Best Anime Games That Aren’t Fighters

Summary

• Anime-based video games excel most in the fighting genre, but potential exists in other genres like RPGs and open-world adventures.
• Unique adaptations like Astro Boy: Omega Factor and Medabots showcase the potential for quality anime-inspired games.
• Underrated gems like Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon and Victorious Boxers 2 offer engaging gameplay experiences with impressive visuals.

Anime series are a goldmine for creating high-quality licensed video games. Many popular anime often center around fighting, which is why fighting games are the most common genre where anime-based video games excel. However, there is significant potential for other genres to thrive in adapting anime series.

While fighting games make up the bulk of successful anime adaptations, you can still find quality anime games in genres like RPGs, open-world action-adventure games, and even card games. Many of the most underrated games of all time are based on anime, and there’s nothing quite like discovering a hidden gem.

10

Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon

For fans of Final Fight, you’ll love Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon. It’s a straightforward, classic beat ’em up for the arcades. There are special moves that deal on-screen damage, but beyond that, the game offers limited options.

Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon isn’t very long, and the characters don’t vary much from one another. While it lacks variety, what it does have is impressive graphics. The sprites are highly detailed, the backgrounds are vibrant with color, and the Sailor Scouts resemble their anime counterparts.

9

Dragonball: Kakarot

An accurate retelling of the series, starting from the Saiyan saga all the way to the destruction of Kid Buu, Dragonball: Kakarot is the single-player experience Dragonball fans had waited decades to play. Dragonball: Kakarot offers a gigantic open-world experience, filled with side quests, hidden items, and secrets.

Flying around the colorful world inspired by Akira Toriyama’s illustrations is a wonderful experience. The combat, based on many of the Dragonball Z 3D fighting games, often makes fights feel like you’re piloting a fighter jet. While Dragonball: Kakarot lacks the depth to compete with many great action-adventure games of its generation, compared to most other licensed action-adventure games, it was a massive step in the right direction.

8

Tenchi Muyo! Game-Hen

A short and simple tactics RPG launched on the Super Famicom, Tenchi Muyo! Game-Hen lets you use all the popular characters from the Tenchi Muyo! series, including obscure characters like Azaka and Kamidake.

There is no customization or open world here. You simply play the battles, read the plot, and move on. Some characters are clearly better than others, but it’s still exciting to rotate through the roster of characters that are faithfully adapted from Tenchi Muyo! It’s a very short and easy game, but it serves as a good contrast to the many tactics RPGs that can be daunting in both length and difficulty.

7

Astro Boy: Omega Factor

The Godfather of Shounen anime also boasts one of the best licensed games of all time. Astro Boy: Omega Factor was one of the finest games on the Game Boy Advance. It elements of beat ’em ups, run and gun, and shoot ’em up into one fast-paced action game.

Astro Boy: Omega Factor isn’t for the faint of heart. It’s quite challenging, but compared to most games with shoot ’em up gameplay, it’s accessible for newcomers to the genre. The game features gigantic, colorful, and detailed sprites that do the anime justice.

One of the most complex RPGs on the GBA, Medabots: Metabee and Rokusho is incredibly difficult at first but highly rewarding once you get the hang of the game’s mechanics. You assemble a party of three Medabots and traverse a hostile open world filled with numerous encounters. Along the way, you’ll encounter many familiar characters from the anime.

The battle system in Medabots is unique in that you must not only target the enemy you want to hit but also choose which part of their body you want to destroy. Attacking the right body parts weakens and removes options from your opponent and can occasionally trigger chain reactions that damage multiple areas at once. Once you learn how all the equipment works and master the meta between melee and ranged units, Medabots: Metabee and Rokusho becomes a deeply rewarding RPG.

5

Yu-Gi-Oh: Dungeon Dice Monsters

Dungeon Dice Monsters was a small, relatively forgettable arc in the early seasons of Yu-Gi-Oh. It strayed from the card game dynamics of Duel Monsters and leaned more toward a Dungeons & Dragons-style adaptation.

Yu-Gi-Oh Dungeon Dice Monsters is an isometric grid-based game where your monsters engage in team-based battles. As the name suggests, rolling dice determines many of the options available to you. The variety of spells and abilities your monsters have is impressive, and it’s incredibly fun to see how each Yu-Gi-Oh monster from the early seasons is adapted into another game.

4

Magic Knight Rayearth

An obscure anime that came out on a console that sold poorly, Magic Knight Rayearth’s rarity has made it one of the most expensive games to collect. Magic Knight Rayearth covers the first arc of the anime and is filled with some of the best FMV cut scenes of its era.

For fans of Secret of Mana, Magic Knight Rayearth is an action RPG with the same perspective, and you also control three characters. Magic Knight Rayearth has more puzzles and leans more toward the Zelda end of the action-adventure spectrum, with a stronger emphasis on adventure and dungeons than Secret of Mana.

3

Pokemon Yellow

The most popular anime of all time is arguably Pokemon, but the series started out as a group of great Game Boy games. Pokemon Yellow is a bit different from most of the other entries in the Pokemon series. Pokemon Yellow draws heavy inspiration from the anime, making it the Pokemon game closest to representing it.

The first couple of seasons serve as the basis for Pokemon Yellow. Gym leaders like Lt. Surge only use one Raichu, just like in the anime. Instead of Red and Blue, there are Ash and Gary. You play against Team Rocket multiple times. Similar to Ash Ketchum’s roster, you can collect Bulbasaur, Charmander, and Squirtle early in the game. Last but not least, Pikachu is your starter, and it follows you around.

2

Yu-Gi-Oh: Master Duel

One of the best card games on mobile, Yu-Gi-Oh: Master Duel is an altered version of the physical trading card game. Yu-Gi-Oh: Master Duel follows its own ban list and features a few exclusive cards.

A significant difference between Yu-Gi-Oh: Master Duel and the trading card game is the lack of a side deck. Yu-Gi-Oh: Master Duel uses a 1/1 format as opposed to the traditional 2/3, which can alter many deck strategies and contribute to a faster-paced game. Yu-Gi-Oh: Master Duel also offers both a single-player mode and a dynamic tournament scene with an active community.

1

Victorious Boxers 2: Fighting Spirit

Perhaps the best game on the PS2 that no one has ever heard of, Victorious Boxers 2: Fighting Spirit is based on the popular boxing anime, Hajime no Ippo. Since Hajime no Ippo didn’t have official broadcasting in America, there was little demand for its game, but Victorious Boxers 2: Fighting Spirit and its sequels might be the best boxing game of all time.

Victorious Boxers 2: Fighting Spirit’s engine is loose and flexible, with each match feeling organic and unpredictable. The single-player mode follows much of the series’ plot accurately. One of the most impressive features is the create-a-boxer mode, where you control your boxer’s training methods and diet, which affect their stats and performance. Victorious Boxers 2: Fighting Spirit is deceptively deep but easy to pick up and play.