10 Copycat Games That WERE ACTUALLY BETTER

sometimes copycat games just plain suck we've talked about that plenty elsewhere but the thing is Copycat games aren't automatically bad either in fact one might argue if we didn't have Copan we wouldn't have a games industry a lot of earlier games Mario Metroid Ultima Zelda aren't even entirely original themselves but man oh man did they get copied and spawn entire genres of games hi folks it's Falcon and today on game ranks 10 copycat games that were actually better starting off with number 10 it's Path of Exile 2 everyone loves Diablo 2 uh just look at

all the games that have come out of trying to emulate it specifically pretty much every top down loot heavy action RPG is indebted to that game and there are a lot of them Titan Quest Torch Light 2 Grim Dawn the list goes on and on but the series that is most like it is of course the Path of Exile games in fact so many developers want to repeat of Glory Days of Diablo I except for blizzard who just refused to go back to that formula and insist on evolving the series with each new entry and

that's certainly not to say that Diablo I and 4 are bad they had Rocky starts blizzard managed to pull out the skid and make those games work but even though they appear very similar to Diablo 2 and practice their very different games that's not a bad thing in fact it's also the case technically for The Path of Exile games but there is so much that is the same about these games the character classes are all very similar the campaign structure is the same even the U y contains a lot of the same elements as Diablo

I uh the first Path of Exile really stood out compared to Diablo I back when it came out because the visuals and pacing of the game were so much more what people expected from a Diablo game than even Diablo II it was slower it was darker it was grittier a lot of gameplay systems uh were completely original the entire skill system is different in both Path of Exile games but the spirit of Diablo is there even in Path of Exile 2 where they really emphasize the action in action RPG just compare the graphics and Path

of Exile 2 to the Diablo 2 remaster they're very similar and that's totally intentional in the dev's part moving on to number nine it's pal world this game is a pretty controversial one uh and it's in a pretty controversial spot right now with the whole ongoing lawsuit Nintendo is uh waging against pocket pal for alleged patent infringement uh it sucks I just going to say that there was a lot of anger about the game in the first place but it's kind of anger at Nintendo now cuz they pulled a pretty sketchy move in that lawsuit

changing their patent around before they sued them also after pal world existed in order to sue them I think that's turned the tide on a lot of people's opinion on a pocket pal although people who do see their history as kind of sketchy and maybe don't love them I understand the whole Situation's the mess it's not going to resolve anytime soon so with all that said let's get into why pal world is better than Pokemon ah all right so that's a bit of a joke it's obviously subjective even even any of the games on this

list are subjective po world the one game is not better than the entire franchise of Pokémon but there's a reason why there was a lot of excitement around it when it first came out and it wasn't just because you could give monsters AK-47s thing is Pokemon scarlet and violet the most recent entry in the series was just not ready for prime time when it came out it's the open world Pokémon game everyone wanted but the execution left a lot to be desired a particular in the technicals like when you've seen uh breath of the wild

or uh tears of the Kingdom working fine not chugging along uh like [ __ ] looking at the significantly less action-packed and fluid uh scarlet and violet and its performance is uh it's pretty [Music] depressing there's also a couple of problems with the game itself uh but a lot of it's attributable to the Pokemon company's constantly Rush development like they're cranking these things out almost every year and obviously quality standards in that kind of a situation are uh hard to maintain let's say fans of the series have have been frustrated with the games for a

while now they're kind of fed up with the archaic game systems and lack of innovation as well as when they get Innovation like the open world and Scarlet and violet it doesn't work great not even that it's badly designed it it really just doesn't work well like on a technical level to borrow a line from Eminem y'all act like you never seen an open world before FPS on the floor like Pam and Tommy just burst I don't know what to say about the Pam and Tommy line the FPS is very low though that's the point

and regardless of how you feel about power world it actually feels pretty fresh it lets you summon your pals into the world and fight in real time it let you put your guys to work in a way that feels natural and best of all it doesn't look like absolute garbage which scarlet and violet does it's not even that the art style is bad it's that it runs like [ __ ] the open world and po world is better looking just because it's not even working with the technical limitations the hardware po world is designed for

