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Hard-Boiled Detective Pikachu

In search of something nice to say about The Asterisk War: The Academy City of the Water, I came up with this: it meets quota right away. Within the first story beat, the hero spots the pink-haired heroine half-dressed, gets knocked across campus by one of her spells, and accidentally gropes her in the middle of the ensuing fight. With those clichés met, the tale can delve further into light-novel standards by establishing its hero Ayato as an unassuming student who somehow has strange, remarkable abilities as well as an admiring coterie of childhood friends, student-council presidents, and fiery princesses from fictional European countries.

The Asterisk War invites a video game with its premise, however, as the Academy City of its title finds super-powered students dueling for rank and possibly course credit. Rather than make a straight fighting game, Bandai Namco turned the idea into an arena battler where two characters take on rival teams in 3-D environments. The scenery is sparse, but you're able to dash around, attack from a distance, and launch aerial combos. Another player can join in for cooperative or head-to-head matches, and characters progress through training outside of battle.

Of course, The Asterisk War would be no sort of faithful adaptation if it didn't include some dating-sim element. While it sports an original storyline, it follows all of the anime and light novel characters, including artillery specialist Saya Sasamiya, precognitive Claudia Enfield, sword-wielding Kirin Todo, and, of course, the hot-tempered royal Julis-Alexa Marie Florentia Renate van Riessfeld. Ayato spends time chatting with them when not in battle, and the game offers multiple endings depending on which heroine likes him best. That's all standard issue, true, and Asterisk War doesn't even look particularly good for a Vita game.

Import Barrier: The Vita has no regional lockout, but the Japanese version of the game has a lot of text in its menus and general palaver.

Domestic Release: Bandai Namco considered an English translation for the game's Asian version, but an actual North American edition remains unlikely.

Key Weapon: Every energy weapon in fiction imitates lightsabers to some extent, but The Asterisk War is a little more blatant about it than most, with a “Star Wars Festival” as well as telescoping laser-blades.

I hope that Super Mario Maker sets off an avalanche of titles letting players make versions of popular (and not so popular) games. If Dragon Quest joins the throng, how long before we can create our own worlds in Final Fantasy, Metroid, Persona, or Trouble Shooter?

In truth, Dragon Quest Builders sprang more from Minecraft than Super Mario Maker, but the underlying fascination remains. It takes off from the alternate ending of the original Dragon Quest, in which the hero (and the player's save file) came to a bad end if he joined forces with the villainous Dragonlord. Builders envisions the two foes arriving at a truce…which the Dragonlord immediately breaks by slaying the hero and plunging the land of Alefgard into a monster-fueled nightmare.

The player's avatar, male or female, starts off with a barren land and a few rough outlines, but he or she can till the soil, break down the environment for raw materials, and make everything from cabins to castles. The monsters that throng around the countryside range from standard enemies to actual denizens with their own little demands and desires. While you might contend with dragons and bash metal slimes for their mineral components, you'll also help a Hammerhood find its lost brother.

Import Barrier: No version of Dragon Quest Builders has a regional lockout, though the quests and directives remain in Japanese. If you're accustomed to Minecraft, however, it's not very hard to construct things.

Domestic Release: Square Enix has said nothing yet, but they're certainly more willing to bring over Dragon Quest off-shoots these days.

Key Weapon: In this case, it's a block.

The original Yakuza is a little rough around the edges. It's an all-encompassing tale of an honorable thug, and that includes a vast criminal underworld of street brawls, gambling, hostess clubs, and arcades. Not all of its pieces work. The game's combat isn't exactly Virtua Fighter, and knocking around punks often feels like as much of a mini-game as the UFO catchers and batting cages.

Yakuza Kiwami aims to repair this. It retells the original game's story with the visual sheen and improved mechanics of the later Yakuza titles. It still follows career criminal Kazuma Kiryu, who once took the fall for a murder and lost his place in the Tojo crime syndicate. Released from prison, he hunts for his ex-fiancee and his fellow gangsters, and he lands at the middle of a mystery involving an orphan named Haruka and ten billion yen that went missing from the Tojo coffers.

Kiwami's battle system sticks closest to the recent prequel Yakuza 0, allowing Kazuma to pick up new techniques and combat methods—though the game pulls a Metroid and renders Kazuma rusty due to his time in jail. It also throws in an ongoing thread with rival Goro Majima, who shows up disguised as cops and club hostesses and other citizens just so he can test Kazuma's brawling mettle. Another new additon: a mini-game where the player collects cards depicting scantily clad women and watches them wrestling like combative beetles on a treestump while actual giant bugs applaud. No one ever said gangsters had tasteful pastimes.

