This Week in Games

EVO 2024: Back from the Dead

Welcome back, folks! My longtime readers will know that we don't just obsess over Xenoblade and Izuna over here—I'm also a huge tokusatsu fan. This is why I finally checked out Ultraman Rising over the weekend. It's brilliant! It's a phenomenal animated film that plays around with many beloved visual quirks of the live-action Ultraman shows while also telling a very emotional story about parental love. Put this one on your shortlist. Also, we've got a new Kamen Rider coming, Kamen Rider Gavvy. I dig his costume and his candy-based powers (and I hope the "Juicy~!" kid from the Kamen Rider gummy candies makes a return). It's just a shame about the toys; some roleplay weapons like the potato-chip sword or the chocolate bar gun (long story) look really cheap and don't seem to interact with any of the series' gimmicks. Sad to see.

The past few years have seen a marked uptick in toxic behavior from fandoms on the internet, and video games are no exception. That toxicity can take many forms, and it seems that the industry's powers that be are beginning to push back against it.

In a move that made waves last week, Sega announced that they had taken legal measures against an Internet user who had been "excessively harassing" one of their employees for a prolonged period. They reached a settlement with the user, wherein the user would offer financial compensation towards their victim while also deleting their infringing posts on the Internet and refraining from further misbehavior. Sega also requested that further questions not be made on the matter, given the private nature of the case.

This isn't the first time we've seen this kind of lawsuit pop up; last year, studio Bungie also sued someone for prolonged harassment of Destiny staff. Most studios have some code of conduct about interacting with their communities, with more and more studios supporting these litigiously.

This has been a long time coming. Much of the interactions between fans on the Internet and game developers have become exceedingly antagonistic on behalf of the fans in recent years, with a marked uptick in toxic behaviors following 2014. A combination of social media platforms encouraging negative behaviors for engagement plus an upswing of would-be pundits banking on outrage has led to a lot of people being easily motivated to rain hell on anyone a loud-enough voice has deemed to be the sole reason everything sucks today (for the current fifteen minutes). And a lot of people have gotten a little too comfortable acting a fool towards community managers or studio representatives online. Look no further than the case of Surgent Studios, developers of the stellar Tales of Kenzera: Zau; many on the Internet took to insisting that studio founder Abubakar Salim was some attempt at "forced diversity" in the studio that he created. That people cheered for the layoffs at Surgent Studios in the wake of Zau's failure is also particularly ghoulish, but I digress.

People won't stop misbehaving on the Internet if you ask them nicely, and the powers that be aren't going to grow conscious and realize, "Hey, maybe we should stop talking in a way that incites people to harass industry professionals." In light of that, it's good to see studios falling back on the adage, "Talk shit, get hit." There are tangible consequences to developers getting harassed online, all stemming from the psychological stress of people thinking you're the worst person alive because someone on YouTube said so. If social media platforms are encouraging toxic behavior for engagement, it falls onto dev teams and studios to protect their employees by any means necessary. I applaud Sega's efforts and hope it encourages other studios and teams to do what they must to keep their teams safe from organized harassment online.

Similarly, Nintendo also decided to drop the hammer on malcontents in their community; earlier this week, they announced the 2024 Splatoon World Championship winners. Held back in April of this year, the winner of the tournament was Team Jackpot. Their victory even included a unique banner in Splatoon 3 celebrating their victory. The problem: team Jackpot's members had used slurs against Black people in their streams quite openly. And it seems Nintendo wasn't cool with that.

In light of the discovery that team Jackpot's behavior did not align with Nintendo's community standards, Nintendo has since revoked their championship win and will not be issuing trophies to the team. Their in-game banner will also be replaced. Personally, I would have awarded the championship status to the runners-up, but this works, too.

The Splatoon community is overwhelmingly supportive of this decision; being a game that has players of all walks of life from all over the world (to say nothing of a game that features several Black-passing characters like Off The Hook's Marina or Deep Cut's Frye), Splatoon 3's community wasn't cool with bigots being applauded after their toxic behavior on-stream. Indeed, a lot of Splatoon fans worry that team Jackpot might have soured Nintendo on hosting further large events for Splatoon.

