Video game adaptations have been around for years now. While people will be familiar with the bevy of movie adaptations and streaming shows that have come and gone, cartoons have been a prime field for such adaptations for years.
As far back as the early 1980s, cartoons of the most popular video games of the day were finding their way into the lineup of Saturday morning cartoons. While some of these cartoons are looked back on fondly, or at the very least have spawned a myriad of memes and inside jokes, others never quite made it to those same heights.
10 The Super Mario Bros. Super Show Is A Classic That Shows Its Age
Between its catchy theme song and focus on Nintendo's most popular franchise, The Super Mario Bros. Super Show has a lot going for it. Each episode was split into two segments, one animated and one live-action.
While the show made good use of its source material, it often had notable dips in quality, like a plethora of noticeable animation errors and poor writing. While it has spawned many memes, The Super Mario Bros. Super Show is only worth watching once.
9 The Legend Of Zelda Is Like A Lower Quality Mario Bros. Cartoon
Anyone who knows The Legend of Zelda will be familiar with the animated series and Link’s endlessly meme-able catchphrase “excuse me, Princess.” Unfortunately, Link’s catchphrase is about the only memorable thing in this cartoon. The animation and writing are poor in equal measures, with much of the dialogue being unabashedly cringeworthy.
The most egregious of the show’s failings, though, is Link’s characterization. Rather than the silent, selfless hero fans know and love from the games, the show presents fans with a whinny, loud-mouthed, and often downright creepy version of the Hero of Hyrule.
8 Sonic Underground Succumbs To The Weight Of Its Ambition
Based on the Sonic the Hedgehog series, Sonic Underground may be the strangest Sonic adaptation. It follows Sonic and his siblings, Sonia and Manic, as they battle Robotnik, who took over the world. While it sounds like a typical Sonic cartoon, Sonic Underground crammed a lot into that simple premise. The siblings form a band, then later join a team of freedom fighters. Several of the antagonists have shifting allegiances, and there’s even a magical prophecy.
While it sounds like Sonic Underground should be an interesting and complex cartoon, it suffers from having too many ideas that don't fit together. While there is still some nostalgic appeal to the 90s cartoon, most people will find Sonic Underground bit off more than it could chew.
7 Captain N: The Game Master Takes Too Many Liberties
Captain N: The Game Master follows a teenager getting transported to a world of living video games where he teams up with Simon Belmont, Mega Man, and Pit (called Kid Icarus in the show). Together they battle several villains like Mother Brain and Dr. Wily. The premise is cheesy, but works well enough for a Saturday morning cartoon. However, the show takes many odd and obnoxious liberties with the characters.
Simon Belmont, the stoic vampire slayer, is instead an arrogant and vain man dressed like a World War I fighter pilot. Mega Man bizarrely forces the word “mega” into every sentence and sounds like a chronic smoker. Kid Icarus ends every sentence with “-icus”. There are many more changes made, and they often result in characters being unbearably annoying.
6 Mortal Kombat: Defenders Of The Realm Works About As Well As You’d Expect
Mortal Kombat: Defenders of the Realm is an attempt to turn the blood-soaked games into a child-friendly cartoon featuring half of the most popular characters the series. Almost to spite everything the games are about, the cartoon eliminates the epic and violent fights of the games in favor of repetitive animation with little to no real action.
In addition to ditching the games’ most recognizable traits, the cartoon shoehorns in terrible catchphrases and sometimes tries to teach kids life lessons. While popular characters like Johnny Cage are absent, the show does feature the first appearance of recurring villain Quan Chi. In the cartoon, though he’s a loud and somewhat bumbling antagonist rather than a menacing necromancer.
5 Adventures Of Sonic The Hedgehog Is Loud And Obnoxious
Of three cartoons based around Sonic the Hedgehog that were made in the 90s, Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog is easily the worst. Its attempts to emulate the slapstick comedy of other cartoons often fall short, and far too many of the jokes revolve around chilidogs.
Guest characters were often tired clichés or bizarre parodies, and generally the animation had a strange looseness to it that looked cheap and rushed. Worst of all though, Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog managed to outlast Sonic the Hedgehog, also known as Sonic SatAM, the arguably superior Sonic cartoon which was canceled, and left with an uresolved cliffhanger.
4 Donkey Kong Country Is A Nightmare Of Early Computer Graphics
When most people think of Donkey Kong, the Donkey Kong Country animated series is probably not the first thing that comes to mind. The series was a low-quality product with rushed plots and terrifying CG characters. This show aired years after the earliest 3D cartoons, so the characters of Donkey Kong Country are hard to excuse.
The characters simultaneously move like gravity is nonexistent and like they’re experiencing the early stages of rigor mortis. The animation and CG get worse in season two. It did give DK the catchphrase “banana slamma!” which lives on in memes and a reference in Tropical Freeze, so something about the show stood the test of time.
3 Darkstalkers: The Animated Series Rarely Tried and Rarely Impressed
Based on Capcom’s fighting games, Darkstalkers: The Animated Series is an insult to the series. The show changed almost everything about the games and the characters fans knew, like making Morrigan Aensland partners with Demitri Maximoff rather than rivals.
Darkstalkers also dumbed down much of the complexity of the games and turned the interesting conflicts into a standard good vs evil plot centered around a new character, a young boy named Harry Grimoire. On top of all of this, the animation is an absolute travesty. Cheap doesn’t even begin to describe it. One of its many noticeable failings is the characters’ eyes seem incapable of looking in the same direction.
2 Mega Man: Fully Charged Makes The Characters Unrecognizable
Quite possibly one of the most off the rails video game adaptations ever, Mega Man: Fully Charged is a Mega Man property in name alone. It follows Aki Light, a robot boy who attends school while moonlighting as Mega Man. There is no Roll, there is no Dr. Wily, there is no Proto Man, but there is Mega Mini, a small robot that lives in Mega Man’s forehead and acts like the Jarvis to his Iron Man.
In addition, despite there being a character named Bert Wily, the main antagonist of the show is a new character named Sergeant Night, a clear attempt at making him the opposite of Dr. Light. Overall, the show is a disaster, with poor writing and horrible characters, the whole thing feels like an unfocused caricature of what Mega Man really is and needed to end earlier than it did.
1 Bubsy Was So Bad It Never Made It Past The Pilot
The Bubsy games made their debut in the age of mascot platformers. Bubsy was a bobcat with the ability to glide by holding his arms out like a plane. The most noteworthy things about Bubsy were his catchphrase “what could possibly go wrong?” and the fact that he never stopped talking in a screechy and nasally voice.
As appealing as it sounds to make a whole cartoon out of a character like that, it never came to pass. The Bubsy pilot was aired on TV once, and it was rated so poorly the cartoon never progressed. It’s not hard to understand why, as the pilot never stops for a second and most of the characters seem incapable of talking below an ear-shredding scream.