Revive a Franchise, but kill another...

[Rez09]

Company: Konami
Kill: Yu-Gi-Oh
Revive: Ring of Red

As much as I'd love to see Suikoden revived to wrap up the brewing war in Harmonia, neither 4 or 5 gave any indication they had any intention of doing that, and having played Tierkreis and watched videos of Woven Web, I don't see the direction they intended to go with the series as particularly desirable, so I'm going to pass on it.

What I am not going to pass on is Ring of Red however, because it had the potential to be a second Front Mission with completely different and engaging mechanics, but Konami left it in the dust after only a single title. It's unfortunate too, because the idea of placing greater strategic emphasis on what happens during combat as opposed to before it is a wonderfully underutilized angle and RoR pulls it off well, even if it does greatly slow down the flow of battle, and I'd have looooooooooooved to see more integration of terrain and new troop types as the series went on. Hell, I'm not even opposed to the story setup either, even if the original title is a bit 'meh', as alternate world post-WW2 is an engaging enough place and there is plenty of room for politics to play out across the different titles. Never gonna happen, though.

Know what else won't ever happen? The end of Yu-Gi-Oh, but I'd be perfectly okay if they killed it, and not because I have anything against the series (on the contrary honestly; I think it is a fairly decent product), but because there are just so many better places Konami could be better focusing their efforts. Like the currently underoccupied giant real-robot tactical genre.

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Company: Sega
Kill: Super Monkey Ball
Revive: Pit-Pot

So Super Monkey Ball is basically dead, but there was a mobile entry within the past 5 years and I'd happily sacrifice whatever chance the series has of continuing to bring back Pit-Pot for a second shot, especially with the popularity of mobile games in general, which is where the title would shine. More dungeons, more mobs, more smashing things with hammers!

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Company: Capcom
Kill: vs. series
Revive: Gargoyle's Quest

It's a close call on the kill here, because Street Fighter could stand to stop as well -- SF4 was extremely welcome after the long break between 3rd Strike and itself, but V isn't doing anything particularly worthwhile --, but on the whole the VS. series has always been extremely hit and miss with the company for me, with most of the titles feeling more like horrible janky MUGEN titles (MvC2 and 3) than professional products, and even the really strong entries in the franchise like CvS2 and MvC1 have seeeeerious problems. I would be perfectly fine with these crossover titles being ditched for quite some time, especially if the design space went to making different internal crossover titles or external crossovers in different genres.

That said, one thing I do appreciate about the VS series, MvC3 in particular, was that it gave a spotlight to some otherwise forgotten characters, most notably Arthur and Firebrand who haven't had games since 2010 and 1994, respectively. And this is actually pretty sad in the case of the latter, because Demon's Crest was not only one of the best platformers the SNES had to offer, but almost unarguably the best spinoff Ghouls and Ghosts ever spawned, and it's a shame Capcom never pushed on with the series, especially looking at how well Symphony of the Night did during the PS1 era. With the current retro phase going on this would be the perfect time to relaunch the series, especially if we could get Vanillaware/Arcsys level graphical work. <3



Also, fun story, at least two games I immediately thought of can't be picked because new games are in the works. What are the chances? xD