Agarest Senki: While it's usually agreed that the Second Generation is the low point of the game, it's believed that the Third Generation is really the point where the game hits its stride, introducing Ensemble Darkhorses like Thoma and Noah, darker plot lines and some of the best bosses in the entire game, particularly Midas, which is also considered the hardest boss, though to some, the Fourth and Fifth Generations were actually a step down from it, but still far better than the Second.
Assassin's Creed II was much more strongly received than the original game as an almost-entirely across-the-board improvement on the original in game terms, plus introducing a beloved protagonist in Ezio Auditore da Firenze.
Baldur's Gate to a certain extent. Although still a commercial success and critically acclaimed, the first game almost paled in comparison to the vast improvements in narration, interactions, level design, quest-writing, immersion and character development of the second game, which is regarded as one of the best and most influential RPGs of all times. Even now many veteran players actually started the saga by playing the sequel first, and only later the original game. Besides, of the two games, the sequel is the one which aged better from the point of view of graphics and UI, and its engine (an improved version of the first game) became the platform from which the Enhanced Editions were made (thus, the EE of the first game runs with the updated engine of the second game). Baldur's Gate III brought the series into the modern age, and while it's difficult to compare it with II due to the differences in engine, technology, and gameplay mechanics, it's universally regarded as a worthy successor.
The first game in the Web Game series Ball Revamped is the least popular and least known. The rest of the games have automatic respawningnote the first one annoyingly forces you to press G or click the screen every time you die, and then press space to start the level, background music, boss battles, better atmosphere and better physics. They got rid of randomly appearing powerups that could render a level trivial or impossible.note Fortunately, the powerups are randomly generated again if you die, so you don't have to restart the entire game.
The original 1983 Bomberman game barely even resembled the later games in the series at all, while the 1985 version for the NES feels a little more familiar, but suffers from a slow pace and the levels being so ridiculously huge that actually finishing them can become a Luck-Based Mission. The 1990 Bomberman game for the TurboGrafx-16 is where the series evolved to the form it would take in most subsequent games, with Bomberman '93 and Super Bomberman being seen as where it really hit its stride.
Borderlands, despite being a mechanically sound fusion of FPS and RPG elements, was rather bland and repetitive until the DLCs. One of the major complaints about the base game was that it took itself too seriously, unlike the expansions, which had far more humor. Now that it has found its true voice, Borderlands 2 took the style and ran with it to great acclaim.
The Burnout series started out poor, with the initial game being not very well received. Its second installment was better, though it was really the third title that could be considered the beard-growing moment, with the game's addition of the Takedown maneuver.
City of Heroes. Initially a passable MMO whose main strength was the amazing costume editor, the addition of a mission creation tool to allow players to create their own instances for other players to enjoy took the game to the next level.
The mission creator came later, but many players will also attest that the game has steadily and massively improved since launch due to major rebalancing that actually worked (despite copping some rage at the time), addition of many costume parts, improved writing, and a general dev focus on player-friendliness. While it's hard to place a particular turning point, the release of City of Villains could be considered a major game changer.
There are a number of changes which qualify, but the most marked turning point is probably the sale of the franchise from Cryptic to NCSoft, the creation of Paragon Studios, and the departure of much-loathed original lead developer Statesman. Several changes prior to this change were pretty good (particularly the City of Villains expansion and the addition of an an economy in Issue 9), but most of the real solid improvements came afterward (including weapon customization and the ability to play arcs you've outleveled through time travel in I11, I14's aforementioned Architect system, power customization in I16, and the Going Rogue expansion).
The Dark Forces Saga was a well-received but fairly unremarkable Doom clone with a Star Wars theme, but its sequel Jedi Knight introduced Force powers and lightsabers. It eclipsed its predecessor and set the flavor of the series from there, to the point that "Dark Forces" isn't even used in the title anymore (and creating one of best known cases of Colon Cancer ever). Funnily enough, much like the trope namer, this change also coincided with Kyle Katarn growing a beard.
The first two Darius were notable entries in the horizontal Shoot 'Em Up genre, but got much criticism for issues like punishing player death harshly and their heavy reuse of level design and background graphics. Furthermore, the game's use of multiple monitors, while attention-grabbing, made it difficult to port the series to home systems, with ports having to be heavily modified while the SNES-exclusive games were considered unremarkable for various reasons. Many players consider Darius Gaiden as the series breakout moment; the switch to the Taito F3 arcade board came with a massive upgrade to the already-great production values, levels were more varied in both graphics and design, boss battles became more intense and creative with multiple phases and elaborate attacks, and the game featured concessions to less skilled players such as less punishing penalty for failure and the addition of blackhole bombs while still remaining very challenging. Gaiden would also lean harder in the series surreal and psychedelic themes, which would define the series from that point on. Taito would keep up this momentum for G-Darius, with excellent 3D graphics, massive bosses, and the game's iconic Beam-O-War system.
Dead or Alive always had fans and positive remarks but never much respect, Best Known for the Fanservice and the like. Dead or Alive: Dimensions and to a greater extent Dead or Alive 5 were rather well received when it comes to gameplay and the story mode (the latter having the helping hand of Sega and the Virtua Fighter crew).
