Rundown (9/01/2024) Nina Tendo Brain Problems (2024)

This Week’s Topics:

Rundown Preamble Ramble: Nina Tendo Brain Problems
Nina Tendo’s Double Direct Digest! (Nintendo Direct and Indie World Rundown)
Tetris Really IS Forever (Digital Eclipse Announces Tetris Forever)
Yo, Falcom’s tit* is No Longer Ugly As Hell! (Trails in the Sky 1st Remake Announced)
We Are In The CapGod Era of Re-Releases! (Capcom Announces Capcom Fighting Collection 2)
DominuS Without the Dual Screen (Castlevania DominuS Collection Announced)
Corporatized Coziness Continues (EA Announces Remaster of MySims and MySims Kingdoms)
Hitting the Switch LIKE A DRAGON! (Like a Dragon – Yakuza: Kiawami (2016) Announced for Switch)
Tokimeki f*ckING Memorial is Back! (Tokimeki Memorial: Forever With You Emotional Announced)
Nintendo Direct: Dribs and Drabs (JRPGs I Didn’t Have Much to Say About)
Live Services, Quality, Disdain, Bad Ideas, and Death (The Struggles of Foamstars, Concord, and Blue Protocol)
Visions of Dissolution and Despair (NetEase and Tencent Are Reconsidering Japanese Game Investments)
Hideaki Itsuno Leaves Capcom After 30 Years (Devil May Cry Shepard and Dragon’s Dogma Director Leaves Capcom)
Nintendo Re-Whatever Rationale List (Moved to the End to Avoid Pace Breaking)

Woo boy. This past week I made the mistake of watching a video from a well regarded NintendoTuber named Arlo. (He’s the guy who uses a bootleg Cookie Monster muppet as his rantsona.) Particularly, his recent video about how inconsistent Nintendo’s re-releases are, which seems like the exact kind of brainworm that I can chug down like it’s oatmeal. …But then I started watching it and dedicated about four hours breaking down the problems with what he said. I don’t really like this debunking sort of thing, and I normally like the guy, but he was… so wrong here, it was genuinely infuriating. I need to put that frustration somewhere, so I put it into Natalie.TF.

The opening crux of Arlo’s essay is highlighting how Nintendo’s release catalog for the Switch has included a bevy of re-whatevers of older titles. By my count, almost 30. However, their approach, pricing structure, and naming scheme for these re-whatevers have been inconsistent. Sometimes they put out full feature-complete remakes of beloved titles, remade using modern technology. Other times, they remaster an older game and spruce up its visuals, maybe fix a few things or add a sub-campaign. And other times they just port a game, no frills attached, or basically no frills that any sane person would notice without a chocolate gun up their butt.

This links back to an ongoing debate across the world of gaming— one that even involves people who make games— as there is no universal consensus on what constitutes a remake/remaster/port. Personally, I consider this to be a spectrum with multiple different dimensions with ample room for ambiguity depending on what the new release is aiming to do. …But I also believe you can just dump games into those four buckets of port, remaster, faithful remake, and distinctive remake, depending on how much was changed and how much work was done. Which is really bloody hard to tell if you are not familiar with the original work.

Also, let me define my newfangled butt-smelling terms real quick.

Faithful Remake: A remake that intends to recreate every part of the original work, taking conservative creative liberties and striving to preserve the original vision. A remake that is faithful to the original, for better or worse. Examples: Super Mario RPG (2023), Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2 (2020), Shadow of the Colossus (2018).

Distinctive Remake: A remake that takes creative liberties and changes a significant part of the original game, a reimagining based on different standards. A remake that is distinctively its own thing. Examples: Resident Evil 2 (2019), Another Code Recollection (2024), Silent Hill 2 (2024).

Some terms like ‘enhanced port’ aim to strike a middle ground, but the more terms one introduces, the more room there is for criticism and confusion. Like, what even is an ‘enhanced port’? What makes it enhanced? When do the enhancements cross into being a remaster? And don’t even get me started on how Final Fantasy VII Remake (2020) is actually an alternate universe sequel and not a remake. Like, at all. That single-handedly killed any chance for people to understand this jargon.

…Going back to Arlo’s video, he then veers into discussing the price and effort of each title, two ideas that are both deserving of their own discussions.

Most retail games cost are ‌pretty damn cheap all things considered, but Nintendo has been terrible with their prices this generation, trying to uphold a standard $60 price tag for even 7-year-old games. This is a broader issue with Nintendo, rather than their remakes, but I will concede that Nintendo’s rationale for what is and is not a budget title in regards to reissued titles has not made much sense.

Aside from maybe 20/30 retail titles they put out this generation, everything’s been a $60 release, regardless of its nature. Also, retail price is not actually related to budget or development timeline. The goal of pricing a product is to charge as much as one can to maximize profit without harming goodwill too significantly. And Nintendo has basically infinite goodwill.

Next, I generally do not like seeing people use the term ‘effort’ when discussing a project that involves dozens, if not hundreds, of people. Effort is something a single creator puts into their work. Effort is how hard one tries at their job. Effort is how many times one is willing to reiterate the same concept. But games as large-scale projects do not take effort, they take resources, with the key resources being money and skilled people. There are game devs who do not put effort into their work— we used to call them asset flippers. But everybody working at a major studio is trying, and to assume otherwise is, at best, ignorant, and at worst, a projection of one’s belief that bad things are caused by lazy people. When, in actuality, most bad things that happen are because of poor planning or a lack of resources.

While I dislike Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl as the next PokéFan, saying that they “represent the barest of bare minimum effort” is just incorrect. If they wanted to put in the minimum effort, they would have just released a ROM, not remake an entire game in Unity. That takes effort. The problem is that ILCA did not have the resources, i.e. time, to make a desired remake, as they shoved this out in less than two years. Meanwhile, I’m pretty sure they whipped up Super Mario 3D All-Stars in half the time for a quarter of the budget.

Actually, I want to hold onto the idea of resources, as that really is the reason behind the supposed oddities of Nintendo’s history of re-whatevers this past generation. Nintendo fans have been clamoring for them to re-whatever their favorite games for years. Hell, I’m as guilty as any of them. However, what they put out largely depends on their ability to manage and curate resources. They only have so much staff, so many teams, and so many marketing resources to accommodate new releases. They have an obscene amount of money, but they also understand that they should not oversaturate the market too much.

Everything is planned, everything is balanced to that plan, and while they do screw up, that’s because they are led by humans and working in a complex industry. And if you wait and examine any situation, their actions make sense. Why release Donkey Kong Country again? Because it’s a cheap and easy way to put a new DK game on store shelves. They could do Jungle Beat (2005) instead, but it’s Jungle Beat, and it’s weird.

Arlo then goes into discussing the differences and improvements of Skyward Sword HD (2021) versus Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD (2024). A fairly sensible comparison— they are both “HD” ports after all, and he points out that Skyward Sword had multiple material changes made to the game, while Luigi’s Mansion 2 has far fewer. He tries to rationalize this, bizarrely, by pointing out how popular the titles are and how well their original releases sold. He brings up VGChartz data— which is notoriously unreliable, before comparing the game’s perceived flaws.

Skyward Sword was a praised yet contentious title in its heyday and for numerous reasons. Ranging from the game’s look to its structure to its pacing. The HD re-release aimed to correct minor things while implementing a new, sensible, control scheme. However, it did not change anything major. It did not make the game less linear. It did not change the boss or dungeon designs. It did not change the shield repair system. It did not address the endgame backtracking (like Wind Waker HD (2013) did). There were a lot of gripes people had with the game, and it addressed the easy ones. Stuff like making text scroll faster and updating the menu design.

Arlo then highlights how Luigi’s Mansion 2 had a major flaw with its mission system, implying that they should have changed that when the game was brought over to Switch. Now, I’ve never played Luigi’s Mansion 2, so I’ll take his word that this one feature “completely ruin[ed] the game for a pretty dramatic percentage of the audience.” Yet he does not ask himself how much work would need to be done to address this fundamental system of the game.

