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Discussion Existence of one game affecting the reception of another

Waluigilicious

Waluigilicious

Piranha Plant
Now, this could all just be in one's head, or it could be true, but it is impossible to prove. I feel that there are some instances where one game existing can negatively impact how people feel of another. This can be because of a game that came out afterwards, or before. Here's a couple examples I feel may be the case:

Mario Party 9 (impacted by Mario Party 10)
I've played all mainline Mario Party games with four people at times of release and therefore feel I have minimal bias. I, just like everyone else, much prefer the classic board movement than everyone in a car. However, at time of release, Mario Party 9 was a nice breath of fresh air. First of all it felt polished to no end, and was beautiful (whereas MP8 felt a bit rough around the edges). The car mechanic (everyone moving together) was something new to try out. The music was great. Anyone who has played Wii Party and Wii Party U will know what I mean about the polish. I genuinely believe that had Mario Party 10 gone back to the classic formula, people would remember Mario Party 9 more fondly. But thanks to Mario Party 10 sticking to the formula, and feeling like a lesser game, I feel we just tend to group these two games together, and not give MP9 the credit it deserves. In a vacuum, if it was the only game in the series that tried the car formula, I genuinely do believe even in my household we will be playing it more often, but MP10 has left a sour taste in our mouths and now I'd rather just move on from it completely.

Mario Tennis Aces (impacted by Mario Tennis Ultra Smash)
Likewise, I have played every console Mario Tennis game for dozens of hours. Tennis Aces is the one. It's perfect. The classic formula feels amazing, and the new gimmick works very very well. Despite it being the best selling Mario Tennis game, I feel people have moved on from it way too quickly, and it is not as fondly remembered as the N64 and GCN titles. I genuinely believe Ultra Trash with its abysmal self has played a part in this. Had that game not come out and the wait for a new Mario Tennis was a little longer, and had it not sucked so hard, I believe Aces would have received even more positive long-lasting love.

Tetris Party (Impacted by Tetris DS)
This one is a little different as Tetris DS is a great game. It made Tetris matter again with its sales, and the inclusion of Nintendo property made it very charming. This however completely overshadowed Tetris Party in my opinion. This game also felt very polished with a lot of love put into it, with very fun side modes. Also don't sleep on Tetris (Axis) on 3DS.

An interesting shout out to Metroid Prime Federation Force, which was impacted from a lack of Metroid games. I haven't played it myself, but I trust Next Level Games. Nintendo got it right with Dread. No doubt people would have loved it anyway, and it isnt exactly the same thing, but they ensured to let us know Prime 4 was still coming.

Anyone have any examples? Feel free to talk about each other's post to see if you feel the same or believe it's not true.
 
I think Ace Attorney Dual Destinies made Apollo Justice worse, because it basically ditched all the interesting plotlines and cliffhangers it had set up, it's like the game never existed. DD is kinda bad too.
 
Didn't a reviewer say they would have given Horizon a lower score had they played BOTW first?

Zelda is still crazy to this day though, AAA games aren't implementing it's systems and it was a WiiU game.
 
Xenoblade and Xenoblade X. Arguably X's problem is more its title than the original Xenoblade itself, but people were expecting X to be a few things it wasn't even pretending to be thanks to the original Xenoblade.

kimbo99 said:
SS and SSHD?
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I'm not really sure a remaster applies to the thread, but I'm curious as to what you mean by this.

storres said:
Mario Deluxe impacted Mario Maker 2.
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I don't think I agree with this. There's definitely untapped potential with Mario Maker 2, but it's more due to the lack of updates than NSMBU DX existing.
 
Jersh said:
Xenoblade and Xenoblade X. Arguably X's problem is more its title than the original Xenoblade itself, but people were expecting X to be a few things it wasn't even pretending to be thanks to the original Xenoblade.


I'm not really sure a remaster applies to the thread, but I'm curious as to what you mean by this.


