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It's The Same Now It Sucks
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alt title(s): It Is The Same Now It Sucks; Its The Same Now It Sucks 
"Then what's the point?"
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 games 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. The situation isn't very compatible with the companies' insistence on releasing new versions every year.
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 gaming mainstays get this from fans claim the formulas are growing stale. Of course, they'll then complain about attempts to change said formula just as vociferously as they complained about stagnation, to the point where it's obvious they can't win.
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. Contrast with They Copied It Now It Sucks, which involves a series taking on aspects of a completely different series, as opposed to a sequel or adaptation copying its predecessor.
A game series gets this reputation when they release one too many a Mission Pack Sequel.
Examples:
Video Games
- Pick a video game genre that you do not like. Pick a franchise commonly associated with it. For an RPG, it's Final Fantasy. For FPSs, it's Halo. For Platformers, it's Super Mario Brothers. For Fighting games, it's Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat. If it's racing, it's something like Need for Speed. If it's "Sandbox", it's Grand Theft Auto. Automatically every game in this genre is the same as those two, and you can tell by looking at them.
- It hasn't even come out yet and people already complained that Bioshock 2 is not different enough based on the previews.
- 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.
- The Legend Of Zelda falls all over the map. Wind Waker was They Changed It Now It Sucks. Twilight Princess is this.
- Of course, TP did this on purpose, since Nintendo vowed that it would be “the last Zelda game as you know it” before the gameplay of Oo T was retired. Similar to OoT changing Zelda to fit 3D and analog control or PH changing Zelda to properly fit the DS' stylus control, the series is set to receive a major overhaul to become a proper Wii game. TP shipping for the Wii at all was something of a fluke, caused by excessive delays during its GCN-only development.
- New Super Mario Bros was the first Mario Bros in a while that played similar to the original SMB. Guess what its biggest complaint was.
- 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. Considering how many people complained that the first game was a great idea that needed more improvements, you'd be surprised anyone would make this complaint considering how Atlus did exactly what they asked for (i.e. same engine, better battles, more demons, deeper story, etc.). Then again, these are gamers and gamers...you know the drill.
- 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, especially in regards to the core gameplay still being the same after four generation... and 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.
- Most of the complaints about Colosseum and XD (besides that awful title contraction) were that they were part of why it takes a total of about 6-7 games to get 100% completion.
- 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.
- The thing about the Ace Attorney, though, is that the first three games were ports from GBA games released in Japan. They didn't make a DS original game until Apollo Justice.
- 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.
- There's also some They Changed It Now It Sucks in there too, since people decried the drastic gameplay change starting from Sonic Adventure. When they changed that formula, the people who actually like Sonic Adventure complained. When they changed that...
- Metroid Prime 2: Echoes was also criticized for being too similar to its predecessor.
- Resident Evil was infamous for sticking to its 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 essentially 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 previews 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.
- Any Rhythm Game series has been around long enough will get this. The sameness is somewhat justified with games that use peripherals, since there's only so much you can change before making a sequel require new controllers to be playable.
- This troper pleads guilty to having this complaint about Wangan Midnight Maximum Tune 3 DX, as it's a Mission Pack Sequel to WMMT3 with one new map (a very short map, to boot; you circle it twice whenever you play it), 20 more Story Mode stages to do before achieving full tune, some new cars, and one new song. Then again it's just an update and not a sequel, so what else is there to expect?
- The Fallout 3 hatedom is interestingly split between this trope and They Changed It Now It Sucks: The former party accuses the game of being essentially "Oblivion with guns", while the latter considers it too great a deviation from Black Isle's original Fallout games.
- This had already happened years earlier with Fallout 2, a pretty shameless Mission Pack Sequel.
- Applies at some point to the first five Tomb Raider games, the point at which this happens for someone tends to be entirely based around the point they consider the game quality to drop
- Tomb Raider: Underworld. Pretty much the same as Legend, only Darker And Edgier, but still with the same problems (and a few new ones to boot). Considering that Anniversary fixed some of these flaws (in particular the length), Underworld feels like a step backward.
- Tales Of Vesperia is one of the highest acclaimed games for the 360 and easily one of the best reviewed JRP Gs of this generation. And yet, the biggest complaint? It plays exactly like the other Tales games. In fact, head to any major RPG site and you'd never know from the complaints about its lack of originality that it's such a popular game.
- This is a recurring complaint lobbed against the Tales Series as a whole (mainly because so many games are released in such a small amount of time), but the complaint comes more from reviewers/people who never liked the series anyway than fans.
- And fans look forward to new Tales games mostly for the fact that Namco makes a gimmicky new LMBS for every title anyway.
- JRP Gs in general get this for consisting of the same basic gameplay (yet other genres like FPS and platformers don't). Not surprisingly, any game that does attempt to break from this trope is usually badged with They Changed It Now It Sucks, even if it's a company like, say, Square Enix, that attempts to break the mold with something really gutsy like...their flagship franchise.
- Before it became a long-loved classic of 64-bit gaming, Banjo Kazooie was accused of being a Mario clone simply because it was a 3D platforming game.
- The first Megaman Star Force game was given a low rating by IGN simply because it felt too much like Battle Network. The Megaman series in general tend to get flak for changing very few things from sequel to sequel (though X7 proved why that's a good thing).
- Well, later NES Mega Man games were a victim of this too.
- Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon appears to be getting this from the Fan Dumb. Apparently, being a remake of an NES game doesn't excuse it for not being as complex as the more recent entries in the franchise. Anyone who says that it's "a step backward" for the series is apparently forgetting that the game was made in 1990.
