PlayStation-All Stars Batle Royale should have been a karting game, not a fighter

Dawg

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I still think Sony should give another go at a crossover video game, just not a fighting game. They have so many IPs, so many underused characters. We just need a game with more soul than PSASBR.

Even before the announcement of PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale, I was always secretly hoping Sony would announce a crossover karting game. It would have a full fledged campaign in the style of this baby:

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I mean, PSASBR had some nice ideas when it came to the stages being made out of multipe IPs... but wouldn't you want a more interactive experience? Imagine driving a race through mount olympus with that godly lightning from God Of War 3 in the background. Maybe some gods slamming the track while you're driving through it, Split/Second style. And that's just one idea for a track. I'd love a remake of an original CTR track. A race through Uncharted's jungle. The helghan planet. One of the cities from The Last of Us. The desert from Journey. Victorian London. Midgar. Loads of choices basically.

There are so many different ideas for character designs as well. This deviantart mockup is pretty cool, but I can only imagine what else people could come up with. With the karts, you can create so many cool things besides just the character itself in a fighting game.


I think, if Sony wants this to work... they'd have to give the project to an in-house developer who understands the importance of the franchises though. I don't think it was a good idea to let a new studio develop PSASBR, or maybe that was just me. The game had some good ideas, but the lack of soul was obvious. They made a game where you can fight with playstation characters, but nothing more. Everything felt so bland. I think the project was too big for a newbie, especially given so many big franchises got a role in the game.

Considering PSASBR was pretty much a failure, I don't know if Sony will consider a crossover videogame in the near future though, let alone a karting game. I think the LBP game and Modnation Racers weren't exactly a big success.

Still, I can't help but hope this game will happen... one day.
 
The genre is not important, the care that goes into it does. Whether the blame lies on Sony or Superbot, PSASBR did not have any whatsoever in the end result.
 
Would've had less 3rd party bullshit at least.

PSASBR main problem was Sony barely supported it, whether it was during its development, reveal, subsequent pre-release marketing and release.

It has its (huge) issues, but it feels like after a certain point Sony stopped supporting SuperBot the more shit it had flung at it and left it out to dry ASAP.
 
Karting games had their time in the sun during the PS1 / N64 era. Not sure it'd be a profitable venture. As you pointed out, Sony already tried with LBP Karting and ModNation Racers and neither of those set the world on fire.

Other than Mario Kart, I think Sonic All-Stars Racing is the only other high profile crossover racing game out there and it certainly didn't set the world on fire, either.
 
Cool art.

I really liked PASBR, played a ton online and with friends, and this would be a great idea aswell.

There are even more characters to choose from.
 
I didn't think Battle Royal was that bad, although I'v never been a fan of Smash Bro's. The only kart game I'd ever bother playing is Mario Kart so I hope they don't go down that road.

Also anything that acknowledges Knacks existence is a bad thing. Nice art work though OP
 
Nah - should've been third-person camera, action/adventure multiplayer. To really stand up to Smash Bros, Sony would have to invent a new sub-genre of multiplayer, on the axis (3D) that they actually built their legacy on. That's what Nintendo did with Smash Bros. At the very least, Sony could've copied that 3D fighter on Dreamcast that was mentioned in the last topic about this.
 
Karting games had their time in the sun during the PS1 / N64 era. Not sure it'd be a profitable venture. As you pointed out, Sony already tried with LBP Karting and ModNation Racers and neither of those set the world on fire.

Other than Mario Kart, I think Sonic All-Stars Racing is the only other high profile crossover racing game out there and it certainly didn't set the world on fire, either.

The problem with the two Sony kart racers this past gen was that they were awful, awful games. Great ideas, but awful games. If you want to get kart racers to sell on a system where the genre is potentially treated with apathy, you need really great products to convince people. Games with dozen-second-long loading times and completely unenjoyable racing engines are not how it's done. Mario Kart still sells millions, and Sonic Transformed has great word-of-mouth in the system where the problems of the console versions doesn't exist.
 
Ha ha, I love Wander & Galahad's vehicles!

To be fair, Sony already tried karting with both Modnation and LBP Karting, and neither really took off. Not sure a third separate effort would have been worth the trouble. I liked PSASBR but it definitely lacked some key characters, the presentation was very sloppy and they marketed it very badly. I'd gladly see another with similar gameplay, but more care put into the front end and cast.
 
A kart racer would have been even less successful than what we got. Sony really should just get the ball rolling on a sequel while the PS4 and its
library are still young. IMO it would be a guaranteed success, as long it's more well made than the first one.
 
It should have been a Power Stone clone rather than a Smash clone. The world needs more Power Stone clones.

