upon rewatching the linked jgeller video i do agree that world of goo 2 and stanley parable 2 are kind of self-hating and wasteful, but omg the other two. gazing upon the earth defense force narrative spreadsheet was wondrous in a freak way, and the story of his experience with dragons dogma (2) was lowk beautiful. the scene where the ghost of the narrative summoned woman npc to beckon you back to the on-rails experience really plucked at my strings, esp. considering he was 35 hours into looping through what felt like a questionable remaster.

i think it's kind of a delicate line to tread. the spectrum between "i made something that got really popular and [it doesn't feel like mine any more] / [i don't know how to deal with the fandom wanting more] / [i don't know how/want to move beyond it]" VERSUS "making a statment on the metanarrative of revisiting stories/remakes/genre pillars/longrunning selfsimilar franchises".

you know I have been thinking about sequels on and off all week and I started at the position that sequels are only ever a necessary evil to get more out of an intensive creative effort, there are some sequels I like more than the original media. the geller examples are good too but haven't personally played 'em :P

but maybe people wouldn't really consider these sequels though... transistor to bastion, majora's mask to ocarina of time, frog fractions 2 to frog fractions, apollo justice: ace attorney to phoenix wright: ace attorney. I think what's common between these is like taking a bunch of resources and processes and making them common between sequel and original work while make a whole other part completely different.

maybe, or I'm trying too hard. Hades II/Hades has about the same similarity as the ace attorneys but one sequel I think is trash while one I think surpasses the original (pending a replay)