This Week’s Topics:
- Rundown Preamble Ramble: Pride Month and Transition Reflections
- Student Transfer V8 is Out! (Get HYPE!)
- TSF Showcase 2024-25 True Stories From the Time of The Great Shift by Caleb Jones
- Embracer Group Shuts Down Pieces Interactive (Alone in the Dark (2024) Developer Crumbles Into Pieces)
- Nintendo Direct 2024-06-18 Rundown (Nindai Doko? Nindai Now!)
- The Denpa Boys Are BACK! (Live Service The New Denpa Men Announced)
- The Ace Attorney Saga is Now Complete! (Ace Attorney Investigations Collection Announced)
- Toy Zelda is Back… Unfortunately (Natalie Completely Loses The Plot in Her Latest Rant)
- Ho Hi Jamboree! (Mario Party 13: Super Jamboree Announced)
- Beyond The Emerald Beyond | Minstrel Song Successor (Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven Announced)
- This Looks Like a Marvelous Mishmash! (Farmagia Formally Unveiled)
- They Downgraded A Remake of an NES Game! (Dragon Quest III: HD-2D Remake Re-Announced)
- Versus Capcom is BACK! (Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection Announced)
- Do I Want This Fantasy To Come True? (Fantasian Neo Dimension Announced)
- Donkey Kong Re-Re-Re-Returns With His First Game in 7 Years! (Donkey Kong Country Returns HD Announced)
- I want 100 Danganronpas, And I’m Not Kidding! (The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy Announced)
- It’s Been 7 Years… (Metroid Prime 4: Beyond Gameplay Reveal)
- I Should Have Talked About This Two Weeks Ago… (Tribe Nine Looks Like The Coolest sh*t*)
- Resident Evil… 1996! (PEGI Leaks a Possible PC Release of the Original Resident Evil)
- Limited Run Rundown! (Sonuva Finch! I Forgot This Was This Week!)
- Two PS1 Games, Emulated Decently, For a Premium Price (Fighting Force Collection Announced)
- Fear Effect Reinvented is Dead, Take This Re-Release (Fear Effect Port Announced)
- Limited Run Should Not Have This Power! (The Carbon Engine Was A Mistake…)
Oh snap! It’s June 23, 2024! You know what that means? Sonic the Hedgehog has turned 33!
…Also, it has been 8 years since I started HRT and over 1.5 years since I went in for bottom surgery! And seeing as how it is pride month, I should probably talk about something related to all this, even though I’m not really good at talking about things like this. Actually, wait, that’s wrong. I’m great at talking about stuff! It’s just that… despite being inarguably planted in the queer camp, I am not really someone who experiences much struggle or euphoria from my particular blend of queerness.
In case the header image was too subtle, and I did make it a bit opaque, I’m trans, asexual, and aromantic. Which makes me sound like I’m extra queer— I’m three things instead of one. But I personally have somewhat of an iffy relationship to the whole being queer thing, as… it really does not affect my life in the same way it does for more archetypical queer people.
I started my transition in 2016, after deliberating it for seven years, changed my name and got FFS in December 2017, started presenting as female in January 2018, and got bottom surgery in December 2022. This was followed by a reissuing of my birth certificate a few months later, and now I am fully recognized as female by all legal means I have the ability to update. This means the only trans-related thing I have on the horizon is continuing to take estradiol for the remainder of my life, as there are no additional surgeries I’m interested in. Meaning, in terms of my transition… I’m basically as done as I will ever be.
…And this is the ultimate goal for a lot of BINARY trans people. To stop transitioning and to be transitioned. To move on with their lives as a man or woman, after shaping their body and life into what they want it to be. Once that is achieved, they just need to take some tablets or get some injections and… they’re good to go. Which might seem debilitating but… most US adults take medication of some sort to keep them regular, and even more take vitamins. It’s just normal.
As for being asexual and aromantic— ace aro if you want to keep it short— ace arrow if you want to be cooler— um… I cannot speak for anyone but myself, but it has not significantly hampered my life. Like, at all. I had light friend crushes and thought that I was romantically interested in people before, but after growing up and redefining who I am… I just do not care for those types of relationships.
Despite being interested in sex as a narrative device and thinking it’s funny, silly, horrific, and exploitable, I am fully content with never having sex in my lifetime. While I have a capacity for friendship with people, I have always struggled to grasp romance as a concept, hence why I so often portray lovers as ‘best friends who sleep in the same bed and f*ck.’ And I very much enjoy having my own space, my own room, so even doing something as benign as sharing a bed with someone every night… I just don’t like it.
Asexuality and aromanticism are underrepresented orientations, and they can negatively affect people. Societies operate under the expectation that every member is interested in sexual and/or romantic activities. With some viewing relationships and/or procreation as compulsory. They might understand and to some degree accept that some people are just gay, but they are more reluctant to accept that some people just are not into having a life partner or having sex with people. They might view this as suspicious, as irrational, or something beyond the realm of believability.
However, in my isolated little circle of great fortunes and privilege… This has never been a problem for me. I have never been the most socially adjusted person— I was the autistic kid who hit themself when they didn’t understand an assignment in middle school. And I always preferred smaller groups of being alone. This means I never had to learn the process of dating, the implicit etiquette of sex, or the tricks to maintaining a relationship with a significant other. I just… focused on myself, on doing what I wanted to, and it suited me well.
Also, if you are curious as to how someone could be asexuality yet still masturbat* regularly, asexuality is a spectrum in and of itself. Some people are completely zeroed out when it comes to anything sexual and think it’s dumb/gross. Some enjoy sexual fantasies that never become physical. Some enjoy the act of foreplay and romancing without actually doing any genital stuff, et cetera.
I just forge some TSF fantasy in my head, get into bed, and put a tissue in front of my crotch. All before I let the hand I hold the mic with take control, close my eyes to make it seem more real, and let the discharge flow out. Then I just sleep with it there, because my vagin* is a drippy little thing, and it helps keep my panties clean. …Yes, I know, the way I wank is just riveting, ain’t it?
Akumako: “It’s not a wank unless you’ve got a dick, ya dumb f*ck!”
Fap, jack off, wank— all the good terms were stolen by dick-havers, and I’m just making them genital-neutral! It’s not unlike how I insist that bastard and bitch are both gender-neutral terms. Anybody who thinks otherwise is just plain wrong.
Akumako: “…Anything else you want to say to the people?”
Um… just that my particular breed of queerness is one where I don’t feel too much pride over, as I feel like I did not have to endure a lot of struggle to get where I am. I was a lucky one, a fortunate one, and now I’m just kind of coasting through life. Most queer, let alone trans, people are not fortunate enough to ever reach that state, where they have their sh*t fully figured out. And not only did I figure that all out before I turned 30… I also managed to buy a house!
Akumako: “Oh the privileges of being rich!”
No, I was comfortably middle class, my parents were smart with their finances, and they let me live at home so long as I wasn’t a NEET. I worked my ass off to pay for FFS, spend everything I had on it, and studied my ass off in school to get the skills needed to work a $75k/year job. And I avoided student loans by being autistic, getting tuition paid by the Department of Rehabilitation Services and going to a good old state university!
Akumako: “…You’re a bastard-ass bitch!”
You can say that again!
Ho hi butterfly! It’s been over a month since the Student Transfer dev team teased the release of Student Transfer Version 8, and after a few super active weeks on the Git, they went and shadow dropped it like this is a damn Nintendo Direct!
As always, you can download the title via the official Student Transfer website.
Check out the official online flowchart via some URL, probably this one that currently doesn’t work properly.
Check out my Student Transfer page for my PNG flowcharts as they are produced and verified.
And keep it locked to Natalie.TF for when I put out my review in a week or two.
I just went through an extra long manga last installment, so I’m going to give myself a buffer before getting into the next 1,000+ page comic on my loosely defined list. Meaning it’s time to dig up another oddity and check out one of the first TSF stories I ever read. (Or at least the first one that I remember.)
I previously talked about Caleb Jones’s work, and how he influenced me as a creator, when covering his seminal work, Body Switched. However, I don’t think I ever properly discussed The Great Shift before, and I probably should, as this scenario has become seldom used outside of TG caption writers.
The Great Shift is a narrative concept cultivated by TSF writer Morpheus. An incredibly prolific Fictionmania writer whose output includes over 300 works, though a good chunk of them are just chapters in larger stories. In 1998, they came up with a body swap story concept with a simple premise. What if approximately 90% of the human population swapped bodies. Parents switching bodies with their children, husbands switching with their wives, people switching bodies with people on the other side of the planet, the possibilities are as vast as can be.
It is a simple and innocently naïve concept when looked at from a more realistic perspective. Especially given the globalized nature of the world circa 1998, let alone after a global pandemic. But it is a concept that I always felt offers a truly vast potential to examine the structure of society. The prejudices that people carry when viewing each other, and whether people will choose to conform or rebel when confronted with a vastly different form.
It’s a lowkey dream of mine to see someone who knows what they are talking about— an expert in related fields— to seriously examine scenarios that could follow from an event like this. And for experienced fiction writers to use that research to a variety of stories in the same shared continuity. One that focuses on familiar and interpersonal struggles, people forced to abandon their identities as they are thrust into new roles, geopolitical turmoil, and how society deals when everything is upheaved.
That level of research is beyond my wheelhouse, but more serious explorations of The Great Shift are a major ‘major bucket’ list item for me. I want to explore that eventually, but first I should examine what other writers have done, so I could try and see what I can learn. There are better places to start than here, like with the first wave of stories from the late summer of 1998 but… this was where it all began for me.
True Stories From the Time of The Great Shift is an anthology story with a unique framing device. The story is presented as a series of excerpts from a #1 New York Times Best Seller book written by reporter Caleb Jones. Which… really confused me as a 13-year-old. I knew it wasn’t real, obviously, but the fact that the story claims it’s an NYT best seller, presented as novel excerpts, and features photographs that were “used with permission from the victim’s personal collections” is very strange to me. Even after all the strange crap I’ve covered.
