Contested Sequel

"This isn't the best one to start with. It's not 'Sumo Slammers' classic. It's 'Sumo Slammers: Hero Generation'. It's a sequel to the original show, but they kinda' messed it up. It's like five years later and the bad guy Kanko has teamed up with the hero Ishiyama. It's not very realistic, is all I'm saying."

—Ben Tennyson, mirroring much of the fandom's feelings about Ben 10 Alien Force

Sometimes there's a Sequel that attempts to address complaints people had with the original, or build upon the original's perceived strengths. Sometimes, in its attempt to do so, though, it may lose track of what made the original so great for many. If that happens, there may be a huge split in the fanbase, with some fans saying that the sequel is an excellent improvement, with others saying that the sequel's improvements aren't worth the other changes made. This can result in large flame wars when someone who prefers the original argues with those who consider the sequel to be superior.

Sometimes, the company will try to fix things with the next in the series, only to make more friends and more enemies. Possible result of an Unpleasable Fanbase.

Note, this is not for sequels where people overwhelmingly agree that the sequel is bad. Also, it's not for sequels which people disregard as part of the series. It's for sequels where many fans think it's bad and others think it's good, usually for different reasons. That makes this a YMMV Trope, so expect to see examples that you disagree with on this page.

See also First Installment Wins, Critical Backlash.

Examples of Contested Sequel include:

Anime and Manga

  • A lot of Sunrise series sequels tend to get these:
    • Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny gets so much hate that it even effects how people now view Mobile Suit Gundam SEED. The primary reason for the hatred was poor battles, the Earth Alliance being incompetent, and characters getting dumber as the series went on. Kira was supposed to be a stoic older warrior but often came off as simply not having a personality.
    • Code Geass R2 was seen by some people as a massive turn for the worse. Lelouch's plans began to become ridiculous, the Knightmares were written into a hyperspeed Lensman Arms Race, and the story was basically rushed to the end by way of putting key characters through the Trauma Conga Line. In addition, Britannia's pilots became more incompetent making their Elite Mook look more powerful than their aces. The less said about the ending, the better.
    • Gundam ZZ gets a lot of flak, being a complete reversal of its predecessor - trying to be funny when Zeta Gundam was a serious war drama, though its fans tend to agree that it gets better once it stops joking around. In fact, some fans try to contest just the first part, claiming that it was directed by someone other than Tomino (it wasn't, and he himself was behind the lighter atmosphere.)
    • The second season of Gundam 00 is considered by many to be inferior to the first due to the fact that the series went from having sympathetic enemies defending their countries to shallow villains who just wanted to rule the world. The villains also tended to decay with Ribbons becoming a Smug Snake, and Graham and Billy becoming emotional wrecks who join the A-Laws for petty reasons.
  • Similarly, Macross 7 took the idea of a song being the key to saving the world and ran as far and as fast with it as possible. The result is going from a sad, desperate struggle for humanity's survival to a rock star fighting space vampires with The Power of Rock. To be fair, the original Macross had a lot of silly moments as well, just not to the extent of Macross 7.
  • The second season of Minami-ke is loathed by a significant percentage of the show's fanbase, caused mostly by the combination of low-budget animation and an increase in Fan Service to silly levels. Luckily, the third season met with a lot better reception.
  • Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha:
    • StrikerS was a Contested Sequel even before it aired due to the Time Skip aging the nine-year-old main characters to adulthood; some were relieved that people might finally stop judging them for watching Lolicon bait, others saw it as an insult to the original. Later accusations came from the copious amounts of screentime shafting resulting from the franchise's Loads and Loads of Characters, the heavy reliance on the Expanded Universe to explain many minor events, and the return to the slow pace of season one rather than a quick-moving plot like A's had.
    • It appears that the people behind Nanoha noticed how splintered the fandom became as they're making money out of both factions. On one hand, they've released a lot of StrikerS side materials and created The Movie to make the first season more StrikerS-like. On the other hand, they started a whole new video game series which is an Alternate Continuity centered around A's where the heroines had yet to grow up and the phased out characters are still prominent (and playable).
    • Force is a good example as well. A lot of fans dislike the new characters, the slow pace, the overall Darker and Edgier feeling, the somewhat questionable writing, and Signum suffering the Worf Effect.
  • Naruto Shippuden has become a Contested Sequel over time due to the focus put on Sasuke and the Uchiha Clan.
  • If it's a series of Digimon that's not Digimon Adventure, it's a Contested Sequel.
  • Bubblegum Crash is this for fans of the original Bubblegum Crisis series.
  • Dragon Ball GT.

Classical Music

  • Hector Berlioz's Lélio, ou Le retour à la vie is a Contested Sequel to his Symphonie fantastique. Whereas Symphonie fantastique, despite its program, was an entirely instrumental work, Lélio is made up mostly of choral movements originally written independently linked together with spoken narration.


Comic Books

  • The upcoming Watchmen prequels are quickly falling into this, though they haven't yet been released. Of course, one of the main complaints is that they're being released at all, in the face of the known feelings of its creator, Alan Moore, though some have pointed out that he himself has been using other authors' creations for his own stories, such as The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen & Lost Girls, while DC is using Moore's creations for their own purpose. The only difference is that Moore primarily uses characters from authors who are long dead, so it's hard to see Moore being on the high ground in this particular regard.
  • The Dark Knight Strikes Again, Frank Miller's sequel to the seminal The Dark Knight Returns. Many dislike it for being an ugly self-parody of the original work. Some like it for exactly that reason.