just inherently better and it runs well too it brings in some new ideas too at least for a Pokemon Style game I like Po world I liked it from the start [Music] honestly yeah and number eight is Resident Evil 1 it may have been the first game to be given the moniker of survival horror a term Capcom invented for marketing the game but there was a game that came before Resident Evil it was the true progenitor of the genre uh alone in the dark from 1992 these games are pretty different from one another but the

similarities are actually pretty striking too both games use fixed camera angles they have a 3D character who moves around the world using tank controls both games feature a male and a female protagonist who you can choose to play as at the start both games set in a spooky Mansion both games mix combat with puzzle solving like there's a ton of similarities here the developers behind Resident Evil 1 have never admitted it but to claim that they weren't inspired by alone in the dark it was absolutely absurd and even that game might not have been the

actual first survival horror game but it was the first to have pre-rendered backgrounds and tank controls I mean in terms of the type of game it's the same type of game and it was the only one of that type of game before Resident Evil was also that type of game and Resident Evil is the better game no caveats or exceptions here it's just better alone in the dark may have had some lovecrafting ideas that were kind of intriguing [Music] but the actual game's a chaotic mess with really awkward controls confusing and unsatisfying puzzles and notes

that go on for way too long to say the least uh Resident Evil 1 feels like a game made by actual game designers the puzzles don't drag the game to a halt the combat is straightforward and simple the notes are quick it's smartly designed it's more fun to actually play than alonein thear darkk which is kind of miserable to play It's Worth playing like for a historical view as to where the genre came from but it's it's not particularly fun and while we're on the subject I do have to mention Sweet Home the NES horror

game that the devs said is a huge influence on Resident Evil probably a huge influence on alone inth dark as well Resident Evil was actually supposed to be a sweet home remake but Capcom lost the license to it now it's a real different type of game more of an RPG with star horor elements to be frank so it plays nothing like Resident Evil but I had to mention it just cuz I don't know I think Sweet Home is probably the full ass progenitor of these games but alonein the dark did it first Resident Evil has

a lot in common with alone in the dark that it doesn't at least on its face have in common with sweet [Music] home at number seven a city skylines after the catastrophic failure of 2013's EA Sim City reboot there was a hole in the market for somebody anybody to come in and take the straightforward City Builder Crown it took a while but we finally got a proper Sim City successor with City skylines the developers are not afraid to admit what the game is it's supposed to be a new Sim City game with the name Chang

but for most Sim City Builder fans that's exactly what they wanted Sim City is unfortunately dead in the water there hasn't been a peep from EA about Reviving the franchise but people still want to be able to build little metropoli metropolises I think metropoli is probably the right way to say that and City skylines finally lets him do it with a mon coat of paint and no always online requirement that wasn't all that was wrong with the 2013 Sim City but it was a big part the basics of the gameplay pretty much the same put

down roads block out commercial industrial residential and eventually they start to fill out on their own to keep the city running you got to supply electricity and water to buildings that have someplace to put all the waste [Music] at base level cities is pretty much identical to Sim City now what makes the game different is the level of complexity things get exponentially more complicated as the game progresses eventually the traffic simulation in particular which is its own huge thing people call City skyline a traffic Simulator for a reason getting traffic under control is one of

the most difficult things about the game and often the thing you're messing with the most once the city's built that part of the game is actually little divisive but the rest is a chillim city game Shame about the sequel though moving on to number six uh the Harvest Moon story of season series there always kind of niche in the west at least until stardew Valley came along and pretty much did the exact same thing and now chill farming is a big business unlike Sim City it's not like Harvest Moon really went away it's a little

more complex like that but they were making these things consistently for years before stard Valley came [Music] out but there was one thing they didn't do and that was put them on PC it's not like that's all that stardew has going for but the PC release combined with the cheap price made at the go-to Casual game for many many people it's not some lazy also ran either um it made a lot of smart quality of life changes to the formula that made the game a lot more fun to play in general it's a game where

you can tell the developer is a super fan of the farming genre and knows how to improve it also it's just a guy and their post launch effort for the game has just been something else he's been adding stuff and improving the game for years and years and he doesn't make it into a sequel or make you buy add-ons or anything it's a game that keeps getting better and the word of mouth has continued to cause it to sell and sell and sell and it it's just a wholesome easygoing farming s that'll keep you busy

