I recently spoke with No More Heroes creator Suda51 about a previously unexplained moment in Travis Touchdown history. Specifically, I found out the story behind Travis's unique look in the 2019 reveal trailer for No More Heroes 3.

Disheveled, bearded, and wearing a neck brace, this middle-aged gamer playing Ape Out wasn't the same man No More Heroes fans had grown to love. At least, not for the first few minutes. Shortly after this scene in the actual game, Travis hits a button on his Switch-esque Death Glove and suits up into Iron Man-style mecha armor before returning to his prior well-coiffed, fresh-and-clean look.

It's one of many surrealist, high-flying moments that are thrown at No More Heroes 3 players with little-to-no explanation. Fans of the franchise have more or less learned to just go with it when stuff like talking cats turn up, or previously buxom scientists turn into trees. Personally, I assumed the neck brace was there to help Travis heal from the beheading he received in Travis Strikes Again from John Winter, a character based on famed game developer Jeff Minter. As it turns out, there was even more to the story than that.

According to Suda:

"Oh yeah, I meant to mention this in Travis Strikes Again or afterwards, but in the years between that game and No More Heroes 3, Travis got jumped by Kimmy Howell. You know how she was stalking him in No More Heroes 2, and said she'd be back to kill him after she got stronger, before Travis spared her life. Well at some point between those two games, she hit him with a surprise attack, but he got away alive, and was healing up back at the No More Heroes motel. You're actually the first person from the press to ask me about this."

At this point, Suda's translator and friend James Mountain let me know that he'd actually asked Suda about this a while ago, but at the time he said "I don't remember." So I wasn't actually the first to ask, but I was the first to get an answer, which is fun.

It's also nice to get a little extra context for why Travis ends up having a final confrontation with Kimmy later on in No More Heroes 3. The two engage in a fierce rap battle, among other things, before drawing their laser swords for one last time. I was personally saddened to see the way things turned out between them, as I always hoped Kimmy would become a playable ally in the series someday. I see now why Travis wasn't feeling as forgiving.

The post Double-sided Beam Katana wielding woman responsible for Travis Touchdown’s neck injury appeared first on Destructoid.

The Viewtiful Joe series used to be one of Capcom's most promising franchises. After a big debut outing on GameCube and PS2 (the later featuring Dante from the Devil May Cry series), it got a direct sequel, a multi-console Smash-like spin-off, and side story exclusive to the Nintendo DS.

For a while there, it felt like Joe would be around forever, and in some ways, he has. Like the cast of Capcom's similarly ill-fated Darkstalkers series, Joe got an anime adaptation, loads of merch, and multiple guest spots in crossover titles like Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom, Marvel Vs. Capcom 3, and the most recent iteration of Puzzle Fighter.

But what's really puzzling is why Capcom let the series die after that. Unlike Okami, also developed by Capcom's former studio Clover, none of the Joe games have ever been ported to modern consoles. Fans have never stopped asking for more of both though. Those fans also include Hideki Kamiya, Joe's humble creator. In a recent YouTube video, Kamiya-san lamented:

"I’d love to work on them if I ever get a chance. I actually had the story for a third Viewtiful Joe all thought out. I’ve always wanted to make it. I wonder if Capcom would let me make another Viewtiful Joe… Okami, too. I feel like I left that unfinished, so if we could make that happen as well, I’d be happy."

The beginning of Viewtiful friendship?

Okami did continue on in the form of Okamiden in 2010, another DS exclusive, but Kamiya wasn't involved there. By that time he had already moved on to co-found Platinum Games, a team born from the ashes of Clover, which was dissolved in 2006. Platinum's initial releases were all collaborations with publisher Sega, including MadWorld, Bayonetta, and Vanquish.

They'd later partner with Activision, Konami, Square Enix, and even Nintendo, but never with Capcom. It's been assumed that there may be some bad blood between the two companies, preventing them from revisiting any of Clover's former franchises.

But now that Kamiya-san has left Platinum, the door may open for the legendary director and his former employer to make viewtiful music together again. With its Fred Durst-meets-Power Rangers lead character, 2.5D cel shaded graphics, and gameplay that bridges the gap between the platformers of yesteryear and the character action games of today, everything about Viewtiful Joe screams early-2000s. It's an era that many people today are nostalgic for, proven by the runaway success of Bomb Rush Cyberfunk, Metrid Prime Remastered, and that "Woman is my favorite guy" song everyone liked for about a month.

Testing out the waters with ports of the first two games on modern consoles couldn't be such a risky move, right? Has the re-release of a GameCube game ever done poorly on Switch?

The post Hideki Kamiya says he had a story for another Viewtiful Joe all thought out appeared first on Destructoid.

There was a time when print media and pixel art were like peanut butter and jelly. Before the advent of polygon-based graphics and online storefronts, nearly every game was made from chunky grids of color, and at retail, every game came with a printed instruction manual showing how to play it.

Flash forward to 2023, and the bulk of the world's biggest games are molded from three-dimensional shapes and are downloaded directly to hard drives. The mosaic beauty of dot art, and the tactile experience of turning a page in a book about that art, have both become niche enterprises.

But if there's one thing we've learned in games over the years, it's that even the tiniest niches can find ways to thrive. Believe it or not, even the mighty Minecraft was once a humble indie game only known to industry enthusiasts and insiders. And it's possible that Waneella, who contributed environmental art to games like River City Girls and Pocket Rumble, could break through in a similar way. She may not have her stuff sold in the toy section of Target any time soon, but I could see her work blowing up in the fine art world in the years to come.

Decade is a new book from talented pixel artist Waneela

A case in point is her current collaboration with Darren Wall (Read-only Memory, A Profound Waste of Time) on "Decade," an artbook that collects ten years of her still pictures. Initially inspired by the pixel art of Superbrothers Sword and Sworcery EP, Waneella has since grown in popularity as an independent creator. Her compositions translate great to glowing screens, but bringing them to books makes even more sense. It's easy to picture people from all walks of life cozying up to a warm mug of the drink of their choice, cracking open her book, and being transported to places that sit somewhere between games and the real world, dreams, and reality.

You can find the Volume crowdfunding effort for it here!

The post River City Girls artist puts pixel art to print with new art book appeared first on Destructoid.

He's still a-him

Years ago I met Charles Martinet at E3. We shot a quick video where I said "It's a-you?" and he shrieked "It's a-me!" in the voice. I was so taken aback that I said "Holy Sh*t!" - He immediately took me aside and asked me not to post the video, as it would be inappropriate for children. We ended up posting it anyway, with my swear bleeped out, and it was a cute, hopefully inoffensive bit of fun. But what I really took away from that moment is how much Charles Martinet cares about his fans. He wants to fill their hearts with hope and joy, and not whatever the opposite of those two things is. That may be why we still haven't heard exactly why he's no longer the voice of Mario in the games.

This video posted yesterday from Galaxy Con Austin is the closest we've come to getting an idea of what's actually going on here. The first thing to note is Charles Martinet can still do the voice. He effortlessly, and maybe even unconsciously, goes in and out of it throughout the interview. Also early on, he makes a point about how when acting, it's best not to think about if you're doing it "right" or not, or if the people you are auditioning for like what you're doing. It's better, he says, to just be in the moment and fully embody the character that you're playing, which for Mario, means being "silly and fantastic and having fun". You can see why he loves what he does (or did, depending on where things go from here.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5ZticrdoMA

What does a Mario Ambassador actually do?

Then at around 11:30 the topic of being a Mario Ambassador comes up. Martinet says:

"So I'm now, you may have seen the news, I'm a Mario Ambassador. I don't know what that is yet [laughs]. I'm not retired as it were, as I don't know how... but I'm an ambassador, and as we step into the future, we'll learn, we'll all learn, what exactly that is. But in the meantime, I'll be ambassiding as I always am. I'm always an ambassador of Nintendo and Mario at all these events because I just cherish every moment of it. And I hope your love of the games continues and grows the way mine does, so [Mario Voice] Thank you so much![/Mario Voice]. Now lets ask a couple questions, go ahead, but don't ask me about the ambassadorship. I don't know anything about it! And don't ask me about the movie because I haven't seen it yet. Don't tell me what happens!"

To me, this does not sound like a guy who decided to stop playing the role of Mario. But knowing Charles, he wouldn't want to cast a shadow of negativity over Nintendo, Mario, or anything else by saying he was "forcibly retired" or outright fired from the role. And it's possible an NDA is holding him back from saying more as well. To be frank, I'm not expecting to hear a lot more from Martinet or Nintendo on this. The time to explain what happened has come and gone. At this point, both Martinet and Nintendo are focused on "stepping into the future".

So all we can do is speculate. My guess is that Nintendo saw the Mario movie make over a billion dollars without Martinet in the lead role, and took that as a sign that it's safe to move on to someone new. When Chris Pratt was cast as Mario in the film adaptation, many scoffed. But his tap water, everyman style turned out to be exactly what a lot of people wanted. At times in the film when he imitated Martinet's voice; those moments elicited cheers from the crowd in my theater. For me, these moments drove home how the guy I saw on screen was not Mario. He was just another fan of Mario who loved imitating him,  just like everyone in the audience had at one point or another. In a meta sort of way, that made the movie Mario the most relatable version of the guy yet.

[caption id="attachment_402296" align="alignnone" width="640"] Phot Credit: Nintendo[/caption]

Some critics also said that Martinet's voice also wouldn't work for a movie with a lot of dialogue, and that the cartoonish-ly thick Italian accent and moments of extreme falsetto would become grating. I don't agree with that at all (and he could just tone it down if that were the case), but it could be that these critics are thinking what Nintendo's thinking too. In Super Mario Bros. Wonder, the yet-to-be-named new voice of Mario sounds a lot like he's doing a Martinet impression, not unlike the one Pratt did here and there in the movie. But it could be that in the future, Nintendo will want to make a game where Mario has a lot more dialogue. In that case, I'd expect this new actor will do more of a Chris Pratt impression than a Charles Martinet impression for the job.

Unless the role in the games has gone to Pratt himself. That would be quite the last-minute marketing bombshell to drop on fans before Wonder goes on sale in October.

The post Charles Martinet still loves doing the Mario voice, doesn’t know what a Mario Ambassador is yet appeared first on Destructoid.

But who is the dreamer?

There is no shortage of games that claim Twin Peaks as a primary inspiration, but the legendary TV multimedia experience is yet to take the leap into a full game adaptation. And it's not out of a lack of interest in the medium from its creators. Twin Peaks writer and director David Lynch once started to work on a game that would continue the series called Woodcutters From Fiery Ships, and Mark Frost, Twin Peak's co-writer, met with the creators of Link's Awakening to give them a few ideas.

Then in 2019, both of them signed off on a Twin Peaks VR project, though it's more of a collection of interactive sets than a full game. Anything where you get to play as leads Dale Cooper or Laura Palmer, interact with other characters from the show, and work to solve any of it's many mysteries, has yet to materialize in all the years since the show's debut in 1990.

The Blue Rose Team is looking to fix that problem with a short PS1-style demo game based on the franchise. Like the original Resident Evil, it uses fixed camera angles to establish the strong sense of place, and the occasional moment of disorientation, that is part and parcel of any true Twin Peaks experience. Playing it is less like a stressful, survival horror romp and more like a point-and-click adventure, which also makes a lot of sense. Though the show and corresponding movie had some action scenes, the heroes of Twin Peaks are more likely to solve their problems through deduction and communication than gunshots and stabbings.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhSUEChBu74

The aesthetics are also a perfect fit for the subject matter. Like with the City of Lost Children for the PS1, taking Lynch and Frost's uncanny reality to low-poly character models and stiff-but-fluid animations just makes sense. After all, this is a show where people regularly move and speak backward and then reverse their actions. Being transformed into some simple geometric shapes before skating around a sheriff's office with tank controls is not the weirdest thing most of these folks have ever done.

After having played the demo, in all its FMV cut scene glory, I was immediately left wanting more, which is exactly what Twin Peaks is supposed to do to a person. Seeing as the two primary musical artists behind the show, and many of its beloved actors, died after Twin Peaks: The Return was released in 2017, continuing in live-action without them wouldn't really be Twin Peaks anymore. But in games, dreams can become reality, and people can live forever.

Let's Rock.

The post Twin Peaks: Into The Night is a fan’s dream game appeared first on Destructoid.

Can Travis be far behind?

Recently, No More Heroes creator Suda51 held the first-ever "Grasshopper Direct" event. It's a madcap show, packed with curses and cosplay, serving as a fantastic example of modern anti-marketing. Most of the "real" content on display is non-game related news like the reveal of new t-shirts, gallery showings, and related merch, while the most shocking moments of presentation pop in under the guise of unrelated, intrusive advertisements. First, there's Pistol Yakuza (a John Wick-esque movie and game combo) at 5:59, and a trailer for Electric Thunder Tiger 14, starring Electro Triple Star (the first boss of Travis Strikes Again: No More Heroes) at 9:38.

It's hard to say if these projects are factual or imaginary, which is right on brand for this franchise. When Travis meets Electro Triple Star in Travis Strikes Again, he talks about how much he loved playing his games as a kid, blurring the lines between past and present, idol and villain, physical and virtual. It all ends with Travis wondering if he might star in Electric Thunder Tiger 3 himself someday. So how did we get to Electric Thunder Tiger 14 already? That's anyone's guess, but one can speculate that death and the passage of time don't work in videogames like they do in the real world.

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THS60cC3768[/embed]

More No More Or No More More?

But one thing that definitely does work in the real world is copyright laws, and Grasshopper has confirmed with Destructoid that the majority rights to all No More Heroes characters, including Travis Touchdown and Electro Triple Star, are still held by Marvelous, their publishing partner on the series. So that either means that this trailer was essentially a fake-out, or that it's a real game being developed with Marvelous's blessing.

If it's the latter, then it would be a real waste of the license to not throw a Travis cameo or two in there, right? More No More Heroes or not, we know for sure that Grasshopper is working on several projects that will swing for the fences. I'm hoping that some of those swings come from a beam katana.

The post Shocking No More Heroes boss may get his own game appeared first on Destructoid.

A "bit" of news

First launched by Choice Provisions (formerly known as Gaijin Games) in 2009, the Bit.Trip series has endured a lot. The fact that it's still standing after getting its start on the much-maligned (but beautifully scored) WiiWare service almost 15 years ago proves that it has legs. Now those legs are moving into the maker space with Bit.Trip Rerunner; a brand new title in the franchise.

Originally there were six games in the Bit.Trip story (Beat, Core, Void, Runner, Fate and Flux), but then Runner really took off, inspiring two numbered sequels and one free mobile spin-off. Both of which featured Charles Martinet (best known for voicing Mario) in a prominent role. So in a roundabout way, it makes sense for the Bit.Trip Runner subseries to continue to follow in Mario's footsteps with this new "Maker" title.

Details are scant, but the Choice Provisions Twitter page tells us that Rerunner will have "Over 150 new levels, each with increasing challenges", a new "Runner-Maker tool to create and share your own levels" and "gameplay mechanics inspired by the original Bit.Trip games".

The feature I think most Bit.Trip fans will want to see is the option to play with the original voxel visual style. Mario Maker definitely spoiled us by giving us Mario 1, 3, World, and "New" modes to play with. Unbeknownst to many, the Bit.Trip Runner series has used five distinctly different visual styles in past games as well (voxel, Atari 2600-style flat sprites, NES-style sprites,  2D drawings, and rounded polygons), so the options are already there.

We may find out if Rerunner will rerun all four of those looks when we see the game in action!

The post Bit.Trip makes a comeback with Bit.Trip Rerunner appeared first on Destructoid.

Am I a dreamer?

Originally, this piece was going to be called "Animal Crossing on the GameCube is blatantly better than Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom". My plan was to take a 4/7th serious stance on the topic, not unlike this old essay on why I prefer Advance Wars to Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare.

It's an apples-to-oranges comparison and inherently farcical, but the sincere truth is that many of the things I grew up loving about Zelda (particularly its first 3 sequels) were best translated to polygons in the original Animal Crossing title. The grid segmented map, the feeling that every screen might have a simple-to-find secret hidden in a tree or behind a rock, the small but versatile set of tools, the inviting villages, the simplicity; they're all  key aspects to what made Adventures of Link, Link to the Past, and Link's Awakening so great.

Perhaps most importantly, the original Animal Crossing kept things cozy. There's no complex crafting system, no massive world that takes hours to traverse, no broken weapons (except the axe, but getting a golden one is easy enough), and never the feeling that you have a big, difficult job to do. In fact, the first thing that happens in the game is you get fired from your job. It's a full escape from the "civilized' world. And maybe you have to be there at the time to feel this way, but when the first Animal Crossing came out, it came off like a direct sequel to the Animal Village section of Link's Awakening. If you've played them both, then you know the similarities between them are about as subtle as a talking bear asking you to arm wrestle.

[caption id="attachment_377600" align="alignnone" width="620"] Animal Crossing on the GameCube and Link's Awakening on the Switch[/caption]

No Hyrule Country for Old Farts

Since Link's Awakening and the first Animal Crossing , both the Zelda and Animal Crossing franchises have blown up in a big way, in terms of both popularity and scope. As a result, I bounced off of each of them hard. It made me think that maybe Nintendo just doesn't make games for 46-year-old weirdos like me anymore.