Film

  • The Godfather, Part III, released in 1990, is one of the prime examples of a contested sequel, especially one that was nominated for seven Academy Awards. Not only was it made more than 15 years after the previous installment, but it also suffered from Robert Duvall's absence and the casting of Sofia Coppola as Mary Corleone. Although Michael Corleone remains irredeemable at the end of Part III, his attempt to atone for his sins in this movie can also appear to make him more likable than he should be. A good deal of the problems with this movie come from seeing it as the final part of a trilogy, rather than the distant sequel it was intended to be (the film was originally titled The Death of Michael Corleone but was changed by Executive Meddling, and Francis Ford Coppola has referred to the Godfather series as "two films and an epilogue").
  • Aliens.
    • This sequel is undoubtedly the most popular film in the entire franchise and introduced the most elements on the titular aliens' biology, and it also worked as a very effective action-horror thrill ride too. But many fans of the first film view James Cameron's sequel as turning the lone Freudian parasitic monster that slowly stalked and killed its prey (or worse) as in the carefully paced and claustrophobic Ridley Scott masterpiece to a bunch of mindless bugs which could easily get mowed down with plenty of gunfire in a big loud noisy explosion-fest.
    • On this note, the third film... Alien 3, is something of a contested sequel too...if anything because it was an attempt to bring the film series back to the claustrophobic monster-in-the-closet tone of the original film after Aliens' thrill ride. Only thing is however is that there's not too much split in opinion over the third movie...most generally agree it shouldn't have been made. As well as not being up to specs with the previous two on its own, many believe it dragged on a story that came to a nice full circle by the end of Aliens.
    • There is a belief than the studio made the wrong film due to Executive Meddling. There are a number of alternate scripts and rewrites in existence (including one by William Gibson) which offer completely different scenarios.
    • The fourth film could be seen as contested as well - there are plenty of positive reviews for it on Imdb. There are plenty of fans who are content with all four movies being made.
  • It's often debated whether the second and third Cube movies were worthy additions, or if it would have been best to let the first movie stand on its own. Even people who believe the first film to be far superior can't agree on whether Hypercube or Cube Zero was the better sequel. Hybercube might have retained the mystery of the Cube, was more serious but far less gory, and had a unique look, but still had some silly characters and Narm scenes. Cube Zero visually retained the industrial look of the first film and was far less serious with more humorous scenes than either previous film, and left little to no mystery at all, but heightened the gore in places and at least attempted continuity with the first film. So go see Cube Zero if you want more of the same with some humor. See Hypercube if you want atmosphere and something different.
  • Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines is a very contested sequel.
    • The main points of contention are T3 contradicting the underlying message of the previous movie - "There is no fate but what we make for ourselves" - but it also had many plot developments that changed the nature of the series (such as Sarah having died of cancer, Brewster being behind Skynet all along, and the titular rise of the machines). In fact, these developments were responsible for Terminator 3 being completely ignored by the TV series Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles - however, new Terminator films do follow T3, such as Terminator Salvation, set After the End / During the Robot War.
    • The contested nature of the film is compounded by the fact that The Terminator was very clearly set in a Stable Time Loop. This means that You Can't Fight Fate is true, even if the characters believe it isn't. They say things like "There is no fate but what we make for ourselves," but it's obvious that the time travel event itself is what precipitates everything, paradoxical as it may seem. Indeed, there was a deleted scene from T1 where the remains of the Terminator were unearthed and taken for study, thus ensuring the construction of SkyNet. Terminator 2 violated this by allowing SkyNet to be destroyed and the future irrevocably change. Terminator 3 could be said to be restoring the original message of T1: you can't Screw Destiny, so you may as well make the best of it—whether it's Sarah driving off into the wilderness where she and her son might be able to survive the coming holocaust, or John holed up in a bunker, helplessly watching the majority of the population die yet bringing hope for the future by his very survival. Even The Sarah Connor Chronicles seems to indicate that they can't ever avert the rise of SkyNet, just delay it, and possibly avert the war by making the initial relations between humans and A Is less hostile.
    • Alternately, the characters in the first Terminator believe they are in a Stable Time Loop, but Terminator 2 proves them wrong. Consider that the rules of time travel were created by Skynet as a desperate last resort - in which case, Skynet might either be lying about the nature of time travel, or simply mistaken.
    • The Terminator series is basically a "pick your own moral." T1, you can't fight fate. T2, screw destiny. T3 on, you can screw destiny, but destiny likes three ways.
  • The sequels in the Scary Movie series of comedies are very contested. You can hear nearly every type of opinion on the sequels, as well as on the original movie. Some say that the first two installments in the series directed by the Wayans brothers are leagues better than the latter 2 sequels while others like the Zucker-style sequels better.
  • The Blair Witch Project was already a love it-or-hate it movie, and the two sides mostly switched for the sequel, Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2.
  • For a case of Contested Prequel, we have Star Wars. For those with even a passing knowledge of the six movies or the... "arguments" that spring up because of them, this doesn't even need to be explained. In short, despite the bile, all three prequels were commercial successes.
    • The same can be said for Return of the Jedi, albeit to a much lesser degree in that it's usually liked just fine, but still considered very noticeably weaker compared to the two films that preceded it.
  • 2010: The Year We Make Contact. Detractors complained that it didn't live up to the brilliant and unusual film making of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Fans argued that it was right not to try, as it never could have succeeded at that, but did work as a more conventional film which actually answered some of the questions in the first movie. Detractors responded by saying they didn't want those answers.
  • Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
    • Is the fact that Indy is now old and Shia LaBeouf's daddy tainting your beloved childhood memories? Does the revelation that the antagonists are actually aliens... sort of go against the spirit of the series? Or do you disagree with all that and think it's fun?
    • It's worth noting that while the original Indiana Jones were based on adventure serials from the 20s and 30s which were liable to feature temples and ancient gods, the 4th movie was intentionally based on 50s serials, which were liable to feature communists and aliens. Given that it was released decades after the first movies, this idea may more sense than you might initially think.
    • A main complaint was that as close as the original trilogy came, it never quite broke Willing Suspension of Disbelief because the crazy stuff happened after you'd slowly been worked to accept it. The 4th film broke people's Willing Suspension of Disbelief with a nuclear-powered sledgehammer far too early in the film, instead of easing people into the Nazi-face-melting like the earlier films did.
    • The abundance of CGI shots (the very first shot is a CGI molehill) didn't go over well either. Things like armies of killer ants and gigantic temples were forgivable, but many other cases just felt out-of-place in an Indy movie.
    • Long before that, Temple of Doom was something of a contested sequel: a successful variation on the Indy concept, or just too dark and squicky to be enjoyable?
  • While Batman Returns did better critically than the first Tim Burton Batman movie, it is often disliked among comic book fans for making the Penguin The Grotesque instead of a Gentleman Thief. Of course, the same people may or may not have a bigger problem with Batman actually killing someone in the first movie, but that's just because they forget him using the bomb on the Circus Gang's strongman in Returns.
  • X Men the Last Stand is either a horrid representation of the Phoenix Saga and a total cop-out as far as the role of Cyclops goes, not to mention being "The Wolverine and Jean Show" and devoid of all other character development... or it is an adequate adaptation of the Phoenix Saga that does away with plot elements that would have been out of place in the established movie canon, not to mention a sweet action movie in which basically all hell breaks loose and Wolverine owns the show. Take your pick.
