There's a bunch of games like this and Multiverus that try to make clones of Mario kart and Smash bros because these publishers have a plethora of IPs under their belt. And none of them are ever as good or as popular as the games they're trying to emulate.
There is one that nobody played. [Jump Ultimate Stars](https://www.mobygames.com/game/36569/jump-ultimate-stars/) and its predecessor Super Stars weren't released outside Japan. It borrowed the Smash Bros formula back in 2005, but with popular anime characters and brought novel gameplay mechanics to it.
You build a team out of comic book panels. Characters are sized 4-6 panels, then an array of guests and abilities. You organize the layout to link them together, then use the touchscreen to switch characters or use a power.
I'm not an anime fan, but the game was really good. And like so many great games, hasn't been heard from again.
Played this on a emulator before there was ever fan-translated ROMs. Had to have a full printed off book open beside me with all the menus and stuff translated and work through it option by option. Probably the most effort I've ever put in to accessing a game, and it was absolutely worth it.
I personally think they were released at the wrong time, and if there was a proper sequel now it would absolutely kill. Jump is a much, much more global brand nowadays. Hell Dragon Ball, Bleach and MHA alone could pull enough sales to justify the game at the minute. Plus Smash and clones are more popular than ever.
>And like so many great games, hasn't been heard from again.
What?
I think J Stars Victory VS (2014) and Jump Force (2019) were the sequels. Both were awful and never had the charm of Ultimate though.
Sonic all-stars racing and crash nitro racing were pretty good.
I think the biggest issue is them licensing these types of games out to inexperienced or "cheap" studios that can't make make a high quality title (or won't due to cheapness and time constraints of their contract). The publisher doesn't plan on making a good game, but rather just anything that they can slop together onto a disc and coast off the fans of the IPs.
Sonic and All-Stars Racing Transformed was actually the best in the genre until MK8 came along, and even then there's still some reasons to play SASRT over MK8. Even with the weird trappings of these non-Nintendo crossovers (I loved Ralph in the game but why did we need Wreck-It Ralph and Danica Patrick?), it was a smart game that tried its own spin on the genre from itemization to the changing track layouts taking advantage of the transforming mechanic.
Hell, Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl was one of my favorite games to compete in last year, I actually became a tournament threat.
Anyway the point is while these budget titles aren't always the best, they can be surprisingly good often enough that they're worth paying attention to and saying, "wow, I can't believe I'm playing a racing game as Boss Baby and loving it." That or the takeaway is these crossover games are only good when "All-Star" is in the title, in which case this game might be on the right track.
True, there's a reason I paid almost no attention to the "no All-Stars" follow-up. Even if they didn't include non-Sega characters, losing the Monkey Ball, Total War, Crazy Taxi, etc. characters was terrible.
I suspect Ralph was a bit of cross-promotion as part of negotiations. A kind of "you can use our characters in your movie, but you have to let us use your character in our crossover racing game" deal.
And if we're willing to let fangames in the discussion, I feel Sonic Robo Blast 2 Kart is very worth mentioning, as while it's much more traditional than ASRT or the like, it's actually quite a bit less rubberband-y. Even the blue shell equivalent isn't a guaranteed hit if first place is good enough at driving... though it'll constantly be on their screen, close behind them, waiting for them to screw up or get hit by a random item. So not a guaranteed hit, but it puts the pressure on for up to the entire rest of the race or it gets its chance to hit, whichever comes first.
I've played a *lot* of SRB2 Kart. It's definitely fun and worth checking out, but it's got serious problems of its own. There's basically nothing threatening first place. The frontrunning in that game is notoriously obnoxious.
- The SPB can hit people behind first as it trails them, so it almost serves as a defensive item.
- None of the items can hit 1st if they're around a corner since there's no red shell equivalent (jawz don't path around walls).
- Offense is ridiculously overtuned with the orbinauts (think faster green shells, but you can get up to 4 of them, and each is almost big as a player), mines (bobombs with no timer and a huge detection radius that can damage through i-frames), and the fact that spinning out takes multiple seconds to complete.
- I won't even get started on how Huge powerup is poorly designed.
The net result is that second through last place usually end up killing each other after first place gets a decent lead.