If a game is designed around missions… you cannot just get rid of the mission-based structure. You would need to redesign so much, and put so much time into the game, just to make that work. This is something that would take months, probably over a year, for even a 30+ person team to implement and all for… what? By Arlo’s logic, if the game sold well, better than a mainline Zelda game, doesn’t that mean there’s less incentive to change things, since people were not bothered by this system?

Next the topic shifts to discussing a seeming lack of basic ports of older GameCube-era games to Switch, citing titles like F-Zero GX. This is a valid criticism of Nintendo’s output, as people are less engaged in consoles during their twilight years and more likely to miss titles that come out near the end of a console’s lifespan. However, Arlo is a Nintendo YouTuber who follows the rumor mill as a job. As such, he should be well aware of the credible sources who have been reporting the existence of GameCube games for NSO and an F-Zero GX re-whatever. And as a prominent community member… he should be able to directly speak to some of these sources and get extra info. As such, asking for these things… feels like a kid asking for a Christmas present early after knowing what’s inside it. Like, just wait, dude. And don’t ask why you have to wait, because you know. It’s all about the hype cycle!

Next, Arlo goes on a diatribe that basically boils down to the price argument regarding the scale and length of an experience. Stating, in so many words, that Metroid Prime Remastered, a “3D adventure with cutting edge graphics” is worth more than the pair of Famicom Detective Club titles. A 12-hour-long duology of “visual novels with very little in terms of gameplay or even animations.” Which is just showing his cookie-some ass, as the games are adventure games, not visual novels.

The Famicom Detective Club games are complete remakes. They are effectively new games with gameplay more involved than a typical visual novel and animations more than a cut above one too. To fail to recognize this is just ignorance. And I’m not saying that as a fan of the games. I never played them. I just know how to recognize “effort.”

The subsequent chapter focuses on the lack of certain existing remastered titles that would be Perfect for Switch™, but are not on the platform, namely the HD remasters of WInd Waker (2002) and Twilight Princess (2006). This has long-since perplexed Zelda fans, and myself included, but it makes sense if one looks at an annual release calendar.

2017: Breath of the Wild
2018: Hyrule Warriors: Definitive Edition
2019: Link’s Re-Awakening
2020: Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity
2021: Skyward Sword HD
2022: Original release year for Tears of the Kingdom before year-long QA delay
2023: Tears of the Kingdom
2024: Echoes of Wisdom

The only ‘good’ time for a new Zelda release would have been 2022, but that is when Nintendo was trying to build hype for Tears of the Kingdom. They likely did not want to distract from that brand messaging with another back-to-back remaster of a prior Zelda game with vastly different gameplay than TotK. Now, am I defending this position? Nah, I think this is dumb as balls, and balls are the worst part of a human being. But there is a definite logic here.

Arlo then highlights that the 3DS was a treasure trove of quality titles, including many re-whatevers of prior games, yet those games are not available on Switch. He, naturally, does not acknowledge emulation due to his desire to maintain good relations with Nintendo, but I would also like to point out something he does not. That 3DS games are way harder to port over to HD consoles, as they often need to be remastered. All the textures of Kirby’s Extra Epic Yarn would need to be made HD, so the game continues to look pretty. The UI needs to be reworked around a single screen. And any console-specific features need to be altered. I swear, some people legit forget that the DS and 3DS had two screens.

Also, the reason Luigi’s Mansion (2018) was given extensive alterations on 3DS was that Nintendo needed to make alterations, as the 3DS was not as powerful as a GameCube. It was not a remaster, it was a weird in-between remaster/demaster/port. As for the inclusion of Gooiji… Not sure. I guess Nintendo felt they needed to do more than just a port with a late era 3DS game. However, the Switch is twice as popular as the 3DS was, so they need to put less effort to get comparable sales, hence why Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD is just an HD port. The more successful you are, the less resources you need to put into something!

Now, and this was the impetus for this entire rambly mess, I want to discuss how Nintendo’s re-whatevers have been confusing to some due to a lack of consistency. I think this should have been addressed with branding and a more established price structure, because even fans, let alone a know-nothing customer, cannot understand these categories. Remakes, remasters, and ports should all be labeled differently, but first one needs to determine what each re-whatever is. …So I did that, and made my objectively correct list that classifies re-whatevers I didn’t play of games I never played.

Arlo then talks about how Nintendo games never go on sale, which is just an unfortunate reality and feels especially backwards these days. After Steam ruined customer’s perception of how much they should pay for a game, they are not going to immediately play. It’s why I don’t buy games at full price these days, because I don’t play them!

Nintendo used to get around this with their Nintendo Selects line— which was amazing— but Switch cartridges are so expensive to produce that they just never bothered. And if they were planning on it eventually, the pandemic turned a dollar in March 2017 money into $1.29 and turned the going rate of yen to USD from 110 to over 140. (Higher numbers are bad). Should they have a bargain line to help diversity some players’ tastes? Yes. But also… has Nintendo had a flop this generation? Do they need more sales with far less profit margins? Because for a physical game, the cost is not immaterial. And for a digital game, is it better to sell one copy for $60 or two copies for $30? The answer is one copy for $60, as there are fewer transaction fees and downloading costs.

Nintendo is ultimately a company that has a reason for everything, but decisions are not made by a single person. Hell, I will make fun of this in the next section. They are a company with thousands of employees, hundreds of managers, and marketing teams of hundreds of people across the world. It might not make sense for them to do something, but if you suspend your disbelief, a rationale should become clear. But they are not consistent rationales, as different people make these different decisions based on different data. Nintendo is not a machine and they should not be seen as one. They are, legally speaking, a bunch of monkeys in a toothpaste factory, and make decisions accordingly.

How DARE they! Nina Tendo knows that Her most devoted worshipers adhere to rigid patterns, and since time immemorial— 2017, the Eighth Coming of Her Holiness— they have always had a September Nintendo Direct. Yet not only does She defy The Sanctimonious Majority with an August Direct, she had chosen to sully the ceremony by affixing it to those who do not adhere to Christ’s Feudalistic Ideal. A supposed Indie World showcase, serving as a prelude to Her beloved truth. All whilst forsaking Her grandest patron, including the majestic Holy Land and true birthplace of Christ— Saudi Arabia!

Silly overtly religious malarky aside, Nintendo bit the bullet early this time and tried something different by pairing their indie game showcase Direct with their standard big boy Nintendo Direct. It’s an interesting premise that I have mixed feelings about. On one hand, it gives people more reason to check out Indie World showcases and feature more indie games on streams. On the other hand, the more titles you lump together in a showcase, the better chance that smaller games will be overshadowed.

I personally prefer a longer Direct filled with interesting little independent offerings, because I think it makes Directs feel bigger. However, I’m also the sort of person who doesn’t watch Indie Worlds. There are simply too many good indie games out there, and I would not have much to say other than ‘this game loops dope’. And Natalie.TF isn’t big enough to warrant a dope zone at the end of each Rundown, highlighting a dope indie game I’m playing. Because I’m a part-time games blogger. I don’t play video games these days. I just yap about their history, write about comics, and write novels. And between my wishlist and games library… I’m good. Video games could just stop and that’d be dandy!

In fact… here’s THE LIST!

Also, I watched the full Indie World and found nothing I wanted to talk about, and I doubt that people remembered the indies after seeing some of the killer freak bangers shown off this time around.

If there is one developer who I will always bow my head to, it’s Digital Eclipse, as they have been offering some of the best collections and preservations of classic games around. They are the industry leader when it comes to this, and now they are tackling the single most iconic and widely known video games of all time. TETRIS! Now, this is both the best and worst idea for a collection, as no matter which version of Tetris you’re playing, it’s still Tetris, and when it comes to Tetris games, there are always more than you think. You could make a Tetris collection with 50 games and still not cover anything. As such, it’s… interesting how this is not so much a best of Tetris collection more akin to Tetris: The Bullet-Proof Software Collection.

