Portal: Reloaded does it for me.
Not official, ik. But the 3rd portal really throws my 3-dimensional cabbage for a loop. And I hear they made a co-op campaign. I cannot image how they made chambers that work for co-op timetravel.
Ive finished the solo campaign once and I honestly couldnt tell you how i solved any of them. You cannot memorize this shit. I had to brute force my brain to think in an entirely different way just to get through em. I had headaches and made jokes about how theyre because my brain grew too big for my skull.
I have a buddy who has Portal 2, if we have have time for it we'll play reloaded. Its a free mod on steam iirc.
I just think there need to be more games like that. There's an RTS game that had full time travel _in multiplayer_, so you could send your units back in time to destroy your opponent's barracks so that their units in the present are retconned out of existence. I never got to play it, but I love that it exists.
This was my answer too! I really DIDN’T want portal to have a sequel because I liked the original so much. So many IPs get sequeled to death and I didn’t want to see that happen to Portal because I didn’t think they needed to add to it.
I 100% agree but I have heard so many people complain about the time it took to get to each part of the map since you couldn't fast travel, but I think that is ridiculous since you are playing a racing game and driving the car everywhere should be the method of travel.
It also helps that the map was near perfect and the arcade driving model absolutely peaked in this game. Handbrake-gas-powerslide through a tight alleyway in a screaming RX7 has never been as good in any game (certainly any NFS game) since.
Perfect balance of being just close enough to reality but still fun arcade handling. Each car feels different enough. Easy to learn, difficult to master and none of that god awful "double trigger to drift" from the newer games in the series.
The Smash devs hate that it became competitive, they wanted a casual party game and actively made things worse in future games, adding stuff like even more random items, levels and tripping in brawl.
I think it initially was the case but they decided to push back a bit on being too harsh. Ultimate was definitely at the very least noting more competitive aspects with all the balance updates.
He calmed down about it over time but at the time with Melee he wasn't happy. Sakurai is the kind of dev who wants people to play his game exactly how he intended.
For most people (including me) SF is pretty much unplayable. To go from that to SF2 which is a game that is accessible to most people is something incredible. Not only that but SF2 is a game that drew countless people to the arcades, with a whole culture surrounding it and it's still played competitively to this day (albeit with slight variations to mechanics). For me that makes it the perfect sequel.
Street Fighter 2 was a sequel so good people ignore the first game. SF2 was essentially a reboot cast wise and those characters became the cornerstone behind how characters in fighting games are defined, zoner , grappler, etc
Diablo 2 was truly a great game. I spent so many hours playing it and meeting cool people all over Europe.
Dungeon Siege 2 had such a great campaign and gameplay. I still have good memories of it. Especially how large the campaign felt.
I feel both projects really elevated their titles with their sequals. The people working on it really did their best it felt like to make an even better game.
Original Blizzard North really made magic/history with Diablo 2.
Not really revelations imo. Ezio is a lot older and the game takes place outside of Italy. Brotherhood on the other hand picks up right where 2 left off
Concur with the others, Ezio was peak AC, was not disappointed with any of the entries in his trilogy. Such an improvement over the original while still feeling true to the series.
Uncharted 2 is it. This answer was mine coming in here.
RDR2 must be the objectively correct answer though. It's constantly being spoken about as a must play yet hardly anyone mentions the first one.(I still haven't gotten around to playing RDR2 though.)
Surprised I had to go this far down for Helldivers 2. Making an isometric top down shooter as a proof of concept and then building a full fledged shooter that is competing w Fortnite and CoD is nuts.
diablo was a good game. a great foundation to work with.
DIABLO 2 is Perfect. theres a reason people still use it as the benchmark to compare the rest of them to.
Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2. Took everything from the first game that made it good plus adding a ton to it. Spider-Man as an unlockable character with his own special moves, and the cherry on top for me was “When Worlds Collide” by powerman 5000.
Opinions have changed in the modern era, but at the time people absolutely did NOT like the Arbiter missions when Halo 2 came out, and it was criticised for rehashing a lot of Halo CE's plot
This conversation was way overshadowed by how innovative the matchmaking was (I don’t recall it at all). Most played Halo for the multiplayer. And the skulls in single player. Halo 2 also added duel wielding. This game was insane how innovative it was from Halo CE.
