Rundown (9/13/2026) Nattie Did The Walkin’

This Week’s Topics:

Rundown Preamble Ramble:
Nattie Did The Walkin’

The past month, one of the biggest games to hit the market was not part of the deluge of August/September AA and AAA releases, but rather Big Walk. A first-person multiplayer adventure game where you play as a bunch of abstract bird people who need to solve environmental puzzles through the power of teamwork. With a squad of two to too many people, you venture from point of interest to point of interest, solve puzzles, get these weird cornetto looking doodads, and gradually unlock more sections within this quite large island.

It’s a game with a lot of haphazard inventory management, as you can only carry one item at a time, two if you get a backpack that another player must manage. It has what would be an egregious amount of traversal in most other games. And much of its challenge comes from figuring out what things do in a world largely devoid of text and challenges that rely heavily on verbal or faux-physical communication. Pointing at things you want other players to interact with, describing what symbols look like, navigating someone while reading instructions inaccessible to them, or simply deciding what you want to focus on.

Big Walk is a puzzle game with some genuinely good bits of puzzle designs. A game that arguably wastes the player’s time by virtue of the ancient game design law that walking isn’t gameplay. And a rather excellent goof around with friends simulator, as I discovered playing the game with my friends this past weekend. It was simply a grand time… for reasons that are sorta obvious. Running through the island with a team of four well seasoned buddies, we were quick to communicate, cooperate, and goof around as we tried to amuse ourselves and each other. Grabbing and throwing giant balls that emit light, ringing around bells in the tutorial area, and grabbing each other as we made our way from objective to objective, not really knowing anything about the game.

It was the right amount of structured objective fulfilling and screwing around that makes for a good experience. We got stuff done by clearing two areas, immediately intuited puzzles, and felt like we were continuously making process, even if we weren’t. We dropped valuable items needed to fulfill our objectives like a bunch of fingerless dorks. I went off wandering while my friends did a puzzle or two, just because I wanted to keep things tidy or explore an interesting rock. And we made plenty of time to do silly little things like honk train horns just for the heck of it. All of which culminated in us playing catch and climbing trees as we wound down our session. Truly, it was play in its purest form.

After one three-hour session with Big Walk, I now directly understand the current wave of casual objective-driven multiplayer games, commonly referred to as friendslop (sorry Cassie). Typically, when playing a game with someone, the goal is on the objectives, not losing, doing something within a limit, or achieving a certain narrative thrust or requirement through heavily structured play. However, this new wave of games is remarkably looser, largely designed as a way for you to just hang out with friends while pushing toward a lighter objective. You have plenty of time to goof around and make your own fun with the game, not necessarily doing what it overtly wants you to do to progress.

In retrospect, this seems like the most obvious genre to make, a video game that functions as a loose game to keep people engaged while not imposing a lot of skill requirements. Casual, low entry, games have pretty much always been a thing, with puzzle and adventure games being among the earliest, but multiplayer games not focused on instrumental play were far rarer throughout the 20th century. Things changed as the market matured and technology became more accessible, leading to casual party games like the You Don’t Know Jack series and any form of video Pictionary.

However, those were still structured around a clear goal and you were only playing the game when the game asked you for an answer to a question. You were not navigating in a world or engaging in constant gameplay. Games like Garry’s Mod, VR Chat, or any online social game offered the ability to exist in a game world with others, but they generally lacked instrumental play, and were just sandboxes to goof about in. …Which is why so many people just goofed around in Minecraft servers and Roblox, innit? Because they do a great job of fulfilling this hangoutability factor.

I’m sure that plenty of people thought of this casual misfit multiplayer stuff do-er game well before it became a hotly desired trend after people used games like this to bring them closer during the pandemic. However, the canon of events is that it’s a modern phenomenon, and I think it’s a glowing positive for the industry. Games can and should be anything, and just being able to spend time with your friends in a casual setting is something we simply need more of nowadays. Communication and connections can save people, remind them of the good in humans, and helps them engage in something that relies on cooperation and improves relationships.

