This Week’s Topics:

• Rundown Preamble Ramble: Psycho Shatter 1988 is Basically Going to be Psycho Bullet Festival 3
• TSF Showcase 2024-26 Toaru Kizoku-kun no Nyotaika Hametsu Ganbou [A Certain Nobleman’s Desire to Become a Woman and Destroy Himself] by Hoshino Iro and Namamugi (Amulai Sweet Factory)
• Leaker Drama: Data Scrapers and Clout Chasers (A Necessary Evil Vs A Structural Evil)
• Ranma is BACK, Bay-Bee! (Natalie is Considering Reading 38 Volumes of Manga!)
• The Steam Market Monopoly Method (Natalie Muses About The 30% Revenue Fee and Steam Key Vendors)
• HORSE GIRLS X-TREME RACING® (English Ver.) (Uma Musume Pretty Derby is FINALLY Getting an English Release)
• CyberAgent Acquires Nitroplus (The Acquisition Wave Has Returned!)
• TinyBuild’s IP Surgical Removal (TinyBuild Sells Surgeon Simulator to Atari)
• Resident Evil Trilogy Re-Release (An Announcement Straight Outta My Email)
• Dead Rising Rises From Its Grave! (An Impromptu Dead Rising Retrospective)

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Rundown Preamble Ramble:
Psycho Shatter 1988 is Basically Going to be Psycho Bullet Festival 3

This past week I FINALLY finished up the outline for Psycho Shatter 1988. It took way longer than I wanted it to, but now it is done and I can get started on writing the damn story. And the story I came up with it… Well, in trying to combine the ideas I have for it into a proper outline, I inadvertently recycled a bunch of ideas that I previously used in Psycho Bullet Festival 2222. As in… most of the climax.

For those not aware, the climax of PBF2222 basically sees all the characters band together and fuse together into one super being, so they can battle against the big bad in space. A fairly common concept that should be well understood by anyone who has seen Gurren Lagann. Except… the similarities run deeper. Right down to the antagonist being a white figure, the protagonist being shrouded in black, the world being destroyed by a weapon of the antagonist’s creation, and even the tempo of the final battle. It is, beat for beat, very similar

Is this really a bad thing? No, not necessarily. A lot of genres and entries in established series end with a level of expected bombast. It’s a cliche for traditionally-Japanese-flavored RPGs to end with a battle against a god. Most romance stories end in a handful of the same ways. And just because I have two novels that end with a similar note does not really indicate much of anything other than… I, as a writer, tend to have a few go-to ideas. 

Akumako: “Uh, okay. But you do realize that, structurally, the story is basically the same damn thing as PBF2222, right?”

Whatchu talkin’ ’bout?

Akumako: “Both stories are about some evil white-haired White dude going to Earth, fucking shit up, causing a cataclysm with monsters, as four righteous individuals go around and clean up the mess with their godlike powers. Except here the characters don’t have well-defined powers.”

Okay, maybe you do have a point about the story having the same structure—

Akumako: “Here comes the booty!”

—But that does not mean the stories are the same, as there is precious little overlap with the relationship of characters, what they do, and how the cataclysm plays out.

Akumako: “Yeah, keep telling yourself that. You sure your brain’s not turning into a crusty old lump of hamburger?”

Look, why don’t you read my story and assess it on its own merits? It’s still scheduled to go live on election day, November 5th, and see a new chapter released every day, ending on my 30th birthday. (The epilogue and intermission will be published on overlapping days.)

Akumako: “…Wait, you’re celebrating your 30th birthday by publishing THAT chapter?”

I know it is a sensitive matter, but it is important and necessary to vilify the evils that the Whiterats represent. I will not show anything too explicit, I have sworn against depicting such things in my writing. But I can imply it or say it happened off-screen all I damn well please. 

Akumako: “Yeah, I guess that’s a good way to go out before you, one, become a witch, and two, get burned alive by a witch after The Evil One ends democracy.”

Oh my fucking god am I sick of people assigning any kind of power to that discarded scrotum of a man. I know terrorism has a ripple effect, but without him, the party is cooked. It’s a cult without a master. It will flop like a fish, break shit, but come election day, the voting turnout would be at an all-time low, as there is no cult leader to rally around.

Akumako: “The funny thing is that the ending note for PS1988 not only supports that idea, but makes your political affiliation suss as fuck.”

I’m a fucking trans lady in Chicago who writes stories with casts of characters more colorful than the damn Burger King kid’s club. How is my political affiliation in any way ambiguous?

Akumako: “I mean, the political spectrum is a circle, like all spectrums.”

That’s not true, and you damn well know it, you nasty demon lady! …Or, maybe it is to an extent? Anyway, enough banter, we’ve got a surprising amount of news this week, and I’m still busy transferring some students—

Akumako: “Student Transfer V8 Review will go live Friday, July 5th! Suck it brown or fuck it around!”

So without further ado, lemme knock out the last TSF Showcase I’ll include in a Rundown.

Akumako: “And just wait for the view count to go down, down, down!”

Akumako, you know I don’t actually look at that shit! …But I did notice that my site was popping off on June 22, 2024 after Student Transfer V8 went live, and it beat my all-time best view count. So thanks for that.