- Justified when you realise how much standards have changed in 18 years, and that Intelligent Systems is charging full price for what is a subpar game by today's standards. A remake is NOT a port.
- Wario Land The Shake Dimension was criticised for being too similar to the previous game, Wario Land 4.
- Punch Out Wii is being accused of this, people saying it's just a $50 NES remake that has nothing new or different from the original game. What makes this a Wall Banger is the fans have been dying for another Punch Out that remained true to its roots and now they complain it's too much of the same.
- The Madden franchise has become a whipping boy for any gamer less than mainstream, with it's fans being decried as "mindless frat boys" and the franchise itself accused of only making incremental improvements. Given that football doesn't change every year, this troper wonders what, exactly, they would have change, and why, say, basketball games don't get the same treatment.
- All sports games get this, Madden just gets most of it because it's popular.
- Left 4 Dead 2 is being bashed for this AND They Changed It Now It Sucks before the game is even out. People complain that the sequel is just the exact same game as the first with just different maps, weapons, and characters, but they also complain that including daytime and using totally different characters ruined the feel of the game.
- Some people are bashing TMNT: Smash Up, because it has the Super Smash Bros. engine, panning it because they think it will be Super Smash Bros. with Turtles, but the gameplay is showing that there are some differences, namely that there are health meters rather then stock damage, the enviroments change consistently, and guard breaks are different, and the people developing the game in question? The team who MADE Super Smash Bros., as well as Team Ninja, so they're really bashing themselves.
- Both applied to and averted by Command And Conquer Command & Conquer 3- it was released around the same time as Supreme Commander, leading to something of a rivalry between the two fandoms. The SupCom fans bashed C&C for being nothing more than a shiny graphical overhaul of the early days of the RTS genre, with none of the innovations that have appeared since (like, say, in Supreme Commander). The C&C fans responded by pointing out that there are plenty of innovative RTS games around, and that all they really wanted from Command & Conquer 3 was... well, another Command & Conquer game, only prettier.
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."
Literature
- Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets (both book and film) have met met criticism for following the structure of the first installment rather closely. The formula did decay rather quickly after that though.
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.
- Season Five has focused on changing him through a series of harrowing personal experiences before delivering a sadistic "Gotcha!" to both the fans and the doctor.
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).
- Zero Punctuation is starting to come under fire for making "nothing but" poop and dick jokes. Given that that it's pretty much always done that, this troper has wondered what's changed. The Escapist's new MST 3 K-styled series "Un Skippable" is already pretty popular, which has this troper waiting for the inevitable backlash. He wonders if he should make some sort of chart.
Anime and Manga
- Let's just say, if this trope describes how you feel, maybe you shouldn't read Shounen manga.
- This more or less leaks over to all medium; anything that has even the slightest resmblance to anything Dragonball, you'll hear some idiot invoke this trope. It doesn't matter if it's a small detail, it doesn't matter how well written it is in other ways. Flying? Oh it's just like DBZ. Ki Attacks? DBZ.
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.
- A similar complaint had been lodged over earlier installments of the series for "sticking too much to the James Bond formula", especially towards the end of the Brosnan era. In fact, much of the praise for Casino Royale came from dodging this trope like the plague.
- As above with Dragonball, anything with slow motion or Wire Fu, it's a rip off of The Matrix
- Disney fandom and outside observers share this viewpoint from time to time. The formulaic princess stories, the wisecracking sidekicks, the musical numbers, and the happy endings embody both what we love about the Disney Animated Canon, and what we roll our eyes at (and what rival studios have since learned to imitate). Expect all fairy tale animated movies to be met with this trope, with certain fans and non-fans agreeing that it's all too predictable, and by contrast, Lord help Disney when they try to change things up. The fans go batty every time.
- One reason newer Star Trek and Star Wars films/shows tend to have lukewarm reception by fans is that nowadays they're nothing but attempting to continue "what you loved" in the original - every Star Wars fiction has one droid who is or looks just like R2-D2, enemies that are or look just like storm troopers and Mandelorians, Jedi fighting evil as the underdogs, etc. Most of the Star Wars prequel trilogy and Star Trek Enterprise were nothing but Continuity Porn.
- The movie version of Watchmen has been critiqued for following the comic too well.
- Unless you count fans who wanted some Giant Squid, that is.
- However other superhero-movies or comic-based movies often fall victim to Adaptation Decay and They Changed It Now It Sucks. This Troper has to say he'd rather have a movie that was very close to its original media than it being completely different.
- Part of the problem was also that, while they kept much of the script very closely, they dropped a lot of the scenes/lines/general exposition to make it important, resulting in people who weren't familiar with the original novel not understanding why the things were important, resulting either in confusion or apathy.
- Guy Ritchie falls victim this trope as well as its inversion. His first film Lock Stock And Two Smoking Barrels was an indie success and critical darling for its fresh, vibrant style. When Snatch came out, Ritchie got heat for rehashing his first film. So he did Swept Away, in a completely different genre, and everyone hated it. When he returned to the crime thriller genre with Revolver, he decided to add a Xanatos Gambit and an Anvilicious Aesop, causing everyone to hate it so much that it didn't even see wide release in America. Ritchie then released Rock N Rolla, an obvious attempt to recapture the violent underworld hijinks of his first two films. By this point, people seemed to have lost interest in his original style and the film tanked.
- The 1998 remake of Psycho copied almost the entire film shot for shot, and was thrashed by critics and audiences for it.
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