Video games copied each other from the start. There is no shame in this; through copying, games can refine certain ideas and even create new ones. Innovation is key to the medium, helping developers avoid stagnation.
However, not all copycat games are better than the original. Many of them are worse off, reminding fans how difficult it is to create something great. Of course, just because a game isn’t better than the original doesn’t make it a bad game. Some titles are clearly clones that are not on the same level as the original.
10 Balan Wonderworld Is A Weak Clone Of Nights Into Dreams
Balan Wonderworld instantly made comparisons to Sonic Team and Yuji Naka’s beloved action game Nights into Dreams. Read also : Addressing the policy challenges posed by NFT games. Although Naka’s reputation wasn’t quite that of the 90s, people were eager to see how his latest game could have been different from Sega.
Unfortunately, Balan Wonderworld has disappointed on almost every level. The game offers boring gameplay and almost every action is mapped to a single button. As a result, the title was one of Square’s best-selling and worst-reviewed titles of 2021, coming in at 44 on Metacritic.
9 Call of Duty: Black Ops III Wanted To Be Like Titanfall
Call of Duty was already getting futuristic with 2013’s Call of Duty Ghosts, but Activision pushed things further after Titanfall’s positive reception. To see also : Disney+ just changed the title of Jessica Jones’ Netflix show. Respawn’s Titanfall was considered an extraordinary title when it was first released, with its futuristic setting and unique map crossing.
While the game didn’t sell much because it was stuck on Xbox, Activision made its upcoming games even more futuristic, complete with techniques like wall-jumping for crossover. Eventually, fans had such a problem with this that Activision went back to “boots in the field” with Call of Duty: World War II. The franchise has remained in the present or the past ever since, where it has created some of Call of Duty’s most memorable campaigns.
8 The Mighty No. 9 Is A Desperate Rip-Off Of Mega Man
Following the success of Mega Man 11 in 2010, Mega Man fans were eager to see the Blue Bomber make its return to consoles. They were so eager that they made Mighty No. To see also : Video Games & Education: Good, Bad, and Number | TheXboxHub. 9 one of the most funded Kickstarters of the time. The game was funded in two days, and while it only needed 900,000, Comcept had reached $ 4,000,000 in total funding by the end.
Unfortunately, when the game was released three years later, it wasn’t what everyone was hoping for. Everything from the enemy to level design felt like a less impressive version of the old Mega Man games and it didn’t even have an interesting aesthetic to fall back on in place of its mediocre gameplay. And despite a successful Mega Man 11, fans are still hungry for another game from this retro franchise.
7 Hyper Scape Is A Weak Fortnite Competitor
Fortnite’s global success has not gone unnoticed by the gaming industry. Everyone wanted to get in and it didn’t take long before the big companies started releasing their own battle royale. In fact, in 2020, Ubisoft was lagging behind on the battle royale market. In return, Hyper Scape tried to add some major changes to the formula. Instead of shrinking the map, the random sectors disappeared and, instead of killing everyone, a player had to hold a “crown” at the end for a full minute.
Despite a media blitz and the payment of many streamers to play, Hyper Scape failed to capture the magic of what worked for other battle royales. The skill level was too high and the changes made things more confusing rather than more fun. Although they said they would work on it, the game was closed in 2022.
6 Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor Couldn’t Quite Nail The Batman: Arkham Feel
Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor is an example of how a game can be worse than the creator without necessarily being bad. Shadow of Mordor is a pretty good game, which tells the story of how the human Talion and his elven conspirator Celebrimbor plan to take revenge on Sauron. Teleporting to the field and dominating the orcs is as satisfying as anyone could wish for.
But there’s really no way to compare that title to the Batman: Arkham game series, which not only became one of the first good superhero-based games, but is consistent across multiple installments. Also, Arkham Asylum and Arkham City are considered two of the best games on PlayStation 3, while Shadow of Mordor is just a “great” title on PlayStation 4.
5 Call of Duty: Blackout Isn’t As Beloved As PUBG
While a lot of battle royale would eventually turn to Fortnite to nurture ideas, Call of Duty decided to look to the OG for their first BR. Call of Duty: Blackout looks like a more refined AAA version of the successful PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds. There’s nothing wrong with that, but compared to today’s BR genre, its UI and styling looks a little dated.
There’s a reason Activision replaced it after just over a year on the market, moving to the much more popular Warzone in 2020. Given the chance to find its own identity, Warzone has become everything Blackout wasn’t, and is a great guilty pleasure game.
4 Assassin’s Creed Origins Is A Poor Man’s Version Of The Witcher 3
In 2016, Ubisoft took a year off for the first time from Assassin’s Creed II to work on their next Assassin’s Creed title. It was worth it; Assassin’s Creed Origins is one of the best games in the series. Bayek is a compelling main character, and his quest to shut down the people responsible for killing his son makes for one of the best stories in the franchise.
There is only one problem; the game was clearly heavily inspired by The Witcher 3. Everything from the world design to the mission-based story structure appears to have been pulled from The Witcher. To the credit of the game, it’s a great copy, but pales in comparison to the genre-defining RPG of CDProjekt.
3 Saint’s Row Struggled To Be More Than A GTA Clone
Grand Theft Auto III was so successful that the developers copied various aspects of the franchise. Modern cities, open worlds, gritty aesthetics. Some franchises have been successful while others have faded. Saint’s Row managed to find a lane of its own, but not with its first games.
Although the first two games have their own audiences, they never lived up to Rockstar’s oeuvre. It wasn’t until Saint’s Row 3, when the franchise stopped trying to be a GTA clone and became a thing of its own, that the series was successful.
2 Yokai Watch Tried To Take On The Pokémon Juggernaut
The impressive sales of Yokai Watch made it seem like the franchise could finally become the Pokémon competitor fans were looking for. Unfortunately, Level-5 has continued to churn out games and a glut of merchandise. The franchise went from fresh and different to stale within a few years.
The first three Yokai Watch titles were released from 2013 to 2016, but with the release of the third title, sales had slowed so much that it took three years to finally release the fourth title. Nowadays, Yokai Watch retains some popularity, but Pokémon remains the king.
1 PlayStation All-Star Battle Royale Wasn’t Sony’s Solution To Smash Bros.
In 2012, the platform fighting genre basically consisted of Super Smash Bros. And since Super Smash Bros. Brawl didn’t have the same love as Melee, the way was open for Sony to create their own game. Unfortunately, Sony’s attempt to make their own Smash Bros game was a failure. Compared to most fighters, All-Star had a poor amount of content and the presentation for its story mode was lacking.
Worse still, the changes made to the battle system were frustrating; the only way to finish off opponents was super moves, which could go wrong and make a player feel like they were working for nothing. Oddly enough, the platform fighting genre has only grown in popularity in the years since then, but Sony has yet to give this series another try.
NEXT: 10 video game characters who were forced to grow up too soon