Many point to Swapnote, the 3DS's drawing-fueled networking app that Nintendo had to shut down because people couldn't stop drawing dicks or check before sending their drawn phalli to minors. Hopefully, this isn't the case; Splatoon has a vibrant community of talented players and artists willing to support marginalized groups like the LGBTQ+ community or the displaced victims of Gaza. For a better example, look no further than the fan-run Battle for BIPOC tournament, which raised $2000 for NCAAP Empowerment Programs. It'd be nice if Nintendo banked on those acts within the community and not the actions of accidentally-platformed bigots.

You're never going to be able to stamp out the bad actors in communities completely; a lot of people really like underlining that for some reason. But that's no excuse for allowing these inmates to run the asylum, especially if it means forcing devs to feel the brunt of it. So, I applaud Nintendo and Sega's efforts to curate their communities.

Chibi Robo is a sad case at Nintendo. The original Chibi Robo was a charming little platform game wherein players controlled a tiny robot who would set about cleaning a house and interacting with other tiny denizens in the household. Their actions were framed against a larger story involving hard-hitting themes like divorce. It was a charming game, but Nintendo couldn't seem to recapture its lightning in a bottle ever again: all of the subsequent Chibi Robo sequels failed to deliver on that premise—or were Chibi Robo: Zip Lash, a platformer with some horrid ideas. Like a roulette for choosing which level you'll play. It's a sad case; most franchises suffer from becoming too stuck in their formula, and others suffer from missing the point of what made them beloved in the first place. So Chibi Robo fell into obscurity.

Of course, ambitious developers don't let dreams die so easily—a number of Chibi Robo's former developers have banded together to form Tiny Wonder Studio and have announced their desire to crowdfund a spiritual successor to Chibi Robo in the form of koROBO!

The basic premise for koROBO is as similar as you can get to the original Chibi Robo; you play a knock-off model of a tiny cleaning robot (get it?) given to a child by their absentee father. You then patrol their house, cleaning up tiny messes while minding your limited energy supply. Oh, also, time travel is a thing. The story takes place in 2025, amidst a looming energy crisis (apparently, the world of koROBO hit peak oil), and the young child your little robot cleans up after is a talented inventor of sorts, with many of his gadgets serving as possible tools for the robot.

Tiny Wonder Studio hopes to release koROBO on PC and all major platforms. Among their number are former members of Skip Ltd, which includes otherwise-renowned developers like co-director Kenichi Nishi (moon: Remix RPG Adventure), co-director Keita Eto (L.O.L.: Lack of Love) and musician Hirofumi Taniguchi (Giftpia, Captain Rainbow). So far, the crowdfunding campaign hasn't gone live yet, but we'll keep you posted when it does. Best of luck to Tiny Wonder; here's hoping they don't disappoint good ol' Scott the Woz.

Nintendo's name being synonymous with gaming means there is a lot of weird ephemera they make to court nostalgia from fans. Case in point: that time they made new Game & Watch clocks based on Super Mario Bros and the original The Legend of Zelda. Another curious bit of nostalgia they've made: keychains based on their old controllers! The official Nintendo stores in Tokyo, Kyoto, and Osaka featured gashapon machines that sold keychains based on the controllers for the Famicom and Nintendo Entertainment System; these consisted of the d-pad, the start-and-select buttons, and the A and B buttons (each being a single "square"). A second wave has been introduced, including later controllers for the Super Famicom, the Nintendo 64 controller, and the GameCube controller. Nintendo even went so far as to include recolored versions wherever appropriate to account for the differences between the American versions of the controllers and the Japanese versions (read: colored buttons for the Super Famicom, blue-and-purple for the SNES). They're not just molded plastic, either! You can actually press the buttons or wiggle the control sticks. They make good fidget toys, which makes me hope they'll come to the US in some capacity. But there's another fun quirk about them that makes these controllers sought after by fans...

They're compatible with the old controllers. At least, the GameCube version is. In a tragic perversion of the industry, Nintendo ran out of replacement parts for the proper GameCube controllers ages ago. But for some reason, the GameCube keychains are made with components that are actually compatible with the GameCube controllers. The whole thing—the face buttons, the C stick, the analog stick—can replace the original GameCube controller hardware. So not only are these super-authentic to the touch, you can repair your vintage hardware with them. Of course, this has made these keychains highly sought after by Super Smash Bros Melee fans.

