This Week in Games

If 'JRPG' is a Dirty Word, It's America's Fault

Welcome back, everyone! We've had a heavy week behind the scenes; a number of time-sensitive projects have kept us from Xenoblade Chronicles 3. I wish I could say I was busy because I was breaking in my PS5 with Dragon's Crown Pro or Odin's Sphere Leifthrasir, but I've been too busy for even that. I just want a nap, man. Fittingly, that ties into a later story, but we should tell this story in order...

This is...

Naoki Yoshida—Yoshi-P to his fans—recently interviewed with Skill Up related to the upcoming Final Fantasy XVI. While many have noticed that Final Fantasy XVI is shaping up to be more of an action game than a typical JRPG, Yoshi-P noted that this was by design, as he feels the Action genre has "advanced" and become the norm. When pressed by Skill Up over whether he believed JRPGs have also developed, Yoshi-P got decidedly... opinionated. While there's a good chance that much of his response was lost in translation, Yoshi-P's response was emphatically distasteful of the term "JRPG." To Yoshi-P, they're just "RPGs." Part of his reasoning is simple: as Yoshi-P puts it, "[...] There was a time when this term first appeared 15 years ago, and for us as developers, the first time we heard it, it was like a discriminatory term."

This is a sentiment I've heard echoed by other Japanese developers; in my interview with Tom Fuji, a developer for the fantastic RPG Time: The Legend of Wright, Fuji stated, "I have the impression that as a game developer and player, what country a game is from has been less important nowadays." This is definitely a factor; we've seen tons of American RPGs that are inspired by classic Japanese RPGs like Breath of Fire or Shin Megami Tensei. In contrast, many Japanese RPGs bear their inspiration from American games on their sleeves. I mean, Etrian Odyssey is just a modern-day Wizardry. And this isn't a new phenomenon, either: Dragon Quest was basically Ultima mixed with Wizardry's first-person perspective for battle mode. Its menu-based interface condensed the keyboard interface these old PC games utilized. And the rabbit hole goes deeper, too—remember, Final Fantasy was not only a glorified Dungeons and Dragons module down to utilizing D&D's spell slot system, then-Squaresoft went so far as to recruit noted Apple II programmer Nasir Gebelli and even relocated to Sacramento so that he could keep working with them during the production of Final Fantasy III.

As a big fan of JRPGs, I get where Yoshi-P is coming from. When the Xbox 360 and PS3 came into vogue, Japanese developers fell onto some hard times: many didn't have the same investment or sponsorship opportunities, so many of them struggled with attaining the same bloated budgets of many American games (see: Call of Duty getting Jeep sponsorships). Also, while many American developers are perfectly fine with licensing engines for game development, Japanese studios are far less inclined to do so: many prefer to utilize their in-house engines. For a similar phenomenon, look at how many Japanese fighting game studios staunchly refuse to utilize GGPO for rollback netcode! The result was that many Japanese games "fell behind" compared to American games. While Japanese games turned more towards the mobile market and experimented with weirder genre blends, American games settled into big prestige titles. The lack of perceived "Japanese" prestige titles made many pundits feel that Japanese games were "obsolete." Adding to this were comments from many American game developers that poo-pooed Japanese games and their "lack of innovation." Phil Fish famously stated that Japanese games "just suck." In an interview with Electronic Gaming Monthly, Bioware-founders and producers of beloved color filter simulator Mass Effect 3 Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk opined that Japanese RPGs "weren't real RPGs," citing their lack of "choices."

We need to call this what it was: xenophobia. Western media and tastemakers are infamous for their discomfort or lack of care when covering Japanese media. We had years and years of Japanese games being derided for being childish screeds about "the Power of Friendship" or nonsensical widget games. If a Japanese game did it, it was Bad Design™—this included cutscenes, boss battles, turn-based battle systems, random encounters, or anything else that is otherwise a valid gameplay decision that isn't used in AAA first-person shooters. The same sentiment that treated Avatar: The Last Airbender for being the first show with complicated moral writing when, y'know, the rest of Japanese animation being right over there also treated Japanese rogue-likes like Pokémon Mystery Dungeon or Izuna: Legend of the Unemployed Ninja as incompetently designed failures or party games like Mario Party as repetitive time-wasters. Meanwhile, in today's day and age, the rogue-like format lives strong in every game that takes inspiration from Dark Souls (which people forget is Japanese), and the party game format gets plenty of love from Jackbox.

