Game-to-Anime / Anime-to-Game transistion

[Benit149]

I've been perplexed about the success of transferring plots, characters and settings from one media to another. First I'll start off with game-to-anime (GTA for abbrevation). The majority of these GTAs are fighting games, I've noticed, whether it's Street Fighter, Fatal Fury, Power Stone, Gowcaizer, Toshinden, etc., and of them, I've only heard good things about Street Fighter and Fatal Fury. The other ones I've seen/heard of are horrible, using characters that are already designed and fleshed out in the game and inserted into the anime with no explanation. With Final Fantasy, there isn't much of an improvement, what with the Legend of the Crystals, plus Unlimited.

I've seen Sonic X, and it too has flaws, but it's mainly geared towards children instead of adults. Star Ocean EX works with the first disc of gameplay only, so they seriously had to change things around to remove the second disc from the anime. The beginning is a LOT like the game, but as you progress, the differences begin to hurt if you've played the game. And then I hoped to download Tales of Eternia for my friend and I, but I found a problem... you HAVE to play the game to understand what they're talking about. I despise that a LOT, having to play one media in order to understand the other. The only series I can exclude is .Hack b/c its success comes from utilizing different media, but I find that series difficult to understand at times.

So GTAs aren't very good for me to watch b/c the majority of the time, the anime has you requiring to play the game first, and not everyone has that time. Thus you may feel left out from the whole story.

With anime-to-games (ATGs), I can't say a whole lot b/c I haven't played so many titles like that. What I do believe is that ATGs exist for profit, especially if the anime is so well-done and fleshed out that such games don't really hurt the series. GTAs exist just to satisfy the fans, and not really for money, or else we wouldn't have such horrible titles to watch. I'm not knowledgeable of that many ATGs, although I'm aware of Sailor Moon, Dragon Ball, Naruto and Full Metal Alchemist. There may be more obscure titles like for Slayers and KO Beast, but lo and behold, they're only in Japan. It's the big names that manage to get around and put money in pockets by using different media, whether it's the PS2, the CPU, or the UFO catcher. Granted, not all of them are successful. Just look at the Lupin III one...

So overall, ATGs have more success than GTAs because anime has a stronger fanbase and storyline than games do. Does anyone else think so? It's been something that I've pondered about regarding games and anime for a bit.
_________________
"Luca Blight, patron saint of population decrease." -- Benit, MST149

Benit149: First Lady of Addervon, Princess of Slight Fever, defender of the Nameless.

[kuwaizair]

The Orphen game was almost a travisty. Not only did the I think reffer to one of the characters as a "her" (a little animal that looks like a puppy but is a dragon) but there was just somthing bad.

the plot was orginal, however, very intersting. but as a transfer it didn't have anything to do with the anime series.

Vampire Hunter D had a game, I don't know if that came before Bloodlust or not, same plot a little tweeked, oh but D looses his hand in the game, like the orginal movie. Horrble controlls. somone should be punished.

Gundam Wing: Endless Dual. wait its a fighting game....plot? owch no such thing.

I don't think I've played any others, I'd have to use emulation prehaps, for older games. Like a DBZ one i tryed once. I canot say for the oppiste, aside from aniamtion based off of Mario and Zelda, and the sonic cartoons. and Final Fantasy, legend of the crystals. otherwise I'm in the dark here.
_________________
few runes short of a set of 27

[Ranadiel]

I haven't watched too many animes that were based on games myself. I remember a long time ago I watched the Street Fighter series. I remember that I enjoyed it, but other than that I don't remember much else. I saw Star Ocean EX, and I must say that I really didn't like it at all. It deviated from the main story a lot in many regards which changed the premise of the story in many areas. At the very end it made me want to cry because of how much it changed the story. I realize that they needed some creative freedom, but they took it too far. I also didn't like how Ashton was potrayed. It made it seem like he was completelyworthless without his dragons(forgot their names). He might be incredibly unlucky, but he was a decent fighter and not quite as obsessed with that girl who's name I forgot(although I do like them as a couple).

