More so than movies, the video game genre loves its sequels, with new entries seen as iterations and improvements, rather than mining tired concepts. However, not all sequels are made equal, and some fans unfairly turned their backs on games that deserve a second look, as they sometimes earned a reputation only due to the name they carried.
There are several reasons for this kind of level of hatred aimed at a video game. The main reason is usually that the sequel has different gameplay than its predecessor, causing fans to instantly dislike it, as it’s unfamiliar to what they liked about the first title.
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Sometimes, people just don’t like the direction a story takes, feeling like it disrespects the source material. People who adore a game will sometimes hate a sequel that messes with characters they love or takes the story in a vastly different direction from what they were expecting.
Whatever the case, some sequels deserve a second look, as the polarizing reception they received at launch was unfair.
10Super Mario Bros. 2
Insert Obligatory Doki Doki Panic Reference Here
Super Mario Bros. 2
Super Mario Bros. 2is a strange game, as it added a bunch of mechanics that were abandoned by the time the third entry rolled around, such as the whole “vegetables being a major aspect of gameplay” thing.
This weirdness can be a little off-putting to people who have experienced the otherSuper Mario Bros. games first. Even the fact that it’s established that the game is set in a dream world doesn’t prepare people for how strange the second Mario game can be.
Those distracted by the veggies and slot machines need to look beyond the weird bits, as Super Mario Bros. 2 is a genuinely fantastic game, especially the remakes on the SNES and GBA that boosted its performance and visuals.
The only downside to playing the GBA remake is the addition of annoying voice clips, especially for those who play Toad, so it might be worth sticking with the version fromSuper Mario All-Starsinstead.
9Yoshi’s Story
A Game That Was Too Short For Its Price Tag
Yoshi’s Story
TheYoshiseries started out with the excellentSuper Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island, before mutating into its own franchise starring the titular dinosaur and his pals.
The Yoshi games quickly earned a reputation for being easier than the Mario titles, and one of the first victims of this was Yoshi’s Story on the N64. The game was not only easier than its predecessor, but much, much shorter, earning it some negative reviews.
Yoshi’s Story is a great game, but the runtime problem was a bigger deal in the days when N64 games were new and expensive. It’s easy to see why people turned their noses up at it.
However, Yoshi’s Story is one of the games available onNintendo Switch Online’s Expansion Pass, so those who want to try it can do so for cheap.
8Zelda II: The Adventure Of Link
The Brutal Return To Hyrule Was Too Much For Some
Zelda II: The Adventure of Link
The NES is home to some brutal games, especially third-party titles. This was the era of the video game rental store, so there was incentive to make things as hard as possible. This wasn’t as true with Nintendo-developed games, as these were typically more forgiving.
The big exception to this isZelda II: The Adventure of Link, which had a brutal first half of the game thanks to some incredibly hard dungeons and bosses. Things get a little easier in the second half when Link gets some better gear and moves, but thebosses stay vicious until the end.
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Zelda II used a much different gameplay style, with 2D action sequences and dungeon exploration, which means that some fans don’t consider it part of the series despite it being the canonical endpoint of one of the Zelda timelines (not countingBreath of the WildorTears of the Kingdom).
Zelda II is a good game, but its level of challenge, coupled with its unfamiliar gameplay style for fans of the franchise, means that it’s easily the most disliked entry in the series.
7Chrono Cross
Chrono Cross
Chrono Crosshas earned a reputation for being a great game, so long as it’s considered in a bubble on its own. The problem is when it’s considered as a sequel toChrono Trigger, as it does the original game dirty in a few ways.
The main issue with Chrono Cross is how it establishes that the main cast of Chrono Trigger met unpleasant fates after the happy main endings of the game.
It also doesn’t help that the massive playable cast in Chrono Cross aren’t as interesting as the ones from Chrono Trigger, mostly because they just talk in different funny ways and don’t offer much to the story.
Chrono Cross can absolutely be enjoyed on its own—so long as fans can distance it from its predecessor—which is an impossible act to follow up on, considering it’s one of the greatest video games of all time.
6BioShock 2
Rapture’s Full-Price Expansion Pack
BioShock 2
The most common complaint aboutBioShock 2is that it feels like DLC, as it’s just more adventures in Rapture. It didn’t take the drastic story leap of BioShock Infinite and covered a lot of the same ground, so it’s commonly dismissed by fans.
MoreBioShockisn’t the worst thing in the world though, as the original is one of the best games of the PS3/Xbox 360 era. And while BioShock 2 isn’t as good as its predecessor or successor, it’s still worth checking out.
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BioShock 2 has had a strange response from critics and fans since launch, with opinion rising and falling and rising again over time. It received flack at launch for not being as good as BioShock, but as time went on, people have come to appreciate it on its own merits.
