Summary
- A good spiritual successor helps you remember the original game, while also carving its own unique path.
- Unfortunately, not every spiritual successor is a winning combination.
- For every BioShock, there is a Mighty No. 9.
- Taking to Reddit, gamers shared the spiritual successors that were not meant to be.
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.
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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. “This is the one,” one user wrote. “Once I started playing it, I regretted kickstarting it immediately.”
Speaking of misses, The Callisto Protocol had all the tools to be a worthy successor to Dead Space, with even the original franchise creator, Glenn Schofield, hopping on board. Unfortunately, the game was great in concept, but lacking in execution. Blending more melee than mayhem and lots of tight space, Callisto was a Dead Space wannabe in the eyes of many critics.
“God I was so excited for this game, and after 30 minutes of bashing monsters with a club and not shooting at all, I accepted it was terrible and moved on,” one user succinctly wrote.
Another interesting mention was the 2023 release of Atomic Heart. While not necessarily a full-on spiritual successor, the game did seek to emulate a lot of what made BioShock great. It wasn’t reviewed poorly, but wasn’t a strong debut either.
The full thread is chock-full of similar games that had the right ideas in play, but largely missed the mark, some to unfortunate reception. Personally, this writer is with many of the post’s commenters in that Mighty No. 9 is as disappointing as it gets. For reference, I even bought the “Collector’s Edition.” Alas, not all spiritual successors are meant to be.
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