Destiny started as a fairly standard shooter MMO with some fairly interesting, if poorly explained, enemies.... then come The House of Wolves expansion where a Fallen with delusions of Godhood who managed to be a recurring enemy. And then there's The Taken King. Not only did The Taken King add a massive new zone with an unsettling design, but it also added a new enemy faction that were challenging and memorable in spite of being palette swaps of pre-existing enemies, as well as new story content that put an emphasis on character dynamics between members of your Mission Control.
Diablo III, while not a bad game, had a rocky launch and problems later on — loot was deemed lackluster due to the presence of the Auction House and the difficulty levels being fairly imbalanced, with Normal being incredibly boring and Inferno borderline unplayable. Blizzard started rolling out stuff to counter it by introducing Paragon levels and Monster levels, but the game really hit its stride once Loot 2.0 hit, which amped up loot strength and made the drops much more sensible, to the point where people who hadn't received a Legendary item over 40 hours now were swimming in them after 30 minutes. It was further amped once Reaper of Souls was released and introduced new modes coupled with complete removal of the Auction House.
In 2008, Korean game developer Pentavision took their DJMAX series of Rhythm Games to the arcade environment under the name DJMAX Technika. Drastically different in gameplay from its predecessors, the game was already well received, although hints of Fake Difficulty, Obvious Beta and general needless complications were present. Come 2010, the sequel, DJMAX Technika 2 improves on the previous game by being more streamlined in every way, adding new songs (half of which are revivals of classic songs in the franchise) and new modes such as the ever popular Crew Race.
The original DonPachi is pretty unremarkable by modern CAVE standards, featuring minimal bullet patterns and very few enemies present at any given time; while most don't consider it bad, it doesn't look particularly impressive compared to other games of its time. Its sequel DoDonPachi, on the other hand, greatly amps up the Bullet Hell and turns stages into chain-a-thons of enemies, not only setting the standard for future games in the series but also putting bullet hell games on the map and changing the way people see scrolling shooters.
The original Dragon Ball Z: The Legacy of Goku was considered fairly stiff and uninteresting. The second one, however, improved the combat a great deal and added a world flight system as well as Super Saiyan and the ability to switch between 5 characters for some more variety. Buu's Fury would further refine the RPG aspects with equipment, stat point distribution, and the ability to block but most would consider the second as the growing the beard moment for the series.
While the firsttwo games weren't exactly unpopular by any means, Dragon Quest III was when the series became what it was today. It was the Trope Codifier of JRPGs, and for that matter, most RPGs at the time. Video games that were well-received like Dragon Quest VIII and Dragon Quest IX would honestly not have been what they were without Dragon Quest III providing the building blocks. For that matter, Dragon Quest III was so popular that IX was somewhat of a Genre Throwback to III, featuring the fully customisable party members (rather than pre-made characters) and a Job System most comparable to III.
Others feel that Dragon Quest IV was another beard to grow for the series, since that one truly attempted something new (at the time) with its plot structure.
The first two Duke Nukem games were fairly unremarkable 2D side-scrollers. With Duke Nukem 3D the genre changed to first person shooter complete with innovate weapons, impressive (for the time) level design, and a raunchy sense of humor. As a result Duke Nukem has become one of the most famous video game heroes of all time.
Dungeons & Dragons Online grew a beard in September 2009 when the game went to a Free to Play model and Turbine sued Atari (the digital rights manager of D&D). All the updates since Update 9 have featured much better quest designs.
The first two The Elder Scrolls series games, Arena and Daggerfall, were generally well received and both developed strong Cult Fanbases. However, they were mere drops in the bucket of the massive 1990s Western RPG market. Further, they were rather generic Medieval European Fantasies that retained a lot of elements from their D&D basis. Finally, Daggerfall was a prime example of an Obvious Beta, with the main quest being literally unwinnable upon release (though later patched). That all changed with the release of Morrowind, being the Breakthrough Hit for the series and for Bethesda itself while introducing a massive Newbie Boom. Morrowind was the first major Western RPG in a long time to receive a Multi-Platform release, adding to its popularity. It also marked the point where the series' setting became a truly unique Constructed World with highly memorable cultures, history, creatures, landscapes, mythopoeia, and characters. The series' "beard" kept right on growing with the massively successful releases of Oblivion and Skyrim, to the point where the series is now firmly established as one of the pillars of western gaming.
Whilst there may never be a consensus as to what point this happened in the Final Fantasy series from a gameplay perspective, the fourth entry is widely seen as a major turning point in terms of storyline. Whereas only one of the first three games even had characters with names and personalities (and that game relegated much of its story to Japan-onlyside materials), FFIV's cast had distinct personalities, backstories, and character development, and devoted far more time to the story than previous entries. Although successor FFV put the story in the backseat, FFVI would follow FFIV's lead by giving more time than ever to the plot and characterization. Now, is isn't uncommon to hear people cite the stories as being as or even more important to a Final Fantasy entry as the gameplay.
