History EarlyInstallmentWeirdness / Videogames

* The first ''VideoGame/{{Age of Empires|I}}'' might be difficult for fans of [[VideoGame/AgeOfEmpiresII the]] [[VideoGame/AgeOfEmpiresIII sequels]]: units can only be created one at a time (fixed with the expansion pack ''Rise of Rome''), only by going through the entire map you can find out idle units, farms are perishable buildings... and of course there are oddities such as killing the birds that fly over the screen and the War/Archer Elephant having as many hitpoints as ''buildings''!

Franchises with their own subpages:

* ''EarlyInstallmentWeirdness/TheLegendOfZelda''
* ''EarlyInstallmentWeirdness/{{Pokemon}}''

* ''VideoGame/UnchartedDrakesFortune'' has some noticeable changes in the gameplay compared to the sequels in the ''Uncharted'' series. There are a few quick time events, Drake must manually switch to grenades from his current weapon in order to throw them, there is no zoom in feature for automatic weapons, machine gun turrets Drake can commandeer have unlimited ammo as opposed to the sequels where the ammo is limited, and the melee combat system is much more simplistic. And though enemies do improve in gear as the game goes on, the HeavilyArmoredMook enemies that otherwise take heavy fire or headshots to finish off are absent. Story-wise, the plot is a bit more simple as well, with the action taking place almost entirely on an island; only 3 out of 22 chapters take place outside the island, as opposed to the vast number of locations and settings the sequels visit. The relationships between some of the characters also hadn’t been nailed down yet and are much different than in the sequels. Nathan and Sully’s relationship being the one that’s the most different. In this one it's more like a somewhat cold business partnership instead of the [[ParentalSubstitute father/son]] one of the rest of the franchise. Compare Nate’s pretty non-plussed reaction to Sully’s alleged death in this game to him losing it over the same alleged death in [[VideoGame/Uncharted3DrakesDeception the third game.]]

** ScoringPoints for clearing laps, with more points rewarded the higher-ranked you are. You get an extra life EveryTenThousandPoints.

** ''VideoGame/MegaMan4'' is the first game where the FinalBoss has a unique battle theme. This wasn't the case for the first three installments.

** Both ''1'' and ''2'' had a few robot masters take extra damage from the Mega Buster.

** ''VideoGame/MegaMan4'' is the first game where the FinalBoss has a unique battle theme.

*** The first game is frustrating in comparison to later ones due to its lack of a map display and DenialOfDiagonalAttack. It's also the only ''Metroid'' game where you can save your progress anywhere (the SavePoint wasn't introduced until ''VideoGame/{{Metroid II|ReturnOfSamus}}'') and the game used a PasswordSave system in the international releases (the Japanese release, which was on the Famicom Disk System, had a save system similar to that of the 8-bit ''Zelda'' games). It also had {{Ambidextrous Sprite}}s[[note]]Though, oddly enough, sprites for a left-facing Samus exist in the code but [[DummiedOut are unused]], for both her power armor and armorless variants[[/note]], something that even ''Metroid II'' averts despite being an early UsefulNotes/GameBoy game, and had no visual differences in the different suit power ups bar {{Palette Swap}}s and beam upgrades were {{mutually exclusive|Powerups}}. The designs of Ridley and Kraid were also rather different: Ridley was a completely stationary winged thing of some kind who was fairly easy to defeat, and Kraid was tiny, barely larger than Samus. ''VideoGame/SuperMetroid'' codified their current designs: Ridley as a fiendlishly tough and agile Space Dragon and Kraid as a gigantic lizard monster.

*** Most importantly, several important abilities are absent -- namely the Seeker Missile, the Screw Attack, the ability to use the Boost Ball to launch from a Spider Rail, or being able to shoot while grappling. In addition, the maximum possible amount of missiles is 250 and not 255. Lastly, while Power Bombs ''are'' present, picking up an expansion of it plays the game's major item acquired jingle. The sequel changes it to the minor item pick up jingle, which is used for other item expansions like missiles.