Also, you read that right, this story contains photos! Fictionmania, despite being an ancient website, supports stories with images, allowing writers to include crusty JPGs. It’s a wild feature for such a basic site, as you’d never see a feature like this on sites like AO3 or Scribble Hub or TGStoryTime due to how much storage space images take up compared to text. Also, it’s not like the site isn’t still being used by writers. 11 stories were uploaded the day I am writing this, 55 the past week, and a good chunk of them are using images.
Tangent aside, the story opens up by introducing Caleb Jones’s fictional persona of the same name. A night newsroom editor who is heading home after getting the paper out for the day, only to faint when he is driving home. As he wakes up, he is being kissed by a bearded man, and holding onto his penis. This is clearly meant to be a sex scene of some manner, but this story is rated ‘G’, so all we get is deep kissing and it ends just as quickly as it begins. The bearded man then leaves, treating Caleb as his girlfriend, and Caleb is left to gradually piece together the fact that he swapped bodies with someone.
I actually think this has the means to be a strong introduction for a story like this, but the opening feels… poorly thought out. Caleb claims to be a skilled and diligent journalist, yet his overall analytical skills of the situation are lacking. They does not grasp they are in the body of a woman until he speaks or that they are now Black until looking at their ID. And rather than painting them as a panicked yet intelligent individual, the writing just makes them seem a bit… oaf-ish.
The narration also feels… artificial. Caleb, despite being someone who, in-universe, adapted to and accepted life as a woman, writes this section in a very exaggerated manner. They are rapt in shock and awe by the changes, vehemently assert their male heterosexuality in a way that feels defensive, and say some bizarre things. Like how they had a “heavy beard since they were 12-years-old.” It also does not quite capture the… voice of a newsroom reporter. There isn’t a deft blend of information and commentary, many descriptions are redundant or repetitive, and it feels unnatural in a way you can immediately spot when reading something out loud. I really felt the urge to play editor while going through the work.
After getting situated, Caleb tries to go back to the newspaper, and quickly comes in contact with one of his co-workers, John Ravenwood (presumably named after Fictionmania writer Raven). He swapped bodies with a 74-year-old woman and bemoans the loss of 40 years of his life, before tasking Caleb with getting interviews from people. To help the people of this city understand the situation, make their voices heard, and show the world how other people are getting on with their lives.
A fine sentiment, though… that’s a bit premature. Society would be in turmoil, people would not be able to make long-term decisions, and people would be more concerned with being safe or taking advantage of the situation. This scene happens a scant few hours after this mass swapping event, so getting out information should be priority number one. And I cannot imagine too many people would be inclined to talk to a journalist right after finding themself in a new body. It’s like how you didn’t really see ‘how people are living with the pandemic’ human interest stories until a few weeks after the pandemic was officially declared.
That was the introduction, but the bulk of this story is isolated in ‘chapter six’ which follows Carol. A 30-something White woman who was originally an 18-year-old Hispanic boy named Fernando. It starts off pretty strong, with decent banter between Caleb and Carol as they meet up and prepare to do the interview. But, once Carol begins telling her story, I again need to bring up the character voice problem.
Regardless of who she is now, Carol grew up as a Hispanic kid in a city orphanage who was cast into the world on their own, without any guardians to help them. Someone with that background would probably have a more casual, informal, manner of speaking, or at least be in line with any other kid of their generation. While a character can change the way they speak over time, the time scale we are dealing with here is months, and you cannot change things that much that quickly unless you’re damn dedicated. And even then, that’s a sh*tty justification for why Carol sounds so damn White in this interview, so damn old, and unnaturally formal. It’s like Jones forgot they were writing from a teenage boy’s perspective.
It really gets in the way of what otherwise starts out as a pretty good ‘woke up in an unfamiliar body in an unfamiliar room’ introduction. Lots of emphasis is drawn to the huge double-D tit* she gained, how much it contrasts with her former muscular and hairy chest. There’s obligatory long nails and high heels scenes, because the writer wants to interject as much contrast as possible. Carol immediately struggles to move her body due to the drastically different proportions and weight distribution. There is a lot of veiled frustration over how sexy Carol finds her reflection, while going on how she didn’t want this to happen, how she was happy with who she was. And there’s even a mirror scene, because how else is one supposed to really appreciate their body? You can tell this was written by an experienced writer at this point, and this stuff just comes naturally to him.
This is broken up by a news report from a retirement home. Showing how distraught people are to be in the bodies of 80-somethings in need of medical care, except many of the nurses and physicians are in bodies too immobile to help. It highlights the unfortunate reality that many people face as part of their daily lives, and how so many vital industries would be screwed by The Great Shift. Especially if the effects are kept local, like physicians switching bodies with patients on death’s door. If that were to happen then, combined with all the accidents and sudden medical mishaps as people unknowingly have dietary restrictions and medication they don’t know about, tens of millions would die from an event like this. And that’s before getting into all the supply chain issues!
This aside doesn’t really move Carol, who takes this as an opportunity to get out of the room she went into and drive to the home listed on her body’s ID. After driving there, the story brushing past the dead bodies lined across the streets, they come into contact with the original Carol’s mother, Maude. A gray-haired woman who is hospitable to the person in her daughter’s body, and promptly read them a letter from the original Carol. In it, they say that they woke up in Fernando’s body and are unable to accept living their old life, so they are heading to another city to make a fresh start.
A sentiment that might make sense if this was a few months, maybe weeks, after The Great Shift. But again, this is set a few hours later. People cannot make definitive decisions like this after everything around them falls apart, and… the story seems confused as to where this chapter takes place. New Carol says that she does not recognize the city, yet navigates through it even with car flooded roads. While old Carol must have been in the same city as her original body for her to write a letter to her mother.
I understand condensed storytelling is a good tool, but this is someone telling a story within a story. You can just have them skim over the boring bits or say something happened a few days later. Instead… it just keeps piling more and more details onto the first day. Like how Maude’s husband gave up his life and his 30+ year relationship with her after getting swapped into a little girl, and chose to live with his ‘new parents’ because, as a physical child, they needed parents.
Things get even more bizarre the next day, where the story reveals that the old Carol had a child, a young boy named Phillip. A note that makes the new Carol consciously aware of what it meant to be both older and a woman, while still reasserting her masculinity. …But then, less than 24 hours after The Great Shift, Maude suggests that she, the new Carol, and Phillip, form a family together. She’ll teach the new Carol how to live as a woman, while the new Carol will get to have the family she never had as an orphan.
Now, I am at odds with this story shift. On one hand, there is a time and place to suggest something like this, and this is not the time. People don’t know if they’ll be able to get food or water in a week. On the other hand? I love this idea. A young man with no family being given the body of a decade older woman, only for the older woman to abandon her body, leaving him to lay claim to it and everything it has? Including the ability to have a parent to guide them through the complexities of their new life and a child to nurture and make the loss of a decade sting all the less? That’s an idea that makes me want to toss aside whatever I’m working on and start writing my own version of the story.
One of my favorite things about body swap stories, that typically is not achieved outside of reality warping TFs, is seeing someone land in a different life situation. Different age, different responsibilities, and different friends and family. It lets someone fully become someone different, while retaining the core essence of who they are, allowing that to gradually transform in a more traditional/natural/organic manner. The Great Shift is a wonderful vessel for that, as some people can just agree to exchange or steal the lives of their current bodies, and nobody will be any the wiser. People truly do get the ability and opportunity to mix and match the lives of two people, pick out what they want, and either embrace or reject it. There is beautiful drama to be hard in both, and the gooey middle of the spectrum is wonderous.
Sadly… I don’t think Jones quite got that allure the same way I do. Rather than dwelling on the details, it rushed to a resolution. Explaining how the new Carol took the life for themself, while also finding and making the old Carol sign an agreement to take her name and son. When… dude, you didn’t need to do that. And brushing off how new Carol, despite her initial objections, has become fully comfortable with her life as a woman, and even came out as a lover of men. …Because in this era of Fictionmania, they still operated on the biological sexuality clause.
The final segment is chapter ten of the story and it… just feels a bit redundant. It follows a group of TV journalists who get swapped with other members of staff, and try to go about the initial reporting of The Great Shift. Except… it really does not have all that much interesting to say here. Also, it does the naming sin of having three main characters with similar names. Murray, Mary, and Marie.
The chapter follows Murray, a balding copywriter who switches bodies with the young news anchor Mary. Murray is shocked by this, but intuits the situation based on context clues and his own positioning, unlike Caleb. While Mary, acting as the traditionally attractive woman swapped with a traditionally unattractive man, faints at the sight of this, and cries as she sees she lost her beauty and youth. They then get a report from their “AP news feeder” that explains the Shift.
Mary, for some reason, is the one to hand the report to the body swapped news anchor, Murray goes off to do something, and then there’s a… subplot centering around two new characters. An older male executive producer and a middle-aged female “Happy Homemaker” who have a sitcom-like antagonism with each other. Both of them swapped with each other, get angry at one another, and then… f*ck in the executive producer’s office.
Murray, in the body of Mary, then goes home to see his wife, Marie, in the body of the male “grocery store manager” and that his three daughters were all body swapped in some manner. Then… the story just falls into an epilogue section. Murray got impregnated and is eagerly awaiting his child. Mary continued to be a successful reporter despite her shabby looks. The executive and homemaker are now hitched. Caleb teases the next chapter will be an interview with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver. And we get a final photo of Caleb, dressed in a flashy black dress, looking hot as hell, pictured accepting an award. Das Ende.
Yeah, so… this isn’t a very good story. I was able to forgive Body Switched before it was written early on in the genre, and was clearly intended to be a sillier, more lighthearted, romp. However, this story is purporting to be realistic, written by an accomplished award-winning journalist, and it’s just not good or insightful enough to really warrant that framing, not committed enough in any of its concepts.
