These Video Game Crossovers Suck!
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00:00 Hello all of you little demons, Jules here for WhatCulture.com and yes, you've read
00:04 the title, it is time for another Not-List, aka an episode of These Things Suck. A format
00:10 where I and my neck vein Jeremy take a whistle-stop tour around the video game industry, find
00:15 things that just make us feel so damn bad on the inside, and spew verbiage at you in
00:21 video form for your entertainment. You are very, very welcome. And today we're talking
00:26 about that most curious of beasts, the video game crossover.
00:30 Given that the game industry is one that is built on trying to outshine, outperform and
00:34 outsell all competing titles, it's very strange to see some company mascots put down their arms
00:40 and offer up crisp high fives all around, especially if the companies they represent
00:44 were bitter rivals in the past. Yet, as strange as it is to see the likes of Phoenix Wright
00:49 teaming up with Professor Layton, it can make for some truly unique gameplay scenarios which
00:53 break the mould for both franchises and offer players something truly exciting.
00:58 For example, I never realised how much I needed the Pokemon/Dynasty Warriors crossover that
01:03 was Pokemon Conquest, but now... it's my first born child! Still, sometimes the collaboration
01:10 of two companies doesn't always hit the right notes with audiences, and as such can seek
01:14 to damage both parties as well as piss off two fanbases instead of just the one.
01:19 We're talking poor gameplay, terrible choices and just a lack of respect for both mascots
01:24 in these games, so let's take a look at the absolute stinkers today, shall we? As I'm Jules,
01:29 this is WhatCulture.com, and wouldn't you know it, these video game crossovers suck.
01:34 So if you're an IP with even a modicum of interest, there's a good chance that Fortnite
01:44 has been sniffing your seat the moment you've stepped out for lunch, such is their greasy
01:48 desire to shift microtransactions. Seriously, Ed Gein was less obsessed with skins, and it is
01:54 truly alarming to see even mighty franchises bow and bend the knee to the mighty V-Buck.
02:01 Now don't get me wrong, for the most part the crossovers are largely inoffensive,
02:05 offering up some decently rendered skins and utterly bizarre dance moves, and in some cases
02:10 like the Travis Scott Live music event, can be legitimately impressive. Seriously, I don't even
02:15 play Fortnite, and I've watched that video countless times. I'd- whoa, brother. However,
02:22 things got super stinky when it came to Star Wars crossing paths with Fortnite, because for many
02:28 fans, it's straight up spoiled Rise of the Skywalker for them. Now we're all aware that
02:32 the sequel trilogy of films has had their fair share of problems and made some rather questionable
02:37 decisions, but for Lucasfilm to take a key plot point of their movie and dole it out via Fortnite
02:43 was a boneheaded decision that made them look a galaxy far, far away from understanding how to
02:48 interact with their core fanbase. The plot point in question was Emperor Bloody Palpatine announcing
02:53 that he was still alive, which as you might expect, is rather huge. When it came to the
02:58 film's release, however, this rather crucial moment was revealed during a text crawl,
03:02 robbing the reveal of any real impact and leaving fans having to Google 'Fortnite' in order to catch
03:07 up on the IP they actually cared about. Now I'm sure that the Venn diagrams of being a Fortnite
03:13 fan and a Star Wars fan do intersect, but just look at what happens to Joe when I do those things.
03:19 Ooh, he's getting angry. Ooh, he's getting real angry now. I'm actually a bit worried about what's
03:23 gonna happen when they do cross. Oh God. Long story short, Joe's a big Star Wars fan.
03:28 One Piece, Naruto, Dragon Ball. Big anime boobies. These are the four pillars of pretty much every
03:38 single Shonen Jump fan's obsession, and the rampant success of each has led to everyone
03:43 and their nan knowing who Luffy, Naruto, and Goku are. Therefore, when Jump Force was announced as
03:49 a title looking to tie these three juggernauts together into a fighting game for the ages,
03:54 it was enough to make many weeb their pants in excitement. However, what should have been the
03:58 holy trinity of crossovers soon became a cross to bear, as while the animations and visuals of this
04:03 game dazzled with flash and lighting effects, it was soon clear that this was a title as hollow
04:08 as a promise from Freeza not to kill your entire civilization. Seriously, that wee little Baldi
04:13 over there making a promise is kind of like the living meme of that Arnold Schwarzenegger moment
04:17 where he's just like "I lied. He's a liar." Worse still was the fact that despite each IP
04:23 possessing some of the most engrossing narrative arcs in all of manga history, this felt like you
04:28 were watching a fan-made filler episode. Characters would spout generic lines with such force that it
04:33 felt like a sickening body blow that was then followed up with a cracking fist to the jaw
04:37 in the form of stale and lifeless cutscenes. This wasn't the one-stop thrill ride that we
04:42 were promised, and more of an exhibition on the world of queuing. Oh boy, I can't wait to get to
04:48 the front. The true sin of this experience was how the game played, with fans finding utterly
04:54 broken combos within moments of launch that destroyed any aspect of challenge and fair
04:58 play from the title. With so many characters at their disposal and a fighting system that was
05:03 proven to work in the likes of Ninja Storm and Xenoverse, this should have been a surefire hit,
05:07 but this was a disaster from start to finish, leading to the game being delisted and the
05:12 servers being announced to be shut down in August of this year. Jump Force? More like...
