Video Game Spin-Offs That Are Better Than Their Source Game

A lot of popular video game series receive sequels, but only in rare instances do popular video game series earn a spin-off title. Like a random mutation, these series often contain elements of the original property, but are often different enough that they can't be included as part of the main series. Here are some of the best video game spin-offs in gaming history.

Donkey Kong Country
The Spin: In 1981, Donkey Kong was the king Kong in the arcades where it swallowed quarters by the metric ton. It also helped Nintendo establish itself as a major player in the video game market. However, Nintendo wasn’t going to rest on its success, and Donkey Kong was eventually overshadowed by Mario and Nintendo’s later console work. Then, in 1994, Rare decided to resurrect the giant ape in his own platforming adventure.

Why We Like It: The original Donkey Kong was a great game back in its day, but anyone who spent more than a couple quarters on the game knows that its incredibly challenging. Donkey Kong Country continues in the spirit of challenging games, but it immersed players in a giant tropical world that was inviting in spite of its difficulty. Donkey Kong jumped, rolled, and fired himself out of barrels as he fought alligator-like Kremlings in a quest to retrieve his banana hoard. It didn’t hurt that the game used an advanced pre-rendered 3D graphics system to achieve a look that was nearly unmatched in the day. Rare managed to craft a platforming adventure that was different enough from Nintendo’s other major platforming series.

World of Warcraft
The Spin: The real-time strategy genre has blossomed into a massive playspace filled with some of the biggest brands on the PC, but back in the early ‘90s the genre was almost non-existent. Blizzard Entertainment helped pioneer the RTS formula with Warcraft: Orcs & Humans. Not only was the first Warcraft a polished strategy title in its own right, it also introduced a lot of gamers to the concept of multiplayer RTS. Ironically, Blizzard would take its Warcraft world and blow it up into an online space that would eventually unite millions of players at the same time.

Why We Like It: It's hard to talk about MMOs without mentioning WOW these days, and that's deserved because Blizzard's massive online world not only attracted one of the largest audience in gaming, it also did a lot to improve the formula. WoW threw out the MMO rulebook and simplified a lot of overburdened systems, making it easier for players to level up and receive great gear while giving them an abundance of activities to undertake in a massive world.

Mega Man X
The Spin: Mega Man was a series about a futuristic society populated by both men and machines, so how did Capcom choose to expand on this concept? They took it even further into the future. Players controlled X, a Reploid created by the original Mega Man creator Dr. Thomas Light. However, X was a new kind of robot capable of free will. In traditional Mega Man fashion, X hunts down a series of rogue Reploids and steals their abilities.

Why We Like It: The original Mega Man series is highly revered and a great series in its own right, but Mega Man X introduced a few exciting new elements to the series. The plot was a bit darker, and more mature, centering on robots' abilities to govern themselves. The controls further refined on Mega Man's solid platforming, and X was given the ability to dash along the ground at any time, wall jump, and even dash and jump at the same time. X also uncovered capsules scattered across the levels that permanently upgraded his armor and cannon, which is something that the original Mega Man never had.

Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon
The Spin: The Far Cry series has long been a franchise of change. What started out as a first-person shooter with state-of-the-art A.I. set on a tropical island has evolved into a massive open world where players can sneak through the bush, hunt wild animals, and firebomb enemy bases with a friend. However, one of Far Cry’s most memorable adventures was actually a bit of a detour for the series.

Why We Like It Better: While marketed as an expansion to Far Cry 3, Blood Dragon was a standalone product and didn’t even require players to own the original game to play. Players jumped behind the robotic arm of a military cyborg named Sergeant Rex "Power" Colt, and romped around a retro-futuristic open world filled with prehistoric-looking lizards and minions wearing Daft Punk helmets. The game was a satire of '80s action films and pop culture, and everything from its sidesplitting story to its laser weapons ooze retro charm.

Super Mario Bros.
The Spin: We started this list with Donkey Kong, so why not end it here? Donkey Kong Junior was a direct sequel to Donkey Kong, which had you playing as Donkey Kong’s kid, who navigated a minefield of traps in order to save his old man from the clutches of an evil trainer. This series was spun off into Mario Bros. (not Super Mario Bros.), which let you play as that monstrous villain for the first time. In this odd kind of fighting game, Mario and his brother Luigi had to fend off a series of creatures strolling through New York’s sewer system. Years later, Nintendo repurposed this characters for the NES Super Mario Bros. that we all know and love, so in some ways Nintendo’s iconic platformer is really a spin-off of a spin-off.

Why We Like It Better: Even if you’ve never touched a video game controller, chances are that you still know the Super Mario Bros. The old Mario Bros. arcade game is still fun, but it feels like an archaic minigame compared to the epic Super Mario Bros. platforming franchise that Nintendo has built on its back. Not only is Mario’s supremely polished platforming still entertaining today, the Mario brand has continued to inspire new spin-offs. Titles like Mario Kart, Luigi’s Mansion, and the more recent Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker might not exist if it wasn’t for the original Super Mario Bros., making Mario look something like gaming's version of a hydra – you can’t kill him because he keeps spawning new games.

Spin-offs are here to stay. This week, Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker released for the Wii U, but Captain Toad was actually featured as a minigame in Super Mario 3D World back in 2013. Check our our review of the game here.