What spin-offs, mobile games and otherwise ‘minor’ entries in a game series do you like as much as, or even more than, any game in its parent series?
I love most Pac-Man games, even the bad ones, but I think I’m finally ready to admit that my favourite one is Pac-Man 256, the mobile spin-off made by the Crossy Road people.
Pac-Man 256 is often described as an endless runner. This is kind of stupid, and is exactly the kind of language that put me off trying it. The game has you moving vertically towards the top of an infinitely-scrolling maze, with the usual Pac-Man rules generally adhered to - there are ghosts, there are dots, there are bigger dots that turn the ghosts blue.
There are also various power-ups and score multipliers. Chain 256 dots together at a time, take out as many ghosts as you can using outlandish and constantly-evolving power-ups, beat your high-score, start again. The scoring is less ‘objective’ than standard Pac-Man in that every time you play you’ve upgraded your power-ups and given yourself a better chance at scoring more points. This means that it’s quite possible to beat your own high-score and get a lovely wash of happy brain chemicals every time you play.
My head says that Pac-Man CE is the best Pac-Man game, but I know for a fact that I’ve played more hours of Pac-Man 256.
I hate mobile games, but I love this. Play it on console or PC if you can to avoid time-based levelling-up, real-money purchases and ads.
Also awesome: Pac’n’Roll, but play the DS version with the good controls and all the levels rather than the controller-based Wii or Museum versions with the missing levels.
Everyone will get mad at me for this but I just couldn’t ever get very far in ffxii. I tried a few times and it just didn’t stick. I should try again! But in the meantime, I beat ffxii revenant wings by playing it straight through, the DS rts that uses the same characters. It’s kinda crappy, inefficient as an rts, but it’s easy and cute and I found it fun!
I almost love the Kirby Spin-offs more than the regular Kirby games. Sure, the mainline Kirby platformers have a unique take on the genre, but because platformers are quite plentiful, there’s usually all kinds of takes on them, and the Kirby games end up not being that unique. But the way Kirby does a unique take on Golf Games with Dream Course, or Racing game with Air Ride, or I guess you can call a “Lemmings-like” with Mass Attack, is usually pretty fun, and often never repeated in a direct sequel. I liked Epic Yarn a lot too, although perhaps Kirby isn’t a great example since there’s hardly a clear “mainline” and “spin-off” delineation, especially in the later entries, but like generally I like the Kirby games where you aren’t floating around swallowing enemies and then absorbing their powers.
Puzzle Bobble is superior to Bubble Bobble, but that’s kind of like saying Super Mario Bros is better than Mario Bros so I don’t know if it’s in the spirit of this thread.
I would argue Kirby’s Block Ball is better than all of the preceding games (especially the NES ones). Kirby’s Dream World is great but Block Ball feels like a bigger game with more variety and challenge. The gameboy had a ton of great breakout-style games, but this one was definitely the most unique and the fact it is broken into levels is really cool too.
Not sure if this counts necessarily because it spun off into its own series by design (though I suppose the same is true for Persona), but I have definitely played more Mega Man Battle Network than Mega Man Standard over the years
I couldn’t get into XII either. Battle system automation just isn’t very fun to me and the dialogue audio is waaaaaaay too compressed. It’s a shame because the acting absolutely owns and I want to like it.
Not sure if these count, but there are some SNES games that I just think of as GBA games because that’s where I played them, like Final Fantasy IV and A Link to the Past.
I’ve got two: I preferred the Eiyuden Chronicles prelude sidescroller to the main game. I also preferred the Bloodstained Curse of the moon games to the main one.
Keeping with Pac-Man, my favorite Pac-Man game is the pinball/vidya crossover Baby Pac-Man. It’s got super aggressive ghost AI and some fun strategy involved in building tunnel speed, power pellets and fruit values on the pinball playfield
Diddy Kong Racing, the Rareware racing game on N64, is better than all the franchises represented within (Donkey Kong Country, Banjo-Kazooie, Conker’s Bad Fur Day… And yes, I really mean it!!)
The Pokémon Mystery Dungeon series is better than all mainline Pokémon games (and all other Pokémon spinoffs too – though Pokémon Snap comes close)
I’ll be honest and say I’ve never played either of these but there is no doubt in my mind that Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon is better than Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night (Though Curse got a sequel and Ritual did not… Does that make Curse of the Moon the real one??)
i love the first real 3D kirby game, blowout blast more than a lot of the 2D platformers! stuck on 3DS jail but it emulates ok as far as i can tell
also yes Air Ride is great, both city trial and the singeplayer courses that almost play like youre optimizing speedruns of levels in a more traditional game
those are some takes! feels weird but I like pokemon and I love mystery dungeon torneko and shiren, but have tried pokmon mystery dungeon and it doesn’t do it for me and feels like a chore. I don’t remember where I am in red rescue team.
No one has said this one so I’ll say it:
Final Fantasy Tactics has always been a contender.
I had a really great time with Need for Speed Hot Pursuit on my iPad 1!
It was a simplified game back when EA were making premium mobile games. I played it for hours on a long train ride home to visit my family for xmas, and I remember lying in a big guest bed feeling snuggly and warm, and continuing play. Super fun.
A month later I bought the PS3 version and it was filled with nagging menus pushing EA rubbish such as online services. I played less than 15 minutes.
Portable games are often about the journey and headspace.
I love the art in Revenant Wings!! I didn’t play it but I’m so fond of sprites on low poly environments like this. I’m grateful for you and anyone else continuing to rock this technique.
