10 Video Game One Hit Wonders

Although the gaming industry (much like Hollywood) is often plagued by unnecessary sequels, once in a while a game comes along that actually deserves a followup, yet somehow doesn't get one.

Studios face hard times, executives shoot down cult favorites before they even have a chance, and the ever-changing tides of the industry landscape rise and fall in unpredictable ways. These are ten games that, despite their originality and excellence, never got a second go. If there's one that we forgot, let us know in the comments or on Twitter (and Beyond Good and Evil doesn't count, since we're pretty sure that sequel's actually going to happen).

Pokémon Snap is one of those rare games that put a new spin on an existing franchise and somehow didn't turn out complete crap. Its on-rails photo shoot gameplay had nothing to do with previous Pokémon games. Hell, it didn't even sound like a good idea on paper.

But thanks to the charm of the monsters themselves and the abundance of secrets and hidden paths, Snap was one of the most memorable titles in the series. We've still never played another game like it. Given the enormous surplus of shitty Pokémon spin-offs that have come out in the last decade, we're actually shocked this concept's never been revived.

Gitaroo Man was like if Katamari Damacy went back in time three years and had a baby with Parappa the Rapper. If you can't get the image of the King of the Cosmos making love to a rapping cartoon dog out of your head, then we've done our jobs.

Did we mention that baby can play guitar like nobody's business? Gitaroo Man's frenetic gameplay and visuals formed a simple yet addictive combination that spawned a port and a remake on the PSP, but somehow, no sequel. We know we're not the only ones who've fantasized about saving the universe with our shredding, so why this franchise hasn't been revived is a mystery to us.

Goichi "Suda 51" Suda and Shinji Mikami's bizarre collaboration may not have been the Gamecube saver Nintendo had hoped for, but it definitely won the hearts of critics. The Gamecube was rife with unoriginal and boring games, and Killer 7 was the perfect antidote.

It's an on-rails shooter with controls like nothing else and a wheelchair-bound assassin with seven split personalities. It only gets weirder from there, but suffice to say Suda and Mikami's latest collaboration, Shadows of the Damned, contains only a shadow of the nonsensical action that suffuses Killer 7. We're not really surprised there's no Killer 8, but that doesn't mean we don't pine for it.

The thing that really set GunValkyrie apart was its control scheme, which set the learning curve so high that most people (reviewers included) wrote it off as a failure. But it was that very control scheme that also made GunValkyrie such an unforgettable experience.

Keeping your GunValkyrie mech suit aloft required constant clicking of the left thumbstick, and like a too-tight Fleshlight, it left us sore but satisfied night after night. The steampunk-meets-Starship-Troopers aesthetic was genius, as well. Developer Smilebit, beloved for other games like Jet Grind Radio and Panzer Dragoon Orta, was shut down in 2004, but most of its members were folded into another internal Sega studio, Sega Sports R&D. So while a sequel is technically possible, we doubt we'll ever get one.

Of all of Tim Schafer's beautiful, twisted creations, Psychonauts is easily our favorite. And though Schafer's not much for sequels, we think this one might actually happen.

It's perfect. In fact, it practically begs for one. The ending sees newly-initiated Psychonaut Raz taking off in a jet to rescue the kidnapped leader of the organization of psychic spies. If that's not the plot of a hit sequel, we don't know what is.

Another Shinji Mikami title on the list—apparently he's no more fond of sequels than Tim Schafer is. God Hand is just one of those games that gets all the right things right, most notably its incredibly deep and fluid combat system.

As a game about an ancient artifact—the God Hand—used to punch demons and everything else straight back to hell, the combat would have to be good. Mikami's moved on to other projects, like No More Heroes, Shadows of the Damned and Vanquish, and he recently told 1UP that he'll take more of a backseat position on future projects. Even so, we're still holding out for a God Hand sequel.

Eternal Darkness was one of the few good, mature titles ever released for the Gamecube. It sent a likable, realistic female protagonist hurling backward through time to unravel mysteries through the eyes of her ancestors. And its novel sanity meter, which caused the game to freak the hell out when your character got too frightened, set it apart from other survival horror titles.

But given Silicon Knights's more recent disasters, Too Human and X-Men: Destiny, and their apparent desire to focus more on suing Epic than developing good games, we doubt we'll be getting a new entry any time soon.

As far as year-one PS3 titles went, Folklore was certainly among the best. That may not be saying much, of course, but it still has a special place in our hearts. Given the PS2's massive JRPG selection, Folklore filled an important niche for early PS3 adopters, even if it was anything but traditional.

Its novelesque story, gorgeous aesthetic and Pokémon-like monster collection system made it totally unforgettable to those who invested some time in it. It's a true fairy tale of a game. Unfortunately, it was overshadowed by the fledgling PS3's many issues and some bigger games—like Uncharted and Resistance—and thus was largely forgotten. Tentative plans for a Move-ready sequel were quickly quashed last summer, so we've no hope for a follow-up.

Jet Force Gemini is a relic from a time when Rare still made good games, like Goldeneye and Banjo-Kazooie. While their other franchises have lived on, Jet Force has been apparently forgotten—though not by us.

With multiple characters, huge environments with numerous branching paths to explore, not to mention mandatory backtracking, it often fell into tedium; yet for every frustrating moment there was a satisfying one. The game's excellent platforming and shooting mechanics, as well as its sheer robustness, left us with fond memories. Hopefully Rare will revive the series one day (under their new overlords, Microsoft) and give us more than memories.

As a unique spin on Grand Theft Auto's now-common sandbox formula,The Saboteur was a good game that came out a few years too late. In an industry saturated with Saints Rows, Just Causes, Crackdowns and countless other GTA-alikes, The Saboteur was simply all too easy to overlook.

But once you get past its superficial sameness, it's a compelling tale of revenge set against the backdrop of Nazi-occupied Paris circa World War 2. Outside the frontlines of war, it's a period that's rarely been explored in games, and The Saboteur did a bang-up job. Even though EA permanently shuttered developer Pandemic in 2009, they still claimed a sequel would be coming out; the problem is, it was supposed to happen in 2011, and we've heard little since. We're guessing it's not going to happen, but that won't stop us crossing our fingers.