These 10 Games That Are in the Wrong Genre tend to be good games that just feel a bit… off. Usually this is due to some short sighted design choices to insert game mechanics “just because.” It’s less rare than you would think, as game designers are constantly trying to find ways to make games more “fun” and “game-like” when most of the time they should be focusing on creating a story and solid gameplay experience. In our opinion, if you changed the genre of these 10 Games That Are in the Wrong Genre, you could make the bad ones good, and the good ones amazing.

  • 10

    Naruto, Dragon Ball Z, and Other Anime Fighting Games

    Should Be 2D Fighters

    “Anime Fighters” as these games have come to be called, are a bit different from your normal fighting game. They have few buttons, are very mashable, and tend to prioritize flash and dedication to anime canon over game balance. As a result, these games sell very well on their first day and have great single-player modes, but have very short multiplayer life-times. There’s no reason that these anime games can’t have a fun 2D battle system, complete with balanced frame data and hit-boxes. Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure did it, and it was one of the most fun fighting games of the PlayStation era. This bucket of missed potential puts every anime fighter on our list of 10 Games That Are in the Wrong Genre

  • 9

    Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines

    Should Have Been a Stealth Game

    One of the big selling points of Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines was the ability to play the game in “any style you like.” Want to kick down the door guns blazing? You can do that. However, you can also sneak around, hack computers, pick locks, and socially weave your way into vampire society… or at least that’s what we were told. In the end V:TMB forced you into boss encounters that were unavoidable. So anyone who didn’t specialize in combat was totally out of luck. If it were a stealth game, combat would be secondary but still necessary, bringing the game closer to its “play any way you like” ideal. Besides, a vampire stealth game with RPG elements would just be cool!

  • 8

    Shenmue

    Should Have Been an Open World Action Game

    Shenmue is a popular cult classic cinematic game, in which most of the gameplay boils down to talking to people and quick time events. However, and this is the only time we will ever say this, it likely would have been better if it didn’t focus on the story so much. Imagine Shenmue done in a Yakuza or Grand Theft Auto style of world. You could still have all the mini-games, the dialogue options, and the quick time events of the original with a large open world to wander and explore. A deeper combat system would have also been a plus.

  • 7

    Killer 7

    Should Have Been a Shooter or a Point and Click Adventure… But Not Both

    Killer 7 was… weird. It had a lot of puzzle elements and story based choices which were fun but kind of shallow. Its primary method of combat was shooting, except doing so requires you plant your feet in order to see invisible enemies and then shoot them as they slowly hobble toward you like some sort of shooting gallery. If Suda 51 simply chose either genre the game would have been way better. Imagine a shooter/action game where all the different Killers had different guns and weapons to choose from to handle different types of enemies. Or how about an adventure game that allows you to use different Killers to solve puzzles using different tools!

  • 6

    Halo Wars

    Should Have Been a MOBA

    Halo Wars was a console Real Time Strategy that was… OK. It’s pretty obvious at this point that real time strategies don’t really work on consoles, so it was no surprise that the game was mediocre. However, if it was a MOBA (i.e. a League of Legends type game) it would have fit the feeling of Halo a lot better. In MOBAs, you control one hero as lesser units around you continually head toward the opponent’s base. You could control a Spartan with your own custom loadout and push through maps as your backup units rally around you. Heck, you could even do it from first person and make it a nifty MOBA/FPS hybrid!

  • 5

    Eternal Darkness

    Should Have Been a Telltale Style Adventure Game

    Eternal Darkness was a fantastic survival horror game for the Gamecube that did great things with a Lovecraftian style mythos. It also made great use of a sanity mechanic that actually screwed with the player’s perception of the game. There was only one problem. The combat was horrible! Melee combat was slow and sluggish and ranged combat was inaccurate and not fun. The game would have been a lot more interesting if combat was removed all together. Instead of stabbing at slow moving skeletons, you could just wander through the depths of tombs and haunted houses, trying to solve puzzles. Every time you would see an unspeakable horror, your sanity would drop making you hallucinate and making each puzzle harder and harder to solve. Good survival horror is just a hop, skip, and a jump away from the adventure genre anyway, so that’s why we consider Eternal Darkness to be a Game That Is in the Wrong Genre.

  • 4

    The WWE Series

    Should Be a 3D Fighting Game

    The WWE series is another type of fighter that is not really a fighter. Moves are slow, pins and holds have weird control stick waggle mechanics, and whether or not you win a match usually feels like a crapshoot. If these games were tightened up, given actual stamina bars and a 3D style dodge and avoidance system, they would be much more fun. You can keep the simulation aspects, the ring entrances, the character creation, and so forth. All you would have to change is the core fighting mechanics. It would be like a modern day version of Saturday Night Slam Masters!

  • 3

    Resident Evil 6

    Should Have Been a Survival Horror

    OOOOH, BURN! Did you hear that Capcom? We don’t think Resident Evil 6 is a survival horror game! Cheesy insults aside, it really wasn’t. None of the enemies were scary, the main game mechanic was shooting zombies with shotguns and grenade launchers, and the final boss fight literally had you fighting against a zombie T-Rex. Resident Evil 6 was an action game, no matter what way you look at it. It’s time for Capcom to bring Resident Evil back to its survival horror roots.

  • 2

    Final Fantasy 7 Dirge of Cerberus and Crisis Core

    Should Have Been RPGs

    In the early days of the PSP and the late days of the PS2, Square-Enix decided to capitalize on the hype surrounding the upcoming release of Final Fantasy 7: Advent Children by releasing two Final Fantasy 7 spin-offs. Final Fantasy 7: Dirge of Cerberus starred Vincent in a horrible shooter with bad targeting and a spastic camera. Final Fantasy 7: Crisis Core starred Zack Fair in an action game with slot mechanics that made the FF7 story spiral off into wacky town. If either of these games were simply another RPG, they would have been better. Both games’ stories were halfway decent, it’s just that their gameplay was some of the worst we have seen from a Final Fantasy game.

  • 1

    Bioshock: Infinite

    Should Have Been a Cinematic Game

    Thinking that Bioshock: Infinite is a Game That Is in the Wrong Genre is bound to be a controversial opinion, but hear us out. What does the actual shooting in Bioshock: Infinite actually add to it? The very first time you kill someone you are shocked by the violence and racism in Columbia, but after that everyone you kill is just a roadblock. You don’t feel anything when you kill them. You simply plow through them with shotguns. At the end of the game these encounters become incredibly boring and repetitive, and you realize that it’s not the shooting that is fun in Infinite, it’s the story. So we say that Bioshock Infinite should have been a game like Heavy Rain. It would focus on the choices you made in trying to save Elizabeth, and focus on the story first and foremost. That way, instead of being a mass murderer that simply picks off anyone in his way, Booker could be characterized as a conflicted gun for hire.

More From Arcade Sushi