The Best, Worst, and Most Bizarre Spin-offs
Turning a strategy game into an FPS, a brawler into a puzzle game, or a stealth game into a card game is just the tip of the iceberg of weird spin-offs that popular series have been getting over the years.
Table of Contents
Silent Hill: Book of Memories
The following page contains:
- Silent Hill: Book of Memories
- Command & Conquer: Renegade
- Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo
- Uncharted: Fortune Hunter
- Yakuza: Dead Souls
- Super Mario Series
Rumors about a new installment of the Silent Hill series, which have been circulating online for several months, give fans hope that Konami has not entirely forgotten the brand. The more cautious players, however, recall the dark days of the franchise, embodied by the abomination called Silent Hill: Book of Memories, released on PS Vita.
Instead of a psychological horror with great story, we got a roguelite action game, offering isometric perspective and brimming with RPG elements. The title had little to offer to fans of the brand. Well, maybe apart from the atmosphere and some of the locations related to the main installments.
Interestingly, the British studio Climax, originally prepared a Silent Hill prototype much closer to the main parts of the series, but Konami was not satisfied with this, and green-lit Book of Memories. In retrospect, one can only be taken aback and disappointed.
Command & Conquer: Renegade
C&C: Renegade could easily be considered the nail in the coffin of the acclaimed Westwood studio, which once took real-time strategy to a new level. Command & Conquer series still boasts a huge fanbase to this day. Almost everyone, however, would rather forget Renegade.
Why? It was enough to change the genre of the game. A popular strategy was turned into an ordinary FPS. The production wasn't that bad to be honest, but after the subsequent hit installments, gamers felt rather cheated and disappointed with what Electronic Arts had cooked up. This translated into a bad financial performance and the deletion of the planned PS2 version.
However, as it happens in the gaming world, C&C: Renegade eventually received a fan remake powered by Unreal Engine 3. Renegade X was released in 2014 and has been supported and developed since. A few months ago, Firestorm campaign was released.
Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo
These days, combining puzzle games with other genres isn't as surprising as a dozen years ago. The huge popularity of the Street Fighter series encouraged Capcom to experiment. At some point, someone took a look at Puyo Puyo, extremely popular in Japan, and decided to combine its elements with solutions from the popular brawler, which resulted in Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo.
Since PuyoPuyo was created under the Tetris license , Capcom's title was based on Alexey Pajitnov's work as well. The screen was divided into two parts, and blocks, falling from the top, had to be arranged by colors. To get rid of them, however, you need to combine them with explosive gems, which caused a chain reaction.
This is where the Street Fighter reference comes in. Each time after such a move, the characters from the Capcom series started fighting, performing combos known to fans of brawlers. The round ended when the opponent was covered with excess blocks. The gameplay wasn't particularly complicated, and charming visuals additionally encouraged play.
Uncharted: Fortune Hunter
In the category of action-adventure games, the Uncharted series is often considered the pinnacle of the genre, and has long since dethroned Tomb Raider. It should not surprise anyone that Sony stroke iron while it was hot, and after the release of Uncharted: Golden Abyss on PS Vita, decided to prepare another game dedicated to the portable console.
Sony Bend studio (Days Gone) were entrusted in creating a card game in the world of Uncharted. Today, this idea might have worked. In 2012, though, the Fortune Hunterwent completely unnoticed.
Main culprit: underdevelopment. Sony Bend had no experience in this genre, having previously only made third-person action games. It's worth appreciating the desire to create something new, but Uncharted: Fortune Hunter simply failed. Servers were shut down in 2019.
Yakuza: Dead Souls
When you ask a fan of the Yakuza series about the spin-off Dead Souls, there's a very good chance you'll hear a rant about Sega, who decided to make this... Failed experiment.
Yakuza is known for its semi-open world with various side activities that complement the main storyline. With a plethora of interesting characters and an engaging story to top it off, it's among the most popular game series out there. And all those elements were missing in Yakuza: Dead Souls.
It was a third-person shooter depicting a zombie attack on Kamurocho, which could only be stopped by the heroes of previous parts of the series (up to and including Yakuza 4). All of this was served in an extremely crude manner. In comparison with the main installments of the series, this spin-off came off very poorly.
Super Mario Series
Last, but not least, we have Super Mario. Throughout the last two decades, the popular plumber likely graced pretty much any genre you can name.
Starting from the brawler series Super Smash Bros., through the party game Mario Party, the racer Mario Kart, the RPG Paper Mario and Super Mario RPG, a take on Tetris, Dr. Mario, and a host of sports games (Super Mario Strikers, Mario Golf and Mario Tennis), and ending on educational games (Mario Teaches Typing) and other, more bizarre games like Hotel Mario, or Mario’s Game Gallery – they really tried it all.
Many of these spin-offs have achieved success comparable to the popularity of the main series. Super Smash Bros. is in a class of its own, Mario Kart is a trendsetter in its genre, and Mario Party is still quite popular despite its slight decline. Nintendo, on the other hand, doesn't stop experimenting and almost constantly continues to try to use the brand to create something new, with Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker being a good example.