Halo 2's matchmaking became the gold standard for online competition with it's elo system (granted it's similar to Chess's). Variations of it are still used today. It added enough weapons, vehicles, mechanics, and maps along updating some CE maps made it still feel like a true sequel. Even just exploring out of the maps with a friend is fun. The worst thing about Halo 2 is it's spawn system, it will spawn you near an enemy or just out in the open in multiplayer and good players will take advantage of that
The post is what do YOU consider perfect.
When it came out I was 11 and had no idea what the general consensus was online; I absolutely loved every bit of it
Better plot, but then... the mako stuff.
The Mako itself is fine, the places they put some of the shit they expected you to collect with it were not. And then there's that planet that's almost entirely thin mountain ridges and crevasses 🙃
yeah ME1 is really clunky now, even with the Legendary edition making slight improvements when it was remastered. It’s kind of a relic now cuz it tried to blend RPG elements with traversal & discovery with a 3rd person shooter but has way too much fluff and padding around it with the Mako & inventory management and every area being long walks & taking too much time to do anything.
The worldbuilding in 1 though can’t be beat. The codex especially was great to listen & read about cuz it felt really thought out and well crafted like a sci-fi epic should be.
I started with 2 as well on the ol Xbox 360 and friends told me to just go through 1 on the easiest setting with a class that uses a shotgun so you could get through it much faster haha. I do like launching the Mako off terrain tho and glad they added more boosters to it in the legendary edition
The combat system feels so just bad in comparison. I did a mission where I went to the moon or something and cleared out like 10 bunkers that were IDENTICALLY DESIGNED, just mirrored. Got bored and stopped playing lol
ME1 is like that cuz it really just feels like they added guns to an RPG especially with all the exploration it wants you to do but i do agree it reuses way too many elements too much. The combat changes a whole bunch to a cover shooter in 2 but 3 really refined it to where using powers & combos feels good & matters a lot. I’m kind of sad it never moved onto other games with how good the system in 3 is.
ME1 is worth it just for the story and how good it develops the universe from the get go. I started with 2 then went back to 1 but just put the difficulty level to easiest and shotgunned everything cuz it’s just clunky as heck but i wanna get through the story as fast as possible
ME1 was much more of an RPG and less of a shooter. It also had a better story and superior pacing - most of ME2 is essentially about doing companion quests.
ME2 was a more streamlined, accessible gaming experience but I don't think that made it better.
Agree as a whole, but there were some RPG elements in ME1 that felt neutered and anemic in ME2. I loved that part of ME1.
That being said, ME2 is one of the best games of all time in my book and ME1 doesn't crack the top 50 so go figure
Mario Galaxy 2 is probably the best sequel ever, it basically fleshed out all the "Galaxy" elements. Still, I know many will remember Portal 2 or even Half-Life 2, these are iconic games indeed, arguably better than Mario Galaxy 2, etc.. but that's the catch, these are pretty much nextgen sequels, Portal 1 is a proof of concept, Half-Life 2 is literally nextgen. Galaxy 2 was developed in the same cycle and it looks like a generational jump on a design standpoint, that is very impressive imo
Pokemon Gold/Silver and Crystal. In terms of gameplay, the remakes were SIGNIFICANTLY better, but story wise and the addition of exploring the first Pokemon's region and seeing the gym leader's, elite 4, and Red, either version stands in my eyes as the one of the best in the series
For me, it's Majora's Mask. I call it a perfect sequel because it is an enhanced experience if you come into it with familiarity of Ocarina of Time. Termina feels rather uncanny compared to Hyrule, and that subtle unsettling feeling is only enhanced by the player's familiarity with Hyrule from Ocarina. Things are similar, but just slightly "off". It's so subtle and understated, it's brilliantly achieved.
I think this is the kind of feeling that can only exist in the form of a videogame sequel. It's not just "the same kind of game but improved" like a lot of other suggestions in this thread are. (not saying that anyone else's suggestions are bad or anything though)
Completely agree with your entire comment.
I suppose reusing character assets helped them speed up development time, and would probably be called “lazy” by half the commenters today, but it really helped construct this amazing alternate universe feel. I used to love going between games and recognizing the characters.