I think the pseudo-non-fiction framing is wonderful, and that Jones managed to strike gold with the ideas of the second story. Yet the first and second are so brief they feel toothless, and the writing feels unnatural for what is supposed to be a series of interviews.
…Yeah, I probably should’ve investigated the actual origins of The Great Shift and covered those instead. In fact, I think I’ll get to that eventually. Not next time, but SOON™.
Well, this one isn’t too surprising. Still unfortunate though, and indicative of how broken this industry is. Embracer has been slowly killing off studios after they got screwed over by the Saudis, slashed marketing budgets, and are planning on splitting off into three companies. Groups like Gearbox and Saber Interactive were the lucky ones, as they were freed from this mess, while most studios under their tenure are subject to being shuttered. Especially if they just released a new title, like Pieces Interactive, which was shut down to kickstart this week.
Pieces Interactive is, or I suppose was, a Swedish developer who developed smaller titles throughout the early 2000s and 2010s, but their big breakout title was Magicka 2: Learn to Spell Again (2015). A sequel to the cult hit Magicka (2011), made while the original developer, Arrowhead Games, was busy working on Helldivers (2017). After this, Pieces worked on the twin stick roguelite, Kill to Collect: Gid Gud and Die Trying (2016), which saw a more mixed reception and barely any notoriety.
However, they were noteworthy enough to get snatched up by THQ Nordic in 2017, where they developed Titan Quest expansions while building up staff to work on the latest Alone in the Dark reboot. A reboot that took heavy inspiration from the modern incarnations of Resident Evil— like most horror action titles of the past 15 years, and was given a more… muted reception.
Critics were across the board with the title, with some praising it as a 9/10 or 8/10, while others found it to be a more average affair. One with boring puzzles, glitches, and subpar combat. For a game by a small studio, developed during the pandemic, it seems like a valiant effort from the, what, 70-ish people who worked at the studio. And as for the legacy of the series… it’s a far cry from the 2008 reboot (it was ambitious but busted) or 2015’s Illumination (pure kusoge). But in a financially driven industry like this, what comes down is whether it met sales expectations and… it, naturally, did not.
Like all closures and layoffs, this sucks. However… I also get why this is happening, and cannot necessarily disagree with the rationale here. If a studio tried hard and spent tens of millions creating a game, only for it to get a more mild reception, then what are you supposed to do?
Sadly though, the industry lacks job openings to employ all of the people currently looking for work, and while opening up small studios is an option, that is not a reliable approach. The indie scene, for as much praise as it gets, is a cutthroat and highly competitive scene. And when people think of ‘indie games’ they are typically thinking of the exceptions to the norm that 90% of indie games fall into. Titles that, due to funding and publicity concerns, must choose to be lean productions that waste no time, or go all out and pitch themselves as a bold new hit title. Success requires a lot of networking, luck, and determination that goes beyond just making a good game on a shoestring budget. All for a game that can be sold for anywhere from the price of a sandwich to two hours of pay at an entry level job.
Seriously, a typical indie game is lucky to make a million bucks. Divide that among years, developers, 30% store fees, taxes, and commissions, and you get less than what one would make at a typical low-level tech/office job.
The closure of Pieces Interactive sucks, but it’s the only natural outcome in an industry as messy and cutthroat as gaming.
Wake up and shake up, miracle baby! Nintendo announced that they were going to do a Nintendo Direct in June and they didn’t even make people wait until the last week or throw them a bucket of chum crammed into a 20 minute slot. They put out a full-sized 40 minute Direct, and one that will likely be their last before they announce the Switch 2.
Does that mean I feel a bit of longing or sorrow over this Direct? No. Nintendorks spend all their time bitching and getting sentimental over the past, while I try to stay modern with my feelings. While heavy on the re-whatevers, the Switch era was a grand one for Nintendo, and one that, due to myriad production and economic factors, probably will not be replicated. I mean, Nintendo can only remaster and re-release so many titles so often. And by having backwards compatibility with the Switch 2, there will be less need for games to be re-released, because they already nipped all the low-hanging fruit.
I actually expected there to be WAY more games to just be re-hashes of other titles, especially this late in the generation. I guess Nintendo wants to hold off before unleashing Kid Icarus Uprising, Twilight Princess, Wind Waker, F-Zero GX, Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, Star Fox Assault, and any other GameCube titles that they can sell as $30-$60 retail titles. (I just realized they are trying to sell a $20 3DS title for $60 on Switch with Luigi’s Mansion 2: Dark Moon HD. What a bunch of ass biters.)
This showcase was centered around more upcoming titles, so I’m going to rearrange things to be in release order, meaning we get to start with the obligatory Nintendo Switch Online updates. For the record, I bloody hate this service due to the simple fact that it encourages Nintendo to slowly trickle out their library so subscribers have a reason to stay dedicated. Which is just a scummy thing to do. Especially when the titles they have been holding out on are the GBA port of Link to the Past with the Four Swords subgame, and Metroid: Zero Mission.
They also elected to bring over Perfect Dark as an N64 port, which… I have mixed feelings about. On one hand, that game should be widely played and is a grand technical achievement. On the other hand… the remaster by 4J Studios is just better, same with the Banjo Kazooie remasters. But those cannot just be ported over to a Nintendo console as premium $20 titles. Oooh nooo! That would take too much time and development, so instead they do whatever they need to to make a 24-year-old game’s online work. Also, they brought over the first Turok game, despite the fact that you can just buy the objectively superior Nightdive remaster on Switch. Bloody mental.
Denpa Men is a niche RPG with an ugly-cute aesthetic that has somehow managed to see five games. And despite four of them being 3DS titles, you’d never see a Nintendork mention them beyond to point out how weird-Japan they are. I barely know anything about them, as nobody really talked about them, at least in the English world, but they seem to be deliberately retro style dungeon RPGs. Complete with the objectively superior 8 party set-up that every other RPG is too cowardly to adopt. Even Integrity and Faithlessness capped it at a mere seven.
The series’ obscurity was enhanced by how the last two games never left Japan. One was a 3DS live service, the other was a mobile app, neither of which are well preserved outside of the Japanese internet. And to add to the confusion, the 4th 3DS title was called The Denpa Men 4: Free and the mobile game was called New Denpa Men. This new release is called The New Denpa Men in English, but the Japanese title is New Denpa Men RPG Free.
…So, is this a wholly new game? Because this looks a lot like The Denpa Men 4: Free. However, all The Denpa Men games look the same, even if the trailer footage for TDM4 looks very similar. Sure, I didn’t see the monster summoning mechanics, collectible cards, or Denpa Men breeding I saw in the fuller trailer, but it had the furniture arrangement stuff. Doing some further digging… this is a new game. A game that was actually announced for Japan four months ago, but I didn’t pick up on that.
Also, the game will also be an online-only live service (boo!) and will be coming to other platforms at an unspecified time (what?) following its Switch release on July 22. I guess that developer Genius Sonority is not a Nintendo subsidiary, they’re just highly close to them, so perhaps this means a mobile release, or maybe they’ll surprise everybody and bring it over to the bloody Xbox. I don’t know and, frankly, the fact this is a live service killed whatever intrigue I might have in this game, ‘cos I know it’s gonna be dead sooner or later. Just like Grandma…
Ace Attorney fans have been eating good with collections over the past few years. 2019’s HD Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy. 2021’s The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles. 2024’s Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney Trilogy. And now they’re getting Ace Attorney Investigations Collection, a compilation of Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth and Ace Attorney Investigations 2: Prosecutor’s Gambit, which never received an official English release.
As expected, the games have received a visual overhaul, replacing the delicate sprite work with drawn-over illustrations that I know are not to everyone’s tastes. Personally, I’m fine with it, as the designs are fully maintained and I have a certain fondness for choppier key-frame-only animation. As for the third-person navigational sections unique to these two games, those have been given a similar facelift, which I have more mixed feelings about. I always thought that the spritework there looked beautiful. But Capcom has given them the necessary TLC, with highly detailed 2D illustrations, and the option to revert to the classic pixel art style. …Kind of.
They kept the sprites as they were, but rather than reprising the original backgrounds, they are taking the new background art and displaying it at a lower resolution. But not the resolution of the original DS game. Meaning the backgrounds are far more detailed than the characters and… it looks wrong. This is just an option, but this will spark arguments between confident morons who think this is how the DS version actually looked, and seems more like a hastily added afterthought.
Regardless, with this collection the entire Ace Attorney series, all 10 games, will be on modern consoles. (Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney is not real and never was.) Meaning that now the fanbase will begin clamoring, even harder, for Ace Attorney 7. …Despite the fact that non-Japanese fans just got two new games in 2021, and most of them probably never played the fan translation of Investigations 2. I understand wanting a new game, but so long as your favorite series is garnering support and fans, then shouldn’t that be enough? Couldn’t you just check out other similar games? And if you think there’s nothing like it out there… look with your hands, lobster-brain!
Bitching about fandoms aside, Ace Attorney Investigations Collection will be released on PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC on September 6, 2024.
Oh boy, this made my tangents go off the damn wall. Buckle up, folks.
It has been nine years since the last original 2D Zelda (if you can even count Tri Force Heroes). And it has been 38 years since the first person asked about a Zelda game where you could play as Zelda. So Grezzo, who has become Nintendo’s 2D Zelda house, has created their first fully original Zelda game. Dubbed The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom.
The premise is that the world of Hyrule has become covered in shadowy rifts that are slowly consuming the land, stealing people along with them. In rescuing Zelda from Ganon, Link fell into one of these rifts, so now it’s time for Zelda to play the hero. The title is a 2D overhead adventure game that looks like it was built off of Grezzo’s 2019 Link’s Awakening remake, featuring what look to be some of the same character and environmental models. However, rather than just be a Zelda game where Zelda uses magic blasts instead of a sword, the game is far more… experimental.
