This Week in Games

The Ten-Million Dollar Bricklayer

Glad to see everyone back! As you read this, I'll likely be wrapping up my reading for ANN's seasonal Manga Preview guide. It's not game-related, but it's a phenomenal way to look into new stuff and discover new stories to love—I look forward to it every year, even if it's a buttload of work that keeps me from being able to play games. But I'll gladly keep doing it, especially since a lot of manga still like squeezing in the occasional reference to Mayor Haggar every now and then. It turns out some artists in Japan love old video games. Who'd have thought, right? Also: I hope you guys picked up the Mega Man Battle Network Legacy Collection! I've talked before about how much I loved playing Mega Man Battle Network in high school with my buddies, there's never been a better time to try them out.

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It looks like the Flickies are no longer the only birds over at Sega! Earlier this week, news broke that Sega bought out the European studio Rovio Entertainment Oyj. In a deal valued at over $776 million, Sega now owns the studio that made the landmark mobile game Angry Birds.

Nintendo's made plenty of strides in the mobile gaming market, and while not all of them have been the stratospheric success that Fire Emblem: Heroes has been, there's something to be said about the ongoing success of titles like Pokémon Go, Pokémon Master EX or Mario Kart Tour. And even the unfortunate failures like Dragalia Lost give folks something to discuss. Sega has had its fair share of mobile games, but its offerings are severely padded out with ports of their Genesis-era classics like Sonic the Hedgehog or Comix Zone. What few original titles they've offered haven't been the biggest hits; again, Nintendo's mobile offerings haven't all been smashes, but they're faring a lot better than the likes of Super Monkey Ball: Banana Mania or Sonic Dash 2: Sonic Boom. Even Sega Heroes was just a blip on the radar, mainly because the meek Cream the Rabbit is unfazed by Golden Axe's Death Adder (and who can blame her, kids born when Golden Axe: Beast Rider are on the cusp of getting their drivers' license!).

The secret to Nintendo's success is obviously taking the Disney approach: if you don't have the infrastructure or manpower to develop your mobile offerings properly, store-bought will do. Nintendo has worked with DeNA Co, LTD to produce many of its mobile offerings (going so far as to develop a subsidiary in partnership with DeNA). And while it's a bit too soon to claim its rousing success, the fact that people know what Mario Kart Tour even is would be proof enough for any pudding. Rovio might only have one game, but Angry Birds has carried them for a very long time—since 2009, in fact (just a year younger than Golden Axe: Beast Rider!). Just that one game has brought Rovio money and success hand-over-fist. Indeed, the onset of mobile offerings like it made many wonder if Nintendo's portable consoles like the DS and 3DS weren't obsolete—I recall an old Penny Arcade strip wondering if forty $1 mobile games weren't better than one $40 DS game. Nevertheless, Angry Birds' successful branding means Rovio knows the mobile market inside and out. If there's anyone that can give Sega a better boost in that niche, it's them. It's way too soon to presume what kind of projects will come from the acquisition, especially since it won't take effect until May 8, but it feels safe to assume we'll get a Sonic-themed Angry Birds. Past that—who knows?

In other Sega-related news, this past week also gave fans tantalizing news: the much-anticipated Knuckles the Echidna spin-off of the successful live-action Sonic the Hedgehog movies is now in production!

What we know so far is that Idris Elba will be returning to voice Knuckles and that the show will be about Knuckles training incompetent Green Hills police officer Wade Whipple on how to be an "Echidna Warrior." And that's... about all we know! The series is sure to tie into the plot of the anticipated Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (which should be titled "Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles"), so we can anticipate some teasing of Shadow the Hedgehog. Also, in one of those fun nods to the fandom that Paramount is wont to make, the above tweet features not just any hat—but Knuckles' hat from the 1990s animated Sonic the Hedgehog OVA.