And that was going to be the piece! But what would that have done for you, dear reader? A few of you like-minded outliers out there feel would feel a little less alone, and the rest of you would have just been glad that I am no longer the target demographic for Zelda games. Except, and here's the kicker, maybe I still am! It was only a couple of years ago that Nintendo made a "new" game for people like me. It was a remake of Link's Awakening, and hey—it didn't sell that bad! Last count put it at a little over 6 million sold. That's far from what Breath of the Wild and Animal Crossing: New Horizons did, but it's still better than most games ever do.

It all gives me hope that maybe after Tears of the Kingdom breaks sales records, wins a GOTY at the Game Awards, and all the dust has finally settled from it's launch, Nintendo may give me what I really want: a new Link's Awakening.

The Zelda Upscale/Downsize Cycle

It may sound like an absurd idea for Nintendo to go backwards like that, given how much more Breath of the Wild sold than every other Zelda game. The core audience for the series clearly wants them to keep getting bigger and freer. But when you look at the history of the series, a pattern emerges that points to the next Zelda to launch after 2023 to be something that goes in a different direction. Starting with Ocarina of Time, every other home console Zelda has taken a step back from making things bigger and more open. Ocarina was, of course, the first Zelda game to feature a fully 3D world, and it made a huge effort to show off how spacious and sprawling it could be. Its direct sequel, Majora's Mask, had you spending a lot of time in small town town and other little areas, learning about the people of the world and using empathy to help them to prevent the apocalypse.

After that there was Wind Waker, which went big again with a massive ocean to chart. That was followed up by Four Swords Adventures, which was about small-scale multiplayer action puzzle solving. Then came Twilight Princess, which expanded things again, then Skyward Sword, which took after both Majora's and Monster Hunter, plopping you in a variety of bite-sized environments where getting to know the minutiae of how everything fits together was the only way to win.

[caption id="attachment_377608" align="alignnone" width="640"] Wart, er, "Mamu" in Link's Awakening Switch[/caption]

Toy Link Returns?

Then came Breath of the Wild, which Nintendo said is 12 times bigger than Twilight Princess. That's too big for me. I quit the game after 20 hours, having really enjoyed the totally linear part where it's raining so you can't just climb your way out jam, and instead have to fight a bunch of lizard people before hanging out in a shark man's house. But the rest of the game was a snooze fest for me, just a lot of work. I had hoped that Tears of the Kingdom would take the same approach that Majora's Mask took with Ocarina, scaling things back a bit and focusing on the little things, but from the looks of it, that won't be the case. Initially, I thought that meant that the pattern of Nintendo making every other Zelda smaller, sillier, and stranger than the last was over.

But then I remembered that the Link's Awakening remake, which came out after Breath of the Wild, technically counts as a new Zelda game, with it's Dampe's Dungeon "Zelda Maker" mode and other little details that make it more than a 1:1 recreation of the original. Nintendo even created a whole new version of Link for the remake (nicknamed Toy Link at the time). Then he got his own amiibo. It would be strange for them to just never use this version of Link again, right? Every other version of Link (Adult, Young, Toon, and uh, "Blue Shirt") has gotten at least two games to star in. How could you say no to more of this face?

[caption id="attachment_377610" align="alignnone" width="640"] Little Link and his current Dad[/caption]

A link to gaming's past

The only thing that makes me unsure is knowing how much modern Nintendo follows trends. Endlessly replayable open world games with user-created content like Minecraft and Roblox are the most successful games in the world right now, so it's not surprising that Tears of the Kingdom may take after them even more than its predecessor did, with more custom stuff to build and other bait to inspire user-created content. I still see Breath of the Wild trick videos on Twitter. I haven't seen any sign of the Link's Awakening remake on my timeline in years. It's clear which one was a better return on Nintendo's investment, both in terms of sales and in terms of longevity in the public eye.

But I also have to remember that Nintendo is marching out Pikmin 4 in a few months, and that the big selling points for that game so far are: Pikmin made of ice, a dog with no nose, and "something scary happens at night, probably." Nothing about that is likely to go viral on TikTok or YouTube for the next 5 years. From the looks of it, Pikmin 4 isn't going to try to be a "phenomenon." It's going to try to be a fun little videogame, just like the 3 other numbered Pikmin games that came before it. It's not looking to reinvent the wheel, it's just looking to give it another spin.

[caption id="attachment_377611" align="alignnone" width="640"] The largely noseless faces of Pikmin 4[/caption]

Old dogs, old tricks

And that's true for a lot of Nintendo's popular games lately. Advance Wars 1+2: Re-boot Camp is just the first two GBA games with new graphics and remixed music, and it's been a top seller on the eShop for the past two weeks. New Pokémon Snap was essentially the same as the first game but with amazing graphics and new Pokémon, and people went bananas over it. Metroid Dread didn't have multiplayer, mining or crafting mechanics, or a 3D world to explore, and it became the best-selling game in that franchise's history. Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is, by all accounts, just a very good JRPG, doing little to move the subgenre forward, and last report as was close to 2 million units sold. Splatoon 3 is just more Splatoon, and it set records in Japan. The list goes on.

For old-heads like me who think gaming peaked a long time ago, it's heartening to see. And more pertinent to this particular essay, it makes me feel that Toy Link (and hopefully Toy Gannondorf) will tread new ground in 2024. In fact, the longest we usually go between top-down Zeldas is three to five years. Tri Force Heroes was 2015, then both Cadence of Hyrule and Link's Awakening launched in 2019. Before that, the wait between the 2D-style Zelda games was usually about 2 years, with the exception of the massive drought between Link's Awakening in 1993 and, uh, Link's Awakening DX in 1998.

So we're about due, and any potential Nintendo not-E3 showcase this summer might be just around the corner. I'm not saying that I'm sure they'll announce Link's Awakening 2 there as a swan song for the now 6-year-old Switch, but stranger things have happened. Four seasons of them in fact, with a 5th on the way. If that series of small-town shenanigans can keep going after all this time, then why can't Toy Link, Wart, and the Wind Fish?

The post After Tears of the Kingdom, give me Link’s Awakening 2 appeared first on Destructoid.

Continue?

A lot of people may remember Advance Wars series as a flash in the pan, popping out of nowhere on the Gameboy Advance and then dying out a few years later on the DS. But in Japan, the Wars series was one of Nintendo's longest running, prolific franchises, starting on the Famicom before spreading its military might to the Gameboy, Super Famicom, GameCube, and the Wii.

For folks who had been following the franchise for the 20 years up to its abrupt conclusion, hearing that Intelligent Systems had no "clear idea" on the future of the franchise felt like the end of an era. Likewise, for longtime fans, this month's Advance Wars: Re-Boot Camp remakes from WayForward has a lot more weight to it when you know how much strife this series has been through.

The thing is though, when Days of Ruin capped off the Advance Wars series (or ruined it, depending on who you ask), there wasn't a big announcement or moment of closure that came with it. When new games are shown for the first time, marketing makes a big deal of it it. When old games power down for the last time, they often just fade away, like a former best friend that you used to go shoe shopping with, but haven't seen for years. The longer you go without texting or calling them, the weird it feels to hit them up out of the blue, so you just don't.

But what if you did call that friend again, a decade or more after you last planned to, and actually took that trip to Skechers. Would the shoes still fit? Will your time apart prove to have made you more or less compatible pals? Here are a few games I'd love to see call again, just so we could find out.

Pitfall!

Before Mario reinvented the genre with his Super game from 1986, the biggest name in side-scrolling platformers was undoubtedly Pitfall Harry. In fact, many credit 1981's Pitfall! on the Atari 260 for being the first game to popularize the genre on home consoles, and its sequel can be seen as one of the progenitor of the kind of massive, interconnected map design that makes the Metroidvania genre what it is today. The Activision classic even got its own cartoon show.

Even after Mario stole Harry's thunder, Pitfall! hung in there for years, with later games on the SNES, Genesis, PS1, PS2, Gameboy Advance, Xbox, Wii, and as recently 2012, an autorunner for mobile. If Indiana Jones can make a comeback in 2023, there's no reason Harry couldn't do the same.

[caption id="attachment_373969" align="alignnone" width="640"] Image credit Lucky Kat and Sony Pictures[/caption]

Q*bert

Birdo may be the most well-known snorkel-nosed creature in gaming today, but for a time, that title undoubtedly belonged to 1982's Q*Bert. And it's not like he's a total unknown today, though that's got more to do with his appearances in films like Wreck-It Ralph and Pixels than any of his modern games. The latter movie even implies that Josh Gad had sex with him and, apparently, got him pregnant.

Thankfully, Q*Bert's actual games managed to procreate in a much more dignified fashion, seeing a new release every 5-10 years all the way up until (you guessed it) a mobile reboot in 2019. But it's been far too long since this foul-mouthed little weirdo hopped onto computers and consoles.

[caption id="attachment_373976" align="alignnone" width="640"] Image credit Koei Tecmo[/caption]

Rygar

Fun fact, in the original Japanese version of Rygar, the main character is only known as "The Legendary Warrior", while the last boss, a giant lion man, is named Ligar, which was mistranslated to Rygar in the localization process. If the series had managed to stick around, I'm sure that trivia would be as well knows as Super Mario 2's start as Doki Doki Panic, or how Pac-Man would have been called Puckman if Namco wasn't afraid that sassy vandals would turn that "P" into an "F".

But instead, Rygar has largely forgotten in recent years, despite a hugely successful arcade game in 1986, its multiple ports, a reimaging on the NES in 1987, a PS2 reboot in 2006, and enhance port of that reboot for Wii in 2009. If Kratos can become gaming's most critically acclaimed cranky dad, I see no reason why Rygar couldn't become a tired Greek action man of similar adoration in the near future.

California Games

Ninja Gaiden

The Ninja Gaiden series actually started in arcades before becoming one of the first action games on the NES to wow players with amazing cinema-style cutscenes. After a brief pause through the N64/PS1/Saturn era, it returned in a big way on the Xbox with a self-titled reboot, headed by Team Ninja, which scored a DS spin-off and a couple of direct sequels.

The reboot trilogy was recently rereleased for modern platforms in 2021, but there hasn't been an all-new game in the franchise since Ninja Gaiden Z: Yaiba, the ill-fated spin-off from 2014. If I had my druthers, the team behind Katana Zero would acquire the rights and bring Ryu back for another comeback attack, but that's probably just a pipe dream.

[caption id="attachment_373973" align="alignnone" width="640"] Image credit Hudson/NEC[/caption]

Bonk

In Japan, Bonk was called PC Genjin (Japanese translation: "PC-Caveman"), and he was the mascot for the PC Engine, the most popular home console in his home country throughout 1988. Beating both Nintendo and Sega at the same time was no small feat, and Bonk is one of the few cartoon mascots to pull it off. Sadly for him, the PC Engine failed to become an international hit when it launched worldwide in 1989 under the still-hard-to-type Turbografx-16 brand.

But still, Bonk managed to outlive the console he was born on, with sequels, spin-offs, and ports for Gameboy, NES, SNES, PS2, GameCube, and mobile. I'm one of the few who got to play his 2010 Wii title, Brink of Extinction, before it was canceled. Little did I know that was the last I'd see of the little guy until his original games were released on the Turbografx-16 Mini in 2020. I am 100% confident that in the right hands, people all over the world (but especially in Japan) would eat up a new Bonk game like it was a six-foot-tall hunk of meat.

[caption id="attachment_373974" align="alignnone" width="640"] Image credit Capcom[/caption]

Final Fight

There was a time when every major arcade in the nation was home to a Final Fight machine. While the Renegade and Double Dragon games were among the first belt-scrolling beat 'em ups ever made, 1989's Final Fight was the franchise that brought it to the next level. Its large, well-animated characters, multiple playable characters and special moves, and general level of depth stand up even today.

There were two SNES sequels that continued the original story, the Saturday Night Slam Masters spin-offs, a Japan-only fighting game for the Saturn, and a reboot for the PS2 in 2012. But the only Final Fight representation we've seen since is in classic rereleases, like 2010's Double Impact port, and in the rosters of newer Street Fighter titles. With Streets of Rage, River City, and even the Ninja Turtles making modern hits from their classic beat 'em up formula, there's no reason that Final Fight couldn't make a comeback with an all-new title.

[caption id="attachment_373975" align="alignnone" width="640"] Image credit Capcom[/caption]

Breath of Fire

If I'm being real, this whole list could have been filled with Capcom games. While Konami abandoned the Castlevania, Metal Gear, and Silent Hill franchises for a little while, as of 2023, they have announced and unannounced plans for all three of them. Capcom, on the other hand, let Bionic Commando, Strider, Darkstalkers, Viewtiful Joe, Mega Man X, and maybe most egregiously, the Breath of Fire series just burn out with no remorse.

We've at least seen cameos from all the games on that list in various Capcom releases over the years... except for Breath of Fire. For whatever reason, Capcom doesn't want anything to do with their one ubiquitous RPG series anymore. Breath of Fire VI was a Japan-only Windows/mobile title released in 2016. Before that, the last globally released game in the series was Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter for the PS2 in 2002. The series just celebrated its 30th anniversary, with copious fan art and other remembrances getting loads of praise across social media.

One can imagine that an Octopath Traveller-style Breath of Fire VII for consoles would be similarly well received.

[caption id="attachment_373977" align="alignnone" width="640"] Image credit Sony Computer Entertainment[/caption]

Ape Escape

Sony's abandonment of Ape Escape speaks to their larger rejection of all their sillier mascots. In the PS1 era, the PlayStation's top first-party tiles were games like Jumping Flash, PaRappa the Rapper, and Ape Escape, the rambunctious action platformer about using dual analog controls to catch apes with various gadgets. For my money, it's one of the best games of the generation, and holds up better than Super Mario 64 or Banjo Kazooie.

The series lived on with sequels on the PS2, spin-offs for the PSP, and PS3, and crossovers in the likes of Metal Gear Solid, Ratchet & Clank, and most recently, the PS5 exclusive Astro's Playroom. That latter title is the exact kind of B-Budget title that I think AAA developers should make more of, and taking Ape Escape back to consoles with a similarly themed title would be sure to be a worthy investment by Sony Entertainment Group.

[caption id="attachment_373978" align="alignnone" width="640"] Image credit Nintendo[/caption]

Rhythm Heaven

I was the first to break the news that the Rhythm Heaven series had "died", and while Nintendo later debunked that claim, the timeline speaks for itself. The last all-new Rhythm Heaven title, Rhythm Heaven Fever, was released in 2011, and the last official title in the franchise — the mostly greatest hits title Rhythm Heaven Megamix — was released on 3DS in 2015. Eight years without news isn't forever by industry standards, but it's a long time for this particular franchise, which used to see new games every two to four years.

There are multiple reasons why Rhythm Heaven may be gone for good, but there are just as many reasons why Nintendo should bring it back. The music producer who pitched the concept to Nintendo in the first place wants it to happen. Games inspired by Rhythm Heaven, like Melatonin, and the upcoming Rift of the Necrodancer, have been quick to find large and loyal audiences. Likewise, resale copies of past Rhythm Heaven games have recently soared in price. It's not uncommon to find copies of Fever going for $100-$150 on Amazon or eBay.

The series was huge in Japan but, despite Beyonce's endorsement, it never got big elsewhere. But in this age of memes and TikTok-length gameplay trailers spreading like wildfire, it could be that Rhythm Heaven's ascension to the top is yet to come.

The post 10 popular franchises that are due for a comeback appeared first on Destructoid.

B for big business

Way back in the year 2008, my first ever front-page post for Destructoid asked if ultra-expensive, realistic-looking AAA games were where the industry was going. Flash forward nearly 16 years later, and most of the enduring, popular new intellectual properties since then haven't come AAA at all, and instead hail from what you might call "B budget" developers. Human Fall Flat, Five Nights at Freddy's, Genshin Impact, Among Us, Fall Guys, Fortnite, Vampire Survivors, and Rocket League are just a few of the non-AAA games that went on to find big, sustained audiences since then.

The list of games like this to both launch well and continue to perform well is a lot longer than the list of new, multi-million-dollar, AAA franchises that achieve the same goals in a similar timeframe.

We don't know how much all these "B budget" games cost, but we can guess that if Fortnite originally cost $300K to produce, the likes of Among Us were likely much less. Player Unknown's Battlegrounds, one of the most played games of all time, started off as a fan mod fer cripes sake! And some of the few new AAA IPs that did manage to take off in the last decade largely found their footing thanks to goodwill built up from their developers' work on less-than-AAA budgeted games. Elden Ring would have never taken off without diehard Souls fans, Cyberpunk 2077 wouldn't be anywhere without the loyalty of fans of the original Witcher games, and so on.

From that perspective, the days of single-player, hyper-realistic games with long expensive cutscenes or other barriers to actual gameplay could be over. Some of the most well-known games in the world in 2023 aren't trying to muscle attention away from casual shoppers in brick-and-mortar stores like Toys 'R' Us or GameStop. They are games that make for great "Let's Play" videos, are fun to share screenshots or stories about on social media, stream well, and can be picked up and played by a wider audience.

It doesn't always take a lot of money to make them. So why doesn't AAA make more games like that?