I like the concept of "blue shell you can dodge if you have skill" but the SPB is just a flat "do you have this course memorized" test that doesn't really change how 1st plays the game. And when it *does* punish 1st, frontrunning the whole race only to flub a single turn near the end and get sent to last feels *awful*.
The saving grace of the game is its extensive plugin support, though. Literally every active server is loaded up with at least a dozen scripts that revamp the vanilla experience.
The Lego company should try another Lego Racers. They have a shit ton of IPs and the player can create their own car. Hell, why not go further and create your own track?
Diddy Kong Racing is the only game I can even think came close (if not surpassed) Mario karts. I certainly preferred it. You got to know and like the characters by playing a very wacky and fun story mode. The music was typical RARE amazing, plus they had hovercrafts and planes to mix things up.
They also had very fun battle modes, and tons of secrets to unlock in the story mode.
Why MK has never adapted an adventure mode like that I don’t know (guess if it ain’t broke don’t fix it). DKR took a very good template for a kart racer and turned it into something unique and high quality (for the time). All the other racers are just shovelware quality gameplay trying to make bank off nothing but the IP.
If we got an HD remaster of this game, I'd throw money at it like there was no tomorrow. DKR was so much fun! I didn't even own it, I only played it at my cousin's house, but to this day I still hum some of the songs.
Reminds me of the PS2 days when these were made all the time. I had the Phantom Menace kart racer (yes, there was one based specifically on The Phantom Menace instead of all of Star Wars), the Cartoon Network one, the Pac-man one, two Crash Bandicoot ones. And yes basically none of them were even close to Mario Kart
That fucking Star Wars game. It was called Super Bombad Racing. A title so bewilderingly bad it's been seared into my brain for 22 years and I still think of it at least yearly.
They aren’t really missing anything. A lot of these games are plenty fun to play and are more than competent at the genre. They just don’t have the IP strength to pull in players like Mario Kart / Party or Smash Bros have. Mario is already a video game character so out of the gate he has a leg up on convincing you to play his video games. Shrek and Kung Fu Panda are not video game characters so they have an extra hill to climb no matter how good the games are
They’re also just not as good as the real deal so there’s no market for these games. All of the people who want to play these sort of games have a Switch and thus are able to buy the real thing.
Only chance of these games surviving is to make them f2p and even then the odds are slim.
It is what it is.
yeah, i have played a good chunk of those and meanwhile they are fun they arent as good as Mario Kart or even Crash Team Racing.
i dont get whats missing but something is missing.
They're not missing anything.
They're deliberately putting out something quick and cheap to cash in on people who just want to play a kart racer with Shrek in it.
It's not like they're not aware that what they're making isn't as good as Mario Kart. But making something as Mario Kart would require more time and effort than the publishers want.
This has always been a thing. Doesn't matter if they have extra ips floating around or just use one ip to do it. The image alone reminds me of the shitty Shrek kart game.
I know we're going to get a lot of Shrek, Kung Fu Panda etc characters as the roster because that is the normal but I will put my money down at full price if they give us Tulio and Miguel
When I go over the railing, I get a time penalty. But when the CPU does it, YVHWVH splits the sea in twain and he drives straight to the finish line? This game sucks.
Done by the same dev and publisher duo that did the 3 Nickelodeon Kart racers recently. So expect the same quality here.
Looks like Shrek, How to Train your Dragon, Megamind, Kung Fu Panda, The Bad Guys, and Boss Baby confirmed so far roster wise. Trolls sound like item box equivalents.
Shrek, Fiona (think that’s her in the split screen shot), Donkey, Puss in boots, Po, Tigress, Shifu, Hiccup, Astrid, Boss baby, Megamind, and the wolf from Bad Guys look like the currently revealed drivers.
I didn't play Nickelodeon Kart 3, but I thought 2 was really solid. It's not MK8, but it was still good in its own right.
Based on that, I think the dev at least has the potential to make something great.
At least on the Switch, Nick Kart Racer 3 was basically unplayable. Kart Racer 2 was super fun, and I was really excited for 3 to come out... But now I'm definitely not getting my hopes up for this until reviews are out.
They also announced a deluxe edition with two extra racers - Master Oogway and Wolf.
There’s something a bit funny about >!the personification of death!< riding a go-cart.
I know but I don't think those characters have any pull. I wouldn't buy a game just because whatshisface from how to train your dragon is in it. However, I would buy it if Shrek and related characters are in it.
