the background, and  that the very few sound effects the game has are ear-bleedingly terrible.

Congratulations. You've imagined Dragon Ball Z: Legacy of Goku.

 It's a basic adventure game that actually does a fairly decent job of condensing an entire 1/3 of the Dragon Ball Z story (From Raditz to Frieza) into a few hours of gameplay, but that doesn't mean a damn thing when that gameplay is absolute crap.

You've got your standard leveling system where you get stronger by beating up enemies, but there's really no way of telling of how strong you actually are. You level up several times before it simply says "YOUR STRENGTH INCREASED," and the only way to measure how high your strength is is to count how many times you need to punch each enemy. The enemies themselves have no health meters, nor any indication that you've actually done any damage at all to them until they drop dead.

And when I say "no indication," I mean NO. INDICATION. They don't flinch when you hit them. They don't make any sound. And most annoyingly, they DON'T FUCKING MOVE. This leads to numerous situations where you're literally standing on an enemy's toes, hitting him while he hits you. You will lose ridiculous amounts of health fighting the most common enemies.

BUT WAIT! DOESN'T GOKU HAVE ENERGY ATTACKS? LIKE RANGED ONES EVEN?

Yes. But they suck. What a shock, right? You can run from an enemy until they stop chasing you (usually about half a screen's worth of distance) and hit them with an energy blast. Unfortunately, doing this is like trying to knock over a Jenga tower with spit wads. It'll come down eventually, sure. But it takes FOREVER. The famous Kamehameha wave has embarrassingly short range and isn't even worth charging because if you're in range to hit your target, your target is in range to hit you. And he will. There's also the much more useful Solar Flare, which temporarily stuns enemies based on how long you charge it.

You can restore your own health by using herbs and Senzu beans, both of which blend annoyingly well into the background unless you know what you're looking for. The herbs could easily be mistaken for bushes, and the beans are about 3 pixels big.

I would go so far as to say that its only redeeming quality is that the chibi character sprites look awesome, and even those get massively improved in Legacy of Goku 2!

Speaking of which, Legacy of Goku 2 is EVERYTHING the first game should have been.

It continues the story from where the first one left off to the end of the Cell arc, but it seems like it goes a little more in depth than the previous game. It gets more from the story without resorting to an obnoxious number of unnecessary side-quests. It still has them, but they're not so obviously being used for padding.

The art is improved, the sprite animations are smoother, the combat is improved, the save system is improved, the leveling system is improved, everything about it is just better. But if I talked about EVERYTHING that was better, you'd be reading a short novel here. So I'll get to the most important points.

Enemies actually react when hit, and a number appears above them showing how much damage you've done. This means that not only can you better understand how strong you are, but you can actually keep beating on an enemy while approaching him if you carefully time your punches.

As you level up, your stats increase. Rather than just YOUR STRENGTH INCREASED, you have 3 stats: strength (how much damage melee attacks do), power (how much damage energy attacks do) and endurance (how much damage enemy attacks do to you.)

Also, THERE'S MORE THAN ONE PLAYABLE CHARACTER. Which makes the game's title a bit inaccurate, but still! Not only that, but EACH character has their own special energy and melee attacks. Piccolo's Special Beam can go through multiple enemies, Gohan's Masenko acts somewhat like a grenade, Trunks's Burning Attack stuns enemies like the Solar Flare, etc. Saiyan characters can also go into Super Saiyan mode, which increases their stats and speed until their energy meter runs out.

If you're already familiar with the Dragon Ball Z storyline, I suggest skipping Legacy of Goku and going straight to Legacy of Goku 2. If not, I suggest looking up a summary online and THEN skipping to Legacy of Goku 2.

(There is also a 3rd game in this series called Buu's Fury, which further improves the gameplay, but it's not as big a jump in quality as between the first two.)

