Hated Tropes
[Hated Trope] Crossovers that fundamentally don’t understand the source material
When a crossover basically does the exact opposite of what the source material clearly lays out because the creators clearly just don’t care about the source material at all.
Emil - Dead by Daylight
The one that inspired this post. Emil as a character is the most hopeful, optimistic, and kind character in the entire NieR series, maybe in all of Yoko Taro’s games (maybe aside from Yonah). His goal is to help as many people as he possibly can and even when he goes through immense suffering he always comes out the other side ready to keep on helping people.
Then Dead by Daylight adds him as a killer skin, because “he looks creepy.” You know, the aspect of the character that’s his biggest struggle, that causes him to be scared of how people will judge him, and that makes him hate himself. That’s what we’ll base our entire concept on. Genius idea.
Iron Giant - Ready Player One
Technically you could argue that it’s not an example because it’s just a part of the game and Wade is the one misunderstanding the source material. To that I raise you that this is actually an in universe example of the trope, with the game including the Iron Giant as a crossover where you can use him as a weapon, thereby misunderstanding the source material.
Also it’s probably the filmmakers completely misunderstanding the source material/not caring as well.
I grew unreasonably annoyed with the "who knew" campaign slogan. Everything comes from Walmart, it's the most generic big box store in existence, what do you mean "who knew"?
Not really a “crossover” per se but the fact that a symbol of anti-capitalism and anti-consumerism is being used to advertise a car is genuinely baffling, who thought it would be a good idea??
Apart from the Tribute hybrid in 2008 that created like 300 models for California, Mazda didn't have a hybrid or EV in 2012 (release of the Lorax movie). Wouldn't be until 10 years later before they'd release a full hybrid vehicle outside of Japan, let alone an EV.
This one is honestly so baffling that I believe the people behind it knew dann well what they we're doing. I'd bet many people, me included, have never seen a second of this movie (except for the epic "thats a woman?"-joke) but know about this carcrash of an ad.
Here's an example of a time they perfectly AVOIDED this trope.
The third entry in Nintendo's fighting game crossover, Smash Bros Brawl, was the first to feature content from Animal Crossing. But notably, there was no AC playable fighter. This made sense at the time- AC is a cozy game about managing a village, there's no combat at all so it wouldn't really make sense to have an AC fighter.
When 4 came out, though, they announced Villager was coming to Smash. They could have easily done the character a disservice, but all his moves are things you can do in the game- use a net to catch bugs, dig holes, plant and grow trees, etc. When you look closely at his eyes, he's never really focused on his foes, he's always focused on his activity or just kind of looking around at nothing.
The implication is that (in character, anyway) he's not trying to fight anyone, he's doing his normal daily chores and just keeps accidentally hurting the people around him in a 3-stooges style farce. It's a great solution to the problem and adds a level of comedy to the character. Hell, even his victory poses are just him showing off a cool fossil or bug he's found, like he has no idea he's even supposed to be in a fighting competition.
The smash team has always been absolutely amazing at translating characters from other genres into fighting games for the most part. Street fighter characters reward combo memorization even though no other smash fighters do that, Hero from DQ gets a RPG menu with various skills, Steve can Minecraft build, etc etc.
And the quick rise (and fall) of so many smash clones immediately (and I mean fucking immediately) after Smash Ultimate announced their final character shows that it takes a ton of effort and heart to build a proper "everyone is here."
And it's not as easy as "well we own this bucket of IP so yep, slosh it into the tub with the rest of the bath toys."
That is the magic ingredient of smash. As someone who grew up during the late 80’s and 90’s I can’t tell you how many playground arguments there were along the lines of “who would win in a fight, Link or Cloud?” And smash lets us live out those elementary school match ups
Before Brawl came out Sonic had two fighting games, multiple examples of creating small tornados or wind attacks, a ground pound/bounce attack, the super peel out, rocket accel, light speed dash/attack. Literally none of these were used for his moveset.
