Brawling Capes, Big N’s Red Tape, and Grown-Ups in Spandex – This Week in Games

Welcome back, folks! It seems my busy schedule got the better of me: earlier this week, I checked to see if I still had time to submit a panel for this year’s Kumoricon… and I was but a few days too late. What a shame; I was looking forward to hosting my History of Japanese Superheroes panel this year. Next year! I’ve been busy with a lot of games (many thanks to folks for checking out my Daemon X Machina: Titanic Scion preview from a few days back!), and planning my Mage: The Ascension campaign with my buddies takes up a lot of gray matter. They’re now downright suspicious of any and all grasshopper-based iconography.

This is…

EVO 2025 Announcements

Man, was it already EVO again this past weekend? It feels like only a few months ago that I was talking about last year’s EVO—Money Idol-chan and Lily Pichu beating Harada at Tekken still feel kinda fresh in my mind. Provided, I’m very weird when it comes to sensing time and recency. Anyway, EVO—one of the biggest fighting game tournaments worldwide—was held in Las Vegas this past weekend. People are all free now—and as can be expected, we saw some major announcements from studios regarding the biggest fighting games out there, plus some big newcomers. Let’s go over some of the stuff!

Street Fighter‘s Ken Masters has finally arrived in Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves, whetting our appetites for Chun Li’s arrival. This was a long-awaited cameo, not just because of the one-two punch of Terry Bogard and Mai Shiranui being in Street Fighter 6, but also because Ken and Terry are buddies that go way back; the CAPCOM VS SNK games introduced a friendly rivalry between the two, much as they would with Mai and Chun Li. It’s a guest character arrival that SNK celebrated the best way they could: shelling out the big bucks for an animated short directed by Masami Ōbari. Obari has a long history with SNK, having also directed several fan-favorite Fatal Fury OVAs and films. I covered the Fatal Fury motion picture on This Week in Anime a few years back, along with former This Week in Anime writer Heidi Kemps; it’s a great film, definitely check it out.

Good old Heidi would never forgive me for bringing her up without showing Virtua Fighter some love; Sega had plenty of news for us regarding their esteemed martial arts sim! First off, Virtua Fighter 5 R.E.V.O. World Stage had a trailer revealing some of its new features. Virtua Fighter 5 is very long in the tooth (the original game is 19 years old). However, it’s still a stellar fighting game that perfectly encapsulates Virtua Fighter‘s trademark deceptively simple three-button inputs and the bottomless depths of its fighting system. Virtua Fighter might not be the flashiest of fighting games, outside of its commitment to stellar visual fidelity, but these are the pinnacle of fighting games as far as I care.

Anyway, R.E.V.O. World Stage has a few upgrades over previous editions of Virtua Fighter 5. First up, it features new Replay options, allowing you a wealth of tools to study past matches. It’ll be available on all consoles—PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, Switch 2, and Steam—with crossplay and rollback netcode. Training mode has been revamped (which you’ll need, since some characters like Akira can be incredibly difficult to use). Finally, World Stage mode also allows you to take on CPU opponents who are modeled after real-world Virtua Fighter 5 players from all over the world. Also, series boss character Dural has been added to the cast. (One of her “textures” makes her look like she’s made of stone; I think it makes her look like the Queen Grotesquerie from Drakengard!)

Virtua Fighter 5: R.E.V.O. World Stage is already out on Steam, but the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series versions are slated for an October 30 release date—word is still mum on the Switch 2’s release date. PS5, Xbox Series, and Steam also get an open beta sometime in “early September,” keep an eye out for that.

We also got a nice look at how the new Virtua Fighter project is coming along, and it’s stunning. The older Virtua Fighters aren’t much to look at (I’m going somewhere with this, I promise), but back in their time, they were groundbreaking in their efforts at bringing fighting games into 3D. Even as time went on and later 3D fighting games overtook Virtua Fighter in terms of graphics, the polygonal look of the Virtua Fighter games nevertheless stuck with people as a charming aesthetic. Later games, nevertheless, were graphical stunners that still look plenty good even now, especially when you factor in texturing and flourishes like breakable floor tiles. This new Virtua Fighter is no exception; it’s very grounded (read: very few graphical flourishes for animations or impacts), but it’s all so fluid; there’s a bit where Sarah whiffs a kick because her leg goes just under Akira’s back while he’s still curling up from a roll. It’s the kind of thing that’s usually painstakingly choreographed during a fight sequence in a movie.

