Godzilla is widely considered the king of all monsters. There were giant monster movies before Godzilla (1954) and of course hundreds after. But for many reasons we keep circling back to the atomic-fire breathing lizard. Part of the reason was because there was nothing like the monster. No force on Earth could stop it and even the most powerful military weapons of man could barely slow it down. You would think that a character this popular would be the perfect subject for a game. The hard part was figuring out what type of game could developers make around the character? Would it be a real-time strategy game where you line up the military forces and try to divert Godzilla away from a city? Or would it be an exploration adventure where you took on the role of a civilian trying to survive an attack? Of course most audiences wanted to be Godzilla and feel what it was like to have that type of power.
Godzilla Monster of Monsters for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) put gamers in charge of the title character. The title from 1988 was well received by fans. Just about every monster that had ever appeared in a Toho movie was featured in the game. Players took on the role of either Godzilla or Mothera as they fought wave after wave of aliens and other giant monsters en route to Planet X, the home of King Ghidorah. The game featured very large sprites with unique level visuals. If it had one failing it was that audiences couldn't appreciate the scale of the character as it was as big as human characters from other console games.
Godzilla console titles had limited game play. Most designers just followed the trends and put Godzilla in whatever was popular at the time. In the '80s many NES games were platformers, vs. Mario Bros, Bionic Commando, Rygar, Castlevania, etc. all had a character move left to right on screen and fight various bosses. As fighting games became more popular in the early '90s the Godzilla games evolved to follow suit. In the Super Famicom (Super Nintendo) versions of Godzilla: Battle Legends (1993), Super Godzilla (1993), and Godzilla: Monster War (1994) the game play was changed so that monster encounters played more like a modern fighting game. As fun as these games were they didn't really capture what it meant to play as the monster.
All of that changed in 1998 with the release of Godzilla Generations for the Sega Dreamcast. For the first time in a generation the awesome power of the monster was presented in 3D. The game revolved around Godzilla or one of a handful of monsters (including the abysmal USA Godzilla) destroying a city. Players could walk through skyscrapers, watch them break apart and come tumbling down. They could blow up refineries and even fight the G-Force military special units. There was little to the game play aside from destruction. It was a throw-back to the Epyx game Movie Monsters. For a little kid this was more than enough to make them happy but long-time players expected much more of an experience.
Godzilla Generations was the perfect example of why the character never became a gaming icon. It was difficult to make an enjoyable experience out of a creature that was famous for moving slowly, smashing cities and fighting other monsters. It didn't stop developers on both sides of the Pacific from trying to create a hit game with the license. We will explore these better attempts in the next blog. I hope to see you back for that.
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