We had years and years of developers insisting that Japanese games needed to be "more like Western games" to be "good." And it led to some dark times. If you hated how linear Final Fantasy XIII was, it's because Square Enix tried to channel Call of Duty's linear cinematic design. Why did Lost Planet die off? Because the third game leaned into being a Sad Dad Simulator like many American prestige games. The list goes on.

Yoshi-P says that Japanese developers felt they were made fun of and that "JRPG" "wasn't a compliment to Japanese developers." And I really don't fucking blame him. Even now, American pundits are downright stupid when it comes to Japanese games. Remember last year's "Game of the Year of the Year 2022" Elden Ring was criticized for being "too Japanese." A game with lore written by George R.R. Martin and design sensibilities inspired by Western fantasy games... was "too Japanese." It's 2023, and any game with a colorful aesthetic is considered "anime." Yeah, I don't blame Yoshi-P and his peers for being very touchy about the term: people break out into hives at the sight of anything with more than one primary color. Xenoblade Chronicles 2, a very involved story about the material causes behind war and a woman's tortured search for absolution, is mostly remembered for having a cast of women with very big breasts and not for Jin's heartbreaking growth. Meanwhile, I lost track of all the games about widowed single fathers who are sad about killing.

Many people have lamented the Final Fantasy games moving away from RPG systems and leaning more into action. But after almost 20 years of people making turn-based battles a punchline, I don't blame them.

I still give Yoshi-P the side-eye for claiming that having ethnic minorities in Final Fantasy XVI would cause a "violation of narrative boundaries" (my brother in Christ, people with melanin aren't some non-Euclidean concept from outside space). But as much as I love JRPGs—yeah, man, he's got every right to hate the word. After being made a joke for two decades, I'd be touchy too.

Sometimes we see utterly surprising announcements. Sequels to games we never thought would happen, spiritual successors we never thought possible. But this one, I think, takes the cake: we're getting an action game based on UFO Robo Grendizer.

Let's be frank: if you live in the US, the only way you'd know about UFO Robo Grendizer is if you spent a lot of time on /m/ or if you've played the Super Robot Wars games. There's a whole legacy of super robot anime that went on to become the inspiration for Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann that people in America don't really know about because these shows never really attained mainstream success in the US. And there were lots of super robots localized for American audiences in the '80s—Mazinger Z quietly aired as Tranzor Z, Getter Robot G was localized as Starvengers, and Marvel Comics ran a tie-in book to promote the Shogun Warrior toys, which was a way for Japanese giant robot toys to get localized and released in the US under unique branding. If you grew up in Spain or Latin America, you probably recognize the Grendizer as the robot from La Guerra De Los Ovnis. So what is UFO Robo Grendizer? It's a super robot anime made by Go Nagai after the tremendous success of Mazinger Z. Koji Kabuto even shows up to support Duke Freed, our hero and the alien prince who defends the Earth from the forces of the Empire of Vega.

So far, we only have a very early trailer to go off of, but Microid's website promises varied gameplay for UFO Robot Grendizer: The Feast of the Wolves: among its segments will be aerial segments involving the Spazer, vertical shoot-'em-ups with Koji's TFO, and action sequences where you control Grendizer and its many special attacks against the creatively-designed Monstronefs.

At the very worst, this could be a very entertaining budget title, a quick-and-dirty $30 game where you hop in, mash buttons, and hear some bassy 70s music while robots explode everywhere. And you can only go up from there, really—I hope this could be a wildly fun budget title infused with tons of passion.

Not every day, classic super robot shows get their due, which is weird. Outside of Transformers: Devastation, few shows go into the proper super robot luminaries and let you wreck shop. Oh, sure, Zone of the Enders and Armored Core are there if you want to pilot some imaginative robots in a real-robot setting, and Super Robot Wars is there if you wanna bash action figures together in the tub. But today, it's just startingly rare to see, like, a Getter Robo character action game. And I wish it wasn't. I mean, what with the stunning and mind-bending designs Go Nagai would give his giant monsters and all of your standard super robot's attacks (which would be listed in encyclopedic detail by the show's opening, as sung by Ichiro Mizuki, God rest his soul), you'd think we'd have at least gotten a Mazinger Z beat-'em-up by now. I'm excited about this title and look forward to telling you about it once I play it!

