10 Video Game Sequels That Were Better Than The Original

Image via Complex Original

Original: Mass Effect

The original Mass Effect was a great start to the trilogy. But even if you didn’t agree with how Mass Effect 3 ultimately ended, you have to admit that Mass Effect 2 improved on the first game in more ways than one.

Driving the Mako around in the first game could be fun, but ultimately it got tedious. Mass Effect 2 upped the pace, not to mention the stakes—exploring character-specific storylines while preparing for the ultimate suicide mission was a great structure.

And the combat was loads better in Mass Effect 2, with abilities and powers playing nicely with weapons, and ammo no longer being a finite resource. That gave you the freedom to loosen up and have a little fun during firefights, something that rarely happened in the original.

Original: System Shock

In case you’re not familiar, System Shock 2 is a 1999 PC shooter from Ken Levine and co. and Irrational Games, the makers of BioShock. It’s considered to be a spiritual predecessor, where many of the great ideas in BioShock originated. And it was damn good.

Irrational and Looking Glass studios were originally creating a standalone game, but when EA signed on as publisher they altered the story to make it a sequel to the original System Shock. Naturally, it completely transformed the series, since it was never meant to be a System Shock title in the first place. But it was definitely for the best.

Some things were similar between the two, like the combination of shooting, role-playing, and horror elements. But with state-of-the-art technology and Irrational’s unique touch, System Shock 2 was a huge improvement.

Original: Pokémon Red and Pokémon Blue

To many, the original Pokémon games were nigh on perfect. Little did our 10-year-old brains know back then that the series would be improved so much over the years. Pokémon X and Y are certainly the culmination of that, but Gold and Silver began the trend.

The sequels to Pokémon Red and Blue were highly anticipated all over the world. They added a ton of new Pokémon to collect, a new region to explore, new mechanics, improved visuals (impressive for the Game Boy Color era), and tons more.

And a lot of that change was transformative: the new dark- and steel-type Pokémon, Pokémon breeding, the ability for Pokémon to hold items to use in battle, fundamental improvements to the battle system, and an experience bar that showed the critters' progress to their next levels during battle.

Original: Batman: Arkham Asylum

If Batman: Arkham Asylum was the Dark Knight’s Legend of Zelda, then Arkham City is A Link to the Past. In other words, it improved on its predecessor in massive ways.

The original set a new bar for video game adaptations, and Arkham City retained everything that was great that game: the fluid combat, the bevy of cool gadgets, the stellar writing and voice performances, the fun cameos—the list goes on.

But to that it added one of the most interesting open worlds in recent gaming history. Oh—and Batman could fly around endlessly in it. Wonder how Arkham: Origins will improve on that?

Original: Killzone

The original Killzone was meant to be Sony’s “Halo killer,” a phrase that was being thrown around a lot back when Microsoft’s flagship franchise ruled the roost and nothing else could compete. Yes, before Call of Duty took over.

But back then Killzone was just a flashy but ultimately unfulfilling shooter on the PS2, a platform not known for great games in the genre. Luckily that changed with Killzone 2.

The jump in platform generation to the PlayStation 3 helped, but ultimately it was a host of smart design changes that made Killzone 2 so much better than the earlier title. Everything looked better and the gameplay had far more weight and realism; it was so impressive at E3 2005, when it was announced, that gamers hardly believed they were seeing a real video game.

Original: Half-Life

Half-Life set the bar for shooters for years afterward. We’d have guessed that Valve couldn’t recreate that success, but we’d have been wrong. Half-Life 2 was a massive transformation for the series, and if anything it proved even more influential than the original.

Half-Life protagonist Gordon Freeman still wouldn’t speak, but every other character—even some unnamed scientists from the first game—was given new life in Half-Life 2. The environments were more expansive and far more detailed, the story was bigger and better, and the graphics were insanely good at the time.

The Half-Life sequel is also praised for its strong female character, Alyx Vance, as well as its innovative and unique gravity gun.

Original: Team Fortress

Team Fortress 2 was one of those games that seemed like it would never come out. Valve took their time with it, sure, but we learned ultimately that sometimes the wait is worth it.

The first Team Fortress game was simply a popular mod, and the sequel was at first released only in the “Orange Box” compilation with Portal and Half-Life 2. But despite those humble beginnings, Team Fortress 2 has a massive following to this day, over six years later.

And it was completely different from the first game; where the original was relatively realistic (for a Quake mod at least), TF 2 was cartoonish and goofy. Team Fortress 2 transformed the multiplayer series into a character-driven game of Looney Tunes-like action that's nevertheless well-written and even better designed.

Original: Demon’s Souls

Demon's Souls made hack-and-slash hard again, but Dark Souls made it cool. The follow-up by From Software was a spiritual successor to Demon’s Souls, but for all their similarities it may as well have been a true sequel.

The combat, visual style, tone, and even one character (damn you, Patches) made it into the new game, but Dark Souls also changed the formula significantly. It featured a new story, new items and characters, and tons of new mechanics, of course, but the biggest change was in the environment.

Instead of compartmentalized levels that had to be challenged one by one, Dark Souls features one big, interconnected world that twisted and turned in on itself like a beehive filled with demons and pain. Dark Souls 2, coming out next year, will continue down that road, and the series will finally get a true sequel; but we feel Dark Souls will always be our favorite.

Original: Assassin’s Creed

Watching the saga of the original Assassin’s Creed play out was painful for fans and critics alike. The game seemed to have infinite potential, but it was wasted on repetitive gameplay, false promises of freedom, and unsatisfying story elements. Thankfully the sequel changed much of that.

It helped that the environments in Assassin’s Creed 2 were infinitely more beautiful than those in its predecessor. The move to a recognizable era of Italy was brilliant, and it’s rarely been more rewarding to explore a game's environment just to see what there was to find.

But it was more than that; the story, the writing, the sci-fi bookends, the combat, the items, the side quests—everything in Assassin’s Creed 2 was superior to what was in the first game, and to this day it remains arguably the best title in the series.

Original: Mario Bros.

Sequels truly don’t get any better than Super Mario Bros. A lot of people reading this might not even remember the original Mario Bros. It was an arcadey platformer in which Mario and sometimes Luigi had to avoid and defeat turtles that popped out of pipes on single-screen levels. That made more sense for a plumber—he was eliminating the pests clogging the pipes—than the galaxy-spanning adventures Mario has these days, but Mario Bros. was still inferior to what would directly follow it. With Super Mario Bros., Nintendo and Shigeru Miyamoto didn’t just create a sequel. They reinvented a genre and provided the industry with a true kick in the ass, not to mention the most influential game ever created and one of the most beloved legacies across all mediums and cultures.

Without that transformation the game industry would not be what it is today. See? Sometimes change is a good thing.