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Those all suck now. Let's play HD Remix.
"At first I thought all these updates were kinda nice to hold you over, but how many times can you update the same fucking game?"
Capcom has an annoying tendency to release one game, and then release it again several times with minor changes before any wholesale sequel ever comes along. When one finally does, it's 2:1 odds that it will be a prequel that doesn't do much of anything to advance the main plotline. Whether this is done to cater to the hardcore fanbase or cynically milk a franchise for all it's worth is purely a matter of conjecture.
Note also that, while Capcom does this enough to get the trope named after them, they are by no means the only publisher guilty of it.
Related to Mission Pack Sequel, but this includes the storyline as well as the gameplay. Easily leads to It's The Same Now It Sucks, although many of these games are simply So Okay Its Average.
Contrast Sequel Escalation. See Twains Observation On Originality for one explanation.
Examples:
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Literature
- Older Than Radio example: Walt Whitman revised and republished Leaves of Grass nearly a dozen times over the course of his lifetime. The final, "deathbed" edition, published in 1892, is nearly three times the length of the first edition of 1855.
- Considering Leaves of Grass is a poetry collection he's at least adding more poems in each one.
Video Games
- Name a Capcom franchise. Seriously, any franchise (that's actually been made into a franchise). There's a reason why Capcom gets to be the Trope Namer:
- The most ostentatious and infamous example is easily Street Fighter II, which to date has seen five different iterations in the arcades (the original, Champion Edition, Hyper Fighting, Super, and Super Turbo) before Street Fighter III was released, not to mention platform-specific versions like Street Fighter II Turbo for the SNES and Special Champion Edition for the Genesis (both based on Hyper Fighting), and the portable Super Turbo Revival for the Game Boy Advance. In 2003, Capcom released a sixth arcade iteration titled Hyper Street Fighter II: The Anniversary Edition, which allowed players to pick between versions of characters from all five previous arcade iterations. The Attract Mode for the Aniversary Edition even features the logos of the previous versions, which you can see here
 and here. In 2008, we got the ridiculously titled Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix (or HD Remix for short) that was released for PSN and Xbox Live Arcade, which is essentially Super Turbo with rebalanced gameplay and high definition comic book art for graphics.
- Capcom engaged in a bit of Lampshade Hanging when they titled their Puzzle Game spinoff: Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo.
- Then there's Street Fighter Alpha (Street Fighter Zero in Japan), a prequel to Street Fighter II that eventually got its own set of sequels and console-specific home versions (Alpha 2, Alpha 2 Gold, Alpha 3, Alpha 3 Upper, and Alpha 3 MAX).
- The 3D spinoff Street Fighter EX was followed by EX plus, EX plus α, EX 2, EX 2 PLUS, and EX 3.
- Once Capcom finally did get around to Street Fighter III; however, they released two additional pseudo-sequels of it (2nd Impact and 3rd Strike).
- Street Fighter IV is set between the II and III, and most of the playable characters are the exact same fighters from the original Street Fighter II, with characters from Super and Alpha added to the home versions. Funny enough, alot of the talk over in Capcom's own message boards for some time were from fans actually requesting a second version of Street fighter IV (third if you consider the console release to be the second version). Just in time, since Super Street Fighter IV is now official.
- Capcom's Darkstalkers series fared even worse. Going out with Vampire Savior 2 and Vampire Hunter 2, which despite being numbered like sequels were just minor rule and roster updates to the original Vampire Savior, which was actually third game in the series, following the original Darkstalkers (aka Vampire) and Night Warriors (Vampire Hunter).
- The overwhelming majority of the Resident Evil games take place in the summer of 1998, and a significant fraction of those take place within a single week. Resident Evil 4, taking place in 2004, may or may not have broken this trend by jumping ahead six years from the original continuity. In the meantime, fans will just have to wait and see how many prequels Capcom can jam into that six-year gap.
- RE4 was meant to be an aversion of this, as reviews for Resident Evil 0 complained that the series was getting stale, so they chose to start fresh with 4.
- It's been argued that they've fallen back into the same trap with 5, though, since so much of the fourth's gameplay style was lifted.