Dead Space (PC)

THIS IS A SPOILER WARNING. I WILL POST THESE IF I INTEND TO GO INTO DETAIL ABOUT KEY PLOT POINTS IN A GAME. IF YOU CARE ABOUT SUCH THINGS, I INVITE YOU TO CEASE READING IMMEDIATELY.

If you've seen any of my past reviews of "horror" games on my DeviantART journal, you would know by now that I've had some issues with managing to fully enjoy certain aspects of them. Namely, the aspects of them that are supposed to be scary (and therefore actually BE horror games). Before I go into this review of Dead Space, I think it important to define what I personally consider to be scary.

Scary is being all alone with no weapons in a dark room hiding from something that is actively trying to murder you. Scary is hearing that thing moving around and having no idea whether or not it is even near you until you step on its toes.

Scary is NOT being armed to the teeth and surrounded by hideous mutated monsters that make more loud obnoxious screaming sounds than the fangirls at an anime convention.

In short, 90% of Dead Space is what I would call "not scary." This is not to say it is a bad game, though.

We begin with a team of people (including the main character, Isaac Clarke) responding to the sudden mysterious loss of contact with a gigantic ship in an abandoned sector of space. Their ship inexplicably crashes, leaving them stranded inside the aforementioned gigantic ship as they investigate the cause of the aforementioned mysterious loss of contact.

If you have to guess where it goes from here, you have no business being involved in any way with any science fiction stories. Ever.

It turns out the entire ship has been overrun by mutant alien zombies known as "Necromorphs,"  which are basically the Flood from Halo, only louder and less vulnerable to shotgun blasts.

The way you have to deal with these abominations is actually fairly clever, though, despite the cliche factor. You see, conventional anti-zombie warfare teaches us that headshots are the way to go. So no big deal, right? You just blast the head off that Necromorph charging at you and he should drop dead-

OH GOD HE'S STILL CHARGING! 

So you unload the rest of your ammo into the body, BUT IT'S STILL COMING OH CRAP!

That's right. Headshots pretty much don't count for shit in Dead Space. You need to remove individual LIMBS from these freaks to take 'em down. Chop off arms, legs, anything sticking out of the main body because anything fired at that main body isn't gonna do jack. And hey! How convenient! You just happen to be surrounded by high-powered mining tools whose SOLE PURPOSE IS TO CUT THINGS.

So yes. We revisit my main issue with every horror game ever: YOU CAN KILL EVERYTHING THAT WANTS TO EAT YOU, SO WHAT'S THE PROBLEM?

No monster can be scary when all you need to do is blow its arms off. They don't even bother sneaking around or making quiet nerve-wracking noises. They just jump out screaming and start running at you. This is not scary, this is startling until it is done so often you expect it every time you open a fucking door! That decidedly non-human "corpse" on the ground? It's gonna attack you when you get close. Those other human corpses? Stomp them apart before an Infector comes along and brings them back. (Which will happen if there's more than 2 in a given area.)

One thing that does make them a bit interesting is that each type of Necromorph has a special "death scene" if they attack you in a certain way. Some of the enemies will start grappling with you, initiating a  button-mash quicktime event to free yourself. If you succeed, you kill it instantly (sometimes) in a short little scene. If you fail, IT kills YOU instantly in a short little scene. I suggest failing each one at least once for the entertainment value. In a particularly disturbing one, a small tentacle monster decapitates you and implants itself in your neck to take control of your body.

Dead Space's main problem is in its predictability. Anyone with a basic knowledge of horror storylines is going to be able to predict with uncanny accuracy what is going to happen next. Oh, one of your teammates is a badass black soldier guy? Guess who's not gonna make it off the ship? What's that? One of the scientists on the ship has survived and he knows how to stop the Necromorphs before they inevitably consume humanity? "Not if I have anything to say about it," says the plot.

In fact, the main character being an ordinary guy with no military training should clue you in that he's gonna be the only survivor of this incident.

Also, expect a major attack any time you complete a main objective. Do NOT pick up that key card unless you have ammo. They can sense when you've done something plot-relevant.