The fight also introduced what looks like a new mechanic, akin to Monster Hunter Wilds‘ Wounds, we can see Akira deal a blow to “Stella’s” head that leaves her head glowing red. Another attack that strikes the area leaves Sarah crumpled on the floor. It’s a simple mechanic, but it opens the door to all kinds of head-games. Also, the clip shows off “Stella’s” design; I like it! Provided, I don’t know who she is; at first blush, I’d put money on her just being a redesigned Sarah Bryant. She’s blonde, she has the blue bodysuit… For now, there’s still no word on this new Virtua Fighter‘s release date, but Sega is doing awesome work with this.

Arc System Works also refused to be left in the dust, revealing gameplay for Lucy Kushinada’s guest appearance in Guilty Gear -Strive-. Her attacks do Trigger‘s fancy animation justice, what with the elaborate animations for her cyber-whip. Also, hacking the opponent’s character is a part of her kit—even if it makes no sense for Lucy to be hacking organic characters (she herself admits it). It seems Lucy’s appearance in -Strive- is canon to Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, too; we’ll see how that works out. I like that her trailer also uses I Want To Stay At Your House; nuts to the performative whinging about how sad it is (it’s become the new Nina Tucker joke from Fullmetal Alchemist), it’s a good song that really fits Lucy’s character. Speaking of characters…

Arc System Works teased two new characters for Guilty Gear -Strive-: fan-favorites Robo-Ky and Jam! Leaks from Arc System Works had allegedly revealed Jam’s new design (apparently, she has a cute pair of spectacles now). Regardless, the zany robot double and the perennially-unfortunate restaurateur are finally returning to Guilty Gear. We don’t have any news on these characters outside of a vague 2026 window for their release, in preparation for -Strive-‘s fifth anniversary.

As for their other games, Arc System Works also unveiled some new characters; Hunter × Hunter: Nen × Impact unveiled its new season pass, along with four characters. I don’t know enough about Hunter × Hunter to tell who these characters are (one of them is Shizuku Murasaki, I can tell because of the vacuum cleaner). We know who the first character is, though: Neferpitou, the cat-person from the Chimera arc. Meanwhile, Granblue Fantasy Versus Rising will be getting “EX” characters; effectively, variants on existing characters with new movesets or mechanics. The starting line-up of EX characters are Gran and Djeeta (the protagonists), and Narmaya (one of the most beloved characters in the whole franchise).

Arc System Works ended their massive salvo by revealing an upcoming closed beta test for Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls this September 5 through 7. Players will only be able to use six of the characters in the roster (Dr. Doom, Storm, Iron Man, Spider-Man, Ms. Marvel and Starlord), which is probably why the beta is exclusively on PS5: they’re trying to prevent unscrupulous types from datamining the game to reveal, I dunno, Dum Dum Dugan and the Golden Granny are in the roster. There’s a lot of anticipation regarding Tōkon, with a lot of players itching to get their hands on it. The buzz on Tōkon is positive so far; many people have had a bit of an adjustment period since it doesn’t play like Marvel Vs CAPCOM, but have walked away satisfied and looking for more. This one’s gonna be big.

Tekken 8 also introduced two new characters! First up is Armor King, a variant on the jaguar-mask-wearing wrestler. The other is a new character, though: Miary Zo, from Madagascar (a new country being introduced to Tekken). Of course, there’s some consternation regarding these two characters, because the Tekken fandom hasn’t been doing well as of late; a lot of people aren’t too happy about one of the new characters just being a variant of an existing one, and others feel that Miary feels too much like longtime capoeira practitioner Christie Monteiro with a new coat of paint. I’m indifferent to Armor King (I think he’s fine), but I like Miary. It’s always nice to have further representation from Africa, especially from Madagascar. As far as I can tell, the only other famous Madagascar character out there is… King Julian.

Finally, CAPCOM teased C. Viper for Street Fighter 6, who’ll be releasing this Autumn. There’s not… too much to say about her? I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love her new look (especially the hair), but the trailer doesn’t show off much of her kit otherwise. So far, the thing that has fans excited is that voice actress Michelle Ruff has been brought back to reprise her role. Other than that, it’s just been thirst for the one actual mother in Street Fighter‘s cast. Which, y’know, I see it, live your truths.

