This Week in Games

Who Owns Sonic's Freedom Fighters?

Welcome back, folks! I look forward to every column's debut because I look forward to how all of you receive it, especially since more than a few of you have brought some interesting stuff to my attention. Remember that you can hit me up on Bluesky with questions or comments. That said, if you have news tips, send them to ANN's tipline. Chain of command, and all that.

I'm tired, boss. As much as I love games and the gaming community, I hate so much that so many people bring it down for everyone else. A lot of people just really love acting the fool with the actual people who make our games. It's one thing to have a degree of skepticism towards the corporate aspect of games - no corporation deserves your trust. But the developers themselves? There's an active antagonism towards them that boggles my mind. As incensed as I might have gotten about certain games not living up to my expectations, I've never found harassing the dev team to be a decent response. That's something folks decided is a reasonable course of action. Well, Square Enix ain't having it.

Earlier this week, Square Enix published a new "Group Customer Harassment Policy." It's fairly cut-and-dry. "Square Enix believes that the feedback, comments, and requests received from our customers are essential to the advancement of our group's products and services," the policy states. "At the same time, there are instances where certain customers take actions [...] that constitute 'customer harassment'. [...] Such actions do not only prevent our employees and partners from engaging in their work with a sense of security but also cause disruptions to other customers."

The policy goes on to explain that Square Enix reserves the right to refuse services or products to people who "engage in action [...] against one of our employees or partners that exceeds socially acceptable behavior", warning that if the behavior is particularly malicious or egregious it might be responded to with legal action. They also include a list of actions and behaviors as examples of harassment, which includes abusive language, infringement of privacy (taking and sharing images or videos of people without their permission), or "discriminatory speech and conduct regarding race, ethnicity, religion, family origin, occupation, etc." They also have a provision for what they call "undue demand," covering "unreasonable response or request for an apology," "unreasonable changes," or "unreasonable and excessive demands for punishment of our employees."

This is a pretty thorough write-up, and it covers the gamut of behaviors from the nastier types on the Internet. I know people were very divided on Dawntrail, and a lot of people especially took umbrage with the character Wuk Lamat (especially towards her English voice actress, Sena Bryer). They've got personality of a harasser down to a "T" when it comes to things like "discriminatory speech" (of which there was plenty, given Bryer's sexual identity), "unreasonable changes" (like, say, re-recording the entirety of Dawntrail's dialogue), or "unreasonable and excessive demands for punishment." Don't ask me why people think this is a normal way to behave with people and communicate your desires.

It's not the first time a studio has made a legal threat to potential harassment; Bungie made waves in 2023 after suing a user who was harassing Bungie staff (the inciting incident apparently was the promotion of fanart from a Black artist). The case ended with the defendant on the hook for almost US$500,000 in damages, plus establishing precedent for possible future cases.

It shouldn't have had to come to this. Many insist that their goal is "criticism," and accuse people of being "thin-skinned" when it comes to it. It's also been my experience that when many of their "criticisms" are just slurs, people type the letter "L" or share the clown face emoji. I imagine those people won't take kindly to these kinds of requests from Square Enix. Still, I'm happy a line was drawn in the sand. The unfortunate downside of social networks being what they are (and being as mismanaged as they are) is that it's very easy for the worst people on the 'net to raise a lot of hell. And in the wake of reactionary types only becoming further and further emboldened, it's good to see studios standing by their employees - especially their community managers, who have to filter through all of the muck on the Internet to make announcement tweets. This kind of behavior isn't reserved for any one fandom, nor is it specific to American fans alone (we've covered similar cases involving Korean developers and fans). But it's abominable all the same, so I'm glad there's increased pushback against it. Given how many have decided to stink up the room for developers, I applaud Square Enix for standing by its employees.

Sonic The Hedgehog has a lot of friends, to put it lightly. For a good while, people were rather sick and tired of even his closest buddies (Knuckles, Tails, Amy Rose, and Shadow), but nowadays it's finally cool to like some of the more exotic characters like Blaze the Cat or the Chaotix Crew. Sonic's got so many friends, you'd be forgiven for not knowing all of them; some characters, like Ray the Flying Squirrel, Bean the Dynamite, or Fang the Sniper, have only made sporadic appearances throughout the series. Some, like the Hard Boiled Heavies, have only really appeared in one game. Dangling over all of these characters are the Freedom Fighters; Sonic's entourage of friends and allies from the Archie comics. They also appeared in one of the Sonic cartoons. Fans have spent years arguing over the legality of these characters or whether Sega even owned them, and it seems we finally have some closure on that.