So, what else can we expect? Well, it's too soon to confirm anything. We can speculate, but they could always throw us for a loop—people expected Mecha Sonic or Metal Sonic to appear in Sonic the Hedgehog 2 like in the games, but that never happened. With G.U.N. now being a presence in the films, we can presume to some extent that The President (yes, a generic "President" of an unnamed country is a recurring character in Sonic the Hedgehog) might get involved—and with that, there's a good chance Rouge the Bat might be involved. And how could she not? She's been a love interest for Knuckles ever since Sonic Adventure 2! But also consider Amy Rose isn't in the movies either. Paramount loves making cheeky call-outs in the films like with Tails' biplane, the "Sanic" drawing, or Agent Stone's coffee shop featuring "Mean Beans," but they've (in my opinion, wisely) kept from inundating people with too many of the "weird" characters. Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, there's your power trio. Dr. Robotnik was your bad guy, but with Jim Carrey having made the conclusive decision to retire from acting, that means his stooge Agent Stone will fill his shoes. And that works fine; Agent Stone succeeds at being his own lovable villain while channeling all of Snively's best vibes from Sonic SatAM. You've got Tom Wachowski and his wife Maddie to ground things, and Wade's around as comic relief. Any more would complicate things—I mean, non-Sonic fans are already pretty sour on the Chaotix Crew; it's hard to imagine anyone who doesn't bleed Sega Sky-Blue lining up to see Vector the Crocodile singing into the camera. As much as I love the side characters in the Sonic universe like Bunny Rabbot, Rotor the Walrus, and Sticks the Badger, it's commonly accepted among "normal people" that the weirdo side-characters are the worst parts of Sonic the Hedgehog.

So it's obvious the movies follow the games to some loose level, but they're not married to anything. And that's fine. Trying to cover the events of Sonic Adventure 1, even without Gamma or Big the Cat, would be hard enough as it is. Give the folks what they want: focus on the big beats, give folks the big showdown between Sonic and Shadow, maybe introduce Rouge the Bat to give Knuckles something to chuckle over. Then we can worry about what to do once you've finally given the people Shadow—because I'll eat my hat if they try to adapt Shadow the Hedgehog into a movie and even Paramount wouldn't be desperate enough to make a Sonic '06 adaptation.

The name Niantic might be familiar to you—you might remember them as producers of such mobile games as Ingress, Pikmin Bloom, and the defunct Harry Potter: Wizards Unite. Oh, and they also made Pokémon Go, that game that, for two weeks in 2016, got close to bringing real world peace. They're gearing up to release a new mobile game, and this one might surprise you: it's not strictly based on a Nintendo property! This is Monster Hunter Now!

Niantic tends to have the same basic AR framework for all its titles. Players will likely wander real-world locations to get close to monsters spawning in-game on a map generated from your real-world position. Engaging monsters brings you to what will likely be a simplified version of Monster Hunter's battles, tapping and swiping the screen to attack wyverns and dodge their attacks in turn. We can presume some of Pokémon Go's Poké-Stops will be implemented into Monster Hunter Now, probably for spawning in-game sundries. Most importantly: Monster Hunter Now will work in both portrait mode and in landscape mode on your phone. This sounds dumb, but Pokémon Go doesn't work in landscape mode (not outside of a glitch, anyway), so this last bit is quite the advancement!

This isn't the first mobile Monster Hunter game, and it's way too soon even to postulate how good this'll be. Pokémon Go is light and snappy to play, which is part of why it's so popular outside of the obvious Pokémon branding; it's a game anyone can pick up and play. Whether Monster Hunter can still be fun with so much of the deliberate pacing being simplified is another matter—and whether the mobile game can be fun if the battle mode is long and ponderous is also worth bringing up. I love Dragalia Lost, but those levels were an issue; five minutes for one level doesn't sound like much, but it adds up. The other factor is having to go outside; Niantic rankled some hides by rebalancing Pokémon Go's Remote Raids to encourage people to play the game the way it was intended (i.e., outside), hosing over people with mobility issues or people who live in rural areas.

Monster Hunter Now's beta test period lands April 25, and you can sign up right now on Monster Hunter Now's website. Its official release is scheduled for this September 2023. I'm curious to know how much people will want to play this game in the fall when it starts getting cold, but oh well.

