There are some great mysteries out there in the💎 world. Bigfoot, the true identity of Jack the Ripper, how many licks it actually takes to get to the ce✃nter of a Tootsie Pop, so on and so forth.
But one particular one that has plagued Godzilla fans🍌 for many years is why a quality fighting game in the franchise never got its 🌃due in America. In the mid-1990s, when Kaiju games were fairly popular, why was the planned launch canceled? We delved into some facts to figure out why.
The result? Complicated, yet logical.
Call It Bad Timing
Have you ever noticedও that popular games and systems always tend to launch between September and December? It isn't every year a new system launches, but when it does, it's typically a big deal surrounded by long lines and hype and Karens playing tug of war with the last one on the shelf so little Timmy can have it under the tree. In September of 1995, the very first PlayStation launched in the United States, joining the Sega and the SNES platforms on the market.
One year later, the Nintendo 64 would release as well. That previous December, Alfa System launched Godzilla: Kaijuu Daikessen in Japan for the SNES. Critics adored it for its gorgeous graphics and solid gameplay. It was everything you could want in a fighting game, and a North American release was planned for the following April. However, by that spring🎉, the game found itself about to compete in a market w♑here the SNES was no longer considered relevant by people in North America.
Western Consumerism Happened
America has always been a consumer culture. People supplement their own personal Maslow Triangle by maxing out Mastercards every holiday season and that's just how it is. We always have to buy, buy, buy and always need the next new thing. People can claim that t🔴he madness of Black Friday is recent, but my parents, who witnessed fellow post-Thanksgiving shoppers stepping on ornaments at Fortunoff in the late 1980s, will tell you otherwise.
Point is, American con🌄sumers most likely weren't going to care about a game for an older system that was well past its popularity height, and the makers could see that.
The SNES wasn't the only thing dwindling as a trend, as 1994 saw the release of many famous games; think Earthworm Jim, Need For Speed, and Sonic & Knuckles. Godzilla, as a franchise, was just not as popular anymore with American kids, with many of the films released in Japan at that time being flipped straight to video for their North American launch. It probably wouldn't have sold very well, considering everyone was likely purchasing Playstations at that time, and another system was about to be launched on the market. As gorgeous as the graphics in Kaijuu Daikessen were, there was ꦇrealistically no way it was going to be able to compete with the 3D animated games that were set to release around that time.
3D Animation Took Over
See, similar to Apple products and car models, game systems are categorized by generations based on what they offered the player. The SNES is considered part of the fifth generation which lasted from 1989 to 1995. Systems in this time frame had 16-bit processors and this was the time w🦋hen developers started to go more out of the box with their content creation. Generation six came in 1995 and lasted until 1998, with the Nintendo 64, the Playstation and the Sega Saturn launched in this era.
These systems offered much more aesthetic graphics, with the 64 being significantly cheaper than the SNES had been. This was a new era of consumerism where companies kept the price of a c🌄onsole low to make it a hot seller while earning a majority of their revenue through character licensing, accessories, and the gaꦇmes themselves. Think about it: when you go to the electronics section of a department store, what is almost always in the next aisle over from the game cases?
Merchandise, merchandise, and more merchandise.
You Weren't Going To See It As A McDonald's Toy
That was the fatal flaw for Godzill💙a, as a franchise. You see, even if it had done well in the beginning, lack of the brand's popularity among American 🦂buyers would have made it difficult to universally market. The game features characters from the recent films of that time, many of whom American players wouldn't have known had they not been active fans of the movies. Were the game more story-based, it would have been different, as a story gets you attached to characters, but this is a pure kaiju slugfest for Godzilla fans. At the most, the title would have been a one-hit-wonder sale, and most likely not have matched the actual financial cost of bringing it to the west.
Thus, the publishers realized all of this and made the hard decision to cancel Kaijuu Daikessen's venture to the west. While disappointing, it's clear that they were better off financially by doing so. Fortunately, you can purchase the Japanese im🍸port if you're feeling splurgy and have an old SNES lying around. There's also the route of emulating if you don't want to spend the money, but either way, you definitely don't need to know Japanese to enjoy it since it's a fightin🌳g game.
Now go kick King Ghidorah's butt.
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