This Week in Games

Wouldn't That Be Level-5 Five Times Over?

Welcome back, folks! It seems like my easygoing weekends are ending; I've got a game I'm working on at the moment. Look forward to that review sometime next week! For now, I hope you've checked out my colleague Kennedy's column on the .hack//IMOQ games. It gave me some nostalgic flashbacks to my experience playing .hack//MUTATION back in middle school. Man, I hope we get those games remastered...

I've talked up GameStop in the past, but the current consensus seems to be that GameStop sucks. After cornering the market for brick-and-mortar game stores in the U.S. (especially after buying out Babbage's and EB Games), GameStop spent the next couple of decades just... spinning its wheels. Between the aggressive sales pitches from the employees at GameStop (forced to repeat them on pain of losing their jobs), the aggressive sales of Funko Pops in a weird attempt at branching out, and the generally poor service people have come to expect from the storefront (especially when they tried forcing employees to keep stores open when the COVID-19 quarantines started rolling out), there doesn't seem to be much keeping them open. And the new policy they're rolling out soon doesn't seem very helpful in fixing that!

So, one thing (of many) that the poor GameStop employees are forced to hawk at customers is their warranty program; you pay extra on top of the $70 you're paying for your flavor-of-the-month AAA (or would-be "AAAA") open-world game with a crafting system and a skill-tree in exchange for a protection program that'll cover your copy of whatever game you bought and replace it with a new one. The upside is that the warranty is supposed to last a whole year (never mind that a receipt would let you return a game just in time to get your maximum trade-in bonus for a game). This is also supposed to cover your consoles and accessories. Well... I guess it just won't anymore!

In a few slides that were leaked to the Internet, GameStop is now issuing a new change to the product replacement service where any replacement on a covered game, console, or accessory will instead replace the product with a pre-owned or refurbished copy. The store doesn't have a pre-used copy? They contact a nearby store that does. Local stores within the city don't have one? They'll order one to be shipped to the store. Cashiers are being told to get District Managers to authorize purchasing a pre-owned or refurbished product through Product Requests before replacing the product with a brand new copy as a very last resort. Note that this also applies to any warranty that should cover brand-new product, so if your brand-new Switch or Joycon doesn't work, you're getting a refurbished copy as a replacement. Oh—and the warranty only covers the one replacement. If the replacement product doesn't work, well, you'll have to buy another warranty to cover the replacement product in case that one borks out on you in the future.

I'm scratching my head at how this is supposed to be good. Why are people being given refurbished copies as a default? Shouldn't someone buying a brand-new product be given a brand-new product in return if it needs replacing? What happens if you're replacing a controller? Refurbished consoles can be fine and dandy, but controller drift is a serious issue. It's way more likely for any refurbished controller you get to be still highly susceptible to drift. What about games? We all know how bad used copies of some games can get; who's to say the replacement copy is in any better condition than the brand-new one if it's been used? What galls me is how far down the ladder just giving someone a new product in replacement is. I can't imagine any other store getting away with complicating a simple warranty so much. In the replies to the tweet displaying the new policy, we even see some employees pointing out that the new scripts for cashiers are directly contradicting what they were trained to say to customers in the first place.

This kind of boneheaded corporate decision bums me out, considering how much of my gaming experience hinged on GameStop. Once upon a time, GameStop did some pretty incredible things—it's because of them that Xenoblade Chronicles ever got released in the U.S. in the first place after Nintendo refused to localize it in the wake of the Operation Rainfall initiative. Also, they released SoLaToRoBo. Over in Puerto Rico, that meant a lot—you weren't likely to see weird RPGs like Disgaea: Hour of Darkness or the GBA Breath of Fire port at a Walmart. If you loved the biggest AAA releases, then yeah, you were covered. If you were like me, GameStop was the only place where you could find a copy of Growlanser Generations for the PS2, and you likely knew which stores had a copy from browsing them all at one point or another. Many of these obscure series like Persona aren't as obscure anymore, so you can find them anywhere now, but in the PS2 days, that just wasn't something you could take for granted.

Many people would argue that we don't need GameStop anymore, what with online storefronts like Amazon being around or so many studios having their online storefronts selling their games. People also argue that with digital copies being the future, physical storefronts are obsolete. I disagree; never mind how many issues Amazon's service has had (I've heard too many horror stories), physical copies are still necessary. Microsoft and Sony can manufacture consent by producing consoles with no physical drives, but if we're already going to pay full price for a digital copy of a game that doesn't have to worry about manufacturing or distribution costs, we may as well buy physical copies—especially since those can't be taken away from us by the game being delisted from the storefront. Even something like Limited Run Games doesn't make up for the ability to walk into a store, see a copy of Another Code on the shelf, and being able to take it home (especially since LGR loves limited-time releases and also has a few horror stories with not including physical copies in their sets).

