Jeepers am I going to have a lot of games to play this month. Hyper Light Drifter came out on March 31st, Hunie Cam Studios launches April 4th, Danganronpa 2 is out April 18th, and Double Root: Before Crime After Days Xtend Edition is out sometime this month. Plus a proper review of Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin should be up whenever I find time to finish that game amidst this chaos. Seriously, this is the reason why I don’t like buying lots of games at launch. You need to build your schedule around release dates, get 60% through a lot of games, and then stop suddenly and hopefully get back to it later.
As was foretold a few weeks ago, there was a Final Fantasy XV event held this week, one that bore many announcements for a project that has been in development for a decade. Firstly, the game will be released on September 30th, 2016, marking the last possible day without some executives getting into a tizzy (because fiscal quarters). Along with the game, there will be a fashion line inspired by the art of Tetsuya Nomura, along with a CGI film and five episode anime OVA to better explore the world and make people care about this game. 
Something that Square Enix certainly needs, as the game’s lifetime sales must eclipse 10 million in order to be profitable… Square Enix, I know that you put a lot of money into a lot of projects, and with the costs that come with making cinematics, a new engine, and a load of assets, and advertising, but this is just absurd. Just looking at the install base of the Playstation 4 and Xbox One, where it’s heading, and applying my general knowledge about game sales, this is an impossibility. True, a PC port would help, even though there are currently no plans for one, but it’s the difference between five and six million in the best case scenario.
Being a shill and using PC ports as a transition statement, again, time for a little recap before the next announcement. Back in December of last year, Japanese publisher Agatsuma Entertainment closed its doors after a PC release of the Umihara Kawase trilogy, and I was under the impression that the PC version of another one of their titles, Code of Princess, was canceled and would never be heard from again.
Then publisher Degica bought the rights to the Umihara Kawase trilogy a few weeks later, and now they are bringing this 3DS beat ‘em up to PC on April 14th. Where its lackluster character models look uglier even when guised as sprites and the framerate looks to be on par with the 3DS version, which ran like a slug. Oh dear…
No word about what Atlus USA’s role is in the game, being the western publisher, but I’m assuming they’ll get a check or some royalties. Money that will go to Sega in the grand scheme of things, as Sega of America is taking things over publishing duties from Atlus USA. Meaning that Sega will handle the distribution and release of games while Atlus USA localizes whatever they want. Or in other words, Sega will be the one handling the release and distribution, but Atlus as a brand will remain on the box. Meaning nothing much has changed at all. Just the way I like it.
But not everything can be sunshine and potatoes, as the DSi shop will close by March 2017, meaning that a select few games will no longer be available for purchase or redeemable, but most can be transferred to the 3DS. The rest can be emulated, meaning the games are not lost, but it is still unfortunate to see a storefront of any sort close. I really do worry about the PS3, 360, and Wii libraries though. So many great games could be made inaccessable for future generations as technology changes and backwards compatibility is best achieved via emulation.
…Oh hey, and it was also April 1st this past week, meaning that some dreams were crushed, namely a Zero Escape and Danganronpa crossover novel by the name of Nine Coins, Nine Purses, Nine Bears. This only upsets me because of how this idea could work, and work pretty easily. Monokuma is acting as Zero in a nonary game involving one person who is a murderer, and over the course of several bad ends, the mystery will be revealed in a class trial. Throw in whatever characters you want, hell, only involve characters who are dead if you want. Have it be set in the afterlife that combines the two universes if you want to. That would be pretty cool. Do literally anything with this premise, just make it happen. Please!
Marvelous also pulled a little gag revolving their upcoming game Uppers, that cool looking beat ‘em up that was delayed due to low preorder numbers in Japan before adding a badass looking Senran Kagura character into the roster. You know what would make it better though? If instead of staring a bunch of confident and horndog boys, it starred a bunch of confident and horndog girls.
The game was retitled Oppais on the fool’s day and the characters were given a “gender swap” in the promotional art. While this looks like an awesome idea, it was just a joke, as why would Marvelous make an exploitation free game with leading female characters? Other than the fact it would be pretty cool… And I’m not just saying that because I like TG and Rule 63 stuff.
There was also an “update” for Student Transfer, that TG and body swap visual novel I reviewed a build of a couple months ago. But it was not a real update, naturally. It was a short game made in the crappy visual novel engine RAGS, where it was posed as a parody of many of the garbage tier TG games that litter TF Games Site, where Student Transfer is hosted. It’s a silly and crappily written sleep deprived effort, and is more on par with what I like from an April Fools gag. Although, calling it version 2.0 was a bit much.
I was going to close this Rundown with the teased trailer for Pokemon Sun and Moon, but it did not air. Instead, the announcement footage was shown off once again… Here I thought the sneak peek trailer for Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire was bad.