Final Fantasy XIV deserves a spotlight, as fans can generally agree this happened twice. When the game initially launched, it received mostly negative reviews. As a result, its original management was replaced by Naoki Yoshida who implemented a plan to reboot the game as A Realm Reborn which received critical acclaim, with a lot of people who lambasted the game turning around to say it's a must play. However, a A Realm Reborn was plagued with some issues that to this day, can make it a slog for people to get through. But the first expansion, Heavensward, ironed out a lot of these issues and coupled with a well-received story, helped cement the MMO as a major force. Then there's Shadowbringers, which added several features (such as the trust system, which allows you to play through storyline dungeons with the NPCs you've been traveling with as your party members as opposed to other players) and a greater focus on its story, which is considered one of the best in the franchise, that brought the game from just another good MMO to a legitimate challenger for the greatest MMO of all time.
While the gameplay of Gears of War had always been good from the start, the plot of the campaign didn't really start to develop beyond a blatant Excuse Plot until Gears of War 2. Then, Gears of War 3 grew a beard gameplay-wise: More weapons for your loadout, different weapons spawn on the map (flame nade, digger, one-shot), and more characters to play as. And a new mode to play as the Locust. Of course when it comes to the weapons, some players enjoy them, others... not so much.
The first two Grand Theft Auto games were reasonably popular due to their unique gameplay and controversy, but once the change to 3D went full in Grand Theft Auto III, it was an immense hit, and essentially one of the first well-done open-world sandbox games. Of course, most players were already thinking "This would be even better in 3D."
The first Guild Wars campaign, Prophecies, is generally considered to have long, monotonous levels compared to the other games. It also had very little max-level content and was almost completely serious, when reaching max level early on in the game and having a slightly dry sense of humor would later become part of the game's signature style. Factions, the second, solidified many ideas that would be re-used in the next installments, including henchmen with distinct stories who talked to the player, a "starter island" that the character generally leaves around max level, and several pacing adjustments. It doesn't hurt that the Factions era is still widely regarded as the most balanced PvP environment in Guild Wars history.
Heroes of Might and Magic V started out as a 3D-remake of the third game with awkward translation and mostly lazy cutscenes (using the existing animations of heroes and units instead of moving the mouth). It grew its beard over the course of the two expansions, particularly the second.
Hitman: Codename 47, while praised for its originality, is often criticized for being incredibly unforgiving, with missions that can take over 20 minutes to finish without any save points as well as Agent 47's small health bar which often meant you were dead the second you were detected. Then Hitman 2: Silent Assassin came out with the brilliant idea of giving the player a limited amount of saves they could use in each level wherever they want. This encouraged more experimentation since you knew if your plan didn't work out you could go back to a previous save which you placed just where you needed it, but also prevents save-scumming by giving you a finite amount of saves, helping the series find a more balanced difficulty level that still challenged its player but was never quite as punishing. The game was significantly more well received than its predecessor.
Honkai Impact 3rd: Chapter 8 is commonly considered to be the moment when the story improved drastically. All the most famous moments in the game happened after this, while previous chapters didn't really have that much importance. "Will of the Herrscher" Cutscene, which could be pinpointed as the precise moment of Growing the Beard, is the most popular video on the official YouTube channel. Before, the plot mainly consisted of just five characters: the main trio and their two teachers. The young Valkyries only participated in small-scale conflicts and they mostly carried out official missions under the jurisdiction of Schicksal. There is some Early-Installment Weirdness in how older story stages were structured and the writers still didn't have a full idea for Worldbuilding yet. After awakening of Herrscher of the Void and Himeko's death, events in the plot are of much bigger weight and the storytelling gets more consistent. There are many emotional, tear-jerking and downright depressing moments. Main heroines get separated from each other and go through huge Character Development. Kiana is still the Protagonist, but other characters get more episodes where story is told from their perspective and they must act by themselves. We get to know more about history of the world as themes of multiple universes, humanity and the nature of Honkai become common.
Kid Icarus (1986) and Kid Icarus: Of Myths and Monsters are not bad games, but they were far from major hits. They were mostly cited as Metroid clones for having been made in the same engine. Kid Icarus: Uprising is were the franchise develops its own personality, fleshed out Pit and Palutena as characters, and gave the world its own supporting cast and feel.
No one will say the first two Kingdom Hearts games are less than stellar, but Kingdom Hearts II is when the series started growing its facial hair. Better accessibility, combat versatility, deeper characterization, and better animation are just a few of the many improvements that were brought to the series and used for every game since. It should be noted, however, that this franchise has a very divided fanbase and this view is highly contested, with just as many fans saying that Kingdom Hearts II is where everything went wrong.
The King of Fighters fighting game series developed by SNK was critically successful from beginning, but it's generally seen that The King of Fighters '96, the third game in the series, was when KOF started to take off. While the first two games, KOF '94 and '95, borrowed dashing and spot-dodging from SNK's earlier games (Fatal Fury and Art of Fighting), '96 added running and dodge-rolling in place of them, two mechanics that helped set KOF apart from other fighting games, as well as making the overall gameplay faster, smoother and more accessible. KOF '96 is also when the series leaped beyond the Crisis Crossover premise and built on Original Generation characters, a wise move in retrospect as KOF itself became a More Popular Spin Off than the other featured SNK series. KOF '96 also featured fantastic graphics and music for its time, with the two most well-known tunes in the series, "Esaka?" and "Stormy Saxophone 2", both first appearing in this game.
