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[VGEsoterica]

While I absolutely love Evil Night from Konami (horror light gun shooter...runs on rare hardware...all the things I love) I fully admit it's a complete clone of The House of the Dead. Can't really fault them though as once HotD became a hit in arcades every other company was tripping over themselves to make clone games to try to capture some of that success / some of those sweet sweet quarters out of our pockets! If imitation is supposedly the sincerest form of flattery then Sega should have been flattered AF after they released the original House of the Dead.

IMO I actually prefer Evil Night to HotD. Might be nostalgia, might be how long it took me to hunt it down, might be that it runs on the cancelled 3DO M2 console hardware...but whatever it is it's an instance when the clone / ripoff / copy game actually was AS GOOD if not slightly better than the original.

Which got me thinking? What other blatant copy job games were as good or better than the source material? Things that come to mind are Golden Axe Warrior (ripping off the OG Zelda), Streets of Rage (copying Final Fight), Axiom Verge (totally borrowing basically everything conceptually from Super Metroid) and Diddy Kong Racing basically being Mario Kart with a different set of characters.

There must be more out there though?

 

[VGEsoterica]

If you've never seen Evil Night btw



I'll delete the link if it's an issue. I just want to hear your sweet clone game recommendations! But it's a good reference to what a clone is lol. Plus it has zombies in skeleton pajamas which is pretty fun

 

[VGEsoterica]

oh and Killer Instinct being a clone of Mortal Kombat.