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TSF Showcase 2024-26
Toaru Kizoku-kun no Nyotaika Hametsu Ganbou [A Certain Nobleman’s Desire to Become a Woman and Destroy Himself] by Hoshino Iro and Namamugi (Amulai Sweet Factory)

Before we get started, as a reminder, this will be the last TSF Showcase featured in a Natalie.TF Rundown. Future TSF Showcases will be their own posts on Natalie.TF, and will go live on Tuesdays, starting on July 2, 2024. The plan is to continue this trend of ‘TSF Tuesdays’ for the remainder of 2024. After which, the series will continue on an ad hoc basis, whenever I encounter, get recommended, or remember a TSF work I wish to showcase with the world. Keep it locked to Natalie.TF to find new installments, or check out the new TSF Showcase category.

To mark the halfway point in the year, we have a manga recommended by my buddy who used to be part of the Student Transfer dev, during the early years. A work from the prolific Amulai Sweet Factory circle, who I don’t think I’ve ever discussed before. In short, they are a circle dedicated to producing TSF works, regularly partner with a sizable number of artists, and put out a steady stream of manga, about two a month on average. Their output is so varied and plentiful that it’s easy to forget if a work was handled or published through them, but I’m grateful that groups like them exist. Anything that keeps the TSF fluids gushing is a good thing in my book!

A Certain Nobleman’s Desire to Become a Woman and Destroy Himself is… well, the scenario’s right in the title. Fritz Ast Dilertant is a young noble, heir to his family, who excels in all facets of his public-facing life, yet is left longing for more. He wants danger, excitement, and something a bit dirty. So naturally he uses a magical transformation orb to moonlight as a waitress in a seedy bar.

As Frittina, Fritz is able to be seen and treated as a completely different person. He acts bubbly, relishes in his female form’s cuteness, and is subjected to stereotypical harassment from the bar patrons as they feel up his ass, boobs, and make snide remarks. While this could be seen as objectifying and maddening, for Fritz this level of emotional freedom and honest attention is refreshing, something he is not accorded in his daily life. Or to be a bit more transparent, he’s just a rich guy with a humiliation kink. 

Fritz was born into power, surrounded by yes-men and people who are profoundly loyal to him, and he developed a fetish for being demeaned, teased, and taken off of his podium. To be debased and humiliated. All while protecting his status with a layer of layer of anonymity by wearing a different form. Which… is far from a revolutionary concept. It’s a cliche that rich and powerful people either like to whip, beat, bind, and demean little women girls to their pleasure. Or they like to be whipped, beaten, bound, and demeaned by big Black women— the bigger, the blacker, the better. And I can only imagine European nobles and royalty were the masters of this kind of kink, back before kink was even a thing.

After delighting in a night of this, feeling refreshed and energized, Fritz returns to his mansion and prepares to return to normal and get on with his life. …Only to realize he misplaced his transformation orb. Following this discovery, he is greeted by his maid, Julia, who enters his chambers. Fritz panics, not wanting anyone to find out about his embarrassing hobby, and fears the worst. That he’ll be dragged out here or outed as a perverted freak. …Only for Julia to reveal that she was fully aware of Fritz’s hobby, and found the transformation orb after he left it at the bar. 

Julia continues to reveal that she has been aware of Fritz’s activities ever since he found the transformation orb. As his maid l, it’s her duty to be aware of all her master’s preferences. Fritz crumbles upon hearing this, feeling as if he has been outed as a pervert, but rather than chide him, Julia affirms her loyalty to her master and uses the orb to assume the form of Fritz’s deepest desire. …A middle aged man who slapped his ass at the bar. Because a young, hot guy would be too dignified. 

Fritz, being a glutton for sexual humiliation, asks Julia to violate him, and she quickly obliges.   Pinning him down, invading his mouth, and sticking it in, much to Fritz’s immediate delight. Before, his secret was his alone, he was protected by anonymity. But with Julia aware of everything, he has no protection, he is seen for who he is, raw and unfiltered, simultaneously debased and… accepted. It’s a liberation beyond anything he has in his daily life. He knows that what is happening to him is ‘wrong,’ that it goes against the social order drilled into his head since he was a child… but it’s also okay. It’s safe. And he is with someone who he can trust. …Or so it seems.

Things then cut to Fritz in Julia’s body (or rather form, but body swap via souls exchange or body swap via physical transformation are basically the same thing) cleaning up the mansion. He complains about the work, how this is beneath his position as the head of the family, only to see Julia in his form. Julia scolds Fritz for taking too long to clean, saying that he is too excited being a maid to focus on his work, and must be punished.

The punishment takes the form of a sex scene in front of a mirror, forcing Fritz to see who he is physically, look at himself as he is so vigorously fucked by his own body, as ‘his’ voice describes the scene. That of a perverted man exposing herself, relishing in the act of sex. A manfar from the man he once was, the heir to this illustrious family. Instead, that right belongs to Julia, to the man fucking him, and all it would take to make this permanent is to shatter the gem. Fritz, in a panic, momentarily agrees to Julia’s offer, and is further punished for being excited by such a lowly life.

Julia threatens to impregnate Fritz for being such a pervert, to fulfill ‘the greatest joy a maid can experience.’ To be removed from his status of influence and became a concubine. And as Fritz’s ability to resist falters, Julia cinches it with a climax, breaking his resolve.

