This Week in Games

Is There More 2D Zelda on the Horizon?

Welcome back, folks! We had a busy week—for one thing, that big important project that I couldn't refuse is finally out. It was reviewing Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake! The review is out now. Getting to cover Dragon Quest III was a blast, and I'm excited for folks to play it. A good friend from college (who's an even bigger Dragon Quest fan than I am) was thrilled about the review as well. I also took part in this week's Anime News Network After Show along with my peers. It's a rough time and about to get rougher—we, as a community, would do well to support each other. Also, funny thing: I opted against recording myself because my bedroom is in a bit of a state, so I informed my editor to just use a picture of me from this column's banner. I figured they'd just use, like, a zoomed-in picture of my face or something—they included Izuna in the image as well. So it's official, folks: Izuna is part of my brand, per editorial.

I wanted to give a few shout-outs from my time at Kumoricon this past weekend. It was great going to a convention and hosting panels again. Sadly, I bungled my camera (I forgot about the limited space within my camcorder), so a lot of the panels were lost. But the reception was very positive—my panel on how the Digimon virtual pets influenced the anime was warmly received by an audience of fans (and I even got to battle my v-pet with an audience member). My panel on writing about games was similarly well-received. One person appreciated how I explained the idea of finding your own creative voice. I also encouraged some good discussion in my audience about games they loved. One person mentioned Avalon Code (brownie points for them!), and we had a neat bit where two other attendees had completely opposite opinions on the Knights of the Old Republic games.

I found a lot of neat stuff, too, like a little sketch of Izuna from Alex Ahad.

I also had a very nice encounter with an artist named Jingyu. I had noticed they had a single charm of Eleven from Path to Nowhere, and when I asked them about it by name, they started having a moment. Turns out, I'm one of the only people who recognized or even liked Eleven, and Jingyu was very happy to meet a fellow fan. I don't know if you folks have heard of Path to Nowhere. It's a Chinese gacha game where you collect "Sinners" (people with superpowers based on their inner trauma) to fight monsters. Eleven is a fascinating character who also moonlights as a radio host. I've been obsessed with her since a Japanese artist I liked started drawing her a ton. Jingyu was very excited and very sweet at seeing I recognized Eleven, and we had a fun chat about Path to Nowhere and its many characters. (Jingyu also did a great job at selling me on the character Eve and her tragic story.) I encourage folks to give Jingyu a warm greeting on their BlueSky and Twitter, they've also got some killer Chainsaw Man goodies. Meeting them was an experience that stood out to me and illustrates what I love so much about conventions. I'm not the best at making friends, but it's always lovely to bump into people who vibe with you on things. It fosters a good sense of community (and gives folks a chance to buy some sweet charms of their faves). It's not just great when you see folks doing your favorites justice—it's great when other people recognize the blorbo you've put on a pedestal.

I've seen in some places—namely, the Discord community of my favorite VTuber—that some folks have never gone to a convention before. Understandable, some younger folks might not have had a chance, what with the pandemic. But others still haven't quite worked up the nerve to go to one. I encourage my readers to seek out conventions for their fandoms and take part in them. It doesn't have to be a bigger one like Sakura-Con or Anime Expo (Kumoricon is relatively local and small, as far as I know). You don't have to make a panel or cosplay. You can just go and meet folks with similar interests and vibe with artists who love the same blorbos as you do. It's a great experience, and it really helps remind us that we're not quite as alone out there.

Anyway, game news!

A lot of games get announced, yeah? There can be so many that it's hard to keep up with all of them. One of my readers is doing a lot of work reminding people that Wizardry Variants Daphne is a great game that people need to check out if they like old-school dungeon crawlers. And hey, I just mentioned Path to Nowhere; I know of vanishingly few fans of that. Over the past week, another one of these titles was revealed: Eternal Palace Sakura.

Eternal Palace Sakura is a rogue-lite 3D action game that comes from Denneko Yuugi, a studio I'd never heard of before. They have made a handful of games; mostly Machina of the Planet Tree -Planet Ruler- and Machina of the Planet Tree -Unity Unions-. Eternal Palace Sakura takes place in the same universe, starring one of the characters from Planet Ruler: Retla, a dark-skinned ninja catgirl.

Little about the game's story is established. Thus far, Denneko Yuugi has mostly discussed how Eternal Palace Sakura will play. Players will control Retla as she fights her way through a randomly generated palace. The controls are apparently supposed to be simple, allowing even novice players to create flashy combos. The major draw is the "Attributes," power-ups that grant Retla a variety of abilities to make her trek through the palace easier. We know little else about the game outside of the planned release window of 2025. We also don't know how heavily the game will tie into the previous Machina of the Planet Tree games. What we do know is that Denneko Yuugi is leaning into Retla as their premium girl for the title.

