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The Best (and Worst) Crossovers in Video Games – IGN – IGN


Crossovers happen in media all the time. The Jetsons meet the Flintstones. Supergirl shows up in The Flash. But in games, melding the characters and gameplay mechanics from divergent worlds can be a tall order. How do you remain true to the unique vision of each game while still create something more than the sum of its parts?With the recent announcement of Resident Evil 2’s Leon & Claire coming to Monster Hunter World: Iceborne, we thought it would be a good time to take a look back at some of the best (and worst) crossover events in gaming history.

Gaming’s Best and Worst Crossovers

Flip through the gallery above or scroll down the page for the full list!

BEST: Super Smash Bros (series)

Obviously. Crossing over the worlds of some of the greatest Nintendo games of all time, Super Smash Brothers could have easily gotten by just on the strength of characters from Nintendo’s own IPs like Link, Mario, Kirby, or Samus. Thankfully, though, they instead opted to include characters from all over the gaming universe, including heroes like Metal Gear’s Solid Snake or Joker from Persona 5.

They’re all here in a remarkably well-balanced fighting title that encapsulates the “easy to learn, hard to master” mindset that so many games strive for, making it pretty much the gold standard that all crossover games should aspire to be.

WORST: PlayStation Move Heroes

PS Move Heroes is the epitome of a good idea gone bad. On paper, combining the iconic characters from the Ratchet, Sly, and Jak games could’ve worked well in the same way that Smash Bros. has for Nintendo. But then enters the “Move” aspect of the game, which immediately threw a wrench in the whole thing.Unresponsive controls, incredibly repetitive levels, and a dumb story ruined any potential that may have existed. Couple this with the fact that neither Insomniac, Sucker Punch, or Naughty Dog worked on the game, and it’s pretty telling why this mash-up flopped.

BEST: Professor Layton VS Phoenix Wright

This stand-alone crossover game combines the fun, puzzle-solving gameplay of Professor Layton with the courtroom drama of Phoenix Wright. Layton’s sections allow you to explore the game’s locations and solve puzzles, while Wright’s section brings back the classic court interrogation gameplay the series is known for.Both characters are given their time in the spotlight– Layton’s restrained, English-charm is preserved while Wright still gets to righteously shout “Objection!” and cross-examine witnesses– thus remaining true to the source materials of both franchises.

WORST: Sonic & All-Stars Racing

This kart racer was already on thin ice for believing that the concept of Sonic driving a car was ok. Looking past that, you could make the case that the inclusion of guest characters from SEGA games like Billy Hatcher and Monkey Ball were welcome ones.But the cast becomes diluted through the inclusion of non-SEGA properties like Football Manager, Shogun: Total War, and Team Fortress 2. Add that to the inclusion of YouTube personalities as DLC, and the whole thing starts to feel very forced and excessive.

BEST: Kingdom Hearts (series)

What makes the otherwise incompatible combination of Final Fantasy and Disney work so well in Kingdom Hearts is the thematic link that is fundamental to the series — friendship.Final Fantasy has a history of banding disparate characters together and uniting them against a common cause, while Disney’s stories often show the power of teamwork, love, and friendship. And so even if these wildly different worlds may not initially fit together, uniting them around the core idea of friendship has made for a bond going 15 years strong and showing no signs of slowing down.

BEST: Final Fantasy XV: Assassins Festival

In a bizarre but expertly-executed crossover, the town of Lestallum transformed for a week to host a festival honoring Ubisoft’s Brotherhood of Assassins, and included not just unique AC-themed items and gear but a full quest line that includes Assassin-ey gameplay elements like stealth, free-running and hay-based shenanigans!

WORST: Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe

MKvDCU isn’t a terrible game; at best, it’s an average MK game combined with an average DC Comics fighter. Released before the surprisingly excellent 2011 Mortal Kombat reboot, MK vs DCU doesn’t feature what MK fans arguably want most: over-the-top finishing moves. This is likely due to contractual obligations that prevent DC favorites like Batman getting ripped in half by Raiden.MK characters still have Fatalities, but they’re way more tame compared to early games in the franchise. DC characters get Heroic Brutalities, which is just them finishing off their opponents by beating them up really bad. How boring. The fighting itself is nothing special: controls are serviceable, but not as tight as what would come to be in the Mortal Kombat renaissance of 2011, or the fantastic DC-themed Injustice: Gods Among Us games.