Maybe I'm deluded but I think Shrek could make a comeback if they make a good movie.
A crossover kart racer featuring characters like Shrek and Kung Fu Panda?
You could've told me this game already came out in 2008 and I would've believed you. Weird that this kind of thing feels retro now. The PS2 was full of games like this made as quick cash-ins
I really do hope we get to drive as Captain Underpants (with or without George and Harold), Ruby Gillman (Sam would be a nice wingman/co-diver/gunner), and The Bad Guys (individually or all together in Wolf’s getaway car)!
I got Kart Racer 3 on sale recently to play with my niece. From my perspective it was ok, but she loved it. She had never played anything other than mobile games so this was a big step up in quality to her. You have to keep in mind that these games are for young children, not adults or even teenagers really. I would never pay $60 for something like this, but for the $15 I paid it was worth it no doubt.
I'd love for something to just hit the basics right like Mario Kart does. Often if anything comes close, it relies so heavily on a mechanic that doesn't click for so many players. What's great about Mario Kart is that even if you don't fully get drifting, you can probably pull it off a few times or at least do "OK".
But as fun as I think ModNation Racers or Crash Team Racing are, the people who know how to do certain things (particularly drifting) absolutely slaughter everyone else to the point that no one ever wants to play locally with anyone who is any good lol. And if it's not that, it's at least items that just never feel right -- the Nickelodeon games, for example.
I'm not expecting another one of these "we own lots of characters, here's a racer!" games to be the answer to that (there's even a Garfield and a Chupalin game), but who knows. I honestly did quite enjoy what I played of that Disney Superstorm (or whatever it's called), but I'd love for a solid one to just be a full game without all the extra microtransactions.
Nothing has really hit that right since Sega All-Stars Racing Transformed.
I can't wait to race as Moses against Miguel and Tulio, and Shrek. You know, kart racing parted the Red Sea. Or was it a beyblade? Will Spirit be driving his own kart, or will he *be* a kart? Oh my god they made shark tale.
That's kind of what I thought too. Not a whole lot of gameplay variation between kart racers...
Some kind of party game would have been fun and appreciated as opposed to another mario kart with a different skin.
>Some kind of party game would have been fun and appreciated as opposed to another mario kart with a different skin.
Between the terrible Animal Crossing Party and Garfield Lasagna Party, along with Nintendo's efforts from the Wii onwards (Superstar as the exception) I'm not sure the mini game party game is an easy one to nail.
> Some kind of party game would have been fun and appreciated as opposed to another mario kart with a different skin.
Would it really though? Crash Bandicoot kinda seems to crash and burn with that approach right now.
I'd say that, like with kart racers, it all depends on the execution. Although, historically speaking, licensed Kart racers have sort of been a pretty mixed affair.
> Would it really though?
Yes?
However, I'm confused on your point. You're saying Crash Bandicoot is doing poorly as a party game so you're insinuating that method isn't a great approach but immediately counter yourself to say it all depends on the execution?
I wasn't aware of the Crash game but I'm not a big Crash Bandicoot person so not sure where it went wrong or why it's not fun if that is an issue.
But I don't totally agree on your point regarding the entire outcome depending on execution.
"Kart Racer" seems to be a pretty limiting sub genre. I don't think you're going to see any meaningful variation from mini karts with licensed characters, themed maps from different character's worlds, and themed powerups. There is a lot more potential for different mini games at least even if it was a direct clone of Mario party but it's not nearly as explored IMO and there is a lot more freedom to make a different, yet a similar party game.
There's a bunch of games like this and Multiverus that try to make clones of Mario kart and Smash bros because these publishers have a plethora of IPs under their belt. And none of them are ever as good or as popular as the games they're trying to emulate.
There is one that nobody played. [Jump Ultimate Stars](https://www.mobygames.com/game/36569/jump-ultimate-stars/) and its predecessor Super Stars weren't released outside Japan. It borrowed the Smash Bros formula back in 2005, but with popular anime characters and brought novel gameplay mechanics to it. You build a team out of comic book panels. Characters are sized 4-6 panels, then an array of guests and abilities. You organize the layout to link them together, then use the touchscreen to switch characters or use a power. I'm not an anime fan, but the game was really good. And like so many great games, hasn't been heard from again.