Courtesy of Michealene Risley, a former licensing rep for Sega of America, certain Sonic fans were able to get ahold of never-before-seen legal documents detailing Sega's licensing deals with DiC, the animation studio responsible for the Sonic the Hedgehog cartoon. DiC had two Sonic cartoons; one aired in syndication (called The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog), and the other aired on ABC on Saturday Mornings, which fans came to refer to as Sonic SatAM. The syndication cartoon was an episodic deal, designed by Milton Knight and more along the lines of Looney Tunes with Sonic. Sonic SatAM was more of a serialized affair, detailing the hedgehog's ongoing battle to overthrow Dr. Robotnik and his machine empire, which had taken over the planet of Mobius. This one is also noteworthy because it brought in a group of Sonic's friends: the so-called "Freedom Fighters," a group of animal people that helped Sonic in his battles against Dr. Robotnik. The Freedom Fighters debuted in the Archie comics and consisted of: Princess Sally Acorn, rightful heir to the throne of Mobius and one-time love-interest to Sonic, Miles "Tails" Prower (you might've heard of him), Rotor the Walrus, an inventor, Uncle Chuck, Sonic's elderly uncle, Antoine, a former bodyguard of Sally's and a stereotype of "cowardly" Frenchmen, and Bunny Rabbot, a southern belle who was freed from partial roboticization.

According to the documentation shared by Risley, Sega legally owned everything related to both cartoons. This meant not only characters, but also production materials like animation cells and music. This goes for the Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog cartoon, too. Sega also owns Scratch, Grounder, and Coconuts. The documents also establish why Sonic Sat AM never got a third season: Sega put an injunction against DiC after they caught DiC selling animation cels while those belonged to Sega.

The Freedom Fighters never appeared in any of the Sonic games and didn't get much recognition outside of Sonic SatAM, which bothered Sonic fans for ages. The Archie Sonic comics are effectively their own little world in terms of Sonic lore; while I won't pretend I know much about it, I know that folks are quite defensive of it all. And not for no good reason: there are buttloads of stories involving the Freedom Fighters. They grew as characters over the years. Sally's computer AI, NICOLE, eventually manifested into the real world as a holographic lynx. Bunny eventually got her organic arm and legs back--and married Antoine (which still blows my mind). There are decades of built-up nostalgia for these characters. Nevertheless, the Freedom Fighters are abandoned to limbo; after IDW picked up the rights to the Sonic comic in the wake of Archie abandoning the license, IDW and its writers decided to focus on a mix of characters from the video games (like Amy, Knuckles, Tails, Cream and Cheese and Silver) while introducing a few new characters (Whisper the Wolf, Tangle the Lemur, Jewel the Beetle, Dr. Starline, etc). The door was left open for the Freedom Fighters to return, but the current writing team hasn't made any moves in that direction.

The history of Sega and its properties is one of constant infighting between Sega's American and Japanese branches; Matt McMuscles has a few good videos detailing the schism, but nothing illustrates it better than the sad story of Sonic Extreme; Yuji Naka was so offended by the idea of an American team getting access to the NiGHTS Into Dreams engine that he threatened to leave Sega. With that kind of schism, it wouldn't be that much of a stretch to assume the C-Suite types would be against the idea of characters made by the American branch being in the "official" Japanese games. Or not. Who knows? The mystery of not knowing hasn't helped fans of the Freedom Fighters, who feel very shorted by the whole matter.

At the risk of sounding brusque, I think the best course of action is to move on. Nothing good comes from fandoms feeling personally shortchanged over these kinds of character decisions--especially since there isn't any malice behind it. Every day that goes by is another day the Freedom Fighters get older, and trying to incorporate them into any Sonic story would only serve to over-complicate the story. Even Sonic the Hedgehog 3 only just introduced another of what many people consider a core character to Sonic's entourage, and they still had to do a ton of rewriting to do it (with the ramifications of those changes to be seen in the future). I struggle to see how anyone could incorporate a whole bunch of characters into the Sonic movies without overwhelming audiences, or to the satisfaction of the people who want to see the Freedom Fighters back. It's fair to say that the Freedom Fighters were of a different era. While it's a shame that they never got any closure, life very seldom gives us options. The strength of Sonic the Hedgehog as a character is that he has adapted over the years, always molding himself into the current model of what "being cool" and "having attitude" means. Sometimes this means certain characters get emphasized, sometimes this means certain characters get left behind because they just don't fit. If Sega can retire Big the Cat or keep even Tails out of Sonic the Hedgehog 4, there's no telling what else they'll change.

