Spin Off Spree

I was writing an article about games I’d like to see Nintendo branch out and do. But during the writing I noticed a particular theme going in some of my suggestions and realized it’d make more sense to do an entire piece on that concept and explain why Nintendo, of all companies, is the only one that could pull it off successfully and even provide examples of success (some of which are Nintendo owned) to show why this needs to be done.

Right now the WiiU has weak sales. So much so that they’re making the GameCube’s sales look impressive. Don’t get me wrong, I like both consoles (more than most of the others in fact) but my approval of them doesn’t change the fact that they aren’t pulling in consumers like they SHOULD be able to. Especially considering that of the three consoles of the current generation, the WiiU is my stand out favorite simply for having the most interesting games for the most reasonable price. But that’s not enough. What it needs is new games for the console so Nintendo can stand on its own two feet again. Fair enough, but what kind of games should we make for it? 

If you ask the fan base, they’re actually surprisingly divided. One segment wants more of the same games, even going so far as wanting them to go back to the old gameplay style from their previous installments, the throwback/retro approach. Others want new IPs and new games entirely… only to then not buy them despite them creating a high demand for those. There’s also a large, and somewhat intelligent segment, insisting on more 3^rd-Party games and support for those games. And, you know what, all three of them have very good opinions and I don’t think any one of them is wrong. But can you make games that can please all three groups to some degree? No, not likely… unless…

Here’s an idea I might have thrown down a while ago but I’ll mention it again here in greater detail. I feel like it’s really the only idea that has the potential to appease all three parties to some degree while still allowing Nintendo to do what it does best. People want new games and new IPs but still bitch when we don’t get another Mario or Zelda? Why not introduce new IPs through existing franchises that are popular enough to pull that off and expansive enough to have room for more characters to have their own story lines? 

I’ve already pointed out how both Metroid Prime Hunters and Metroid Prime 3: Corruption had the opportunity to pull this off and rather than take it they threw it aside like it wasn’t worth exploring. They introduced a total of EIGHT new characters that do exactly what Samus Aran does (hunt down criminals and targets in space for money) and all of them had their own unique skills and abilities where they wouldn’t necessarily be a rip-off of what Samus already does. Instead both of these games opted to kill off most of these characters because it was easier than anything else. Imagine what kind of games we could have had if even one of those characters worked alongside Samus, survived, and then made their own games?

And I can already hear what some of you are thinking. “Aaron! Spin-offs don’t always work! In fact, most of them generally fail because they fail to capture the spirit of the original! What a terrible idea! Go back into your hole and cry!” And yes, games like Shadow the Hedgehog would give you the impression that spin-offs are a failure state and shouldn’t be bothered with. But I can list several examples that might convince you the merit to this idea! 

First off are Donkey Kong and WarioWare. Both of which are characters from the Mario franchise, both former villains (or descendants of villains) in fact. And Donkey Kong Country was one of the more popular titles on the SNES. So much so that we’re now getting a revamp of the series with Donkey Kong Country Returns. As for Wario? He has Warioland, Wario World, and WarioWare all under his belt. None of which are more popular than Mario but they must meet respectable enough sales numbers for the franchise to keep pushing the concept. And most of these games are fun and more imaginative in terms of adding new ideas to the platforming mechanics than Mario is (both DK and Wario). So we already have two successful ideas under the Nintendo label. Still not convinced? What about… 

Metal Gear Solid? We started out as a series about Solid Snake being a spy/soldier doing missions for some branch of the government in a stealth-based game. What do we have now? The latest game was about a cyborg breakdancing ninja cutting everything to ribbons with an electro-katana. Both of which are the same universe fighting similar enemies and dealing with Metal Gears (the giant machines that we thought were destroyed years ago). Both of which employ the same type of insanely over-the-top stupid writing that’s both entertaining and depressingly bad. And the new Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance ended up being a very popular and successful title of 2013 despite the retarded subtitle. 

Then there’s the massively successful and still somewhat relevant World of WarCraft which is just a spin-off of the main series, Warcraft which was a real-time strategy game. Now it’s an MMORPG that defined a whole new genre of games for years to come and killed the social lives of nerds around the globe. By that logic, the Call of Duty spun off into the Modern Warfare games which are financially successful and critically debatable. Either way, you have two games so popular that they essentially dominated the market and defined their own genres (the latter being Online Shooters and Military Shooters) and are some of the most relevant games in discussion to date. 

And lest we forget Portal. While you might not really think it, it is technically a spin-off of Half-Life in that Half-Life 2 Episode 2 introduced the Borealis and Aperture Science to the world of Gordon Freeman and Black Mesa. Now Portal is one of the most popular games ever made. GlaDOS is one of the most loved villains in gaming. And now that might spin-off into a separate series of co-op focused games with the little robots.

