Looking at the recent – and notably successful – trend in making older media franchises into retro-styled video games (seen with popular “brawler-style” releases including TMNT: Shredder’s Revenge, MMPR: Rita’s Rewind, and the still-upcoming Toxic Crusaders), there’s a burgeoning market for more game titles fitting this nostalgia-filled mold. The following are hypothetical games based on older franchises that could be great with some serious passion, quality control, and (in my case) a willingness to get wild and crazy.

10. Captain Planet & the Planeteers

Taking on the fairly preachy but (essentially) well-meaning animated series Captain Planet & the Planeteers, I see this game working as an “exploration adventure” title like Simon’s Quest or Radical Rescue, with players only being able to play the mimetically unpopular Ma-Ti at first. However, players will eventually find and rescue the four other Planeteers: now being able to switch between each and utilize their unique powers to clear obstacles, solve puzzles, and – once all five are saved and accounted for – summon and play as Captain Planet himself for short durations.

9. Are You Afraid of the Dark?

Based on the live-action anthology series from the 1990s (I was an avid viewer when it started airing on Nickelodeon 30+ years ago), the concept of this title would have players being inducted as new members of the show’s Midnight Society. The game would function as an interactive “visual novel,” with each of the overarching main scenarios being framed as a “story” told by the player via choose-your-own-adventure options and dialogue branches to direct the outcome of character and plot developments (as well as how each story ultimately plays out and ends).

8. Biker Mice from Mars

In one of the countless (but fairly entertaining) franchises designed to ride the coattails of the then-unstoppable Ninja Turtles craze, Biker Mice from Mars would only ever receive some less-than-stellar video games in 1994 and 2006/2007. My idea to bring this franchise back into the public consciousness comes in the form of a quasi-open world action game (with minor RPG elements) like River City Ransom: here, players will take on the roles of Throttle, Modo, Vinnie, and the now directly active Carbine as they travel across an overworld on their bikes to locate and fight enemies.

7. Road Rovers

Going from one Ninja Turtles imitator to another, the obscure and short-lived animated series Road Rovers always struck me as having some untapped potential to be something bigger – or, at least, that it could’ve made for a fairly enjoyable video game. I think Road Rovers might work well as a retro-styled, co-op “beat ’em up” where players can select four of the main Rovers – Hunter, Colleen, Exile, and Blitz, with additional members Shag and Muzzle serving as “assist” characters activated via special inputs or power-ups (like the cop car from Streets of Rage).

6. Mega Man ’94

In a wild act of recursive, cross-cultural adaptation, I’d love to suggest another retro-styled, co-op “beat ’em up” based on the Western-focused Mega Man animated series from 1994 – obviously taking inspirational cues from Capcom’s Final Fight franchise. Players will traverse through multiple stages as Mega Man, Roll, and the show-exclusive Brain Bot and Kung-Fu Bot to take on various enemies featured throughout the TV series (with the games’ “weapon-stealing” system still in play).

5. The Real Ghostbusters

Much like with Biker Mice from Mars, the animated spin-off The Real Ghostbusters had some of its own not-so-great video games – however, I feel that it could’ve made for a very good and entertaining co-op “run-and-gun” title (like Gunstar Heroes for the Genesis but using the style and level presentation seen in the aforementioned Streets of Rage). Players would be tasked with “bustin’” ghosts and taking on larger-than-life bosses as the RGB versions of Peter, Ray, Egon, and Winston.

4. Stephen King’s It

Specifically adapting Stephen King’s chilling 1986 novel It (though with certain bits downplayed or skipped – the less said, the better), I’d like to see an EarthBound-esque RPG that switches back and forth between events in the past (shown in 8-bit graphics) and present (16-bit graphics). Enemies will primarily consist of wild animals, bullies/possessed people, and (of course) various incarnations of the titular entity – with the final “battle” during the infamous Ritual of Chüd being rendered in increasingly more complex polygonal graphics to highlight its otherworldliness.

3. C.O.P.S.

Based on the 1988 animated series C.O.P.S., this retro-styled video game would function like visual novel-style investigative titles Déjà Vu and Snatcher but interspersed with first-person shooter segments reminiscent of Lethal Enforcers (yet, in staying on-brand, with the goal of nonlethally “stunning” enemies to apprehend and arrest them). Additional gameplay that could be incorporated might include vehicle chase sequences, interrogation-based minigames where you have to determine if arrestees are lying, and the option to chat freely with characters around the precinct and city.

2. Monster in My Pocket

In a similarly wild act of letting the proverbial snake bite its own tail, I’d say it’d be fitting to make an official “monster-raising” game utilizing the Monster in My Pocket toy franchise as its basis (seeing as Pokémon is a truncation of “Pocket Monster”). More or less playing like most examples of the subgenre (where you collect, level up, and battle various ‘mons), the chosen aesthetic and tone would be a major focus in differentiating the game from other titles of its kind: namely, a much more serious and gloomier (though at times somewhat campy) setting evocative of older horror movies.

1. Street Sharks

Initially appearing as yet another co-op “beat ’em up” based on yet another Ninja Turtles derivative, the game I imagine for Street Sharks would actually stand out from the others by serving as a highly self-referential (and deprecating) indulgence in the franchise’s modern “fame.” After about two or so stages as a blatantly similar brawler to Shredder’s Revenge and Rita’s Rewind, the game would then become aggressively meta and self-aware of its own unoriginality, with it taking on increasingly different – not to mention sillier – gaming genres, artistic styles, and other elements.