Video Game / Pipeworks Godzilla Trilogy

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The Pipeworks Godzilla trilogy is a 3D Fighting Game series developed by Pipeworks Software, Inc. and published by Atari. Gameplay consists of an array of light and heavy attacks that can be altered with input from the directional buttons, as well as ranged attacks that consume energy. Health and energy can be regained with power-ups that sporadically appear, and energy can also be replenished slowly over time. It consists of three mainline games and two spinoff titles:

• Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee (2002 — GameCube, Xbox)^note Published by Infogrames, under the Atari brand.
  • Godzilla: Domination! (2002 — Game Boy Advance)^note Developed by WayForward Technologies, rather than Pipeworks.
  • Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee Remastered (2026 — PC, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, Switch 2)
• Godzilla: Save the Earth (2004 — PlayStation 2, Xbox)
• Godzilla: Unleashed (2007 — PlayStation 2, Wii)
  • Godzilla Unleashed: Double Smash (2007 — Nintendo DS)^note Developed by Santa Cruz Games, rather than Pipeworks.

Plans were proposed for a fourth mainline game, but Atari's license expired before development could begin. Some of Pipeworks' staff, including developer Simon Strange, left to create their own company, Sunstone Games, and the idea for a fourth Godzilla fighting game evolved into the (long since cancelled) Spiritual Successor, Colossal Kaiju Combat!.

Though thought long-dead, 2026 would see Atari and Pipeworks unexpectedly return to the series with an HD remaster of the first game, slated for launch in November of that year.

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This series contains examples of:

• Adaptational Badass:
  • Godzilla 90's is only able to fight Destoroyah at his strongest when he undergoes a Super-Power Meltdown, which also permanently gives him his Spiral Atomic Breath. In this series, Godzilla is able to fight Destoroyah without the need to undergo a burning form.
  • In its film of origin, Mechagodzilla 2 was built as a Long-Range Fighter that suffered from Crippling Overspecialization, to the point where it struggled in close quarters with Rodan and especially Godzilla. In this series, it is just as capable in a fist fight as any other monster.
• Adaptational Wimp: Mothra is simply an assist character in Destroy All Monsters Melee, and when she got Promoted to Playable in the next game she's the weakest monster in the game due to having weak attacks and less defensive power. Not helped by the fact that you start out in her larvae stage, with a complete inability to block. Her imago form does give her useful abilities, such as a pulse beam, a poisonous powder, a move that reflects projectiles off her scales, and a stunning shockwave. Unleashed gives Mothra even more useful abilities, with the larva now able to block and the imago's poisonous powder now able to block beams (removing the reflecting scales move in the process).
• Agony of the Feet:
  • Some attacks will have the monster stomp on the foot of their opponent, causing them to become helpless as they humorously hop around in pain with their injured foot raised.
  • Megalon has an attack where he shoots ignited napalm at the legs of his opponent, causing the same effect as above.
  • If a monster strikes an enemy's spikes with their hands or feet, they will react in pain.
• Alien Invasion: The Vortaak invasion sets the backdrop of the series.
• Artistic License – Physics: Square-cube law violation aside, one of the games' features that raised the eyebrows of critics was the ability for monsters to "moon jump," stated by the developer to have been necessary to facilitate melee combat between airborne and terrestrial kaiju.
• Ass-Kicking Pose: All monsters start out with one, including the flying bug monsters — or at least their equivalent.
• Assist Character: Mothra in Destroy All Monsters Melee, Battra and the Super X3 in Save the Earth.
• Attack Backfire: Punching, kicking, or otherwise hitting Anguirus when he's blocking will result in a strike to his spikes, damaging the attacker instead of him.
• Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: Every playable character, being kaiju and all.
• Badass Back: Anguirus's block consists of him turning away from his opponent and letting their melee attacks hit his spikes with an appropriately painful effect. For the same reason, overhead strikes will fail when he's on all fours.
• Badass Crew: All of the monsters, particularly in Unleashed where they organize into teams.
• Beam-O-War: Starting from Save the Earth, two Kaiju that fire their beam attacks at each other at the same time will enter a battle to try and push their beam into the opponent's face. Losers will be blown away by the ensuing explosion, taking the damage of both beams.
• Big Bad: The Vortaak Queen, Vorticia, who tries to invade and conquer Earth multiple times.
• Big Bad Ensemble: In Unleashed, SpaceGodzilla goes rogue, operating independently of and even against the still very much active Vortaak.
• Blow You Away: King Ghidorah, Mecha-King Ghidorah, Mothra, Titanosaurus, and Rodan have attacks that send powerful gusts of wind at opponents, pushing them back.
