The Worst Video Game Crossovers

Bringing two great things together can be sweet, like chocolate and peanut butter. Sometimes, however, it’s a disaster. Since the 1990s, video game companies have experimented with franchise team-ups with mixed results. Some were great ideas that were poorly executed. Others never should’ve made it to the drawing board. Be careful what you wish for, fanboys, because for every Marvel Vs. Capcom 2, you get one of these…

Capcom Vs. SNK: Card Fighters Clash

On the success of their once-fresh arcade fighting game, SNK was hoping to keep their relationship with Capcom rolling by asking Capcom to take part in their short-lived Neo Geo Pocket Color handheld. First, they gave us the enjoyable Capcom Vs. SNK: Match of the Millenium, but that was only the beginning!

What we were served next was Capcom Vs. SNK: Card Fighters Clash. That’s right: a freakin’ card game. There may have been some initial rejoicing since at the time customizable card games were all the rage, but for the rest of us who love things that involve fists and fireballs, we were dumbfounded. Its sequel was ported to the Nintendo DS, but the novelty was already long gone and could not compensate for being such a mediocre card game at its core. It also didn’t help that the first printing of cartridges were recalled due to a glitch that would crash the game.

Battletoads & Double Dragon: The Ultimate Team

One can only assume that both of these franchises were in such dire straits that they needed to team up in order to carry on either of their names. They sure seemed to think that it worked too, since after its original NES release, it was then ported to Sega Genesis, Super Nintendo, and Game Boy.

The game was produced by Battletoads creators, Rare, with Double Dragon’s original team, Technos, having almost nothing to do with the game’s development. This became quite clear when we saw how little care was given the Double Dragon characters. Most of the enemies from the series (of the few that were actually included) were misnamed. The plot revolves around the galactic domination-driven Dark Queen teaming up with the gang leader Shadow Boss in order to take over Earth. Anyone remember the good old days when Double Dragon was about waging a city-wide gang war against the punks that kidnapped your girlfriend?

Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games

For over 15 years, video game fans had dreamed of seeing the day when Nintendo’s pipe-diving golden boy would face off against Sega’s blue bombin’ speed demon on the field of battle. Then they made Super Smash Bros. Brawl and we were okay.

But then someone got the great idea to use the upcoming Olympic games as a vehicle to bring these two mascot titans together within the same title. We tried to tell them, “Look, we have Super Smash Bros. Brawl… We’re all cool now!” But they didn’t listen.

If you could get past the fact that the Olympics haven’t been exciting for almost 10 years, there’s still one fundamental flaw in the concept: there are many events that involve running. There is no way I’m ever going to believe that Mario could ever beat Sonic the Hedgehog in any kind of foot race. We’re not talking about a Superman versus The Flash racing scenario; more like Superman versus Jimmy Olsen–and that’s if Jimmy ate a lot of spaghetti.

Which brings me to my final submission…

Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe

This title has all of the flaws of the above titles wrapped into one, though I’d sooner accept this as a card game. Here, we have two ailing franchises trying their best to take the remnants of their deteriorating fan bases and paste them together with the novelty of a crossover.

First of all, Mortal Kombat hasn’t been relevant in the gaming industry in over 12 years. It broke major ground in its day by introducing ridiculous violence and gore to the mainstream. Once that gimmick had run its course, we all came to the realization that underneath all the blood sprays was a really crappy game. The sequels and spin-offs to follow kept in that fine tradition.

DC Universe… Where do I start? DC characters should never be in a fighting game. This isn’t even their first attempt! Marvel gets away with it since most of their characters have strength-related super-powers. You could easily BS the statistics of who could match up with whom. DC’s characters, on the other hand, tend to be more polarized in the powers department, ranging from crazy people playing dress-up to tiny gods. I don’t care what kind of plot devices you may employ to compensate for the obvious compatibility flaws; I’m not buying that Joker could plow Scorpion through eight walls of a building.