I don't think I agree with this. There's definitely untapped potential with Mario Maker 2, but it's more due to the lack of updates than NSMBU DX existing.
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I feel that both go hand in hand. Nintendo stopped the updates, because MM2 didn't take off like the wanted/expected.
 
Actraiser 2 being affected by Actraiser for the obvious reason (disappearance of the sim part).
Another reason : though also composed by Yūzō Koshiro, the soundtrack of Actraiser was and still is so impressive that it was nearly impossible to match it, let alone surpass it.
 
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storres said:
I feel that both go hand in hand. Nintendo stopped the updates, because MM2 didn't take off like the wanted/expected.
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It still sold well and has ton of courses, but I think it’s more that the game released and than 6 months later Covid hit and they cut their losses. The final update to me screams they had a meatier update planned but it was cut short real fast.
 
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Gigantic was definitely hurt by Battleborn. People were startin to get tired of Hero Shooter Arena games and Battleborn flopping immensely and being a mess of a game and eventually killing the genre didn’t help Gigantic and other games in the genre.
 
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Emily Rogers said:
I just felt it needed to be said twice! :p

Nintendo was constantly throwing obstacles in front of the Wii U.
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Bath faith in an adorable way, but bad faith nonetheless 😋

And as of Nintendo and the Wii U, it was Track & Field Hurdles raised to the power of 64 😉
 
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I thought that 3d world was a mere copy of 3d land.....and thats probably the reason why I overlooked the Wii U back in 2013.
 
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I would say every Zelda game since TP greatly changed the perspective over their predecessor, most notable example would be BotW making people appreciate the tight dungeon design of SS more.

Similarly, I feel the openess of Odyssey also put the laser-focused and creative design of 3D World in the spotlight.

As an example of a negative perception, Ultimate made people realize how bad Smash 4 moment to moment gameplay is.
 
Zero Time Dilemma is a middling game that fails to offer a satisfying conclusion to many of the games questions.

But those questions WERE raised by Virtue's Last Reward in the first place. In hindsight Virtues Last Reward is a much worse game now that we know that some of its questions have either no answer or have poor answers. At least that's one way of interpreting it. Basically anything that ends on a cliffhanger is pushing itself at least a little bit onto a potential future game.
 
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Just a hypothesis at the moment, but I think a LOT of side-scrolling action-adventure are now going to feel lacking compared to Metroid Dread.
 
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Smash and Mario Kart for each kart racer or platform fighter.

I don't envy the team of Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl.
 
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A great retroactive example of this is Super Mario Odyssey making the value of Super Mario 3D World more appreciable to some, as suggested by videogamedunkey in his 2021 review of the latter game.
 
This is a weird case, but I'm playing the game Prototype right now and I remember when it came out in 2009, people infamously pit it directly against InFamous, mostly by 360 owners who weren't able to play the latter game. I don't know if it impacted the game's reviews, but I do think it led to more people caring about it than they would have otherwise, because uh....it's pretty jank.
 
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Not in the same series but I feel the release and success of Xenoblade Chronicles made a lot of people look back at Final Fantasy XII in a more favorable light than it did during its original release.
 
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Pokémon X and Y's reception I think was harmed by later games removing its signature additions. The PSS got dropped in Gen 7 and Mega Evolutions got the axe in Gen 8. If they had stuck around and Game Freak iterated and improved upon them, I'd imagine they'd be seen more favorably. Alas, Game Freak decided to keep reinventing the wheel with regards to online play, and then cutting battle mechanics for another battle mechanic that'll be probably also be dropped.
 
Eeeh in that specific case I think that people who do think fondly of Gen 6 only do so because of the PSS, Friend Safari, and the new pokemon. Even with all those things it is still the weakest gen.
 
