Were Any Wii Sequels Better Than Their GameCube Prequels?

All the way back on September 8th 2008, I asked on NGamer if any of the forumites felt any GameCube sequels were better than the N64 games that came before them:

http://forums.computerandvideogames.com/viewtopic.php?p=1148588&sid=3907501e44cec77745ab7e1bab1209fe

Not sure why I felt I had to be so academic or really why I remembered the thread, but I'm asking a similar thing again. Did you think Super Mario Galaxy was better than Super Mario Sunshine, Brawl better than Melee and Metroid Prime 3 better than the first two?

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To start: I think the second Batallion Wars game is better than the first, and that WarioWare: Smooth Moves is a better console game than WarioWare, Inc: Mega Party Game$ is (though it's a different matter entirely if I was to compare the Wii game to the GBA one).

Not quite sure if this counts, but I'd say the Galaxy games were far, far superior to Mario Sunshine. Don't get me wrong, I love SMS but Mario Galaxy and it's sequel are easily my favourite games.

I probably preferred SS and TP to WW too, but YMMV TBH. LOL.

Yeah, as much as I liked Sunshine, the Galaxy games are the obvious choice here.

I actually preferred Brawl to Melee in the end, so I'll jump in with that as well. It's tough though, because so many of Nintendo's core franchises either didn't have a Wii showing or had a really strong Gamecube showing.

Another tip of the hat to Galaxy over Sunshine here, I wouldn't say that it's as obvious as a lot of you are saying here but I think Galaxy has a reasonable edge. I loved the fact that each world was more open and explorable in Sunshine and I'd like to see that return instead of the more linear games of late.

Agree on Brawl over Melee too. The characters were better, the fights were better, the online added so much. I do miss the old style arcade mode but that's a small sacrifice.

I think as far as Zelda goes I'd say Cube wins because TP was on both and WW>SS.

WarioWare I can see your point TCK but I do think the Cube is a lot more fun to play, the vs modes were better and the minigames had less broken controls. Smooth Moves was still fun, just not as fun to me.

Also another nice thread there TCK, you're on a roll!

Outside galaxy I can't think of any I'd say were better.  The pokemon games were worse, the zelda game was worse (twilight princess is a cube port, not that it's better than waker anyhow), both metroid games were worse, smash was worse, mario kart was worse (although online was a complete blast despite that), and aside from those there weren't any long running series besides a couple I haven't played that appeared on both consoles to my knowledge.

Not that being worse means any of the above were bad games, they were largely all excellent, the gamecube just set the bar too high. To put it another way the cube offerings were 10/10 games and the wii offerings were between 9 to 9.5 offerings, with the exception being the galaxy games.

I love Sunshine, but the Galaxy games were just better.  Sorry.  TP > WW too, an impression that hasn't changed after having played WWHD, but of course it was originally a GC game and SS was much worse than both of 'em.  Brawl > Mêlée too, merely because there are more characters in the latter.  I'm just that shallow, I'm afraid.

Metroid Prime 3 can take a hike.  Can't think of many others, I'm afraid (I never played Mega Party Game$, so I can't comment): Paper Mario, Mario Kart, even Mario Party were all better on the 'Cube.  But it is my very favourite console ever.

andyman949 wrote:

Also another nice thread there TCK, you're on a roll!

Seconding this.  Lovely bit o' nostalgia too.  No me, and plenty of a3...  Yes, plenty of him.

Good thread, I wouldn't say Galaxy is sequel to Sunshine and that's not a sequel to SM64. It's a new way to play Mario in 3D each time. But same could be said with many of Nintendo's games but I will go no pick due to my hate of galaxy's controls and I think picking sunshine over it would be unjust.  

On Zelda front Cube wins by a mile due to having Wind Waker the best Zelda & has Twilight as well.

Melee over Brawl by a bazillion miles, plays better as you seen at evo it's the one used at the highest level not brawl. If I could be bothered I would be using project m on my wii for brawl, so it handles like melee.

Also didn't like Kart on Wii, so double dash gets that as well.

But like Jay said the Wii is missing some IP's compared to the Cube. But to answer the thread question NO the GameCube wins overall.

TCK wrote:

To start: I think the second Batallion Wars game is better than the first

Oh don't think I can agree with that, I couldn't put my finger on it but for me something just didn't feel right about the wii sequel maybe I just never gave it enough time but sometimes ye just know after a few hours of play.

masofdas wrote:

But like Jay said the Wii is missing some IP's compared to the Cube. But to answer the thread question NO the GameCube wins overall.

