Has there ever been a more jarring difference between two sequels than postal 1 and postal 2...

Has there ever been a more jarring difference between two sequels than postal 1 and postal 2? Both gameplay wise and atmosphere wise

Why is Postal Dude balding on the cover?

That’s why he’s so pissed off

Jak & Daxter and Jak II.

The atmosphere in Postal 1 was schizophrenic. Half of it was the intro screen art and music which gave off the crazy, disturbing atmosphere and half of it was actually playing the game and killing ostriches and hearing people talk about their lost ears with the the terrible voice acting. Listening to the RWS podcasts I think the disturbing atmosphere was put in mostly by one guy who did the intro art. The change isn't really as jarring as you think since the seeds were already there.


Jak II is definitely still a platformer. The core gameplay is still platforming, but the levels are more linear than Jak 1and you have to use the guns to not get killed by the enemies.

I disagree. While you still do have the original movement options from Jak & Daxter, they're not really used that much. Shooting takes up a big part of the focus, but more than that, driving around the open world city becomes the biggest part of the game. Platforming, which was almost 100% of the first game, is now 1/3 at best. I'd argue it's less than 1/4, with at least half of the game being navigating the city, which has no platforming at all, and what's left still focuses more on shooting than platforming.

And that's to say nothing of the atmospheric change. The first one is cartoony fantasy like you'd expect in Crash or Spyro, the second then goes more grimdark than Shadow the Hedgehog. The first has an excuse plot, the second has so much focus on its plot that you can watch the cutscenes on their own and they take like two hours to watch. I mean that pic isn't wrong. Jak II evokes sci-fi dystopias like Planet of the Apes much more than it evokes Jak I.

I remember I first played Postal 2 and liked it so I wanted to give the first game a try, but I was really confused because there wasn't a lot of info online about it back then and the game I started playing was so different that I had no idea if I was playing the right one.

The atmosphere and music of Postal 1 is only apparent during the intro and loading screens, you never really get to that dark kind of theme during gameplay.
Postal is pretty good once the mouse aiming was patched last year, the Redux thing is a bit weird

Serious Sam TFE/TSE compared to Serious Sam 2 are different in appearance.

Zelda and Zelda II.

You don't know what contrast means pal.

Yeah, postal 1 definitely goes from bad to ok with mouse aiming. It shows how much good mouse aiming improves things

I guess I don’t? I just meant postal 1 is dark and gritty and Postal 2 is just dumb and silly

Postal 2 and Postal 3

Probably Toejam & Earl.

Bump

Every single digimon world game ever made.

I assume you mean direct sequels that were one after the other, because there are many, many games with sequels that completely changed everything.

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I'd say every Final Fantasy between 10 and 15, but my real moneyshot is Breath of Fire 5, which threw out practically everything from the previous games.

Same here. When I first heard the first game's main menu music, it freaked me the fuck out.

10 is actually a solid ff game.

I'M GONNA KILL PRAXIS

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Paper Mario 2-4 is a wild ride, basically changing the entire gameplay and atmosphere each iteration

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I liked the progression. I like PE2 over PE1 or even Resident Evil, and Third Birthday is a competent action game, and the story can get emotional even when it is one of the most convoluted and retarded things I had to go through twice I replayed it recently.
But the series is true to the thread, that shit can't keep consistency for a second.

I just finished PE1 a few days ago for the first time since it came out. Tried starting up PE2 for the first time ever and I cannot get over the controls. I keep hearing you just need to stick with it but I'm not convinced yet.
I was only playing them in hopes of having a mildly clear idea of what was going on in The 3rd Birthday.
I just bought them all three on my vita over the holidays.
They're definitely an incredibly jarring series of sequels either way.

It's literally RE controls, user. I replayed the whole thing on my PSP recently, and didn't have a problem with it, specially since I actually like and miss tank controls. If you can't get used to them, you probably didn't play the original RE trilogy back in the day, or now, for that matter. It's a question of getting used to it and think you're playing as Michael Jackson.
Well, you're in for a disappointment. Other than sharing characters, 3rd birthday has little to nothing to do with the previous games, the same way PE2 has little to nothing to do with PE1 other than sharing characters, mentioning the incidents and being about mitochondria and shit, which is more or a connection than anything they have to do with 3rd Birthday.

Replayed both plus OF and EP1/EP2
Both still hold up so well, Half Life 2s narrative bullshit doesn't as the characters are never properly fleshed out and sometimes they just make you wait for no fucking reason whatsoever and that brings down alot, but it's still pretty good despite those flaws.

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I'm interested to know how Castle Wolfenstein and Beyond Castle Wolfenstein differed jarringly

Duke Nukem 2 was a massive improvement, but it didn't change the tone much.

Touhou 1 -> Touhou 2
Breakout clone -> Curtain fire shmup

Rance 1 -> Rance 2:
Murder mystery -> Dungeon crawler

Doom 2 -> Doom 3:
Fast shooter -> Slow survival horror

There's really not a massive difference. The only difference was that levels in serious sam 2 had a lot more internal theming whereas Serious Sam TSE and TFE were pretty much just themed based on the level of vegetation.

mass effect

I suppose he meant the difference between Castle Wolfenstein series and FPS Wolfenstein, but nevertheless, Beyond Castle Wolfenstein added non-violent way of passing the guards using pass check and bribing. This really changed the gameplay from a stealth shooter into a full blown stealth where you can truly complete the game without shooting anyone.

No, because it lacked inventory management and other survival mechanics. It was a shooter, just a really lame one at that.

absolution and hitman(2016)

Heretic