30 Days of Video Games Day 22

A game sequel which disappointed me:

Just kidding.

Hmm, let's see.  I'm trying to go down the list of the great Nintendo franchises, because I hold the bar pretty high for those games.  But even the worst game I've played in the Mario sequences, Super Mario Sunshine, was a fun experience that I'm glad I played.  A sequel I'm disappointed in would have to promise something really good, but fail to deliver on just about every promise.

I've been told that Duke Nukem Forever was that game, but I haven't played it, so I really can't comment.  Though I'm not sure why everyone thought it was going to be a genre-redefining game.  Duke has (in my opinion) always been about mindless fun.  Fun.  That word some people forget.

Hmmm... I'm not sure about this one.  I almost always check out some reviews before I get games (on the rare event that I even can get them), so I tend to avoid bad sequels. Even now, as I was trying to write this, I looked up games that are popularly thought of as bad, and if I've learned anything, it's that sometimes people label games disappointing just to be controversial.  Also, a lot of people have different ideas of disappointing, so it's really hard to go off others' opinions.

I suppose I'm going to go with Zelda II: The Adventure of Link.  It's the only sequel I played that I was kind of upset that I spent time on.  I'm still not sure what happened with that one.  It carried the Zelda name, but little else was even remotely close to the original game.

Yes, yes you are.

I can say, though, that I was disappointed that they made Shadow the Hedgehog.  Well, that needs clarifying. I was not disappointed in the game as a concept.  I kind of liked Sonic Adventure 2, and I liked Shadow as a contrast to Sonic.  I liked that he wasn't really created to be the fastest hedgehog in the world, and that his speed was likely due to the hover-skates.  As far as Sonic characters go, he was pretty cool.  I'm also a fan of the red-and-black color scheme.

But really?  Adding and fetishizing guns?  That works in a game like Black, not here.  I get that you want to keep Shadow separate from Sonic.  That's understandable.  But there are a lot of other mechanics that Shadow's character could carry within his own set of powers and story.  Time control, for example, which is a good-sized portion of his powers.  Hell, even a straight port of a game meant for Sonic would have been better than the conceptual hell that Shadow the Hedgehog took.

Fuck you, game.  Fuck you.