I want to round this one out with a story: my mother had a coworker whose son really liked anime. But this kid—bless him, he was less than 10 when I met him—was all about those 70s super robots. His mother had bought him a murderer's row of giant robot anime on bootleg DVDs from a nearby flea market, and he loved it. Grendizer, Mazinger... the kid knew his stuff, and he was thrilled to learn about GaoGaiGar whenever he'd visit. The kid's probably graduated from college by now, but I'd like to think he'd be excited to hear about it. Anyone interested in discovering the romance of classic super robots can look forward to UFO Robot Grendizer: The Feast of the Wolves later this year. It'll be released on PS4, PS5, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, Xbox S|X, Steam, and G.O.G.

Gundam Evolution was pretty fun when I had to cover it last year. While I couldn't keep up with it, I enjoyed my time with it. The only thing I could have asked for from it is more Gundam fanservice: music from the shows, voice clips from characters from the show, stuff like that. For a game about Gundam, it's almost too restrained in its references. Well, we're not getting that yet, but we did get a nifty announcement for what the new Gundam Evolution content will entail. And while most Gundam Evolution news has been raw translations of Japanese announcements, this one was more elaborate. They had to go big: the news is about Gundam Wing, and there's only one way to introduce people to Gundam Wing...

Ah, good ol' Steve Blum—he only man whose deep rumble could hope to match the gravitas of Peter Cullen's old rumble. That's no garden-variety copy he's reading—that's the script to the old Toonami Gundam Wing trailer! What a way to get fans excited for new Gundam Wing content in Gundam Evolution! Sadly, the trailer doesn't do much else: it's mainly for a stream that should be later today as you read this, where more details should be explained. But hopefully: this means a new mobile suit is joining the roster in Gundam Evolution.

Now, I had a whole "thing" breaking down potential candidates from Gundam Wing that could have been used in Gundam Evolution, but between the trailer going up and the publication of this article... Gundam Evolution's Twitter page just revealed which Gundam they were going with. And in a twist, my pre-emptive navel-gazing called it! I figured the Wing Gundam wouldn't make it in, as it's ranged-based, like the RX-78-2 (i.e., the original Gundam) or the White Doll. And it can transform into a bird-like form for fast traversal... like the Methuss. Between that and Gundam Evolution, otherwise making sure to avoid inundating the roster with too many Gundams, I doubted it'll be the Wing. That left four other Gundams: Sandrock would have been an interesting unit if they could give it a quick melee build, kind of like a close-range Tracer; Hellscythe would be a better take on the idea, though, if it were given some proper armor and let the signature scythe have a bit of reach. The Shenlong Gundam would have made for an interesting mid-range unit, between its flamethrower and its extending dragon claw on its arm. But the one Gundam most fans were excited for was the one we got: the Heavyarms Custom from Gundam Wing: Endless Waltz. Between its arm-mounted dual chainguns or the many, many hidden guns all over its body, it'll make for a seriously fun bit of arsenal to go to town with. Best of all: the chainguns make the "BRRRRRRRR" sound from the anime. You really are gonna wanna check out that clip, because that's basically the entirety of what the Heavyarms Custom will do in Gundam Evolution: according to the trailer on Twitter, the Heavyarms Custom can: do that fancy aerial twirl to jump behind enemy lines, shoot its chainguns, or hunker down and shoot more chainguns. There's a cool bit where it's holding the line back-to-back with the Guntank; they're unloading all the ammo, the chainguns are going "BRRRRRRRR", everything is exploding forever... man, I'm just really happy they chose Heavyarms Custom. The vanilla Heavyarms has a neater color scheme, but they'll sell skins for that no doubt.

I'm excited about this because if I do go back into Gundam Evolution, I have an excuse to use more non-UC Gundam quotes. Whenever I'm in a match, I am That Bitch™ typing famous Gundam quotes in chat. You know the ones. "Even my father never hit me!", "This is no Zaku, boy, no Zaku!", "I came here to laugh at you," that stuff. Now that we're getting a unit from Wing? I have an excuse to bust out that show's most famous line...

