# Most improved video game sequel?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-improved-video-game-sequel/946307
**Category:** The Game Room
**Tags:** video-games-e-games
**Created:** [July 12, 2021, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-improved-video-game-sequel/946307 "2021-07-12T14:27:58Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)
#### Post date: [July 12, 2021, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-improved-video-game-sequel/946307/1 "2021-07-12T14:27:58Z")
It needs to be the immediate sequel, not a few down the line. Final Fantasy VI is a lot better than Final Fantasy I, but there games inbetween that gradually improved the series.
Biggest jumps in quality I’ve seen are:
- Zelda Breath of the Wild - I was a huge fan of the series, but the amount of things improved in this sequel are so huge, it relaunched and made the series amazing again
- Witcher 3 - Witcher 2 actually gets a middling to negative review from me. The third Witcher game improved almost as many things as Breath of the Wild did. It’s an incredible leap in quality in all areas.
I think Assassin’s Creed 2 is often on these lists and it is a huge improvement, but it actually feels more like a finished game while the first game is just a demo. I also find Assassin’s Creed frustrating to control and kind of un-fun a lot of the times, so I still can’t give it much credit here.
What other sequels improved tremendously on their predecessor?
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### Author:  [@omenran](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/omenran)
#### Post date: [July 12, 2021, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-improved-video-game-sequel/946307/2 "2021-07-12T14:30:28Z")
> [@Mahaloth](#):
>
> Witcher 3 - Witcher 2 actually gets a middling to negative review from me. The third Witcher game improved almost as many things as Breath of the Wild did. It’s an incredible leap in quality in all areas.
Have you played Witcher 1? I’ve only touched a few minutes of Witcher 2, but it and the third are every different. Definitely a jump from 2 to 3, but I can’t help but think there’s a bigger gap from 1 to 2.
As a suggestion for another game, Street Fighter 2.
There has to be a first one, but I don’t think I’ve even seen it.
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### Author:  [@Palooka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Palooka)
#### Post date: [July 12, 2021, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-improved-video-game-sequel/946307/3 "2021-07-12T15:53:11Z")
It might be cheating because of the change in developers, but no one cares about Treyarch’s Call of Duty 3 whereas Infinity Ward’s Call of Duty 4 was such a masterpiece that Activision continues to invoke the name “Modern Warfare” for its subsequent sequels a decade later. Call of Duty 4 is the pivot point that turned Call of Duty from a series of lacklustre 7/10 shooters to the modern juggernaut it is today.
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### Author:  [@hogarth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hogarth)
#### Post date: [July 12, 2021, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-improved-video-game-sequel/946307/4 "2021-07-12T16:06:15Z")
Out of the games I’ve played in the past 20 years, I might vote for GTA Vice City as a big improvement over GTA 3. I also tried playing Elder Scrolls: Daggerfall, but I found it almost unplayable compared to ES: Morrowind, which I played for many, many hours (back in the day).
For older games, I remember thinking Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar was a big leap forward from Ultima III.
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### Author:  [@DCnDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DCnDC)
#### Post date: [July 12, 2021, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-improved-video-game-sequel/946307/5 "2021-07-12T16:07:59Z")
**Hitman 2: Silent Assassin** was a huge improvement over **Hitman (1)**. The second game was a fully realized Hitman game as we’ve come to know them, while the first game was so raw it was almost just a demo. Even the developers thought the first game was so crappy, they essentially remade it for the next sequel, **Contracts**.
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### Author:  [@ekedolphin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ekedolphin)
#### Post date: [July 12, 2021, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-improved-video-game-sequel/946307/6 "2021-07-12T16:13:41Z")
_Mass Effect 2_ vastly improved upon the original by getting rid of the need to upgrade your weapons and armor all the time. The characters were even more relatable, and bigger things happened.
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### Author:  [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)
#### Post date: [July 12, 2021, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-improved-video-game-sequel/946307/7 "2021-07-12T16:18:28Z")
> [@omenran](#):
>
> Have you played Witcher 1?
Nope, but Witcher 2 I was able to finish.
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### Author:  [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)
#### Post date: [July 12, 2021, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-improved-video-game-sequel/946307/8 "2021-07-12T16:19:06Z")
> [@hogarth](#):
>
> Out of the games I’ve played in the past 20 years, I might vote for GTA Vice City as a big improvement over GTA 3
And GTA was a huge improvement over GTA II, wasn’t it? I played II, but never played III.
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### Author:  [@hogarth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hogarth)
#### Post date: [July 12, 2021, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-improved-video-game-sequel/946307/9 "2021-07-12T16:23:01Z")
> [@Mahaloth](#):
>
> And GTA was a huge improvement over GTA II, wasn’t it? I played II, but never played III.
I’ve only played III but not II.
I’ve heard that Red Dead Redemption was an improvement over Red Dead Revolver, but I never played the first one.
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### Author:  [@gdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gdave)
#### Post date: [July 12, 2021, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-improved-video-game-sequel/946307/10 "2021-07-12T16:39:10Z")
> [@ekedolphin](#):
>
> _Mass Effect 2_ vastly improved upon the original by getting rid of the need to upgrade your weapons and armor all the time. The characters were even more relatable, and bigger things happened.
I don’t play a lot of video games, but this is the one I was going to mention. I started with _Mass Effect 2_ and loved it, then went back to play the original. I was expecting it to be a less technically polished game with older graphics, but while it wasn’t a _completely_ different game, it had a lot of substantially worse gameplay. There’s one mission in particular where you’re supposed to drive a ground vehicle with counter-intuitive controls around a planet that’s boring, frustrating, and doesn’t tie into the plot or characters, which are the strengths of the Mass Effect franchise. I rarely even play this sort of video game, yet I’ve played through _Mass Effect 2_ and 3 multiple times. I never got past that ground vehicle mission in 1.
