Spiritual Successor / Toys

Spiritual Successor in Toys.

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• Nintendo's amiibo toyline is a spiritual successor to Nintendo's ill-fated e-reader accessory for the Game Boy Advance (even more so with the amiibo cards), and because Technology Marches On, they work a lot better than the e-reader ever did.
• The Barbie Look and the Tim Gunn Barbie dolls can count as this for the Barbie Basics line, both being collector, easy to find, fashion focused doll lines with the model muse body -more realistic and skinny- As the Basics were were officially discontinued few months before the Gunn dolls were announced. And Word of God stated The Barbie Look was created with this intention.
• After the Disney Infinity project was shut down, Disney launched their Toybox line of action figures. The line features characters from franchises like the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Star Wars, Toy Story and The Incredibles, with the designs based on the art style from the game.
• Gogo's Crazy Bones has a spiritual successor in Star Monsters. Both series are made by the company Magic Box International, both series consist of plastic collectible characters, both series have characters with alternate paint jobs (Gogo's has the Wanted and Most Wanted characters, Star Monsters has evolutions of existing Star Monsters), both series have games associated with them... the list goes on, doesn't it?
• Hero Factory temporarily substituted BIONICLE (it even said so on the packaging of the first-wave figures). BIONICLE itself was this to the earlier and short-lived Slizer and RoboRiders lines. Note that fans on the other hand consider Ninjago to be its sequel, story-wise. The earlier BIONICLE Rahi models were successors of the LEGO Competition playsets.
  • Ninjago was also the spiritual successor to LEGO Exo-Force, LEGO's previous attempt at an animesque product line.
• After ToyBiz lost the Marvel Comics license to Hasbro, they attempted to continue their popular Marvel Legends series with a new line called Legendary Comic Book Heroes. The articulation, sculpting style, paint work and even the Build-A-Figure concept were all carried over from Marvel Legends, only now applied to non-Marvel characters like Judge Dredd, Witchblade, Savage Dragon and Madman. Unfortunately, the line failed to recapture the success of its predecessor, and ToyBiz ended up going out of business.
• Most of Bandai's toylines are major successors or each at one point. In fact, they do love this trope:
  • S.H.Figuarts to the Souchaku Henshin line.
  • Robot Spirits to the Mobile Suit In Action! and In Action! Offshoot lines.
  • Super Robot Chogokin to Soul of Chogokin to regular Chogokin, despite both regular and Soul versions still exist.
• Eight years after the end of M.A.S.K., Kenner (now under Hasbro ownership) created Vor-Tech: Undercover Conversion Squad, another cartoon-backed toyline about two rival team of agents fighting with superpower-granting helmets and transforming vehicles. All but one of the Vor-Tech vehicles were retools of MASK toys, and according to one of the writers involved in the Vor Tech cartoon, the brand created by Hasbro as a way to reuse the M.A.S.K molds (apparently as the then-recent Jim Carrey movie made using the M.A.S.K name not viable).
• Nerf Brand: Many of the N-Strike Elite blasters are redone editions of previous N-Strike blasters with the Elite colors, redesigned shape, different attachments and the improved stock ranges of the line.
  • The Retaliator to the Recon.
    • The Modulus Recon MK. II succeeds both of these.
  • The Rampage to the Raider.
  • The Firestrike to the Nitefinder.
  • The Strongarm to the Maverick.
  • The Stockade to the Barricade.
  • The Rapidstrike to the Stampede
  • The Mega Centurion to the Longshot or Longstrike.
  • The Rhino-Fire to the Vulcan
  • The Bigshock to the Jolt
  • The MEGA Dart to the Whistler Dart
  • RIVAL seems to be the more serious version of the Dart Tag series with a similar competitive idea with blasters having two team colors (discounting the white Phantom Corps. blasters with attachable team flags) along with vests and facial protection much like the velcro vests and safety glasses of the Dart Tag lines.
• Monster High has been described as the closest fans will ever get to a Scooby-Doo and the Ghoul School franchise.
• The Grossery Gang action figures in the Putrid Power lineup are often favorably compared to Food Fighters, an 80s action figure line that didn't have any supplemental media to back it up enough to survive longer. The comparison was pushed even further with the Bug Strike wave of action figures, which gave the characters army outfits.
• The Transformers: BotBots line is often compared to the "Changeables" line of Happy Meal toys from McDonald's, being robots that transform from food items.
• The toyline that spawned LEGO Elves: Secrets of Elvendale could easily be considered the closest thing to a Labyrinth LEGO set we have, since it focuses on a teenage girl going on a quest to rescue her younger sibling from a handsome goblin king.
• While Bratz is still around, popularity-wise they've been succeeded by the Rainbow High line. Both lines have a diverse (on the surface) cast of characters, all of whom have an interest in fashion, make-up, and careers that relate to those things, both are accompanied by an animated series (Bratz with the movies and TV show, Rainbow High with the webisodes), and both feature major antagonists in the form of a pair of twins.

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