The Energon Pub

Let's talk about your favorite or least liked video game adaptations! TV, movie, live action, anime', comic, whatever!

For me, I haven't seen many of the recent ones, mostly cause they're based on games I've never played. However, I recently watched Mortal Kombat and Mortal Kombat: Annialation recently, and they still rank as the best live action adaptations to me. I even rank Annialation higher than I did years ago, because despite some of the pointless character introductions or pointless deaths(seriously, Shiva did NOTHING!), at least they tried to stay faithful to the video game, and many of the costumes were dead on.

More thoughts later.

I think Mortal Kombat is the only decent movie adaptation a video game ever got. The Resident Evil movies were ok, but they weren't based on any of the games, just the same situation.

Evil_the_Nub wrote:I think Mortal Kombat is the only decent movie adaptation a video game ever got. The Resident Evil movies were ok, but they weren't based on any of the games, just the same situation.

Well that's kind of what an adaptation is . Though I've yet to see the RE movies and I've only played through and beaten RE 4. I borrowed RE: Degeneration from a friend, but I haven't watched it yet.

Speaking of that though, you do bring up a good point, as one could argue a similar situation is present in the Final Fantasy adaptations.

Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within is an ok movie, but one could hardly call it a good video game adaptation, because very, very little if anything from the game was brought over. It's been awhile since I saw it, but there's not really much to say about a movie that's honestly based on a game in name only.

Final Fantasy Unlimted(an Anime' series) faces a similar problem, it's not based on any particular game, but it has a lot of elements from the game. However, the 2D animation isn't that great, and the action isn't all that exciting.

However, the story/setting, though weird, isn't the worst, but special features reveal that the original idea was MUCH closer in spirit to the games. If you haven't seen it, what we got is school children from Japan exploring basically a multiverse looking for their parents. The original idea was for them to exist in a fantasy world to begin with, though I can't remember if they went any farther than that. Suffice to say, I think the prelimnary drawings looked much cooler than what we got.

Despite that, I rank FFU as decent. It's got Chocobos, cactuars, a moogle, it's definitely fantasy based and usually pretty imaginitive, but the reused animation and general samey plots of the first 13 episodes drag it down. I remember the second 13 eps were better though.

Of course, then came Advent Children. Gourgous visuals, but then came the story. Pretty weird, kinda lame. The fight sequences went on too long at times too. And Sepiroth suddenly revives for no real reason, wha . Well, they gave some sort of reason, but not that logical of one. Oh yeah, no chocobos. So basically, I'd call this a pretty poor adaptation because if someone who played through the game had trouble following it, then someone who knows nothing would be completely lost.

Oh yeah, I used to be a big(ger) FF nut, so that's kind of why that was long winded .

Moving on, I watched Tekken: The Movie today(not the first time I saw it, but it'd been awhile). Decent adaptation there too. I've never really played the games, but I could follow the story and characters pretty well. Animation was cool, dinosaurs were an odd choice for a bio-weapon.

Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie was good I guess. I've read other reviews raving on it, but I just don't see it. I found it to be a little boring, but maybe that's just cause I think Street Fighter is kinda boring personally. I've tried to give SF a shot though. Saw a couple eps of the SF: V animated series, series, that seemed kinda cool.

Well that's all for now, discuss away!

Haven't seen advent children, always seemed like a fanfic made into movie form.

The Resident Evil movies were decent zombie films but terrible video game adaptation.

There really hasn't been a video game movie that is really spot on to the video game.

The closest we got has already been stated in MK and MK: Annihilation.

Of course I might as well mention it. Street Fighter was just terrible save for Raul Julia.

and then there is easily the worst video game movie adaptation, but easily one of the most awesome movies of some of our childhoods.

I think if they did a good adaptation it could get the ball rolling. Like what X-men did, it renewed the comic book movies and showed that they can be good after Batman and Robin killed it. I heard Peter Jackson was making a Halo movie, so that might be our best hope.

