This Week in Games

Trust The Fungus. Touch The Fungus.

Welcome back, folks! So, uh, confession time: I had forgotten all about the Portland Retro Gaming Expo being last week. (I tunnel vision badly.) Last Friday, I even considered going on a lark to visit the Retronauts booth... but then I remembered that I had already spent a ton of money on stuff this month--plus, I hadn't had my COVID-19 booster yet. So instead of going to PRGE, I got my shots. I would have loved to meet some of you folks there, but it was just bad timing all around. And I need to make sure I'm all prepped for Kumoricon next month. I share my housing, I can't afford to bring home anything riskier than doujinshi or model kits when I come home. Infection is still a risk, if this year's Anime Expo and FF14 fan expos were any indicator.

So, Gigabash is a game I haven't heard of--and I should have, because it's a fun concept. Channeling SNK's arcade classic King of the Monsters, Gigabash is an arena fighting game featuring kaiju. Really neat kaiju, too! Not the weird, gray blobs Pacific Rim deems to be kaiju. Kaiju is a hallowed institution in Japan, and Gigabash lovingly renders tribute to all kinds of weird kaiju without being too on-the-nose or just slavishly aping Godzilla, Rodan and King Kong and calling it a day. Oh yeah, and one of the kaiju is "Kongrete"—a sentient building. Gigabash has been given the nod before, featuring some of Toho's beloved monsters in a DLC pack from 2022: Destoroyah, Gigan, Mechagodzilla--and the big man himself, Godzilla. But it looks like Gigabash is getting another nod from another hallowed studio known for its larger-than-life icons...

It's Ultraman! As the kind of degenerate who actually watched the original 1966 series: I appreciate that the teaser trailer goes all-in on re-creating the swirling effect for the title screen and the film-grain look of the old show. It's cute! Studio Tsuburaya's Ultraman has delighted children and adults alike for over 60 years. There's tons to love about the older shows, provided you're not irony-poisoned to the point of breaking out in hives around primary colors. Like, jeez--where do you start? Ultraman's special effects, monster suits and expertly crafted miniatures (all done on a TV budget) wow-ed audiences sixty years ago and are still loaded with handmade charm to this day. The show is even designed to look "right" on black-and-white televisions (since people having color TVs couldn't be taken for granted in 1960s Japan). The storytelling, despite what you might expect, was also pretty groundbreaking; many episodes were basically Twilight Zone episodes with a giant monster fight at the end. You could have a strange, unknown monster devouring Japan's supply of pearls... or a roving monster born from the restless spirit of a murdered child chasing after the criminals that killed him. Ultraman could be funny, but many episodes were poignant, moody, and fiercely critical of the military. Watch an episode of Ultraman, and you'll understand where young Hideaki Anno got the inspiration for Neon Genesis Evangelion. Ultraman's influences are far-reaching in Japanese media, from the beloved kaiju like the Alien Baltans inspiring modern-day critters like Metroid's Space Pirates, to the Color Timer's sound inspiring the low-health alarm in Pokémon to famous shots like the team of crucified Ultraman characters--or the iconic and tragic farewell scene from Ultraseven.

Gigabash getting an Ultraman collab is just the latest in a very big wave of Ultraman media getting brought over to the US. Long story short: there was a legal snafu involving a ton of UItraman media and a Thailand-based company named Chaiyo Productions. Studio Tsuburaya eventually got their rights back, and not a moment too soon. Almost immediately, they started releasing Ultraman shows in the US. They started with a ton of the older Showa-era shows from the 1960s and 70s on Crunchyroll, but that quickly led to plenty of the modern shows like Ultraman Nexus and Ultraman Ginga being released in the US. Nowadays, Ultraman is enjoying the kind of push in the US that makes Super Sentai and Kamen Rider fans look at Toei with daggers in their eyes. A ton of Ultraman media is currently available in the US, both in streaming and on physical media, and there have even been a few Ultraman comics from Marvel Comics. They're even pretty good! (Kudos to Alex Ross and his phenomenal cover art for Ultraman, he does amazing work with Japanese superheroes.) We were also lucky enough to get the Ultra Kaiju Monster Rancher game in the US, which is a phenomenal Monster Rancher game featuring beloved Ultra-kaiju. Studio Tsuburaya looking at Gigabash and saying, "Hey, let's work with these guys?" is just another treat we're getting dropped into our laps. We've been promised four characters, but so far only one character has been confirmed: Ultraman. Er, the very first one. The OG dude.

