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Dueling Works / Games Cross-Genre

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Dueling Works — Video Games
Shooters | Fighting | Pinball | Platform | Racing | Eastern RPG | Sandbox | Cross-Genre

  • Initiators / Followers
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Description
    • Implementation: Implementation
  • Baraduke (1985) / Metroid (1986)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Spaceman with a full yellow suit and a secret shoots their way against hordes of strange aliens in dark, drab caverns, occasionally meeting friendly alien species.
    • Implementation: Baraduke was an arcade shmup game released in July 1985, thus being technically the first game revealing at the end that the hero is a girl (later named "Toby Masuyo" by Namco). Metroid was released about a year later on the NES and was an action title but much more based on exploration, so much that a new genre was named to describe it.
  • Star Fox (1993) / Silpheed (1993, Sega CD port)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Sci-fi-themed shooting games with state-of-the-art graphics (for the time). Star Fox introduced Nintendo's Super FX graphics chip, while Silpheed was a Japanese PC game remade to demonstrate the Sega CD's video-streaming capability.
    • Implementation: Star Fox is a rail shooter, Silpheed is a vertical shmup.
  • Game Tengoku : The Game Paradise! (1995) / Virocop (1995)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Arcade coin-op Shoot-em-up vs. Amiga Action Game
    • Implementation: 1995 games about virtual characters (old arcade game mascots/an antivirus program) shooting their way through several fictitious [arcade/computer] video games in order to save them from [a mad scientist/a virus program] who wants to take control of [an arcade game center/a virtual reality theme park]. Several references to, and parodies of, gaming history ensue.
  • Pokémon (1996) / Digimon (1997) & Monster Rancher (1997)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Mon games made into popular anime where you play as a kid and fight other monsters.
    • Implementation: While Pokemon and Monster Rancher were born as video games, Digimon started as a digital pets series.
  • Final Fantasy VII (1997) / The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (1998)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: High-budget platform-exclusive fantasy epics from long-running series, both given 5th-generation 3D graphics lifts, positioned as graphical showcases for their respective platforms.
    • Implementation: Final Fantasy VII is a turn-based RPG that uses 3D technology and pre-rendered FMV sequences to create a cinematic experience. It originally released on Sony's PS1. Ocarina of Time is an action-adventure that uses 3D polygonal graphics to render the land of Hyrule and its vast dungeons as a third-person 3D world for Link to explore. It originally released on Nintendo 64. In Nintendo's case, making Ocarina of Time as spectacular and financially successful as possible was an attempt to defend the company's honor as the loss of Final Fantasy VII, originally in production for the N64, was seen as an insult by Nintendo and certainly hurt the N64's sales compared to the PS1. Nintendo and Sony traded a few rhetorical barbs between each other over their rival's games.
  • Disaster Report (2002) / Disaster: Day of Crisis (2008)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Video games where the protagonist deals with natural disasters.
    • Implementation: Disaster Report is about a newspaper reporter dealing with the aftermath of a series of earthquakes on an artificial island, who sets out to find the cause of the eathquakes. It is survival game, with people to save, and a limited number of resources. Disaster Day of Crisis deals with a former US marine, now a member of a rescue team, who has to rescue his friend's sister when she is kidnapped by a terrorist organization, all while dealing with natural disasters of every shape and size. It is an action game inspired by American action movies, and has lots of shooting.
  • Imperial Glory (2005) / Empire: Total War (2009) & Napoleon: Total War (2010)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Turn-Based Strategy with Real-Time Strategy set during the Napoleonic Era with fully 3D units.
    • Implementation: Empire Total War was the first of the Total War series to feature guns, cannons and Naval battles which Imperial Glory did it much earlier 3 years before Empire's release in 2009.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (2006) / Okami (2006)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Surreal third person fantasy action-adventures both featuring wolves as main characters.
    • Implementation: Twilight Princess is the thirteenth game in Nintendo's long-running series, and finds Link transformed into a wolf when he deals with the Twilight Realm. It was released cross-platform for the Nintendo GameCube and Nintendo Wii as a launch title. Okami, developed by Capcom's Clover Studio originally for the PlayStation 2, features the sun goddess Amaterasu in the form of a wolf battling demons that are threatening Japan. Both games feature ride-along companions who start out antagonistic towards the protagonists but eventually warm up to them and help them.