Speaking of thirst, CAPCOM also unveiled the upcoming wave of fourth outfits for the cast—swimwear! There’s a lot of fanservice involved (outside of the exposed skin); Cammy’s and Chun Li’s swimsuits are based off of an old promotional summer illustration by artist Kinu Nishimura. I join others in wrinkling my brow at the idea of Cammy wearing pink—it looks good on her, along with the tan, but I’m more partial to the black one-piece suit she wore in Street Fighter II V. (Provided that series also replaced Cammy’s signature green leotard with a Sonya Blade-looking leather tank top and pants, along with nixing her cheek scar and braids, so what do I know.) Cammy and Chun Li aside, Kimberly, Jamie, Luke, Manon, and A.K.I. will also get swimsuits. They’re set to release this August 5, so by the time this column goes up, any enterprising World Warrior will already have them.

Fortnite Announces Power Rangers Collab—and It Doesn’t Suck

I don’t talk much about Fortnite collabs because there’s just not much to say about them. It used to be novel to see My Hero Academia or Dragon Ball get skins in Fortnite. But the other side of anime becoming mainstream is that these collabs stop being special after a bit. A Jujutsu Kaisen collab? Alright, put it on the pile with the others, I guess. Similarly, I’m an old tokusatsu fan, so I have a lot of opinions on Power Rangers: mostly that I wish someone finally put the franchise out of its misery. So when I heard that Fortnite was announcing a Power Rangers collab as part of their new season, Shock ‘n Awesome, I just rolled my eyes. But here’s the thing: they understood the assignment.

Start to finish, they made every right decision: cropping the video from wide-screen to full-screen (because hey, that was how Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers was filmed)—making actual live-action suits for the bug enemies and making live-action suits for the other Fortnite characters. The Yellow Ranger pulling out a Blade Blaster to shoot down some bugs (the Red Ranger having a minigun is new, I’ll give them points for actually having actual choreography with it). Most importantly: the original Megazord looks good—and his shoulders are properly transformed! They even filmed the whole sequence at Vasquez Rocks, where several Power Rangers sequences were filmed, as well as the backdrop for their Command Center. Like, sure, I can complain about the poses being off—the Rangers are decidedly not using their actual team pose (I can’t stand American attempts at re-creating tokusatsu gesticulations). But the sheer effort and love for tokusatsu in the rest of the sequence is a shining tribute to tokusatsu. They knew the assignment. (My heart goes out to one Japanese viewer in the comments for the trailer, who claims he was “genuinely moved by the live-action scenes, which were done with proper tokusatsu action.”)

Power Rangers fans can attest that the franchise isn’t doing so hot these days. Hasbro currently owns the IP, and doesn’t have a single idea what to do with it. Their most recent attempt at a new show, Power Rangers: Cosmic Fury, is looked upon as a decent attempt… but a combination of getting hosed by Netflix (only ten episodes?!) and questionable design decisions (yes, I’m still mad about the costumes) meant the show didn’t quite do the numbers Hasbro wanted. So Hasbro auctioned off all of the props from the series. Currently, there are attempts at re-airing Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers—God only knows why, since I struggle to imagine any kid in 2025 wanting to watch a show so deeply steeped in early ’90s culture, and even the most hardcore Power Rangers fan is tired of the relentless nostalgia-milking for the original series. But what really stings is how any efforts at bringing the original Super Sentai seasons are dead in the water. We used to be getting the Sentai series on DVD in the US, and had even managed to get the pre-Zyuranger shows stateside. But those have been on hiatus since Shout! Factory released Abaranger in the US.

In a lot of ways, I maintain that Power Rangers is a bit of a dead-end franchise along the lines of Robotech. Back in the ’90s, sure, you were never going to sell networks on a TV show with Japanese actors and characters. But it’s 2025. Anime is mainstream now. My Hero Academia takes place in Japan, not New York. Naruto Uzumaki didn’t have to be renamed Spinelli Fishcake. Heck, one of the biggest runaway hits on Netflix recently was Kpop Demon Slayers, a show steeped in Korean culture and iconography. Notably, all of the members of Huntr/x are also full-blooded Korean (one of the girls grew up in America, though). You can claim you need to rebrand and rewrite an entire show for a local audience, but the rest of the world has moved on.