05:16 Jump the Shark with a forced joke?
05:19 So before I begin this entry into the not-list that is this episode, I am going to be talking
05:31 about a game that will probably rile a few people up. I'm going to be talking about Nicktoons MLB,
05:37 the crossover between Nickelodeon and Major League Baseball. Now, I know that this will
05:41 rile a few people up because of the fact that they probably love this game, and they'll probably be
05:44 taking off whatever piece of SpongeBob tat that they managed to con you into buying and throw it
05:48 at your screen, and then they'll make a poorly worded and grammatically incorrect Reddit post
05:53 about how I'm a silly sausage. But before you do, my friend, just let me say this. I'm not
05:58 actually talking about all of Nicktoons MLB. I'm talking about one specific version, and that's
06:02 the Xbox 360 version. If you've played it, you know what I'm talking about, but for those who
06:05 don't, let's get on with it. But before we begin this, let's take a step back and look at what
06:08 we're dealing with here. Firstly, it's Baseball and Nicktoons. The crossover itself feels like
06:13 the least likely event ever, and outside of fans of both acting like hyperactive little children
06:18 after a few pints of fizzy pop, I can't see how the Venn diagrams overlap in a way that screams
06:22 "this has to be made into a video game". Secondly, as I said before, I'm not actually talking about
06:27 Nicktoons MLB as a whole being an utter shipwreck, but specifically about the Xbox 360 version,
06:32 which while having greater visual fidelity - and I mean, who doesn't want to see a horrible,
06:36 unblinking Spongebob smash the piss out of a baseball with a worrying degree of strength in HD
06:40 - fell apart completely when it came to its Kinect integration. Now as we all know,
06:45 the Kinect in all of its forms can be a motion sensor with some, um, let's just call them quirks,
06:49 and by that I mean that the only thing this unit seems to register is you smashing it apart with
06:53 a hammer. You could be sitting in the perfect setup and still be told that you aren't even in
06:58 the bloody room, so imagine how frustrating it is to be told to play a game of baseball with it.
07:02 Now the Wii version of this game managed to knock it out of the park, it's almost like the motion
07:07 controls were actually baked into the console's complete identity, but when it came to the Xbox
07:12 360 version, it didn't even make it into the bloody stadium, it was a pre-game tailgating party
07:17 choking on a mouldy hot dog. So Spyro and Crash Bandicoot, these two lovable mascots, actually
07:25 love appearing in each other's games as well, and it's actually been a charming facet of both
07:29 franchises to see each other give winks and nods to the other. Isn't it so heartwarming, right?
07:35 However, when it came to a blatant crossover event between the pair, which here in the UK
07:40 was known as Spyro and Crash Fusion, things went all Brundle-fly, and the resulting mess was a
07:45 creeping mass of swill that fans immediately passed on. Setting the adventures on the Game
07:50 Boy Advance was always going to limit what was capable of such a crossover, but things truly
07:54 went sideways when the Fusion duo decided that everything that Spyro was known for - aka,
07:59 charging, gliding, and fire-breathing - was simply too much to handle, and removed each in near
08:04 entirety. Here players were given a Spyro that kind of snotted flames seemingly at random instead
08:09 of breathing them, while also giving them a limited and stilted platform design that made
08:13 no effort to hide its laziness, and in place of flight sections, seemed to stuff Spyro Fusion full
08:18 of vehicles in a desperate attempt to offer variance, each of which handled about as well
08:22 as the Titanic and was almost on equal footing when it came to a disastrous experience.