    • X Men Origins: Wolverine is equally contested. For many it is a Narm-fest which flies in the face of the other movies' continuity (particularly rewriting a lot of back story from X2: X-Men United, the franchise's peak), ruins both Gambit and Deadpool, allows a lot of characters to make stupid decisions in the name of advancing the plot, and all for the sake of making another movie centered on Wolverine when the first 3 were essentially his show anyway. For others, the continuity wasn't all that important, Sabretooth was finally given his due with some decent character development, the incorporation of some new mutants was interesting, and the whole thing is a decent but forgettable action film.
  • Spider-Man 3 was a highly-anticipated sequel riding off the wave of critical and commercial acclaim its previous films had garnered, and was the highest-grossing of the three films when it was released. However, critical response was evenly split between general audiences who enjoyed the story and the new characters, and comic book fans (and even some long-time fans of the films) who felt that the third film was a betrayal of all the plot threads that had been set up in the prior two films. It didn't help that 3 was subject to some extensive Executive Meddling on the part of Sony Pictures and Marvel head honcho Avi Arad, who canned a prior story treatment focusing on The Vulture and Sandman and forced several disparate plot elements into the film - including fan favorite Venom, who wound up getting the short shift in terms of screen time. There is very little middle ground when it comes to opinion on the film.
  • The various sequels to the Godzilla franchise fall under this trope. Fans who complained that the American Godzilla movie was too different are also now complaining that the later Japanese films are too predictable due to Toho "not willing to take any risks."
    • And then came Godzilla Final Wars, which was neither predictable nor unrisky . . . but is absolutely unlike any other Godzilla film, and thus is a love-it-or-hate it Contested Sequel.
  • Home Alone 3. Some hate it due to the different characters and further straining suspension of disbelief (a young boy defeats four spies with Rube Goldberg-style traps?!), while others (like Roger Ebert) actually like it better than the previous two for reasons like better traps and a more plausible reason for being home alone (being sick from school rather than being mistakenly left behind while his family is on vacation at some point).
  • Final Destination 2 is a very different film from both the original film and Final Destination 3. It has a largely adult cast (rather than the teenaged protagonists of the other two films), has a greater emphasis on comedy and treats the visions rather differently. It also had a different director and writer. Generally fans of the series either dislike it or feel it is their favorite of the lot. Unlike the first film, Final Destination 2's methods of killing off the players were at least plausible, especially compared to the killer shower head in the first movie. This alone reduced the cheesiness of an otherwise interesting concept in some viewer's minds.
  • Fans are pretty divided on whether Blade 2's over-the-top visual style, action sequences, and monsters were an improvement over the more realistic first film. Nearly everyone agrees that the third film sucked.
    • Especially one of the endings. You know, the one with a badly-made werewolf.
  • Due to the fickle nature of its respective fanbase, the Star Trek films have had to deal with this. Most fans tend to agree that Star Trek II the Wrath of Khan and Star Trek: First Contact are the best TOS and Next Generation films, respectively, and the even-numbered movies are good, but anything besides that (barring Star Trek V the Final Frontier) tends to become this:
    • Star Trek III: The Search For Spock. Successfully-executed thematic sequel to The Wrath Of Khan, or massively disappointing follow-up to the same?
    • Star Trek Generations: A good transitional film between the "old guard" and the Next Gen crew, or a feature-length episode of the television series that dispenses with the franchise's original defining main character in a hamfisted way?
    • Star Trek: Nemesis: A decent (if not exactly amazing) conclusion for the Next Gen crew, or a mediocre episode padded to two hours with a tacked-on character death and inoffensive subplot resolution to imbue false significance?
    • JJ Abrams' Star Trek film is the highest-grossing in the franchise, and proved to be one of the few rebooted films that received critical and commercial acclaim by using time-travel to change the focus to an alternate-universe version of the original series crew. Yet, there still exists a segment of the fanbase that believes the film destroyed the history of the franchise and irrevocably altered the plot lines of future films by having the crew attend Starfleet Academy together.
  • The Daniel Craig James Bond movies. Either one loves the return to the series' roots, or wants every old cliché back, though there are those who like the older films too.
  • Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen: it's generally agreed that Sequel Escalation made the film largely a series of loosely connected scenes featuring robo-smashing, toilet humor, or robots smashing each other while employing toilet humor. The contested comes from people who thought it was bad and those who thought that's what the first should have been.
  • Harry Potter:
    • There's considerable disagreement among fans about whether the first two movies' faithfulness to the books is their greatest strength or their greatest weakness. People in the first camp are likely to view Prisoner of Azkaban as a horrific plot hole-filled mess, while people in the second camp are likely to see it as when the movies finally started to get it right.
    • There really is very little common ground at all when it comes to fans' opinions of the Harry Potter films. Ask a group of fans to rate the films in order and it's almost certain every film will end up on the top and bottom of someone's list. Even fans that broadly agree tend to still disagree. Fans that prefer the post-Columbus films will argue about which one is best, and even David Yates fans can't agree on if Order of the Phoenix or Half Blood Prince is best, and some will rank one top and one bottom.
  • Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs is quite contested, some consider it an absolute disaster, others call it the best of the trilogy.
  • Saw III.
    • It amps up the gore and the Squick considerably from the first two, to levels that are not seen elsewhere in the series. There is much debate over whether or not this is a good thing. Much debate.
    • It didn't stop there. Even after Saw III, four more sequels were made, all of which contain even more Nightmare Fuel that either drove fans away or gained more Nightmare Fetishists. Of course, some people still love the series from start to finish, while others immediately stopped watching after the third film, for obvious reasons.
  • The Scream trilogy has been quite contested as well. None of the fans seem to agree on which movie was the best or the worst. Some say that the 3rd was the weakest of the series. Others say it was an improvement over the second, but both pale in comparison to the first. Then there are some who say that the second was better than the first, and so on and so forth...
  • Firestarter 2: Rekindled is a sequel to the 1984 movie Firestarter. The first movie was a decent portrayal of the Stephen King book it was based on. The sequel was made by people who didn't even pretend to have read the book (or seen the original movie, for that matter). This included having the Big Bad be the same in both movies even though he was killed in the first one. On the other hand, Firestarter 2 has special effects that a movie made in the 80s could not.
  • Some viewers believe that Grease 2 is superior to the original, despite clearly being an attempt to mimic every little detail about the original with a new cast. (Likewise, there is a small group of fans who love Shock Treatment, but dislike Rocky Horror.)
  • Pirates of the Caribbean.
    • First two sequels onto a successful film, but the fourth film, On Stranger Tides, is showing shades of Franchise Zombie, especially with how it killed off regular supporting characters Pintel and Ragetti, Marty, Cotton, and Cotton's parrot with a few lines of dialogue from Barbossa and stuck the Black Pearl in a bottle. Yet, many people still love this film.
    • Although it's not clear if those people were killed off or are on the miniaturized Black Pearl.
  • Life During Wartime is either seen as a worthy sequel to Happiness or a complete disaster of a follow-up with none of the original's actors returning, with no middle ground.
  • Babe is a very well received film from both critics and the general audience and was well liked due to its lighthearted plot and charming farm setting. The sequel, on the other hand, is much darker, including images of a dog being drowned in a lake, and a clown having a heart attack and dying. To some, it's a terrible film that simply doesn't do the original justice because of how dark it is and because it takes Babe off the familiar farm setting. To others, it's a brilliant follow up to an already great film, and some people (including both Siskel & Ebert) thought it was even better than the original.
  • The fourth Die Hard is either another solid installment, or a demonstration that the series has become too outlandish (starting by John McClane being basically Made of Iron).
  • Highlander has this in spades. Any film after the first is contested, with many recognizing only the first and the TV series.


