This Week in Games

Nintendo Indie Direct + Partner Showcase August 2024

Welcome back, folks! I discovered over the weekend: I don't think I like elk burgers. A local bar in my town offered them and I was feeling adventurous, but elk tastes a bit too game-y. Parmesan rosemary fries are killer, though. Also, my review for That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime ISEKAI CHRONICLES went up earlier this week. I know I amused at least one person by listing Gobta as a downside to the game, but I steadfastly refuse to apologize for my Shion bias. I watched Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger, okay? I hear that M.A.O is in something, I already know she's gonna be the best thing in it.

Every now and then, something takes an entire fandom by storm—a buddy in my VTuber discord likened it to "someone said a sleeper agent activation word". And for the past week, fans on Twitter have seen just that, courtesy of everyone's favorite blue-haired diva, Hatsune Miku!

While the original art from Brazilian artist ErinArtista was made back in June (we'll be sharing that art in a few), thecat_mitsu's sketch is the one a lot of people have been quote-retweeting (and it's likely the one you saw). The design activated a lot of neurons across the Internet; everyone's been drawing their own take on Brazilian Miku. There is quite a lot of art, across mediums even (that last one is a clay doll). And the best part is, it's inspired even more versions of Miku from other Latin American nations, all proud signifiers of their countries. Colombian Miku? Sure, why not! Panamanian Miku? You know we have an assortment! You have your option of Mexican Miku or her Tejano Miku variant (done up in one of famed Tejano icon Selena's best outfits, of course). They even made a cute crossover between Brazilian Miku, Mexican Miku, and Miku Classic to create a Miku version of the Disney film Three Caballeros. We also have Venezuelan Miku, but she and her fellow Venezuelans are suffering through some serious humanitarian crises (please support them, if you can).

Of course, people have also been making a number of Puerto Rican Mikus, which I'm a huge fan of (being that That Bitch™ is Puerto Rican). I'm amused whenever people do her up in Bomba garb since that's not really a day-to-day kind of outfit (at least, not for a long time now), but it shows great care and love for our history. Also, if you go the more true-to-life route of drawing Miku in the traditional hotpants and tube top (or bikini top, as many artists have opted), the nationality becomes a little less obvious. Some artists color her top to look like the Puerto Rican flag, but outside-looking-in you run the risk of people confusing it with Cuban Miku's Cuban flag. The solution? Give Boricua Miku a Piña Colada and a bacalaíto (codfish fritter). I'm surprised they didn't go with a bottle of Medalla (a local beer folks back home swear by), but I prefer piña coladas to beer any day. Avoid giving her flan or any tokusatsu toys, though—that'll take you from Puerto Rican Miku to noted Puerto Rican vtuber and member of VShojo, Ironmouse. (They're very similar.)

And don't think the trend is locked to Latin America—it's even inspired folks from other hemispheres to dress up Miku in their own local garbs. Nigerian Miku, Polish Miku—and, for the folks in the Flyover States: Midwest Miku.

The whole thing has been a great deal of fun, and it really showcases the biggest strength of Hatsune Miku as a character: she's a versatile diva. Miku's original design is iconic but flexible enough in its design that you can really use Miku for anything—which was the intent. The idea was for artists to use Miku to create any kind of music and put her into any kind of video to accompany it. That kind of versatility has given U.S. some out-there stuff, from Black Rock Shooter to Miku singing Magical Sound Shower from Outrun. Miku is just about the only other character who even approaches the kind of versatility Barbie has. And really, as long as fans on the Internet are around and have even an ounce of creativity, Miku is going to continue to be reimagined and iterated in endless ways. The world really is hers...

... but for now, it belongs to Brazilian Miku. 🏆🏆 BRASIL CAMPEÃO DO MUNDO!! 🇧🇷

Vtubers continue to spread unabatedly in the US! While the rush of VTubers from 2020 has certainly cooled off, there are plenty of established talents both in the independent circuit and in the corporate sector. And following the belated Kiryu Coco's massive push for an English-speaking branch in the U.S., the Holo-EN group has certainly made waves stateside. Mori Calliope (whom I was fortunate enough to interview recently) famously got brought on board to compose the ending song for the recent Suicide Squad ISEKAI anime, GO-GETTERS. Los Angeles' Dodgers Stadium also played host to "Hololive Night" this past July 5th, featuring Gawr Gura along with Japanese talents Usada Pekora and Hoshimachi Suisei (and it was a rousing success, with the Dodgers beating the Brewers 8-5). Holo-EN is now taking the next step in promoting their EN talents, with the ENigmatic Recollection project. (Get it? "EN-igmatic", as in "Holo-EN".)