For those not privy to the history of Tetris, stop reading this drek and go watch the Tetris documentary from The Gaming Historian. But the gist is that the Soviet era policies of the time made it difficult for Tetris creator, Alexey Pajitnov, to claim ownership of the game he created, and the licensing for it was a nightmarish web. However, one licensee, Henk Rogers, founder of Bullet-Proof Software, was strongly committed to making this game a global success. He initially obtained a Japanese license to the game via what he later found to be less scrupulous means, and managed to make Tetris a hit in Japan after Bullet-Proof Software developed Tetris for the Famicom. He then traveled to the Soviet Union to discuss licensing rights to Tetris in-person, which is how the Soviets learned the console rights to Tetris were even being sold.

Fortunately, negotiations went well, and Rogers was able to secure rights for Tetris’s release on both the NES and GameBoy, which did wonders to make Tetris a true global phenomenon. He also worked with Alexey Pajitnov to secure the Tetris rights from the Soviet government and co-founded The Tetris Company in 1996. Even to this day, he still works for the company as a chairman.

It’s a pretty wild story that I am skimming over, because the most relevant part is Bullet-Proof Software. A Japanese developer who developed and published a bunch of Tetris games and got wild with things later on. And even most Tetris fans aren’t super familiar with these games, as many of them never left Japan. Such as Super Tetris 2 + Bombliss. What the hell is a Bombliss? Tetris with bombs. Or Tetris Blast as it was called in America. Which is totally different than not like regular Tetris 2: This Time There’s Bombs In It. Now that was some wack-ass match 3 Dr. Mario crap that I still do not actually understand.

Seriously, the early 90s was a crazy time for Tetris, as there were so many permutations and spins on things that it’s insane, and people tend to only really fixate on the vanilla releases. And not things like Tetris Battle Gaiden, which was Puyo Puyo inspired Tetris that had blocks drop down after clearing a line. Legit, I nearly fell out of my chair because that’s not how Tetris works! But I love it!

Okay, okay, but what games are included in this collection? Well, those have not been widely revealed. Digital Eclipse says “more than 15” on their website. The trailer lists nine games. And the provided footage shows a recreation of Tetris for the Electronika 60 computer (the original version) and Tetris (GameBoy), and what might be a new version, or some other, more modern HD version I don’t recognize. Meaning the tentative list is as follows:

Tetris (Original Electronika 60), the OG first version of Tetris designed by Pajitnov for an old Soviet computer.
Tetris (Famciom), the first console version of Tetris made specifically for Japan, complete with a strong Soviet theming and completely different from the NES version.
Tetris (Gameboy), the black and white classic that everybody knows as the favorite game of the traveling business person in the 90s. Also, this was developed by Nintendo, not BPS, but you can see their name at the rights screen.
Hatris, a completely different game, not at all like Tetris and I think it sucks.
Tetris 2 + Bombliss, Tetris but also with a new variant about dropping bombs and initiating explosions by clearing lines. As someone not familiar with this variant, it looks WILD.
Super Bombliss, Bombliss for the Super Famicom.
Super Bombliss DX, a GBC colorized port of Tetris Blast (1995) for GameBoy, clearly designed for bite-sized play.
Tetris Battle Gaiden, multiplayer-driven Puyo Puyo style Tetris with gravity mechanics that break my brain.
Super Tetris 2 + Bombliss, again, more Tetris and Bombliss, but on Super Famicom.
Super Tetris 2 + Bombliss Limited, a better (?) version of the Super Tetris 2 + Bombliss. Look, even fan wikis don’t keep track of this sh*t.
Super Tetris 3, another variant that features Magicaliss and Sparkliss along with a four-player battle mode, the first of its kind. I’d f*ck with it.

It is far from a complete collection— where is Tetris 2: This Time There’s Bombs In It? Where is Welltris? Why does this stop at the SFC games and not continue into Tetris S, Tetris X, Tetris 4D, and The Next Tetris? Probably licensing issues, because even though this was in the era where The Tetris Company was a thing, the games were still involved in some quirky licensing for release on specific consoles. I mean, does Nintendo own part of the rights to The New Tetris for Nintendo 64? Maybe. They should put that on NSO though, because that’s a good version.

Anyway, I might not know much about these variants of Tetris… but that’s why this collection is such a good thing. It will be a way for people to learn more about the variations and changes that happened during the wild years of Tetris. All of which will be complete with new documentary footage and a mode that causes the version of Tetris you are playing to change while battling friends in a multiplayer setting. Fantastic idea. I love to see it. I just wish they could’ve thrown in Tengen and Nintendo Tetris for NES, because I think seeing those two in the same package would be hilarious!

Tetris Forever will be released for PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series, Switch, and PC in 2024. (What is it with nobody wanting to name release dates this year?)

If there is one RPG series that I find to be utterly impenetrable, it’s Falcom’s expansive and prolific Trails, or Kiseki series. (I don’t like it when repulsive gaijin unironically appropriate Japanese names for things when there is a fully workable English name. Looking at you, MegaTen dorks who don’t want to be called SMT-heads.)

The Trails series is one of the most expansive RPG epics to take place in a singular setting and the sheer depth and magnitude of its worldbuilding is immense and impressive. Whereas Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy, and Tales all restart the world with each entry, Trails has been iterating on the same continuity since 2004. Currently, there are 12 games in the main series, with a thirteenth set to be released in Japan next month. Personally, I tried to get into them with Trails in the Sky 1st back in 2015, I just found the game plain. I recall someone describing it as ‘amazingly average’ and I think that is a perfect description. The most rock solid 7/10 JRPG with an excessive amount of detail and banger vibes. If it’s your sh*t, if it clicks with you, it’s one of the best. But if it doesn’t, then it doesn’t click at all.

Also, and this was just a me thing, but I thought the game looked beautiful yet ugly. During the 2000s, Falcom was experimenting with their presentation, trying to move away from the meticulous sprite work they mastered in the Ys remakes and crafting 3D worlds. Their environments became these lavishly detailed displays of pixelated artistry affixed to chunky polygons, and I think they look utterly gorgeous. The texture work, the visual effects and lighting, it was simply ahead of its time and when rendered properly, every environment from this era is gorgeous in its own way. Even the sewers!

I somehow lost my screenshots from my 2015 playthrough, so I re-downloaded the game and loaded my old save files from two computers ago. I love cloud saves!

Meanwhile, the character sprites are some of the mostly ugly pieces of sh*t I’ve ever seen. I have a strong bias against pre-rendered 3D character sprites, as they are meant to evoke the image of a 3D model on a fuzzy display, but no matter how they are rendered, they look bad. The human characters are these semi-deformed pseudo-chibi renditions without mouths or the ability to truly emote.

They lack the charm of low detail chibi 3D models, and as pixel art… they are not pixel art. Every sprite was made by compressing a 3D model into a small bite-sized resolution, and no meaningful touching up was done to make them look better as sprites. They look bad, and while the Ys ANOFO trilogy from 2003 to 2006 could get around this by being a fast-paced action game with a fixed camera, tit* is a slow RPG with a rotating camera. Meaning you are constantly looking at these sprites.

…Yeah, so clearly I have a bugbear with this game and was not a big fan of it when I tried it. However, that could all change with a remake. This is something I’ve heard whispers of when walking down Primo Dorkus Avenue, and actually seeing it… it looks DOPE! Sadly, the American Direct only featured a brief snippet, but it got a proper showing in the Japanese Direct.

The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky the 1st is a fully 3D recreation of the original game, developed on Falcom’s new proprietary engine. An engine designed for 3D anime RPGs and goldarn does this look like a pretty one. Mind you, the exact art style and world design have changed considerably over the original. Just compare the colors and the way the grass looks. It definitely looks more ‘generic anime’ than the original, but I vastly prefer it. Everything looks so clean, characters move through the world quickly and without looking out of place, and battles now take place within the world itself. Which is an easy W for me, as it makes the encounters feel more meaningful and less abstract.

I’m sure that some will prefer the original— they always do— but this looks great in my book, and will make it far easier for new players to jump into the Trails series going forward. Or maybe they’ll just play the Sky trilogy and have a good time with that. People think they need to fully commit to an IP but they really don’t.

