Pap the
Disney Gamer's Highlights: A
Disney Fighting Game?
Do you guys
remember last year when From
Screen to Theme was bidding
farewell to Snow White's Scary
Adventure, and I wrote about
the Snow White and the Seven
Dwarfs fighting game that
appeared as a clever joke in
Mickey Mouse's Runaway Brain, and how the concept
was so out there, there was no
way Disney would actually create
it? Well, turns out that at some
point there WAS an attempt at
developing a Disney all-stars
fighting game!
Much like in the
film industry, many ideas are
developed and presented to
publishing companies in the
video game industry. And also
like the film industry, many of
them fail to make it through.
Sometimes the concept is so
quirky that the publisher fears
they might not recover the
costs, while others feel the
game does not meet with their
game development philosophies.
Such is the case with Disney
Interactive, and the Disney name
overall. Even if Disney does at
time go out of their comfort
zone to partake in ideas that
are weird yet revolutionary,
they know that sometimes the
audience expects something
specific out of them, especially
if Disney stories and characters
are involved. This is why the
first idea development sketches
for Epic Mickey portrayed a
Disney world that was dark and
twisted, but the end result was
something much more tamer.
In a news story
about the many games Disney
Interactive went through before
and around the time Epic Mickey
was in the works, some sketches
were discovered that showed off
a new kind of game: a Disney
fighting game. The game sketches
are as follows:

Right away, you
can see a common theme
throughout. Had Disney gone
through with the project, the
game would have primarily
featured characters that were
apt to be presented as fighting
characters. While most of them
are villains, characters like
King Louie and Beast appear in
the roster due to their wild and
at times violent behavior. This
shows one thing about the game:
Disney would have only allowed
characters that fit the concept.
Certainly you wouldn't put
Mickey Mouse, the Disney
Princesses (except maybe Mulan)
or the cute sidekicks in a game
all about beating each other up.
The characters shown are known
to have violent tendencies, so
their behavior in this would-be
game wouldn't have been as
shocking. And yet, this would
have limited the number of
characters as they had to be
able to mold with the high
octane gameplay.
On the plus,
this would have allowed the
developers to pick characters
that Disney themselves often
forget about, because either
their film was not a success at
the box office, or because their
appearance was so minor they are
easy to dismiss. It made me
happy to spot Long John Silver
from Treasure Planet and
the Horned King from The
Black Cauldron. And with the
game being all about the fighter
Disney characters, we would have
seen the likes of Gaston (Beauty
and the Beast), Facilier (The
Princess and the Frog) and
maybe even Jack Sparrow from the
Pirates of the Caribbean
series.
But a good
concept must also come with an
excellent gameplay mechanic. In
the case of this game, the
Disney Fighting Game would have
borrowed elements from
Nintendo's Super Smash Bros.
Series. To give you an idea of
what I am talking about, let's
briefly examine the series. In
1999, Nintendo released in North
America a game that was dubbed
as the ultimate Nintendo fan's
dream come true: a fighting game
featuring the Nintendo
characters. Finally, all those
�Mario could totally take on
Link and beat him� arguments
could be answered. What really
drove the game to popularity,
though, was the gameplay. It was
far from a traditional game as
it allowed up to four players at
once. Instead of a life meter,
the characters had a damage
meter. The more damage they
received, the higher their
chances of being knocked out of
the stage.
It was such an
easy concept to understand that
it allowed anyone to easily
master it, unlike a traditional
one-on-one fighting game. It was
so successful that Nintendo
would release two more games,
with a fourth one underway for
the 3DS and Wii U. Not only
that, many other companies have
tried to capitalize on the
concept and create their own
mascot driven games. And that is
where the Disney Fighting Game
would have experienced some
problems. Even though some of
the best developers tried to
re-create the Super Smash Bros
formula, many of them have come
up short to the quality of
Nintendo's series. These
character sketches don't suggest
how the mechanics would have
worked, but it is likely that it
being a character driven game,
they would have gone with the
SSB ideas, and thus it wouldn't
be the same.
Finally, there's
the subject of fan acceptance.
Remember what I said earlier
about what fans expect out of
Disney? Well, would fans have
accepted a Disney fighting game
with mostly villain and obscure
characters that mimics, but
doesn't exactly replicate, Super
Smash Bros? We may never know.
It certainly would have been
exciting to see, and laugh that
the brief joke on Runaway Brain
became a reality, but we may
never know at this point. The
best thing about this, though,
is that ideas are never really
forgotten at Disney so who knows
if eventually they will revisit
this and tweak it so it fits the
standards Disney is known for.
But what do YOU
think? Would you have liked a
Disney fighting game or would it
have been too violent for the
Disney name?