This past week, noted convicted Nintendo game hacker Gary Bowser was released from federal prison. Sentenced initially for 40 months for charges including "wire fraud, conspiracy to circumvent technological measures, trafficking in circumvention devices, and conspiracy to commit money laundering" in 2021, Bowser was a member of the hacking team Xecutor, who developed the SX. Bowser was also slapped with a fine totaling US$10 million. Bowser has been released from prison following good behavior but is still set to have 25% of his income docked by Nintendo until he can finish paying their fines.

This has sparked tremendous discussion among fans concerning the pros and cons of piracy in media, as well as the ethics of Nintendo "making an example" of people. And since we at This Week in Games are generally against the cruel ruination of people's lives on principle and have given the folks at Activision-Blizzard plenty of grief for stealing women's breast milk out of the fridge, it's only fair we scrutinize and editorialize on Nintendo for this.

So. Let's get some basic facts out of the way: Gary Bowser was just the PR/tech support guy at Team Xecutor, not one of the ringleaders by any means—those guys are currently abroad and cannot be extradited. Team Xecutor isn't just responsible for sharing or distributing ROMs; they also sold chips that allowed buyers to hack their consoles to install a unique OS that would allow them to use these ROMs on hacked consoles. In researching this story, I've seen some apocryphal claims that these hacks also functioned as ransomware—their OS had code that allowed them to remotely brick consoles trying to bypass their license restrictions, making Team Xecutor somewhat maligned among folks looking to hack/jailbreak Nintendo consoles.

On the one hand, Bowser made pretty well in his time with Team Xecutor, with an estimated US$300,000 in profits earned from working with them that helped him fuel his lifestyle in the sunny Dominican Republic—where, I can vouch, things go for pretty cheap. Even divvied up into a monthly salary, approximately US$3,800 is enough to live really darn well in the Caribbean. On the other, his time in prison is claimed to have been "traumatic," with the wheelchair-using Bowser having lost 90 pounds during the few months in prison (from his 410 lbs). With his imprisonment during the COVID-19 pandemic, he was offered limited time out of his cell exclusively for showering every few days. He'll likely never pay the US$10 million fine in his lifetime, especially not with the wages Bowser earned in prison, where he earned a total of US$175.

So, what's the verdict? Nintendo bad? Hackers bad? Unfortunately, this story has no simple answer because, as it turns out, these are actual people and not a freaking video game where Redd White is the bad guy because he stole Maya Fey's breast milk, but what can you do because Diablo IV is looking really poggie-woggies, guys!

Just this past summer, we had several hard discussions underlining the need to preserve video games, especially Nintendo games, given how callously the 3DS and Wii U eShops were shut down. Piracy is about the only reliable means of preserving these titles because Nintendo, profit-driven company that they are, will always have to go with what keeps them in the black—and if shutting down an eleven-year-old storefront is part of that plan, then I hope you didn't hold off on getting the Fire Emblem Fates DLC. Nintendo is coincidentally really particular about piracy, and the extent to which they desired to "make an example" out of Bowser admittedly gets under my skin. I don't have sympathy for folks who knowingly make fangames based on Nintendo stuff and then make the Pikachu face when Nintendo very loudly slaps them with a C&D. But a ROM site getting nuked to the tune of millions? Yeah, even if Nintendo's reasoning for that is more than "a copy stolen is a sale stolen" (to wit, part of Nintendo's argument is that they also had to dedicate time, money, and human resources to develop system updates for their consoles to combat Xecutor's hacks), your average script-kiddy hosting Balloon Fight shouldn't be on the docket for US$12 million.

On the other hand, Team Xecutor was making money off of this. Again: Bowser was funding his lifestyle in the Caribbean to the tune of US$3,800 a month—that's more than my mom made when I lived with her. That's more than I make, now. And while it's very tempting to frame this as a gang of scruffy rebels looking to thumb their nose at big, bad corporate Nintendo, remember: Team Xecutor would and could brick consoles using their proprietary wares in ways they disapproved of: pot, kettle, all that. Theirs wasn't just the distribution of ROMs; it was a whole marketplace. This is less the noble hacker ensuring information should be free and more like Fat Tony's "bread and cigarettes" analogy.

