10 Weirdest PS1 & PS2 Games That Wouldn't Get Made Today
4. Kuma Uta
Unless you are the absolute authority on every PS2 game ever, chances are that Kuma Uta will have passed you by.
Released only in Japan, Kuma Uta follows a bear that gives up all that bear-y nonsense to become an enka singer. Enka is a particular style in Japan primarily about ballads, love songs and such.
Yes, you read that right. A polar bear, an animal designed to hunt and survive in cold climates, wants to trade that life to belt out some Bonnie Tyler and soar the charts.
Even better(?), you get to write the songs that your furry friend can sing, thanks to some pre-structured templates you can mess about with.
Now, I get that karaoke and weird game shows are a big deal in Japan, and that the offbeat nature of the game probably wouldn't have done as well over here back in 2003.
But by today's standards, this would be too much of an obscure gamble for the most niche of markets. As I've said with others, this would be the kind of mini-game in a compilation/party game.
No studio would risk something so weird as this, outside of a Tekken bonus game.