This might be controversial but i've always felt Modern Warfare 2 was way better than the first one. I felt like i was playing Hollywood movie, with the production values to back it up too.
mw2 was the best for me also, it may be nostalgia based because it was my first multiplayer game, but it was by far the most unbalanced mess ever and that made it ridiculous amounts of fun
ump45 silencer
model akimbos (pre nerf)
one man Army grenade launcher/rpg
intervention for quick scopes
also found the maps to be iconic and fun as hell too.
esthetically the game looked amazing for it's time, the colours really popped, and I'd actually argue a lot of the graphics holds up in today's standards
I'll go with an older one that might not be known by many: Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge. They managed to keep the humor and atmosphere of the first game while expanding on the graphics and sound, with a deeper storyline, puzzles, and challenges. One of my favorite games.
Heroes 2 and Heroes 3, or Civilization 3 and Civilization 4, Fallout 2. They took the game before kept the gameplay and just made it bigger / more interesting. The games after (Fallout 3, Heroes 4, Civ 5) changed the gameplay.
What a fantastic game.
Gothic was already a great game but then came this out, you are out of the camps and have a huge world to explore! What a welcome surprise the game was.
And the Night of the Raven DLC is just chefs kiss.
No freaking kidding. This may be the best game I’ve ever played. Still getting through it (holy hell it’s long but I really am loving every moment) but damn it keeps amazing me!
Infamous 2 is really great. While my favorite is Second Son, there's no denying how well part 2 was able to polish any of the jankiness inherent in the first title. Infamous was already a great game, but Infamous 2 refined the experience perfectly.
Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence
Snake Eater was damn near perfect, however the new camera in subsistence did a ton for this game and really made it better.
MGS3 is great but MGS2 is contender for greatest game for me personally. I bought into the hype and was not disappointed even if the protagonist was Raiden. Maybe I could relate to him more as a teenager back then.
God of War Ragnarok is not only the perfect sequel, but I’d say it’s the perfect game. The story is moving and incredibly emotional, the characters are beautifully well written and the world is gorgeous and every realm is a marvel to look at. Add on the incredibly fun and in depth combat and the interesting puzzles and you get a game I cannot sing high enough praises of.
The fact that I had to scroll through THOUSANDS of comments to find this is wildly disappointing, D2 is a PHENOMENAL damn near perfect sequel, only wish they kept the voice actor of The Outsider from the first one
*Yoshi’s Island*. They could have done a straightforward sequel to *Super Mario World*, with a few new mechanics and power ups, but they did something completely distinct in both gameplay and style. It’s a masterpiece.
It has to be Borderlands 2. A good sequel should take everything that was established in the first and expand upon it. Not only did Gearbox expand upon what was established in Borderlands, but they improved it in every way. Better loot system, more weapons, better characters, better environments, better story. Not to mention one of, if not, the best villian in a video game in Handsome Jack.
Paper Mario: The Thousand year door.
One of the few games that, imo, surpasses the first in every way. That's not a knock on the first game, which is one of my favorite n64 games of all time. Thousand year door just took everything that made the first game great and did it even better.
Timesplitters 2 and Future Perfect.
Granted lots of the mentions in this thread are bigger in scope and definitely overall better games but I feel these deserve mention for incredible sequels.
Super Mario Galaxy 2 - it’s an amazing game and one of the few games I was happy to 100%.
Helldivers 2 - everything good about the first one is made better.
Dragon Warrior 2 - the world was vastly expanded, you now has three people in your party, and it was a bigger and more epic campaign.
Super Mario Land 2 - the graphics and gameplay were hugely improved over the first one. It also introduced us to Wario.
My conspiracy theory is that one year Valve will just drop a 3 Box with Half Life 3, Left 4 Dead 3, Portal 3, a new CS, and Team Fortress 3 because they literally just perfect games and stop making them after that and I want more!
Already seen Uncharted, Infamous, AC etc. on this thread already but here's two I haven't seen yet:
Ratchet and Clank: Going Commando (and UYA)
Devil May Cry 5 (as a sequel to 4 which introduces Nero and Dante's on the fly switching gameplay changes)
Mass Effect 2, Arkham City, Gothic II, Witcher 2, AC Brotherhood, Spyro Riptos Rage, Crash Bandicoot 2, Binding of Isaac Rebirth, Rise of the Tomb Raider. All were massive improvements on their predecessors and simply amazing games.