While BioShock creator Ken Levine didn’t work on the sequel, he has praised its contribution to the franchise. If that’s not enough of an endorsement to return to Rapture, then what is?
5Dark Souls II
Too Much Armor – 7/10
Dark Souls 2
Fextralife Wiki
Dark Souls IIis often criticized for being too similar to the first game, with many of its bosses and locations feeling like re-skins of the content fromDark Souls. This is despite the QoL improvements it added, which were later added to Dark Souls’ remasters.
It’s unclear why some FromSoftware fans have such a negative attitude towards Dark Souls II, as it’s still an excellent game, and if it’s just more Dark Souls, then surely that can’t be a bad thing.
It could just be that Hidetaka Miyazaki wasn’t involved with Dark Souls II, making it instantly inferior to the fans of his other games. To some, this is considered heresy by FromSoftware.
The fact thatthe other FromSoftware gameseither iterated on the Soulslike mechanics or were just grander in scale might be why Dark Souls II is seen as the black sheep of the franchise, as it wasn’t that big of a step forward.
4Dragon Age II
Not Enough Maps To Go Around
Dragon Age 2
Dragon Age IIwas a huge divergence from the first game in pretty much every way. Gone was the epic story about saving a continent from an evil army of monsters. Instead, the story focuses on the rising tensions between mages and Templars in the city of Kirkwall, as the protagonist seeks to make a home for their family after fleeing the war from the first game.
The gameplay in Dragon Age II is still top-notch, and if anything, feels a lot more elegant than its predecessor. The story, while a big shift from the original, was something a little different, even if the Mage and Templar story ending was a bit bland.
One of the biggest issues with Dragon Age II was the lack of map variety, with players seeing the same handful of areas being used over and over again. Once that’s pointed out, it’s hard to stop noticing it.
The next game in the series took a step back and was more like the original, with a plot to save the world from destruction, so it’s clear that the developers and publisher took note of the response to Dragon Age II and worked hard to right the franchise’s course—at least for one game.
3Final Fantasy II
Punching Up To Get Stronger
Final Fantasy II
It was bold of Squaresoft to go in such a different direction with the secondFinal Fantasygame. The first game was more focused on dungeon crawling than a story, especially as it was in an era when video games rarely matched the tabletop RPG experience.
Final Fantasy II changed everything, as it actually had a story, with an evil Empire invading other nations in an attempt to take over the world. A plucky group of rebels had to rise and stop the villain. Okay, it wasn’t exactly an original story, but for the NES, it was groundbreaking.
The reason whyFinal Fantasy II is so polarizingis due to its odd gameplay mechanics, where characters need to repeatedly perform actions to get stronger, meaning it can take forever to level up a single spell or weapon.
Clearly, Squaresoft agreed that the system wasn’t that great, as the job system from the original Final Fantasy returned and was refined in later games, while Final Fantasy II’s experimental mechanics never appeared again, save in its own remakes.
2DOOM Eternal
The Doom With MMO Cooldowns
DOOM Eternal
Doom: Eternalcould well be the most polarizing game on this list, due to how fans either love or despise it for the changes it made to the establishedDoomformula. This is because the boomer shooter design was replaced with something far more technical.
In Doom: Eternal, the Doom Slayer is forced to use every weapon in their arsenal to survive due to how limited the ammo resources are. There are also special attacks tied to timers that need to be used, with the player needing to monitor them like in an MMO.
The shift from straight-up shooting enemies, to the sudden inclusion of jumping puzzles ensured that Doom: Eternal was a very different beast from its predecessor. Some fans loved the new methodical gameplay that forced players to shift strategies, while others hated how different it was from the old games.
Doom: The Dark Ages looks like it’s going back to basics, which is less focused on movement and more on being able to tank hits, likely as a response to feedback from Doom: Eternal.
1Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons Of Liberty
The Solid Snake Swap
Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty
Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Libertywas a highly experimental game that was way ahead of its time. The biggest swerve the story took involved dumping series protagonist Solid Snake after the first mission and replacing him with a new character, named Raiden, for the rest of the game.
In terms of gameplay, Raiden was almost identical to Solid Snake. However, his personality was vastly different, as he was more passionate and prone to outbursts than the stoic hero of the first game. His androgynous appearance only further cemented the differences between the two, as Solid Snake looked like a hero from an ‘80s action movie, while Raiden looked like he was in a boy band.
Metal Gear Solid 2 is an excellent game and most of the hatred does seem to stem from dislike towards Raiden, which isn’t something that can easily be ignored, considering how story-focused the game is.
Luckily, Hideo Kojima learned his lesson, as future entries in the series either starred Solid Snake or Big Boss (the man Snake was cloned from). Raiden was kept to the spin-offs and would later earn a positive response through his role in Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance.
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