How Violent Video Games CHANGED the Industry Forever

If you were to look at the history of video games and if you were going to ask what became the ongoing trend in gaming that changed the game industry forever, the answer, in my opinion, would be violent video games. If you go back to the beginning of video games, especially with the inception of 16-bit era home consoles consisting of the SNES, Genesis and even the SEGA CD, fighting games have always become a popular trend on the era. This was popularized by one of the popular fighting game franchises, Street Fighter. However, there is another popular fighting game franchise that sparked controversy, Mortal Kombat.

The very first Mortal Kombat was released in 1992 for arcades by Midway Games. But when Acclaim Entertainment ported it to the NES and Genesis, the game became egregiously controversial because of its photoreaslistic sprites with depictions of bloody violence with gore caused by Fatalities, unlike Street Fighter II, which uses traditional handmade sprites that resembled cartoon or comic book illustrations and has little to no blood. This served as a subject of starting the 1993-94 United States Senate hearings on controversial video games held by two senators, Joe Lieberman and Herb Kohl and covers in newspapers.

Nintendo and SEGA released Mortal Kombat, respectively. The SEGA Genesis version, while shipped, has eliminated the graphic effects and can be added by using a well-published cheat code titled "ABACABB" while Nintendo required Acclaim to replace blood with gray sweat, edit Fatalities and change other parts of the game's artwork to remove inappropriate elements like severed heads from spikes in a way for Nintendo to keep the SNES family-friendly on the SNES version, but the gray sweat effects can be reverted to the original red blood effects and bring back uncensored Fatalities via a Game Genie code input as BDB4-DD07. However, the SEGA Genesis version sold more than the SNES version.

But the first Mortal Kombat wasn't the only one that was graphically violent to be a part of the hearing because Night Trap was also a part of the hearing after it had sexual violence against women, deeming it very offensive. Lethal Enforcers' home console release is also obvious to have graphic violence. This prompted Toys "R" Us and KB Toys to remove the following games and peripherals that looked like guns from shelves and SEGA to cease making copies in January 1994.

SEGA created their own game rating system, the Videogame Rating Council, which used three ratings, GA, MA-13 and MA-17. When the SEGA Genesis version of Mortal Kombat was shipped to have toned down violence, it was given an MA-13 rating. After the respective extremely violent and offensive video games came out on home consoles, they became a part of the senate hearing talking about the following games. The hearing made calls to establish the rating system in North America, the Entertainment Software Ratings Board (ESRB).

The ESRB was established back in September 1994 by the ESA in response to the backlash and criticism regarding controversial video games that contain extreme violence or sexual content, especially after the 1993 congressional hearings following the home console releases of Mortal Kombat and Night Trap and even the home computer release of Doom. After the establishment date, future games beyond that date carry the ESRB rating. The Videogame Rating Council was eventually retired in favor of the ESRB.

While Mortal Kombat is aimed at mature audiences because of its graphic and gory nature that leads to getting an M rating, we did see one mainline game of the franchise that is not M-rated, Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe. It was given a T rating due to the inclusion of DC characters, which is why the violence and Fatalities were toned down. While the game was met with mixed reception, there is one thing that was quite interesting about this game.

When Raiden and Superman, the two leaders of their universes, destabilized the portal when taking down Shao Kahn and Darkseid, the two antagonists of both universes, they created a combined force behind the combat rage, Dark Kahn. It created my favorite events like Liu Kang and Scorpion ending up in Gotham, Raiden teleporting to a different world to save Liu Kang and even Raiden and Superman teaming up to defeat Dark Kahn to make the universes back to normal, which resulted a switcheroo of defeat -- Darkseid being bound in the Netherrealm and Shao Kahn being trapped in shattering pieces of glass. And to be honest, the parts of the story in Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe is really interesting to experience.