Kirby's Dream Land was a short, but still enjoyable game. Kirby's Adventure took the formula and enhanced it greatly, giving Kirby his signature Copy Ability, introduced fan favorite character Meta Knight, and even introduced a plot that was deeper than simply "Defeat King Dedede". Many of the features introduced in this game can be found in Kirby game released decades later.
Marvel Heroes was roundly criticised on various fronts upon release, including: lacklustre character models and VFX, uninspired powers and hero mechanics, broken game math, difficulty in obtaining new characters (they could only be obtained for free via random in-game loot drops), lack of good loot (for a game built around it), no endgame, not enough lore flavor and the general deficit of customisation options. All of these issues have since been addressed to varying extents, and more importantly the dev team's transparency and active communication with fans have won past detractors over.
While Mass Effect was well-loved for its story and universe, Mass Effect 2 fully/further fleshed out the setting, races, and characters and developed the moral grayness/complexity, all of which solidified it's popularity with fans. Whereas the first games gameplay was seen as a slog and it's weakest aspect, 2 streamlined it into a fast-paced and engaging experience that, while some criticized as overly dumbing down the RPG aspect, set the foundation for Mass Effect 3 to improve upon and fix those flaws such its multiplayer mode, at first derided as a cash-in mechanic, became enjoyed unironically.
Mega Man Battle Network was received rather warmly, but is an Obvious Beta to even the most biased of critics. Its sequel introduces the Style system, a wealth of replay value in the sidequests and expanded chip library, the much appreciated ability to flee from battle without the need for a specific Battle Chip and a more varied soundtrack, among other things, creating an overall more polished experience.
Mega Man X: Mavericks significantly improved with the second game. It felt much more like the original games while still feeling like a solid RPG and set the tone and difficulty that the rest of the series would follow.
To be fair, the first two MSX games had their fair share of Mind Screw as well as Breaking the Fourth Wall moments, back when that was an Unbuilt Trope in gaming. However, the main problem of the earliest installment is obviously the gameplay, which, although original, suffers greatly due to technical limitations of the MSX. Some cryptic moments seem more like cheap tricks to pad out the games’ length and make it Nintendo Hard. Many aspects of the first game in particular seem incomplete and rushed-out, with the second game improvements being significant but far from satisfying. Most importantly, the NES port of the first game was released as an Obvious Beta, with some of the gameplay’s flaws being significantly accentuated. Furthermore, the hardware limitations of that time meant there are none of the lengthy voiced cutscenes that the franchise later became known for.
While the original MÚSECA is seen as a mess of confusing interfaces and gimmicks, especially by American rhythm game players that can't read Japanese, MÚSECA 1+1/2 not only adds a simple "just play for score" mode for those who don't care about Grafica, but also makes Grafica easier to use (just use the lower right spinner and the Start button to decide each of your three Grafica) and unlock (instead of a sequence of story mode objectives or the Graf.HOLE, just unlock them directly in missions).
Neverwinter Nights started out with a rather boring story, full of Plot Holes, with about 2 three-dimensional characters in the entire game. It started growing its beard with the expansions, but the real potential of the engine didn't really emerge until the greatest works of toolset manipulation (A Dance with Rogues, Sanctum of the Archmage, The Bastard of Kosigan, the Shadowlords series, and more) started to show up.
Neverwinter Nights 2 (developed by Obsidian Entertainment) was accused of doing much the same thing, via another hackneyed and cliched plotline, linear maps, tons of bugs and one of the most infamous uses of Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies. The first expansion, Mask of the Betrayer (also developed by Obsidian), improved on just about everything in the base game. In addition to retconning the ending, it had many well-written companions, a shorter and more focused storyline and less linear areas, to the point that it's one of the most critically-revered expansions of all time and is often mentioned in the same breath as Planescape: Torment! It even had people who hated the game at a loss for words how a company could go one polar extreme to the other.
The Nintendo Wars franchise certainly had a rocky start, with Famicom Wars and the first few Game Boy Wars featuring slow, plodding gameplay combined with maps that either gave one side a ridiculous advantage or were prone to prolonged, drawn-out stalemates. Super Famicom Wars sped up the gameplay considerably, and Advance Wars added a campaign and more varied CO specialties, as well as CO Powers to change the course of the battle, which largely resolved the stalemate issues from previous games.
For the Advance Wars games, the original, while decent in its own right, suffered from some severely imbalanced maps and considerably questionable and easily exploitable enemy AI (most significantly, its tendency to ignore everything else on the battlefield if it could attack a transport unit). Advance Wars 2 toned down most of the map imbalances and vastly improved the AI. Even though very little else was added, these few tweaks managed to place the sequel high above the original in the eyes of the fanbase.