The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky the 1st will be released sometime in 2025 for unspecified platforms and will hopefully be the first Falcom game to receive a simultaneous worldwide release. What a time to be alive. …If only the modern Ys games stuck to being simple action RPGs with proper action game bosses instead of becoming party based sponge-fests. Seriously, Ys X’s gameplay looks soooo slow next to Ys Origin’s. What I’d give for a Ys Origin 2, I swear…

Holy sh*t has Capcom been killing it with re-releases this past generation. Capcom Arcade Stadium, Capcom Fighting Collection, Capcom Beat ‘Em Up Bundle, Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics, all the Mega Man Legacy Collections, the Ace Attorney collections. There has been so much love for their past games this generation, and I think that’s fantastic. …Even if the collections are not perfect or worse than emulating them in some instances. The Street Fighter Collection by Digital Eclipse had bad online. They wanted to patch it, but Capcom wouldn’t let them for some stupid reason.

Now, more can ALWAYS be done, but just when I think they’ve shown their hand… they announce Capcom Fighting Collection 2! A compilation containing eight absolute bangers.

Capcom vs. SNK: Millennium Fight 2000 Pro – The crossover of the millennium that I have banged on about them releasing for quite a while.
Capcom vs. SNK 2: Mark of the Millennium 2001 – The second part of the biggest fighting game crossover event of the arcade era.
Project Justice (2000) – One of the most celebrated 3D fighters Capcom has ever made and sequel to Rival Schools. …But where’s Rival Schools?
Capcom Fighting Evolution (2004) – A project that originally began its life as a 3D fighter dubbed Capcom Fighting All-Stars, but received negative feedback from location testing and was scrapped. So instead the team kitbashed Capcom characters from other fighting games— including their original sprites— into a legendarily janky and crossover epic. Matt McMuscles can explain it better than me.
Street Fighter Alpha 3 Upper (2001) – The final arcade release of Street Fighter Alpha 3 that was, somehow, not part of the Street Fighter Collection, and features 6 new characters. I’d say it’s the definitive version, but there were improvements in both the GBA version of Street Fighter Alpha 3 Upper and the PSP version, Street Fighter Alpha 3 MAX. Sadly, I doubt they’ll back port Ingrid into the game.
Plasma Sword: Nightmare of Bilstein (1998) – Capcom lowkey wanted to make a Star Wars fighting game in the mid-90s. But LucasArts was working on legendary kusoge Star Wars: Masters of Teräs Käsi. So Capcom made this instead, and it’s pretty sick. (Also, last minute addition, but I forgot this was a sequel to Star Gladiator (1996), which is bizarrely being absent from this collection despite being a 100% Capcom IP. Maybe they had emulation issues with the Sony ZN-1 board?)
Power Stone (1999) – Banger 3D party fighter that should have lasted after the Dreamcast era, but only ever got a PSP version that my ex-friend Matt was fond of. Will this collection have the PSP features? Nope!
Power Stone 2 (2000) – Banger iterative sequel 3D party fighter. Probably better than the original.

I love that Capcom is doing this, just digging into their back catalog, doing the work, and re-releasing their 3D fighters in fat collections. Even if they are likely just the arcade versions, and not really the definitive version. This is great news for Capcom fans, and I want them to keep up the good work. Because this is CapGod stuff right here. However, where is Rival Schools: United by Fate (1997)? Well, while Rival Schools was just an arcade game initially, its Japanese PlayStation release contained a second disc for an adventure game..

The Evolution disc of Rival Schools allowed players to create their own character, befriend the cast of the main game, go to clubs, go on dates, and play various minigames. All while learning the mechanics of the game and building a custom moveset incorporating moves from other characters. It was a completely different game, and one with so much extra content that it would be hard to justify a Rival Schools re-release without this. Unfortunately, Capcom never finished translating it into English, and any re-release would need to be translated into a bunch of different languages.

Project Justice: Rival Schools 2 (2000), meanwhile, lacked this adventure mode, instead featuring a more typical fighting game story mode. Hence why they are re-releasing that game and not the original Rival Schools.

This is kind of bullcrap… but it’s also better than not receiving a re-release of Project Justice.

Capcom Fighting Collection 2 will be released for PS4, Switch, and Steam in 2025.

Hell to the yes! After Castlevania Advance Collection launched in 2021, I’ve been wondering if and how they would do a similar re-release for the 3 Nintendo DS Castlevania games; Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow (2005), Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin (2006), and Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia (2008). Titles that I was always more partial to, as they had more effects and flair than the GBA could muster and the bottom screen maps were one of the best uses of the DS form factor.

Now, they’re finally doing it with the Castlevania DominuS Collection, with Dominus meaning master or owner, and being one of the few cool sounding words beginning with D and ending in S. All in all, it is a straightforward collection, but the real question is how the game should or could display both screens of the DS. The answer Konami reached was to give people several options, as they should, while making a new custom display format. This one features the main screen on the left, the map in the upper right, and stat information underneath that. Namely, character stat info pulled from the pause menu and monster info pulled from the bestiary. Which is a feature that even the illest emulators can’t achieve!

Touch screen controls are handled in two ways. You can use the touch screen for the Switch version, but the annoying boss finishes from Dawn of Souls can seemingly be gotten past by putting in a QTE of some kind. While the environmental obstacles can be circumvented with an on-screen cursor. And, as to be expected, this release also features save states, a rewind feature, music player, and art gallery.

However, the most novel and interesting aspect of this whole thing is that it features the original arcade version of Haunted Castle. An arcade title that was ported to PS4 and Switch by some arcade-loving rodents (Hamster), and is generally skimmed over as being a Casltevania title. However, this collection also comes with Haunted Castle Revisited. A full remade and reimagined version of the original game, developed by the masters at M2, who previously made Castlevania: The Adventure ReBirth. No idea why they put it here, but HELL YEAH! This is the first new Castlevania game in a literal decade. And while this is absolutely not what ANYONE wanted, this is still something to latch onto.

Now Konami just needs to find a way to re-release the following Castlevania games:

Castlevania Legends (1997)
Castlevania Chronicles (2001)
Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles (2007)
Castlevania: The Adventure ReBirth (2009)
Castlevania (1999)
Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness (1999)
Castlevania: Lament of Innocence (2003)
Castlevania: Curse of Darkness (2005)

I personally would just have them create a collection of the four 3D games (the bottom ones) and call it something like the Castlevania Tribute of Determination Collection. Then lump everything else, along with a Castlevania Requiem (a PS4 exclusive re-release of Rondo of Blood and Symphony of the Night) as one final collection. If Konami does that, then they can put Castlevania to rest forevermore.

Castlevania DominuS Collection shadow dropped for PS5, Xbox Series, Switch, and PC earlier this week.

EA has been so weird with their support of the Switch. They’ve treated it to a scattering of EA published ‘indie’ games and football club titles, two racing game remasters, a Plants vs. Zombies shooter, and Apex Legends. That’s pretty much it. No Sims 4 port, no remasters of when they actually made games that weren’t disposable. No Dragon Age, no Mass Effect, no Dead Space trilogy, no Mirror’s Edge (2008) when that game is Perfect for Switch™, and Dante’s Inferno (2011) would just be funny. I can imagine the Nintendo Direct trailer right now…

Instead, we’re getting a morsel of the MySims series!

MySims was a kid-ified version of The Sims developed for the Wii by cowards at Visceral who didn’t want to make Dead Space or Dante’s Inferno. This was back when EA was pushing out The Sims games on everything it could and doing things like Urbz: Simpin’ For Dat Rachet Hood puss* (2004) and The Sims Online (2002).

MySims (2007) was a stripped down and more simplified version of what came before it. It drew a fair bit from Animal Crossing, was far more objective-driven, and a lot of the game was about renovating and repairing a city. I was 12 and thought I was a dude back when it came out, so I wrote it off as baby sh*t at the time. However, I can see it was a real trailblazer when it came to pioneering certain things in the modern ‘wholesome social creation game’ genre.

MySims Kingdoms (2008) was similar, but had a more fantasy oriented approach. One that I’d say is a bit more game-y than the original, with more objectives and less overt social activities. It is trying to be more of a kingdom builder type game, while still letting the player mine for things, fish, and place blocks freely to create structures, not just houses.

