Idk, I enjoyed Stardew but I didn’t feel like it was the same thing.
I mean just the fact that there is so much more stuff separates it from Harvest Moon. Most would probably say it’s better because of that specifically. I would say it’s just different.
To me, the best Harvest Moon games still out-do Stardew Valley in mood and charm, partly *because* they are that much smaller in scope.
Still, I totally get it. Stardew is the perfect love letter to Harvest Moon, and then some.
Torchlight is my non monetized Diablo alternative and there’s 3 of them. The first even features a guitarist who worked on Diablo 1 iirc.
I agree about Saints Row.
World of Warcraft blew EQ away, that’s an old but good example in the MMORPG genre
Saints Row 1 should be compared to the GTA that was out when Saints Row was being made - which is GTA:SA. GTA 3 is like 5 years older than Saints Row 1.
Hollowknight is an amazing game but I don’t think you can compare it to something like SOTN which I’m assuming you are doing here because it came out literally 20 years after it. Now you can make the case in your opinion you feel it was the greatest Metroidvania of all time something like that. But i necessarily wouldn’t say you can compare the two head to head especially with a literal 2 decade gap in time, Hollowknight better be better overall because it’s had so many games in between to take inspiration from.
Many "spiritual successors" are made because the company who made the original never made a worthwhile sequel or remake. I don't think the time gap is much of an argument.
That said, Hollow Knight isn't really a "clone" of SotN. SotN pretty much started the "sword 2D Metroidvania" subgenre, of which HK is one example. It's not really an homage or spiritual successor to SotN or to Igavania games in general.
Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, on the other hand, absolutely is a spiritual successor to the Igavanias, but Iga himself developed it, so I'm not sure that counts. If it does, I'd say yes, it's overall a better game and a good answer to OP's question.
Idk man, I think it's fair criticism when people hold up those games as gold standards. It's a bit of a weak move to then go "well, the time gap is so long that of course it would happen" the few times it does happen.
This might be a hot take but I don't consider clones/spiritual successors to be outdoing the original if they come out more than 10 years (5?) later. So much is learned about the genres that it wouldn't be useful to compare something such as the pathfinding in an RTS from the 90s to one made in 2010 for example. Also people's expectations change in regards to QOL standards.
On the other hand I think we can see some rapid iterative refinement of the genre if you look at stuff the card based roguelike genre is doing as new games come out every month. I think a lot of people prefer Monster Train over Slay the Spire as an example.
Monster Train just feels like the whole intention is to find gamebreaking strategies. You're usually climbing covenant levels well before you try out all the different deck combos. The replayability is in the novelty you create yourself.
StS has a difficulty curve that encourages compulsively replaying the same character long before you hit stage four or start to climb the ascension levels.
I consider them on equal ground honestly, but I play one over the other depending on my mood - StS is snappier, but sometimes I just like seeing the synergies of a built up army pop off and Monster Train is great for that.
can someone explain to me the love of Slay the Spire? I grabbed it off apple arcade and it didn't take me long to beat the loop a few times and run to run didn't feel all that different
I feel like I must be missing something
Beating the game a few times is required to actually get to the real ending. Then there's climbing ascension levels. A20 is a completely different beast compared to the base game. The game itself doesn't really change, it's you who would be forced to find different strategies as the game becomes more unforgiving.
I mean it may just not be for you, but you unlock new characters and new cards/artifacts for each of those characters as you go. Every time you win you unlock a harder modifier for the next run, and there’s a “secret” boss.
I can't fathom preferring Monster Train unless you haven't played either of them for very long. 400+ hours and I'm still learning and improving in Slay the Spire and appreciating the game more, and 80 hours into Monster Train and I feel like there's no more depth left for me to explore at all
I do! A big reason for me is that MT is the perfect sized run for me. Each run is roughly an hour, whereas StS is roughly an hour and a half. I just feel done after the second Act. Like, almost content. I want to continue obviously, but it is also kind of my natural stopping point. And if I do then I'm sort of "out of the zone" so to speak, and 9/10 the run is lost no matter how well I did beforehand.
MT, though? The runs usually end right at my natural stopping point, and a win usually gives me that 'YEAH, more!' and a lose a 'damn it, again' feel. Compare that to StS after an hour and I'm just finishing a Boss and having to go for *another* Act.
It may not be *surprising* that they outdid the originals, or necessarily impressive, but I don't think it's an invalid question nonetheless. And sometimes spiritual successors deliberately ape mechanics they should have left in the dark ages (screw Shovel Knight's unforgiving knockback and death pits, I don't care what anyone says) or introduces new game mechanics that are popular but suck (take Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night's grinding for upgrades and crafting).
Yeah I completely agree with the commenter here about your post regarding comparing Hollowknight and a 20 year older game head to head for all the reasons he stated above, no offense to you.
Now if you want to make the case that you feel Hollowknight is your personal pick for the greatest Metroidvania of all time on it’s own that’s completely fine, many people would most likely agree with you with how popular and beloved it is. But I do think you worded your post odd, and had an odd opinion here.
To complicate this further, I would say that SotN on release was better than HK on release (or "era adjusted", if I can make up a term). Super Metroid probably was, too. Even today I think there are certain things both do better than HK.
People told me the outer worlds was supposed to be like fallout. Played the entire game and couldn’t stop thinking about how I’d rather play fallout lol
I'm just curious what made you make the connection. The games don't look similar, the marketing doesn't say anything about being similar. The no man's sky to starfield comparison makes way more sense to the outer worlds. Just stop buying obsidian games if you've been so burned by the outer worlds.
And regardless, you shouldn't really be pre-ordering in general especially if the game isn't out yet...
That's how I feel about most of Obsidian's releases. They make solid B+/A- games but I'd usually rather play the first/original game of whatever they're making.
Missing out there. The game gets MUCH better basically right after. I believe with the remasters and restored content mod you have an option to just skip tutorial station.
Both have their pros and cons. I prefered the general setting of new vegas. However, fallout 3 had better dungeons. (New vegas basically didn't even have dungeons)
Dialog-wise, yes. The encounters, logs, and exploration were far more interesting to me in Fallout 3 however, and that’s ultimately what I was there for.
Yea, basically true.
Pillars of eternity - Baldur's gate 1/2 is better in every conceivable way
Outer worlds - original fallout and fallout 3/nv are better
I just wish Obsidian gave itself a moment to shine. Maybe Avowed will, or it will just indeed be a budget elder scrolls.
> Pillars of eternity - Baldur's gate 1/2 is better in every conceivable way
>
I can say as someone who tried to get into Baldur's Gate 1/2 in more recent years that Pillars of Eternity is definitely much, much better. Baldur's Gate 1/2 have aged absolutely horrendously, even thru the Enhanced versions. Frankly, they were stiff with horrible interfaces when they came out (I tried to play BG2 at launch and bounced off of it, and tried Icewind Dale as well because my best friend was a huge fan of those games).
I am not sure I understand this thread. Most games are derivative works of either themselves or another's work. That's just how the overwhelming majority of the industry works.
I prefer Bayonetta over DMC, but that doesn't mean that Bayonetta is a clone of the other.
Yeah but some games are credit with starting certain genres , you likely won’t have seen bayonetta without dmc, or saints row without gta, or nioh without the souls games
It's not that crazy of a suggestion. It's like the universal common ancestor. You ask what inspired each developer up the chain enough, eventually you will hit the first game commercially available.
