Fighting Street. 
I never saw one of the machines in the arcade; I only ever played the TG-CD version…
Actually the original arcade cabinet was in fact called Street Fighter. It was only the TG-CD port that was retitled “Fighting Street”.
There was an old unit in an arcade near me when I was a kid circa 91 or 92. I know it was after SF2 had already been released which is why it caught my attention. It was one of the units with the analog buttons that had long since stopped working right. Interestingly it appears there was a revised cabinet issued later on with the standard six button setup that SF2 used. I never saw this version but I must, once again, register my skepticism that this would have improved the gameplay at all.
While not a true “sequel” in the sense of this thread, I thought Shadow of the Colossus was a much, much better gaming experience than it’s spiritual predecessor,** Ico**. I know some people feel the opposite, but I could never really get into Ico.
I also count myself in the number of people who preferred Vice City to San Andreas; the latter had a very strong narrative, while the former didn’t, but Vice City as a “satire of the 80’s” did a much better job capturing its inspiration than San Andreas did in its emulation of the early 90’s.
On that point, ironically, I thought God of War was head and shoulders above God of War II, if only due to it’s strong narrative alone. GoW II had many improvements over its predecessor: great looking game, top shelf musical score, huge bosses, good challenge. But they lost me with the “Temple of the Fates” and traveling through time like a bad Star Trek episode.
Nonsense Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island and Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars are both better.
Double nonsense. Super Mario RPG is just what it says on the tin, a Mario RPG game. So therefore it doesn’t count.
And Yoshi’s Island just sucks. There, I said it.
Mario 64 was way better than SMW. I mean, come on… SMW was just SMB3 with prettier graphics and more levels. It wasn’t like a quantum leap forward or anything.
I’m surprised only one person has said Diablo. The second game was miles beyond the first, with more level and enemy variety, more varied playable classes, more collectors goodies, and a more secure Battlenet without obscene rampant duping and townkills. And I say all that having loved the hell out of the first game.
Super Smash Bros Melee was an amazing leap from the original SSB. It went from a quirky spin-off game to a landmark event. Brawl wasn’t quite as big a step, but not for lack of trying.
Me too! I almost feel bad saying it, because the tech was so much more advanced, but they took dungeons and fields, with wizards and warriors, and made Diablo again, but 1 million times better in every way.
This is an easy winner for me. (At least until Starcraft 2 come out, I hope, I hope, I hope…:D)
Riven > Myst.
SimCity 2000 was a huge improvement on SimCity