Megamix Game

A gamer in the 90's would never believe these screenshots all came from a single game.^note In standard reading order: Sonic in Green Hill Zone; Sonic and Tails in Chemical Plant Zone; Tails in Hydrocity Zone; Sonic in Metallic Madness Zone; Mighty facing Metal Sonic; Knuckles in Lava Reef Zone.

ToeJam & Earl: Back in the Groove! is a mash-up of the very best features of the classic console games with a ton of funky fresh improvements!

— Steam description of Toe Jam And Earl: Back in the Groove!

What the Final-Exam Boss or the All the Worlds Are a Stage final level is for a video game, the Megamix Game is for a series. It cherry-picks recognizable content from every preceding entry in the series, mashes them all together in an entertaining way, and perhaps adds some new content to keep it all fresh. For these titles, the Nostalgia Level is the rule, not the exception. This is common to find in Fan Games and ROM hacks that pay tribute to a series' history.

Supertrope of Dream Match Game, which is specifically for fighting games in which the fighters are the returning content. Frequently overlaps with Milestone Celebration. In some cases, creators make these installments shortly before considering or preparing a new overhaul for the series.

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Examples:

Action

• The Bomberman Fan Game Power Bomberman, besides its use of The Bus Came Back and Recycled Soundtrack, also brings back the Louies and several items from previous games (including some which had never appeared in a canonical 2D Bomberman game), recreates some older stages (some wholly, some visually but with added twists, and some just by their gimmicks), and features 10-player multiplayer from Saturn Bomberman and Atomic Bomberman (well, actually up to twelve players), and alternative game modes that debuted in other entries in the series.

Action-Adventure

• Castlevania: Harmony of Despair is a crossover between most of the major Castlevania games (primarily focusing on post-Symphony of the Night titles) in the form of a 2D multiplayer game. The playable characters retain abilities from their origin games, and each stage is based on a level from another game.
• Toe Jam And Earl: Back in the Groove features nearly everything from the first game, many elements from the second including the Hyperfunk Zone, most of the characters throughout the series, and some new stuff.

Fighting

• Soulcalibur VI is primarily based on the classic Soulcalibur, considered the point where the Soul Series entered the mainstream twenty years prior, and yet features characters, modes, gameplay mechanics, music, and general ideas taken from all corners of the series.
• Super Smash Bros. Ultimate includes nearly every stage and music track from previous entries, in addition to every single fighter in series history returning alongside new ones. Several modes return as well (including two that didn't make it into the initial release but were added later via updates). Lastly, in addition to featuring new bosses for the Classic and Adventure Modes, it also brings back some of the bosses that appeared in prior games, namely Giga Bowser (Melee), Galleom (Brawl), most stage bosses from 4, and obviously the Hands. Masahiro Sakurai has admitted in one of the game's live presentations that a future Smash game is very unlikely to invoke this trope, and thus sees Ultimate as a once-in-a-lifetime exception worth enjoying.

FPS (First Person Shooters)

• Halo: The Master Chief Collection is a mix of this and a Compilation Re-release, containing every campaign and multiplayer level from Halo: Combat Evolved to Halo 4. The content of each game is mostly kept separate, though you do have the option of searching for multiple games at once for multiplayer, allowing you to seamlessly jump between games at your liking.
• Rainbow Six Critical Hour consist of seven missions taken from the first two Rainbow Six games and the Urban Operation expansion pack redone with Lockdown's engine and gameplay mechanics. The plot is framed as former protagonist John Clark remembering his past missions as he is about to retire.

Idle

• The Communitree, as indicated by the name, combines lots of major elements from Jacorb's orginal game and the community's other mods and even some other games.
• The Multitree has many layers which are simplified versions of those found in existent trees.

Music / Rhythm

• DJMAX series:
  • DJMAX Trilogy is the first such effort at such a game, featuring tracks from DJMAX Online, DJMAX Portable, and DJMAX Portable 2. Updates also added tracks from DJMAX Portable Clazziquai Edition and DJMAX Portable Black Square.
  • DJMAX Respect goes further, adding tracks from more DJMAX games and, in particular, not only having tracks from DJMAX Technika but also the gameplay as part of a DLC pack.
• Guitar Hero: Smash Hits consists of songs from previous titles, with multiple improvements:
  • All songs have playable bass, vocal, and drum parts. The first GH only had guitar parts, and games prior to World Tour lacked drums and vocals.
  • The original versions are used, while older titles often used Cover Versions to save on licensing fees.
  • Finally, the game is available on Wii, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3. Games prior to Guitar Hero III (excluding II) were exclusive to the PlayStation 2, so this is the first time owners of these systems could play some of the songs.
• Rhythm Heaven Megamix is the Trope Namer, including rhythm games from all three previous entries in the series, plus several new ones.