The only predictable plot twist I actually didn't see coming, but in hindsight really should have, was a certain character's betrayal. Scientist guy gets shot and the ship we were gonna take starts leaving before I even know what's going on. Then...

"Sorry, Isaac."

OH, YOU BITCH!

"Blah blah blah, conspiracy, blah blah, experiment, blah blah can't let you screw it up."

Oh, and Isaac's girlfriend you're supposed to be rescuing was a hallucination the whole time.

But enough about what the plot does wrong. Let's talk about what the game does right.

Dead Space actually has a very nice difficulty curve. You start out tripping over ammunition and facing relatively weak enemies. As the game progresses, you find yourself facing new enemy designs, and lamenting your sudden lack of ammo. This leads to some very intense situations and often barely making it out alive as you limp to the nearest save point.

And now, I fondly recall my most badass moment in Dead Space: One certain type of Necromorph has an explosive sac on its arm that self destructs when it gets close to you. This explosion also damages other enemies in the immediate area. I found myself near the end of the game, having just fought off another massive wave of Necros and considerably light on ammo. Another wave decided to attack, headed by one of these suicide bombers. I dismembered his explosive arm and it rolled over to me. I ran out of ammo and was getting slashed from all directions when I noticed it on the ground. Seeing that I still had a reasonable amount of health, I stomped it. Boom. No more Necros. I like a game that encourages this kind of desperate creativity.

Part of your equipment is the "stasis module" which is basically a toned-down version of the bullet-time effect in F.E.A.R. I think it's actually more useful here, though because it only slows down what you aim it at, rather than everything around you. It's used to slow down malfunctioning machinery, and of course some of the faster Necros.

In addition to the stasis module, you're equipped with the "kinesis module" which is basically the Gravity Gun from Half-Life 2, or the telekinesis Plasmids from Bioshock. It allows you to pick things up and throw them.

There are also sections of the game that require maneuvering in zero gravity. These are very well designed and fairly disorienting (in a good way.) One boss fight takes place in zero gravity, and is extremely difficult if you forget that fact. You can't outrun massive tentacles, but you can jump to the other side of the room.

Dead Space is an enjoyable action game with decent atmosphere. It's just that the enemies, while somewhat uniquely designed, lack all pretense of subtlety and therefore are incapable of producing anything more than occasional heart-stopping jump scares. The level designs are linear enough to easily figure out where to go, but with enough side paths and alternate routes to have fun exploring. The story is cliched beyond all reason, but it's hard to think about it when your legs are being torn off.

In the future, when mankind is out exploring the galaxy, if we ever "mysteriously lose contact" with a ship, just send in the guy you brought along to fix the comm systems with no weapons. He'll fix everything intentionally or otherwise.

Dead Space gets a 7.5/10

Raskulls (360)

Another interesting game. And I actually meant "interesting" this time. Raskulls is a quirky, cartoony puzzle/platformer in which you navigate various worlds by destroying colored blocks.

The evil space "Pirats" (they're pirate rats. Get it?), in their search for a planet made of cheese, have crashed their ship on a world inhabited by skull-faced characters known as the Raskulls. To repair it, they need the powers of the Shiny Stone, owned by the Raskull King. The story revolves around the Raskulls thwarting the plans of the Pirats.

The gameplay is essentially Super Mario Bros. meets Collapse. As you run and jump through the levels, you will occasionally find your path blocked by...blocks...that you must zap with a wand-like tool to destroy. If multiple blocks of the same color are touching, zapping one will destroy them all. There are also powerups such as the fireball (with which you can dash through and destroy blocks without zapping them), and the lightning (which instantly zaps out several blocks in a row, including the normally hard to break black ones).

Aside from the powerups there are "boosties" that you collect from destroying blocks, and can find in jars lying around. Boosties charge up a frenzy meter. Activating frenzy mode speeds up your character for a short time (unless you're collecting lots of boosties as you go) and allows them to zap blocks much faster, but be careful. Getting smashed by falling blocks will drain the frenzy meter.

