Do you like seeing characters from one game in another?

I'm playing Zelda Link's Awakening on the switch and new nothing about it going into it. I'm shocked with all the mario characters and I really don't like it. For me it just breaks the whole immersion.

The only time I liked seeing references was in Duke where he said "that's one doomed space marine" or little easter eggs like that.

How do you feel?

I loved all of the references. Link's Awakening is set in a "dream world" and is probably the Zelda game where that kind of a cross-over makes the most sense. Be on the lookout for Kirby late in the game!

It really depends on the game in question. With the latest Mario Kart, I saw no reason to start adding Link, the Splatoon kids and other such drivers to the game. I always looked at Mario Kart as a kart-racing game set in the Mushroom Kingdom, so it made sense like if Donkey Kong showed up since Mario's first game was Donkey Kong, but otherwise it's mostly characters from those games. It doesn't really make too much difference one way or the other if it's got these new characters, but it just kind of felt out of place for that particular game.

On the flip-side, I think Smash Bros. did it right. I felt like shoehorning a story or some semblance of a story into Smash Bros. just ruins it more, in my opinion they got it right in the first game where they were shown to be figurines that come to life, and are being controlled by Master Hand. Smash Bros. set off on the right foot by being the one game where all of these different Nintendo 1st and 2nd party properties could converge. Since Brawl they seem more concerned with just fitting as many characters in the game regardless of whether they do anything original or really fit. And once they started adding 3rd party characters it felt like it broke the Nintendo barrier too much.

Depends on a game-to-game basis.

@Maxpowers_32: No not really, I think established franchises should "stay in their lane" or whatever.

Easter eggs are fine, and if the game is explicitly made as a mash-up (or known to feature some different characters) of different games then that's fine as well.

But no, if in 20 years I was playing Halo 11 and suddenly Gordan Freeman showed up, that would be a jarring experience.

Not for its own sake, but in the interest of telling a larger story or connecting two previously disconnected universes, sure. Like I could take or leave the cross pollination of fighting game characters between different franchises. But Geralt/Spawn/Link/2B/whoever appearing in Soul Calibur or all the crossovers into Tekken I could take or leave. KOF/Smash type games are cool, though, but that's the whole point of the game rather than a random cameo.

@byshop: I was going to mention Soul Calibur as well. Crossovers are cool, but they should at least make some sense. I enjoyed seeing people like Link, Ezio, and Geralt in the SC universe, but Star Wars characters in SCIV didn't work for me. Lucas Film should hire Namco to make a Jedi fighting game instead.

@judaspete: +1 to the idea of a dedicated Star Wars fighting game.

@byshop: The fact there has only been one terrible attempt to make a dedicated Jedi fighting game is mind boggling.

The fact that the best Jedi fighting game we ever got was a multiplayer mode tacked on to the Wii version of Force Unleashed 2 hurts my head.

Honestly, love it!

Crossovers make it all seems much more immersive, imo!

I love seeing characters from other game franchises make appearances in different game franchises.

I guess I would add on to this topic by mentioning that I thought the concept of different worlds coming together worked out well in Kingdom Hearts. That is probably something nobody ever imagined possible before it came out, but there it was. All of these Disney movies old and new in one game, with characters from different Final Fantasy games. I think the concept wore out after the first game a little bit, but it worked surprisingly well.

Crossovers used to be cool until they made them DLC>