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What sequel is the worst offender of "blatant asset re-use"?
- Thread starter Exellus
- Start date
Attack on Titan 2 is supposedly exactly this and it made me start away even though that first game was amazing.
The story of that game's development (and how it led to the final product) is more interesting than what we got. Jason Schreir's book has a chapter on it and it's a great read.
The story of that game's development (and how it led to the final product) is more interesting than what we got. Jason Schreir's book has a chapter on it and it's a great read.
by that logic, then most sequels are just expansion packs.
like, Splatoon 1 to 2 is just as different as going from Ocarina of Time to Majora's Mask or going from Metroid Prime 1 to 2 or from one Mario Kart to the next one.
just because it has a similar progression doesn't make it a "expansion". ya'll need to play some games with real blatant asset reuse to see what it is like in reality. games like Pokemon XD are very blatant with 90% of the areas directly lifted from Colosseum or Pokemon Black/White 2 being 90% the same as B/W1 with a different route.
For a Japan-only example, there's Super Robot Wars A Portable.
The only reason that the game was made is because every series featured in the original Super Robot Wars A was previously featured in a PS2-era Super Robot Wars. The developers used every trick in the book to avoid creating new content whenever possible, from flat-out lifting unit animations from previous games, to slapping new sprites onto old animations, to splicing and stitching animations to create new attacks, to lifting old music. The character portraits were reused from games that had different portrait sizes, so some would look crystal-clear while others looked like they were smeared with vaseline.
Amusingly, it got nowhere near as much flak as the average Super Robot Wars game gets for reuse, because Banpresto was upfront about what the game was.
I'm not sure what's more hilarious: when the usual Nep assets are reused, or when you get something like Death end re;Quest that doesn't reuse anything but instead has to make two hours worth of dungeon last for 30+ hours.
The only reason that the game was made is because every series featured in the original Super Robot Wars A was previously featured in a PS2-era Super Robot Wars. The developers used every trick in the book to avoid creating new content whenever possible, from flat-out lifting unit animations from previous games, to slapping new sprites onto old animations, to splicing and stitching animations to create new attacks, to lifting old music. The character portraits were reused from games that had different portrait sizes, so some would look crystal-clear while others looked like they were smeared with vaseline.
Amusingly, it got nowhere near as much flak as the average Super Robot Wars game gets for reuse, because Banpresto was upfront about what the game was.
I'm not sure what's more hilarious: when the usual Nep assets are reused, or when you get something like Death end re;Quest that doesn't reuse anything but instead has to make two hours worth of dungeon last for 30+ hours.
Omg it was WKC1, but in reverse order, and 2? new dungeons. Fucking trash ass game
The worst part of this is that Arkham City had these moments where you would throw an Ice Grenade at the water to make yourself an ice raft, and then you'd stand on the raft and use your grapple to pull yourself towards a distant point. It was pretty tedious, but later on the game would give you the Line Launcher to allow you to just effortlessly glide over those same sections and feel awesome.
Arkham Origins copies and reskins the Ice Grenade, and unfortunately also copies the same 'yank yourself along on a raft' sections, but then it never gives you the Line Launcher. So you're just stuck mashing A to yank yourself along on a glue raft whenever that situation comes up for the whole game. They reused the bad part without reusing the part that fixed it :P
Where did I say Majora's Mask or Pokemon XD wasn't worse?
You have sequels that are very very different, and some sequels that are largely the same game. It's a continuum. I think Splatoon 2 is definitely closer to the "pretty much the same game as the first, just more" than 75% of sequels.
You could've bundled the Octo Expansion with a few new maps and guns and called it Splatoon 3.
i guess our definitions of "same game" are very different.
the topic is about asset reuse though. it doesn't matter if the games play the same or differently.
here's one example of blatant asset reuse with games that are different genres: Zelda Twilight Princess and Link's Crossbow Training. one is a 3D Zelda adventure and the other is an on-rails shooter but LCT lifts all assets from TP and only changes how the game plays.
The term "assets" means more than art assets (e.g. code is an asset). If it was just art assets, it would be something else entirely.
if you're going to go this route, then we have to add the Donkey Kong Country Returns and Tropical Freeze games because those are using the Metroid Prime engine.
that makes it 5 games with the same engine.
how about Super Monkey Ball 1 -> SMB2 -> F-Zero GX? iirc further Monkey Ball games kept reusing the engine too.
art assets will be always the most obvious and blatant asset reuse in the industry because you can just tell by looking. things like code aren't easy to grasp for most. reusing the same areas is the most blatant one imo because what makes a new game feel new is the areas. i could care less if they model Mario again for the next Mario game or use his SM3DW model again since it's the same old Mario again. what i care is seeing a new world. this is why games that reuse characters but have brand new worlds like Majora's Mask aren't offenders but games like Pokemon XD are since it really feels like i'm back in Colosseum there.
I don't even know what you're talking about. These games offer entirely different experiences.