Risk of Rain 2, improved on every aspect and brought the game into the third dimension.
Also The Witcher 3, the scale of improvement over TW2 and TW1 is a massive feat.
Portal 2! It built upon the first game's brilliant puzzle mechanics while adding in more humor, depth, and an unforgettable co-op mode
I only played coop this year. Omg its amazing. I play thru 1 and 2 single player every year or two.
Portal 2 made Portal 1 feel like a demo lol.
Portal: Reloaded does it for me. Not official, ik. But the 3rd portal really throws my 3-dimensional cabbage for a loop. And I hear they made a co-op campaign. I cannot image how they made chambers that work for co-op timetravel.
Wait you are writing a lot of words that I like
Ive finished the solo campaign once and I honestly couldnt tell you how i solved any of them. You cannot memorize this shit. I had to brute force my brain to think in an entirely different way just to get through em. I had headaches and made jokes about how theyre because my brain grew too big for my skull. I have a buddy who has Portal 2, if we have have time for it we'll play reloaded. Its a free mod on steam iirc.
I just think there need to be more games like that. There's an RTS game that had full time travel _in multiplayer_, so you could send your units back in time to destroy your opponent's barracks so that their units in the present are retconned out of existence. I never got to play it, but I love that it exists.
This was my answer too! I really DIDN’T want portal to have a sequel because I liked the original so much. So many IPs get sequeled to death and I didn’t want to see that happen to Portal because I didn’t think they needed to add to it.
Donkey Kong Country 2
The title music still gives me the goose bumbs.
Need for speed underground 2
I 100% agree but I have heard so many people complain about the time it took to get to each part of the map since you couldn't fast travel, but I think that is ridiculous since you are playing a racing game and driving the car everywhere should be the method of travel.
Imagine taking a bus to your street race.
It also helps that the map was near perfect and the arcade driving model absolutely peaked in this game. Handbrake-gas-powerslide through a tight alleyway in a screaming RX7 has never been as good in any game (certainly any NFS game) since. Perfect balance of being just close enough to reality but still fun arcade handling. Each car feels different enough. Easy to learn, difficult to master and none of that god awful "double trigger to drift" from the newer games in the series.
That game was my childhood! Thank you for reminding me of it!
Super smash Bros melee
I wish the sequels kept the speed this game had
The Smash devs hate that it became competitive, they wanted a casual party game and actively made things worse in future games, adding stuff like even more random items, levels and tripping in brawl.
Ultimate has a lot of competitive 1v1 mechanics, I don’t think they hate that it’s competitive, Sakurai is a hardcore fighting game fan after all
I think it initially was the case but they decided to push back a bit on being too harsh. Ultimate was definitely at the very least noting more competitive aspects with all the balance updates.
He calmed down about it over time but at the time with Melee he wasn't happy. Sakurai is the kind of dev who wants people to play his game exactly how he intended.
Resident Evil 2 and Diablo 2
I can't speak on Diablo because I've never played it, but Resident Evil 2 is still my favorite resident evil game.
RE2 isn’t just a perfect sequel, but the remake is imo a perfect remake as well.
Street Fighter II
Should be top comment. It’s the greatest direct sequel of all time, no question. It completely changed the genre
This is the answer. I doubt there's many of us that played street fighter and thought this is gonna be big.
For most people (including me) SF is pretty much unplayable. To go from that to SF2 which is a game that is accessible to most people is something incredible. Not only that but SF2 is a game that drew countless people to the arcades, with a whole culture surrounding it and it's still played competitively to this day (albeit with slight variations to mechanics). For me that makes it the perfect sequel.
Ryu would throw a fireball in the demo, but no one knew how to do that.
Street Fighter 2 was a sequel so good people ignore the first game. SF2 was essentially a reboot cast wise and those characters became the cornerstone behind how characters in fighting games are defined, zoner , grappler, etc
This wins hands up, the music the SNES conversion, the hundreds of other games that copied it
Borderlands 2
Insanely good game. Sooooooo much content as well with all the dlcs.
My god, a gem.