[caption id="attachment_368574" align="alignnone" width="640"] Image credit No Breaks Games[/caption]

The AAA culture bubble

AAA gaming, like most media cultures, exists in its own insular little world. Human Fall Flat sold 40 million copies since its release in 2016, but despite the fact that it's clearly the kind of game that makes a lot of people really happy, you can be sure that it never, ever had a chance of winning one of Geoff Keighley's Game Awards. Those prizes will inevitably go to a game that either attempts to be like a serious Hollywood movie, and/or involve some "auteur" talent from outside of games, like Norman Reedus or George R.R. Martin. When it comes to cute, silly, gleefully game-y games like Human Fall Flat, AAA executives are quick to handwave their success away. They're seen as flukes, and their success is perceived to be based entirely on luck.

The fact that they do a better job than most AAA games at engaging the average player is largely ignored.

This leads to a weird sort of risk aversion where AAA devs feel like they need to spend a massive amount of money to assure that, regardless of what trends are happening at that moment, that their game will be "objectively superior" to the rest. And I get it. It's much harder to predict which quirky, highly accessible game will be the next one to become a phenomenon. But it's also likely that it won't be a AAA game with realistic graphics and a focus on a big, complicated single-player story, because no game like that has sold more than 30 million copies in a long time. GTAV was probably the last one to do that, and it was released a decade ago.

[caption id="attachment_368571" align="alignnone" width="640"] Image credit Krafton Inc.[/caption]

It's not as though the risk of AAA games with a big marketing budget selling absolutely nothing isn't there. The capacity to bomb is still strong. AAA titles like Forspoken and The Callisto Protocol are two recent examples. Their AAA publishing, budget, and marketing efforts failed to make them hits. While they never had the potential to be the next Tetris or Minecraft, they don't even look poised to become "cult hits" like No More Heroes. Moving forward, we can guess that all-new, single-player-focused, big-budget IPs will be more and more of a lose-lose proposition. For AAA, there will always be a ceiling for success, marked by a line where the enthusiast market ends, and the mainstream market begins. But there is no bottom to how hard they can fail.

The irony is, the same factors that limit how big AAA games can get are the same factors that make them appealing to publishers. It's much easier to be a big fish in a relatively small enthusiast market than it is to try to swim in the blue ocean against massive mainstream hits like Roblox or League of Legends. And, for now, AAA still has the power to craft a niche culture where only they have the resources to make games that will be perceived as "important".

[caption id="attachment_368580" align="alignnone" width="640"] Image credit Rockstar Games[/caption]

Maintaining dominAAAnce

I was laughed off of the internet once for theorizing that home console controllers have become increasingly complicated over the years in order to push away players who are more likely to criticize AAA games. I can see how that might sound paranoid, but just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you. Just look at the amount of hate people have gotten for suggesting that tough boss fights be skippable, or that games should always have easy modes. The level of venom that the Wii and the DS received for valuing "casuals" was wild to witness. AAA marketing had worked for years to instill a weird pride in people for playing difficult, complicated games, and with that pride came the urge to shame anyone who took a different road.

You'd think that AAA publishers wouldn't want to create an audience that repels potential new customers from getting into gaming, but as many politicians know, winning elections isn't about getting everyone to like you. If using divisive, mean-spirited rhetoric pushes 50% of voters away so much that they don't even want to think about politics, but also excites 30% of the remaining people, then that only leaves 20% of the population who may vote against you.

And in AAA, every vote costs at least $60 to cast, making the barrier to entry much higher than voting in most of the world's political elections. Expensive to make, expensive to buy games do even more to alienate any reviewer who may consider playing a GTA or CoD game for review and say, "It's too long, divisive, or meanspirited."

If the only people playing your games are the ones who are predestined to love them, then you've already guaranteed a win.

[caption id="attachment_368584" align="alignnone" width="640"] Image credit InnerSloth LLC[/caption]

But that can't last forever, especially with something as awesome as video games. Eventually, people are going to find them and love them, no matter how much you try to alienate them. As a result, the urge from the old guard to fight back can lead to some pretty strange comments. You see something similar happening in the film industry, where directors who love making movies about real people will complain that superhero blockbusters aren't "real cinema". What they're really trying to say is, they preferred the days when the movies they loved to make were also the movies that the industry valued the most. They want to continue to be the ones to establish what "good" and "bad" movies are, so they can continue to easily get financing for the kinds of movies they like making.

If controlling the standards for quality in your medium is the #1 way to avoid risk in any art industry, you can bet your sweet bippy that AAA will do its darndest to exercise that control. That's why Bethesda's Hi-Fi Rush was such an anomaly. The game was a huge hit, despite not being a typical AAA game. In fact, that's exactly why it did so well. It was a massive breath of fresh air in an otherwise stale market filled with games aiming for the same safe, AAA goals.

But if Bethesda and other AAA publishers continue to make that type of game, they are going to implicitly admit that you don't need a ton of money to make something really popular. The emperor's new high-res, photorealistic clothes will be off, and they'll have to compete with other publishers and developers on a much more even playing field. It's enough to give your average AAA CEO low-budget nightmares.

[caption id="attachment_368591" align="alignnone" width="640"] Image Credit Sony Santa Monica[/caption]

Delaying the inevitable

Just like fossil fuel companies that desperately want to keep their good thing going until either electric cars, government regulation, (or the planet Earth itself), says that the party's over, AAA publishers really don't have much reason to embrace the truth right now. If the vocal minority online, which is still made up of millions, keeps believing that they are number one, it will keep that FOMO feeling alive in those with enough disposable income to splurge on a $60 or $70 title just because it got a lot of reviews/awards/buzz online. As long as they maintain their stature with the loudest voices in the enthusiast market, then they are going to keep making plenty of money.

That said, I think it's inevitable that their brand of game will eventually lose the capacity to even appear "important" to anybody. AAA games in long-running franchises like God of War, which appeal to both older players like me and the kids who care about AAA gaming history, are going to continue to do well for at least another decade. It's not a coincidence that these games tend to be about aging parents and their up-and-coming, game-loving children, because that's exactly who's still buying them. Eventually, the generation brought up on disc-based home consoles will hit their 60s and 70s, leaving the Minecraft-loving tablet and phone gaming generation to fully inherit the medium.

By 2050, the current style of AAA games will look "retro" at best, like how N64 games look to us now.

And, by then, making realistic-looking games will be as cheap and easy to do as it is to use art-generating apps today. The games that win the popularity contests will be the ones that give people the opportunity to work out their stress and live out their fantasies in the most novel and interesting ways, regardless of how much money was put into them. It could be that The Last of Us may really end up being one of the last of the single-player-focused, story-heavy, AAA-budget franchises that will appeal to anyone but the most diehard of video game fans.

The post Why don’t ‘AAA’ publishers put out more ‘B budget’ games? appeared first on Destructoid.

Licensing is a killer problem

Last Friday was the 13th, and ironically, it was one of the last Fridays that you'll ever be able to buy Friday the 13th: Killer Puzzle. It's sad to see this young spatial puzzle game, not even old enough to drink, snuffed out so soon.

In all seriousness, Killer Puzzle is as loving a tribute to the slasher franchise as you could ask for. For the most part, it follows the rules of the film series (Jason can just appear behind anyone he sees, is weak against drowning, etc), and features just about every iteration of the hockey-masked horror icon as you could ask for (including his green and purple look from the infamous NES title).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8Ylirqs8To&ab_channel=BlueWizardDigital

So if you want to get this slice of the life (and afterlife) of one of the most loved and feared fictional serial killers in history, you'll have to act fast. Due to an inability to renew the license, this particular Friday the 13th game and all of its DLC are being removed from all available storefronts ( So that's Steam, Apple App Store, Google Play Store, Nintendo eShop, Xbox Store, and Playstation Store) on January 23.

The only encouraging thing about this turn of events is that Killer Puzzle was itself a retooling of an original title called Slayaway Camp that will be available indefinitely. So while this specific game in the horror-puzzle formula subgenre may be sinking into the depths of history forever, there's a chance that it may come back to the dead someday, maybe with a whole new outward-facing look.

Maybe the Killer Klowns are looking for more work?

The post Friday the 13th: Killer Puzzle gets slashed for good on January 23 appeared first on Destructoid.

Ranking the next generation of buttkickers

[Warning: This article contains end-game spoilers for multiple new titles. You have been warned!]

We're at the stage with a lot of modern action franchises where their original leads, (and their audiences), are old enough to be parents and grandparents. Their creators are often in the same boat, leading them to think a lot about how to pass their legacies off to the next generation. That's part of why we saw Ellie take the lead from Joel in The Last of Us Part II, Indiana Jones team up with his kid Mutt in The Crystal Skull (and maybe yet another kid in the upcoming Dial of Destiny?), Rick's daughter Judith become the co-lead of The Walking Dead in its last season, Dante hand-off leading man duties to newcomer Nero in Devil May Cry V, and so on.

These sorts of "passing the torch" milestones are a natural part of life, even when those lives are purely fictional.

It's hard to say if and when these "passing the torch" moments will stick. We certainly haven't seen much from James Bond Jr. or Rodimus Prime in a while. But in 2022, there were more than a few games where the next generation of action hero took the lead in an effective way. Here are my top five for the year.

Remember, spoilers are present for almost every game on this list!

#5: Gotham Knights

When playing a Batman game where you face off against supervillains, the challenge and excitement are baked into the premise. On the other hand, using the world's greatest detective and martial artist to fight a common human criminal can be a little anticlimactic. In order for a game to really make you feel like you are Batman, he's going to have to be overpowered, leading to initial thrills, but at the risk of longer-term malaise. There's no question at this point who would win in a fight between the dark knight and 5-10 random goons.

By making Batgirl and all three generations of Robin the leads of Gotham Knights, the initial tension factor is immediately turned up a notch. And personally, I've always found it more impressive (if not a touch less realistic) to see a kid like Damien Wayne beat the crap out 10 musclebound henchmen at a time than to watch his Dad do the same thing.

Gotham Knights lets you do just that, and while the game is definitely better in theory than it is in practice, it's still worth a mention on this list. Let's hope that the next time we see the caped crusaders' sidekicks take the lead they get to star in a title with a little more punch.

#4 No More Heroes 3

This one is a bit of a cheat, as the game originally released on Switch in 2021, but it didn't make it to PC/PS4/PS5/Xbox until this year, so it was new to a lot of people in 2022. It's also a game that will always feel new to me. It's so packed with eye-opening moments, at least for long-time fans. The beheadings, the sudden rap battle, the surprise Smash Bros. mode, and the list of curveballs the game throws at you is downright diabolical.

And they saved the biggest twist for last. In the post-credits scene, Travis Touchdown's son Hunter and daughter Jeanne suddenly appear. They immediately slice up an alien God and announce that they've come from the future to recruit Travis and his grandson Scott to help them kill the past. It's a real cliffhanger! [End Spoilers]

It's also the right direction for the series to head down. In his first appearance in 2007, Travis Touchdown was a spot-on tribute/parody of a certain kind of videogame enthusiast. Now 15 years later, it makes perfect sense for his descendants to be picking up where he left off, symbolizing today's modern V-tubers and Twitch streamers and whatnot.

It's such a fun idea that I would have ranked it #1 if it weren't for the fact that the No More Heroes series is on indefinite hold, and there's no guarantee that a game costarring Travis's offspring will ever get made. Fingers crossed they'll at least show up in a badminton game someday.

#3 LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga

If we've learned anything from the Star Wars sequel trilogy, it's that people ultimately didn't really want to see the continuation of the Skywalker storyline. When Episode 9 revealed that Rey was the granddaughter of Emperor Palpatine, effectively untwisting a plot twist from Episode 8, the fandom collectively groaned in unison, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in disappointment and were suddenly disinterested.

Since then, almost all the most popular Star Wars content to be released has barely involved the Skywalkers. Grogu, the wildly popular "baby Yoda" who is actually not related to Yoda at all, is the perfect emblem of what people want from Star Wars today. They still want it to look and feel like old Star Wars, but only on the surface. Under the skin, they want the new leads of the franchise to be their own people.

Ironically enough, that's what the latest LEGO Star Wars game manages to pull off. With an expanded combat system and a more fully cohesive retelling of nine movies' worth of narrative, it's the perfect blueprint for what the future of LEGO Star Wars should look like. I'd also argue that the stories of the sequel trilogy work best here, as playing through them in the context of the other six movies, all wrapped together with a cohesive LEGO look, does a lot to make them feel like they belong together.

The option to pick up Grogu as DLC doesn't hurt either.

#2 Bayonetta 3

The future of the Bayonetta series has never been less predictable, with a suddenly announced prequel set for release in a few months, and plans for a numbered sequel to the main franchise totally up in the air. That said, Platinum games has made it clear that they want to push the franchise's story forward, and when they do, they intend to have a new lead in the role of Bayonetta.

From the very start, Bayonetta 3 defies expectations around who exactly you'll be playing as. From the very start, we're given reason to believe that the old Bayonetta from the first game may be dead, and the one we play as for the bulk of the game is a more youthful, pigtailed multiverse version of the character. Later on, it's strongly hinted that this new witch is actually the child Cereza that Bayonetta met via time travel in her first game. And if that weren't enough "passing of the torch" for you, this new Bayo is later dragged to hell, leaving Viola, her daughter from another multiverse, to take on the Bayonetta mantle.

This new potential star of the series is everything the original Bayonetta wasn't. Where "classic" Bayo is a graceful femme who frequently pole dances nude to Frank Sinatra songs, her replacement is a bumbling, butch punk rocker who's big on physical comedy and unrevealing plaid pants. She's actually a lot like Travis Touchdown from No More Heroes, which is probably a turn-off for some Bayo fans, but I personally can't wait to see her take the lead in Bayonetta 4 someday.

#1 God of War: Ragnarok

Full disclosure, I don't like these games at all, but I can still appreciate how masterfully they've established Kratos as one of gaming's best "anti-heroes-turned-grumble-Daddies" (Dadnti-heroes?) If you grew up with a grizzled, grumpy Pappa who lost his soul to trauma, a constant state of fight or flight, and life-crushing responsibilities, chances are modern Kratos will remind you at least a little of your own Father.

But to be a real successful sire to an offspring, you have to let your kid become the star of their own story. With God of War: Ragnarok, Kratos finally does just that, allowing his son Atreus to be fully playable (at times). Much of the game's story also centers around the boy. The thrust of the whole adventure comes from the revelation that Kratos's son is actually the shape-changing Norse God Loki. That's a lot of responsibility for a home-schooled teen, and the choices between staying true to his Dad and finding his place in the greater Norse mythology brings consistent relatable tension to the father-son dynamic. [End Spoilers].

It's been prophesized for a long time that Kratos will eventually kick the bucket, though his enduring popularity would make that a tough pill to swallow for both GoW fans and franchise owners, who are both enjoying a record level of popularity for the series. That said, if and when Kratos does finally breathe his last baritone, bearded breath, God of War: Ragnarok has shown us that there are plenty of places for the series to go without him.

The post The Top 5 “Passing the Torch” action games of 2022 appeared first on Destructoid.

Add copyright law to the list of things Travis has almost sh*t on

Travis Touchdown and the No More Heroes series both turned 15 this week and, to celebrate, franchise creator SUDA51 shared some unique information about his murderous mascot. Even longtime fans of the franchise such as myself were shocked.

My Japanese is lousy, but I can read the language well enough to recognize the characters "Ru-Ku" in the image above. That translates to English as "Luke", which alone would have been enough to make Lucasfilm's lawyers foam at the mouth. Reading through the blurb is a little tougher for me, but per a confirmed A.I, translation from NMH super fan Travis Dies Every Day, the full text reads:

"Modern Jedi Master 'Luke'. Danshiya 'Luke'. His real name is Travis Touchdown. A geek and a thug of the hitman business, I will take on any boring killing. There is no creed at all. I go to the mall four times a week. In other words, if you don't have work, you don't have time, and you don't have friends."

"He runs danshi [boy?] with homemade sabers. All [of] his weapons, Naomi is making. He is currently ranked 11th in the UAA rankings. Fanatical fan of Japanese anime, especially the witch system is a favorite. Now I love it. I love T-shirts."

Anyone who's played the series knows that this isn't too far from how the actual in-game dialogue might sound. Other than the gun in his left hand, and the overt announcement that Travis is, in-fact, a Jedi named after Luke Skywalker, all of this could, plausibly, have been official!

And wait a minute, wasn't SUDA51's company rumored to be working on an Aliens game? That franchise is just one degree of legal separation from Star Wars! Maybe gun-toting Travis with this Skywalking nickname still has a chance of making it.

The post Travis Touchdown’s original nickname was, it seems, pure Star Wars appeared first on Destructoid.

Wii miss U

The Wii U turned 10 last week, and boy oh boy, what a weird-and-sad-but-endearing flop that was. It sold about 1/10 as well as its predecessor, and common consensus is, people passed on it because they didn't realize it was a new system. I think the real problem though was that people felt like it was just another Wii thing. They could have just asked Google, or a store clerk, if it was a new console, but they didn't. They were too bored to.

By 2012, the Wii brand instantly put people to sleep. The market had been flooded with so much Wii stuff by that time that anything that said "Wii" on it was instantly sent to the "ignore" section of people's brains.

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkWpMO_HaCk[/embed]

Even people who did know what the Wii U was, and sort of wanted one, were likely to just get a 3DS instead. There's only so many console cycles in a row where people will be willing to buy two Nintendo consoles at once (one handheld, one home system) with a lot of similar games. And if anyone who passed on the Wii U had any fear of missing out, all they needed to do was go to a game news and reviews website to read the latest "The Wii U is a failure" or "Nintendo is doomed" post in order to confirm that they made the right choice.

