The Official video game spin-off thread

[Yaramaki]

Makes me wonder if i coulden't have come up with a better topic title but ohwell if you have any better suggestion please tell so i can edit the topic title, it's fucking hot out here and my balls have been cooked nearly a couple of times already today so what do you expect.

So the question is what are some of your favourite video game spin-offs and if you feel like why not list some of the worst you have played?  Obviously mario and sonic had way too many spin-offs some went on to become a huge succes and became their own huge franchise like mario kart, another franchise that comes to mind is square-enix their very own cash cow offcourse it's the final fantasy franchise. 

Maybe another that should be listed first as in being milked dry is tecmo koei's very own dynasty warriors which span off into more spin-offs then anything else. Fist of the north star, Zelda, Persona, one piece, fire emblem,berserk, gundam several other real time periods have also been featured they all got the musou threatment while arguable these are great games in their own right it's once you've played one, you played them all case.

Speaking of Persona which started out as a spin-off from the shin megami tensei series which you could say is more populair then the mainline games by now had a few rhythm games, a 2d fighter and several 3d's spin offs. Before somebody points me out yes i"m aware there are also other shin megami tensei spin-offs like last bible, jack bros and and offcourse the often overlooked Tokyo Mirage Sessions FE.

My personal favourite spin-off that isn't too obscure and hard to find would be 2018 Fist of the north Star : Lost Paradise which is a spin-off of the yakuza series, not only is Fist of the north star my favourite anime, lost paradise is also the best fist of the north star game out there. Offcourse a spin-off thread wouldn't be complete if the exellent judgment and lost judgment games wouldn't have been mentioned atleast once. There are more yakuza spin-offs out there with dead souls the only one released in the west seems like a game nobody really mentions anymore, while i had fun with it and the whackyness keeps it fresh it's not really a great game imo. Obviously sega should also make work of releasing the other two spin off titles on ps4 and if it's not asking too much while we are it why not include the 2 psp yakuza games in one neat package to the west.

Let's end here knowing that i could add way more and will do so in the upcoming days, this is a thread that could have a lot of potential for a serious discussion so invite anybody who wants to join in on the fun go nuts.

[Withywarlock]

4 minutes ago, Yaramaki said:

Makes me wonder if i coulden't have come up with a better topic title but ohwell if you have any better suggestion please tell so i can edit the topic title, it's fucking hot out here and my balls have been cooked nearly a couple of times already today so what do you expect.

I told my partner earlier in the week about this Troll Bat Rider quote from WarCraft III: Reign of Chaos. And they say it's too early to have chestnuts roasting on an open fire...

~

I think the best spin-off game I played was Crash Team Racing. I've spoken at length about it before, but to sum up it's the greatest kart racer I've ever played and few rival it. However, it's not a very good Crash Bandicoot game: its music is catchy but doesn't quite capture the same style; the tracks are great but have little in relation to the mainline games; the adventure mode is decent but makes less sense than even the wackiest antics of the core of the series. But it controls well, is as rewarding as you make it, and is not at all over-designed like a lot of modern racing games today.

I would like to say Crash Bash is the worst spin-off I've played but it understood what it was supposed to be. It just didn't execute it very well. I did a very lengthy write-up on it on this here forum for those who have nothing else better to do.

Unfortunately, the 'honour' of worst spin-off goes to Overlord: Fellowship of Evil. It's a completely forgettable mixture of uninteresting characters, lacklustre minion usage, ARPG combat and overusing the great voice actor Mark Silk. Being a spin-off is no justification for being bad, and while spin-offs often get flak for the wrong reasons, Fellowship of Evil deserves the scathing review I gave it some years ago.

When talking about spin-offs, I tend to use a quote from an old review I did: Warhammer cannot make a bad game good; it can only make a good game great. In the case of Fellowship of Evil, being Overlord only elevated it slightly enough to be worth looking at.

[Yaramaki]

On 8/14/2022 at 11:32 AM, Withywarlock said:

I told my partner earlier in the week about this Troll Bat Rider quote from WarCraft III: Reign of Chaos. And they say it's too early to have chestnuts roasting on an open fire...

~

I think the best spin-off game I played was Crash Team Racing. I've spoken at length about it before, but to sum up it's the greatest kart racer I've ever played and few rival it. However, it's not a very good Crash Bandicoot game: its music is catchy but doesn't quite capture the same style; the tracks are great but have little in relation to the mainline games; the adventure mode is decent but makes less sense than even the wackiest antics of the core of the series. But it controls well, is as rewarding as you make it, and is not at all over-designed like a lot of modern racing games today.

I would like to say Crash Bash is the worst spin-off I've played but it understood what it was supposed to be. It just didn't execute it very well. I did a very lengthy write-up on it on this here forum for those who have nothing else better to do.

Unfortunately, the 'honour' of worst spin-off goes to Overlord: Fellowship of Evil. It's a completely forgettable mixture of uninteresting characters, lacklustre minion usage, ARPG combat and overusing the great voice actor Mark Silk. Being a spin-off is no justification for being bad, and while spin-offs often get flak for the wrong reasons, Fellowship of Evil deserves the scathing review I gave it some years ago.

When talking about spin-offs, I tend to use a quote from an old review I did: Warhammer cannot make a bad game good; it can only make a good game great. In the case of Fellowship of Evil, being Overlord only elevated it slightly enough to be worth looking at.

You know since i didn't have much else to do today, kinda wanted to go out and do a long hike since it's cooling off a bit now, low and behold it's raining the entire day. 

I booted up Crash bash and played it for a couple of hours and goddamn look what you made me do @Withywarlock as i was supposed to be reorganizing my collection not playing old rubbish. First of all while its not great It's not that bad either to be called a worse spin off. The first 2 hours i had genuinely fun with the game, i played trough the adventure mode and after struggling for half an hour with a minigame where you have to ride a tank and blow each other up i finally made it to the second boss fight where the game suddenly spikes in difficulty, sure i probably could beat him if it weren't for the unfair 5 seconds your frozen each time you're getting hit, may aswell give up because you're getting pushed off the platform each time anyway. I'll probably give the game another chance if my gf her son comes over as i find these type of games are much more enjoyable with 2 people.

Obviously Crash bash was made to capitalise on Mario party. Considering the game is 22 years old, it was a decent enough alternative for playstation owners at the time. The only problem with the ps1 you had to get a mutitap to play with 4 people, which probably not a lot of people even owned in the first place because it wasen't the cheapest accessoiry to begin with, where with the n64 we would just bring our own controller to somebody elses place to play local multiplayer.