While not as perfect as Godzilla Minus One, Toho’s cinematic sequel Godzilla Minus Zero is yet another bombastic action flick featuring the King of the Monsters. Celebrating the titular creatures 72nd birthday, Minus Zero has some of the most enthralling kaiju action put to screen, although (in my opinion) that action is not as mind-blowing as the scale of destruction in its predecessor.
While watching Toho’s latest, I couldn’t help but think of Godzilla games. There are quite a few, although less than you’d expect for a character that is perfectly suited to video games. Coinciding with the film’s release, Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee Remastered just released to spectacular affair, but that’s the first true game release since the infamously poor but guilty pleasure Godzilla PS4 game.
All major Godzilla video games decide to put you in the shoes of the monster, or they’re a management sim. This makes for fun arcade-y combat and heaps of re-playability, but it doesn’t actually show off the real scale of destruction that these kaiju are committing, Fighting Mecha King Ghidorah as Jet Jaguar is a lot of fun, but what is actually happening at street level?
Prior to watching Minus Zero, I treated myself to a rewatch of Minus One, which is in a three-way tie for my favourite Godzilla film of all time. (Tied with the 1954 original and Hideaki Anno’s glorious Shin Godzilla, for anyone wondering.) The Ginza scene in Minus One where Goji rips through the city, obliterating it with his atomic breath so that black rain falls from above is one of the most impressive displays of Kaiju decimation in cinema, and you never get to see that in video game form.
In a world of AAA, third-person narrative games, in a world where Unreal Engine 5 destruction tech is used to great effect in games like The Finals, it’s time to have a Godzilla game at ground level. I want to feel the fear as I’m running away while two monsters are duking it out, buildings collapsing beside me. I want to be running through a building only for the outside of it to be thrashed apart by Godzilla’s tail swing.
In a scene from Minus Zero that features a character I will not name, an entire section of a city is being lifted up with a new gravity power. It’s my personal favourite scene in the movie with Koichi Shikishima flying through the wreckage. Imagine getting to fly around this in a game, dodging ruins and attacks while you see a certain iconic character coming towards you.
There is one game that has attempted to do something similar. Kyoei Toshi, aka City Shrouded in Shadow, released in 2017. This Disaster Report-style game tasks players with escaping a city as famous kaiju and mechs from Godzilla, Evangelion, Ultraman, Gamera and more invade and do battle.
Unfortunately, for whatever reason, this game has never been translated. Instead, despite featuring globally beloved characters, including Godzilla who is more popular than ever, the game is still Japanese-only and trapped on the PlayStation 4. Nevertheless, it’s still an interesting benchmark for what can be done with the character, especially with more modern visuals and destruction tech that would let these monster battles sing on current hardware.
Honestly, the world simply needs more Godzilla games in general, human-scale or otherwise, but it is time we had more inventive takes on what can be done with the character in interactive media. In film and comics, Godzilla has constantly been reinvented, that’s what makes the character so enduring. It can be a horrific metaphor for nuclear annihilation in 1954, it can be a superhero in 1964, it can be a vessel for natural disasters and government incompetence in 2016. That variety shouldn’t just be consigned to non-interactive media. We should play as Godzilla in one game, and be haunted by them in another.
As far as we know, there is no plan right now for another major Godzilla title, although promising sales of Destroy All Monsters Melee Remastered should hopefully result in a sequel. While I am more than content with playing games where I am Godzilla, destroying cities as if I’m kicking over LEGOs (oh my God, a LEGO Godzilla game? Going through all the movies? Yes please!), I’d also like to see more original takes on what we can do with this character.