However, this would be the final game to be published by Midway before their liquidation. Then the 2011 reboot of Mortal Kombat came out as the first game of the franchise published by WB Games and developed under the NetherRealm Studios umbrella to return to its roots of a 2D fighter, which of course, retained the series' controversy regarding graphic violence and marks of start of strong language where you will hear bad words from certain characters.

There are child-friendly games that have violence in them, but the physical inflict in them is not graphic and has no blood. Take Pokémon for example. It's a child-friendly IP that doesn't have any mature content in them and has content appropriate for all ages, including adults, who also play child-friendly games. That's why the IP is mostly rated E for Everyone, like other IPs that are family-friendly like Super Mario, Sonic the Hedgehog and many others. These are the ones that have non-graphic violence. This type of violence is called cartoon violence.

Violence is something that has zero-tolerance in real life. Let me give you an example. I'll talk about school violence. It is essentially an offense that leads to suspensions or expulsion, except to bullies. Basically hitting others that lead to consequences and it's something that must be avoided. In fact, it happened back in the day. But violence in video games is a staple in the industry today that it has much more tolerance than violence in real life.

Controversial video games became the source of starting the predicament of them having sexual content and excessively extreme violence, so what are two controversial games that sparked the creation of the ESRB upon release on home consoles? Mortal Kombat and Night Trap. That started the predicament and sparked the hearings that allowed experts to make calls to establish the ESRB. That's how violent video games changed the industry forever. The trend of violence in video games will continue as future games with violence will come upon us.

I seem to have another backstory blog post coming soon, so stay tuned for that.

I Bought TWO Paper Mario-Inspired Games

Paper Mario is franchise that still holds a lot of magic for people today since the remastered Switch release of The Thousand-Year Door came out. But what if I told you that there are two games inspired by Paper Mario that don't star the Nintendo characters that I bought on Steam? Let's jump right in.

Today, I'm talking about one of the franchises I haven't talked about in a while that became an inspiration for the two games, Paper Mario. So, Paper Mario has a dedicated fan base, especially to the RPG genre. The fan favorites are usually the original Paper Mario and the Thousand Year Door, with Super Paper Mario trailing behind due to the turn-based RPG mechanics introduced in the first two games.

And as we get to the 3DS era, Nintendo tried something new to the series to change up the genre to action-adventure. And it pretty much became divisive with Sticker Star. Then Color Splash for the WiiU came along to use cards that are purchased with coins. It became a flop due to having the action-adventure format Sticker Star had. Then the series was taken to the next level with the Origami King. While has the return of favored RPG elements and removed unwanted features, it became criticized nevertheless due to continuing the action-adventure format from both previous games.

When Nintendo confirms a new game, they try something new and take liberty of the story, characters and gameplay. However, none of the three games since Sticker Star were nowhere near as good as the first two games of the series according to the fans. They have all been met with backlash and disdain. The only conception is that the first two games were better than later games since Sticker Star.

But what I like to also talk about now, though, is not one, but two Paper Mario-esque games that I have bought on Steam and both of them have blew my mind. There are Bug Fables: The Everlasting Sapling and Escape from Ever After. These are the two games that are inspired by Paper Mario. I'm going to into detail about both of them. I'm gonna start with Bug Fables.

Bug Fables is an adventure RPG where you play as the trio consisting of Vi, Kabbu and Leif as they uncover the secrets of the Land of Bugaria and embark on an epic pilgrimage to the Everlasting Sapling, the treasure that can grant immortality.

The gameplay in Bug Fables is similar to Paper Mario that you must time your button presses and press the right button to reduce damage and make successful attacks. It uses teamwork points (TP) required to perform skills. Once you defeated an enemy, you earn EXP. Get enough of them and you'll go up a level and would be prompted choose either increasing max HP, max TP or max MP, which is from equipping medals that you can find outside of combat and equip them. They vary by points, so equip them carefully. But there is one key difference. Since the trio is you must play, you have the whole trio in combat instead of having two characters in battle.

