Yes, I admit upfront: this post is absolutely, and obviously, inspired by the Make it Anime tag I participated in. I chose a book series, a movie franchise, and a television show that I thought could feasibly be converted into an anime format, with favorable results. It was fun. 🙂

But it got me thinking about some games that could also be converted into good anime. So, with very little ado, and in no particular order, here’s a handful of games that I would love to watch in anime format.

Chrono Trigger

The story follows a young man and his friends as a freak accident allows them to step through time, fighting all manner of monsters as they traverse across the ages in a desperate struggle to save the world from Apocalyptic destruction.

This classic from  the days of Super Nintendo has long been a favorite of mine. The characters, their respective journeys, the music, the width and breadth of the story… it’s just so epic and fun! It has an appropriate length, I think, that it could be divvied up into fifty-some episodes (or more) with a little creativity. The fights would be awesome, the suspense would be gripping, it would be magnificent!

Oh, I dream of this! 🙂

Legend of Dragoon

Another old classic, this one from the first PlayStation console. Across four nations (and four discs), the story follows a young man who inherits an ancient power and comes to lead his friends in the fight to save the world. (this is a recurring theme in our stories, you may notice)

I remember seeing the opening and distinctly thinking how well it would fit an anime. As with Chrono Trigger, the characters, their journeys, the fights, the themes, the music, etc. it all fits together to make an excellent story just begging to be converted into a cinematic, animated format.

I would so watch this one! 🙂

Final Fantasy VII

Probably the most famous classic I am channeling. 😉

Yes, once again, we have a young man, this one with a convoluted tragedy in his past, and his friends going all around the globe in order to save the world from a great and ancient evil which will destroy all that lives unless it is stopped. That’s not just a pattern in our storytelling, it’s the bread and butter of the Final Fantasy franchise. 😉

Characters, fights, themes, music, etc., my reasoning is pretty much the same across the board for these first three games. I want to emphasize this one, though, as the clear favorite of its franchise.

But, really, who wouldn’t watch a proper Final Fantasy anime series, whatever number they chose? 😉

(I am whispering to the anime companies, “dooo it, dooo it, dooo it!”)

League of Legends

Need I say more? Of course I do! 😉

This one’s a little more tricky, I think. Where Chrono Trigger, Legend of Dragoon, and Final Fantasy (insert number), are all classics with have clear, well-defined plots, with a beginning, middle, and end, League of Legends is fairly new and lacks such well-defined structure. It’s a team-based tournament in a fantastic setting.

That setting, the world of Runeterra, offers  great fodder for stories galore. With characters, characters, and more characters to choose from, it’s far too big to be properly converted into movie format, but an anime has a far longer runtime. I envision it mostly following not individuals, but groups, though it can certainly branch out into individual storylines here and there. What would it be like to see Yasuo, Jinx, Irelia, Riven, and all the rest brought to life within a single story, coherent and compelling?

I imagine it would be great fun!

Overwatch

This is also a newer one, and it exists somewhere between the clear, original stories of the classic I’ve mentioned and the raw fodder of LoL. There is plenty of history, including the tale of a legendary group of protectors from all over the world, but which was disbanded for various reasons and is only now coming back together in the face of renewed crisis. There are also a number of subtle threads weaving throughout the team-based missions, indicating that not all is as it seems.

There is something about that, and the colorful cast, of course, which makes for a compelling story, which I am just waiting to see unfold. Bottom line, I think it would be great fun to see these heroes and villains in an anime. Mind you, that might be a step backward from the CGI of the Overwatch shorts, much like it would be for League of Legends, but it’d still be fun! 🙂

And if you’re wondering why I’d pick this, out of all of Blizzard’s works, well… the rest of them are pretty epic and set across great lengths of time between their respective installments. Overwatch has fresher ground to dig, ya know? 😉

So, that’s it. A few thoughts on games that could become anime.

What do you think? What game or games would you pick to turn into anime?