MySims Racing (2009) was a racing game for Wii, released a year after Mario Kart Wii made a bajillion dollars. It was okay.

MySims Party (2009) was a motion controlled party game for Wii. Nuff said!

MySims Agents (2009) was… not like the first two, but also not quite the spy game that its box arti mplies. Instead, it is a point and click adventure game about a detective solving bite-sized cases. It’s actually a pretty novel retooling of existing assets in order to create a game that is more story-driven and kept fairly accessible to all audiences. Definitely a wholesome and cozy game, albeit a bit short by adventure game standards.

MySims Sky Heroes (2010) was a mission-based vehicular combat game with no social game elements and should not have been considered part of the MySims series. It was just cashing out on the brand before putting it in a trunk. Not cozy at all!

Also, in discussing these, I am only talking about the Wii versions. There were DS versions for every game, but I’m not going to look up footage for them. EA didn’t care to show them when marketing the games! Point is with twelve games, there is a lot that could be done with any sort of MySims collection. Instead, EA is taking the coward’s way out.

MySims: Cozy Bundle is a Switch exclusive re-release of MySims (2007) and MySims Kingdoms (2008). Which to me indicates this was some super small project that EA conducted alongside Nintendo, meant to put more EA games on Switch. So EA decided to port over one of their most successful Wii games, because the Wii and Switch are actually fairly similar in terms of a dev environment. Unfortunately, Boom Blox (2008) and Boogie (2007) just do not work without motion controls, so EA decided this would be easier.

Honestly, I can see the logic here. It makes sense to bring games like these to Switch. This is WAY too late in the Switch life cycle for quick and easy ports like these. However, it is past the 15 year nostalgia threshold, so maybe there is an audience who will be psyched to see these games come out on November 19, 2024.

FINALLY!!!

Oh my goooosh has it been too long for the Yakuza games to come to Switch.

The Like a Dragon series did resonate with a global audience until Yakuza 0 (2015) (Like a Dragon Zero: The Place of Oath) came out in 2017 for PS4. It became a memetic hit, as did its companion remake, Like a Dragon – Yakuza: Kiawami (2016), which was released 8 months later. Sega, recognizing they FINALLY had a hit on their hands, did a bunch of work to get these games everywhere. PC ports, Xbox ports, remasters of the PS3 era games, doing a remake of Like a Dragon: Ishin! (2014), and doing spin-offs like Lost Judgment: Unjudged Memories (2021).

It was a gosh darn triumph, and now the Like a Dragon series is at its peak popularity, with titles coming out on a sorta annual basis.

…But they didn’t want to release any of the games on Nintendo consoles, because the co-creator of the series, Toshihiro Nagoshi, thought Nintendo systems were for kids or some dumb sh*t like that. Maybe he was still burned by the crappy Wii U ports of Like a Dragon 1 and 2 that sold like dog butts. However, Nagoshi left Sega to get a fat stack of cash from NetEase in late 2021. He’s probably making Like a Tiger: Triad Warz or something. With new leadership implemented, somebody contacted somebody and a Like a Dragon Switch port was put into production.

…But what game should be ported first? My answer would be Zero, as it was a great starting spot for fans and is a prequel. Instead, they are putting out Like a Dragon Kiwami. Or Yakuza Kiwami— screw it— the 2016 remake of the first game. Which is a… fair enough choice. It’s a good remake, people like it, and as a PS3 game, it is fairly easy to port it to a system like the Switch.

It’s overall a great bit of news, and I hope that Sega continues to bring more Like a Yakuza Dragon games to the Switch in the intervening months. I thought that they might have issues with Kiwami 2 (2017), as it was designed using their Dragon Engine, but just looking at the minimum PC specs of the game on Steam… it seems like it could run. Not well, but has that ever stopped a Switch port? NOPE!

Like a Dragon – Yakuza: Kiawami (2016) will be released for Switch on October 24, 2024.

…

WHAT THE f*ck?!

Okay, this, this right here, has to be some cosmic manipulation. …Except, okay, maybe it isn’t. Let me explain. Tokimeki Memorial (1994) is a legendary dating simulation game that really helped establish the genre. Its use of character voices, detailed time management, and genuine challenge in managing relationships makes it a game that impresses on both a narrative and a mechanical level. However, as a Japanese only release, it did not get much attention until acclaimed game developer Tim Rogers released a 6 hour review of the game on New Years 2021.

This is an annual viewing in my household!

After its initial release, it was ported and enhanced on various platforms and launched a series. This led into Tokimeki Memorial 2 (1999), a better game in many regards that aimed to one-up what was an already legendary title. (Side note, TM2’s rendition of La donna è mobile is pure bliss.) Tokimeki Memorial 3 (2001), a PS2 iteration that switched over to 3D, which looks WEIRD. And then the series took a break before coming back with Tokimeki Memorial 4 (2009) for PSP.

This was all accompanied to an Otome subseries with Tokimeki Memorial Girl’s Side. Are these good? I don’t know. I don’t play these games! But I do know that the series started on the PS2 in 2002 before eventually migrating over to the Nintendo DS with ports of 1st Love, 2nd Kiss, and eventually its own release, 3rd Story. I would say more about them, but… if you want to play them, you can. I have never seen ANYBODY bring this up, but all three of these DS ports received full unofficial English translations. And not recent translations. All three fan translations were released over a decade ago.

Now, why is this history lesson important? Because, in October 2021, Konami revived the Tokimeki Memorial series with Tokimeki Memorial Girl’s Side: 4th Heart for Nintendo Switch. And, this Valentine’s Day, they released the first three Girls’ Side games for Switch. Which I did not know was even a thing, because they announced this on bloody Christmas!

Konami clearly wants to continue supporting this series, and after seeing at least some success with the Girl’s Side quadrilogy, they decided to do a remaster of the first Tokimeki Memorial.

Tokimeki Memorial: Forever With You Emotional is, as far as I can tell, just a version of the PS1 version, Forever With You, but with two big additions. A pitch-setting system that allows the characters to say your player character’s name. Meaning you can finally have Shiori Fujisaki call you by your name, Gabriel. How crazy is that?! But more importantly, it features new remastered visuals that… look amazing.

They look so similar that I think the game is actually using the original background and character art that was illustrated before being converted into sprite art. The backgrounds capture basically every detail I could parse doing a few comparisons. Same for the character sprites, which are either based on the original artwork or an extensive redraw. Though, I’m guessing these are the original assets, as the background characters are the most 90s-ass anime character things I have ever seen. Which is to say this is quite possibly one of the best visual facelifts I have ever seen for any game. Because it’s the introduction of original production assets or really good replicas.

Tokimeki Memorial: Forever With You Emotional was only confirmed for a Japanese release, and only featured in the Japanese Direct. This being Konami, I doubt they will bring this over. However… someone WILL get this game out in English eventually, and when they do, that will be the day. This game is a Switch exclusive that will debut sometime in 2025.

Okay, I just wrote 4,700 words for the Direct so far, in basically a single sitting. Now to wrap it up with the games that I have don’t have much to say about, yet warrant a mention. The Japanese-style RPGs!

Atelier Yumia: The Alchemist of Memories & the Envisioned Land was announced as the next generation of Atelier games. Honestly, I thought it looked fine given the trailer, but Atelier lacks a distinct enough style that I spent the entire trailer wondering what it was before seeing its logo. I’m glad the series found its niche with Ryza though, and hope this game can continue to offer substantial improvements and growth to a formerly annualized series. It’s coming to PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series, and Steam in early 2025.

The Suikoden 1 and 2 remaster was shown off for the first time in a year and continues to look like a dope remaster that breathes new life into a fairly plain looking original title. Meanwhile, Dragon Quest III: HD-2D Remake looks weirdly basic with a lot of its sprite work, particularly its running/walking animations, and looks considerably worse when put back-to-back with Suikoden.

