8 Video Game Sequels That Went TOO FAR

WhatCulture

Welcome to Tues Your Own Adventure! Join Jules and James as they take look at video game sequels that went too far! Why break what wasn't broken???! #TuesYourOwnAdventure

Transcript

00:00 [Soft jazz music]

00:09 Hello all of you little demons, Jules here for WhatCulture.com,

00:12 back again with another episode of the awesomely named and awfully hosted

00:16 Choose Your Own Adventure, the weekly medieval theme format where I,

00:20 the Crown Jules of WhatCulture.com, take a list chosen by you.

00:23 Yes, you, the person who has a new hat, but also no bike still.

00:28 It's still in the repairs and it's throwing off the feng shui of the room and I don't like it,

00:31 but at least I've got this hat, this lovely living let's dice hat to keep me company.

00:35 Ah, ah, and yes, I will keep the sticker on it because apparently that's a thing that you do

00:40 sometimes and I'm not taking it off just yet. Fresh out the box.

00:44 Anyway, yes, you get to decide what list I dole out to you each and every week.

00:48 Now apologies, there was a suggestion for this week's episode,

00:51 but I cannot for the life of me find the comments, so I'm just gonna go...

00:54 [Honking]

00:55 Cameron Kelly.

00:56 For their suggestion of video game sequels that took things a little bit too far,

01:02 that broke what didn't need to be fixed, and trust me,

01:05 there were quite a lot of examples for this list.

01:08 After all, a sequel is meant to be an opportunity for the devs to be able to address issues in the

01:12 original while expanding on what worked, and so fans have often got their sights set a little

01:17 higher for sequels than previous titles, as this should be a surefire hit, right?

01:22 However, as we all know, sometimes a sequel can lose sight of why it rose to public acclaim in

01:26 the first place, either by doubling down on the wrong elements, or as is the case of a lot of

01:30 these entries, totally shifting focus away from what put them in the spotlight.

01:35 It'd be like us replacing Jazz with a carrot, it wouldn't make any sense,

01:38 and people would lose one of the main reasons they watched this show,

01:41 so with that in mind, let's get on with it.

01:43 I'm Jules, this is WhatCulture.com, and these are 8 Video Game Sequels That Took Things Too Far.

01:48 And you know the drill by now, say hi to me here in the live chat,

01:51 and put your suggestions for next week's episode down in the comments section below.

01:55 And with that in mind, let's get on with that list, shall we?

01:57 8. Army of Two - Devil's Cartel

02:01 So, if there's one thing in this world sure to make my skin nearly invert through cringe,

02:06 it's got to be bro culture. The idea of ranking men internally by terms of

02:11 alpha and beta decisions is one that might as well read misogynist and douchebag,

02:16 as apart from other back-slapping, yes that is a real sword on my wall cool guys,

02:21 you're not impressing anyone. Plus, this statement of me not wanting to be a part of this

02:25 male bro culture is itself, according to said male bro culture, a sigma move, which just shows you

02:32 how redundant the entire system is if me saying I don't want to be a part of it places me near

02:36 the top of that list. And look at me, I shouldn't be at the top of any manly list anywhere.

02:41 Long story short, Army of Two is a bro-tastic game for water-cooler masturbators who love

02:46 telling each other about how great their latest whey protein shake was. And the worst thing of

02:50 it all was that the franchise didn't have to turn out this way. Originally, the franchise

02:54 focused on co-op integration, coordinated attacks, and a fair few cheesy one-liners.

02:59 It wasn't perfect by any stretch, but it was a pretty refreshing experience nonetheless. However,

03:04 when it got to Devil's Cartel, the devs had actively removed a ton of the co-op moves,

03:09 and instead this was just fast and furious with monster energy drink level hype replacing the

03:14 cars. Had the series gone down the rabbit hole of finding more co-op moves and pushing teamwork as

03:19 the main focus, then we'd probably be championing the series. But alas, they doubled down on the

03:24 bro, and we collectively said no. 7. Pac-Man 2

03:29 Now just imagine being in that moment when you were called into the Pac-Man HQ offices to sit

03:34 down and hear about the newest pitch for Pac-Man 2. Just try and wrap your head around that moment,

03:39 when those in charge said with straight-faced authority that Pac-Man was going to ditch the

03:43 mazes, the pellet munching, and basically everything that made it such a breakout hit,

03:48 and instead was going to focus on point-and-click puzzle solving. I mean, you'd be sitting there

03:52 thinking "have you scoffed pills that you found in your desk or something? What is going on here?"

03:57 Yet this was indeed the case with the utterly insane Pac-Man sequel, which took everything

04:02 that worked, tossed it out the window, and attempted to reinvent the wheel with a mouth.

04:06 Now normally I'd say that such a radical departure would have been a death sentence for such a game,

04:10 but you know what? Pac-Man 2 is just so weird that it actually kind of works. Helping the little

04:15 yellow fella through a series of incredulous scenarios is incredibly fun. However, I do have

04:20 to point out that him ignoring you for 90% of the time to just do even the most basic of commands

04:25 was not fun. You little yellow bastard. Clearly the devs thought the same though,

04:30 as they have never ever returned to this very weird tangent of the great iconic franchise ever

04:36 since.