Party

• Mario Party series:
  • Mario Party: The Top 100 remasters one hundred minigames from the previous numbered installments of the series^note meaning Advance, DS, and Star Rush are excluded, and also brings back the Minigame Island from the first game.
  • Mario Party Superstars tops Top 100 by bringing back not just minigames series-wide, but actual boards from the first three games, such as Peach's Birthday Cake and Space Land.

Platforming

• Downplayed with Kirby Star Allies. The main game is mostly new content sans the usual returning bosses, but free updates added new "Dream Friends", letting you play as characters from other installments, including Marx and Adeleine & Ribbon for example, with most of them being playable for the first time here. Playing as these characters in the speedrun-style "Guest Star ????" mode will revamp several of the levels to be recreations of stages from their original games.
• Mega Man:
  • The mobile games Rockman Xover and Mega Man X DiVE are both games that star past Mega Men and allow you to fight bosses and go through levels from the older series. Xover casts (well, casted) the player as an Original Generation Mega Man named Over-1, while DiVE includes playable characters from all seven main Mega Man series (including a few previously unplayable NPCs and bosses) along with a handful of Original Generation and What If? characters.
  • The fan game Mega Man Maker follows in the footsteps of Super Mario Maker by packing elements from all of the Mega Man (Classic) titles into a Level Editor-based game.
  • While Rockman 4 Minus ∞ is first and foremost a ROM hack revamping of Mega Man 4, many of its enemies, bosses, and elements are taken from other Mega Man titles, such as Skull Man's stage including a bunch of gimmick platforms from various stages (like Guts Man's rail platforms), Shadow Man being a Recurring Boss, and Terra showing up in the final Cossack stage complete with his Spark Chaser as a temporary weapon.
• Sonic the Hedgehog:
  • Sonic Generations, part of the franchise's 20th anniversary Milestone Celebration. With the exception of the final boss, every single level and boss was taken from past Sonic games.
  • This trope is the whole premise behind the Sonic nostalgia bomb known as Sonic Mania, made to celebrate the franchise's 25th anniversary. Most of the Zones are remakes of those from the original Genesis trilogy (plus Sonic CD), and many major and minor details are taken from them and other early Sonic games; see the game's Mythology Gag subpage for the full story.
  • Sonic Forces (also part of the 25th anniversary celebration) is a lesser example, featuring a few returning levels like Green Hill and Chemical Plant.
• Super Mario Bros.:
  • Super Mario Maker is the Level Editor equivalent of a Megamix Game. It features graphic sets based on Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros. 3, Super Mario World, and New Super Mario Bros., and each set comes with unique power-ups, enemies, and obstacles taken from the respective games as well as new mechanics; and within the embedded sample levels, there are recreations of levels from past games. There are plenty of references to Mario Paint incorporated into the editor, and many Super Mario Bros. characters (and many not from the franchise) are present as Mystery Mushroom costumes. The game was released during the platform series' 30th anniversary, so it made sense. Super Mario Maker 2, despite removing the Mystery Mushroom, otherwise goes further by adding an extra game style (Super Mario 3D World) and more assets and features from previous games (including a powerup from Super Mario Land, which is usually not referenced in contemporary games), plus music tracks from games like Super Mario Sunshine and Super Mario Galaxy.
  • Super Mario Bros. 3Mix is a ROM hack of Super Mario Bros. 3 in which each world is based on a different Mario platformer, recreating levels and boss fights from them and importing mechanics not seen in vanilla 3, such as Yoshi, Chucksters, and alternate gravity.

