Most Wanted Warriors Spinoffs

Dragon Ball inspired a generation of manga artists and was my personal gateway drug to anime. Several Warriors games have been based on anime franchises already, so Dragon Ball is an obvious choice for this list. That being said, you would have to modify the Warriors format if you wanted to capture the spirit of Dragon Ball. For instance, you would need to branch out from weapons-based combat and focus on hard-hitting strikes and spectacular ki blasts. Dragon Ball has never been known for its large-scale battles, and most of the fights involve a handful of principle characters. Even low-tier fighters are powerful enough to destroy entire planets, so mobs of disposable enemies wouldn’t pose much of a problem. The “Tournament of Power” arc in Dragon Ball Super has been a lot of fun, however, and it would be great to see a game that captures that kind of chaotic energy. Fighting has always been a focal point of Dragon Ball, but it’s also a character-driven series. If done properly, Dragon Ball Warriors would highlight the unique personalities of the fighters and play up the humorous aspects of the franchise.

The Marvel universe would be a great fit for the Warriors format. Super teams are a common theme in comic books, after all, and superheroes are always joining forces to fight evil. Marvel has given us many popular factions (like the Avengers and the Guardians of the Galaxy) and a number of not-so-popular factions (like the Femizons or the Spinsterhood). We’ve been introduced to hundreds of Marvel characters since the 1940s, and few licenses have as many characters to draw from. I imagine a well-done Marvel Warriors game would feel a lot like the intro of the 1990s X-Men cartoon, with opposing factions battling each other in an all-out war. Unfortunately, it’s doubtful that the developers would ever be allowed to use the Marvel license to its full potential. The project would almost certainly be weighed down by executive meddling, and the top brass at Disney would likely dictate which characters could be featured in the game. Even if the roster were limited to the Marvel cinematic universe, it would still be compelling in its own right.

Zelda and Fire Emblem have already been given the Warriors treatment, but you’d have to play with the formula a little if you wanted to make a Mario-themed Warriors game. I figure if Mario has been featured in fighting games, racing games, party games, sports games, strategy games, and RPGs, then it wouldn’t be too out of line for him to star in a hack-and-slash title. Mario and his friends don’t use traditional weapons, but it would feel great to stomp on goombas and koopa troopas by the hundreds. The franchise also has all kinds of interesting power-ups that could be brought into the fold. It would be a lot of fun to spin through endless waves of enemies with raccoon tails, dive bomb large groups with the magic cape, or use fire flowers for crowd control. There are several decades worth of characters that could be included in the game, and you wouldn’t even need to come up with a sensible plot. If you can rationalize Mario and Bowser golfing together, then it shouldn’t be hard to justify large-scale battles with mindless enemies.

You’re going to have to use your imagination for this one, so try to keep an open mind. WWE games peaked with No Mercy on the Nintendo 64 and haven’t done anything to catch my interest since the 2003 release of Here Comes the Pain. I think a change of environment is exactly what WWE games need. The Warriors games are known for having a wide assortment of weapons, and I think it would be refreshing (albeit strange) to see swords and spears replaced with steel chairs and Singapore canes. Of course, the real draw would be the WWE Superstars themselves. Andre the Giant would be painted as a mythological figure, the Undertaker would have supernatural abilities at his disposal, and the Four Horsemen would be more akin to the legendary figures from the Book of Revelation. Though unconventional, the multitude of wrestling styles could add a lot of variety to the game’s mechanics. Rey Mysterio could overtake his enemies with flashy high-risk maneuvers, the Ultimate Warrior could mow down mobs as he runs onto the battlefield, and John Cena could use his invisibility powers in creative ways. WWE Superstars are larger than life, and it would be compelling to see them in a new light.

Street Fighter spinoffs are not uncommon, but they usually don’t stray from the fighting game genre. Street Fighter Warriors would feel less like a fighting tournament and more like an actual street fight that has spiraled out of control. The Street Fighter series has always been defined by stereotypical characters and highly-exaggerated martial arts moves, but the Dynasty Warriors format would allow the various fighting styles to be presented in a new light. The battlegrounds would be a lot less confined than what you’d expect to see in a 2D fighting game, and you’d have to put even more thought into how to approach each opponent. You could take out large groups with spinning clotheslines, spam enemies with projectiles from the sidelines, or take them out with weapons. (The game would obviously include characters and environments from the Final Fight series, so lead pipes, knives, and 2x4s wouldn’t seem out of place.) If nothing else, the unrestricted environments would make the characters seem more impressive. For example, the range of M. Bison’s trademark Psycho Charger would no longer be limited to the length of the screen, and he could potentially attack his enemies from hundreds of yards away. Many of the special moves could potentially take out dozens of enemies at once, and this would make the fighters look more powerful than ever before.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles always felt like a product of the ’80s to me, but the franchise has somehow managed to stay relevant for decades. Although there have been dozens of Ninja Turtles games released since 1989, I’ve always been especially fond of Konami’s side-scrolling arcade games. The beat ’em genre ain’t what it used to be, but the Warriors games are cut from the same cloth in many regards. The eponymous turtles often have to contend with disposable enemies, so it wouldn’t seem unusual to see them slicing through endless waves of Shredder’s foot soldiers. There’s a deep pool of characters, weapons, and fighting styles to draw from, so Mutant Warriors would offer tremendous depth and variety. The game would offer something for everyone, and even those who are unfamiliar with the TMNT franchise could have a blast fighting against evil mutants, aliens, and beings from other dimensions. I can only imagine how awesome it would be to see the Technodrome rolling onto the battlefield unexpectedly.

