Shattered Hands, Ultima in Japan and My Hero Academia: All’s Justice – This Week in Games

Welcome back, folks! I have returned from Seattle, having (distantly) experienced PAX West for the first time! No, I didn’t fly out to Seattle for PAX specifically (in fact, I only spent a few hours touring the place); I was in town for somewhat unrelated reasons. Only somewhat, though, as you’ll see later in this column. I was a bit disappointed at the lack of an Artist Alley at PAX, though I did like the exhibit featuring old Nintendo Power art. And I also got to meet Movies With Mikey and Dan Olson (the Foldable Human guy, not the Toy Galaxy guy). Look forward to upcoming news, I’ve got plenty! In the meantime, we have other pending matters.

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Old Ultima Trailer Shows What Game Localization Is Like Across The Pacific

Something we don’t get to appreciate much is how people in Japan feel about media made in America. We spend so much time thinking and talking about Japanese media that we forget the folks in Japan also like the stuff we make. Case in point: Ryōko Kui‘s big page of elves from American RPGs. Folks in Japan love Columbo, enough so that there’s a movie about a Japanese detective who adopted Columbo’s mannerisms (Columbo of Shinano). One of my fondest memories of meeting a mangaka was when La Blue Girl creator Toshio Maeda visited Puerto Rico ComiCon in 2012; during our conversation, he pointed out being a huge fan of Desperate Housewives. Also, Hidetaka Swery once chided me for not catching up on House of the Dragons.

All this to say, American media is still quite beloved in Japan, and RPGs were part of that in the ’80s. As I learned through a panel from Jeremy Parish at last year’s Portland Retro Game Expo, RPGs were a very popular genre in Japan long before Dragon Quest ever hit the stage. Most fans couldn’t play them because their interfaces and extensive text made translating them problematic—to say nothing of the requisite PCs for old RPGs potentially not being available in Japan. But there was passion for these games nonetheless, and people were voracious for RPGs. None more so than Richard Garriott’s Ultima. This came to mind because early last week, I found the following Japanese trailer for Ultima III.

Richard “Lord British” Garriott’s Ultima series is as influential to RPG design as Robert Woodhead and Andrew Greenberg’s Wizardry. Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar is particularly noteworthy given how there hasn’t really been a game that matches what it sets out to do: frustrated with all of the games about violence, Garriott created Ultima IV as a journey of spiritual fulfillment. You (the player) must travel the land of Britannia to embody eight virtues to serve as The Avatar, the living manifestation of a new system of belief created by the Britannian ruler, Lord British. There’s no real villain to defeat; instead, you’re going around finding ways to embody the Virtues by playing in a particular way. You can choose to underpay shopkeepers… but that costs you points in Honesty. You lose points in Valor for slaying monsters weaker than you, but running away from combat costs you points in Courage. And so on. While becoming The Avatar entrenches Lord British’s Virtues and grants the populace a heroic figure to both defend them and serve as an example, the later Ultima games all explore the moral, social, political, and religious consequences of your ascension. Ultima V sees Lord British’s Virtues twisted by being turned into dogmatic laws. Ultima VI forces you to contend with the Underworld’s society of Gargoyles, whose home you accidentally doomed as a side effect of your travels in Ultima IV. Along the way, you learn that Gargoyles have their own set of Virtues—not opposites of Britannia’s Virtues, but a different set of Virtues entirely, influenced by the unique set of challenges the Underworld posed to Gargish society. Ultima VII Part 2 (long story) introduced the Ophidian values, which pre-dated Lord British’s Virtues as a system of beliefs—and which you must set to order, since your ascension as the Avatar caused them to fall out of balance.

But that’s Ultima from the fourth game onward—the first three were decidedly weirder, since Richard Garriott was still figuring out the tone for the games. The first UItima had you rescuing princesses from towers as you collected rocket fuel (really) to become an ace pilot by shooting down TIE fighters (really) in a quest to defeat the evil wizard Mondain. Ultima II had you defeating Mondain’s protégée/lover, the sorceress Minax. And Ultima III had you defeating their kinda-sorta son, the demon/computer Exodus (you defeat him by inputting punch cards that trigger his self-destruct process).