This is where we would typically see a pregnant flashforward. One showing Fritz having acclimated to the life of Julia, trying to work as a maid while pregnant, before being yoinked away by Julia, her lover and master. …But instead it turns out that this was all a bit of role playing by the two. For Fritz to feel despised, to have his position threatened, and to have his trust betrayed. And Julia, like any good maid, obliged her master’s request, fulfilling her role as desired, and creating a safe environment for him to engage in his kink. When asked to do this again, she smiles, only requesting that Fritz exclusively does such perverse things with her. Is it because she has come to love him, or is just protective? You be the judge!

A more typical TSF comic of this breed would take things into a more mean-spirited, punishing, or vindictive way. It would have seen Fritz gang-raped in the bar. Seen Julia snatch the orb vindictively, stealing Fritz’s body, forcing him to live as a bar waitress. Or resulted in some manner of identity death, forced transformations, body theft, etc. These are all fine approaches but they are bitter ways to tell and conclude a story. But A Certain Nobleman’s Desire to Become a Woman and Destroy Himself eschews that.

It is ultimately a story about a weird dude with a weird fetish that is reciprocated by someone who supports them, allowing them to grow closer and engage in a higher level of erotic roleplay. The veneer of danger is present, but the main characters ultimately escape unscathed. I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t find this form of staged body theft to be compelling in more ways than one. 

It captures what it wants to do well, takes things in a refreshing direction, and is confident in being what it is. It’s not concerned with being introspective. It is not trying to sappily endear sentimentality for the protagonist’s kink. And it is also not particularly dirty or vulgar with how it presents anything. And it manages to do a lot within forty pages without feeling too fast with its pacing. Which is impressive for something with this much story and three erotic scenes.

Speaking of which, I should talk about the artwork. It’s clearly the doujin work, being a bit unpolished with some of its artwork. Deformed characters, omitted details, some minor inconsistencies, and a lack of backgrounds beyond simple props, often using color to give the illusion of place and tone. However, what really impressed me was the paneling. It uses the space afforded to it efficiently, conveying a lot of information and intrigue to each page, without skimping on dynamic poses or adorable expressions. What’s there is strong enough that I’m going to have to keep an eye on this artist going forward. As I can tell they’re going to be wonderful in a few years.

Also, I should note that the unofficial translation for this story has some particularly poor lettering work. Text is not centered, does not fit into the dialogue balloons, has numerous obvious typos, and it reads like a translation done while someone was getting chased by the cops. I thought this work deserved better, so I redid the lettering for the snippets you see here, using the official release and rewrote a few lines, as I thought they needed punching up. I tried not to, but I couldn’t help myself. I thought about doing the entire comic, doing a re-edit and reworking, and asking Chari for a brief SFX tutorial, but I didn’t have the time with how hectic this past week became.

Overall, A Certain Nobleman’s Desire to Become a Woman and Destroy Himself was a pleasant surprise. It’s the sort of exploration that I hope to find when exploring the more erotic end of things, a great source of inspiration, and gets my full recommendation.

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Leaker Drama: Data Scrapers and Clout Chasers
(A Necessary Evil Vs A Structural Evil)

Leaker culture is something that I never really have been too fond of. I enjoy the results, getting to know about things in advance of what marketing-driven publishers want to share, or getting to know about things that never will be. Traditionally these people would just tell a journalist or reporter they’re friends with, and they would share a curated sample of the story to help preserve this person’s anonymity. However, in the past year or so, there has been a shift to more independent leakers. Specifically with the figures Pyoro and Midori. 

I won’t get into the history and fallout of these two figures— Pyoro got information from a Nintendo employee with access to the website backend, but deleted their account after failing to predict last week’s Nintendo Direct. Midori was a fake identity developed by a guy with a long history of drama, who scraped information from servers and recycled info from internal reports. And both of them deleted their Twitter accounts. Instead, I just want to ask… why the hell do people do this?

For attention, for flout, for feeling important and getting the attention and praise of others, right? Well, yeah. But why cultivate these false identities when one could just communicate with a larger publication and convey the information with a shield to protect your identity, rather than a flimsy plate of a Twitter handle and VPN? Well, because it’s a more direct relationship with people, and the allure of leaking, for some people, is the social engagement. People not only want others to know about preemptive announcements, they want to be reported on, be important, and get a rush from seeing others heed their words.

I don’t want to judge people for this desire— even though I think it’s kind of dumb and petty— but, as Jason Schrier pointed out in his recent article on the subject, it does not seem like this will change anytime soon. When leakers like Pyoro and Midori close their accounts, someone inevitably tries doing what they did, but the longer they leak things, the easier it is to get caught or fall from grace.

What is the way around this? More press releases blankly announcing titles, but that kills the hype cycle that, as I said two weeks ago, the industry so dearly relies on. It’s a crummy thing, and I wish that companies like this could just announce basic things via a press release, but if anything I only see the games industry getting more secretive as more and more people work on larger projects. 

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Ranma is BACK, Bay-Bee!
(Natalie is Considering Reading 38 Volumes of Manga!)

Back in March 2023, I mused about the prospect of an anime reboot of Ranma ½ after the success of the modern Urusei Yatsura anime and the existence of the Inuyasha sequel series. I was not too enthused on the idea, worrying more about the discourse it would spawn rather than its own merits, concluding with this: “I would watch a hypothetical re-adaptation, and I would probably enjoy it no matter what, but a Ranma ½ remake would probably be a mess of clashing values.”

Well, guess what happened this week… or rather last week, but I was already 15k words deep into the last Rundown! A new Ranma anime adaptation was announced, and it will be revealed on July 17th. And a teaser trailer dropped on author Rumiko Takahashi’s Twitter the X account.