PowerStoneLogo.png
 
PS All Stars has proved me one thing: Super realistic character won't go well with cute cartoony characters. If there's gonna be another "PS All Stars" game, realistic characters those use real guns like Nathan Drake, Joel, Killzone dudes, Cole should stay away. A roster full of cartoony colorful characters and fantasy characters like Kratos or Wander.

Wild Arms, Arc the Lad, Blasto, Dark Cloud, Patapon, White Knight Chronicles should be included too.
 
It should have been a Power Stone clone rather than a Smash clone. The world needs more Power Stone clones.

PowerStoneLogo.png

I approve of this message. I wish Capcom would give us another powerstone or port the old ones. Or like you said someone needs to make a clone. Btw I liked playstation All stars...
 
PS All Stars has proved me one thing: Super realistic character won't go well with cute cartoony characters. If there's gonna be another "PS All Stars" game, realistic characters those use real guns like Nathan Drake, Joel, Killzone dudes, Cole should stay away. A roster full of cartoony colorful characters and fantasy characters like Kratos or Wander.

Wild Arms, Arc the Lad, Blasto, Dark Cloud, Patapon, White Knight Chronicles should be included too.

I believe Sonic All-Stars Racing Transformed has a few "realistic" characters too.
 
PS All Stars still would have been a successful SSB style fighter if the roster wasn't balls. One decision they made that I sure as hell didn't understand, they pretty much only used one character from a franchise (save Evil Cole and Zeus). Lack of females? Where is Elena and Chloe? Captain Quark? Carmilita Fox? The Dark Cloud Characters? What about Jen from primal? She can turn into 4 elemental monsters? You can't base a fighting character on that?

It was a half assed attempt. Sony's roster isn't as good as Nintendo's, but its good enough to carry a mascot fighter.
 
PSASBR was a piss poor game because it had a team whose creative mind was catatonic. This team was put together for their fighting game expertise, not there creative abilities and it showed.... Well, not really since from a fighting game standpoint it was still bankrupt. This game shouldn't have been a kart game, nor a fighter, nor a kawaii board game. It shouldn't have existed.
 
the edgy and dark color motif they had really threw the previews for a loop.

the dubstep didn't help either.

but a kart game? i don't know. i don't think they have the same pull as before. a smash clone made more sense given the atmosphere surrounding fighting games.
 
The genre is not important, the care that goes into it does. Whether the blame lies on Sony or Superbot, PSASBR did not have any whatsoever in the end result.

This pretty much, Smash Bros is a love letter to anything Nintendo and is filled to the brim with Nintendo fan service.

Playstation All-star battle royal lacked that and with 3 third party characters, 2 promoting their latest games. It lacked the fan service. Not locking down Crash, Sypro or even Cloud was a misstep.

Furthermore I honestly don't feel that Sony IP has that same brand awareness that Nintendo has as Sony doesn't really do a good job in keeping their IP relevant.
 
PS All Stars has proved me one thing: Super realistic character won't go well with cute cartoony characters. If there's gonna be another "PS All Stars" game, realistic characters those use real guns like Nathan Drake, Joel, Killzone dudes, Cole should stay away. A roster full of cartoony colorful characters and fantasy characters like Kratos or Wander.

Wild Arms, Arc the Lad, Blasto, Dark Cloud, Patapon, White Knight Chronicles should be included too.

I don't think that's a problem, I mean if realistic looking characters like snake or Zero Suit Samus can look at home in Brawl, it shouldn't have been a problem for PSABR. I think the presentation was definately one of the things that made it a boring game to look at when you weren't playing the game.
 
PS All Stars has proved me one thing: Super realistic character won't go well with cute cartoony characters. If there's gonna be another "PS All Stars" game, realistic characters those use real guns like Nathan Drake, Joel, Killzone dudes, Cole should stay away. A roster full of cartoony colorful characters and fantasy characters like Kratos or Wander.

Wild Arms, Arc the Lad, Blasto, Dark Cloud, Patapon, White Knight Chronicles should be included too.

Snake managed to fit in just right in smash. It's all about the artstyle.
 
Modnation had one of the best and easiest track designer in a game yet.
The rest of the game was poor but that stood out for me and I genuinely feel it could've been the start of a great series. However little big planet karting killed it with a more complex track editor.

Sony doesn't need a karting game like the open is suggesting in my opinion. They need to work on modnations for the ps4 and make it awesome. After all we would be able to create our own PlayStation characters in it like the first
 
The game felt too much like final smash the game. You know...the one thing that folks immediately turned off so it didn't ruin the fun to be had in matches. Guess they forgot that Smash games are supposed to be about ringout tactics and not just hitting your "finishing move'. This design choice turned what could have honestly been a pretty decent title into something that just felt held back and restricted by Smashes being the only way to kill.
 
Wouldn't you have said the same about SEGA before they made Sonic All-Stars Racing?

