History Main / GameplayRoulette

* The ''VideoGames/SonicTheHedgehog'' series is notorious for this effect:

* The UsefulNotes/{{Amiga}} game ''Awesome'' plays as a ''VideoGame/ThunderForce''-style arena shmup during standard space battles, in asteroid fields, and when landing on a planet, then changes to an ''VideoGame/AfterBurner''-style into-the-screen shooter for boss battles, and finally an overhead run 'n gun a la ''VideoGame/IkariWarriors'' on the planet surfaces.

* ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy Video Game!'' has a different genre for each playable character: it's a beat-em-up for Peter, a stealth game for Brian, and a platformer/third-person-shooter for Stewie. There are also short flashback minigames a la ''VideoGame/WarioWare''.

[[folder: Franchises ]]

[[folder: Individual Games ]]

[[folder: Other ]]

* ''VideoGame/ConkersBadFurDay'' for the N64 starts off as a regular platformer, but throughout the game you'll be racing across lava, flying around picking up villagers for Dracula, third-person shooting at Teddie Nazis, and tearing cavemen apart while riding on a dinosaur. The final boss pits you in a robot suit fighting a Xenomorph. The player almost needs to learn a new control scheme for every level (fortunately for him/her, the instruction manual does offer a list of control settings for each situation).

* ''VideoGame/{{NiGHTS|IntoDreams}}: Journey of Dreams'' goes from flight stages to [[PuzzleBoss puzzle bosses]] to 3-D style platformers all within the same game.

* ''VideoGame/{{Q-Pop}}'' switches between the reproduction round, there you play a strategy game on the world map and the survival round, a simple rougelike there you have to eat, reproduce and fight.

* The levels of ''VideoGame/AbobosBigAdventure'' are each based on specific NES games -- [[VideoGame/DoubleDragon Double Drabobo]], [[VideoGame/SuperMarioBros Super Mabobo]], Urban Chabobo (''Urban Champion''), [[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZelda Zeld Abobo]], [[VideoGame/ProWrestling Pro Wrabobo]], [[VideoGame/MegaManClassic Mega Mabobo]], [[VideoGame/{{Contra}} Contra Abobo]], and [[VideoGame/PunchOut Punch Abobo]]. In Pro Wrabobo in particular, the first half of the level is based on ''VideoGame/BalloonFight''.

* The ''SuperMarioBros'' games tend to be more successful than most in this. They've successfully spun off into {{RPG}}, DrivingGame, PartyGame, and other franchises. Nintendo as a whole seems to love doing this. The secret to their success at not alienating fans is that these shifts are always explicit spin-offs; there's never any worry that they'll make another "normal" entry in a series as well.

* The ''SonicTheHedgehog'' series is notorious for this effect:

* ''VideoGame/TheImpossibleQuiz''. Usually, it's a straight quiz game (accounting for some bizarre logic), but then you have to do things like help Dr. Eggman mutilate SonicTheHedgehog's corpse, stroke a cat, or clip toenails.

* The ''Franchise/SlyCooper'' series began as [[VideoGame/SlyCooperAndTheThieviusrAccoonus a platforming game]] with a focus on stealth. With [[VideoGame/Sly2BandOfThieves the second game]], the developers gave the other members of the PowerTrio playable-character status and shoved more combat into the game, throwing in many, many minigames for good measure. The result was a rather awkward stealth/platforming/actioner hybrid. [[VideoGame/Sly3HonorAmongThieves The third game]] stretches the mixture even further, with the end result that there's an UnexpectedGameplayChange every ten seconds.

* ''VideoGame/MegaMan'' was a sidescrolling platformer. ''[[VideoGame/MegaManLegends Legends]]'' made an action RPG out of it (moderately lucrative) and ''[[VideoGame/MegaManBattleNetwork Battle Network]]'' is an RPG with a special battle mechanic (more successful than Legends, with sequels and a SpinOff, ''[[VideoGame/MegaManStarForce Star Force]]'').