Literature

  • Ringworld;
    • Larry Niven had originally intended it to be a one-off novel, but many fans wrote in to point out scientific or practical errors such as the fact that the Ringworld is unstable and the question of why its builders didn't build lots of small rings (a la Iain M. Banks' Culture novels) instead, which would be much easier to defend. Niven decided to write The Ringworld Engineers to address these questions. Whether this addition improved the Ringworld or merely diluted its premise is a matter of debate among fans.
    • Other fans are okay with The Ringworld Engineers, but feel that the last two books in the series were where Sequelitis started setting in.
  • Detractors of Roger Zelazny's second series of Amber novels point out that it swaps out the hero of the first series, a Magnificent Bastard defined by his determination and ability to pull of Xanatos Gambits, for his son, a Marty Stu defined by his ability to develop New Powers as the Plot Demands; and that the first series always felt like a fully planned-out puzzle that the reader just couldn't see until all the pieces were in place while the second series felt like Zelazny was making it up as he went along. Fans of the second series love that it expanded on the mythology of the setting and showed the perspective of the villains of the first series. (Fans of the Amber Role-Playing Game either love or hate the second series for introducing bizarre Chaos-based powers and concepts that players aren't really supposed to have but at least one player in every group will take.)
  • A few reviewers felt this way about The Heroes of Olympus. While the book is generally thought of as good, many believe that Rick Riordan should definitely end the Percy Jackson and The Olympians with this series, and not a third Great Prophecy. Thankfully, Rick has stated that he's going to be careful not to go overboard with the sequels.


Live Action TV

  • Star Trek: Enterprise was done primarily because fans had complained about the stationary nature of Deep Space 9 and the constant Techno Babble of Voyager. Setting it in an earlier time period allowed the scary nature of space travel to be more constant and the technology wasn't always the savior. There were fans who loved it from the start, fans who hated it from the start, and a third group who felt it had a hard time at first, but found its voice just before it was canceled (with a further subdivision based on whether the beard was grown in season 3 or 4).


  • Elton John's 2006 sequel to his 1975 autobiographical, classic Concept Album Captain Fantastic And The Brown Dirt Cowboy, titled The Captain And The Kid, did not do as well critically or commercially as the first one, though it did get some favorable reviews.
  • Everything Metallica have done since, depending on your point of view, either Master Of Puppets, ...And Justice For All or the Black Album.


Tabletop Games

  • The fourth edition of Dungeons & Dragons has this in spades. All previous editions built on the same basic structure created back in the 1970s, but 4th Edition rebuilt the game from the ground up. Half the fanbase loves it for its tightly defined rule set, tactical depth, strong support for the DM, and ease of play. The other half hates it for its reliance on Gameplay and Story Segregation, its heavy focus on battle mat combat, the shoehorning of all classes into the same mechanical structure, and a lot of gratuitous changes to D&D lore.
    • This actually goes back to previous editions of the as well. There are still 2nd Edition fans out which feel that 3rd Edition was a travesty and an insult to the game. Some holdout 1st Edition and OD&D fans that feel that 2nd Edition was unnecessary, with a surprising number of them keep playing retroclones based on their preferred edition. It's safe to say that this is a D&D tradition and will likely continue forward with the recently announced D&D 5th Edition/D&D Next.