The game is less of a straightforward action adventure affair, and more of an… emergent puzzle platformer where Zelda can use a magic rod, the Tri Rod, to copy and paste various objects. Rocks, boxes, cubes of water, and even enemies, and deploy them, seemingly without limits. It honestly reminds me more of Scribblenauts than a Zelda game, while the gameplay weirdly gives me more of a Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker vibe. Well, ignoring the fact that Zelda has the ability to jump, without even using the Roc’s Feather.
This fixation on solving puzzles the player’s way is an interesting concept for a game, and I actually do think it is a good fit for the more tile-based and limited scope typically afforded to 2D Zelda games. And as for a Zelda game featuring Zelda… I think this is a smart approach. Zelda is supposed to be a wise character who uses the tools at her disposal, and general magic. Personally, my first thought on expressing this would be to double down on the more puzzle oriented roots of the series. To expand upon things like the Cane of Byrna and Somaria, Gust Bellows, flying Beetle, and the myriad rods. There’s enough weird peripherals puzzle-y items in Zelda history to build an arsenal, let alone new ones!
Instead… they are making what basically looks like a debug mode from the Link’s Awakening remake, which I find to be a more creative and Nintendo™ approach for the series to go. It’s great to finally see a Zelda game starring the titular protagonist, and bring an end to the ‘what if Zelda was a grill‘ joke that has been wafting around for a looong time. I think it looks good and has the merit to be an admirable entry in the series, with its own mechanical identity. And, best of all, it’s coming soon, launching on Switch on September 26, 2024.
…
Okay, now that I’ve said that… BOY did this announcement make some raging worms crawl up from my ass and to my brain. And for three reasons. One, the aesthetics. Two, the fact this is a Zelda game starring Zelda. Three, the emergent gameplay.
Tangent One: I am firmly in the minority for not liking the art style of Grezzo’s Link’s Awakening remake. Partially because I view it as disrespectful of the original game, overwriting its art style and going against the clear artistic vision of the original developers. (Specifically the people they were back in 1993, not whatever they’ve congealed into in the current year.) Partially because I view it to be trite in the way early 20th Century tchotchkes often are. Partially because everything looks to be made from an unholy mix of plastic, rubber, or porcelain in a way that instills a bitter taste in my mouth when I think about it. And partially because it seems like a way of denominating 2D Zelda as something lesser. The 3D games are the most technically intense games Nintendo makes. While the 2D ones are rendered using budget friendly chibi characters.
They could have made 2D Zelda look like Wind Waker— like five 2D Zelda games from 2002 to 2009— but instead it looks like this! Now, this is not the worst. I will say it is far better than the ‘art style’ of Triforce of the Gods 2: A Link Between Worlds. Seriously, look at that game, look at the 4K texture pack version, and remember it was considered one of the best 2D Zelda games. It made compromises to run at 60 fps, and when blown up past 240p, it looks cheap and ugly. Mostly cheap. …But it plays better than any 2D Zelda game though! Gosh, I would not even be mad if they did a toyetic remake of that game, it looks so bland.
Tangent Two: Nintendo chose to make the first (mainline) Zelda game with a playable Zelda, a 2D title. This is something that I personally do not mind, as I love 2D games and consider them equals to 3D ones. …But not everybody does.
There has been a long-standing sense across many legacy game series that the 2D entries are inherently lesser creatures. This was largely believed because of technical reasons, because of how much marketers and publishers pushed 3D as being superior to 2D, and 2D game machines (handhelds) were seen as lesser devices. Not home for ‘real games.’ This was particularly evident during the GBA era, where handheld companion games were common, and where quality was… more grab bag. But it persisted for as long as dedicated handhelds were a thing.
Akumako: “Side bar: Natalie does not consider the Switch to be a handheld, due to how it was pitched as a console you can play portably, a la the Sega Nomad. In reality, it was just a glorified 2015 gaming tablet. To her, dedicated handhelds died in 2019 when 3DS support largely ended, and everything is either a console of PC or phone these days. Also, while handheld devices, the Steam Deck and its contemporaries are as close to a 3DS as they are to a smartphone. I told her that makes no sense, but she just told me to ‘suck a seal’s dick’ in response.”
The Zelda series was especially subject to this. Link’s Awakening got a pass. But the Oracle duology, Minish Cap, Four Swords Adventures, Phantom Hourglass, Spirit Tracks, and Tri Force Heroes were, and are, seen by the cumulative Zelda zeitgeist as lesser B-tier games. Titles that are Zelda games, yet lack the pomp, importance, and production values that, to some, make Zelda games ‘Zelda.’ That makes the series prestigious.
It is all part of a compartmentalization tactic that people do all the damn time, where they try and simplify things to their liking, avoiding the noise, and channeling things down to the essence that they prefer. And, in instances like this, I get it. Some people are just not interested in 2D games, as they were not really part of their upbringing, and they view 3D games as being home to more stuff. More mobility options, more ways to interact with the world, a better sense of (ugh) immersion. And I know that some people view 2D games as being for poor people. Remnants of when they were part of a lesser society, as opposed to where they are nowadays. I’d say that’s wrong, but… 3D rendering is more hardware intensive, and there are at least two generations who were prohibited from 3D because of it.
Again, personally, I do not care if a game is 2D or 3D, I view both as being good at doing what they do, and believe they should be celebrated as such. However, I know this is a matter that will only persist, and this understanding will never be uniform, because there are new people getting into gaming all the time with their own biases and expectations.
Tangent Three: The Zelda series has irrevocably transformed over the past seven years, and I kinda hate that. But before getting why, let me do a history lesson. I loosely define Zelda to exist within three eras, and this structure may be contentious to some.
The first two NES games are off in their own camp, in what I’ll call the original era. They’re a pair of highly unique games that are unlike anything else the series did afterwards. I know that there are decades of arguments for them laying a foundation, but the games simply play differently than anything that came after. I tried describing why, but it just devolved into ‘Zelda 1 is of great historical importance, but it’s kind of a bitch to play, and should greatness refer to legacy of measurable quality and playability for a modern audience.’ While Zelda II is basically a rough draft for games like Wonder Boy: The Dragon’s Trap and other side-view 2D Metroidvania action RPGs. …Except it also had clunky sword combat.
A Link to the Past basically redefined the series as an action adventure game set in an expansive world the player can explore at their leisure and as they unlock new tools, but it’s generally linear. It set the format that most Zelda games would follow for decades to come (including Ocarina of Time), what Zelda meant for over two decades, and I’ll call it the… traditional era. Because it lasted over 20 years, and the series gradually relied on established traditions.
This traditional era lasted right until the release of Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom. A pair of games known for their vast open world, experimentation, and emergent gameplay. So I call it the emergent era. Personally… I think these games are so different they practically warrant being their own series. There are numerous and obvious reasons why someone might prefer these games or their predecessors. The narrative focus, underlying gameplay, scope, progression systems, and general tone of the game are all vastly different.
This is a personal frustration of mine as… I do not like the emergent gameplay of modern Zelda games. It does not gel with my brain meat’s programming, and as someone who loved the games of the traditional era, it just makes me sad to see this become the dominant form. A series that I liked from age 11 to 22 became something that I respect, but do not find fun, no matter how much I try. Real people though? They don’t have that problem.
As such, I find it hard to cope with the fact that the Zelda I liked as a kid is basically gone. I would be content with just re-whatevers of Twilight Princess, Wind Waker, and Ocarina of Time. But Nintendo is keeping the first two in their vault…
Super Mario Party Jamboree was announced as NdCube’s latest Mario Party title, after they, somehow, successfully revived the series on Switch. Super Mario Party (2018) was not very good, is the only notable Switch game that does not work with the Switch Lite, but it sold an obscene 20 million units. Mario Party Superstars (2021) was a (limited) throwback to the N64 entries and sold 12 million units. So naturally Nintendo is planning on doing the same thing again in a three-year cycle with Super Mario Party Jamboree. …They really had to include ‘super’ in that title, didn’t they?
Now, I have seen enough Nintendorks dork out about this series to know how easy they are to displease, but this one… actually seems to be another honest original entry with actual board designs and mechanics. The first one since 2007, when Hudson was still alive! Instead of boring blasé locations, things are set in malls with flash sales, raceways where characters ride racecars, and volcano islands where the tide goes up and down depending on the turn. They’re also throwing in bonus boards from the first two games, bringing the board count up to a historically acceptable seven, and netting some nostalgia points. I don’t even like Mario Party, but I do like Western Land after playing Mario Party 2 once.
Also, they are throwing in a hyper linear 20 player race mode for online play. Which commits the ndCube to thinking the mini games are the fun part of Mario Party. When the actual fun part of the games is social interactions and betrayal! Truly, they will never learn…
Super Mario Party Jamboree launches on Switch on October 17, 2024.
I genuinely do not understand how/why Square Enix keeps greenlighting all these SaGa projects. I understand that Akitoshi Kawazu has a lot of clout at the company. However, they have been going on a tear of SaGa re-whatevers over the past few years and just shipped a brand new game two months ago with SaGa: Emerald Beyond. The games rarely get high scores due to how wacked up their mechanics can be. I cannot imagine they sell oodles. And while basic re-releases make sense, I don’t know how fully 3D remakes make sense. …Unless the title is a cult classic I’m not privy to, because it didn’t (officially) come out in English until 2016.
Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven is a fully 3D remake of 1993’s Romancing SaGa 2 and it looks… pretty damn good. Square Enix has done a bang up job with gussying up their AA titles as of late, clearly designing them around the limitations of the Switch. While still giving them the production values to make them look like games that belong on HD systems. You can tell that it is a budget title in some regard, but the heart put into the production is also evident, the desire to create something that looks grand, expansive, and flashy.
Mind you, it is still a SaGa game, and I know SaGa games are designed for those with a particular brand of organic ground tuna for brains. So I cannot say much about the actual battle system, other than it seems to be reworked to be in line with Emerald Beyond, and is probably using a lot of the same tech and possibly assets. At least I’d hope so, as that’s just plain old smart.