Nintendo has made new replacement controllers for the NES, Super NES, and Nintendo 64 for use on the Nintendo Switch. You can still get them on the Nintendo store (along with the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive controller). There likely won't be any new GameCube controllers until we see GameCube titles on Nintendo's online service, whenever that happens. In the meantime... I guess we'll just cannibalize some keychains?

EVO has ended—we are all free now from a phenomenal weekend of match-ups, comebacks, and all-around the best of the best that the American fighting game community can offer. Suites were salted, buttons were mashed, Chipotle was hawked (this one confuses me, actually), and players like Hayao showed off their dexterity in more ways than one. If you're getting déjà vu, don't fret—last April was EVO Japan, while this weekend was the American EVO tournament. While plenty of familiar faces travel from abroad to participate in the American tourney, they're still different events—both are considered when it comes to announcements for the fighting game industry. And believe me, there is plenty of news from over the weekend. But first...!

Folks who read our EVO Japan coverage from this past April might remember the story of Money Idol-chan, a junior-highschooler who walked away practically undefeated from both Money Idol Exchanger's competitive circuit and its speedrunning category. We have a similar story from this EVO featuring a much more familiar name: LilyPichu! You might have heard of LilyPichu before; she's a streamer/YouTube talent better known for her League of Legends streams. You might have also heard her as the voice of Iono in Pokémon Masters EX (in my opinion, the finest bit of influencer-casting since Jessica Nigri as Super Sonico or MoistCr1TiKaL in Lovely Complex). In what is a surprise to many, LilyPichu has also been bitten by the Tekken 8 bug—and in a strange sequence of events, she even got to fight against Katsuhiro Harada, producer and chief director of the Tekken series. Most surprisingly...

LilyPichu won. The victory stunned everyone (apparently, even Harada himself), but none quite so much as LilyPichu herself. According to LilyPichu, plenty of women approached her at EVO to tell her that she inspired them to take up Tekken. Goes to show, that sometimes all it takes is just one visible figure to encourage a whole swath of people to try something out and join the community. Even if none of the people joining in the wake of LilyPichu bodying Harada become SonicFox-level champions, the community is better off having them. Hopefully, they (and LilyPichu) stick around—more importantly, because Harada wants a rematch! Reportedly, LilyPichu is down—so long as Harada doesn't nerf Lily (who LilyPichu used in her win against Harada). We look forward to seeing LilyPichu at further EVOs! Maybe she can join the Yo!Videogames crew for a few matches, wouldn't that be fun?

Speaking of Tekken! Let's start the EVO news with the newest developments from the Iron Fist tournament! We have a new character announcement—only, it's more like an "old" character...

... 'cuz Heihachi Mishima is back. When we last saw Heihachi, he was getting tossed into an active volcano where he was (at the time) totally-for-realsies dying permanently this time. Heihachi's absence was part of why Reina was such an anticipated character in Tekken 8—she's one of Heihachi's lost kids and likely had a ton of unsettled business with series anti-hero Kazuya Mishima, who in turn was responsible for offing his estranged father, Heihachi. Several times, even. There's a tradition among the Mishimas of tossing each other off the cliffs, you see. Anyway, Heihachi joins M. Bison in the category of "villains who've made returns to their games after what was supposed to be their final demise." Heihachi is certainly going to be fun to use. Who knows, he might end up tossing Kazuya off a cliff this time, and it'll be Kazuya's turn to make a triumphant return next Tekken. Or maybe they'll throw us for a loop and it'll be Reina who gets defenestrated, wouldn't that be a twist?

In other Tekken news, we have a Tekken collab that's been decades in the making! An oft-forgotten bit of Tekken lore (that only recently sprang into consciousness courtesy of Kazuya's ending animation in Tekken 8) is that Kazuya Mishima is a massive sneakerhead. This was referenced as early as Kazuya's bio in the manual for the very first Tekken. So Bandai Namco and Nike have joined forces for the most obvious brand synergy since Sobe in Abe's Exodus!

Nike will release a new color of their highly sought-after Foamposit shoes inspired by the heir to the Mishima Zaibatsu. Designed to celebrate Tekken's 30th anniversary, the Kazuya-themed Foamposits were available via SNKRS at EVO 2024, with a wider release planned for this September. There will also be another pair of Foamposits based on Kazuya's son, Jin Kazama, available at a later date. The shoes retail for $250. If I see you with these, I won't even try to challenge you at Tekken—I know you're far more of a die-hard than I'll ever be.