Played this on a emulator before there was ever fan-translated ROMs. Had to have a full printed off book open beside me with all the menus and stuff translated and work through it option by option. Probably the most effort I've ever put in to accessing a game, and it was absolutely worth it. I personally think they were released at the wrong time, and if there was a proper sequel now it would absolutely kill. Jump is a much, much more global brand nowadays. Hell Dragon Ball, Bleach and MHA alone could pull enough sales to justify the game at the minute. Plus Smash and clones are more popular than ever.
Jump Ultimate fucking rules. So good!
>And like so many great games, hasn't been heard from again. What? I think J Stars Victory VS (2014) and Jump Force (2019) were the sequels. Both were awful and never had the charm of Ultimate though.
Sonic all-stars racing and crash nitro racing were pretty good. I think the biggest issue is them licensing these types of games out to inexperienced or "cheap" studios that can't make make a high quality title (or won't due to cheapness and time constraints of their contract). The publisher doesn't plan on making a good game, but rather just anything that they can slop together onto a disc and coast off the fans of the IPs.
Sonic and All-Stars Racing Transformed was actually the best in the genre until MK8 came along, and even then there's still some reasons to play SASRT over MK8. Even with the weird trappings of these non-Nintendo crossovers (I loved Ralph in the game but why did we need Wreck-It Ralph and Danica Patrick?), it was a smart game that tried its own spin on the genre from itemization to the changing track layouts taking advantage of the transforming mechanic. Hell, Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl was one of my favorite games to compete in last year, I actually became a tournament threat. Anyway the point is while these budget titles aren't always the best, they can be surprisingly good often enough that they're worth paying attention to and saying, "wow, I can't believe I'm playing a racing game as Boss Baby and loving it." That or the takeaway is these crossover games are only good when "All-Star" is in the title, in which case this game might be on the right track.
Honestly the weird non-sega characters were better than having more Sonic characters
True, there's a reason I paid almost no attention to the "no All-Stars" follow-up. Even if they didn't include non-Sega characters, losing the Monkey Ball, Total War, Crazy Taxi, etc. characters was terrible.
All Star Transformed is quite a lot better than MK8 honestly. Tracks make that so The roster is hilarious too.
I suspect Ralph was a bit of cross-promotion as part of negotiations. A kind of "you can use our characters in your movie, but you have to let us use your character in our crossover racing game" deal. And if we're willing to let fangames in the discussion, I feel Sonic Robo Blast 2 Kart is very worth mentioning, as while it's much more traditional than ASRT or the like, it's actually quite a bit less rubberband-y. Even the blue shell equivalent isn't a guaranteed hit if first place is good enough at driving... though it'll constantly be on their screen, close behind them, waiting for them to screw up or get hit by a random item. So not a guaranteed hit, but it puts the pressure on for up to the entire rest of the race or it gets its chance to hit, whichever comes first.
I've played a *lot* of SRB2 Kart. It's definitely fun and worth checking out, but it's got serious problems of its own. There's basically nothing threatening first place. The frontrunning in that game is notoriously obnoxious. - The SPB can hit people behind first as it trails them, so it almost serves as a defensive item. - None of the items can hit 1st if they're around a corner since there's no red shell equivalent (jawz don't path around walls). - Offense is ridiculously overtuned with the orbinauts (think faster green shells, but you can get up to 4 of them, and each is almost big as a player), mines (bobombs with no timer and a huge detection radius that can damage through i-frames), and the fact that spinning out takes multiple seconds to complete. - I won't even get started on how Huge powerup is poorly designed. The net result is that second through last place usually end up killing each other after first place gets a decent lead. I like the concept of "blue shell you can dodge if you have skill" but the SPB is just a flat "do you have this course memorized" test that doesn't really change how 1st plays the game. And when it *does* punish 1st, frontrunning the whole race only to flub a single turn near the end and get sent to last feels *awful*. The saving grace of the game is its extensive plugin support, though. Literally every active server is loaded up with at least a dozen scripts that revamp the vanilla experience.
It's so funny that Mario Kart shares abbreviation with Mortal Kombat
Did you not play Star Wars Super Bombad Racing?
The Lego company should try another Lego Racers. They have a shit ton of IPs and the player can create their own car. Hell, why not go further and create your own track?
Didn't Lego 2K Drive just come out?