The Tales of Eternity anime was okay. It managed to fit itself into a spot where it could have actually happened in the time of the game(well besides the fact that the game doesn't even touch on anime plot). It managed to maintain everything about the characters well along with introducing some good new characters. Although I was wondering the entire time of why they were staying on the island when they had two worlds to save from destruction.

I personally didn't find the .hack series to be that confusing, but I saw all the animes and played the games so I know like everything about it. Of course those series really don't fit into either category so I'll stop talking about it.

There were a couple of other Sonic shows that I watched when I was younger, but I barely remember them. I don't think they were too true to the games though, but I haven't played the games so I could be wrong.

One anime that I thought was really well done(from like two episodes I saw) was the Arc the Lad anime. It was off in the story from what I could tell, but the characters seemed to be well done and it allowed you to get a better look at some of the interpersonal relationships within the party of Arc the Lad 2. I just wish I could have seen the entire thing(I saw it on Anime Network on demmand thing which only had two episodes).

The only game I have played that was based on an anime was Dragon Ball Z: Legend of the Super Saiyans. It seemed to be a decent game by itself. It was true to the storyline of DBZ with only a coupl of alterations(if I remember correctly Piccolo could fuse with Dende if you wanted to). It went from the Saiyan saga to the end of the Freeza saga. At the end it sort of lost some of the drama that was in the series because the planet didn't blow up and your entire party was present.

I haven't heard good things about any other games based on animes though.

I would say as a general rule it isn't good to base an anime off of a game(especially an RPG since everything is already flushed out in a good one) or a video game off of an anime. However there are surely exceptions to both of these.
_________________
"Ye shall be as gods."

Titles: Harmonian Tenki Star, Harmonian Jousting Champion

[Tendou Souji]

[Cedric]

I've only liked two of these transitions.

One has already been mentioned, and that's Arc The Lad's rendition. While there are plenty of other anime's out there which can be considered more solid, Arc The Lad's anime really does do a good job of developing their characters. In the Anime, Elc seems more human that his video game counterpart. He was such a good character in the beginning of Arc the Lad 2 during the whole business with the Chimera Labs and Marietta (was that her name?). But he lost the spotlight later to the original heroes. He only came back a couple of times.

The other transition I enjoyed was Star Ocean: The Second Story. Unfortunately, they never finished the story throughout its conclusion. They got about halfway through the story before the pulled the plug. Too bad, it was really enjoyable. The character interaction in the anime was well represented and they really did start to form some type of bond with one another.

Game to anime conversions and vice versa are usually solid provided that you stay somewhat close to the original storyline. If you do a complete 180, then the fans of the original work will be upset, and there goes your main demographic right there.
_________________

[Benit149]

Having all that said, you'd have to wonder if Suikoden can survive such a transistion. If it were me, I would do two things;

1. Dedicate some time to explaining the background with the legend of the 108 stars and the 27 True Runes, definitely with Leknaat as the explainer. It'll maintain that link that fans will know, yet allow non-players to realize that this mystery woman is wise.

2. Allow some references to the previous Tenkai and certain major characters (if set after certain games), yet don't drown the original story with references that it becomes a blatant replay of the games. Considering that every Suikoden is set in the same world, those kind of small links should exist.

Even without my ideas, if such an anime had the proper guidance and enough episodes, a Suikoden anime would be another story to add to the vast world. Yet, I find it to be a dangerous move to make such an anime b/c of its history, should the anime screw things up and frustrate veteran Suikoden fans.
_________________
"Luca Blight, patron saint of population decrease." -- Benit, MST149

Benit149: First Lady of Addervon, Princess of Slight Fever, defender of the Nameless.

