Successful Spiritual Successors

[dezm0nd]

This is purely your own opinion but which spiritual successors have you played which made you feel like they totally nailed it.

Example of unsuccessful: Yooka-Laylee
Example of successful: Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair.

The former had a promising start but the more it went on the more I found myself bored within each world which literally grew in size after a certain point.

The latter understands what made DKC so much fun and designed its level completely around the momentum and physics within the two. I still feel like the characters and to some extent the world just as bland as the original game but when it comes to playing it, impossible lair hit the nail on the head.

[Flabyo]

Freedom Planet - feels to me a lot more like where Sonic should’ve gone instead of all those 3d games.

Saints Row 3 - GTA4 went super serious, and while it’s still a good game, the silliness in the later Saint’s Rows is far closer to what I wanted.

Kingdoms of Amalur - more Fable than Fable 3 ever was. (I’m allowed to say that)

[Michiel K]

Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom is a very succesful spiritual successor to the Monster World games that totally nails it and then some. Although with the blessing of the creators of that series and it pretty much reusing enemies and some characters (like the eyepatched pig shopkeeper)from it, it's a borderline official sequel.

Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon is also a really good spiritual sequel to the NES Castlevania games.

Other than that, I can think of a bunch of spriritual sequels, but none that 'really nail it' and are exactly on the level of the originals.

[hazeredmist]

I think the ultimate example is Football Manager, born from the old Championship Manager team, Sports Interactive, in 2003 after a publisher split.

The Championship Manager franchise continued but everyone knew the spiritual successor was Football Manager, which quickly became THE football management sim. Championship Manager as a franchise died a death in 2010.

[Magical_Isopod]

The Metro series is a spiritual successor to the STALKER games that, IMHO, surpass the source material.

Freedom Planet was a great spiritual successor to Sonic until Mania came along.

Bug Fables is an excellent spiritual successor to Paper Mario.

I'm sure I'll think of more, but those are off top of my head.

[Alex79]

The Metro series is a spiritual successor to the STALKER games that, IMHO, surpass the source material.

Really? The Stalker games were big open world almost RPGs, other than a similar theme I wouldn't say they're that similar really. I'd suggest Fallout and Stalker are more closely related in my experience.

[Alex79]

Yakuza spiritual successors to Shenmue, only way better.

[dezm0nd]

Think I need to take another look at freedom planet one day.

[Michiel K]

Yakuza spiritual successors to Shenmue, only way better.

Totally agree with you on Stalker and Metro, but this is very much the same deal. There are a bunch of similarities between Shenmue and Yakuza, but they're also very different experiences, with Shenmue being a much more slow paced adventure game type of deal, with a governing in-game clock and Yakuza being much more of a beat 'em up/JRPG-lite hybrid. Fans of either series aren't going to get the same thing out of the other at all.

[ThirdMan]

Wasteland/Fallout is the first example that springs to mind.

[ThirdMan]

The Metro series is a spiritual successor to the STALKER games that, IMHO, surpass the source material.

Really? The Stalker games were big open world almost RPGs, other than a similar theme I wouldn't say they're that similar really. I'd suggest Fallout and Stalker are more closely related in my experience.

The only Metro game I've played was Metro Exodus but I definitely felt that game was reminiscent of S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl, particularly while scavenging around the semi-open world areas and the overall tone of the piece, especially those sections where you're dealing with embattled settlements.

Fallout 3 and 4 don't feel like S.T.A.L.K.E.R. to me. But I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you either. I'm sure you could reduce both series to bullet points and they'd have a lot in common but they feel very differently. I guess we'd have to unpack what 'spiritual sequel' means before we get too deep into the weeds.

Planescape: Torment had a spiritual sequel in Torment: Tides of Numenera and yet in recent months I've heard people describing Disco Elysium as the truer spiritual sequel. But those two are apparently very different experiences? I don't know because I haven't played either.

It's an interesting topic.

Do spiritual sequels have to have some sort of direct link to 'qualify'?

[Michiel K]

IMO, 'inspired by' or 'bearing similarities to' isn't the same as spiritual sequel.

"We wanted to make the next game in series X, but we didn't have the rights to the name and characters or some other reason" is my guide line.

[Flabyo]

The places that Metro and Stalker come from are pretty similar, the Russian take on a post nuclear wasteland is heavily coloured by Chernobyl and more specifically the town of Pripyat, so there are certainly many similar beats.

But the early metro games are very much linear corridor shooters and Stalker was never that.

Wasteland to Fallout (and then back to Wasteland again) fits better, there’s continuity of designer there.

[KSubzero1000]

It is an interesting topic, but yeah, it does beg the question of what differentiates a spiritual successor from simply a game in the same niche sub-genre.

I hear Bloodstained and Wargroove are both really good, though I haven't played either. Horizon Chase Turbo is great too, does that count?

Redout is an excellent futuristic racer in the same style as Wipeout. It's close enough that I would probably consider it a spiritual successor.

Completely agree with Shenmue and Yakuza being cut from a very different cloth.

But unfortunately, most spiritual successors that come to mind are nowhere near the level of quality of their respective sources, like Mighty No. 9, Dangerous Driving, or *shudder* Vaccine for example.

[ThirdMan]

"We wanted to make the next game in series X, but we didn't have the rights to the name and characters or some other reason" is my guide line.

Yes that's a good working definition.

[ThirdMan]

similar beats.

That's a perfect way of describing it. Spiritual sequel is likely pushing the comparison too far.

[duskvstweak]

Definitely agree with Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon and it was my favorite game that year.

It's an older one (and maybe it doesn't count?), but Theme Park becoming Roller Coaster Tycoon was huge and still tons of fun to play.

And, in some ways, Dragon Age felt like one for the Baldur's Gate series.

[Magical_Isopod]

The Metro series is a spiritual successor to the STALKER games that, IMHO, surpass the source material.

Really? The Stalker games were big open world almost RPGs, other than a similar theme I wouldn't say they're that similar really. I'd suggest Fallout and Stalker are more closely related in my experience.

Metro is a spiritual successor to STALKER. It's made by most of the same devs, and they're thematically similar in a lot of ways. The devs have even said Metro is a spiritual successor.

[Stanshall]

Armed Police Batrider is a spiritual successor to Battle Garegga.

I probably prefer the former but the latter is excellent, too.