Jak II
As Amber recently mentioned, Jak's personality changed between Jak & Daxter and Jak II. This wasn't an, "Oh look, he's got a new hat!" sort of change either. Jak went from being an unassuming, Pixar-styled young-and-plucky hero to a gun-toting, tortured prisoner of war in the span of two credits sequences. But Naughty Dog's decision to frame the sequel around a loss of innocence isn't what's adventurous about Jak II. In Jak & Daxter, Jak is mute, but following his fall from grace at the beginning of II, he chats up a storm. As significant as the shift from a silent vessel for the player to inhabit to a defined personality driving story are the changes made to Naughty Dog's original play design. Jak & Daxter was a hub-based platformer in the vein of Super Mario 64 (albeit more linear) that featured basic melee combat. Jak II has more in common with Grand Theft Auto than Spyro the Dragon, eschewing platforming arenas and challenges for a mission based structure and vehicle play with more gun combat than melee. Naughty Dog have established themselves as one of gaming's most reliable developers, but few of their titles have the sheer balls of Jak II. — JC
Star Fox 2
"Star Fox... 2?" you ask incredulously. (Or maybe you don't, because you are a gamer with an internet connection, and you probably know more about Star Fox 2 than we do.) In any case — yeah, there was a Star Fox 2, and weirdly enough, at the time it was cancelled it was just about finished. Star Fox 64 became Star Fox's first released sequel, and it's a lot closer to the original Star Fox than its miscarried older brother. Star Fox 2 was an innovative oddball, with multiple distinct characters and (most notably) a lot of gameplay on a non-linear map where the player's team can intercept enemy forces before they reach Fox's home planet. It's sort of like a Command & Conquer-style strategy game where traditional Star Fox action kicks in once opposing characters engage. Some of these concepts were reused in the 2006 Nintendo DS title Star Fox Command. But if your heart belongs to the 16-bit era, Star Fox 2 is a real lost gem, and a truly ambitious sequel. — PS
Resident Evil 4
In all fairness, Resident Evil 4 plays almost identically to Resident Evil: Leon Kennedy moves like a tank, turning with none of the grace or precision a trained US Secret Service agent should have (though he becomes downright acrobatic when prompted to jump off a building.) Items are collected and, technically speaking, zombies are shot. But, oh, the difference a shift in perspective can make. Bringing the player’s viewpoint behind Leon’s shoulder as opposed to the dramatic but fixed camera angles of early Resident Evils not only made for more dynamic gunplay but changed the entire tone of the series, making for a more claustrophobic and less generally ominous atmosphere. Resident Evil 4 also made survival horror more about fight than flight, providing copious amounts of ammunition but even more dire odds in its hordes of glaring enemies. More than any other game on this list, Resident Evil 4 could not be more different than its predecessors at the same time as being undeniably rooted in the series. It is the essential adventurous sequel: everything’s different but feels like home. — JC
Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island
There's a probably-apocryphal internet story about the development of the 1995 masterpiece Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island. Asked by Nintendo management to develop a Mario title with pre-rendered graphics (in vogue at the time due to the success of the otherwise generic Donkey Kong Country), the ever-contrary Shigeru Miyamoto instead moved the visuals in a radically different direction, ordering up the lush crayon world that eventually became Yoshi's Island. Whatever the truth of the story, I remember being thrilled at the time because a) I thought Donkey Kong Country was overhyped bullshit, and b) I thought designers were getting obsessed with graphic "realism" when it really wasn't appropriate to their games. (The latter complaint was borne out by the subsequent half-decade of gaming.) Besides being visually stylized to a degree that games have only recently re-approached, Yoshi's Island also brought in Miyamoto's usual boatload of gameplay innovations, from the protect -a-shrieking-baby mechanic to the unique projectile system. Super Mario World was essentially a tarted-up Super Mario Bros. 3, but Yoshi's Island was a strange and wonderful beast. — PS
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