As the story goes, Ultima would go on to serve as a major influence behind Dragon Quest, informing how Dragon Quest handled its overworld exploration. But even besides that, Ultima was fairly popular among Japanese fans. There were several manga adaptations for the series, many of which even expanded upon the stories of individual games (albeit with manga-only characters).

This is a great case study for how something can be handled in a different country, as well as an indicator of the many similarities between Japanese fandom and American fandom. Granted, when it comes to Ultima, the franchise doesn’t exactly have many shooters in today’s day and age; after buying out Origin Systems, EA Games instead ruined the Ultima series, and unlike Wizardry, the series didn’t get a unique continuation in Japan. Regardless, I figured this was an interesting bit of history to bring up, and one that helps show that fandoms are still fandoms no matter where they are.

Stella Deus Port Rescued From Oblivion

Time to put another one on the board! One often-overlooked field in the realm of game preservation is mobile games—especially those from Japan. Many of those old games were exclusive to obscure Japanese telephones that never made it to the United States, so obtaining some of those games was an uphill battle. And a lot of these games tied into similarly obscure franchises, so there is tons of stuff we wouldn’t even know we don’t know about. It’s like the Midnight Zone in the ocean, only instead of neat glowing jellyfish and gulper eels, it’s mobile-only Persona spin-offs. Or, in this case, a Stella Deus spin-off!

Older Atlus fans (we’re talking PlayStation 2-era) might recall the name Stella Deus: The Gate of Eternity. Coming from the creators of Hoshigami: Ruining Blue Earth, the game was a strategy RPG that told the story of a gaggle of youths seeking the titular Gate of Eternity to help spirits return to the Earth and prevent an ecological collapse. It was also noted as one of the first games that a young Shigenori Soejima worked on before he was brought on to work on Persona 3, irrevocably changing the world with the design of robo-girl Aigis. While Stella Deus itself didn’t exactly set the world on fire and doesn’t even get remembered much in terms of Soejima’s oeuvre, it did receive a spin-off on mobile phones! G-MODE, who recently resuscitated the mobile Persona 3 spin-off Aegis: The First Mission, has revived Stella Deus: The Spirit of Darkness for Nintendo Switch and Steam.

Obviously, The Spirit of Darkness features tons of graphical downgrades from The Gate of Eternity. But all of the other systems are intact: characters have a pool of Action Points that allow them to take multiple actions each turn, be it multiple move actions in a row, multiple attacks in a row, or setting up for combo-attacks with fellow party members. There is also the novel Effective Zone system, where characters have ranged bonuses in the tiles surrounding them. Two properly positioned allied characters can perform combos. But also: unlike the main game, characters in The Spirit of Darkness can also change their classes! There is also a nifty item synthesis mode, for helping you progress through all 50 stages of this flip-phone-based game! And if you’re concerned about the story: don’t be, The Spirit of Darkness is a side-story for the main game.

G-MODE’s tiny miracle of a port will hit the Nintendo eShop and Steam sometime later this month; the Steam page is already up, even. Sadly, the game is still exclusively in Japanese, with no English translation in sight. But I’ll take it! I hadn’t thought of Stella Deus in a very long time, but it’s always great when a tiny miracle like this comes along.

NES Classic Shatterhand Renewed—Is A Remake Inbound?

Speaking of tiny miracles and retro revivals! You might remember last year’s Shadow of the Ninja Reborn, Tengo Project, and Natsume Atari’s phenomenal 2D reimagining of the classic Shadow of the Ninja. A complete top-to-bottom remake of the original, expanded with extra mechanics and stunning 2D pixel animation, it was an absolute great, the likes of which we sadly don’t see too often in the industry. And part of the magic comes from Tengo Project, consisting of much of the original team that developed Shadow of the Ninja! They’re also responsible for a few other stellar retro revivals, such as Pocky & Rocky Reshrined, The Ninja Saviors: Return of the Warriors, and Wild Guns: Reloaded. There’s good news, if you’re wondering what they’re up to: their parent company, Natsume Atari, just quietly filed a trademark for “SHATTERHAND” in Japan.