Few of the levels are as simple as "get to the end." Every chapter introduces a new spin on the existing game mechanics. For example, you might be required to get to the end with a limited number of zaps. Or you might be required to get objects down to platforms without dropping them too far at a time. Or you might have to do BOTH of these with an insanely unfair time limit.

Some special challenges require you to complete a course without running out of frenzy power, while others require liberal use of frenzy mode to finish in a time limit. Frenzy mode and the powerups are also absolutely vital if you want to complete any of the race levels.


Unfortunately, despite this wide variation in level goals, Raskulls does suffer from one glaring flaw. Most of the levels are far too easy. The ones that aren't too easy? They're controller-snappingly frustrating. I was actually glad when I finally failed a challenge for the first time, assuming that the difficulty curve was finally catching up to me, but this quickly dissolved into annoyance after I failed it several more times before I finally completed it. There doesn't seem to be much middle ground in terms of difficulty. Everything is either way too easy, or way too hard. (I'd say about 8 super-easy to every 2 super-hard.) It's great and all that you get a feeling of accomplishment from clearing the hard ones, but you have you ask yourself if it was really worth the headache.

The second and most major problem is that this game is mind blowingly short. It's only 3 chapters long! I mean, sure the later 2 world maps are on the larger side, but I was still able to beat the main story in less than a day. After that, the only things left to do are complete any remaining challenges (which you probably left unfinished for reasons mentioned above) and , if you're the type, go for all the achievements. There's also Xbox Live multiplayer, which I have yet to try, but it looks like it's just more races.

Those complaints aside, though, Raskulls is a fairly entertaining game. It's the kind you play with a friend or two and take turns dying during the hard challenges while you make fun of the guy who screws up the easy ones.

The gameplay is somewhat original, characters are creative, and the dialog and jokes are lighthearted and funny, while maintaining just an occasional very slight hint of dark humor. However, there are spikes in the difficulty and it is an extremely short- although enjoyable- experience.

Raskulls gets an  8/10

Super Meat Boy (PC)

Well, this is certainly is an interesting game.

Wait...did I say "interesting?" My mistake. What I meant to say was, "quite possibly the most sadistic a game can be without being I Wanna Be The Guy." Not sure how I managed to mix up those two things.

The story is quite simple. You control Meat Boy, a speedy little block of meat with arms, legs and a face. Meat Boy's girlfriend Bandage Girl (made of bandages. Don't ask, I have no bloody clue where that came from.) has been kidnapped by the evil Dr. Fetus (a fetus in a jar attached to a robot body. Also has an awesome monocle. Again, don't ask.) The goal is to navigate the hazards of each level and reach Bandage Girl, after which she is promptly kidnapped again.  

As I said, a simple storyline. This is forgivable in the case of SMB, as the main focus of the game is in the challenge, and it does not disappoint in that regard. At all.

The thing that keeps Super Meat Boy from becoming I Wanna Be The Guy is that it's actually fair. It gives you a chance to get through each level on the first try, and there will be some that you do. It has no tricks up its sleeve, and none of your deaths will come out of nowhere. The level itself is not going to suddenly decide you need to die inches from the goal. The path is almost always as straightforward as it gets, and all the obstacles are so obvious they may as well be neon-lit. (Tip: If something other than a platform is moving, don't touch it.)

Yet, you will die.

Many. Many. Many. MANY times.

You will jump over that 1-block wide safe platform and into the saws surrounding it 50 times.

Once you master landing on that platform, you will fall short of the next one 100 times, and mess up the first one another 20 times.

Despite all of this, you will feel a surprising lack of urge to throw anything out the nearest window. That's because every single time you die, it will be YOUR OWN FAULT and not the game being a jerk. This is what makes a difficult game actually be fun, rather than draw comparisons to something people are forced to play in a special level of Hell.