Well I am here once again to tell them that...maybe they didn't! The Wii U is still my favorite Nintendo console. In fact, I may appreciate it more now than I did in 2012. It's hooked up to my TV as we speak! Here's why I think it's worth revisiting.

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYzlfaSeeP4[/embed]

It's (almost) every Nintendo system in one

Another thing that put people off about the Wii U was it did more things that people could keep track of. It manically tried to do everything, but messaging that to an already disinterested audience was impossible. You can sum up the Switch in one phrase: It's a fully portable console that you can also hook up to your TV. The Wii U, on the other hand, was a dual screen home console that could work as a handheld but not a portable, that also had it's own built in social media platform and Skype-style video chat platform, but you couldn't use that platform while playing with people online, and it was also Wii backwards compatible, but also it's own unique system, and it had a tablet-like controller that isn't actually a full tablet, and...

Well, you get the idea.

But here we are in 2022, and the Wii U still feels like the culmination of everything Nintendo did pre-Switch, with the exception of the Virtual Boy, which no Nintendo console since has ever emulated. For a relatively low price, you can play Gameboy, Gameboy Color, GBA, DS, NES, SNES, N64, and Wii games on the Wii U. The DS titles are particular stand outs, as they aren't likely to ever come to a single screen system like the Switch. It's also the only console where you can get enhanced versions of some of the Gamecube's best games, like Wind Waker and Twilight Princess. And if you're really industrious, you can hack the thing to make it play Gamecube ROMs. If you own the original discs, it's not even illegal!

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bODn-q0g68[/embed]

They just don't make 'em like this anymore

From the very start, the Wii U was a weird one. Satoru Iwata, the late president of Nintendo, prepped people for the announce of the console's unique controller by holding a bunch of bananas and staring at the camera. Many of the system's unique features were later outlined in a trailer for ZombiU that co-starred a nerd who felt like a parody of the games target audience. He has no real life friends and talks to a toy named Non-Specific Action Figure. Most people ignored all of this, and the Wii U in general, but those who were paying attention could plainly see that the system was positioning itself as a wacky underdog from the start.

And it's got plenty of games to match that image, many of which will likely never be ported. It's pack-in title, Nintendo Land, is a massive party game compilation that functions like a theme park with rides based on multiple Nintendo franchises like Zelda, Mario and Metroid, but all with a cute-toy like presentation. You can't truly say you're a Metroid fan until you've fought adorable versions of Ridley and Kraid in the underrated, likely neve to be ported Metroid Blast attraction. These representatives from Nintendo's most recognizable titles stand alongside mini-games based on more obscure stuff like Balloon Fight, The Mysterious Murasame Castle, and Octopus, a 40-year-old Game and Watch title.

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDT2MvvI6go&t=13s[/embed]

This was their killer app, folks! This is the kind of thing Nintendo hoped they could use to compete with The Last of Us and GTA!

It's so wonderfully, weirdly misguided, and will never happen again. Sure, Nintendo still makes quirky stuff like 1-2 Switch, Nintendo Labo (the game + cardboard craft series) and that free jump rope game, but under their current management, their experimental titles are largely walled off from their big franchises. The chances of us seeing any marquee titles as unexpected and experimental as Stax Fox Zero/Guard, Dr. Luigi (and the rest of the Year of Luigi family of games), Game and Wario, NES Remix 1 & 2, or ever again is unlikely.

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cop4crspps8[/embed]

Wii can't go home again

There's also un-ported Wii U exclusives like Splatoon, Xenoblade Chronicles X, Kirby and the Rainbow Curse, Devil's Third, and, er Animal Crossing: Amiibo Festival to mourn, but the real sense of loss from looking back on the Wii U comes from remembering all the features of the console that are truly dead. I can still boot up Devil's Third any time I'm nostalgic for it's blend of so-bad-it's-good and legitimately-good fun, but the game's unique online mode, which allowed you to wear a realistic cat head while you lead a rainbow parade of chickens into battle, is gone forever.

So is Miiverse and it's Dafoeverse subgroup in the Rabbids Land area. There was also a weird little app called Animal Crossing: Plaza that just let you... talk to people about how much you liked Animal Crossing? It's gone, too. And soon, it will be impossible to buy any games on its eshop or play anything online. Despite the fact that Mario Kart 8 and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, two of of the Switch's best selling titles, are actually Wii U games, Nintendo has left much of the console unpreserved.

From the moment it was launched, it felt like a weird, out of touch, but lovable system, like something that could only be hugely popular in an alternate universe, where people wanted their consoles to be like whimsical, clumsy parents who wanted to play games with them and not portals into violent, photorealistic worlds. Now 10 years later, the Wii U is both out of touch and out of time, and tell me, who doesn't love what can never come back?

The post The Wii U turned 10: Lets look at Nintendo’s weird, sad flop? appeared first on Destructoid.

More like "Alan Wii-ke"

Alan Wake (now on the Switch) is psychological horror game about coming to terms with who you are. Many have compared it to Silent Hill 2 for that reason and many others, but for me, the ways that it's about internal conflict have always felt more unintentional than that.

Throughout the game, the titular Mr. A. Wake is thrown into nightmare situations that are too bad to believe. Likewise, the game's Switch port is technically much, much worse than anyone would have expected.  When it comes to stuff like polygon count, pop-up, frame rate, and just a general sense of jank, this is one of the least polished-looking modern games from a AAA studio I've ever seen. It runs worse than the original 360 version did in 2010. Heck, it even looks a little cruddier than Silent Hill: Shattered Memories and Resident Evil 4 did on the Wii back then.

And I sort of love it for that?

[embed]https://twitter.com/GameXplain/status/1583175476226334720[/embed]

Maybe that's because the internal conflict that's always been key to Alan Wake for me isn't about it's tortured lead character. It's about how the game truly doesn't seem to know if it even wants to be a videogame or not. In my mind it's always been sort of a sister game to Deadly Premonition, another cult classic survival horror game about fighting the same shadowy zombie-type things over and over again in a little American town. The big different between the two is Deadly Premonition always had a reputation for being so bad-its-good.

Alan Wake, on the other hand, looked technically amazing when it first came out, and so it got rave reviews. That polished look never matched how clunky and laugh-out-loud hammy its story was. Much like with the recent derided re-release of GTA: The Trilogy - Definitive Edition, this worse-looking version of Alan Wake is a much better fit for how I've always felt about it.

Why am I being so hard on Alan Wake you ask? Dear reader, you have to understand: The first words you hear after booting it up the are literally "Stephen King", and it doesn't let up from there. There are a few aspects of the game that seem more inspired by The Twilight Zone or Twin Peaks, but by and large, this is a game that desperately wishes it was either a movie, a book, or both by the world's most popular horror author. It features more references to King's work than I would ever want to count.

The premise itself is essentially a weird cover song of Misery, The Dark Half, with bits of other King novels like Christine peppered throughout. And that's OK! The problem is the complete lack of subtlety. The copying of King is so loud and strong that it makes the game more like a parody of the author more than anything else.

Spoilers: in the first couple of hours, the game features a cut scene that copies an iconic shot from Kubrick's film adaptation of The Shining. Then, as if that weren't enough to take you out of the game and make you think about a much better thing you could be watching than the game you are currently watching, the narrator then blurts out something like "this guy is like Jack Nicholson from The Shining!" This probably wasn't supposed to be funny, but I still laughed out loud, and a big part of me hopes that was the intention.

Games that try this hard to be like movies are now like the 3rd or 4th most dominant genre in the industry, way behind stuff like Minecraft, Genshin Impact, and even Mario Kart. That wasn't true when Alan Wake was first released though. Back in the 2010's, games that tried hard to be movies won all the awards and made a bulk of the money. It was a scary time for people like me who saw the move to make games more like films as a self-loathing near-suicidal downgrade.

And even if I did like movies more than games, and therefore wanted to see games turn into movies, games are just always worse than movies at being movies! Alan Wake is definitely no exception. It feels much more like a Junior High School theater adaptation of a Stephen King movie than a big budget film. It's cute and earnest, but if there was any reason to think it might someday replace the real deal, you'd probably want to see it put out to pasture.

So not only does this technically worse port of the game serve to humble Alan Wake a bit, it also give the whole thing a little of that dingy, broken and unsafe feeling you might get from one of Puppet Combo's Indie Horror titles. Underneath all the heavy-handed narration and obvious aspirations to be "more than a game", Alan Wake is actually a pretty fun game, and having worse graphics doesn't change that.

The main mechanic that makes it stand out is the need shine a light on most enemies before you can damage them. It's dark as hell most of the time so you need the flashlight for more than just self defense. When the game finally quits shoving heavy-handed narration, in-game collectable book pages that actually spoil the story for you(!), and uncanny valley packed cinemas, it's actually a really effective survival horror game, and the low-fi aesthetic doesn't hurt that one bit.

There're also a lot of little touches here that remind you that, in 2010, Alan Wake was actually a huge big budget game. The soundtrack is, in short, bananas;  featuring Roy Orbirson, Poe, and Nick Cave. It's extremely off-putting to see the game go from looking like a PS2 title to sounding like one of the greatest melancholy pop-songs of all time. The sound design and in-game TV show called Night Springs both also carried over perfectly from the 360 original, and both do so much to suddenly make the game's world feel real. The contrast between those roots in reality and the purely surreal, game world you're trapped in it when you play makes both feel stronger by juxtaposition.

When it was first released, Alan Wake looked like something from the future, like they had someone make a game from 2022 in 2010. Now on Switch, it looks like a low budget game from 2010, unearthed for the first time 2022. It's seems to be actively repulsive and hostile to people who loved it the first time around, but if you're someone like me who actually likes crappy looking games, you may enjoy this Switch port. So if you want to take the chance, saddle up for a down-port that you can sincerely love, and love to laugh at, nearly at the same time.

The post Alan Wake on the Switch runs like a Wii game appeared first on Destructoid.

Everyone relates with a sad trombone

A couple of times a year, a "Phenomenon Game" pops up out of nowhere and is suddenly the talk of the town. Trombone Champ fits that description. It became a viral meme seemingly overnight, but this genius comedy game didn't come from nowhere. The people who made Trombone Champ had to stick with it for three difficult years, working only on nights and weekends, to put it all together.

The game was created by industry veterans Dan and Jackie Vecchitto. They've been self-publishing games for about a decade, and most of their projects have been free. Trombone Champ is actually the first title they've ever sold on Steam, so you can imagine their surprise when it went on to sell 20,000+ copies in its launch window, prompting NBC, The New York Times, and the CBC to all come calling for interviews.

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOaYsW-Q1lU[/embed]

Much to my surprise, they were also willing to talk to me for my Talking to Women about Videogames podcast (also on iTunes and Spotify). It's a small-time show by NBC standards, but since they had an OK time on Sup, Holmes (an interview live stream show for game devs I used to do), I guess they didn't mind coming back for another talk eight years later. I've been rooting for these two ever since then, long before I knew they were the people who made Trombone Champ, and it's been so great to see those roots grow into a tree made of trombones, thousands of dollars, and mainstream media attention.

We got into all that plus the couple's love of Star Trek, D&D, gnomes, my theories on the autobiographical nature of their gameography, and a lot more. Thanks again to Dan and Jackie for taking the time, and doing it on video to boot. It was (ahem) a "hoot."

The post Meet the people who made Trombone Champ appeared first on Destructoid.

But who will play Abobo?

River City Girls 2 director Bannon Rudis sent me a cryptic message on Friday. "There is a play in Japan. I have no info on this."

That's the kind of mystery I live for, so I got to researching, and eventually found out that a theater company called Solid Star (Heaven Eleven, Yu x You) is putting on a River City Girls play based on the original game. It's set to be performed live from December 7th to 11th, 2022. That's quite the limited run! And the cast is massive, maybe larger than that of the original game. Is that even possible? Bannon tells me that neither he nor River City Girls 2 writer Adam Tierney have anything to do with this production, so like Willie Scott once sang, "Anything Goes."

I'd love to see Bannon and Adam go to Japan to review this official(?) River City Girls play, but I'm not sure who'll pay to make that happen. Maybe Solid Star will? Even better would be if they shelled out some extra dough to cast my old Road Rules Northern Trail friend Bob Sapp as Abobo. Bob also hit me up just last Friday, for the first time in 25 years, to see how I was doing. Having Bannon and Bob come at me on the same day feels like more than a coincidence.

Solid Star, if you're reading this, I will personally pay for Bob's airfare and lodging if that's what it takes to see him hit the stage in your show. Abobo was the role he was born to play.

The post The River City Girls hit the stage in a new Japanese play appeared first on Destructoid.

It's fun 2B fashionably late

NieR: Automata was first released in 2017, just close enough to the Switch launch date that it could have helped define the console's larger identity. It's definitely a "Style over Horsepower" game, and did little to tax the hardware of the now last-gen PS4. It's also developed by PlatinumGames, who've done a lot to build their audience on Nintendo consoles in recent years. Between The Wonderful 101, the full Bayonetta franchise, and Astral Chain, the Switch is where the bulk of their character action games live now. That's another reason why it's felt a little weird to see NieR: Automata on every major platform but Switch for all these years, but then again, weird has always been Nier's thing.

Now the game is finally headed to Switch on October 4, 2022, and I'm happy to report it's been made slightly more strange along the way.

Before we get into all that, let's do a quick recap of some of what makes NieR: Automata different. You might not already know, because people really don't like explaining this game. Even talking about how it plays may spoil some of it, because many of its mechanics are tied directly to its story. But it's safe to tell you upfront that Automata is more "arcade-y" than most character action games. It even starts off with a traditional shmup-style sequence, setting the stage for a massive amount of mechanical death to follow.

After that opener, the action largely sticks to the third-person melee-and-guns action that fans of the genre have come to expect. The only initial clue that there's more going on here comes from a short warning. Ironically enough, the game doesn't "automatically" save, so you can't turn it off anytime you want without killing your progress.

Again, there are story reasons for that. Like Undertale and Chrono Trigger, NieR: Automata is meant to be played through again and again for different endings, so when and where you save counts in a big way. After you see them all, these endings all work to sort of explain why 2B (the Hamlet-inspired star of the game) is fighting against an army of trash-can-looking robots named after guys like Karl Marx and Soren Kierkegaard.

The fact that so many of those last-gen, occasionally pitiably automatons look alike probably helps NieR: Automata to run so well on Switch. There just isn't a lot going on here to cause the current-gen hardware to chug. I didn't notice any new slowdown or frame rate drops when playing the game in handheld or docked mode. Load times were also a non-issue.

I was surprised to see that my only problem with the visuals of this Switch port came from how loyal it is to the source material. Like in the original version of the game, the camera sometimes zooms way out and 2B gets really small on-screen. That was fine on a big TV, but on the original Switch, it can be hard to keep track of her.

Having the camera switch to a side view, a landscape view, or a top-down angle is yet another way that the gameplay relates to the underlying narrative themes. Taking "multiple perspectives" is a big part of what series creator Yoko Taro wants players to do with all the Nier games. But for handheld players, that might mean getting your girl lost in a hail of purple bullets and rusty, rotted-out androids.

As for additional content, the game comes with the previously released Automata DLC, some exclusive skins, and also optional motion controls. I didn't see that last one coming. The character action community historically hates motion controls. Back in the Wii days, fans of the genre almost lobbied immediately to have traditional control options added to the No More Heroes and MadWorld franchises, and they succeeded on both fronts. Nintendo even made motion controls optional in its Switch re-release of Skyward Sword, a game designed from the ground up for them.

So it's fitting that NieR: Automata on Switch flies in the face of convention yet again by jamming motion controls into the game just for the heck of it.

At least, it might be just for the heck of it. After testing them out and seeing that they work fine (if you don't care about a touch of input lag), I went back to button presses right away, but I wouldn't at all be surprised if there is a new Switch-exclusive "waggle only" ending hiding away in there somewhere. Given Yoko Taro's interest in making an adult video someday, we can guess how that might turn out.

All in all, there aren't a lot of reasons to double-dip on NieR: Automata for Nintendo Switch, but the motion controls are a cute novelty, and having the option to get some of those extra endings while you're on the go (or in the bathroom) in handheld mode is always a good thing.

As a slightly obsessive Platinum fan, it will be fun for me to see Automata's icon lined up alongside the full Bayonetta trilogy on my Switch dashboard by the end of October.

The post NieR: Automata on Switch ought to have come earlier but it’s nearly perfect appeared first on Destructoid.

Blowing minds and blowing chunks

Suda51's new YouTube series gives you something you can't get from everybody, because not every game developer loves the public eye. Despite being as famous (and infamous) as most folks in the industry will ever get, you're not likely to see a new on-camera interview with Minecraft's Notch or FEZ's Phil Fish anytime soon. Putting your personal struggles on display isn't for everyone.

Suda51 has no such misgivings about showing the human side of the creative process. In fact, the very first game company he worked for was called HUMAN, and as he explains in this inaugural chapter of a tell-all interview series, it was Suda's soft and heartfelt love of games and pro wrestling that landed him the job. That combination of excitement and fear was key to his subsequent success. As he tells it, those feelings also led to a fair amount of vomit in his mouth.

https://youtu.be/FW0bOm_fYDw

This same mix of thrills, chills, and stomach-turning spills are part of most of his games, from early titles like soon to be rereleased action-and-horror titles like Lollipop Chainsaw, Fatal Frame: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse, and No More Heroes 3. What you make comes from who you are, even if that means tasting a little of your own puke now and again.

