Footsteps Sequels Should Follow of the Month
IMPROVEMENT
I’ve recently been playing Untold Legends: The Warrior’s Code and Drakengard 2, and something has come to my attention: Making sequels better than the original is an insanely awesome idea.
If you want to know why Drakengard 2 is better than the original, my review probably says something about it. I don’t really remember. It’s been minutes since I wrote it.
Anyway, The Warrior’s code improves the customizability of your characters. I’ve said this before, but customizability is KEY for action RPGs. I don’t want to be trapped in some boring cut-out character model that I have little-to-no control over except deciding when to press the attack button. Action RPGs are now known for their extremely varied gameplay, so the main source of fun, for me, comes from creating custom characters that make the best of what is available.
This does not just mean making the coolest looking character, i.e. a giant orc looking guy with a big red mohawk (YES THAT’S WHAT I LOOK LIKE IN WARRIORS CODE! MUAHAHHAA). It also means customizing your statistics and skills. It completely sucks when games make it so that there is only one feasible path for your skill and stat points to go in. For example, in the first Untold Legends, the only useful stat is strength. Nothing else does anything worth putting any points in it for, so that removes any point of stat customizability. Only some of the skills are any bit useful, so that also prevents all of the customizability that could have been gotten there. The Warrior’s code fixes that. I’m done that rant.
Sequels that have made awesome improvements and should be copied by other games: Lufia 2, Star Ocean 3, Chrono Cross, Digital Devil Saga 2, Dragon Warrior 4, etc. I’ve nothing left to say.