At the end of each world is a boss. The basic goal of any given boss level  boils down to "STAY ALIVE AND THE BOSS WILL KILL ITSELF," but each one still manages to be unique and present a different sort of challenge. For example, the first boss chases you through a simple obstacle course, while the second boss is a vertical obstacle course with the boss swimming around beneath you and jumping up occasionally while you collect keys to outrun the rising "water." Similar in most respects if you devote a lot of thought to it, but still different enough to be interesting.

And while we're on that subject, even the levels themselves continue adding new challenges as you progress in the game. It never stops, so you constantly have to adapt your strategy, and, most importantly, IT KEEPS THE GAME INTERESTING. You actually have a reason to keep going on besides saying, "I beat Super Meat Boy." What new terrors does the next world hold? Flying saw blades? Meat-seeking missiles? You haven't seen it all until you've beaten. Every. Level.

Oh, and if you get an A+ on a level by beating a certain time, you unlock the Dark World version of that level. It's the same level, but harder. A lot harder. The addition of one saw can turn the easiest level into a nightmare. These Dark World levels also count toward your completion percentage, so if you want 100% you better either get really good, or be extremely patient.

And sometimes, completing the level itself is the easy part. You see, there are also collectible bandages in some of them. You might finish a level in 5 seconds, but you will die hundreds of times trying to get that one bandage.

"Why bother?" You might ask. Well, there are also other playable characters you can unlock by collecting enough of these bandages. These characters have special abilities, and are from other "indie" games. (Although there is also the Headcrab from the Half Life series who has the extremely useful ability to stick to walls, but is considerably lacking in speed).

More characters can be unlocked by finding the hidden WAAAAARP ZOOOOOOOONES (yes, I do feel the need to type it like that. Thank you for asking.) hidden in some levels similar to the bandages. Entering one triggers a short scene introducing the character you will be attempting to unlock, before giving you 2 or 3 levels to complete by using them. Complete these levels, and you can use the character in the main game. (FYI, unlocking The Kid from IWBTG is a BITCH. Spikes. Spikes everywhere.)

Other WAAAAARP ZOOOOOONES simply contain extra levels rendered in various retro game styles. So far, I've encountered SNES style, original Gameboy style, and Atari style. Although unrelated to the story, these levels often contain more hidden bandages, and offer another layer of challenges for those with a compulsory need to get 100% completion.

It's extremely difficult without being unfair, the characters are bizarre, the cutscenes are amusing, and the game overall is just plain fun to play.

I can think of no reason not to give it a 10/10

And so I add another blog...

To the overcrowded, overstunk landfill of blogs that nobody reads.

To make an already short story even shorter: I figure it's time I stop using my DeviantART Journal to post reviews of video games. I play a lot of them, I like a lot of them and hate some of them, and I like to pretend my opinion is actually worth something to someone somewhere.

SO HERE WE ARE.

I'll be more in-depth here than on my DA journal, since people will come here (hypothetically) specifically for reading my game reviews, rather than stumbling across them on DA and deciding that they are TL;DR. I might also repost some of the ones from said journal, if I feel like it.

When I rate a game, I use the X/10 rating system. I feel that some games need more than a 4, but aren't quite a 5 when it comes to the star ratings. The solution? I give it an 8 or a 9. Or a 9.5 if it's really good but falls short of perfect.

I'll also advertise Comic Shorts here. Comic Shorts is a comic created by me and a friend known on the interwebs as "Zanshlou." He was responsible for creating the original series of hand-drawn comics (which has long since ended. He's working on a remastering of it right now, but hasn't gotten around to actually doing all that much with it yet.)

I am currently working on a sprite comic series using the same characters known as "Comic Shorts: Spriteoverse." It's more story-focused and drawn-out than the original series, but uses a lot of the same inside jokes and references.

We also have a Facebook page, because we're up on all the latest fads.

Introduction's over. Time for games. First up is going to be Super Meat Boy.