If the trailer isn't exactly clear on what ENigmatic Recollection entails, don't worry; the copy from the official website isn't much clearer. ENigmatic Recollection is presented as a multimedia project encompassing "streams, animations, and songs", with its first chapter set in the fantasy world of Libestal developed "in a sandbox game format". The idea sounds fascinating as a game: with 19 members in Holo-EN, you've got a variety of characters you could potentially use for RPG battles against fantasy monsters.

This wouldn't be the first video game featuring the talents of Hololive; AQUARIUM, featuring Hololive VTuber Minato Aqua, was released on Steam last year. I'm certainly interested in how this will pan out; I can't say I'm terribly up-to-date on what the talents of Holo-EN get up to, but a project on this scale is fascinating nonetheless. More to follow.

We're not too afraid of discussing adult VNs here at This Week in Games, and considering the pedigree of this announcement I think it's definitely worth bringing up. Kids, listen to your big brother That Bitch™ and don't look these up until you're 18! Longtime anime fans (folks older than 30) might have some intense flashbacks to the name "Bible Black", an old H-OVA series from back in the day. It was infamous for its content (and its hysterically-bad dub), but it was also based on a visual novel. Media Blasters even released the VN in the U.S. through their adult Kitty Media line back in 2006. Also, fun fact: courtesy of another of Bible Black creator Sei Shojo's visual novels, Starless, Bible Black is a King Crimson reference (the band, not the Stand). Anyway, Sei Shojo has made other visual novels in the years since Bible Black, but many of them made it to the U.S. Heck, outside of Discipline, I'm not even sure any of their H-OVA adaptations have ever been licensed stateside. Regardless: longtime adult visual novel licensor MangaGamer, home of the teams that have localized the Rance games, Sacrifice Villains and Beat Angel Escalayer announced this past weekend that they've licensed two of Sei Shojo's newer visual novels, the Sleepless duology!

Yes, I know this is only for the sequel, Sleepless: Nocturne, but the American Beauty-esque image MangaGamer used for their Sleepless tweet was a bit too racy. Also, I couldn't even get an embed link for these tweets anyway (just as well, the links to their websites are super NSFW). Regardless, if you've watched Bible Black, you have an inkling of the kind of dark fetishes on display via Sleepless. And if you haven't... well, it's a lot of dark stuff that a lot of people with sensitive dispositions likely wouldn't want to check out. Kara no Shōjo dealt with a lot of dark themes by virtue of being an adult murder mystery. Sleepless just deals with a lot of really niche fetishes.

I don't think I'll be reviewing either Sleepless game anytime soon for Anime News Network, but again: it's the pedigree for these titles that makes this news stand out. Bible Black might have had a half-joking, half-infamous reputation in the anime industry for a long time... but it was still a pillar of anime fandom for ages and ages. And, as I understand it, the OVAs were a perennial money-maker for Media Blasters for as long as they held the license. A quick look on their website reveals that they don't have any Bible Black DVDs for sale (though they do have a number of other famed adult classics like Viper GTS and Another Lady Innocent along with a bevy of newer stuff), which is a tragedy. This stuff is porn, yeah, but this stuff still had a ton of reach in anime fandom back in the day! I'd hazard that the school uniforms from Bible Black are almost as (in)famous as Haruhi Suzumiya's.

It can be a little difficult to discuss a lot of the adult media in the anime community, be they the eromanga, the adult OVAs or the games, given the content at hand. But this stuff is still, in my opinion, still really important to the community. Sure, I'm not gonna bring Moonlight Lady anywhere near polite company (I'll settle for cheeky allusions towards it about its sister series, Yamibo - Darkness, the Hat, and the Travelers of the Books and Toka Gettan), but there is a lot of love and work that goes into these series. I look at figures like Joji Manabe, who's basically been making cheesecake with cat-eared women since before I was born and would likely retire from manga outright before ceasing his work drawing lewd joshi-wrestlers. I look at artists like Raita, who in addition to his work on Valkyria Chronicles and Fate/Grand Order (shout-out to my This Week in Anime colleague Steve Jones and his love of the Raita-designed Shuten Doji) also has a long-running adult doujin series Mahou Shoujo that he's been working on for over a decade. Heck, one of my personal favorite doujin-ka has worked on eromanga since 1996—their own son grew up over the course of their career and went into eromanga themselves! And, of course, there's a lot of passion and love for this stuff on the U.S. side of things as well. Heck, I remember Media Blasters' Yara Naika doing a ton of legwork back in 2014 urging folks to put the word out about the kind of adult OVAs they wanted to see in the U.S. If there's anyone who's been clamoring for the chance to give the Bible Black OVAs a do-over with a proper dub, it's them—especially since these days we also have a wide bevy of adult voice actors across the Internet. (Of course, we still want the old dub for preservation and giggles.)