Import Barrier: Despite the region-free nature of the PlayStation 4, Yakuza Kiwami is best enjoyed with a good grasp of Japanese.

Domestic Release: Sega's not saying yet, but they sprung Yakuza 5 as a surprise release and plan to bring Yakuza 0 over here. Buy 'em if you want Yakuza Kiwami.

Key Weapon: A baseball bat. For several reasons.

Omega Force finds reliable trade in turning major anime lines into large-scale brawlers, but I wouldn't have predicted The Heroic Legend of Arslan as their next project. Berserk, Dragon Ball, and Ruin Explorers were all good contenders as I saw it, but the powers that be chose Arslan, which hasn't had a game since the Sega CD. It makes solid sense, though: Yoshiki Tanaka's novels stretch back to 1986, yet Arslan has a new manga and a new anime series, and both feature copious battlefield theatrics.

The Heroic Legend of Arslan is ostensibly based on the Persian saga Amir Arsalan, though filled with its own invented fantasy flourishes. Its title prince is a little too nice to rule the kingdom of Pars—he's friendly even to kidnappers—but he's soon shaken by a war and the capture of his jerkwad father. Fortunately, he's not alone. His dedicated retainer Daryun, gadabout bard Gieve, archer priestess Farangis, tactician-turned-painter Narsus, and Narsus' bickering young fan base, Alfarid and Elam, all join him. And they're playable in Warriors of Legend, plus the villainous Silvermask, his stooge Zandeh, the Sindhuran spy Jaswant, and the Pars soldiers Kubard, Tus, Kishward, Zaravant, and Isfan. That's a small cast compared to the lineups of Gundams and One Piece pirates typically seen in these anime adaptations, but Arslan's just getting started here.

The Dynasty Warriors method remains in effect for this Arslan brawler, as characters tear through legions of enemy troops. Sometimes they'll use conventional swords and shields, and sometimes Narsus will whip out a paintbrush and easel to strike down an oncoming phalanx (as usual, Arslan leaves it vague as to whether they're shocked at the painting's crudity or overcome by its craft). The game lets its major characters cut loose in their particular fashions, and battles include swappable weapons and horses to ride. Skirmishes also feature special areas that enable a character's Mardan Rush mode, which calls upon mounted soldiers, spearfighters, or distant archers. If it lacks the entire cast, I'm sure we'll see more if Arslan becomes a dominant force in the anime industry. At the very least, the series deserves more attention than the latest cavalcade of boob jokes and fumbling high-schoolers.

Naruto Shippuden Ultimate Ninja Storm 4 carries somber news: it's the end. It's not the end of Naruto, of course, as that'll continue until we see spin-offs about the yellow-haired ninja's great-grand-daughter's weekend gardeners, and I'm sure it isn't even the end of Naruto video games. Yet it's reported to be the last Ultimate Ninja Storm title and the last Naruto game from CyberConnect2 for the foreseeable future.

Ultimate Ninja Storm 4 continues the tradition of arena brawls interspersed with more elaborate battles against towering monsters and their underlings. Three-character teams clash in open spaces and use all sorts of ninja weapons and signature attacks, and players can now swap between shinobi in the middle of combat. They'll no longer select from three different fighting styles, but there are many jutsu attacks to equip and employ, plus the chance to wreck an opponent's costume (or avoid it if you're quick enough). There's a roster of over 75 different characters to explore, including the rarely appearing Hanabi, and that's not counting variants on the same fighter. And if you reserve the game, you get Naruto's son Narutot and Sasuke's daughter Sasukid as bonus characters! Wait, their offspring are actually named Boruto and Sarada, respectively. My mistake.

Of course, the Ultimate Ninja Storm games are known for their amazing cel-shaded look, and the fourth has downright gobsmacking imagery on display. Climactic boss battles heap one impressive challenge atop another, usually with button-sensitive quick-time commands, and even the standard ninja-versus-ninja brawls look crisp and cartoonish. That's one reason to lament CyberConnect2 taking a break from Naruto; their anime-based games always have a polish and attention to detail, and they never feel like the gruntwork that licensed games must be for so many other developers. Worse yet, we won't see Hiroshi Matsuyama, president and CEO of CyberConnect2, dressing up as Naruto for promotional appearances. If only every game-company president did that.