This Week in Games

Prices and Princesses

—I have to do.

... Ah, it worked! Welcome back, folks! I pulled double-duty on both This Week in... columns, not unlike that time an ongoing story in Kamen Rider Gaim was interrupted for a Kikaider plug. We were talking about porn! It was a fascinating conversation, and I hope we didn't give our dear editor too many grey hairs over it all. You may have heard over on my Bluesky that I rolled credits on Xenoblade Chronicles 3. I hope you'll forgive me for not giving my thoughts yet—I don't think I'll "really" be done with it until I beat Future Connected. Bear with me. With any luck, I'll get to Xenoblade Chronicles X before summer hits.

...But I must say, that was a damn fine ending.

The discourse on the Switch 2 has gone entirely out of control. While the US$450 price is on the higher-end of what people are willing to expect, the US$80 price tag on certain Switch 2 titles has led to the kind of outrage where misinformation absolutely festers, from some claims that some Switch 2 games would cost US$90 (no idea where that one comes from, maybe folks were confusing the European prices?) to sabers being rattled at the Game Key cards (even though other publishers are adopting similar methods). That the Japanese Switch 2 is priced at about US$330 is now cited as evidence that Nintendo is "being greedy," never mind that the yen is still extremely weak at the moment. It's led to a whole discourse that, throughout a weekend, seemed to lose sight of any nuance outside of "DROP THE PRICE," which I'm sure is cathartic to spam in a chat. Not sure what it'll do in the long run, though. With all the discourse over the Switch 2's price, the smart thing for Sony and Microsoft would be to sit back on their laurels and do nothing. Decreasing the price on the PS5 might even make it more appealing than a Switch 2—

—or, they can raise the price of the PS5. Yeah, that makes sense.

Sony announced the price hike on their official blog this Sunday, before the work week even had a chance to start. The raise applies to PS5s sold in Europe, Australia, and New Zealand, with prices of €499, $829.95, and $949.95, respectively. If it sounds silly to you, don't worry—it does to me, too. But also: if you bought the digital version, the separate disk trays have the same price. Yay...?

The educated guess as to the reasoning behind the price hike is simple: a significant portion of the gaming industry's sales is based in the United States. The gaming industry is facing losses courtesy of the tariffs President Trump has imposed on video game consoles. Sony is looking to make up for lost profits through sales in other regions. Again, as I said, this does seem silly, especially since the PlayStation 5 is a five-year-old console. At this point, most people would be thinking about what a possible PlayStation 6 might be like. With the consternation over the $450 Switch 2, a real slam-dunk would've been selling a PS5 at a lower price. Sure, keep the PS5 Pro at eye-gouging prices, if you have to (those graphical updates are minimal anyway). But a PS5 at $400, while Nintendo sells a $450 console, is some kind of competition. As the joke goes, the PS5 "has no games." That's bullcrap, by the way—Sony has a wealth of older titles on their virtual storefront that are more than worth the price, like the Dark Cloud games or Valkyrie Profile. But Sony only seems to trot those games out as cameos for Astro Bot.

Consoles were always going to get more expensive in the wake of the tariffs. I know people who were excited at the notion of snubbing the Switch 2 by just buying other consoles—or just making a PC. But of course, the same tariffs and economic factors that led to a Switch 2 price hike mean that everything else will also become more expensive. I didn't expect Sony to come out and up-sell their console, especially not in regions where their consoles are already priced as luxury goods. It needs to be said that Sony didn't have to do this, especially not on hardware that's this old or is already struggling with its value proposition. This is a fine case of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

A lot of discussion is about how gaming is being priced out of the hands of many. I think the sad truth is that this was already happening; I hear so many people insisting that you don't "need" to spend four figures on components for a decent gaming rig, only for the latest triple-A game to have been made with the latest GPU's in mind, so you probably want the top-of-the-line chips if you want Monster Hunter Wilds to run correctly. And the PS5 was already not cheap; as detailed in a column from a few months ago, the PS5 Pro already retails for $1400 in New Zealand—and it not only doesn't include a physical disk drive, it doesn't even include a godforsaken stand. There's a reason so many people from Europe or Canada looked at Americans panicking over $80 games—they've been paying that much for games for ages. Add to that people who in this day and age live paycheck-to-paycheck—or worse, are homeless (yes, homeless people like games too).