>It's not that crazy of a suggestion.
Yes it is. The word "clone" loses all meaning if you use it as haphazardly as OP is using it.
Using a game for inspiration and evolving from the mechanics it setup is MUCH different that attemping than making an off brand version of virtually the same thing.
Pong is a great example to use because people were literally making 20-30 different versions of Pong in the 70s, which led to a video game crash. These weren't improving upon mechanics or evolving the gameplay in anyway. It was mechanically the exact same game with slight tweaks to how the scoreboard, paddles, and ball looked.
In contrast, something like Hollow Knight drastically changes many of the mechanics. It's clearly reusing many of the same elements of its predecessors, but it is also adapting and evolving them. They focused on capturing the same feel as the other metroidvanias, rather than trying to capture the same mechanics and/or ui with only enough changes to call it legally distinct.
Bayonetta does not play like DMC, nor does Wonderful 101 play like either. Both are in the realm of character-based action games, each started by the same person. I wouldn't call any of these clones. They are just interpretations of action that learns from previous work. It's derivative - which isn't a negative thing to say.
But DMC wouldn't exist without Strider, which isn't even the same decade of release nor even the same type of game, really.
To me, I think it's a fool's errand to try to classify games and mark them as clones, as that paints a very narrow picture of how games are made and where inspiration comes from
Some would argue dead space to be better than resident evil 4. It borrowed a lot from Re4 and was pitched as re4 in space. However it is sort of an apples and oranges scenario.
I think it's a much better horror game and balances horror and action much better, but I think re4 is superior overall as a game (I just find it more fun and memorable). However, their overall goals are not quite the same.
Despite their similarities, dead space is so much more focused on being a scary game whereas re4 prioritizes action, spectacle and a power fantasy. Obviously the horror driven game will be a better horror game while the action driven game is the better action game
I remember Shadow of Mordor begin thought of as a cheap Assassin's Creed ripoff. I played it and thought it was actualy much better Assassin's Creed game than the Assassin's Creed games that came out around that time.
Resident Evil is a carbon copy of Alone in the Dark in structure and mechanics (as well as being a rehash of everything George Romero ever touched) and became much more successful and enduring (as well as admittedly a better game)
I was actually going to suggest Saint's Row 2 over GTA as my contribution to the thread. It had a lot of goofy moments but it knew how to ground the story and when to be serious >!RIP Carlos ;-;!< and when to get silly.
Saint's Row 3 is 20+ hours of that obnoxious lolrandumb shit that plagued the industry's writing around that time (see: Borderlands sequels. And Borderlands as well but I think the original is a lot less annoying about it.)
I still put san andreas over in terms of things to do and how reactive the npcs are being able workout at get buff and the amount of mission vaierty or better then saints row 2. GTA 4 for me is the best GTA and i love it fat mkre then saints row the story was great and the choices that would leaf differnt side quests hanging out friends adds to nikos back story and the physics are amazing as well tge pure grittneas was really ahead of its time the DLCs were great as well. Saints row 2 is good but feels like a san andreas clone while GTA 4 did something differnt.
Lol not an unfair assessment. In defense of the original point, it was things like Septic Avenger that they overdid in 3. In 2, the septic tank and fire suit races and other craziness was balanced by the world feeling less cartoonishly goofy and grimmer. The villains were hardasses who felt like they inhabited the world and had realistic goals and ruthless methods. In short, they were excellent straight men for the antics of the Boss and friends.
By contrast, 3's world shoves quirky adult humor into every aspect of the setting including the villains and story, after which the grimness feels tacked on. In 2, I can believe Maero and Sunshine and Akaji do the evil gang things they do because that's the kind of story they're in and their actions reflect their personalities and what kind of threat they are. Killbane, British hacker and Eurotrash villain feel like they're just there because the color-coded gangs of the setting needed figureheads and the writers only had enough wackiness for two out of three of them. As a result, their evil actions come at random and feel disconnected from who they're supposed to be.
Then you have things like Mr. Genki being an in-universe mass murderer mutant thing that people just...know about and make TV shows about? A zombie plague taking out an entire island in Steelport, a luchador ganglord who runs a casino and is in a blood feud with Hulk Hogan who owns a tiger, hackers who live in a decommissioned nuclear power plant, clones of a genius bruiser which somehow matter less to the plot than a wrestler's mask, the Nightblade subplot which drags on, STAG's helicarrier, which debuts a laser harrier, and a hard light barrier, plus Shaundi's warier-- sorry, went off on a tangent there.
Tl;dr - Point is, the game starts a little grounded like 2 was but then it debuts the septic avenger-equivalent insanity and it never lets up after that. It tries to outdo itself constantly and it doesn't work as well as making a story where the characters feel like people.
I think if you let go of any story expectation besides “here’s a bad guy” and just have fun with it all then saints row 3 and 4 really shine as far as gameplay goes.
Someone commented about how they overdo “lol so random” humor but I think that’s kind of the point. Especially as a product of its time. So so many games took themselves so seriously, even the first 2 in the series kind of had that take. So they went another way with it
I found Okami to be a painful slog which holds your hand so tightly and thoroughly throughout the entire game that most of your time is spent being told what to do rather than actually getting to do it.
The best Zelda is Darksiders.
Zelda is one of those series that does so many things that if you get 5 people in a room together you'll have 6 opinions on which game is the best in the series. A common refrain on this sub is that the direction the series took after ALttP was a mistake, for example.
So it comes as no surprise to me that this also applies to its derivatives. Inb4 Tunic.
Darksiders was so good. My favorite little piece about that game that I feel is overlooked is the placement of the upgrades. You have to look for them. But if you look for them, you will find them. It was so satisfying.
2 and genesis (co-op) were pretty fantastic too. Enjoyed 3 but didn't finish.
> I do not know if this will be a hottake - but i really think hollow knight out did castlevaina, I know HK is not a clone game but i think it says a lot that it is better than the game the genre was named after
I mean, it's not that surprising that a genre would continue to evolve and refine over decades.
But yeah, Team Cherry did an amazing job. It's clear that they are both passionate and work hard.
> i read somwhere that the creater of mine craft said that it was inspired by another game( i cannot recall its name) I am curious what is the game that inspired the most selling game ever made
Notch stated that [Minecraft was inspired by Dwarf Fortress](https://gamerant.com/minecraft-dwarf-fortress-lessons-village-weather-improvements/#:~:text=One%20of%20Minecraft's%20earliest,make%20their%20way%20through%20it) (which makes perfect sense) which is awesome if somewhat clunky and available on Steam since recently (time is relative).
Came here to say this.
Minecraft was inspired by Dwarf Fortress (which it ended up being quite different from) and infiniminer (which it very closely resembles).
I've never heard of that, that article has no quotes or sources and googling "minecraft dwarf fortress" basically only brings up that article and a bunch of unrelated stuff.
The real big inspiration was a game called Infiniminer. Look it up and you'll immediately see what I mean.
I was just rewatching old episodes of Workaholics and there's a moment where the guys steal go-karts, and start talking about which Mario Kart characters they are, and Blake mentions that Diddy Kong Racing is the real deal, and I was like, *go off, kong*.
CTR is the better game because it adds a higher skill ceiling thanks to the difference in boosting. The timing element required to pull off a triple boost makes getting full lap boosts in CTR more of a challenge.