** ''VideoGame/MegaMan1'' was built on a very small amount of ROM, so the game seems clipped down compared to its sequels: there are only six robot masters instead of the usual eight, all of whose stages were very small; a [[ScoringPoints score display]] was present at the top of the screen (a leftover from when the game was originally designed to be in arcades); [[EmergencyEnergyTank E-Tanks]] are non-existent; the Life and Weapon Energy items look different from all other games; MercyInvincibility does not protect you from SpikesOfDoom; the [[BossCorridor corridors before boss rooms]] contain enemies; Wily's Fortress does not have a map; the Robot Master rematches are sprinkled throughout the fortress stages instead of being collected in a teleporter room; the Wily Machine was the FinalBoss rather than being a penultimate boss like in the other games; Fire Man's weakness was the ice weapon (later games usually had the ice boss weak to the fire weapon instead of the other way around); three of the weapons were thrown rather than being shot out of the [[ArmCannon Mega Buster]] (Bomb Man's, Cut Man's and Guts Man's weapons); the end-of-stage jingle is different; and most importantly, there was no password system (the entire game must be played in one sitting). When the game got remade as ''VideoGame/MegaManPoweredUp'', several of these differences were addressed: The stages are now longer, the robot masters now have two more in their ranks to bump the total up to the correct eight, the pickups look like how they should, you’re now protected from spikes when you take damage, the corridors don’t have enemies, and the final fortress stage now has a teleporter for the rematches.

* Before the ''SWAT'' series became Tactical {{First Person Shooter}}s [[DuelingGames "rivaling"]] with ''VideoGame/RainbowSix'' series by [[VideoGame/{{SWAT 3}} its third installment]], we had a RealTimeStrategy Game in the vein of ''VideoGame/XCOMApocalypse''[='=]s real-time mode. And before ''that'', we had an InteractiveMovie that was a sequel/spin-off of an ''adventure game series'', ''VideoGame/PoliceQuest''.

* ''VideoGame/{{Diablo}} 1'' had some traits not repeated in later games. There's only 3 character classes and they basically function the same except for one special skill. The Warrior could repair items. The Rogue could disarm traps. The Sorcerer can recharge staves. There is only one town. The dungeon maps are all fixed whereas in ''VideoGame/Diablo2'' they were randomly generated. There is no day/night cycle, and all the fighting is done indoors and underground.

* The first ''VideoGame/ChoAniki'' was considerably less homoerotic than every game that came after it, [[WidgetSeries though still pretty weird on its own]]. Unbelievably, this is actually an ''inversion''-- the series only got weirder with each installment after ''Ai Cho Aniki'' dialed up the camp.

** In the second game's 2-player battle mode, Player 1 only uses Red Pikmin while Player 2 only uses Blue Pikmin, with a lack of fire and water hazards in stages along with the removal of the Red Pikmin's extra damage being removed to even things out. The 2-player modes for ''3'' and ''4'' instead differentiate the player's Pikmin by having cyan leaves for Player 1 and magenta leaves for Player 2, as well as allowing multiple types to be used.

** In the second game's 2-player battle mode, Player 1 only uses Red Pikmin (with their usual extra damage removed to balance things out) while Player 2 only uses Blues. The following game's 2-player modes instead differentiate the player's Pikmin by having cyan leaves for Player 1 and magenta leaves for Player 2, as well as allowing multiple types to be used.

*** ''5'' saw one last item addition, Super Arrow, which was an arrow weapon that also doubled as a platform when it hit a wall. This most likely was a leftover from the NES ''WesternAnimation/DarkwingDuck'' video game.
** ''VideoGame/MegaMan2'' was the first of two games (the other being ''3'') where players couldn't return to defeated stages. This makes E-Tanks, which make their first appearance here, a TooAwesomeToUse commodity, as any you didn't collect during the first stage run were [[PermanentlyMissableContent lost forever]], so you couldn't easy stock up on them. Even if you could, you could only hold 4.