Video Games

  • The first three Silent Hill games tend to be liked universally among series fans. Every game since has been controversial to some extent, but Silent Hill: Shattered Memories has definitely proven to be the most polarizing entry. Half the fanbase dares to consider it to be one of the best Silent Hill games, and loved how the highly-nuanced story comes together, the other half despises it for abandoning many classic gameplay functions and re-using old characters for no reason. Many saw Shattered Memories (at least in terms of storyline) a return to form for the series' psychological roots. Homecoming received arguably heavier negativity for starting the Replacement Scrappy line of developers. Downpour meanwhile, is getting hammered before it even releases due to the replacement of series composer Akira Yamaoka (who had actually previously offered to score any future SH titles) and gameplay mechanics (side quests, subways, weapon degradation) that many argue have no place in Silent Hill.
  • Sonic Adventure 2:
    • It is another one. Some liked the level-by-level play as well as the longer levels, and the gameplay variety. Others preferred the over world hub linking to each level and even the shorter levels of the first game, and the other playable characters being optional.
    • This seems to be the general rule for any Sonic game that is newer than Sonic 3 & Knuckles.
  • Every handheld spin-off game in the Kingdom Hearts franchise qualifies, as they always make drastic gameplay changes to the main formula used in the numbered, console titles, to say nothing of how much they increase the series' notorious Kudzu Plot.
  • Many Resident Evil fans cannot stand the fourth and fifth game because they're not like the original four (and contain horrific Eldritch Abominations). However, some of those who have never played a Resident Evil game before enjoy both of them due to tight controls and an emphasis on action and shooting.
  • Dino Crisis 2 split the fans, with some praising the Actionised Sequel aspects while others criticised the lack of Survival Horror elements from the first game.
  • Depending on who you ask, Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty is either a crowning achievement in gaming or an unspeakable abomination. There is no in-between on this.
    • It seems to be a parody and/or deconstruction of this trope.
    • Arguably, Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots is a masterpiece of storytelling, a fitting conclusion to a great series and an irrefutable argument for video games as an art form. Except it's also three hours of shooting and hours upon hours of unnecessarily long cut scenes that really needed to be edited down.
    • Most Metal Gear games get this to some extent - the two PSP titles (especially Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops) are sometimes ignored, and even the acclaimed Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater has its detractors, for mixing up the game play and introducing features such as the Camo Index and maintaining your stamina.
  • Fallout 2 promised an immensely enlarged game world with tons of deep Side Quests and NPCs, and most fans agree that it delivered. Fallout 2 is also loaded with excessively Genre Savvy characters, No Fourth Wall humor and out of place elements, not to mention even more red herrings and broken quests left over from unfinished parts of the game than the original Fallout1.
  • Fallout 3:
    • It is either game of the year by a mile or Oblivion with guns, in the Sequelitis sense.
    • Fallout 3 is a different type of RPG than the previous Fallout games, further making it a contested sequel.
  • For some fans of Fallout 3, Fallout: New Vegas.
    • While arguably closer to the original games in atmosphere and story, some fans who preferred Bethesda's interpretation of the canon found New Vegas to be lacking. Among the fans of the Black Isle games, reception was more positive.
    • Basically, New Vegas had its difficulty brought up to old Fallout standards and explores more the previously established factions. Gone were the altruistic Brotherhood of Steel and new Super Mutants. In were the jerky Brotherhood, Master's Mutants and NCR. However, it didn't have the same pervading atmosphere of doom and decay and pseudo-50's society that Fallout 3 did so well.
  • Star FOX Command
    • It returned the core game play to pure flying action as opposed to Assault which had way too much on-foot action, but most people didn't like it for a variety of reasons. While the lack of classic rail-stages is a valid complaint, fans also objected to pretty much everything else, including the innovative touch-screen controls (or the lack of a classic alternative).
    • Also: that the game is incredibly repetitive. The multiplayer, as well, especially online multiplayer. While it's great on its own, it had one crippling feature: in a three- or four-player battle, if only one player disconnects, the entire match ends, instead of cutting off the quitter and keeping the match going with the remaining players.
  • Super Smash Bros. Brawl:
    • It greatly suffers from this in the communities of the previous games. The nerfing of many characters, the lack of character balance—something of a subjective thing, anyway, especially if items are included in the mix—the extremely floaty physics, the slower-paced combat, the removal of many advanced techniques, and the tripping mechanic made many think of this game as a step backward from both Melee and Smash 64. However, many other people don't care about the above (or even see some as improvements themselves), and enjoy the expanded roster, expanded modes, and overall Sequel Escalation which this game enjoys.
    • The Adventure mode is contested enough to be considered almost separately. It's either the kind of thing players really, really wanted when they first played the adventure from Melee—making it a favorite mode—or it's overlong, overblown, and just plain sub-par.
  • 4X games are very prone to this, especially the Civilization series. For every fan who believes that a new feature adds some much-needed realism to the game, there's another who thinks that it's ruining the spirit of the franchise and wants it taken out in the next sequel.
    • Which is probably part of the reason the last two Civilization installments are designed from the start to be easily moddable. That allows fans to do whatever they want, even turn it into a remake of the non-Sid-Meier Civilization: Call to Power.
  • The entire Final Fantasy series. Really, pick a sequel, any sequel.
    • Some, like Final Fantasy VIII, X-2, and Final Fantasy XIII, get more hate than others, and as the years have worn on, the vitriol has gotten a lot worse, but both of them, and in particular VIII, have large fanbases who will defend them to the death. In truth, all the games get argued over to death. You'd think a series where the sequels are deliberately out of continuity would not have this problem, but it had it even before Square started making direct sequels.
    • Some of the hate directed at VIII was from people who were introduced to the series with Final Fantasy VII and (unfamiliar with how the Final Fantasy series works) expected a direct sequel, but this was far from the only source of controversy with the game.
  • Chrono Cross was destined for this by being the only Chrono Trigger sequel. There are a lot of people who loved the mood of the game, the huge cast of characters, and the fact the plot seemed to delight in tying rather darkly into its predecessor. Needless to say, the other half of the Chrono fandom hates it for those exact reasons. Well, that and the epic Mind Screw Gainax Ending.
  • The Street Fighter III series is a big hot point among many fans, particularly "old-schoolers" who are more familiar with the Street Fighter II and Alpha games, who claim that parries (the ability to counter an attack without being stuck in block stun) kill the flow of the game, while its fans say that parries are what make the game great.
    • Street Fighter IV tries to find a middle ground; while parries are absent, the Focus mechanic allows something relatively similar in that you can absorb one hit (or, in special cases, two) and exploit the advantage. The original arcade release focused on the 12 original World Warrior and Boss characters (plus Akuma) with 4 new characters. The original home release, and then Super and AE editionsadded more characters from III and Alpha. However, this brings new complaints, in that the hodgepodge of old gameplay elements and characters are accused of being shallow shells of their former incarnations, with little of what made them fun or interesting.
  • In the world of Command & Conquer, C&C Tiberian Dawn is the only game that isn't a sequel, and is consequently the only game that isn't a Contested Sequel. Red Alert is contested for being nothing but a Tiberian Dawn remake (Gameplay wise, at least) C&C Tiberian Sun is contested for being too dark and Science Fiction-y, C&C Red Alert 2 is contested for being too damn cheesy (Oh, and the Canon Discontinuity) C+ C Generals is contested for being an In Name Only spin off, C&C Tiberum Wars is contested for its Canon Discontinuity and its striking resemblance to Generals, and C&C Red Alert 3 is contested for cheesy-ness that reaches outright silly, Canon Discontinuity, and lots of other stuff. Lastly, Tiberian Twilight is reviled for its combat system being a significant departure from previous games and being closer to real time tactics than real time strategy. Suffice to say, epic Flamewars have erupted over which games are "good" and which games are "bad." Everyone agrees, however, that Sole Survivor never happened.
  • Ecco the Dolphin: Defender of the Future, mainly due to completely abandoning the older games' storyline for a story written by someone who'd never played them. Fierce wars have been fought, but at this point the fandom seems to have more or less agreed to disagree.
