Top 10 Best and Worst Godzilla Games

"Godzilla" games tend to be more miss than hit, but – as a follow-up to two pretty good games – "Unleashed" is especially disappointing. To get some positives out of the way: it has a huge roster and decent visuals for a game centered on kaiju. Unfortunately, the lackluster controls, particularly when it comes to the Wiimote, made "Unleashed" a fighting game where button inputs are more like strong suggestions than irrefutable orders. Despite slightly superior controls, the PS2 version is somehow even worse, mainly because it ships with a smaller cast of monsters to play as. So much for the positives.

Console exclusives are annoying enough without also limiting certain titles to select regions. Similar to the films, a number of "Godzilla" games were only released in Japan, including "City Shrouded in Shadow." A kaiju survival game that happens to feature Godzilla as one of the monsters terrorizing a fictional Japanese city, it centers around a human character who is trying their best to outlast an impossible situation. While it's certainly a flawed experience, a kaiju game told from the perspective of a normal human is rare, especially one that executes such ideas reasonably well.

This series started and ended with the Dreamcast, spawning two games that are better left forgotten. While "Maximum Impact" isn’t great either, "Generations" is easily the worst offender. On the surface, playing as one of five versions of Godzilla as they unleash destruction across multiple cities sounds like a fun time, but this radioactive stinker committed the ultimate kaiju sin- it turned the act of stomping buildings into a chore. With unlockable clips from the movies and authentic audio, "Generations" works better as a love-letter to the franchise than an actual game. It's just a shame it couldn't be both.

If a franchise is popular enough in Japan, there is a good chance it's going to get its own trading card game. A PlayStation Japanese exclusive, "Godzilla Trading Battle" is a more than competent entry in the genre, one that features a roster of around 50 monsters spanning the franchise's storied history until 1998. While not particularly unique, the gameplay is quite intuitive and engaging, and there's even a decent storyline that constantly rewards progress with new cards. Next to others in the genre, "Godzilla Trading Battle" is unlikely to turn too many heads, but this is definitely one to check out for fans.

When it was first released, 2014's "Godzilla" received a lot of flak for its repetitive missions, sluggish controls, and time-consuming progression system. Despite all its flaws, the PS4 version does offer a sizable roster of playable characters, all rendered in fine detail, and captures the feel of being an uncontrollable monster rampaging through a city. The PS3 version limits the story mode to only Godzilla, which further intensifies the monotony of a campaign that was already pretty one-note. For die-hard "Godzilla" fans, stick to the PS4 version if you absolutely have to, since it at least opens the campaign up to Godzilla's fellow monsters in crime.

As Pipeworks Software's second "Godzilla" outing, "Save the Earth" mainly just tweaks the elements from 2002's "Destroy All Monsters Melee," which was primarily made up of chaotic yet entertaining combat. The visuals are slightly improved, the roster has been upped to 18 kaiju, and the story is less of a non-entity. Possibly to more accurately mimic the movies, "Save the Earth" reduces the movement and combat speed, a change that is not necessarily for the better. Nevertheless, this sequel is a blast. Nothing beats protecting the planet via smashing the faces of other monsters!

This not so golden oldy certainly deserves credit for taking the franchise in a different direction, even if its dip into the turn-based strategy genre failed to live up to anything. The innovation does not end there either, as this NES game actually puts players in control of the Japanese military in charge of stopping Godzilla, Mothra, and a couple of other monsters. Like the movies, the military is mostly powerless, which makes most of "War of the Monsters" feel like a battle to overcome insurmountable odds. It's not necessarily a bad thing, but the combat lacks the depth to present the missions as anything more than an exhausting slog.

As the first 3D "Godzilla" game to not be terrible, this classic came as a breath of fresh air and helped rejuvenate interest in kaiju-themed fighting games. While not the best monster masher from that era, "Destroy All Monsters Melee" was arguably the first "Godzilla" game to come close to capturing that sense of being a massive monster on a rampage, an experience further enhanced by the excellent sound work. The story is basically non-existent and the gameplay is far more satisfying with friends than going solo, but it still managed to set the bar pretty high!

Seemingly existing just to make the home console version look like a work of art in comparison, "Double Smash" has little to nothing in common with "Godzilla Unleashed." Even in a franchise that has not always produced quality work, when it comes to bad "Godzilla" games, this blight on the Nintendo DS is impressively terrible. While the pixelated graphics are kind of charming, "Double Smash" fails in every other department. The side-scroller beat-em-up is boring to play, regurgitates the same half-dozen enemies over a short and awful storyline, and wastes its decent roster of ten monsters. Lazy, uninspired, and doesn't even qualify as passable fan service.

Fittingly, the best "Godzilla" game was never released outside of Japan, although a North American port was supposedly in development. A 2D fighter with 11 playable monsters, all of which look and sound about as perfect as one could reasonably expect from a Super Famicom game. While a lot can be said about the love and attention that went into adapting environments from the films into the nine stages, what makes this Monster War particularly special is that it's a genuinely great fighting game, one that holds up pretty well after all these years. Honestly, even non-"Godzilla" fans may enjoy this one!