Best rip-offs

[EinhanderZwei]

Absolutely correct, another knowledge sharing thread by me

As we all know, the 'clone' and 'rip-off' terms have slight differences in meaning - games that copy the basic gameplay ideas are clones (ex. all the FPSes back in the day were officially called 'Doom clones'), and games that copy EVERYTHING and just rearranging it are, well, rip-offs. Also, the original and ripped off games should belong to different companies - this is important to differ them from 'trademark design style' (yeah, I'm hinting on Cave)

Anyways, sometime there are rip-offs that actually overwhelm the originals in terms of gameplay/graphics/music etc.

Some examples:

- Most obvious and actually respected (by myself, at least) are Pulstar and Blazing Star. As one of the gaming sites said: 'Pulstar. This is R-Type'. Good catch. Same goes for Katakis and Enforcer

- Raiden series started off as 'we can also be Toaplan'-type of game

- Phalanx is actually a slowed down and confusingly easy Thunder Force IV twin

- Batsugun and DonPachi technically were made by the same people under two different company names, so we can count them both as one returning favor to Seibu Kaihatsu, because... because 'Raiden on steroids', as I've always said

That's all off the top of my head. Of course there're a lot more, but I want to focus on commercial games, because it's obvious that dojin are not often original

[Zweihander]

Gley Lancer was the best Thunder Force ripoff ever.
Super Smash TV was the best Robotron ripoff ever.

[kengou]

I like Xexex a lot better than R-Type, the game it rips off.

[Zweihander]

I like Xexex a lot better than R-Type, the game it rips off.

Same.

[Gespenst]

Strikers 1945 series is the best Aero Fighters' ripoff
Sheinryu also rips Raiden, and Daioh(never tried Daioh, though)
Souky is basically Taito's Rayforce/Layer Section ripoff with much complicated lock-on systems, subweapons, scoring systems, and bombs

[CIT]

Gun Frontier -> Battle Garegga
Metal Black -> Border Down
Thunder Force III -> Gate of Thunder
Image Fight -> Radiant Silvergun

I wouldn't say Strikers 1945 is a Aero Fighters ripoff, cuz they were made by the same people.

[TMR]

Sheinryu also rips Raiden, and Daioh(never tried Daioh, though)

Really? i thought Shienryu was a descendent of Daioh, it's remarkably close especially on the first level.

[Gespenst]

Sheinryu also rips Raiden, and Daioh(never tried Daioh, though)

Really? i thought Shienryu was a descendent of Daioh, it's remarkably close especially on the first level.

I know that.

[Mero]

I thought Shienryu was very reminiscent of Truxton/Tatsujin

[Twiddle]

DDP DOJ was the best Touhou ripoff I've ever played

[Elixir]

i think dodonpachi daioujou is very reminiscent of dodonpachi

[EinhanderZwei]

DDP DOJ was the best Touhou ripoff I've ever played

R-Type was the best Magic Dragon rip-off I've ever played

[chempop]

Mars Matrix's art style is a total DDP rip-off.
DDP-DOJ level two is a complete rip-off of Mars Matrix...

anyone else notice this?

[Acid King]

DDP-DOJ level two is a complete rip-off of Dodonpachi level two

[Dave_K.]

Double Wings (Raiden)
Pulstar (R-Type II)
Mad Shark (Raiden DX)
War of Aero (Image Fight)
Wyvern Wings (Strikers 1999)

[ZOM]

I see lots of similarities between Cyber Core and Dragon Spirit.

[pseudo]

R-type -> DUX

same fucking thing

[croikle]

R-type -> DUX

He said "best rip-offs"...

[Udderdude]

Do not really like the term rip-off. It doesn't fit most games mentioned here.

I would only consider a game a true rip-off if it has almost the same graphics, same levels and same game mechanics.

Good examples being Giana Sisters and Katakis. In The Groove could also be considered (No, adding mines does not make it a completely different game).

There are also tons and tons of shareware games that are just blatant rip-offs of old arcade games, too many to even count. One of the most popular being Snood, it baffles me that Taito never went after these punks for completely ripping off Puzzle Bobble and even getting their shit rip-off ported to the GBA.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snood_(vid ... ecognition Reading this shit is enough to make my blood boil.

Pretty much if it's a rip-off, it's in danger of, or was actually threatened with a legal response by the original creators.

And all true rip-offs are by definition bad, since the dumb bastards stealing the ideas have little idea how they worked in the first place and 99% of the time end up creating an inferior imitation.

