10 Classic Video Games You Didn’t Realise Had Sequels

Society regularly complains about Hollywood's habit of churning out sequels, even though gaming companies have been doing the same thing long before it was annoying.

We can't go one year without another Pokemon entry coming out. Although Final Fantasy XVI is on the horizon, the iconic RPG has far more than 16 instalments. Super Mario has made a crossover with so many properties, it's hard to keep count of how many games the Italian plumber has starred in.

Because branding is such a big factor to success in the gaming world, die-hard fans are familiar with most iconic games' sequels, prequels, spin-offs, and spin-offs of spin-offs. You probably haven't played every Assassin's Creed game, but you are fully aware the other entries exist.

If you haven't played Street Fighter EX (and let's be honest, who has?) the game is no secret. You may not be familiar with every Call of Duty title, but you can find out all about them online in a heartbeat.

But there are some sequels that are so obscure, they are almost mythical. Even if the follow-up is part of a universally recognised franchise, you've may not be aware of it. If these games had a limited release or were only available on an obscure console, you probably never heard of them, despite being sequels to some absolute classics.

What if I told you Street Fighter II wasn't the only sequel to the original beat-em-up? And we're not talking about the Champion Edition or Turbo. There is a completely separate follow-up to Street Fighter, which only a select few know of.

Street Fighter did so well at the arcades, it was ported to pretty much every system, many of which were converted by a company called Tiertex. Because Capcom took so long to release its successor, Tiertex cheekily decided to rush out their own sequel called Human Killing Machine before pitching it to Capcom. (If you think that's naughty, Tiertex did the same thing when they made a sequel to Strider, which was also created by Capcom.)

However, few people were won over by HKM, considering you could only choose one character and there was no two-player option. Instead of having distinctive combatants like Ryu, Ken, or Sagat, Human Killing Machine had the player face forgettable rivals, including a tray-bearing waiter, a matador, and a dog.

It was a huge relief Human Killing Machine did so badly, since it didn't take the spotlight away from Capcom when they released the official Street Fighter II, changing the gaming world forever.