These games took their series in a totally different direction, but it seemed to pay off...! 🎮👍

Rad-roaches aren't giant bugs, they're giant features.

"There's so many bugs in these games" Well played, Ellen.

Oh my god I love Ellen’s line “Much like someone handcuffed to a roll of coins, things are bound to change” it’s a terrible joke . . . But I love it. What’s wrong with me?

The Like a Dragon devs made another change, this time a cosmetic one, in response to a tweet. Someone pointed out that if they changed "Misc." to "Etc." in the action menu in the English localization, they could make a "SEGA" initialism from the action names. They apparently approved of the idea and the change was made.

I want Nintendo to make a game called the Legend Of Link and for the entire game you play as Zelda.

REach for the moon engine is a fine addition to the 'tortured backronyms' list

If you think about it, Resident Evil did a double pivot. It pivoted successfully from survival horror to action with RE4, then pivoted back

Do you reckon the whole Sims franchise is also another example? Didnt SimCity players go like "hey can we play as the citizens instead" and The Sims was born? 😂

You start to realise you're getting on in years when you can actively remember all these changes at the point they actually happened. Damn I love gaming.

In the original Castlevania games the player would move from room to room fighting monsters eventually confronting a boss at the end of each level. This changed with the release of Symphony of the Night for the Playstation the player could freely explore Dracula's castle but in order to progress would have to use powerups they obtained from defeating the game's bosses. None of these changes seem to have bothered Symphony of the Night any as it became a best selling title for the Playstation and Sega Saturn.

In the Persona series, the life simulation parts the series is known for wasn't added until Persona 3.

"Bound to change" is the most torturously laboured, and therefore absolute best, pun I've heard in a long while.

18:05 Jeez, she really cycled through those puns...

I love how Saints Row pivoted from “generic GTA clone” to absurd sci-fi action comedy.

It wasn't really a shift from long-standing expectations since it was the second game, but the shift from Jak and Daxter to Jak II (exploration fantasy world to dark dystopian industry world with guns) was one of the most impressively smooth transitions of my childhood. Going from exploring this big beautiful world to "everything has gone wrong and I'm gonna shoot a robotic wasp while I try to get home" was a really interesting decision and I want to know who came up with that idea

I'll update the list of things not to ask OX members about: Mike: Cars Andy: Yakuza: Like a Dragon Jane: How to dispose of a body.

In the background, if you listen REALLY closely, you can hear their phones going off to indicate text messages anytime they say a pun. And you know that the message is from Andy going "Boo!"

Super Mario 64... instead of linear levels, weak enemies and princesses in other castles, it allowed you to explore the one castle and travel to different worlds in paintings. On top of this, it was the first 3d mario game and allowed some freedom with how you played the game

The Jak & Daxter Series changed quite a bit, too. The first game was a collectathon like Super Mario 64 or Yooka-Laylee and then the series changed dramaticly. The main character learned how to speak and Jak 2 turned into a GTA Style Game with 3D platforming elements.

Not going to lie, that first view of the Capital Wasteland upon exiting Vault 101 is a moment that will stay with me forever.

“Actually making a Zelda game about Zelda” Not in our lifetime, Phillips ruined that idea for the foreseeable future.

For how long did Ellen have to listen to Andy talk about Like a Dragon to avoid being fired? Also, does Saints Row pivoting from GTA-clone to space- and Hell-adventures count?

What's great is that Andy only started playing the Yakuza games like 2 years ago (I don't remember when just that it was fairly recent and time is a blur rn 😂) and fell in love with them. Pretty sure the karaoke was a huge reason why

Ellen's "bound to change" line is pure perfection.

Like everybody else i thought RE engine meant Resident Evil engine. i have never been this wrong

No mention of Jak and Daxter going from a collect-a-thon platformer to open world sandbox?

The Dynasty Warriors example is an interesting one, because in Japan there wasn't a genre shift - it's just a different series. In the west, the name value was used to help marketing, but in Japan the first game was called "Sangokumusou", while Dynasty Warriors 2 was called "Shin Sangokumusou", Dynasty Warriors 3 was called "Shin Sangokumusou 2", and so on, with the numbers being out by 1 compared to the west ever since.

You could count when the mainline Mario games became 3D. They played almost completely differently to their predecessors, yet are critically acclaimed.

Oh, the second half of "Metroidvania"? They thought of just calling the genre "Metroids," but needed a name with more bite.