And, of course, there's the issue with things getting that much harder on the internet for adults to access adult media, what with banks and credit card companies tightening the reins on anything associated with "sexual" content. This also throws a lot of queer media under the bus, as we've discussed before. Publishers like Fakku and MangaGamer have had to make their own workarounds for that, but they're nevertheless at the whims of the medium they depend on to do their business. In that light, it's nice that MangaGamer is taking a leap and bringing over the Sleepless games. Will it mean we'll see Bible Black back? Eh, we'll cross that bridge when we get there. Or not, in case it's not your thing—that's totally fair too.

It's been a long wait for the Sonic the Hedgehog 3 trailer, but after much anticipation, it finally released this past Tuesday! And... it sure is a Sonic the Hedgehog 3 trailer! But there's a lot of fanservice in this that folks are going to want to see.

So, yes: Shadow has finally been unveiled, and he looks as good as you'd hope. We also finally got the confirmation that he's voiced by Keanu Reeves. A lot of folks are hemming and haww-ing over the decision, and not unfairly; Reeves is very much a meme these days. But unlike other bits of celebrity stunt-casting, Reeves brings some good energy to the role. It's not just him talking into the mic; there's a world-weary anger to him. I figured that Reeves would bring the right gravitas to Shadow, and I was right. The movie is also going for a lot of the Sonic Adventure 2 imagery; right away, we see Shadow escaping what looks to be Prison Island. We also Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles (who are finally referred to as "Team Sonic") jumping off of a helicopter in a manner not unlike Sonic's famous intro to the Hero-route in Sonic Adventure 2.

But there's also a lot of Shadow the Hedgehog fanservice. For example, we see more G.U.N. operatives (including Doughnut Lord, James Marsden's character) wearing the Shadow the Hedgehog-versions of their uniforms. There's also a bit where we see Shadow using Chaos Control to warp around; the sequence mirrors a bit from the Shadow the Hedgehog intro where Shadow is kicking a G.U.N. soldier in the back of the head. There's a reason for this: Jeff Fowler is working on this movie! Who's Jeff Fowler? Don't worry, I first learned who he was today—Fowler is a VFX artist who had done a lot of animation for Shadow the Hedgehog way back in 2005. And he's working on Sonic the Hedgehog 3! Paramount is really paying attention, especially after the lambasting they got over the old Ugly Sonic look. So while we haven't seen Shadow pumping an M5 like a shotgun (yet), they really dug deep to find artists and animators who can do this movie right. Eagle-eyed viewers also noticed other bits of SEGA fanservice, like a Chao mascot performer who's actually dressed up as a NiGHTS Chao.

Now, two things stand out among fans. First: the girls aren't here. No Amy Rose, no Rouge the Bat. On the one hand: fair. Introducing Shadow and dealing with what looks to be the entirety of the Ark storyline (which itself might also involve things like the Black Arms) means there's little room to include a whole other batch of new characters without things feeling crowded. Second...

We have our Maria Robotnik, and her days are numbered. Speaking of the Robotniks, we also got to see Jim Carrey back as Dr. Robotnik. He's finally fat! But surprisingly, we also got to see him as Gerald Robotnik: Dr. Robotnik's grandfather who created Shadow the Hedgehog. There's some finagling at work to keep continuity in the films (this version of Robotnik is supposed to be an orphan), but we've got double the opportunities for Carrey to chew the scenery. And Lee Madjoub is back as Agent Stone, so they get to have their goofy bromance. You know it's real when you let him put you in a headlock to shave your head.