[Keriaku]

I haven't played or watched any GTAs or ATGs, but what I have played is pretty good. For one, Sailor Moon: Another Story which was an RPG for the SNES set right after (or before Sailor Moon S) I found it to be a pretty fun game, and a pretty good RPG. Sure there were some things I found annoying, but that happenes with any game.

For GTAs, one of my favourite anime series ever is based on a game, and that's AIR. I don't know if many of you have heard of this. This is anime is based of a Visual Nove,ll/Adventure game by Key. It's was a really good anime series, with excellent artwork. The story was great, the only probably is i haven't palyed the actual game (don't know japanese) but from what I've heard it stayed pretty close the the original game. Alos, from the same company there's Kanon which is an anime based on the game of the same name from Key as well. Though I haven't finished Kanon yet, so I don't have much to say about it.
_________________
Inspired by everything

[Falcon Critical]

One GTA I will mention is Sin. Sin had its shortcomings as a game yes, mainly that it had more bugs than China has people, even after 12+ patches it was unreliable as hell.

However - the game was good. A FPS with hit location, location specific damage and really witty dialog the game shone - when it was playable. The dynamics between the take-no-prisoners hardman John R Blade and the smartmouthed hacker JC were great and it really made the game one of my favourite FPS.

Now... they made it an anime. Their first problem was the typical "we don't have enough cute anime girls" syndrome, where they killed off the hacker JC, and replaced him with his ... sister. This could have been all well and good except she was the typical zero personality eye candy only type. So it was all down to John R Blade and his dynamics vs the evil Alexia.

The anime itself was... well weird. With the witty banter between Blade and JC being the main drawcard of the game the movie felt a bit empty, even though it kept to Blade's character well.

Generally I'm skeptical of GTA and ATGs purely because they're generally only released to cash in on the hype of the original format.

Ever played the Dragon Ball games? Nuff said.
_________________

[Sophita]

I think that adapting from one form of media to another always has it's risks, no matter what type it is - book to movie, movie to videogame, anime/TV show to videogame, videogame to movie, etc.

In my opinion, a good videogame to anime has to have a strong enough plot that is interesting, not only to people who have played the game, but also to those that just tuned in. (Pokemon does this well; the crew in the game aren't - I don't think - the crew in the anime, even though both obviously exist in the same world.) Everything else is somewhat secondary.

One thing I'm really flummoxed is the amount of fighting games that get anime releases. Of all the games one could make a movie out of, they seem like the hardest. For one thing, a lot of fighting games don't necessarily have a central character/group. There are often many protagonists, and unless you're willing to do a very long series, balancing the points of views can be difficult. Now some fighting games do have a very clear protagonist - Tekken's protagonists are the Mishima/Kazama family, Street Fighter's protagonists are Ryu and Ken for the most part - but a lot of them don't. Who's the main character of Virtua Fighter? Akira is probably the spokes person but...He doesn't seem that involved with the main storyline, not any more than anyone else. Who is the main character of Darkstalkers? Morrigan is probably the most recognizable but again, there isn't one group in Dark Stalkers that everyone else is looking for. Most of the time, you're going to have to work and craft a narrative out of something - you're going to have to choose a main group, and you're going to have to alter everyone else's story so that they meet that group. (For example, Jun and Lei didn't participate in Tekken 1, but they're in the Tekken anime (which covers the first Tekken tournament) so that they can meet up with Kazuya/the other Mishimas.) A lot of fans aren't going to be happy with that because:

a) If their favorite was a side character (and most people's are; I don't know many people who's absolute favorite Street Fighter character is Ryu; mine are Cammy and Chun Li, personally.) then it almost certainly dooms that character to being either a blink-and-you-miss-it cameo OR if they do become a major anime character, then they're assured not to be portrayed completely true to their videogame roots.

b) A lot of fans might not like the new story, which is very likely not to be quite like the videogame's. Kind of unavoidable. Plus most anime to game translations are rather bad, so there is a stigma around them that they're not worth wasting your time on already.