Luke and Ellen are such a wholesome team, which makes it even funnier when we hear them swearing up an absolute storm in a video.😂

I think risk if rain is one of the best examples of this, from 2d to 3D and with a mass upgrade in quality, which was already pretty good in the first version

I picked up fallout on a whim in 2008. I saw Bethesda on the title and thought hey they made that oblivion game that I absolutely adore! Didn't regret my decision at all.

Hmm... GTA3 comes to mind. Not only did that change up the series but it revolutionized the whole industry. I think an argument can be made for Mario64 as well. That a game pivoted the franchise so hard that it added a whole third dimension to the platforming :)

I don't think Ellen needs to worry about being sacked for the puns in this video. If making puns was a sackable offence, then I think she would have been sacked a long time ago. Her job seems safe, thankfully.

That "Things are bound to change" pun shut my brain down for a solid minute while I processed it. Freakin' amazing.

Glad to see a series like Dynasty Warriors getting some much needed love and attention.

The things-are-bound-to-change punchline unmade me. Thanks.

You should do one thats the opposite, games that failed after changing

Jak and Daxter. The first one was a platformer collecting game like banjo kazooie. In the second one they gave you a gun and said "have at it."

Price including VATs. Now that's the pun.

It hasn't aged well, but Duke Nukem 3D was a huge departure from the previous sidescrolling Duke Nukem games and it did incredibly well at the time. And I suppose GTA is well known for a similar shift, although from an overhead view. No longer with us is the Descent series. Fly a ship through a series of claustrophobic mines owned by our capitalist overlords while destroying robots. And then comes Descent Freespace. Fly a ship through open space in a full fledged galactic war against an unknown alien enemy. So good it was, the sequel just called itself Freespace 2 and Descent only got one more title before retiring forever (more or less). And then Freespace also retired forever because they were both owned by Interplay, mentioned in this video.

Saints Row radically changed from 1 & 2 being similar to GTA with some humour to the off the rails insanity that was 3 & 4

The "Things are bound to change" line was perfection. Bravo Ellen Rose. Perfection.

I forgot to mention my boi, Jak! Jak and Daxter was a fantasy sci fi platformer about a boy so pure of heart he wouldn't speak. The sequel was a gritty platformer shooter where Jak not only got a complete attitude makeover, but got the ability to transform into a monster as well. Not only did Jak II shift its mechanics quite a bit, it's tone changed drastically!

Last time I was this early, Oxboxtra thought it was gonna be just one session of DnD!

I want to hear Andy's full opinion on Yakuza Like A Dragon.

Puzzle series Picross - my favorite - did pretty good when it replaced the 2D grid with a 3D cube to chisel puzzles out of.

The big Final Fantasy change happened in X-2 actually. XII just added gambits and equipment changes. X-2 had characters repositioning around the battlefield and timing attacks outside of traditional turns.

If you've ever played the newer Yakuza games, you'd know that the series before 7 had a lot of RPG staples. Rabdom battles, grinding for money, unlockable skills, equipment with RPG-like stats. So, while it was surprising at the time, in retrospect it makes a lot of sense and doesn't seem like that big of a shift from older titles. It should be pretty telling that the devs managed to overhaul the core gameplay loop just a few months before release, most of the mechanics were already there

It's not _impossible._ Ellen used to bullseye radroaches with her CZ 75 TS. They're not much bigger than 2 metres.

Yakuza LAD is the first in the series that I've played. It's violent but it has so much heart and good vibes that I wish more games would take cue.

When GTA 3 came out, I first thought they made a huge mistake with the "generic" third person perspective. The top-down view of the first two games felt like an integral part of the charm. Turns out it was I who was mistaken; loved the new gameplay from the start.

What about all the different Mario games? I’m pretty sure Nintendo’s Mission statement for Mario games in the 90’s was just that clip of Ross carrying the sofa up the stairs

Idea: Seven fighting games that had realistic hit noises like “slap”, “clap” and “bop”, instead of “BOOM”, “POW” and “CRACK”. Can’t really think of any though..,

God of War. Angry Kratos whaling on everyone and everything became over-the-shoulder and deliberate, assisted by a smol boi.

