This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
SAMAS: At the risk of Spoiling someone: IIRC, Shadow Of The Colossus is not a spiritual successor to Ico, but a prequel. The ending helps explain the thing about the horned kids like Ico himself.
Andrew Leprich: Ah, Wikipedia has some information about this, will edit.
Travis Wells: Um, does the Star Fox example really apply? Star Fox: Command may be a spiritual successor to Star Fox 2, but isn't it also a literal successor? It's in the same series!
Tanto: In addition, Star Fox 2 was released — just not in America. I'm deleting.
Nezumi: Actually, Star Fox 2 wasn't released anywhere. The ROM you find online wasn't from a release version—it was from a leaked pre-release version.
Eric DVH: And quite a bit of it was supposedly salvaged for SF64 too.
Seven Seals: There's probably not a trope in this, but the reason many sequels suck is because they're the opposite of spiritual successors. That is, the sequel does continue the story and/or is set in the same universe, but was made by a different team, has a different style, changes characters for no good reason and is generally unfaithful to what made the original a success. Deus Ex: Invisible War immediately springs to mind here. Not a bad game, but the antithesis of a spiritual successor to Deus Ex.
Eric DVH: Sadly, that was not the case. DX2 was made by the very same people that did the original, further proven (and redeemed) by their work on the last Thief game. I honestly can't imagine what was going on during DXIW's development, but you can see the beginnings of it in the console port of the original game.
Jordan: I was wondering if this counts- I saw there is a movie coming out called 'War Inc.' in which John and Joan Cusack seem to play identical characters as they did in 'Grosse Pointe Blank', although with different names and the new movie seems like more of a satire. I've also heard the term 'indirect sequel' and wondered if this is closer to the mark.
- Joe Not Charles: Interesting, since I see Grosse Pointe Blank itself as a spiritual successor to Say Anything (with a twist) - I've added that to the main page.
Sikon: Took out "intellectual properties", no need for editors of a free online resource to speak RIAAese.
StClair: Would it be appropriate to add as another possible explanation, "The creators really only had one good idea or set of ideas and recycle it endlessly, with minor variations"?
arromdee: I took out the Kiddy Grade and Burst Angel examples. There's little reason to consider them spiritual successors aside from very general themes (two girls in Kiddy Grade, for instance).
binaroid: I disagree — Kiddy Grade's about a Lovely Angels team of operatives for a galaxy-wide troubleshooting organization that uses incredibly advanced Phlebotinum, brute force, property damage, and good luck to right wrongs and triumph over evil. Meanwhile, Burst Angel is about an Amazon Brigade of Hired Guns fighting against a succession of robotic monsters not-so-secretly released by a Villain with Good Publicity as part of a vaguely defined master plan, while being much more successful than the militarized police forces who are supposed to do the same. (Granted, this one is more of a stretch.)
- binaroid, 7-11-08: I'm going to take the liberty of putting Kiddy Grade back in, since it's mentioned as a Successor to Dirty Pair in its own page and elsewhere on this wiki.
Trogga: Um, Scary Movie, Not Another Teen Movie, Date Movie, Epic Movie, Meet The Spartans, and Superhero Movie aren't made by the same people.
dkellis: Removed "Lucky Star is considered by many to be one to The Melancholyof Haruhi Suzumiya. Both shows are produced by the same studio, feature much of the same voice actors, their openings and/or endings feature animated dance sequence, and the star is a huge fan of Haruhi anyway! Please refer to the Lucky Star WMG page for more similarities." for inaccuracy. See Lucky Star Discussion for marginally more justification.
System Shock 2 and Portal. The parallels between SHODAN and G La DOS in particular.
Trogga: Do Spiritual Successors have to be from the same creator(s)?
- And if this
is any indication, then Raw Thrills is going to make a Spiritual Successor to Daytona USA.
- And if this
TsundeRay: Raw Thrills's page on it has very little information so far; it's really unclear if it's a spiritual successor yet. Finally, "Daytona" could refer to Daytona Beach in Florida; it doesn't necessarily refer to Daytona USA; similarly, while there is a NASCAR arcade game made by EA Games, it isn't a spiritual sequel to the NASCAR arcade game developed by Sega some years ago.
Can someone remove this from the 'Australian Television Shows' index, I would but don't know how.