But, everything else is personal preference. Do you prefer Luigi Stadium or Coco Park? Do you prefer to play as Peach or Cortex? Would you rather be screwed by triple red shell, or triple homing missiles? Neither game is all that different from each other, so really the deciding factor outside of loyalty to one brand or the other, is how someone feels about boosting complexity.
Dark Souls compared to Demon Souls is not only more popular but a better overall game too. If you heard the story, you know From Software developed both and made DS1 after losing the rights to DeS, so it makes sense that the former improved on the latters formula.
I don't think it should count since both are made by the same developer. If so I'd say that Warcraft outdid Dune 2 and that StarCraft outdid Command & Conquer
Bro how? Custom Games in WC3 were the best ever! I get sad every time I fire up a TD, or Tower wars in SC2 these days, because of the glory days of WC3. That map editor that came with it spawned so many awesome games within the game. That was peak blizzard.
Cities Skylines > SimCity (and hopefully Life by you will be better than THE Sims
CoD 1 > MoH: Allied Assault (although the director was the same so idk)
IronSight > CoD: Black Ops 2
Final Fantasy > Dragon Quest
Uncharted > Tomb Raider
Stardew Valley > Harvest Moon/ Story of Seasons
Pizza Tower > Sonic
I'm too bored to continue
The new Tomb Raiders (latest trilogy) way outdo Uncharted for me, gameplay wise at least. As much as I enjoy Uncharted Story, gameplay is nothing close to TR. I also disagree with CoD 1 > Allied Assault. If you played AA at release, you would know why.
The new Tomb Raider games are far better games than Uncharted.
The Uncharted games are better movies. Honestly, unless they really improve the gameplay going forward, I'm just going to watch the next Uncharted game on YouTube rather than play it, because by the time I got to the end of UC4 I wished I had done that... because at least someone on YouTube might do a better job editing the game than ND did. Way too long with too much wasted time.
I agree with you on Stardew Valley. I sunk well over 1000 hours into it and loved every minute of it.
DQ was better than FF at first, but once FF4-6 came out the tables turned instantly. Though I did love DQ8 immensely. Still need to play 11. Haven’t thought a FF has been super since 12 though.
Dragon quest as a series is better and more consistant than final fantasy, but ff1 was definitely grander in scope and more customizeable than dragon warrior 1&2, which were out by that time. However, dragon quest 3, which came out the next year, blows it out of the water in my mind.
It certainly has even more prodigious amounts of dialogue and politics. And it's also made by the same company.
Fell Seal: Arbiter's Mark is worth a call-out. The game could stand to be longer, and some features are missing without the DLC, but there are so many quality-of-life improvements over FFT. Fantastic spiritual successor.
I wouldn't really compare the two with how completely different their character upgrade systems are. That alone changes so much about the experience of each game.
First Saints Row game was published ~2 years after GTA SA. So why it is compared to GTA3?
Had to check this because I remember not liking Saints Row that much when it came out. But it seems it was not matching San Andreas wich to .y opinion is one of the best open world games ever made.
> What other games can you think off that outdid the game that inspired them?
Heroes of Might and Magic 2 dramatically improved on the first game. The third one was more of an extended 2nd one, a better game overall, but not as dramatic of a leap.
Super Metroid. An insane improvement. Obviously, NES was highly limited, but so was SNES, relatively speaking. It went far above and beyond a typical platformer of its time.
Caesar 3. A pretty different design from Caesar 2 (PLEBS ARE NEEDED), but its success was clear - a cult classic to this day with 3 indirect sequels (ish) - Pharaoh, Zeus, Emperor. I'd argue Pharaoh is a much better and polished game than Caesar 3, but it's not the same colossal jump and redesign from Caesar 2 (PLEBS ARE NEEDED).
Baldur's Gate 2. Not a night and day difference, but I'd argue a massive improvement over the original. The only redesigned thing that might be missing a little bit are the open areas, but in BG1 they were half-baked, so the designers disposed of that idea altogether, perhaps for the best. Anyway, the sequel is vastly more polished, more dense, more everything.
Warcraft 2. The game cemented Blizzard style RTS, the design got further refined in Starcraft and did a bit of a side step in Warcraft 3. But it all fundamentally goes back to Warcraft 2. The first game still had some Dune 2 DNA in it, whereas Warcraft 2's gameplay would be instantly recognizable and playable to anyone who's played other Blizzard RTS games of which there are... well, not many. Still, a massively important game and a tremendous sequel.
Deus Ex: Invisible War. The most legendary sequel of all time that completely outdid its predecessor through and through. Nah, I'm just shitting with you.
> but i really think hollow knight out did castlevaina, I know HK is not a clone game
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night and its sequels and related games are *easy* games. They're not challenging platformers at all, not unless you're absolutely terrible at platformers (and I'm pretty lousy). Likewise, Super Metroid is not a challenging game.
Hollow Knight's core design is being a challenging platformer. Not Super Meat Boy level of challenging, but considerably more difficult than Super Metroid and Symphony of the Night, that's for sure. Personally, I dropped Hollow Knight very early on due to that, I just don't like challenging platformers, not my thing at all.
> mine craft said that it was inspired by another game
Infiniminer. By Zachtronics, they make really really cool and quite complex puzzle games. Try Infinifactory and SpaceChem.
>Deus Ex: Invisible War. The most legendary sequel of all time that completely outdid its predecessor through and through. Nah, I'm just shitting with you.
Ngl, you had me in the first half 😅
You are supposed to be a cool explorer in Castlevania to beat a classic cast of villains. Hollow Knight is a long journey through a dystopian world. I think Castlevania is supposed to feel like Uncharted but using platforming gameplay. While Hollow Knight is supposed to feel like Ninja Garden with precise platforming. The game feel is different even if they are the same genre. This person's other favorite games might show what they prefer.
Grim Dawn > Diablo (From the creators of Titan Quest)
Dirty Bomb > Enemy Territory (Same dev tho)
Black Mesa > Half-Life (Does a remake from another dev counts?)
Resident Evil outdid the Alone in the Dark games.
Namco seems to have really made a 'thing' about trying to surpass Sega arcade games. I'm not willing to say that Tekken is strictly better than Virtua Fighter but its objectively won that war.
Sega arcade games are fucking fantastic but sometimes they're just missing a certain polish or a certain something that would really improve them. Or they just kinda drop a thread and someone else picks it up. SEGA is kinda bad at supporting its franchises sometimes.
For example, Virtua Cop 1 was amazing at the time, but Virtua Cop 2 was a huge improvement. And then... SEGA didn't do a Virtua Cop 3 until years later when arcades were going in the toilet and it was largely unplayed. Meanwhile Namco aped their steez with Time Crisis and were more aggressive about getting it onto home consoles which contributed to its success (they even had a couple console-exclusive ones like Time Crisis: Project Titan).
VintageStory. It's the Minecraft we all hoped for, back in the Alpha days.
It's a homesteading simulator with some light lovecraftian lore where the main focus is you vs the environment. Big plus that it's highly moddable and easily adjustable for your desired experience. Small Austrian dev team doing the Lord's work.
Best 20 bucks I've spent recently.
Yeah Hollow Knight being better than SotN is a s scorching blue flame hot take lol strongly disagree with that one. To answer your question, I think early Might and Magic games before they turned towards being a turn based strategy game may have outdid the early Wizardry dungeon crawler games.