Playing a match of Splatoon 2 is basically the exact same as playing a match of Splatoon 1, plus a couple new guns. I think people get so defensive about this because they know it's true.
the same could be said about several Mario Kart or Smash Bros. matches and yet those games aren't expansion packs to their prequels.
Monster Hunter Generations. 75% of the monsters in the game are reused from previous games, and of the remaining monsters more than half are just new versions of old monsters. Just about all the maps and models are also reused from older games.
This was the entire point of the game of course.
This was the entire point of the game of course.
Not really a sequel here, but Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles was very unapologetic about reusing assets from multiple RE games, even if their visual aesthetic was mismatched or the original asset was used for an entirely different game than the one they were trying to "replicate" in first person.
This is the real answer
The first half of WKC2 is you fully backtracking the later dungeons of WKC1. Later on there's this completely pointless time travel plot which is an excuse to make you redo the first dungeon of the first game (but now scaled to your level)
It's sooo bad. Don't ever play WKC1 and 2 back to back, you'll burn out super hard
I disagree if we're talking *every* sequel. The games always have new characters, new designs (for everything, player characters and NPC's), new/redone maps and story, new music etc. Only movesets get reused. Even then, the series has gone through 2 different moveset revamps (at DW6 and now DW9). Nobody in DW9 plays like anybody in DW8, and nobody in DW8 plays like anybody in DW5.
Basically, in fighting game terms, the series isn't really a Frankenstein of a game like MVC2, it's closer to a KOF situation.
With all that said, there is one sequel that does count: Dynasty Warriors 3. The gameplay is still different from DW2 to DW3 (new characters got added, some characters got decloned, system changes were made), but assets from DW2 were carried over wholesale (like the character designs and especially the music). It leaves you with no reason to go back to DW2, since all it really has to offer is its unrefined gameplay quirks
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DOOM to DOOM II. One new weapon, a handful of new enemies and textures. Majority of the assets are reused.
E
^Can you tell which game this is?
It was mostly the environmental textures for the maps which were replaced for Doom 2 which does yield a very recognizeable difference. Everything's just more brown and grey in 2 while 1 did not shy away from vivid red blue and green in the imagery.
Isn't Trails in the Sky SC pretty much just Estelle retracing her steps through Liberl? Great game and world, but a lot of the same.
very incorrect. They may apear so on the surface. The nuances between them are enourmous. So different if you go beyond skin deep that you can hate one of them and think another is the best game ever.
EDF! EDF! EDF!
I think it doesn't actually recycle the maps (though they are always fairly similar, probably supposed to depict the same places) but a lot of the mission progression is repeated between entries. Plus of course reused enemy assets like the ants and spiders from 3 onward. Sometimes somewhat warranted (an ant is an ant) and sometimes not (shield bearers in 5 use the Ravager design despite the game having a different alien invasion).
For example every EDF seems to have an early dive into the caves that gets aborted and a later sequence of cave missions that lead you to the ant queen. Every EDF has a beach landing mission, if not multiple. Both 4 and 5 have missions where you fist-fight a giant monster with a giant mech (though oddly in 5 they shoot the monster you punched in 4 and added a new monster for punching). The circle of dropships mission. The red ants on the beach.
The weapons also get reused completely (with some balance tweaks maybe) though since only 4 and 5 have the same classes there's some differences in who gets what in most of them.
I think it doesn't actually recycle the maps (though they are always fairly similar, probably supposed to depict the same places) but a lot of the mission progression is repeated between entries. Plus of course reused enemy assets like the ants and spiders from 3 onward. Sometimes somewhat warranted (an ant is an ant) and sometimes not (shield bearers in 5 use the Ravager design despite the game having a different alien invasion).
For example every EDF seems to have an early dive into the caves that gets aborted and a later sequence of cave missions that lead you to the ant queen. Every EDF has a beach landing mission, if not multiple. Both 4 and 5 have missions where you fist-fight a giant monster with a giant mech (though oddly in 5 they shoot the monster you punched in 4 and added a new monster for punching). The circle of dropships mission. The red ants on the beach.
The weapons also get reused completely (with some balance tweaks maybe) though since only 4 and 5 have the same classes there's some differences in who gets what in most of them.
For all the complaints I never minded that one. Sure, some enemies reappeared and reused the same assets but they're supposed to be the same enemies and didn't look out of place because the series didn't do major technological or style shifts (beyond the different character portrait style on the DS). AFAIK the environment art never got reused.
This thread is about asset reuse and that's what I was responding to. Not what qualifies as a 'true' sequel to you. Most sequels are functionally similar, but S2 for all it's short comings did not simply copy and paste all of it's maps to bolster it's content.
Look at the examples in this thread. It's about games where you literally retrace your steps in exact environments and enemies in a new game. Would anyone argue a mainly multiplayer shooter is in good company with these examples?