[EddyMRA]

There are also tons and tons of shareware games that are just blatant rip-offs of old arcade games, too many to even count. One of the most popular being Snood, it baffles me that Taito never went after these punks for completely ripping off Puzzle Bobble and even getting their shit rip-off ported to the GBA.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snood_(vid ... ecognition Reading this shit is enough to make my blood boil.

Pretty much if it's a rip-off, it's in danger of, or was actually threatened with a legal response by the original creators.

This reminds me of a similar debacle involving the creators of Puzz Loop (Mitchell Corporation) accusing PopCap Games of plagiarizing Puzz Loop to make Zuma.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zuma_(video_game)#Plagiarism_controversy

[Udderdude]

There are also tons and tons of shareware games that are just blatant rip-offs of old arcade games, too many to even count. One of the most popular being Snood, it baffles me that Taito never went after these punks for completely ripping off Puzzle Bobble and even getting their shit rip-off ported to the GBA.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snood_(vid ... ecognition Reading this shit is enough to make my blood boil.

Pretty much if it's a rip-off, it's in danger of, or was actually threatened with a legal response by the original creators.

This reminds me of a similar debacle involving the creators of Puzz Loop (Mitchell Corporation) accusing PopCap Games of plagiarizing Puzz Loop to make Zuma.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zuma_(video_game)#Plagiarism_controversy

I'm willing to bet you can find some retard on the internet claiming Puzzloop/Magnetica is a ripoff of Zuma.

I hope all these assholes get their pants sued off. "PopCap asserts that Zuma is 'not an exact clone', but an elaboration of Mitchell's original idea". Total bullshit. They can assert their way right into a courtroom as far as I'm concerned.

I would suggest renaming the thread "Best games inspired by other games", since that's really what the OP was pointing towards. Or just make a new thread and leave this to bitching about shitty US developers ripping off old arcade games and getting away with it. (Fuckers!)

[RoninBuddha]

not really ripoffs, but more of SAME SHIT syndrome.

zanac/aleste/starforce best

[EinhanderZwei]

not really ripoffs, but more of SAME SHIT syndrome.

zanac/aleste/starforce best

Zanac and Aleste were made by the same company

[gs68]

Raiden Fighters had one of the best Raizing medal chaining ripoffs of all time. except the "memorizing micluses" part
Or maybe Battle Garegga had one of the best RF medal chaining ripoffs, I dunno, they both came out the same year.

[lgb]

Raiden has always been a series of Toa-clones, and RF = Raizing etc

battle garegga was first

[Ex-Cyber]

I hope all these assholes get their pants sued off. "PopCap asserts that Zuma is 'not an exact clone', but an elaboration of Mitchell's original idea". Total bullshit. They can assert their way right into a courtroom as far as I'm concerned.

And if they were to have a competent lawyer, they'd probably win (at least in a U.S. court) unless they actually copied something rather than just imitating it. Plagiarism of abstract ideas/mechanics/interfaces is not generally illegal (see e.g. Lotus v. Borland and Capcom v. Data East) unless it involves some patented method. And the gaming world would suck if developers went around patenting all their gameplay mechanics.

[toaplan_shmupfan]

Raiden series started off as 'we can also be Toaplan'-type of game

Raiden series also rips off it's prequel. (Not counting the Raiden Fighters series, just the games named Raiden.)

Raiden II stage 1, 2, 3 were essentially the same bosses as Raiden, with better graphics and more difficult shot patterns.
Raiden III stage 1 and 2 are essentially the same bosses as Raiden II, which did better graphics and harder shot patterns from the bosses of original Raiden.

[apple arcade]

Mars Matrix's art style is a total DDP rip-off.
DDP-DOJ level two is a complete rip-off of Mars Matrix...

anyone else notice this?

am I the only one who personally doesn't like seeing DOJ and Mars Matrix in the same sentence?

[ZOM]

am I the only one who personally doesn't like seeing DOJ and Mars Matrix in the same sentence?

You're not.

[Taylor]

This reminds me of a similar debacle involving the creators of Puzz Loop (Mitchell Corporation) accusing PopCap Games of plagiarizing Puzz Loop to make Zuma.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zuma_(video_game)#Plagiarism_controversy

PopCap were also complaining about people ripping off their games.

Anyway, Darksiders is the best Panzer Dragon, Zelda, Warcraft 3, World of Warcraft, God of War, Starcraft, Portal, ...