  • Dead Rising (2006) / Left 4 Dead (2008)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Heroes find themselves in the middle of a massive zombie outbreak, being attacked by hundreds of enemies at once.
    • Implementation: Dead Rising is an action game, focused on a single character who wields Improvised Weapons, while Left 4 Dead is a first-person shooter focusing on a group of survivors armed to the teeth.
  • Sonic Rush Adventure (2007) / The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass (2007)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: DS games about characters sent to a colorful faraway archipelago. They meet a character who can build nautical vehicles and must scrounge for parts to build from. Navigation is done by drawing paths to follow with the touch screen. The fourth stage in both games is a haunted ship with a green tinge.
    • Implementation: Ship-sailing in Sonic Rush Adventure is simply a means to get to the next Zone, whereas Phantom Hourglass's gameplay is more intimately tied to island life. Marine picked up shipbuilding at the start but left the job to Tails; Linebeck continued to help Link to the end.
  • Spectrobes (2007) / Dinosaur King (2008) & Fossil Fighters (2008)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Late-2000s Nintendo DS Mons games with a fossil excavation mechanic. More specifically, they have the same cycle of search for fossils, excavate fossils, battle.
    • Implementation: The battling is the main difference between the three: Spectrobes is action, Dinosaur King uses a modified version of Rock-Paper-Scissors, and Fossil Fighters is turn-based with some tactical elements. Both Dinosaur King and Fossil Fighters use dinosaurs as their Mons and have silly anime-style plots with a Terrible Trio, while Spectrobes has the Mons as an alien race and a more serious story.
  • Nicktoons: Globs of Doom (2008) / Cartoon Network FusionFall (2009)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: 2008-09 Cartoon Crisis Crossovers where the enemies are slime aliens.
    • Implementation: Globs of Doom is the fourth and last in the Nicktoons series of action games, while FusionFall is an MMO. They were released within months of each other, with similar "evil slime alien" plots. It should also be noted that Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network are already dueling channels...
  • Fallout 3 (2008) / Metro 2033 (2010)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: A first-person game where a young character leaves their underground home and explores the post-apocalyptic ruins of their country's capital city, fighting mutants and struggling to save their home and family.
    • Implementation: Fallout had a pulp-inspired retro-futuristic style while Metro had more realism. Fallout was a Role-Playing Game while Metro was Survival Horror.
  • Captain Rainbow (2008) / Epic Mickey (2010)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Both games star a character (whose name appears in the title) that travel to a world of forgotten characters and helps them to feel better about themselves. Captain Rainbow goes to an island of old Nintendo characters, while Mickey travels to a parallel world full of forgotten Disney characters.
    • Implementation: Captain Rainbow was only released in Japan.
  • Minecraft (Survival Test 2009; release 2011) / Everybody Edits (2010)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Sandbox Indie Games with no plot. Both games have large blocky environments that can be modified live with other players, and a notable fandom that shares players' creations.
    • Implementation: Minecraft puts its main focus on Survival Mode and complex, realistic interactions with a 3-D Procedurally Generated world. Everybody Edits is a 2-D Level Editor with simple, unrealistic features as in a traditional Platform Game and empty worlds to be filled by players.
  • Radiant Historia (2010) / Tactics Ogre (2011, PSP remake)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Eastern RPG with time-travel gameplay mechanics and political intrigue
    • Implementation: Radiant Historia has a more typical battle system, with the wrinkle that you can manipulate enemy positions on a grid, sort of like Mega Man Battle Network; the ability to time travel to see differing timelines is actually an ability of the main character, rather than just the player. Tactics Ogre is a Turn-Based Strategy RPG that allows the player to rewind up to 50 turns in a battle and go back to key story points and follow up on multiple branching story paths.
  • Deadly Premonition (2010) / Heavy Rain (2010)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: An FBI agent who tries to apprehend a Serial Killer who only kills in rainy days.
    • Implementation: While these two may have the setting of investigation, they have different backgrounds. Deadly Premonition is really paranormal, while Heavy Rain is realistic.