Aw man, I love so much of this--the red orb crashing into the lake (just like Ultraman's very first appearance in the first episode), the Beta Capsule sound effect... This is how you do it, man. Who else might we get in this DLC pack? Tough to say. We could get at least one of the other Ultra Brothers; my money is on Ultraseven since he's been one of the most popular Ultras ever and he has a seemingly endless list of special moves. But there are also tons of beloved Ultra-kaiju they could throw at us: Alien Baltan, Dada, Eleking, Red King, King Joe, Jamila... if they wanted to be cute about things, they'd add a Gomess or Jirah's skin. There's all kinds of fun stuff they could add, but you don't have to wait too long: Ultraman joins the Gigabash roster this November 8th. Fans can pick up Gigabash on Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo Switch, Steam, and Epic Game Store; also, the game has cross-play. As a final note: the Ultraman pack isn't available for folks in Japan or Mainland China.

Ever since Charles Martinet announced his retirement as the voice of Nintendo's Mario Bros., the gaming community has been abuzz with a major question: who was to replace him? Nintendo seemed happy enough with keeping the info under wraps until Super Mario Wonder was released on the 20th, which I think was the prudent thing to do (more on this later). Fans poured over the sparse voice clips available from trailers to see who they could identify... which didn't turn up much info. Some fans managed to data mine the Super Mario Wonder demos, concluding that it was voice actor Mick Wingert, best known for filling in for Jack Black in the Kung Fu Panda games. Wingert denied the casting on Twitter, which nobody believed because of course the new Mario actor would claim it wasn't him only to reveal that it was him all along when Nintendo gave the go-ahead. But as it turns out, he wasn't lying: Mick Wingert wasn't Mario, and we received confirmation of who would be filling Martinet's shoes from a very unlikely source...

Kevin Afghani may not be a name that rings many bells, apparently being a total newcomer to voice acting. The biggest role you might have heard him in was Arnold in Genshin Impact. But it's official: he's the new voice of Mario! In hindsight, I think he shows a tremendous amount of promise: looking back, the most we could gather about Mario in the original Super Mario Wonder trailer is that he sounded different, which you could chalk up to Martinet's age. Once Martinet confirmed he wasn't returning, people could finally open their ears and notice that, yeah, Mario did have a different voice. But I think Afghani is doing a phenomenal job. Unlike Disney, who pours more money into finding identical VAs to replace the aging voices behind Mickey, Minney, Goofy, and the like, Nintendo cared more about finding someone who could nail Mario's vibes. And I think that's a better course of action; let Afghani be his own Mario.

Unfortunately, Afghani's casting has brought a degree of controversy; a lot of people don't think that Afghani "deserves" the role of Mario, given his very short repertoire of roles. This is likely a factor in Nintendo taking their sweet time to announce the new actor; there are a lot of people who are very attached to Martinet, and many of that group likely wouldn't accept anyone else. It's for the same reason they haven't announced the new voices for Rick and Morty; with "those" kinds of fans being who they are, naming names would paint a big pair of bull's eyes on their backs. I, for one, am positive that Afghani is perfect for the role. For one thing, Charles Martinet didn't exactly have the most extensive acting resume either when he was cast as Mario--most of his roles were for commercials or weird industry skits for trade shows. But Martinet's skills shone through, with his classical training inspiring his radically different take on Mario. Where Captain Lou Albano or Bob Hoskins focused on Mario being a gruff plumber from Brooklyn, Martinet channeled Petruchio from The Taming of the Shrew and focused on Mario as a chirpy, excitable little man.

And this is why I think Afghani is so perfect; clearly, someone at Nintendo thinks this man has the chops, especially with such a short resume. He's not gonna ape Martinet's performance, he's gonna do his own take. He isn't overshadowed by his reputation of doing some other, bigger role, so there isn't any pre-existing baggage (see: people convinced Michael Keaton couldn't be a good Batman because his previous role was Mr. Mom). Kevin Afghani has the perfect opportunity to be Mario on his own terms, and Nintendo is confident he'll rise to the occasion. And I agree. I'm excited to see what Afghani does, and I'm happy he's part of the Nintendo family. Welcome aboard, man; here's your complimentary prop nose and fake mustache.

Let's keep the Mario news rolling. While the animated Super Mario Bros. movie from Illumination (specifically titled The Super Mario Bros. Movie) was released just this year, we all know and remember the 1993 Super Mario Bros. feature film from Hollywood Pictures. It's a troubled film: starring Bob Hoskins as Mario (Mario) and John Leguizamo as Luigi (Mario), it took the bright and colorful sidescrollers and slapped the Bros. into an alternate dystopian cyberpunk future where dinosaurs evolved into people and the tyrannical Koopa (played by Dennis Hopper) rules with an iron fist. Folks get de-evolved into goombas (giant lunks with tiny, reptilian heads)--or worse, fungus. It's a weird movie and not a very successful one. But this year is its 30th anniversary and Umbrella Home Entertainment decided to roll out the red carpet for a weird, weird moment in Mario Bros.'s history.