Capcom wasn't too far behind in unveiling their own new character. As announced a while back, the Hungry Wolf Terry Bogard is coming to Street Fighter 6! We got a glimpse of his new design courtesy of Capcom's RE Engine. Some folks have taken some umbrage with Terry's face—his chin is awful big, after all. But I'm fine with it; the proportions of his face remind me of Shinkiro's old Fatal Fury art from the 1990s. Regardless, Capcom might touch our boy up a bit. Or they might not. I ain't buggin'; my boy Bogard is looking great. And there's plenty of fanservice in the trailer, too! The gentleman Terry is trading blows with is Lao, a bit-character best known for getting whupped by Terry and others in the intros to Real Bout Fatal Fury 2 and Garou: Mark of the Wolves. There are also audience members dressed up as Terry's Muay Thai-practicing best friend, Joe Higashi, and Terry's kinda-sorta girlfriend, Blue Mary. We don't yet have a concrete date for Terry beyond "Autumn 2024", but we do know that once he joins the battle, we'll have fellow Fatal Fury combatant Mai Shiranui joining him, along with Elena and the aforementioned resurrected M. Bison. (Man, wouldn't it suck if Geese Howard suddenly got announced for Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves?)

Let's stick with SNK for a minute longer. They had a very busy EVO 2024 this year! First up, great news for fans of classic fighting games: SNK stealth-dropped SNK Vs Capcom SVC Chaos onto fans on PS4, Nintendo Switch, and Steam. SVC Chaos is highly beloved by fighting game aficionados; not only was the basic idea of an SNK/Capcom crossover a delight for the FGC, but SVC Chaos also features a number of seldom-used characters. Chief among them would be Zero from Mega Man. And it's not the design you're thinking of, either—SVC Chaos uses Toru Nakayama's design from Mega Man Zero. This new port also has a ton of new goodies. For one: bonus characters! SNK's Athena (the original bikini-armor version from the 80s) and Capcom's Red Arremer (from Ghouls and Ghosts) are now playable from the get-go instead of being hidden bonus characters. For another: rollback netcode. I don't know if it's a well-implemented rollback netcode, but any rollback is better than delay-based. SVC Chaos is also available at a great price, at only $20.

New characters? New characters. First, we have Mature and Vice returning in King of Fighters XV! Folks have loved Mature and Vice for years, not only because they're a pair of kickass mature secretaries that work for villains (originally Rugal, eventually Iori Yagami), but because they're just plain cool to use. It's also been a very long time since they've been playable—specifically, King of Fighters 2002 Unlimited Match. Look forward to them this December 2024! SNK also premiered a trailer for Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves. It's not Geese, at least. No, it's Kevin Rian, who I... don't actually know anything about. He debuted in Garou: Mark of the Wolves, which I never played. This guy just flew entirely under my radar. A quick look on the good ol' SNK wiki reveals that he's apparently related to Terry's girlfriend, Blue Mary, and loves Star Wars merch and watched (what was then) all six movies in one day. I'm guessing in the years since he's graduated to watching all eleven movies of that certain famous science-fiction film series... Anyway, Kevin at least looks cool and his special involves him punching a grenade into someone, Chris Redfield-style. He'll fit right in!

Finally, SNK announced that they were working on another pair of titles. First up was an action-RPG series based on Samurai Shodown. It wouldn't be the first time that they've done this, but hopefully, it'll be the first time a Samurai Shodown RPG comes to the US—Bushido Retsuden only released on the Neo Geo CD, although it's been translated by fans in the years since. The project has only started development, so we'll see how it goes. SNK is also apparently working on a new Art of Fighting game, which... does make me tilt my head. You don't hear a lot about Art of Fighting, largely because it was overshadowed by SNK's later games set in the same universe—specifically, Fatal Fury and King of Fighters. A bunch of the Art of Fighting gang still pop up in both of those later series. Case in point: series protagonist Ryo Sakazaki and his little sister Yuri; King, one of the most famous women in SNK's pantheon (and that's saying something); and the elusive "Mr. Karate." Now, it's not that Art of Fighting doesn't have its own mechanics that set it apart from other SNK games—it totally does. It features a Spirit meter that depletes upon using Special attacks or being struck by a Taunt from an opponent; a lower Spirit meter weakens your special moves, forcing you to regain Spirit by landing normal attacks. That alone adds a nice push-and-pull to fights, similar to Samurai Shodown's POW gauge. But it's certainly something that SNK decided to bring back such an old series. I trust SNK's judgment; they've been firing on all sixes lately.