We'll probably never get a decent storefront that'll replace GameStop—outside of a decent mom-and-pop shop in your city. But we still need those places, both where folks can find rare copies of stuff and where people can socialize and build a community. But as long as the almighty dollar reigns supreme, it doesn't look like GameStop will work towards that.

One thing I don't get to gush about a ton is Treasure. I'm a tremendous fan of many of their games, but most of Treasure's stuff is very much hand-in-hand with Sega fandom, as so many of their classic games were released on Sega consoles. For further info, please refer to Uncle From Another World and its many deep cuts. Treasure's games are a special breed of madness, a delightful combination of fun controls and hectic gameplay with massive screen-wide explosions freaking everywhere. If you haven't played the likes of Gunstar Heroes, Dynamite Headdy, or Alien Soldier, track the ports down on Steam or the Nintendo Switch because they are all kinds of amazing. Unfortunately, I must limit it to those three because many of Treasure's other games are trapped on older consoles. Sin and Punishment is available on the Nintendo Switch Online+ service (and it's also a trophy in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate), but it was trapped in Japan for a long time until a sequel for the Switch was released in the U.S. I love Advance Guardian Heroes on the Game Boy Advance, but also, don't play Advance Guardian Heroes on the Game Boy Advance unless you can genuinely appreciate inner beauty. And on and on. You might be aware of Treasure's shoot-'em-up games, like Ikaruga and Radiant Silvergun—both amazing shooters you can get right now on the Nintendo eShop! If Nintendo isn't your speed, good news: Ikaruga is up on Steam... and now, Radiant Silvergun is coming to join it!

So, what makes this shooter so great? Lots! The story is oddly grim, with a handful of human survivors escaping an explosion from a strange relic that kills off most of humanity and setting out to solve the mystery of the Stone-Like relic. But the gameplay is what's really fun: using a combination of three buttons, your ship can shoot up to seven different weapons. These weapons get stronger the more enemy ships you shoot down with them, but because certain bosses are only weak to certain weapons, it's important to remember to level each one up appropriately—or else certain bosses might be unbeatable. Hey, this was an arcade game!

What makes this release particularly desirable are its fancy additions. For starters, this version of Radiant Silvergun has a gameplay mode featuring Ikaruga's mechanics (you can swap your ship's color from White to Black to defend against like-colored bullets). There is also a local co-op, as well as downloadable replays. And you don't even have to wait that long for this version to release: Radiant Silvergun releases on Steam this November 3!

This version of Radiant Silvergun was based on the Xbox 360 port, which gives me some hope. Xbox Live also hosted a phenomenal Guardian Heroes remaster, complete with graphical and control options. It's an excellent remake, but not one that's been available to us for a very long time. Anyone who likes Code of Princess owes it to themselves to play its spiritual predecessor. Also, the Golden Silver fight in Guardian Heroes is fantastic. Here's hoping for good news!

A bit of news I'm surprised hasn't been discussed more—Level-5 is celebrating its 25th anniversary! Best known as the studio where a bunch of great Dragon Quests were developed (in cooperation with Square Enix), Level-5 has produced a slew of industry-affecting games for the past 25 years. In honor of this event, the studio has a website up that'll be sharing some downloadable images from its many storied franchises—as well as promote some of its upcoming games (more on them later).

Let's talk about some of these games because I know some of you have to have played at least one of them. And to have played a Level-5 game is to feel strongly about it, whether it's good or bad. One of the first games you might remember from Level-5 is Dark Cloud, an early PS2 dungeon crawler. Originally billed as a "Zelda-killer" (yeah, right), Dark Cloud is the story of the not-quite-Peruvian Toan as he goes on a journey to save the world from the destructive power of the Dark Genie. Along the way, he must rebuild the world devastated in the Dark Genie's wake. Dark Cloud had a fun weapon-building mechanic where you could attach and absorb upgrades into weapons to evolve them into new and cooler forms. Still, the real fun of the game was the Atma system: Toan could collect parts of landmarks from local villages and use them to rebuild people's houses, then rebuild the whole village from the ground up. This also allowed you total control over how you redesigned the village. While there was an "intended" arrangement for the villages that you could sleuth out by listening to the villagers (and doing so would net you neat in-game rewards), you could still redecorate the villages as you saw fit. It's a fun game, if not a bit janky. The sequel, Dark Cloud 2 (Dark Chronicle, in some territories) did a better job of focusing the crowded party into just two characters, giving the cast variable outfits, and having something of a much deeper story. The PS2 was also home to their space-faring RPG, Rogue Galaxy, a high-flying adventure with a colorful cast set in a universe of Leiji Matsumoto-esque space pirates.