Robert said:
Pokémon X and Y's reception I think was harmed by later games removing its signature additions. The PSS got dropped in Gen 7 and Mega Evolutions got the axe in Gen 8. If they had stuck around and Game Freak iterated and improved upon them, I'd imagine they'd be seen more favorably. Alas, Game Freak decided to keep reinventing the wheel with regards to online play, and then cutting battle mechanics for another battle mechanic that'll be probably also be dropped.
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Man God said:
Eeeh in that specific case I think that people who do think fondly of Gen 6 only do so because of the PSS, Friend Safari, and the new pokemon. Even with all those things it is still the weakest gen.
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I also think gen 6's more negative reception is partially impacted by people who weren't really into the online Pokemon fandom at the time since joining it. Most people who picked up the game and played with it casually probably didn't engage with the PSS or Friend Safari. Gen 6 is, in some ways, a very "you had to be there for it" moment.
 
GamerJM said:
I also think gen 6's more negative reception is partially impacted by people who weren't really into the online Pokemon fandom at the time since joining it. Most people who picked up the game and played with it casually probably didn't engage with the PSS or Friend Safari. Gen 6 is, in some ways, a very "you had to be there for it" moment.
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True. At the time, there was a sense of community playing online that wasn't there before or since, and it was kinda magical. Probably smoothed over the cracks like the lack of postgame (although that didn't bother me, lol) a bit. Planning on doing a Y playthrough soon, so I'll see how much it holds up without it, although I still really enjoyed the actual adventure the last times I played.
 
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Leo said:
I think Ace Attorney Dual Destinies made Apollo Justice worse, because it basically ditched all the interesting plotlines and cliffhangers it had set up, it's like the game never existed. DD is kinda bad too.
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This one is spot on really. Trucy and Klavier have been reduced to unimportant minor roles, Phoenix’s characterisation has been walked back to how he was in the Trilogy as if the guy in AJ was a completely different person, and Apollo keeps getting new backstories that were somehow never mentioned in his debut. That’s not even getting into the still unresolved cliffhangers. They went so far trying to respond to the criticisms to the game that they dropped everything that was good about it too.
 
Dark Souls affect everything else cause everything is the “dark souls” of some genre an is judged by dark soul “hard” standars when is a different bloody genre
 
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Metroid Federation Force would've likely been received with more curiosity and less vitriol (like Prime Pinball) if it weren't for Other M.
 
Yzz said:
Tropical Freeze and Metroid Prime lol
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Still one of the weirdest ones, but honestly looking back on it, I think I could understand it .... ?

I wasn't a Nintendo fan at the time, but I think more than anything the sentiment was caused by the overabundance of 2D platformers at the time. The New series really did a number on how people viewed Nintendo's 2D platformer games, we just came off a spree of multiple New Super Mario Bros games, a new Yoshi game on 3DS no one like, a Kirby game on 3DS, even a 3D Mario that basically played like it was inspired almost entirely by 2D Mario, and while Returns did get great reception, again the issue was more so that people were growing tired of the perceived "saturation" of said style, so no matter how good Tropical Freeze was people were going to feel Retro's talent was wasted.

This lead, apparently (again, didn't stalk internet communities at the time that much) to people using this weird ass "Metroid Prime vs DKC:TF" comparison. A comparison about how Retro's talents were being wasted on "another 2D platformer". Looking back, it's sort of ironic how Retro has never displayed any talents since OOOF.

I honestly feel that if it was any big 3D game, not even Prime, people wouldn't have felt this way. It was 100% because it was a 2D platformer. So in a weird way its the release of many other 2D games around DKC:TF that lead people to feel this way I think, not actually just Prime (though Prime showing their knack for 3D worlds sparked the disappointment I guess).
 
KCannon said:
Metroid Federation Force would've likely been received with more curiosity and less vitriol (like Prime Pinball) if it weren't for Other M.
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I'd assume that in this scenario we got another game in the meantime, otherwise that would be nearly 10 years without a Metroid game. Fed Force still would have gotten hate if that were the case.
 
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Metroid Samus Returns was somewhat negatively impacted because of AM2R and Nintendo's takedown of the game. There are still content creators to this day saying "AM2R is better," even recommending it over the official game, despite them being two completely different experiences.
 