Again, I want to reiterate that everybody sucks here: Nintendo has been criticized before for some pretty draconian practices, and if we're going by the (in my opinion, disproven) adage "piracy is a service issue, not a price issue," their service is seriously lacking. But the worst company you know has a good point when dealing with folks who, y'know, want information to be free... unless you're using their wares to get that info from someone that isn't them. We've criticized Nintendo in the past for their bad practices with their IP and for their poor treatment of contractors (which has, like many controversies, sadly gone without much actual follow-up). If Nintendo wants people to keep paying US$5 for Balloon Fight, they can stand to have better storefronts and keep those titles available without the implementation of nonsense artificial scarcity techniques. But if you're going to die on the hill of wanting democratized access to software at all costs, maybe don't infect people's consoles with ransomware while you live large in the tropics?

So. VTubers! The hits keep on coming. After appearing in Among Us and Sonic Frontiers, it seems that the girls at Hololive are making a return visit to World of Warships!

While the original World of Warships collab featured the fox-girl Fubuki Shirakami and the naval captain Marine Houshou, this time around, the game will feature four new VTubers: the time-traveling detective Amelia Watson; Takanashi Kiara, a phoenix who dreams of owning a fast food joint; the Indonesian college girl Moona Hoshinova; and the white lion Shishiro Botan. Curiously, the shark girl Gawr Gura isn't present for this one. Maybe next time.

Players can look forward to voiced commanders featuring the four VTubers, unique flags, and expendable camouflage. The update should go live when this article is published. Anyone interested in rolling with the Hololive talents can download World of Warships on PC, Android, iOS, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S.

I didn't want to cover this because I'm still going through Xenoblade 3, but it's my duty to do so. I'll be braving spoilers to get this done. Just part of the job when I accepted the title of being That Bitch and covering This Week in Games, I suppose. Anyway! The previously-announced Xenoblade Chronicles 3: Future Redeemed DLC will be released on April 25, and Nintendo released a trailer for it. So, let's crack this baby open...

Well, obviously, this is going to tie into some serious Xenoblade 3 stuff I don't know about yet, because one of the characters is named "A" (maybe she's one of the Consuls?). Her earrings are shaped like the Conduit and/or the core crystals for the Monado Trio (Alvis, Malos, and Pneuma). We see someone getting impaled with Lucky Seven, the unbreakable katana sealed within Noah's sword. We also see new characters, weapons, and name-drops to Xenoblade 2's, er, Blades—the sentient artificial humans symbiotically bonded to weapons. We have the names of our party members: along with A, we also have Matthew, Nikol, and Glimmer. The Ouroboros command has been replaced with the "Monado Crash" ability... and speaking of Monado, we see our boys Shulk and Rex returning. Rex is an adult now and far more grizzled, still wielding what appears to be Pneuma's Monado (and he's gonna be showing 'em a thing or three). Shulk is also older and appears to have taken some cues from Dunban over there in terms of his fighting style with his replica Monado. Alvis is teased, we see some Mobius goons fusing with Agnes and Keves' mechs... and the remaining sizzle reel teases a ton of heartbreak. Y'know, the regular Xenoblade DLC stuff. If Torna: The Golden Country is going to be any indicator... this will rip your heart out and serve to completely recontextualize certain characters or plotlines.

Also, here's hoping that this also ties into Future Connected, the DLC for Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition. While that DLC did a great job of wrapping up some of the original Xenoblade loose ends (while throwing poor Melia a few crumbs), it ended rather abruptly without any explanation over what the Fog King's deal was. We'll know next week when this drops on April 25th. Or rather, you'll know. I'm still chugging through Xenoblade 3. I'll catch up eventually...

As is the norm for Nintendo, we got a heads-up this Monday that there would be a Nintendo Direct on Wednesday—this one focusing on upcoming indie titles coming to the Nintendo Switch. Ah, where would we be without those last-minute streams... Let's get this out of the way: no, there wasn't any news on Hollow Knight: Silksong.

