Anyone else find Wario Blast's approach to reskinning interesting?

warelander

Some random guy online
Whether or not certain games have enough western appeal is a question that often comes up even today, the 80s and 90s in particular are notable in the changes in marketing they took, in the hope that potentionally risky games could be made more marketable or to emphasize aspects of a franchise a lot more, such as taking away the more cutesy elements of Sonic's classic design in favor of the assface one you see in Genesis marketing and artwork, angry/hardcore Kirby on the other hand would be an example of the former case.

And then there are reskins, games that are generally unchanged in gameplay, but have their original themes, aesthetics and characters replaced´, usually with ones from another, already existing franchise.

This is a practice that has very much fallen out favor with people, back then you could bank on consumer ignorace to get away with it, but nowadays with the internet being how it is now people will find out quick. The biggest problem with it is that while it will likely yield short term success, it can potentially cause a lot of confusion in regards to the source franchise, make it difficult for people to find out that there is more of that game they enjoyed in the reskined version and doesn't do the source franchise any favors.

This is where Wario Blast takes an interesting approach:
WarioB_Cover.jpg


The game is a reskin of Bomberman GB and behold, Bomberman is still present, even with Wario taking top billing and the biggest space on the cover.

Of course, I'm aware that Wario back when the game came out didn't have enough of a estaplished series (Land 1 and Wario's Woods came out the same year) to make a full reskin ala' Pokemon Puzzle League possible, but it's still very notable, the only other reskins I can recall that keeps larger (on a relative scale) elements from the original besides raw gameplay around to a degree is Dr Robuttnik's Mean Bean Machine, which still kept a lot of music, Carbuncle and the titular Puyos from Puyo Puyo, but besides the music even those got obscured, to varying degrees.

1ev7n.jpg
This guy sure as heck ain't called ''Has Bean''.

Wario Blast on the other hand doesn't do that, it's in actuality the same game as Bomberman GB, just with Wario added into the mix, so in that regard it's not really a ''true'' reskin, since Wario's presence is really the only thing that's different and even then he didn't replace Bomberman either.

I know this sounds unspectacular as all get out, but I can't help but find it interesting how instead of going for the usual, then popular practice of changing the entire aesthetic the instead made a pseudo crossover out of it, of course Bomberman wasn't new to the west at that point unlike other examples, but even then I can't help but find Wario Blast's approach interesting, even if that comes from sheer minimalism when you get down to it.

So yeah, anyone else got thoughts on the matter?
 
For the longest time this decision was a confusing one for me since Wario at the time was not established and while I am unsure of the popularity of the Bomberman series at the time, I would say at this point it was a pretty established series. Is it possible that they actually tried to use Bomberman to try to boost Wario's popularity? I mean he had those two other games you mentioned and I guess this was a third easy cheap way to boost his exposure.
 
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The idea of this being done more for the sake of pushing Wario may not be that far fetched, especially since there was no way to tell if Wario Land was going to do well, so putting him in a game of acompletely seperate franchise could have been a means of giving him exposure.

From what I can gather Bomberman didn't really have a problematic history with western releases, so the entire crossover/reskin thing being done for the sake of Wario, a character who was just starting to get his own titles, instead actually does make a lot of sense.
 
I guess so, and the idea it's pushing the Wario series rather than Bomberman is an interesting one.

However, I don't think changing a game like this is always going to be 'unpopular' nowadays. Remember, lots of people (arguably the vast majority) still really like Super Mario Bros 2, Tetris Attack, Pokemon Puzzle League, etc even knowing they're based on other titles. If something like this happened nowadays, I think people would still like the game. Maybe more so if it was another Wario deal, given how little else he's gotten in recent years...
 
I think the enduring popularity of those games has more to do with nostalgia and the fact that the original series those games were reskinned from weren't popular or enduring. The Cranky Food Friends controversy happened because Puyo Puyo now has more of a niche fanbase the likes of which didn't exist in the 80s or 90s.
 
Not what i consider a reskin personally so much as an upgrade (fanboyism aside)
I find this to be a unique idea, Why the hell they didn't do BomberMan GB featuring Wario instead is beyond me. But unless you really like bomberman i don't see this being much of a problem, Wario didn't really affect the experience for me and its still a bomberman game through and through. I don't think much of it except, What the hell where they thinking?
 
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