Duke of Luns wrote:Of course, then came Advent Children. Gourgous visuals, but then came the story. Pretty weird, kinda lame. The fight sequences went on too long at times too. And Sepiroth suddenly revives for no real reason, wha . Well, they gave some sort of reason, but not that logical of one. Oh yeah, no chocobos. So basically, I'd call this a pretty poor adaptation because if someone who played through the game had trouble following it, then someone who knows nothing would be completely lost.

Advent Children wasn't an adaptation, it was a continuation.

They hinted at Sephiroth's return many times before it he actually came back, specifically that the trio were genetic remnants, and that Sephiroth could control the remains of Jenova, so that when Kadaj fused with that piece of Jenova, Sephiroth could be reborn.

And as for Chocobos, the original Final Fantasy didn't have them either.

But enough about that. So far, the original Mortal Kombat stands as the best game adaptation. I really liked Hitman, though. I'm weird that way.

Shadowman wrote:

Duke of Luns wrote:Of course, then came Advent Children. Gourgous visuals, but then came the story. Pretty weird, kinda lame. The fight sequences went on too long at times too. And Sepiroth suddenly revives for no real reason, wha . Well, they gave some sort of reason, but not that logical of one. Oh yeah, no chocobos. So basically, I'd call this a pretty poor adaptation because if someone who played through the game had trouble following it, then someone who knows nothing would be completely lost.

Advent Children wasn't an adaptation, it was a continuation.

They hinted at Sephiroth's return many times before it he actually came back, specifically that the trio were genetic remnants, and that Sephiroth could control the remains of Jenova, so that when Kadaj fused with that piece of Jenova, Sephiroth could be reborn.

And as for Chocobos, the original Final Fantasy didn't have them either.

But enough about that. So far, the original Mortal Kombat stands as the best game adaptation. I really liked Hitman, though. I'm weird that way.

Hmm, I guess adaptations and continuations could be considered different things. Point taken, but they could have made it a little bit more stand alone.

Also, I am a big fan of Chocobo's. I bred a gold one in 7, completed the forests in VIII, and maxed out Chobi in IX. What can I say, they're a mascot, and I'm disapointed they didn't feature at all into Advent Children, not even in the background. Least they had a moogle doll....

I haven't seen Mario Bros. or Street Fighter in many, many years, so I can't comment on them. I actually thoght Double Dragon was ok though, for what it was.

Hitman and Max Payne don't really seem all that imaginative for me to really want to track them down yet, but I've never played the games either.

Question is though, what exactly would it take for someone to do a great video game movie? Would it need to follow the plot to a T, have tons of nods to games, try to do something completely original while staying true to the source material?

I hope Metal Gear gets made, because to me that series has the perfect blend of realness with imagination. And the games were very movie like to begin with.

Duke of Luns wrote:Also, I am a big fan of Chocobo's. I bred a gold one in 7, completed the forests in VIII, and maxed out Chobi in IX. What can I say, they're a mascot, and I'm disapointed they didn't feature at all into Advent Children, not even in the background. Least they had a moogle doll....

There was a wood Chocobo statue in the movie. Right here. Though for the life of me I haven't found that exact point.

Duke of Luns wrote:I hope Metal Gear gets made, because to me that series has the perfect blend of realness with imagination. And the games were very movie like to begin with.

That perfect blend isn't so perfect, especially when you take Psycho Mantis, Vulcan Raven, Fortune, Vamp, most of MGS2 and 3 and all of MGS4 into consideration. Though the games are good, they're not at all realistic.

Anything by Uwe Boll gets an automatic disqualification. No questions asked.

I thought Silent Hill was the best adaptation so far. And a good movie, too.

Although I thought the RE movies were cool, they didn't have much to do with the games. Same characters, same overall setting... but not the same. But for their take, it went well. The last one wasn't as good as the other two, but what can you do? It's a sequel.