Oh it's possible. If he wasn't rushed. Got added last minute into Brawl and while it is very hype it does leave him with a funny part in story mode where he shows up out of the blue and defeats the main villain at the last possible moment
Which honestly makes it feel like more of a massive disservice when you end up with characters like Ganondorf who feel like they don’t reflect their base game very well at all.
Honestly, T&J were brillantly designed. Tom & Jerry were never fighting the foe, Tom was trying to attack Jerry with the foe being collateral in all his attacks. (Like his up attack, where he'd try to hit Jerry between two trash can lids).
Counterpoint: In the first animal crossing villagers would get upset you hit them, so people beat the hell out of any they didn't like to make room for new ones.
It is incredibly in character for the villager to be an absolute psychopath.
And also fully mute, even though I believe he never was. Weirdly, this unfitting muteness is shared with Olimar, Isabelle, and Villager himself as well.
Smash Bros generally does a fantastic job with the characters, but the misses are very strange.
What little I played of Multiversus (while still alive) did this with Tom & Jerry, too, and it was very charming. Sure, the difference is they ARE being violent, but any damage done to other players is purely as collateral to Tom/Jerry trying to wallop one another, rather than the opponent.
To make a point about the Emil skin, in DBD purple rarity skins are explicitly cosplays. 2B and A2 were added as legendaries, meaning that is meant to be the character (included is voicelines and such). The Emil skin is just a gaggle of stabby teenagers wearing a costume
I suspected it was this. I don’t play anymore, but this justification was also good for why Eren Yeager doesn’t turn into a titan. It’s just Dwight wearing a costume.
To add onto that, the entire description of Emil's skin is explicitly about Joey, and his struggles with his loyalty to his found family at The Legion. It honestly has little-to-no colleration with Emil as a character.
I wondered why a game with literal ghosts and monsters would have Emil just be a guy in skeletal body paint, instead of giving him an actual skeletal body. Maybe it's actually Yoko Taro.
I’m not well versed in Fortnite lore (lol) but isn’t the whole thing that you’re not actually killing anyone, and no one has their memories while on the island? Zero point something something.
According to the official Fortnite lore, entering the Loop (the in-universe gameplay loop of spawning on the island, trying to kill everyone else and not be killed yourself, repeat when you die or win) wipes your memories and knowledge of anything prior to your entry, hinders your ability to speak or commit any new memories or skills to long-term memory, and drains any magic and superpowers you have so you end up on par with the random civilians. Even characters as powerful as Thor could only endure it for a few minutes longer than a normal person.
If you ever escape the Loop (which is much easier said than done), a clone of you called a snapshot is created to fill in that has the same weak cognition as you did when you arrived; snapshots are only ambiguously sapient and are incapable of escaping the Loop or permanently developing their mental abilities.
As the game is a 9-year-old "fuck it the story's always gotta continue no matter how much vamping is involved" title, this has all been broken or ignored at times, but it's never been 100% retconned and is the most complete semblance we have of how the gameplay works in the lore. So, yes, a character being a pacifist or opposed to guns wouldn't matter since they wouldn't (or psychologically couldn't) remember their aversions to said activities.
Not super into the lore either, but the funny thing is I mentioned that they dont have memories/arent the real characters in one of their subreddits and apparently Batman is an exception lol. Apparently he's figured out the loop and was trying to figure a way out? Dunno, but that made me laugh.
I think they have a lore that use as a justification why that happens and if I remember correctly is that the island makes anyone become violent or something, and after the game ends it will make a "copy" of the character that is not essentially them.
I don't know the full specifics but Call of Duty allows the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to curb stomp Nicki Minaj while Captain Marvel stabs a streamer to death with Beavis and Seth Rogan looking on.
Minor case for DBD: Hunk is a skin for Legion, a class that uses a knife as its primary weapon... when the entire point of Hunk in ResE is that he DIDN'T have the knife all the other characters do, and relied on neck snaps to take people out melee.
I can forgive this one more because there arent any SMG killers in DbD, but it still annoys me.