04:36 6. Steel Battalion - Heavy Armor

04:39 Now depending on who you ask, Steel Battalion pretty much started things straight out of the

04:44 gate by pushing the envelope a little too far, what with its controller that screamed "Yes,

04:48 I am single and not by choice". Which I'm not gonna lie, I desperately want. I mean,

04:53 look at all these buttons. I mean, seriously, most of them are just to start the bloody mech up,

04:56 and I love how needlessly awesome that is. However, when it came to the much belated

05:01 sequel, Steel Battalion - Heavy Armor, the devs took a rather different approach. And by that,

05:06 I mean that they lost their bloody minds and decided to wrap the entire experience around

05:10 the dodgy del-boy motion sensor that was the Kinect.

05:14 Of all the gimmicks to tie a video game to, this is right up there with putting the best

05:18 Wario Land game on the migraine machine, aka the Virtual Boy. Waving your arms in desperate

05:23 frustration at the Kinect in order to do even the most simple of actions is like watching

05:28 somebody showcase what death itself is like through interpretive dance. It was no surprise

05:33 that this game bombed so hard, seeing as many just couldn't even make it through the tutorial

05:37 without throwing a brick at the Kinect. Which in this case might as well be another Kinect

05:41 for how useful it was. I mean, credit to the team for at least trying something new,

05:45 but last time I checked, most gamers want... let me just check my notes here...

05:48 functioning controls.

05:50 5. eFootball 2022

05:55 So let's face facts. There was a lot riding on eFootball 2022 when it was announced,

06:00 because a lot of people were just like "why are you rebranding PEZ? I mean,

06:05 that's a very beloved franchise right there, you're slapping a new logo on it,

06:09 and we're kind of struggling to see why. Oh wait, now we do, because you want to sell us off

06:16 every tiny morsel of this game. Cheers Konami."

06:20 Now sure, Konami, and every other gallon of crude oil and marketing buzzwords that was poured into

06:25 a suit calling itself a higher up claimed that eFootball was a brand new experience,

06:29 but in reality this rebrand was done solely to tear apart everything that PEZ had built up by

06:34 creating a free to play experience that would sell literally everything it could back to its

06:39 loyal fanbase in the most bizarre ways possible. First came the pre-order promises that were

06:43 bundled with oodles of premium - oh sorry, there's a mistake in my script there, I meant to say

06:48 worthless - in-game currency, and the promise of features and modes that wouldn't be available on

06:53 launch, meaning that you were pre-ordering a supposedly free game and getting less content

06:57 for your money. Good start, right? Beyond this was the abysmal launch, which was plagued with

07:02 bugs and issues so aggressive that even the price tag of nothing started to make people feel

07:06 shortchanged. And even in its current state with the first rollout of updates and content injections,

07:11 the game feels utterly barren. It was a game that changed everything in its pursuit of pennies,

07:17 but unfortunately it got its hands stuck in the cookie jar, decided to smash it against the wall,

07:21 and lacerated itself, leading the entire franchise to just bleed out on the floor,

07:26 and we're just like "it's meant to be a football game, this is dark!"

07:29 4. Banned Hero Oh boy, the video game industry of 2005-2010

07:35 sure was a wild time, right? Now I say this because it's probably the only time in the

07:40 collective gaming industry where players actually had to ask themselves a very weird question.

07:45 Where am I going to store all of my weird plastic instruments? We have the likes of Guitar Hero and

07:50 Rock Band to thank for this mountain of plastic, and soon, thanks to declines in sales and indeed

07:56 storage space, it was a case where one of the many expansions or updates would come along and break

08:00 the rhythm clean in two. And that game was Banned Hero. With a dramatic shift from heavy rock and

08:06 metal towards a more mainstream pop music focus, and a whole slew of new controllers to stuff under

08:12 the bed, the bubble then burst in dramatic fashion. Activision reported a notable drop in sales,

08:17 which was highly ironic considering the shift in musical tone was done to attract a wider audience,

08:22 and thanks to the difficulty of these tracks also being nerfed, the hardcore players shimmied

08:26 around this cacophony of mistakes. The publisher tried to draw from the well one too many times,

08:32 and unfortunately ran dry on the thing that actually counted - innovation.