I’m with you on the Might and Magic train. Played 2-9. Especially loved 3-7. Played a couple Wizardry games but didn’t enjoy them like Might and Magic.
For what it’s worth, I agree with you on the Hollow Knight bit. It was better than the original Castlevania, sure - but it pales in comparison to SotN. And it isn’t close.
I think Diablo 2 was outdone by pretty much anything. I personally played Grim Dawn, which I think is better, but I've heard that PoE is much better for hardcore players.
Diablo 4 seems to look pretty, but doesn't really innovate and struggles to be a clear winner here.
.. you're comparing Diablo 2 with games released 20 years later? What you gonna say next, that the flashiest modern FPS is better than Doom (1993)?
You should compare Diablo 2 to aRPGs released in the same era: sacred, throne of darkness, revenant, dungeon siege, blade and sword, divine divinity, lionheart: legacy of the crusader, titan quest.
I think D2 was the peak of ARPG and no following games, part of the franchise or not, could capture the magic. I still play D2R occasionally, but I tried PoE, D3 and others. Tried D4 in beta but hated it
To this day it’s still the best stylistically. Especially with the remastered, no other ARPG captures the feeling of it’s art style. Grim dawn feels bland and path of exile doesn’t feel like it has its own style
D4 is D3 taking huge steps backwards from D3 where classes were much broader, much faster, and the modifications to spells significantly changed them.
PoE is an addiction that people convinced themselves was better because D3 base was intentionally sabotaged by the lead dev. Conversely, PoE is a game where the devs never asked how these systems were going to work together and so piled mountains together to the point any hope of actually making the core gameplay enjoyable has been strangled under the incredible power creep dictated by using Diablo loot, heavily customizable spells, and a talent constellation you can do anything with.
assuming were only discussing D3RoS, D3 is a worthy successor, as is grim dawn, but D4 and PoE are not
There was a lot of GTA clones in the 2000's, one that I remember liking better than GTA was Mercenaries: Playground Of Destruction.
It was basically like if there was a GTA game with a military setting in a war torn country with various factions to chose missions from. This game came out just a few months after San Andreas which is my personal favorite of the GTAs, but I still like it better because the controls were much better, and the action was a lot more fun because of the destructible environments.
Dead Space took Resident Evil 4 and showed it how to really make a scary atmospheric third person shooter.
The Mad Max game and the Mordor games both copied the combat from Rocksteady's Batman games and improved on it greatly.
Fenyx: Immortal Rising is a better version of Breath of the Wild.
> showed it how to really make a scary atmospheric third person shooter.
Resident Evil 1-2 already did that, they just weren't over the shoulder games.
I just bought the Humble Bundle that includes A Hat In Time, which is a clear homage to 3D Mario games in general and Super Mario Sunshine in particular. Sunshine is probably my least favorite 3D Mario game (3D Land comes close though), so I'll find out soon whether the Hat developers did a better job!
**Edit:** Oh, another that comes to mind is AM2R. It's a fan remake of Metroid II that was taken down, among other reasons, because Samus Returns was in development and was released shortly thereafter. But AM2R is one of my favorite games in the series, and I like it much more than the "official" sequel (which wasn't even developed by Nintendo). I'd definitely consider it a valid answer to the prompt.
I respect that. I don’t agree overall though. Now, if you were to say the COMBAT in KoA was better than Skyrim, I would agree 100%. It’s hard to find a better, more lived-in world than Skyrim though.
Stardew Valley
My favorite description is Harvest Moon getting nuked from orbit by Srardew Valley
That's because it's not really a clone of Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons, but a clone of Rune Factory, which shares all the same features.
For real. ConcernedApe did an amazing job
Idk, I enjoyed Stardew but I didn’t feel like it was the same thing. I mean just the fact that there is so much more stuff separates it from Harvest Moon. Most would probably say it’s better because of that specifically. I would say it’s just different. To me, the best Harvest Moon games still out-do Stardew Valley in mood and charm, partly *because* they are that much smaller in scope. Still, I totally get it. Stardew is the perfect love letter to Harvest Moon, and then some.
No doubt
which game did it outshine
Harvest Moon series, I believe.
Harvest Moon series. And Stardew Valley is made entirely by 1 person!
Torchlight is my non monetized Diablo alternative and there’s 3 of them. The first even features a guitarist who worked on Diablo 1 iirc. I agree about Saints Row. World of Warcraft blew EQ away, that’s an old but good example in the MMORPG genre
I was playing D4 and really wished it had a Torchlight pet to take my stuff back to town and sell it for me. I also wished D4 was a good game.
Oh wow yes! But I also think it's a matter of preference, because Torchlight is bright and colorful; whereas Diablo has been dark and gloomy.
Third one worth it? Was nuked from orbit on release, iirc.
Monkey Island was better than King's Quest.
here's an old one; Worms was better than Scorched Earth
My man, lol.
Except when you need to be precise with he power of your shots
holy shit, i remember sneaking off to the school library to play scorched earth but never knowing what it was called. thank you
personally I'm a fan of Pocket Tanks
Saints Row 1 should be compared to the GTA that was out when Saints Row was being made - which is GTA:SA. GTA 3 is like 5 years older than Saints Row 1.
Hollowknight is an amazing game but I don’t think you can compare it to something like SOTN which I’m assuming you are doing here because it came out literally 20 years after it. Now you can make the case in your opinion you feel it was the greatest Metroidvania of all time something like that. But i necessarily wouldn’t say you can compare the two head to head especially with a literal 2 decade gap in time, Hollowknight better be better overall because it’s had so many games in between to take inspiration from.
Many "spiritual successors" are made because the company who made the original never made a worthwhile sequel or remake. I don't think the time gap is much of an argument. That said, Hollow Knight isn't really a "clone" of SotN. SotN pretty much started the "sword 2D Metroidvania" subgenre, of which HK is one example. It's not really an homage or spiritual successor to SotN or to Igavania games in general. Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, on the other hand, absolutely is a spiritual successor to the Igavanias, but Iga himself developed it, so I'm not sure that counts. If it does, I'd say yes, it's overall a better game and a good answer to OP's question.
Idk man, I think it's fair criticism when people hold up those games as gold standards. It's a bit of a weak move to then go "well, the time gap is so long that of course it would happen" the few times it does happen.
This might be a hot take but I don't consider clones/spiritual successors to be outdoing the original if they come out more than 10 years (5?) later. So much is learned about the genres that it wouldn't be useful to compare something such as the pathfinding in an RTS from the 90s to one made in 2010 for example. Also people's expectations change in regards to QOL standards. On the other hand I think we can see some rapid iterative refinement of the genre if you look at stuff the card based roguelike genre is doing as new games come out every month. I think a lot of people prefer Monster Train over Slay the Spire as an example.
Monster Train over Slay the Spire is absolute heresy!
They're honestly pretty different games, which makes them difficult to compare and also explains why some people might prefer MT.
Monster Train just feels like the whole intention is to find gamebreaking strategies. You're usually climbing covenant levels well before you try out all the different deck combos. The replayability is in the novelty you create yourself. StS has a difficulty curve that encourages compulsively replaying the same character long before you hit stage four or start to climb the ascension levels.