  • Depending on what mood Wikipedia is in on a given week, Vandal Hearts II is either "vastly superior" or "vastly inferior" to Vandal Hearts I. If you bought the second game after playing through the first expecting more of the same (at least semi-)realistic looking characters, nasty-looking animated monsters, and floating backgrounds, as well as gore, character classes, intriguing narration and CGI cut scenes, you're definitely going to be disappointed to find that all the characters in the second game are now animeish, with tiny bodies, over-sized heads and no mouths, the first monsters you encounter are now just cartoonish snakes, no cut scenes, and character classes are now based on equipment along with enemies that can dodge attacks.
  • Mega Man has entire series that are contested in this manner, particularly Mega Man Battle Network and its followup Mega Man Star Force. RPGs and platformers being such different genres, this is probably to be expected.
  • Hello, Call of Duty: World at War and Modern Warfare 2. It's argued whether the former deserves the merit of being called a sequel despite the change in setting, and it doesn't help that many disliked on the principle it was made by Treyarch instead of Infinity Ward or was a World War II game. The latter's major complaint is that it went too far into the Rule of Cool, hurting the more realistic impression Modern Warfare gave. For PC gamers, the major complaint with Modern Warfare 2 was the lack of Dedicated Servers and mod tools.
  • Deus Ex Invisible War:
    • Most people don't contest that it was an extremely unworthy attempt at a sequel; the main question is whether it's an irredeemably terrible game in its own right because it was a bad sequel.
    • Averted with precision with Deus Ex Human Revolution, which was universally liked by the fandom.
    • And then there's a group who would argue it was a fairly solid attempt to hone down an RPG to it's basic elements in the way Mass Effect 2 did and gets unfairly maligned.
  • Regarding Knights of the Old Republic II, most fans agree that the lack of an ending (due to LucasArts wanting the game out for Christmas) sucks. Beyond that? Good luck.
  • Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World:
  • Banjo-Kazooie:
    • Nuts and Bolts. Some believe that it's a fun resurrection of the franchise, some think it's a good game but not a Banjo-Kazooie game, and some say that it destroyed any chance of a more traditional Banjo-Kazooie game being released.
    • Banjo-Tooie as well. While the game play was virtually unchanged from the original (aside from some new moves for Banjo and Kazooie), the worlds were about triple the size, and each was connected to other worlds in some way, thus necessitating some backtracking in order to get some of the Jiggies. While many fans loved and embraced these changes, other fans of the original preferred the smaller worlds and being able to get all of the Jiggies in one sitting (conveniently forgetting about the second bobsled race in Freezeezy Peak).
  • Tetris the Grand Master 3. Some TGM fans view it as an improvement on TGM2, raising the challenge through faster speeds and at the same time making the game more intuitive to play through a 3-piece preview, hold piece, and a fix for the problem involving trying to rotate an I piece into a hole one cell wide. Others see these features as dumbing down TGM and the increase in speed as Fake Difficulty.
  • Although definitions of sequel may differ here, Xenosaga is often contested when it's remembered that it was meant to be a spiritual successor to Xenogears. Although set to be done under a new company, Xenosaga was originally toted to be the beginning of a massive multi-episode story only hinted to in Xenogears—done the way it was meant to be. Exciting prospects of fleshing out the massive back story of 'gears in such an epic fashion, and a possible remake of Xenogears itself somewhere down the line enticed many fans who were enthralled with the cultish appeal of Xenogears but found it less than completely...complete. However, a variety of problems from internal screw-ups and bitter feelings between the staff—as well as what some would consider awful execution of the first Xenosaga game eventually led to the series almost completely changing direction and staff by the second chapter. By the third and final Xenosaga game, any notion of it being a spiritual prequel to Xenogears had been scrapped (aside from the occasional nod), as the series—originally meant to span generations with each game—concluded in the third as one generation with most of the original story threads tied up in a hurried fashion. As expected, fans are still split to this day. Though most were let down by this lost potential, some accepted Xenosaga as its own entity and defend it as its own entity—while others see it as one of the biggest botch-ups in video game history when comparing what it became to what it could have become. Some say perhaps the original vision in general was just too ambitious to begin with as well, we'll never know for certain.
  • Grand Theft Auto IV. Some love it for its realism, rich characters, production values and gritty nature, while others chastise it for those very things, preferring the zany, cartoony, over the top style of San Andreas and Vice City. Thankfully, the Saints Row series offers that experience, leaving everyone happy in the end.
  • The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion:
    • It may have been adored by critics and the general public, but is a contested sequel for fans of Morrowind. Not only do many claim that it was dumbed down for console users and casual players, but it took on a far more generic art style than the previous game. The expansion pack Shivering Isles fixes the latter, at least.
    • This used to be a problem early on for Morrowind with Daggerfall fans, but it's died down a little since Morrowind's release. In this vein, a lot of old-school Elder Scrolls fans in general have complained about one or the other facet of Oblivion's gameplay. Oblivion did shake things up.
    • It was probably the replacement of the political intrigue, multiple factions with conflicting quests, and depth of lore with a rather generic "Swords and Sorcery, save the world" storyline that cause the Fandom Heresy.
  • Backyard Baseball 2001 and Backyard Soccer: MLS Edition. Some people say that it is better than the original because of the pros and MLB/MLS teams, making a perfect "Dream Team," and others hate it because of those same pros.
  • Mass Effect's most frequent complaints centered around the vehicle driving system and the cluttered inventory management system. Mass Effect 2 dropped the systems entirely, replacing inventory with a system of upgrades and vehicle driving with promised DLC. Dropping the inventory management and weapon skill stats, placing more emphasis on player skill then player level, and reducing the need of the pausing to deliver commands system tilted the game much more towards third-person action-adventure shooter from the RPG.
  • Maker's breath, Dragon Age II.
    • Take away the tactical RPG elements that made Dragon Age Origins a callback to the oldies like Baldur's Gate and replace them with an emphasis on hack n' slash combat. Take away the epic storyline of saving the world and replace it with one (wo)man's journey to just... well... survive. Add a simplified item crafting system, and a Suddenly Voiced main character, and you've got all you need for a nice, long discussion about its merits as a game on its own and as a sequel.
    • Origins actually got some flack as a Contested Spiritual Successor to BG for similar reasons. It was initially criticized for being a poor tactical RPG due to class imbalances. Mages were almost invincible, had group crowd control, and the highest group damage. The only downside to them was that you couldn't recruit a full party of them. Rogues had the highest single target damage (though Mages had a much easier time raising their single target damage) and could constantly backstab from any direction, negating the need to deploy them tactically. Warriors had absolutely no redeemable qualities. The tanking skills were extremely ineffective, they did poor damage, and they ended up being the most squishy class later on (Mages were nearly invincible because of skills, Rogues had almost as good armor and avoided far more attacks). It didn't help that about half the characters were Warriors, while Mage and Rogue recruits were limited, missable, and more prone to leaving. Basically, the optimal strategy was taking the maximum number of mages and nuking. If everything didn't immediately die at that point, the Rogue would stun lock an enemy and constantly "backstab" him.
  • Freedom Force vs. The Third Reich split the fanbase. The additional powers were nice. The new characters were well developed. The plotline was good (although the disappearing teammates angered people who liked those character and/or had invested a lot of experience in them). But they dumbed down the power consumption mechanic from a wide spectrum to three possible values of one-third, two-thirds, or all of your power bar, which nerfed many of the concepts, and minor changes in the engine meant most of the third-party models no longer worked in-game.
  • Go to a Sierra fan board and ask if King's Quest Mask of Eternity is a King's Quest game. Then ask them if it's a good game. Make sure to bring chocolate, marshmallows, and Graham crackers for the inevitable cookout.
  • Supreme Commander 2 removed the epic scale maps and unit options in return for intimate battles and more detail, making it easy for casual gamers to fight short battles.
  • The first three Crash Bandicoot games and Crash Team Racing were made by Naughty Dog. Everything after that is hotly contested. Some say Crash Bash was still good, some say more or all of the games were good, and a very small portion only like the new games.
  • Doom 3 is either a scary survival horror interpretation of the classic franchise, or it's a game that tosses out everything fun about the first two games, while keeping all the things players grew to loathe about them.
  • Tomb Raider Legend was a reboot of the series by a different developer, with as much changes as that implies. Let's just leave it to the Broken Base whether this is the point where it grew the beard or jumped the shark.