While I do not remember much about Ranma, a result of binging the entire 161 episode series, including OVAs and movies, in either 7 or 8 days back in the summer of 2008, I associate it with positive memories. And as a vehement TSF enjoyer, I feel the need to cover what I consider major TSF works. I did not do this with the last wave of TSF anime that was big in Q1 2023, mostly because they didn’t quite pass my ‘vibe check’ as I tried to preemptively measure the TSF juice they had in the tank. But Ranma? Yeah, Ranma is gender as fuck, so I need to give this a fair shake and will do a review of some manner when it wraps up.

…But hold on, is that really the best way to go about it? If Ranma is getting a revival, should I really just rely on my old memories? Well, I sure as hell am not going to rewatch the entire series, but I think there is another way to capitalize on this. 

…Should I read through the entire Ranma manga series, one or two volumes a week, and post my thoughts about it every Rundown? Because I am strongly considering that as a 2025 project, and I think I want to do it. Because while people talk about Ranma, I feel they too often generalize it or only focus on the anime, rather than the original source material. Then, when the anime is done, I will have the knowledge to write a review with a different perspective of someone who both has nostalgia for the series, and is recently familiar with the manga. Will that be a unique perspective? Maybe, maybe not, but I feel I owe it to Ranma to do something big for it. And it would be a way to harness my nostalgia, fill up Rundowns, and produce a big fat Ramble followed by a lengthy Review.

…Shit, I have become content-brained, and I don’t even make any money off of what I’m doing! The money goes AWAY from me, along with my time, all in the pursuit of purpose!

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The Steam Market Monopoly Method
(Natalie Muses About The 30% Revenue Fee and Steam Key Vendors)

The big summer Steam sale started up this week, and it got me thinking about the economics of the wet and wild world of gaming as a small developer. You spend years and hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars on a title, and then need to put it on a storefront and hope people latch onto it. Yes, there is marketing, promotion, and networking to get the game covered, but no matter what, it is a risky venture, and the economics are not good. A game that cost $1 million to make, retailing for $30, needs to sell… 47,620 units to break even, when considering the 30% platform fee. However, that is ignoring launch discounts, sales, and any further development costs that go to patching, porting, and everything else tied to a game after an initial launch.

While Valve doesn’t, and does not want to, reveal how many units a game sells, the optics of making money off of a game on a marketplace as open as Steam are… not good. Especially when there are so many games vying for a player’s attention, many of which have an up-front cost of a download or making an account. Success is hard, so there has been years of discourse over how the 30% fee is unwarranted. I have been a proponent of this, believing that the costs of downloads and a store page do not warrant a 30% cut. …But then it was pointed out to me that Steam actually does WAY more than pretty much any storefront. To the point where it’s not even comparable to Apple’s 30% fee.

Steam offers forums, a mod workshop, a marketplace for cosmetic doodads, on-site guides, the ability to foster a community without worrying about creating an account system, and a lot of developer features that no other storefront offers. Which is before getting into how they have been hosting events like Steam Next Fest with the goal of getting players to try out demos of upcoming games from smaller developers. All of which is before getting into the topic of Steam keys. 

When buying from a third-party like Humble Store, IndieGala, Fandom’s Fanatical, or Green Man Gaming, users are given a Steam key, allowing users to add a product to their Steam account and download it. This process costs Valve money, especially for bigger, modern games. But when buying from these storefronts, they get no money, and the only costs they avoid is payment processing. This is something that… I genuinely did not piece together until this past week, and it really makes the 30% fee seem… kind of warranted. Because, practically speaking, they are only getting the 30% fee on most sales, not all sales. 

Okay, but how does this work on the publisher’s end though? How much do they take out of each sale? It has to be something, as running a website is not free, customer support is a paycheck, and payment processing is expensive. Anybody who works in sales has seen how much currency conversions, credit card fees, and PayPal’s scaled fees can just destroy revenue. But it’s rarely ever 30% expensive.

Well, I tried looking for information on what percentage, or rate, each Steam key storefront takes from each sale, but I don’t think these sites make it public facing. If I was a developer, I could get access to documentation explaining what every storefront takes as a transaction fee. Whether it varies based on the price of the game, if it is a fixed figure, or if there is some sort of tiered system or partnership program to get reduced fees. Alas, I do not know how to develop games, let alone sell them on third-party storefronts.

The fact that these sites frequently sell games for less than the price they retail for on Steam, and AAA titles regularly see pre-order discounts of 10% to 18%, indicates to me that these stores take a slimmer discount than Steam. It’s possible that storefronts pay to sell games at a lower price in order to get more customers and get them to buy multiple titles, but I kinda doubt that.

With this all in mind, why don’t developers and publishers just jack up the Steam price and make people go to third-party sites, screwing over Valve? Because of Valve’s terms of use. In their section about Steam keys, they explicitly state “It is important that you don’t give Steam customers a worse deal than Steam Key purchasers.” And also that “It’s OK to run a discount for Steam Keys on different stores at different times as long as you plan to give a comparable offer to Steam customers within a reasonable amount of time.”

Valve is a mentally, spiritually, and structurally libertarian entity, so they want there to be an open market, but they are also not stupid enough to think that ideal works without some oversight. They do not want to have a monopoly on the PC game storefront, so they just let other people enter the market. They allow third-party stores to exist, because they know they will get the most purchases. They offer a point system that gives people access to cosmetic doodads, let people refund games, and make the process as hassle-free as possible. Well, barring their dumb 2FA system. Also, letting platforms resell Steam keys is a great flex when in court, because it makes Steam, as a storefront, seem like it is objectively not a monopoly. If people want better prices, they can and do go to other storefronts.