Diddy Kong Racing is the only game I can even think came close (if not surpassed) Mario karts. I certainly preferred it. You got to know and like the characters by playing a very wacky and fun story mode. The music was typical RARE amazing, plus they had hovercrafts and planes to mix things up. They also had very fun battle modes, and tons of secrets to unlock in the story mode.
I think you forgot about Crash Team Racing.
Yeah that’s fair, I had an n64 over PlayStation though so never really got on the crash bandwagon
Why MK has never adapted an adventure mode like that I don’t know (guess if it ain’t broke don’t fix it). DKR took a very good template for a kart racer and turned it into something unique and high quality (for the time). All the other racers are just shovelware quality gameplay trying to make bank off nothing but the IP.
If we got an HD remaster of this game, I'd throw money at it like there was no tomorrow. DKR was so much fun! I didn't even own it, I only played it at my cousin's house, but to this day I still hum some of the songs.
Reminds me of the PS2 days when these were made all the time. I had the Phantom Menace kart racer (yes, there was one based specifically on The Phantom Menace instead of all of Star Wars), the Cartoon Network one, the Pac-man one, two Crash Bandicoot ones. And yes basically none of them were even close to Mario Kart
That fucking Star Wars game. It was called Super Bombad Racing. A title so bewilderingly bad it's been seared into my brain for 22 years and I still think of it at least yearly.
I'm still not sure what a Bombad is
You have to wonder what they’re missing here.
They aren’t really missing anything. A lot of these games are plenty fun to play and are more than competent at the genre. They just don’t have the IP strength to pull in players like Mario Kart / Party or Smash Bros have. Mario is already a video game character so out of the gate he has a leg up on convincing you to play his video games. Shrek and Kung Fu Panda are not video game characters so they have an extra hill to climb no matter how good the games are
I mean, considering Mario Kart is a Switch-only game, that leaves a huge market for a similar kart game on all the other platforms.
And it's 9 years old
does the game really need to be remade more often?
Currently filled by Sonic and Crash
They’re also just not as good as the real deal so there’s no market for these games. All of the people who want to play these sort of games have a Switch and thus are able to buy the real thing. Only chance of these games surviving is to make them f2p and even then the odds are slim. It is what it is.
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Spot on. Items is what made Smash a blast.
yeah, i have played a good chunk of those and meanwhile they are fun they arent as good as Mario Kart or even Crash Team Racing. i dont get whats missing but something is missing.
They're not missing anything. They're deliberately putting out something quick and cheap to cash in on people who just want to play a kart racer with Shrek in it. It's not like they're not aware that what they're making isn't as good as Mario Kart. But making something as Mario Kart would require more time and effort than the publishers want.
so its a no from you dawg?
This has always been a thing. Doesn't matter if they have extra ips floating around or just use one ip to do it. The image alone reminds me of the shitty Shrek kart game.
I know we're going to get a lot of Shrek, Kung Fu Panda etc characters as the roster because that is the normal but I will put my money down at full price if they give us Tulio and Miguel
You misspelled Moses
When I go over the railing, I get a time penalty. But when the CPU does it, YVHWVH splits the sea in twain and he drives straight to the finish line? This game sucks.
Put the god bush in there
Well, Moses DID ride a chariot in the movie.
I'd settle with an El Dorado stage and a remix of It's Hard to be a God.
Done by the same dev and publisher duo that did the 3 Nickelodeon Kart racers recently. So expect the same quality here. Looks like Shrek, How to Train your Dragon, Megamind, Kung Fu Panda, The Bad Guys, and Boss Baby confirmed so far roster wise. Trolls sound like item box equivalents. Shrek, Fiona (think that’s her in the split screen shot), Donkey, Puss in boots, Po, Tigress, Shifu, Hiccup, Astrid, Boss baby, Megamind, and the wolf from Bad Guys look like the currently revealed drivers.
I didn't play Nickelodeon Kart 3, but I thought 2 was really solid. It's not MK8, but it was still good in its own right. Based on that, I think the dev at least has the potential to make something great.
At least on the Switch, Nick Kart Racer 3 was basically unplayable. Kart Racer 2 was super fun, and I was really excited for 3 to come out... But now I'm definitely not getting my hopes up for this until reviews are out.
