The PlayStation All-Stars Ultimate Roster Showdown: An Introduction

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUgzJEL1how

Remember that little Smash Bros. clone that could, PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale? It was Sony’s attempt at a crossover fighter, featuring characters from well known classics like God of War and Uncharted to obscure titles like Fat Princess and MediEvil. However, despite selling over one million copies and getting two post release DLC packs, the game is remembered by most as a failure. Due to a combat system that fans of Smash Bros. couldn’t get accustomed to, a general lack of polish when compared to other fighting games, and a lack of certain iconic PlayStation characters, the game is now a distant memory to many as the online serveres for it have now shut down.

But we here at Los Harrow Games, especially me, the head of PlayStation content on the site, have a soft spot for PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale. It wasn’t perfect, but for any one who’s been a fan of PlayStation for as long as they’ve been a fan of video games, then it was a literal dream to see your favorite characters all come together in such a manor. And now, with Sony having much greater success with the PlayStation 4 when compared to the PS3, and once forgotten icons like Crash and Spyro being brought back to the spotlight, we believe there’s room for a second shot.

So, that’s what this whole thing is all about! We wanna dream up the ultimate follow up to what should have been one of the greatest crossover events in history, and with the new franchises that have come out since the last game, it very well could be even more epic! But there are so many games associated with the PlayStation brand nowadays, how do you widdle it down ot a reasonable number? Well, reader and/or listener, that’s where you come in!

Here’s how this will work:

Each Friday for the next 20 weeks, you will see two things. On our official Twitter account, @LosHarrowGames, we will put out a Twitter poll in which two PlayStation characters will be pitted against each other. Throughout the week, you all will be able to vote on which character you feel most deserves a spot on the roster. Once the next Friday hits, that poll will close in favor of a new poll, and we’ll do this all over again.

Now, alongside those Twitter polls, you’ll also see a new article here on the site! On that article, you’ll see two of our (or maybe even guest!) writers make their case for each of the characters! For those unacquainted with a character, or just need to be swayed towards one, these articles will also have the twitter poll embedded into them, so you can vote immediately after reading.

And now, while you’ll be getting polls and articles weekly, you’ll also be getting a monthly podcast! After each month’s worth of weekly polls, I and one (or more) of the writers for the pieces that month will join me in discussing the winners. We’ll go over how the character’s universe, moveset, music, and more could be incorporated into the game as a whole. And at the end of these 20 weeks (or roughly 5 months), we’ll do one massive show where we’ll discuss the nitty gritty of what we’d want in a sequel, from if the Super system should return, to what other games should be represented through items and stages, and other features we’d love to see in it. And at the bottom of this article, you can listen to the first episode!

Sounds cool, right? But wait!

Before we get started, there’s one important matter to get to. It’ll take a lot of the fun out of the game if we left every single character up to vote, as some are just obvious holdovers from the original game. So, in the first episode of this podcast, a few of us will hammer out which characters should be brought over without question and why. The remaining 20 slots that you all will vote for will be added into these holdovers. You can listen to our process below, but the characters that will already be on the roster will include:

Kratos (God of War) (PS4 bearded version, w/ Atreus)
Parappa (classic verison, Um Jammer Lammy skin optional)
Sweet Tooth (Twisted Metal) (Starhawk skin optional)
Nathan Drake (Uncharted) (Old Drake from 4) (Sam costume optional)
Cole MacGrath (inFAMOUS 1, 2, Festival of Blood) (Evil and good skins)
Ratchet and Clank (PS4 version)
Jak and Daxter (Jak barely talks, almost like Jak 1)
Heihachi Mishima (Tekken) (PS1 polygon skin)
Sackboy (LittleBigPlanet) (incorporate characters from 3 into moveset, Tearaway costume, use costumes to give references to other games)
Sir Daniel (Medievil) (remastered version) (PS1 polygon skin)
Kat (Gravity Rush) (Raven skin)

And that’s about it! We’re all looking forward to your reaction to this series, and we hope to see you all voting along and participating.

You can listen to the podcast on iTunes, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Google Podcasts, at the bottom of this article, and more!

https://open.spotify.com/episode/5yawKTrLlk0uiTrEdejjyr

Click here to see our introductory match up: Dart (Dart from Legend of Dragoon) vs. Juan (Guacamelee)