Yeah it actually is. It's confusing at first glance when you try to differentiate what cosmetics count as separate characters and what aren't. It's usually the legendary ones but then you have like all the different xenomoprhs with Grid being totally separate, you also got regular Ripley and her clone Ripley 8... Then you got Chris Redfield but you also got Felix cosplaying Chris... it's a mess
I mean, custom mori's are a thing, considering Dracula's "True Form" has it as well as Naughty Bear for Trapper, Were-Elk for Huntress, Murderous Grizzly for Oni, MiNA for Trickster and upcoming Lilith for Artist
“Wade moved North, just like in Zork. His friends were behind him, just like a Centipede. They moved quickly, like the sprites in Joust. He thought about playing Dungeons and Dragons, he had moved North sometimes in that too. He felt a Rush (like the band) as he moved 2112 steps forward… was this Pac-Man? Sinclair ZX Spectrum, Atari Pong Zeppelin. Godzilla Godzilla.”
Somehow out of all the shallow references in the book the thing that bothered me most was the main character walking into an arcade and casually getting a perfect score in Pac-Man
For reference, a perfect score wasn't achieved in Pac-Man until almost 20 years after it came out, and requires a 3+ hour marathon of memorized lines and highly technical play. 11 people total have been confirmed to have done it. Hobbyists dedicate years to just attempting it, and with no prep the main character just casually walks into an arcade and does it as a distraction from what he's actually supposed to be doing.
And of course his random, unplanned, first try effort at one of the most difficult arcade game challenges ever gives him the Deus Ex Machina extra life item that saves him at the end of the book.
I don't think that "no prep" is accurate. Wade had dedicated his life to mastering every video game that could potentially be part of the hunt. Is it unrealistic that someone spreading their time across so many games could get a perfect score on Pac Man? Sure, but I'd hardly call it a random, unplanned effort.
Sure, and I'm sure he would have had played Pac-man as part of that.
But it's roughly the equivalent of "I go to the rock climbing gym every day. So, feeling a bit overwhelmed by everything going on in my life, I decided to relax by solo climbing Everest without oxygen".
The problem is, many games have specific things you need to learn. Having good aim will help in every shooter game, but being good at Call of Duty won't make someone good at Overwatch and visa versa. Just mastering video games means it will still take a lot of effort to get a perfect score on Pacman
Reminds me of that NCIS (or one of its spin offs) scene, where the cops find some super nerd, who reportedly has the high score in every online game, ever.
Lets leave out the fact that games don't really have high scores anymore, whatever. I remember some dude completed every achievement in WoW (in 2018) and had around 3 years /played between their characters.
But now do that in Everquest. And Guild Wars. And Elder Scrolls Online. And every korean grindfest game. And on and on...
You'd read it thinking this is an amazing greatest piece of satire, until about half way through when you realize it's not. You think it's satire about the type of guy that talks himself up on forums, thinks memorizing movie quotes is important, hypocritical about others hiding their appearance while doing the same, etc. It's not. The author wrote this character to be the hero.
The ending is the same. The author goes "We can just make everyone into white men, and then racism and sexism will be ended!" and as you keep reading you realize that the author isn't making a joke or setting up the real end, this is what he thinks is a win.
Eh, I liked it. But my standards are kinda low. It was a fun read, it definitely wasn’t a literary masterpiece.
I like it better than the movie because it at least feels like it’s pulling from the author’s genuine affection for the things it’s referencing, the film feels a little more soulless. But the back half of the book is a little soulless too, so… yeah.
It’s not a long book, it’s fine. If it were any longer it probably wouldn’t be, which is why I imagine the sequel is not well-liked.
The first book is a (somewhat clumsy) love letter to 80s pop culture and is one of the worst books I've ever loved. The second book exists because Cline got a contract to make one, and I gave up on it within 2 chapters - specifically due to a 867-5309 reference that was then called out in the narration just in case we missed it, instead of letting the obvious reference sit on its own.
The book is still bad, but the design of the oasis as a video game and the Easter egg makes more sense than in the movie.
Additionally, the book feels like it is made with a sincere appreciation of nerd culture, kind of like if you stretched Daicon 4 out into a novel length work.
