/dev/games 16 Apr 2007 12:33 am
Bastard Children
I’m trying, very hard, to find a boxed copy of Super Mario Land for Gameboy. I want to know if the manual explains why Mario travels in a spaceship. It’s basically a rom-hack that sold millions of copies. I’m very into the bastard children of extremely popular game series. Those games that just feel wrong within the brand. Most of the time, these games happen when companies try and port their most popular franchises to less powerful hardware. Here’s a quick list of some of my favorites:
- Super Mario Land
- Final Fantasy X-2
- Ms. Pac-man
- Half-Life for PS2 (with co-op!)
- The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening
- Twinbee RPG
- Street Fighter 2: The Movie: The Game
- Mario is Missing
- Most arcade ports to the Atari and the SEGA Master System
- Every game for the CDi
- Every game for the Virtual Boy
- Stretch Panic (not in a series, but it’s just wrong)
- Mighty Final Fight
- Contra Force
- Most games for the Game Gear
These are probably my favorite types of games. They break almost all the rules of branding, but they almost always try something new, sometimes it’s awesome! Sometimes it’s terrible.