Racing

• Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled. Though it's primarily a remake of the original Crash Team Racing, it also includes content from Crash Nitro Kart (namely characters, karts and tracks), Crash Tag Team Racing (mostly karts, characters and costumes) and Crash Bandicoot Nitro Kart 2 (specifically a single kart and one character).
• Mario Kart 8 Deluxe: The Booster Course Pass DLC is one big Megamix DLC, consisting predominantly of remasters of tracks throughout the Mario Kart series, from Coconut Mall to Choco Mountain. Notably, this includes tracks from Mario Kart Tour, which was released long after the original Mario Kart 8 as well as 8 Deluxe itself.
• Ridge Racer:
  • Ridge Racer 64 features tracks from the first two games along with a new set of "Renegade" tracks, a roster of cars based on vehicles from the first two games and Type 4, and options to use driving physics from the first two games.
  • Ridge Racers consists exclusively of tracks from the PS1 installments of the Ridge Racer series and the arcade-exclusive Rave Racer, and features many rearrangements of songs from those titles. Ridge Racers 2 escalates this to including every track from every PS1 installment and also has intro movies and E3 trailers for the previous games as unlockables.

RPG (Role-Playing Games)

• Etrian Odyssey Nexus is the culmination of the series. It brings back classes, bosses and dungeons from all five previous titles, although it also features a few new dungeons and a new class. There's plot-relevant explanations for this, too; for returning classes, they represent explorers responding to Persephone's call across many different lands to Maginia, while the non-playable characters are supporting Maginia in its cause (or, in the case of Artelinde, having her own agenda with the Seafarers). For the dungeons, it's explained that Lemuria's Yggdrasil is derived by splicing the DNA of the Yggdrasils of Etria, High Lagaard, Amoroad, and Tharsis, so it's recreated the biomes of its ancestors as it reinvigorates surrounding lands. And for the enemies and bosses, they simply managed to adapt to the surroundings of Lemuria thanks to the familiarity of the habitats.
• Monster Hunter:
  • Monster Hunter Freedom Unite incorporates every monster that has appeared in the series up to that point, including the first two monsters that debuted in the Monster Hunter Frontier Spin-Off (Hypnocatrice and Lavasioth). It also features not only all hunting areas from Monster Hunter 2 (dos) and the original Freedom 2, but also those of Monster Hunter (2004) and its rereleases (G and Freedom) and the first hunting area from Frontier (Great Forest). It does introduce brand-new monsters (such as Vespoid Queen, Nargacuga and subspecies of the Carapaceons and Fanged Beasts, to name a few) and mechanics (multi-monster quests and the Felyne partner), to keep things fresh.
  • Monster Hunter Generations features monsters, locales, villages, and NPCs from past Monster Hunter games, alongside a few new ones. This is justified, because the game was conceived to celebrate the history of the franchise (it was released in 2015, one year after the series' 10th anniversary). The Updated Re-release Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate adds more old stuff to the mix, and also doubled as a farewell to the classic formula and style of the series before the arrival of Monster Hunter: World (a Soft Reboot that also marks a new era with revamped gameplay and conventions).
• Xenoblade Chronicles 3 acts as a culmination of the first two main series games in the franchise, combining world-building elements, gameplay mechanics, and even wraps up the fates of the two worlds introduced in Xenoblade 1 and 2. As a bonus, it also contains many homages to the rest of the Xeno series.

Shoot 'Em Ups

• Sonic Wings Special and its arcade counterpart Sonic Wings Limited mix-and-match level themes and boss battles from the three previous games. Of the 10 or so player characters and levels featured in both games, only one of the player characters and one of the bosses are brand new.
• DoDonPachi Maximum features stages, bosses, and player ships from DoDonpachi Daioujou, DoDonPachi DaiFukkatsu, and Ketsui.

Simulation

• Ace Combat Infinity consisted primarily of remakes of past missions and boss battles (primarily from the Playstation 2 installment of the series) transposed to a real world setting and Free to Play progression system. The Special Events also played up the celebration aspect, often handing out skins and emblems based on the previous games.

Miscellaneous

• Katamari Forever, while having a decent amount of new levels, also features a hefty amount of returning fan-favorite levels and remixes of fan-favorite songs from the previous Katamari games.
• WarioWare Gold does this for its series on a grand scale. Not only are its three major control schemes taken from the original, Twisted, and Touched, but a large number of the microgames are remakes of microgames from those titles, DIY, and Smooth Moves. Even certain challenge modes, such as the Gamer mode from Game & Wario (now known as Sneaky Gamer) and the WarioWatch from Twisted, made it in!

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