Prequels and Gaming Mishaps -

     Sometimes a prequel is a good thing, but mostly it's a bad thing in the world of gaming. I was reading a rant online about how a prequel always ruins a gaming franchise. Ironically this is mostly true. There are rare occurrences where a prequel works, but then again there are more instances of people asking WTF questions when it comes to a prequel game. For example a good prequel is another characters story that ties into the creation of the game, best example I have for this is Darksiders 2 which is a prequel in one hand but another story in the other. As the events are happening around or before the first game yeah the basic ideal leads to the ending but there is a lot more story to tell. Sadly THQ is down and out so the third and fourth parts may never come to light. I know it's not a perfect fit, but that's the best example I have. Most of the time the prequel leads to questions and errors which the majority of players hunt down and question as to why this does not effect the primary storyline of the original game. Here is a list of common errors.

• New weapons - So you made a prequel but decided to up the arsenal and oh yeah you made a whole new weapon set that our hero spends most of the game collecting. At the end of the game where we know what happens next you show our hero armed to the teeth. WHAT HAPPENED TO ALL THE GEAR WE PICKED UP???? God of War did a nice thing with some of the prequels and gave a partial explanation to what happened to the weapons by having Kratos be knocked out seeing the gods take his toys and continue onward.
• Harder more legendary bosses - Now this works as you have to keep the challenge level up but here's a question the boss of the first game claims to have defeated all others to stay on top, you mean to tell me the enemy I took out in 10 minutes beat up the guy it now takes me 26 minutes to defeat.... really?
• The Hero did it clause - I love this one this partially works with the Harder bosses deal as some story tellers play this card way too often so with my previous question in mind you tell the story as the player took out the harder boss and the boss of the first game used that moment to seize power thus using the Hero as a pawn.... smart move, but again may conflict with your original story.
• Time issues - some prequels get this hero storyline mixed up a bit and well lead to questions about time and the observations of characters. Example team mate in game one tells you that they have never seen monster a before in their life. Prequel game team mate makes appearance as hero of prequel fights same monster you see in primary game and helps you defeat this monster.... are you telling me this character forgot????
• Weapon power - Ok so before you get the ultimate weapon in original game you get an ultimate power in prequel that is stronger than ultimate in original... see new weapons

And these are just the common mistakes. I'd like to get into more specifics of this, but I'll be honest I let a lot of things go due to the fact that well the prequel was either ok or sucked.

- William Dreimann