What game sequels did you feel improved the most?

You know, that one game sequel that just improved on everything. Here's mine!

Budokai Tenkaichi 2 -
The Tenkaichi series had a bit of a rocky start, what with coming out the year after the Budokai trilogy ended. Tenkaichi had some big shoes to fill, but sadly had very small feet; every character played exactly the same (except for the way some of them punched/kicked), every character had only 1 combo (Punch, punch, punch, punch, stun, repeat), it used recycled Budokai music for the English versions, it was very difficult in some areas (remember the Oozaru Vegeta fight?) and the stages had annoying barriers that were kept a total secret until the game was actually played by people.

Luckily though, Spike got off their asses and made a blisteringly great game for the second attempt! Characters played differently, more moves and combo options were added, the gameplay was much more fluid, the difficulty was toned down, the game had one of the best original soundtracks in any game I've played, characters had different costumes, Zangya <3 <3 <3, and those barriers, while still there, didn't really matter that much due to the stages being much larger. Then came BT3 and the series started going downhill...

Spider-Man 2 -

Anybody who's played the first 2 PSOne Spider-Man games will tell you that they enjoyed them. Then Activision gave the developing rights to little known developer Treyarch to do games based upon the movie franchise. While I loved the first one, it did have its negative aspects; the screenshots fooled me into thinking the levels were much bigger than they actually were, the difficulty was horrendous, and the control wasn't as good as the original games. Then came Spider-Man 2 and with it, one of the best superhero games EVER. Not only did they revamp the gameplay so that webbing now actually connected to buildings, they also ditched the level/mission based gameplay and made the game free roaming; you got to be Spider-Man in a huge free roaming 3d New York! Also, this is the only game to let you use all of Spidey's powers; sticking to walls, Spidey Sense, proper web swinging, everything! Good stuff! Then came Spider-Man 3 and this was yet another series that went downhill...

Kingdom Hearts 2 -
I bought the original Kingdom Hearts solely because I knew that Final Fantasy characters were in it. And that was probably the only part of the original game I liked. I found the controls clunky and no one can deny that this game had the most notoriously bad camera ever. Luckily though Squenix spent ages developing the sequel and their hard work paid off; the gameplay and control was more refined, the camera was fixed and the FF cameos were better (that big battle at Hollow Bastion was the highlight!). I also loved that infamous 1000 Heartless battle in which you, yes, have to kill 1000 enemies at once! AND FAIRY RIKKU.

Tekken 3 -

Hehehe! Yes, I'm a huge Tekken fan! It's my favorite fighting game franchise and Tekken 3 is my favorite game on the PSOne. I actually got Tekken 3 first, then 1 and then 2. Tekken 1 had awful control! The character's jumps could go so high (literally feet over the opponent's head), the difficulty was broken as hell, the gameplay was slightly delayed, etc. Tekken 2 was much better, but still had that weird control. Then came Tekken 3 and everything changed for the better! The control was fixed, then fixed and then fixed again, no more massive leaps, no more unresponsive controls, no more shite difficulty. Everything was perfect. Then came Tekken Tag which is my personal favorite Tekken game. Then came Tekken 4 and that was yet another series that went downhill...

Wow, there’s a pattern of game series going downhill for me...!

Anyways, what are yours?

Dragon Ball Z - Budokai Tenkaichi 2 - Tenkaichi 2 improved massively over Tenkaichi 1. Although Tenkaichi 3 was an even further improvement, the difference between 1 and 2 is just massive.

Juiced 2 - You just have to admit it, play Juiced 1 then 2. Some of the cars in 1 are almost impossible to handle, 2 has just greatly improved all aspects of the racing system.

(I can name a few with improvements but also flaws, I'll list more if some come to mind.)

BT3 was a good improvement...but I agree. the Jump between BT and BT2 was staggering...

Okay, here's my two cents:

GTA San Andreas:

The game made a jump...it was just the greatest jump in the series I know, and in a series that's already as good as it was, it made the game one of the game of the year back then...

Age of Empires 3

The jump in graphics was the most astonishing thing, but gameplay wise, you got much better things and it just played much more fluidly...I loved AoE2 because of the setting, but as a game itself, AoE3 was 100 times better.

Can't think of anything else right now...may come up with something latter...

Need For Speed: Underground 2 - This game was a pretty big jump from Underground 1. The graphics are very good for a PS2 game, the level of customization is the best of any game I can really think of at the moment. And the races are mostly all good.

Underground 2 is perhaps my favorite out of the series to be honest.

Tenkachi 2 was the biggest jump in gameplay for DBZ ever!

And another jump was GTA San Andreas, and Saints Row 2. Spiderman 2 was a big improvement from the first one.

Also the PS1 Spiderman was an impovement from the first!

Also Jak and Daxter 2 and then Jak and Daxter 3. Each game is much better then the last, just to hard.

Budokai 3 and Infinite World I found both where quite a improvement from Budokai 2. In 3 and IW, the game play was just much smoother and moved much quicker. It felt a lot more enjoyable.

I've heard infinite Worlds was good. I need that and Raging blast.

Tekken 6 was a major improvement from Tekken 5.