That being said, Valve is also smart enough to not hand out Steam keys all willy-nilly. Per policy changes that went into effect in February 2023, they changed the policy so that publishers only have access to 5,000 Steam keys of each game. That is more than enough for most developers for review copies and giveaways and the like, but more can be requested on a case-by-case basis. So if Valve knows that you are doing a Humble Bundle, they’ll set things up so that Steam keys can be generated/distributed with every sale. If you are a big publisher who wants to sell their upcoming titles on Fanatical for pre-purchase at a discount, and pre-purchases are open on Steam, then Valve will give the okay. But if you are an irrefutable scoundrel with a history of releasing spam, and ask for 25,000 keys for ‘giveaways’ they’ll just say no.

Now, why did I go into all this detail and on this tangent? Because I think the economics of key resellers is interesting, as I routinely get emails showing heavily discounted games. However, I never really thought about how the relationship between these sites and Valve worked, and after stumbling into this video, I couldn’t stop thinking about this, and wanted to share my findings. 

Also, as this video man pointed out, Steam developers should be able to customize their store pages as much as users can customize their profile pages. They do an effect with the first screenshot to make the page stand out more, but Steam store pages are a bit samey aside from media elements, and having something on the sides would be a way for games to stand out when people are browsing their Steam queue. Trust me. I used the Steam queue a LOT!

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HORSE GIRLS X-TREME RACING® (English Ver.)
(Uma Musume Pretty Derby is FINALLY Getting an English Release)

Damn, this took forever. Uma Musume has been Cygames’s biggest success of all time. Since its release in February 2021, the game has made over 2.27 billion dollars in Japan alone, and more from its Korean and (now revoked) Chinese release. The simulation racing and raising game has managed to carve out its own niche in the vicious live service market, and despite having some western presence with its anime adaptation, it has never received an English release. …Until now!

No details about the English release were given, such as a general timeframe, or if this is an in-house job, but after three bloody years to get an English localization ready, the game is going to eventually reach a new market. …And I think this delay, combined with how relatively niche the genre of horse racing is in non-Asian markets, means this English release will not succeed. 

A global launch is the best way to get people interested in an online game like this, as people are more connected and aware of others than they ever have been. While some parts of the internet are segregated by language, others aren’t and the sort of people who would be interested in this game have heard about it for years. If they were able to hear about it when the game launched, then they could have gotten hooked, and the community could flourish in more languages. But by waiting so long to bring this game over, I worry that English speakers will feel jibbed as they miss out on new characters and quality of life features. 

Also, I get that Japanese to Korean is way easier than Japanese to English, but… come on, Cygames. You are a big company, you can afford a real-time English translation for all your games.

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CyberAgent Acquires Nitroplus
(The Acquisition Wave Has Returned!)

…Especially because Cygames can afford to buy companies like Nitroplus— Nitro Plus? However they like to call themselves, they are an incredibly influential visual novel developer who released some absolute bangers throughout the 2000s. Saya no Uta, Full Metal Daemon: Muramasa, Deus Machina Demonbane, and Steins;Gate, and that’s just scratching the surface. The 2010s brought similar hits with the influential You and Me and Her and the definitively ill Tokyo Necro. While the 2020s have been… a transitional time for them. 

What are they doing lately? Well, not visual novels from the look of it. They are working on a 3D mecha action game with Dolls Nest and a 2.5D action platformer called Rusty Rabbit. It’s a weird pivot, and makes me wonder if the folks making the VNs are either working on a new big production title, or if they left to do their own thing. I could try to figure that out, but that would be too time consuming! And I might learn nothing!

Anyway, this acclaimed developer was bought by CyberAgent for a resounding 16.704 billion yen, or about $104 million in USD. With CyberAgent being  the holding company that owns Cygames, related studios, a social network, a TV broadcasting company, and a pro wrestling company among other things. They are a hodgepodge in the way that many Japanese companies are, so acquiring Nitro Plus just seems like an on-brand decision for them. Mind you, I do not like the fact that they are doing this, but… I also get why. 

Nitro Plus has been independent since they were founded in 2000, had been led by largely the same people, and while they were once young, they’re getting on in the years. With game development costs rising, the world economy being what it is, and Nitro Plus being a pretty small company… I understand why they’d want to sell the company. It will secure what they built up over 24 years. And while CyberAgent is still a giant faceless corporation, they have not done anything too egregious.

Now, do I think this is a great fit aesthetically? Not really. CyberAgent tries to capture a more general appeal— their biggest moneymaker is the horse girl game. While Nitro’s games are generally fucked up, niche products that appeal to a niche demographic. The worst they could do is try and sanitize them and screw JAST out of publishing deals, but their back catalog will always be available.

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TinyBuild’s IP Surgical Removal
(TinyBuild Sells Surgeon Simulator to Atari)

…Okay, what? TinyBuild went on a spending spree in August 2022 where they bought a bunch of IP from Bossa Studios, who was busy working on Lost Skies and unable to serve these IPs. Mind you, they could have just licensed them, but I guess they needed capital and were willing to part with memetic series like I Am Bread and Surgeon Simulator for $3 million. …And the studio itself for $5.4 million.