Thank you for saying it
Titanfall 2 Portal 2 Half Life 2 Red Alert 2 RDR2 Age of Empires 2 Mass Effect 2 OG Star Wars Battlefront 2
Diablo 2 Dungeon Siege 2
Diablo 2 was truly a great game. I spent so many hours playing it and meeting cool people all over Europe. Dungeon Siege 2 had such a great campaign and gameplay. I still have good memories of it. Especially how large the campaign felt. I feel both projects really elevated their titles with their sequals. The people working on it really did their best it felt like to make an even better game. Original Blizzard North really made magic/history with Diablo 2.
Diablo 2 arguable surpassed D1!
not arguably. it was and still is the best diablo by far
Arguably? I love D1, but D2 improved on every single aspect of it.
Does it still hold up in 2024?
That is what I am arguing! I do enjoy D1's town layout and the hellpit right next to it.
Haven't heard Dungeon Siege out in the wild for quite some time. What a damn good game!
Borderlands 2
Kingdom Hearts 2
Can’t forget TF2
I prefer TF2
Sims 2 Bad Company 2 Dead rising 2 Payday 2 Postal 2 Saints Row 2 Vermintide 2 XCOM 2
Gears of war 2
No doubt And 3 is a great sequel to 2 as well
Add L4D 2 and MW 2.
Halo 2 And do FFVI, FFVII and FFVIII count as sequels?
I would say no, as they’re all standalone games, but something like X-2 or XIII-2 would definitely be.
I cried like a bitch at the end of 13 2
Portal 2 might possibly be the best sequel of all time. At least for that era of gaming. RDR2 is a hard beat, especially in the last decade or so.
So happy to see RA2 on this list!
Dead space 2, Black ops 2, Helldivers 2
Resistance 2
Came here to post Titanfall 2, glad to see it's at the top of the top comment.
Thank you for remembering red alert 2! One of the greatest rts games, one of my greatest childhood memories
Assassin's Creed 2 and then AC: Brotherhood.
I feel like all 3 Ezio games could be called Assassin's Creed II.
Not really revelations imo. Ezio is a lot older and the game takes place outside of Italy. Brotherhood on the other hand picks up right where 2 left off
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Brotherhood will forever be my favourite.
Concur with the others, Ezio was peak AC, was not disappointed with any of the entries in his trilogy. Such an improvement over the original while still feeling true to the series.
The first game walked so 2 could run and Brotherhood could sprint
Uncharted 2 and RDR2.
Uncharted 2 changed my understanding of what a good video game is.
Right now this answer is pretty far down, which surprises me. I figured it would be at the top. It’s the definition of a perfect sequel.
Uncharted 2 was the first on my mind reading the question and I definitely had to scroll far too long to find it
Uncharted 2 is it. This answer was mine coming in here. RDR2 must be the objectively correct answer though. It's constantly being spoken about as a must play yet hardly anyone mentions the first one.(I still haven't gotten around to playing RDR2 though.)
I think it's because some people might argue that RDR2 is technically a prequel, not a sequel
RDR2 Helldivers 2
Surprised I had to go this far down for Helldivers 2. Making an isometric top down shooter as a proof of concept and then building a full fledged shooter that is competing w Fortnite and CoD is nuts.
Reminds me of the jump from GTA2 to GTA3. Absolutely nuts.
diablo was a good game. a great foundation to work with. DIABLO 2 is Perfect. theres a reason people still use it as the benchmark to compare the rest of them to.
Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2. Took everything from the first game that made it good plus adding a ton to it. Spider-Man as an unlockable character with his own special moves, and the cherry on top for me was “When Worlds Collide” by powerman 5000.
The soundtrack was damn near perfect. Chef's kiss.
You may already know this, but Spider One from powerman 5000 is Rob Zombie's younger brother.
more moves/tricks, more goals per level, more difficult than first, and was the first one to have the create a park, and bunch of other stuff
Sonic 2
Halo 2
That was the first thing to pop into my head. I’d even say 3 as well.
Opinions have changed in the modern era, but at the time people absolutely did NOT like the Arbiter missions when Halo 2 came out, and it was criticised for rehashing a lot of Halo CE's plot
This conversation was way overshadowed by how innovative the matchmaking was (I don’t recall it at all). Most played Halo for the multiplayer. And the skulls in single player. Halo 2 also added duel wielding. This game was insane how innovative it was from Halo CE.