I don't know how much a $450 Nintendo Switch will cost when it finally launches this summer, but even at the European rate of €469.99, it's still a lot less than a PS5...

Tekken 8 recent "Defensive Patch" might have players up in arms, but CAPCOM throws its hat into the ring with surprising updates with... a patch for Marvel vs. CAPCOM Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics. This is wild and surprising, especially since it's a patch for several old games. It's not often that older collections like these get this kind of TLC, especially considering the extensiveness of the patches...

The patch comes with new art for the art gallery, illustrated by beloved fighting game artist Shinkiro. Shinkiro is regarded as a legend in the space of fighting game art, so this is a neat bit of fan service. The patch also includes new remixed songs for Captain America, Captain Commando, Cyclops, and my boy Jin Saotome. (This is the closest we'll get to a new Cyberbots game...)

Players can also look forward to many quality-of-life updates that will make fighting game aficionados happy. First, you can press and hold a button to open the menu mid-fight. You can also reset the game straight from the menu, making things a lot easier when you're trying to set up fights. There is now an offline Versus mode for every game in the collection, making tournament play a snap. If you're playing Marvel vs. CAPCOM 2, the game now includes options for improved resolutions to improve the old 3D visuals in the backgrounds.

The real treat that has old-school pugilists thrilled is the option to access X-Men vs. Street Fighter's various builds (960910, 961004, and 961023). This is big! Many of the older ports for X-Men vs. Street Fighter only handled the latest version of the game (961023). While it's not the worst version of the game, the earlier builds are preferred by many players because it is a lot easier to pull off tech. Players can choose whichever version they want to play. This is a great move for video game archiving, to say nothing of the options it gives people trying to set up local tournaments.

Most importantly, it's an excellent show of faith from CAPCOM. It's not very common to see a collection get this extensive of a patch, let alone with all of the extra goodies (the artwork and music, specifically). They're committed to making these collections as complete as possible. This is a good show and inspiring to hear regarding CAPCOM's other collections.

A least it would, until further updates came out later in the week. Remember how X-Men vs. Street Fighter had several versions? Well, so does CAPCOM vs. SNK 2 in the CAPCOM Fighting Collection 2 set. Normally, this isn't an issue: the main version of the game that you play is the arcade version. The problem originates from the online ranked mode; for some reason, it runs on the later "Easy Operation" version of CAPCOM vs. SNK 2. Much like with X-Men vs. Street Fighter, the "EO" version, as it's known, is fairly maligned among the fighting game community. Long story short, the EO version doesn't feature an exploit known as "roll cancelling," which makes the game less enjoyable for many seasoned pros. More puzzling is that the collection defaults to this version of CAPCOM vs. SNK 2. A lot of figures in the fighting game community are raising awareness of the issue, so hopefully CAPCOM can offer some extra options down the line for folks who don't want to play the EO version. I encourage folks to respectfully throw their hat into the ring and let CAPCOM know of their desire for better options, if they're so inclined.

Throughout this column, we've touched on several major video games that have massively influenced Japanese gaming but get almost no lip service in the United States—think Tokimeki Memorial or Angelique. Part of the issue is that these games have never been made available in the United States for American fans to enjoy—but it looks like we'll have an alternative for one famous formative title!

Magical Princess comes to us from Neotro Inc. and Magi Inc. Here, you play as a widower raising a daughter on your own, starting from childhood up to her graduation from magic school. Of course, you have tons of choices to make in raising her: you can diligently encourage her to focus on her studies, raising her to be a renowned spellcaster; or you can encourage her to prowl the streets at night, falling in with a colorful band of motorcyclists. Magical Princess boasts about 50 endings, all hinging on the myriad paths your daughter's life can take, from the beloved local baker to the infamous Demon Queen. Along the way, you can introduce your daughter to a wealth of characters for her to befriend or even fall in love with—as well as deck her out in any number of luxurious outfits. Also, your daughter is voiced by actress Sayumi Suzushiro, whom you might recognize as Nijika Ichiji from Bocchi the Rock!.

