We return with our Left in Japan series with more G1 Transformers games that never made it out of Japan. Since we last left off in the 1980s with Nintendo games that never arrived on our shore, Transformers fans actually had 2 major releases for Transformers games in the 1990s. The first was an open world Beast Wars game where you play as either Maximal or Predacon with Season 1 characters. The second game we got was a 2d fighting game called Beast Wars: Transmetals for both the PlayStation and Nintendo 64. However, it would be several years later before we would get the next Transformers video game, 2004's Transformers. This game, released on the PlayStation 2 to much fan praise, featured, not the G1 cast, but the Armada characters. The year before, Japan got not one, but two G1 Transformers games!
Transformers: Call of the Future
Transformers: Call of the Future, was released in Japan on the PlayStation 2 on October 30th, 2003, published by Atlus. It is a 3D brawler, where you pick your faction, Autobot or Decepticon, and lead a team of three, punching, kicking, and blasting your way through enemy bots.
At the end of each level, you get to have a boss fight, these are usually the more popular bots like Sondwave in level one, or even combiners later on like the ultimate combiner Predaking!
The basic story premise is that in 2010, Shockwave would fuse himself with an alien artifact and destroy Cybertron. However, the survivors of that battle have come back in time to the year 2003 to stop him from ever retrieving the artifact. I won't drop any spoilers here, but the story itself isn't that bad and the CGI intro is pretty great for 2003. Also, if you play as the Decepticons, then you transform Megatron into his G1 gun mode!
Check out the long play for the game below:
If this game had come out in 2003 in the US, I think that it would have been well received by the fandom. I think people today would still be debating on which game was better this or the Armada game? Sadly, this has never been released stateside, despite the game being completely in English.
DreamMix TV World Fighters
Released by Hudson on December 13, 2003 for the PlayStation 2 and Gamecube, this game, isn't a purely Transformers game, but it does heavily feature G1 Optimus Prime and Megatron. This game is a Smash Bros style game, where you can play as an assortment of characters from Konami, Hudson, and Takara's intellectual properties. Other notable characters you can play as, besides the transformers, as Simon Belmont, Solid Snake, and Bomberman. There is a solo campaign, where you fight other characters to boost the ratings. Depending on your performance, you will get rated after the campaign is done. Playing the campaign with different characters unlocks new stages and characters. There is also a four person melee style mode like Smash Bros, as well as two other interesting game modes. However, what we want to discuss is the Transformers! You can play as Optimus Prime or Megatron, and there is even a cool G2 colored Devastator Level.
Ultimately, this game is fun Smash Bros clone, and we get some interesting characters and stages. Check out the gameplay below:
I wish that we could have got this game for the Gamecube or PlayStation 2 in the US, as it looks to be a real fun game with some of our favorite characters. I wonder what characters we would get swapped out if it was released over here? Check out Megatron in gun mode below:
Fortunately for us fans stateside, we would get bombarded by Bayverse movie games in the years following this, an Animated series game for the DS, and two of the highest regarded Transformers games of all time. However, we will have to talk about those another time...