Along those lines, reactions in Japan are similarly torn. A lot of people love the bug costumes in the trailer, but plenty others are rather cold to this being branded as Power Rangers instead of Super Sentai—especially since the Sentai being used is Zyuranger (long story short: Zyuranger has its fans, but it’s sandwiched between the much-more-beloved Jetman and Dairanger). Power Rangers isn’t much more than an oddity to Japanese fans; one commenter was rather aghast at the history of Saban’s involvement with the franchise, while others idly wonder about the odds of, say, Dekaranger (Power Rangers SPD) getting involved. Still others wonder if this means they’ll ever include Kamen Rider in Fortnite (God, I wish…). Also: I’m amused by the one guy who saw live-action Peely and wondered if he was one of the monsters. (It’s Sentai, a banana with a pick-axe wouldn’t be anywhere near the weirdest idea for a monster-of-the-week.)

Regardless, I can appreciate this act of nostalgia. This has been made in good faith, and it’s genuinely fun. I wish the circumstances surrounding Power Rangers were a lot better, but it’s another fun opportunity for fans both in America and Japan to come together and share what makes fandom special. Shock ‘n Awesome goes live this August 7; by the time this column goes live, you can jump in and go ham on some baddies.

We’ve talked about AQUAPLUS in the past; best known for creating the ToHeart series, they’re an old warehouse of Japanese bishoujo games. Among their many beloved series are classics such as Utawarerumono, Comic Party, and White Album‘s PS3 remake. They have so many beloved franchises under their belt, they even managed to make a crossover fighting game with them all: Aquapazza: AQUAPLUS Dream Match (which is coming to Steam this September 24!). They got into the news this past week, for what might be a worrisome reason for many: they’ve been acquired by Yuke’s.

Yuke’s announced the acquisition in a public statement from earlier this week. This was after CREST acquired AQUAPLUS, then spun off again as an independent studio after their buyers restructured into HIKE. HIKE had hoped that whoever acquired AQUAPLUS could “maximize [Aquaplus’s] value as a game developer.” Yuke’s promises to do so, banking on AQUAPLUS‘s experience with bishoujo games.

Meanwhile, Yuke’s is no slouch; while they’re known for their wrestling games like WWF Smack Down, Yuke’s is also responsible for titles like the Earth Defense Force series, the fan-favorite The Dog Island, and the upcoming Full Metal Schoolgirl. Many of their titles are budget titles, but otherwise solid. It’s funny to think of AQUAPLUS getting to make a new visual novel with the kind of existential dread as The Dog Island, but I think they’d keep to the usual ToHeart level of melodrama.

Normally, news of acquisitions would have people worried, but so far this isn’t good news or bad news—it’s just news. AQUAPLUS has only just put out the ToHeart remake two months ago; it remains to be seen how this acquisition will affect their outlook. Hopefully, this goes well for them; I am still hoping we can get To Heart 2 in the United States. I’ve been a fan of Tamaki Kousaka for almost 20 years, I need this.

As it turns out, Japan has its take on Games Done Quick, the famed speedrunning marathons held for charity. Named RTA, the annual charity stream has players speedrunning games in the name of raising money from viewers for charity, specifically Doctors Without Borders. While RTA had featured Nintendo games in the past, 2025 will see them take a miss on featuring Nintendo games, for a simple reason: Nintendo reminded them they’re supposed to file the proper paperwork for that. RTA didn’t find out until it was too late to clear the red tape for this year’s marathon.

There’s a lot of jaw-wagging about this, and as happens with a lot of criticism towards Nintendo, it feels like it’s overlooking a lot of actual current stuff. So let’s clear the room: first, no, Nintendo didn’t say “you can’t stream our games”—they just reminded RTA that you’re supposed to ask for permission, per game, per streaming event. So if you ask this year to stream Donkey Kong, you still have to ask for permission next year to stream Mario & Wario. This sounds reasonable enough, I think; back when I did Rocky Horror Picture Show shadowcasts in college, we had to raise money to buy the rights to broadcast the movie in front of a crowd (it ran us about $400 for three shows in one bar). Even with film, you have to clear rights to broadcast a movie in a crowd, even if you own a physical copy of the film. Second, RTA has mentioned that they’re still going to host Nintendo games at future events. They’ll make sure to file the proper paperwork next year.