What makes fandom the way it is is people being emotionally attached to stuff. That same attachment can make it hard to let go of something that isn't coming back. I can't draw any lines in the sand over this stuff, but I think that you're likely hurting yourself if you're holding your breath for the Freedom Fighters to come back. At least we have closure on who owns them.

The world is officially hers! Miku has been revealed to be the face of Fortnite Festival's seventh season.

The season pass includes two outfits for Miku, unique contrails that play World Is Mine, a "Miku Miku Beam" emote, and a LEGO Fortnite version of Miku's model (I think a few weebs wouldn't mind some real Miku-themed LEGO sets...). And, of course, Miku headlines Fortnite's musical rhythm game. I'm not convinced by Miku's dancing during the game itself; Miku looks fine (a decent-enough recreation of KEI's original take on her look, passed through the Fortnite filter), but her dancing seems... wrong. Maybe it's because of the years of choreography Nico Nico Douga artists have put her through, but the Fortnite dance looks so devoid of energy. Perhaps it's because they gave Miku the same motions and dances that they'd use for other singers; I'm not about to blame Epic Games for not recording a whole new set of wild choreography just for Miku. That's what the aforementioned Nico Nico Douga videos are for.

Miku's pack doesn't include the mini-Warthog. I just wanted to show everyone what it looks like when Miku drives the little doot-dee-doo vehicle while Green Day plays. As you do in Fortnite.

Truly, nothing else could demonstrate Miku's pop-culture dominion than her being given a little spotlight in Fortnite. I imagine people are likely scratching their heads over who this green anime girl is and why she's swinging a sprig of green onion around. Even in this day and age, with all the people plugged into the Internet (and how much Internet culture you'd have to be passively aware of to play Fortnite), I imagine a few people don't quite understand what Miku is doing there. But hey, Miku's already had the Magic: The Gathering collab, the David Letterman appearance, the commercial collaboration with Scarlett Johansson, and the American Toyota collab that gave her a fixation on bacon-wrapped hot dogs. Miku was made as a voice synthesizer to be the ur-idol, a songstress anyone could mold for any genre or performance; I think it's safe to say she's far exceeded that goal.

Mai Shiranui's February 5th debut in Street Fighter 6 draws ever closer, and CAPCOM even released a new trailer for her to show off more of her in-game gimmicks and mechanics. Folks have been going nuts for it.

Mai looks amazing in motion. The weight and impact of her attacks are seemingly based on how her attacks felt back in Fatal Fury 2, only with far more embellishments like her flame stocks. Also, it looks like Mai has a new mechanic wherein landing certain attacks gives her "Flame Stocks," which alter the properties of some of her moves. For example: her basic fan-tosses have a mechanic where if you hold the button as you toss them, the fans will hit extra times. Adding Flame Stocks into the mix changes the properties of how those work. Certain moves will expend Flame Stocks, other moves will add extra ones. It's an interesting mechanic to give Mai, one that revolves around her most iconic attack (the Kagerou no Mai) and certainly encourages some good rush-down strategies. I dig the neat flame effect on her back while she has Flame Stocks; the flames look like stylized shimenawa rope. Mai fancies herself a yamato nadeshiko and she's extremely attached to Japanese tradition (even if she's a metalhead), so it's a good addition to her character.

The trailer made sure to tease at some of the old rivalries she had with Chun Li from CAPCOM Vs SNK, but sadly this doesn't include any special intros. A pity, that, those paired-up intros were a lot of fun. Anyway, the "exhibition match" with Chun Li also revealed a nifty gimmick: the return of the Lanes! The old Fatal Fury games had a faux-3D gimmick wherein you could jump into the "front" lane or the "back" lane, either to dodge attacks or to maneuver around opponents. Terry reflects this mechanic with an ability that lets him dodge attacks; Mai has a much more aggressive version where she can actually kick people into another "lane" temporarily. It's a neat touch, at once a great reference to the mechanics of a fellow series, and a good way of keeping it different between Mai and Terry.