for hundreds of hours if you let it get its claws into [Music] you and number five is Sonic and Sega Allstar Racing Transformed when Sega first released the Sonic Allstar Racing game game the Mario Kart series was in kind of a funk I mean this was before Mario Kart 8 came out and slowly grew into the Unstoppable Behemoth that would eventually become but the most recent one was Mario Kart Wii and that was one of the more disappointing ones Sega tried many times to rip off other Nintendo franchises to let's say varied success Sonic Shuffle

tried to be Mario Party absolutely terrible Sonic the fighters isn't a lot like brawl but that's why it exists Sonic Chronicles uh the Dark Brotherhood was bioware's attempt to recreate the magic of Mario RPGs but Allstar Racing was different especially the followup uh in 2012 called Sonic and Sega Allstars Racing Transformed which as a game is much better than a lot of Mario Kart games not eight but it's pretty close the game controls very well it's got an amusingly broad selection of Sac properties to pick from his characters including some off-the-wall stuff like Rio from

shenmu and a guy from Shogun Total War you know the PC strategy game uh but the controls Are Pitch Perfect the tracks all fantastic and the game's gimmick pulls it all together the transforming Vehicles make it so you can have a single race that has driving flying boat riding in a way the like Diddy Kong Racing did and I guess Mario Kart 8 does now but at the time you were basically puttering on the same track three times for own one vehicle this game's the stage is transformed between laps and and so they're unpredictable and

fun as hell you'd think the focus on spectacle would get old and you know maybe after a long period of time it does but it's a great cart racer regardless right up with crash team racing as one of the few actually good Mario Kart [Music] copycats finish and number four is UFO 50 built by pretty much everyone is action 52 but good UFO 50 was a crazy ambitious project one of those 50 games in one compilations but instead of being a bunch of shovelware junk every single game has been made with care if you're unaware

action 52 was an unlicensed NES game that boasted 52 games in one and yeah it had a lot of them but most of them were terrible uh or or just unfinished or basically the same game as something else with a few Sprites changed it wasn't one bad game it was 5502 Bad Games UFO 52 is taking that NES era aesthetic and combo game idea and making it pure creative expression [Music] not every game in UFO 50 is great but almost everything here is original creative and at least interesting to explore if not actually play to

completion it even has its own version of action 52's most infamous game the cheetah man a terrible Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles knockoff that was as far as I know not possible to finish that was the last game in the collection well UF 50's last game is cyber owls which has its own madeup backstory about being a failed attempt at creating a franchise UFO 50 is just as much inspired by those old PC game compilations as action 52 but those things were also mostly terrible whereas UFO 50 is amazing at number three is Call of Duty

in an alternate Dimension Medal of Honor would have been a monster game series with yearly releases that consistently top the sales charts cuz seriously Call of Duty isn't the actual first game in that series the real first game is Metal of Honor Allied assault all 22 members of the original Infinity Ward team worked on Allied assault and in pretty much every way the First Call of Duty is an answer to and an expansion on the ideas the team had working on Medal of Honor this is one of those situations where a team made a game

then jump shipped to another publisher and essentially made the sequel to the game but the name changed that's that's really what Call of Duty is in a way it's the kopy cat but it's made by the guys who did the original it's also just a better game in absolutely every way covers most of the ground as Allied assault it's a World War II game it's mostly cribbing from other media to create its War scenarios it's just instead of Saving Private Ryan it was this Band of Brothers an enemy at the gates but what really makes

Call of Duty better was the controls they added sprinting and leading down and aim down sights and crouching and prone and you just had so much more control over your guy than the previous games none of these features were new but they were mostly reserved for more complex realism focused war games and well Call of Duty is a bombastic action game at its heart just with more options to how you could control your guy fck good job son squat move up go go go the multiplayer was also significantly better than Alli assault was just a

straight upgrade across the board it wasn't even the last time zampella and West would pull this trick they switched sides again to create Titanfall uh but that game is different enough from Call of Duty I wouldn't call it a copycat and number two is Shadow tactics Blades of the Shogun developer Mimi made their rest in peace was never shy about their Inspirations the shadow tactics games were 100% copycats the Commandos and Desperado games they play almost exactly the same the UI elements are practically identical but this is another case where someone was just coming into

