Dead Horse Interchange

Woolie is ok, I guess.

Fan games are pretty clear case of "this sucks, but it's the law." There's no gray area of fair use or transformative work. You're stealing some shit you don't own so you can make your own game (aka product, even if you're not selling it) using that brand. And the product you make using that company's brand could end up affecting (positively or negatively) the actual company and ITS products. Aka "damages."

Even if the game ends up super good, all that means is you wasted your time making a super good game that you could have sold for money if you based it on an original IP.

Exactly. And it's not like there's not a market for "This is basically x" games. Steam has a lot of those, and it gave us gems like Stardew Valley. Imagine that one being a Harvest Moon fan game.

Found this soccer game a while ago, all characters in it have big heads and it is pretty funny.

Played it with my friends in two-player mode and we got so many lols