  • Heavy Rain (2010) / L.A. Noire (2011)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Interactive crime dramas with highly cinematic storytelling. Both games have been put forth as evidence in favor of the argument that video games have artistic merit.
    • Implementation: L.A. Noire was originally planned as a PS3 exclusive, but wound up going multi-platform after a few years as vaporware. Heavy Rain, published by Sony, remained a PS3 exclusive. In addition, while Noire goes for the feel of old 1940s Film Noir, Rain is more inspired by modern crime dramas and psychological thrillers.
  • Skylanders series (2011) / LEGO Dimensions series (2015)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: The second round of Toys-To-Life Game duels, after Disney Infinity bowed out (though all three briefly competed with one another).
    • Implementation: The gameplay of LEGO Dimensions borrows heavily from the puzzle-platformer LEGO Adaptation Games. Where Skylanders and other toys-to-life brands use immobile figures, Dimensions uses actual LEGO sets and involves manipulating the toys themselves, both rebuilding the sets in alternate configurations and moving them around on the "portal" scanner for different effects. Like Infinity, LEGO also has Crossover appeal by involving several licenses that would never meet otherwise, like DC Comics, The Lord of the Rings, Doctor Who, and even Midway Arcade.
  • Far Cry 3 (2012) / Tomb Raider (2013)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Open-world action-adventure games built on survival (the former is in third-person perspective, the latter in first-person).
    • Implementation: Returning to the island settings, the story of FC 3 focuses on Jason Brody, a survivor who escapes pirates and joins with the villagers to fight back and save his friends. However, as a result of the violence he's inflicting on others, he gradually begins to lose his sanity... Crystal Dynamics decided to take a Darker and Edgier turn for their reboot of Tomb Raider. Featuring a younger Lara Croft, the reboot strands her on Yamatai, a Japanese island that is taken over by members of a malevolent cult. Ubisoft Montreal gave FC 3 a Darker and Edgier treatment as well.
  • PAYDAY 2 (2013) / Grand Theft Auto V / Grand Theft Auto Online (2013)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Crime shooters, focusing on multiple protagonists, Bank Robberies, and other heists.
    • Implementation: Online, GTA V's multiplayer component, allows co-op heists, similar to PAYDAY. In addition, V and Online are open world third person shooters with vehicles, whereas PAYDAY is a linear first person shooter.
  • Skyrim (2011) / Dragon's Dogma (2012)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Fantasy roleplaying games with dragons as a central theme
    • Implementation: Both games are open-world fantasy roleplaying games that feature dragons as the main antagonistic force, and both draw heavily from medievial European fantasy tropes. The way in which they go about gameplay varies greatly from each other, as Skyrim is a Wide-Open Sandbox that boasts unparalleled levels of freedom and player choice. Dragon's Dogma, meanwhile, has distinct combat that draws inspiration from Monster Hunter, along with a Character Customization system that gave myriad options to the player in how their protagonist appeared and fought.
  • inFAMOUS: Second Son (2014) / Titanfall (2014)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Sandbox game vs. a First-Person Shooter
    • Implementation: A product of the Console Wars, Second Son and Titanfall are the first big exclusives to come out for the PS4 and Xbox One, respectively (That Titanfall is also coming to the PC and Xbox 360 is usually ignored). Thus, despite the difference in genres, each game is regularly compared to the other in almost any Console Wars discussion.
  • The Order: 1886 (2015) / Bloodborne (2015)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Third Person Shooter vs. Action RPG
    • Implementation: PS4 exclusives (where SCE's studios co-developed both games) that take place a Gothic Victorian setting, praised for their graphics but criticized for limiting themselves to 30 FPS. The former is about a group of immortal knights who fight werewolves, while the latter is a spiritual successor to Dark Souls, and has a silent protagonist explore a corrupted city searching for answers (and also fighting werewolves).
  • Galactic Civilizations III (2015) / Stellaris (2016)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Space-based strategy games that allow the player to lead a civilization from having just discovered FTL travel to building a galactic-spanning empire.
