This Week in Games

Good News, Bad News, and Just News

Welcome back, folks! I had a nice experience this past weekend; I decided to visit my local GameStop to see if they had some titles I was looking for (I wanted Shadow of the Ninja Reborn and Gravity Circuit). They didn't have 'em, but they were nice enough to try and put the order through GameStop's website to have them mailed to me. That was a whole mess, sadly; GameStop's website isn't very helpful. The cashier staff was very sweet, though; kudos to the one guy who asked for my name and said, "Dude, that's the name you give your kid when you want them to be the main character of a book!" Eh, not quite, That Bitch™ writes a video game column, but I appreciate it a lot when folks like my name.

We've had a lot of wild releases this summer, but once again the time has come to shine a little spotlight on a smaller title you might have overlooked. Last year, I dedicated some space to talking about Shadow of the Ninja Reborn, a reimagining of the NES cult classic Shadow of the Ninja. And in hindsight, I feel really bad about what I wrote about it because I was very clearly out of my comfort zone. I spoke well of the game, and it wasn't just lip service—the original Shadow of the Ninja is a fun NES action game that featured some slick two-player co-op that I just happened to know absolutely nothing about. And in so doing, I think I did Shadow of the Ninja Reborn a major disservice because it looks sick as hell.

To be fair, the promotional materials for the game weren't the best—this was literally the first gameplay clip I'd seen of the game since it was announced in August of last year. But it's stellar. Yes, a lot of people have been fixated on Kaede's ninja-dump truck (euphemistically speaking—not a literal ninja-dump truck like the one from Shuriken Sentai Ninninger). But also, by all accounts, it's a phenomenally intricate action game, and a valid successor to both the original Shadow of the Ninja, if not the intricate action gameplay established by fellow ninja-games Shinobi and Ninja Gaiden (the 2D ones, not the Tomonobu Itakagi ones). Also, the updated pixel art is positively stunning, a veritable masterclass in 2D animation for games. It's a tragedy that this game is being overlooked purely by virtue of how damn good this looks in motion.

And part of what makes it all such a happy story is that this is a labor of love. Tengo Project, the studio that made Shadow of the Ninja: Reborn, had also worked on other beloved remakes like Pocky & Rocky Reshrined, Wild Guns Reloaded, and The Ninja Saviors: Return of the Warriors. Shunichi Taniguchi, the original pixel artist for Shadow of the Ninja, was able to work on the remake, even. It's heartbreaking to think of how uncommon it is for an artist to work on a remake of a title they made thirty years after the fact—but it also feels like a tiny miracle to think of them managing to get this project off the ground.

Shadow of the Ninja Reborn is definitely an old-school throwback that players with itchy trigger-fingers need to get their hands on. It's not often a labor of love like this comes around, and it's a modern-day miracle that the Tengo Project can continue to make these lovingly crafted remakes. That they've done four of them thus far is astonishing beyond words. The next game to come out of Tengo Project will definitely be getting far more attention on my behalf, if not for the brilliant gameplay then at least for the phenomenal animation. Definitely pick this one up, it's a sleeper hit of the summer.

As a side-note: I don't wanna hear any more guff from weirdos about fat girls in games, especially not if you're gonna be drooling over Kaede's adipose figure. She goes way beyond futomomo; Kaede practically has a pair of Dead or Alive characters for legs.

There have been a lot of upsetting and downright infuriating stories about studio layoffs and closures for a very long time. 2023 and 2024 have been the years where a lot of laypeople finally start noticing it, at least, but the damage is done; much of the inertia behind the bad decisions that established this house of cards is coming home to roost, and we're all the worse for it. We've seen a lot of audacious closures: studio layoffs during their successful live-service game's lifespan, studio closures in the wake of making successful games, and studio closures after making an award-winning game. Time to put another example onto that shelf of perverse humor: closing a studio the day their game is released.

Visions of Mana, the highly-anticipated and much-belated continuation of the beloved Mana series, released this past August 29th to mostly warm reception. It's a little scuffed in some places, but it's nevertheless a lovely game that is worth your time, certainly one to worm its way into your heart. Which, in a lot of ways, is par for the course for the Mana games (the series seems to have a curse of ambitious games with lots of compromises, as well as a few bugs). But even before the review scores came in and before we could even print the sales numbers, NetEase and Tencent (owners of Ouka Studios, which made Visions of Mana) dropped the hatchet on the developers. The very same day it released. Words fail me.