Level-5's next "big" game... kinda wasn't. White Knight Chronicles was one of the first "big" RPGs on the PS3, but it didn't have any staying power. The battle system wasn't engaging, and the main gimmick of fusing your party into the titular giant White Knight (a la Tattooed Teenage Alien Fighters From Beverly Hills) wasn't a very meaningful one—it was possible to deal more damage with your regular party members. The sequel wasn't much better, and it rendered the first game obsolete because it has the entirety of the first game packed in.

Level-5's bigger successes wouldn't be on the big home consoles—it would come to be on handhelds. The Nintendo DS saw a ton of their biggest franchises pop up, all of these becoming major hits. Professor Layton charmed the world with its curious puzzles and emotional storytelling, and it even got a crossover with fellow DS hero Phoenix Wright, Attorney At Law. But Professor Layton would eventually get eclipsed by Level-5's subsequent games. Inazuma Eleven, a series of soccer RPGs, became a nationwide hit (in Japan) with a tie-in anime that made its cast of soccer-playing youths beloved boyfriends to an army of fans. Danball Senki, known in the US as LBX: Little Battlers eXperience, was a great replacement for anyone wishing there were more Custom Robo games with tie-in model kits. It, too, had a successful animated adaptation (in Japan).

And, of course, there was Yokai Watch, which managed to be more popular than Pokémon for about fifteen minutes. A lot of fans claimed it was the definite improvement Pokémon needed—I heavily disagree, considering that Yokai Watch has a ton of the issues Pokémon has, but worse: a simpler battle system, far more blatant palette swaps padding out its bestiary (if you hate all the Pikachu "clones", just wait until you see all the Yokai that are just Jinbanyan With A Hat), and an anime that while wildly successful with its target demographic (which skewed even younger than Pokémon), was even more intent on spinning its wheels with a series of even more episodic morality tales. I think all of that, plus the real-world Yokai Watch toy and Yokai Medals losing backward compatibility with older medals, led to Yokai Watch burning brighter but also much, much faster than Pokémon.

I recall Kat Bailey once referring to Level-5 as a Japanese version of Activision, and it's hard not to make the comparison: they really did shove out a ton of Inazuma Elevens and Yokai Watch games while they were popular and just gave up on them once they weren't the biggest thing in Japan.

And that's the problem: all these franchises were big... in Japan. By the time any of them were greenlit for localization in the U.S., they were several games deep in Japan and nearing the end of their lifespan. Also, for some dumb reason, we'd either get a much later game in the series localized in the U.S. (as with Inazuma Eleven and Little Battlers eXperience)... or the first game in the series, which would only feel dated (as with Yokai Watch). Small wonder why none of these games took off in the U.S., even if the Yokai Watch anime aired on Disney XD. They even kept the catchy intro from the Japanese version!

But fear not; their smaller franchises are still plenty great. Kinda. A lot of people go to bat for Ni no Kuni, but honestly, if they didn't have the claim that Studio Ghibli did their art design, they'd be forgotten. There really isn't much else to say about Ni no Kuni. Level-5's work on the Dragon Quest games would be much better received; Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King is still a favorite among fans to this day, and Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Sky did wonders on the DS between its character customization and fun class system. Level-5 would even take cues from their work on Dragon Quest to make the Fantasy Life games, a fun and oddly addicting series of RPGs based around a ton of crafting classes and systems.

As part of their big 25th-anniversary celebration, Level-5 is also teasing fans with a quintet of upcoming titles—many of them from some of their more prominent franchises. These games are all marketed as representing a specific theme; the upcoming Inazuma Eleven: Victory Road represents "challenge," Decapolice represents "justice," Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time represents "frontier," Megaton Musashi WIred represents "hope," and Professor Layton and the New World of Steam represents, uh... "New World."

Best of all, Level-5 seems to be learning from their past mistakes because all of these games are slated for an American release, er... sometime soon? Their release dates skew from either "sometime in 2023" (for Decapolice and Fantasy Life i) to just "to be determined." But at least we're getting them soon. That's good news because, if nothing else, Level-5 has been able to make charming games. They might have some iffy mechanics or might be simple, or might overly rely on the clout of the Studio Ghibli name, but they've all got something to them that draws fans into a fun little complete world. It'll be nice to see more of their stuff released in the US in the coming months, and I hope we get to keep Level-5 with us for another 25 years.