* The levels of ''VideoGame/AbobosBigAdventure'' are each based on specific NES games -- [[VideoGame/DoubleDragon Double Drabobo]], [[VideoGame/SuperMarioBros Super Mabobo]], Urban Chabobo (''Urban Champion''), [[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZelda Zeld Abobo]], [[VideoGame/ProWrestling Pro Wrabobo]], [[VideoGame/MegaMan Mega Mabobo]], [[VideoGame/{{Contra}} Contra Abobo]], and [[VideoGame/PunchOut Punch Abobo]]. In Pro Wrabobo in particular, the first half of the level is based on ''VideoGame/BalloonFight''.

* The first two ''Franchise/CrashBandicoot'' games had a couple of levels where you rode animals that were well received, but generally was mostly a platformer, ''Videogame/CrashBandicoot3Warped'', on the other hand, has two scuba diving levels, four jet ski levels, four motorbike race levels, two tiger riding levels, and three airplane flying levels, of which the first two are about shooting down targets, and the third is a race. That's fifteen out of thirty two levels. Add in one boss who plays as a bi-plane shooter, and subtract that two of the bonus levels are just alternate entrances, and that's roughly half the game spent not on foot platforming.

* ''VideoGame/DarkForces'' was a well made but fairly standard first-person shooter set in the ''Franchise/StarWars'' universe. ''VideoGame/JediKnightDarkForcesII'' was a well made but fairly standard first-person shooter set in the ''Franchise/StarWars'' universe... until about halfway through at which point the player gained a lightsaber and force powers, and it became more like a HackAndSlash game instead.
** The third game ''Jedi Outcast'', did exactly the same, with the protagonist having given up being a Jedi and again playing as an FPS until a few levels in. ''Jedi Academy'', the fourth and final game in the series, finally gave up and just let the player have a lightsaber right from the start.

* This trope is the entire point of the card game ''TabletopGame/{{Fluxx}}''.

* ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'' had several unsuccessful attempts to branch out into the video game world until ''Magic Online'', which was basically the game online. Some games, like ''Battlegrounds'' and ''Armageddon'', had RTS elements; others, like ''Tactics'', had Turn-Based elements. Consistently, however, the most successful video games in the series are the ones that emulate the real card game the closest (''Magic Online'', ''Duels of the Planeswalkers'').

* ''Franchise/MortalKombat'' has attempted three times so far to make action-adventure versions of the games, with less than stellar results. Two of the {{Fighting Game}}s, ''VideoGame/MortalKombatArmageddon'' and ''VideoGame/MortalKombatDeception'', included minigames inspired from chess, ''PuzzleFighter'' and even ''VideoGame/MarioKart'', as well as changes in the fighting, combo and fatality systems with almost each game. They even tried making side-story {{Beat Em Up}}s starring Sub-Zero and Jax, neither of which was very good.

* ''SuperStarForce'' for the Famicom alternates between ShootEmUp space areas and Zelda-style DungeonCrawling.

* The ''KeroroGunsou/SgtFrog'' games are, appropriately enough, completely random. For instance, ''Chou Gekijouban Keroro Gunsou Enshuu da Yo! Zenin Shuugou'' requires playing through ten different training missions before the final boss battle--and ''every'' mission is a completely different style of play from the others.

* ''VideoGame/{{Incoming}}'' is pretty consistent about making you blow shit up, but how you do it changes constantly in the Story mode. A mission might make you play as a defense turret, an helicopter ferrying supplies around, a tank, a jet, and then go back to the turret again. This also applies to a lesser extent to its spiritual predecessor, ''Darklight Conflict''.

* {{Creator/Konami}}'s ''Knightmare'' (''Majou Densetsu'') series for the UsefulNotes/{{MSX}} started with a top-down VerticalScrollingShooter. The second game, ''MazeOfGalious'', was a platform-based ActionAdventure. The Japan-only third game, ''Shalom'', was an EasternRPG.

* The DeptHeaven series has a different genre with each episode (but not spinoff). The only thing similar between the gameplay of the episodes is that they're all a type of strategy game. Except ''VideoGame/RivieraThePromisedLand'', which is a JRPG.

* Parodied by Creator/ProZD in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1ZKcZbi1rg games that think more gameplay mechanics equals more fun]].

* Parodied by [=ProZD=] in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1ZKcZbi1rg games that think more gameplay mechanics equals more fun]].