This new "Creator's File" interview series also marks a rebrand for Grasshopper and Suda51's new YouTube channel. It will feature other members of the company as well, as they talk about their history and experiences in the industry. It's a perfect holdover for fans of the studio as they wait for the announcement of new Grasshopper projects. I've gotten a little of the inside scoop on one of their unannounced titles and it's definitely going to be a big hit with fans of Suda's scriptwriting style.

Keep an eye peeled in the video and you may actually see a hint of what they're working on.

The post Suda51’s details his eye-opening career in this new YouTube series appeared first on Destructoid.

'Forced Poking' some fun at video game marketing

I have nothing but respect and empathy for the poor souls who were tasked with creating the now infamous Forspoken "Talking to a cuff!" trailer.

The whole thing stinks of producer tampering. I imagine the original script might have had lead character Frey say "And oh yeah, I'm talking TO MY SLEEVE!", which would work fine in a cutesy, family Sci-Fi wort of way. But then the "Business Strategy and Branding Lead" came in and said "Oh no you can't say 'my' because those magic talking sleeves are going to be sold as NFTs to players across the world in 2024. We want everyone to feel like they can own one, not just Frey. And you can't call them 'sleeves' either because we're going to call the NFTs 'Tough Cuffs'. The SEO on that shit is pure dynamite."

And that's how Forspoken "Talking to a cuff!" trailer was (probably) born.

It was with that nightmare in mind that I've started posting new re-recordings of that god forsaken Forspoken dialogue every day until the game is released on January 24, 2023. That's 165 days, folks! 11 days in and I haven't missed an upload yet, though doing most of the acting on the videos on my own may make my brain melt soon enough.

You can find a thread of them in progress on Twitter, and for your convivence, my collaborators and I have compiled the best of them (so far) in the video below. They aren't all keepers, but I'm semi-proud of my Solid Snake and Louie Armstrong impersonations. Just listing to them is sure to make your throat sore with empathetic laryngitis.

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ujaVynx7xw[/embed]

The post The Forspoken “Talking to a cuff!” trailer, Solid Snake edition appeared first on Destructoid.

It doesn't suck, but...

Naming characters is a notoriously difficult part of writing fiction, but for my six-year-old son, it's apparently pretty easy, at least when it comes to Pokémon. We looked through a catalog of Pokémon Vivid Voltage cards a few days ago, and much to my surprise, he spontaneously renamed 150+ Pokémon. He actually didn't have much of a choice, because he's a little too young to read on his own. I suppose he could have forced me to read through the book for him, but that would have been pretty boring for both of us. Instead, he did it his own way, and I know I'm biased, but I think the results are pretty adorable, even when (or especially when?) they veer into bizarre potty humor territory.

https://youtu.be/MC_Ce6dbh3c

Picasso once said that it took him a lifetime to learn to paint like a child.

Freeing your brain of self-criticism and the need to do things the "correct" way ain't easy, but it's the only way you're ever going to come up with new Pokémon names like Cocoon Butler and Jiggly Horror. Let's hope my kid stays young and wild long enough to get a few more of these videos out before the cold hand of teenage self-consciousness squeezes the innocence out of his heart like a sponge.

The post My six-year-old renamed 150+ Pokémon and the results are adorable appeared first on Destructoid.

New free playable characters, stages, and relics

Shovel Knight Pocket Dungeon refuses to die. The humble puzzle Shovel Knight spin-off is already packed with playable characters and other ways to change up the experience, but the unrelenting teams at Vine and Yacht Club Games won't be satisfied until everyone on Earth understands that this game is a blast, and the only way to do that is to coax the global population into trying it. And what better way to do that than with free DLC?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujvmJ5fA6l8

Starting today on Steam (and coming soon to consoles), the Shovel Knight Pocket Dungeon Puzzler's Pack DLC is open for business, offering up new playable characters like Mona the alchemist and Puzzle Knight the nogoodnik.

Mona can chain potion explosions for massive combos, and the Puzzle Knight can turn enemies around clockwise to change their overall effect on the battlefield. These unique strategy options are compounded by two new relics, two areas to explore, and new challenges. And this Shovel Knight Pocket Dungeon DLC is just the start. Mod support — and the option to refract and enhance your character's abilities — are all coming soon.

The team at Yacht Club truly wants Pocket Dungeon to be a game of the people. That's why they are opening their discord channel to all comers to discuss what they do and don't want in the game. The plan is to keep updating this Puzzle Pack for as long as possible. Remember folks, the original Shovel Knight received massive free updates over the course of five years, so who knows how far they'll go. If you want to learn more about them and why they are so unrelentingly giving, check out the 8,000-plus-word interview I did with them in Lock-On 004. As Hot Rod once said, "It's a whopper alright!"

The post Shovel Knight Pocket Dungeon explodes with new free DLC appeared first on Destructoid.

Wholesome Alien Antics Invade The Avian Skatepark

This year's Wholesome Direct just wrapped up, and like always, it made good on its promise of filling our hearts and minds with edgeless, universally appealing fun. Most of the games at the show might look niche to those whose definition of "an average and normal videogame" is a AAA shooter, but for the majority of people in the world (most of whom have never played The Last of Us or Halo in their lives), stuff like skateboarding birds wearing funny hats is a lot more inviting.

That's probably why, despite middling initial reviews and a lack of big publisher support, SkateBIRD is "on the cusp of making a million bucks" in profit. It's fun too! A few patches after launch, the game plays better than ever, and if you still find any of the controls to be frustrating, most of them can be adjusted in accessibility settings. Those options, plus the universal appeal of becoming a double-jumping swallow who can freestyle (and fumble) across a series of duct-taped skate parks, have done a lot to help the game make numbers.

Some of those dollars have been spent on making the game even better. Announced at the Wholesome Direct, the game will be getting an update today that adds a new playground-themed park, a playable crewmate from Among Us, and new Pride-themed outfits, though SkateBIRD creator Megan Fox tells us she "...just wanted gay clothes anyways and I'd added them a while ago, and then it accidentally lined up..." with both the month-long LGBTQ+ celebration and its coinciding Wholesome Direct.

This content is headed to SkateBIRD on consoles as well, so if you want to whip out your Switch and kickflip with an owl while wearing rainbow-tinted sunglasses, you won't have to wait long.

The post SkateBIRD gets a new park, new birds, Among Us content, and gay clothes appeared first on Destructoid.

_{[Art by OThatsRaspberry]}

From mortuaries to millions

Before creating No More Heroes, Shadows of the Damned, Killer7, and countless others, Goichi "SUDA51" Suda worked in a mortuary. Then, almost overnight, he became a game director. His primary qualification? Confidence. An outsider to the industry, he made waves from the very start, using the otherwise by-the-book Fire Pro Wrestling franchise to tell a story of nihilism and self-destruction.

Twenty-nine years later and he's still doing things his own way. The biggest difference now is, he's got experience on his side. And the money probably doesn't hurt either. Last year, Grasshopper Manufacture (Suda's studio) was acquired by NetEase, a game publisher with an estimated value of 63 billion dollars.

As a massive fan of Suda's work, I was afraid that this change in business partners may lead him to make more conventional games. From the sounds of this interview with Japanese site DenFaminicoGamer, (posted here in English for the first time via a translation from Grasshopper themselves), we won't have to worry about that.

This detailed account of his career — packed with exclusive reveals about his past, present, and future — points to this new "NetEase era" being the most exciting, unhinged chapter in his story yet.

DenFaminicoGamer: The reason for this interview is that Grasshopper Manufacture has become part of NetEase Games, and have started recruiting staff, but what was the original intention behind the founding of Grasshopper?

SUDA51: During my time at Human Entertainment, I thought of myself as a director. I took over the Fire Pro Wrestling series, handling two games. Next, I was put in charge of the Twilight Syndrome team, which was on the brink of collapse, and reorganized it. Which is to say, somehow or another, I would complete whatever work that the company gave me without fail.

However, after Twilight Syndrome was finished, I did things akin to in-game destruction with Moonlight Syndrome (laughs). Human was a company with a lot of freedom, so at the time, I was able to take on a variety of challenges in that manner.

The reason I left Human was that I wasn’t able to make my own IP or representative work. I had the constant dilemma of not being able to create an original title. On top of that, I understood that as long as I stayed with Human, that kind of chance would not come easily, so I had to leave. Around that time, the company itself was in decline. There were things like pay delays, and just bad vibes in the air.

However, after leaving Human, I visited ASCII Corporation, who had previously reached out to me, and I intended to enter their company as a regular employee. Then I was told by the people at ASCII, “Now is the time that you could start a company.” And that’s the story of how I started Grasshopper.

DFG: Was the desire to create your own original IPs and have your own company something that you had been contemplating for a long time?

SUDA51:Everything was a bit all over the place at Human, so I really loved the company itself. The president was eccentric, and he even hated games.

Human also ran the Human Creative School, which was the world’s first video game school. Every year graduates would enter the company, so our development staff was mostly comprised of people in their twenties. I was 24 when I started at Human, so there was a huge number of staff that were younger than me, like around 22 or so. It was a maelstrom of hot-blooded youth that was almost like a zoo (laughs).

I think the great part about that company was the ability to create something from nothing. They were also the originators of pro wrestling games. Ryoji Amano, creator of the soccer games, and Masato Masuda, who was my mentor, were two people who could establish the creative process and create something from nothing. The company was filled with an atmosphere that made it feel like we could rapidly develop new games, and I think we were the top sports game developer at the time. So, I always thought that I wanted to further invigorate the company from within.

However, the president was caught for tax evasion, and when I woke in the morning, I experienced what it was like to have cameras from the TV station all over the place (laughs). After going through something like that, I thought, “I probably need to get out of here”, and it felt like I had shifted gears.

DFG: In regard to the specialist school that you mentioned, how did the recently graduated students create games?

SUDA51: I didn’t come from the Human Creative School, but the incredible thing about it was that the students made games that were actually released. Some examples are Septentrion [English title: SOS], Dragon’s Earth, and The Firemen (All Super Nintendo games).

So, in that manner, the people who join us from the school had created a game as a team in their school days. It felt like they were already semi-professional when they joined Human, so they seemed less like students and more like cocky kids, thick with self-confidence. Like “Hey, we’ve already made a game, you know.”

You had the old timers and the new grads, and there was a lot of conflict. I was just dropped in as a mid-career guy. Those days were pretty incredible.

DFG: You called them old timers, but they were also in their twenties, right?

SUDA51: Yes, they were about the same age. The old timers were in their late twenties, while the new grads were in their early twenties. Even though they were all in their twenties, there was a clash of youth.

As I was saying before, the new grads were at the level where they could quickly become leaders. Upon joining, they became the aces of the team. So new projects were quickly completed, one after another. I think it’s quite difficult these days to create a team of young staff, but at that time, it was common for teams of graduates to quickly come together.

The teams were formed, and games were made rapidly. A game that took one year to develop was on the long side, and we were often told to develop things within three months. Waku Waku Ski Wonder Spur [Super Nintendo] was developed in only three months, and was full of bugs (laughs). I felt bad for the staff in charge.

There was also a game called Yakyuu Ou [‘Baseball King’; Planned for release on the Super Nintendo, but was cancelled]. It was a legendary game where the batter would run straight toward third base after hitting the ball (laughs). At the time, Human would hold stand-alone events, and they held one at Sunshine in Ikebukuro where they played Yakyuu Ou on a huge screen. When the pitcher threw the ball and the batter got a strike, the umpire yelled, “Ball!” and there was a commotion in the crowd (laughs). They had made quite a mischievous game.

DFG: From your point of view, do you feel like those kinds of mischievous games aren’t around these days?

SUDA51: There certainly aren’t any like that.

DFG: What do you think the reason for that is?

SUDA51: These days, we don’t play the numbers game anymore, or rather we can’t. Up until the Super Nintendo era, it was a period where if you just released a game, it would sell. The sales staff were very skilled, and it was as if, no matter the game, they would sell 200,000 copies to stores just to begin with. The sales staff would travel all over the country to entertain, and wine and dine with their clients. It was a rather vulgar time in those days, where regardless of a game’s quality, as long as you had something, it could be sold. I think that was a major part of things.

In regard to judging a game’s quality, there really wasn’t anything other than Famitsu’s cross review. However, it was a time where even if the score was low, the game would sell anyway. So, as long as you had enthusiasm, you could make anything and everything. In a way, I think it was a time where even if you made a dud, you still gathered experience. These days, your career could be finished after even just one failure.

Fire Pro Wrestling was also a proclamation of my creative ability

DFG: I believe that there was a period where you started to show your individuality as a director, was that intentional?

SUDA51: Yes, it was intentional. I brought my individuality to the forefront with Super Fire Pro Wrestling Special.

I felt like with the game I made before that, Super Fire Pro Wrestling 3 Final Bout, I was trying to precisely follow in the steps of the previous game, Super Fire Pro Wrestling 2. It was around then that there was a major incident within Human, with the section manager at the time, Shuji Yoshida, quitting the company. I received strong backing with Yoshida-san’s parting words, “I’m quitting, but you’re free to make the next Fire Pro as you see fit, Suda-kun.” My mentor, Masuda, also said to me, “You can do it however you want to, Suda-kun.”

I thought that if I could do whatever I liked, then I would throw in all the things I wanted to do. I think adding a kind of story mode to Fire Pro Special was the catalyst for me to start expressing my creativity. I think that was both a beginning, and in another way, a proclamation.

DFG: I see, so that’s where it began. By the way, how was it that you came to be a director?

SUDA51: To tell you the truth, I actually once failed the interview section of Human’s entrance test (laughs). However, by chance, that was right around the same time that Daisuke Asako, my predecessor in the Fire Pro team, handed in his letter of resignation. There weren’t any people left in the planning department who had deep knowledge of pro wrestling.

That’s when someone who remembered me called me in for another interview, and I was hired by the company. My predecessor, Asako-san, was only at the company for three more days, during which he handed things over to me before leaving the company. From that moment on, I was already a director.

DFG: Wha…?! You were a director as soon as you started? What kind of experience did you have prior to that?

SUDA51: I had done a variety of different jobs. As for what got me involved in the game industry, it was during my time as a graphic designer when I made company brochures and advertisements for Sega as a contractor. Since I was to make advertisements for Virtua Racing, Yu Suzuki invited me to the AM2 offices. That was my first time seeing a game development environment, and I was shocked.

Up until that moment, I had thought that games were made by professors. I always thought the games were made by computer experts who wore white lab coats, but they were actually just ordinary young men and women. Not to mention, they had stacks of things like Nirvana CDs on their desks.

I thought, “Huh, they’re just normal people.” It gave me the naïve idea that even I could do it too (laughs). It was then that the game industry, which seemed so very far away, suddenly felt like it entered my field of view. Or maybe you could say it suddenly felt more realistic. I thought to myself, “Making games as a job. What could be better than that?”

DFG: So, you had never studied programming or anything like that before then?

SUDA51: Not at all. I had no skills at all. If I had to pick out one thing as a skill, it would have been that my pro wrestling knowledge was without peer. That was what I really focused on.

DFG: Before that, was there anything that made you interested in games?

SUDA51: My interest in games comes from always hanging out at game centers when I was a kid.

DFG: So, since the arcade days?

SUDA51: It was the height of the arcade era. After the release of Space Invaders, game centers popped up all throughout the city. There was a place just beyond the highway where one play was 20 yen. I would hang around there during my days off when I was a student.

DFG: You said that you worked as a graphic designer. Did you always have the desire to do some kind of creative work?

SUDA51: Hmm, not a clear desire or anything like that. I worked every day in order to keep living in Tokyo, and I also got married quite early, so it felt like the next thing was to look for a job with better pay. With that in mind, working in the game industry wasn’t among the types of jobs that I was looking at.

However, I received encouragement from my wife. After working as a graphic designer, I worked as a temporary employee at a funeral parlor. Undertakers make really good money. People my age were going independent and starting their own companies, and the managers would all drive to work in foreign cars. Being able to drive dream cars like a Renault 5 Turbo was pretty cool. I gradually rose in rank while I worked as an undertaker, and a number of companies even asked me if I would become a full-time employee.

I also thought that I could make a good living in the industry, so I accepted my fate and told my wife that I intended to become a full-time employee. My wife said to me, “Is this why you came to Tokyo? There’s something else that you want to do, isn’t there?”

“Is there…? I guess I want to work on games or something like that.”

“Then you should go for it.”

Then I just happened to see job advertisements for both Human and Atlus in a magazine that I bought. Only those two companies were willing to accept applicants with no experience. I sent in my application, but I only managed to catch on with Human.

DFG: Why did you come to Tokyo?

SUDA51: I simply wanted to go to Tokyo and get away from the countryside. That was really the only reason.

DFG: Did you continue to play games even while you worked as a graphic designer and undertaker?

SUDA51: Yes, but games were really expensive in those days. One game would cost 7,000 to 8,000 yen. But once the price gradually dropped to around 3,000 yen, it became a choice to either buy a game or one CD. However, I would buy Weekly Famitsu almost every week.

DFG: Why was that?

SUDA51: Because I loved games, of course. If possible, I wanted to play some good games. I also used it to try to convince my wife. I wanted to play the games that got a good score in the cross review (laughs).