Now, why are they jumping over to Romancing SaGa 2? Because they already remade Romancing SaGa (1992) with Romancing SaGa: Minstrel Song (2005) and remastered that for modern systems in 2022. Meaning that the remake of the first Romancing SaGa is now 19-years-old…
I might not get much of what Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven is doing, but I like it when a cult RPG like this is given a full ground-up remake like this, and I think titles like this should be savored because… Square Enix might not be interested in AA productions like this going forward.
Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven will be released for PS4, PS5, Switch, and PC on October 24, 2024.
Marvelous is a developer/publisher who has been slow to recover from the death of dedicated handhelds. Their Marvelous First Studio managed to break out with bigger titles like God Eater 3 and Daemon X Machina. While their main studios have been slow to expand beyond smaller titles, to the point where many of their recent titles have just been contract work by other developers.
Rune Factory 5 (2021), developed by subsidiary Hakama Inc., was a pretty poor HD transition for the series. I mean, just look at it. It’s a Vita game in heart and soul, and Vita was sub-720p, so it is not HD even by 2006 standards. (The PC port looks way better though. Better resolution, and the game doesn’t have horrifically saturated colors.)
Story of Seasons, the real Harvest Moon series, saw two remakes of fan favorites from developer Bullets Co., Ltd. and they both looked pretty bad. Friends of Mineral Town (2019) looked like ass. While A Wonderful Life (2023) looked arguably worse than the GameCube original. Or at least worse in an aesthetic sense. They took heart and replaced it with marshmallow!
Pioneers of Olive Town (2021), developed by Three Rings Inc., looked bland and blasé in a way that reminds me of cheap mobile games.
Silent Hope (2023), developed by Marvelous’ internal studio, was a fun game based on the demo, but is very basic from a visual level, and struck me as a side project to help train junior developers more than anything.
Doraemon Story of Seasons and its sequel were also developed by Marvelous’ internal studio, and they were the prettiest Story of Seasons games ever. …But that was under contract work for anime barons Dobananamic (Bandai the Namco).
Despite these struggles, Marvelous is committed to making HD games and has been pushing ahead on a brand new Story of Seasons and Rune Factory: Project Dragon. However, they also paired up with Fairy Tail author to create a brand new farming action RPG and… it’s confusing!
Farmagia is a farming game with a battle system that is… like if someone who never played Pikmin tried to make a Pikmin RPG. The game is built around growing and tending to crops, which produce monsters instead of food, and training these monsters for use in combat, where the player sends them to attack big daunting enemies with the face buttons. Also, monsters can be fused into giant summons to end battles. It is a gameplay system and loop that needs more than a minute long trailer to do it justice, but… that’s all that was revealed, and the game’s due out in four months.
Farmagia will be released for PS5, Switch, and PC on November 1, 2024.
Following the closure of AlphaDream in 2019, there was a lot of confusion about what would become of the Mario & Luigi RPG series. At the time, there was reason to believe Nintendo wanted to phrase out these games after sales diminished. Briefly, it seemed like the days of Mario RPGs were kind of done, and the best we could hope for is Paper Mario continuing a series of story-driven adventure games, like with Origami King.
But then Nintendo proceeded to make this the year of Mario RPGs. They not only published remakes of Super Mario RPG and the beloved Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door, they announced a brand new Mario & Luigi game! Yes, Mario & Luigi: Brothership was announced as the next game in the lauded series, and… it looks incredible!
The series was home to some of my favorite sprite work on the GBA and DS, but things got iffy when they transitioned to a new art style with the 3DS titles. Which… I just never cared for. It looked highly compressed and highly animated to the point where I really could not tell how the sprites worked or what they were going for. They were too fluid, and I couldn’t see the pixels, so I didn’t trust them. It’s only now that 3DS emulation has gotten kinda better (RIP Citra) that I can admire that these games were… gorgeous. Well, assuming the game is properly upscaled. This and this look WRONG to me.
So it means a lot when I say that, visually, Brothership looks to be one of the most perfect transitions any series has ever made to 3D. They absolutely nailed the look of Mario & Luigi in both the games and the promotional artwork. Their animations are spot-on, without any jankiness or hindrances. The world design does not capture the Mario universe, but the Mario & Luigi universe, and is in no way beholden to the aesthetic limitations that hindered the Mario RPG series in the 2010s. And the new character designs feature some absolutely gorgeous specimens.
As for the gameplay? Yep, it’s Mario & Luigi. Timed button presses, dual character movement and control, situational navigation puzzles, a few minigames for good measure, and all the other good sh*t are preserved, hopefully with fewer minigames than the 3DS entries.
I have no notes, no hesitation, and no worries… except for the fact that Nintendo is refusing to announce the developer, and we probably won’t know until the game is released. They stupidly did this with Super Mario RPG (2023) and Princess Peach Showtime! (2024) and they’re doing this yet again. Personally though, I’m guessing that Nintendo hired or helped facilitate a new studio for certain AlphaDream employees. There is just way too much faithfully represented DNA for me to believe this is a brand new team.
Fortunately, we won’t need to wait long, as Mario & Luigi: Brothership is releasing on November 7, 2024. Which is only 356 days after November 17, 2023, when Super Mario RPG (2023) was released. Meaning if you count years based on dates instead of years, we are living through the golden year for Mario RPGs. Rejoice now, dill-birds! ‘Cos it’s never gonna get better!
After being announced back in 2021, the broader world finally got a second look at the HD-2D remake of Dragon Quest III. A game whose importance cannot be overstated in the world of role-playing games, yet often gets snubbed outside of Japan, and the murky basem*nts of Japanophiles (like me). Dragon Quest I and II were highly influential games, and well worth studying even today. But Dragon Quest III was when Dragon Quest became huge, when the game introduced a level of complexity and customization prior games lacked, and the adventure became so much greater.
A remake of Dragon Quest III… is something that Enix did back on the SNES, and it was the best version of the game. The 2019 phone port for Switch… was a heaping pile of dogsh*t, just a disgrace that replaced the character sprites and UI from the SNES version. And this, looking strictly at the trailer of the latest remake, looks to be a ground-up modernization of the original title. One that captures the design and artistry of the original, but renders it with the power of Unreal Engine 4! The effects are gorgeous, the backgrounds are wonderfully vivid 3D models, and it looks to have received the TLC it deserved.
That being said… they definitely overhauled a bunch of things about this game since it was announced in 2021.
I think what first threw me off, and the most clear downgrade, is the walking animation. The 2021 trailer featured what my eyes tell me is a 5 frame walking animation. A good standard for 2D RPGs. However, the 2024 trailer features only three frame walk cycles. Which is generally not advised when one is going for an RPG with sprite fidelity this high, and sprites of this scale. Which… brings up something I did not really grasp in 2021, but is really obvious to me now.
Dragon Quest games historically used chibi overworld sprites for the first seven entries, and they continued this trend with the retro mode for Dragon Quest XI. Though, they did change things up for the ArtePiazza DS remakes of IV, V, and VI. Those games adopted taller proportions, closer in line with the battle sprites from SNES Final Fantasy games. Here thought? The proportions are more like those found in… the Mega Drive Phantasy Star games or Suikoden. I bring those two up in particular as, while I don’t want to poo-poo on either, the characters in those games walk like they have sticks up their asses!
Now, why did they undergo this downgrade? I cannot say. The game only has a whopping 18 playable characters, unless they want to add new classes, so it shouldn’t be that hard for a team to make detailed sprites for all of them. Square did that with a cast of seven in 1995. Grandia did it with a cast of eight in 1996. …Actually hold up. These characters do not have diagonal sprites. …ArtePiazza gave every character eight directional sprites. They only had three frames of animation, but with sprites that small, I don’t mind!
Combat sprites were also overhauled from angled behind the 3/4ths back views to plain behind the back views, and while the new ones are more detailed, they look more like artwork that has been converted into a sprite. The same is true for the monster sprites. They are more detailed, and animate like they were illustrated as a traditional 2D animation, only to be converted to a sprite.
The scale of the overworld is also considerably different, being less of a direct translation of Dragon Quest III, and more of a reimagined expansion. Complete with hills, a behind the back camera, and a visible horizon. So… I guess I would say these changes are more mixed, but I have to ask… what happened? A game like this, a remake of a game that was made by 19 people, in a year, in 1987, should not be hard to remake. Even from the ground up like this, with such a boost in visual fidelity.
Also, the developer, Team Asano, makes it sound like the only problem with the remake was showing it off very early into production, so… maybe all the original footage was concept work? But if that’s the case, why just throw out sprites like that?
I really want to know and, again, I won’t have to wait for long. Dragon Quest: III HD-2D Remake will be released for PS5, Xbox Series X|S, Switch, and PC on November 14, 2024.
Also, as an additional bonus, Square Enix is also doing an HD-2D remake of Dragon Quest I & II, due out as a single package sometime in 2025. That is wonderful, I love it, this really should come out first, as Dragon Quest I and II are mere appetizers for Dragon Quest III. But that’s okay, the important thing is that this entire trilogy is getting remade and released. The same probably won’t be true for the ArtePiazza DS remakes, as Square Enix did a bad business and probably cannot afford to port DS games.
(Also, the first three Dragon Quest games do not have remarkable stories, and the mechanical evolution between entries is almost always more important than the narrative evolution in games.)
I feel bad for fans of older licensed fighting games, as it has become so damn hard to access some of them. Particularly fans of the Versus Capcom series. On current platforms, you can access Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3— great game. And Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite— which had… like, half of the budget it should have and a lame art style that a dedicated modder has been replacing. Beyond that… that’s it!
Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: Ultimate All-Stars is probably never going to be re-released even though I think Eighting could use the money and Tatsunoko still owns all the featured IP— I think? If they don’t, I blame Harmony Gold! The original villain of anime localization. And why we still don’t got no Minky Momos in America!