All in all, Sonic the Hedgehog 3 is shaping up to be great and releases in theaters this December 20th. I'm genuinely excited. I'm a little worried, mind; the first Sonic movie managed to work in spite of itself; expectations were pretty low for that movie. Sonic 2 had much higher expectations, but it managed to work by virtue of the wealth of fanservice it could bring to the table. It had Tails, he was voiced by Colleen O'Shaughnessey, Tails had his biplane, Robotnik was finally bald and had the red jacket and the Buzz Bombers and the Egg Walker. But—and this is the important part—the movie still felt earned. Tails' affection with Sonic was cute, you bought into the two of them becoming fast friends. Knuckles' personality was just right. Even Sonic's childlike nature and difficult lessons helped the movie land emotionally. (It helped that it didn't go into any weird "realistic panic attack" moments.) But now we're going into Sonic Adventure 2 territory, which is held as the high point of the Sonic series. There's a lot more fanservice to dig into, but the expectations are similarly astronomical. Can Paramount make lightning strike three times...? There's a lot of hope they can—by God, are they putting the work in...

Well, Nintendo had an overlap of Directs this week; they combined their usual Indie World with a Partners Direct. We'll be focusing on the Partners Direct since most of the Indies covered are a bit outside of our jurisdiction—but I do wanna give the Indies a few nods. Nintendo is continuing their commitment to ensuring absolutely everything is playable on the Switch, what with major Indie powerhouses like Balatro (with all of its associated DLC) and Pizza Tower finally coming to the Switch. There was some grousing over the visual novel Date Everything!; while there's no reason to believe that Date Everything isn't being made in good faith, it's rather disappointing that it comes off as another jokey-joke visual novel where you can date anthropomorphized household objects (over 100 of them!). Arrive at your own conclusions. Also, going back to the Pizza Tower thing: a lot of folks have pointed out that the Japanese trailer does a better job of selling the game's vibes than the English trailer (and I'm inclined to agree). I get it, Peppino deserves his peace and quiet... but his manic anxiety is what makes him funny. Wake up, Grandpa, it's Pizza Time!

With that said, we can move on to the announcements from Nintendo's partners! As always, I'm stunned when folks walk away acting like there wasn't much announced. I get it, RPGs aren't everyone's bag, but it feels like some people just want one specific game to get released on the Switch. Like, if you want a Dead By Daylight or an Ark: Evolution that badly... just play those. But I digress. Lightning round for the non-Japanese stuff: Tetris Forever collects a ton of Tetris games I didn't even know existed, what a gift! Star Overdrive's open-world hoverboarding and action combat makes me feel like it's a "cooler" twist on Haven, with a bit of Hi-Fi Rush thrown in (what with the keytar). I'm very intrigued! Goat Simulator 3... I hesitate to say this, but wasn't the joke worn out on those games? It looks hectic and it's nice that there's both couch and online co-op... but I feel like most folks are over Goat Simulator at this point. S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Legends of the Zone Trilogy looks pretty cheeky-breeky; I know folks swear by the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games, so it's great to have another option to play them. But I have to worry if folks will tolerate how it'll run on a Switch. Worms Armageddon: Anniversary Edition: man, this game should be a party staple. No better time to pick it up now that it's on the Switch! God help me, but The Patrick Star game looks fun as hell—we'll be popping the biggest bottles if Fred the Fish is in there to shout "My leg—!". Fitness Boxing 3: Your Personal Trainer looks intriguing, but how am I supposed to enjoy boxing without Hatsune Miku or Kenshiro teaching me Hokuto Shinken? Sid Meier's Civilization VII... I know people really love their Civ games (I remember them taking out ads in Electronic Gaming Monthly promoting a website for "treating Civilization addiction" to promote their new game), so they'll have plenty to look forward to with this one. MySims: Cozy Bundle... hey, it's great those games were brought back in some capacity! I'm sure it'll be a nostalgic treat for folks who grew up with the Wii and want to share those games with their kids. Epic Mickey: Rebrushed comes out on September 24th—it's a great platformer with a lot of love for Mickey and Oswald The Lucky Rabbit, I hope folks are excited. Just Dance 2025 Edition... there are a lot of people who are going to want to dance to it, I ain't judging.