While there is still some hard core dislike for it, EA's Origin service has gained more acceptance in the mainstream as of 2014, even pressuring Valve to keep up with some features. Some highlights include:
You can add most EA published games that are available to the service if you have a CD key for it. Even some third party games can be added this way as well. No strings are attached, even if you have the game in your Steam library. While Steam will accept CD keys as well, it's hit and miss what can be used to add to your library.
You can refund the games within a certain amount of time. This was one of the more high profile features the service offered that Steam didn't (Steam would eventually add it, though not as flexible as Origin's; this was only due to a major AAA game using Steam having such an atrocious port that Valve was forced to implement a refund mechanic, or they otherwise still likely wouldn't have one).
EA occasionally gifts games to its users. And it's not shovelware, as classics like SimCity 2000 and Theme Hospital were given away, as were some newer titles, such as Dragon Age: Origins.
Persona 3 was this for the Persona series. While the others were certainly good games, this was the installment that made the series famous. It was the first to come to the US without having various changes and also introduced the social link system.
Not just Persona. This is considered to be the game that made the entire Shin Megami Tensei series big in the west, and Persona 4 proceeded to make it even more well known. The irony here is that the Persona series has never had the Shin Megami Tensei supertitle in Japan - that was added to the Western releases for whatever scrap of brand recognition they could muster.
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: The first two cases of the first game are relatively simple, designed with fairly over-the-top characters while the player learn the basics of gameplay. In the third case, the "Holy Shit!" Quotient shoots up, along with Character Development, and, suddenly, the game switches from "non-stop wackiness" to one with real stakes. The next game in the series doubles down on both the Rule of Funny and Earn Your Happy Ending elements that made the first game so successful.
Pokémon: While the original Pokémon Red and Blue were were very popular and successful, they suffered from basic, unbalanced, and glitchy gameplay and the multiplayer and trading aspect limited by the need for physical meeting and accessories, contributing to the original Pokémon craze waning after Generation I. Each subsequent game added features and/or fixed the flawsnote Yellow fixed the worst of the bugs. Pokémon Gold and Silver fixed the unbalanced gameplay with various change and new types plus many new features (color graphics, breeding, and the In-Universe Game Clock. Crystal added the option to play as a girl, Move Tutors and the Battle Tower. Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire introduced Abilities which added a layer of strategy. FireRed and LeafGreen introduced wireless accessories. with Pokémon Diamond and Pearl being seen as the point the beard fully grew in. The built-in wireless and online functionality eliminated the hurdle in trading and multiplayer by letting it happen anytime/anywhere, the latter combined with the physical/special splitnote in previous generations moves would run off of physical or special attack based off of their typing, which prevented many Pokémon from being effective as as they couldn't effectively utilize same-type attack bonus or good moves that fit their stats perfecting the gameplay formula causing competitive play to take off. It also introduced a stronger story, which Platinum would improve along with hammering out minor technical issues. These won over enough old and new fans that Pokémonevolved into the Cash-Cow Franchise it is today.
Puyo Puyo was originally a pretty straightforward clone of Tetris, where the goal was to simply get the highest score. The first arcade game was when the series started to gain an identity for itself with its focus on multiplayer and character casting, while the sequel perfected the formula and showed the hidden potential of high skill play.
For a while, Sega's handling of the Puyo Puyo brand was rather lacking. There were straightforward ports of Puyo Puyo Tsu on the Neo Geo Pocket Color and WonderSwan, a really bad version of Puyo Puyo on the N Gage, and an original game on the Gameboy Advance that blatantly tried to copy previous series owner Compile. Puyo Puyo Fever was when the SEGA-era titles started to gain an identity with its new setting, artstyle, and gameplay mechanics.
Localization-wise, Puyo Puyo games have had a history of having shoddy work done on them, with the exception of Puyo Pop on GBA. This includes spelling mistakes, translation oversights, inconsistentnames, and lousy voice acting. Puyo Puyo Tetris is a HUGE leap in quality in this regard, even making clever improvements in some areas.
Rakenzarn Tales: Version 1.1 was playable, but it wasn't anything standout among crossover fangames and was almost needlessly hard. Version 1.2 moved it in the right direction by softening the difficulty to a reasonable level, adding more meaningful character interactions, new secrets and making choices and your Character Alignment have real consequences. Version 2.1 continued this even further by striking a fine balance for character growth and enemy strength while adding more significant choices and game-altering events for added replayability.
Resident Evil has Resident Evil 2, rather than having a B-Movie story like the first game, ended up having one of the most engaging plots in the series. Later, the first game was remade in 2002, doing a few Retcons and trying to connect it to the later installments which made it seem a lot less cheesy.
The original Saints Row, while fairly well received, was considered by many to be little more than a clone of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. After Grand Theft Auto IV marked the series's shift to more dramatic storytelling, though, Saints Row 2 managed to win over disenfranchised fans and holdouts alike by taking the humor and ridiculousness of the original game, and cranking it up to eleven.
Sam & Max: Freelance Police: Season Two is widely considered to be much, much better than Season One, due to having harder puzzles, more variation in locations, more unique episodes, a much more coherent story arc involving most of the supporting cast and killing off the Soda Poppers.