08:27 It's unanimously agreed that Spyro Fusion was the worst of the pair, as there's so little
08:32 'Spyro' about it that one has to ask what the point of the crossover was. Crash Fusion,
08:36 on the other hand, while not being a great game and full of its own glitches and technical issues,
08:41 was still able to feel like Crash if only because the gameplay approach mirrored that
08:45 of its console counterparts. It's such a shame that a crossover with this much goodwill and fan
08:50 support ended up tanking so badly, mainly due to how thoroughly work-shy the devs seemed to be when
08:55 tasked with making a series to honour both franchises. So yeah, Spyro and Crash Fusion
09:01 did feature a lot of crashing and burning, but um, just not in the way they were probably expecting.
09:07 So now we're going to be talking about a game that I was conned into buying.
09:11 I still kind of like this game.
09:13 I don't know, I was actually reliving the moment there, completely lost in my own mind for a few
09:20 seconds. Fantastic. Right, so we close today's not list by talking about a game that I actually own,
09:27 was conned into buying, and we all know why I was conned into buying it. No, it's not a Dead
09:32 or Alive beach volleyball game, come on guys, get your minds out of the gutter. No, I'm talking
09:35 about the classic crossover between Namco and Square Enix, a fighting game, you know where I'm
09:42 going with this, Final Fantasy fighting characters in. UGH GUYS. So if you've ever seen this title
09:49 and wondered how it was pronounced, all you've got to do is put yourself into the mind of a QA
09:52 tester coming in to sort of talk about the litany of bugs and issues with this game. Knock knock
09:59 knock. UGH GUYS? Now to be honest, saying the full title of this game, UGH GUYS GOD BLESS THE
10:06 RING, is actually the most fun that you'll have with this title, as despite it featuring a lovely
10:10 dose of Final Fantasy cameos, it's about as well constructed as a murder alibi written in the
10:15 victim's blood. Worse still is that for some unknown reason, a ton of dev time was put into
10:20 a mode that wasn't even advertised in the lead up to the game's release, which featured a pseudo RPG
10:25 mode in which you went on an epic quest to punch evil right on the snout. Now on paper this seems
10:30 like a charming distraction, but because this mode also features the 'your fighters move with
10:34 all the grace of a coma patient' means that you'll be missing shots, taking beatdowns, and wrestling
10:39 in handicap matches where the AI and the camera team up to swanton bomb you through a table.
10:44 It is not a smooth game. It is not a good game. It is an utterly broken game as anyone who knows
10:50 that... just use Cloud. Just don't use anyone else in this game. If you want to win just use Cloud,
10:54 you know why? Because he's got a bloody sword, he just gets it out and goes 1 2 3 combo 1 2 3
10:59 combo 1 2 3... I won. Oh fantastic, what a challenging game. He literally starts the
11:03 fight with his fists up. Don't do that. Unsheathe the sword, ram it through, done.
11:07 I wanted this game to be good. I mean it's got Final Fantasy characters in,
11:11 but that's the point, it conned us all. It's a bad crossover game as a result.
11:15 Boo boo, you play like gravel boo. And there we go my friends, those were those video game
11:22 crossovers suck. I hope that you enjoyed that and please let me know what you thought about it down
11:26 in the comments section below as well as any other entries that you would have put into this not list
11:30 because I love reading them and who knows maybe I'll come back and do another these video game
11:35 crossovers suck even more. We'll come back and do some more of those down the line but let me know
11:38 down below what you think about it and if you want to chat some further on the social medias you can
11:42 go over to Twitter where you can type in @RetroJ but the O is a zero and you'll find this handsome
11:48 egg right here or you can go to Live and Let's Dice, that's my board game channel where I do all
11:52 of my Warhammer stuff, painting up some scenery on the table at the moment because I know that
11:55 people love to squint in the background and see what I'm working on. You stay away from that,
11:59 that's not your table, that's my table. You can go check out and I do all my live streams as well
12:04 but before I go I do just want to say one thing, hope you treat yourself with love and respect my
12:09 friend because you deserve all the best things in life and do not let anything... oh, got a frog in
12:14 my throat! But before I go my friends I just want to say one thing, hope you treat yourself with
12:19 love and respect because you deserve all the best things in life and do not let anything or anyone
12:24 else tell you otherwise alright? You're a massive ledge and I want you to go up there and actually
12:27 smash it today, I believe in you. As always I've been Jools, you have been awesome, never forget
12:33 that and I'll speak to you soon, bye.