A few weeks back, I reported on the launch of Taimanin RPG Extasy, the U.S. version of the Taimanin mobile gacha game. And I had some trepidation, as per the VIP mode shuttering several features behind a paywall. Now that the game is out and most people have had a chance to play around, it seems my concerns were founded: yeah, the VIP gating sucks, but there's more to spoil the fun of people that want to play around with ninja babes. See, like most other mobile games, Taimanin RPG X gives players free in-game currency (gems) for certain things like leveling up their characters or beating stages. These gems are necessary for some things, not the least of which is rolling the gacha for new characters (which takes 500 gems for a 10-roll—the Japanese version requires 50, for clarity's sake). The problem was it seemed players were earning more gems than the studio had intended. Now, gacha games tend to have very finely balanced economies; most have a degree of generosity and allow players to do a reasonable amount of gacha-rolling for free without needing to invest in actual money. They won't be too generous, mind—they're running a live service, not a charity. But a veneer of generosity is appreciated. Some games are nicer about it, and some... aren't. And it looks like Taimanin RPG Extasy... isn't.

The solution to the inflated gem earning? Put the players into debt. Players will lose out on the difference between the intended amount of gems and the actual amount and continue to pay the difference until the proper amount has been paid off. Only then will they be able to earn gems again—at the (decreased) intended rate.

This is a pretty nasty slap to the face of any player and a great way of making people not want to invest time (or money) into your game. It's one thing for the developers to have made a mistake with the gem rate; it's another to ask fans to literally pay for that mistake, especially after they've been playing the game for who-knows-how-many hours. And there's no telling how much money these players might have invested into the game as an act of goodwill, either. While it would be unfair for players from before the correction to have a ton of extra gems (and potentially SSR-rank characters) that newer players wouldn't, I feel like a better way to resolve this is to correct the gem-earning rate and just give newer players a few extra 10-rolls to compensate. Or something like that, at least; I'm not a game developer, and this stuff is beyond me. But putting your player base into debt... hoo boy. That isn't a good look.

Nobody cares how something starts; a lot of great games have had to redeem themselves after a completely botched introduction. But if this isn't starting things off by just shooting yourself in the foot...

We've been pretty spoiled for Sonic the Hedgehog stuff lately, yeah? Sonic Superstars might not have been a slam dunk, but it's still worth checking out. The latest Sonic Frontier DLC is also pretty great. As it turns out, we have one more Sonic game to look forward to: a totally brand new adventure: Sonic Dream Team!

Fans are equally excited and disappointed by the news surrounding Sonic Dream Team. On the one hand, the music is from Tee Lopes, and it finally brings back some of Sonic's old friends; in addition to the predictable Miles "Tails" Prower, Amy Rose, and Knuckles the Echidna, this game will also bring back Rouge the Bat as a playable character—along with Cream the Rabbit and her friend, Cheese the Chao. It's a 3D platformer, looking a bit like a Sonic Adventure game with an aesthetic more like the conventional modern-day "Sonic" look with cartoony robots and colorful locales. As always, those Sega games need those Sega-blue skies. Also, fans are already going wild for the new character, Ariem, who seems to be some kind of sheep. See, it's because she oversees the dream realm—sheep and sleep, get it? It ties into the plot, where Sonic and friends must keep Dr. Eggman's dreams from leaking into the real world.

The excitement stops there, however, as Sonic Dream Team is sadly exclusive to the Apple Arcade. You can't even play it on an Android—just Apple Arcade, as far as we know. Between Sonic Dream Team's fun design and fun-looking levels, folks hate the idea of this game being an Apple exclusive. What I'd like to hope is that eventually, Sonic Dream Team is ported to other consoles; after all, Shantae and the Seven Sirens was also an Apple Arcade exclusive before being ported to every console under the sun in the following months. Sadly, it's too soon to know; Sonic Dream Team doesn't launch until December 5. We don't even know if recurring animator Tyson Hesse has been involved with the 2D animations seen for the game (he's promised to say more "later"). Let's hope for more good news in the following months.

As an aside, if anyone is wondering why Shadow the Hedgehog isn't in Sonic Dream Team, Shadow himself has a simple explanation:

That'll do it for this week, I think. I haven't dedicated much time to the recent Bungie layoffs; make no mistake, I stand in solidarity with the employees who have been unfairly terminated while over-paid executives upend their lives at their selfish whims. But I decided not to talk about it because it's just too frustrating; there isn't much I can add to the situation that I haven't already said about the many other layoffs that have happened this year; there isn't anything new to bring up from the late Satoru Iwata's graceful move in support of his employees. My heart goes out to the talented developers formerly from Bungie, as well as anyone else working in the game industry. It's horrible that so many talented, passionate people live with a constant target on the back of their heads. More than ever, developers need the support of fans like us; send them your best regards, and speak out against the injustices of the gaming industry. Rich executives don't make games; game developers make games. Be good to each other; I'll see you in seven.