They're calling it the "Trust The Fungus" edition, referencing a famous line from the film. This is as complete a release as you can hope for. It's a 4K Ultra HD release, complete with a book of production info and interviews and a copy of the script. There are various pieces of art featuring alternate promo art for the films' international releases, even a film cell. This is what you call a "kitchen sink" release; if you have any kind of appreciation for the film, this is as good a release as you could dream of.

The big question people might make is, "Why bother with all this effort for such a crappy movie?". And it's true: I definitely can't imagine putting this kind of effort into a stinker like the M. Night Shyamalan The Last Airbender. But preserving film also means preserving bad films, and sometimes the failures are just as culturally important as the successes. Like it or not: Dragon Ball Evolution is still a landmark part of Dragon Ball's history--there will come a time when there is a big anniversary release for it, because as dumb a film as it might be it's still so weird. And like I said, the Super Mario Bros. movie is weird; they ultimately got Rocky Morton and Annabel Jankel (creators of Max Headroom) to direct it, it's got Princess Daisy as the female lead instead of Princess Peach (or "Princess Toadstool", as she was still called in those days), Dinosaur Land has an intense cyberpunk dystopia-inspired look to it, the Yoshi animatronic is freaking adorable... a lot is going on. Provided, production was hell: the film was over-budget, Leguizamo and Hoskins had a wretched time on the project and referred to it as the worst film they ever worked on, downing shots of Scotch between takes. Dennis Hopper's son famously told his dad "I didn't need shoes that badly!"

And yet, it's honestly rather ambitious. The weird take on all of the Mario iconography--the mushrooms, Koopa and his Clown airship, the Goombas, Bullet Bill, Big Bertha (now named "Big Cheep Cheep")--makes sense when you realize that this came from a time long before there was any kind of proper Mario "lore" that people in the US could access, outside of whatever their uncle that worked at Nintendo could share with them. Hoskins loveably sells the role of a grumpy Brooklyn plumber (basically a nicer version of Eddie Valiant from Who Framed Roger Rabbit). Luigi was John Leguizamo's break-out role, and miserable as the film was at the time he came around on the performance after seeing how many people (yours truly included) loved his work on the film. The cyberpunk setting (referred to by production as "New Brutalism"-style) is honestly comparable to the brilliant setwork of Blade Runner. And it's got the absolutely best cover of Walk The Dinosaur ever, courtesy of--get this--"The Goombas, Featuring George Clinton".

It's an interesting watch, especially after how safe and comparably sanitized The Super Mario Bros. Movie is. Sure, that one has way more actual fanservice (like Donkey Kong appearing to the tune of the D.K. Rap or the Mushroom Kingdom's kart garage playing the menu theme from Mario Kart 8). But also, it's safe. There's something curious about that era of the '70s, '80s, and '90s where theatrical adaptations would get weird with the source material, absolutely swinging for the fences with the art. Take He-Man's cross of swords-and-sandals epics and science fiction and filter it through the lens of 1980s dark fantasy films like The Dark Crystal. Take the iconic Batmobile and let freaking H.R. Giger take a crack at designing it. Shoot a Ninja Turtles picture in the style of Shaft. People were allowed to get weird with IPs in those days. These days, there's far too much corporate oversight and concerns over brand synergy to allow for that kind of thing. We would never see a movie like David Lynch's Dune made today. That saves David Lynch a ton of headaches... but also, we miss out on the ambition, man. Creativity isn't just about successes, it's also about failures. Beyond Good and Evil bombed for Ubisoft, critical reception be damned--but anyone who played it knows that there's a ton of its D.N.A. in Assassin's Creed. Dune was doomed from the start, but there's no other movie like it. Its visuals stick with you (the amazing soundtrack from Toto helps). So too is the Super Mario Bros. movie a troubled, troubled mess... but not one you've seen before, and not one we're likely to see again.

Anyway, get your buddies, possibly grab some groovy chocolates, and have a Dune/Super Mario Bros. double-feature with your buddies. And pick up the Trust The Fungus edition, if you're so inclined.

