alt title(s): It Is The Same Now It Sucks
Fans have a tendency to want to be surprised. They don't just want another rehash of the same things that they had last year, they want something new and different, yet the same basic characters/story/gameplay/etc. Often they
claim that they want a perfect, line by line recreation of their favorite comic book, but there is also
the inherent problems with transferring any form of media into another. Obviously the balance between keeping things similar while still making it work is difficult to maintain, which often results in an
Unpleasable Fanbase.
More often this is a video game trope, due to the nature of the industry. Sports game in particular are targeted because they are based on a game that already exists with set rules, there are only so many ways to change the gameplay and user interface.
With video games, if it warrants a sequel obviously people enjoyed playing it in the first place. So you really do not want to mess around with the general set-up, but you can always tweak it around to give a new experience. But with
fans being the way they are, you'll usually get one side praising the changes with another side wanting the old game back. An
Updated Rerelease is sometimes unfairly judged according to this, but it is also justified.
Video Game Long Runners will be all over the spectrum, with some games remaining faithful to the core design while others will use an entirely different style. Some Nintendo mainstays get this from fans claim the formulas are growing stale. Of course, they'll then complain about attempts to change said formula, being dismissed as 'gimmicks'.
Just like
They Changed It Now It Sucks, sometimes the complaints of the fans are legitimate, that there is a fundamental flaw in trying to hold onto the past gameplay.
See also
Sequelitis,
Status Quo Is God,
Capcom Sequel Stagnation.
A game series gets this reputation when they release one too many a
Mission Pack Sequel.
Examples:
Video Games
- Gears Of War 2 had a list of detractors who would frequently say things like "Everything looks the same. The chainsaw bayonet, the roadie-run, the torque bow... they're just remaking the first game." Apparently it was a big enough concern that X-Play's review deliberately said something to the effect of, "This is not Gears 1.5, it is a real sequel." Upon launch, no one has complained that it is just a rehash of the first game, it was much bigger and better.
- This is the primary complaint by just about any detractors of the Halo sequels, that they didn't add anything new to the gameplay. While that meant that the game was still fun to play, apparently adding Dual Wielding and vehicle commandeering in the second game and then adding equipments and turret guns to the third game was not considered big enough changes. All the while also complaining that the human pistol had been neutered.
- The Legend Of Zelda falls all over the map. Wind Waker was They Changed It Now It Sucks. Twilight Princess is this.
- New Super Mario Bros was the first Mario Bros in a while that played similar to the original SMB. Guess what it's biggest complaint was.
- Star Craft 2 has been getting this and it isn't even out yet.
- Hanging around the Game FA Qs message board for it, people complain that Devil Summoner: Raidou Kuzunoha vs. Abaddon-Ou is too similar to Devil Summoner: Raidou Kuzunoha Vs The Soulless Army.
- While at the same time criticizing the latter for barely-noticeable (for this troper, at least) problems? This troper firmly believes it will be just fine no matter what. (Assuming Atlus chooses to port it overseas)
- Super Smash Bros Brawl. Your Mileage May Vary on whether they didn't change enough (SMASH BALLS ARE CHEAP! They could have done better!) or changed too much (LUCAS? HE SUCKS! WHERE THE HELL IS MEWTWO?!).
- Pokemon tends to get a lot of this...when the monster count is up to nearly 500, you get your share of complainers. Not even the attempt to mix things up with Colosseum and Gale of Darkness were that popular, though not without their fans.
- It doesn't only apply to the games, but the anime as well. "I don't want to see Ash fight in gyms anymore" or "I want Brock to leave again" are common ones.
- Animal Crossing: City Folk has been receiving plenty of criticism for being too much like its predecessors.
- The reason why the Dynasty Warriors series is hated by reviewers. Even if they make what most people would consider major changes to the combat scheme.. it will still get panned as more of the same.
- Plot has always been a strength of the Avernum series, so when Avernum 4 turned out to have the exact same plot as Avernum 3, many fans of the earlier games were not at all happy.
- The Castlevania series has been a victim of this trope this decade, with purists missing the days when Castlevania titles weren't all Metroidvanias—or, as they call them, Symphony of the Night with a new map and some sort of gimmick.
- GameSpot's complaint with the second and third Ace Attorney games on the DS? Same gameplay, different cases, with no DS-exclusive features, never mind that adding additional cases would make the series' continuity go haywire.
- Armored Core gets this fairly frequently, as well, the biggest complaint being the antiquated control scheme (using the shoulder buttons to look up and down instead of the second analog stick which has that feature in almost every other game ever but wasn't used for anything in Armored Core for far too long).
- Sonic The Hedgehog. The most interesting part is that each member of the Unpleasable Fanbase has a different way to apply this trope to the series as a whole.
- Metroid Prime 2: Echoes was also criticized for being too similar to its predecessor.
- Resident Evil was infamous for sticking to it's formula of pre-rendered, fixed camera zombie hunting. The move to the PS2/Gamecube/XBox generation of systems did away with the pre-renders, but the games were still basically the same. RE4 underwent a massive genre shift to "action horror" and was widely acclaimed. The fifth game is already coming under fire from critics who've seen the previes for being too similar to RE4, despite the change of setting, new graphics, partner who isn't nearly useless, drop-in co-op, etc.
- When Persona 4 was announced to be on the Playstation Two, and using the exact same engine and practically the same system as Persona 3, it met with much skepticism from fans that they were just cashing in on P3 (especially with P3:FES, a remake of P3, also being announced), instead of pushing the game forward into the next generation with a Playstation Three or Xbox360 title. Of course, then the game came out.
Other
- Fox Trot had a strip years ago that played with this trope. Jason was tired of waiting for the sequel to Myst to come out, so he created his own sequel. He showed his brother his game, "Here's the observatory and here's the library..." and Peter said, "Wait, these are all the same levels of the first game. What makes this different?" The computer then beeped and said, "Warning, velociraptor approaching." Jason replied, "You have to solve the puzzles a little faster now."
Live Action TV
- Being a Long Runner, Star Trek tried to balance both sides to various success. Proposals for different concepts like "Starfleet Academy" and "Space Marines" fell away because it was so far different from the Wagon Train To The Stars concept, but each new series tried some variations.
- The first few episodes of The Office (US) suffered from this. In an arguable subversion, after they changed the show completely from the original English production, it actually got a lot better.
- House is often criticised for its formulaic nature, which includes never changing its protagonist's unlikeable personality.
Web Original
- Some people complain this way about Survival Of The Fittest V1, V2, and V3, despite the fact that they all have radically different characters and storylines, just because they start from the same basic set up (a bunch of kids get put on an island and forced to kill each other).
Film
- A common complaint in reviews about Quantum Of Solace. After the mindblowing awesome of Casino Royale critics were admittedly disappointed with it by comparison to the first, since it was more of the same but with less of the bite that goes with being fresh.
- Also, some installments of the series were bashed for "sticking too much to the James Bond formula".
