"Different" entries in a series.

[castletonsnob]

I've been playing Pokemon Black, and it's different from the previous Pokemon games I've played.



This made me think, what are some other entries in a series where the people who worked on it tried something new instead of just making another standard entry?

[Ronny Rayguns Is All Elite]

"Travis Strikes Again" was different than the 3 mainline No More Heroes games in that it was a mixture of top down action and graphic novel bits

[Cyno]

Final Fantasy has several examples of this going back to the 8-bit days.

FF2 - First game with universal MP for magic spells instead of the Vancian-style magic system of FF1 and 3. First game with dedicated characters as opposed to nameless character archetypes. First game that has several of said characters be killed off during the course of the game. First game that dropped standard character levels for an esoteric "actions determine stat growth" system to very mixed results. Clever on paper (run away to raise Speed!), awful in execution.

The Final Fantasy Adventure - First game in the series to be an action RPG. This spinoff was also the first game in what became the Mana series, followed up by sequels like the excellent Secret of Mana and Trials of Mana.

FF4 - First game with the ATB battle system. It added a real time element to the previous strictly turn-based system and became a series staple until FF10.

FF6 - While Terra and Celes are thought of as the leads, it was an ensemble cast that broke up the parties a number of times. The esper and relics system was a clever take on learning magic and assuming different roles on top of every character's unique skills. Also it had a man suplexing a f***ing train. And while Final Fantasy's always had a bit of sci-fi mixed in with its fantasy, none did it like FFVI's steampunk setting.

FF7 - First game in 3D and it did so with a great blend of fantasy and cyberpunk. I also think Barrett was the first Black person to be a permanent player character in the series. The materia system was yet another interesting way to learn magic and skills beyond character levels and class systems.

FF Tactics - First game in the series to be a strategy RPG. The story had a lot of political intrigue with complex relationships surrounding the cast.

FF8 - The first game in the series to have regular proportioned characters on the map screens as opposed to FF1-7's more superdeformed sprites and character models. Also had a split narrative between Squall's group and Laguna's. And unlike FF6, they never gathered as one united party. The junction/draw system was also really unique as far as magic goes.

FF10 - The first game with dedicated voice acting and without a dedicated overworld map that led to isolated outdoor zones, towns, and dungeons. It also brought back a strictly turn-based battle system with the ability to manipulate turn order thanks to the turn order window and abilities like Haste and Slow that could bump you up or monsters down in turn priority.

FF11 - First MMORPG in the series. Brought Final Fantasy window dressing to the pre-WoW MMORPG world.

FF12 - Had a lot of MMORPG and Western-style RPG inspiration with its massive zones, lots of side activities, and exploration. It also introduced a complex, customizable AI system in Gambits that afforded the player a lot of control in just what the characters they weren't controlling were doing. There were no random encounters and battles seamlessly took place in the field maps.

FF14 - The original version game was a dismal failure so they had to re-design it from the ground up. While the resulting game was a more standard MMORPG in design, this was an unprecedented decision. Previously, almost all these sorts of efforts were doomed to fail. But not only did the new team succeed, it has led to one of the most critically successful games in the series, but the most financially successful game in Square Enix's history.

[Push R Truth]

Warcraft. Make 3 RTS in a row then an MMO.

And if you want to really delve into it, they were making a point and click adventure game in there too: Lord of the Clans. But it got cancelled despite it being mostly complete. You can find versions of it out there in the nether

[castletonsnob]

Just FYI, this is for ALL media. I just gave a video game as an example.

[DSR]

Just video games, or do you want stuff like HALLOWEEN III: SEASON OF THE WITCH too?

That's the one with the masks and Michael Myers only shows up in a preview on TV.

[Push R Truth]

Star Trek: The Voyage Home


And I love it. And if you don't agree... double dumbass on you!

[Mighty Attack Tribble]

Highlander: immortals fight a secret war to win "The Prize".

Highlander II: the immortals are in fact ageless aliens banished from their homeworld.

Highlander III-present: never mind, they're just immortals fighting a secret war to win "The Prize".

[Spider2024]

The Amazing Race (US) saw all but one of its seasons be teams of 2. Only season that deviated was season 8, which was themed "Families" and were teams of four. It was so awkward and bad.

[ERON]

The Lemmy Caution films starring Eddie Constantine were mostly straight-up film noir, except for Alphaville, the most well-known entry, which was more science fiction.

[Zombie Mod is not a ghoul.]

Apr 16, 2024 19:51:11 GMT -5 Mighty Attack Tribble said:

Highlander: immortals fight a secret war to win "The Prize".

Highlander II: the immortals are in fact ageless aliens banished from their homeworld.

Highlander III-present: never mind, they're just immortals fighting a secret war to win "The Prize".

Highlander 5/Highlander: The Source: suddenly there are lots of immortals left and a small band (a couple from the tv series that somehow avoided the quickening in the 1980's without being in a permadeath state like the immortals in highlander 3) of them team up to get Duncan to win the prize while a semi insane super immortal chases down all the other immortals in a potentially during/post apocalyptic time (it's been a while since I've seen it and dont remember if civilisation collapsed for unknown reasons or not.) and the prize actually being the ability to have children, but it can only be won by not killing (and releasing the semi insane super immortal from a curse) the semi insane super immortal and replacing him being cursed into protecting the prize.

typing the plot hurt my brain and that was with wikipedia helping with the plot description it was that different to everything before it that it killed the series dead and nearly killed the franchise dead.

[legendkiller1985]

CastleVania II, Zelda II The Adventure of Link, Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island for 8 or 16 bit games.
Gremlins 2: The New Batch went from dark almost horror film to self referential slapstick

[Sponsored by Groose Wipes]

Majora's Mask has such a different vibe the other Zelda games don't have and I love it for that.

[G✇JI☈A]

The Monty Mole games was a series of early games series from the U.K released for Commodore 64 and the ZX Spectrum

Pretty much all 2D platform games.. except for the second game “Monty Mole is Innocent” with is more of an adventure puzzle game in a 3D like enviroment.

[chrom]

Power Rangers RPM was the one in the series that had the after the apocalypse feel to it. Showing that the good guys were on the defensive the whole time and every battle counted.

[bibboid]

The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift

No Brian. No Dom. Just some delinquent kid running away to Japan and getting involved with street racers.

[Stu]

Apr 16, 2024 20:05:35 GMT -5 Spider2024 said:

The Amazing Race (US) saw all but one of its seasons be teams of 2. Only season that deviated was season 8, which was themed "Families" and were teams of four. It was so awkward and bad.

And featuring the Weaver family, who'd go down as some of the most disliked contestants of all time. But not THE most disliked contestant of all time. That would be Jonathan from Race No. 6.

[Celexa Bliss 54]

Donkey Kong Country 3. It had an interactive over world map, and it gave way more focus to collecting items outside of levels. Like, beating the final boss doesn't unlock the "true" ending, but instead unlocks the way to get the final items needed to get that ending. Whereas the first two games just challenged you to find all the bonus rooms and ended with the final bosses.

[agent817]

Rambo: Last Blood

I could see where they were going with this, but I have a feeling that the script was for something else and it was just slapped with the Rambo title on it to see if it would make money. The 2008 film felt more like a Rambo film than this one did.

[The Wild Man of Borneo]

Apr 16, 2024 19:51:11 GMT -5 Mighty Attack Tribble said:

Highlander II: the immortals are in fact ageless aliens banished from their homeworld.

I honestly didn't think this was such a bad idea, but the execution was so half-assed.