Speaking of fungi... ! Holy crap, has Success been firing on all cylinders lately, or what? First, they bring Cotton back to the US with another game inbound, and then we get the absolute bombshell that they're working on a third Izuna game in Japan. It's been some crazy times for folks lately, and Success decided they'd go a bit crazier I guess. The Nintendo DS had some amazing mystery games and visual novels like 999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors, Phoenix Wright, and Ghost Trick--many of which have already been rescued from the belated DS and are now enjoyable on newer, more-modern platforms. And Success has deemed it worthy to bring back their entry. It falls to me to spread the word, because just like with me and Izuna I know this news will make some people go ballistic: Touch Detective is coming back to the US!

Along with Izuna, Rondo of Swords, and Windy X Windam, Success produced a cute little series of mystery games on the DS. Titled Touch Detective, it told the story of a little girl named Mackenzie, who solved curious mysteries in her town full of colorful weirdos. It's a shame that the series didn't get particularly big in its time because it had an aesthetic that I could see the Hot Topic crowd going ballistic for. But alas, Touch Detective wasn't a gritty military shooter with cover-based mechanics produced on the Unreal or Havok engine, and it used way too many primary colors, and so into the bin it went. But lo, scores of us handheld trash-lovers descended upon this trash bin and brought it home to put on our little mushroom mantels. Provided, when I say "us" about Touch Detective, I mean, "other people"--I never did get around to trying it out in the day, even though I was big on the DS. What I can say is that Touch Detective does have a very loyal fanbase and many of these people have likely found successful jobs in animation. I say that because I've seen people take the cute little Funghi (Mackenzie's little mushroom buddy) and slip references to him in the weirdest of places. Like Voltron: Legendary Defender.

I'm honestly a little emotional at this. Someone out there loved Touch Detective. Someone loved Funghi. Right now, Touch Detective fans nationwide... like, they have to know, right? They know their baby boy is back, right? They'll find out and they'll get excited about it, right? I know how I felt when I heard the Izuna news, so I can only hope whoever drew Funghi in Voltron found out. I want them to have their miracle--especially since this is a very long time coming. Touch Detective 3 originally released in Japan for the 3DS in 2014, and again for the Switch on October 6th just last year. This has been a very long time coming. In fact! I even touched on it as a tidbit in my very first column from last year--in the same breath as me wondering if we'd ever get another Izuna game. Just this once--just this once... everyone has their little miracle.

So, what can Touch Detective fans look forward to after almost a decade of waiting? Well, for starters, Touch Detective 3 will be brought to the US in a compilation with updated ports of the first two Touch Detective titles. These ports will feature updated localizations, as well as both touch-screen controls and traditional controls. Fans will also get an extensive in-game gallery featuring around 500 pieces of art from Touch Detective, which include concept art, comic strips (likely from the promotional website), and character profiles. I had to import an art book for that stuff! There will also be complete in-game soundtracks available in in-game jukeboxes. Finally, while this release will include all three Touch Detective games, it'll also include two bonus scenarios featuring Funghi: Funghi Breaks Out! and Funghi: The Interviews. None of Funghi's other games are included, sadly; it seems that in the years following Touch Detective, Funghi was given a slew of his spin-off titles, but many of them seem to be mobile titles--that might be the issue.

The only thing that's taken the wind out of fans' sails for this one is that Nicalis is in charge of the localization this time around. Which... confuses me a bit. Atlus brought the first two games to the US the first time around. It's on Atlus if they decided to pass on Touch Detective 3--by the time it came out, Persona had very much become Atlus' bread-and-butter (Touch Detective was released in the US in 2006, Atlus wouldn't bring Persona 3 to the US until two years later). Some folks are grumbling given Nicalis's bad reputation. We've touched on this in a prior column; Nicalis's former CEO was a serious piece of work. There are allegations that he stole the Cave Story IP from Pixel, but there has never been any concrete evidence of that.

So far, we don't have a concrete release date for Touch Detective 3 + The Complete Case Files; we just have a vague "First Quarter 2024" release window. We do know, however, that it'll be released in the US with a fancy Special Edition physical release that includes a little plushie of Funghi--sold exclusively on Nicalis's website. Come get your mushroom men.

That'll do it for this week, I think. Again: I'm looking forward to doing a better job of saving up my fun money and meeting folks at the Portland Retro Gaming Expo next year. In the meantime, I'm getting ready for Kumoricon. Keep an eye out for me and my ita-bag, you can't miss me. In the meantime: whether you folks are enjoying Sonic Superstars or Super Mario Wonder, we've all got plenty of phenomenal platforming goodness to enjoy this weekend! For once, Sonic fans and Mario fans are brought together! Be good to each other, I'll see you in seven.