The book is still bad, but the design of the oasis as a video game and the Easter egg makes more sense than in the movie.
I'm still not over the idea that in multiple years, nobody at all, at any point, drove backwards on a race track that has a proven 100% fail rate when you drive forwards.
Put an easter egg like that into a modern game with less than 100,000 players never mind the billions that RP1 imagines, and they would solve that shit by accident within 10 minutes.
I see people defend that idiocy by saying “dying costs money, you lose everything when you die!” saying no one would risk getting killed by doing random dumb things. It costs a quarter to start an account and IOI had thousands upon thousands upon thousands of accounts solely dedicated to finding it. Spending $500 and doing everything you could think of and IOI would have found that first clue in a matter of seconds. They had literal cannon fodder, no way it wouldn’t have been found immediately.
Probably because I read it first before watching the movie.
But I'll readily admit it's a low-calorie book; fun stuff, I like Rush, oh nice; teenagers beating the system through nostalgia and the media they love. Great.
And then it leaves no lasting impression beyond having enjoyed it. Like watching a 6/10 PG-13 action movie.
I was once stuck on an 8 hour train ride with a dead phone and I found a copy of that hook under the seat. Aside from the miserable train ride that book read like it was written by a now extinct form of redditor. Like a parody of every redditor stereotype coated with so many pop culture references it makes listening to online discourse over hazbin hotel preferable.
My hottest take is that the first RP1 book is actually kind of decent. Is it literarily good? Yeah, no. But i do actually really like the beginning -> middle parts of the book. It does take a nosedive at the end, but all in all it was pretty fun. It made me go "cyberpunk (or cyberpunk-esque) fiction can be written in the modern day and sell", and now I'm a college student who's struggling to not just write Shadowrun campaigns for my writing classes.
However, Ernest Cline just got worse with every subsequent book. Armada (not a sequel) is much worse written. I liked the beginning of Armada, and then the middle happened. And then the end happened. I felt Armada was a time killer. Kinda like RP1, but at least where RP1 pretended to have something more to it (it didnt, but the pretending helps me cope) Armada just didn't bother. And I fundamentally enjoy trash. So Armada was dumb fun for me. Then RP2 happened.
And RP2 is a book I used as kindling once, so safe to say I did in fact regret reading it. That's time on this earth I will never get back. Even though i love trashy books and shows, I just fundamentally hated RP2.
Tldr, my opinion is:
RP1: Decent book. Somewhat promising, hit the itches i had at the time.
Armada: clearly trashy self insert-y bullshit (so was RP1, but I was coping, and still am) that I thought was fun enough to warrant wasting however many hours I spent reading it.
RP2: is currently a pile of ashes in bumfuck nowhere Alabama.
He was never a villain. He was just a guy from Russia that loves to fight and that's it.
The writer admit he had a grudge against Zangielf because he always lose to him and to him, he's a bad guy.
Heck, the 90s movie somehow ended up more faithful because he was a "good" man who really thought M. Bison was a hero till they pointed out he's the villian. He quickly changed sides.
The Simpsons Guy is less of a crossover and more of a normal family guy episode that happens to take place with the Simpsons as members of the Simpsons team didn’t want anything to do with it and there are a good amount of jokes like Lisa saying shut up Meg that do not fit with their style.
It’s funny because the entire premise of the ep is Family Guy is a derivative of The Simpsons but ends with pointing out the Simpsons is a derivative of The Flintstones.
The most soulless, cheap, mass produced products forced down the throats of consumers devouring the shelves of pop culture stores like mold, Johnny had his form boiled down into the very symbol of consumerism, all for like 30 bucks
Ngl I bought it because him as a skin is just so hilariously ironic and hilarious to think that this is the shit arasaka would do to AIs trapped in Mikoshi lmao
Ironically in the lore of Fortnite, the island is basically Mikoshi with it's players being copies of their original selves, forced to endlessly fight in the Battle Royale.
"We got a city to burn" reduced to the biggest corpo slop microtransaction is...surprisingly ironic, considering the corporate dystopia of Cyberpunk and how close to that future we all are. But without the fun prosthetics bits.