Tales of Graces f Remastered is a pretty straightforward port of the PS3 update to a 2009 Wii game, and looks… like a port of a PS3 port of a Wii game. It makes sense after the Symphonia and Vesperia remasters— even though the Symphonia remaster was dog-f*cked, being a remaster of a port of a port. I was not expecting this title, as there was a rumor about a Tales of Xillia remaster going around, but this is fine. (Actually, the trailer implies that they will have multiple remasters for the 30th anniversary. So maybe they’ve got loads of these on the backburner.) It’s a fine way for Bandai Namco to keep the Tales series alive while working on the next major entry. It’s hitting PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series, and Steam on January 17, 2025.

Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma was shown off again. It still looks like a team who are still used to making 3DS games trying to make a game with production values on par with any modern 3D anime action RPG. Hakama Inc. is clearly trying here, but it is hard to jump from handheld development to modern HD development. Just ask Game Freak. It’s coming spring 2025 for Switch and Steam.

And now, after writing a 5,000 word thing on Nintendo, I can… finish up the preamble. Goldarn it.

Foamstars (2024) belongs to the modern genre of online-only multiplayer games that people like to clown on for failing to attract an audience and looking derivative. It launched as a PlayStation exclusive in February, but in the following months, it wound up hemorrhaging players. While it is still receiving new content updates, it is only catering to a small niche and almost likely has not recouped its development costs. Which is a shame, as the game at least was trying to be something vaguely unique and build upon a shooter sub-genre invented by Splatoon. Also, its soundtrack is DOPE! I actually listened to it while writing a good chunk of this Rundown.

Knowing this is a Square Enix joint, I would expect this to die out in about a year— that’s their typical strategy— but they have some publishing deal with Sony. Sony distributed it as a free PlayStation Plus title for the month of February, clearly paid to keep it a platform exclusive title, and was pushing this title as part of Jim Ryan’s live service initiative. Meaning it will probably be around for two years, but this is all foreign territory with no established standards.

Anyway, the actual story is that Foamstars will go free-to-play on October 4. It will no longer require a PlayStation Plus subscription, and existing players will get some cheapo skins. While this will net a few players… the problem with Foamstars is that few people want to play it as a daily or weekly title, buy extremely expensive skins, and do relentless grinding. The world of gaming is too big, broad, and full of unique experiences to warrant relentless grinding on the same game. And the people with the personality type that leaves them vulnerable to this kind of pernicious allure are already serving the whims of other live services.

Though, given how many of these live services keep shutting down, perhaps the idea is that they will keep getting shuffled around across games, all while luring young people without money into being F2P players? Sure, some of them might wake up after losing years of hard work. But if someone was a day one player of say, Final Fantasy: Brave Exvius, and stuck with the game for eight years, I cannot imagine them being eager to start another addiction after the publisher announced EOS.

Regardless, the live service market is overflowing with risk for any developer or publisher who enters it, and it has reached a saturation point where widespread failure is inevitable. …Which has been made incredibly apparent this past week thanks to two other stories that have been floating around.

Concord was pushed as Sony’s next big live service title, developed in part by ex-Bungie devs, and launched on August 23, 2024 to a fairly negative reception. A lot of clowning on its peak Steam player count of 697. Apathy or disregard for the title prior to release, less than glowing reviews from critics, and a general lack of engagement all around. Hell, I had not even seen what the game looked like until I read the Jimquisition review of it, and the provided screenshots just made it look like a deliberately ugly mock-up of a modern video game. Unfortunately, as a PvP shooter, there is precious little of value to extract from it without an active playerbase. Even a middling single-player game can be made fun with tweaking or alterations, but if a multiplayer game is not fun or nobody is playing it… what is even the point? Just go for a walk with your friends instead.

Things are so dire around Concord, and people are so disposed to trashing the game that I think it will be publicly executed within about two years, as live services are just too expensive to run without anybody playing them. I don’t want to see that happen, as this game was in development for eight bloody years, and seeing all that work wasted is deeply sorrowful. But Sony has no incentive to rework this highly online experience into a title that relies on peer-to-peer gameplay into something else.

However, there are live services that have far more meat on their bones than an instance-based PvP shooter, such as Blue Protocol (2023). A title that launched on June 14, 2023 in Japan and will be shut down on January 18, 2025, with Amazon Games canceling its worldwide release.

While I had a terrible habit of confusing Blue Protocol with Blue Archive (2021)— I called it Blue Archive six times while writing this— I was initially attracted to this game. Developed by Bandai Namco, the title was announced in 2019, complete with footage that looked highly impressive at the time. Detailed anime characters, a high fidelity and lushly detailed world, and a robust character builder. This was the most high budget anime game that I had seen, and looked like a promising action ‘MMO’.

So, what happened? Well, you can glean a lot by looking at the dates. The game entered a public alpha in 2019, but then took four years to come out after that. Clearly, something went wrong behind the scenes. There was very little news between a closed beta in May 2020 and the game’s re-unveiling in November 2022. And during that time, Genshin Impact (2020) changed the live service industry in a major way. Gacha games were made popular on consoles and competitors like Tower of Fantasy (2021) had already hit the market. Things were getting saturated and there were three teensy problems with Blue Protocol’s approach.

The first being the choice in platform, as Blue Protocol was only targeting PC and consoles, eschewing a mobile release because… can you imagine an Unreal Engine 4 MMO running on a phone? I can’t. This might not seem like a huge deal, but the mobile market is the biggest market in gaming, as that’s where a lot of dedicated fans and big spenders are based.

The second is the global release. While a game can successfully launch in a local market and then release worldwide, Bandai Namco chose to partner with Amazon Games, who was getting into global MMO releases. This was absolutely a mistake. Bandai Namco is a global company, has the resources for a global launch, and while Amazon might have made a compelling offer, their support dried up. They held an English beta in November 2023, but since then, they were completely silent on the game. Which, to me, means they were sh*tty partner.

And the third problem was the game’s financial success. While I don’t think proper numbers were released, the game did not click with a Japanese audience and Bandai Namco’s online division was reporting extreme losses, mostly attributable to Blue Protocol.

Blue Protocol had a prolonged development, clearly had some issues behind the scenes, and failed to make the oodles of cash that many live services experience during its launch period. Without access to a global market, with more competition arising every day, and with the likelihood of success dwindling… Bandai Namco decided to cut their losses and kill this game.

This is ultimately a colossal waste of resources, as this is the elimination of a project that had to be in development for at least 8 years. Blue Protocol now has less than five months before it is rendered unplayable, likely to never be re-released or retrofitted into another project. Its website will be closed a month later, and Bandai Namco will assuredly try to forget this ‘mistake.’ This is how so many live services go… and it sickens me.

Bandai Namco could have released the game to a global market themselves. They could have avoided the challenges that come with making an online game and just focus on making a regular game. Instead, it’s just gone, never to be localized, never to be played, and doomed to obscurity, as I highly doubt any devoted fans will make a private server for a game this obscure and unsuccessful. Blue Protocol will go on to only be remembered in discussions, streams, and video archives. Artifacts showing what the game was and showcases of what it could have been.

Live services are such risky endeavors that… I don’t think they should exist in their current forms. Video games cost too much time and money to be disposed of, and to do so is an insult to the developers, artists, and creators. Yet things like this keep happening, and it’s not going away. Not until publishers wake up to the immense risk of live services, and/or regulation forces them to preserve the games they release.

We cannot do anything about the former— the powerful only care for themselves— but if you visit StopKillingGames.com, you can find out ways you can help build a movement to protect games from callous shutdowns. Especially if you are from the European Union. Like… please, please sign the petition. It truly is the best chance that we will ever have to prevent this.

The story of Argonaut Games is a well-known one in the world of Nintendo likers, but it warrants a refresher. Argonaut was a British studio who got Nintendo’s attention with their strides in 3D game design during the late 80s and early 90s. At this point, 3D consoles were more of a theoretical idea, and even things like pre-rendered sprites and wireframe models were considered 3D. Argonaut, however, was able to do magic on even highly underpowered hardware, such as X (1992). A Japanese only GameBoy game that is a royal pain in the ass to research, but is the most impressive game on the handheld, bar none. It is a 3D space-based flight game with wireframe enemies, missions, and resource management, all set in an open environment, not just on rails or in corridors. Also, X was going to be released for the western market, going by the name Lunar Chase, and the ROM of Lunar Chase was actually released to the world as part of the Nintendo gigaleak.

