The Super Smash Bros. franchise is the most popular platform fighter out there, and its success has led to many imitators over the years. Some of those games, like Brawlhalla and Rivals of Aether, have enjoyed lots of success with their own dedicated playerbases and unique gameplay mechanics.
But not every fighter has the same luck. Many platform and crossover fighters showed signs of potential, but were never able to capitalize on them and have since been forgotten about.
Shrek SuperSlam Wasn’t the Slam Dunk it Should’ve Been
A screenshot shows the character screen from Shrek SuperSlam.Image via Activision
There are a lot of video games based on the Shrek films, as well as many other Dreamworks characters. Shrek SuperSlam is another one of those middling games, bringing together several characters from the films (alongside some original characters) to battle it out in destructible environments to see who can “Slam” the most people first.
Watching characters like Donkey and Fiona fight each other is fun at first. Sadly, the gameplay loop of performing Slam attacks to gain points quickly gets repetitive, lacking the nuance that the simple controls of Smash Bros. has. While it’s not the worst tie-in game, Shrek SuperSlam is one of the earliest examples of companies trying, and failing, to translate successful IPs into the fighting game genre.
CBR Exclusive · Nintendo Quiz WHICH NINTENDO LEGEND ARE YOU? Press Start to Play From the dungeons of Hyrule to the cold reaches of space, Nintendo’s universe is bursting with legends, oddballs, and cosmic eating machines. Are you a brave-hearted adventurer? A relentlessly upbeat pink blob? A hypercharged electric mouse? Or the bounty hunter who needs no one? Twenty questions. One legendary result. Let’s find out who you really are.
Link
Toad
Samus
Kirby
Pikachu
01
It’s a free Saturday. What’s the move, hero? Your ideal morning is basically your origin story.
02
A big bad enemy is blocking the path. You: How you handle danger speaks louder than any character select screen.
03
How do you roll, style-wise? Your fit is your lore.
04
There’s a puzzle blocking your way. Your approach? Every dungeon has a puzzle. Every person has a method.
05
Most important question: what’s your meal of choice? Truly the most revealing question in this quiz.
06
You discover you have a secret power. What is it? The power you imagine says everything about you.
07
Dream HQ — what does yours look like? Where you recharge says a lot about who you are when no one’s watching.
08
What’s your actual biggest weakness? Even legends have a weak point. Courage is admitting it.
09
The group needs a leader. Do you step up? Leadership style reveals the true final boss of your personality.
10
Halfway! What truly gets you out of bed every morning? Core motivation. This is the real 1-UP.
11
You just totally wiped out. In front of everyone. The fall doesn’t matter. The bounce-back is everything.
12
There’s a mystery item chest! You hope it contains… The upgrade you want is the upgrade you already are.
13
It’s game night with the squad! What are you doing? Social energy = final form revealed.
14
How do people honestly describe you? Your reputation is just your vibe with a narrator.
15
Preferred method of getting around the world? Your travel vibe is basically your whole personality in motion.
16
What does being a hero actually mean to you? The real final dungeon is a philosophical one.
17
How do you want history to remember you? Every legend leaves a mark on the world map.
18
Someone has been seriously getting in your way. You: How you handle adversaries is basically your combat report.
19
In a Smash Bros. match you are the one who… The Smash meta never lies about character.
20
The final boss is right there. This is THE moment. GO! Twenty questions led to this. No saving now.
The Legend Has Been Chosen YOUR NINTENDO LEGEND
Your scores are revealed below! The character with the highest number is your Nintendo alter-ego. Read their profile to discover your true gaming legend destiny.
Link
Toad
Samus
Kirby
Pikachu
You’re the chosen one who never asked for the title but took it anyway. Brave, methodical, and quietly carrying the weight of an entire kingdom on your shoulders — you prefer action over words and wisdom over brute force. People rely on you completely, and somehow you always find the right key for the right lock. You don’t show off. You just show up. Every single time.
You are the backbone of every group, and everyone secretly knows it. Enthusiastic, loyal, and somehow always the first one to show up when things go wrong — you make everyone around you feel capable and energized. You don’t get enough credit, and you genuinely don’t mind. You run into danger at full speed with a smile on your face and a war cry echoing behind you. Legendary support energy.
Highly competent, quietly intimidating, and deeply independent. You don’t need a team, you don’t need applause, and you definitely don’t need anyone telling you how to handle the Metroids. You’ve survived situations that would end anyone else, and you did it alone, in silence, with zero complaints. Underneath the armor is someone with more depth than anyone in the room — they just rarely get to see it. Their loss.