Friendly reminder that in Cyberpunk… if you have a trauma team membership, they’re garunteed to pay up to 90% of the costs… so… technically trauma team is less evil then some medical insurance companies
That's literally exactly what it is, it was based on a cosplay that Yoko Taro did. In game they still play the Legion voicelines that obviously don't match Emil at all, it's very clearly not supposed to actually be the same character
I kinda think Emil works for Legion because they are the type of posers that wouldn't have actually played Nier and just think the outfit is cool. Unless the skin is implying it IS Emil? But someone like the Legion killers not understanding a complex character makes total sense.
I think that's why I find the Iron Giant criticism kind of dumb. The characters don't make any claim to be faithful to the spirit of the original story, it's literally just a skin made by a modder.
Like if you needed to win a fight to stop your favorite game from being bought by Meta, then sure, mod in Superman and have him kill the bad guys.
If you want a solid counter-example, there is a Final Fantasy VII expansion pack for Power Wash Simulator. You can wash Cloud's bike from the chase, a model of Midgar, and a couple other FFVII items. There are some light dialog and descriptions included. Well, it turns out that the lead writer for the game reviewed and approved the final implementation, making sure it was all lore accurate. Crazy effort considering the game itself is highly satirical and there is almost no story.
Power Wash Simulator has such a weird amount of lore, but none of it really matters because all you do is wash. "Did you know that the mayor was-" "Don't care. Cleaning tree fort."
I already know that a lot of people are going to point out that the Emil in Dbd is just Joey cosplaying. And you know what? They sorta have a point. Legion is a group of outcasts who feel out of place and I could see them playing Nier and sympathizing honestly with ALL of the protagonists, especially Emil and Kaine.
However.
The DBD crossover with Nier Automata was a crossover with AUTOMATA. Yes Emil is in Automata but the Emil we get is Replicant/Gestalt Emil. And the thing that frustrates me even further is that we got 3 skins in the crossover, and for some reason, they chose Emil instead of 9S, you know, the THIRD PROTAGONIST OF AUTOMATA. I would go even further to say that 9S makes even more sense as a skin for legion than Emil or an Emil cosplay does.
9S physically matches legion, looking like a teenage boy.
He uses a blade, which could easily be broken or something to be made into a knife.
He has a similar mentality to legion: feeling betrayed by a system that was supposed to support them and make things make sense, which leads them to feel like outcasts. They answer this feeling of loneliness, angst, and betrayal with violence and rebellion.
9S literally goes mad through the final act of Nier: Automata, meaning he would be easy fodder for the entity to trick into becoming a servant.
9S is literally the perfect candidate for a legion skin, but they went with Emil in an Automata crossover. It feels baffling.
9S would probably make more revenue as a Survivor, it's hard to imagine his base form being a killer, since most people who know Nier Automata haven't actually played the games. He just isn't that scary or imposing, and he just isn't nearly as popular as 2B.
That being said, I do agree that it would make sense. He is arguably the most involved and overall protagonist of Automata as a whole.
Wasn't Emil originally made to be a killer, and actively chooses to be a good person despite that?
I remember folks saying something like that, but I'm not experienced in Neir to commit to those words.
If so, it would fall in line just like how the Entity got that anime guy to be a killer despite being a hero there. The skin was called Emil's purpose, not Emil.
What's so funny about the Nier crossover is that they could make it into the Halua/Number 6 boss fight (aka the one responsible to make Emil who he is), and they wouldn't have to change much.
I’d actually argue that the Iron Giant is understanding the source material 110% perfectly. Ditto for the Gundam.
The Iron Giant doesn’t want to be a weapon. Gundam has always been anti-war.
And yet, we have Mega-Fortnite selling them as weapons that the characters are using in this war over the future of the game.
Meanwhile, in real life, characters like Spider-man and Batman are added as skins in real Fortnite, where they kill people with guns. Despite the fact that these characters famously do not kill people or use guns. But you bought the skin so who cares?
