When making a sequel, you have the option of following t𓆉he exact same formula that made the original such a success or trying brand new things to impress your audience. As with all risks, this can go either way. Sometimes you get things that exponentially increase the enjoyability of the first entry, like “The Empire Strikes Back” or “Superman 2.” More often than not, though, the sequel will spit in the face of the audience, too busy counting your money to ever hear your wails of lament. A publisher knows perfectly well that they already have a solid fan base that will pay for a sequel, so they feel no compulsion to act൲ually churn out something the audience will enjoy. We see this weekly with movies, but make no mistake, the gaming world is also rife with studios who consider their target demographic as nothing more than money-laden suckers.

Usually, we don’t really care, because it can be chalked up to a risk that didn’t play out, sometimes, just sometimes, someone has the audacity to tamper with some of our favorite franchise꧂s. This is when a sequel is so bad, it reaches backward and destroys all of your favorite memories of the original. Or at least, that’s what you would think is happening, judging by fan backlash. So let’s take a look at some video game sequels that pretty much destroyed their franchise, but since I’m not completely sadistic, let’s counteract all those with sequels that took our favorite franchises to new, unimagined heights.

34 Terrible: Banjo Kazooie: Nuts &🍒 Bolts

No matter how hard I try to recreate the creative process behind this absolute misfire, I genuinely can’t fathom how anyone thougᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚht this game wou🦩ld be a good idea. The first two were jewels in the N64 crown, and they followed up by creating something only tangentially related.

Nobody was asking for a vehicle creator.

The game opens with a small amount of self-awarenes🍌s, acknowledging that fetch quests can be tedious and boring. After that, you build cars for contrived reasons to outsmart the disembodied head of series antagonist, Gruntilda.

33 🏅 Awesome: Super Mario Galaxy 2

Super Mario Galaxy already took the Mario franchise in a fun and exciting new direction, met with an alm💖ost universal accord. To me, that 𓄧meant that the sequel had nowhere to go but down, but I was happy to be proven wrong (it happens when hidden stars align.)

Every🅷thing good about the first returned, and added more𓃲. Fans complement to increased difficulty, and the inclusion of Yoshi (which is a surprising deciding factor in how much people love this game over the first).

32 Terrible: Perfect Dark Zero �🦂�

I expect to get a lot of flak about this, so I’m putting it pretty early in the list. A lot of people love this game, and it was kind of fun at the time, sure. I think a lot of the fun we had with this title was a leftover fuzzy feeling we had with the previous Perfect Dark game, which live♔d up to its title and was very near perfect in what it scored with fans and critics.

The fo꧃llow up wasn’t strictly a cash grab, there was some genuine care put into it, but it didn’t amaze.

31 Awesome: Bat🐻man: Arkham Ci🅰ty

This is easily ﷽one of my favorite games of all time, so maybe I’m a little biased. I’m also partial to this because I think Batman is one of the greatest inventions of humans in history. But as you’ll see later in the list, that doesn’t mean I’m totally forgiving.

The first entry, Arkham Asylum, completely blew me away. You WERE Batman, in a way not properly captured in previous games. And then City comes out, and we are shown that there is a game where Batman can leap from rooftops like we alwaꦜys wanted.

30 🐬 Terr⛄ible: Batman: Arkham Origins (And Knight)

Both City and Asylum had some serious boss fight issues, since they were pretty boring. Origins improved on that,꧃ and that alone. The plot was boring, the map was literally reskinned from a previous game, and the voice actors were not the veterans we were used to.

Knight was visually impressive, and the map was incredible, but the plot was literal🔥ly a plot twist fans saw a mile away. And Rocksteady was so impressed with their Batmobile, they forget that overusing it would make people tired of it.

29 🍸 Awesome: ☂Uncharted 2: Among Thieves

Personally, I don’t think a lot changed from the first to second Uncharted games, but many fans believe this to be far and away the best entry in th🌳e series. The fighting was more fluid,𒆙 the villains were WAY better, and the locations seemed more varied while being more fun.

It’s also my personal opinion that there are no BAD entries in the series, as I’ve do🧜ne full playthroughs multiple times because every single game is immensely joyful. But if the fans have spoken, saying number 2 is vastly superior, I will defer to the🍨ir good judgment.

28 💞 Terrible: Duke Nukem Forever

You’d think that when a game is being developed for fifteen years, you would probably end up with something resembling a good product. You would be wrong, si✤nce the game was hardly developed, jumped through multiple studios, and honestly, the humor was dated.

I’ve recently started playing Duke Nukem 3D on my PS3, and I can’t believe how fun that game still is, compared to what a joyless trudge the follow up becomes. Sure, it could be the rose-colored glasses of nostalgia, or it could be that genuine love went into this game, versus Forever being a soulless cash grab.

27 Awesome: Sonic The Hedgehog 2 🐼

This may ruffღle the spines of some Sonic purists (you know they exist) bu🎉t the second game in the serious was infinitely better. The added presence of Miles “Tails” Prower made the game two times as fun right off the bat, even if he was a little OP.

Thღe music was better, the level design was more varied, the boss 🧸battles were tougher, and all that weird Chaos Emerald bonus stuff made for a vastly more entertaining game than the first.

26 ꦦ Terribꦗle: Sonic '06

It's hard to pick a “worst” entry in this franchise, since I dislike a lot of them, but this one has brought me the most joy watching people attempt to play thi꧅s broken game. The plot is jarring, and the ch🦩aracter design makes people uncomfortable, but all of that pales to the glitches.

I’ve seen Sonic lose the ability to 𝓰jump, only to later lose the ability to stay grounded, disobeying all laws of gravity and simply floating away. Couple that with unremarkable music and color palettes, and you have an unplayable game.

25 ཧ Awesome: Wolfenstein: The New Or🍷der

Every entry before The New Order was pretty standard, with you blasting your way through hordes of alternating soldiers and supernatural creatures (or if you’re lucky, a terrible combination). They were immens🍷ely fun and pretty much pioneered the FPS.

There was no need for this entry to be this in-depth, showing the toll that a man perpetually thrust into battle against a superior enemy would sustain, mentally and physically. The soundtrack is emotionally evoking, the fig꧟hts are even more fun than you would expect, and the ending is tear-jerking. Also, a needlessly awesome DLC.