The playbook from NetEase and Tencent reads like Microsoft's aborted strategies writ large: wanting to have more of an outreach in markets outside of China, the companies decided that the easiest thing to do would be to acquire personnel to use their experience to make games for them instead of their competitors. To be fair, it's not a bad idea. Morally questionable, sure, but I won't blame a developer for chasing that dream and following the money. The problem here is that they pulled the Microsoft bit when things didn't make money overnight. While many are quick to point to the release of Black Myth: Wukong (which is tearing up sales charts in China), it's very likely that the pieces were in place for this closure long before Wukong hit gold. You just don't shut down a studio overnight. At least, not on the executive side. Letting folks know they lost their job when they come to work and find a massive padlock on the door is apparently A-OK, 100% industry standard.

There are a lot of very stupid arguments flying around about this, a lot of them couched in bigotry and otherwise nonsense reactionary brainworms—and we will not entertain them. The truth of the matter was that acquiring more talent than was sustainable was part of NetEase and Tencent's strategy, and cutting them off when it became evident that this wouldn't prove as profitable as desired was similarly a "strategic" move. It's cutting off the nose to spite the face, for sure, but executive ghouls will be ghoulish no matter what, and the folks who make the games we love will be the ones who suffer for it.

I can't even propose something that the game-enjoying community could have done, because what can you do? How do you support a game before it's even released, let alone to the satisfaction of some ghoulish executive too busy counting their $100 bills? We can't even attribute this to AAA-style overproduction: this was, by all accounts, a game with a fairly moderate scope that only saw a production schedule of four years (still fairly long, but not ridiculous like many other AAA games). Can the video game industry even produce games anymore? The rot in the gaming industry is at the core, and not only will opportunistic reactionaries find new ways to blame "others" for it, but the industry will continue to embrace the rot. The almighty dollar is valued above all else, even over the product you're supposed to be selling.

About the only thing any of us can do is enjoy Visions of Mana. Who knows when, if ever, we'll get another one.

With all the news of layoffs and closures, it's not often that people can leave their studios or the industry on their own terms. It feels like there always has to be some kind of "story" to it. And while departures can be sad, they're still a part of the industry. So this past weekend definitely rocked the CAPCOM faithful when Hideaki Itsuno announced his departure from the house that Mega Man built.

Itsuno's is a storied name at CAPCOM, having had his hand in a number of beloved games in the 30 years he's worked with them. Most recently, folks have enjoyed Devil May Cry 5 and Dragon's Dogma 2 (which he directed); in the past, you can look towards classics like Power Stone, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Heritage for Future, Rival Schools, and Street Fighter Alpha. Itsuno got his directing position with the Devil May Cry series after the previous director left DMC 2, but his subsequent work on Devil May Cry 3 more than made up for it. Also, I know I already mentioned Dragon's Dogma 2, but I cannot overstate how amazing it is that Itsuno was able to get that game off the ground. CAPCOM really lives or dies off of someone in the offices cheerleading a game in order to get the suits to greenlight it, and Dragon's Dogma has always been Itsuno's beloved baby.

Which is part of why Itsuno's departure saddens so many fans; what will become of the Devil May Cry series in his absence? Will we ever get another one? What of Dragon's Dogma? Who's going to vouch for those games and twist the ears of executives into getting a new one made?

The sole shining light here is that Itsuno's departure is, as mentioned earlier, entirely on his own terms. He's not retiring from the industry at large, he's simply seeking greener pastures. After 30 years at one company, he wants to do something new. And that, I think, is valid. Not everyone can be content with just doing the same projects for their whole lives; sometimes, you need something new to challenge yourself. It's like Jürgen Prochnow said, "The sleeper must awaken." We look forward to hearing of Itsuno's new ventures and wish him the best. For everyone else: yeah, mourn his time at CAPCOM. At the very least, there's never been a better time to enjoy Itsuno's past works (heck, the new CAPCOM Fighting Collection 2 that was just announced is loaded with games he worked on). Just remember: for now, this isn't bad news or good news. It's just news. Spread your wings, Itsuno!

I saw folks talking about this on Twitter, and since we love Dragon Quest in these parts I felt it behooved me to shed some light on this. Because old Enix (now Square Enix) didn't just release the Dragon Quest games—they also had a number of titles from before the line of Erdrick—and one of them got a remake, which is even seeing a U.S. release this September 12th!

Famously, Enix released Yuji Horii's The Portopia Serial Murder Case on PC-6001 and other personal Japanese personal computers back in 1983. It was a fairly innovative game, combining first-person adventure game mechanics (a first-person view where you could point and click to interact with certain objects in the environment) with a text parser that required you to type in certain words in order to progress. You could accuse suspects of a given murder, but if your guess was wrong you'd be chastised and have to start the investigation over. It was a landmark title and inspired countless Japanese developers for years to come.