The game also brings back Mai's new leather jacket look, which she'll be sporting in Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves later this spring. CAPCOM's pouring just as much love into Mai as they did with Terry; the fighting game crowd (especially in Japan) appreciates how much SNK shaped the genre along with CAPCOM, and they've made sure to do right by SNK's biggest hitters. People are also getting a lot of mileage out of Sakurai's "good boys and girls" bit, because what's better than a joke getting run into the ground? Look forward to Mai releasing this February 5th!

Yeah, that'll do it for this week, I think, maybe I can take this Thursday easy and play some Xenobla--

--aaaah, cripes, they got me again.

Anticipation for Nintendo's new console reached a fever-pitch over the holidays, with many convinced that Nintendo would announce their new console sometime before the year was out. Because, of course, the best thing to do during the holiday rush is try to sell people on an outdated console when a new one is on the horizon. Anyway, Nintendo did what they do best: they did things at their own pace, according to their own schedule, and announced their new console--the Nintendo Switch 2--early on Thursday morning. And it confirms a few things, but doesn't say much else - to the frustration of the worst people out there (more on that later).

First off: yes, the Switch 2 is a bigger handheld, about an inch or so. This thing is not pocket-sized and isn't trying to be. Pity, that; I miss being able to stick my GameBoy Advance or my DS Lite into my pocket and not worry. The controllers still detach from the sides of the console, but they pop in and out through the use of magnets--which might mean those joycons don't have the much-desired Hall Effect actuators people want. What the controllers do have are a curious optic sensor on the bottom, teasing at the possibility of using the individual controllers as mice. So we might actually get a new Mario Paint on this thing - though the possibility other people have pointed out is the option of using those mice to re-create the touchscreens for emulated Nintendo DS games. Some folks worry about the little connector slab that's on the indent for the Switch 2, but I'm not too concerned; those things are recessed pretty well into the frame, and the housing ensures the controllers can't exactly bend around if they want to slide in to connect. Also, the controllers have angled optic sensors for the mice; I've seen folks propose that means that they'll be able to read motion inputs while tilted.

The dock seems a bit bigger--a pity I won't be able to reuse my little KOS-MOS dock cover. But that's about it. The trailer also showed some images from what can only be a new Mario Kart title; not only is it showing a stage we haven't seen before, the character models are also all-new. Specifically, Donkey Kong is sporting a new look that seems more in line with his design in the Super Mario Bros. movie. We can probably presume a Mario Kart game will be a launch title for the Switch 2, which isn't the weirdest thing in the world; we had Mario Kart DS back in the day, after all.

Nintendo is tight-lipped about anything else; the only other thing we have to go off of is that there will be a dedicated Nintendo Switch 2 direct this April 2nd. Considering that date, I think we can wave off any idea of Xenoblade Chronicles X Definitive Edition being a launch title. We also have confirmation that the Switch 2 is backwards compatible with the Switch, with some exceptions. It's likely a minority of games might not get any kind of patch for functioning on the new console, but it's also likely that a handful of titles might not work on the Switch 2 given controller restrictions--consider stuff like Nintendo Labo or 1-2-Switch, which depend on the infrared cameras on the Joycons.

Now, here's where I bring back that "worst people" bit from earlier. See, Nintendo has been tight-lipped about the Switch 2, but leakers have been having a field-day about it for ages. It seems a lot of accessory manufacturers have been revealing or leaking certain specifications about the Switch 2--mostly size, button placement, the controllers also working as mice, that kind of thing. Some off-the-cuff claims about the internals are floating around, and other details I can't be bothered to care about. You've likely noticed that I haven't really covered any of these leaks. This is deliberate; I don't trade in rumors or leaks. Rumors are worthless, in my opinion, since anyone can say any old thing without evidence. And with social media being designed the way it is, there's incentive to be engaging rather than informative, so people have made careers fishing for clout by running their mouths. As for leaks: second verse, same as the first. We've already covered cases like Midori, where people have not only gone through some extremely unsavory means to get the information, but do so in the service of setting up some kind of cargo cult for themselves. It's one thing to go fishing for information that might actually help people - crimes being patched over, injustices in the industry, little old ladies not being helped while they cross the road. It's another to steal confidential documents from meetings just to tease a Persona game slightly ahead of the announcement. Congratulations: now we know a game is going to come out a day early.