Though, there is no good excuse as to why Capcom and SNK haven’t gotten together to collaborate on a release of their crossovers. Capcom vs. SNK: Millennium Fight 2000, Capcom vs. SNK: 2: Mark of the Millennium 2001, and SNK vs. Capcom: SVC Chaos. (Though, they put out the NeoGeo Pocket games, weirdly.) They’re putting Terry Bogard and Mai Shiranui in Street Fighter 6. They have connections, they just need to sit down and do it! Does Brandon Sheffield need to just ask the right guys at SNK and Capcom to make it happen? I mean, that’s how he found that unreleased version of Samurai Shodown V.
Anyway, rambling, contextual rambling! Let me get to the actual point! In 1990s America, Marvel was huge with child to teenage boys. Their slate of animated shows and toys were huge hits. Spider-Man and X-Men were widely known and beloved. And Street Fighter continued to dominate the arcades… until things went to 3D and arcades started closing down in the late 90s. So, seeing Capcom pump out a series of fighting games that pitted Marvel and Capcom characters fighting against each other, was pretty damn insane. And the sh*t that you could get up to in this hyper-fighting experience was, similarly, insane.
I don’t think people really acknowledge the historical significance of this crossover, but if you were a kid back then, it was the coolest sh*t ever. The only problem was that the crossovers were arcade exclusive for a while. The PlayStation ports took years to come out and were kind of busted, and the best ports… were on the Dreamcast.
However, these games did have a strong legacy, helped form their own genre of fighting games, and have, in some way, continued to be mainstays at fighting game tournaments. …But mostly Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 (2000), as people decided that was the best, most insane, one of them all. Though, some do prefer Marvel vs. Capcom 3 (2011). The problem with this though… was that MvC2 was removed from digital stores in 2013. And the last physical release was on the PS2 and original Xbox.
That was a dark decade for fans of this series… but now Capcom has done the work and paperwork to bring back seven Capcom games via a single collection, the Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics. …Did you really need to include that last bit?
This collection contains the following titles:
- The Punisher (1993), a co-op beat ’em up that is goldarn insane in the way the best 90s beat ’em ups were.
- X-Men: Children of the Atom (1994)
- Marvel Super Heroes (1995)
- X-Men vs. Street Fighter (1996)
- Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter (1997)
- Marvel vs. Capcom: Clash of Super Heroes (1998)
- Marvel vs. Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes (2000)
Honestly, the naming convention here is wild to me, and I don’t think I actually realized how many of these games there were until now. But the fact that all of them are being carried forward, without any omissions as far as I can tell, is a truly wonderful thing.
This collection will come with the expected extras. Soundtracks, high quality concept art, a training mode complete with hitboxes, one button specials, quick saves for arcade mode, and, of course, rollback netcode. It sounds like all fans of these games could ask for and, knowing how these licenses go, I think I just might need to snag a copy for myself. Not because I can play fighters (I cannot) but because if Marvel delisted these games once, they can do it again. Mind you, delisting digital goods is stupid, as, server costs aside, it’s free money. But Marvel does not think with dollars and cents. They think with millions.
Anywho, Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics will debut on PS4, Switch, and PC sometime in 2024!
I would give so much for a Mistwalker collection. Not everything they did— I really only care about Blue Dragon, Lost Odyssey, and The Last Story, but those games deserve at least a good PC port. What about Fantasian though? Well… Fantasian was a game assigned a great level of importance when it was announced as an exclusive to Apple Arcade. A game subscription service that will probably die off in two or three years. It came out in 2021, was purported to be the acclaimed Hironobu Sakaguchi’s last project, and got a positive critical reception. However… while the game is beautiful and clearly had a lot of heart put into it, I worried when I saw the gameplay in action.
Much like Terra Battle (A delisted 2015 mobile game that Mistawalker promised to bring to consoles, but never did), the game is heavily centered around arrangement and locked enemies into certain positions. This detail alone made me suspect of the combat in the game, and while I have only heard snippets, I have heard about issues that rear up in the second half of the game. Mostly regarding balancing, grinding, and requiring perfect play. So while I want to believe it is good, part of me also fears that, if someone were to sit down and play it, they would find it to be more middling. Which would suck for a studio with such acclaim and such a strong track record.
Also, most reviews just covered the first half of the game. Not the second half that launched four months later. Meaning there does not seem to be a good in-depth video review of the game. And I worry that might be because the game’s just unremarkable. Even deeply flawed games, like Various Daylife, get lengthy introspective reviews!
Anyway, I remember wishing that Fantasian would come to consoles and… I got my wish. Fantasian Neo Dimension is a port of the original, published by Square Enix, coming out this winter for PS4, PS5, Xbox Series X|S, Switch, and PC.
As for what is new in this release, what the new dimension is… I think it is just the addition of voice acting, Japanese and English, which was absent from the original release, and an easier difficulty option.
It is so bloody weird to me that Retro re-released Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze for the Switch, but didn’t go back and do Donkey Kong Country Returns, just so the entire series. It would not be that hard, and people would be fine with a basic HD remaster. …Well, it took about seven damn years, but they are finally doing it.
Donkey Kong Country Returns HD is, quite simply, an HD remaster of Donkey Kong Country Returns (2010), with the bonus levels from Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D (2013). And as a remaster, it’s a touch more than just the game rendered in 1080p. They went in and redid some texture work, gave Donkey Kong and Diddy some proper fur textures, and changed up the lighting in a slight yet notable way. I would criticize this, but in doing so they made the game look, generally, brighter and more colorful. I can tell that something changed with the shading for certain objects from a glance. Certain objects that once looked like wood look more like stone. But that’s kind of a stretch.
It looks exactly like what I want from a basic remaster. Nothing too fancy, just the same game, and without the one thing people just hated about the original. The motion controls. …And the 3DS screen. Donkey Kong Country Returns HD will be released for Switch on January 16, 2025.
…Also, the following day it was revealed that this remaster is being done by Forever Entertainment SA. A Polish studio who I have mixed feelings on due to their prior approaches to remakes. The circ*mstances around their remakes are a bit odd, as they published the remakes of Panzer Dragoon, The House of the Dead, and Front Mission 2, but developed Front Mission 1st Remake. However, all of these remakes have problems of some manner, and frequently change the visual identity of these games.
As such, I have reason to grumble at their name, but I generally view them as an innocent party when it comes to these things. They work as a contractor, are beholden to the whims of the rightsholder, and everything needs to be approved by them. So when House of the Dead Remake looks nothing like the original, I consider that to be Sega’s fault rather than Forever’s fault.
And if _Donkey Kong Country Returns HD_ is any indication, they can do perfectly respectable remasters if given the orders.
…Also, this is almost certainly not the only Nintendo project Forever have in the pipeline, as Forever actually received “significant financial support” back in late 2021. …I’m putting my money on Kid Icarus Uprising.
…It’s weird how the Danganronpa series kind of stopped after V3 in 2017, but the people who made it continued to make things that carry the same Danganronpa DNA, and continued to work together. Titles like World’s End Club and Master Detective Archives: Rain Code wear their roots on their sleeves, and while you might think the developers would want to do something different… that’s not how it works. Too Kyo Games, home of the Danganronpa diaspora, is a company that does a lot of concept work, meaning their lifeblood comes from making agreements with other companies. And if companies want to work with them, they probably want to make something similar to what they are known for.
This, combined with how after working on a series for about a decade, it’s hard to break away into something new, and it can explain why many of Too Kyo’s projects have the same Danganronpa musk. Though, nothing smells quite like Monomi’s diaper like this game. The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy.
The title is a visual novel, adventure game, strategy RPG following a group of sixteen students who, following a cataclysmic disaster, take refuge in the Last Defense Academy. A mysterious building run by a creepy-cute headmaster who tasks the children to defend the academy from creepy-cute invaders for 100 days. During which, depending on the protagonist’s decision and strategizing, students will die, and despair will run rampant. But aside from those times, the player will get to peruse the secrets of this academy, forge bonds with their classmates, and maybe find things to give them the upper hand in battle.
…Yeah, no, this is just a few bits and pieces away from being a Danganronpa spin-off set in a different Hope’s Peak Academy. And I think that’s just really funny. The creators are doing what they know, what they want to do, and following the format they made oh-so popular, while still doing something new. Though, I have to ask who is developing the actual game beyond the scenario and direction. Well, it is being helmed by none other than… Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth and Valkyria Chronicles 4 developer Media.Vision! Hell yeah! Good choice! Those guys haven’t shipped a new game in six years! They need the money! (Also, Jet Studio is doing the CGs, they previously did stuff for Danganronpa 2, Elden Ring, and Hi-Fi Rush.)
The worst thing I can say about the game is that, despite being a pretty simple RPG with a repurposed map and relatively few character models, it looks a bit… plain. I don’t want to say that hyper niche budget projects like Hyperdevotion Noire: Goddess Black Heart (2014) by Sting had more pizzazz, but… the six seconds of strategy gameplay did not impress.
Anyway, The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy looks super promising, and it’s coming to Switch and PC in early 2025. …Which is weird, as this is an Aniplex published game, and Aniplex is a Sony studio. So, why have it skip out on PlayStation?
Possibly because the creators have gone into debt to fund this game, and are risking their livelihoods on it. …Meaning I’ll pre-purchase it as soon as it becomes available! I don’t want Too Kyo Games to die before they can even fly!
It has been 7 years since Nintendo showed everybody a logo of the number 4. …But then Bandai Namco failed to make acceptable progress on the project, and it was scrapped sometime in 2018, so Retro Studios was tasked with making another Metroid Prime. But development on games takes a hella long time, there was a pandemic, and Retro had to figure out a good plan for the game. …When you put it like that, it makes sense why it has taken so long for Metroid Prime 4 to be revealed and after all this time… it’s pretty much what I expected.
A bombastic war torn intro with all manner of setpieces. Visual fidelity so high I could swear this was a PS4 game. Lush open greenergy with waterfalls and flying space critters. 60 frames per second And the return of… one of the dudes from Metroid Prime Hunters. The Metroid game without any Metroids.
