As far back as gamers can remember, Namco has been a mainstay in the industry. The company has demonstrated its ability to adapt to the ever-changing tastes of the gaming climate, delivering arcade juggernauts in the 80s, revolutionizing the fighting genre during the 90s, and flouting convention with titles like Katamari Damacy during the 2000s.
RELATED: 10 Mistakes That Still Haunt Capcom
In 2006, the company merged with Bandai due to Japan's decreasing birthrate and the advancements in gaming technology. As of 2022, Namco-Bandai is the largest third-party Japanese gaming company, ahead of studios such as Sega, Square Enix, and even Capcom. However, while the company shows no signs of slowing down, there have been some occasional blunders throughout its history.
Developed by Spike Chunsoft, Jump Force was a 3D fighter that took several properties from The Weekly ShÅnen Jump. Unfortunately, this ho-hum fighter is let down by a gaudy presentation. Taking these exaggerated hand-drawn properties and putting them in a realistic muted art style just doesn't work.
It only makes the final product look garish and hideous, like a bad DeviantArt come to life. Why it didn't go for a cel-shaded look akin to Dragon Ball FighterZ is an absolute mystery. In 2021, Namco Bandai discontinued its support for the game, and de-listed it from digital stores the following year.
The 2010 Splatterhouse reboot was intended to re-introduce one of Namco's classic franchises to a more modern Western audience. Unfortunately, conflicting visions between developer BottleRocket and Namco higher-ups caused the game to face a troubled development.
As a result, the final product is a buggy, poorly optimized brawler held back by an abysmal frame rate, shoddy collision detection, and unbelievably long loading times. Audio-wise, the game fares much better with a suitably gothic death metal soundtrack and some gleefully profane vocal work from the likes of Jim Cummings. Like many of the schlocky B-horror flicks it pays homage to, it's worth a rental, but not much more than that.
The story goes that following the success of Pac-Man, some MIT dropouts were developing an enhancement known as Crazy Otto. They presented the game to Pac-Man's American distributor, Midway, and were so impressed that they modified it to an official follow-up called Ms. Pac-Man.
From there, the character became a seemingly permanent part of the Pac-Family, appearing in even Namco-developed titles such as Pac-Land. Unfortunately, rights entanglements led Namco to have to pay royalties for her use. Recently, the company has scrubbed any instance of the character and replaced her with a new character- Pac-Mom.
For years, fans have tossed around the idea of a crossover between Capcom's Street Fighter and Namco's Tekken, but the games' disparate fighting systems made this dream team sound more like a pipe dream. However, in 2010, the two companies announced their intention to create two fighting games that blended the best of both worlds.
Capcom's infusion of Namco's characters with the classic 2D fighting gameplay of Street Fighter proved to be fun, if not held back by some monetization. While Namco's take on the Street Fighter mythos never panned out, Akuma would appear in Tekken 8.
Pac-Man World was developed to celebrate the arcade superstar's 20th anniversary by a western branch of Namco known as Namco Hometek. Its soundtrack was handled by Tommy Tallarico of Earthworm Jim and Video Games Live fame. Unfortunately, after two sequels by the same studio, the Pac-Man World franchise went dormant for many years.
RELATED: 5 Games That Had Amazing Anniversary Editions (& 5 That Were Disappointing)
In 2022, Namco Bandai unveiled two remasters of their classic PlayStation titles, such as Klonoa Door to Phantomile and the aforementioned Pac-Man World, with Japanese developer Now Production handling the latter. Unfortunately, the staff from Namco Hometek was not credited with their work on the original title in the remake.
It's odd how there are so many terrible films based on fighting games when classics such as Enter the Dragon and Bloodsport pretty much formed the perfect blueprints for executing a film centered around a tournament with various colorful characters.
While both animated Tekken films are pretty bad, the live-action adaptation takes home the belt for the King of Iron Fist tournament of awful fighting game movies. Longtime producer of the Tekken franchise, Katsuhiro Harada, expressed his regret over the live-action film, stating "We were not able to supervise that movie."
Elden Ring took from Software's formula and enlisted the talents of George R.R. Martin to craft the game's lore and world. Unfortunately, In a curse that continues to plague From Software's games, the game was beset with some performance issues on the PC. Even two months after the game's initial release, its 1.04 patch alleviated, but didn't come close to addressing the game's technical problems, such as its frequent stuttering.
While regarded as an improvement over the borderline broken PC versions of Dark Souls, the fact that this problem keeps cropping up with the company a decade later is particularly baffling.
The original Japanese of the Namcot Collection was a brilliantly emulated and lovingly presented collection of several games from their extensive past. These titles ranged from arcade classics to famous home titles to more obscure entries such as Splatterhouse Wanpaku Graffiti for the Japanese Famicom.
Considering the wide number of platforms these titles covered, M2 and B.B. Studio's emulation work was phenomenal. Unfortunately, the decision was made when localizing these titles to split them in two for English-speaking territories as Namco Museum Archives Vol. 1 and Namco Museum Archives Vol. 2, respectively.
Following the success of the home console versions of Dark Souls, demand for a Windows port was fervent, with a petition from fans garnering 92k signatures. Namco Bandai undoubtedly saw there was a base, and announced a windows port known as the Prepare To Die Edition that included new content.
RELATED: 10 Worst PC To Console Ports, Ranked
Unfortunately, players wouldn't be so quick to praise the sun with this port as it's blighted with a measly 30 FPS cap, poorly implemented mouse and keyboard controls, and a nonadjustable resolution. Once the game saw a remaster, Steam stores de-listed the Prepare to Die Edition in 2018.
In July 2022, Bandai Namco confirmed reports that it had been subjected to ransomware attacks by a hacker group and was assessing whether consumers' information was at risk. Shortly after the news broke out, the company attempted to ease consumers' concerns, stating, "After we confirmed the unauthorized access, we have taken measures such as blocking access to the servers to prevent the damage from spreading."
This attack came in the same year of several high-profile Bandai Namco releases such as Elden Ring, Klonoa, and Pac-Man World Re Pac.
NEXT: 10 Mistakes That Still Haunt Sega