    • Implementation: Most notably Stellaris is an RTS while GalCiv3 is turn-based. Both have tech trees, democracy, Civilization-esque social policy mechanics ("Ascension Path" in Stellaris, "Ideology" in GalCiv3), and warfare. GalCiv3 has more in terms of customising the looks of your ship, though both games have a fair amount of weapon loadout tweaking. GalCiv3 also has a United Nations expy similar to Civilization, which Stellaris didn't get until the Federations expansion.
  • Pokémon GO (2016) / Pokémon Sun and Moon (2016)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Two games based on the Pokémon franchise, both released in 2016 as part of the franchise's 20th anniversary. Sun and Moon is a main-series Pokémon game that follows similar mechanics to its predecessors, and was developed by Game Freak and distributed by Nintendo, while GO is a spin-off game that is more similar to Ingress than any other Pokémon game, and was developed by Niantic.
    • Implementation: Sun and Moon follow a much more story-oriented route than most other main series games (and definitely much more than GO), was developed for the Nintendo 3DS, and contains all seven generations of Pokémon. GO is focused around catching Pokémon through Augmented Reality, was developed for smartphones, and upon release only contained 145 Pokémon. It is possible that GO's popularity may have directly influenced Sun and Moon's financial success as Nintendo's most pre-ordered game and the top game of November 2016, due to GO bringing Pokémon into the public eye once more.
  • NieR: Automata (2017) / Mass Effect: Andromeda (2017)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Third-Person Shooter vs. 3rd person Hack and Slash
    • Implementation: Both were AAA titles released around the same month note  and spin-offs to popular franchises, though the Nier/Drakengard games are very niche compared to Mass Effect, which has a more wide audience, and they were hit with their respective controversies prior to their releases involving artistic choices and PC porting.
  • Yooka-Laylee (2017) / Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night (2018)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: 3D platformer vs. Metroidvania
    • Implementation: Both titles were spawned as efforts of the giants of the genres (the original Rare team and Koji Igarashi, respectively) to be spiritual successors to their most acclaimed works (the Banjo-Kazooie and IGA's entries in the Castlevania series), and were funded entirely from crowd-sourcing in effort to remain independent from big name companies. Both titles launched their campaign in early May 2015, leading to a bit of (friendly) friction between their blocs of supporters.
  • Destiny 2 (2017) / Monster Hunter: World (2018)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: First-person shooter vs. action adventure game
    • Implementation: Both titles are online enabled games focused on grinding loot drops from quests. Both titles launched within months of each other during the 2017-2017 Holiday season, which caused many to take note of how the audiences for both games could possibly overlap thanks to their somewhat similar, loot-driven gameplay.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (2017) / Super Mario Odyssey (2017)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Action-adventure and 3D platformer games made by Nintendo that both took more Wide-Open Sandbox approaches to their respective franchises and were released for the Nintendo Switch in its first year.
    • Implementation: Each game takes a Revisiting the Roots approach as well, with Breath of the Wild looking back to earlier non-linear games in The Legend of Zelda series (especially the very first game), while Odyssey looks back to the earlier collectathon 3D Super Mario Bros. games such as Super Mario 64. The games also have varying levels of non-linearity: after completing the tutorial section of Breath of the Wild, players can visit any area and complete any quest in any order they want (up to and including marching straight to the Final Boss after said tutorial), whereas Odyssey requires players to pass a few plot flags before being able to reach new levels and unlock access to all the collectibles in previous levels. Each game also has a different approach to DLC: Breath of the Wild released alongside a Season Pass that gave access to two extensive DLC packs that released later in 2017, whereas Odyssey only got a free DLC update a few months after release and continued minor additions (costumes and hidden object challenges) for a little over a year, until the end of 2018.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (2017) / Xenoblade Chronicles 2 (2017)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Action-adventure and JRPG games released for the Nintendo Switch in its first year and worked on to varying extents by Monolith Soft.
    • Implementation: While Xenoblade Chronicles 2 was entirely a brainchild of Monolith Soft, Nintendo managed to poach scores of Monolith workers to help render the game world of Breath of the Wild. This required Monolith to hire some external artists to finish designing Xenoblade Chronicles 2, which explains why the designs of the Blades have many noticeably different artstyles. Both games use the season pass model of DLC.
  • Bendy and the Ink Machine (2017) / Cuphead (2017)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: 2017 indie video games that pay heavy tribute to the early portion of The Golden Age of Animation. Both games also feature demonic entities as the main antagonists.