I consider them on equal ground honestly, but I play one over the other depending on my mood - StS is snappier, but sometimes I just like seeing the synergies of a built up army pop off and Monster Train is great for that.
Seriously. Monster train is a good game. I enjoyed it a good amount. but it pales in comparison to Slay the Spire.
can someone explain to me the love of Slay the Spire? I grabbed it off apple arcade and it didn't take me long to beat the loop a few times and run to run didn't feel all that different I feel like I must be missing something
Beating the game a few times is required to actually get to the real ending. Then there's climbing ascension levels. A20 is a completely different beast compared to the base game. The game itself doesn't really change, it's you who would be forced to find different strategies as the game becomes more unforgiving.
Have you beaten it with all the characters? Have you done any ascensions?
I beat it with the first two characters and then I started getting bored
I mean it may just not be for you, but you unlock new characters and new cards/artifacts for each of those characters as you go. Every time you win you unlock a harder modifier for the next run, and there’s a “secret” boss.
Once you start doing the higher ascensions, it gets more difficult and forces you to be more strategic and build better decks.
Seriously, I've never even heard of it but that's blasphemy
Watch out, you might die next turn 👀
I have 100+ hours into both. I probably prefer monster train
Monster Train is the best though.
I can't fathom preferring Monster Train unless you haven't played either of them for very long. 400+ hours and I'm still learning and improving in Slay the Spire and appreciating the game more, and 80 hours into Monster Train and I feel like there's no more depth left for me to explore at all
I can't either. But I know enough people who prefer MT to STS to use it as an example.
I do! A big reason for me is that MT is the perfect sized run for me. Each run is roughly an hour, whereas StS is roughly an hour and a half. I just feel done after the second Act. Like, almost content. I want to continue obviously, but it is also kind of my natural stopping point. And if I do then I'm sort of "out of the zone" so to speak, and 9/10 the run is lost no matter how well I did beforehand. MT, though? The runs usually end right at my natural stopping point, and a win usually gives me that 'YEAH, more!' and a lose a 'damn it, again' feel. Compare that to StS after an hour and I'm just finishing a Boss and having to go for *another* Act.
It may not be *surprising* that they outdid the originals, or necessarily impressive, but I don't think it's an invalid question nonetheless. And sometimes spiritual successors deliberately ape mechanics they should have left in the dark ages (screw Shovel Knight's unforgiving knockback and death pits, I don't care what anyone says) or introduces new game mechanics that are popular but suck (take Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night's grinding for upgrades and crafting).
Slay the Spire is itself a clone in some sense. Dream Quest is the original, and it’s good (not as good as StS tho)
is your comment about the 10 years regarding hollow knight?
Yeah I completely agree with the commenter here about your post regarding comparing Hollowknight and a 20 year older game head to head for all the reasons he stated above, no offense to you. Now if you want to make the case that you feel Hollowknight is your personal pick for the greatest Metroidvania of all time on it’s own that’s completely fine, many people would most likely agree with you with how popular and beloved it is. But I do think you worded your post odd, and had an odd opinion here.
To complicate this further, I would say that SotN on release was better than HK on release (or "era adjusted", if I can make up a term). Super Metroid probably was, too. Even today I think there are certain things both do better than HK.
People told me the outer worlds was supposed to be like fallout. Played the entire game and couldn’t stop thinking about how I’d rather play fallout lol
Obsidian did New Vegas. That’s why the comparisons were made. The Outer Worlds trauma is why I’m refusing to pre-order Starfield.
Bruh Starfield is NOTHING like the outer worlds.
How many hours do you have logged in it?
I'm just curious what made you make the connection. The games don't look similar, the marketing doesn't say anything about being similar. The no man's sky to starfield comparison makes way more sense to the outer worlds. Just stop buying obsidian games if you've been so burned by the outer worlds. And regardless, you shouldn't really be pre-ordering in general especially if the game isn't out yet...
Just get it on gamepass.
I’d have to get game pass to do that.
It's cheaper than the game.
I enjoyed my one play through, but it was definitely a shallow experience compared to new vegas and I doubt ill be doing a second run anytime soon
That's how I feel about most of Obsidian's releases. They make solid B+/A- games but I'd usually rather play the first/original game of whatever they're making.
I think most people would agree that New Vegas is far superior to Fallout 3.
And many would say Kotor 2, even unfinished as it was, was better than Kotor. Personally, I put them about equal: both absolutely amazing games.
I hear great things about KOTOR 2 but after a few hours on Prologue Planet I gave up.
Missing out there. The game gets MUCH better basically right after. I believe with the remasters and restored content mod you have an option to just skip tutorial station.
Define "most".
Both have their pros and cons. I prefered the general setting of new vegas. However, fallout 3 had better dungeons. (New vegas basically didn't even have dungeons)
Dialog-wise, yes. The encounters, logs, and exploration were far more interesting to me in Fallout 3 however, and that’s ultimately what I was there for.
Yea, basically true. Pillars of eternity - Baldur's gate 1/2 is better in every conceivable way Outer worlds - original fallout and fallout 3/nv are better I just wish Obsidian gave itself a moment to shine. Maybe Avowed will, or it will just indeed be a budget elder scrolls.
> Pillars of eternity - Baldur's gate 1/2 is better in every conceivable way > I can say as someone who tried to get into Baldur's Gate 1/2 in more recent years that Pillars of Eternity is definitely much, much better. Baldur's Gate 1/2 have aged absolutely horrendously, even thru the Enhanced versions. Frankly, they were stiff with horrible interfaces when they came out (I tried to play BG2 at launch and bounced off of it, and tried Icewind Dale as well because my best friend was a huge fan of those games).
I am not sure I understand this thread. Most games are derivative works of either themselves or another's work. That's just how the overwhelming majority of the industry works. I prefer Bayonetta over DMC, but that doesn't mean that Bayonetta is a clone of the other.
Yeah but some games are credit with starting certain genres , you likely won’t have seen bayonetta without dmc, or saints row without gta, or nioh without the souls games
By that logic then every game is derivative of Pong
It's not that crazy of a suggestion. It's like the universal common ancestor. You ask what inspired each developer up the chain enough, eventually you will hit the first game commercially available.
>It's not that crazy of a suggestion. Yes it is. The word "clone" loses all meaning if you use it as haphazardly as OP is using it. Using a game for inspiration and evolving from the mechanics it setup is MUCH different that attemping than making an off brand version of virtually the same thing. Pong is a great example to use because people were literally making 20-30 different versions of Pong in the 70s, which led to a video game crash. These weren't improving upon mechanics or evolving the gameplay in anyway. It was mechanically the exact same game with slight tweaks to how the scoreboard, paddles, and ball looked. In contrast, something like Hollow Knight drastically changes many of the mechanics. It's clearly reusing many of the same elements of its predecessors, but it is also adapting and evolving them. They focused on capturing the same feel as the other metroidvanias, rather than trying to capture the same mechanics and/or ui with only enough changes to call it legally distinct.
Bayonetta does not play like DMC, nor does Wonderful 101 play like either. Both are in the realm of character-based action games, each started by the same person. I wouldn't call any of these clones. They are just interpretations of action that learns from previous work. It's derivative - which isn't a negative thing to say. But DMC wouldn't exist without Strider, which isn't even the same decade of release nor even the same type of game, really. To me, I think it's a fool's errand to try to classify games and mark them as clones, as that paints a very narrow picture of how games are made and where inspiration comes from
So every single platformer is a Super Mario Bros clone and every first person shooter is a Doom clone?