... Okay, now with that out of the way, what did we get that we can look forward to? We have some ports of existing indie titles coming to the switch. My Time at Sandrock, the delightful farm sim, is finally coming to the Switch, along with confirmation that the Jet Set Radio spiritual successor Bomb Rush Cyberfunk will be landing on the console on August 18. Five Nights At Freddy's: Security Breach was launched on the same day as the stream (the 19th), in case you needed your quota of jumpscares. Beloved kitchen co-op game Plate Up is scheduled for the Switch in October, while beloved item-sorting game A Little to the Left will receive a "Cupboards and Drawers" paid DLC in June, which focuses on, er... cupboards and drawers. It's very creative, with many hidden compartments featured in some of its "stage"—for people that like fussing with actual shelves, this game is catnip. Finally, Shovel Knight: Pocket Dungeon is set to receive its own DLC this spring that adds new dungeons, hats, unlockable abilities, and stages. Similarly, Cult of the Lamb is receiving its own DLC pack: the "Relics of the Old Faith," adding extra goodies like a Perma-death run mode and a boss-rush—this one will be available on April 24th.

So that's all the minor stuff; what were the heavy hitters for this stream? First, there's Mineko's Night Market, an adventure sim about the young Mineko trying to keep magic alive in their tiny rural Japanese town. With the aid of the mythical Sun Cat Niko, Mineko can explore the woods around their town, collect items and sell them at the weekly night market, where players can also take part in fun minigames like stage shows, cat races, and parades. Folks that like cozy adventure games like Rune Factory will probably get a lot out of this one.

The cat love doesn't stop there: cat lovers can also look forward to The Quilts and Cats of Calico, a video-game adaptation of the real-life board game Calico. Here, you must match quilt tiles of similar colors and patterns to score points. It's a simple idea and a good low-impact brain teaser. This video game version promises a few fun wrinkles. For starters, there's a story mode wherein you'll play as a simple tailor taking on a corrupt corporation (hey, man, quilts are serious business). For another: there are cats everywhere in this game. For real, cats not only hand out extra tiles during matches, but they'll also walk over and lay down on your board if you've made a good-enough pattern. And yes, for obvious Twitter points, you can pet the cats—though I'm more curious if you can feel their purring through the Joycons and their HD rumble... Also, in a much more impressive feature, you can fully customize the appearance of these cats—so if there's a special kitty in your life, you can put them into the game! Stray needed this feature so badly...

Here's one that surprised me! Crypt of the Necrodancer was an intriguing title, a rogue-like dungeon crawler mixed with a rhythm game. It was successful enough to where Nintendo saw fit to allow them to make a Legend of Zelda-themed spin-off, Cadence of Hyrule. Necrodancer is back with a wholly-new look in Rift of the Necrodancer! Unlike the rogue-like Crypt, Rift looks and plays more like an RPG-fueled twist on Guitar Hero: monsters will descend from the top of the screen, and players will have to input in the appropriate direction to damage them in time with the music. There are also fancy boss battles taking up the whole screen. While the animations look lavish, the game... does look a lot simpler. So temper your expectations. In addition to the Guiter Hero-esque story mode, the game also features several mini-games that do a fantastic job of resembling other rhythm-based mini-games from Nintendo's own Rhythm Heaven—which works for me, if Nintendo won't make one, Brace Yourself Games has plenty of material they can play around with.

Animal Well is a bit overshadowed by one of the folks in charge: known videogame YouTube personality Dunkey helped introduce the game, which his publisher, Bigmode Publishing, is publishing. Billy Basso is the actual creator of the game and has mostly worked on it by himself for five years. It looks like a great game, reminding me of older adventure titles like Milon's Secret Castle. Misgivings about Dunkey aside, Animal Well looks fascinating. Its art style is engaging, and the whole game is set around using items to manipulate the animals around you as you traverse obstacles and seek out other items. There's a lot of thought being put into this, look forward to Animal Well in "early 2024".

Crime O'Clock has a fascinating concept that makes my inner child happy. You'll oversee a large map where crimes occur; by interacting with the map and solving puzzles, you can solve the crimes and improve the map. But time travel is also involved, and by solving crimes in the past, you can also change the map in the future, unlocking additional puzzles. I don't know what it is about it, but it reminds me of playing Carmen Sandiego games as a kid. Look forward to this release on June 30.