The game's environment and combat is off the chain and blew me away. But one bullcrap problem I'm having is that I can't switch between fullscreen and windowed on the fly with the F11 key. But this is not the only problem. I'm playing it on a DualSense controller, but the game shows incorrect button glyphs. But overall, it's a decent Paper Mario-inspired game.

As soon as I finish Bug Fables, I'm gonna start playing the other one as the coin is flipped to Escape from Ever After. Escape from Ever After is also an adventure RPG where it has the main character, Flynt Buckler, who is a classic fairytale adventurer that meets his allies along with way. His arch-enemy is an evil dragon named Tinder. Flynt has came across something weird when he stormed Tinder's castle. It was converted into corporate offices.

The demo of this game was a limited time demo. I was able to download the demo so that I can get to try it out. The gameplay in Escape from Ever After is also similar to Paper Mario. You have two characters in combat and make right button presses and timings to block attacks and nail moves. There's a gauge that the party shares called Mocha Points (MP). Skills consume this resource. There is even a gauge that fills up when performing correct actions and consumes from synergy skills that measure depending on the current party. The gauge is the Synergy Gauge. It's something that the Paper Mario franchise never had.

At the end of each battle, you earn EXP. Earn 100 EXP and you'll be able to go up a level and choose either increasing max HP, max MP or max BP, which stands for Badge Points. You find badges outside of combat and they vary by points like the medals system in Bug Fables. The best part is, I can switch between windowed and fullscreen on Escape from Ever After..

I have downloaded the demo version before it went away and the game blew me away. The combat is godlike and the environment and music are well done. Now that's a unique style that gets the Lost Odyssey seal of approval. In fact, the game as a whole is goshdarn charming and decent like Bug Fables is.

I was able to buy Escape from Ever After at a discounted price, but I won't play it until I finish Bug Fables, after I decided to play and beat Bug Fables before I play Escape from Ever After. It's not like saying I hate deciding which Paper Mario-inspired game to play first could anger Poseidon, right?

Here's the thing. Paper Mario's fanbase is to the first two games that use RPG elements and we have both titles inspired by the franchise. If you look at the Metacritic scores for both of them, Bug Fables has scored an 86 out of 100 and Escape from Ever After has scored an 82 out of 100, with the average score of an 83 out of 100, indicating that both games are being generally favorable and met with great reception by critics. They both pay homage to the first two games of the franchise and they became games for Paper Mario fans, including me.

Both of them are inspired by the first two games of the Paper Mario franchise that they are both indies that became well-liked because they bank on the fact of smaller teams avoiding practices that bigger companies do and having the tendency to do things bigger companies wouldn't do.

That being said, I decided to make a Venn diagram to compare the differences between Bug Fables and Escape from Ever After and state what things both games have.

Right off the bat, I'm gonna be taking the initial Venn diagram between both Bug Fables: The Everlasting Sapling and Escape from Ever After. Because this is a Venn diagram, the middle part has common denominators between both Paper Mario-inspired games. I colored the left circle green for Bug Fables and the right circle indigo for Escape from Ever After, which I found interesting. First off, we need to go over the common denominators or similarities between both games and that's the point of making a crossover game between two games. Here are the common denominators between them.

Bug Fables and Escape from Ever After are both Paper Mario-inspired games. They involve nailing attacks with the right button presses, both stories go by chapters, have separate save files, recovering resources after levelling up and prompts for choosing a max stat after going up a level. There's even out of combat actions and gibberish in dialogs depending on the character. There's the badge system that involves equipping badges to give the party the edge and change the style.

So we now have the similarities between Bug Fables and Escape from Ever After. The information that we can have without a focused point of view.

Now let's go on to the next phase; stating the differences between two games and what they are.

Bug Fables uses berries as currency, the whole trio is in combat, save points that fully recover HP and TP, has quests posted on the board and a turn relay system.