Yes, I know Big Walk is more subdued and sophisticated from what the genre offers. However, the genre is still young, and Big Walk is so effective at what it does that I honestly think it should be experienced by millions of school-aged children the world over. Because a game like this doubles as both a personal experience built upon bonds and a great avenue for children to communicate. I know that is a rash thing to say after only scratching the surface, but combined with all the glowing buzz I’ve seen from this game, I feel confident in calling this a pretty dang important game.

…Also, I doubt anyone would figure this out, but the title of this Rundown is taken from the song Tommy Did The Walkin’ by The J. Arthur Keenes Band, which was also covered by The World Is Square. I know these songs by heart, but I do not know 90% of the biggest songs that have been released in my lifetime. Go figure!

Nintendo Direct Double Digest – Part One
(The Ocarina Remake Section)

This past week, Nintendo, the best of the trifecta of console gaming for what little that’s worth, held a double-decker of Nintendo Directs. The first being a Zelda focused Direct on September 8th, and another general flavored affair on September 9th.

I’m definitely a lapsed Zelda fan who played through Breath of the Wild, pretty much forced myself to say it’s pretty good despite have oodles of issues with it, and wrote off the series. Even a remake of Link’s Awakening, a game that really could have used a revision to add better navigation and more buttons, was more of a side-grade than anything. (I thought the art style was inherently disrespectful, and the technical issues were unforgivable for a Game Boy remake.) So I’ve pretty much tuned out of much of the series, and mostly wanted to see the older games come back on modern systems.

Which, for the record, we have seen with the release of Wind Waker for Switch 2 via Nintendo Classics™ and the release of the multiplatform Twilight Princess re-release, Dusklight. I played it up to the first dungeon, and it is roughly everything I could ask for, barring the HD version’s thorough texture pack. I don’t like the fan-made 4K texture pack. It looks weird!

After stewing on it for three months, after doing that big remake Ramble, I have reached the conclusion that we already got the ideal Ocarina of Time re-whatever. It’s called Ship of Harkinian. It’s the original game, at a good frame rate, with widescreen support to make the world like it has some peripheral detail, and supports oodles of options and extra. And if there is one thing I have learned in my tenure of playing video games, it’s that options are pretty nice.

Then again, I would basically say the same thing about Star Fox 64 (1997) and its remake Star Fox (2026). However, fans of the original seem to have come around after the initial bitter reaction to the redesigns and fact that this is another Star Fox 64 re-whatever, calling it the best version, and I get why. People are trained to express Graphic Lust, people want to like the thing that is most convenient to them. Conversely, people feel a sense of personal shame when trying to gas up an old-ass game that looks like some old-ass old ass.

Akumako: “Old ass can still be good ass, just look at Granny Asses Quarterly for proof on that.”

Also, I just have to say that I HATE how Nintendo invited these months of baseless speculation on Ocarina Remake, or Ocaremake, after showing a pre-rendered trailer. But now, we FINALLY have an answer as to what they have been hiding from us. What exactly is this remake?

Well, it’s… The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remade in what certainly looks like Unreal Engine 5. It’s not a radical reinvention, not a game that re-examines what Ocarina is or should be, and is clearly trying to do what the original did, but with various tweaks and modernizations. It’s a direct or note-for-note remake à la Star Fox (2026), Spyro Reignited Trilogy (2018), or Metal Gear Solid Delta (2025), and not Ocarina of Time but non-linear. Because why change a design that worked and went on to influence so many little things in game design?

Accordingly, it’s not surprising to note how much of the game is the same, but with a different shade of paint and some design changes that are less radical reinventions and more… sideways pivots.

The world design is kept largely identical in a geometric sense, barring fairly minor changes to scaling and the removal of certain scene transitions. It’s the same Hyrule Field, same Castle Town, same Kokiri Forest, same dungeons. The entire look of everything, however, has been changed, and I would not say it’s for the better. Hell, I would not even say it’s good beyond a broad technical level.

The game tries to maintain the underlying designs for most of the NPCs and enemies in the game. Tektites still look like Tektites, the Castle Town NPCs still look like weird freaks designed to look good in 500 polygons. Putting the remake and original Link side by side is more a difference in details than in shape or structure. Rather than just wearing an overly long shirt, Link’s tunic has texture to it. There’s some armor to protect his supple boy chest, and various little flourishes to make him look like someone wearing something crafted by hand, rather than his tall sister’s Indonesian cotton top.

However, it renders everything in… what can easily be dismissed as The Unreal Engine 5 Remake art style or the Nintendo Hire This Man aesthetic. While the engine was not confirmed, the footage shown has a predisposition to photorealism. Or rather, “photorealism.” Lighting, particle, and impact effects that are so exaggerated that they cease to look realistic and more like a gussied up photos or videos. It is a form of stylization that can work, but has been made so common throughout the medium of games that it ceases to look distinctive or interesting, giving a game with a distinct 1998 look a guise of modern pabulum. Or in other words, it looks boring on the face of it, not like Ocarina of Time, but like Modern AAA Video Game.

This affects the game in at least two primary ways, the first being an aesthetic mismatch. As I said, the character designs have seen largely conservative redesigns, with Link’s being among the most radical. Some of them look just fine. I don’t have a problem with Darunia or Ruto’s designs, as they are fantasy creatures, so the suspension of disbelief in terms of proportions is larger. However, they look off with the more humanoid characters. For example, Zelda’s eyes are luxuriously textured, yet are uncannily large on her face, making her look creepy. Characters can have a synthetic sheen applied to their figures, faces, or fingers, often as a result of overdone visual effects. At its best, they look like fine enough adaptations. At their worst, they look like facsimiles of humans in the shape of cartoon characters, slotting them into an uncanny valley.

This subject is also particularly pertinent nowadays due to the influx of asset flips, and AI generated trash that bears a similar look, making the game look worse through association. This is seen by many as The Generative AI Style. Or, to quote a friend I watched the reveal with, “Unreal Slop.” I do not like it, but I can already tell that people are going to gradually accept this art style for this game, even if my feeds were flooded with people criticizing the game’s look. It happened with Star Fox (2026), and it will likely happen here, as people are more inclined to accept whatever is pushed to them. Not me though. I will hold a grudge for a hella-long time. I’m still salty about how A Link Between Worlds (2013) looks.

…That being said, I think the game looks worse regardless of any changes to its characters because it’s so damn BUSY with its visuals. Every screen of this game has a cacophony of visual effects playing out. Aggressive midsummer lighting, reflections, ambient occlusions, depth of field filters in the background, forest fog, and hyperbolic hit sparks with screen shake. It is a LOT of visual information for the player to take in, all layered on top of each other into a single image, and at the cost of the game’s color depth. Many scenes are overly dark where they were vibrant in the original, making it harder to tell where you even are. The environments are given “texture” through god rays that remove the sense of place from these locations, just dunking them in apocalyptic lighting.

While I don’t go outside every day, I have been outside before. I have seen murky portside towns in the dead of autumn, rich mountains during the eve of summer, a city aplomb with life in the spring, and endless fields covered in snow during the winter. I know that the world can support a vast number of different environments and I think creators SHOULD reflect the biodiversity of our world across our media. However, this is not doing that. It is taking something that COULD pass as realistic and applying layers of stuff that do not make it look more fantastical, but instead make it look less like anything. Well, anything other than a modern UE5 video game.

It doesn’t even have the maximalist absurdity of a Square Enix HD-2D remake!

I can tell that copious amounts of work went into crafting this world, in reimagining Hyrule from the ground up, as a more tangible and less abstract location. However, I think the overall direction of this remake… does not look very good. It is high fidelity, hugely detailed, but in a way that looks thoroughly homogenized, adhering to modern standards while lacking a distinct visual identity beyond one inherited and carried along as part of this aesthetic transformation. I think it looks boring. When it doesn’t look boring, it looks uncanny.

Now, I have seen some try to argue that this aesthetic is actually a call back to the original look of the 1998 game, which had a lot of muted colors and hardware based fog. The dull grass, murky mountains, and probably photo-based cobblestone. It is possible to interpolate the intended aesthetic of this game as realistic, in trying to replicate reality, but with exaggerated elements. Then again, you can also say that about Super Mario 64…

Through years of recitation and the advancement of graphics, it was easy to view the aesthetic of Ocarina 1998 as the best they could do at the time. You could say the graphics were not a choice but a compromise. Was that actually the case? …Who’s to say? People with decaying memories? Promotional materials made to sell the game? Notes made by a few people under fear of corporate scrutiny?

You cannot know what the original intention truly was, but we do know that the aesthetic was overwritten with the 2011 re-whatever for 3DS. This facelift gave the game a brighter more vibrant look while upping character models to match not the text of the original, but the paratext of the promotional art. Is this what was intended, or just easier to sell? …I don’t care! This changed how people viewed the original, imposed a recreated intention of the original, and was generally seen as more attractive, in part because it better adhered with the aesthetic the series had adopted at the time. That of a brighter fantasy adventure with more abstract exaggerated elements. See the DS games, Skyward Sword, or even the stylized-as-hell yet grimy Twilight Princess.

I wanted to say that the Ocarina remake does not fit with this look, but the more I stew on the topic, the harder it is to convince myself that is the case. Why? Because Zelda has never had a singular aesthetic. A Link Between Worlds, Breath of the Wild, the Link’s Awakening remake. Deviating from aesthetics, shaking things up, and experimenting with the LOOK of Zelda… is as Zelda-ass as throwing a boomerang at keese. And if Nintendo is going to remake a Zelda game… they are going to try some new shit. And that, to them, to many studios, is the point of a remake like this.

Ocarina of Time Remake (2026) is a recreation of the classic using modern technology. However, it is meant to look different, look weird even, in order to be its own distinctive entity that ought to be experienced by virtue of its differences, while retaining the same “core” mechanical and aesthetic details. If that sounds like a fat wad of phooey, that’s because it is. But I think it’s the truth.

This is not a way to reinterrogate, reimagine, or do much to futz the original, other than give it a new look, change some designs, and add some mechanical changes. For example, Sheik has been thoroughly feminized, eschewing the androgynous design with rough hair and rags for something that emphasizes their feminine hips, a long-flowing ponytail, and light fluffy strands of wavy hair. Because they’re actually a GIRL!

Akumako: “Except in the manga. She grows a dick in that one!”

Yes, but you’re thinking about some Paheal Rule 63 remnants. Nobody remembers them but me, so I walk the earth each day, bearing this most accursed knowledge.

Akumako: “I love horses~! ‘Specially when they’re FtM!”

For mechanical changes, the biggest ones are the introduction of a jump button, a feature previously automated in 3D pre-BotW Zelda games. …Even though that uses up a whole-ass face button and does not benefit the level design because it was never necessary. There’s now a dash that lets Link haul butt through large environments, which I will never say no to, even if the interpolation of movement looks a bit off. While the quick select item slots, which were a series staple for so many years, have been replaced with only a single usable item slot. This means you need to select a new item every time switching is in order, but we cannot do that via the jolly old weapon wheel. Oh, no! Instead, you use a linear list à la Tears of the Kingdom and Echoes of Wisdom. You know, one of the worst parts of those games.

Overall, I am not enthusiastic about the Ocarina of Time remake. I don’t care for its aesthetic changes. I don’t agree with the visual or even mechanical changes they’re introducing. And I feel that its adherence to the structure of the original makes it far too easy to view it as a replacement than its own entity. Hell, I don’t even like how it looks. Give me the Wii U tech demo over this! However, I also know this is not for me.

I liked Ocarina of Time, but it was not a big or important game to me as my, what, fifth Zelda? While I finished it on GameCube in 2008 and the 3DS version in 2012, it was not a huge game for me, and one that I don’t feel the need to revisit, much less this way. I have Ship of Harkinian and the oodles of optional modifications it boasts. So, I don’t need a remake, I don’t want a remake, and I don’t want THIS remake.

However, what I want and what I think is largely irrelevant, because I’ve seen this movie before and know how it’s going to end.

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (2026) will be released for Nintendo Switch 2 on November 5, 2026. It will be subject to rave reviews declaring that this remake transforms the game and its core fundamentals are still excellent. Many people who are against the art style will soften to it through familiarity. Some will just not vibe with this new look, at all, and not enjoy the remake as it is. There will be reheated criticisms of the game design of Ocarina 1998 by people who were not even alive for the original. And there will be a desire to make Content and Engagement over this Cultural Event, as Nintendorks can’t talk about Grand Theft Auto VI.

People who never played Ocarina— girl, it’s been widely available on six systems, not including your phone— will likely gel with it more due to various additions, like a quest log and a renewed sense of relevance. Many will call it the definitive version, achieving something prior renditions couldn’t. And the cycle of discourse for profit will continue until it ceases to become profitable. Eventually, people who matter will agree that “it was pretty good” in about 5/10 years, and still defer to the original, as it’s the original with historic value, while the remake is its own thing. As a rule, it is rare for a remake to ever overwrite the original unless the original was smaller and more unknown. In the case of a game that has been around for 28 years, lauded as the GOAT of gaming for a decade, that sure ain’t happening anytime soon.

Ocarina Remake will sell well— VERY well— but I don’t see it revolutionizing anything or having much staying power, especially given the current climate around remakes.

Nintendo Direct Double Digest – Part Two
(The General Section)

Nintendo Directs are always pulse-checks for Nintendo and their hardware, so I may as well get down to it. After a lot of bitterness, the Switch 2 debuted to great success, which it has largely maintained through its first year on the market. From June 5, 2025 to June 30, 2026, the system sold 23.68 million units, and has been a unanimous success. It seems like the best console to buy as the PS5 and Xbox Series drifted beyond its current $500 price tag, especially when, as newer hardware, it will be supported for longer.

However, there are still many things about the system that suck, though I’m inclined to say that most of them are not really their fault. And not because of some uwu don’t hurt my small bean Ninty Ende schlock or anything. For as valuable a company as Nintendo is, as an entertainment company second only to bloomin’ Disney, they are a gnat compared to the the movers and shakers of the tech world.

Nintendo’s systems were subject to harsher tariffs that limited their supply chain activity, and in order to avoid import snafus, they debuted the Switch 2 at $450 in most of the world. Meanwhile, Japan’s versions were sold at a loss because Nintendo wanted to secure the market and make money through game sales. Which they have.
The recent Switch 2 price hike was caused by the memory shortage spurred by big tech companies and enabled by a complicit RAM cartel.
Their push toward an $80 game with Mario Kart World was… really just an inevitability with how the industry was going. Hell, they restrained themselves by NOT having a $20 to $30 season pass on top of that price jump, unlike TOO MANY modern games.
Their decision to pursue faster memory cards was a pragmatic and technical one to get games to run on lower volume media. However, after a generation of code in a box releases, they made Game Key Cards to appease cheapskate publishers who did not want to pay a premium for 64 GB to store their 12 GB game. Or their 80 GB games. The fault lies with component prices and publishers used to digital margins.
- Now, Pokopia being Game Key Card only? That was ridiculous, and The Pokémon Company are a bunch of misers for it. I swear to Giritina, if they use a Game Key Card for WiWa, there’s gonna be… a lotta pissy Caucasoids.

Could Nintendo do better in other ways? Oh, yes. Hella ways. Actually using the tariff refunds to give back to customers, even if it’s with some Ambassador games. ANd no, doing a seasonal end of quarter sale does not count. Respecting their legacy IPs more rather than this glacial drip feed of fookin’ Dragon Buster and Star Fox Adventures and crap. Not being a bunch of copyright NARCS. Not selling what should be basic updates as Nintendo Switch 2 Editions, because there is NO consistency with that shit. …Oh, and bring back Nintendo Selects! I don’t CARE if they are digital only, I won’t respect your value. I’m the customer, I decide if your games are worthy my time, dochy, and faeces.

Akumako: “At least they added 8 player Mario Kart 8 Deluxe on Switch 2… And fixed Pikmin 3.”

SURE, I GUESS! They know how to do good things, how to make them free, but they also don’t want to! Such a mystery wrapped in a suit…

Anyhow, the Nintendo Direct itself~!

As a Nintendo Direct, this was a bit pants. Nintendo did not have many new titles to share, and a lot of what was offered were a mixture of ports and re-whatevers of various flavors. The oddest of which is probably The Legend of Zelda: Age of Calamity – Definitive Edition is coming to Switch 2 as remaster to the original Switch title, but one that only offers more enemies, harder challenge modes, and better performance. These are things that I would think would be covered by a Nintendo Switch 2 Edition, but instead it is its own release, further obfuscating Nintendo’s policy toward upgrades. Which, really, should not be paid to begin with, since you’re already paying the Nintendo premium.

Games like Meccha Chameleon, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Remastered, Kingdom Come Deliverance 2, the recent Resident Evil remakes, Stellar Blade, Far Cry 3, Guardians of the Galaxy, 007: First Light, and Persona 4 Revival were announced for Switch 2. However, these announcements are not particularly exciting unless you ONLY have a Switch 2, or ONLY follow Nintendo scented news. The appeal of these games being on a new platform, in a new portable form, just does not hit the same in a post-PlayStation Portal and post-Steam Deck world. Sure, it’s good that they are here, but the people are here for the Nintendo stuff, and Nintendo-scented stuff. So showing all of this PC and PlayStation-scented stuff is not particularly compelling in 2026. In 2018, 2019, abso-freaking-lutely, but hype cannot be sustained for going on 7 years.

Like, WHY are you announcing Persona 6 for Switch 2 now? Why wasn’t this just announced as part of the game’s announcement?

Pretty much every Q4 title Nintendo has lined up got a showing, just as a reminder that they’re coming out and to reveal one or two novel things. Nintendo Switch Sports Resort continues to look like the platonic ideal of a Wii Sports 3. Xenoblade 3 is getting a New Girl™ as part of its DLC rollout, one who looks like Mythra yet has Shulk’s foresight as a bit of weird cross-series incest. Yes, incest, because blondes. Pikmin 4 is getting its own Nintendo Switch 2 Edition with bonus weekly challenge levels for the next few months, and also voice commands for your dog, assuming you don’t have a lisp of untested accent. Mario Kart World is getting another piecemeal fragment of content that won’t sway people. I mean, Super Mario Kart tracks? Really, dude? Kirby Air Riders getting new Amiibos and some lobby renovations is just… petty?

I tend to come to these for something NEW, and what was NEW can easily be slotted into two categories. New games that look interesting, promising, or have some legacy behind them. …And remakes of games in IPs that I care about. Because while the quantity of re-whatevers is not going up dramatically, they come out faster than major original releases, and immediately warrant attention and discourse. So let’s go through the noteworthy stuff.

Metroid 6: Ravenous Announced
(Samus is BACK and She’s Hungry Like The METROID!)

…The past decade of Metroid has been a quirky ride. You had Federation Farce, which nobody liked that much, as the conclusion to a 6 year dearth of releases. 2D Metroid made a bold return with Samus Returns (2017), which I liked quite a bit, but as a late 3DS title that came out after AM2R, I think people wanted to be miffed by it on principle. Then during the horribly long wait for Metroid Prime 4: Beyond (2025), the series started getting some real footing on Nintendo Switch.

Metroid 5: Dread (2021), functionally a sequel to Samus Returns, brought the series into HD for the first time ever and… I’m still not sure if I really liked it. To quote my review, “It fluctuated between being a euphoric experience that fulfilled video game dreams I have been carrying for 16 years of my life. …And a title that made me question if I even truly liked this series in the first place.”

Metroid Prime Remastered (2023) is among the list of hundreds of games that I really want to play, as it is a thoroughly impressive update on what I remember to be my favorite game in the series. And after getting started with it, I was having a great time. I know it’s great, everybody has had almost exclusively good things to say about it, barring questionable door redesigns, and it handedly reintroduced Metroid Prime for an affordable price.