I must be honest: the original Teslagrad passed me by entirely; I'd never heard of it. But Teslagrad 2 looks interesting, if not downright impressive. Heavily based on Scandinavian aesthetics and music, you control a young Teslamancer fighting off hordes of Vikings while exploring a tower. You'll use electric-based powers to zip across power lines, dodge through obstacles, or attract yourself to metallic walls. So it's a little bit Metroidvania, a little bit puzzle-platformer. It's stunning in its visuals, too. It's already out on Nintendo's eShop as of this past Wednesday; definitely pick it up. You can also pick up a remastered port of the original Teslagrad, with ten bonus levels. Or, you can pick up both Teslagrad titles in a compilation. If this trailer is anything to go by: it's totally worth it.

Speaking of sequels whose predecessors I never played, West of Loathing's successor Shadows Over Loathing is now out. A screwball take on a Lovecraft-inspired setting, your little stick figure will wander a simply-drawn take on 1920s America filled with flappers, mobsters, and cosmic horrors beyond your comprehension. Battles will take place in a turn-based format (a little like Stick of Truth, but in much better taste). The key word here is "screwball": Shadows Over Loathing isn't afraid to play things for humor, such as how one of your playable classes is... a Cheese Wizard. I live for Shenanigans™ of this caliber. The digital version of Shadows Over Loathing went live the very same day as the Direct, but the physical version will be out later this Fall.

I keep forgetting that Netflix was responsible for Oxenfree. At any rate, Oxenfree: Lost Signals is set to release on the Nintendo Switch on July 12. Bringing back Riley and her brother, you'll return to your hometown to investigate electromagnetic signals. Much like the first game, you'll explore spooky locations, open portals to other realms, and generally deal with all manner of Stranger Things-styled surprises. There will also be more interactivity with the locals of Riley's hometown: using your walkie-talkie, you can communicate with them for vital info while also nurturing relationships with the locals. Your decisions will change the course of the story.

There are a few other smaller indie games we can mention. Little Kitty, Big City takes after Stray in letting you play as a cat exploring a lived-in urban landscape, only here you'll have things to play around with. The trailer shows us stealing people's cell phones, hunting pigeons, and trying on cute hats. Paper Trail is a pleasant mix of an M.C. Escher painting and the belated Al Jaffe's picture puzzles: you'll flip papers around to explore puzzling locations and pull papers open to expand your character's surroundings.Brotato channels Geometry Wars through goofy armed potatoes, Escape Academy: The Complete Edition brings the series to the Switch, and Chants of Sennaar has you playing as a cultist making their way in a spooky medieval world. But speaking of spooky medieval worlds, we have one last title to mention...

Blasphemous 2 is coming! The sequel to the beloved side-scrolling rogue-like original, Blasphemous 2 sees The Penitent One return from the grave to liberate a new world from a force known only as The Miracle, where people's faith and zealotry is made manifest into grotesqueries. The Penitent One has new tricks up his sleeve: now he can wield three different weapons, each with its own unique mechanics and uses for traversing maps. A censer-cum-hammer for slow, heavy attacks, a rapier, and dagger (because Spain™) infused with lightning, and the Prayer Sword for a comfortable in-between. Predictably, we can expect Blasphemous 2 to be every bit as gruesome and bloody in its execution animations as the first one was. Look forward to it this "late summer 2023".

And that's the Direct! Lots of fun surprises from the Indie world in this one. I'm also surprised at how many of them were ready the day of. Definitely check some of these titles out; any one of them could very easily become The Next Big Thing™.

That'll do it for this week. No doubt folks might get a bit heated, given the discussion about Nintendo and Team Xecute, my only request is that folks (as always) be good to each other in the forums about it. Don't go raising Cain in there. Also, let me know if there are any hidden gems coming out this Spring that I haven't talked about—remember, I'm always open to any kind of tip you guys might think is worth looking into. I'm a busy guy, but I'm not too busy to give you guys a moment. Anyway, I've got manga to wrap up—I'll see you in seven.