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Is Mario Kart the most cloned franchise?

Araujo

Araujo

Banned
Dec 5, 2017
2,196
So, up front, let us define what a Mario Kart CLONE is...

An arcade racing game on multiple themed tracks
A selection Powerups that help your racer or causes trouble to another
A selection of themed characters or mascots
Must have come out after 1992

I think that covers the basic of it, can't be too crazy specific...

Because "Arcade racers with power ups" are not really Mario Kart clones, these have been around before, and "It has to have Karts" in it is a bit obvious but there have been Mario kart clones without Karts... same thing with "Racing game with combat via power ups" is also not right. Road Rash is not a Mario Kart clone afterall...

But even if you narrow it down, if you just start looking at racing games like that between 92 an 2008, you gonna find a mountain of "Yep that's a Mario Kart". Overall seems like an easy formula to clone. Racing game, arcade style, with power ups... and it's a very profitable and intriguing formula to make games out of. Hell, if you go poking at the Playstation 1, i was able to find almost 30 clones with veeeery little effort.

I cannot honestly recall another franchise that has this many direct comparisons or games that copied it's formula straight up.

Also, we know the obvious clones... Diddy Kong, Crash Racing... but what are some of the more Obscure ones?
 
Dwebble

Dwebble

Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
9,627
I dunno, Pokémon's getting up there.

EDIT: And Doom, of course.
 
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Jamix012

Jamix012

Member
Oct 28, 2017
289
I mean, at some point if a franchise is cloned enough it becomes a new genre and they stop being regarded by the general masses as clones. See: DOOM

Mario Kart really isn't there yet, Kart racers are a sub genre, but you'll still hear people calling them Mario Kart clones in a way that you wouldn't with DOOM, Street Fighter, Metroid or Mario 64.
 
WestEgg

WestEgg

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 25, 2017
14,047
Super Mario Bros. itself was pretty cloned back in the day.
 

Deleted member 2254

user requested account closure
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
21,467
Skronk said:
Doom
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One and done. It basically invented a genre, one that is still generating some of the biggest sellers some 25 years later. Many of game design elements of FPS to this day go back to Doom's original structure, like the weapon balance (including the fact shotguns are only good from close-up, in contrast with reality) and such.
 
Mr.Deadshot

Mr.Deadshot

Member
Oct 27, 2017
20,285
Was Mario Kart really the first whacky Kart-Racing game?

I'll also go with Wolfenstein 3D.
Also Dune II.
 
WestEgg

WestEgg

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 25, 2017
14,047
It's pretty notable that before FPS was an established genre, basically any shooting game from the first person was called a Doom Clone. Note even as a derogatory term, that was just the name for them at the time.
 
Iztok

Iztok

Member
Oct 27, 2017
6,138
Aside from Doom, I guess it depends on the time period.
Mario spawned countless 2d sidescrollers, Street Fighter 2 so many 2d fighting games, Dune II for RTS in the 90's...

And now PUBG clones.

Also WoW. It itself may have been a clone, but other clones were made to mimic WoW and it's success.
 
TheBaldwin

TheBaldwin

Member
Feb 25, 2018
8,291
Some have stated the obvious ones.

Id throw COD and espcially gears of war into the ring too. Most games during the 360/PS3 time basically took this games and then tried to expand upon there gameplay loop, or shove it into there existing game in order to try and appeal to the mass market.

Also Bejweled. Every mobile phone game basically took its core concept.
 
FarZa17

FarZa17

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,573
Doom and Wolfenstein definitely have so many clones.

And also this food management game which I don't know what franchise it was first started; possibly it first started as a PC game, but I could have swear that this game with similar gameplay style have been cloned so many times that I wish there are dedicated lists for this kind of "genre".

maxresdefault.jpg
 
Tygre

Tygre

Member
Oct 25, 2017
11,126
Chesire, UK
It's probably Shariki



"Doom clones" stopped being "Doom clones" in the 90s. Today's FPS games bear very little resemblance to Doom, outside of the perspective.

The number of Mario Kart "clones" that are actually clones is pretty small.