Street Fighter was nothing impressive at the time and also had an appalling control scheme that required you to physically strike a pad to punch or kick (with the strength of your attack depending on how hard you hit it) alongside ridiculously strict inputs for special moves. To say the second installment in the series is better than the first is not an opinion, it's a universally agreed upon fact!SFII took the few good things the original had going for it, expanded on them tenfold, and laid down the foundations for the fighting game genre as we know it today; the game brought us things like multiple playable characters, normal moves that could be cancelled into specials, and of course, combos.
Street Fighter V took a long time to get rolling before it finally got its due. Released adopting a "live service" model that would be perpetually updated with free DLC over time (consciously by Capcom to avoid their trademark sequel stagnation issues), the game's reputation got off on a very bad start as being visibly incompletenote It's widely believed the new title was rushed out as Capcom wanted to capitalize off online play and the tournament scene ASAP, lacking a robust roster and many offline features, as well as questionable new decisions like its new artstyle from its predecessor, making it not seem like it was worth being sold at full price. Fortunately, Capcom made due on their promised long-term expansion plan, implementing many characters of new and old (to the point that V now has the largest playable Street Fighter roster to date by a significant margin), adding much-requested features like arcade modes, continuous gameplay improvements, and other goodies. Compare the reviews of its initial release version to the Arcade and Champion editions (each compiling all the content over the years), it's clear that it's had quite the transformation as now being a solid installment in the franchise.
The Sega Superstars games only started to pick up praise from the critics with the third installment, Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing.
There is widespread agreement among Silent Hill fans that the beard for the series was grown during Silent Hill 2. Given that the first game tends to be listed as a favorite even after eight games, this is a testament to how revered the second game is within the fandom.
The series has long suffered from Broken Base Syndrome, with later games being generally less well-regarded. There are some dedicated purists who refuse to ever acknowledge any game after the fourth, but among the more open-minded fans, Silent Hill: Shattered Memories has achieved a cult following and some think of it as when the series grew its second beard. The fact that the latest game has been quite better received critically and among fans than several previous games speaks of some truth to the idea.
While the original Sonic the Hedgehog is almost universally regarded as a classic, many of the Zones suffered from extremely slow pacing and some questionable design choices (particularly Marble Zone and Labyrinth Zone), made all the more jarring by the game's stated emphasis being on speed. Sonic the Hedgehog 2 improved on these issues somewhat (though the later Zones started to show signs of the old problems), but most fans agree that Sonic the Hedgehog 3 was the point where the 2D games finally hit the perfect balance of speed and exploration, making it one of the most beloved games in the entire franchise.
The 3D Sonic the Hedgehog games. In the mind of critics and many if not most fans, Sonic Unleashed finally introduced a successful 3D formula in the form of its daytime stages, though its night stageswere poorly received. Then came Sonic Colors, which was a critical and commercial success for keeping the formula of the day stages (albeit with less emphasis on speed and action) and adding a twist to it in the form of Wisps. And then Sonic Generations came out, which stuck closer to the more fast-paced Unleashed version of the formula, while adding an alternate mode that mimics the gameplay of the classic 2D games.
SOUND VOLTEX Booth featured a lot of so-so remixes of BEMANI songs, many of which make odd use of Vocaloids, and some very old Touhou Project remxies like "Cirno's Perfect Math Class" and "Bad Apple!! feat. nomico". However, Sound Voltex II -infinite infection- is where many fans felt that the series started to get very good, featuring higher song quality, more original songs, and new chart elements along with much better charting styles.
Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus was an episodic, linear game where you played through level after level until you faced a boss and moved on to the next episode. Sly 2: Band of Thieves the sequel you instead perform "jobs" which can be anything from sabotaging the weapons of the Big Bad to recon to setting up an escape route, all building up to one final heist where you stick it to the bad guy. Plans can go awry and force you to improvise, there is plenty of Worldbuilding and exploration, and much more emphasis is put on the Gray-and-Gray Morality of a storyline where the protagonists and antagonists are both criminals. This new The Caper format proved so popular that it would become the formula for Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves and Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time, with the Saturday-Morning Cartoon structure of the original being but a distant memory.
Star Control was a relatively popular turn-based strategy game including a spaceship melee mode a la Spacewar!. The sequel, Star Control 2 increased the scope of the original with a story-driven adventure mode and various other elements. Star Control 2 went on to become widely considered one of the best video games of all time. Alas, there was noStar Control 3.
You would be hard-pressed to find anyone who would speak ill of the original Super Mario Bros. While opinions may be split over its immediate sequels (Japanese and Western), a large part of the fanbase agrees that Super Mario Bros. 3 was when the series really hit its stride. And if not that, Super Mario World.
Concerning the Mario Kart spinoff games, Super Mario Kart is still highly regarded for a first installment, but its flat-circuits, non-reusable item tiles and oversensitive controls can repel the most casual players. Mario Kart 64, on the other hand, is where the modern Mario Kart formula really begins to take shape: this establishes many of the common series tropes like reusable item boxes, 16 tracks per game at four per grand prix, the eight mainstay characters, drift boosting, less sensitive and touchy controls, and the item rebalancing that would soon become the expected item roster at the minimum in each game (minus the five bananas being reduced to three).
