This Week in Games

Wetsuits Are Hot, Actually

Welcome back! Last week, I informed folks I was trying to assemble my new PC. The good news is, I managed it! It took me two days, but I pulled it off. The bad news was, there was a snag—the H100i LCD water cooler I use (with a gif of my favorite VTuber on the header) now isn't being detected by iCue. It thankfully still works, so my Ryzen 7700 isn't going to melt on me, but it's a total shame—that's one bit of tech that isn't glowing like I want it to (and, y'know, I wanted this to be an ita-PC, which I can't do if the header is only displaying a red triangle). Moreover, this is an issue with h100 AIOs going back two years. So, I can only wait for Corsair to get back to me. Suffice it to say; I was a bit too busy to play Xenoblade this past weekend. I even missed my chance to get the Pyra and Mythra Amiibo, tragically. Nothing to do but pray those get restocked. But hey, the new PC is looking great. No pictures, not until I get the cooler displaying properly.

The following delves into spoilers concerning Final Fantasy XVI.

Back when Final Fantasy XVI was previewed, and I had nothing but misgivings about it, there was some news about the game being banned for sale in Saudi Arabia, albeit not for any clearly-defined reason. Many took to FF16's ESRB page to scour for possible reasons. The line "a character caressing and straddling a man in bed" popped up; given that nobody had mentioned the gender of the character on top, it was presumed that there was a gay love scene in the game. Which... isn't wrong! I mean, Benedikta did a ton of straddling, but it turns out that the character Prince Dion Lesage, the Dominant of Bahamut, is gay, revealed in a scene where he intimately kisses his lover on the lips.

Queer rep in video games is still rare enough to where bringing this up whenever it happens in a big AAA game merits discussion. Some have noticed that the discussion regarding FF16's queer rep differs from other times it's been discussed—particularly in American games.

As one Twitter user pointed out, Dion's kiss is presented with a degree of criticism, mainly because in the eyes of several publications it is "not enough." Kotaku argues that Dion and his lover aren't given the same treatment throughout the game; while their relationship is established and avoids many toxic pitfalls (particularly, Terence doesn't get fridged), they don't have a love scene along the lines of Benedikta getting pinned to the wall by that dude she calls a cock. TheGamer made similar arguments, lamenting that while Dion and Terence's relationship is heartfelt, it only occupies "two scenes" within the main story. However, compared to the coverage for Horizon: Forbidden West, where Aloy has the option of kissing a same-sex love interest in an optional DLC (that itself was banned in Russia, as opposed to the entire game). The same publications are positively gushing about the scenes—in both cases, they're even from the same authors.

There's quite a bit to unpack here, and being an ostensibly straight man, I'll try to stay in my lane. But as someone who's grown up enjoying Japanese media, it feels weird to criticize FF16 for relegating its gay rep as "optional" and "not enough" when it's part of a main character's development within the main story. At the same time, the optional DLC with an optional queer pairing is the "landmark" decision. Remember: Aloy can kiss another woman... but that's at the player's discretion. Being bisexual in a relationship with the opposite sex doesn't mean you're not attracted to both men and women, sure... but it's still only an optional pairing. So there are plenty of angles that you can come at this. One possible angle is that there is an implicit bias against queer rep involving two women, for whatever possible stereotype you can imagine, from "lesbians are hot" to the idea that lesbians are just "easier to accept" in media. One angle I can get behind is that Dion isn't a playable character, but that feels petty considering he's a Dominant; he's one of the major players in the narrative.

The other is the bias against Japanese games, which we've touched on in the past; many publications in the United States still have a degree of bias against Japanese games for... some reason, even though so much of the industry is still based out of Japan. And while I'm not going to pretend any game is inherently better for having come from a Japanese developer, there are still a lot of games (if not Japanese media with active followings in the U.S.) that tend to get left out of conversations when it comes to retrospectives. Buffy the Vampire Slayer being a female-led action show from the 1990s isn't all that unique when you look to a ton of 90s anime like Revolutionary Girl Utena, Magic Knight Rayearth, Twelve Kingdoms, Vision of Escaflowne or both the animated and live-action Zeiram movies (which also got a video game!). And I'm cherry-picking. When it comes to the history of female protagonists in video games, the discussion shouldn't start with Lara Croft or even Terra and Celes from Final Fantasy VI—but with Alis Landale and her journey for vengeance in Phantasy Star. The late, great Rieko "Phoenix Rie" Kodama deserves to be given as much reverence as landmark adventure game designer Roberta Williams. But we know how this goes.