And the sad part is that, be it in anime or video games, leaks hurt the employees - not the corporation. Congratulations: all that work from developers, artists, animators and writers in making something special, and now the release is potentially endangered because someone wanted to farm Likes on social media. This can have tangible effects for studios: nobody, after all, wants to work with someone that can't keep a secret. So what happens if nerds keep crashing meetings or hacking hard drives for pre-release episodes of Ranma 1/2? It's easy to thumb your nose at Nintendo, people like finding excuses to hate them. But leaks aren't hurting Nintendo, they hurt the people that work at Nintendo.

The abundance of leaks around the Switch 2 made things particularly obnoxious because now, everyone felt that Nintendo was "taking too long" to announce stuff. Meanwhile, Nintendo has no reason to confirm the leaks. For one thing: why are they going to validate stolen information? Why are they going to openly admit to business partners, "Yeah, some nerds on the Internet leaked our specifications through our business partners," and put themselves on the chopping block? Why are they going to validate leaks, which will only encourage leakers desperate for recognition to try harder for leaks? And why will Nintendo upend their business plans, manufacturing and distribution contracts and release schedule just to speed things up... all because some nerds on the internet found information they weren't supposed to? I've seen people claim that the leaks are "Nintendo's fault" for "taking too long to share information," which reads to me like "I had to steal it, you made me want it too badly!" Yeah, no, don't pass "go," don't collect $200. But you don't have to take my word for it, Okami 2 director Hideaki Kamiya thinks even worse things about leakers!

In his own florid style, Kamiya cursed all leakers so that they always trail poop into their homes on their shoes. "The shitty leaker only acts for his own pleasure and self-satisfaction," according to the Google Translation of his follow-up tweet. "Not only is he not contributing to anyone's benefit, he is incurring all sorts of opportunity losses, and has done nothing to be proud of in front of others. He is the worst of scum, so he should be covered in shit from head to toe and thrown out of the atmosphere... and then stop thinking and wander forever..." I dunno, I think it's pretty cut-and-dried when people working within the industry who are nowhere near rich continuously insist how bad leaks are for the industry while a few very self-righteous leakers on the Internet respond with "Nuh-uh!"

The saddest part is, people are still complaining now that the Switch 2 is revealed. They think the name is silly--even though it's what people have unofficially been calling it for months now. They hate that it's just a bigger, more-powerful Switch... when that's what people have been asking for since 2017. There's no pleasing some folks. Me, I just want to know when I can pre-order it so I don't have to worry about saving up for it anymore. I gotta buy my own game consoles for this gig, folks! That's a business expense!

For all that we give Sega crap for ignoring their older franchises, it seems it might be time for us to put our money where our mouth is; documents have popped up revealing that Sega has filed new trademarks for "Ecco" and "Ecco the Dolphin". Let's see where this goes...

Dragon Quest X Offline came to iOS and Android this January 15th... in Japan. No word yet on an American release.

I'm excited for Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma! If you are, too, you can look forward to its release this May 30th! The "Earth Dancer" edition will include sundries like an art book, a folding fan, a Woolby plush, and some DLC.

I wanted to give a little shout-out to Godshard Chronicles; it's an indie RPG being made with some involvement from Noriyuki Iwadare (composer for Lunar and Grandia), Kumi Tanioka (composer for Final Fantasy XI) and Michiko Naruke (composer for Wild Arms). The scenario also features contributions from Kei Shigema (writer for Lunar and Grandia). You can look them up on Steam and BlueSky.

If you're waiting for a new Cotton game: Cotton Reboot! High Tension! releases in Japan this July 24th! No word yet on a U.S. release.

That will do it for this week. The fires in Palisades are still going on, and as many have noted, they've affected a lot of game developers and animators. Titmouse Animation has a list of charities folks can consider, while the RPG-themed gaming podcast Axe of the Blood Good (hosted by Kat Bailey and friend of the column, Nadia Oxford) will be hosting an all-day charity stream/podcast this January 20th supporting Los Angeles Wildfire Relief. If you're able: please donate. I'm sure the people of Los Angeles would appreciate that. Be good to each other, I'll see you in seven.

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This Week In Games! is written from idyllic Portland by Jean-Karlo Lemus. When not collaborating with Anime News Network, Jean-Karlo can be found playing JRPGs, eating popcorn, watching v-tubers, and tokusatsu. You can keep up with him at @ventcard.bsky.social.

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