I never really had a positive opinion of Pokémon Let's Go, but seeing how obviously Sword and Shield were lacking development resources has made me view them even worse than I originally did.
Waluigilicious said:
An interesting shout out to Metroid Prime Federation Force, which was impacted from a lack of Metroid games. I haven't played it myself, but I trust Next Level Games. Nintendo got it right with Dread. No doubt people would have loved it anyway, and it isnt exactly the same thing, but they ensured to let us know Prime 4 was still coming.
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As someone who's played Federation Force, it's not Next Level Games' best work.
 
AM2R and Metroid Samus Returns, feel like SR has a pretty decent reception, but would be even better if AM2R didn’t exist
 
I didn't even know what AM2R is until I just googled it. I think fans who live in fan-made spaces overestimate the influence those projects have.
 
AI the somnium files by Zero Time Dilemma

I have a friend who refuses to play any other Uchikoshi games after ZTD. They were the ones who actually got me into the 999 series lol.

I keep telling him AI is good but he's still on the fence.
 
Windwaker 'response' directly led to the tone and art of Twilight Princess. Arguably as well TP to SS/BotW - that tone/art did not really help the reception and sales.
 
I think Federation Force's reception is impacted by its release date, mostly. Swap its release date with Samus Returns' and everything plays out completely differently. It's treated more like a "......huh" and very, very few people buy it because of it being a post-Switch 3DS game. Meanwhile Samus Returns would have been the 3DS's big 2015 banner release.

Ex-Psych said:
AI the somnium files by Zero Time Dilemma

I have a friend who refuses to play any other Uchikoshi games after ZTD. They were the ones who actually got me into the 999 series lol.

I keep telling him AI is good but he's still on the fence.
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I actually have the hot take that ZTD made AI's reception better for those who actually played it. It's heralded as a "return to form" despite the gameplay consisting of timed puzzle things that are basically just trial and error, and probably Uchikoshi's least nutty plot twists. It received less criticism related to these things because it directly came after a game seemingly everyone hated.
 
Raccoon said:
A great retroactive example of this is Super Mario Odyssey making the value of Super Mario 3D World more appreciable to some, as suggested by videogamedunkey in his 2021 review of the latter game.
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3D World really has been an interesting one hasn't it. First it was frowned upon thanks to that boring first trailer. Then the second trailer improved things, however it still was on the Wii U and was "similar to 3D Land" and was too different to SM64 or even SMG.

Now on Switch it feels like a great game to have. Switch has done really well having all three of NSMBU, 3D World and Odyssey available (plus SMM2 to boot). The existence of Odyssey has definitely made people feel more forgiving towards 3D World.
 
Other M made Fusion feel a lot worse to me.

Like, I was okay with the plot dumping and the handholding (Especially since it had been years since the last Metroid game and i was willing to take anything), but somehow the knowledge all of that led to Other M existing, the fact Other M just retreaded a lot of plot points in Fusion, and the fact the mysterious and cool Adam was a dick, sort of make Fusion hard to replay now.

Pokemaniac said:
As someone who's played Federation Force, it's not Next Level Games' best work.
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I'm actually wondering if the vitriolic reaction to the game's unveiling didn't just absolutely destroy their morale towards the end of development. I think it's a neat game, but it definitely lacks a bit of their usual polish. And like, you fighting Samus as a ball and watching her die like twice feels like some weird dev catharsis thing lol

Like, from what I remember Next Level actively wanted to do a Metroid game, and pitched concepts to Nintendo... Just to get stuck doing a Metroid game no one wanted to exist. That can't have been good for the devs.
 
Final Fantasy XV felt like a reaction to Final Fantasy XIII. People complained about the "hallways" of the latter, so the former went fully open-world. And I think there's a smidge of misogyny in there too given how XV has no playable female characters (in the base game, at least, I think Aranea was an AI party member in the DLCs later on).

Funnily enough, people also started complaining about XV's open world and are asking for the "hallways" back.
 
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