“Even Link had an emo phase” *shows Twilight Princess footage* I think you’ll find that’s his furry phase. 😜

I've got to take time out to appreciate Ellen's "bound to change" joke

I enjoyed New Vegas and Fallout 4, but I do really miss the top down, turn-based Fallout

I feel like it should be noted that Dynasty Warriors is actually a spin off of the Romance of the 3 Kingdoms strategy games. What we know as Dynasty Warriors 1 is known as Sangokumusou in Japan, and what we know as Dynasty Warriors 2 is called Shin Sangokumusou, so it's more like a spinoff of a spinoff (of a game based on Chinese literature loosely based on Chinese history)

"..much like someone handcuffed to a roll of coins, things are bound to change." this line is great

"Much like someone handcuffed to a roll of coins, things are bound to change" Genius, Nellie!

5:15 I would have the same reaction as Luke if I saw Zombies coming at me interrupting the loading screen. And I don't swear that much.

13:15 the funny thing is, ffxii IS turn based, its basically the same ATB that ff 4 and onwards(up until X) had, the diference is, you can move to position yourself. but you still have to wait for your gauge to fill before any move goes out, same for the enemies. i still find it funny how many people never realized that.

I'm currently playing Tale of two Wastelands, which is combined Fallout 3 and NV in the NV engine. You can seamlessly travel between DC and Mojave in the same game!! I'm also playing it through Mod Organiser 2 with over 120 mods. It has taken about a week to set it up exactly how I want, but I am now quite a few hours into what is potentially a 400 hour epic, and it feels FANTASTIC! God I can't wait for Starfield...

Thank you so much for mentioning Dynasty Warriors, they are my favorite type of beat em ups. I kept wondering if anybody else remembered them.

Does the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon series count? (still turn based figthing and exploration) Does GTA Chinatown Wars for the Nintendo DS count for the matter? (although the pivot is returning to 2D and it's probably just because I did enjoy the game)

The Vania refers to Castlevania which took a pivot itself when it released Symphony of the Night, which combined elements from Metroid with elements from previous Castlevania games. The genre eventually became named for both.

Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare is a good contender. Going from tower defense to third person shooter is a huge jump, but it worked great.

Shame the company couldn't Handle Ellen's puns. In my opinion she makes or Brakes Oxtra and while I love Luke, I honestly think Ellen's additions truly make these videos beSpoke. She's just Wheely fun to watch. I hope she's able to find success when she Peddles her wares on her personal channel. I'll see myself out.

Stepping out of the vault for the first time in fallout 3 still has to be one of the coolest game moments ever

18:04 - that WAS actually a staple move of any real-life Yakuza fight in the eighties and nineties (or, at least, a fairly common one - what with there being so many bicycles around)

Does most old Star Wars games having been flight simulators then suddenly going to RPG with the Jedi Academy count?

While Halo Wars was a spinoff, it was still a radically different game, than the first and was a good game. Dune 2 changed completely from the first and was a progenitor of the rts genre. Both games were very good. You could also have included the GTA series.

If there's going to be a future video of this format, I'd gladly cast a vote for Pokemon Legends: Arceus. [Walls of text incoming.] To take Pokemon's usual standard format of "fight a handful of gyms for badges along a series of slow-opening hallway routes and then fight the Elite Four" and turn it into a Monster Hunter-esque zone exploration game with missions, a new format for cataloging Pokemon (individual species capturing and researching instead of just catching one species to unlock all of its Pokedex information), a new turn-based battling format that was based on speed (both Pokemon stat and move type) and not just "one move per turn for everyone" like in the other games, item crafting at stations and in the field, Noble Pokemon taking the place of Gyms, open-world navigation (including gliding, surfing, land mounts, and fast traveling), and overworld Pokemon changes/interactions (including Alphas, space-time distortions, sneaking, non-battle capturing, feeding/luring mechanics, direct threats that could actually hurt/debuff the player directly and not just start a battle if they touched you like in SwSh, etc.) was a very bold move to make, but in my opinion, it all worked together fantastically. And, come on. It funnels into you fighting the god of that universe at the end. You, some kid, get to directly square up to god in the end. The thing that technically created you and the systems that brought you into existence is genuinely trying to attack (and likely just kill) you with lasers, energy waves, meteors, and full-body charges. And, to top it all off... you, the same kid, can catch it, and then cart the god of everything around the region with you like a toy breed dog in a purse. I grew up with the franchise and love the games to death (especially RSE/ORAS, DPPT, and USUM), but personally speaking, PL:A is the absolute best set of changes that I could have ever possibly hoped for. I intently sank so many hours into the game just to do as much as I possibly could in it, since it was a new feeling with all of the aforementioned mechanical changes and more. Honestly, I'm vaguely hesitant to ever go back to the old mechanics just because PL:A spoiled me that badly with its changes.