But Match-3 is Match-fucking-3. Tetris Attack, Bejeweled, Puzzle Quest, Candy Crush, etc. They are all, straight-up, front-to-back, clones.
 
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Red Arremer

Red Arremer

Banned
Oct 26, 2017
12,259
Doom/Wolfenstein, Street Fighter 2, Tetris and World of Warcraft most definitely beat out kart racers, especially mascot kart racers, by far.
 
Masterspeed

Masterspeed

Member
Oct 25, 2017
4,826
England
Minecraft.

Go to the playstore, iOS store, eshop or even PSN and type the following

Voxel
Pixel
Mine

Or anything like that. Especially on the Playstore. There's also a popular one for PSVR called Discovery, but again nothing happens.
 

keidash

Member
Jan 31, 2018
287
I think is Metroid, how many metroidvanias exist (which I consider that are games based on Castlevania cloning Metroid)? I could count tens and tens only the last few years...
 
Redcrayon

Redcrayon

Patient hunter
On Break
Oct 27, 2017
12,713
UK
There are plenty of genre codifiers that compete with MK for this- Street Fighter 2 was the one with a horde of imitators coming at the exact same time as MK's in the early to late 90s, with the added factor of it happening in the arcade too. Tetris did it before any of them, Space Invaders before that, and stuff like Defender led to a huge amount of games across the entire side or vertical-scrolling genres rather than individual boards.

In addition to Doom for FPS, you could also argue Dune II for RTS games, Final Fantasy Tactics for the isometric SRPG, Final Fantasy itself has a horde of imitator JRPGs hooked into it's techno-magic high fantasy.

Monster Hunter is a fairly recent one in that it's genre stablemates really only started spawning in large numbers following the PSP games. Puzzle Quest is an interesting one in being a rare genre codifier that kicked off a stack of more popular games once the app stores took off, like Puzzle and Dragons and it's own Marvel Puzzle Quest. It's got shedloads of more niche descendants too, like Ironcast. I'd also imagine whichever is the codifier for the Clash of Clans style has also spawned more imitators than Mario Kart ever has or will already in a fraction of the time.
 
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OP
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Araujo

Araujo

Banned
Dec 5, 2017
2,196
Elwin Ransom said:
Surely you could have fit those into your wordy OP.
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Wordy? We Twitter now?

I'll start posting with Emojis to make it shorter then...



Here's what i can recall by name off the top of my head. PS1 only:

Crash Team Racing
Muppets Racing Mania
Looney Toons racing
Toy Story Racing
Runnin Wild
Miracle Space Race
Street Racer
Megaman Battle and Chase
Walt Disney World QUest : Magical Racing Tour
Bomberman Fantasy Race
Chocobo Racing
Motor Toon Grand Prix
Nicktoons Racing
South Park Rally
Speed Punks
Lego Racers

Im forgetting about a dozen.
 
KiNolin

KiNolin

Member
Oct 28, 2017
1,296
Tygre said:
It's probably Shariki



"Doom clones" stopped being "Doom clones" in the 90s. Today's FPS games bear very little resemblance to Doom, outside of the perspective.

The number of Mario Kart "clones" that are actually clones is pretty small.

But Match-3 is Match-fucking-3. Tetris Attack, Bejeweled, Puzzle Quest, Candy Crush, etc. They are all, straight-up, front-to-back, clones.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...


I was about to search the og colour matching game.
 
Nymphae

Nymphae

Member
Apr 3, 2018
554
Araujo said:
Wordy? We Twitter now?

I'll start posting with Emojis to make it shorter then...



Here's what i can recall by name off the top of my head. PS1 only:

Crash Team Racing
Muppets Racing Mania
Looney Toons racing
Toy Story Racing
Runnin Wild
Miracle Space Race
Street Racer
Megaman Battle and Chase
Walt Disney World QUest : Magical Racing Tour
Bomberman Fantasy Race
Chocobo Racing
Motor Toon Grand Prix
Nicktoons Racing
South Park Rally
Speed Punks
Lego Racers

Im forgetting about a dozen.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Dude you wrote like 5+ paragraphs and didn't include the examples that you looked up.
 
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