However, Argonaut was best known for their work on Star Fox (1993) and Star Fox 2 (2017). A pair of immensely impressive Super Nintendo titles that, through use of the Super FX chip— also developed by Argonaut— were able to bring mostly 3D experiences to a 16-bit machine. Which definitely helped the system stay relevant during the hectic graphics wars of the early 90s. There’s a lot of survivor’s bias around that time, but magazines were sucking off consoles like the 3DO and Jaguar like crazy during that time. Suck off that dank Jag…

This technical expertise made Argonaut seem to be an ideal partner for Nintendo. But then Nintendo stopped them from releasing Star Fox 2 to build up hype for the Nintendo 64 and the internally developed Star Fox 64, which lacked many of the features present in Star Fox 2. However, relationships soured while Argonaut was developing a racing game involving Yoshi and Nintendo rejected it, allegedly taking ideas present in the demo and using them to develop Super Mario 64 (1996).

Having been burned twice, Argonaut said screw it, took their Yoshi game prototype and turned it into their own platformer, targeting the PS1, Saturn, and PC. This took them a while to build, so much that it came out over a year after Super Mario 64, and the end result was… not as good.

Croc: Legend of the Gobbos (1997) was a rather standard platformer for its era, and lacked the fluidity or ease of movement of games like Mario 64 or later platformers like Spyro the Dragon (1998). The game had something akin to tank controls, and it can be difficult for players accustomed to modern games to go back to. Combined with the plain themes of most stages, the distinctly gamey environments, and the matter-of-fact nature of the game, it’s kind of just another 3D platformer. Its background is more interesting than the game itself, and there was not much unique about the game. It is just another Scrimblo Bimblo platformer, without the design quality of a Banjo-Kazooie (1998) or the impact of a Crash or Spyro.

Croc 2 (1999) was better, featuring improved environments, more story, and more diversions, making it feel more robust than the original. But the expectations around 3D platformers for the PlayStation grew dramatically during the late 90s, so it was not seen as favorably and has a worse critic score. Regardless, the game still did well, but Argonaut never produced a sequel.

Instead, Argonaut was busy with a lot of licensed game work. Some of them were innovative and important, like Alien Resurrection (2000), which established the control scheme that every major console FPS would adopt going forward. Some were successful, like the Harold Planter games for PS1. And others were the infamous kusoge known as Catwoman (2004). This mixed track record was combined with unsuccessful new IPs like I-Ninja (2003) and Malice (2004), none of which did Croc figures. They should have done an edgy Croc reboot instead… Where he eats people and touches tit*.

This led Argonaut to shut down on October 1, 2004, their contributions not fully recognized during their lifetime. …But then they got resurrected this past week and announced an HD remaster of the original Croc.

I would say I’m surprised, but this makes a lot of sense. 3D platformer nostalgia is big at the moment— it’s been big for a decade— and low-cost remasterings of older games have proven to be successful in the past. Also, as the Time Extension article linked above explains, this was already announced with a ‘naughty tweet’ last year.

As a remaster connoisseur and critic, I did my own comparison with this remastered footage and the original and it… looks like they ran a smoothing algorithm over all the textures and made things run in widescreen. The 2D sprites used in the original art are still 2D, same with the generic gems. And while the game always looked cartoonish, it is more pronounced here, with everything looking cleaner. However, it also really does look like the textures were all filtered. The walls of most outdoor environments look like a blurry mesh. Some platforms are smooth and circular while others retain their PS1 low-poly look, and the game looks… a bit uncanny.

I know it is an older game, but everything is so aggressively smooth that it almost looks modern, but the textures are neither detailed enough to feel modern, nor blocky enough to look retro. …Hold on, does this look more right to me if I take the original and play it in DuckStation?

Yeah, it does.

Also, playing it in DuckStation, the tank controls are not good for a D-pad, but if you force it to use the analog sticks in the control settings, it feels way better. Depth perception and camera are still troublesome though, but that could be more of a learning curve as I only played for five minutes. If they could modify the movement to have better quick turning though, then yeah, I’m all for this. Personally, I think they should pair Croc 1 and 2 together as the Croc Double Pack (because Croc wears a backpack), charge like $30/40 for it, and do a limited run physical edition at launch. But WHEN has any game developer listened to ME? 2000-never!

…I heard that joke one time when watching a Game Trailers top ten where they mentioned The Phantom, and it has been in my head ever since.

I’m adding this as a quick Thursday night addition to this Rundown, as I just saw a Bloomberg article that was of particular interest to me. It described how both Tencent and NetEase are reconsidering their strategy of buying up and establishing Japanese developers in hopes of gaining access to IP and hit games. Which I think is an… interesting response to the deluge of acquisitions that happened a few years ago, and after NetEase has gone on a tear of establishing new studios across the game industry.

However, there are two interesting little factoids here that made me realize that I’m truly not a journalist, as I didn’t even notice this! Visions of Mana (2024) launched this Friday. I tried the demo, and while it felt a bit stiff in spots, I still found it to be a fun time and an incredibly impressive iteration on Trials of Mana (2020). I assumed the same developer, Xeen Inc., was working on Visions and Square Enix was just hiding the developer prior to release. However, it turns out it was Ouma Studios… which is an alias for Sakura Studios, a game developer established by NetEase in 2020. And now, four years after building up this studio, after recruiting staff from Capcom and Bandai Namco, after releasing their first game, NetEase is winding the developer down, with the goal of finishing up its remaining titles. At least, they announced they were working on three titles in March 2022, but who knows if it was canceled. And who knows if Visions of Mana was the action RPG or the “New-Style Battle Game Based on a Popular Series.”

Also, Ouma Studios is not shutting down right away. They’re just laying off the team who just shipped a game and news that they will be laid off got out the same day it shipped. And the Chinese office in Guangzhou, China will probably remain open.

The second factoid was that Tencent was to publish the mobile version of Blue Protocol. Which I implied was not happening in an earlier section of this Rundown. I genuinely did not see this news when doing basic research on the game, so… my bad. I’d go back and fix it before this goes live, but no, I want my mistake to be obvious.

As a final Saturday morning news, this reveal dropped and goldarn does this sting. Acclaimed Capcom director, Hideaki Itsuno, is leaving the company and will be developing games “in a new environment.”

The Japanese games industry can often be driven by a single director or creator’s vision, even in an era where it takes hundreds of people to ship a finished game. There are a lot of acclaimed and beloved directors who have been doing good sh*t for decades, and over at Capcom, there are few with more renown than Hideaki Itsuno, and one can tell why just by looking over his track record.

He started as a tried and true fighting game director, working on many beloved classics of the late 90s, some of which were just announced for the Capcom Fighting Collection 2 as mentioned above. Star Gladiator (1996), Rival Schools: United By Fate (1997), Power Stone (1999), Power Stone 2 (2000), Rival Schools 2: Project Justice (2000), and Capcom vs. SNK 2: Mark of the Millennium 2001.

However, come the PS2 era he was assigned onto the floundering project that was Devil May Cry 2 (2003). The team was directionless, story wasn’t even written, and they were unsure how to build upon the foundation established by the first game. Itsuno tried to rally them around a common vision, tried to make the game work, and… it’s playable. However, Itsuno was not satisfied with this being his legacy on the series, and went on to direct its sequels, developing Devil May Cry 3 (2005), Devil May Cry 4 (2008), Devil May Cry 5 (2019), and all subsequent special editions. He even helped with DmC: Devil may Cry Gaijin (2013), but we don’t talk about that around polite company.

During this time, the series has truly become his, and with him gone, there is serious concern over how or if it can continue. I mean, just look at what happened to Mega Man after Inafune left. The series went from pumping out several games a year to only seeing one wholly new release over the past decade.