Elden Ring, last year's Game of the Year of 2022, is still a phenomenal game. Somehow, it managed to take the Dark Souls formula and make it work in an open-world setting. And all it took were lots and lots of poison swamps and giant shrimp! While many people are still combing through every inch of the massive map of The Lands Between in search of the tiniest crumb of lore, many are still waiting for new DLC. Arise, ye Tarnished! The DLC is here!

Looking closely, you can hear VaatiVidya combing through every pixel of that image for possible lore dumps. I look forward to listening to all forty minutes of his findings in his velvety voice. Anyway, we all know that the DLC is titled Shadow of the Erdtree. In typical FromSoft fashion, there's no further info: no release date has been put forward yet or details on what the DLC is about. Considering how much of the story of Elden Ring is about the harm the Erdtree has inflicted upon the Lands Between, maybe the DLC is about the bloodied history of the Erdtree's growth? Who knows? I'm not nearly educated enough on Elden Ring lore to speculate. Regardless, fans are in a tizzy over the news and are on pins and needles for further word from, er, FromSoft.

So, this one's on me, but I had no idea that February 27th had been designated as "Pokémon Day." I didn't even know February 27th was the anniversary of the original release of Pokémon Green. I'm extremely not one for these "nerd" holidays. Like, "Piccolo Day" is cute, Spongebob made everyone take note of Leif Erikson Day (which is an actual holiday), the "Thursday the 20th" gag from The Simpsons is funny, Tai reacting to August 1st in Digimon is a fun bit, and April 40th is funny. But when you make a holiday for a multimedia franchise, it just feels dystopic. Like, seriously—Star Wars is already inescapable. Why do we need to dedicate a whole day to the franchise and spend the whole year griping about how much they hate two-thirds of it? Are we supposed to be thankful for the billions of dollars of merch people have bought? "Pokémon Day," at the very least, is set on the actual anniversary of the game's original release. It makes sense for Nintendo to make a "thing" of it and make Pokémon announcements for it. But this year's Pokémon Day was a bit of a bust for folks, even ignoring the folks who also spend their time griping about how much they hate two-thirds of it all anyway.

Going into things, people had mixed expectations. Sure, it was entirely too soon for a new Pokémon generation—after all, Pokémon Scarlet/Violet had only just released this past November. Even Game Freak, with their wild yearly releases, wouldn't put out another Pokémon game so soon. So there was clearly room for spin-offs to get announced—and Pokémon spin-offs command a very loyal fanbase. Unfortunately, that fanbase was let down: we didn't get any word of a new Pokémon Mystery Dungeon or Pokémon Conquest. There wasn't any word on any new games getting ported or remade, and most disappointingly for many fans—there was no word on any of the older Pokémon games getting released on the Switch. Fans were delighted when the first two Pokémon generations were released on the 3DS's virtual console—not only because these gave fans the option of transferring old Pokémon from older generations with their unique Hidden Abilities, but purely because this made these games accessible to a whole new generation of fans. But with the 3DS's eShop getting shut down, that will no longer be an option for folks. The Switch is finally getting GameBoy and GameBoy Advance titles made available on the Nintendo Switch Online service. There were no announcements related to that, which is a seriously missed opportunity.

What we did get starts off with the announcement of Pokémon Concierge, a cute new Netflix stop-motion series about Haru, the concierge of a resort for Pokémon. The Pokémon shorts are all wildly characterful and tend to have fantastic animation, and Pokémon Concierge looks to emphasize the cute non-training relationships humans have with Pokémon. It's gonna be a cute one. I have high hopes for it.

We received word about the Pokémon World Tournament: they'll be held in Japan this year. August 11th to 13th, trainers from all over the globe will compete in the Pokémon trading card game, Pokémon Unite, and Pokémon Scarlet/Violet. This marks the first time the Pokémon World Tournament will be held in Japan, which... I'd have expected it to have happened sooner. Speaking of the Pokémon Trading Card Game, we received an announcement that there will be a trio of structure decks for the Trading Card Game based on the original three Kanto starters. The decks are based on the original set of Pokémon trading cards—as in, from the first wave of cards released. Folks nostalgic for the old days of the Pokémon Trading Card Game, or those who want to play a simpler version of the game, have much to look forward to.

