There are certain franchises you look back at, remember fondly, and then learn something new and interesting about and wonder, “Wow, did that really almost happen?” When the original Marvel Ultimate Alliance title came out, it was heralded as a great mash-up of Marvel’s greatest heroes and villains, woven together into a great story with plenty of unlockable characters and ways to do combos in your 4-person team. It was a hit and spawned two sequels. The roster was one of the key elements to the title, but as some have liked to remind people upon its anniversary, it almost had two non-Marvel characters in its lineup.
It’s true, as you can see in the quoted tweet below that Raven Software had included both Samus Aran and Link builds into the game and wanted to show them off to Nintendo. They were able to, but according to insider Neb, they did so on the PS2 version of the title. That offended Nintendo, and they immediately stopped any attempt to make this happen for real. Yet, the footage remains, and many wish that this could’ve happened.
On the one hand, you can see why fans were “miffed” at The Big N for being “territorial” with its characters, however, this is a hardline stance that they’ve had for generations, including in recent times. However, it should be noted that in that same period, they did allow for a crossover between titles, as they had Link be in the Nintendo GameCube version of Soul Calibur 2. Many considered him the best of the non-standard roster characters to be in the game.
On the other side of this argument, though, you have to wonder if Samus and Link would’ve “fit” in the context of Marvel Ultimate Alliance. Think about it: that game was all about Marvel characters going through an incredibly Marvel-style plot. Not to mention, much of the game’s fun was about the interactions with various characters. If you paired the right ones together, you unlocked special dialogue due to the characters’ history in the comics. Link doesn’t “talk” in the way these Marvel characters do, and while Samus does talk, she and Link don’t have any history at all with Marvel Comics, so it would’ve been rather odd to see them working with the X-Men, Captain America, Spider-Man and so on.
So don’t hate on Nintendo too much for this, the game was just fine without them and it would’ve been just “window dressing” more than anything.
