To Community-at-large and Uber Entertainment Re use of Spiritual Successor and Meaning of it

Spiritual Successor to total annihilation what does it mean?

Edit: http://www.reddit.com/r/planetaryan...f/to_communityatlarge_and_uber_entertainment/

http://steamcommunity.com/app/233250/discussions/0/35221031489921915/

From Wikipedia:

That's what the phrase means.

So, similar in concept and design with elements from TA.

Which I'd argue PA fulfils.

TA's spirit has really let itself go over the last 16 years.

It's also normally done by a separate company to the original developer as they have no rights over the original property they make "spiritual" successor.

Really? I have hundreds of hours of fun on Supcom , FA , Supcom2 and now PA. Seems like it's going strong to me.

It's just semantics, who cares.

/sarcasm

Seriously: The "spirit" of videogames are the mechanics. A spiritual successor is a game that continues the mechanics, but not the theme. PA has the same theme as TA (robots, etc.), but it's not in the same franchise, ergo it's a spiritual successor as opposed to a direct successor -- i.e. a successor in both mechanics and aesthetics.

I consider Planetary Annihilation to be a worthy Spiritual Successor to Total Annihilation. The core spirit is there.
I did create a dedicated thread on Total Annihilation's Spirit in Planetary Annihilation, with lots of examples and pictures of Total Annihilation's cool/popular features.

A spiritual successor can be good as well as bad. It can be a bad spiritual successor, like Mr. Bean: The Movie is a bad artwork, but still a work of art.