You look like pure joy and you are pure joy — but don’t let anyone mistake that for weakness. You absorb everything life throws at you and come back stronger, cuter, and somehow even more powerful. You find delight in everything, you’re beloved by literally everyone, and when push comes to shove you will inhale a god and become that god without breaking a sweat. Chaos wrapped in a smile.
You’re electric — literally and figuratively. Bursting with energy, fiercely loyal to your people, and always ready to give everything you have for the ones who matter. You’re small but your presence fills every room you walk into. You compete hard, play harder, and your enthusiasm is genuinely contagious. People may underestimate you at first glance. They don’t make that mistake twice.
Cartoon Network: Punch Time Explosion Was a Middling Crossover of the Network’s Greatest Stars
Ben 10 running through the first level of the story mode in Cartoon Network: Punch Time ExplosionImage via Crave Games
Cartoon Network has a massive catalog of animated characters that would be perfect for a crossover video game. One of those was Cartoon Network: Punch Time Explosion, bringing together the network’s past and present icons to battle each other in Smash Bros.-style platform fighting gameplay.
The roster of characters is a solid lineup of Cartoon Network favorites, and the story mode was an appropriately silly adventure involving the larger CN multiverse collapsing thanks to some classic villains. However, repetitive and unbalanced gameplay, combined with the absence of some of the network’s biggest characters, make Punch Time Explosion feel like another half-baked attempt at making a platform fighter without realizing what makes the genre fun to play.
PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale Didn’t Do Its Fans Justice
Image via Sony Interactive Entertainment
PlayStation’s catalog of characters isn’t as deep as Nintendo’s, but they have plenty of winners. Many of them were brought together in PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale. The gameplay was similar to that of Punch Time Explosion, relying on filling up a meter to perform special attacks that take out opponents rather than knocking characters off the stage. Each of the game’s stages also had a gimmick where the background transforms mid-match, moving from one franchise to another.
Many classic characters from PlayStation’s rich history were included, but several glaring omissions due to Sony not owning the rights to third-party characters made the roster feel a bit bland, and the third-party characters that were added didn’t feel important to the brand’s history. And while the gameplay was more polished than Punch Time Explosion, it still suffered from being too repetitive to enjoy.
Unlike many current games that have their online services shut down quickly after a failed launch, PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale was playable online all the way up to 2019, when Sony officially pulled the plug. Since then, PlayStation hasn’t attempted a crossover fighter since, and likely never will again.
Shōnen Fans Didn’t Jump At the Chance to Play Jump Force
Image via Bandai Namco
There are a lot of Shōnen Jump anime, and many of the characters in those anime have starred in crossover fighting games. Jump Force was one of those games, where players compete in 3v3 battles with a large roster of characters across multiple anime series like One Piece and Naruto.
But Jump Force’s respectably large character roster can’t hide many of the game’s glaring faults. The fighting mechanics lack any depth, the campaign mode wastes many of the more iconic Shōnen faces in favor of a bland OC created by the player, and the visuals are lacking not only for an anime fighter, but for a game that was released in 2019. Since the game’s delisting and eventual server shut down a few years later, Jump Force has been largely forgotten about, and anime fans have moved on to better games.
Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl Didn’t Fully Realize Its Potential Until Much Later
Image via GameMill Entertainment
A decade after Cartoon Network: Punch Time Explosion, Nickelodeon attempted their own crossover fighter with Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl. Players can pick from a sizable roster of the network’s best characters and use a variety of unique attacks to knock them off of the stage. The gameplay was fun and the online modes were solid, so the game should’ve been a hit.
But All-Star Brawl was held back by a lack of polish, which included a lack of voice acting and a story mode. These problems and many others were addressed in All-Star Brawl 2 two years later, which featured more characters and a better overall presentation. There hasn’t been a new installment since, but those who are interested in trying the series out are better off looking for the sequel.
Multiversus Was a Victim of Its Own Greed
Bugs Bunny attacks the viewer with his mallet.Image by Morena Perez Vitale
A more recent misfire in the crossover platform fighting game genre was Multiversus, a free-to-play fighter that consisted of characters from various Warner Bros. franchises. This meant that characters from DC Comics, Looney Tunes, Cartoon Network, and many Warner Bros. films could be playable. And when the game finally released, both the roster and fighting mechanics were fun to engage with.
But Multiversus ultimately suffered due to its aggressive use of microtransactions. Even though the game was free-to-play, there were multiple in-game currencies that the player had to manage if they wanted to purchase new items and cosmetics. Some of these currencies require the player to spend real money, making the entire process both convoluted and predatory.
Unfortunately, the combination of aggressive microtransactions and Warner Bros’ catalog of characters not having the same pull the Nintendo lineup has was what led to Multiversus’ downfall. A year after launch, the game was delisted from all platforms, servers were shut down and the game’s development studio closed.