And to head this off at the pass: Nintendo isn’t unique in having guidelines for streaming. A cursory look on the Internet reveals that Square Enix and Sega have guidelines of their own.Sega goes so far as to prohibit streaming cheats or exploits. I’m not even sure we can say they’re necessarily stricter than normal; some of these can even be as specific for each individual game. That Square Enix link refers specifically to the terms for streaming Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. And those are just the rules for people in the US; the rules vary by region (understandably, I had a hard time looking up the streaming regulations in Japanese). Fans of Japanese VTubers will likely be familiar with how their agencies have to file for permission before the streamer can record themselves playing the games.

A good example is with Hololive’s Usada Pekora. When Usada Pekora isn’t being one of Hideo Kojima‘s favorite streamers and making cameos in Death Stranding 2, she plays video games on her live streams. I don’t have much of a bead on Pekora (nothing personal, I don’t watch many Japanese streamers), so I’m not familiar with what she streams typically. But one of her streams got her in trouble with the Big N back in April, for reasons that aren’t really her fault: the rabbit-streamer recently streamed a copy of Pokémon Emerald that she hadn’t known was modded.

The story goes that Pekora was trying to track down an old copy of the game that had the Sea Map. This old limited-distribution item allowed players to capture the elusive Mew in Pokémon Emerald. Because the Sea Map was limited to special events, few copies of the game included it. Problems arose when streamers noticed discrepancies in the save file Pekora was playing. After COVER (the company that owns VTuber talent agency Hololive, which employs Pekora) spoke with Nintendo, the stream was taken down at Nintendo‘s behest for “violating Nintendo‘s streaming guidelines.” Nintendo has some streaming rules that prohibit modded games or save files. COVER issued an apology, the streams were taken down, and that was the end of that.

Now, I get the knee-jerk reaction from people over Nintendo not wanting folks to stream a modded version of Pokémon Emerald—but I get where Nintendo is coming from. Lest we forget the infamous Street Fighter 6 tournament where a tournament organizer forgot to deactivate a mod on Chun Li, thus displaying a nude Chun Li live on stream. That’s the kind of thing that reflects on the company; in a world where Nintendo had to shut down Swapnote because people wouldn’t stop drawing and distributing dicks at each other, I don’t blame them for wanting to potentially protect themselves from some wiseguy streaming a version of Pokémon where Team Rocket goes off spouting ableist slurs. And again: these kinds of rules aren’t exclusive to Nintendo: Square Enix famously has a very hard-line stance against mods in Final Fantasy XIV, and streamers have been suspended in-game for streaming with mods on.

A lot of this is just chalked up to cultural differences: creators in Japan have the last word on how their works are portrayed (not to mention, the Japanese constitution doesn’t include parody law like the US constitution does). So people are cautious not to step on toes; even IGN notes that various Japanese Twitter users were very understanding of Nintendo’s decision. And hey, for all intents and purposes, the only reason RTA can’t stream their games this year is because they didn’t file the papers in time.

There’s a significant line of thought among people on the Internet that I see: “People are already doing it, so you might as well let them.” And I don’t know if I agree with that. Many of these rules exist for a reason, and while I think they can be bureaucratic, I understand why they’re there. It’s a measurement of protection against unscrupulous types: fake charities, hate organizations, that kind of thing. Do I like that a long-running charity got dinged? No, I don’t, and even I think that Nintendo would get a lot of goodwill from people by just giving RTA lifelong permission to stream Nintendo games for charity. But to borrow a phrase from back home, shut mouths don’t get filled with flies. This year’s RTA will come and go, RTA will file the proper paperwork next year, and they’ll have Earthbound or Urban Champion or whatever. It’s popular to claim Nintendo is “anti-consumer” these days, but being a dude who plays video games outside of this column, I’m trying to figure out how having a rigorous process for streaming Nintendo‘s games affects me.

Nintendo Indie World

Because a Partner Presents last week might not have been enough, Nintendo also slated an Indie World stream this week! At least this one was announced earlier in the week and not at the last minute. There weren’t a lot of Japanese games, but I can give a quick once-over for a few titles that stood out to me.