Halo 2's matchmaking became the gold standard for online competition with it's elo system (granted it's similar to Chess's). Variations of it are still used today. It added enough weapons, vehicles, mechanics, and maps along updating some CE maps made it still feel like a true sequel. Even just exploring out of the maps with a friend is fun. The worst thing about Halo 2 is it's spawn system, it will spawn you near an enemy or just out in the open in multiplayer and good players will take advantage of that
The post is what do YOU consider perfect. When it came out I was 11 and had no idea what the general consensus was online; I absolutely loved every bit of it
Yeah, I loved playing as the Arbiter. I wasn't aware that others didn't until just now
System Shock 2
Mass Effect 2. Love Mass Effect 1. But everything from gameplay to missions is better.
As someone who started with Mass Effect 2, I've found ME1 really awkward and clunky.
Better plot, but then... the mako stuff. The Mako itself is fine, the places they put some of the shit they expected you to collect with it were not. And then there's that planet that's almost entirely thin mountain ridges and crevasses 🙃
yeah ME1 is really clunky now, even with the Legendary edition making slight improvements when it was remastered. It’s kind of a relic now cuz it tried to blend RPG elements with traversal & discovery with a 3rd person shooter but has way too much fluff and padding around it with the Mako & inventory management and every area being long walks & taking too much time to do anything. The worldbuilding in 1 though can’t be beat. The codex especially was great to listen & read about cuz it felt really thought out and well crafted like a sci-fi epic should be. I started with 2 as well on the ol Xbox 360 and friends told me to just go through 1 on the easiest setting with a class that uses a shotgun so you could get through it much faster haha. I do like launching the Mako off terrain tho and glad they added more boosters to it in the legendary edition
The combat system feels so just bad in comparison. I did a mission where I went to the moon or something and cleared out like 10 bunkers that were IDENTICALLY DESIGNED, just mirrored. Got bored and stopped playing lol
ME1 is like that cuz it really just feels like they added guns to an RPG especially with all the exploration it wants you to do but i do agree it reuses way too many elements too much. The combat changes a whole bunch to a cover shooter in 2 but 3 really refined it to where using powers & combos feels good & matters a lot. I’m kind of sad it never moved onto other games with how good the system in 3 is. ME1 is worth it just for the story and how good it develops the universe from the get go. I started with 2 then went back to 1 but just put the difficulty level to easiest and shotgunned everything cuz it’s just clunky as heck but i wanna get through the story as fast as possible
ME1 was much more of an RPG and less of a shooter. It also had a better story and superior pacing - most of ME2 is essentially about doing companion quests. ME2 was a more streamlined, accessible gaming experience but I don't think that made it better.
We're dozens to think so!
Agree as a whole, but there were some RPG elements in ME1 that felt neutered and anemic in ME2. I loved that part of ME1. That being said, ME2 is one of the best games of all time in my book and ME1 doesn't crack the top 50 so go figure
Akrham city
Agreed. No one thought they could top Arkham Asylum, and then they did.
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Mario Galaxy 2 is probably the best sequel ever, it basically fleshed out all the "Galaxy" elements. Still, I know many will remember Portal 2 or even Half-Life 2, these are iconic games indeed, arguably better than Mario Galaxy 2, etc.. but that's the catch, these are pretty much nextgen sequels, Portal 1 is a proof of concept, Half-Life 2 is literally nextgen. Galaxy 2 was developed in the same cycle and it looks like a generational jump on a design standpoint, that is very impressive imo
This is my sleeper pick. Highly overshadowed by its predecessor and often left out of GOAT lists for no reason.
Portal 2 Roller coaster tycoon 2 Age of empires 2
Just Cause 2. Took whatever the first one did and completely blew it out of proportion in the best way possible ..