The Dynasty Warriors formula worked well for Dragon Quest, so there’s no reason to believe that a Final Fantasy spinoff wouldn’t be fantastic too. Most Final Fantasy games are stand-alone stories that feature unique settings and characters, but I always enjoy watching universes collide. I loved how Hyrule Warriors combined different iterations of Zelda together, and Final Fantasy Warriors could work in the same kind of way. How entertaining would it be to clear out monsters with Cloud’s Buster Sword, let loose with Kain’s Dragoon abilities, or wreak havoc with Edgar’s chainsaw? Who wouldn’t enjoy riding chocobos into battle or fighting shoulder-to-shoulder with armies of moogles? The screen-clearing summons would seem even more spectacular when they’re annihilating hundreds of enemies at once. The developers could go to the well and use ideas from every Final Fantasy game. Monsters would fall from the moon, castles would emerge from underground, and flower girls would be murdered by silver-haired villains. To put it another way, Final Fantasy Warriors could be an elaborate love letter to the series.

Middle-earth has been the setting for many large-scale battles that would be perfect for a Dynasty Warriors spinoff. You have the battle at Helm’s Deep, the destruction of Isengard by the Ents, and the epic battle at the Black Gate of Mordor, just to name a few. There’s also the Battle of the Five Armies from the end of The Hobbit and the War of the Last Alliance that took place at the end of the Second Age. The game would feature elves, dwarfs, orcs, hobbits, wizards, humans, trolls, werewolves, and undead Ringwraiths, and their unique traits would allow for a wide range of play mechanics. The Balrog of Morgoth, the great dragon Smaug, and the Shadow Spider Shelob would all make great bosses, and they could even include the garbage characters that were created for The Hobbit movies if they really wanted to. Dynasty Warriors is sometimes criticized for its mindless action, but I think the straight-forward gameplay would provide a nice contrast to the convoluted lore that defines Tolkien’s works.

One Piece has already been given the Warriors treatment and Dragon Ball was previously mentioned on this list, but no anime would be better-suited for a Dynasty Warriors spinoff than Naruto. If they wanted to, they could base the entire game around the Fourth Shinobi World War. There was enough going on during that conflict to fill several games. Hundreds of shinobi were involved in the battle, and seemingly every character had a unique ability at their disposal. Shikamaru’s shadow possession allows him to control opponents, Kakashi’s Sharingan allows him to predict his opponents’ actions, and Orochimaru’s reanimation technique literally allows him to revive the dead. I’d be remiss not to mention Naruto’s famed sexy justu, which is the ultimate distraction technique in all of fiction. Many of the character’s even have the ability to summon animal sidekicks to battle. Shinobi Warriors would be filled with interesting weapons, and there are literally hundreds of imaginative fighting styles to experiment with. The Naruto: Ultimate Ninja series is similar to Dynasty Warriors in many ways, but that wouldn’t make an official Warriors spinoff any less interesting.

Masters of the Universe was conceived as a toy line, but it eventually spawned an animated series, a live-action film, and a number of comic books. There haven’t been many He-Man video games, however. You could approach a potential He-Man game from a number of directions, but I’d be most interested in a game based on the original 1983 series. For the uninitiated, Masters of the Universe felt like a mix of medieval sorcery and sci-fi technology. The series was set in a world where dinosaurs and flying machines co-existed. In this setting, swords and laser guns were on equal footing. The original purpose of the franchise was to sell toys, so the characters in Masters of the Universe usually had interesting gimmicks. I think these gimmicks would add a lot of variety to the Warriors formula. Characters like Beast Man and Mer-Man would have countless underlings at their command, Trap Jaw and Tri-Klops would use technology to their advantage, and Evil-Lyn could use her malevolent sorceress powers in creative ways. Skeletor is the single most entertaining villain in the history of animation, so it would be pretty difficult to drop the ball with him. One of the most interesting things about Eternia Warriors would be He-Man’s transformation sequences. Before Prince Adam could transform into the most powerful man in the universe, he would need to take the appropriate measures to protect his secret identity. Given how hectic the battles would be, it would be difficult to find a quiet corner of the map where no one was watching. He-Man and Dynasty Warriors would be a perfect marriage, and they could even released DLC centered around He-Man’s twin sister, She-Ra.