The Original is the Best

[Aerith's Knight]

COMMANDER KEEN. Although Keen 6 wasn't too bad.

Oh man, that game was awesome. Pogostick away!

[black orb]

Kingdom Hearts 1

>>> Whaat?! so KH doesnt get any better than that?..
I was right when I decided to never touch those games anymore..

>>> Surpassing the original Valkyrie Profile seems unlikely to me..

[Necronopticous]

The Legend of Zelda is the most perfect example that I can think of.

[Jiro]

Wild ARMS comes to mind, largely cause they balanced the characters out really well whereas the sequels always made it so one character was a crutch character and the rest of the party was backup.

I found the entire party in Wild ARMs 3 to be very useful and integral to things. Granted, Gallows was a bit trout the further you got into the game, but unless you're just nailing Clive with Valiant, his damage output isn't that much better than Jet's and Jet has the advantage of being much faster. Though I will say that Lock On is far better than Accelerator.

Clive does hit harder than Jet and his gun has better accuracy than Jet's (main weakness) meaning he's still largely the bruiser whereas Jet misses a lot unless you spend precious resources to raise his accuracy whereas Clive can ignore it with Lock On and just raise his damage far more than all the other party members. Hell he can eventually do so much damage that you don't even need to raise his ammo either so it all goes to damage. So yeah, I'm going to disagree that Clive isn't the main fighter in your party due to his Force ability kind of being bulltrout. The other issue here is that Guardians are not as balanced as they should be so I often felt that whoever had certain Guardians equipped were largely more useful than the others.

Ugh yeah, that's right. I forgot Jet's surprisingly poor HIT. I usually have him being pretty useful but those times when he straight up misses just piss me off xD

[Denmark]

Final Fantasy

[Hollycat]

The original WO was the best WO.
Ok, the first two tie, but the third one sucks balls and then tries to make out with you.

Bioshock 1 was better than 2.
I don't think it counts, but the first good Dynasty warriors game (4) was the best dynasty warriors game.

The original Jak and Daxter was the best one.

[Shoeberto]

The original Jak and Daxter was the best one.

I think it's really hard to even compare J&D to Jak 2/3. They're so incredibly different. J&D is definitely one of my fave platformers ever though.

[Bubba]

I agree with Vivi on the Mario Kart issue. Mario Kart 64 was an excellent game as was Double Dash. A couple of the handheld games are also excellent.

Super Mario Kart still has the edge though in terms of fun, control and playability. It will not be surpassed! The blue shell is the worst thing to ever happen to the series.

Sticking with old school games... the original Pilotwings was never bettered.

[Christmas]

Dragon Age by far. The story was so much better and the gameplay too. Although I know there's some that'll disagree with me on gameplay.

.

Yes. Dragon Age 2 could use some work. A lot of work.

[Wolf Kanno]

Mass Effect.

I will second this.

[Slade]

Mass Effect.

I will second this.

I would almost agree too.... but Mass Effect 2 & 3 were so dang good! I find it really hard to decide which one I like of the 3 and it sort of alternates depending on my mood (Hot take, but I even enjoyed Andromeda almost as much too). The first one is probably objectively the best as it acts as a standalone story without any ties but a case can be made for all three for different reasons.

My vote is for the original Tomb Raider of the Core series (1 through to Angel of Darkness). TR1 is unmatched by the rest of the Core entries for me. TR2 comes close but nothing beats out how good the original is.

[Spuuky]

The original is the best game in the vast majority of game series. There are not many exceptions really.

[Karifean]

Been thinking about this and among the games I play I find it to be exceedingly rare for the original to be the best in the series.

To be fair, there's a lot of games where I simply never played/experienced the original, even if I'm fairly confindent they wouldn't end up topping their successors; Warcraft 3, Starcraft 2, Diablo 2, SMT 3: Nocturne, Persona 3, Touhou 7, Dynasty Warriors 4, Civilization 4, Metal Gear Solid 3, Zone of the Enders 2, NieR:Automata, .hack://G.U., and even Final Fantasy X all fall under that.

Meanwhile some other series where I did play the originals and sequels that surpass them: Crash Bandicoot 2, Tekken 4, Valkyria Chronicles 4, Ys VIII, Trails of Cold Steel 2, Umineko When They Cry, Super Mario World, The Great Ace Attorney 2, Danganronpa V3, Zero Escape: Zero Time Dilemma.

I guess if you squint, Fate/Stay Night is the best in the Fate franchise although it's mostly a franchise of spin-offs rather than sequels. Really this question has made me realize just how rare it is I follow a series through entirely if I jump late on what is generally considered to be their better games.

[Wolf Kanno]

Thought of another one. Lunar Silver Star Story. Now don't get me wrong. Eternal Blue is a good game but it just feels like it's lacking something from the first game.

Controversial choice, but Mega Man X comes to mind. The sequels are strong, but I don't think another entry had such a good selection of bosses and stages overall. You can tell the development team were going out of their way to make it special. The later titles may have some aspects that are better than MMX1, but I feel you would be hard pressed to find an entry that is strong in every category that MMX1 was.

Xenosaga is another where I feel the first game in the series is probably the best entry. The sequels always have some issue with them and most of the spin-off stuff never got official releases.