Kickstarter campaign enters its final days
At last count, the Smash Bros. series has featured characters from 21-24 different series. That number fluctuates depending on if you count R.O.B. as part of a “series” and if you think of Super Mario, Donkey Kong, and Wario Land as different franchises. Regardless, Smash Bros. is easily one of the largest crossovers ever attempted in gaming. It took a while for it to get there though. The first entry in the series only drew from nine different franchises.
Starr Mazer isn’t so shy. The game isn’t even out yet and it has already announced that it will cross over with 12 other Intellectual Properties (Galak-Z, Crossing Souls, Thoughtstronauts, Paradise Lost, Aegis Defenders, Detective Case and Clown Bot, Orion Trail, Shovel Knight, Legend of Dungeon, Sky Rogue, Children of Morta, and Hyper Light Drifter), almost all of which were crowdfunded. That’s on top of the announcement that game music culture icon Mega Ran will appear in the game as a character based on himself.
From where I stand, this cameo cavalcade may have hurt and helped the game’s image in equal measure. When I first heard about Starr Mazer, it was the concept (seamlessly meshed shmup action with point-and-click mechanics) that got me excited for it. Then I saw how beautiful the game looked and sounded, and I was sold completely. Both of the style and the concept for the game may have been overshadowed by all of the cameos, which is a shame.
Hopefully it will all work out in the end. Overshadowing or not, these cameos are pretty darn cool. If used tactfully, they’ll only work to accentuate the game’s core concepts of wild adventure and unbridled imagination. I’m not too worried about that, as the gang at Imagos Softworks definitely knows what they’re doing. If anything, I’m worried that those console stretch goals won’t happen. I was really looking forward to playing Starr Mazer on a handheld.