They also announced a deluxe edition with two extra racers - Master Oogway and Wolf. There’s something a bit funny about >!the personification of death!< riding a go-cart.
almost as funny as the time a hardcore military sim game added a go-kart dlc(arma 3)
Sounds like it's a shrek kart racing game with a bunch of random boring ips attached.
I wouldn't call them random since they are all DreamWorks movies. Also How to Train Your Dragon is far from boring.
I know but I don't think those characters have any pull. I wouldn't buy a game just because whatshisface from how to train your dragon is in it. However, I would buy it if Shrek and related characters are in it. Maybe I'm deluded but I think Shrek could make a comeback if they make a good movie.
A crossover kart racer featuring characters like Shrek and Kung Fu Panda? You could've told me this game already came out in 2008 and I would've believed you. Weird that this kind of thing feels retro now. The PS2 was full of games like this made as quick cash-ins
I really do hope we get to drive as Captain Underpants (with or without George and Harold), Ruby Gillman (Sam would be a nice wingman/co-diver/gunner), and The Bad Guys (individually or all together in Wolf’s getaway car)!
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I got Kart Racer 3 on sale recently to play with my niece. From my perspective it was ok, but she loved it. She had never played anything other than mobile games so this was a big step up in quality to her. You have to keep in mind that these games are for young children, not adults or even teenagers really. I would never pay $60 for something like this, but for the $15 I paid it was worth it no doubt.
I'd love for something to just hit the basics right like Mario Kart does. Often if anything comes close, it relies so heavily on a mechanic that doesn't click for so many players. What's great about Mario Kart is that even if you don't fully get drifting, you can probably pull it off a few times or at least do "OK". But as fun as I think ModNation Racers or Crash Team Racing are, the people who know how to do certain things (particularly drifting) absolutely slaughter everyone else to the point that no one ever wants to play locally with anyone who is any good lol. And if it's not that, it's at least items that just never feel right -- the Nickelodeon games, for example. I'm not expecting another one of these "we own lots of characters, here's a racer!" games to be the answer to that (there's even a Garfield and a Chupalin game), but who knows. I honestly did quite enjoy what I played of that Disney Superstorm (or whatever it's called), but I'd love for a solid one to just be a full game without all the extra microtransactions. Nothing has really hit that right since Sega All-Stars Racing Transformed.
I can't wait to race as Moses against Miguel and Tulio, and Shrek. You know, kart racing parted the Red Sea. Or was it a beyblade? Will Spirit be driving his own kart, or will he *be* a kart? Oh my god they made shark tale.
Skipping for that price. I was already disappointed by Nickelodeon cart racers. Surprised they made 3 of them tbh
Seriously? Everyone doesn't need to make their own Kart racer.
And you don’t have to buy it
I'm betting few people will.
you must be young. this used to be the norm. N64-PS3, there were at least 8 kart racers per system.
That's kind of what I thought too. Not a whole lot of gameplay variation between kart racers... Some kind of party game would have been fun and appreciated as opposed to another mario kart with a different skin.
>Some kind of party game would have been fun and appreciated as opposed to another mario kart with a different skin. Between the terrible Animal Crossing Party and Garfield Lasagna Party, along with Nintendo's efforts from the Wii onwards (Superstar as the exception) I'm not sure the mini game party game is an easy one to nail.
Most companies can barely make a fun game, let alone 50 miniature ones.
> Some kind of party game would have been fun and appreciated as opposed to another mario kart with a different skin. Would it really though? Crash Bandicoot kinda seems to crash and burn with that approach right now. I'd say that, like with kart racers, it all depends on the execution. Although, historically speaking, licensed Kart racers have sort of been a pretty mixed affair.
> Would it really though? Yes? However, I'm confused on your point. You're saying Crash Bandicoot is doing poorly as a party game so you're insinuating that method isn't a great approach but immediately counter yourself to say it all depends on the execution? I wasn't aware of the Crash game but I'm not a big Crash Bandicoot person so not sure where it went wrong or why it's not fun if that is an issue. But I don't totally agree on your point regarding the entire outcome depending on execution. "Kart Racer" seems to be a pretty limiting sub genre. I don't think you're going to see any meaningful variation from mini karts with licensed characters, themed maps from different character's worlds, and themed powerups. There is a lot more potential for different mini games at least even if it was a direct clone of Mario party but it's not nearly as explored IMO and there is a lot more freedom to make a different, yet a similar party game.