By doing work that went beyond my own scope, I was accepted as director by the staff

DFG: When you interviewed at Human, you didn’t have anything specific in mind like director or graphic artist, right?

SUDA51: Yes, that’s right. If they hired me, I was prepared to do anything that they asked me to.

DFG: And then you were suddenly made director as soon as you joined the company. Did it feel like fate?

SUDA51: It felt like a gift from the pro wrestling gods. Things were handed over to me in only three days. I also had one of the planning staff assigned to watch over me. In the beginning, it felt like he was the director by proxy, but midway through, everything was entrusted to me. It was like, “Suda-san, you can already do this on your own.” From that point on, I handled things by myself.

DFG: Looking back at it now, did you ever think “Why was I put in charge of all this?”

SUDA51: Since I was put in charge, I was aware that I had to persevere and get through it. There were about twenty staff members in the planning department, but only around half of those worked on the actual development. The remaining half were like jobless wanderers, every day they would do things like write proposals and submit things to the section manager.

I wanted to protect my own position, or you could say that I wanted to survive in this industry. After a few days, I had a hunch that this was the right path for my life. I also thought that I would be able to utilise the know-how from the other work that I had done up until that point.

The manager handed me a cardboard box containing materials for the previous game, Super Fire Pro Wrestling 2, and said, “You have one week to look over these and put together a specification document.” I read through all the materials in one day, and I submitted the specification document in three days. At any rate, I completed the task faster than I was told to. I’m not the Red Comet [Char Aznable from Mobile Suit Gundam], but I knew that I could do the work three times faster than other people. I wanted to succeed and continue to survive within the planning department.

DFG: So, is the work of a director to look over those kinds of materials, and then start by following the example of others?

SUDA51: Yes, that’s right. However, I think that I was more skilled than the other staff at things like inputting data and designing layouts. I also felt that I could compete well by using the difference in my past work experience. And then just speed, I guess. I thought that I would be in trouble unless I could thoroughly show that I was able to work faster and complete more work than others.

DFG: I believe that the role of a director is the kind of thing that can’t be taught, even if you try to teach it. Therefore, they’re incredibly valuable. When you look at those working as directors these days, many have been directors from the beginning, or some incident caused them to be thrust into the role, and upon which, they managed to succeed. In that sense, how do you think your sensibility as a director took root?

SUDA51: The first thing that I was conscious of, was just trying to survive at the company. Rather than the idea of “I want to be a director,” it was more “I want to make games at Human,” and “I want to become the best in the planning department.” It may have been that I had a clear sense of wanting to achieve the goals in front of me, one by one.

DFG: Were there any things that you did to differentiate yourself from other people?

SUDA51: Hmm, rather than doing anything special, I feel like it was just about gaining recognition by completing things step by step.

DFG: In your current position, I’m sure that there are times you assign others to the role of director. At such a time, is there a certain something that a person has that prompts you to put them into that role? Or are there times where you think someone is lacking in something and that they would struggle as a director? How do you feel regarding those aspects?

SUDA51: I think that those who go beyond the tasks that are assigned to them are suited to being directors. Like wanting to do more than you’ve been given, or getting more involved on your own, and doing all the unreasonable things that are asked of you.

For example, I’ll do something like ask the staff who have never written a scenario before, to try writing one. Some of them will happily complete such a task, and those are the kinds of people that I think could be suited to directing. Also, take people who are skilled at drawing. There are those who will just draw things on their own when the designers aren’t making progress. I think they too are the kind of people suited to directing.

To put it another way, it’s the attitude of doing work for the sake of the project, even if it goes beyond the scope of your own abilities. It’s likely that the people around you will see that too. So, you could also say that you’re earning their recognition. I think it’s difficult to be accepted just by saying that you’re the director, but there’s merit to having the staff around you think, “If it’s for this person, I want to give it another go.”

At first, there were a lot of programmers and such that wouldn’t speak with me at all. Which is exactly why I would stay with them as we worked through the night, and when they took a nap, I would go and buy McDonald’s for them in the morning. After they woke up, we would engage in small talk as we ate together. I feel like it was a build-up of things like that. Then they eventually acknowledged this strange guy who came out of nowhere as a director. That’s how, one by one, I got them to accept me. It was truly like a grassroots effort.

DFG: I see. So, in other words, you would do whatever it took to fulfill your role as director?

SUDA51: Yes, that’s right. Even handling chores and odd jobs without complaint.

Being able to work with Shinji Mikami on Killer7 became an asset to Grasshopper

DFG: In your own mind, when was it that you felt that your games began to receive a strong response? Looking from the outside, I feel like it was with Killer7 that you received worldwide recognition.

SUDA51: Killer7 was definitely the turning point. I think that being able to work with Capcom, and thoroughly create something with Shinji Mikami was a considerable asset to today’s Grasshopper. The reception from around the world was greater than what we were expecting, and when we completed it, there was a sense that we had made a game that no one had ever seen before. I thought that we had made a game that really fit the word ‘new’, and that it was something that would become synonymous with me.

The response was much greater than I expected. While traveling overseas for the promotion of No More Heroes, I heard the praise for Killer7 directly for the first time, and I was a little surprised by it. Also, it was from a different media outlet, but a certain editor-in-chief once said to me, “I was thinking of quitting and giving up on this industry, but when I came across Killer7, I thought that there may still be a future for video games. I’ve decided to keep at it.” That person may have forgotten all about it (laughs), but I was elated to hear those words. I wondered if I had really made a game with such power.

DFG: I think that Killer7 was a completely different kind of game to what was popular at the time. Why was it that you wanted to make that kind of game? Did you try to go against the trends, or was it just something that happened naturally?

SUDA51: When thinking about Grasshopper Manufacture in the long term, I kind of had a vision of how I wanted to proceed. Since we didn’t have a large number of staff, I wanted to start with an adventure game, then a 3D adventure game, then action-adventure… That was the progression that I was thinking about how to achieve.

Killer7 was right at the time when we wanted to do an action-adventure game. Since we were doing an action-adventure, and teaming up with Shinji Mikami, the creator of Resident Evil, I also felt like I had to invent something new. I decided on my own to carry the heavy burden of such a responsibility. So, with the mindset of wanting to newly conceive all aspects of the design, Kiiller7 was what I created.

So that’s why, from the story to the art to the controls, I wanted all of the design choices to be things that had never been seen before. I felt like I was building up the things that I invented, one by one. More so than aiming for a specific thing, I was conscious of Mikami-san while making the game. The whole time I thought to myself, “I absolutely have to make something that Mikami-san won’t be ashamed of.”

DFG: What was it that led to you working with Mikami-san at that time?

SUDA51: He suddenly called me out of the blue. Kono-kun [Hifumi Kono, creator of Clock Tower, Neko-zamurai (PS1), Mikagura Shojo Tanteidan (PS1), and Steel Battalion], a co-worker from my Human days, had introduced me to Mikami-san. So, I went to see Mikami-san, and he said, “Suda-san, do you want to make a game together?” My reply was, “Yes, of course.”

DFG: So, it was a request from Mikami-san?

SUDA51: Yes, that’s right. Mikami-san had a high opinion of Human itself. He said, “That company released some outrageous games, but I wonder what kind of people were in the planning department.” It seems that he had been paying attention to us for a long time, and that was also part of the reason he called me.

DFG: Were there things that you learned by working together with Mikami-san and Capcom?

SUDA51: Yes. For example, when we had completed the prototype version, I brought it over to Mikami-san so that he could play the first stage. I was startled when he said to me, “Suda-san, can you increase the speed of the running motion to three times this? Next time I want to see it at triple the speed.” The sensation that I got from playing was the feeling of an adventure game. By tripling the speed, the game became incredibly fast, as you would expect. However, by making that change, suddenly it felt like the rhythm of an action game. “Oh, this is it!” I thought. The feeling or sense of speed was different when creating the game.

I think that Mikami-san’s skill is a result of possessing the ‘sense of action games’ that he must have somehow inherited through his genes. Really detailed things such as the way the first step is taken after input, the feeling of speed while running, and noticing the one frame delay in the moment you aim. Maybe you could call it the play feel. He pays detailed attention to the subtleties of the reaction that occurs at the time of the button input. I truly learned a lot from that, and realised how different action games were.

DFG: So, it was more about looking at those hands-on aspects in elaborate detail, rather than things like planning?

SUDA51: That’s right. I received a lot of advice.

I also had asked a number of people to help out with the writing, but I was found out by Mikami-san straight away (laughs). “This isn’t your writing is it, Suda-san? That’s no good. You have to write it all yourself.” Then I said, “But it’s fine if I don’t write this part, right?” to which his response was, “No. You have to write everything.” That’s how much faith Mikami-san had in my scenario writing ability. It was such high praise that I got a little carried away.

So, I thought to myself, “If the things I write have that kind of power, then it would be wrong of me to not pour all of my energy into my writing.” You could say that Mikami-san was truly able to get everything out of me. I think that’s how much he wanted to draw out the full potential of Grasshopper. In that sense, I think that he’s also an amazing producer.

DFG: The development period for Killer7 was quite long, but would you say that you continued to rally together with Mikami-san?

SUDA51: That’s right. The development period was extended, sometimes little by little, and sometimes in a big chunk. Mikami-san was the one who shouldered all of that, too.

I personally see Mikami-san as my second mentor, and I even received official approval. He once said, “I guess it’s okay if you’re my apprentice, Suda-san” (laughs).

The invigorating feeling of an action game is born from devotedly making adjustments over and over

DFG: You previously mentioned the long-term outlook of Grasshopper, but had you already decided in the beginning that you eventually wanted to be making action games?

SUDA51: Yes. I love action games, so it’s natural to want to make the kind of games I like, right? RPGs don’t really suit me.

DFG: It’s difficult to put the essence of action games into words, but I think there’s a certain value in that. What are your thoughts about it?

SUDA51: The development of an action game has the feeling of making repeated adjustments as you search for the sweet spot.

In Mikami-san’s words, “In action games, there are moments when you are rewarded by the gaming gods.” In fact, I’ve also had a number of those moments. There are times I’d be sitting at a programmer’s desk feeling something was strange as I played. We’d continue to tune it, until all of a sudden, everything just clicks in an instant. For example, just by increasing the hit stop by 10 frames, or expanding the hit detection range by up to 1.5 times and extending the effect, suddenly there’s just a moment of “That’s it!” It’s a feeling of building it up like that.

By adhering to, and repeating the process of adjustment and implementation, you gradually get closer to your mark. I think that’s where the invigorating feeling of action games is born. There’s no way that you could make anything interesting by only inserting things just as they are in the planning and specification documents. Things are pretty boring when you are at the stage where you have just put things together for the first time. I think that how much more interesting you can make it from there, is truly the result of steady tuning. So, you can’t really put it into words.

DFG: Did you also check all of those hands-on elements for your latest game, No More Heroes 3, yourself?

SUDA51: Yes, that’s correct. This time, I paid particular attention to the timing of moments of silence, and to how music plays in the moment you defeat an enemy.

DFG: I think that the combat in No More Heroes 3 has improved remarkably, and I wondered if that was influenced by your return to the forefront as director.

SUDA51: Yamazaki (Ren Yamazaki) and I were both directors, and there were parts that we developed as a pair. Programmer Hironaka (Tooru Hironaka) created the framework for the first boss fight. I think Hironaka is probably the best at making boss fights in the industry, and it was our job to take what he had, and gradually tune it, making it feel even more enjoyable and interesting.

DFG: Did you work remotely, even up to the final touches for this game?

SUDA51: Yes, we worked completely remotely.

DFG: I’ve heard from many different developers that remote working is fine when you are developing the core elements, but that it’s very difficult to apply the finishing touches remotely. What are your thoughts on that?

SUDA51: We tinkered with things remotely as much as we could, right up until the very end of the schedule. As you would expect, I wanted to adjust things as soon as I got my hands on them.

DFG: Did you attempt to recreate the feeling of sitting right beside a programmer by keeping connected via Zoom the whole time?

SUDA51: Yes, we did that, and also, I would give instructions in the middle of the night, which would be implemented during the day, and then I would check them again. It was like returning to the development style of ten years ago. In particular, things like motion and programming are things that really need to be done side by side, so that’s why it was important for the staff to stay connected via Zoom. We would have our screens up together so that we could work in sync.

DFG: How much of that kind of hands-on tuning do you do when the game is still in the prototype stage?

SUDA51: For No More Heroes 3, we did it surprisingly early. The fight with Henry was the first one we completed, and since that was essentially a fight between two human characters, we could use it as an extension of the previous No More Heroes games. With that, we had created one of the main loops of combat, and knew quite early on that we wanted to continue in that direction.

From there, we continued to develop the other boss fights, but as the fights were against aliens this time, each fight ended up being completely different. We had to adjust each fight individually, and that took a lot of time. We barely finished prior to the game going gold.

DFG: So, the general framework of the game was already completed in the prototype version?

SUDA51: This time, yes. For No More Heroes 3 it was on the relatively early side, but for other titles, there are times when the game structure is still unfinished in the prototype stage.

DFG: Was it due to things that you have cultivated throughout the series that you were able to complete the framework so quickly?

SUDA51: I think so. However, I had mostly forgotten No More Heroes 1 and 2 (laughs).  You start to forget after so much time has passed, so you need to play them again. With 3, there was a mindset within the team that we wouldn’t lose to 1 and 2.

This time around, the team was almost completely new. You could probably say that it was the team from Travis Strikes Again. However, there were a number of staff that had been involved with the series since 1.

DFG: How many people were in the team?

SUDA51: For Travis Strikes Again, we had less than ten people. There were external staff that also contributed, and we somehow managed to finish it. This time around, for 3, we had 20 core members. Thanks to Bee Tribe also helping out with a large portion, we were able to finish the amount of content that was in the game.

Grasshopper-ism is the continual creation of original and inventive games

DFG: Does Grasshopper intend to continue focusing all effort on developing one game at a time, rather than being spread across two or three projects?

SUDA51: Yes, that’s what we’ve done up until now, and I think it’s also the basis for us moving forward.

In the past, there were periods where we were working on multiple projects, but at those times I thought that there weren’t enough directors, which is something you touched on before. Even if you establish multiple development lines, the responsibility falls on us as the developers. That kind of burden would loom large if we were unable to deliver in the end.

Based on the experiences from those times, and since I am the face of Grasshopper, I wanted to first focus on making my own games. Recently, even overseas, they have started calling them ‘Suda games’, though I have mixed feelings on that (laughs). But I think it’s clear that the most important thing is to first strengthen the team that creates my own games. That then becomes a foundational pillar.

Of course, I would also like to make some indie games as a way to have the younger staff acquire more experience. I’d like to do both of those things together.

DFG: In that sense, do you see it as something different to simply increasing the scale of development beyond what is necessary?

SUDA51: Yes, that’s right. Right now, we are looking to increase the size of the team to 30 people. Within the next three years, we will first increase to 50, and then carefully add more people up to a maximum of probably around 80. At that kind of pace, and considering the training of staff and new graduates, it would probably be a little difficult to have a core team of over 80 people. If you go beyond that, you start to lose the ability to function as a team.

DFG: When looking at people who create things, I think there are those that have their own evaluation standards and those that don’t. So, what are the evaluation standards that you have? What kind of decisions led to the creation of games like Killer7 and No More Heroes?

SUDA51: On a serious note, since long ago, I have thought about what the word ‘kaihatsu’ [Japanese term for development] really means. I think that the ‘kai’ in kaihatsu comes from the word ‘kaitaku’ [to pioneer; break new ground], and that the ‘hatsu’ comes from the word ‘hatsumei’ [invention]. Therefore, the work that we do is to pioneer and to invent. That idea lies at the foundation of my game creation.

So, it’s the same when I evaluate things. The idea of invention is very important. It isn’t very easy to do nowadays, but I want to invent or create one thing every day. It doesn’t matter if it’s only something small. For example, if I think up a button combination that hasn’t been done in any other game, that’s one kind of invention. If I create a new image for a character, that’s one invention. I believe that if you do that every day, then it will lead to the completion of an overwhelmingly innovative game.

It’s good if that creativity can come from within yourself, but I also think that it doesn’t matter who it is that invents something new. No matter if it’s a veteran or someone new, if an idea is inventive and interesting, then we use it.

That’s very important to me. In particular, with ideas, people who are interesting have the best ones. So, it’s better to not worry about things like pride. If someone presents an idea, it doesn’t matter if they are from completely different departments like a programmer or a composer. If the idea is interesting, then you should use it. I suppose that would be my evaluation criteria. The fact that you are a veteran means that you should do away with useless crap like pride.

It is the job of a director to make the most of all of that, and put everything together. Direction is being able to catch the ball, no matter the kind of pitch. To be able to handle them all with ease, no matter what kind of monsters come your way. For example, even if you are working with someone outside of the games industry, you should properly work together with that person, and manage it appropriately. In the end it’s about the experience of somehow bringing it all together with your own power.

That’s why I want everyone to pitch their balls freely. I choose the best pitches among those, and eventually, I complete one game. I feel like I have always continued to repeat that process.

DFG: How do you judge whether those ideas are good or bad?

SUDA51: It’s whether I find them interesting or not.

There are staff within Grasshopper that have had long careers, including my co-director Yamazaki. So, opinions like “Let’s do this”, and “I think that’s good”, tend to fit together nicely. You could say that makes things easier.

