The attempts to adapt a Video Game into a series or movie hasn’t yielded the best results. Watch any of the video game adaptations by Director Uwe Boll and this point is proven pretty effectively. Unfortunately, when anime has tried to make their own shows based on games, the results haven’t fared much better. Often though instead of delivering a truly terrible adaptation which fans can mock, the result is a bland and forgettable movie or TV series.
What follows isn’t a list of the worst Animes based on Video Games but instead shows which didn’t take any risks, don’t deliver anything essential for fans of the franchise, and really come off as just “meh.”
1. F-Zero: GP Legends
Sure, the YouTube clip of Captain Falcon dying in the final episode as he Falcon Punches a world is cool but what else does it offer? Not much for fans of F-Zero to get excited about. Instead of making it about racing, the show made Captain Falcon some kind of light being who was fighting Black Shadow who was evil and you have to ask if the creators forgot this game was originally about racing.
2. Devil May Cry
A series where main character Dante takes demon related incidents while using his cool powers and weapons to solve the cases should be a recipe for a must see show. Sadly, Dante only uses his sword and twin guns and none of rest of the vast arsenal from the different games and doesn’t even use his devil powers until the last episode. It’s not really worth the wait when he finally uses it.
3. Star Ocean EX
A show to look at the expansive universe of the Star Ocean franchise sounds like a great idea. Unfortunately, this anime doesn’t properly tell a complete story and 5 drama CDs (audio stories featuring the original cast) had to be released to give the show a proper ending. Whenever additional media is needed to finish telling your story, then you know something is wrong.
4. Blue Dragon
You can’t blame Japan for wanting to try a formula which has worked so many times before. Adding the character designs of Dragonball creator Akira Toriyama to an RPG was what made the Dragon Quest franchise incredibly successful. Neither the game nor this anime really caught on with fans in America and no more installments have been announced to the franchise. Best to just let this sleeping dragon lie.
5. Ragnarok the Animation
There was a brief period where the MMORPG game Ragnarok was starting to gain some traction in America. At the tail end of its popularity this series came out. It didn’t help to add to the games populating but didn’t really hinder it either. It just gave a generic story of a team fighting monsters which only hardcore fans will insist is worth watching.
6. Samurai Showdown: The motion picture
Fighting games really don’t make the best anime movies. For every Street Fight II: The Animated Movie which gets made, there is a Tekken movie to remind us to be wary. Samurai Showdown doesn’t really do much but have the different characters from this neglected (there hasn’t been a new game in close to a decade) franchise gather together to fight Ambrosia, a generic God of destruction.
7. Viewtiful Joe
The first Viewtiful Joe game was a classic but didn’t get as much financial success as the developers would have hoped. The anime fares about the same, telling the story of the first game but takes 51 episodes to tell the whole thing but really didn’t inspire others to pick up a copy of any of the games. Considering this show was longer than the entire playtime of both games combined, can you really blame them?
8. Bomberman Jetters
The popular game about a character who loves to blow things up did get his own anime. The show starred the titular Bomberman, called White Bomberman (as there are multiple bomber characters in the show) working with an intergalactic peacekeeping force known as the Jetters. Together they fought the Hige-Hige bandits with a basic “monster of the week” formula and really didn’t win people over. It never even got a DVD release despite broadcasting on Cartoon Network.
9. Wild Arms: Twilight Venom
Each Wild Arms game tells the story of a different group of individuals who each come together using the accent weapons known as ARMS to fight evil. The anime showcases a character called Sheyenne Rainstorm, a man capable of using ARMS who has been put in the body of a 10 year old boy. The entire series features Sheyenne trying to track down his body by getting hints of body shaped treasures. The item specific concept mixed with the less than gripping mysteries makes this show easily forgotten.
10. Power Stone
The popular Dreamcast fighting game did indeed get a cult following as being one of the best games for the system. The anime didn’t receive nearly as much attention. It started one of the fighters Edward Falcon going around and gathering the different Power Stones in an effort to save the world. Considering the license has never been rescued for a re-release it’s safe to say the anime wasn’t a must see show.