fill a hole in the market there's a fan base for this very specific brain of tactical stealth game where you have multiple team members each with their own strengths and weaknesses and they drop you into this massive sprawling level where you need to sneak around silently eliminate enemies and complete objectives these games were not for the impatient they require careful planning and observation to make even the most incremental progress but when your plans all come together few games are as satisfying you'd think a game set during World War II would be completely different from one

set in feudal Japan but they're a lot more similar than you think seriously the way enemy Vision cones work is exactly the same many abilities are almost the same it's essentially the same game with a different setting also just a better game overall being able to set up and execute your plans is a brilliant addition along with the quick save timer that reminds you to make a save if you haven't after a while stuff like this shows these guys understand exactly the type of game they're making here and they know what to keep from the

old games and what can be improved the drink resistable let's take it back death has come and finally at number one as Gears of War Cliff blazinski the creator of the Gears of War Series has never been afraid of emitting his influences everyone knows the third person camera comes from Resident Evil 4 but there's a lesser known game that was even more influential in the series a little Namco game called kill switch now gears is not a one toone ripoff of kill switch the premise the story The visuals the vibe it's all completely different but

there's one essential element uh that is the same and it's the cover system I'm not saying anything here that clippy B hasn't said himself he frequently said kill switch is the game that inspired Gear's cover system and if you look at them side by side they're functioning very very [Music] similar of course gears is a better game that does cover better than kill switch but kill switch got there first and that should count for something yes I know other games Had cover before kill switch but it's the game that when you walk up you cover

you press a button get into it get a low cover blind fire peek in and out that shit's kill switch and it inspired gears and gears basically like Mario essentially was for the platforming genre there were Platformers before but that was the flash point and gears was the flas point for this kind of game it's why you have Uncharted and a bazillion other third person FPS games [Music] [Music] a couple of quick bonus ones for you Bayonetta just different enough from Devil May Cry it's hard to say it's straight up better but in a lot

of ways the first Bayonetta is better than the fourth Devil May Cry I mean half of that game is just going back through the same levels over and over again and not even in an interesting way it's a flawed game that felt archaic and Bayonetta was Innovative and its Dodge button well I mean everyone stole it because it's awesome the first game was 100% an answer to DMC who was made by a team of little angels instead of Team Little Devils you fight Angels instead of demons the levels are full of Gothic architecture the cut

scenes are over the top they both say flock off that other face there's a lot of intentional homages to DMC in the first game so much that I mean it is a copycat on some level but it's different enough that it doesn't feel the same next is pizza Tower one of the weirder Inspirations for a game Pizza Tower is basically a spiritual successor to Warrior land and not just any Warrior land game but three and four specifically it has the chaotic energy of those Wario games but what really makes it similar is it's got two

of Wario's defining feature for one thing Pino can't die just like Wario 2 and three you can get hit as many times as you want all does is affect the score at the end of the level the other thing is the end level time limit where you reach the end of the level and you have to turn around and race back to the entrance on a time limit the developers said these are 100% the inspiration for pizza Tower and they threw in a little Sonic the Hedgehog to spice things up which seriously I just I

I can't stop returning to Pizza Tower I've beaten it already and I keep playing it you think I don't have that thing living on my steam deck it is finally the yakaza slash like a dragon series there's a whole lot of shenmu in the Yakuza games like the way these games take place in recognizable mundane Japanese locations they mix the mundane the ridiculous they have a serious story with undeniably silly side quests lots of arcade games and diversions on paper they have a ton in common in practice they're very very different Shen Moon Yakuza just

night and day Yakuza has more in common with River City Ransom and beat him up like that well shenmu is like an investigation game and a life simulator in yaka a combat is pretty Non-Stop and and it's very frequent while in shenmu is pretty rare also the pacing in gaka it's it's nothing like Shen shenmo goes by very slow Yakuza does not there's enough similarity it's temp didn't to call Yakuza kopat but if you've played both games you know it doesn't quite hold they're similar in a lot of ways uh enough to mention it here

but different in ways that really count and that's all for today leave us a comment let us know what you think if you like this video click like if you're not subscribed now's a great time to do so we upload brand new videos every day of the week best way to see them first is of course subscription so click subscribe don't forget to enable notifications and as always we thank you very much for watching this video I'm falcon and you can follow me on Twitter FAL the hero we'll see you next time right here on

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