This Week in Games

Save it for a Rainy Day

December has officially begun, and that means it's CRIMMASTIME! It's time to get in the mood for joy, holiday cheer, gifts, and hoarding currency in your gacha game of choice to pull those elusive, exclusive Christmas units.

It's also the time of year when gaming news starts to slow down a fair bit, giving everyone time to make their year-in-review lists and articles. There's still one big burst of 2021 game news left on the horizon – The Game Awards next week, which will drop a lot of announcements and trailers – but other than that, things are likely to be fairly quiet until next year rolls around.

But there's still some news happening worth discussing, including a new game announcement out of Japan that I'm pretty excited for.

SPIKE CHUNSOFT AND TOO KYO GAMES BRING HOPE OF A NEW ADVENTURE FRANCHISE

Danganronpa was a pretty big thing in fandom for quite a while, wasn't it? And when it ended, it ENDED in the most “No, seriously, we are DONE with this, and we're going to prove it” way possible. And once the series fully wrapped up, much of the staff moved on from publisher Spike Chunsoft, including series creative mastermind Kazutaka Kodaka. And aside from some enhanced re-releases – such as Danganronpa Decadence, recently reviewed here by our own Lauren Orsini – Danganronpa has stayed a done deal.

But that doesn't mean Spike Chunsoft can't get the band back together again to create something entirely new… and that's exactly what they're doing. Kodaka's new studio, Too Kyo Games, is collaborating with Spike Chunsoft on a brand-new “Dark fantasy mystery” adventure game called Enigma Archives: Rain Code.

Here's the debut trailer!

Besides Kodaka, two other key members of the Danganronpa team are also prominently promoted: character designer Rui Komatsuzaki and composer Masafumi Takada. There are likely other staff, too, but those are the names most diehard DR fans will recognize immediately.

So, what can we glean from the trailer? Well, unlike Danganronpa’s stylized fusion of “cut-out” visual-novel-style illustrations and 3D environments, Rain Code is fully 3D, but still delivers a lot of neon-colored, psycho-pop imagery that feels instantly familiar. There's the main character, a horned demon lady who might also be a ghost sidekick, some funky-looking dungeons, and a nice splattering of the pink blood DR players know quite well by now. So yes, it's got style and atmosphere that recall the previous series, but it also feels like something completely new, and that sounds wonderful to me.

The presence of an English-language trailer makes localization a forgone conclusion, though whether or not it'll be a global same-day release is unknown. But actually, a lot about Enigma Archives: Rain Code is up in the air, as platforms and release date also haven't been revealed yet. I think it's safe to assume that PS4 is a likely target, with a possible Switch port. Given the pedigree, this is one I think a lot of folks will want to keep their eyes on, and I'm sure I'll wind up talking about it more in the future.

MORE OF MISS KOBAYASHI'S DRAGON MAID HAS BEEN SHOWN, AND IT'S, UH…

Pre-orders have opened up on Japanese and import game websites for the Switch/PS4 shoot-em-up Burst Forth! Choro-Gon Dragon Breath, based on the beloved Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid anime. To go along with the preorders, publisher Broccoli has dropped the first real gameplay trailer for the game. If you were expecting a visual tour-de-force out of this one, you miiiiiiight want to temper your expectations a bit. Just saying…

So… yeah. It's pretty basic-looking! I mean, that's not necessarily bad for the sort of game this is – in these traditional arcade shooters, having less busy backgrounds and easy-to-see targets and attacks is very important. But it's hard to look at Kobayashi here and not get a feeling that the game was made on a bit of a shoestring budget. But let's be real here: most anime- and manga-licensed games don't exactly have a lot of money to work with unless they have a huge global license attached, and Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid is definitely not a powerhouse on the level of Demon Slayer or One Piece.

Gameplay-wise, Tohru, Kanna, and Elma are the announced/shown playable characters so far. Each character has long- and short-range attacks, along with the titular “choro-gon breath” special attack. There's also a special high-power mode characters can enter if certain requirements are met, which also involves their clothing getting partially ripped. Hey, it wouldn't be Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid without fanservice, would it? Stages will also have special illustration collectibles to obtain for that all-too-important casual replay value that these sort of games typically struggle with.

At only 4680 yen MSRP for the regular edition, the game is relatively budget-priced, with most new Japanese game releases going for about double that. It still might not seem worth it to some, though, and I wonder if the Western release (likely digital-only) will debut at a similar $40 price point or try to go even cheaper. We'll see!

FIGHTING GAME NEWS ROUNDUP

Luke's in Street Fighter V now, but Guilty Gear Strive also has a new face in the form of DLC fighter Happy Chaos. I totally forgot to write about Happy Chaos when he was first unveiled, which was a relatively low-key thing compared to the Goldlewis and Jack-O unveilings. I feel bad about that, especially because Happy Chaos ticks pretty much every box in the “male character design elements I like” checklist. Lazy fashion? Check. Exposed chest? Check. Horns? Check. Comes off as kind of a weirdo slacker dumbass that's secretly the smartest guy in the room? Check.

Anyhow, here's his “how to play” trailer courtesy of Arc System Works. I really wish more fighting game developers would publish trailers like this that break down each character's unique elements and gameplan rather than just showing the flashy special move animations.

Speaking of trailers showing flashy special move animations, ever since Nexon dropped that new DNF Duel trailer last week, they've been following it up with a rapid flurry of brief character-specific showcases. I'm not going to link three new trailers in a row here, so here's the latest, showcasing Grappler.

One thing that's bothering me about DNF Duel is that the characters only have generic class names. Yes, I know it's based on a multiplayer online game where you create your own characters, but, like… come on, just calling the characters generic stuff like “Grappler” and “Inquisitor” isn't interesting.  Give them some identity and personality! This isn't a Fate Holy Grail War where knowing a True Name's going to be a problem. Unless, of course, Nexon is planning for some degree of individual character personalization and customization, which isn't totally out of the question (and would be pretty darn rad).

Anyhow, the first major in-person fighting game tournament in a long time, CEO 2021, is happening this weekend, so it's likely we'll have a couple more fighting game-related announcements there. (Sadly, I also fully expect that there will be some cases of Omicron resulting from the event as well, so if you're going, keep those masks on.)

And that does it for this week! Next week I'll be bringing you all the announcements from the Game Awards, so look forward to reading that… assuming you all aren't going to be marathoning FFXIV's Endwalker expansion as soon as it drops next Tuesday. (I'm fully expecting my Twitter timeline to be 80% FFXIV screens for at least a week.) Hope you all are keeping safe and warm! As usual, if you have any comments on this week's article, post them in the forums linked below – I'm always reading! Anyway, I've got Stone Ocean to marathon this weekend, so off I go. See you next week for the TWIG VGA trailer extravaganza!