Okay, now we can get to some of the bigger announcements! And wouldn't you know it, the madmen at CAPCOM did it again! Seems like someone at CAPCOM saw how people are clamoring for the Marvel Vs CAPCOM Fighting Collection (seriously, some folks are buying the game across multiple platforms to keep their bases covered!), so they peered over their shoulder at the massive pile of fighting game franchises they own and thought, "Hey, we got a few more we could toss out at 'em, maybe polish some of that old stuff up a little. The kids liked CAPCOM Fighting Evolution, right?" So now we're getting a second CAPCOM Fighting Collection that bundles even more long-time missing fighting game classics. Of course, the major draws are CAPCOM Vs SNK, two of the most beloved cross-over fighters ever made (with some of the most amazing backgrounds ever put into a fighting game). But CAPCOM Fighting Collection 2 goes so much harder. We're getting games that people have been begging to see brought back for years! Remember Plasma Sword? Of course, you don't—heck, you probably looked at Hayato in Marvel Vs CAPCOM 2 and wondered where he was from. Well, now both Plasma Sword games are back! Folks likely would've preferred Street Fighter Alpha 3 MAX to Street Fighter Alpha 3 Upper, but a get is a get. We're getting both Power Stone games—with rollback netcode. And best of all—we're getting Project Justice, a beloved 3D fighting game starring three schools' worth of wild high school pugilists, featuring beloved figures like Natsu the volleyball player, Tiffany Lord (the English-speaking cheerleader with the racy outfit), and beloved motorcyclist punk Akira. I wanted to make a joke about CAPCOM Fighting Evolution, since it's the odd game out in here. It's not very well-liked and isn't thought of very kindly... but bad games deserve to be preserved too. Folks worked on that. Someone's life was put into that game. I embrace it with my arms wide open. It's okay, CAPCOM Fighting Evolution, nobody could ever make me hate you. The collection also includes the requisite art gallery for all of these titles, plus an in-game music player for all of the phenomenal music.

Now, this is a lot to take in but I've pulled some strings for our unofficial fighting game correspondent Maximilian_Dood to help U.S. navigate this absolute surprise of a collection. Max, what do you have for us?

Wonderful insight as always, Max! Thanks!

Now, there is a bit of a downside here; we know that there have to be some sprite modifications from one of the games—that being CAPCOM Fighting Evolution titles. And it's not for what you think, so get your heads out of the gutters. Long story short: Dimitri (of Darkstalkers fame) is known for his Midnight Bliss attack, which notably turns characters into goofy/sexy versions of themselves. The many, many genderswapped variants of male CAPCOM Vs SNK characters was what inspired the Rule 63 genderswaps back in the day, after all. CAPCOM Fighting Evolution used Midnight Bliss for a few cheeky references, though. See, the Street Fighter character Rose was inspired by JoJo's Bizarre Adventure's Lisa Lisa, what with her fighting style incorporating a scarf. One of Rose's Midnight Bliss transformations even references Lisa Lisa, what with her being transformed into a gondolier with a mask (similar to Lisa Lisa's introduction in Battle Tendency). It's a vague enough reference to pass muster. The problem is: Rose has an alternate transformation that turns her into Enyaba, going so far as to recycle her sprite from CAPCOM's old JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Heritage for Future game. With Bandai Namco now owning the rights to JoJo, this is no longer kosher.

This also spells out some of the few fighting games left that CAPCOM hasn't brought back. The aforementioned Heritage For Future is at the top of the list, no thanks to the rights issues. My good friend and yours Chris Farris compiled a list of missing Capcom fighters, and the games in question all seem to have licensing issues making them problematic. Street Fighter EX? Not only are those partially owned by Arika, but the Sony ZN hardware is likely a pain to emulate. Street Fighter: The Movie? You likely would have to negotiate for a ton of likeness rights for the cast. Tatsunoko Vs CAPCOM? God, I wish we could see it return, but the rights for Ken the Eagle alone must be a fortune. Barring that, what's even left? Tech Romancer? I literally don't know anything about it. Final Fight Revenge? Make no mistake, I'm rooting for all these games to get brought back—but they're the bottom of the barrel for a reason. There are a ton of obstacles. Regardless: look forward to CAPCOM Fighting Classics 2 next year.