What I am surprised is that there aren't more RPG to Anime series. RPG series, focusing on character development set in a series of tasks completed in a usually linear way seems to be achingly easy to make a cinematic experience of. Then again, RPGS have gotten so close to the movie/TV show barrier, I have to wonder: Would people go see Final Fantasy x: The Movie? The game damn near is a movie. Plus many modern RPGs already have voice acting, so people already know what the characters sound like. If they can't get the same voice actors (or similar sounding ones), then right away, people are going to be taken out of the movie/TV show for a minute when they hear the difference voices, and when you want to absorb people in your films, I suppose anything that jerks them out of the experience is a bad thing.

As for anime to games, I think their challenge is utilizing the anime in a way that works with the gameplay. For Full Metal Alchemist, obviously it's going to do with the main character's powers. Probably the same thing for Sailormoon and Dragon Ball(s?) Z. But let's say you have to make a game out of ...Chobits. How would you integrate part of that universe into the game, enough so to make it exciting enough that even people who hadn't seen the anime would be interested in playing it?

A good anime to game translation has to have, IMO, the following:

a) Something from the anime's universe that people who watched the anime were interested in and would like to try - even vicariously, through the TV screen - themselves.

b) A storyline that is both gratifying to people who watched the anime and gratifying (or at the very least, satisfying enough to whet an interest and not to lose a new consumer immediately) enough to people new to the series as well. (The .Hack games/anime/manga do this well in that while everything takes place in one world, it doesn't always concern the main cast, and none of the different media .Hack games really tie into one another - you can see anime clips in the videogame, but if you didn't know where to look, then you'd never see them.)

c) Solid gameplay. If the controls are sluggish and the collision detection is bad, then no one is going to really want to play your game, no matter how cool the premise may be. (A good - and negative - example of this is the Star Wars: Masters of Teras Kasi game that came out a while ago. Cool characters - a chance to play as the big Darth Vader, hello - but a horrid fighting system.)
_________________

SCII month continues! DueFiumi.com

John Layfield wrote:

But bubbles... children love bubbles! XD

[Benit149]

Y'know, I just thought of something regarding game-to-anime titles... is it just me, or are female characters from the game totally dumbed down in the anime? Granted, this doesn't apply to every GTA female I've seen, but it seems females tend to get the shorter end of the stick in battles. I'll present both some positive cases, and some cases that defy this logic to let you decide for yourself.

Star Ocean EX - Rena rocked in the game. She could do aerial jumps and punches with Bruce Lee if she wanted to, plus her spells were the most useful in the game. Here, Rena is reduced to a walking romance novel who has no capabilities whatsoever, except for her healing powers of course. That pissed me off a lot, but not as badly as You-Know-Who-Benit's-Fave-Character-Is. :lol: Watching Rena made me feel like I was watching Sakura from Naruto all over again, and she has the same features; romantic, but has little fighting skill. *shakes her head*

Street Fighter the Animated Movie - Chun Li is considerably strong as a warrior, and I give her lots of credit for ripping Vega a new one to the beat of KMFDM's 'Ultra'. So why was she the only one hospitalized while Ryu took about three lifetimes of pain and walked away, and Guile was thrown over a cliff and sustains a bloody forehead, and so forth? That still counts as a damsel, albeit one made of steel nerves.

Fatal Fury - Mai Shiranui. She's in Krauser's castle and manages to fend a guard off for a bit before losing and getting tied up. Andy saves her, of course. Hmm... I think I'm seeing a pattern here...

Toshinden - Ah, the best for last. First contender is Sofia, who manages to put Eiji to shame (whoo hoo!) but can't even do squat against the Sho clone (boo!). Fortunately she comes back, but the plot convenience she presents for the heroes is a little more than unbearable.