I might argue that Resident Evil's pivot started with 4. I mean, okay, first person is kind of a big step, but so was being able to upgrade your inventory, or buy better guns. Hell, being able to free aim was pretty big for me.

After Mario made the jump to 3D, I doubt Nintendo had too much worry about Metroid, and as beloved as Breath of the Wild is, I do recall some bemoaning the lack of dungeons.

worst day and an oxtra upload? amended

I don’t hear people talk about final fantasy 12 often and talking about it positively even less often. However the battle system did inspire the combat system in a number BioWare’s games especially in the Dragon Age series which I think is neat

When I saw Fallout my first thought was also, "First Person RPG", but I've also played the original game (the one developed for MS-DOS/Windows 95), so I know that it was isometric-turn based combat initially.

If we're talking about hard pivots, let's not forget the Panzer Dragoon series which abruptly switched from Space Harrier-style on-rails shooter to (brilliant) JRPG.

Love the Jonathan Coulton reference for Resident Evil! :D

I love that Final Fantasy and Yakuza were mirrors of each other, one going from turn-based to real-time, and the other going from real-time to turn-based.

Off the top of my head: Mario RPG Metal Gear Solid (arguably) Rune Factory (adding an action RPG to a farming simulator) Luigi's Mansion (new star, not a platformer) Devil May Cry (originally Resident Evil 4) Resident Evil 4 (arguably a bigger pivot than RE7) Persona 3

0:57 Tax puns are Best puns

I feel like I need to bring up the Persona series. Persona 1 and Persona 2 (and it’s direct sequel) were structured somewhat similarly to SMT games at the time, gaining more Persona by negotiating with demons and lacking the social link system. Persona 3 took away negotiation replacing all demons with Shadows and gave us the dating sim element/social links, and then Persona 5 came around and kept the social links but added negotiation back into the game with shadows that took the form of demons, along with a lot more action elements compared to Persona 3 and 4’s just walk through the dungeon and fight monsters till you get to the boss by adding stealth, more intractable objects, and so on. What started off as an SMT spin off game turned into its very own well loved franchise and I think it deserves to be on this list as at LEAST an honourable mention.

"Quick time events." (Shows Chris punching a boulder)

No mention of Jak & Daxter? Going from a bright colorful collect-a-thon to a GTA style open sandbox

I always thought the legend of Zelda was a strange name for a video game series. Why is the series named after the damsel in distress who’s major contrition to most games is getting kidnapped and having her own powers used against her.

Loved the bugs reference for Fallout.

I never would have guessed that "you can attack a guy with pigeons" might be the phrase to make me consider playing Yakuza....

4:25 RE: YOUR BRAINS I didn't think anyone would remember Jonathan Coulton in 2021. Great reference!

How about the GTA franchise, big difference from top-down sprite perspective to open world third person?

AC Origins combat system. It completely changed how you approach your fights and sneaking from previous games. No more easily timing parries!

Here’s one for the commenter edition: The Metal Gear Series. From top down pixels in Metal Gear to Metal Gear Solid’s 3D Resident Evil style camera to MGSV’s open world free camera

"Make a Zelda game about Zelda." I see someone "forgot" the Phillips CD-I games.

“...pivot their precious platform baby into a 3D FPS series” Me, an animator who has never played Metroid: ...Frames per second (/s)

Geez, Ellen, what do you have against radroaches? They’re just trying to survive! 🤣

Ellen’s puns are my whole reason for watching!

Ys 8: Lacrimosa of Dana is basically an Action-heavy traditional 3D Zelda-style game about Zelda. Or rather, about the titular Dana, who is playable as both a solo character and a super-important member of mostly-silent protagonist Adol Christin's (who is what you would get if all the Zelda games happened to one Link) party, in addition to being pretty much exactly what the hypothetical child of Breath of the Wild's Link and Zelda would be like (despite Ys 8 coming out around a year before BotW). Speaking of which, Ys going from bump-combat to regular action platforming combat circa Ys 3, and going to a single-player team based system for Ys 7.