- But also an example of a subversion, as while they kept the same "overall feel", they did add new systems and the entire partner mechanic.
- Originally, Devil May Cry was supposed to be the immediate sequel to Resident Evil 2, because Capcom was also getting sick of the Survival Horror. They thought it was too much of a huge break in genres, though, so they ripped out the original story [Dante was a policeman fighting against more Umbrella horrors] to the current one. Turned out to be great. So far the franchise has been pretty good about this trope (even though chronology is all over the place: The chronological order is 3-1-4-2), but that can change in a heartbeat as soon as Capcom start pumping out spinoffs (and already *has* changed if you count Dante's appearances in Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne and Viewtiful Joe as canon). To make things more confusing, 2 isn't canon.
- Capcom's Mega Man franchise is usually an exception to this trope — rather than getting remade all the time with different game engines, Mega Man games get lots of real sequels that just build on the first game's engine. However, there seems to be a saturation point, after which only remakes and ports come out. The classic series reached that point shortly after Mega Man 8 and before Mega Man 9 (which ALSO uses the first game's engine) was announced, fans have had to settle for the Anniversary Collection (ports), Mega Man Powered Up (remake), Mega Man & Bass (spinoff/port; although it's technically a port, the game it's a port of was only previously released in Japan), and so forth. It's still early to say, but the X series is also showing signs of having reached saturation.
- Capcom's more recent series, Zero and Battle Network, have avoided this sort of infinite trail-off by transitioning into "next generation" series (ZX and Star Force respectively). The Zero series should actually be applauded for "only" lasting four games before succumbing to this stagnation.
- Capcom has made so many Mega Man spinoff series there's a Spinoff Stagnation meta-effect going on by itself.
- Even the semi-obscure 1942 Shoot Em Up series isn't invincible to this. 1943 got a rerelease called 1943 Kai, and 1942: Joint Strike is basically the elements of 1943, 19XX, and 1944 rolled up into one game.
- Somewhat used in Phoenix Wright. Though the first three games were remade, they mainly did it to bring it to the rest of the world, seeing how the GBA was a dying system.
- Becoming more blatant now as the series is being ported to Wii Ware with less content. (The bonus case added to the DS version of the first game will be separate downloadable content.)
- The Gundam Vs Series, developed by Capcom, suffered this initially. While Federation Vs. Zeon was innovative and well-received, the sequel AEUG Vs. Titans was pretty much the same game with some new machines - and then came Gundam Vs. Zeta Gundam, which was AvT with more new machines, and the popular Campaign Mode replaced with a repetitive alternate history mode. Thankfully, the later games in the series avert this; Alliance Vs. ZAFT boasts a drastic overhaul to the game engine, Gundam Vs. Gundam gains Fan Service points for covering the franchise's entire 30-year history, and each of those games has a sequel that greatly bolsters the roster and adds in an interesting Mission Mode.
- Tatsusoft (now Twin Sky Games) once had a game placing Bubble Bobble characters in a fighting game genre that lampshaded the many prefixes and suffixes of the Street Fighter games. It was called "Super Bubble Fighter II Turbo Alpha Championship Edition + 4 Ned".
- Arc System Works fell into this with the Guilty Gear games - Guilty Gear XX, the third game in the series, was followed with Guilty Gear XX #Reload (one "new" character, rebalanced moves), Guilty Gear Isuka (a four-player spinoff) Guilty Gear XX Slash (two new characters, one of which is from Isuka, and more rebalancing), then Guilty Gear XX Accent Core, which despite having no new characters has enough gameplay changes that they probably could have gotten away with calling it Guilty Gear X3 if Reload and Slash hadn't existed. And now there's Guilty Gear XX Accent Core Plus, which fixes some glitches and adds a ton of extra features, including a story mode that takes place after the original XX. So how is this not X3 again?
- Because calling a game XXX has Unfortunate Implications.
- Please don't forget that Guilty Gear XX got the subtitle The Midnight Carnival, which to this troper's knowledge, was applied to the original, #Reload and Slash. Thus giving the hilariously long name Guilty Gear XX #Reload: The Midnight Carnival.