Escape from Ever After uses two characters in combat, uses the Synergy System that measures strength based on the current party and a gauge that fills up from making right button presses, vending machines that fully restore HP and MP and coins as currency.

And here's the full Venn diagram containing both games' similarities and differences exclusive to one game. This is the final diagram to have everything.

As of right now, I decided to suspend playing Bug Fables until I get a new gaming headset for quality. It has a mic that cancels the background noise so that you would only hear me without hearing any background noises, including the fan noises and my mother calling me, especially when I'm recording. Now, if a third Paper Mario-inspired game is in production, will it be themed around superhero comics, Greek Mythology or whatever theme? I don't know and I don't care. We like to see a third Paper Mario-inspired game. Escape from Ever After and Bug Fables are available now on PC and console, so go check it out.

I'm on the verge of playing through Bug Fables and recording my gameplay videos and sharing them on my separate gaming channel where you'll find my gameplay videos and clips at. I'm starting my own Let's Play series and on a journey to become a Let's Player like other YouTubers before me.

Both games' gameplay is identical to the first two Paper Mario games, meaning if and when Nintendo is planning to make a brand new Paper Mario game, they must make a modern Paper Mario title and base it off of the first two games that received critical acclaim with to take the original foundation and amplify and multiply it, not break and change it like they did with the disdained trio of games in the action-adventure genre since Sticker Star. That's how Bug Fables and Escape from Ever After became well-liked and well-received from fans that both of them use the gameplay identical to the first two Paper Mario games.

The indie game department comes with having two Paper Mario-inspired games, so do you know what is coming in the indie game department? An indie 2XKO with Saturday AM characters called Saturday AM: Battle Manga. I have a post that talks about it, so here's the link to it.

https://rpggameroom.blogspot.com/2026/01/saturday-am-battle-manga-indie-2xko-in.html

Stop with the One-Game Per Month Nonsense. Please.

So far, Sony has been releasing one classic game per-month for PlayStation Plus Premium and this practice has happened for the seventh month in a row and met with backlash that I agree with. Now, this post is not clickbait or opinion-based. This is a serious post that I'm gonna make because I agree with the backlash regarding the dumb and laughable cadence of one classic game per month. I'm serious and I'm not joking. Why am I making this serious post is because a lot of people, including me, are fed up with Sony releasing one classic game per month as it happens the seventh month in a row and this cycle needs to stop. I kid you not.

Premium is literally starving for more classic games. This practice began later in 2025 and Sony needs to divert their resources to Implicit Conversions to give us more than one classic game per month. I agree with the backlash. The one-game-per-month release cadence is making fans mad. Literally, one game isn't gonna do it. It does nothing but make fans mad and make them a laughingstock when there are a lot of them just itching to be in the catalog. Serioulsly, Sony needs to stop releasing one game per month and continue releasing more than one game per month. I mean, there are games I wished for in that cadence, but still.

This just tells me that Sony is absolutely tone-deaf, acting like little babies with the cadence of giving us one game per month and making Premium a joke, especially when there are a lot of games out there like Crash Bandicoot, Spyro the Dragon, Ratchet & Clank, the Simpsons Hit & Run and even Tak among many others. Why can't Sony understand or recognize this? We're getting Tekken: Dark Resurrection this month. This is a PSP release of the PS3 release that was met with mixed reception. There are a lot of games just itching to be in the catalog, yet Sony is investing into being a laughingstock.

And Sony, if you're reading this, please for the love of God, please lay off of and refrain from the one classic game per month release cadence, even though there are a couple of them I played during my childhood in it. All that does is nothing but make you a laughingstock and make fans upset when there are a lot of heavy hitters and classic games we play during our childhood out there. Just invest your resources to Implicit Conversions to give us more than one classic game per month. Heck, might as well pick up and pace and shift to giving us five classic games per month. That could increase the pace of releasing classic games in a faster pace. That's all I wanted to say. Please give us more than one classic game per month. That's all I ask.