If this set-up sounds familiar, it's because it's very heavily inspired by the Princess Maker games; a series of simulation games produced by Studio Gainax (yes, the home of Neon Genesis Evangelion and Hanamaru Kindergarten). The Princess Maker games were huge in their day, and their influences run pretty deep through the gaming industry. I don't have any hard proof of this. Still, I'm pretty sure the Princess Maker games and their emphasis on stat growth-based rearing were a major influence on the original Atelier Marie—which kickstarted the entirety of the Atelier series. The games were just a novel approach towards simulation games: a single parent (nominally a father) given a daughter by a god in the hopes that you'll raise her to be a wise, charitable adult. You can send your daughter to school and have her earn some money working jobs around town, while also sending her off on action-RPG-esque adventures around the world where she fights monsters. The options are extensive, including allowing for your daughter's weight or morality. Once again, your daughter could reach all kinds of goals, such as becoming a writer, a mason, a royal concubine, or an evil goddess! You could also marry your daughter, and the game will look at you sideways for it.

Princess Maker has a rather esteemed background to it, but the games have all but vanished after Princess Maker 5 in 2007. Gainax made an anime based on the Princess Maker games, Petite Princess Yucie, but that didn't budge the needle much. Princess Maker 2, by and large the most popular game in the series, got a remaster last year in the form of Princess Maker 2 Regeneration, out on Steam, PlayStation 4, 5, and Nintendo Switch. Heads-up, it's a bit rough, even if it features completely new artwork from the original artist, Takami Akai.

Which is where Magical Princess comes in. With its 50 endings and myriad decisions in raising your daughter, it's hoped that Magical Princess will do right by Princess Maker's legacy. It doesn't have a release date yet, but it has a Steam page where you can follow for further updates.

I don't know what to tell you. Sometimes the news writes itself. If I wanted to fake a news story, I'd do something like, "New SaGa Game To Feature Monster Designed By Toshio Maeda" or "Nobuo Uematsu Reunites With Deep Purple's Ian Gillan For New Song Featured in Final Fantasy XIV Expansion." And make no mistake, those are all deep cuts that would blow anyone's mind, but they still feel like they come up short next to this.

Ryū Nakayama, better known as the director of MAPPA's Chainsaw Man adaptation, apparently decided to go into game design. Hence his new project, The Inn: a survival-horror rogue-like where you navigate a randomly-generated haunted inn while evading all manner of ghosts and ghoulies. It's set to feature some big-name voice acting talent, including Asami Seto and Megumi Han. Oh, and it's being made in freaking Roblox.

The reasoning behind the decision to make this game in Roblox evades me; Nakayama himself acknowledges that Roblox is a lot more popular in the United States than it is in Japan. Still, he also voices his desire to give it "a strong Japanese feel" (according to Google Translate). Maybe he figured it'd be the easiest way to get the attention of a lot of American fans?

For what it's worth, The Inn looks rather unrecognizable as a Roblox game; the level seems quite well-designed, and the graphics are somewhat comparable to Fatal Frame. So we certainly can't fault Nakayama and his colleagues at Studio Mayflower for their attention to detail and passion! Currently, there's no word on a release date; Nakayama promises more information soon.

That'll do it for this week, I think. I hope folks enjoyed a double-dose of That Bitch™ throughout this week. I think I'll keep it to a once-in-a-blue-moon thing. I deeply enjoyed my time with This Week in Anime, and the guys there are always a blast to work with, but two columns a week is a lot. I put a lot of pride into my columns. Even though my lived experiences as a gamer are unique from most everyone, especially due to my life growing up in Puerto Rico, I'm proud of the work I put into these columns. I'm proud to see my readers' excitement at certain bits of news. It makes me happy when people feel seen, which is why I make sure to bone up a bit even for stuff I don't know much about. Gaming is for everyone, and it's a much wider world than I can fathom; I learn a lot through this column, and I hope to help you learn a lot too. Be good to each other, I'll see you in seven.