Thread 717223764

What went wrong, and what went right?

>>717223764 (OP)
I mourn lbp more than any other seventh gen IP, it would never work now but it was such an amazing time

>>717223764 (OP)
>what went wrong
Basically everything, Sony sabotaged this game at every turn and I'm not even sure why they bothered greenlighting it in the first place.
>what went right
Acknowledging Ape Escape (Spike looks fucking awful in this game though so it's barely a positive)

>>717223764 (OP)
>what went right?
The graveyard gargoyles giving unique dialogue depending on the character

Repost
There were multiple reasons why Nintendo was able to accomplish in just 12 first party characters, Sony failed to do so with 16 (19 counting DLC)
Two being
>Nintendo's characters stronger popularity both globally and across various age demographics
>Nintendo's characters have stronger legacies spanning multiple systems with the most popular ones having whole development teams dedicated to continuing those franchises unlike Sony's who choose to work on something else when they feel like it's time to move on
Was Smash 64's roster perfectly balanced?
Absolutely not but given the context of when it came out you still had heavy hitters with Mario and Pikachu who cemented themselves as popular enough to break into mainstream pop culture with the former having already cemented himself as a legacy character
Everyone except Samus had a new game for their series in development or a new game recently released
The PS3 era was when Sony was freaked out and tried to create as many first party IPs covering as many bases since the PS1's launch because that was when they couldn't coast by off of third party support like with the PS2
Jack Tretton himself admitted he always envied Microsoft for having a killer app franchise with Halo right out of the gate
But another thing people don't really talk about is how different Nintendo and Sony are structured when it comes to game development
Not only does Nintendo have dedicated teams to keep their IPs active, a lot of those games share similar developers, creators, producers, etc
They're made from teams that work in tandem with one another, share the same building, and that overlap bleeds into their fanbases
Does Nintendo have a perfectly unified fanbase where everyone is on the same page?
Absolutely not but it's easier for someone to be a general Nintendo fan than a general PlayStation fan despite certain people demanding certain dormant IPs to return (regardless of developer interest, producer interest, resource availability, etc)

I don't mean to say Nintendo's the only one that cracked the solution to this because Capcom did the same thing.
Have strong, internetionally popular franchises of critical acclaim and sales made by mostly the same people and you have enough healthy overlap to create a core fanbase for the company('s games as a whole).
I've seen people wonder what a SEGA Smash Bros would look like but honestly given the industry politics at the time between SEGA of America and SEGA of Japan, I don't think a SEGA Smash Bros roster (had it released back when SEGA was still producing consoles) would even work given how the former would cockblock certain Japanese games from releasing and the latter doesn't like to acknowledge the former's first party offerings unless it's for some collection.
Anyways, another worth noting is how PlayStation All-Stars boxart varies from location.
Kratos in the middle of the American release, Drake for Europe, and Japan is an absolute clusterfuck of all the various renders just slapped on together.
Keep this in mind, it's gonna be important.

Then there's the concept art boxarts
The first one has some reused assets from other games (it is just concept art after all) but Kratos, Sackboy, and Parappa are at the very least fully original
The boxart on the right are also 100% original illustrations
I've seen plenty of comments going "Why didn't they go with this? It's so much more soulful." and yeah I agree but considering how the finalized boxart already had clear distinctions made for marketing purposes per region, the concept art boxart would make for a harder sell in other if not every country
I like the right boxart a lot and at first the line-up makes sense
Four characters because that's literally how the game works
Kratos is there because he's Kratos
Radec is there because Killzone was at its peak popularity as an important series for PlayStation
Parappa and Sweet Tooth are there because they're PS1 icons and Twisted Metal has lasted up to every PlayStation generation at that point
However Kratos is popular in the West but not in Japan, Radec may be the fan favorite among Killzone fans but he wasn't even playable and he died in his debut game anyways, Parappa didn't have a game since the PS2, and car combat was never a popular genre outside of America
Boxart matters especially for games like these because at a glance someone could recognize the character and immediately have interest
Nobody in the West knows who Toro is but he's front and center in the clusterfuck that is Japan's boxart for the game
Heihachi is similarly next to him as well as Raiden (granted Metal Gear Rising wasn't out yet) for presumably similar reasons
They're the characters Japanese audiences at the time would likely recognize the most

But anyways, for extra measure lets compare it to a similar boxart
The NA/EU release for Super Smash Bros. Melee
Again, it's 4 characters (says so on the box) but the line-up wasn't chosen randomly
Mario, Pikachu, and Link are hands down the most popular characters and throw in Bowser who's just as iconic AND was a no-brainer newcomer suggestion
They satisfy every region (okay Japan had something different but you get the idea) in one fell swoop while you'd probably struggle with deciding a core four for All-Stars Battle Royale (when I brought this up in 2020 on /v/, someone suggested it should've been Ratchet, Kratos, Sackboy, and Nathan Drake which honesty is honestly the best selection I can agree on aside from the lack of a PS1 rep and even then he suggested Parappa though but I'm not sure who should've been replaced)
In case you're curious, here's what Japan did
The models are literally the in-game models but it's not an unorganized cluster like Japan's boxart for PASBR
Alll the major characters are still broadly visible

>>717223764 (OP)
>battle royale
>what went wrong
Its existence
>what went right
It flopping

>>717224417
>greenlighting
See, that's the weird thing
They literally funded an entirely new third party studio from the ground up just for All-Stars Battle Royale
As far as first parties go, it's almost as good as it can get and yes I'm defending Evil Cole.
It was Sucker Punch's request and Smash Bros gets away with plenty of other semi-clones and echo fighters as well
PSABR's problem is less who's on the roster and more who isn't in the roster
Characters who are third parties with publishers demanding too much or were just flat out uninterested.

>>717224980
wasn't the only real problem with the game the fact that it used a retarded health system that everyone hated?