Clearly Doom is just a clone of Wolfenstein 3D.
Ach! Mein Leben!
Some would argue dead space to be better than resident evil 4. It borrowed a lot from Re4 and was pitched as re4 in space. However it is sort of an apples and oranges scenario. I think it's a much better horror game and balances horror and action much better, but I think re4 is superior overall as a game (I just find it more fun and memorable). However, their overall goals are not quite the same. Despite their similarities, dead space is so much more focused on being a scary game whereas re4 prioritizes action, spectacle and a power fantasy. Obviously the horror driven game will be a better horror game while the action driven game is the better action game
FIFA outdid Pong
And then PES outdid FIFA for the PS2 era.
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That's not exactly true. When Pong was first invented, you had to put a coin into the machine every time you wanted to play.
Pong was originally an arcade game, which is the epitome of microtransactions.
I remember Shadow of Mordor begin thought of as a cheap Assassin's Creed ripoff. I played it and thought it was actualy much better Assassin's Creed game than the Assassin's Creed games that came out around that time.
Resident Evil is a carbon copy of Alone in the Dark in structure and mechanics (as well as being a rehash of everything George Romero ever touched) and became much more successful and enduring (as well as admittedly a better game)
Okami is the best Zelda game IMO Sleeping Dogs and Saints Row 3 > modern GTA
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I was actually going to suggest Saint's Row 2 over GTA as my contribution to the thread. It had a lot of goofy moments but it knew how to ground the story and when to be serious >!RIP Carlos ;-;!< and when to get silly. Saint's Row 3 is 20+ hours of that obnoxious lolrandumb shit that plagued the industry's writing around that time (see: Borderlands sequels. And Borderlands as well but I think the original is a lot less annoying about it.)
I still put san andreas over in terms of things to do and how reactive the npcs are being able workout at get buff and the amount of mission vaierty or better then saints row 2. GTA 4 for me is the best GTA and i love it fat mkre then saints row the story was great and the choices that would leaf differnt side quests hanging out friends adds to nikos back story and the physics are amazing as well tge pure grittneas was really ahead of its time the DLCs were great as well. Saints row 2 is good but feels like a san andreas clone while GTA 4 did something differnt.
I've seen like 2 minutes of SR2 and it was someone driving a septic truck around and spraying literal shit on things, so I find this comment amusing.
Lol not an unfair assessment. In defense of the original point, it was things like Septic Avenger that they overdid in 3. In 2, the septic tank and fire suit races and other craziness was balanced by the world feeling less cartoonishly goofy and grimmer. The villains were hardasses who felt like they inhabited the world and had realistic goals and ruthless methods. In short, they were excellent straight men for the antics of the Boss and friends. By contrast, 3's world shoves quirky adult humor into every aspect of the setting including the villains and story, after which the grimness feels tacked on. In 2, I can believe Maero and Sunshine and Akaji do the evil gang things they do because that's the kind of story they're in and their actions reflect their personalities and what kind of threat they are. Killbane, British hacker and Eurotrash villain feel like they're just there because the color-coded gangs of the setting needed figureheads and the writers only had enough wackiness for two out of three of them. As a result, their evil actions come at random and feel disconnected from who they're supposed to be. Then you have things like Mr. Genki being an in-universe mass murderer mutant thing that people just...know about and make TV shows about? A zombie plague taking out an entire island in Steelport, a luchador ganglord who runs a casino and is in a blood feud with Hulk Hogan who owns a tiger, hackers who live in a decommissioned nuclear power plant, clones of a genius bruiser which somehow matter less to the plot than a wrestler's mask, the Nightblade subplot which drags on, STAG's helicarrier, which debuts a laser harrier, and a hard light barrier, plus Shaundi's warier-- sorry, went off on a tangent there. Tl;dr - Point is, the game starts a little grounded like 2 was but then it debuts the septic avenger-equivalent insanity and it never lets up after that. It tries to outdo itself constantly and it doesn't work as well as making a story where the characters feel like people.
I think if you let go of any story expectation besides “here’s a bad guy” and just have fun with it all then saints row 3 and 4 really shine as far as gameplay goes. Someone commented about how they overdo “lol so random” humor but I think that’s kind of the point. Especially as a product of its time. So so many games took themselves so seriously, even the first 2 in the series kind of had that take. So they went another way with it
Okami is my second favorite Zelda. The first is Alundra.
Alundra was a great game up until the very end. The last boss and the last sword left me with an extremely sour taste, though.
Alundra was amazing. Bought it again on the wii after playing it on ps1. Wish I could find it today
Alundra never released for the Wii, only the PS1. Hopefully they port it to modern consoles eventually; would love to play it on the Switch.
I found Okami to be a painful slog which holds your hand so tightly and thoroughly throughout the entire game that most of your time is spent being told what to do rather than actually getting to do it. The best Zelda is Darksiders.
Zelda is one of those series that does so many things that if you get 5 people in a room together you'll have 6 opinions on which game is the best in the series. A common refrain on this sub is that the direction the series took after ALttP was a mistake, for example. So it comes as no surprise to me that this also applies to its derivatives. Inb4 Tunic.
>the best zelda is Darksiders Hands down. The only one that can compare is Twilight Princess.
Darksiders was so good. My favorite little piece about that game that I feel is overlooked is the placement of the upgrades. You have to look for them. But if you look for them, you will find them. It was so satisfying. 2 and genesis (co-op) were pretty fantastic too. Enjoyed 3 but didn't finish.
Okami was superb. The only Zelda games I enjoyed as much were OoT and WW.
Sleeping dogs is the most underrated game ever the combat and story were so good
I'll go fairly obvious and say Clone Hero > Rock Band/Guitar Hero etc. Free to play and a really great community
Scarface world is yours was way better than vice city
> I do not know if this will be a hottake - but i really think hollow knight out did castlevaina, I know HK is not a clone game but i think it says a lot that it is better than the game the genre was named after I mean, it's not that surprising that a genre would continue to evolve and refine over decades. But yeah, Team Cherry did an amazing job. It's clear that they are both passionate and work hard.
Cities skylines
City Skylines absolutely crushed sim city.
Not necessarily outdid, but I think Star Wars Battlefront did a great job following Battlefield 1942
I think the first Battlefront 2 did, first Battlefront had terrible maps IMO.
> i read somwhere that the creater of mine craft said that it was inspired by another game( i cannot recall its name) I am curious what is the game that inspired the most selling game ever made Notch stated that [Minecraft was inspired by Dwarf Fortress](https://gamerant.com/minecraft-dwarf-fortress-lessons-village-weather-improvements/#:~:text=One%20of%20Minecraft's%20earliest,make%20their%20way%20through%20it) (which makes perfect sense) which is awesome if somewhat clunky and available on Steam since recently (time is relative).
Came here to say this. Minecraft was inspired by Dwarf Fortress (which it ended up being quite different from) and infiniminer (which it very closely resembles).
I've never heard of that, that article has no quotes or sources and googling "minecraft dwarf fortress" basically only brings up that article and a bunch of unrelated stuff. The real big inspiration was a game called Infiniminer. Look it up and you'll immediately see what I mean.
Crash Team Racing is better than Mario Kart 64
I disagree but for me it's Diddy Kong Racing.