Yeah, F-Zero and Starfox were the two I was thinking about.

Yep those two, and likes of donkey kong the cube had konga & jungle beat, cube had some okay pokemon games, a wave race title. But Wii did get some decent kirby games.

I had thought about that in making this thread -there wasn't a Starfox, F-Zero, 1080 or Wave Race on Wii, and likewise there wasn't a New Super Mario Bros, Punch-Out!!, Excitebike or even Sin & Punishment on GameCube. There's enough there to be working with though, first or third party.

Fire Emblem - there's one. I honestly couldn't really call it between the GC Fire Emblem and its Wii sequel. Both great games with no real gulf in quality between the two.

I was going to ask about Donkey Kong, actually. I never played Jungle Beat, but the 'Cube did have the rather splendid DKCR. How do the two compare, you who have played both?

And this is stretching the definition of "sequel" to breaking point, but I'm pretty sure that Kirby's Air Ride couldn't compete with Epic Yarn.

I remember NGamer's sadness at the time of Wave Race: Blue Storm and 1080 Avalanche that there wasn't an Excitebike: Brown Storm.

I'm not sure about FE Jay, Radiant Dawn can be really unfair at times but I suppose the larger more expansive story in Radiant Dawn may make it kind of equal.

Balladeer wrote:

I was going to ask about Donkey Kong, actually.  I never played Jungle Beat, but the 'Cube did have the rather splendid DKCR.  How do the two compare, you who have played both?

And this is stretching the definition of "sequel" to breaking point, but I'm pretty sure that Kirby's Air Ride couldn't compete with Epic Yarn.

I remember NGamer's sadness at the time of Wave Race: Blue Storm and 1080 Avalanche that there wasn't an Excitebike: Brown Storm.

Don't you mean Wii about DKCR ,

Like I said overall the Cube better but there will be a odd one better on Wii. DKCR might be one of those examples.

Slips of the mind happen sometimes, Mas.  Maybe not to you, but to other people.  Hopefully what I meant was obvious to everyone.

I was thinking about Paper Mario: TTYD and Super Paper Mario in the fantasy console launch thread, and while I think TTYD is better (it's one of my favourite games ever), SPM is still excellent - oddly maligned in many ways. The soundtrack is utterly superb, as were the characters. But, as for the question posed in the thread... it's not better than its Gamecube prequel.

I didn't really have a preference between Melee and Brawl; Double Dash was better than MKWii; the Galaxies were better than Sunshine (although Sunshine was still a great game)... I'd also agree with Flliipposops that Smooth Moves was better than Mega Microgames as a home console title.

Hmmm, to me Super Paper Mario was the beginning of the end. Too far removed from what made TTYD great.

Got to agree with doubledash though, the Wii Mario Kart did not feel smooth at all.

To me Brawl was better then Melee, loved Mario Sunshine but in the end loved Galaxy so much more.

But then again I also loved Double Dash a bit more then MKWii and I still love Wind Waker to this day even over Twilight

Prince of Persia The Forgotten Sands was better than The Two Thrones, and definitely better than The Warrior Within. Not better than Sands of Time though, the game they had to emulate to win the fans back.

In my opinion:

1) Galaxy > Sunshine.
2) Brawl > Melee.
3) Double Dash!! > Wii.
4) The Thousand Year Door > Super Paper Mario.
5) Wind Waker + Twilight Princess = Twilight Princess + Skyward Sword.
6) Returns > Jungle Beat (though it is closer than you might think).

I've not played enough of Metroid Prime 3 to tell if it's better than Prime or not (I'd be surprised).

Only thing DKCR & JB are diffeent styles of platformers not sure if you can really compare.

Also think most of you are crazy with brawl over melee, wonder if a few of you maybe even myself will be disappoint with Smash U which meant to be in between the two.

Got one Soul Calibur 2 is better then what ever that thing was on Wii.

Also The Cube got slightly better deal with resident evil.

The best resi was resi 4, and that's best on Wii...
I don't think that counts though. The GameCube was really the best console for resident evil games, with the remake, zero and 4 plus rereleases of the rest. All the Wii really has going for it are some lightgun games.

So not a lot of wii games coming out on top here, is there? Let's add another to the pile, super monkey ball (1 or 2) is without a doubt better on gamecube.