When it came time to port Portopia to the Famicom 1984, Enix hit upon a major problem: the Famicom didn't have a keyboard, so its text parser wouldn't work. So they had to find a solution for allowing progress in Portopia without using a whole keyboard. And wouldn't you know it, Yuji Horii did just that with a game he had released shortly after Portopia: The Hokkaido Serial Murder Case: The Okhotsk Disappearance. Itself a spinoff of Portopia, Hokkaido Serial Murder Case simplified interactivity with the world by simply giving players a command menu they could use to interact with the world. This would later be very useful when a young Yuji Horii was developing Dragon Quest! See, most computer RPGs of the time like Wizardry or Ultima (which were themselves the inspirations behind Dragon Quest would utilize the whole keyboard for your actions. You'd hit [Q] to [q]uaff a potion, for example, or hit [P] to [p]ay for an item at a store. Yes, this means that in some games you wouldn't even use WASD to move around, but have to do weird things like hit [F] to move [f]orward. Hokkaido Serial Murder Case served as the basis for Dragon Quest's novel approach to interacting with the world: hitting the "A" button on the joypad would bring up a menu allowing you to choose from one of several options for interacting with the world around Erdrick, from looking around his feet to utilizing a flight of stairs to speaking to a person in his vicinity. Later games and remakes would simplify this further by letting Erdrick interact with objects directly by hitting "A", but the earlier approach nevertheless was groundbreaking in how well it synthesized your actions in a major RPG into a condensed, easy-to-understand menu. This was a major factor in Dragon Quest's massive popularity as a franchise since it was approachable enough for even kids to play. Dragon Quest's lower-stakes difficulty, wherein dying would only cost you half of your in-game cash on hand, also made things much more approachable for newcomers.

All this to say, Hokkaido Serial Murder Case getting a remake is a big deal, especially in a year where we've been graced with the return of Nintendo's Famicom Detective Club seemingly out of the blue. And it's heartbreaking that we haven't even seen any kind of discussion of this title in any Nintendo Directs! You'd think the mere association with Yuji Horii would've put it on the shortlist for that. Oh well. As a remake, Hokkaido Serial Murder Case ~Memories in Ice, Tearful Figurine~ reinvents the game for a new era. Mind you, the art style has a charming 80s bend to it, far more so than Famicom Detective Club. But the other big innovation is voice acting: the Memories in Ice remake features top-shelf voice acting talents like Fairouz Ai, Asami Seto, and Shōko Nakagawa, along with Hiroki Gotō as protagonist Shunsuke. And you're not even stuck with Nintendo for this one; it'll be available on Steam as well as the Nintendo Switch.

Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like we'll see a remake of its predecessor Portopia because Square Enix designed it preferable to use it as a tech demo for AI development. But hey, at least they didn't get their mitts on Hokkaido. Hopefully, folks can put the word out on this title, it would be a shame if it died on the vine...

Last month, we covered a story involving voice actress Sena Bryer and the harassment they've received with regards to Dawntrail, the latest expansion to the critically-acclaimed RPG Final Fantasy XIV. "Not to baby cry my own woes but in the past month I've had misgendering, death/rape threats, doxing attempts, threats against my family, etc in every post and all across Twitch/YouTube/Reddit, all bc I voiced a Final Fantasy character, and my industry has been dead silent," she tweeted last month. The situation hasn't gotten much better, it's just been overshadowed by other windmills people have decided to tilt at. Regardless, Final Fantasy XIV director Naoki Yoshida—alias 'Yoshi-P'—has had enough of the matter and decided to speak up with regard to his team.

"I would really like to ask that people do not direct personal attacks to the voice actors involved in the development and also individual members of the localization team because they are really doing their best to create something great for the creative process," Yoshida said in an interview. "It is really not that they are trying to bring forward an argument about a certain movement or anything like that. It's just that they are doing their best for the development so I would really like to ask that the players do not direct personal attacks against them."

To paraphrase Pat Boivin, it would be dishonest and unfair to claim that the entire body of criticism against Dawntrail exists solely because of online vitriol towards Sena Bryer (specifically Bryer being transgender). But it's also worth taking a lot of criticism towards Dawntrail with a grain of salt, especially considering how much of what is criticized with regards to the game (structure, pacing, et cetera) is functionally identical to prior expansions. Wuk Lamat is a divisive character at her core, partially because she's the new blood, partially because she's the central figure to the entire story in Dawntrail, and thus your enjoyment of the game hinges on how much you like serving as a mentor to a character with a lot of learning to do. Nevertheless, a reactionary segment online has decided to boil down a lot of those criticisms and hold Bryer as the poster child for them, leading to her harassment. For the record: that's bullshit, and it's further proof of the problem with reactionary figures in the gaming community pushing vitriolic narratives in the name of silencing queer figures (not that we needed more proof of it, it's been business as usual since 2014).

