I recently finished Final Fantasy X for the first time, quickly smashing through Tidus’s poor papa with all the ferocity of a tiger with a chainsaw; and when it was all over, I was left with a great sense of satisfaction. I had saved the world. We saw peace in our time, and the party of misfits celebrated by eating muffins made of rainbows. A good time was had by all (or me anyway, because it is a single player game) until I popped in the sequel, Final Fantasy X-2.

What fresh hell is this?

Yuna, quite possibly the best, boldest and most interesting character of the first game, had been turned into some kind of Lara Croft/sex cat hybrid. After all, who needs her fearlessness wrapped with humility found in the original game when you can go tomb raidin’ in teeny, tiny shorts? I don’t care to judge the game based solely on this, and as I am merely a few hours in, it would be frightfully unwise. However, this occurrence has triggered something in my entangled, cobwebby mind about sequels and the massive disappointments that developers hand us in the name of shaking things up or cashing in on a marketable franchise.

The following is a list of several horribly disappointing moments in gaming history (all of which are related to sequels) either by being inferior, or by never being released. Bear in mind that this is a list that has affected me personally. If I didn’t play your disappointing game or had your experience, that doesn’t mean I have forgotten. In fact, let me know in a comment.

Too Little, Too Late.

Don’t wizz on my head and tell me it’s raining; especially since it’s warm and smells of ammonia. When I initially played the original Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain in the mid-90’s, I thought I was experiencing the first signs of a revolution. “Finally,” I said, “a game that lets me play the bad guy!” Kain cut innocent humans in half, drank their blood tele-freaking-kinetically, and murdered shackled-up prisoners without batting an eye.

Silicon Knights, the designers of the first game in the series, lost the rights to the Kain trademark and mythos. So, what did the new developers do? They made a spin-off game starring a new character, and shoved Kain in the role of the antagonist. You could never have heard a more pitiful wail than the sound I made when I learned of this. Well, fine, the Soul Reaver games were largely hailed as quite good, but that’s not what I wanted at all. I wanted Blood Omen 2, and in 2002, someone finally answered my prayer. Only problem was my prayer was answered by Satan, and he must have been in a particularly pissy mood that day.

Blood Omen 2 was a great disappointment, both to myself and other fans of the franchise. The collision detection stank out loud, the puzzles were not overly clever, the graphics were merely adequate for the time, and Kain was suddenly thrust into a very linear world. Gone was the open world full of secrets to slowly uncover. Instead, we received a very straight-forward (AKA boring) action game with some puzzle elements. Even the plot was not up to snuff with the original. If not for the hammy but awesome voice acting of Simon Templeton, this game would have been largely useless.

Developers, if you are making a sequel to a classic game, don’t tease us with side games or wait forever to do it up right. Also, you better use a laser microscope to hit the nail directly on the head.

A Radical Departure.

People often crack wise about the Legend of Zelda series, and I call those people Sony. Yes, I know that there are legitimate complaints. For example, many games seem like rehashes of previously released adventures. So, when Nintendo crafted Majora’s Mask, a game unlike any other in the series, what did we do? We bitched — but in this case, it was justified. Sometimes a game developer makes a sequel so unlike the original that it can alienate its fans. After all, if it was done so well the first time, why fix what wasn’t broken?

Nintendo listened to its fans who said “Oh, I love these games because you have a whole world to explore and pick apart carefully to learn its secrets! Thank you, Nintendo, and would you like some of my money and my first born child?” Then, Nintendo gave as a wedgie and flushed our heads in the toilet. Majora’s Mask took away that exploration because of an imposed time limit on every quest. You didn’t have time to look around the gorgeous world. If you did look, time would quickly run out, and you would have to start waaaaay back at the beginning of Link’s task.

This game is only one of such radical new designs, but the perfect example nonetheless. It snatched away what was delightful, bright and shiny about Link, and drowned it in sewer water. Designers, if you are going to make a big change, make it for the better.

The Rare MMORPG Sequel.

Creating a sequel to a massively multiplayer online roleplaying game is like sleeping with a prostitute; it’s costly, risky and almost always a terrible idea. Asheron’s Call 2 was released in 2002, a mere three years after the first game. I’m a big fan. Well, not of Asheron’s Call 2, but of other things–Like bratwurst and Godzilla trading cards. Oh, Asheron’s Call 2? Yeah, it sucked on toast.

The problem was that some people just don’t know how to make good sequels… and all of those people got together, raised children, and those children grew up to create Asheron’s Call 2. The developers, Turbine Entertainment, made a few critical errors. The first was that they were creating a sequel to their first MMO, and that game was never (and currently still isn’t) one of the most popular games of its kind. Therefore, inciting a rabid fanbase interested in the sequel was too challenging. Most AC fans decided to stick with the original, and newcomers to the AC franchise weren’t enticed by this barely-known MMO enough to start with the sequel instead of the original. “Hey, here’s this thing you’ve never heard of. Try the sequel first!” The lack of players engendered a lack of atmosphere, particularly in the PVP server.

Turbine eventually pulled the plug on AC2 due to limited subscribers.

The first Asheron’s Call was a heck of a game. I played it extensively back in ‘99 – ‘03 and found the player vs. player element very strong, the storyline compelling and the twitchy, active combat a freshing change from the click-and-wait combat of many online roleplaying games. In AC2, the combat was slowed down, the magic and missile combat was made tediously simple, and the skill system was castrated painfully.

There is no real need to create MMORPG sequels. Ultima Online developers attempted to ceate a sequel on two seperate occasions, but each time they scrapped it before release because they realized that it would likely split their userbase rather than double it. Also, developers often favor the sequel to the original, and that would have ignited resentment from the UO fans. Since UO still exists today, keeping the original was probably a wise decision. World of Warcraft is hugely popular at the moment. Is there talk of a sequel? Of course not.

The key rule to a successful MMO is this: expansion packs, yes; sequels, no.

Development Hell.

Finally, we have the sequels that never get made. Yes, that’s right. Now that I am done bashing everything in the universe, it’s time to aim my poison arrows at stuff that doesn’t even exist! In this generation of consoles, gamers have been eagerly awaiting the releases of Hard Rain and Alan Wake despite constant delays and promises of “when it’s ready” release dates. Well, I call you all wimps because you have not even experienced a scintilla of angry gaming impatience unless you have been waiting for Duke Nukem Forever… forever.

Officially announced in 1997, DNF is something like the Loch Ness Monster. Nobody has really seen it except for the rare photograph, and even if you did look at it face to face, nobody would believe you. It’s now late 2009, and the game seems even less ready to be released than it was when it was first mentioned by its developers. At least in the 90’s, 3D Realms was doing reasonably well. Right now, I think the company exists more on court documents and memos than in reality.

My last bit of advice: don’t announce your sequel until you have a workable version. Even if DNF ever sees the light of day, it can’t possibly be worth the wait.