Now, I want to be clear that queer rep in Japanese media has plenty of pitfalls and negative stereotypes. Tharja from Fire Emblem: Awakening, for example, is potentially bisexual as she's very obsessed with the player character, Robin—regardless of whether Robin is a man or a woman. Tharja is also textually a very jealous stalker with very loose morals. I think there's a lot to be said on behalf of the Senran Kagura games and how they're all essentially a predominantly female-led series of action games with conflicts that are almost exclusively between female characters, each with a degree of surprisingly varied backgrounds like the bean sprout-obsessed Yomi (who is such because she grew up in poverty and bean sprouts were all her family could afford), or the dramatic trio of Yagyu, who mourns her belated sister and projects her feelings onto Hibari. There are 71 characters throughout Senran Kagura, and only about seven are men. That should stand for something. That said, I cannot and will not pretend Senran Kagura is some enlightened bastion of female writing because, well, it's Senran Kagura. So much of the character writing is in service of these characters being humiliated in public as they're stripped naked. So I reiterate: Japanese media isn't inherently more "enlightened" than American media by any means, and I'll disagree with anyone who makes that claim. But we need to be at least honest about what Japanese media does and what it achieves, and while it's fair to point out the weird stuff... it just feels really, really un-fair to claim that a gay romance that's part of the main story involving main characters in Final Fantasy XVI is the afterthought compared to content in an optional DLC for Horizon: Forbidden West.

I'm not a fan of the whole "'fans' of a game review-bomb said game in response to a disliked change." We've just seen this with Skullgirls: Second Encore, and while on paper, the idea of fans being able to voice their issues with given changes sounds great, it just opens the door to a lot of very bad-faith actors mobbing the developers to harass them more than anything else. There's dialogue, then there's just banging down people's doors, and I think when a studio says, "We will not be answering questions related to the subject; this will not be open to further discussion," it ought to be a sign that your energy is better spent elsewhere. The fans of the Korean gacha RPG Limbus Company lived up to that "lofty" ideal earlier this week following a controversial change.

It all started with recent changes to the game, including new upgrade tiers; the implementation was pretty shaky, with fans displeased at how many resources it took to upgrade characters to the new tier, secretly nerfed upgrade benefits to stats, and certain characters being bugged upon being upgraded to the new tier. So far, yeah, I'd be very upset about that too. After all, it's evident that gacha games are all about the grind, but you at least want to ensure that the upgrades you're grinding for are worthwhile or, y'know, work.

The real trouble starts with the Limbus Company summer event that started this month. Being summer, the game had an ocean-themed event, but fans in Korea were displeased with... the character Ishmael drawn in a wetsuit instead of a bikini. And, sure, I look forward to summer events too—I'm not gonna pretend I haven't spent hours in Action Taimanin grinding up for Emily Simmons' swimsuit. But fans were specifically upset over there not being a sexy swimsuit for Ishmael at all. Like, really upset. So much so that they were ready to aim their complaints at the artist who drew Ishmael in the wetsuit, claiming that "radical feminism had taken over the studio." The fans changed their tune when they realized that the artist who had drawn the art was a man, so they instead targeted VellMori, a female artist who worked with the studio. Digging up some of VellMori's old tweets, they found her voicing such "radical" ideas as... how you probably shouldn't take candid photos of women in public. Fans also congregated on websites in an attempt at whipping up further libel against VellMori, such as claiming that she was also secretly a trans-exclusionary radical feminist or secretly in favor of sexualizing minors. This led to more fans congregating around the offices of Limbus Company's studio in protest. Eventually, the studio fired VellMori.

The whole incident reminds me of the case with Allison Rapp a few years back. For folks who don't remember, Allison Rapp was an employee at Nintendo of America who worked in marketing. Following the controversial localization of Fire Emblem: Fate, fans... somehow decided that Rapp was to blame for the changes, even though Rapp worked in marketing (fun fact: she was also product marketing lead for Bayonetta 2, so we have Rapp to thank for Pamela Horton's famous Bayonetta 2cosplay in Playboy Magazine. Harassers dug up plenty on Rapp, including a thesis that she had later redacted. Honestly, this sucks, and considering the outrage some had towards Skullgirls: Second Encore a few weeks back, it's a relief to know that nobody at Future Club had that kind of vitriol aimed at them. Internet harassment toward developers is something that I don't think a lot of studios know how to handle, and the means of communication gets manipulated by many bad-faith actors.