Two years later though, Atari has bought the Surgeon Simulator IP and put it under their Infogrames brand. No price was disclosed, and Atari spoke vaguely about their goals, saying they would “expand distribution, potentially develop new titles or content, and explore brand and merchandising collaborations.” Now, I do not like how Atari is trying to horde IP like a dragon, as I do not trust a company that owns excellent studios like Digital Eclipse or Night Dive. Because if they go under, or tear off their mask, then it will be a massive blow to  game preservation as a whole.

That being said… I also do not actually care about Surgeon Simulator. It is a viral game, a meme game in my mind, and I have never enjoyed the physics simulator genre. Normally, I would just shrug this up as another ‘TinyBuild L,’ but the Atari in this headline makes it hard for me to ignore. Especially because they are deluding the media’s perception of Atari by using the Infogrames label. Naughty, naughty!

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Resident Evil Trilogy Re-Release
(An Announcement Straight Outta My Email)

Hey, so remember how last week I talked about a PEGI rating for the original Resident Evil (1996)? Well, Capcom and CD Projekt announced the game was coming to the GOG storefront, complete with a shadow drop and pre-order options for the PC versions of Resident Evil 2 (1998) and Resident Evil 3: Nemesis (1999). 

Doing some digging for first impressions, the biggest video on the releases I could find came from Resident Evil survival horror enthusiast The Sphere Hunter. She said that the GOG versions of 1 and 2 are “pretty perfect.” …Under the criteria that you just wanted a straightforward PC port without any of the fixes of the Rebirth fan patches, and don’t want the Sourcenext versions of Resident Evil 2 and presumably 3. That’s a major bummer there. I get that people will be able to patch the game, and many GOG vintage titles are basically meant to be played with mods. …But the choice not to use the Sourcenext version, which is considered the better port, is just a weird call in my mind. Maybe they lost the source code or something?

Regardless, this is at least something, PC is the Preservationist’s Choice in platform, and so long as you have a modern Windows PC, you can play the original trilogy. …Well, Linux would be best, because if the Recall incident is any indication, maybe Microsoft should not be in charge of the world’s leading operating system for the past 30-ish years.

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Dead Rising Rises From Its Grave!
(An Impromptu Dead Rising Retrospective)

…Speaking of Capcom zombie games!

Dead Rising is an unfortunate series. A success turned failure from Capcom’s big westernization efforts of the Xbox 360 generation. The first game, Dead Rising (2006), was a jovial romp that paired wacky ‘Japanese game antics’ with a classic ‘zombies in a mall’ movie simulator. With strict yet manageable time limits, annoying NPC AI, wacky weapons, multi-playthrough progression, and intense boss battles all adding up to a distinct and special game.

It was a major W for the Xbox 360 in its first year, got rave reviews, and was the first launched game built on Capcom’s legendary MT Framework. Commercially, the game did well for a title so early in a console’s run, and it benefitted from being an early title, as it depreciated in price pretty quickly, and became a staple bargain bin game. …I read through a lot of GameStop ads in 2009 to 2012, and the game was always available for like $5 or $10. I never bought it though, ‘cos I was scared of timers.

This success was followed by Dead Rising 2 (2010). A game by Blue Castle Games, later renamed Capcom Vancouver, that was seen as more of a lateral improvement over the original. The new protagonist, Chuck, was seen as less endearing than the more irreverent Frank West. The design, switching an all-American mall for Las Vegas, gave the game a different feel. But it did have an online drop-in, drop-out co-op feature, and that’s enough to make it a source of great memories for people who were teens or 20-somethings in that generation.

However, Dead Rising 2 was given a… retcon. Or rather, an alternate take the following year with Dead Rising 2: Off the Record (2011). A game that contained the same core as Dead Rising 2, but with new mechanics, new modes, bonus areas, and a new story following Frank West. 

Now, I am actually all for developers taking a year to make a definitive upgraded version of a game like this. I think most games would benefit from it. But the choice to replace Chuck with Frank was… questionable. Dead Rising 2 had a spin-off XBLA title that saw Chuck team up with Frank West, dubbed Case West. So, canonically, the two met and worked together, and players could even pair up as both in the campaign’s co-op mode. But in Off the Record, Chuck is reduced to a jacked up psycho who thinks a doll is his daughter suffering from the zombie virus. It was such a strange take, and I’m not sure how fans really think about this. At least, not nowadays. Especially because… it wound up being not canon in the end.

Anyway, after recementing Frank West as the series protagonist, Dead Rising 3 (2013)… took place in a southern California city, followed an entire new cast, and had a wildly different art style from the prior games. It was meant to be a grim and gritty zombie game set in a woefully brown and drearily gray environment. And its UI is terrible, with some of the worst font choices I have ever seen in a video game. Who uses Times New Roman looking-ass fonts in a published video game?

I still don’t know how Dead Rising 3 wound up like this, and I refuse to believe what some old developer interview said about this terrible art direction being a choice.  Just looking up footage of it resurfaces decade old feelings of disappointment that I felt watching the Xbox E3 2013 conference, and seeing this pushed as one of the marquee games for the Xbox One. It’s just nasty, and not even the dope Super Ultra Dead Rising 3′ Arcade Remix Hyper Edition EX Plus Alpha DLC managed to make it look appealing. And it’s the most Capcom-loving thing ever created. 