So this idea has been done before both in more obvious and direct ways (Donkey Kong & Metal Gear) and other subtle less in your face ways (WoW and Portal). Fine, so I’ve proven that good games have come from this concept. But why claim Nintendo has the potential to do this better than anyone else? I’d think that should be obvious. 

The Mushroom Kingdom, Hyrule, and the entire galaxy Samus operates in are just three examples of big open worlds we’ve only seen parts of but not the entire thing. Even so, we haven’t seen everybody from that world. Certainly there are other warriors and heroes in Hyrule that could challenge Link or defend the princess or defeat dark mages in other parts of the world. I’d be willing to bet there are other bounty hunters in space (other than Captain Falcon) who are just as compelling as our beloved Samus. And you can’t tell me the Mushroom Kingdom doesn’t have other characters worth following around when we already have TWO with their own game franchises (Lugi makes three if you count Luigi’s Mansion). 

That and they're generally good at designing characters and big worlds. Otherwise their games wouldn't be nearly as popular as they are today. 

For Zelda, the easiest method would be to introduce a new rival or ally character for Link to work with/against throughout the game towards the same goal. Perhaps he/she is a new guard of Zelda’s that doesn’t trust Link at first but as they work towards stopping the bad guy of the week (or Ganondorf) you could have them learn about one another. Perhaps this would be a chance to characterize Link more as well. This also leaves it open to be a co-op experience or just have two separate story lines for the characters that sometimes crosses into one another (like the excellent Sonic Adventure games). And you could even get a new bad guy. Perhaps the rival character comes from another land in search of the Tri Force to help remove evil from his home. But the evil followed him/her in an effort to dominate Hyrule as well. 

What about Metroid spin-offs? As I said, just introduce new bounty hunters and not kill them off right away seems like the easiest approach to that. Perhaps the Space Pirates are taking turf in a new part of the galaxy Samus has yet explored. There we meet a bounty hunter who is just as capable as Samus (who should also be playable to the same degree as the previously mentioned Zelda concept) and fights both Samus and the pirates (thinking them allies). But something happens, perhaps Ridley, Kraid, or a new ganglord of the pirates, steps out and manages to bring them both down. Thinking them dead the pirates go on about their business. But the two awaken to realize they have been depowered (or even desuited) and must work together to stop these guys and their new evil plot. 

Mario is a bit trickier and requires more imagination. You already have enough rivals for Mario where making more doesn’t do much. But perhaps you could go back to Mario’s roots and improvise something else. By that, I mean Mario used to have a laundry list of occupations like referee, boxer, plumber, animal-tamer, snake-charmer, fireman, etc. Why not have Mario and the gang dump all their usual occupations for a game and just “roleplay” something else and introduce new characters in that. Set a Mario game in the old west, outer space, age of dinosaurs, ancient Rome or Greece, in a jungle, in a desert, in a frozen wonderland, in a theme park, in an alternate reality, or some other new bizarre setting in which everyone now has a new role or job. Maybe Mario is a sheriff, space smuggler, prehistoric barbarian, or whatever else and you can introduce a SLEW of new characters in any one of these settings. Then when sequel time rolls around, make those new characters the focus and pull back the Mario characters. Eventually you can just have the new characters with the Mario characters being nothing more than background characters or Easter Eggs.

The basic premise is that you introduce something new with something old. People are alienated by the idea of new things that are completely unfamiliar. And with games not being cheap and your time not being redeemable, most people don’t want to risk any of that on something new and unproven. Yet if we introduce these new characters, worlds, settings, and storylines through existing and popular franchises like Zelda, Mario, and Metroid, we have a chance to get people interested in them without the big investment needed to push them into something entirely new and different.

From there you can spin off more characters and ideas from the new franchises established or go back to the big three and try again. If that fails, make them DLC characters for Smash Bros and see if that generates any love and attention for them. It worked for Fire Emblem and it could certainly work here.

And as for the getting third-parties, that's relatively simple. Who made Donkey Kong Country? Rare Ware. DKC Returns? Retro Studios (who also made Metroid Prime). Who made Metal Gear Rising? Platinum instead of Konami, who are also making Bayonetta 2 exclsuively to the WiiU and already gave the WiiU Wonderful 101. Make other developers take on these newer franchises OR maybe even make the games that introduce the new characters! You have options and having NEW talent on board to breathe life into some older franchises couldn't possibly hurt. 

Failing all that, they could just translate more Japanese-Only games out to the west. If anything we’d get more JRPGs and I’d settle for that right now. That’s all for today, and if you have suggestions or ideas, leave them in the comments! See ya next time!