Which is the most faithful "spiritual successor"

[1998]

Recently I replayed quite a few Kickstarter games. Pillars and now also Numenera. That got me thinking, of all those "spiritual successor" games, which one succeeded most in this goal?

Comparing Pillars and Numenera (I don't particularly like both games), I do think Numenera is closer to PST than Pillars to BG.

[Gregz]

This is an excellent question

[rusty_shackleford]

ATOM RPG is Fallout+

It's probably the best 'spiritual successor' because it was made by people who loved Fallout, rather than developers who wanted to cash in on other people's nostalgia.

[1998]

ATOM RPG is Fallout+

It's probably the best 'spiritual successor' because it was made by people who loved Fallout, rather than developers who wanted to cash in on other people's nostalgia.

Right. ATOM is so amazing, I even forgot that its supposed to be a Fallout clone/successor. Hope they are releasing something new soon!

[The_Mask]

Numenera got the act/story structure beats largely similar to P:T, but everything else was a catastrophe.

Pillars is a completely different story, and a much more nuanced one. You would have to compare, in great detail, everything from culture to expectations 2 decades apart. That one is probably an essay. Not sure if we really want to go down that rabbit hole.

[maidenhaver]

Numenera got the act/story structure beats largely similar to P:T, but everything else was a catastrophe.

Pillars is a completely different story, and a much more nuanced one. You would have to compare, in great detail, everything from culture to expectations 2 decades apart. That one is probably an essay. Not sure if we really want to go down that rabbit hole.

Now you have to.

[Cedric]

Metroid Prime

[Segata]

Metroid Prime

That's straight up a successor, nothing spiritual about it

[KnightoftheWind]

Metroid Prime

That's straight up a successor, nothing spiritual about it

It could be a spiritual successor, because keep in mind all prior Metroid games were in 2D, and Prime charted a lot of new ground when it comes to mechanics and world design.

[rusty_shackleford]

QFG has quite a few spiritual successors, all of them seem to be well received:

• Hero-U: Rogue to Redemption — made by the original developers
• Mage's Initiation: Reign of the Elements
• Heroine's Quest: The Herald of Ragnarok
• Quest For Infamy

[Humbaba]

ATOM RPG is Fallout+

It's probably the best 'spiritual successor' because it was made by people who loved Fallout, rather than developers who wanted to cash in on other people's nostalgia.

Which is why they sold the game for money

EVERY ******* developer wants to cash in on something and indie rpg devs especially want to cash in on nostalgia. Or did you think the target audience was 15 year old zoomers who never played the first two Fallouts?

Anwering OP's question, XCOM 2 is what I'd say. NU-COM 1 was a remake but NU-COM 2 is a proper spiritual successor to the original.

[rusty_shackleford]

Which is why they sold the game for money

EVERY ******* developer wants to cash in on something and indie rpg devs especially want to cash in on nostalgia. Or did you think the target audience was 15 year old zoomers who never played the first two Fallouts?

You realize Sawyer himself repeatedly stated he never wanted to make an IE successor, right? And was ****** at the limitations it put on him.

[Atlantico]

Dead Space is a fantastic System Shock 2 spiritual successor

[Humbaba]

You realize Sawyer himself repeatedly stated he never wanted to make an IE successor, right? And was ****** at the limitations it put on him.

Which is why Pillars was marketed as "the game no one wanted to make, don't buy!" and most definitely not "BLACK ISLE STYLE CRPG GUISE!"

Games aren't one man efforts. In the end, the suits in charge wanted to make bank off of the IE legacy. Loving whatever title you want to emulate and wanting to cash in on it aren't mutually exclusive.

[rusty_shackleford]

You realize Sawyer himself repeatedly stated he never wanted to make an IE successor, right? And was ****** at the limitations it put on him.

Which is why Pillars was marketed as "the game no one wanted to make, don't buy!" and most definitely not "BLACK ISLE STYLE CRPG GUISE!"

Games aren't one man efforts. In the end, the suits in charge wanted to make bank off of the IE legacy. Loving whatever title you want to emulate and wanting to cash in on it aren't mutually exclusive.

You're right, it was marketed as "game we didn't want to make but we also like money so we're exploiting your nostalgia"
You can compare this to "game we wanted to make because it's like a game we love and we hope you buy it because you loved that game too"

[Humbaba]

You're right, it was marketed as "game we didn't want to make but we also like money so we're exploiting your nostalgia"
You can compare this to "game we wanted to make because it's like a game we love and we hope you buy it because you loved that game too"

Which is exploiting nostalgia for profit. Glad we agree.

[Lich]

Grimoire

[revenant]

Dead Space is a fantastic System Shock 2 spiritual successor

That would be Prey. Dead space is more of a straight up survival horror game than an immersive sim.

Knights of the chalice is a great spiritual successor to dark sun

[1998]

Numenera got the act/story structure beats largely similar to P:T, but everything else was a catastrophe.

Exactly, but the same is true for PST, maybe a bit to a lesser extent but still, nobody ever enjoyed PST for its combat.

[The_Mask]

Yeah, but P:T had some creative stuff like the level 9 animated spells, and Enola's. I'm not willing to give Numenera more than the guy stuck in a different dimension. Everything else is groan-worthy.

[rusty_shackleford]

My biggest issue with numanuma was the seeming lack of any sort of internal consistency or logic. You just went from strange area to strange area that had very little of anything to do with each other.

I really liked the idea behind merecasters though. Shame they were done with dialogue trees instead of gameplay. Pretty much the only thing that stuck with me from the game.

[1998]

This and mechanically that whole Stat/Edge thing is wonky at best. Even without savescumming, it doesn't feel good or rewarding to pass a check. I think its great that they tried to create something a little different, only few combat situations, entirely new CRPG system, it just feels like some sort of experiment with all those little parts not fitting in together.

[Atlantico]

That would be Prey. Dead space is more of a straight up survival horror game than an immersive sim.

SS2 is not an immersive sim

[Humbaba]

My problem with Numanuma was that it was boring.

[wndrbr]

Dead Space has barely anything to do with System Shock 2. It's a third-person Doom 3 clone.

[Lich]

Path of Exile at launch was a very faithful spiritual successor to Diablo 2.

[Emphyrio]

You realize Sawyer himself repeatedly stated he never wanted to make an IE successor, right? And was ****** at the limitations it put on him.

then why did he

i was really disappointed even before release that obshitian could have made ANYTHING and they chose to make a forgotten realms clone