And Ellis. Oh, where do I begin with what Obari did to her? Let's see, an animation non-sequiter, a bad one-piece outfit, can't even hold up a fight for five seconds, is blatantly used as a pawn, gets knocked out, is hospitalized, and is generally forgotten about during the final battle. And did I mention the useless shoujo poses? All within 30 minutes! That's all it took to ruin my favorite character of all time... *sigh* :cry:

**

And to bring us back to a positive light, these are the ladies whom I think managed to survive the transition.

Toshinden - Tracy did very well holding her own, although she looks butt-ugly. I'm glad they kept the tough-cop attitude for her short stint in the anime.

Star Ocean EX - Celine, Opera and Precis seemed to do okay, although it seems they made Precis far more eccentric than she was in the game. And why did they give Celine a phobia of bugs? But Opera deserves the credit for actually improving from the game, being transformed from a drunk, cosmic gunslinger to a classy woman seeking her love, no matter what gets in her way.

So it's give or take. I may sound sexist, but it's a pattern I've noticed in the GTAs I've seen or heard of.
_________________
"Luca Blight, patron saint of population decrease." -- Benit, MST149

Benit149: First Lady of Addervon, Princess of Slight Fever, defender of the Nameless.

[Tony Stark]

I really liked Star Ocean: The Second Story. It was a really good game, and I hear it was based on Anime first. I had no idea, but it was nonetheless a great game.

I haven't gotten around to playing Arc The Lad. How much would you suggest it, Ced, or anybody?
_________________

[Gil-galad]

ATG's can be quite good, I've heard many good things about the Nartuo games. ^^ (coming to US this fall). But good GTA's are much more difficult to find, one thats I'm enjoying right now is the Xenosaga anime, the voice acting is a little iffy here and there, but overall it's pretty nice. I'd say it's worth a curious persons download. ^^
_________________

[VINCENT05]

The Star Ocean 2 game was beyond good, then when the anime came out it ruined a great game. When I first heard of the anime coming out, I was so excited and couldn't wait to buy it. I bought it one day and went home to watch it and was disappointed. They made the series goofy, like it was for little kids or something. I was really upset and returned it the next day.
_________________
I AM THE SAIYAN PRINCE

[Hugo]

Games that I have played that were made into or originated from an Anime are Arc the Lad1&2, Sin, Orphen and Streetfighter, theres maybe more that I can't remember, I have alot of games.

I realy liked the Arc the Lad Anime. All the characters were there, but some events happened differently than they did in the game. Easily one of the best game to Anime transitions. It had a kind of darker atmosphere than the game.

Sin, what can I say the story was there, but the game graphics looked aweful and the controls left alot to be desired, the only reason to play the game was to see the cut-scenes and learn the story. The anime was decent.

Orphen, I played the game first and then saw the anime. The anime was interesting, not as popular as Arc the Lad though. I thought the game was underrated. For one of the first Playstation 2 games, it was decent and had a good story, alot of people didn't like the battle system, I understood what they were trying to do, Shadow Hearts adoped a similar battle system.

You can't go wrong with Streetfighter. Ken and Ryu vs Bison at the end. It had some of the best fight scenes that I've ever seen. It also introduced all the characters and their backgrounds and it had a good story.

[Raze]

A few days ago, I discovered a rather shocking ATG production. The game is called Sword of the Berserker: Guts' Rage. A friend of mine, who owned a Dreamcast at the time, said it was a fairly interesting game. Skip ahead a few years or so, I start reading the manga Berserk (it made for a shoddy anime compared to the continuing manga, by the way), and I fell in love with this series (as I did with Hellsing). I started looking around on the net and a few days ago, rediscovered the game. I'm hopefully going to purchase this game, as said friend actually sold me his Dreamcast (about 3 years ago for $30) before moving to Florida.

I am rather dissapointed by the chorus of people who said that SO:EX let them down. I was hoping that it would be good...'cause Ashton is the man! :3
_________________

Rend. Slaughter. Devour your enemies. There is no other way to survive. You cannot escape your hunger, warriors of Purgatory.