DreamMix TV World Fighters

DreamMix TV World Fighters (ドリームミックスTV ワールドファイターズ; Dorīmumikkusu Tībī Wārudo Faitāzu) is a crossover fighting video game developed by Bitstep and published by Hudson for the Nintendo GameCube, Xbox, PlayStation 2 and Microsoft Windows in Japan on December 18, 2003, while in North America and Europe in 2004. The game crosses over characters from Hudson and Konami's video game series and Takara's toy lines, though some characters are exclusive to the international releases, including those by Universal Pictures, Nickelodeon and The Walt Disney Company. It is a spin-off of the Fighting Royale series.

Gameplay
In DreamMix TV, up to four player-controlled characters move around a 2D arena and try to attack their opponents, similar to the Super Smash Bros. series. Each character can perform a series of basic attacks and one or two unique special moves. Characters can also throw their opponents, guard, and dodge to avoid damage, or cling to hanging bars to evade opponents. The game revolves around damaging opponents by causing them to lose coins that represent their remaining life. A meter at the bottom of the screen indicates how much life characters have remaining. If a player loses all of their coins, they will enter a Super Pinch state, in which they shrink in size, and their soul flies around the stage. If another character retrieves the player's soul before they can, the player is knocked out, though they can still move around the stage in shrunken form to interfere with the remaining fighters. The last fighter standing at the end of the round wins. The game offers fifteen stages on which to battle based on the represented franchises, such as Big Shell, Adventure Island, Treena's Tree House and Devastator. Some stages offer occasional hazards that will disrupt battle and inflict additional damage, such as floating Medusa heads in Dracula's Castle.

The primary single-player campaign is World Fighters, an arcade mode with interstitial story cutscenes. In the story, the fledgling World Fighters television program has been suffering from poor audience approval and is on the verge of being canceled by the DreamMix TV network. To prevent this hosts Mujoe and Haruna invite various superstars from differing realities to compete on the show in order to increase ratings. Players must win six battles against a pre-determined series of opponents before entering a final battle with Mujoe. The show's ratings will increase and decrease during these battles based on the player's performance; players are ranked from D to A based on the average ratings at the end of the campaign. New characters and stages are unlocked by completing World Fighters with specific characters. The game also features Character Soul Survival, a standard multiplayer battle mode for up to four players; Caravan mode, which offers several score-based challenges; and a Library section for viewing unlockable character and stage profiles.

Playable characters
DreamMix TV offers seventeen playable characters, six of which must be unlocked, based on various video game and toy franchises from Hudson Soft, Konami and Takara. In addition to the playable characters, recurring Bomberman villain Mujoe appears in the story as one of the World Fighters hosts and as the game's final boss, aided by his Hige-Hige Bandits. An original character named Haruna also appears in story mode cutscenes as Mujoe's co-host.

Non-Japanese release exclusive characters
Outside of Japan, the roster included some exclusive characters (mostly non-Hudson, Takara and Konami characters). These include Universal, Nickelodeon, Disney and several other characters.

*: Replaced in international release/Replaced character from Japanese release †: Unlockable character

Voice cast
Coming soon!

Development
DreamMix TV was first shown at the Electronic Entertainment Expo in 2003. During the showing, Hudson promised unlockable bonus levels, power-ups, and boss battles.

Reception
The game received positive reviews, with most phasing the game's visuals, music, and sound effects. NintendoWorldReport gave the GameCube version an 80, writing, "DMTV is different enough from SSBM and good enough on its own merits to justify a purchase (as long as you have friends)."

On Metacritic, the game has a score of 85 out of 100 on all versions, except for the Xbox version which has an 83 out of 100.

Trivia

 * The US/EU release of the game (aside from the characters) have a couple of changes in these releases. This release is considered by many, the best version of the game.
 * This version supports 5.1 Dolby Digital audio, unlike the Japanese version, which only supported stereo.
 * This version supports 480p progressive scan output, and 16:9 cropped widescreen.
 * The graphics are in much higher resolution, with much higher quality textures, improved lighting, and a more stable framerate.
 * This version adds online multiplayer for the PS2, Xbox, and PC versions.
 * A warning telling the player to not turn off their GameCube/PS2/Xbox while saving was added.
 * The Xbox version was later included in a single-disc compilation (which included this game and Tetris Worlds; This game initially replaces Star Wars: The Clone Wars) released for the Xbox. This version was bundled with Xbox systems.
 * Neemon uses the same attacks from Digimon Rumble Arena 2, in addition his model in this game was later re-used in the latter.
 * Speaking of which, leftovers from this game can be found in Rumble Arena 2. It's likely that Rumble Arena 2 was using the engine of DreamMix TV, or Vivendi Universal Digital Arts was involved in the production of Digimon Rumble Arena 2.
 * As stated in an interview with Geo G., he stated that some characters from the Japanese release were replaced with other characters because of that more than any offer of the respective franchises, would be wildly unfamiliar to international audiences.
 * Licca Kayama was replaced with Tiki from The NewZealand Story.
 * Asuka was replaced with Zio Matrix from Armored Core.
 * Momotarō was replaced with Onion Mastori.
 * Binbōgami was replaced with Kumamon from Digimon Frontier.
 * Manjimaru Sengoku was replaced with Zina Supermoon.
 * M121 Mason was replaced with Magilli Whackem from The Whackems.