  • For the Zelda series, any console game that follows The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time is immediately Love It or Hate It among fans and gamers. The standout examples are The Legend of Zelda the Wind Waker and The Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess which, respectively, departed from the formula and followed the formula, both to praise and criticism.
    • Majora's Mask is a hotly contested Base Breaker: it was not widely liked at the time of its release for being too different from Ocarina of Time (and darker) but some fans consider it one of the best games in the series.
    • Wind Waker itself has spanned contested sequels as well, Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks.
    • Skyward Sword, which tried to encompass the aspects of all previous Zelda games, including visuals (a paint-like blend of the The Wind Waker and Twilight Princess styles), has backfired significantly reception-wise, with as many fans saying it's the worst game in the series as fans saying it's the best.
  • Roller Coaster Tycoon 3. While many people enjoy Atari's reboot of the franchise, some "purist" fans believe that Atari ruined it. Some of which criticize it for having full 3D graphics.
  • LEGO Racers 2. Oh boy, LEGO Racers 2. It tried to be anything except a sequel to the original. If anything, it tried to be the polar opposite. The game was a lot more open than the original (It had a Diddy Kong Racing-esque Adventure Mode), the power-up system was changed to randomization (in the original, you had four colors for different types and could add three additional levels of power to it), the controls were changed to be more realistic, there was a new car damage system, and every world now has five courses taking a different route through the world. These changes led to a wide variety of opinions, and nowadays it's best not to express an opinion on it.
  • Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Justice For All is quite contested. On the plus side, the addition of the Magatama makes the investigation segments more interesting, while the trials are constrained to two days instead of three. The negatives are the unevenness of the cases, ranging from "Farewell My Turnabout" - generally accepted as one of the best of the Ace Attorney franchise - to "Turnabout Big Top" - featuring several of the most hated one shot characters in the series, as well as almost no relevance to the surrounding cases.
  • EVERY installment of the Monkey Island series has been contested by some fan or other. Some people don't like the second game's darker tone, the third game's cartoony style (and lack of Gilbert, Schafer, and Grossman), the fourth game's poor graphics/controls/grasp on the series continuity, or the fifth game's episodic style.
  • Castlevania II attempted to take the platforming gameplay of its predecessor and build an Action RPG around it. Its reception was mixed enough that Castlevania III kept well away from its RPG Mechanics and continuity.
  • Condemned 2: Bloodshot added a great deal of depth to the melee combat system, sharpened the graphics, and put in much more interesting forensic investigation. You either like it for those, or you dislike it for abandoning the creepy slums and giving the plot a ludicrous twist.
  • There are exactly three camps the fandom has taken to in regards to Metroid: Other M. It is either:
    • The first true Metroid game in 3D rather than some wonky FPS like the Metroid Prime series, and a fun throwback to the old classics like Metroid II and Super Metroid.
    • An average game with fun but flawed gameplay and a lackluster story, which had a lot of potential but didn't live up to the higher points of the series like Super Metroid or Metroid Prime.
    • Easily the worst game in the series, being overly linear with nonsensical additions added to the classic formula, horrible voice acting, and an insulting and sexist plot completely at odds with the rest of The Verse.
  • Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire:
    • Some fans consider it one of the best games in the series thanks to the Scenery Porn and better graphics; others felt it was too much of a Continuity Reboot and consider it one of the worst in the series. It didn't help that this was also when the Nostalgia Filter first started to really kick in, with many older fans drawing the Fanon Discontinuity line at this, refusing to accept that Hoenn Pokemon are "real Pokemon."
    • This was not helped by how some innovations the last set of games brought were stripped out, such as trading pokemon between games, morning/day/night, and being able to visit the previous games region. There were obvious technical reasons for this, but it does make the game feel like a smaller and shorter experience compared to Gold & Silver.
    • At least HeartGold and SoulSilver can give those players the chance to relive all those memories again, but this time, in a much more polished fashion. Except of course, they still want to whine about the physical/special attack split.
    • Black and White received some flak because the developers of the game wanted to make the games more or less a "fresh start" for the series. This means that there is no access to the previous generation Pokemon (except by trading) until you've beaten the game. Needless to say with parts of the Pokemon fandom an Unpleasable Fanbase, some complained the game is very shoddy and that the newest generation wasted plenty of spots on unneeded Expies. Of course, others feel this is one of the best games in the series because of the freshness it presents.
  • In The Sims 2 fan circles, The Sims 3 is jokingly referred to as "The Dark Side." While the game has its fair share of fans, many Sims 2 players write it off completely. Reasons vary from being too attached to their Sims 2 projects to not liking the way Sims 3 sims look.
  • While Harvest Moon: Back to Nature is a popular game within the series, being the source of the series most popular titles, it is the Mission Pack Sequel to the game often considered the best in the series. Similar to this is Tree of Tranquility and Animal Parade, the latter getting major flak due to the slower pacing.
  • Yoshi's Island DS. The game itself was fairly well received critically bar the music, but fans of the original are pretty much divided over whether it's a good game or as good as the original. You can also say the same about Yoshi's Story (and people who like the former tend to dislike the latter and vice versa).
  • StarTropics II: Is it an Even Better Sequel or a sequel that lacks the punch its predecessor had? Keep in mind that both games have their fans (and sometimes they like both games). However, some fans of the first don't like how in the sequel, it can be easy for Mike to get killed by monsters due to no Mercy Invincibility. Another common complaint was the addition of time travel to the plot, most of which had nothing to do with the tropics. This angered some of the fans of the first game. It's still by no means a bad game or a bad sequel.
  • Dynasty Warriors 6. While most fans will say it sucks, there are a significant number who actually enjoyed the game. Almost everyone agrees that the others are better, though.
  • Pretty much all games in the Wario platforming series after Wario Land 4, due to the fact each has entirely different gameplay mechanics and game design. Do you prefer Wario World the 3D beat em up/platformer, Wario Master of Disguise or Wario Land Shake It? Because the fanbase is pretty divided on which was the best direction for the series, and there are even a few who hate all three games as well.
  • The Mario series doesn't have this problem as bad as most long running series, but Super Mario Sunshine, with its very different direction from Super Mario 64, is certainly one of the most divisive titles in the series.
  • Duke Nukem Forever is considered this for several factors, such as not living up to the previous game, playing like the old game it was based on, Follow the Leader, and several controversial issues that we don't need to go into here.
  • Rayman 3: Hoodlum Havoc, half the fanbase thinks it was the last good Rayman game, others think this was the game that made the series go downhill, and preferred the large, exploration-based levels of Rayman 2: The Great Escape.
  • While many fans of the Heroes of Might and Magic series despise the fourth installment due to turning the heroes into regular units (and allowing you to have your entire army composed of 7 uber-powerful heroes) and other gameplay changes, as well as (literally) destroying the old world developed in the first three games as well as Heroes Chronicles. Others actually enjoy finally taking their heroes into the thick of battle and like exploring the new world. Then comes the fifth game, developed by a completely different company (in Russia), creates yet another world, this time completely unrelated to the rest of the franchise, changes the game mechanics (the heroes are once again merely generals, but still get their turn, during which they can attack or cast), and adds 3D graphics. But wait, there's more. The sixth game is made by a third developer. The fans are probably confused by this point.
  • By the same token, Disciples III features a significant departure from the previous two games in terms of graphics, storyline, battle mechanics (units can now move Heroes-style), changes in types of leaders, resource management, etc. Once again, the fan base is split.
  • Imperium Galactica II upgrades the series to 3D graphics. However, battle mechanics have changed as well and, in most fans' opinion, were dumbed down. Space Fighters can no longer be directly controlled. Instead, the player can adjust the Attack-Defend behavior scale. However, fighters are also almost useless in this installment. The first game focused the fleet on the flagships, a special class of powerful ships that were the only ones who could carry invasion forces. The sequel removes the flagships and instead allows each capital ship to carry a certain number of tanks.
  • Oh dear lord, Diablo III...No more needs to be mentioned beyond the title.