Retro game fans might remember Shatterhand as an ambitious 2D action platformer from back in the day. You played a police officer armed (hehe) with bionic arms, punching his way through five stages of evil cyborgs. There was a nifty in-game economy, as well as a novel power-up system based around collecting letters: every so often, enemies would drop an “A” or “B” tile, which you could collect three of in any order (AAA, ABA, ABB, and so on). Each combination would grant you a different robot partner that would follow you around, along the lines of Strider’s partner robots. And each combination had a unique power, be it shooting enemies at range or helping out with close-range sword strikes. You could also use your robo-partner to hover around, use him to soak up some hits, or so on. Shatterhand also featured a ton of fun details, like being able to climb chain-link fences. It’s a stand-out NES title, along the lines of Journey to Silius. If this is what Tengen Project is working on next, we’re in for a treat; the mind reels to think of all of the neat ways they can expand on Shatterhand, to say nothing of the lovely pixel animations we’ll see.

… But—but! But!!! There’s a twist to this story! As it turns out, and as I just learned today at the time of this writing, Shatterhand is actually a tokusatsu game!

I didn’t just mention Journey to Silius to flaunt retro-game cred (plot twist, I don’t care about cred—on that note, I’ve never beaten Super Mario World). Famously, Journey to Silius was originally going to be a Terminator game before Sunsoft lost the rights during development, requiring them to rework the game. On a similar note, Shatterhand had to be extensively reworked for its American release, because the Japanese release was a licensed title based on Super Rescue Solbrain! (That means Shatterhand is technically a rare example of a good licensed game!)

Super Rescue Solbrain was an entry in Toei‘s Metal Heroes franchise, which gave the world Space Sheriff Gavan, Choujinki Metalder and Juukou B-Fighter. You might recognize the latter two better courtesy of Saban’s rebrandings through VR Troopers and Big Bad Beetleborgs. Anyway, Metal Heroes was a very loosely-collected franchise of transforming hero shows. Very little unifies them all; the heroes are cops, except when they’re not. They’ve got metallic armor, except when they don’t. In Solbrain‘s case, the show consists of a trio of special police officers who rescue civilians from dangerous criminal plots using high-powered science fiction tools and weapons. It just so happens that the villains also tend to be rubber suit monsters. Solbrain is also noteworthy for being a direct sequel to Special Rescue Police Winspector, as well as for featuring Hiroshi Miyauchi as the division chief. Toku fans likely recognize him best as the star of Kaiketsu Zubat, though he’s been in an absolute murderer’s row of tokusatsu classics.

Unfortunately, with the Metal Heroes franchise all but abandoned by Toei, I doubt that there was much value to Natsume Atari in trying to revive their game as a Solbrain title. I’d also have to wonder if the rights are wrapped up in legal limbo after years of studio closures, acquisitions, and mergers. Plus, I’d also hazard that the game in question is just far more recognizable as Shatterhand than as a Solbrain game. But hey, a revival is a revival! I’m not putting this one on the board just yet—the trademark has only just been filed, after all. A game hasn’t been revived until a game actually comes out. Still, there’s plenty to get excited over, and I’m sure Tengen Project is going to have lots of fun blowing our socks off in the near future… In the meantime, if you’re curious, our buddies at Discotek released Super Rescue Solbrain (the TV show) on DVD in the US; totally worth a watch if suits with zippers on the back don’t make you blush. And if you want a more in-depth look at the old Shatterhand, good old Uncle Derek from Stop Skeletons From Fighting has you covered.

Phantasy Star Online 2 New Genesis To Feature Atelier Rumia Collab

Phantasy Star Online 2 New Genesis is off in its own corner of the MMO space. It’s a shame, because from what I’ve seen it’s a fun game! And I was always so disappointed that it hadn’t been brought over to the United States. But once I had regular access to an Internet connection that would allow me to play MMOs, I suddenly had no time to play MMOs like Phantasy Star Online 2. It’s a sad case of Phantasy Star Online 2 coming to me now when I am this. It’s alright, I forgive you. (But would it kill Sega to remaster the old Phantasy Star Online…? At least that had single-player.) But in the meantime, Phantasy Star Online 2 New Genesis has had all kinds of amazing collabs: besides the obvious Nijisanji and Hololive ones, they’ve also featured Black Lagoon and the extremely-brand-appropriate Uncle From Another World. Starting this week, they’ve got a new collab rolling: Atelier Yumia!