Moving on from my tangent, Dead Rising 3 encountered major technical issues when trying to run on Xbox 360 or PS3— especially the PS3, and was in danger of getting canceled. That is until Microsoft perked in to publish the game as an Xbox One launch title. This circumvented the development issues, gave the team the power they wanted, and gave them an extra year of dev time as they learned new tools.

While not a huge success, Dead Rising 3 did well enough to impress Microsoft and, after Capcom Vancouver failed to get a new IP off the ground, they began working with Microsoft on Dead Rising 4. After The Last of Us, Microsoft wanted their very own ‘The Last of Us killer’ and Capcom Vancouver, fresh off of shipping three games in the same series, was all for the idea. They spent a few months producing a serious, linear, and grounded reimagining of the Dead Rising series. 

Normally, a studio like Capcom Vancouver would need to go through hoops with their owners, Capcom, to approve of a project like this going in such a radical direction. However, Capcom only did check-ins with the studio every few months. And when they saw what the Vancouver studio and Microsoft spent six months planning, they shot the project down and fired some of the people responsible for this new direction.

Capcom viewed Dead Rising as… being Dead Rising. It was not meant to be a series zombie game, that’s the essence of the series. …In retrospect, that’s a really rude thing to say to the developers of Dead Rising 2 and 3. I think spending over seven years working on a series that only had one original game prior to this makes them the leads for the series’ direction. But what do I know?

This situation led many Capcom Vancouver employees to fear the worst for the studio. Higher ups left, 40% of all staff left, and confidence in Dead Rising 4 was low. Pitches were made, all were rejected, and whoever was left had to scramble to form a game, and led to a ‘condensed schedule’ of 12 to 18 month development. The idea they ultimately settled on was that of a ‘safe sequel.’ One that brought back Frank West, returned to Willamette, featured a Christmas setting, and introduced… mech suits. This might sound like a slam dunk, but… it was not what fans wanted.

This new, older incarnation of Frank West was nothing like the character fans loved from the first game. They even replaced his voice actor because the dev team wanted a different voice which… is a bad reason. The game was far less interactive than prior entries, because static props are easier to develop than interactive props. The staple boss fights were cut due to time constraints. In a vain attempt to increase sales, the series signature ticking 72 hour time limit was removed, changing how the game felt, and making player actions seem less meaningful. And… it removed the story co-op feature! That was one of the best parts of DR2 and DR3!

Dead Rising 4 was given a mixed reception by critics. Some liked it despite its short-comings, others viewed it as a clunky step backwards. While fans generally hated this direction for the series. The title was fortunate enough to receive a significant update in the form of December 2017’s Frank’s Big Package DLC and PS4 release, which made numerous improvements on the game. But it was too little too late. The’s reputation was solidified and it didn’t do particularly well. The original release only sold 1.4 million units per Capcom’s platinum records, and the updated release didn’t break a million. It’s possible it sold more via latent sales, but I doubt it broke past 2 million in total.

Following this, Capcom did allow the Vancouver studio to work on a fifth Dead Rising game. One that saw the return of Chuck from Dead Rising 2, was set in Mexico, and was developed by an entirely new team. At first, it was being led by a former Assassin’s Creed dev, and took cues from that game, but as open world design proved difficult in Unreal Engine 4 (this was around 2016), they made it a more linear story-driven affair. One inspired heavily by Bloodborne. …Or in other words, they repeated the same damn same mistakes as the people who made the initial version of DR4. 

As Capcom realized this, they decided to cut their losses and close up the Vancouver studio. They lost a lot of legacy staff, a lot of healthy culture, and failed to produce profitable titles. A lot of projects got lost in the process, and it’s all such a damn shame. I think so much of this could just be avoided if Capcom was more honest with the Vancouver studio, saying they just want them to be the Dead Rising studio. That would be creatively stifling though, and it resulted in gradually diminishing quality, but maybe then this could all be avoided.

For more information on the ill-fated Dead Rising 5 and the development of Dead Rising 4, check out Liam Robertson’s excellent video on the series, where I scrapped a lot of information for this summary:

This effectively ended the Dead Rising series, but that wasn’t a huge problem. On September 13, 2016, three months before releasing Dead Rising 4, Capcom decided to port Dead Rising, Dead Rising 2, and Dead Rising 2: Off the Record to PS4 and Xbox One. …And port Dead Rising to PC, as DR2 launched on PC. This was a bizarre release, as they were not remasters, they only cost $20, and while they were mostly straight 1080p ports, they had some nebulous changes. Like different lighting effects and stray bits of new artwork. Also, the Dead Rising 2 standalone demo and side story, Case Zero and Case West, were left locked on XBLA, but you can play them on Xbox One or Xbox Series. No idea why they didn’t port them, but I think there was some exclusivity clause with those two. These ports completely soured the reception to Dead Rising 4, but made the series as accessible as it could be without a Switch port. 

After this, the series was just done. Not really acknowledged or addressed in a meaningful way. So… what could Capcom do to bring it back? Well, a reboot would be warranted as who wants to continue from Dead Rising 4? But Capcom has a lot of things on their plate, so they need a leaner, more efficient, way to return the series to form. Like a… remake of the first game! …Or maybe just a remaster!

Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster (DRDR) is what I call a facelift remaster. A remaster that is strictly a visual change over a largely unaltered game, barring a few quality of life features. This is a somewhat common approach, with the best example probably being something like the Saber Interactive anniversary edition of Halo: Combat Evolved. The mechanics, level design, world, and physics as the original, but with new lighting, textures, and world geometry. Or to name a more contemporary example, the 2020 Sperasoft facelift of Saints Row: The Third.