• Breath Weapon: Even kaiju without a canonical one or Eye Beams get a Super-Scream variant. Anguirus, for example, has a Sonic Roar that can stun opponents.
• Canon Foreigner: Toho considers Krystalak and Obsidius to be official Monsters, though they have yet to appear in any movies.
• Canon Immigrant: On the other hand, attacks developed for the series for Gigan and Anguirus have been used by their respective monsters in Godzilla: Final Wars.
• Charged Attack: Your monster's Breath Weapon, or whatever main ranged attack they use, has to be charged before using. The longer you charge it, the more damage it does and the longer it lasts (with enough charge knocking your opponent over and allowing for more damage), but the more energy it uses. This does mean that charging for too long can backfire if you are using a character with a shorter range attack, as your opponent can either get out of range or block it and minimize the damage. This drawback was removed in Unleashed due to the new energy cell system.
• Cherry Tapping: You can easily end a match with a fully-charged Breath Weapon or a toss into/of a building... or you can just use a light jab. Averted in Unleashed, where finishing blows must at least be strong enough to knock the foe over.
• Composite Character:
  • Many of the monsters have designs taken from one incarnation while incorporating abilities, backstories, and sometimes even roars from at least one different incarnation. For example, Mechagodzilla 2 uses the appearance of the Heisei incarnation, but being used by aliens as their ultimate weapon in Destroy All Monsters Melee and firing missiles from its fingers draw influence from the Showa original.
    • Some monsters will even have designs that take from multiple incarnations at once. For example, King Ghidorah tends to have an appearance that combines his Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah Heisei incarnation with either his Showa or Millennium incarnations, while having a mix of his Heisei and Showa roars.
  • While the Vortaak are an original race created for these games, elements of them are taken from various other alien races from the Showa era. Their Planet Looters motivation and general design aesthetic resembles the Xiliens, they created the original Mechagodzilla like the Simians, and them being Gigan's masters who the Seatopians form an alliance with is reminiscent of the M Space Hunter Nebula Aliens.
• Cycle of Hurting: Destoroyah in Destroy All Monsters Melee can lock an opponent into this with his Laser Blade; once an opponent is knocked over, he can keep hitting them with it over and over with there being nothing to stop him until his energy runs out. It's even worse in Unleashed where it has no energy cost.
• Dark Is Not Evil: Any monster you pick in Melee or Save the Earth will be the hero at the end of the game. Played straight, inverted, and averted in Unleashed; "Alien" monsters can do a Heel–Face Turn (though the Vortaak still win), the "Earth Defender" and "Global Defense Force" monsters can become corrupted, and "Mutant" monsters are locked into being evil at the end even if you try to ally yourself with the Earth Defenders or GDF.
• Death from Above: Rodan, King Ghidorah, Mecha-King Ghidorah, Mothra, Battra, Megaguirus, Mechagodzilla 2, and Kiryu are capable of flight. Mothra or Battra were also air-strike support characters in the first two games.
• Decomposite Character: King Ghidorah and Mecha-King Ghidorah are depicted as separate characters, and in Unleashed, they're in separate factions to boot.
• Destructive Savior: Whoever you use in the first two games. If you don't get the "Tyrant" ending in Unleashed, you will also play this as a monster from the "Earth Defender" and "GDF" factions. In all the above, you're trying to thwart the Alien Invasion, and in Unleashed also prevent The End of the World as We Know It, but since the games revolve around fights between giant monsters, you are inevitably going to be causing a lot of collateral damage and destroy a number of buildings.
• Dinosaurs Are Dragons: True to form, all three Godzilla variations are gigantic radioactive plasma-breathing dinosaurs.
• Do Not Adjust Your Set: The intro movie for the first two games has the Vortaak doing this.
• Elemental Powers: Starting with Save the Earth, attacks have been given "elemental" properties, and each monster has certain move types that it's weak to and resists. They are Alien Energy, Blunt, Concussive, Edged, Electricity, Explosive, Freezing, Heat, Nuclear, and Poison.
• Evil vs. Evil: In addition to being able to have villainous monsters fight each other throughout the trilogy, Unleashed has SpaceGodzilla and the Mutant faction opposing the Vortaak, and the Mutants are also prone to infighting. The player's monster in the Earth Defenders or Global Defense Force can also get in on this if they go down the Tyrant path.
• Excuse Plot:
  • The Vortaak are very aware of this.
    Vortaak Controller: We will conquer your planet and harvest your resources! It's what we do...
  • Averted in Unleashed; the main story mode is centered around a global catastrophe being dealt with/exploited by multiple factions over around twenty days.
• Eye Beams: If a monster doesn't have a Breath Weapon, they'll probably have this instead.