With the book having closed on the beloved Atelier Ryza trilogy, it's time for a new Alchemist to set up shop in Gust's beloved series. And we finally know who she is! Atelier Yumia: The Alchemist of Memories and the Envisioned Land stands out at first; for one thing, the titular Yumia gives off the vibes of being much older than the other Atelier alchemists. (It'll be weird if she's just a very MILF-coded 20-year-old.) But also: the game seems to play as more of an action title than anything else; Yumia's scepter also functions as a musket, and we see her shooting at enemies in real-time. Also, there seem to be tubes on her shoes. Maybe she's got Bayonetta-style gun-heels? There's also a lot of cheeky fun to be had in the casting; Yumia is chasing after a destructive dragon-man, it seems. The dragon is voiced by the unmistakable Takaya Kuroda, the voice of the famous Dragon of Dojima from the Like A Dragon games (who we'll be hearing more of later on). Also, there's a wolf-man voiced by Takehito Koyasu—I ain't going to say no to that man's velvety crooning! Precious little can be gathered, but we're all looking forward to this new Atelier title—especially since it promises the ability to decorate your own Atelier to your liking! Gust knows our priorities so well! Look forward to Atelier Yumia in "early 2025"!

Konami knows we're not happy with them, so it seems they're trying hard to make it up to U.S. First: the long-belated Suikoden I & II remasters finally have a release date: March 5th, 2025! It'll bring new quality-of-life features like being able to speed up battles and even an auto-battle mode. Second: a new Castlevania collection! Castlevania: Dominus Collection headlines the three Castlevania titles from the Nintendo DS, ported to the Switch: Dawn of Sorrow, Portrait of Ruin, and Order of Ecclesia. We didn't think we'd ever see the Nintendo DS Castlevania games ported, since the format is weird to adopt to home consoles, but Konami figured it out: just dedicate a bit of screen space on the side for the map and optional touchscreen information. It also includes Haunted Castle, Konami's attempt at porting Castlevania to arcade machines. This is a big get—especially since we even have a reimagined Haunted Castle in the form of Haunted Castle: Revised! The collection also adds a complete image gallery, music player, and even a complete bestiary including drop rates.

The DS Castlevania games are... a mixed bag. Gameplay-wise, they're great! Dawn of Sorrow is even better than Aria of Sorrow and even includes an alternate gameplay mode in the style of Castlevania 3. Order of Ecclesia is dark, moody, and seriously difficult. And Portrait of Ruin has great music from Yuzo Koshiro. But, uh... Dawn of Sorrow and Portrait of Ruin also saw the Castlevania games take a minor split from longtime-Castlevania artist Ayami Kojima in favor of a much simpler anime-esque art style. And the games... kinda suffer for it. Soma, Charlotte, and Jonathan all look... kinda unremarkable in the new art style. I don't blame people for hating it. Thankfully, Order of Ecclesia course-corrected by bringing Masaki Hirooka for art duties. It's great stuff. You can pick up the Dominus collection right now—and art misgivings aside, you should.

Hey, we finally have another Tales game to play! It might not be a brand-new title, but in celebration of the Tales series' 30th anniversary, it seems Bandai Namco has kicked off a "Tales of Series 30th Anniversary Remastered Project" with a remaster of Tales of Graces f Remastered. Graces f is a great choice: it has a great story and characters, and it's been missing for a good while. Also, it features character designs from the celebrated Mutsumi Inomata, who sadly passed away earlier this year. Fans can look forward to all of the DLC from the original Tales of Graces f being made available... it's likely that the anime collaboration DLC won't make it, so stuff like the Hatsune Miku costume or the Code Geass costumes are lost to legal limbo. Regardless, the remaster promises a ton of quality-of-life changes like destination markers and such. Hopefully, they're up to snuff. I know the Tales ports can be a bit spotty...

I was really excited about the new Rune Factory spin-off since it was first teased two years ago, and from the looks of it it's been worth the wait! Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma isn't just a vaguely Japanese-looking paint job over a Rune Factory title, it seems they really thought about how the formula can be shaken up. For one, the story takes place in a setting where the series' standard Runes have lost their power. So your chosen Earthdancer protagonist (not an Earthmate, like in other Rune Factory titles) can use certain tools to actually speed up plant growth. There also seem to be more village-building mechanics, as opposed to just farmland; the footage from the Direct shows the protagonist not only placing houses but rivers and bridges in town. It's been a long time since I've seen something even try to re-create the village-building Georama from Dark Cloud (Animal Crossing: New Horizon didn't quite scratch that itch), and Guardians of Azuma seems to be really playing around with the idea. More to the point, it also seems that players will be tasked with rescuing and populating the town with villagers who have been cursed into bosses.