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### Author:  [@ekedolphin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ekedolphin)
#### Post date: [July 12, 2021, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-improved-video-game-sequel/946307/11 "2021-07-12T16:52:46Z")
Ah, yes, those interminable Mako missions.
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### Author:  [@gdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gdave)
#### Post date: [July 12, 2021, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-improved-video-game-sequel/946307/12 "2021-07-12T16:55:56Z")
Mission **s**? There was more than one?! I was thinking about playing through the “Legendary Edition”, but _not_ if it means playing _multiple_ Mako missions.
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### Author:  [@Smid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smid)
#### Post date: [July 12, 2021, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-improved-video-game-sequel/946307/13 "2021-07-12T17:05:29Z")
I actually liked Witcher 2 over 3. I found the third one too large, and frequently ended up doing quests for 1xp, the story meandering and 25 minute cutscenes with absolutely no way out (being captured for the vikings one I do remember playing late at night and going “THERE’S MORE OF THIS”?). 3 ended up being one I’ve taken forever to complete (still haven’t but its on a laptop in my work) wheras 2 was much more coherent, felt part of a story and I remember a whole lot of it.
On same scale, I prefer Batman: Arkham Asylum over all the rest. Not sure why. Just worked better for me.
To me it’s Quake 2. That’s modern gaming to me, pretty much germinated.
I did play GTA 2, and loved the style, but GTA 3 was such a jump (though it kept the humourous style of 2, along with the VC and San Andreas, but it was lost by GTA 4 though).
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### Author:  [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)
#### Post date: [July 12, 2021, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-improved-video-game-sequel/946307/14 "2021-07-12T17:16:54Z")
Portal 1 was a short but interesting game. Portal 2 was such a huge improvement that I have heard many people say that Portal 1 is just training for Portal 2.
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### Author:  [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)
#### Post date: [July 12, 2021, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-improved-video-game-sequel/946307/15 "2021-07-12T17:26:11Z")
> [@gdave](#):
>
> Mission **s**? There was more than one?!
The Mako is one of the central game mechanics in ME1. You spend about half the game driving that thing around, unless you completely ignore planet exploration.
They did improve the handling a lot in the Legendary edition, though.
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### Author:  [@Smid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smid)
#### Post date: [July 12, 2021, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-improved-video-game-sequel/946307/16 "2021-07-12T17:29:54Z")
> [@engineer\_comp\_geek](#):
>
> Portal 1 was a short but interesting game. Portal 2 was such a huge improvement that I have heard many people say that Portal 1 is just training for Portal 2.
I was considering saying this one, but I love Portal 1. It’s simplicity and conciseness and humour in itself was needed before the much more complicated Portal 2.
The speed and bounce and “portalable” paint made Portal 2 much more of a mind bender, so there was need for a simpler start up.
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### Author:  [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)
#### Post date: [July 12, 2021, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-improved-video-game-sequel/946307/17 "2021-07-12T17:45:53Z")
> [@Mahaloth](#):
>
> It needs to be the immediate sequel, not a few down the line. Final Fantasy VI is a lot better than Final Fantasy I, but there games inbetween that gradually improved the series.
Final Fantasy is a weird one, since most of the games in the series are stand-alone stories (though they frequently use recurring character and place names).
That said, the original release of Final Fantasy XIV (which, unlike most of the FF games, was an MMO) was a hugely disappointing mess, and one of the few titles in the series which wasn’t successful. Square Enix then developed a “reboot” of XIV (called “Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn”), which was set in the same game world, with some of the same characters, but set five years after the “original” game was concluded; unlike the original version, A Realm Reborn was far better realized, and became a hit (and has grown in popularity with each of its expansions). I don’t know if that techncially qualifies as a “sequel,” however.
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### Author:  [@AlsoNamedBort](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AlsoNamedBort)
#### Post date: [July 12, 2021, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-improved-video-game-sequel/946307/18 "2021-07-12T17:55:13Z")
> [@gdave](#):
>
> Mission **s**? There was more than one?! I was thinking about playing through the “Legendary Edition”, but _not_ if it means playing _multiple_ Mako missions.
Ha, I remember I got through the first one, and then had another one of those missions like 30 minutes later. That’s when I realized ME wasn’t for me. I’ve thought about playing 2 or 3 but never gave them a chance.
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### Author:  [@gdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gdave)
#### Post date: [July 12, 2021, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-improved-video-game-sequel/946307/19 "2021-07-12T18:42:27Z")
> [@Miller](#):
>
> The Mako is one of the central game mechanics in ME1. You spend about half the game driving that thing around, unless you completely ignore planet exploration.
>
> They did improve the handling a lot in the Legendary edition, though.
Can you skip the ME1 material in Legendary Edition and just start with ME2?
> [@AlsoNamedBort](#):
>
> Ha, I remember I got through the first one, and then had another one of those missions like 30 minutes later. That’s when I realized ME wasn’t for me. I’ve thought about playing 2 or 3 but never gave them a chance.
If you were enjoying ME until the Mako mission, I’d definitely recommend trying ME 2.
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### Author:  [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)
#### Post date: [July 12, 2021, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-improved-video-game-sequel/946307/20 "2021-07-12T18:57:22Z")
> [@gdave](#):
>
> Can you skip the ME1 material in Legendary Edition and just start with ME2?
Yeah, you don’t have play the games in any particular order. You jump straight to two or three without playing the previous games.
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