This Castlevania was unbelievable hahaa
The 3 GBA and tye 3 DS titles reuses a lot of the same assets
As far as the Vs. series is concerned, I can't really agree here. Marvel Super Heroes Vs. Street Fighter is far more egregious:
-Nearly every character sprite for characters on the roster is reused from previous Vs. games and Alpha 2. For all that XvSF took from Children of the Atom and Alpha 2, they at least still added completely new characters with Rogue, Gambit, Sabretooth and even the debut of Cammy's shadaloo incarnation.
- The only new character on the roster was only in the Japanese version of the game
- Every stage in the game is just a recolor of an X-Men Vs. Street Fighter stage
- The final boss sequence consists of one reused final boss from XvSF (Apocalypse) and a MUGEN tier sprite edit of Akuma (Cyber Akuma)
Say what you want about MvCI, but it's definitely not the worst offender of asset reuse in the series.
And don't get me wrong, MSHvSF is a fun ass game in spite of the above, but in hindsight, it's a pretty obvious stopgap release meant to hold people over until MvC1.
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You nailed it with Tales of Xilla 2. There's new areas in the first half of the game, but holy crap, the second half is just revisiting old areas and the new ones again in "parallel worlds".
Also Yakuza in general.
And Blazblue Tag Battle is literally "Reused Assets the Game, featuring RWBY and now Senran Kagura".
Also Yakuza in general.
And Blazblue Tag Battle is literally "Reused Assets the Game, featuring RWBY and now Senran Kagura".
I think the fact that they were able to get away with this really speaks to the quality ot that 1993 spritework.
Gonna have to explain 11 and 14
And WC3 - Dota is just dumb
Dota was a free custom map in WC3. That's no where in the same league of asset flipping as 10 to 10-2... a feature complete standalone sequel
Playing Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate, the oldest monsters, equipment, and areas really show their age, even if the models and textures have been redone. It's incredible contrasting things like Yian Kut-ku to Qurupeco or the Marshlands to the Deserted Island.
Let's see... from Rondo:
- Dracula X (a semi port of Rondo)
- Symphony of the Night (direct sequel)
- Think they made new ones for Circle of the Moon
- Back to Rondo sprites for Harmony of Dissonance
- Aria of Sorrow
- Dawn of Sorrow
- Portrait of Ruin
- Order of Ecclesia
- Harmony of Despair
- New mobile game?
Well, if you ever finish the original and go on to the sequel, you'd get to enjoy most of those environments again in Xillia 2.
Xillia 2 is definitely different from the first game, and I actually view Xillia 2 as decent in spite of some lazy decisions on the developers' part. However, I view its re-use of assets as the worst because I already thought the environments and dungeons in Xillia were poorly designed; hence, going through those dull areas and the same exact inn in every town a second time was incredibly painful.
Actually XIV reuses some assets, mostly enemies from XIII, XII and some more. But not from XI.
LOL I fail to see how SNES 2d assets were re-used in a 3DS 3d game.
Sure they copy pasted the world design enemy etc but they are new assets. From my understanding this isn't what the thread is about.
The Yakuza games reuse a lot, but it weirdly kinda works super well. I always look forward to seeing what changes in Kamurocho and like most of the mini-games so don't mind them too much either. The stories and most characters are unique to each game though and they add additional city locations usually too, so also usually a lot of new stuff.
What?
This.
Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee > Oddworld: Abe's Exodus might fall into this category. I didn't mind, though. It was an amazing game and I craved more of the same.
Street Fighter long running "2" series got really old after a while, and i had no desire to play super turbo, and neither hyper SF2.
I agree that Yakuza does recycling best, because the game setting evolves in realtime (year in the game=year in real life).
Characters grow up and age, so do the city. Things get destroyed, things get built, new businesses and characters get installed, life.
I agree that Yakuza does recycling best, because the game setting evolves in realtime (year in the game=year in real life).
Characters grow up and age, so do the city. Things get destroyed, things get built, new businesses and characters get installed, life.
The Oracle games in the Legend of Zelda series are this but in a good way, taking a lot of their assets from Link's Awakening.
On the opposite spectrum, when I played the Minish Cap a few years ago I was kind of put off with how blatant the asset reuse was from Four Swords.
On the opposite spectrum, when I played the Minish Cap a few years ago I was kind of put off with how blatant the asset reuse was from Four Swords.
No. In fact, basically all the stuff originating from the first game got pretty substantially redone.
Recent egregious example: Fallout 76.
A huge amount of assets were reused from FO4. Most notably character and weapon models. And they even had the cheek to hold back some FO4 hairstyles to sell as in-game store purchases in 76.
Most bizarre of all is they didn't stop at FO4 for asset reuse. They even reached back to FO3 for some assets to port into this game =P
Dead or Alive 6
It's also one of the laziest sequels I've ever encountered in terms of adding new content, new moves for characters, etc.
It's also one of the laziest sequels I've ever encountered in terms of adding new content, new moves for characters, etc.