Furthermore, the Iron Giant IS a weapon. He was built and created as a walking mass-destruction weapon, but his amnesiac time spent with Hogarth made a miracle and changed his nature.
Same with the Gundam. It’s a weapon of mass destruction created to end the war with Zeon, but in the process it creates a bloody cycle of wars and destruction. In RP1 it’s just a big mech fighting Mechagodzilla.
the Iron Giant example doesn't work anyway because the Oasis isn't offering him as an item, it's a custom build by a player in the Oasis using normal game features. you could argue the character doesn't understand him, but the Oasis/movie aren't really taking a stance at all.
I'd even argue it's the most accurate thing in that movie. Someone who likes the iron giant movie made the build and then takes it as an item they're bringing to this event? Sounds 100% plausible for a real actual person to do that. Like at that point it's just an item and an avatar, the person using it doesn't care about his symbolism, they just want to block a missile and go "superman"
Iirc it was a custom mech that a (unknown?) player wanted that wades team (one of wich created the mech) used and subsequently destroyed before delivery
The game to our knowledge never actually included the iron giant as the oasis is more or less just a framework for players to create whatever they want
Kinda like roblox I guess
Yeah, it wasn't the ACTUAL Iron Giant, or something programmed to act like him. Plus even if it was, he'd be fighting not as a weapon, but as Superman since the whole reason why so many players in the Oasis were fighting IOI to stop them from getting the last key was to protect both themselves and the Oasis, and what does Superman do? He fights to protect.
I don't get why everyone gets so up in arms about the Iron Giant. The OASIS is Fortnite meets Second Life. Batman doesn't use guns, yet he's in Fortnite. It's something that's meant to pander to players no matter how ridiculous. That's how I've always looked at it. Cuz that construct may look like the Iron Giant, but it's not actually him.
Every single piece of spinoff media and merchandise of Squid Game.
The most anti-capitalist piece of media ever made, about how people turn into monsters if enough money is on the line, was turned into a corprorate money cow by monetizing the horrors of the show. It sucks that such a great show has a legacy like that.
this is actually an in universe example of the trope, with the game including the Iron Giant as a crossover where you can use him as a weapon, thereby misunderstanding the source material.
I thought Ready Player One was like Second Life and players could upload their own models and stuff. It's not the developers of the game who made an Iron Giant crossover, it's some player who decided to create his own in-game Iron Giant. Am I misunderstanding the premise of the movie?
Kingdom Hearts 3 seriously thinks that Hiro's combat chip (which got left behind in the other dimension along with Baymax's original body) is the Heart of Baymax and not Tadashi's healthcare chip.
Which misses the POINT so much it's not funny. Someone at Square-Enix was half-asleep watching the movie.
So you got KH3 with Hiro fretting and crying...over his own fuckass combat chip, sometimes while the REAL Baymax is right next to him. And no, Hiro is not crying over the damage his combat chip is doing as Evil Baymax: the narrative actually treats it as if the real Baymax got taken over by Darkness.
Then the game walks everything back anyways! When Evil Baymax dies, Hiro just clones Tadashi's healthcare chip and pops it in the second body and yaaaaaay we got two Baymaxes again. It's not like anyone DIED at all, right? It's not like the game spent two hours trying to convince you to give a fuck about this awful chip before it got destroyed. Nahhhh, that would be just plain STUPID. Yaaaaaaaaaay.
The combat chip is part of Baymax's heart, the dark part. But hearts in Kingdom Hearts are both light and darkness. Dark Baymax is an intentional mirror to both Vanitas and Dark Riku. Like Vanitas to Ventus, he's the dark part of Baymax ripped away and given its own form. Like Dark Riku, Dark Baymax is like a snapshot of when Baymax was at his worst and most destructive.
Besides, I feel like the original movie kept it ambiguous whether Baymax 2 was a copy of Baymax 1 or Baymax reborn in a new body. I think it's the former. To me, the chips aren't the totality of Baymax's consciousness but a set of instructions that tells him how to act.