They've printed badges featuring her for their demo presentations at indie game expos in Japan, and they even have a Skeb page where fans can commission (worksafe!) animations of Retla doing the Masami Ōbari sword pose or otherwise hugging the camera (though at the time of writing, they're no longer accepting commissions). Seeing a small studio bank on a character like this as their mascot is charming. It reminds me of the older era of mascots like Popful Mail or SNK's Athena or Izuna. Or, in fact, the Izuna games.

Success, Denneko Yuugi: I am officially sitting down with my plate and utensils. I'll wait patiently while you guys cook up something fun. And I'm also patiently waiting to see if you guys make any merch because a pair of acrylic standees featuring Izuna and Retla would be really nice on my bookshelf... In the meantime, folks are encouraged to put Eternal Palace Sakura on their Steam wishlists.

It's been a wild time for The Legend of Zelda. Not only did Nintendo give us the madcap little engineering simulator in the form of Tears of the Kingdom (a game with a physics engine that has absolutely no business running on the Switch), but they also surprised the world with Echoes of Wisdom: a 2D top-down Zelda that used the art style of the Link to the Past remake while mixing in some of that Tears of the Kingdom-style puzzle-solving. And folks loved it! Sure, the inventory system is a mess, but folks had a blast finding ways to use beds to overcome all obstacles in Hyrule. Eiji Aonuma, the current producer of the Legend of Zelda games, has noticed that, too. Aonuma voiced his surprise in an interview with the BBC, claiming that he had thought it would've been "close to impossible" to add new dynamics to the old-school 2D Zelda games. With the success of Echoes of Wisdom, Aonuma realized that "there's still a lot of possibility for these top-down Zelda games," adding that "we're also hoping that we can continue with these 2D top-down Zeldas."

It's easy to forget, since the entire Zelda series turned on its head once Ocarina of Time came out, but the Zelda series' roots lie in those top-down 2D games. It wasn't until the advent of Nintendo's handhelds like the GameBoy and GameBoy Color, plus the added power of the Nintendo 64 and GameCube, that the Zelda series divided itself between its 3D console iterations (like Majora's Mask and Wind Waker) and its 2D iterations (like Link's Awakening, the Oracle duology and The Minish Cap). It wouldn't be until the Switch was released that Zelda seemingly ditched the 2D games entirely, only experimenting with the format with the Link's Awakening remake.

Now, I've always been of the mind that the handheld Zelda games are thoroughly underappreciated. Their stories are brilliant, courtesy of not being hamstrung by needing to shoehorn Ganon into the ending like the 3D games were (remember when Nintendo promised Ganon wasn't going to be the villain in Twilight Princess?). This allowed the games to explore different story ideas, like introducing the sorcerer Vaati or experimenting with the Link to the Past formula with Link Between Worlds. This also speaks to a major aspect of game design that we've lost: the philosophies of handheld game design. This isn't a niche that mobile gaming satisfies very well, since mobile gaming is designed for extremely quick bursts of play (something to kill time during transit). Some mobile games like Genshin Impact might strive for console-game quality, but that just makes them beleaguered. You've got a shallow game that's just too heavy on the grinding to be satisfying to play during quick bursts—or a console game that's too grindy and simple to be fun on a console.

A good handheld game still had to be playable in short 15-minute bursts, sure, but there was still plenty of room to do all kinds of things with that formula. Lest we forget, a lot of important RPG franchises like SaGa or the Mana games got their start on the GameBoy. The Pokémon series captured the imagination of millions of players worldwide, and all it needed was to be a fun turn-based RPG. Sure, Oracle of Seasons never had any cinematic moments as impressive as the giant Guerudo statue in the Spirit Temple in Ocarina of Time, but using the Rod of Seasons to reach new areas was interesting enough. It was a hassle to find other people to play Four Swords with. But once you did, you had an engaging multiplayer experience with equal parts cooperation and sabotaging shenanigans. Even if they didn't innovate with gameplay, it was still possible to tell a memorable story. I don't think anyone who played The Minish Cap will ever be able to look at Link's green hat the same way again.

With the Switch being a hybrid console, there's no room for that kind of game design anymore. It's a strange loss, but definitely one that's felt by people who've played those old handheld experiences. So it's nice to think that Aonuma and Company are finding ways to breathe new life into it. There will always be a demand for big, cinematic 3D experiences. But sometimes, you only need two dimensions to tell a good story.

Just last week, we discussed some notes from Nintendo's Corporate Management Policy Briefing wherein they discussed a number of their upcoming business decisions. Among those were the use of their Super Nintendo World theme parks to help familiarize people with their IP. It seems that Nintendo is wasting no time in making good on that plan, because just this week they streamed a Direct going further into an expansion they're adding to Nintendo World at Universal Studios Japan...

