Not all gaming franchises are built for forever. While icons like Mario and Link and franchises like Madden NFL are still receiving entries to this day, other franchises like Dino Crisis and Left 4 Dead are, well, dead.
Enter the spiritual successor. As the name implies, it’s a piece of media that intends to succeed the original IP it is emulating just without the name, image or likeness. Think The Callisto Protocol being a modern Dead Space. However, for every Bloodstained, a Castlevania spiritual successor, or BioShock, a successor to System Shock, there are titles like Mighty No. 9.
In a Reddit thread, gamers discussed the spiritual successors that missed the mark entirely.
Spiritual successors should build on the past, not seek to replicate it.
Mega Man is one of gaming’s most storied franchises, and while the Blue Bomber has largely been relegated to collaboration duty, its original producer, Keiji Inafune, helped to bring back the futuristic side-scroller via Mighty No. 9. Baring an almost 1:1 resemblance to Mega Man, Mighty No. 9 was initially announced in 2013, before a kickstarter was held.
When the game finally released, it was a mixed bag of potential and lots of oof....
