6 best spiritual sequel games to beloved franchises at 8:09 PM

Original Franchise, don't steal!

Enough about hoping about Spiritual Sequels to classics! After all, don't we have enough with what we have? Well, uh... no.

But still! It's time to look at those games that are only a couple of names and wigs away from being part of a huge copyright infringement lawsuit. After all,  not being able to work on an IP is a small obstacle for those who really, really want to do certain games.


Timesplitters is the better Perfect Dark follow up.

We all wanted the Rare-Microsoft Alliance to work. Rare seemed like the kind of studio that did great games in spite of Nintendo and not because of it.Sadly, it didn't, and Rare now is merely a familiar husk filled with I don't know.

It did not take long for new studios based on former Rare employees to start cropping up, which included Platinum games, who are mostly reknown for their Time Splitter series, and obvious Golden Eye/Perfect Dark send up with a time travel twist.


 Blinx the Cat is Sonic's distant cousin.

Well, sort of. The creator of Sonic is also the creator of Blinx, a time manipulating cat with a vacuum. While the similarites might end with them both being platformer animals, Blinx does share some of Sonics tude.

However, Blinx instead trades the trademark speed for a time manipulating gimmick. However, his Xbox exclusivity wound up being his undoing, as  despite some strong initial efforst now often overlooked to make the console home to more than a 13+ audience, the console was never the place for fuzzy wuzzy plataformer heroes. Blinx had two games, though, which is one more than most animal plataformers and also one more than Sudeki,  Voodoo Vince, Brute Force, Kung Fu Chaos...

King of Fighters is the REAL Street Fighter 2.

At some point after Street Fighter 1's hilariously catastrophic results, Capcom and it's creator decided to do a parting of the ways. I'm not gonna say it's because he made a game that people injure themselves with...but it's possible.

Street Fighter man wound up working on SNK and helping make...King of Fighters! Dun, dun DUUUUN!

Yes, KOF did borrow heavilly from what worked for Street Fighter 2, but at the same time added some things of it's own. Often considered rival franchises, they did wind up making nice, nice for a couple of crossover games at the turn of the millenium. Still, where Street Fighter found new life with SF 4, and Mortal Kombat had it's "comeback" with Mortal Kombat: Days of Future Past,  and Even Killer Instinct managed to clamber out of wishlists and into relevancy, King of Fighters has managed to skid in place for the better part of a decade. Maybe next Millenium, Ryo.

Human Killing Machine is the bad sequel to Street Fighter nobody wanted

Again, nobody liked Street Fighter Pelao, but apparently it was enough of a hit to deserve a follow up. Capcom immediately got on that eventually producing the classic...Final Fight.

However, a company that helped port SF to home computers called Tiertex, had a vision for a new Street Fighter, built on their engine for Street Fighter 1. They pitched it to Capcom as a sequel.

Capcom passed, and, say what you will about Capcom, but damn it when they get it right they get it right. THIS was going to be Street Fighter 2.

The game's character's make  SF2's cast of national stereotypes look like a sensitively appealing group. The Swedish fighters where prostitutes, for crap's sake.

Face it, in terms of "German Stereotypes", Hans the Schnitzel Maker here is the least bad possibility.

Marathon is Halo is Marathon

If you're like me, you don't need to see Halo ever again.

Before Microsoft came along, Bungie had made a name for itself with Marathon, a Doom Clone (shut up, I'm still young!)

While them both being first person shooters might seem like a bit of a loose connection, there's more than that. Both share the idea of a gun that can be charged for a bigger blast, among other ideas such as Forge, a level creator, and AIs on ship that had potential to go rogue.

In fact, before Bungie and Microsoft split, the threads between Haley and Mara could almost be seen visible in terms of the story and  symbology. Sadly, this is not to be anymore.



Star Soldier/Gladiator is the Star Wars game that never was.

Even the "Episode" Gimmick.

One day, Lucas Arts and Capcom where going to make a Star Wars fighitng game together. This makes sense, see, because Capcom was tops at the genre, and Lucas Arts was the best at having the rights to Star Wars. It was going to be super fun.

But at some point, Lucas Arts backed away from the deal, leaving Capcom with a partly done game about people wacking each other with Laser Swords that  they couldn't sell.