I don't think even the most die-hard Nintendo fan of the early 90's would say that. The Nintendo vs. Sega social phenomenon of the 90's only happened because there was stuff there to actually achieve competitive comparisons, and even after that the Sega brand exploded with unique and iconic brands during and after the Dreamcast era.
 
PSABR could have been a good game, if they hadn't goofed on the basic design.

All they had to do was make a Smash Bros clone. But no, they had to be different. Specials for finishers was dumb. It robbed regular hits of any meaning but "I'm getting meter" and "I'm setting someone up to Special them".

Get knocked off? Eh, who cares unless the enemy's close enough to Special you.

Get smacked a bunch? Dodge the Special and you're right as rain.

The game revolved entirely around the specials, and that's why it was dumb.
 
Let's be honest Sony just doesn't have 1/10 of the cast to make it as interesting as Nintendo.
This is pretty much all that needs to be said.

I think Nintendo/Sega/Capcom are the only ones who have the right IPs to pull off an "All-Star" game. That's why stuff like Smash Bros, Sonic All-Star Racing and the VS. series work.

The stuff that we think of as "PlayStation" characters like Solid Snake, Crash, Spyro, & Lara Croft are not even exclusive. That ship has sailed a long time ago for Sony.

The only thing worse than Sony would be Microsoft. They've got Master Chief and ermm Rare's past glory days on Nintendo systems although people will always think of them as Nintendo titles.
 
PSABR could have been a good game, if they hadn't goofed on the basic design.

All they had to do was make a Smash Bros clone. But no, they had to be different. Specials for finishers was dumb. It robbed regular hits of any meaning but "I'm getting meter" and "I'm setting someone up to Special them".
No, it shouldn't been have a clone. I wish people would stop saying this. Games can be in the same sub-genre and feel completely different.

Go play Guilty Gear then play Street Fighter. Go play Tekken then play Virtua Fighter. Go play MVC then play KOF. etc.

They should have removed the shitty super to kill mechanic (Seriously, how did this even get approved? Did the tight schedule not give them enough time to get rid of it due to the supers already being designed for the mechanic?) and replaced it from either lifebars (like traditional fighting games) or percentages. The supers could have been useful status elements and damage. There's so many gameplay options to make a good game in the sub-genre and not be a Smash Bros clone.
 
Let's be honest Sony just doesn't have 1/10 of the cast to make it as interesting as Nintendo.

And neither did Nintendo at one point. Shyguys taking up spots on rosters? Most of MK8's unlockables being the Koopa kids?
And let's not forget they created Waluigi just to pad out the roster of a tennis game.


That mock up is great, throw a few more in and ban promotional guest stars.
 
No, it shouldn't been have a clone. I wish people would stop saying this. Games can be in the same sub-genre and feel completely different.

Go play Guilty Gear then play Street Fighter. Go play Tekken then play Virtua Fighter. Go play MVC then play KOF. etc.

They should have removed the shitty super to kill mechanic (Seriously, how did this even get approved? Did the tight schedule not give them enough time to get rid of it due to the supers already being made for the mechanic?) and replaced it from either lifebars (like traditional fighting games) or percentages. The supers could have been useful status boosts and damage. There's so many gameplay options to make a good game in the sub-genre and not be a Smash Bros clone.

It was designed 90% from the ground up to be a Smash clone. With the way the game plays, from core mechanics to individual play styles, it was utterly meant to be a Smash clone.

They just added in Supers for finishers because they couldn't be arsed.

If you're going to copy 90% of a freaking design document for your game, you should just go ahead and copy 100% so you get a knock-off which plays decently instead of trying to add in your own mechanics.

PSABR is a poorly-designed abomination. Very little could have saved it. And yes, I'm aware of the differences within a genre. This isn't comparing P4AU to Street FIghter IV here. This is comparing a game to a cheaply made, North Korean knockoff, and that's if we're being god-damned generous.
 
And neither did Nintendo at one point. Shyguys taking up spots on rosters? Most of MK8's unlockables being the Koopa kids?
And let's not forget they created Waluigi just to pad out the roster of a tennis game.

That is a single game series. It would be the same if Sega filled up the Sonic racing game roster with Tikal and G.U.N. Commander.
 
Good thing 12 year old CoD players aren't the target market.

You're saying that as if the audience who are well involved and appreciate quality cast members like Sir Daniel Fortesque, Spike, Blasto, umJammerLammy and Jersey Devil will know the entirety of this cast immediately

Unlike the nintendo audience, the Sony audience today doesn't even know who or what Ape Escape is. Sony's demographic has changed tremendously. Which calls for a new generation of mascots and icons.

Wouldn't you have said the same about SEGA before they made Sonic All-Stars Racing?

I would argue more people remember the SEGA era of consoles more than the Sony one.
 
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