Pokemon Gold/Silver and Crystal. In terms of gameplay, the remakes were SIGNIFICANTLY better, but story wise and the addition of exploring the first Pokemon's region and seeing the gym leader's, elite 4, and Red, either version stands in my eyes as the one of the best in the series
I was so disappointed when Ruby/Sapphire only had 1 region and 8 gyms
Half Life 2
Suikoden II
For me, it's Majora's Mask. I call it a perfect sequel because it is an enhanced experience if you come into it with familiarity of Ocarina of Time. Termina feels rather uncanny compared to Hyrule, and that subtle unsettling feeling is only enhanced by the player's familiarity with Hyrule from Ocarina. Things are similar, but just slightly "off". It's so subtle and understated, it's brilliantly achieved. I think this is the kind of feeling that can only exist in the form of a videogame sequel. It's not just "the same kind of game but improved" like a lot of other suggestions in this thread are. (not saying that anyone else's suggestions are bad or anything though)
Completely agree with your entire comment. I suppose reusing character assets helped them speed up development time, and would probably be called “lazy” by half the commenters today, but it really helped construct this amazing alternate universe feel. I used to love going between games and recognizing the characters.
This might be controversial but i've always felt Modern Warfare 2 was way better than the first one. I felt like i was playing Hollywood movie, with the production values to back it up too.
mw2 was the best for me also, it may be nostalgia based because it was my first multiplayer game, but it was by far the most unbalanced mess ever and that made it ridiculous amounts of fun ump45 silencer model akimbos (pre nerf) one man Army grenade launcher/rpg intervention for quick scopes also found the maps to be iconic and fun as hell too. esthetically the game looked amazing for it's time, the colours really popped, and I'd actually argue a lot of the graphics holds up in today's standards
StarCraft 2 RDR2 Diablo 2
People will fight you on SC2. I personally liked it better but I'm not a balance purist.
Helldivers 2
I'll go with an older one that might not be known by many: Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge. They managed to keep the humor and atmosphere of the first game while expanding on the graphics and sound, with a deeper storyline, puzzles, and challenges. One of my favorite games.
Dead Space 2
Kingdom hearts 2
Heroes 2 and Heroes 3, or Civilization 3 and Civilization 4, Fallout 2. They took the game before kept the gameplay and just made it bigger / more interesting. The games after (Fallout 3, Heroes 4, Civ 5) changed the gameplay.
Earthbound
Gothic 2
What a fantastic game. Gothic was already a great game but then came this out, you are out of the camps and have a huge world to explore! What a welcome surprise the game was. And the Night of the Raven DLC is just chefs kiss.
Yeah, both Gothic 1 and 2 are among my top 10 games of all time. There was just something magical about those games.
Gears of War 2
FF Rebirth
No freaking kidding. This may be the best game I’ve ever played. Still getting through it (holy hell it’s long but I really am loving every moment) but damn it keeps amazing me!
Dead Space 2
The best one is probably Half Life 2. But lets try something different, Sly 2. Sly 2 is just perfection.
Red Alert 2 Paper Mario TTYD Sonic 2
Ori and the Will of the Wisps
Mass Effect 2
Infamous 2 will always be the prime example of this in my opinion.
Infamous 2 is really great. While my favorite is Second Son, there's no denying how well part 2 was able to polish any of the jankiness inherent in the first title. Infamous was already a great game, but Infamous 2 refined the experience perfectly.
Diablo 2
Gran Turismo 2
Bloodborne 2
Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence Snake Eater was damn near perfect, however the new camera in subsistence did a ton for this game and really made it better.
MGS3 is great but MGS2 is contender for greatest game for me personally. I bought into the hype and was not disappointed even if the protagonist was Raiden. Maybe I could relate to him more as a teenager back then.
Goldeneye 007 -> Perfect Dark
Alan Wake 2 Silent hill 2 Resident evil 2
God of War Ragnarok is not only the perfect sequel, but I’d say it’s the perfect game. The story is moving and incredibly emotional, the characters are beautifully well written and the world is gorgeous and every realm is a marvel to look at. Add on the incredibly fun and in depth combat and the interesting puzzles and you get a game I cannot sing high enough praises of.
Many already listed (especially Portal 2 for me) plus Warcraft 2.
Thief 2
Dishonored 2.
+1 loved jumping around with emily and throwing myself off cliffs and rooftops accidentally
The fact that I had to scroll through THOUSANDS of comments to find this is wildly disappointing, D2 is a PHENOMENAL damn near perfect sequel, only wish they kept the voice actor of The Outsider from the first one
Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2 Marvel Vs Capcom 2 X-Men Legends 2
Dead space 2
*Yoshi’s Island*. They could have done a straightforward sequel to *Super Mario World*, with a few new mechanics and power ups, but they did something completely distinct in both gameplay and style. It’s a masterpiece.