Thanks to the studio having been around for so long and having so many veterans together, I think that everyone has a certain ‘Grasshopper-ism’ within them, which can’t be put into words.

DFG: How would you define ‘Grasshopper-ism’ or the Grasshopper style that you just mentioned?

SUDA51: I have no idea (laughs). What I kind of thought by listening to what the staff has said during other interviews, is that Grasshopper specializes in developing original games. It’s a company where it’s normal to create unique games. Looking at it the other way, I guess that means we’re not very good at creating licensed games or working on existing IP.

So, Grasshopper-ism is the continual creation of original games. I think Grasshopper is a group whose specialty is being able to constantly create unique things. That’s a little vague, but I think that’s who we are.

Also, we can relate through things like B movies or cult films, as those are my interests. That’s where Gundam comes into things. For example, if I make a reference to Gundam, but we have younger staff who haven’t seen it, then we watch it together. That’s the kind of culture we have. As another example, I love John Carpenter’s film They Live. So, if I make a reference to They Live, then we all watch the film together. That’s the kind of company we are (laughs).

So, I think that everybody gets to enjoy some of my interests, or at least they’re a group that doesn’t find doing that too painful.

DFG: In Japan, there are many game companies that do subcontracted work. They all say that they would like to create original games, but I think it’s become a situation where not many actually have that ability. To put it another way, are there not companies who, like Grasshopper, have the resolve needed to create something original? I think that more so than a technological issue, it has more to do with the mindset.

SUDA51: Rather than simply having resolve, I believe that it is impossible to create original games unless you change your routine. At Grasshopper, making original games has already become our routine.

DFG: What do you mean by ‘originals have become your routine’?

SUDA51: I guess it’s an atmosphere where you’re not afraid of what kind of pitch may be thrown your way. You wait, ready to catch it no matter what. The thought, “We’re making another strange game, huh?” becomes an everyday thing, and as those days are prolonged, I think that is where you get that feeling of original games.

I often hear that if you continue only creating licensed games and working on existing IPs, then you lose the ability to create original games. If in the moment that you suddenly have some freedom, you think, “No, we can’t do this unless they tell us to,” then that has already become routine. On the other hand, when people who normally work on original games are involved in a licensed game, they often think, “Why can’t I make it how I want to.” It almost feels as though that’s something that gets decided in the early stages of your career.

“From now on, we’re going to take a full swing at each and every ball, and aim for a home run.”

DFG: What do you think are the specific benefits that you gain by becoming a part of NetEase?

SUDA51: When you are running an independent studio, you can’t help but consider a title to be a single point. The publisher and fanbase differs for each individual game. Since you are creating things as a studio, you have the desire to connect these points into a line. From a long time ago, I’ve been told by various people that since we are a studio known by our name, Grasshopper Manufacture, it’s a waste to not connect that with the fanbase. However, that’s something that isn’t so easy to achieve.

When we were in discussions with NetEase, we were told, “We don’t want to talk about one or two games. To begin with, let’s look at around three titles in ten years. If possible, we would like to continue working together long after that.” I felt that they truly wanted us.

As I said before, I want to create a line with our works, so it was important that this relationship lasted a long time. We will create our own new IPs, develop our fanbase, and continue to expand. One of our goals is to eventually have the capability to create AAA titles.

As we aim for our ideal image of creating AAA titles with a core team of 80 people, NetEase is greatly supporting Grasshopper in our efforts to strengthen the studio.

DFG: I think that when you join a large company such as NetEase, there are often misconceptions like, “They got purchased,” or “They’ll get pressured from above,” but it’s actually a little different, isn’t it?

SUDA51: Yes, it’s different.

DFG: The relationship between developers and publishers is fundamentally one of order and supply, but in contrast, the relationship between Grasshopper and NetEase is actually closer to that of a venture company and an incubator, right?

SUDA51: Yes, it’s close to that.

DFG: I don’t think that this relationship was properly conveyed to the world. It would probably be better to more clearly explain how it is because of this relationship, that you can continue for the next ten years.

SUDA51: I agree. That’s an aspect that I want to carefully communicate.

The desire from NetEase was, “We are not investing in you just so you make games that will sell. We want you to be a fascinating studio, and we want you to create engrossing games.” As a creator, it makes you happy to hear that kind of thing.

They even said that they had no problem even if we strike out each time at bat. That means that I can swing as hard as I want (laughs). So, I intend to take a full swing. That’s a blessing for a creator.

I think that I will be able to create about ten more games before I die. So, for each of those ten at bats, I’m going to take full swings and aim for home runs. I don’t quite know what the definition of a home run would be in this instance, but that’s what NetEase is expecting of us.

DFG: Grasshopper has collaborated with a variety of different creators in the past. Do you think there will be any change now that you have joined NetEase?

SUDA51: Even for No More Heroes 3, we collaborated with people outside of the games industry. Nobuaki Kaneko participated with the music, and illustrator Masanori Ushiki created some incredible artwork for us. In the future, we intend to be even more active in pursuing collaborations with such artists. They will provide creative energy from a completely different place to that of our games, and give birth to something new. I’d like to keep these waves rolling.

DFG: I get the impression that you are always finding interesting things outside of games and then skillfully incorporating them. I think that it must be quite hard to blend such elements into games.

SUDA51: I actually find that a rather fun thing to do. If we only do things on our own, it starts to become familiar practice or a habit, right? However, if you work together with new people, you break from those habits and must once again take things on with a more serious attitude. In that way, I think it has the beneficial effect of creating a sense of tension.

Also, it’s incredibly fun to work with some of those fiendish people in other industries. There’s enjoyment in being able to handle them, and I have a sort of confidence which never wavers.

For me personally, The Silver Case was a game where I attempted dealing with that. I incorporated a variety of film techniques into a single game. Though, I guess you could say that work is much easier now when compared to those days, as filmmakers would flatly refuse requests related to video games. There were times when I couldn’t convince them to film anything.

Thankfully, these days they often already know me, so it’s become easier to work without even having to introduce myself. In other words, it would be a waste to not do more. There are many interesting people throughout the world, so I think that it would be a shame to not come together with these people as a family and create things.

DFG: You spoke about the confidence that you possess, but what is the reason for that confidence? When people are young, they have a kind of baseless confidence. However, as they age, that kind of confidence fades and is replaced by a confidence with a solid foundation. I don’t think that in itself is necessarily a good thing, but what do you think is a good balance between those two different forms of confidence?

SUDA51: I think confidence that has a basis is born from experience. It’s a result of all of the different things you go through, including development or management experience.

The baseless part of confidence is kind of like you can no longer throw a 160km/h fastball, but you can still throw a sinker, and you’re more deceptive (laughs). I can’t really handle the large amount of work anymore. I have less time to write scenarios. Even with No More Heroes 3, I was able to write it because I knew I had to do it in a short time. In the old days, there were times when I wouldn’t be able to write anything, even if I worked through the night. However, with my current lifestyle, I have to write within the limited time that I have. I suppose that I’m adapting to it, or maybe my abilities are becoming more specialized.

DFG: What kind of things do you take in and learn these days?

SUDA51: I don’t think that I really take much in. It’s been a long time since I’ve really dug deep and explored for the sake of making something. If I decide to tackle certain genres in the future, then I think I’d have to delve in and do some research.

These days I don’t think that I really have to push myself too hard. Right now, I think it’s time to take all the things I absorbed while pushing myself in my youth, and think about how I can thoroughly put it all on display. Also, I think it’s natural for me to observe and discover things that I see or feel during everyday life, like the scenery or atmosphere of the era.

DFG: When creating something, I think that there are around 100 decisions that need to be made, and that it’s the director who makes those decisions. If around 90 of those 100 decisions are correct, the result is an amazing game. However, there’s a very low probability that you would make all of those choices correctly, so it’s important to have evaluation standards that are very precise. That’s why directors are so vital.

SUDA51: Yes, it’s about judgement. It’s how you decide if something is the correct choice.

DFG: So, by making judgements based on your own standards, games like No More Heroes 3 are born. Today, I’ve once again realized that your games owe everything to the fact that you are the one making them. I’m greatly looking forward to the next game that you create.

SUDA51: Thank you. For that purpose, we are actively recruiting, though it’s nothing large scale. I think there are a lot of people in the industry burning with the desire to create new games. Though, there are probably many people who might think Grasshopper seems a little scary (laughs).

We’re opening an incredibly cool office in March 2022, and I think there will be a surge of applicants once they see it. So, I think you have a better chance of being hired if you apply now (laughs).

DFG: No More Heroes 3 was the first time in a while that you worked at the forefront in the role of director. What do you intend to do in the future?

SUDA51: I’d like to continue on our current course. I don’t think I need to act in an executive role anymore. Of course, if our younger staff were to create indie titles, then I would serve as producer.

From now on, I’d like to carefully create games, one at a time, so I’d like to encourage like minded people to apply. Now is truly the time.

The post Kill the past, present and future with Suda51 appeared first on Destructoid.

PAX East 2022 is already a catastrophe

I picked up my PAX East 2022 badge last night, and I found a strange note attached to it. The note, written in crayon, instructed me to go under the nearby footbridge for a meeting at 9PM. I know a lot of strange people in the industry, so this wasn't all that surprising. Also, I'm a 45-year-old video game blogger. The chances of me being seen as valuable enough to be kidnapped are (hopefully) pretty slim. So I packed up my valuables in my car, called my wife and son to tell them I love them, and headed under the bridge.

There was a little door down there, about four feet high, with the words "KEBAKO'S MIGHTY MIGHTY MIGHTY PAX BOOTH" drawn on with sparkly puff paint. There was no doorknob, but I managed to pry it open with my fingernails. That was risky, as the door was very rusty. I crawled in and the door drifted shut behind me.

It was pitch black, so I whipped out my phone and used it as a crappy flashlight. I also hit the record button on my audio notepad app. If I was going to die down there, I at least wanted some record of my ill-advised final moments.

But I didn't die. Instead, I took the recording of what happened and turned it into a video. The visuals are just for reenactment purposes, but everything you hear is 100% real.

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8dfBFKxEWM[/embed]

So what just happened to me?

My guess is that this was all to promote Limited Run Games' release of Cat Girl Without Salad: Amuse-Bouche. I have quite the history with the game, being one of the first people to report on it being a legitimate WayForward original, so I wasn't entirely surprised that I got some "special treatment" from the team behind it. But discovering that Kebako, the titular cat girl, is a real person? That was a shock to even me.

And the bonuses in the Cat Girl Without Salad Limited Run Collector's Edition are just as real. Real money. Real robot squids. Even real tattoos! For a game that many thought was just a joke, this is a seriously cool package.

The Collector's Edition and Regular Edition of Cat Girl Without Salad are both on sale at Limited Run until May 1, 2022, without salad or any plans for a future re-release, so grab this bowl of colorful brain candy by the tongs and dig in while you can.

The post Cat Girl Without Salad star claims to be real, tells you to buy her Limited Run game appeared first on Destructoid.

The Wide Wide World of Suda-Sports

Is this another April Fools' joke, or did that crazy sonofabitch actually go and do it?

Last time we interviewed Suda51, CEO of Grasshopper Manufacture, I asked him if he'd ever make a badminton game. Suda was a budding star in the sport back in his early years at school, and those days still mean a lot to him. He told us that if he were ever to do something with badminton, he'd want it to be a massive crossover between all his franchises, including No More Heroes (which his company partially owns) and Shadows of the Damned (which they fully own). Then we laughed, because what are the chances of anything like that ever actually happening?

Well it looks like the chances were pretty good!

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nTOThc0SLc[/embed]

Grasshopper Manufacture All-Stars: Killer Badminton is the debut title from Little Grasshopper, the new "all-ages" division of Grasshopper Manufacture. Like Multiversus, WB's upcoming crossover fighter, it looks like Killer Badminton will be free-to-play, but with an initially limited roster of characters.

It's just Travis and Garcia to start, which is a little disappointing, but it's nice to see the two finally take a few swings at each other, especially after their proposed franchise-meld in No More Heroes 3 was cut. Shoko from Liberation Maiden, Toriko from Flower, Sun and Rain, and Notorious from Fire Pro Wrestling World: The Vanishing also make cameos at the end of the trailer. They may be in the game too, but so far I haven't seen them.

But is it all a big joke? I don't think so, and not to toot my own horn, but my track record on these kinds of things is pretty spotless. To further add to the game's legitimacy, it looks like Tony Astro, composer of Gold Joe's theme from No More Heroes 3, did the soundtrack for Killer Badminton as well. You can get the full album on Youtube, SoundCloud and Bandcamp.

The post Killer Badminton is your new No More Heroes Shadows of the Damned crossover appeared first on Destructoid.

On forced vacations, palette limitations, and other ruminations

"The Shovel Knight guys." That's what people call Yacht Club Games. The fact that many members of the team there worked on Contra 4, Double Dragon Neon, and many other classic IPs is often glossed over. Between five years of massive updates to his original 2014 adventure, multiple cameos in other games, and all-new titles like Pocket Dungeon and the upcoming Shovel Knight Dig, Shovel Knight casts a big shadow.

But for now, the blue burrower is taking a break, giving the spotlight on a hollower named Mina. But what the heck is a hollower? And why is the company's next big marque title a pseudo-Game Boy Color game about a whip-cracking mouse?

We got into all that in an interview with Sean Velasco, co-founder of Yacht Club Games, and Alec Faulkner, director of Mina the Hollower (currently in its last hours on Kickstarter).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7P3LNdosok

Of course, they had a lot to say about Mina, but I also wanted to "dig" into what really defines Yacht Club Games. As it turns out, this is the kind of company that sees an intern's passion for the NES games in the original Animal Crossing and takes it as a sign to hire him full-time. Not only do they discourage crunch, even in the midst of a massive Kickstarter campaign, but they also allow their staff unlimited vacation days, and force them to take at least some time off every year. And they also aren't ashamed to let you know that they may not have quite as much cheese in the bank as many may think.

It makes sense then that their next big game is about a tiny rodent who spends much of her time out of sight, concocting geo-magic underground, never sure of exactly what will happen when she pops her head up next. Ever since Yacht Club's first game, I've had a theory that each of their titles is an unintentionally autobiographical metaphor about who they are and where they're at in their careers.

We get into that too, but this time, Sean actually returned the favor. In the email chain that led to this Mina the Hollower interview, he let me know that while the rest of us see this...

He sees this.

And I couldn't be more flattered.

The post Yacht Club Games’ Intern-Turned-Director takes charge on Mina the Hollower appeared first on Destructoid.

Long Live The Queen

The Queen TV-Game 2 starts with the distorted voice of a wistful woman. "I remember when we first met nine years ago. Love Hero was on TV." Then suddenly, her nostalgia turns to bitterness.

"It got fucking canceled."

Wait, did this random two-cent 3DS eShop exclusive just say fuck? The 3DS fucks now? And this is how I find out?

It takes a lot of guts to add fucks to an otherwise all-ages eShop title, cursing it with an M-rating and pushing away millions of potential buyers. On one hand, it takes integrity to stick to your guns like that. On the other, it's totally self-destructive. Genuine, hopeless anger lies at the heart of The Queen TV-Game 2. I guess when the world is about to end — or in this game's case, when the online storefront you call home is about to be shut down for good — nihilism comes naturally. Now, thanks to this 3DS eShop oddity, you can hear directly from your 3DS about how bad all that really feels.

The Queen TV-Game 2 is actually the second-to-last of a series of four games on Nintendo consoles from Butterfly, an indie dev from Savannah, Georgia.

The first was Daikon Set, a 100% free Wii U eShop game from 2017. That's another one you should grab before that shop closes down. Next was Love Hero, a $1.00 3DS eShop game from 2019. Then came The Queen TV-Game 2, released in 2020, nine years after the launch of the 3DS. By that time, everyone knew the system was on its way out, but despite the futility of it all, Butterfly still squeezed out Gal Galaxy Pain in late 2021. It's a $0.50 3DS eShop game about computer programming, Suda51, and misery.

When taken as a whole, the four games tell a story of a developer who's sweet and optimistic at the start, then joyless and zombie-like at the end. The Queen TV-Game 2 is the bittersweet penultimate chapter in this tragedy, the one where the main characters are already infected, but they take one final pained swing for the fences before they succumb. I can't think of a better send-off for an online storefront filled with amazing, unique exclusives that are about to become extinct.

Perseverance in the face of certain doom isn't just the theme of the game's narrative. It's also the key to playing it. There are three levels, each with its own secrets, and all can kill you in seconds. The first stage sends two bouncing squares at you. You have to dodge them until the time runs out, coping with hypnotic repetition of their bounces and the constant risk of sudden death. Stage two is basically Pong but for one player, but with two bouncing balls instead of one. The third and last level is a little shmup where you have to dodge those goddamn squares again, this time while blasting a giant rabbit to death.

There are no lives. If you take a hit, the screen says "FUCK" for exactly half a second, then you either try again or give up. In the two hours or so that it took me to beat the game, I probably died 100 times. Like so many one-screen arcade titles of yesteryear, it might look like you could beat it right away — but for a long time, you just won't. It's harder than it should be, and that's what makes it compelling. Every time I lost, I wanted to prove to the game, and to myself, that I wouldn't let it win. I knew my brain could do it. I just didn't know if it would be long enough for me to hear the queen's final message.