• Fast Tunneling: Originally was Megalon's main schtick, where he burrows into the ground to either avoid attacks or appear right below the opponent for a grab. Then Baragon got in on it by being able to do the same, albeit more slowly. Larva Mothra and Battra are also capable of burrowing, but to lesser effect. Biollante also burrows underground in one move, but it's more of a "fast travel" and she can't be controlled while doing this. She and M.O.G.U.E.R.A. tunnel out of the ground in their intro animations.
• Fighting Series: A trilogy, plus two spinoffs.
• Flying Saucer: Vortaak ships are designed this way.
• Fragile Speedster:
  • Rodan is much faster than most other characters, especially in flight.
  • M.O.G.U.E.R.A., Megaguirus and Mothra are quick and nimble, but their physical strength is lower than average. They make up for that with a fighting style that emphasizes either hit-and-run tactics or zoning via projectile and Beam Spam.
• Fun with Acronyms: Most notably M.O.G.U.E.R.A., although the acronym isn't explained in-game.
• Gem Tissue: SpaceGodzilla and Krystalak are partially and completely made of crystalline flesh respectively.
• Generic Doomsday Villain: The Vortaak. The first game even lampshades their Planet Looters hat by having a Vortaak representative saying "It's what we do..."
• Giant Flyer: Quite a few of the monsters, both organic and mechanical, are capable of flight. Subverted with several monsters who could fly in the films but can't fly in the games (Gigan, Destoroyah^note with the exception of its appearance in Double Smash, Jet Jaguar, Megalon, the Showa Mechagodzilla, and M.O.G.U.E.R.A.). Imago Mothra, Imago Battra, and Megaguirus are technically always flying.
• Good Old Fisticuffs: When you aren't using ranged attacks, odds are you're punching or kicking your opponent into submission.
• Humongous Mecha: If the playable monsters aren't organic, they're usually this. The GDF faction in Unleashed consists entirely of mechas and cyborgs: Mechagodzilla 2, Kiryu (Mechagodzilla 3), M.O.G.U.E.R.A., Mecha-King Ghidorah, and Jet Jaguar. The Aliens get the original Mechagodzilla.
• In a Single Bound: The monsters are capable of jumping higher than you would expect, especially in Unleashed. While critics complained that this breaks immersion, dev team member Simon Strange noted that this was necessary to make melee combat between terrestrial and airborne monsters viable.
• Insane Troll Logic:
  • The army will attack whichever monster is doing the most damage. When a building is brought down by a monster getting thrown into it, they count the monster that hit the building as doing the damage, not the monster that threw it into the building.
  • In Unleashed, destroying the rock formations and boulders on Monster Island will cause the military to turn on you. Read that again: they treat rocks and boulders as human-built structures.
• Laughing Mad: Destoroyah does this in one of his win animations in Save the Earth and in his only win animation in Unleashed.
• Launcher Move: In addition to the usual variety, recovery attacks generally act as this.
• Life Meter: The first two games have standard variations, while Unleashed mixes things up with multiple smaller bars, called cells, that follow after each other.
• Limit Break: The Rage Attacks in the first and second games are unique attacks that deal enormous amounts of damage.
• Mêlée à Trois: Like in any 4-player fighting game, this can happen if all four available monsters are set against each other. On top of that, the military will sometimes join in to attack whichever monster is causing the most damage. In addition, the military in Unleashed will prioritize attacking any monster under a Power Surge or in Critical Mass.
• Mighty Glacier:
  • King Ghidorah and Mecha-King Ghidorah are both slow, but powerful and have long reach; King Ghidorah (but not Mecha-King Ghidorah oddly), even has higher than normal health. King Ghidorah puts more emphasis on melee while Mecha-King Ghidorah focuses on weapons.
  • The Showa and Heisei Mechagodzillas are below average in terms of speed, but are very durable and strong with their ranged weapons. The Showa Mechagodzilla has a bit less speed than the Heisei one in exchange for more defense.
  • Destoroyah follows a similar pattern, but is more geared towards close-range thanks to his short-range Breath Weapon, Oxygen Absorber Mine attack that pulls enemies in closer, and unblockable Laser Blade.
  • Biollante is the biggest and slowest character in the entire series, and as such is the strongest and starts with more health than most monsters.
• The Mothership: A recurring level is the one the Vortaak launch their invasions from. It's so big that the inside is basically a city.
• Moveset Clone:
  • In Destroy All Monsters Melee, Godzilla 90's and Godzilla 2000 had the same movesets, but underwent Divergent Character Evolution in Save the Earth.
  • In the Wii version of Unleashed, Godzilla 90's and Godzilla 1954 share the exact same model from the head down and have the exact same moveset, due to the latter being a last-minute addition.
