I’ve never played an NES game. Is this a spoof of NES games based off of movies and books – do those games have about as much connection to their original work as this one does to The Great Gatsby? (Which is to say, do those old NES games have cutscenes that make no sense without already having read the book, a style of gameplay that is inappropriate for the setting, and setting-appropriate art and music?)
Games using licensed IP have a very, very long history of only being vaguely related to the original works. In the early 8-bit era this was particularly true because of technical limitations; from around the advent of 16-bit consoles on, the default became "generic action-game gameplay that is visually similar to the IP." The main thing that has changed since then is the kind of generic gameplay used - at first it was almost always platform games; nowadays third-person action-adventures tend to be the default. The inclusion of mock-Japanese elements is mostly a reflection of the NES in particular, but games from the U.S. and U.K., on other platforms, tended to be wacky too, just not as much(probably because the licensors were more hands-on about the content of the game).
Some examples(some bad games, and some really good ones too):
In general, the further the developers are allowed to stray from the original work, the more they can actually do with it as a game. But at the same time, some IP-holders will get obnoxiously protective of the brand image, take a "merchandising tie-in" view of the game that blinds them to other sources of value, and as such are willing to cut large amounts of the game out for the sake of making it fit into their vision. When this happens it can be very discouraging for both parties.
Here's an example of a real game license that I worked on a pitch for(never went into production): Michael Phelps. It was the most perplexing thing. What the fuck do you do in a Michael Phelps game? The publisher had come up with two concepts to work from - generic action-adventure(Phelps...swims very fast...to save the day from terrorists?) or generic party game(lots of swimming minigames with Michael Phelps in them?).
This was shortly after the stories came out about his pot-smoking habits, so one idea we desperately wanted to put into the concept, if it weren't so obviously un-befitting of brand image, would be to do the action-adventure but turn it into a parody and have him "power up" with bong rips and enter bonus stages where he's literally swimming in the clouds. With this simple change, the license does a 180 in terms how much novel/interesting gameplay can be had from it.
I just noticed that a Kinect game featuring Michael Phelps has been announced. Time will tell if this is brilliant, or if it's the latest way to flail badly in front of your TV. Does look like it'll make you exercise, though.
http://www.joystiq.com/2011/02/02/michael-phelps-push-the-li...
Man, that's the kind of idea that gets people to quit their jobs and live out their lives as struggling indie game developers. Of course the character would have to be named Fykel Melps or somesuch, but it would be a huge hit with a core gamer demographic: stoners.