BEST: Marvel vs Capcom (series)

MvC has always been about bringing characters from multiple universes– Resident Evil to Street Fighter to the X-Men– and throwing them together with ridiculous combos and special moves: Wolverine and Morrigan team up to fight Captain Commando while Stryder jumps in to assist.The games always offered us a baddie that threatened both universes, but at the end of the day, this is a fan-service series allowing you to finally settle whether or not your favorite superhero could beat up your friends.

WORST: Ehrgeiz

More of a “genre mashup” than a true crossover, Ehrgeiz asks “what would happen if we took these hugely popular and complex RPG characters – plus a bunch of others that you’ve never heard of – and made them fight.

Sure, fans could finally play as Final Fantasy VII’s Cloud, Sephiroth, and Tifa in a fighting game, but Ehrgeiz strangely decided to focus on several original characters (that fans apparently couldn’t care less about) for its main story. The fighting gameplay mechanic was more like clunky wrestling than fighting, and the quest mode was nothing but the worst grinding experience that also yielded no reward. At the end, Ehrgeiz felt like the perfect case study of “just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.”

Final Fantasy XIV’s crossover into Monster Hunter: World was the first fully-involved guest event in the game, and wow, did it deliver. Not only did it introduce three Special Assignments, but it had its own suite of cutscenes involving an adorable Moogle, an ever-recognizable Crystal, and the ferocious Behemoth. The Chocobo theme played while hunting down a Kulu-Ya-Ku which used the crystal as a weapon, and Cactuars inhabited the Wildspire Wastes, inflicting huge damage with its 1,000 Needles attack.Most impressively, the Behemoth appeared as a brand new monster, and the hunt incorporated phases and tactics straight out of an MMO. Final Fantasy XIV players were familiar with building Enmity as a Tank or healing teammates as a Healer, and these roles proved to be important in this fight against the Behemoth in Monster Hunter: World, which proved to be one of the most difficult in the game (at least until the The Witcher’s Ancient Leshen came around). Completing the fantastical quests rewarded players with some of the best armor in Monster Hunter: World at the time, the Dragoon armor, and much, much more – like armor that turned your Palico into a Moogle!

BEST: Poker Night at the Inventory

The premise of TellTale’s bizarre card game sim sounds like a confusing fever dream and that is precisely what makes it so magical. Telltale seemingly overcome a licensing nightmare to bring together characters like freelance detectives Sam & Max, Homestar Runner’s Strong Bad, and Brock Samson from the Venture Brothers cartoon.You get exceptional character moments in each game like Ash attempting to sell Brock on S-Mart, or Claptrap getting very turned on by GLaDOS’s inhuman experiments. The pure amount of recorded dialogue is impressive and endlessly entertaining. While the gameplay works as expected in the No-Limit Texas Hold ‘Em or Omaha Hold ‘Em tournament style game, the personality of these characters is at the forefront and keeps me returning years later to play a hand with these old friends.

WORST: Yoda in Soul Calibur IV

Soul Calibur has always been a fantastical but exceptionally balanced fighting series based in a vaguely 17th-century timeline. When Namco introduced Star Wars characters across the different platforms for Soul Calibur 4’s release, the developers effectively threw out that formula.Not only did Star Wars characters make absolutely no sense in relation to the story, but the characters were also horribly broken and overpowered. What did you expect would happen when a space wizard with a laser sword matched up against some dude with wooden nunchakus?

BEST: Geralt in Soul Caliber VI

On the other hand, not all Soul Caliber crossovers were that out of place. For a look at how awesome video game crossovers can be in fighting games, you don’t have to look much farther than Geralt in Soulcalibur 6.Bandai Namco did an amazing job of taking everything Witcher fans know and love about the Butcher of Blaviken, and adapting those things to fit a fighting game moveset. The way Geralt is able to blend swordplay, sign usage, and evasive techniques in Soulcalibur 6 feels totally true to his RPG origins, which is an impressive feat to say the least.

BEST: Double Dragon X Battletoads

What really makes a Battletoads/Double Dragon crossover work is the sheer weirdness of it. Double Dragon has always been grounded in a kind of pre-Giuliani 1980’s NYC grit, where it’s perpetually night and muscle-bound thugs with cutoff sleeves roam the streets. This game does away with all of that and instead plops Billy and Jimmy Lee in a sci-fi galaxy-saving adventure next to three human-sized fighting toads (named after gross skin afflictions).With the ability to ride vehicles and a focus on environmental interaction, the combat plays more like a Battletoads game than a Double Dragon title (the developer was Battletoads creator Rare, after all). But this change somehow works for both franchises, creating fantastic team-up moments between the toads and Lees.Did your favorite crossover game get left off the list? Do you hate a game that deserves to mentioned? Tell us in the comments!



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