** ''VideoGame/MegaManX3'' had a very odd set of additions that are never seen again, including a double air dash, ''healing'' (both of those were special items that you could only get one of or find the super special item in the final parts of the game) and the ability to choose different Ride Armors for certain purposes. Even playing as Zero was different as you could only use him once per stage, would disappear when you reached the boss and if he died in any stage, you lost him for good. Unless you reached a miniboss in the second stage of Doppler's fortress: Zero could fight that one. He'd be unplayable when the boss kamikazes itself, but Zero would pass his saber to X as an additional Buster power-up.
** Also, the first three games contained secret armor power-ups that could only be reached if were at full health and had all the powerups from the initial stages. The first two games featured ''Franchise/StreetFighter'' moves--[[KamehameHadoken Hadoken]] in ''X1'' and {{Shoryuken}} in ''X2''--that could only be used at full health. ''X3'' didn't go this route, instead providing an enhancement part that powered up your armor's abilities and [[GoldenSuperMode turned it gold]]. Also, Zero's beam was a Buster upgrade, so there wasn't a health requirement to use it.

*** ''Wily's Revenge'' gave us Carry, a stationary floating platform.
*** ''3'' gave us the Rush and his three forms: Coil, Jet and Marine. Jet differed here from other versions as Mega Man could avert VideoGameFlight by being allowed to fly wherever he wanted to. Marine was the most useless as it only stuck around until ''4'' since there were very little water stages and what stages there were could be traversed easily.

* ''VideoGame/TailConcerto'' was the first in the ''VideoGame/LittleTailBronx'' series, and thus featured many lore inacuracies that conflicted with the much later released ''VideoGame/{{Solatorobo}}'' and ''VideoGame/FugaMelodiesOfSteel''. Caninus and Felinekos are called "Dog-People" and "Cat-People" (literal translations of their Japanese names), the Iron Giant is never referred to as a Titano-Machina and lacked the biblical-sounding ThemeNaming that Lares, Lumeres, and Vanargand has, the volatile Cloud Sea that covers the world below the floating islands does not exist, and it's the only game to lack a French voice track (on top of being the only game in the series with a full English dub). The main theme, "For Little Tail", was also outsourced to KOKIA and is the only vocal theme in the game (unless you were playing the US version, which had a completely different instrumental theme instead), where as the later two game has at least three and were all done in-house under Creator/CyberConnect2's [=LieN=] label.

* The first ''VideoGame/{{Wipeout}}'': A different, less minimalistic style for both the GUI and the vehicles, the vehicle is invincible and so weapons only slow you down, and the abillity to select between two pilots for each teams, a feature which would only reappear in ''Wipeout Fusion'', itself an oddball.

** The first few games all had at least one [[FreeFloorFighting multi-leveled]] stage with breakable floors, which could actually significantly affect the combat at times. By the time of ''VideoGame/MarvelVsCapcomClashOfSuperHeroes'', this would be done away with.

* ''VideoGame/{{Onechanbara}} 1'' was actually titled "THE Oneechanbara", to keep in name with the budget theme the game was going for. Needless to say, this naming convention has since fallen into disuse. Not only that, but the first two games were also released in Europe only, named Zombie Hunters. When ''Bikini Zombie Slayers'' made it to US & EU, the ''Zombie Zone [=/=]Zombie Hunters'' name was dropped. Anyone who played ''Z: Kagura'' & ''Z2: Chaos'' first may find the earlier entries in the franchise like this too:

** It's obvious how little the details of the plot had been worked out if you look at the opening crawl of the second game. It describes Shang Tsung trying to "unbalance the Furies" in favor of Chaos during the Shaolin tournament. Later installments confirm that the Shaolin did not host or arrange the tournament in any way, and rework his motive to be "win control of Earth for Shao Kahn"... and just what are the "Furies", anyway?

** ''VideoGame/MegaManII'' is the only game where Mega Man actually acts on an attempt to murder Dr. Wily!

* ''VideoGame/{{Diablo}} 1'' had some traits not repeated in later games. There's only 3 character classes and they basically function the same except for one special skill. The Warrior could repair items. The Rogue could disarm traps. The Sorcerer can recharge staves. There is only one town. The dungeon maps are all fixed whereas in Diablo 2 they were randomly generated. There is no day/night cycle, and all the fighting is done indoors and underground.