- It seemed that Blaz Blue might be headed this way as well, with the recent announcement of "Continuum: Shift". It has recolored stages ala Championship Edition, 1 new stage, new moves, some rebalances and changes, and 3 new characters (one of them is Tsubaki, another is Nu's replacement, Lambda and the other is Hazama /Terumi) - however, a steamlined fighting system and a new story that picks up where the previous game left off (as well as new voice-overs and music) makes it an aversion.
- EA has been milking The Sims for all its worth with constant expansions. While the vast majority of the expansion packs add significant alterations to the game engine and vast amounts of new content besides just "more stuff", starting with the Sims 2 generation, EA also began releasing "Stuff Packs" which are literally nothing more than themed packs of objects and clothes. Compare "Open For Business", which added a completely new system in the form of Sims creating their own businesses (literally out of anything the player wants), to "Family Fun Stuff", which was simply a collection of kids clothes and goofy furniture and only cost a mere $10 less than a full-fledged expansion pack.
- Dynasty Warriors games all share the same plot, due to sticking to the same period in Chinese history. Each new numbered sequel brings only minor graphical improvements, and maybe one new game mechanic and one new character per faction.
- The series inherited this trope from the Turn Based Strategy series it was spun off from, Romance Of The Three Kingdoms. Every Rot 3 K game is based on the eponymous book, just with alterations to the gameplay.
- Thankfully, Koei seems to have realized that players can only play through the same battles so many times, as Koei is now focusing on their Warriors Orochi series, which puts character from Dynasty Warriors and it's sister-series Samurai Warriors in an entirely original setting. It also adds a whole mess of new and strange attacks and abilities, and only sort-of pays attention to the alliances from the main series.
- The Armored Core series had three games before Armored Core Two was released, one more before Armored Core Three, and six more before Armored Core Four. There's usually enough content, new components, and a new mechanic or two to make them better than the average Mission Pack Sequel, though, thankfully. From Software apparently just didn't want to change numbers that often. Most odd in case of Armored Core Formula Front, a 3 series game that's only tangentally related to the main 3 series.
- Possibly justified in that each new numbered installment takes place either a considerable time after the previous (10-20 years) or in an entirely seperate timeline.
- Castlevania is also starting to feel like this; All of the major plot points for the series (from the beginning to the end) have all been covered except the penultimate battle mentioned in Aria of Sorrow, which Konami seems keen on avoiding for more "let's have some random dick revive Dracula for shiggles" storylines to avoid having to close the series.
- This stands in contrast to the strategy used at the beginning of the series, in which they literally reused the same plot multiple times. There are no fewer than five unique games detailing Simon Belmont's assault on Dracula's castle in 1691.
- Bemani rhythm games. This series reached double digits and had to be renamed with X's in it.
- Mario Party series reached #8, 4 of which were on the Gamecube.
- Bioware has relelased countless compilations of Neverwinter Nights packages, one with each new expansion pack or sequel. Gold, Platinum, Diamond.. Diamond was not the ultimate collection. NWN 2 and its expansions were then included in more collections. The same happened with older Infinity Engine games also.
- If you think Madden should be listed here, you think that Madden NFL has a plot.
- Rockstar did this with Grand Theft Auto. Between GTA 3 (designed by DMA before they became Rockstar North) and 4, five GTA games were released.
- Although Vice City and San Andreas did have entirely different areas and stories, and expanded and experimented on the gameplay to the point where they may as well have been sequels.
- The long-running Chessmaster series gets accused of this. But there's only so much you can do with chess.
- Tomb Raider series under Core Design and EIDOS were one sequel a year, even after killing Lara off in the 4th game. The 5th game was a memorial of her funeral and the gameplay consisted of flashbacks. One has to assume that they were serious about ending the series at the 4th game but changed their mind.
- The Last Revelation was never intended to be the final Tomb Raider game, just the last one for that console generation. However the next game got delayed and the PS 1 was still selling well (plus the PS 2 had back-compatibility), so they shoved Chronicles out the door to fill the gap until Angel of Darkness arrived on the scene.
- Furcadia- Same graphics, game engine, and overall game since 1993, now with more default objects. The staff refuses to program in any new features that would create "significant changes to the gameplay" or that classify as "stuff to do".
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