The first Mario Party game was a good game bogged down by some questionable design choices, most notably the "Control stick rotation" mini-games (which resulted in players actually injuring themselves). Mario Party 2 took what made the first game great and refined those ideas while adding several new elements to the series (items, duel and battle mini-games, more dynamic boards) that persist to this day.
While the first Super Smash Bros. is far from a bad game, it suffered from a limited budget and hardware limitations. After becoming a sleeper hit, its sequel, Melee, had a much bigger budget and was created to flex the graphical muscle of the then-new GameCube. A lot of the staples of the Smash series were introduced in Melee, such as the popular trophy collection.
The 2003 series entry Tales of Symphonia is where the series really began to take off. The decision to release it only on the Nintedo Gamecube (at the time) brought Symphonia a lot of attention it wouldn't have otherwise received, as the console was pretty starved for RPGs upon release. Even beyond that, Symphonia refined the story, music, graphics, character customization, and game mechanics of the series to a tee. The mechanics in particular would be ones that every Tales game that came after would borrow at least something from. Symphonia is still the best-selling Tales game of all time, the first to break one million copies worldwide, and it's generally referred to as the quintessential example of everything about the Tales series at its best.
Tales of Eternia. After Symphonia's success, many players explored the earlier games in the series, and found that much of what they praised in Symphoniaoriginated in Eternia. Story-wise, it started the trend of narrative Deconstructed Tropes such as the Light World vs Dark World conflict and the assumptions that come with it and Deconstructed Character Archetypes such as the traumatic origins of Farah's Chronic Hero Syndrome and Meredy's childish behavior. Gameplay-wise it was the first game to have all magic performed in real-time instead of freezing the action, making the battle system much more engaging, it introduced the first real character customization system in the Craymel Cages, and it had two separate and very different world maps instead of the time travel used in Phantasia. To players who have played both games, Eternia's influence on Symphonia is clearly visible.
Tales of Arise holds one of the highest Metacritic ratings to date for the series and has attracted a fair degree of mainstream notice, including winning RPG of the Year at the Video Game Awards in 2021. It has the best chance of any Tales game of dethroning Symphonia as the best-selling game in the series. This is especially remarkable with critics complaining the past few games were formulaic and somewhat outdated, and especially with the criticism Tales of Zestiria attracted.
Tekken was a direct arcade port with a versus mode, some remixed music, and Galaga. It was a decent fighter, and an impressive one at that, but it left a little to be desired. Then came its sequel. New characters, tons of new modes, better emphasis on story, better music, better graphics, the works! And the series would only continue to improve with the third game in the series.
While fans of the Thief series of games generally hold the first game (The Dark Project) in high regard, it's generally agreed among fans that its Thief II: The Metal Age was a massive improvement, featuring a heavier emphasis on level exploration with multiple paths to finish a level, smarter guard AI, a compelling plot with a genuinely disturbing villain, and a significantly lowered focus on one-on-one encounters with enemies, and more stealth and thievery.
For most Wario Land fans, Wario Land II (the second Game Boy title, not the Virtual Boy one) did this, as the series gameplay diverged significantly from that of the Mario series and actually started developing its own identity with things like the transformations. Which of the nexttwo games is better, on the other hand, seems to depend on the player.
The Legend of Zelda series grew a beard around A Link to the Past; not that the previous two games were bad, but the number of Guide Dang Its decreased and it got a much more manageable difficulty. The beard remained just as thick with the following game, Link's Awakening, which successfully converted the formula of A Link to the Past to something manageable on an 8-bit handheld. Once Ocarina of Time was released, the beard was full and glorious.
The Mother trilogy. EarthBound Beginnings was a good game in its own right, but had issues such as excessively frequent battles and overpowered enemies. EarthBound not only fixed that all up, but spruced things up in other ways, such as adding battle backgrounds and providing more creative enemies (both in name and design). It also added the much-beloved Rolling HP mechanic, which added an entirely new spin to battles as it allowed you to survive attacks that should have been fatal if you managed to end the battle or heal before it rolled to zero.
With every series (as early as Giants), the figures started to become more detailed and better sculpted.
Around Skylanders: SWAP Force, the levels started to become less linear and opened more up for exploration, hiding some of the hidden unlockables in much less obvious locations.
Swap Force also started to vary the playstyle of the Skylanders. While still in rather simplistic and approachable for a younger audience, the Trap Team Skylanders added Stance Systems, Status Buffers, and minion masters, further rewarding others who try and play certain Skylanders.
Skylanders: Trap Team also updates the graphics for the new gen, while still making sure it's aesthetically gorgeous for people playing the game on previous gen systems.