This situation sucks, top to bottom, and I hope that VellMori can find a better job somewhere else, hopefully somewhere that supports her. I hate that this story keeps happening in the game industry. Please don't make me have to write about it again.

Aaaaaaaaaaaah~!

Nintendo has replaced their beloved Virtual Console with the Nintendo Switch Online service, which allows any Nintendo Switch Online subscriber to stream old Nintendo games on their Nintendo Switch. It is a wholly inefficient replacement to the Virtual Console by not allowing players to buy and download the titles at their leisure. Still, with Nintendo shuttering the eShops on the Wii U and 3DS, there is no further way to access many of these older Nintendo titles.

Thankfully, Nintendo has expanded the scope of Nintendo Switch Online with games from other consoles—including the GameBoy Color and its many underappreciated classics. And chief among them are the GameBoy Legend of Zelda titles! The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening was already revived in the public consciousness in recent years thanks to its Nintendo Switch remake, a charming top-down adventure game starring Link on the mysterious Twin Peaks-esque Koholint Island where he must collect eight magical instruments to awaken the sleeping Wind Fish—in name only, for it is neither. Link's Awakening took advantage of its dream-like setting, making references to other Nintendo titles like Dr. Wright from the Super Nintendo port of Sim City, King Wart from Super Mario Bros. 2, and the protagonist from the obscure Japan-only title The Frog For Whom The Bell Tolls. You can also point to it as the origin of the official best Zelda-girl, Malon, as the game introduced the character Marin—a young woman who liked singing and lived with her absentminded father Tarin (y'know, like how Malon lives with Talon and likes singing to cows).

Nintendo allowed Capcom's Flagship studio to develop Oracle of Ages and Oracle of Seasons for the GameBoy Color, but it was rough going. Oracle of Seasons, for example, was initially planned to be a remake of the original Legend of Zelda on the NES—traces of this can still be seen via many of the bosses from the NES original being in Oracle of Seasons, like Aquamentus, Digdogger, and Manhandla. There were also going to be three games in this mini-series, back when it was titled the Mystical Seed of Power games. The idea was to create a trilogy of games that could be linked together, each serving as a chapter in a greater story that could be completed by "linking" the three games and sharing data. This was underlined through the use of the three Oracles, who were named after the Goddesses in Zelda lore established in Ocarina of Time: Din, the Oracle of Seasons; Nayru, the Oracle of Ages; and Farore, the Oracle of Secrets. Sadly, it was decided that three titles were far too complicated to work with, especially considering the many sequences in which you could play the three titles. So Capcom and Nintendo focused on just two titles.

The Oracle games have the wholly-unearned reputation of Nintendo trying to cash in on the Pokémon-inspired craze of having two "versions" of the same game; nothing is further from the truth, as both titles were utterly different stories set in different worlds, each with their unique dungeons, items, and casts. Upon beating one game, players would get a password they could use in the opposite title to play a "continuation" of the story, wherein the greater scope of the efforts of villains Onox and Veran would be laid bare, and Ganon would get involved. This also worked well with one of the minor gimmicks in the game: rings. Players could grow Gasha Seeds (like "gachapon," get it?) that could contain rings that modified Link's powers in all kinds of ways, from changing his spin attack with a sword beam to making it so he wouldn't move around in quicksand. Passwords allowed players to import seeds from one game to the other. It also allowed upgrades to be imported over: linking the game was the only way to unlock super-powerful items like the Master Sword, the Mirror Shield, the Bombchus, and the utterly-unwieldy Biggoron Sword. It also allowed players to continue the stories of all the fun, cute characters in-game, like Rosa the Subrosian celebrity. This included some background on the motivations of Queen Ambi from Oracle of Ages, whose actions set the plot in motion (no thanks to Veran) but that led to plenty of fun. There was no actual "order" to the games; playing Ages first meant you finally got to understand Ambi's deal and even got to see the possible origins of the Gasha Seed-loving farmer Bippin, but playing Seasons first allows you to unlock that last damn tile on Ages's map. And because we here at This Week in Games ignore the fish wrap that is the "official" Zelda timeline: the Oracle games set up Link's Awakening, as they end with Link sailing out to sea on a familiar-looking sailboat...

