Question Wednesday #6: Licensed Games

[moon_hotel]

Sorry for missing last week! Here's a question for this week, though...

I've been thinking lately about licensed games, usually made as tie-ins to existing movie or TV show franchises, such as Chronicles of Riddick or Mickey Mouse Mousecapades etc. When I was growing up I remember thinking thay they were all really poor cash-in attempts, but even nowadays I have to admit that McDonald's Treasureland is absolutely amazing. Do you have any memories of licensed games that took you by surprise, whether in a good or bad way?

And, as always, what are you playing right now?

Comments

[peppertsuki]

Oh god I'm too busy with my own games to play any at the moment! But as far as fond memories of licensed games go, I liked Spiderman: Separation Anxiety (even if I could never beat it as a kid) and Robotech: Battlecry when I was a bit older.

One of these days I want to make a licensed game of my own. I don't think Toei, Luckyland, or Sunrise would appreciate my ideas though.

[moon_hotel]

To be honest, I think making totally unauthorized licensed games off of stuff is a lot of fun, especially if it's of properties obscure enough that you can just, like, fly under the radar for as long as you can manage. I have a lot of ideas for racy Dragon Quest-based visual novels for sure :V

[peppertsuki]

That's true, but there is something to be said for actively getting to determine what counts as canon without a bunch of nerds saying you're wrong :P

[tepidsnake]

Two that I remember seeing back then and really being amazed by were Capcom's Marvel-based fighting games, X-Men: Children of the Atom and Marvel Super Heroes. The latter in particular I played at a local bowling alley and was blown away by how great and vibrant the visuals were, and it was fun to play too. Also from Capcom, I saw Cadillacs & Dinosaurs in an arcade in Majorca and that had a huge impact on me, just the quality of the spritework and the over-the-top chaos of the game made me appreciate 2D games so much more from then on (as well as the other, non-license game in that arcade, Metal Slug 2).

One less amazing one was Bugs Bunny in Rabbit Rampage which, looking at the footage now seems pretty bog-standard but back when I had this as a kids, I remember just being completely baffled by it- you grab a whole load of different items and have to just figure out what they do (no instruction manual!). I only ever reached the Taz stages shown in this video, and never beyond that. Just a thoroughly odd game. The Mega Drive/Genesis Taz-Mania game is super-weird too, especially the soundtrack which tries to emulate the way a Looney Tunes short would sound, with sound effects as part of the music... As odd as that sounds, really.

As for games I've been playing, a friend and I are playing all the Samurai Shodown games in online versus this month via Fightcade, and we've done 1 and 2 so far (we've played V Special before but this is the first we've played any of the others). We both liked the atmosphere of 1- it's a lot more serious, as 2 has some kinda silly things like being able to turn into substitute dolls and stranger characters like Cham Cham and Nicotine- but 2 feels stronger mechanically, like being able to temporarily destroy enemy weapons with super moves and actual parries (not that I'm good enough to pull them off). Neither of us have played much of 3 or 4 so we're looking forward to those!

I've also been playing Threads of Fate as recommended by madamluna and oh wow this game is so good, so good. No EU release so I'm playing a downloaded version from US PSN on my PS3, and it's a real shame we missed out on this, the characters and dialogue are absolutely adorable, especially Mint (spoiled ex-princess who dropkicks everything) and Fancy Mel (witch who is as fancy as her name suggests). Neat levelling-up mechanics too, a bit like FF2 where getting hit increases your HP (but enemies drop health so it balances out). I'm just in love with this, I'll be sad when it's over!

[moon_hotel]

You mentioning Rabbit Rampage reminds me that I've never played Buster's Bad Dream, even though it's by Treasure and a lot of Treasure gamers back in the day were really jazzed about it. I don't remember if it got canned or if it just came out and went really under the radar? I should look it up. (That also reminds me that Treasure's Astro Boy game is one of the best licensed games around! It makes absolutely amazing use of the properties.)

Also I'm so glad you're enjoying Threads of Fate!!! I knew you'd love Mint and Fancy Mel, they're exactly your type of characters I think :^) (Elena too!) I think the leveling-up mechanic fits the game pretty well, yeah--I think it's way more balanced than a lot of similar iterations of that stat-building system, especially in FF2 itself and the SaGa games.

[tepidsnake]

IIRC Buster's Bad Dream had a weird release, as it came out in Europe about 4 years (!) before the US. I've always been curious about it too! That also reminds me, I enjoyed the Tiny Toons games Konami put out back then- I had the SNES game which had neat stuff like wall-running and a side-scrolling American football stage, and a friend of mine wrote this great piece on the Mega Drive game.

And yeah, I really like Elena too! The scene where Mint comes up with a series of lies for Elena to tell to Duke (dressed as a star) is precious. I'm pretty curious about what sort of reception the game got when it came out- seems no-one really talks about it? From what I can see, at least. Really enjoying it though, and there's a doujin sequel Duo Princess that I'll have to try next!

[peppertsuki]

Oh man I know nothing about Cadillacs and Dinosaurs (I only learned that it was ever a thing a few months ago) but mentioning that reminded me of the fun I had when I was little, inserting Chuck E Cheese tokens into the Jurassic Park arcade game where the seat moved as you played. It was a mess of a game reflecting on it, but I had so much fun. I didn't even care that it didn't pay out tickets.

(Speaking of moving seats, I really want to play Steel Battalion while sitting in one of those.)

[tepidsnake]

That's the Sega one based on the first movie, right? I've only seen that a few times but it's pretty fun! Back when I first played it, I had no idea Cadillacs & Dinosaurs was based on a comic (that even had a cartoon I've never seen) but it's such a good brawler. Perhaps outdone by Aliens Vs. Predator, but it's still great.

And oh, Steel Battalion, I've only ever played that once at a convention, but even with a help sheet I couldn't get my head around it D: