This Week’s Topics:

• Rundown Preamble Ramble: Prepping for Four Months of Agony…
• Disney Epic Leaks! (Hackers Released 1.1 TB of Internal Documents From Disney)
• Emio is Famicom Detective Club 3! (Famicom Detective Club 3: Emio – The Smiling Man Announced)
• Ranma ½ is BACK! (New Ranma ½ Anime Reveal Trailer Dropped)
• KoRobo, A Chibi-Robo Spiritual Successor Announced! (Kickstart Chibi-Robo 4, Ya Rat Bastards!)

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Rundown Preamble Ramble:
Prepping for Four Months of Agony…

I hate politics so, so dearly. 

I hate how the American political spectrum has rolled so far right over the past 24 years. I hate how fascism has been normalized. I hate how much attention, buzz, fear, uncertainty, and doubt lurks around the future of my country. This past week has just been fraught with political distress and uncertainty over where America will be in about four months. Whatever confidence I had after January 2021 has been steadily eroded as I have been exposed to the hyperbolic takes of people who speak their opinions with a confidence that ought to be reserved for the factual. It was bad enough being subjected to the deluge of unbridled confidence after the assassination attempt on July 13th. But that only went to stir the hornet’s nest of political discontent and fear that I was hoping to just sit out. Because this shit just makes me wanna kill myself.

I want to see things get better for people. I want to see society become more equitable and fair, less beholden to the oligarchs in what should be a democracy, or republic, or whatever you wanna call it. I want to see people gain financial security comparable to what I am fortunate enough to enjoy. I want to be able to keep working, keep making things for my rinky-dink website, pay off my mortgage, retire for a few years, manage the transfer of my estate to a to-be-deemed heir, and then die. But all of that is being constantly threatened. 

People’s views on the Republican candidate had a decade to solidify, and nothing he can do now will likely change that. Not even getting the roughest piercing north of the Mason–Dixon line from some kid he and his followers radicalized. Not even being convicted as a felon. Not even obviously getting his appointees in the highest court to change the law to make him a king if he ever comes back into power. He is obviously evil, but good PR, lies, and propaganda can make Satan’s wart-infested nutsack look like the fifth coming of Christ.

While the initial plan for the Democrats has been utterly wrecked by backlash on social media after the first debate, with calls for the incumbent candidate to step down because he’s a bad debater and public speaker. There is so much FUD going around that it’s damn near suffocating. And whenever I think that this is just a temporary spirited reaction, things manage to get worse. To the point where it’s looking increasingly like the incumbent will be dropped. 

Will that happen? I don’t know. What will happen? I don’t fucking know. And the fear of not knowing what will happen is scaring me, because I don’t want America, and humanity by extension, to be irrevocably fucked by evil, malicious, and downright vile people.

Now, I am not that worried on a personal level. I might be trans, but I got all my surgeries done. I’m on basic-ass Estradiol and can black market that shit if I need to. I’m healthy. I’m young. I work from home, doing a white collar accounting job. I have a highly lucrative specialty (cryptocurrency taxation) that most big firms would clamor to have. I live in Basically-Chicago. I own a condo and have family who can help me make mortgage payments if need be. And I don’t know how the fuck you can consider somebody’s existence to be pornographic and what the punishment for that could possibly be.

Also, contrary to what my sister said this past weekend, Project 2025 does not plan on deporting all trans people. Because where the fuck would they deport me to? A concentration camp? Maybe. But that is not on the current agenda, and I don’t think The Fourth Reich is willing to be that open about their hatred when their target includes so many young White Gentile Americans. (The term Gentile sounds like a term for someone of a gentle disposition, not like a religious term, but it’s better than Ajew, I guess.)

However, unlike a boneless Republican, I do care deeply about others and over the preceding years, I have basically written off this election as a non-issue. All because I thought the systems of the US government were functional. And because after the center-right party won in the recent UK election and France’s left parties formed an alliance, I figured America would be lockstep in following the same trend!

Actually, maybe those successes are why the American system is crumbling, rules are being broken, and FUD is overwhelming. Because the Republican party fears their window may be closing and only now are going on the offensive. All while the Democrats struggle to form any plan, as so many things are at play, and if they fuck up, they could all be killed or imprisoned, because kings cannot be criminals!

Ugh. The worst part about all this is that there’s jack bupkis that I can do about it. I know I’m going to vote. I’m going to vote for my entire family because they trust me to do that. And I know my state is going to turn blue. The only states that matter are the swing states— they’re the only states that truly mattered in the past 30 years. So many things would be better if we could just do the popular vote system and let everybody’s voices be heard, but noooo, we need to use the fucking binary map.

I just want to block everything off and live in blissful ignorance, but I lack the willpower to shut everything off and move

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Disney Epic Leaks!
(Hackers Released 1.1 TB of Internal Documents From Disney)

While I enjoy it when cyber sleuths are able to access secured databases and unveil hidden information tucked away in the vaults of corporations, they often reveal info they shouldn’t. People’s addresses, personal conversations, payroll information, government ID numbers. Work-in-progress builds that buffoons do not know how to distinguish from finished products. And confidential information that, while very interesting to know, was meant to be private.

The last big leak was the Insomniac one, and while I will admit to getting a real kick out of some of the classified information, I still acknowledge that it was a cruel and vindictive thing to do. Especially to a developer as respectable as Insomniac Games. The only bad thing they ever did was Fuse (2013), and that was exclusively EA’s fault. A game that should have been OverStrike, a single-player shooter with some actual color and personality that was revealed during the peak of the brown-gray military shooter era.

Anyway, the latest target was Disney, the entertainment megacorp who owns countless IPs, and who I plain old do not like as an entity. The hacker group Nullbulge also dislikes them, mostly due to their policies and practices surrounding AI and general disrespect for the artists who create their highly lucrative IP. As such, they have scrubbed through about 10,000 Disney Slack channels and released 1.1 TB of data, everything they could find, onto the public internet. 

I have not really been following these findings, in part because I don’t care too much about most of their IPs, and their historic relationship with video games has been frustrating to say the least. Yes, they are spread across many different departments and divisions, but I am of the unique intersection where… I simply do not care about most of the things they own.

Classic Disney and Pixar stuff? I liked some of it as a kid, but I did not retain any nostalgia. I always liked Cartoon Network and Nicktoons stuff more anyway. They had Star Wars, but Episode 9: The Death of Legacy was so utterly ruinous that the only way to recover the series is with a reboot or replacement film. They had it, they lost it, and they’ll never get it back again! They have a lot of good movies, but I only watch movies for narrow purposes these days. I liked The Simpsons and Futurama, or at least the episodes I saw before I stopped watching both 10+ years ago, but they’re done in my mind. I can listen to Crackers Krakkers talk about Marvel comics— or just comics in general for days, but I have not watched a Marvel thing in 12 years. And hearing that a sequel to some Aliens co-op shooter is in development… means precious little to me. 

I don’t really care that they got hit with the big fat leak leek, but I’m still bringing this up for the sake of staying with it. That’s all!

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Emio is Famicom Detective Club 3!
(Famicom Detective Club 3: Emio – The Smiling Man Announced)

Last week, I tacitly dismissed the teaser trailer for a Nintendo published horror game that was teased under the title of Emio. The trailer told people nothing, could have fully been made in a day, and the persistent rumor was that the game was being developed by the notorious horror hacks at Bloober Team. However, it turns out that this was just a case where a teaser trailer actually made people LESS hyped than they could be if this was a new project, as the game was formally unveiled. …And it’s not even a bloody horror game! It’s a new Famicom Detective Club!

Famicom Detective Club is one of those series that languished in obscurity due to its Japanese only releases. A quirk of Nintendo history that repugnant gaijin didn’t even know about until it was featured via a trophy in Super Smash Bros. Melee. A story-driven adventure game, modeled in the mold of Yuji Horii’s seminal (hood) classic The Portopia Serial Murder Case (1983)— which Square Enix recently raped with the use of AI. Admittedly, the SNES remake of part II got a fan translation in 2004. But the series did not really become widely known until Nintendo worked with visual novel manufacturers Mages to create a fully fledged remake of the original duology in 2021. 

It was a great way for Nintendo to dig into their back catalog. I’m super happy that it got a localization, unlike other promising Switch titles. Like Buddy Mission: Bond, which was localized into Korean and Chinese, but not even Asian English. And while I wanna give them grief for not doing that Good-Feel Goemon successor, that was strictly a Good-Feel joint, so… Imma blame Good-Feel instead. Same with level-5 for not bringing over Yo-Kai Watch 4. If that came out in English, there would be so many bad video essays on how Yo-Kai Watch is better than Pokémon. And I want to put that industrial fecal matter in my mouth, because toxic is tasty.

Anyway, the Famicom Detective Club series was never really meant to be a series, as much as it was just two games (released in two parts) that were often closely associated with one another. So the idea of there being a new game was never under consideration. I mean, how many series just come back after 35 years? That’d be like making a Star Tropics 3 or Mysterious Murasame Castle 2. (The wet dream of American Nintendo Fans™ and American Nintendo fans who wish they were members of The Nihon Master Race™.)

But… that’s what they’re doing. Mages did a bang up job with the 2021 remakes and Nintendo decided to not let the engine, assets, and other work go to waste, so they’re making a third one! Emio – The Smiling Man. 

Rather than reveal things with a typical trailer, the title was revealed via a brief interview with Yoshio Sakamoto. The writer and designer of the Famicom originals and the producer of the 2021 remakes, but you may know him better as the shepherd of the 2D Metroid series. He describes the basic premise— about a killer who is bringing an urban legend to life— and warns players that the ending may be divisive for some. Which is… curious. 

Not much of the title was shown in the interview, and while I want to trust Sakamoto as a storyteller, he also directed and wrote Metroid: Other M. And while I do not remember the exact source in the sea of interviews… he did not regret anything about the game’s story. And the story… well, that just a more harsh editor to look over it, as the story could indeed work, it just needed another pass and a better translation. I would like to point a finger at Team Ninja or D-Rockets, but I don’t think they had much control over that.

I would express worry over how this game will turn out, but fans won’t need to wait long to judge it for themselves. Famicom Detective Club 3: Emio – The Smiling Man will be released worldwide on August 29.

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Ranma ½ is BACK!
(New Ranma ½ Anime Reveal Trailer Dropped)

Oh snap! It was July 17th this week, meaning that the previously teased reveal trailer for the new Ranma ½ adaptation just dropped! It’s just a minute of footage meant to show people what the characters look like, affirm that they are sticking to the original designs, and show that they are bringing back every voice actor they can. …Voice actors who I do not recognize, as I watched the dub as a kid.

Generally speaking, the trailer looks great. It appears to faithfully capture the frantic, playful spirit of the original work, the animation is very lively and detailed, and it does not seem to be modernizing the series or anything. It’s from studio MAPPA, meaning it will probably be made under abusive working conditions but look good enough that people are willing to justify watching it regardless. (Don’t let their work go in vain. How are they gonna improve things without successful projects? Et cetera.) However, something that immediately stood out to me about this trailer was… the coloring.

Sometimes I miss the days of cel animation. Back then colors were so much simpler, followed a more familiar palette, and by using physical paint, the colors were consistent. With digital coloring, artists have so many different options, but the options they choose are not based on things they see physically in the real world, but how they look on whatever display they are using. This does not seem like a big deal, but in practice, this approach drives me nuts.

To me, a lot of recent works look incorrectly colored. Sometimes things are desaturated, something they look too dark, or they otherwise do not look right to me, and I do not know why. Perhaps my 12+ hours of screen time a day has somehow cooked my eyes. Perhaps my 2012 monitors (ASUS VS239H-P) are simply not optimized for modern color depth. Perhaps I am simply using the wrong color settings as, I’ll admit, I have never downloaded any proper color calibration software and stick with the defaults at 20% brightness. Or perhaps everybody else is crazy, and I’m the only sane person left!

While all modern screens follow a few rules, screen color calibration runs a gamut, and even two displays produced as part of the same product line will not exactly match up when it comes to the most granular detail. Combine this with different displays having different features, such as HDR, and it is easy to create an image that looks substantially different on different displays. The creator might not realize this. The recipient cannot know the original intent. And it makes judging anything for how it looks a rather murky prospect.

That is to say, I think the new Ranma ½ anime looks weird. The show looks desaturated, featuring a more pastel color palette than the original 90s anime. Ranma’s red shirt looks salmon. The blacks of boy Ranma’s hair are less dark. In one scene, the show uses dark purples to convey shadows and looks… wrong. Girl Ranma’s hair is… straight up pink instead of red— which I’m actually fine with as an artistic change. The hair was Black in the manga, purple on some covers. And everybody knows real redheads don’t have bright red hair anyway, redheads aren’t real so there’s no realism argument you could make.

Regardless of how it looks, the anime will debut sooner than expected, starting on October 6, 2024. I would say this screws with my tentative plans to go through the entire manga, but this is clearly going to be a multi-year, multi-season, adaptation. Urusei Yatsura (2022-2024) was 46 episodes based on 34 volumes. Ranma is 38 volumes and has more dedicated storylines, some of which were never animated, so I think it will have 48 to 52 at a minimum. Possibly more, as the series has both international and multi-generational appeal, but that probably rests on how well the first season does and how busy MAPPA gets.

Either way, I intend on covering the series, but only once it is done. …Or if it falls into any controversy which, let’s be honest, it probably will.

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KoRobo, A Chibi-Robo Spiritual Successor Announced!
(Kickstart Chibi-Robo 4, Ya Rat Bastards!)

OH MY GOODNESS! 

With all the revivals and spiritual successors that have come out over the past… current year minus the date the Mighty No. 9 Kickstarter launched, it should not be a surprise when anything gets a revival. Especially when the original studios behind these games have shuttered and the core creators are still of a working age. That being said, seeing this drop right before going to bed made me flip out!

From the ashes of Skip Ltd, Tiny Wonder Studio is developing a Chibi-Robo! spiritual successor by the name of KoRobo: Charge Into Adventure!, and it is set to have a Kickstarter campaign in the upcoming weeks. Rather than just announce the title with concept art though, the dev team produced a trailer, showing an early look at the game and… it’s just Chibi-Robo! You play as a little robot guy wandering around a house, cleaning up, doing chores, getting happiness points, and making little musical notes with every action done and step taken. It is blatant, it is obvious, and with many key staff who from the 2005 original working here, it absolutely gets a pass on being a bit derivative.

That all being said, I DO NOT LIKE the design of this KoRobo creature. Chibi-Robo would not be half as remarkable as it is without the amazing design of its main character. Chibi-Robo is a gloriously simplistic and well-constructed object, immediately recognizable, easy to draw, and made up of common shapes. The clamp hands, the basic joints of its arms and legs, the tube-shaped body, the plug for a tail, the basic black eyes, it is just perfect. There’s a reason why I have an amiibo of that dude!

By comparison, KoRobo looks like a knock-off. The head was smoothed down so it looks like a semi-sphere, rather than a face and a hat. Instead of having a lid where it stores objects, KoRobo has a spring head where… objects just sort of spawn within its model and grow as it plucks it out. They traded cartoonish impossible space— basically Felix’s Magic Bag— for visually unappealing nonsense!

The little glowing eyes are far less endearing looking than the glossy reflective black orbs. Looking at this metal doodad, I do not know how it can bend its arms or legs, as it lacks any visible joints. It has three fingers which, while better for grabbing certain things, makes its hands look more like claws, more aggressive. The feet are just flat circles, instead of being little metal shoes. And the torso is just… an awful shape! 

This robot has a potbelly with a bright green power button, which… why would you want the power button to be so prominent, let alone glow such a distinct light? Why does this robot have sensors on its chest? Why are there two little dots that look like either a face or a pair of nipples? And the use of a solar powered backpack, while cute, does raise a lot of questions. How does that power the robot? Where is the connector? Where is the wire? Does it charge wirelessly? Because if people are still using flat-screen CRT televisions, I do not buy that.

Now, I think the developers are fully aware of how bootleg-ish KoRobo looks. Per the synopsis published by Gematsu, that’s part of the storyline. Canonically, KoRobo is “not the coolest and latest in tiny household robo tech, but some knockoff model.” One given to a tinkerer kid in Brooklyn, who nevertheless loves and appreciates the little machine, treating it as a brother. 

The game appears to start in a similar vein as Chibi-Robo: Plug Into Adventure! Helping out around a surprisingly roomy Brooklyn apartment, rather than a swanky American home. Cleaning, watering plants, and exploring a tiny world that feels massive. But rather than just be a quaint housekeeping simulator, the story does deal with a strained family relationship and also ROBOT DEVILS!

Something that people really don’t talk about with Chibi-Robo is that the series is sci-fi as all heck. In the first game, you meet a magical eggplant man, aliens who get Earth illnesses, and you travel back in time to defeat the destructive spydorz! Which is actually a contemporary technology but… come on. They are called the freaking spydorz! And here, not only does KoRobo fight devils who come out of the fireplace— because fire represents a portal to HELL— there are space-time anomalies they can enter! Also instead of having a propeller, KoRobo has freaking rocket boots! And they look soooo much better than the dopey starter feet. I can see how the joints could be kept inside of those kicks!

Also, there is a seemingly evil, but ultimately just misunderstood, groundskeeper who stalks around the apartment and dresses in all black, named Garth Vader. And the mother of the family, Sally, is a waitress who inexplicably makes enough to pay for rent in the year 2025, and carries around a big red bag with the word “Sapreme” on it. So, clearly, somebody knows exactly what they are doing with this game.

There are a lot of things about this game that I find to be quite promising. And as someone who’s loved the original since her momma bought it in February 2006, I am thrilled to see the OG creators go back-to-basics like this. However, taking the visual dimension of this game as a whole… I don’t think it looks very good. Everything is drenched in sunlight. The shading looks wrong. The map design looks haphazard. Objects look like they do not belong. And everything just looks worse when compared to any or the first three Chibi-Robo games. Even when the series was doing 3D on the DS, it looked good because of how simple and strong its art direction was.

Now, in saying these things, I know this is an early alpha build, that the game has several rounds of TLC, revision, and iteration to go. However, I am bringing them up here because it is important that games like this get feedback as early on. Visual design matters, and while I understand some things are just easier to do on a slimmer budget… I think that a simplistic art design is just more appealing to the sort of people who like Chibi-Robo.

KoRobo will launch a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter and Campfire within the upcoming weeks, where more details about the game will be revealed. Personally, I will probably throw $100 at this project because, while I have concerns, I dearly want the game to come to fruition.
Also, I’m half-expecting Nintendo to not acknowledge this game, but release a port of Chibi-Robo: Plug Into Adventure! prior to this game’s release. Because if the original team asks them, and Nintendo is going to go ahead with their rumored re-release program for GameCube games, I think they’d just do it. It’d be a W for all the children in the world!

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Progress Report 2024-07-21

Yes, I finally started work on Psycho Shatter 1988 properly. It will be my primary objective going forward and… wait, shit. I need to also do a scenario review for the Murder Mystery route of Student Transfer. GOLDARN IT! I almost forgot!

2024-07-14: Today was 100% devoted to Zenless Zone Zero. I did my final play session, eking out just a bit more fun, finished my review, edited it (a BUNCH), organized my 600+ screenshots, added them to the review, and uninstalled the game to curb temptation. Still keeping it in Playnite tho. lol.

2024-07-15: Focused on TSF Showcase 2024-31, read the stories, made a 4,300 word draft, then got started on TSF Showcase 2024-32. Oopsie doodles!

2024-07-16: Did the write-up for TSF Showcase 2024-32, only 2,500 words for some reason. Edited Showcase 2024-31.

2024-07-17: Spent the morning on 1,650 words of Rundown. Edited both Showcases 31 and 32. Got started on this Rundown intro, but stopped after Biden got COVID, because WTF is going on with American politics? FINALLY started writing PS1988, writing the first 500 words before I realized it was 1 AM.

2024-07-18: Edited the Rundown, made the basic header, played the ST Murder scenario, wrote 2,500 words for the Murder scenario, realized I got work in my inbox and focused on that. Crypto crap kept me busy until 23:45, so I just said screw it and didn’t write PS1988 today. I do not like to start writing fiction after 23:00, okay? Is that a crime?

2024-07-19: Edited ST Murder scenario review and grabbed imaged. Added the 1,150 word KoRobo segment for the Rundown. Wrote 3,000 words to polish off the prologue chapter for PS1988. Writing white supremacist villains is both easy and draining.

2024-07-20: Hell yeah. Did a chapter from start to finish in a day! Wrote 4,600 words for chapter 2 of PS1988. The intro is now done, so the first act can begin! It’s NWA time, bitches! Except I only got about 500 words into that chapter before I wound up straight outta steam. Then I watched I Saw the TV Glow. I thought it had a lot of cool elements, but I generally am not a fan of stories that do not commit to their premise and take it to its full conclusion. I prefer to be as subtle as a brick over making something that people might not get, and I was waiting for the real crux of the movie to start for… the majority of the movie. Still, it had good visual direction, a lot of great ideas, a nifty soundtrack, and succinctly captured the imagery and vibes of a bygone era. Sadly, not something I could really use for a TSF Showcase like I hoped, as it is FAR from TSF.

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

Current Word Count: 8,718

Estimated Word Count: 88,000

Words Edited: 0

Total Chapters: 16

Chapters Outlined: 16

Chapters Drafted: 2

Chapters Edited: 0

Header Images Made: 0

Days Until Deadline: 107