Yacht Club Games had already made a ton of goodwill for themselves with Shovel Knight and its many expansions, so their newest game Mina the Hollower is hotly anticipated. Much like how Shovel Knight hewed closely to classic 8-bit NES platformers and their sensibilities (specifically, a good mix of mechanics and pacing informed by Mega Man and Duck Tales), Mina the Hollower is inspired by 8-bit games—specifically, CAPCOM and Flagship’s 8-bit The Legend of Zelda titles on Game Boy and Game Boy Color. The palettes and aesthetics match up with Oracle of Seasons and Link’s Awakening, only with a massive hit of action and speed: Mina can burrow around and launch herself to boost all over. (Yacht Club Games is married to the aesthetic, but they’re not above cheating the 8-bit processing a little to ensure the action is tight—and good on them for that!). Mina will explore dungeons, collect trinkets, and fight massive bosses with a varied set of tools. I was excited when I first saw it, and I’m still excited now! And it’s confirmed to be arriving on the Switch 2, on the perfect date: this Halloween (October 31)!

Little Kitty, Big City is getting a big update, and it’s a doozy. Hear me out: you can customize the kitty. There’s something to be said about the kitty’s default black coat (especially since real-life black cats are statistically more likely to be passed over for adoption). But if there was something that we learned in the wake of Stray, people like their cats and like having the ability to put their cat in-game. So Little Kitty, Big City‘s free update lets you customize the cat as you see fit, accounting for breed, fur color, or patterns. Recreate your own beloved kitty, or maybe try re-creating some of the famous cats on the Internet, like Thurston Waffles or Uni. There are also new quests, featuring a dog that the kitty can befriend or a very prissy cat. Also: photo mode. Very important stuff, indeed!

Here’s an actual Japanese game! Glaciered comes from Studio Snowblind and Playism. Here, you play as a Tuai, a sub-aquatic dinosaur-like descendant of modern birds. Roaming around the frigid oceans of the world 65 million years in the future, you’ll battle monsters in real-time to protect the Everwinter. It’s a fascinating idea, and the world looks amazing to explore. Plus, I’m a sucker for anything that involves weird, evolved dinosaurs. The devs also namedropped Hokkaido as an inspiration. Glaciered doesn’t have a release date outside of a vague “Holiday” window, but I’m looking forward to it.

Also, UFO 50 is finally on the Switch! This surprise hit rocked the world last year: a collection of 50 games that are each charming, bizarre, bite-sized, and utterly addictive. It’s Action 52, only it doesn’t suck (RIP, Cheetahmen). It’s rather weird that it’s left out to the sizzle reel at the end, but it’s out now and if you don’t have it yet, you should jump in on it.

But that about covers the major hits from the Indie spotlight. Other titles like Neverway, Herdling, and OPUS: Prism Peak also look great. I can understand this not being a presentation that sets the world on fire for folks, but there are still a lot of great indie games to keep an eye out for.

Let’s wrap up with some quick tidbits

UNDER NIGHT IN-BIRTH II Sys:Celes is also getting a new character: the water-wielding Izumi!

Bad news about the Atelier Ryza Secret Trilogy Deluxe Pack: while the games included will have save file bonuses, there will not be a way to upgrade from current versions of the game to the expanded versions in the collection. So if you want the expanded stories and new characters, your only option is to buy the Deluxe Pack.

Now releasing the latest intelligence from Banpresto headquarters: By the time this column goes up, Super Robot Wars Y‘s demo should be up on PS5, Steam, and Nintendo Switch! The demo covers the first chapter of the game, in anticipation of Super Robot Wars Y‘s August 28 release. Look forward to Raideen, Combattler V, Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury, Mobile Fighter G Gundam, SSSS.Dynazenon, and many others to be included in this game! Here’s hoping Gaogaigar is in the next one. Stay tuned for the order!

The Eggconsole is getting another classic added: Falcom’s PC-9801’s dungeon crawling classic, Brandish Renewal (the 1995 remake)! This is your favorite RPG maker’s favorite RPG. This is the version that also came to serve as the basis for all later remakes of the game. It’s been designed for a mouse-based interface, which makes it astonishingly apt for a Switch 2 port. Pick it up on the Switch this August 14! Please note that the game is unfortunately in Japanese, although there is a convenient “how to play” guide in English.

Hey, anyone remember Basilisk? It’s coming back, in the least-expected way: a Taimanin RPG crossover! More to follow…

That’ll do it for this week. With PAX West approaching and Tokyo Game Show approaching later next month, we’re probably wrapping up on this season of heavy announcements. I hope folks are enjoying the summer days while they last—Labor Day is just around the corner! Me, I have to get ready: my favorite VTuber’s birthday is next week! Be good to each other, I’ll see you in seven.

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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.

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