The key factor here is that Yoshi-P has stepped in. And to be clear, I don't expect that anyone who is invested in harassing people or subscribing to a reactionary mindset is going to stop because the developer of a game asked them nicely. But it's a good show on Yoshi-P's behalf, and it's a sign of some much-needed solidarity towards a voice actress who's been unfairly targeted. I don't even like framing it as Bryer being unfairly targeted because there isn't any "fair target" in this situation! This isn't how rational people comport themselves! This isn't how you do stuff! This shit ain't normal!

I'm not entirely sure what the end goal is for both reactionary groups or the reactionary figureheads they worship. You can't even claim that they genuinely care about the figures they target on a weekly basis because both the speed of the internet and the nature of the algorithms they benefit from for easy engagement require constant novelty; they always need someone to scapegoat, someone to blame for ruining everything forever. But there's always going to be someone, isn't there? Even if their ideal scenario were Sena Bryer and Kathleen Kennedy and any number of women they have on a hitlist were removed from the industry, what then? Wuk Lamat will still be a divisive character. Star Wars will still have Ewoks (the thing that was ruining Star Wars forever back when Return of the Jedi released). New creative decisions will be made, and these decisions will inevitably involve changing the status quo of whatever thing they're involved with. Superman will grow out his mullet again. Persona will experiment with country music after its dalliances with hip-hop and jazz (remember when the pre-Persona 3 games used techno?). Adol will continue to meet new blue-haired women to romance. And Daisuke Ishiwatari will still have introduced a number of queer characters into Guilty Gear. So what happens when the only people left to hate are the people who created the work you claim to be defending?

The truth is that being involved in any kind of creative industry with a following on the Internet will put a great degree of visibility on any involved people, especially those from marginalized groups. I don't subscribe to the notion that "being on the Internet requires thick skin", because a lot of the people who dish it out sure as hell can't take as good as they give. But I do believe that more and more project leaders need to take steps to stand by their teams because more than ever the rabid hordes on the Internet will chase after and target anyone they decide they don't like. It's good of Yoshi-P to stand by not just Sena Bryer but his whole creative team. I hope he and the rest of his crew cook because there have been plenty of characters in Final Fantasy XIV that the fanbase has pulled a 180 on (Alphinaud, for one).

Phoenix Wright fans are still pretty thrilled that the Ace Attorney Investigations games are releasing in the United States—in fact, they'll be out as you read this column. But it seems like CAPCOM has other surprises in store for folks, involving the very start of the Ace Attorney Investigations games.

If you think the image of an Among Us crewmate dressed as Miles Edgeworth is funny, you should read the alt-text to the image. Anyway, in what I'm assuming is a cross-promotion with the release of Ace Attorney Investigations, Among Us players will be able to download a free Miles Edgeworth skin as a cosmetic drop. There hasn't been as much fan art for it all as I would have expected, but folks sure are meme-ing about "updated autopsy reports" and bodies in the elevator. The sad news is that there doesn't seem to be anything about fellow attorneys Phoenix Wright or Apollo Justice getting similar skins, but there's plenty of time for that in the future. And I doubt that Among Us won't see further collaborations in the future. They're definitely cool with working with other games; we've seen Among Us collaborate with titles like Celeste, A Hat in Time and Untitled Goose Game, as well as feature in other titles like Vampire Survivor and Balatro. Just when you think people have gotten tired of the game (especially after its heyday in 2020), Among Us sticks around and surprises folks. Kudos to CAPCOM and Innersloth.

That'll do it for this week, I think. There is a lot to look forward to in September! The Tokyo Games Show is later this month, we'll surely see plenty of exciting announcements there. Who knows what ancient obscure Japanese title will make a resurgence this time? We might even see a new Popful Mail title. Hell, they might even bring Bonk back! But also, later in September, we'll see the Portland Retro Gaming Expo. I'll be touring the place on Saturday; while I won't have any panels at the Expo (maybe in the future), I think I need to swing by and pick up a few things for my collection. I still don't have the Pyra or Mythra Amiibo (throw me a bone, Nintendo!), and it would be nice if I could pick up a physical copy of VA-11 Hall-A for a decent price. But also, I need to find a copy of Izuna: Legend of the Unemployed Ninja. I have one back home in Puerto Rico, but the copy didn't include the instruction manual (only the game and case). But more on that much later. For now: remember that we will not tolerate bigotry or bad-faith arguments. We like games here at This Week in Games, and we like enjoying games with people. Don't be a cretin. Be good to each other, I'll see you in seven.