08:37 3. Dead or Alive Xtreme 3 - Fortune/Venus

08:42 Okay, so let's get something clear here. Yes, I have played every single version of the Xtreme

08:47 Beach Volleyball series, and no, I'm not going to sit here and tell you that I played them for

08:50 their surprisingly compelling and robust volleyball mechanics. However, what I did notice upon playing

08:56 through the three games was that the length of the showers that I'd need to take to wash the

09:00 stank off of me were getting longer and longer. This was down to Fortune/Venus, depending on your

09:05 console of choice, dropping all pretense of minigame fun and silly narratives, and instead

09:09 becoming solely about the plot. If you can just put like, the plot, um, in air quotation marks on

09:15 the screen. The devs expected the third installment to make a splash with their admittedly pervy fan

09:20 base, but ended up kicking a load of sand in their faces thanks to the decision to drop some of the

09:25 better fleshed out minigames in order to focus on the exposed flesh elsewhere. In doing this,

09:30 the illusion was finally shattered. There was no way that you could defend the game saying that

09:34 you were playing it just for the gameplay. I mean, that was paper thin to begin with, and now that

09:38 had been torn into chunks and thrown into the air like confetti. Not even the hardcore set wanted to

09:43 defend this game, and in turn, it turned this spin-off into a real bin-off.

09:48 2. Dynasty Warriors 9

09:50 Now, Dynasty Warriors 9 is the curious case of a game that probably should've stayed in its

09:56 weirdly lucrative lane, and actually did the worst thing possible, which was try to innovate.

10:01 Now, most franchises would be raped over the coals for not innovating, but here,

10:05 people just wanted more of the same, and they were happy to pay for it.

10:08 The simplistic button mashing combo approach to these games, mixed with their epic 1 vs 1000

10:13 mantra, made Dynasty Warriors a smash hit series across the globe, and fans were more than happy

10:18 enough to shell out for each new addition, as long as it contained maybe one or two new playable

10:22 officers. In fact, the two times that the series diverged from this formula ended up being the most

10:27 reviled entries, namely Dynasty Warriors 6 and Dynasty Warriors 9. With DW6 came the Renbu system,

10:34 which promised fans ultimate combos, which let me tell you, as a diehard fan, was like being told

10:39 here's unlimited spending money in the factory of dreams. However, in reality, this actively removed

10:44 your combat options, as you had to build up a combo meter in order to gain access to the better

10:49 attacks. Dynasty Warriors 9, on the other hand, decided to take things open world, meaning that

10:54 while we did get more areas to explore, most of the landscape was utterly devoid of anything to do,

10:59 and it meant that all the busy work of open world titles was also dolloped into this experience.

11:04 Ah, shock horror, surprisingly people don't want to ride on horseback for 15 minutes to go and

11:09 battle like 10 dudes and then spend another 15 minutes riding back. Ah, who could have predicted

11:14 that? We wanted epic scale battles, but what we got was a few car park beatdowns showing just how

11:19 much DW9 had tried at overextending its ideas. And number one, Arm Spirit Arcade. Okay, so before I

11:27 begin this entry, I have to preface this a little bit, and you do so by doing this. Yes, it's the

11:32 evil finger temple, it's back again. I know that James Dowse hates it, but I have to explain,

11:36 because this game actually isn't a sequel. What it is, is a spiritual sequel to other arm wrestling

11:44 video games that were in the arcade at the time. So yes, it is a technicality that I'm trying to

11:48 get away on, but I think that you'll understand why I want to talk about Arm Spirit, because,

11:53 and I really want you to pay attention here, this arcade game broke three people's arms.

12:00 I think things went a bit too far there. I think that when a game can actively destroy those playing

12:05 it, that things have officially gone a little bit off the deep end, and thus it wasn't long before

12:09 Arm Spirit was pulled from arcades. Oh, but not before a really gross statement was made by Atlas,

12:15 who said that even women should be able to beat it. Yikes. And apparently they were only removing

12:21 the cabinets as a precaution and not an admission of guilt that their game once again broke the arms

12:27 of those that played it. But then again, maybe the name Arm Spirit was actually pretty apt,

12:31 because it was sending forearms to f***ing heaven. And there we go my friends, those were eight

12:35 video game sequels that took things too far. I hope that you enjoyed that, and please let me know

12:39 what you thought about it down in the comments section below, as well as any other ideas that

12:43 you've got for next week's episode. I love to read all your comments, you're big legends there,

12:47 so pop all your suggestions down there as well. But if you want to chat to me further in the

12:51 meantime, you can do so by going over to Twitter and typing in @RetroJ, but the O is a zero,

12:56 or you can swing by Liv and Letz Dice, that's me trying to spell that out again. Liv and Letz Dice.

13:03 What a clever play on words it is. Where I do all of my Warhammer Battle Reports with my friends as

13:06 well, it'd be great to see you over on that section as well my friends. But before I go,

13:12 I just want to say one thing. Yes, it was amazing to see James Dow's live. I know that a lot of

13:16 people are already going to be like, "Why didn't you film more stuff?" But we were very busy that

13:19 day. But also, that I hope that you're treating yourself well with love and respect my friend,

13:23 because you deserve the best things in life, and don't let anything or anyone else tell you

13:28 otherwise, all right? You deserve love, you deserve happiness, you deserve all of the success

13:32 in the world. Now go up there and smash it my friend, because you're not alone, we're all with

13:37 you. As always, I've been Jules, you have been awesome, never forget that, and I'll speak to you

13:42 soon. Bye.

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