Capcom would collaborate with Nintendo on a few other Zelda titles, and all of them were a blast. First was the Four Swords game packed in with the GBA version of Link to the Past, a fun multiplayer-fueled Zelda game. Capcom's Flagship studio later developed The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap, another underappreciated handheld Zelda title that fleshed out the history of the famous Four Sword, the origins of the enigmatic villain Vaati—and, in a move truly worthy of establishing The Legend of Zelda as an actual series of legends, tells the story of how the Hero of Hyrule came upon his iconic green hat. You might think a simple hat might not be able to make you cry, but that's because you haven't beaten Minish Cap yet. Also: Minish Cap not only has a charming appearance by Malon and Epona (who don't appear in a ton of Zelda games, considering their importance)—but also the three Oracles, precisely as they appeared in the Oracle games. And in a cheeky reference to the history of their titles, you can only find housing for two of the three girls. Alas, poor Farore...

As you can no doubt tell, I love the Oracle games. It's a shame they get left out of the conversation with Zelda titles so often, especially since Yusuke Nakano's designs feel so unique when compared to the more "mature" take on Link as seen in Ocarina of Time, and yet feel so timeless. Like, yeah: that gangly teen with the big sideburns is our hero. And yes, Akira Himekawa did a bang-up job at capturing that art style when they adapted the Oracle games into a manga. If you haven't played the Oracle titles, definitely pick them up. They're fun, breezy, and filled with all the best bits of the Zelda-series's charms. I don't think we'll ever see them remade, primarily because of the central gimmick revolving around two games. There was already much gnashing of teeth with the Link's Awakening remake being a full-priced title; I don't see people being any more tolerant of the Oracle games being two separate titles even if they're playable separate of each other and so many of the Link features are meant to account for either one being the "first" game. But if you need something charming to play this weekend, look no further.

Also: the original 2001 commercial for these games is so badass.

Arc System Works' Granblue Fantasy Versus followed the modern trend of accessibility seen in newer fighting games by allowing for a "simplified" input system for players. This isn't new: Dragon Ball FighterZ also had a canned combo system for players that boiled down to just mashing one button, while Street Fighter 6 also allows for simplified inputs via its "Modern" control setup (which makes all of the right people very upset, in my opinion). But recent news has some fans worried because it seems the balance of those moves might be threatened.

For many games, simplified inputs are balanced by the "simple" inputs dealing less damage than the normal ones. Super Smash Bros: Ultimate is a good example. Many of its characters, like Ryu, Ken, and Terry Bogard, hail from fighting games. While their attacks are mapped to the typical Smash Bros control scheme, you can still input the original quarter-circle/half-circle/Dragon Punch commands to utilize their attacks, with the bonus of dealing extra damage if you do so. Likewise, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: All-Star Battle R added canned combos for everyone, but these don't guarantee victory—it's very easy for a seasoned player to deal with the onslaught of the same canned moves.

Granblue Fantasy: Versus Rising is boldly making the simplified inputs deal the same damage as the versions from the standard inputs. While many fans are concerned over the balance of such a decision... I'm fine with it. Many people are worried that the game will be watered down, as it "won't take any skill to deal damage." But even if the inputs are simplified, the simple aspect of attack cooldowns is still a factor, per Granblue Fantasy: Versus Rising's typical mechanics. Also: accessible inputs don't negate other bits of fighting game know-how—like footsies, positioning, movement, pokes, hit-confirms, or frame advantage. Sure, now any noob can fire off Ferry's attacks easily, but a good player will still know how to neutralize Ferry's advantages.

There's a significant problem with how a lot of capital-"G" "Gamers™" look at games, specifically that playing any game should require that a player needs to "get good" at the game, whatever that means. I reject this notion. Not every game needs to require someone to dedicate their life to deep contemplation of the mechanics. Nobody should have to play a game under the presumption that they have to "get better" at it, especially if all they want is to disconnect from the world for a minute and have fun mashing buttons and punking people. This is especially relevant considering plenty of people who enjoy games have lives and can't dedicate eight hours a day to memorizing bread-and-butter combos. If the knowledge you already have from years of playing games still gives you an edge against Jo Q. Public, who only just picked up the title, then I think you should stay in your lane. Until then: let people enjoy the game. I doubt the Granblue Fantasy: Versus Rising matches at Evo will be sabotaged because people use simplified controls. More importantly, they're quickly becoming central to fighting games—lest we forget, Riot will use them for their upcoming League of Legends fighting game.

The future is now, old man.

That'll do it for this week. Things are definitely in a lull as we find ourselves between releases. People are getting really excited for Armored Core VI. We'll have something cool written up for that game; I hope you look forward to it. In the meantime: remember to keep safe in all this heat. Be good to each other; I'll see you in seven.