A number of questions linger after the trailer. Of course, we don't know much about any possible paramours for Guardians of Azuma (the trailer shows U.S. a waitress-looking girl that the male protagonist can potentially marry). I think it's pretty safe to assume that Guardians of Azuma will continue to offer same-sex marriages, since we've also seen them in Rune Factory 5 and Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life. I also hope that they don't tease U.S. with unromanceable partners this time around. Rune Factory 5 was really bad about this; a bunch of the best female characters weren't romance options. I'll grant them that Misasagi and Simone are both mothers, so marrying them would likely make things a bit weird with their respective kids, but I'm willing to put in the work. Throw me a bone, Marvelous!

My other concern is how the game will run. I loved Rune Factory 5 (I even got to review it two years ago and it was a delight to work on), but as much as I loved it the game nevertheless had some serious framerate issues whenever you were walking in town. The cherry blossoms on the trees seriously made the Switch chug. A possible Switch 2 release might fix that, but we'll cross that bridge when we get there.

Rune Factory 5: Guardians of Azuma comes this Spring 2025; I think it just might be my most-anticipated release of next year already.

Now here's a surprise! After much ado, Sega has finally deigned it time to release a Yakuza game on the Switch! Weirdly, they're not starting with Yakuza 0, but rather Yakuza Kiwami, the updated re-release of the original Yakuza/Like A Dragon game. It's a great place to start, make no mistake, but Kiwami was made with a lot of extra tie-ins to Yakuza 0; I'd have to wonder if 0 wouldn't have been a better choice for the Switch.

Regardless, one of the best open-world games is now on the Switch, complete with its wild battle system allowing you to pummel enemies with everything from traffic cones to electric signs; tons of addicting mini-games, from karaoke to actual Sega Games; and some phenomenal performances and storytelling about men struggling in the underbelly of society. And it comes out pretty soon, too: October 24th!

Finally, we have some more tidbits about the Dragon Quest III HD-2D remake. For one thing, there is a greater wealth of customization options for your party members: you can now choose their overall color palette as well as their own voices during creation. Second, we finally have confirmation on the Monster Wrangler class; according to the Direct, it's focused on using Monster skills in battle (akin to a Blue Mage, perhaps?). The trailer teases that Dragon Quest monsters might be more involved in the game in some capacity, but that's apparently going to be expanded upon in the future.

The Dragon Quest III HD-2D remake was already a must-buy for me, all the new options are just icing on the cake. It comes out on November 14th; unless I get hit by a car again, I'm definitely going to pick it up.

So, normally I'd end the discussion on the Direct here, but there were two more bombshells announced during the Direct that need addressing. And the first one really nabbed people's attention, because the American Direct just glossed over it entirely, simply showing a tiny clip of it during a sizzle reel! Turns out, we're getting a The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky remake!

So, confession time: I don't know anything about The Legend of Heroes. I've never played any of them. Heck, Falcom in general is a massive blank space in my consciousness. Dunno if that means I need to trade in my RPG Aficionado card over it or what, but I'm embarrassed to admit that I've never really played Ys or Sorcerian or Tokyo Xanadu or any of those other Falcom titles. The only Falcom game I've ever played was Dragonslayer on Gameboy (which, upon examination on Wikipedia, was the very first Legend of Heroes title). So I know that there are a ton of Legend of Heroes games and I know they're passionately beloved by folks... but I couldn't tell you why, outside of a vague "they're really good". But I do know that one major point of contention among people who want to get into The Legend of Heroes is where to jump in; all of the games have tight writing with strong themes about imperialism and classism (with a recent game also making strong discussion about LGBT allyship). They all also have very tight continuity, taking place within a few years of each other. I know that some of the recent games have tried to present themselves as jumping-on points, but I couldn't tell you how successful they are at that, since there are about 16 games in the series.

In that light, it's very helpful that Trails in the Sky is getting remade. The previous Legend of Heroes games like Song of the Ocean or A Tear of Vermillion were their own continuities, but Trails in the Sky started the current "Trails sub-series". Also, the original Trails in the Sky is quite long in the tooth, having originally released on the PSP. With the series being as celebrated and beloved as ever, yeah, it makes sense to remake the first game. I don't know why they would just gloss over the game in the U.S. as part of a sizzle reel, considering the love for the series, but there you go. According to the Japanese trailer, a ton of work is being put into bringing the game to the current series standard—they're doing great. I've wanted to get into Trails for years, and this game is really making that urge stronger.