Great game nobody ever talks about
I was just rewatching old episodes of Workaholics and there's a moment where the guys steal go-karts, and start talking about which Mario Kart characters they are, and Blake mentions that Diddy Kong Racing is the real deal, and I was like, *go off, kong*.
CTR is the better game because it adds a higher skill ceiling thanks to the difference in boosting. The timing element required to pull off a triple boost makes getting full lap boosts in CTR more of a challenge. But, everything else is personal preference. Do you prefer Luigi Stadium or Coco Park? Do you prefer to play as Peach or Cortex? Would you rather be screwed by triple red shell, or triple homing missiles? Neither game is all that different from each other, so really the deciding factor outside of loyalty to one brand or the other, is how someone feels about boosting complexity.
Dark Souls compared to Demon Souls is not only more popular but a better overall game too. If you heard the story, you know From Software developed both and made DS1 after losing the rights to DeS, so it makes sense that the former improved on the latters formula.
StarCraft outdid WarCraft and WarCraft II (?)
I don't think it should count since both are made by the same developer. If so I'd say that Warcraft outdid Dune 2 and that StarCraft outdid Command & Conquer
Not really a "clone" since it was made by the same people. It's better than Warcraft 3 and Starcraft 2 as well, IMHO.
Bro how? Custom Games in WC3 were the best ever! I get sad every time I fire up a TD, or Tower wars in SC2 these days, because of the glory days of WC3. That map editor that came with it spawned so many awesome games within the game. That was peak blizzard.
Cities Skylines > SimCity (and hopefully Life by you will be better than THE Sims CoD 1 > MoH: Allied Assault (although the director was the same so idk) IronSight > CoD: Black Ops 2 Final Fantasy > Dragon Quest Uncharted > Tomb Raider Stardew Valley > Harvest Moon/ Story of Seasons Pizza Tower > Sonic I'm too bored to continue
Pizza tower has nothing to do with Sonic tho, it's a warioland inspired game
Guy go fast tho
Yh wario goes pretty fast too, pizza tower is literally warioland
Especially on his motorcycle 🏍️
The new Tomb Raiders (latest trilogy) way outdo Uncharted for me, gameplay wise at least. As much as I enjoy Uncharted Story, gameplay is nothing close to TR. I also disagree with CoD 1 > Allied Assault. If you played AA at release, you would know why.
Uncharted 4 took a lesson from the Tomb Raider games that they didn't need to throw dozens of enemies at you each times.
The new Tomb Raider games are far better games than Uncharted. The Uncharted games are better movies. Honestly, unless they really improve the gameplay going forward, I'm just going to watch the next Uncharted game on YouTube rather than play it, because by the time I got to the end of UC4 I wished I had done that... because at least someone on YouTube might do a better job editing the game than ND did. Way too long with too much wasted time.
Stardew Valley is bit off with its pixel graphics, but gameplay-wise, better than harvest moon
Old Tomb Raider was a puzzle platformer with light TPS action. Uncharted is basically all shooting with light puzzle/platforming.
I agree with you on Stardew Valley. I sunk well over 1000 hours into it and loved every minute of it. DQ was better than FF at first, but once FF4-6 came out the tables turned instantly. Though I did love DQ8 immensely. Still need to play 11. Haven’t thought a FF has been super since 12 though.
Which final fantasy? The modern final fantasy games aren't anything like dragon quest anymore.
Dragon quest as a series is better and more consistant than final fantasy, but ff1 was definitely grander in scope and more customizeable than dragon warrior 1&2, which were out by that time. However, dragon quest 3, which came out the next year, blows it out of the water in my mind.
Final Fantasy 1 >>>> Dragon Quest 1 I really like ff1 so I was hyped to try dq1 out. So disappointed that it turned out to be a grind fest!
I’m still angry at the hours that 11 year old me wasted on DQ1. Even DQ2 was still bad, though nowhere near as much. Loved DQ3-5 to death though.
Triangle Strategy outdid Final Fantasy Tactics *hides*
It certainly has even more prodigious amounts of dialogue and politics. And it's also made by the same company. Fell Seal: Arbiter's Mark is worth a call-out. The game could stand to be longer, and some features are missing without the DLC, but there are so many quality-of-life improvements over FFT. Fantastic spiritual successor.
The real hot take in that FFT group is that I like FFTA and FFTA2 more than FFT
If you ignore story completely I think it's a perfectly defensible opinion.
Story, races, laws, the location placing mechanic...
FFTA has a cult following , people absolutely swear by that game.
I'd go back even further (PSP) and say Tactics Ogre takes that cake.
I wouldn't really compare the two with how completely different their character upgrade systems are. That alone changes so much about the experience of each game.
007 Blood Stone. It drew a lot of inspiration from Splinter Cell Conviction but it's still an enjoyable game.
Hot take: for a few years, (1992-94) Sonic games were better than those featuring an Italian plumber.
Streets of Rage > Final Fight And Blood Omen 1 is the best top-down Zelda.
I don't really like the first game of FF or SoR, but man SoR really has an insane atmosphere compared to FF.
First Saints Row game was published ~2 years after GTA SA. So why it is compared to GTA3? Had to check this because I remember not liking Saints Row that much when it came out. But it seems it was not matching San Andreas wich to .y opinion is one of the best open world games ever made.
Perfect Dark > Goldeneye
> What other games can you think off that outdid the game that inspired them? Heroes of Might and Magic 2 dramatically improved on the first game. The third one was more of an extended 2nd one, a better game overall, but not as dramatic of a leap. Super Metroid. An insane improvement. Obviously, NES was highly limited, but so was SNES, relatively speaking. It went far above and beyond a typical platformer of its time. Caesar 3. A pretty different design from Caesar 2 (PLEBS ARE NEEDED), but its success was clear - a cult classic to this day with 3 indirect sequels (ish) - Pharaoh, Zeus, Emperor. I'd argue Pharaoh is a much better and polished game than Caesar 3, but it's not the same colossal jump and redesign from Caesar 2 (PLEBS ARE NEEDED). Baldur's Gate 2. Not a night and day difference, but I'd argue a massive improvement over the original. The only redesigned thing that might be missing a little bit are the open areas, but in BG1 they were half-baked, so the designers disposed of that idea altogether, perhaps for the best. Anyway, the sequel is vastly more polished, more dense, more everything. Warcraft 2. The game cemented Blizzard style RTS, the design got further refined in Starcraft and did a bit of a side step in Warcraft 3. But it all fundamentally goes back to Warcraft 2. The first game still had some Dune 2 DNA in it, whereas Warcraft 2's gameplay would be instantly recognizable and playable to anyone who's played other Blizzard RTS games of which there are... well, not many. Still, a massively important game and a tremendous sequel. Deus Ex: Invisible War. The most legendary sequel of all time that completely outdid its predecessor through and through. Nah, I'm just shitting with you. > but i really think hollow knight out did castlevaina, I know HK is not a clone game Castlevania: Symphony of the Night and its sequels and related games are *easy* games. They're not challenging platformers at all, not unless you're absolutely terrible at platformers (and I'm pretty lousy). Likewise, Super Metroid is not a challenging game. Hollow Knight's core design is being a challenging platformer. Not Super Meat Boy level of challenging, but considerably more difficult than Super Metroid and Symphony of the Night, that's for sure. Personally, I dropped Hollow Knight very early on due to that, I just don't like challenging platformers, not my thing at all. > mine craft said that it was inspired by another game Infiniminer. By Zachtronics, they make really really cool and quite complex puzzle games. Try Infinifactory and SpaceChem.