It takes a lot for a game to inspire that kind of curiosity, and The Queen TV-Game 2 certainly doesn't much have in the way of production values to help it get there. Every screen looks like programmer art. The music sounds like it was pilfered from a smooth jazz public domain library, and the mechanics are bone simple. But it all fits. Frankly, I might have felt guilty paying so little for the game if it looked and sounded more expensive. That would have felt like punching a kid while they were already down.

Instead, The Queen TV-Game 2 feels like it's meeting me exactly where I'm at. I gave the developers my two cents, and they gave me theirs in return. They are pissed off, and they want to piss me off too, using frustrating in-game deaths to share their feelings about the death of the eShop. But they also share the peace they've made, accepting that all things must end; the 3DS eShop, video games, and everything in-between.

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngUqglMKnJk&t=15s[/embed]

As the game progresses, the voice-over continues, and the fact that this really is the 3DS talking to you becomes unmistakable. "Things were easy when the TV was off," it says. "No one will ever fucking play me again. You've all switched over and moved on, but it's OK."

I may have switched over, but I'll always keep my 3DS close to my chest. I'm going to miss the 3DS eShop, and I'm so glad it had one big surprise for me before it blinks off for the last time.

The post Say goodbye to the 3DS eShop with this two-cent console exclusive appeared first on Destructoid.

Like NFTs, except good

Has the whole NFT thing burnt itself out yet? Am I helping to keep it alive by talking about them in that (hopefully) eye-catching non-sequitur of a sub-headline? Who the heck knows. One thing's for sure though, physical collectables are loads more stable and joyful than digital fart coin. It wasn't long ago that I bought some Pokemon cards for a stranger to the tune of over $100 clams. He was overjoyed! And he paid me back within seconds. I just can't imagine that ever happening with an NFT. They're more likely to get stolen through a dildo than inhabit anything wholesome.

The good folks at Lost in Cult are looking to spread the same kind of cheer, through both a competitive trading card game (called [versus]) and a physical book-sized magazine (called [lock-on]). The latest issue (now on Kickstarter) is Dreamcast-themed, featuring tons of original art and prose paying tribute to Sega's underdog console. There are also some great features on Breath of the Wild, Darksiders, and Doshin the Giant. It's a hattrick of apocalyptic cartoon hijinks.

[Art by $corpion Millionaire]

On the card game front, indies take the spotlight, with titles like The Binding of Isaac, Gris, and Genesis Noir taking the stage. This star-studded new lineup follows in the footsteps of the last set of [versus] cards, all of which were exclusive to Kickstarter backers of [lock-on] #2. We even got to announce a few of the cards here on Destructoid, including A Short Hike, Grindstone, and Retired Men's Nude Beach Volleyball League. Full disclosure: I volunteered to draw that last one myself. I still can't believe they actually printed it.

As for the cards, we're happy to get the exclusive scoop on three more of them. Disc Room, Minit, and Dustbiters, three games co-created by J.W. Nijman (formerly of Vlambeer), are all set to join the crossover. That last one is also a kickstarted card game, following the success of other videogame/card game crossovers like The Binding of Isaac: Four Souls and Exceed: Fighting Card System (featuring Shovel Knight). They both made a ton of dough.

I think, in time, [versus] may have the same success. Its' latest foray in crowdfunding is doing even better than the last, and its' ever-growing roster is sure to expand its' reach from there. They might even choose good old Mr. Destructoid for a guest spot someday. Despite his debaucherous past, he at least wears pants. You can't say the same for Isaac or that retired nude volleyball man, and they got in no problem.

The post Take a Minit to Disc-uss these dreamy new [lock-on] [versus] cards appeared first on Destructoid.

Bad year, great games

Hey kids! I hope you had a fun and frisky 2021. I guess it's possible that you did, but for most of us, it was pretty torturous. I know I shouldn't complain. No one close to me got super sick, I kept my job, and despite the constant stress and drain that came from maintaining in the midst of year two of a global pandemic, I still managed to get a bunch of cool projects done. I even have a sheep named after me in The Good Life.

But I also shouldn't pretend to be happy with 2021 when I'm not. This year was disillusioning, both in and out of the games industry. Many great titles were relatively ignored while mostly-worthless trends like NFTs seemed to be everywhere. Tons of people in power throughout the industry were revealed to have done terrible things. And to cap it all off, the CEO of Square Enix capped off the year by saying that he wants to move in a "games are not for fun" direction. The cream was sinking to the bottom while the turds rose to the top. It's enough to make you want to throw in the blood-soaked, stinking towel.

But there were many, many games that kept that towel soft and warm. Just playing games, as opposed to writing about them, talking about them, or thinking about them, did more to keep me going in 2021 than any other in my adult life. My total playtime with games was five times longer in 2021 than it was in 2020. Some of that was coping. Some of it was also keeping my kid engaged when he couldn't play with his friends. But most of all, it was a way to make a deep connection with the people who made the games through their work, in a year when connection was in short supply.

Here are some of the games of 2021 that did the best job of that.

My favorite surprise of 2021: Astalon: Tears of Earth

I'm a sucker for games that are made by small teams, and they don't get much smaller than LABS Works. Matt Kap, artist on Binding of Isaac: Rebirth and Castle in the Darkness, founded the studio in 2018, and their debut game is a stunner. In a world packed to the gills with indie games of all shapes and sizes, all vying for your attention, Astalon: Tears of Earth humbly plops itself on your lap and says "Hey, remember Xanadu, the Japan-only PC prequel to Faxanadu, which is a weird NES game that you probably don't remember?" Sadly, most people seem to have answered "No."

And they're missing out! But how can I explain that to you with just words? Well, if that Faxanadu reference was lost on you, then maybe you've heard of La-Mulana, the notoriously mean Metroidvania series? Astalon is like La-Mulana but fair, and with five distinctly different playable characters that have really fun powers. And it's got key art by the creator of the 90's anime series Dragon Half! It's great stuff! But sadly, it just didn't stand out for a lot of folks amid waves hands around furiously all of this 2021 shit.

I have been following Matt Kap for years, but I may not have known about Astalon if he didn't cold email me and ask me to play it. As I did, I felt like I was sitting over Matt's shoulder as he struggled through making the game, grinning big when a particular puzzle really came together and sighing just as big when he hit a major setback on his way to the finish line. For people who love the 8-bit era of sword and sorcery adventure games, Astalon is as authentic a love letter as they come. Anyone who loves the genre is sure to feel just as loved.

My favorite guilt-free game to play with my kid: S.U.M.

2021 was the first year that I ever had to teach a child (my son) how to do math. It's harder than you might think. In a year that was already filled with massive problems to solve, there weren't many days when, come 7 p.m., my brain was energized with great ideas on how to explain why a "10" is actually "ten ones" and not "a one next to a zero".  The hardest, and also most interesting, thing about trying to teach a kid something new is you can only rely on the knowledge they already have for context.

You're also restricted by their limited list of motivations. You can't squeeze blood from a stone, and you can't get a person whose brain naturally wanders towards blowing up monsters in Dusk (the boomer shooter) instead of tips and tricks on how to add up to solutions higher than 20. One night he announced "I want a game with monsters, where you don't see the character you play, and you kill the monsters. That's all I'm going to do." He was putting me to task.

After searching the Switch eShop store for a few minutes, I found a game that met his criteria. S.U.M. Slay Uncool Monsters met all his criteria, and it also taught the boy basic addition and subtraction (it also has the option to do multiplication and division, but we're not there yet). There were many times I wondered if I was making the right choices in 2021. Should I have let him even play a bit of Dusk, No More Heroes 3 (with the swears turned off), Axiom Verge 2, and Metroid Dread, or would they give him nightmares for life? Should I have instead been engaging in non-nightmarish, fatherly fun like tossing around the football and telling him about how good vegetables are for his skin? Or is that its own kind of nightmare?

I'll never know for sure, but I have no doubt that we shared some virtual adventures that we'll never forget, and that at least one of them made him way better than his friends at basic addition and subtraction.

My favorite "It's great but I wish it was even better" game of 2021: Metroid Dread

Metroid Dread is the franchise's Force Awakens. It sticks to the formula to a fault, calling back to all the surface-level things that fans praise in the series while shaving off all the rough edges that may not appeal to modern audiences. The problem for me is, those rough edges are exactly why the series has stuck with me all those years. My ideal Metroid moment-to-moment steps are: 1) Be thrust into an illogical, alien world 2) Get stuck 3) Experiment with new things (tools, techniques, and or strategies) 4) Discover what works 5) Master what you've discovered 6) Repeat.

There was definitely some of that in Metroid Dread, but the developers' urge to turn Samus into "The Badass Action Hero that you know from the Smash Bros. series"  instead of a "plodding, slow jumping astronaut with little mainstream appeal" led Dread to feel more like a 2D Bayonetta title than anything else. And that's not a bad thing! I really had fun with Dread. It just wasn't a full return to the things about the series I really love. I didn't get lost once! Everything was so clearly signposted. I also rarely felt afraid or intimidated. After getting killed by a boss or an E.M.M.I. a few times, their tells and patterns became clear, and they all became pretty easy to beat. And that's cool! It's nice to see Samus be fully empowered early on for a change.

It's also a relief to see her finally win her psychological battles. More so than any other game in the series, Dread shows Samus come to terms with her trauma. In the end, (Spoilers) she fully embraces the ways others have altered her, and the rage she feels about it, and masters it all. Self-acceptance is a beautiful thing, and it was very loving of Nintendo and Mercury Steam to want to give that gift, and many others, to their #1 Sci-Fi Action star. It's just that in order to also make the game a crowd-pleaser, they made Dread a sweet, super-powered breeze instead of the confounding storm of escape rooms that I grew up with.

My "I heard it wasn't great but it's actually amazing" game of 2021: SkateBIRD

When you love someone, their imperfections look beautiful. You can see why other people may not feel the same way about them, but you wouldn't change them for the world. That's how I feel about SkateBIRD. I get that, especially pre-patch, the game felt chunky and tough to grasp. But that's exactly how real skateboarding feels for me, a 45-year old man who has definitely ollied once, but it was a long time ago. Even then, it really may have been more of a half-olly that mostly failed. At this point, who's to say?

SkateBIRD embraces that kind of subjectivity. Come to think of it, there are a few ways that it feels more like classic Metroid than even Dread does. Instead of being a human with bird alien DNA trying to navigate through a bird alien hideout, you're a bird wearing people clothes trying to do people things. The world of humans is not built for you, but with the right mix of tenacity and curiosity, you can go places you never thought possible, pulling off moves once thought unthinkable.

And that soundtrack! Imagine the music from Jet Set Radio, but with samples of bird-obsessed scientists awing at a majestic Heron Gull one minute, and a confident young lad declaring that the president is a racist transphobe the next. It's truly an album for the ages.

My favorite "I heard it was bad but I wish it was even worse" game of 2021: GTA: The Trilogy - The Definitive Edition

I cannot legitimately enjoy the GTA series. I have tried and tried, but on the whole, they just feel bad. I don't think I would like the people that came up with them. It feels like they don't even like video games that much. Sure, they like what games can do, but instead of embracing the surreality, the creativity, and the heart of the medium, they just want to recreate Quentin Tarantino's '90s movies. They want to let you be a sociopath who... loves to explore? I don't get it. Playing 3D GTA games feels like working a boring-but-demanding job for asshole bosses, all at the cost of doing anything worthwhile with your time (and from some accounts, making them feel that way too.)

Of course, I've felt pretty alone with that opinion for the past 20 years or so. For a long time, it felt like there were two kinds of people in this world; the ones who steer clear of "Grand Theft Auto" because it sounds like a deep dive into the dank dumpster of our collective cultural consciousness, and the ones who can't wait to take that dip. The folks in the first group usually think all video games are trash. That's definitely not me. The folks in the second group usually have an attraction to being the "bad guy" in games. That's not me either! So that's been my pickle for the past two decades.

For the record, I also like the Star Wars prequels, hate Space Jam, and think that the N64 is Nintendo's worst console by a country mile. For a long time, people thought I was a dunce for these opinions as well, but for whatever reason, time seems to have brought many over to my way of thinking. Apparently, the prequels are cool again, Space Jam is largely recognized to be an overwrought McDonald's commercial, and people think N64 games look terrible! Welcome to my brain, everyone!

And that's exactly how I felt when I saw how much people hated the recently released GTA: The Trilogy - The Definitive Edition. "Hey, this game looks like crap..." Yeah, they always have! "These missions are repetitive and dull..." Yes! Always has been again! "The rain in this game looks like bukkake..."

Well, that one's new, but it's definitely still on-brand.

These three remastered GTA games looked like cheap cash grabs, unloved and uncared about. That felt honest to me. A series about stealing stuff for easy money was trying to get away with a criminally shitty "definitive" version of their "classic titles". Even better, they were so broken that they finally felt like video games again. Human faces suddenly appear in walls, cars grow to massive sizes for no reason, and people trash-talk before blasting off into space. Purely by accident, GTA had finally gotten weird and silly, and had become a worthwhile self-parody in the process. I was ready to buy the physical Switch port (the most broken version) on day one, just for laughs.

Then it was delayed indefinitely, as the publisher was surely aghast at these games finally getting the low review scores they always deserved. It's a bummer that, after GTA finally went to being "so bad it's good" from "so bad it's boring" that Rockstar is undoubtedly trying to make them blander again. But who knows, maybe they will go full Cruelty Squad with the Switch port when it's finally sold on the cartridge. One can hope.

My favorite small game of the year: Mon Amour

At the same time, I was feeling alone with my dislike of the GTA games on the PS2, I was falling in love with another open-world game on the console: Chulip, the exploration and kissing game. It was everything that GTA wasn't: cute, funny, kind, and quick to punish you for stepping out of line. And in this game, you're in line for a smooch!

Once again, history has proven my weird taste in games to be the correct one. Chulip is now worth a bunch of money on the resale market, and people much smarter and more interesting than I talk about how great it is all the time. The creator of the game has taken notice as well. His latest game, Mon Amour, returns to Chulip's smooching concept but makes it a simple Flappy Bird-esque arcade game. That doesn't sound that great, does it? But it is! The music, the graphics, the comedy, all top-notch, but my favorite thing about the game is the way if feels. In real life, it's hard to know if you're doing things right, and that goes double for moving in for your first kiss. Mon Amour replicates that feeling of "moving forward cautiously, following your instincts, but ready to fail at any moment" perfectly. Subjectively, it's perfect.

My favorite medium-sized game of 2021: Axiom Verge 2

Axiom Verge 2 is also about boldly moving into the unknown. At the start, it's not a lot like the first game, eschewing old-school Metroid aesthetics for a more athletic, organic exercise. It's about a new lead character doing new things in a new place, and while lore-hounds for the first game will find plenty of allusions to the original, this game definitely didn't need to be called Axiom Verge 2. In fact, calling it that was a pretty big risk, at least from a marketing perspective. But the risk paid off, and in the end, it makes sense.

Just as the original Axiom Verge was, intentionally or not, an accurate reflection of the one-person development team's psyche, the sequel catches us up with where Tom Happ, the creator of the franchise, is in his life today. He's a dad now, working to create both a good life for his kid with one hand and to make even better games than he has before with the other. The path to meet both goals is indelibly intertwined. He can't make money for his family if he doesn't make good games, and he can't make good games unless he creates honest work that could only come from him.

I was on the edge of my seat throughout the entirety of my playtime with Axiom Verge 2, waiting to see exactly if, and how, Tom would pull off this dual aim. In the end, he nailed it. My only complaint about the game is there isn't more of it. When the credits finally rolled, I was not ready to quit. Then again, that's true of just about every one of the games on this list. Thankfully, most of them are sure to get some sort of sequel and/or DLC expansion at some point. They all did pretty well, so we probably won't have to say goodbye to them anytime soon.

My favorite big game of 2021: No More Heroes 3

I can't believe this is goodbye! No More Heroes 3 has so many hints of where the series could go from here, from movie adaptations by Takashi Miike to Back to the Future-style forays into the far-flung foibles of Travis's offspring. (SPOILERS) I mean, he cuts his brother in half, and like five minutes later, is decapitated by him! And we still don't know exactly how why! This can't be the end, can it?

It is.

In retrospect, you can tell Suda51 was planning to make this the last game in the series. Last episodes of TV shows often swing for the fences in the same way. For a series, all the episodes before the final one have a specific job to do; to get you to want to watch the next one. The last episode doesn't have to pursue the audience in the same way. It exists in a time where there's no tomorrow.

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wVs3NDHRAs[/embed]

For Quantum Leap, that meant capping things off with a bunch of small talk among characters you'd never seen before. For Jim Henson's Dinosaurs, it meant bringing a heavenly Apocolypse down to Earth. For No More Heroes 3, it meant all that and more. We've heard that even more magic was planned for the game, and fans will always wonder what could have been, but there is no doubting that this is the fullest, most fun entry in the series. Just as our old pal Jirard "The Completionist" Khalil. He put hundreds of hours into the game and is one of the few people in the world to truly see it all.

Someday, I might see it all too. No More Heroes 3 is a game I plan to play for the rest of my days. It's broken in all the right ways while fixing all of the things that were less than perfect about its predecessors. More importantly, it loves No More Heroes, and its fans, with all its heart. In a year where it was easy to lose sight of what was good, games like this reminded me why I love the medium, and I'm grateful for it.

The post Jonathan Holmes’ favorite games of 2021 appeared first on Destructoid.