A couple of "what the heck?" moments follow this, though. For one, according to James Galizo on Twitter, the remake will be using a script based on XSeed's original script, the implication being that Falcom is working on transitioning to entirely in-house localization. I've seen some folks sharing screenshots of some of protagonist Estelle's out-of-pocket dialogue, so on that note alone the translation looks to be in great hands. But on that note, it also seems that while Falcom owns the scripts, they're not in a position to dub the game. I can see that being fixed later on in a patch. But one of the other major issues is that nobody—not even Falcom—appears to know who will be handling the U.S. distribution. While the game appears to be rather far along in development, Falcom doesn't seem to know if they'll just handle distribution on their own or work with NISA for physical distribution (and only distribution). Rather eyebrow-raising, can't imagine being this far in a project without knowing how you'll send your copies out.

Finally, it seems that the Trails in the Sky remake is, for now, exclusively for the Switch. I can't imagine it'll be too hard to port to Steam or PS5 in the near future. For now, Falcom is only discussing a Switch release. No date is given so far, but it's pretty safe to assume a 2025 release.

And now we can wrap up with the really big surprise!

It's common for some Japanese Nintendo Directs to go for a bit longer than the American ones, if only because they'll usually cover games that don't come stateside. But uh, this one is a big omission because it's a really big deal. We've spoken of the Tokimeki Memorial games before—a massively influential visual novel series created by Konami (with the original having been an early project for Koji Igarashi, alias IGA, prior to working on Castlevania: Symphony of the Night). The Tokimeki games are incredibly beloved in Japan and are iconic of 90s visual novel games, offering a combination of life simulation (having to perform in academics as part of wooing your paramour) with visual novel storytelling. There has often been a technological element to the games, with a simple text-reading ability that allows the characters to pronounce your name to some extent via the text you input. Hence the bomb dropped on the world that Konami is remastering the original Tokimeki Memorial as Tokimeki Memorial: Forever With You Emotional. They're seriously pulling out all the stops, going so far as to update the official Tokimeki Memorial website for the first time in 13 years. The remake offers the original game in all its pixelated glory... as well as a remastered mode with completely redone visuals. It comes out this 2025, and only in Japan!

This has a number of folks rather disappointed. Again, no offense meant to the Date Everything people—they are, by all accounts, entirely above the board and genuine fans of visual novel storytelling. They are approaching their game with the utmost of good faith, and do not deserve any kind of hate. But it's still disappointing that at its core, Date Everything is still something of a jokey-joke visual novel about anthropomorphized household objects. It's not that this kind of approach hasn't been done in Japan because of how visual novels are a sanctified genre—for crying out loud, does anyone remember Akikan!, the anime harem comedy about anthropomorphized aluminum cans? But it genuinely sucks that only the "subversive" or "parodic" visual novels get any attention in the U.S. Outside of Katawa Shoujo, I think the only "sincere" visual novel that ever got much public pull in the U.S. would be VA-11 Hall-A—and that's largely because Sukeban Games are seriously dedicated to preserving the vibes of their games, be it VA-11 Hall-A's PC98 aesthetic influences or their upcoming title .45 PARABELLUM BLOODHOUND and its re-creation of Parasite Eve's PS1 aesthetic and battle system (it's looking awesome, by the way). Doki Doki Literature Club is definitely guilty of being more of an "edgy" take on "dating games", Dream Daddy is nothing if not tongue-in-cheek... visual novels are about the only genre in the U.S. that gets it worse than Japanese RPGs.

And the sad part is, there is an audience for visual novels in the US! And I don't just mean Tim Rogers and his deeply-moving six-hour-long Tokimeki Memorial review. This is a seminal game in Japanese history, the influences of which have reached out across genres in some capacity or other. If there's ever a time that a game like this could be appreciated in the United States, it's now. Who do we have to beg to see Tokimeki Memorial brought to the US?

I can't answer that. But I'm out of things to say about the Directs.

That'll do it for this week, I think. I hope it does, I definitely feel this might've been one of my more long-winded columns. With the Summer ending, I hope everyone enjoys the last days of leaves on the trees. And hey, it's Labor Day Weekend! Kick back, rest up (if you can), eat a burger. I hope you guys have a happy Laybuh Day Labor Day. Be good to each other, I'll see you in seven.