Yeah, I’m not really blown away by how the game looks— its fidelity is similar to 2023’s Metroid Prime Remastered, which was really pretty, and its presence was… expected. That’s not to say there’s nothing to get excited about, a long awaited game is here and is clearly far along in its development. But I guess the underlying feeling I had after seeing this trailer was… relief. Metroid Prime is back, and this installment is going to be released sometime in 2025.
…And this news really just makes me feel the need to ask where are the remasters or ports of Metroid Prime 2: Echoes and Metroid Prime 3: Corruption? Nintendo knows that people want them, I know they are damn capable of putting these out, and there will be people intimidated by the fact this is Metroid Prime 4. I have been anticipating them for over a year now and, quite frankly, I’m bummed out that they didn’t just shadow drop them after revealing Metroid Prime 4: Beyond. Oh well. This is Nintendo. They work in mysterious ways that no human alive can understand.
Overall, this was a damn good Direct, filled with all manner of surprise announcements, and a surprising number of re-whatevers to fill in the gaps. I’m not even mentioning everything.
Phantom Brave, a niche Disgaea offshoot for PS2 that NIS has been porting a bunch, is getting a sequel in Phantom Brave: The Lost Hero.
The Kamaitachi no Yoru series (which I keep wanting to call Banshee’s Last Cry, even though that’s NOT what the title translates to), is getting a re-release on Switch. Which is dope, and I hope Spike Chunsoft actually localizes it.
Same with Natsu-Mon! (Boku no Natsuyasumi 5), which they just released DLC for, and announced a PC version.
Also Mio: Memories or Orbit is a moody exploration-driven 2D action RPG platformer where you play as a child-sized critter with slider hair, complete with a vibrant and distinct art style. It looks spiffy, but is easy to forget next to all these bangers!
But now, it is finally over. The last vestiges of Segmented Summer Showcases have been cleansed, and after writing this almost 8,000 word section, I can go to sleep… and become bread.
sh*t, sh*t, sh*t! I don’t know how I missed this! I remember hearing about Tribe Nine four bloody years ago back when it was a vague concept trailer about the illest neon extreme baseball Shibuya action I’ve ever seen in my life. Then it got announced as an anime, and I put it out of my mind. Still, I remembered hearing something about this also being a video game… and I missed its announcement. The game was properly unveiled with a gameplay trailer on June 6, 2024. What was I— oh right! I was cleaning my house after moving back into my room that day, and researching war criminals! I was offline for half a day, and it was the day before Summer Game Fest. No wonder I missed this.
Anyway, Tribe Nine is an “extreme action RPG” set in the dark and stylish streets of Neo Tokyo, following a bunch of teens battling it out with flashy real time combat against robots, freaks goons, and rivals. All of which is broken up by some truly adorable overworld sections, where a group of sprite-based characters wander around through the detailed 3D streets. It looks kind of budget conscious, but it looks cute, and I like it. And while the combat was now shown in detail… it looks good, frantic, yet simple enough for a dummy like me to figure it out and style on some suckers.
It looks great, it looks intense, it looks like if you took Danganronpa and NEO: The World Ends With You and made ’em bump uglies! It is precisely the type of thing I want to see, and could be an all-time favorite of mine if things go as planned. And it is coming out for PC, iOS, and Android… Wait. Is this… oh no. No, no, no, no, don’t— “Free to play on PC and mobile.”
MOTHERf*ckER!!!
YOU HOODWINKED ME, BEAR-MAN! And for this, you shall suffer a most powerful despair. A vicious torment many times worse than mere death. For you got me excited about a live service!
Damn you Akatsuki Games Inc., damn you Too Kyo Games, and most of all, damn you Gamindustri!!! Online gaming was a mistake!
…Tribe Nine will be released for PC and mobile at an unknown date.
The Resident Evil series is in the best spot it ever has been. Over a dozen games are available on modern systems, the games are receiving rave reviews and healthy sales, and the fanbase surrounding the titles are generally quite pleased with the current trajectory of the series. However, there is one major omission in the current line-up of the series. The games that made Resident Evil a force to be reckoned with in the world of gaming. The original PS1 trilogy.
Now sure, all three of those games have been remade and the remakes were all considered good at the very least (Resident Evil 3 really needed another area or two). However, they do not play at all like the originals, lack the same atmosphere and campiness, and just are not the same games. Fans have wanted straight ports of the originals, with some quality of life features and display options, for quite some time. They could previously access these games via PS1 classics, but Sony is just waiting to shut down that service.
This has led to a modding group to create the Resident Evil Classics REbirth series of mods that allowed people to comfortably play the vintage PC ports of these games on modern systems. And they offered the same luxury to Dino Crisis 1 and 2 for good measure. I actually checked them out a few months ago and… yeah, these are about as good as I could imagine them being. The games look sharp, have a lot of handy options, and run smoothly on modern systems. Which speaks volumes of the modding group, and the original PC ports, most of which were developed by Japanese software developer and publisher Sourcenext.
Okay, so why am I bringing this up here and now? Oh, because a PEGI ratings board leak for Resident Evil (1996) was found by Gematsu. And you know what that means? A re-release is imminent!
Now, I could be jumping the gun in thinking Capcom will take the opportunity to release the PS1 Resident Evil trilogy on PC and possibly on console, as I think it would make all the sense in the world for them to do that. …Then again, I also think it would make an excess of sense for Konami to do a GOG release of their PC ports of Silent Hill 2 and 3 after they released the Silent Hill 4: The Room on the storefront. Because if they just asked the people behind the PC port enhancement packs, they would almost certainly be willing to help Konami with an official release. But they just don’t!
Also, as a reminder, a lot of companies do consult modders and romhackers when it comes to handling ports to new platforms. They are some of the most knowledgeable people in the world on how these games work, and modders love these games enough that they are willing to work for cheap.
GOLDARN IT! Here I got this Rundown all nice and ready, about to put a bow on it, but after editing everything, Limited Run Games dropped their own showcase and announced loads of stuff. You Bob’s Discount Furniture tier of bamboozlers! Fine, fine, let me… let me just go through everything, even though everything I have to say centers around one basic thing. Limited Run’s approach to PS1 emulation.
Limited Run has created their own multisystem emulator, dubbed the Carbon Engine. That is a great idea for a studio that wants to facilitate a lot of re-releases… but their emulation just is not very good for PS1 titles based on what they have shown. 2D emulation is pretty simple, yet when you get into 3D, things get harder and, ideally, you need to give people way more options. Anti-aliasing, resolution upscaling, widescreen conversion, texture filtering, framerate boosting, assuming the game logic does not operate on frames, there’s a lot of options in something like DuckStation for a reason.
Rather than doing any of this… they are just going with the Konami approach of giving people one option, to present the game at its original resolution, maybe with borders. No enhancements, no improvements, just a raw port. And that… that f*cking sucks.
Let me try to use metaphors to describe how insane this is to me… Let’s say you have a TV show that was only ever released on VHS, and then a publisher picked it up for a Blu-Ray release, and managed to find the high quality master copies of the tapes used in the show’s production. Except when they actually released the show… it turns out they deliberately lowered the resolution on the Blu-Ray so it still looks like a VHS rip. You’d think this publisher had gone insane, and people would critically bomb this release for its potato-ass quality.
To take old games and not present them at a higher quality is, to me, akin to choosing to release music as 128 kbps MP3s instead of using lossless format. Some people might not care about the difference, music is music, and their hearing ain’t great. However, you don’t even need to be an audiophile to notice the difference. You can say you prefer the crunched and distorted sound of 128 kbps… but that does not mean that should be the sole official release.
“Oh, but this is meant to be authentic” is an argument I see wafted around, and it pisses me right the f*ck off. Do these people insist on listening to music on cassette tapes and watching all shows and movies made before 2005 on a CRT TV? Because if not, then shut the f*ck up about wanting things to be authentic.
Quite simply… games look better when upscaled at higher resolutions. Anti-aliasing has been a tool to enhance 3D games for decades, and nearly every classic 3D game is enhanced by it. Hence the old adage that PC games only look better. While textures, sprites, and the like should only be upscaled, never filtered, never blurred, for the same reason why you would not apply a vaseline filter to a photograph. Because it makes the image look worse in the vast majority of instances. Sure, you get blocky textures, but you know what I call those? The retro aesthetic.
It is easy to basically remaster games if you have a robust emulator and the tools to export/create a multi-system executable. Limited Run could crank out high quality boutique products by just running PS1 games through their own internal version of DuckStation— which is open source— if they were so inclined. But no. Whether due to their own unwillingness, the privative nature of their tools, or, most likely, not wanting to displease emulation adverse companies, I cannot say. But I can say that I HATE when a re-release fails to be what it should be. This happens sooo often that I truly think the only way for this to work is a storefront that exists to sell official ROMs, while letting the community develop their own damn tools. Emulators, decompilations, recompilations, whatever! Sell people ROMs, do not sell them a woefully basic emulator.
First up is Fighting Force Collection which… thank god Matt McMuscles did a video on this series, because it is so damn forgotten. Fighting Force (1997) was that other series Core Design was working on while working themselves to the bone to put out annual Tomb Raider titles from 1996 to 2000. The first game was effectively a fully 3D overhead adaptation of the beat ’em up genre, complete with three playable characters and an urban city setting. It was given some hype, but was not highly well received in its heyday, but it was a commercial success, netting over a million copies. Which was roughly $25 million in gross revenue back then, and that’s in 1997 money. It was also intended to originally be a Streets of Rage title, but it skipped the Saturn after publishers started writing it off in 1997. It did come out on the N64 though!
The series was deemed a success, so Core Design proceeded to make a sequel for PS1 and Dreamcast and… it was nothing at all like the original PS1 title, and it did not fare well critically or commercially. Fighting Force 2 (1999) was more of a spy-based shooter with melee combat clearly aping off of contemporary film trends and the bang out success of Metal Gear Solid (1998). It did not sell well, nor did it review well, and was generally written off as a bad sequel to a promising title.