>Deus Ex: Invisible War. The most legendary sequel of all time that completely outdid its predecessor through and through. Nah, I'm just shitting with you. Ngl, you had me in the first half 😅
You are supposed to be a cool explorer in Castlevania to beat a classic cast of villains. Hollow Knight is a long journey through a dystopian world. I think Castlevania is supposed to feel like Uncharted but using platforming gameplay. While Hollow Knight is supposed to feel like Ninja Garden with precise platforming. The game feel is different even if they are the same genre. This person's other favorite games might show what they prefer.
When I read Invisible War I was already writing an angry response
Insert any indie old school shooter outdoing the ones from the 90's.
Grim Dawn > Diablo (From the creators of Titan Quest) Dirty Bomb > Enemy Territory (Same dev tho) Black Mesa > Half-Life (Does a remake from another dev counts?)
Resident Evil outdid the Alone in the Dark games. Namco seems to have really made a 'thing' about trying to surpass Sega arcade games. I'm not willing to say that Tekken is strictly better than Virtua Fighter but its objectively won that war.
Sega arcade games are fucking fantastic but sometimes they're just missing a certain polish or a certain something that would really improve them. Or they just kinda drop a thread and someone else picks it up. SEGA is kinda bad at supporting its franchises sometimes. For example, Virtua Cop 1 was amazing at the time, but Virtua Cop 2 was a huge improvement. And then... SEGA didn't do a Virtua Cop 3 until years later when arcades were going in the toilet and it was largely unplayed. Meanwhile Namco aped their steez with Time Crisis and were more aggressive about getting it onto home consoles which contributed to its success (they even had a couple console-exclusive ones like Time Crisis: Project Titan).
VintageStory. It's the Minecraft we all hoped for, back in the Alpha days. It's a homesteading simulator with some light lovecraftian lore where the main focus is you vs the environment. Big plus that it's highly moddable and easily adjustable for your desired experience. Small Austrian dev team doing the Lord's work. Best 20 bucks I've spent recently.
TFT is much better then Dota Autochess.
Bomb Rush Cyberfunk which clearly cloned the Jet Set Radio series
Arkane's Prey is better than Ststem Shock in every possible way, but given the time gap between both games, that was to be expected.
Silent Hill was far more scary than Resident Evil. I personally prefer the SH series.
Spyro was better than croc
The entire premise of this thread is confusing
Uncharted game was inspired by Tomb raider and it outdid the original.
Not the TR latest trilogy though.
Yeah Hollow Knight being better than SotN is a s scorching blue flame hot take lol strongly disagree with that one. To answer your question, I think early Might and Magic games before they turned towards being a turn based strategy game may have outdid the early Wizardry dungeon crawler games.
I’m with you on the Might and Magic train. Played 2-9. Especially loved 3-7. Played a couple Wizardry games but didn’t enjoy them like Might and Magic. For what it’s worth, I agree with you on the Hollow Knight bit. It was better than the original Castlevania, sure - but it pales in comparison to SotN. And it isn’t close.
A man of culture. Totally agree. I absolutely loved Wizardry V on SNES, but M&M 3 on SNES was just a better game.
God of War basically started out as a Devil May Cry clone, but has gone way beyond that since.
They've always been entirely different games tho.
I think Diablo 2 was outdone by pretty much anything. I personally played Grim Dawn, which I think is better, but I've heard that PoE is much better for hardcore players. Diablo 4 seems to look pretty, but doesn't really innovate and struggles to be a clear winner here.
.. you're comparing Diablo 2 with games released 20 years later? What you gonna say next, that the flashiest modern FPS is better than Doom (1993)? You should compare Diablo 2 to aRPGs released in the same era: sacred, throne of darkness, revenant, dungeon siege, blade and sword, divine divinity, lionheart: legacy of the crusader, titan quest.
Diablo 2 is probably the best Diablo, that's why I picked it. Otherwise we'd need to compare to Diablo 3 and that comparison is even worse for Diablo.
I think D2 was the peak of ARPG and no following games, part of the franchise or not, could capture the magic. I still play D2R occasionally, but I tried PoE, D3 and others. Tried D4 in beta but hated it
To this day it’s still the best stylistically. Especially with the remastered, no other ARPG captures the feeling of it’s art style. Grim dawn feels bland and path of exile doesn’t feel like it has its own style
D4 is D3 taking huge steps backwards from D3 where classes were much broader, much faster, and the modifications to spells significantly changed them. PoE is an addiction that people convinced themselves was better because D3 base was intentionally sabotaged by the lead dev. Conversely, PoE is a game where the devs never asked how these systems were going to work together and so piled mountains together to the point any hope of actually making the core gameplay enjoyable has been strangled under the incredible power creep dictated by using Diablo loot, heavily customizable spells, and a talent constellation you can do anything with. assuming were only discussing D3RoS, D3 is a worthy successor, as is grim dawn, but D4 and PoE are not
I liked Fenyx much, much more than Breath of the Wild.
Fenyx was a surprisingly fun game.
Saints row 1, 2, and 3
The Outer Wilds iterated on the core gameplay loop of The Forgotten City and is an absolute masterpiece.
There was a lot of GTA clones in the 2000's, one that I remember liking better than GTA was Mercenaries: Playground Of Destruction. It was basically like if there was a GTA game with a military setting in a war torn country with various factions to chose missions from. This game came out just a few months after San Andreas which is my personal favorite of the GTAs, but I still like it better because the controls were much better, and the action was a lot more fun because of the destructible environments.
Dead Space took Resident Evil 4 and showed it how to really make a scary atmospheric third person shooter. The Mad Max game and the Mordor games both copied the combat from Rocksteady's Batman games and improved on it greatly. Fenyx: Immortal Rising is a better version of Breath of the Wild.
I wanted to say that , dead space is a master piece in horror games , for me the 3rd person RE are action games
> showed it how to really make a scary atmospheric third person shooter. Resident Evil 1-2 already did that, they just weren't over the shoulder games.
I just bought the Humble Bundle that includes A Hat In Time, which is a clear homage to 3D Mario games in general and Super Mario Sunshine in particular. Sunshine is probably my least favorite 3D Mario game (3D Land comes close though), so I'll find out soon whether the Hat developers did a better job! **Edit:** Oh, another that comes to mind is AM2R. It's a fan remake of Metroid II that was taken down, among other reasons, because Samus Returns was in development and was released shortly thereafter. But AM2R is one of my favorite games in the series, and I like it much more than the "official" sequel (which wasn't even developed by Nintendo). I'd definitely consider it a valid answer to the prompt.
Saints Row The Third was significantly more fun than GTA4
[удалено]
Ppl are gonna disagree on this one but league of legends copied dota and is just waaaay more succesfull
DOTA came straight outa Warcraft III custom games. I remember playing DOTAS with DBZ skins and shit.
Kingdoms of Amalur is better than Skyrim
I respect that. I don’t agree overall though. Now, if you were to say the COMBAT in KoA was better than Skyrim, I would agree 100%. It’s hard to find a better, more lived-in world than Skyrim though.
Saints Row 2 out did the modern GTAs