There isn’t much in gaming quite as satisfying as laying waste to many hundreds of foes in rapid succession. Sure you can ramp up a games difficulty and get another sense of satisfaction from a hard fought battle, but who are you kidding, sometimes you just want to swing a sword or axe once and watch 100 bad guys go flying, all with the comforting imagery of damage numbers and “Mission Complete” signs. This is why Musou games still rake in cash when they’re released, the formula hasn’t changed since Dynasty Warriors released back in 1997. it’s a classic case of why fix what ain’t broke? Of course, if Chinese historical characters aren’t your jam then luckily there are several flavours of Musou for you to chose from, including popular anime series like One Piece and Berserk, and top gaming inspired titles like Hyrule Warriors or the upcoming Persona 5 Strikers.
It was actually the Persona title that got me thinking recently, what other franchises out there could do with the magic of a Musou game. After a quick discussion with Respawning head honcho (and a man whose friendship worries both his wife and my girlfriend) Luke, I’ve come up with a few ideas for what could make for a tip top hack n slash experience.
Power Rangers
Oh yes, the technicolour heroes of Angel Grove. The teenagers with attitude, the Power Rangers. Not exactly shy about beating down hundreds of similar looking enemies, you could make a excellent premise of the rangers battling an unending army of putties all to get to a boss enemy like Goldar or Lord Zedd. A key part of most Musou titles are the team attacks, getting your allies together to unleash a devastating joint attack. Now if that sounds familiar, it’s because its EXACTLY how the Rangers deal with every bad guy boss before they get made into giants and the zords have be brought in. How the Zords themselves would fit in to this still eludes me… but hey I’m not a dev! I’m just an ideas man spit balling my hopes and dreams!
DC Universe
Yes, that’s right, I’d pick DC over Marvel, big whoop wanna fight about it???? Anyway while the Avengers would also likely make for one hell of a Musou, but with public perception the Earths mightiest heroes sullied in gaming thanks to the sub bar Square Enix title last year, Maybe its time for the Justice League to show them how it’s done. Imagine it if you will, the League doing battle with an army of Parademons sent by the biggest of bads, Darkseid. You could fight all over the world with maps based on Gotham, Metropolis and maybe even into space to take the fight to Apokolips. There would also be no shortage of available characters with the DC roster being almost endless at this point… but let’s face it most people would still fight over who got to be Batman…
Star Wars
Okay I’ll admit, this was some easy low hanging fruit. But let’s face it, the Clone wars was a sea of massive battles with hundreds of similar looking foes for both sides. You could pick your side and play as either the various Jedi or the Sith and their mixed bag of bounty hunters and warrior allies. Waging war across the galaxy and it’s incredibly varied locales. Super attacks based on force powers or gadgets and maybe being able to call in for artillery support from your allied clones or battle droids. Sure maybe I’m biased here but it’d definitely seems like the most solid idea! With the news that Lucasfilm have opened the gates to third party devs for Star Wars games, maybe this will be something we get? Or at the very least a boy can hope right?
Honourable Mention – Final Fantasy
Now this is one I hadn’t considered, but I had to ask Luke and he pitched it to me. Crossover Final Fantasy games aren’t a new idea, I mean Dissidia is a prime example, a bunch of FF characters in a game that is against their usual style, or even the Tactics games that had cameos from other leading characters of the franchise. So why not bring in a few favourites like Noctis, Zidane and of course Cloud to take on wave after wave of weak yet plentiful foes. There are plenty of cool attacks to use and even a few summons that could really mix up a battle here and there!