It's here that we get to the contemptible part of the stream. While there was a lot of news about the games, most was for the mobile games. And it seems weak to hold a whole stream for just the new gacha. Pokémon Unite will now feature Zacian from Pokémon Sword Version as a playable character. I'm not sure how many people still play Pokémon Unite or how many were clamoring for Zacian to join the roster, but there you have it. Pokémon Café Remix had Quaxley, Sprigatito, and Fuecoco join their roster with a special Pokémon Day gift of a unique costume for Greninja. I like Pokémon Café Remix, make no mistake, but just the Paldean starters being added feels paltry. I'm surprised they were added now and not sooner.

After four years, we finally got word on Pokémon Sleep! It's about what we expected it would be: a sleep-based app designed to encourage better sleeping habits from players. The app will detect and designate your sleeping habits as one of several "sleeping styles." By sleeping in specific styles, you can unlock and capture certain Pokémon. I'm not sure what will qualify as "Silly Sleep," "Sunbathing Sleep," or "One-Eyed Sleep," but the vital part of the whole thing is the "encouraging better sleep" aspect. Goodness knows we all have messed-up sleep schedules, Pokémon Go could do a lot of good for folks.

Pokémon Sleep will also tie in with the Pokémon Plus+ accessory. Despite the goofy name, the accessory will link up with both Pokémon Go and Pokémon Sleep, tracking your sleep at night while capturing Pokémon during the day. It sounds like a useful accessory; if folks went nuts for the Pokéwalker, I could see the Plus+ being a hot ticket item.

So, was there news about Scarlet/Violet? Thankfully, yes: for starters, Pokémon Go can now link up with the Paldean games. Doing so allows you to capture Gimmighoul in either game. Hopefully, they allow for other fun crossovers. There was also the announcement that the Paldean games will gain functionality with Pokémon Home later this year.

Two new Paradox Pokémon are coming down the pipe: Walking Wake and Iron Leaves. Walking Wake is an awesome-looking dinosaur version of the legendary Suicune, who evolved to walk on its hind legs and balance its massive horns with two tails. It's a creative take on the normally-elegant Suicune. Iron Leaves isn't as interesting; it looks like a chromed version of Virizion. I love the Three Musketeer Pokémon from Unova. Virizion is cool, what with his Aramis-inspired look. The robot makeover makes him look like an awesome toy, but the design is otherwise not that different from his normal look. Regardless, either Pokémon can be attained from Tera Raid battles between February 27th and March 12th.

The real fun comes from announcing new DLC stories for the Paldean games, "The Hidden Treasure of Area Zero." These will come in a two-part arc, starting with "The Teal Mask," due this autumn. The trailer for The Teal Mask illustrates the Kitakami region and a fanciful "Tanbata"-like festival with stalls and masks being sold and a specific trio of Pokémon being emphasized—the ape-like Munkidori, the dog-like Okidogi, and the pheasant-like Pheazandipiti. Combined with the area's main focus being the ogre-like Ogerpon, many have noticed that The Teal Mask appears to be based on the legend of Momotaro. And considering the Super Sentai show for this past year was the Momotaro-themed Avataro Sentai Donbrothers, people think this might be intentional. Hey, Pokémon has always worn its tokusatsu-based inspirations on its sleeve; it's possible! The second part, "The Indigo Disk," comes in the winter of 2023. Little is known besides its continuation to The Teal Mask. Set in the Blueberry Academy, it features the Legendary Terapagos, a crystalline turtle.

And that was the Pokémon Direct. For many, the prospect of new Trainers to fall in love with and the elaborate Momotaro-inspiration seemed like a lot of fun, but there wasn't much else to look forward to. And I'm inclined to agree. It would have been nice to get a proper new game coming down the pipes—not even a new generation, but a proper spin-off. But hey, 2023 is just starting, there could be any number of new things coming out later this year.

Another column for the books! I always wanna do a victory lap after finishing these columns. I don't have it in me to ask you guys to thank God for me or anything silly like that, I'm just happy when folks come into my comments with constructive points or helpful bits. I dunno if anyone was as excited for the Grendizer game as I am, and I know that that Pokémon Presents was a little underwhelming, but hopefully this week gave folks stuff to look forward to. And if not: the next big thing is just around the corner! As an aside: remember that the 3DS eShop is going dark later this month. Make sure to pick up any DLC or virtual console titles you want. Time's running out for those. As always: be good to each other, I'll see you in seven.