Sometimes, a great game series needs to take an extra year or two between sequels so its developers can replenish the creative juices that made their games so special in the first place. Other times, it seems, they need closer to about a decade or two. When the latter happens, the anticipation can be so high that no game could possibly match it, but occasionally fans get a masterpiece and all is forgiven.
It’s not necessarily common that a big gap between sequels will yield a top flight game, but it does happen, and when it does, it's something to behold for fans of the series. All the time they spent waiting for these games makes it that much sweeter that there was a pot of gold at the end of the long, long rainbow.
8 Fallout 3
Fallout 2 was successful enough that it wasn’t long at all before Interplay was planning on a follow-up for it, but then the company went under and so began a long, winding, and frankly dull (at least for anyone disinterested in the financial side of gaming) road to Fallout 3.
It took about 10 years for this highly anticipated sequel to finally be released, and considering the fact that it holds a 93 on Metacritic compared to its predecessor's still-impressive 86, it’s clear that the wait was well worth it. In the trusted hands of Bethesda, the franchise was reborn and now that full decade span between sequels is nothing but a distant, chilling memory.
7 Pikmin 3
The Pikmin series is fairly beloved by Nintendo faithful, but unlike some of their other staple franchises, sequels have mostly been few and far between. Pikmin 2 actually came out a reasonable three years after the original, but it would be nearly a decade until fans got another entry in the series.
While fans and critics may not have rated Pikmin 3 quite as highly as its predecessor, it was still well-reviewed and well-liked. It’s now been about a decade without a main line release, but with the recent Nintendo Direct announcing that Pikmin 4 is set to drop this July, fans will get to see once again if Nintendo and Shigeru Miyamoto still have it where it counts.
6 Kid Icarus: Uprising
Kid Icarus owns the somewhat dubious distinction of having one of the biggest gaps between sequels in gaming history. There was a 26 year gap between the original entry and 2012’s Kid Icarus: Uprising. Even counting 1991’s Kid Icarus: Of Myths and Monsters for Game Boy, that’s still 21 years.
To be fair, the original game was never a massive hit, nor was it incredibly well-reviewed. However, it did become a cult classic, and with Pit’s return on the Super Smash Bros. series, it gained enough traction to earn itself a highly rated sequel that now ranks in the top 50 best-selling 3DS games of all time.
5 Streets of Rage 4
Anyone who got the Sega Genesis that came with the 6-Pak knows Streets of Rage and likely loves it to this day. This world class beat ‘em up came dressed in a super cool neo-noir aesthetic and armed with an awesome soundtrack. Playing this game (or either of its two original sequels) on multiplayer was a highlight of many Genesis owners’ childhoods.
But while the original trilogy is highly regarded by those who were around for their releases, the series died with the 16-bit era and wouldn’t see the light of day for another 16 years. Fortunately, Streets of Rage 4 didn’t miss a single beat (‘em up), and in fact it one-upped its predecessor in the eyes of some fans. Any newer gamers curious about the series should absolutely give it a shot.
4 Metroid Dread
While fans have been gifted with two remakes worthy of their place in the Metroid canon to hold them over, full on original entries in this franchise have almost always been few and far between. There was an eight year gap between Super Metroid and Metroid Fusion and a whopping 19-year gap between Fusion and Metroid Dread.
It’s somewhat dumbfounding that there aren’t more of these games, because every title has been more or less a complete masterpiece, but perhaps it’s better to let things keep going as they currently are because Dread was among the most incredible entries in this already fantastic series.
3 Mega Man 9
Regardless of whether Mega Man 8 or Mega Man & Bass is considered the true predecessor to Mega Man 9 (it’s Mega Man 8), fans still had to wait at least ten years to finally see the Blue Bomber back on a main line title. There were a ton of offshoots in between, but none of them quite scratched the Mega Man itch the way this one did.
With its super retro-styled design made to look and feel like players had been transported back to the salad days of the original NES, all the way down to its ode to the blindingly ugly box art from the American versions of the early Mega Man titles, this game just absolutely nailed it all.
2 Kingdom Hearts 3
For a series so beloved, it was something of a tragedy that the wait between Kingdom Hearts 2 and Kingdom Hearts 3 was so long. Fans were so dismayed by the 14-year gap between sequels that the game’s co-director Tai Yasue felt the need to explain himself what in the world took so long.
However, as long as the wait may have been, fans were rewarded with a worthy follow up in the end. Kingdom Hearts 3 may not have quite reached the impressive heights of its predecessor, but it was impressive in its own right, and there is certainly hope that the upcoming Kingdom Hearts 4 can continue that streak.
1 New Pokemon Snap
The original Nintendo 64 Pokemon Snap was a massive fan favorite back in the day. It may have been somewhat limited, but it was a unique and incredibly well-executed game nonetheless, and the room it had to grow made it absolutely scream for a sequel. That sequel would eventually come…22 years later.
How there wasn’t a Snap title on the DS or 3DS where the handheld could have been its own camera is difficult to fathom, but at least fans finally got to return to the world of Pocket Monster photography all these years later. New Pokemon Snap was a far bigger success than its predecessor, potentially opening the door for a sequel, hopefully this time with a far shorter waiting period...