** Dynasty Warriors 2 also had many differences from 3, which would be what the rest of the series would be based off of. First of all, the meatbun in a bamboo steamer upped both your health and musou bar in a stage instead of finding a meatbun filled steamer and a special wine that did the same separately. Another thing is that you could only string together four attacks for a combo. There were no weapons to speak of, which gave you an extra attack up to the third and fourth weapon for each character. There was no voice acting within stages, used exclusively for cutscenes before stages. Meng Huo, Zhu Rong and the Nanman tribe were completely absent. The only female character playable in Musou mode was Sun Shang Xiang. When you knocked down an enemy officer, they had the chance to completely refill their healthbar (Including [[ThatOneBoss Lu Bu]]). The game only had seven stages, with each kingdom having one exclusive stage. There was no Xtreme Legends expansion. Finally, a lot of now distinctive characters like Zhang He and Wei Yan were generic officers. Oh, and [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking the game came on a purple disc instead of a clear DVD disc]] since it was one of the Playstation 2's launch titles.

* The first ''Videogame/{{Fatal Fury|King of Fighters}}'' (which was developed by some of the same people) had only three playable characters in the single player mode (Terry, Andy and Joe), while the rest of cast could only be used in Vs. mode and the home ports. If a second player jumped in to challenge someone already playing, they would first have to team up against the CPU opponent, similar to beat-'em-ups like ''Videogame/FinalFight'', and beat them before they would square off. Additionally, the first game lacked Mai Shiranui and Kim Kaphwan, two of the series' most popular and iconic characters, as they wouldn't be introduced until [[Videogame/FatalFury2 the sequel]].

** The original version lacked custom loadouts completely: you only had access to each class's standard weapons, and the only way to change weapons was by switching to another class entirely. The version of [=TF2=] included in the console versions of ''The Orange Box'' was never patched past this point.

** It is a first-person dungeon crawler with the RPGElements stripped out, which is the exact opposite of what made ''System Shock 2'' and later ''VideoGame/{{Bioshock}}'' influential (FPS with RPG Elements). There’s no stat progression, no stealth or other ways of dealing with things beyond shooting them, no currency, and the levels are all abstract [[TheMaze and maze-like]]. The RPG parts came about in the sequel because the devs believed the first game was dismissed as a ''VideoGame/{{Doom}}'' clone, and they sought to make an FPS that was as un-''Doom''like as possible.

*** The first game is frustrating in comparison to later ones due to its lack of a map display and DenialOfDiagonalAttack. It's also the only ''Metroid'' game where you can save your progress anywhere (the SavePoint wasn't introduced until ''[[VideoGame/MetroidIIReturnOfSamus Metroid II]]'') and the game used a PasswordSave system in the international releases (the Japanese release, which was on the Famicom Disk System, had a save system similar to that of the 8-bit ''Zelda'' games). It also had {{Ambidextrous Sprite}}s[[note]]Though, oddly enough, sprites for a left-facing Samus exist in the code but [[DummiedOut are unused]], for both her power armor and armorless variants[[/note]], something that even ''Metroid II'' averts despite being an early UsefulNotes/GameBoy game, and had no visual differences in the different suit power ups bar {{Palette Swap}}s and beam upgrades were {{mutually exclusive|Powerups}}. The designs of Ridley and Kraid were also rather different: Ridley was a completely stationary winged thing of some kind who was fairly easy to defeat, and Kraid was tiny, barely larger than Samus. ''VideoGame/SuperMetroid'' codified their current designs: Ridley as a fiendlishly tough and agile Space Dragon and Kraid as a gigantic lizard monster.

** Mets/Metools, the iconic enemy of the series, are not generalized Dr. Wily enemies, but theme baddies for Guts Man's stage. They are meant to look like hard hats that someone left laying around,[[note]]Japanese hard hats have a green line around them, with a green plus symbol, representing safety.[[/note]] only for there to turn out to be a little guy underneath, who shoots at you when you get close. The way they fit the theme is that Guts Man's stage is a mine, which naturally involves hard hats.

* ''VideoGame/{{Yakuza}}'': The first two [=PS2=] games used fixed camera angles when exploring Kamurocho and Sotenbori (enabling free camera only in certain areas), didn't allow you transfer items via telephone, forcing you to use item boxes in hideouts instead and Premium Adventure didn't allow you to carry save data, forcing you to do all the substories from scratch.