Again, in Kingdom Hearts terms, the two chips represent the light and dark halves of Baymax's heart. Dark Baymax being saved works as an intentional parallel toward Riku's journey away from the dark throughout the series. It's actually one of the most interesting ways KH has used a Disney world.
Honestly when I watched the movie I totally could see Evil Baymax happening. The loneliness of being stuck in the portal dimension combined with whatever is in the combat chip would make a really creepy sequel villain. But that was it. The combat chip isn't Baymax, it's the healthcare chip. That's the entire point of the movie is that Baymax is fine. What happened to the other body, and what would happen if it somehow came back, is an interesting but different idea. If it did come back, it'd be something else.
What’s odd about the Dead by Daylight one is that if you look at the cosmetic description, it only talks about The Legion’s backstory with barely any mention of Emil’s
Thats because its not actually emil, its a killer doing a crossplay, the legion is a group of edgy teenagers who committed a murder and wandered into the entity realm. They are the exact kind of people who would use emils face because its creepy
Dbd cosmetic crossovers can be divided into legendaries and cosplay.
A legendary is the character itself, as such the description is about the character (Geralt, James, Lilith, etc)
Cosplays are the original dbd cast using, for whatever reason, clothes of the licensed characters, as such the description will try to explain how they ended up with them (Emil Legion, Ciri Sable, 90% of Yui's cosmetics, etc)
In any of those forums I'd get annihilated for it mostly but Universes Beyond coming to magic. I.E. all of the non-magic IPs from Walking Dead, to My Little Pony, to Spongebob, to Fallout, and on and on are now magic sets and products. Mostly, from an on-the-ground actually playing the game level not much has changed. Especially if you play EDH its really the same as it has always been plus some themed IP decks and a couple standout cards. Symbolically I think it's the worst decision that they have ever made for the game. It completely diluted any attempt they would have at showcasing their own stories (which frankly, were never good, but that is a different conversation) and it is just such a shameless, absolutely soulless cash grab that has completely killed any brand integrity that they had before. The game is more expensive than ever, the Pokemon and card "investor" crowd has taken interest since the LOTR and Final Fantasy sets and it's not died down since. Every set sells out and sells like hotcakese and is the "best set ever!" from WotC's point of view but anyone that is an oldhead that hobby you used to love has left you far, far behind.
I don’t like what it’s done to MTG itself, but love it or hate it they have generally executed the IP crossovers extremely well. They work closely with the teams from the company they are licensing to ensure that names are correct, cards fit the characters thematically, and that they meet fan expectations.
I agree that I feel MTG is worse off because of some of the crossovers. But I’ve never seen sentiment from fans of an IP that a crossover was poorly done. It’s almost always the opposite.
The Emil in DbD is not the Emil from the games. It's one of the Legion members dressed as Emil.
And with both Emil and Iron Giant, it's a character using a skin of the character. In Ready Player One, the Iron Giant is just an in-game item a player is using.
For the second case, while true that it goes against what the movie was about... He's still an iconic character that lot's of people love who has shown to have immense potential for destruction..
Also he's a giant robot, so ofcourse people are going to want to play him. Even if it is no way supported by the source material
Emil feels like a bad take. His clones are enemies in the game. His outfit is also a cosplay on a killer, not the actual character. It’s also not a narrative thing, it’s purely a crossover for fun.
So the argument would be Legion is cosplaying a character that doesn’t fit his personality which…. Doesn’t really mean much?
Not to mention that BHVR works with the companies they license from, they don't just license and then do whatever. This was just as much as choice by Square Enix as it was BHVR
It’s because that’s not actually Emil. Cosmetic collabs fall into one of two categories with DbD. Either Legendary, where it’s actually the character themselves, see Geralt, Hinako, etc. and cosplays, which are just the original DbD characters dressing up. 2B and A2 are legendary, Emil is just a member of the Legion, a group of edgy teenagers, in cosplay.
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u/THE_LEGO_FURRY 3d ago
The Walmart grinch ads "Christmas doesn't come from a store, perhaps Christmas means a little bit more".... Nah it's all here at Walmart "Who knew"
https://giphy.com/gifs/ahZZZZFGLGhvq