It's Donkey Kong Land! I imagine a lot of people might be disappointed that the first major update to Super Nintendo World is Donkey Kong-themed and not The Legend of Zelda, but it's important to remember: D.K. is Shigeru Miyamoto's baby. Moreso than Mario, even. The runaway success of the original Donkey Kong back in 1981 was what gave Nintendo their foot in the door in the video game industry (especially after the failure of Radar Scope). It even had a cartoon back in the '80s, long before the Super Mario Super Show, and long ago enough where Mario is the antagonist in the show (also, he's voiced by Peter Cullen). Nintendo managing to protect Donkey Kong in their famous lawsuit against Universal Studios was what cemented Nintendo as a major force in the entertainment world. Mario might be the face of Nintendo, but Donkey Kong will always be its spirit: maybe a desperate hail-mary to get out of a bad jam, but a decision made with character and a flair for storytelling.

Granted, Donkey Kong Land is basing itself more off of D.K.'s 2x4 aesthetic from the Donkey Kong Country games than the old industrial imagery of the arcade classic, though there are some cute references to that age-old arcade classic (also, Pikmin, for some reason). Notable exhibits shown in the Direct include a congo group activity where good play makes Rambi the Rhino animatronic burst from a crate, a new minecart-themed roller coaster, and Donkey Kong's house where visitors will be able to take pictures with a fairly stunning-looking Donkey Kong mascot. I can only imagine engineers labored long and hard to get that fur texture just right.

Speaking of engineering, the Direct also shows an amazing animatronic of Cranky Kong in his rocking chair, guiding visitors to the roller coaster and explaining the "story" behind it (recovering the Golden Banana from the Tiki Tak Tribe). The animatronic might be a bit jarring to American fans, if only because Cranky is coming off as so gosh-darned nice. This might be a regional difference, and I haven't played any Japanese Donkey Kong games, but I think he's just a lot nicer in Japan than the cantankerous old Kong we know in the U.S. It might also be because they don't want the original Donkey Kong to be such a grump, in hindsight—remember, the Donkey Kong from Donkey Kong Country is a grown-up Donkey Kong Jr., while Cranky Kong was the original Donkey Kong. Folks are definitely excited to see him dubbed in English, but I have to remind folks that Aron Tager (who voiced Cranky in the old Donkey Kong Country cartoon) passed away a good while ago.

Folks might also wonder why Donkey Kong's enemies, the crocodilian Kremlings, aren't really featured in Donkey Kong Land, and... that's a good question! I'm also stricken by the Kremlings being missing, especially King K. Rool, given how important they were as antagonists in the Donkey Kong Country games. I'm not sure how much of that would have to do with Rare now belonging to Microsoft, because the Animal Buddies (like Rambi and Squawks the Parrot) also debuted in those games but are present in the park. I know that this is a sore spot for a lot of Donkey Kong fans, given the newer enemies (the Tiki Tak Tribe and the Snowmads) haven't quite lived up to the kind of petty evil that was K. Rool using his Blast-O-Matic to just glass Kong Island. Heck, K. Rool even appears in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (with his Blast-O-Matic, even). Call it a business decision from Nintendo, I guess.

Donkey Kong Land opens at Universal Studios Japan's Super Nintendo World this December 11th. Universal Epic Studios in Orlando, Florida will open their own Super Nintendo World next year, with their own Mario Land and Donkey Kong Land.

Update on the ToHeart remake due out this spring! In a surprising twist, the game will be a visual novel with full 3D graphics! It'll be released on the Switch and PC.

An update from Studio Wild Rose shows that they're still looking for a publisher for Penny Blood, their spiritual successor to Shadow Hearts. In the meantime, they're interested in creating a new story set in the Penny Blood world, and not necessarily a game...

Visual novel Shinjuku Shoumei is planned for release on the Switch in the United States this November 21st! Telling a dark story about an undertaker tasked with tending to the forgotten dead in Shinjuku Kowloon, Shinjuku Shoumei can also be played on Steam.

I think that'll do it for this week. December approaches, and with it Winter Comiket. I have to wonder if mangaka ever wish Comiket were better spread out... At any rate, it's as great a time as ever to reach out to your local creators and send them some goodwill. We'll still have a good chunk of releases in the month-and-a-half before the year is out; don't be afraid to share those games (and your excitement for them) with other folks! Be good to each other, I'll see you in seven.

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This Week In Games! is written from idyllic Portland by Jean-Karlo Lemus. When not collaborating with Anime News Network, Jean-Karlo can be found playing JRPGs, eating popcorn, watching v-tubers, and tokusatsu. You can keep up with him at @ventcard.bsky.social.

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