Make It Yourself

The spiritual successor.

A sequel of sorts to a game that, while not sharing the same world or characters, has the same themes, style and gameplay of its predecessor. More often than not, these games are headed by the original creator after their rights to their work has been transferred over to a company. There are a few reasons why developers would want to create similar games like:

1. The rights owner turned the franchise in a different direction than originally planned by the creator.

2. The ones in charge of the franchise have steadily made worse games.

3. The creator simply wants to explore the same themes and gameplay but not continue the story of the previous.

4. The rights owner is doing nothing at all with it (unless you count pachinko machines in Japan).

Konami still makes games, they've just been rendered largely irrelevant in the greater Western market. Only Yu-Gi-Oh! really remains.

Whatever the reason, these games often draw the eyes of the people in the know. Now we have games like The Callisto Protocol, being headed by the original creator of Dead Space, and Bomb Rush Cyberfunk, whose composer Hideki Naganuma has been begging for another Jet Set Radio and would compose music for another remotely close to its style. However, not all spiritual successors live up to the hype. See Yooka-Laylee and Mighty No. 9 (especially Mighty No. 9) which, to be kind, failed to deliver what fans have hoped after waiting over several years for a sequel or any other entry in a franchise.

Then there are the people who just want to make the best version. Their own take on games like Harvest Moon and Pokémon. It’s how we get games like Stardew Valley and Nexamon; commercial releases for those sick of the standard formula but want something to scratch that particular itch. One Step From Eden is a very good example here. Its combat system is based off the old Mega Man Battle Network series of games, but with even crazier stuff and notably more difficult.

And then we get to the fan games. ROM hacks or the like that represent what this particular developer wants if they were put in charge of making an entry. I mostly see it with Pokémon, particularly the GBA era, where there are hundreds of ROM hacks which manage to do things you wouldn’t expect like adding Mega Evolution, the Fairy type, all-new Pokémon, and entire new regions to explore. And even the more difficult-to-hack DS Pokémon games have a few that, while very limited compared to GBA hacks, have still managed to add the Fairy type and Mega Evolution.

Now, Nintendo is notorious for shutting down these types of games. The most infamous case being Pokémon Uranium (although thanks to the internet that’s still freely available with a bit of digging). However, in contrast we have Sega, who encourages fan games as long as they don’t make money from them. Sonic Mania started as a fan game but became a commercial release for Sonic’s 25th anniversary. And given Sonic Force’s reception, they probably needed that win.

However, the bigger companies have been starting to realise that some franchises shouldn’t stay dead. We’ve been getting tons of remasters and remakes for a while, but grew in prominence over the last few years. Heck, the Switch has been getting ports and remasters since it came out. Not only do they satisfy long-time fans, it also brings in new ones, helps gauge how popular the games are in the present day… and sometimes it’s cheap and fast to develop and used to milk your nostalgia. However, it works and makes them tons of money and it might be able to revive long-dead franchises.

Dead Space back from the dead (hopefully).

And then we have the games such as Dreams, RPG Maker, and Game Builder Garage. While technically not games per se, they are platforms for those who are interested in game development or the like but don’t want to deal with absurdly more complex world of C#, Unity and all those fun programs that cost a monthly fee. I’ve made RPG Maker games on my 3DS and while it won’t win Game of the Year, it was a fun and satisfying experience to create something and post it online. And in this age of YouTube and Twitch, you might be able to enjoy seeing people play your levels or cry when they exploit an oversight. You can find truly talented people pouring hours of their lives into single levels. Dan Salvato, creator of Doki Doki Literature Club, not only helped with the now-defunct Super Smash Bros. Brawl mod Project M, he also made a few Mario Maker levels. And they were just as mentally taxing as Doki Doki.

Now, not everyone will have the skill or resources to create the perfect next entry of a long-dead franchise, and not every company is willing to just hand over their IPs even to experienced and passionate developers. We’ve had potentially great games be turned down because frankly, they just said no and weren’t interested. And while we wait for some type of news involving teased games like Fable and the next Sonic game, it becomes really tempting to just say screw it and try and make it yourself. There will always be an audience for different styles of games, people will always want more. It’s whether or not it’ll be developed by a team of dozens at a triple A studio, or by a couple of friends who want it done their way.