In other new-character news, we have Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising. Bear with me. I think we're scraping against a few characters I'm not horribly knowledgeable about. None of them are Fediel, sadly—but I think I'll take Versusia in the meantime. The result of the human woman Rein sacrificing herself to the Versus Cube, Versusia is cool; she's got similar vibes to Justice from Guilty Gear (tall woman with a tail tearing things up as a tragic living weapon). Her moves and animations look effortlessly cool, and I hope she's retroactively brought back into Granblue Fantasy proper. The same trailer also teases a few further characters; first, Vikala is coming to Granblue Fantasy Versus Rising! Vikala is one of the Twelve Divine Generals, a gaggle of female characters based on the animals of the Chinese Zodiac. Anila, the draph-sheep-girl, is one of them. Vikala is another; a human girl associated with the rat. It'll be interesting to see how they adapt her moveset. Arc Rising Works also announced the next wave of DLC for Rising, with a tease for one of the new characters: Sandalphon, the Primal of Earth.

Arc System Works also had news for Guilty Gear -Strive-. They've announced some new stages and a new 3-on-3 versus mode, but the real fun is the new characters being teased for the new season of DLC! Specifically, Dizzy is finally coming back! What can I say, Dizzy is a cutie and everyone loves her. Her new design is much more elegant, befitting Dizzy, now dubbed the "Queen of Vialattea." Also, I like how her wings have a neat effect where the feathers serve as shawls to both Necro and Undine (the spirits that compose her wings). She just looks so cute in Daisuke Ishiwatari's new art...! Look forward to Dizzy this October.

We'll also see the return of "The Phantom," Venom, the fan-loved assassin who fights with a pool cue and billiards balls. Venom will be ready by "Early 2025." As far as newcomers are concerned, we've got Unika, who's supposed to be from the upcoming Guilty Gear: Dual Rulers anime; she'll be ready for 2025. And then, for something completely different: a cameo character! Guilty Gear hasn't seen any cameo characters before, although Baiken did guest-star in the most recent Samurai Shodown (and fittingly so). Now, you might expect a similarly rock-and-roll-based character like, I dunno... Eddie Riggs from Brütal Legend, but instead, Arc System Works will be hosting a cameo in the form of Lucy from Cyberpunk Edgerunners.

Yeah, I'm just as stunned as you are; it's a bold choice for a cameo. I know some folks likely would have preferred Rebecca from Edgerunners instead, but I don't know; I haven't even seen Edgerunners yet, but Lucy seems to fit right in. I look forward to seeing how she pans out. Arc System Works also teased a new character for HUNTER×HUNTER NEN×IMPACT: Meruem. I haven't read much of Hunter × Hunter, pardon you, but Meruem is one of the many cast members who looks really cool. Finally, Arc System Works and French Bread announced a new character for Under Night In-Birth 2 Sys:Celes: Uzuki, a cute witch-girl with skeleton-bat familiars.

And that about covers EVO 2024! Hopefully, folks reading this feel encouraged to join EVO next year—or at least participate in their locals. The fighting game community is a thriving scene, and it's great to see how it brings people together. Who knows, maybe we'll see you in the crowd behind the Yo!Videogames crew...!

That'll do it for this week, I think. At the time of writing, I've been hearing bad news about Capcom's Kunitsu-gami: Path of the Goddess struggling to reach 500 reviews on Steam. I have yet to play it, but everything I've heard (like my colleague James Beckett's review of the game about it makes it seem like a wonderful game. At its best, it's Capcom in its prime PS2-era game design, definitely the kind of thing folks who need an Okami-esque shot in the arm should grab. Unfortunately, it's also a prime PS2-era Capcom game in that folks don't know what to make of it and are passing it over. I know folks are hankering for Mega Man's return, but there's no point in clamoring for new games and new experiences if you ignore them when they land! Give Kunitsu-gami a look this weekend if you can. Be good to each other; I'll see you in seven.