8 Video Games With The Strangest Spin-Off Titles

Think you know Tingle? Think again.

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Video games are more popular today than they’ve been at any point in history. Supposedly almost two-thirds of households in America own a video game console, and the market is apparently the most profitable entertainment industry by a shockingly wide margin. We’ve clearly come a long way since Pong.

Naturally, with this kind of success there comes a certain degree of laziness – or, as the bigwigs like to refer to it, “cross-franchise synergy opportunities”. From a financial standpoint, taking a franchise that’s already popular and doing something fresh with it makes complete sense.

For instance, Mario plus golf equals Mario Golf – an idea that has literally earned Nintendo millions of dollars. Generally, the rule of thumb is that the simpler a spin-off idea is, the better the end product will likely end up being – a rule that some of these spin-offs clearly don’t follow.

8 Castlevania – Konami Krazy Racers

Kart racing games are a dime a dozen these days. It seems that every franchise is contractually obliged to make a kart racing spin-off once they hit the big leagues, with the likes of Mario, Donkey Kong, Crash Bandicoot, and Sonic all competing for first in their own independent titles.

It’s fair to say some of these racers make a little less sense than others though. Team Sonic Racing might seem like a chief offender in this respect (why does a hedgehog that can run faster than the speed of sound need a car?) but Konami’s Krazy Racers is really pushing it when it comes to the narrative suspension of disbelief. What exactly possessed the likes of Metal Gear’s Gray Fox, Mystical Ninja’s Goemon, and Castlevania’s Dracula to race each other for pink slips is never explained, nor is it ever explicitly stated where Dracula learned how to do such sick drifts.

7 Mario – Mario’s Time Machine

Picking just one weird spin-off for Mario is no easy task. Nintendo has clearly thrown caution to the wind when it comes to its mustachioed mascot, having him feature in well over 200 games since his debut back in 1981. Whilst the educational spin-off Mario is Missing! is easily his most infamous example, its sequel, Mario’s Time Machine, might actually be even stranger than its predecessor.

The story sees Bowser in full colonizer mode, traveling through time in a bid to build the perfect museum and stealing significant historical artifacts in the process – not unlike the British Museum. Even though it’s supposed to be an educational game for children, Mario’s Time Machine has an impressively long list of historical inaccuracies and is surprisingly complicated to play.

6 Persona 3/4/5 – Dancing in Moonlight/Night/Starlight

Alright, strap yourselves in gamers, because this one isn’t just a spin-off – it’s a spin-off of a spin-off. The Persona series, which branched off from the Shin Megami Tensei series back in 1996, has already spawned a colourful list of its own spin-off titles. Persona 4: Arena, Persona Q, and Persona 5: Strikers cover a breadth of different genres, yet are all relatively successful in their own right.

The “Dancing” Persona spin-offs haven’t been singled out just because rhythm action games are a mildly amusing genre to poke fun at, but rather because Atlus decided they should all feature lengthy, canon storylines. Whilst the Dance Dance Revolution games aren’t commonly known for their in-depth narratives, it is funny to think someone out there still doesn’t know how Persona 3: Dancing In Moonlight’s story ends because their moves weren’t fresh enough to beat the final stage.

5 Final Fantasy – Dirge of Cerberus

When gamers think of Final Fantasy, they think of turn-based combat. They think of RPGs with deep, fleshed-out characters, or riding cute little Chocobos and summoning giant elemental gods. Do you know what gamers don’t typically associate with Final Fantasy? Blowing the head off a Cactuar with an AK-47.

Yet, in all its wisdom, Square Enix thought Dirge of Cerberus was a great idea. It’s not hard to see why they thought it could work on paper. Titles like Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal, GTA: San Andreas, and Resident Evil 4 were making waves less than two years prior, and by this point Final Fantasy VII had already reached cult status. Taking two great things and smashing them together isn’t a surefire recipe for success though, as Dirge of Cerberus proved when it released to middling review scores.

4 Mega Man – Mega Man Soccer

Some big-name franchises, like Mario or Sonic, are so deeply ingrained in the public consciousness that any nature of spin-off title featuring them immediately gets a pass. Kart racers, Tetris knock-offs, fighting games – hell, just have them compete in the Olympics. Nobody will bat an eye.

And then there’s Mega Man. He’s a powerhouse in his own right, sure, but what exactly was the rationale behind giving him his own football game? What was it about a blue cyborg child with a cannon for an arm that screamed “oi oi, footie!” to the folks at Capcom back in the mid-90s? Who knows, perhaps there’s a strong overlap between the demographics of Mega Man fans and middle-aged men that spend their weekends in pubs screaming at television screens.

3 The House of the Dead – The Typing of the Dead

Educational games, or “edutainment” as they’re often referred to, were only truly coming into their own in the late 90s. As the name might imply, educational games are usually aimed at younger audiences, and the age-appropriate content of these titles reflects this target demographic. As you might expect, “age-appropriate” and “The House of the Dead” aren’t two things that are classically synonymous with one another.

Apparently, nobody told SEGA this, as they released The Typing of the Dead back in 1999. A typing game in which you kill zombies would be weird enough on its own, yet the strangest thing about The Typing of the Dead is its critical response – releasing to extremely positive review scores and spawning multiple sequels as a result.

2 Pokemon – Pokemon Conquest

When a franchise is as big and as financially profitable as Pokemon, the likelihood of its spin-off titles branching off into wildly different genres becomes more of an eventuality rather than a possibility. Pokemon Snap, Pokemon Breeder (not as weird as it sounds), and Pokemon Magikarp Jump are only a few of the diverse games the franchise has spawned.

None are quite as far removed from the mainline Pokemon titles as Pokemon Conquest, however. It is a turn-based game, and you do control cute little Pokemon, but that’s where the similarities end. Conquest is a direct spin-off of the Nobunaga’s Ambition games, which, for those unfamiliar, are historical interpretations of real battles spearheaded by 16th-century warlord Oda Nobunaga – who even acts as your direct rival in the game. Just your standard, everyday military-industrial complex Pokemon game.

1 Zelda – Ripened Tingle’s Balloon Trip of Love

Given the popularity of the Zelda franchise, Nintendo is surprisingly restrained when it comes to giving Link any spin-off games. This is almost certainly a direct result of the infamously terrible Philips CD-i Zelda games, but Nintendo has clearly warmed to the idea given the recent success of titles like Cadence of Hyrule and Hyrule Warriors. With that being said, Western gamers may be slightly surprised to learn that Tingle, a reoccurring character first introduced in Majora’s Mask, actually has three of his own spin-off titles that never saw release in America.

The weirdest of these three, Ripened Tingle’s Balloon Trip of Love, sees you take control of a middle-aged man who has been magically transformed into Tingle against his will. Your goal is to increase the “love meters” of several women to complete your quest, during which you’re assisted by three different characters inspired by The Wizard of Oz; a lion, a tin woman, and a scarecrow. It’s not really a surprise that Nintendo passed on localising this one for Western markets

Link Source : https://www.thegamer.com/strangest-spin-offs-gaming/