His other work has primarily been the Dragon’s Dogma duology, including the surprisingly enduring Dragon’s Dogma (2012), which offered a distinctly old school yet new fantasy action RPG experience. And Dragon’s Dogma 2 (2024), a game that I still cannot tell if it was an iterative sequel with bogus quality of life features or an exemplary modern AAA title. It’s hard to tell.

While I wish Itsuno the best with his new venture and am happy that, after 30 years, he still has the drive to lead new projects, I do find this upsetting, as this will likely lead to the sunsetting of two beloved Capcom IPs. As far as I can tell, Itsuno lacked a protégée for him to pass the torch to, and has not secretly began work on a Devil May Cry 6 before entrusting it to people who have been working with him for years. Regardless, he left a mark on not only Capcom, but gaming as a whole with his truly impressive track record of titles, many of which will remain accessible even after his departure.

The following is how I rationalized this tier list of port/remaster/remake. I’d say let me know if I missed anything or got something wrong, but… I’m not going to go back to update this. That’d be too much work for something this silly and fickle.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild – Wii U port developed by Tose. Facts don’t care about your feelings. Port.
Mario Kart 8 Deluxe – Wii U port with various changes, a new battle mode, and new DLC. Remaster.
Pokkén Tournament DX – Wii U port of a fighting game, but this time it had 3 new characters and 4 characters previously locked to the Japan-only arcade version. Remaster.
Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze – Wii U port with new playable character and minor changes. Port.
Hyrule Warriors: Definitive Edition – Wii U port with all content from 3DS version, including new contents not in the Wii U version and minor changes. Remaster.
Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker – Wii U port with new ending, new content added via DLC, new co-op mode, and various control changes. Remaster.
Pokémon: Let’s Go, Pikachu & Eevee! – Brand new game in the guise of a remake. Reimagining.
New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe – Wii U port that changed a bunch of little things, added a new character, and removed GamePad functionality. Port.
The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening – Ground-up remake with worse art direction than the original and a few extra features. Faithful Remake.
Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Encore – Wii U port with new costumes, new song, additional dungeon, QoL tweaks, and UX changes. Remaster
Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Rescue Team DX – Ground up remake of original game with mechanical changes, Mega evolution, new dungeons, new evolutions, and reworked mechanics. The same but also very different. Faithful Remake
Xenoblade Chronicles Definitive Edition – Assload of changes over the Wii game it is built off of. I want to call it a remake, but the skeleton of the original game is still there. Remaster.
Super Mario 3D All-Stars – Collection of ports, including a lame-ass version of Super Mario 64. New controls were implemented for some games, but this release was so anemic that I do not consider it to be a remaster. Port.
Pikmin 3 Deluxe – Wii U port with quite a few changes. New story modes, new co-op mode, various slight mechanical changes, removal of GamePad malarky. Remaster.
Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury – Wii U port with substantial changes over the original and a completely new game bolted on for good measure. Remaster.
Famicom Detective Club: The Missing Heir & The Girl Who Stands Behind – Full-on remakes that are far different compared to the originals, and no gaijin cares to compare them. Faithful Remake.
Miitopia – 3DS port with new features, HD flair, and redesigned around a single screen. Introduces horses, new customization options, new passive grinding activity, and new super dungeon. Remaster.
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD – Wii port with minor mechanical and quality-of-life features. I want to call this a port, but the sheer significance of some changes indicates more work went into this, as the game had to be given a new sensible control scheme for humans. Not enough for me to change my thoughts on it though. Port.
Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl – Overly faithful remake with various mechanical updates and changes. The best thing about this game is the decompilation project, the worst thing is that it exists. 3/10 all around. Faithful Remake.
Metroid Prime Remastered – Same, largely unmodified GameCube game under the skin, but with a completely new lighting, texture, and modern controls for cowards. Looks hella different and generally better. Remaster.
Advance Wars 1+2: Reboot Camp – Full remake from the ground-up by WayForward. Probably had a load of changes beyond what the NIWA wiki says. Faithful Remake
Kirby’s Return to DreamLand Deluxe – Wii port with completely redone visuals, many changes, and a new sub-campaign. Remaster.
Pikmin 1 + 2 – HD ports with precious few changes, basically running on an in-house emulator. Ports.
Super Mario RPG – Full remake of the SNES original with nothing carried over and various mechanical tweaks and additions. Faithful Remake.
Another Code: Recollection – Full remake of the DS and Wii original with countless changes and nothing directly carried over from the original. Arguably too many changes, transforms story elements, new game perspective. A remake that is distinctive and its own thing compared to the original. Distinctive Remake.
Mario Vs. Donkey Kong – Complete recreation of the original with the same level designs and similar feeling controls. Features some new modes and levels and myriad changes. Faithful Remake.
Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door – Complete recreation of the original GameCube game, a veritable assload of changes. Faithful Remake.
Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD – 3DS port with various minor tweaks to get it to work on the Switch properly, but it’s the same game at the core, despite some updated lighting. You cannot really port a 3DS game to a modern console. You need to rework its UI and visuals to some level, but… screw it. Port.
Donkey Kong Returns to Da Country HD – Not out yet, but my gut calls this a port. Port.

…While editing this Rundown, it occurred to me that the popular automated responses of ‘let them cook’ and ‘they’re cooked’ are not compatible and are based on differing secondary definitions of the word cook. Something cooking is good, but something getting cooked is bad. Yeah, English is an arbitrary language. I understand why people hate it, but I’m not switching to anything else.

2024-08-25: Had anime day with Cassie, watching a crossdressing anime that’s basically TSF aside from penis deliberations that exist for the purposes of a hentai VN. Wrote 2,600 words for TSF Showcase 2024-37 and finished off the manga itself. It got worse with every passing volume.

2024-08-26: Wrote 3,100 words for the Rundown preamble. Wrote 2,400 words for TSF Showcase 2024-37. Would have done more, but instead I played a few hours of PokéRogue.

2024-08-27: Wrote 1,200 words for the preamble, wrote 5,100 words for the Nintendo Direct rundown. I love these things, but they will kill me one of these days. And wrote 1,100 words for TSF Showcase 2024-37. I am not having a fun time talking about this one! Also, made header image.

2024-08-28: Wrote 1,500 word live service piece. Wrote 1,000 word Croc piece and updated DuckStation after having issues with previous versions, so that was FUN! Edited the 12,000 word Rundown. Wrote 2,200 words for the TSF Showcase 2024-37, deciding to just speedrun the rest of this sh*t until the very end. This WILL be over 10k words long. And the more I write, the more convinced I am that this is the actual worst TSF comic I have featured so far.

2024-08-29:Wrote the ~400 word Tencent NetEase piece. Wrote 2,000 words for TSF Showcase 2024-37. Just hit 10,800 words, and I still need to talk about the final arc and last chapter. I wish I was talking about Metamorphosis again.

2024-08-30:Busy day of work, doing prep stuff until like midnight and dealing with ZenLedger. f*ck ZENLEDGER! Genuinely user-hostile crap that has had four f*cking years to get better, and it’s only gotten worse. The act of editing transactions is woefully inefficient. There transaction pages load slower than any other crypto tax platform on the market— because it needs to scroll up from the bottom of the page to the top of the page before it can load a new page. (If that sounds insane, it should.) And their reporting is filled with some of the most time wasting bullsh*t I have ever had the misfortune of dealing with in my life. I spoke to them about this, wrote a detailed email, and know a major investor. And they have not fixed a single f*cking thing. Wrote 1,800 words for TSF Showcase 2024-37. This is the longest showcase yet, and it’s super negative.

2024-08-31:Added the Itsuno bit first thing after waking up. Focused on TSF Showcase 2024-37, editing it while getting distracted by Cassie and PokéRogue. Got started on the image collection phase, but there are so many images required for this bloody thing.

Current Word Count:48,665

Estimated Word Count: 88,000

Words Edited:0

Total Chapters: 16

Chapters Outlined:16

Chapters Drafted:8

Chapters Edited:0

Header Images Made:0

Days Until Deadline:65

Absolutely zero progress was made this past week. I’m going to need to hunker down and FOCUS on finishing this f*cking thing.