So, they changed a name here, a design there, barely anything here and voila! Star Soldier was born! While less Street Fighter with lasers and more  a poor man's Soul Edge in space, it's a fine couple of games, now mostly known because it's Ryu, Hayato, made an appearance in MVC2.

Lucas Arts, meanwhile, got some people and make Star Wars: Masters of Terras Kasi, which only wishes we could say it's a mediocre game.

My Marvel vs Capcom Spiritual sequel pitch: Text Version. at 11:35 AM

If you haven´t seen my video, here´s the short version: I can't wait 10 more years for Capcom and Marvel to get together and make a new 3 on 3 player super hero tag team, especially since it's possible Capcom goes under and Marvel is being a jerk about licencing.

So I'm trying to put together a crew of like-minded individuals who want to make a super hero tag team game . We're gonna need composers, drawing artists, people who know about the technical aspects of the game. We're gonna need people who know EF 12, MUGEN, Yoyo Gamemaker, or just plain code.


Now here´s the long written version.

I don´t believe in choosing one´s favorite things without really thinking it. For something to truly be one´s favorite, it must prove itself time and time again. It's the only way to distinguish the passing fads and temporary caprices from what truly hits one's core.

But I think in a sense Marvel vs Capcom 2 has proven itself to be many people´s favorite. It was never a perfect game. The cast came from disparately different games and it showed. The stages weren't anything to write home, and while the 2d sprites that weren't from Darkstalkers looked good, the backgrounds where generic and aged terribly. The music choices are still baffling.

But for a game that basically was a last hurrah for the series collecting all the characters that had been on it, and rounding  it with basically random stragglers(2 Wolverines and Anakaris? Amingo? Where's Anita, U.S. Agent and Shadow Lady? Where the hell is Cyber Akuma? No Warzard characters?) proved itself to have huge legs. For 10 years it was a mainstay of arcades, and the tourney years. 10 years. Halo is over 10 years. Do people still feverishly play Halo's multiplayer?

The known, colorful characters where certainly a plus. The game certainly held a lot of appeal with the promise of making a team with Street Fighter's Bison teaming up with Spider-Man. That's certainly part of it. But it wasn't the only fighting game with Marvel characters.

The success of that game is, at it's core, a design success. The gameplay is fast and accessible, but  with 56 characters to add to a 3 character team, that means that there was bound to be 168 possible teams, which, every character having 3 assist types, raises the possible combinations to 504. Even the update to the sequel couldn't touch it.

Speaking of that, UMVC3 is nearing it's fourth year birthday. Fans of the series where pretty disappointing with Capcom's handling overall of UMVC3 afterwards. The DLC was certainly disappointing/on disk. Capcom seems to have given up on this huge seller pretty quickly. Can't even play it online no more.

The Marvel series is showing all the signs to be headed into an even longer slumber than the decade between MVC2 and MVC3. Capcom is not doing so hot, lately. Don't be surprised if in a couple of years Capcom goes under, or gets bought up or sold.

Meanwhile, Marvel is doing so good, it's decided it to treat it's games division as another subsidiary of the films, focusing on producing games aligned with the movies it's making more than anything. Which is why Activision isn't making X-Men and Spider-Man games anymore.

So, until Marvel's games model goes kaput and Capcom pulls itself out of the muck, the odds of MVC4 are low to nil. And this is where the story used to end, back in the early 2000's.

But it's not the early 2000's anymore. Now, when Microsoft won't release a new Banjo Kazooie game, former Rare staff make a kickstarter for Yooka Laylee. When Konami won't make a traditional Castlevania,  it's original creator puts out a Kickstarter for  Bloodstained. When Capcom won't make a new Megaman game, it's original creator makes Mighty No.9.

So where's our spiritual sequel to Marvel vs Capcom? I mean,  fighting games have some of the more intense fan content generating scenes I've seen, and that's just MUGEN alone! We made Pokken before Pokken was cool. And that's what I'm here to pitch. An idea for us to get together and make a new MVC styled game.




Now, MVC had a pretty deep well of well known  and obscure characters from which to draw. And all those guys are gonna be under copyright for the forseeable future.