Courtesy of in-game scratch cards (read: loot boxes), players can acquire all manner of Atelier Yumia goodies: outfit components, hair styles, weapon skins, even a cute skin for your Mags that turns them into Yumia’s lamp-friend, Flammi. The collab runs through the end of September, so you have until the 30 to try and roll for Yumia’s rifle-staff skin for your Ranger’s rifles (it’s a perfect fit!).

As I said, I was invited to Seattle by Bandai Namco while PAX West was going on. I normally wouldn’t have gone to PAX, since it’s not quite my beat (and to be fair, I wasn’t there under any professional capacity). But Bandai Namco was very generous, I got to see some industry peeps and see how vending machine pizza worked—and got a chance to play a few rounds of My Hero Academia: All’s Justice. Now, I’m actually rather passive in my appreciation of My Hero Academia; I’ve only kept up with it via osmosis. So while I’m quite convinced that Kōhei Horikoshi has the potential to become a character designer on the level of Masakazu Katsura (give Horikoshi a romantic comedy to work on!), I can’t exactly name all of Deku’s classmates by heart. I only know enough to be disappointed that the Ordinary Woman isn’t in the game.

Anyway, it’s an arena battler. I share the disappointment that many others do in that a major anime property like this is watered down like that when its cast of characters lends itself so well to a big open-world game (Deku’s Blackchain ability gives him the potential for some fun mobility along the lines of a Spider-Man game). For what it’s worth: All’s Justice gives you a ton of characters to play with. The build I played had several unique characters available to it; I stuck to using Deku, Nejire, and Toga first. A few fun things leaped out: it’s possible to tag out with your party members during a combo, lending the game some depth. It’s also possible to chain your super-moves (or “Plus Ultras,” as the game calls them) if you have enough reserve stocks. I was never quite able to pull it off; despite the cheers from the Bandai reps sitting on the couch with me, I’m actually rather not-great at 3D fighters, so the AI kept successfully blocking my attempts at delivering a Happy Birthday.

You’ve also got a healthy supply of comeback mechanics. For one, there’s your Rising meter: getting hit or landing hits lets you build up meter that you can expend to boost your character’s strength. If your other two characters get knocked out, your third character will even pop in automatically in their Rising state. For another, you have a single Burst that you can use to free yourself from an opponent’s combo.

My time with All’s Justice was short (only three matches), but I at least walked away having had a good bit of fun. It’s disappointing that so many anime properties get railroaded into being arena-battlers (remember how Astro Boy: Omega Factor was a side-scroller and also one of the best games on the Game Boy Advance?). But I can’t knock Bandai Namco for not having this system on lock. It feels fun to play, the mechanics feel pretty solid, and someone who’s that invested in the characters is going to feel good pummeling folks with moves that reference that scene from that chapter. The release date hasn’t been announced as of this writing, but keep an eye out for My Hero Academia: All’s Justice. It’s about as solid as the Naruto: Ninja Storm titles (and folks who know the Ninja Storm games know what I’m getting at).

Let’s wrap up with some quick tidbits

That’ll do it for this week! August was a very busy month, so I hope I can get some relaxation in September. I’m not looking forward to the leaves turning or the sun setting earlier, but there’s plenty else to look forward to—like Tokyo Games Show. (Yes, I’m on pins and needles for more Izuna news, and I’m hoping Success throws us a bone.) Be good to each other. I’ll see you in seven.

This Week In Games! is written from idyllic Portland by Jean-Karlo Lemus. When not collaborating with Anime News Network, Jean-Karlo can be found playing Japanese RPGs, eating popcorn, watching v-tubers, and tokusatsu. You can keep up with him at @ventcard.bsky.social.