As a game franchise goes on, it’s not unusual for its genre to shift and change a bit over time in order to keep a series fresh or modern. At the same time, game companies will often use spin-offs as an excuse to take an existing IP and try wild new things with it, from putting Mario in a go kart to putting Crash Bandicoot… in a go kart.
In all seriousness, there are a lot of different and unexpected genres that franchises have been spun off into, including fighting games. Super Smash Bros. isn’t the only instance of non-fighting-game characters being forced to engage in one-on-one fisticuffs with each other. Here are ten other franchises that took a stab at the fighting game genre that you might not be aware of– in most cases, because the results were best left forgotten.
10 Castlevania
The once-prolific Castlevania franchise feels all but officially retired at this point, not having seen a brand new installment in seven years and counting. Part of that is no doubt due to a few extremely misguided and poorly-received entries that tainted the brand, including Wii-exclusive fighting game Castlevania Judgement.
The idea wasn’t a terrible one, but the shoddy execution, terrible storylines (especially Maria’s), and the atrocious art style completely ruined an otherwise promising concept.
9 Sonic The Hedgehog
While Sega was busy not delivering a traditional Sonic game to the Saturn, the company seemed to put their mascot character into just about every other genre imaginable to make up for it. Unfortunately, most of these games weren’t very good, so that approach didn’t achieved its desired effect– if anything, the opposite happened.
Obviously, Super Smash Bros. proved that putting a company’s characters into a fighting game can be a really fun thing. But the bizarre Sonic The Fighters opted for a slower, more Virtua Fighter-esque approach, which didn’t fit with Sonic’s vibe and looked as awkward as it played.
8 Onimusha
Capcom used to go all-in on their franchises, sometimes to their detriment. That was definitely the case for samurai action/adventure series Onimusha, at its core a tight trilogy of great games that was unfortunately diluted by too many spin-offs and side games in a short amount of time.
To be fair, the idea of a samurai-based fighting game is a great one. But, again, it’s the execution that spoiled things for Onimusha: Blade Warriors. Instead of a deep, slow-paced fighter in the style of Bushido Blade, Capcom made the baffling decision to turn the game into a frenetic, over-the-top four-player romp.
7 Double Dragon
The fighting game and beat-em-up genres are very similar to each other, but franchises only occasionally try their hand at both– and when they do, the results are almost always disappointing. Such was the case with Double Dragon’s multiple attempts to stray from its traditional formula and go the tournament fighting route.
Rather than modernizing its beat-em-up formula to stay relevant with changing tastes, Double Dragon instead entered the world of fighting games with two different titles: Double Dragon for Neo-Geo, and Double Dragon V: The Shadow Falls. Both titles were pretty dreadful and all but killed the franchise for over a decade.
6 Final Fantasy
Sure, the Final Fantasy fighting game spin-off series Dissidia is popular enough to be its own multi-part series at this point, but given that the first two games were for PSP and the third hit PS4 in 2018 with little fanfare, you’d be forgiven if it flew under your radar. Plus, who can keep up with all 350 Final Fantasy games that have come out?
Unfortunately, the most easily-accessible Dissidia– the one for PS4 and PC– is the worst. The PSP installments are definitely the ones to check out and are worth doing so, provided you still have a PSP lying around somewhere.
5 Dungeons & Dragons
There might not be any one Dungeons & Dragons “franchise” in terms of video games, just a bunch of different titles that relate to the source material in some way. But most of them, not surprisingly, are RPGs, which makes the PS1 and PC title Iron & Blood pretty unique.
Of course, unique isn’t always good, and despite being technically impressive for its time in terms of graphics, number of characters, and depth of gameplay, Iron & Blood just wasn’t very fun or intuitive to play. For those that care, the game was set in Ravenloft, a D&D campaign setting that was only just retired last year.
4 Golden Axe
Another example of a pioneering beat-em-up that ventured into the fighting game arena, Golden Axe: The Duel fared much better than any of Double Dragon‘s attempts at the genre. In fact, you can tell just from comparing screenshots of the two games that some actual care and effort was put into The Duel, rather than looking like it was thrown together in a weekend.
The Duel definitely tried a little too hard to be Samurai Shodown, and never really reaches the heights of that iconic weapons-based series. Maybe with a sequel or two, The Duel might’ve had a real shot at evolving into a legitimate fighting game contender.
3 Viewtiful Joe
One of the great tragedies in video game history is the fact that Viewtiful Joe never reached the popularity that it deserved, and after just two core entries and a few spin-offs, the series faded into obscurity. At least the character showed up in a recent Marvel vs Capcom game, which is better than nothing.
What didn’t help is misguided efforts like Red Hot Rumble, which shoehorns the Viewtiful Joe world into a generic take on Super Smash Bros. We were thankful for all the VJ we could get, but this game definitely could’ve used a few more months in the development oven to be something special.
2 Digimon
It might seem like a no brainer to take franchises like Pokémon, Digimon, and the like and turn them into traditional fighting games, but it almost never happens. At least, not outside of multi-franchise crossovers like Super Smash Bros. It’s a shame, because Digimon Rumble Arena proves just how fun such a game could be.
For a Smash Bros. “clone,” Rumble Arena is actually quite fun and well-made, and even spawned a sequel. But given how poorly the recent Digimon game sold despite how good it is, it seems this franchise as a whole will remain sadly largely forgotten, including its fighting games.
1 Star Wars
Like with Dungeons & Dragons, games based on Star Wars aren’t part of a single franchise, but it still feels like a spin-off when a Star Wars game goes in an unorthodox direction. And few directions are more unorthodox than taking Star Wars characters like Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, and Boba Fett and having them punch and kick each other in a fighting game.
There were a few years there when Star Wars games weren’t known for being very good, and that was thanks in large part to garbage like Masters of Teras Kasi. How this trainwreck of a game ever saw the light of day is anyone’s guess.
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