  • Obsidius and Battra in the PlayStation 2 version of Unleashed, with Obsidius being a clone of Orga and Battra being a clone of Mothra. In the Wii version, Obsidius has a unique moveset, while Battra is outright omitted.
  • Downplayed with King Ghidorah and Mecha-King Ghidorah. They're mostly the same in terms of basic moveset, although Mecha-King Ghidorah has access to a taser and a shield. In Unleashed, Mecha-King Ghidorah has the normal five health cells, and has a bit less in offense and defense in exchange for stronger weapons, while King Ghidorah has an extra sixth cell.
  • Subverted with Mechagodzilla and Mechagodzilla 2 in the Wii version of Unleashed. While they have similar movesets, Mechagodzilla 2 can fly, is noticeably more smooth in its movements, and can fire a plasma grenade from its chest. Mechagodzilla, meanwhile, can't fly, has a clunky style of moving, can shoot flames from its nose, and can generate a force field. This, in addition to Mechagodzilla exchanging some speed for more defense, puts Mechagodzilla as more of a close-quarters fighter compared to Mechagodzilla 2's preference for ranged attacks.
• Mythology Gag:
  • Godzilla 90's Rage Attack in Save the Earth is a purple Wave-Motion Gun meant as a reference to his Spiral Heat Ray.
  • Godzilla 90's Critical Mass form in Unleashed is his Burning form from Godzilla vs. Destoroyah.
• Not Drawn to Scale: All the monsters are depicted as being relatively close in size, even though the Heisei era monsters should for the most part be the largest. On an individual level, some of the monsters are also smaller than in the movies. Mechagodzilla 2, for example, was bigger than Godzilla, but in this game is roughly the same size. Destoroyah is both shorter and less bulky than in his movie. Averted for Biollante for the most part, who is about ten meters taller than she was in her film; she towers over the entire cast in size, to the point where her grab is her using her maw to bite down on a kaiju's entire upper body and throw them into the sky.
• Our Dragons Are Different: King Ghidorah is a three-headed draconic Kaiju, alongside his cyborg incarnation Mecha-King Ghidorah.
• Playing with Fire: Several of the monsters use fire attacks. Appropriately, attacks of this nature are of the Heat element.
• Power-Up: The first two games have health power-ups, energy power-ups that instantly restore energy and increase the energy recharge rate, an Airstrike power-up that calls in back-up, and a Rage power-up that increases damage output and allows the player to use their Rage attack.
• Promoted to Playable: Mothra went from being an Assist Character to playable between Destroy All Monsters Melee and Save the Earth, and her replacement Battra made the same transition in the PlayStation 2 version of Unleashed.
• Serious Business: The story is about the monsters saving/destroying the world. Doesn't mean you can't have a little fun smashing stuff first.
• Tail Slap: Most monsters with long tails use them for at least a couple of attacks, especially those with stingers, clubs, and tail-blades.
• Traveling at the Speed of Plot: The manual biography for Godzilla 2000 describes him as having an uncanny sixth sense for always having enough travel time to get to wherever he needs to be.
• Victory Pose: Typically with an epic roar and everything. Although some monsters will have a pose that deviates from the norm. For example, in Unleashed, Destoroyah will begin laughing maniacally into the sky, Kiryu will look at his hands and then clutch his head to roar in despair over what he's become, Godzilla will roar and flex his muscles, and M.O.G.U.E.R.A. will begin raising and lowering its arms in a celebratory dance while chanting its name.
• Video Game Cruelty Potential: OH GOD, YES! The developers knew how much fun causing damage to the cities would be so they included the "Destruction Mode" where two players compete to see who causes the most damage. The Xbox version of Destroy All Monsters Melee even allows you to play this solo, like a classic Godzilla film.
• Video Game Cruelty Punishment: The army will start attacking whichever monster does more damage, and while army vehicles can be destroyed simply by walking into them, unlike in movies they can hurt the kaiju. The Mazers with the freezing beams can also freeze kaiju in place and render them an easy target for opponents. Fights against monsters will do most of the damage, but the army is still something to take into account.
• Wings Do Nothing:
  • Despite having wings, Destoroyah is incapable of flight in all three main games.^note He can fly in Double Smash, however. This, along with his vulnerability to Heat (while being resistant to Freezing), was a result of concerns that letting him fly would make him too overpowered (not that it stopped him, but for a different reason as detailed above in Cycle of Hurting).
  • Megalon also cannot fly in the games. He does, however, use them to "hover" in the air for a moment whenever he jumps.
• Wrestler in All of Us: Some Kaiju can perform some awfully human-looking fighting moves like flying kicks or body slams. Orga takes the cake by performing Press Slams and Elbow Drops on opponents, with a couple of other flashy grappling moves he can pull off thanks to his giant hands.