Then Metroid Prime 4: Beyond finally came out and was somewhere between pretty good and an insult to life itself depending on who you ask. Structural problems lie at the heart of this game, built on decisions made years and years earlier, while other choices, like the number of green doodads you need, just feel like arbitrary bad decisions. How hard is it to change a bloody number? I’ve been expecting, or hoping, that Nintendo would do a major overhaul update given the state it launched in, but instead they seem inclined to let this title lie and move past Metroid Prime… to Metroid 6, bay-bee!

Metroid Ravenous was the big announcement from this Direct and it looks… good. Really good! However, seeing it again, focusing on what was shown, it mostly looks like Metroid Dread 2. It has the same intense 2D action, the parrying that gives Samus something to do other than run and shoot, flashy moments that make the experience hit hard, and the visual flair that I have come to expect. The Flash Strike is back, because why remove something that gave you great aerial control? And Samus is once again locked in a perilous underground cavern while being pursuit by obscured humanoid that are probably robots and must be dispatch as she powers up and ventures skyward. I’m not used to 2D Metroids having this little change between installments— literally compare the 1986, 1991, 1994, 2002, and 2021 installments and bask at how distinct they are. But I suppose that is the modern reality of direct sequel development.

In other words, Ravenous looks similar to Dread. It’s building on the same visual style, including the black walls that exist because the game would be harder to play if there was additional useless visual information on screen. And similarly, title is also a direct sequel, showing Samus after she awakened her latent Metroid powers— you’ve had 24 years to play Metroid Fusion (2002), this isn’t a spoiler. However, the main hook, the titular hook if you will, is that Samus can FINALLY do something I’ve wanted her to do for about half my life. EAT PEOPLE!

NO, I DON’T HAVE A VORE FETISH! I SWEAR!

In Metroid Fusion, Samus gained a teeth-line appendage on her arm that was meant to resemble the teeth of a Metroid. I “always” thought it would be cool if she used that to, well, consume the X parasites across the BSL station. However, she did not, and at the end of Dread— you’ve had 5 years to play it, and the trailer spoils it anyway— Samus gains more Metroid-based abilities as part of the game’s bomb-ass 10/10 finale. Naturally a sequel would need to double down on it, and this one clearly is. Samus’s Metroid-like form is back, and as a rule, she can now eat her opponents to regain health and deal damage, which is an ability I always loved.

This is a game design pet peeve of mine, but I often believe that dispatching enemies should in some way confer health items. Health drops, potions, coins that heal you, using a finisher to recover health, or maybe just restoring a percentage of damage with every hit. It’s one of my go-to abilities in any game that features it. And before you say it, yes, I know I should play Doom Eternal (2020), but I’m busy. So seeing this feature in a Metroid game is… very interesting to me, enough so that I am willing to just bite the bullet and spend $67 on a new copy. (Because tax.)

…Or maybe I’m just hoping that this time they ditch the same high precision nonsense and weird damage scaling and offer a Metroid game that I LIKE with no strings attached. (No two hours of trying a highly precise puzzle to get 100% completion.) It would make me feel better, and I’m willing to gamble on that!

Metroid 6: Ravenous will be released on January 28, 2027, exclusively for Nintendo Switch 2. It’s right at the start of my busy season, so it would be hard for me to say NO to a game I could clear in 20 hours or less.

…Shit, Super Danganronpa 2×2: Despair Slays comes out on January 14, 2027? Muramasa: Revenant Blades is coming out on February 4, 2027? And I need to get started on Verde’s Doohickey 2.0 Act IV and— AAAAAAAA!!!!

Kirby and the World Beyond Announced
(Kirby Breaks the Seal and Goes OPEN WORLD)

Aw hell yeah, what a way to end the Direct in a way that gets everybody but the real ones mad!

Kirby Discovery (2022) was an “almost brilliant” game that showed off the gumption of the folks at HAL as they brought Kirby into 3D without making any real compromises to how the game plays. It was the same refined yet breezy platforming I’ve come to love, along with a level of bombast that made the game a start to finish. This was a childhood dream come true for me, and I was so glad that I got to experience it at the same time as everyone else. …Yes, I was a Kirby kid. Isn’t that OBVIOUS? …What do you mean No?

