LogFAQs > #965195088

Count_Drachma posted...

And the first one also came out at a time when sequels weren't a big thing yet. In general, that's a special case all around. Nowadays, you're more likely to see games which intended to have sequels but didn't, often leaving a partial cliffhanger.

...ehh.

By the time Final Fantasy came out, there'd already been a Dragon Warrior/Dragon Quest sequel, Ultima was up to about four games, and Wizardry had three. And if you go beyond just RPGs, there's series like Zork (which had about four games, and three spin-offs), two Pitfall games, King's Quest (three games), Legend of Zelda (two games), and two Super Mario Bros games.

Not to mention that Super Mario Bros itself was a sequel to Mario Bros, which was arguably a pseudo-sequel to Donkey Kong (which had about four games of its own at that point).

Sequels were definitely a thing even in the 80s. Not in the sense that companies would plan multi-part series in advance (but honestly, that's a rare thing even now), but there was definitely a strong sense that if a game did well, a sequel was almost inevitable. So it's not like it was a crazy thing to think that Final Fantasy could get a sequel - it was more that Square assumed it was going to be the last game they ever made because they were going to go bankrupt. NO ONE expected it to be the success it was.

The only real difference between then and now is something you touched on. Namely, back then they used to make games (and movies) as self-contained entries, with sequels generally just being a second story told after the first. Whereas now the almost pathological desire to milk every franchise for everything it's worth means they start building sequel hooks right into the plot from the beginning. And then they often fail because they forget that they need to make the first story something people actually care about.