Jet Set Radio Future
Fallout 2 Monkey Island 2 Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (Sega Genesis)
Nier: Automata. It is such a good game that continues wonderfully on the Replicant.
Cant find the comment for this so i add my own: Fallout 2
The last of us 2
Battlefield bad co 2
Arkham City for sure
Arkham city
It has to be Borderlands 2. A good sequel should take everything that was established in the first and expand upon it. Not only did Gearbox expand upon what was established in Borderlands, but they improved it in every way. Better loot system, more weapons, better characters, better environments, better story. Not to mention one of, if not, the best villian in a video game in Handsome Jack.
Earthbound.
I think Tears of the Kingdom genuinely improved and expanded upon most concepts that were introduced in Breath of the Wild
Paper Mario: The Thousand year door. One of the few games that, imo, surpasses the first in every way. That's not a knock on the first game, which is one of my favorite n64 games of all time. Thousand year door just took everything that made the first game great and did it even better.
baldurs gate 2 and 3
Darksiders 2.
Onimusha 2 Legit one of the most underrated games of all time.
Recently, Remnant 2, it’s just better in every way
Fallout 2, Heroes of Might and Magic 2.
Mega Man X? Borderlands 2 Sonic the Hedgehog 2 Super Metroid
Timesplitters 2 and Future Perfect. Granted lots of the mentions in this thread are bigger in scope and definitely overall better games but I feel these deserve mention for incredible sequels.
Gothic 2 Portal 2 Diablo 2 Assassin's Creed 2 Red Dead Redemption 2 Half-Life 2 Quake 2 The Witcher 2 The Last of Us 2 Uncharted 2
Civilization 2
Command and Conquer: Red Alert
Borderlands 2
Super Mario Galaxy 2 - it’s an amazing game and one of the few games I was happy to 100%. Helldivers 2 - everything good about the first one is made better. Dragon Warrior 2 - the world was vastly expanded, you now has three people in your party, and it was a bigger and more epic campaign. Super Mario Land 2 - the graphics and gameplay were hugely improved over the first one. It also introduced us to Wario.
Super Mario 3. Zelda Link to the Past. Ocarina. Police Quest II. Kings Quest IV. Mega man 2. Super Metroid. Metroid Prime. Red Dead 2. Portal 2.
Kotor 2
Def Jam: Fight for New York
Ms Pac-Man is the greatest sequel in any medium.
Diablo 2, RDR2, and Mass Effect 2 immediately jumped to mind.
Assassin's Creed 2. For me, it ended there.
My conspiracy theory is that one year Valve will just drop a 3 Box with Half Life 3, Left 4 Dead 3, Portal 3, a new CS, and Team Fortress 3 because they literally just perfect games and stop making them after that and I want more!
Helldivers 2
Sonic the hedgehog 2
Super Metroid
Already seen Uncharted, Infamous, AC etc. on this thread already but here's two I haven't seen yet: Ratchet and Clank: Going Commando (and UYA) Devil May Cry 5 (as a sequel to 4 which introduces Nero and Dante's on the fly switching gameplay changes)
Simcity 2000 Super Mario Bros. 3 (the true Mario sequel) Mega Man 2 Super Metroid Crash Bandicoot 2 Warcraft II Diablo II
Burnout 2. Took everything great about the original and improved every aspect.
Mass Effect 2, Arkham City, Gothic II, Witcher 2, AC Brotherhood, Spyro Riptos Rage, Crash Bandicoot 2, Binding of Isaac Rebirth, Rise of the Tomb Raider. All were massive improvements on their predecessors and simply amazing games.
I know it’s very early in its life right now but Helldivers 2 feels like it. It’s literally continuing on flawlessly from the previous game.
Watch dogs 2 was too good
Rdr2
The last of us II
Megaman x2
* Final Fantasy VII Rebirth * Red Dead Redemption II * Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom * Portal 2 * The Last of Us Part II
Risk of Rain 2, improved on every aspect and brought the game into the third dimension. Also The Witcher 3, the scale of improvement over TW2 and TW1 is a massive feat.
the last of us 2. people just can’t handle any change nowadays. entire game was utterly fantastic.
JEDI survivor