But not all superheroes are under copyright. Over the years, hundreds of this heroes have lost their copyright due to their parents companies going under and other such fates.

While you wouldn't mistake any of these guys for anything other than 1940's superheroes in their original state, it's certainly possible to reinvent them as something more modern. Say, analogues to popular current comic book and videogame characters.

For some, you wouldn't even need to go too far. I mean, look at Comet and Spider-Queen.



You're making a fighting game and you're gonna make a moveset for "shoots eyebeams" and "Can shoot web from her wrist." Hello? Streamline the designs a little, and you have some cool chars for a game!

Alas, there's other characters that don't really have that much going for them in terms of powers. A lot of them just have what I call "The Basic Superman". Really strong, Can Fly. A lot of them just have a costume and a gimmick with no actual powers.

But WE'RE calling the shots. We can make this characters do whatever we want! For an example, here's Red Rube.

Also, apparently "Red Rube" is a sexual thing that I don't want to be image googling.

Red Rube is a Captain Marvel(Whom, by the way, can also be on the game) knockoff with no actual powers other than being superstrong and supernaked. Like Captain Marvel, he's an orphan who transforms when he yells out a magic word.  But when he transforms he does a thing with a tornado instead of a thing with lightening.


So why not extrapolate that power set to "he can shoot tornados!" If you wanted him to be an analogue, there's at least two MVC characters with whirlwind powers.


There's all sorts of things that can be done. You can make a legacy character so as to mold the character into whatever age or race or gender you want to. You can pretend the character had a lenghty history to say "hey, that's what the character looked like in the 90's!" or "eventually he got powers" or "He's actually a character from an old videogame, brought to life." We could totally work in those snubbed characters that definitively should have been on there, but whern't.



And that's all before even discussing making an original character. It's certainly a possibility. Jussayin' is all. It's not like we can't make a whole new character or anything.

As for gameplay, may I suggest starting off with a base MVC2 engine, and then improving on that?

For example, add a combo breaker or  somesuch system. Batzarro's personally not  a huge fan of infinites. Or how was that thing in Tatsunoko called? Megacrash?

Another thing I'd like is the ability to choose assist types on the fly. It would add unpredictability to fights to not be expecting something in specific everytime you  see the assist character arrive.

It'd be pretty cool if all  characters could buff up their stats, similar to Juggernaut's Power Up move, with the caveat that it'd drain their meter. You can continually buff on top of the buffs, but it'd keep draining more and more meter. Once you're out of meter, the buffs are gone. We could call this option "Retcon".

Inversely, you could maybe debuff yourself temporarilly in exchange for more meter. Would you be willing to be a bit more frail or slower in exchange for that necessary bit of hyperbar?

There's also non-fighting things that I'd like to improve on the Marvel Games. For example, the story. I'd like to think we can come up with something a little  better than a slideshow for each character(or in MVC2's case, no even that). I mean, it doesn't have to be Mortal Kombat 9's or anything, but even Touki Densho had  somewhat more of a story than a game with characters that have decades of story to them. That's right, Touki Densho. You haven't even heard about that one.

How about endings that acknoweledge that the characters where a team, instead of just giving an ending to the guy who last punched? I know at least MVC1 toyed with that for a bit, but there's certainly more that can be done. 

I was making a fighting game story mode once, and while I couldn't ever finish it, It basically amounted to generic dialogue that could be replaced with character specific versions. You know, you say, for example "What would Ryu say HERE to start a fight? Something like 'I want to test my strength against you' right? But what would Wolverine say? 'Get out of my way, Bub!' probably!" Much like certain parts of Star Wars Kotor, different dialogues basically taking the story in a same direction.

How about Co-Op? The Marvel games completely missed the idea of Co-op, but this isn't 1999 anymore! There's no reason why multiple players can't control each  characters. Hell, can you imagine 3 on 3 gameplay? That would be boss.

In short,I don't think we've done enough with the idea of a super hero tag team game and with fighting games in general. 10 more years? Let's NOT wait 10 more years. Let's get together and do it.

NOT THE FINAL TITLE PLEASE DON'T SUE.

A Spiritual Sequel to Marvel Vs Capcom? Yes! at 9:21 AM

Wherein I outline the secret plot to out-Mahvel Capcom!