The trailer footage is an exact copy of the opening from the original game, with the same camera shots, same animations, and same general design… but a few notable changes, highlighted by this helpful comparison video by ElAnalistaDeBits.

Visually, it trades away the early HD piss filter in favor of a more honest series of distinctly gray buildings and more lush, dark green trees. The layout and building geography of the town (that you never explore) is far different and more complex, which I guess is made to make the town seem more developed or substantial, but it’s not really supposed to be. 

Willamette is a small Colorado town, and if you’re west of Denver, Colorado can be a very green state, full of trees, making everything very lush and green. So it makes sense to add more trees, but the lighting does not really fit that. Trees are bright and saturated under the right lighting, and it’s a partially cloudy day, not overcast, so the lighting just seems off. Additionally, there are too many deciduous trees, as Colorado is coniferous tree country! I have not been to Colorado in… 18 years, but I know what I saw on those 3 hour trips from Denver to Aspen, and it was real pretty!

Frank West himself also received a slight redesign, and it’s a bit… conflicting. The Xbox 360 generation gaming had a big problem of ‘all’ protagonists looking like the same 30-something White dude with dark hair. Not helped by how that was the default look for any game with character creation. And Frank West was no exception to this rule.

So this remaster aims to make him look a bit more fun, a bit more distinctive, by giving Frank a 5 o’clock shadow— fair, he’s a journalist— and what looks like hair implants. Also fair, male-pattern baldness is affecting a lot of dudes before they turn 40 30 25 20. His hair is so much thicker, lusher, longer, and blacker, while retaining the same general style, just more exaggerated. Similarly, his expressions have been made to be more animated, which… yeah, I get that. ’06 Frank looked a bit janky, before getting his look refined in subsequent appearances. Personally I think he looked best in those Crackle movies that everybody tries to forget about. He just looked like a dude who would kill a hundred zombies with golf cart

Anyway, no platform or release window was given for this remaster, and this was just the intro cutscene but… sure, this looks fine. Ahe original is on PC, and could run on with a decent GPU from the past decade, so I don’t really mind all too much. Remasters are going to keep changing things, will keep happening, and while they should be held to a high standard, I am starting to become less bothered by changes when the original game is available. Well, unless it looks like trousers by comparison.

…I just wrote a 2,000 word essay on a trailer that’s less than a minute long. And I wonder why it takes me so long to do things.

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Progress Report 2024-06-30

Yeah, yeah, I’m working on the Student Transfer review and just wrapped up my playthrough. My review is going to be a bit more mixed, as I’m starting to want more from the game, and am less enthused about the project’s future than I have been since V2 launched.

2024-06-23: Focused on Student Transfer today, but goldarn is the Kyoko Mistake route LONG. 

2024-06-24: Finished the Kyoko Mistake route, dope shit, good shit, the intro is too damn long, but when it gets going, it gets frosty! Also started the Magic Delinquent route. I somehow hate it even more the second time, and whatever quality standards the dev team has are fucked up, as this should NOT have been approved. It takes too damn long to do anything, the characters are unlikable, ungrateful, entitled cunts, and it’s actually worse than the initial intro for re:Dreamer. Wrote 2,200 words for the Rundown.

2024-06-25: Worked on the TSF Showcase, but didn’t finish it because of work. Got 1,600 words in. Finished the Magic Delinquent route— worst route in the game, worse than Murder, hope it never gets another update, because I have negative faith in its ability to amount to anything. Then I started Sitcom. Sitcom owns! It’s a wacky premise that is beyond the usual scope of the game, is genuinely funny, and is home to a lot of personality TFs and a unique character dynamic. Yui X Tori is an S-tier pairing for all sorts of antics, but the presentation is mid, yo. More on it next week. Heh. Mid-Ho-Yo…

2024-06-26: Wrote… 3,300 or something words for the Rundown, including the massive Dead Rising bit. Edited the Nobleman Destroy images, which took longer than it should. Was busy with work, so I did not play ST today. I should do a word count of these docs at the end of every day…

2024-06-27: Added ~700 words to this Rundown, made the custom header images (they take time even when I know what I’m doing.) FINALLY finished the damn 30k outline for this fucking story. There is no way I can get it down to under 100k words. BASTARD FISH! Spent the rest of the night editing the Rundown.

2024-06-28: Uh… got sidetracked with Cassie vacation stuff for two hours. Wound up finishing up stuff for the TSF Showcase compilations (I spent way too much editing that egg header because I am a perpetual novice with image editing). Did my weekly e-hentai run. And played the KiyoshiWish route. It’s amazeballs!

2024-06-29: Oh my goooosh, dude! I spent most of the evening searching for a short TSF Showcase candidate for the first standalone TSF Showcase, finally found one, re-read it, wrote up a rough draft, spent like 40 minutes cleaning up a header image in a super inefficient way, and wrote the 1,500 word segment. This… this is gonna be a real productivity bottleneck, ain’t it?

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Psycho Shatter 1988: Black Vice X Weiss Vice
Progress Report:

Current Word Count: 0

Estimated Word Count: 88,000

Words Edited: 0

Total Chapters: 16

Chapters Outlined: 16

Chapters Drafted: 0

Chapters Edited: 0

Header Images Made: 0 

Days Until Deadline: 0