Uncharted: Drake's Fortune is a solid action title with plenty of Indy-like antics, a modern-day setting and its own unique fortune-hunting theme, but even the most die-hard Uncharted fan will concede that the controls feel kind of janky, the melee combat is restricted to combos, there's not enough weapon variation, and the all-important parkour segments feel very samey and tepid, lacking the bombastic and eye-catching setpieces the sequels would become beloved for. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves immediately blows all those problems away with a huge setpiece in its opening scene that demonstrates just how much the parkour alone has improved.
WolfQuest Anniversary Edition is considered this for the whole series. It is an entire remake built from scratch, with new coding, updated graphics and models, larger maps, more realistic gameplay and mechanics, etc...
When Xenoblade Chronicles 2 was released in 2017, the game was contested on whether it lived up to itspredecessors, particularly its egregious "gacha" mechanics for recruiting Rare Blades and being Best Known for the Fanservice via its character designs. As multiple updates, New Game Plus and prequelTorna: The Golden Country were introduced, a growing contingent deemed Xenoblade Chronicles 2 a worthy installment to the franchise, which is no small feat considering the first game's ground-breaking praise.
Hardware Examples
The PlayStation 3 started out as a laughing stock with a ridiculous 600-dollar price point, very few quality exclusive titles for well over a year after launch, and a fair amount of meme-generating idiocy (Real-Time Weapon Change, Giant Enemy Crab and Attack Its Weak Point) by Sony's PR department. It was also notoriously difficult to make games for due to its highly-custom architecture, keeping away third-party support and frequently interfering with those who stayed. Things began improving in 2008 with the release of Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, which demonstrated what the system was capable of. By holiday 2009, they had launched a new, slimmer model, dropped the price in half, and started a new campaign of genuinely funny advertisements featuring Sony's fake Vice President of Whatever-The-Hell-He-Wants-To-Be-VP-Of Kevin Butler. The fact that the PS3 had finally developed a very respectable game lineup didn't hurt either. By the end of the generation, Sony managed to close the gap with Microsoft's Xbox 360, each with around 80 million units sold.
The PlayStation 4 is this for the brand overall. After the past two generations with increasingly frustrating-to-code-for hardware and an inflating ego that crashed down like the Hindenburg, Sony finally decided "hey, let's ask what the developers want". Not only did they win the developers over again, but Microsoft's less-than-stellar reveal of the Xbox One was heavily taken advantage of by Sony to win the gamers over at E3 as well. And it shows. At launch, the PlayStation 4 was the fastest selling console in history.
The original Xbox, despite having graphical prowess and a decent lineup of games throughout its lifespan, had its sales pale in comparison to Sony's PS2 juggernaut, which dominated the generation. Its successor, the Xbox 360, improved upon its predecessor by by upping its user friendliness, which includes embracing the Xbox Live online gaming hub, adding an achievement system for rewarding certain in-game tasks, and redesigning the Xbox's infamously-huge controller to make it more ergonomic. And that's not mentioning taking advantage of Sony's disastrous E3 2006 with its lower pricepoint and greater lineup of games. Although the console suffered from the dreaded Red Ring of Death early in its lifespan, it ended the generation with around 80 millions units sold, quadrupling the sales of its predecessor.
When the Xbox One was first revealed in early 2013, it was ridiculed by gamers and media alike for its restrictive DRM policies and a focus on Kinect and digital TV instead of gaming, which resulted in its competitor Sony taking the ball and running with it. In the next two years, MS managed to somewhat regain the goodwill of gamers by reversing its DRM policies, removing the mandatory Kinect requirement, dropping the price by $100, and reintroducing backward compatibility with its predecessor. A return to its core franchises such as Forza and Halo, as well as new IPs such as Sunset Overdrive and Ori and the Blind Forest, didn't hurt either.
The Game Boy was this for Nintendo's handheld devices. Prior to the Game Boy, the Game & Watch was Nintendo's first piece of handheld hardware, and was a success by all means. However, each game was its own separate unit, and it was later overshadowed in the west by the runaway success of the Nintendo Entertainment System. Enter the Game Boy, which was more or less a portable NES (albeit without color, at least for a decade), and ended up taking the world by storm with games like Super Mario Land, The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening, Metroid II: Return of Samus, Kirby's Dream Land, Tetris, and later on, Pokémon Red and Blue. Its insane durability and lengthy battery life also helped, thus allowing for a proper gaming experience on the go. Ever since then, Nintendo's continued to build upon the success of the Game Boy with new handheld devices for each generation (and essentially conquering the handheld market to a near-monopoly, to the point that only the PlayStation Portable has so much has carved out its own niche since), eventually culminating in the first mainstream hybrid console, the Nintendo Switch.
" Cutscene, which could be pinpointed as the precise moment of Growing the Beard, is the most popular video on the official YouTube channel. Before, the plot mainly consisted of just five characters: the main trio and their two teachers. The young Valkyries only participated in small-scale conflicts and they mostly carried out official missions under the jurisdiction of Schicksal. There is some Early-Installment Weirdness in how older story stages were structured and the writers still didn't have a full idea for Worldbuilding yet.
Character Alignment have real consequences. Version 2.1 continued this even further by striking a fine balance for character growth and enemy strength while adding more significant choices and game-altering events for added replayability.