Western Animation

  • Ben 10: Alien Force as a series when compared to Ben 10. Despite being said to be the sequel, many consider Alien Force to be a different continuity from the original series. This is due to the characters not simply being older but appearing to be entirely different people (especially Kevin). It also contradicts many things in the past series, although proper explanation was given between this and Ultimate Alien.
  • Batman: The Animated Series' sequel series, The New Batman Adventures. Airing on a new station, the creators and cast returned, for the most part, and the art got revamped for the sake of smoother animation and to match the style used for Superman: The Animated Series. But controversy was afoot, as the sleeker animation came at the cost of art design. All the characters got a redesign, either minor or major, and the end result was... mixed. Batman, Robin and Batgirl looked fine, and the new Scarecrow absolutely knocked it out of the park, but Joker, Two-Face, Croc, Baby Doll and Riddler got over-simplified and lost their charm. Most sadly, Poison Ivy - one of the few females on the show to have a distinct character design - got turned into yet another Buruce Timm woman. The tone of the series is said to have suffered as well, with the focus widening to include Robin and Batgirl in most episodes. However, the series still produced some very memorable episodes, such as Over the Edge, Old Wounds, and Mad Love.
  • The Batman was tossed into this the moment it was announced. Though the show was totally unrelated to TNBA and was a reboot, but some TNBA fans felt it didn't live up to "the standard." Eventually the show grew into its own path and found its own unique take on the characters.
  • Batman: The Brave And The Bold
  • Some will argue that An American Tail: Fievel Goes West is better than the first movie because it's not as depressing and it spends more time developing secondary characters, plus, you know, it has John Cleese playing a villain. Others would argue that making the movie Lighter and Softer completely took away what made the first movie so great in the first place.
  • All Dogs Go to Heaven 2. While most fans of the first movie consider the second to be totally inferior because they say that it mostly lacks everything from the original, some say that it's a superior followup to the original because it's not depressing and it has a good story with catchy songs.
  • Season 2 of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic seems to be heading in this direction[when?] due to Lauren Faust quitting the show, with an increase on pop-culture references, Fandom Nods, multiple different takes on the characters, quite an amount of World Building, Ascended Fanon and in general some very controversial writing/storytelling on most episodes.
    • Though a lot of the complaints seem to have subsided now that most of the season is out.
  • The Ren and Stimpy Show‍'‍s "Adult Party Cartoon." Many fans of the original show criticized the show's revival for being completely different than the show they grew up with, for being too dirty, and for being poorly written. However, fans of the APC praise it for going back to John K's roots and original ideas, which were snatched away from him when he was fired and Games took Spumco's place. Fans of the APC praise the show for its humor (which they claim wasn't THAT dirtier than the original series,) the noticeably smoother, more dynamic animation, and the writing. While non-fans despise the show for having "ruined" Ren and Stimpy, fans call the APC a "masterpiece."
  • The Rescuers Down Under, a sequel to The Rescuers, has often been claimed by others to be better than the first film for more fluid animation, beautiful shots of the Australian Outback, and Cody, a child less annoying than Penny.
  • Season three of the Total Drama series, Total Drama World Tour. Is has its fans, but there is a rather vocal portion of the series fandom that dislike it. Reasons include belittling some fan favorites (Ezekiel, Bridgette, and arguably Izzy and Noah) and continuing the Courtney/Duncan/Gwen love triangle, a plot which many found tiring even during the season before.
  • Pretty much any Transformers series is compared negatively to G1 by purists, but the rest of the fandom often bickers on how good some series are compared to each other.
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