It depends on how common the features are–for example the dialog wheel in Mass Effect was patented by EA so no other games can use that kind of UI design, so if it does something unique then you can’t do the same thing.
For an example, consider how Bioshock Infinite is pretty different from the first Bioshock game, it could be a spiritual successor type of game if they wanted and very easily remove any references to the first game but it still has a similar gameplay and style.