    • Implementation: Despite the similarities above, both games are extremely different in tone and story. Bendy is an episodic survival horror game starring a retired animator returning to his former workplace after decades and uncovering the mysteries of what happened to the place and its workers, with the game's art style largely being computer-generated but with an overall style similar to that of 1930s animation, specifically Walt Disney Studios. Cuphead is a much more lighthearted run-and-gun game that stars two anthropomorphic cups trying to repay their debt to The Devil by collecting contracts from his other debtors, and the game's artstyle is completely hand-drawn and produced in much the same way as 1930's cartoons, specifically Fleischer Studios. Whereas Bendy's soundtrack is largely more muted and tense as with most other horror games, Cuphead has a much more bombastic and more period-accurate soundtrack, with saxophones, pianos, and barbershop choirs galore.
  • God Of War (2018) / Assassin's Creed: Odyssey (2018)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Roleplaying games that are the latest installments of a popular franchise which involve Spartan protagonists and pagan mythology interwoven together with a prominent focus on family as the Central Theme of the main story.
    • Implementation: God Of War (2018) is a soft reboot of the series that shifts the setting from Greece to Scandinavia with figures in Norse Mythology such as Odin and Baldur as major characters while Odyssey on the other hand is firmly set in Greece during The Peloponnesian War and takes place 400 years before the formation of the Assassin Brotherhood in Origins with Ancient Greek mythology and real-life historical figures from the time period present throughout the game.
  • Yakuza: Like a Dragon (2020) / Cyberpunk 2077 (2020)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Roleplaying games released in the west in late 2020.
    • Implementation: Like a Dragon is a Soft Reboot of the Yakuza series, following a new protagonist and featuring a radically different gameplay style that plays more akin to classic JRPGs. Cyberpunk, meanwhile, is an entirely new video game IP based on a classic tabletop RPG, which fits more into the Western RPG genre with its first-person shooter inspired combat and emphasis on an open-ended narrative. While Like a Dragon was first released in Japan at the beginning of the year, its international release came late in the year, around the same time as Cyberpunk.
  • Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep (2010) / Halo: Reach (2010)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Major installments to a popular series serving as a direct prequel to the original game focused on events alluded to in prior games while also featuring on a new cast of characters alongside a more Darker and Edgier tone compared to its predecessors.
    • Implementation: Birth By Sleep is an action RPG released for the PSP focused around Aqua, Terra, and Ventus and events teased in Kingdom Hearts II Final Mix and is set 10 years before the original Kingdom Hearts. Halo: Reach is an FPS released for the Xbox 360 focused around Noble Team during the Fall of Reach referenced in prior installments and is set in the weeks leading up to the events of Halo: Combat Evolved. Though while Birth By Sleep came out in Japan in January that year, the game's North American and PAL release happened only a few days prior to Reach's launch. Both games would also see a remaster and port to current-gen platforms as part of Kingdom Hearts 1.5 + 2.5 ReMIXnote  and Halo: The Master Chief Collection respectively.
  • Helldivers 2 (2024) / Dragon's Dogma II (2024)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Sequels to Sleeper Hit games originally released during The Seventh Generation of Console Video Games.
    • Implementation: Helldivers 2 is a sequel to an overhead twin-stick shooter with a significant Macrogame in the form of a galactic war, with the sequel performing a Genre Shift towards Third-Person Shooter. The game quickly became a runaway success following its release on Playstation 5 and Steam. Meanwhile, Dragon's Dogma 2 is the highly-anticipated sequel to Capcom's open-world Action RPG with an intricate system of creating characters and Pawns, and sharing Pawns with other players. The sequel expands on the character creation systems of the original and further emphasizes its Wide-Open Sandbox. Both of the original games, while well received, went under the radar, with the original Helldivers being an obscure indie title that gathered steam via word-of-mouth, while Dragon's Dogma had to compete with Skyrim and was similarly brushed aside, only to come back into the limelight following a successful HD re-release of the Dark Arisen version of the game. HD2 had, at one point, been the best-selling game released on Steam, but DD2 surpassed its sales numbers shortly before its original launch.

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