I'm starting to see a pattern here:
Here we have Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, Monster Hunter and Digimon, four franchises that never particularly had a defined audience (especially among children) doing something, not meant for their core audience, Dragon Quest going after Minecraft and the others going the monster collecting RPG genre (no, really, that's a thing).
I really don't like using the term children's game, but the term family-friendly will never catch on, so... How do we know they're going for that audience? Well the bright colors and the chibi characters might have tipped anyone off, but it's the sheer contrast of these spin-offs put together with their main titles. The main question is, why? Especially now?
My theory is that Yo-kai watch has risen in popularity [in Japan, where these come from] so much, it's giving Pok?mon a run for its money for the first time in 20 years and companies are seeing this as an oportunity to get back into the game for that market.
To be very honest, this is nothing new:
The Megami Tensei and Dragon Quest series already tried throwing their hats into the ring to get a ride on Pok?mania, to varying degrees of success. But the recent batch of spin-offs had some quality to it, willing to experiment with their core formula (in Digimon's case, maybe find something that doesn't crash and burn) in order to maybe fulfill their wish to get 5 spin-off franchise like Mario does, and sadly Federation Force's failure becomes even more apparent when Nintendo tried to market it to the core Metroid fanbase, the one they aren't in the best terms with.
Hopefully this will shake it up some franchises to give them a breath of fresh air, or maybe bring Monster Rancher back from the dead, with the caveat of Telefang and Robopon coming back too, if you remember those, you better be afraid.
Here we have Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, Monster Hunter and Digimon, four franchises that never particularly had a defined audience (especially among children) doing something, not meant for their core audience, Dragon Quest going after Minecraft and the others going the monster collecting RPG genre (no, really, that's a thing).
I really don't like using the term children's game, but the term family-friendly will never catch on, so... How do we know they're going for that audience? Well the bright colors and the chibi characters might have tipped anyone off, but it's the sheer contrast of these spin-offs put together with their main titles. The main question is, why? Especially now?
My theory is that Yo-kai watch has risen in popularity [in Japan, where these come from] so much, it's giving Pok?mon a run for its money for the first time in 20 years and companies are seeing this as an oportunity to get back into the game for that market.
To be very honest, this is nothing new:
The Megami Tensei and Dragon Quest series already tried throwing their hats into the ring to get a ride on Pok?mania, to varying degrees of success. But the recent batch of spin-offs had some quality to it, willing to experiment with their core formula (in Digimon's case, maybe find something that doesn't crash and burn) in order to maybe fulfill their wish to get 5 spin-off franchise like Mario does, and sadly Federation Force's failure becomes even more apparent when Nintendo tried to market it to the core Metroid fanbase, the one they aren't in the best terms with.
Hopefully this will shake it up some franchises to give them a breath of fresh air, or maybe bring Monster Rancher back from the dead, with the caveat of Telefang and Robopon coming back too, if you remember those, you better be afraid.