Despite this, Core was developing a proper brawler successor to the first title, tentatively dubbed Fighting Force 3, for the PS2 and Xbox. It was a casualty while Core Design was imploding as they tried to adapt to the PS2, and released Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness. A game that basically killed the studio.
Fighting Force Collection, a compilation of the first two games, and hopefully footage of the third game as a bonus, is something that I think is absolutely warranted. And as part of a deal Limited Run has brokered with Square Enix, they are doing just that. Looking at the trailer, it has the same damn problem as their other PS1 repackagings, and… that’s part of the problem.
Fighting Force 2 was released on Dreamcast and, while similar, the Dreamcast version looks better. It cleans up nicer, has more vibrant lighting, and seems like the superior version of the game. Which is why they are just re-releasing the PS1 version instead. Yeah… that really does not inspire confidence in Limited Run’s ability to repackage games. I know that I just said Fighting Force 2 is not a well-liked game, but if you are going to do preservation work, do it right!
…Wait, what? Aren’t they doing a Fear Effect remake? Well… they were.
Nearly two years ago, I talked about Fear Effect Reinvented. A project that Forever Entertainment announced in 2017 and even demoed at a 2018 French gaming convention. However, the project’s status was dubious— just read the write-up that I spent hours investigating— and it was re-revealed at Gamescom 2022 as a wholly new remake. It was still called Fear Effect Reinvented, but developed by MegaPixel Games instead of the, likely defunct, Sushee Games, and was now a third-person shooter.
In the past two years, Forever Entertainment delisted the original trailer and according to a Polish gaming site, and a translation provided by Twitter user Saturn Memories, Fear Effect Reinvented has been canceled. This article went live in September 2023, and went underreported due to the obscurity of the source, so I simply did not see it until I looked up information on this remake.
On one hand, I thought the remake footage did not look good, and think that the direction MegaPixel was taking with it was simply the wrong one. The remake by Sushee was faithful to the original, and looked good based on the off-screen gameplay. As such… I find it hard to get too upset that the rebooted remake was shut down. I thought it looked too transformative, changed too much, and I don’t think fans of the original cared for it either.
So, instead of doing anything else, Square Enix (who wrongfully still own the rights to the series) is having Limited Run just re-release the first title. Not the original Fear Effect (2000) and its sequel Fear Effect 2: Retro Helix (2001), just the first game! Just like with Fighting Force… it’s the original game, with no enhancements, no alterations, no nothing. And in a world where Duckstation is a thing, that’s just unacceptable. I mean, this was a game with cel-shaded characters, and you cannot tell me they were meant to be presented at a crusty 224p resolution.
The same damn emulation problems I discussed above carry over into the rest of the games they showed. Gex Trilogy is a prime time to expand on noteworthy, yet flawed, games by smoothing them out and making improvements and combining disparate differences in various versions. It is a colorful 3D platformer, those clean up really well, but they chose the path of mediocrity and are not even using the PC versions. Yes, I know Gex 3 never got a PC port, but if you are going to make the de facto version of a game with a cult following, do it as well as a bunch of fans would. Otherwise, don’t even bother!
Tomba! generally looks good, as it is a sprite-based game, so it scales up nicely. But it looks way worse than what can be achieved on DuckStation. Again, emulation is your competition. The official release is always more convenient, but the quality should not be that bad. Hell, Limited Run probably could just take DuckStation code and get away with it. But their recently announced, separate, Tomba! 2 release will probably look like raw PS1 footage. I can’t say, because these chuckleheads just took the FMV opening sequence and treated it like a trailer.
Oh, and the fact that they are doing the same thing to the Bubsy games, with Bubsy in: The Purrfect Collection is… okay… okay, let me try to calm down a little bit.
Bubsy is actually an interesting, compelling, mascot character whose games are an excellent example of their era. If that wasn’t the case, nobody would care about this marsupial or whatever the frick he’s supposed to be. He warranted a fully 3D game revival for cripe’s sake! However, when it comes to the original games, the four that made him a legendary icon… they are just doing basic barebones ports. …Akin to when Bubsy Two-Fur came out on Steam in 2015, and was just a pair of ROMs and Snes9x. …At least they seem to be including everything, including the GameBoy version of Bubsy 2 and the Jaguar game. But the fact they are just doing an emulated port of Bubsy 3D is… what? Is that game just too complicated to decompile and do a port of?
None of this makes any sense, all of it is frustrating and, quite frankly, this whole display makes me all the more bitter about even the concept of rights holders releasing their classic libraries. Because if this is what people need to deal with… just don’t even bother.
As the final story of this oversized rundown, Ubisoft finally announced the previously leaked 20th Anniversary Edition of the cult classic commercial flop, Beyond Good & Evil. I’ll just jump straight to analyzing the visuals, and I would say it is a remaster tha overhauls the lighting and textures… but looks better, cleaner, and generally more attractive than the original. Comparing footage from the original and remaster, it looks good. At the very least, it’s far better than the 2012 HD remaster that broke a lot of visual effects.
Or in other words, it is taking a cue from the Metroid Prime Remaster. Same animations, same game, but more visual flair and detail. And that… that is what I want. Enhanced versions of the original game that do not change much, and it comes bundled with some extras and re-orchestrated music. It really is that simple. Make things better, and don’t screw them up!
Now, I could be wrong, but I guess we’ll need to wait and see when this game launches on “all platforms” on June 25th.
Also, this remaster will contain a bonus mission meant to bridge Beyond Good & Evil with its vaporwave, purely theoretical, sequel that will absolutely never come out. And if I’m wrong, I will pony up cash and donate $100 to… some to-be-specified charity.
The header image here is actually a combination of three things that I rapidly threw together. One of them is the modern ‘progress’ pride flag that people started using in 2021. Personally, I don’t really like how the colors are arranged for the triangle/arrow portion. I think the pattern, from right to left, should be white, pink, blue, brown, black. Rainbows have a clear color flow that looks correct, while that new addition simply does not have much of a color flow.
The second layer is a combination of the transgender, asexual, and aromantic flags, but I futzed around the colors and patterns a bit. I honestly don’t like the color balancing of the trans flag, I think it is a bit too light, and I’m also not crazy about the Jennifer Pellinen alternate pink, purple, and blue design. So I basically made my own, using the general flag design, keeping a white center stripe, keeping the pink and blue as the 2nd and 4th layer respectively, and adding new more saturated pink and blue to the top and bottom. The asexual flag I made five colors instead of four, just adding a darker purple, and then I flipped the colors to match the aromantic flag, as I think the colors should be on TOP.
The third layer is just the second layer, but with a polar inversion effect on it. Because I know how the effect works, like how it looks, and the header looked too boring with just straight lines of color! In total, I think it took me only 15 minutes to make this. It’d be faster if I knew what I was doing before I got started.
Also, this past week Thailand announced that they were legalizing same-sex marriage. I’d say I was surprised but… when I think of Thailand, I think of it being the global gender confirmation surgery capital of the world. And I don’t even know if that is true, but it sounds like it could be. They don’t call it Bangkok for nothing and whatnot.
2024-06-16: So… it turns out that in taking notes for the Reagan chapter, I mostly wrote down dialogue snippets that I wanted to use for the main story. The total draft dialogue is about 3,000 words. Meaning that the outline for chapter 11 is about ⅓ of a draft. I wanted to wrap it up… but then I just found myself getting super tired 90 minutes before my usual bedtime, so I didn’t force myself.
2024-06-17: Wrote the preamble for this, a bit of an intro for the Nintendo DIrect, and read/wrote up the TSF Showcase. Total word count is over 4,500, so it was a good day. Also, went through the Student Transfer files for the flowchart, as the dev team was wrapping things up. I still am not entirely sure about the KyokoMistake day 50 info, but I’ll download the finalized file later…
2024-06-18: I wrote about 8,000 words for this latest Nintendo Direct rundown. It took me all f*cking day, so then I plated PokéRogue and went to sleep.
2024-06-19: Wrote about 600 words for this Rundown, made the header image, but I was generally fatigued today, so I didn’t get up to much. I don’t even know why, as I went to bed early last night and didn’t do anything that intensive today. Also, worked more on the PS1988 outline, adding 1,000 words before realizing that I needed to write a birthing scene
2024-06-20: Added the final 2,100 words of this Rundown, and edited everything. f*ckin hell! Also, wrote 3,500 words for the outline of PS1988. I still need to do the pregnancy research thing (I don’t know nothin’ bout birthin’ no babies.) But I got to the FINAL CHAPTER! Must finish the outline before this goes live…
2024-06-21:MOTHERf*ckER! I spent the afternoon working on Natalie.TF stuff, redoing some stuff for the menu, adding a TSF Showcase category, getting placeholder TSF Showcases ret-2-go, and after grabbing dinner, with the plan of getting started on the final chapter outline for PS 1988, guess what happens? Student Transfer V8 stealth drops, so I need to drop everything to whip up my best guess flowchart, because the official flowchart didn’t go live, because the dev team is ORGANIZED! God, this is like having someone shove a decadent all-American 600 Calorie muffin into your face at the end of a Friday shift, and they tell you to eat it before you go out for dinner. It is a present that I cannot help but view a chore because… bitch, I had PLANS! Now I have problems. Went through the Charlotte and Mystery routes, started on The Bet route. (I am only angry about the stealth drop. But if a good thing happens at the wrong time, it’s hard to view it as a good thing. And it was right before the damn weekend! What a bunch of a-holes. I’d expect this from Trigger, but he’s a Masshole, it’s in his blood.)
2024-06-22:Finished The Bet route, it was… conflicting. Started on the Michelle route, which I didn’t even super like in the first place, so I was just bored during the first day, not helped by regular interruptions for chores and work.
Current Word Count:0
Estimated Word Count: 88,000
Words Edited:0
Total Chapters: 14
Chapters Outlined:12.7
Chapters Drafted:0
Chapters Edited:0
Header Images Made:0
Days Until Deadline:135