Akumako: “She’s talking to a piece of wood for the folks reading our livestream transcript. I think she stole it from the backlot…”

Accordingly, I was curious to see where they would go with a sequel, hoping for a less segmented and more free-form adventure of some sort. Every piece of Discovery was great, but I found there to be some unwanted friction in repeating stages, scouring for collectibles, and doing too many challenge stages. I like to be comprehensive in my approach to games, and how things are presented is important. Apparently HAL knew what I was thinking— they always do— because they decided to do what was fetch a decade ago and not only bring Kirby back to 3D, but to make it… OPEN WORLD!

That’s right, Kirby and the World Beyond will expand from the linear course of Discovery and take place in a large world full of babbles, doodads, and whatsits to collects while styling through the world with expanded copy abilities. Cutter can now be used to glide through the air with the deadliest of ease, sword stab up trees, and parasol… well, it lets you chill in the wind, of course. The expansion of the core copy abilities is interesting to me, especially after all the varying ways the upgradable copy abilities worked last time. However, the big takeaway for a lot of people is the narrative. The trailer depicts the opening parts of the game, set in a closed off world that is cracked open after what I presume to be a tutorial boss. Kirby is then greeted by this game’s New Girl™ who teaches Kirby how to use a new variant of super copy abilities to break the wall and venture into a new world. …Which raises MANY questions, but it’s a Kirby game. You come for the delightful gameplay and stay for the lore.

I have nothing negative, snarky, or doubtful to say about this game, and just think it looks like a swell as heck time. …That is, other than not liking the name. Drop the “and the” as they add nothing. This is Kirby: Worlds Beyond. Heck, that’s what the Japanese title translates to. Kirby of the Stars: World Beyond.

Kirby: Worlds Beyond— you can’t make me use its legal name— will be released sometime in spring 2027 exclusively for the Switch 2.

Akumako: “…Yeah, you can buy it as your post-tax season late April game. I know how you get about Sweet Carlos.”

That joke was never publicized, and you darn well know it!

Yo-Kai Watch 2 Remake Announced!
(Knowing Level-5, It Will Be AI Slop!)

…Okay, remakes and remasters and re-whatevers are a staple of Nintendo Directs at this point, but the ratio of old versus new was bad here. Combined with the Ocarina remake the day before, it’s easy to feel that we are entering a regressive era where the only thing to look forward to are glimpses of the past, a more creative era. An era where the games industry was smaller, easier to understand, and We were not all beset by distraction and engagement fodder, making it easier to appreciate things.

Alas, even returns to a simpler time are beset with the modern woes. For one, people have been trying to remake games using AI for YEARS, and we are seeing major companies adopt these tools earnestly and without reservation. Companies like Level-5, who quite famously revealed multiple new games using AI trailers. Sure, Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time and Inazuma Eleven: Victory Road were both good games, but I cannot trust anything that comes out of their doors. …Mind you, I could not trust anything to come out of their doors because of how BAD they have been about releasing titles, but now? I don’t want them to!

I don’t want them to remake Inazuma Eleven if they are going to replace the sprite art with awful lighting and 3D models with significantly less visual identity. However, their lust for profit persists, and Level-5 is planning on doing something that would have made them tens of millions if they did it back in 2020, as they are doing a Yo-Kai Watch 2 re-whatever.

…So, okay, let me tell this story, again. Yo-Kai Watch was HUGE in Japan through 2014 to 2016, with a big multimedia push, oodles of merch, and the series rivaled Pokémon in some categories. Ultimately, Pokémon won out after Pokémon Go became HUGE worldwide, and despite a continued multimedia approach, Yo-Kai Watch failed to resonate with a second microgeneration of children. This became evident with the failure of Yo-Kai Watch 4 (2019), a complex and ambitious sequel to the series that reworked the gameplay while maturing it. Its Switch exclusive release was a flop, its enhanced PS4 release months later was a bust, it never left Japan, and basically screwed over Level-5 for a few years.

Level-5 tried to save face with Yo-Kai Watch 1 for Nintendo Switch (2019), a cheap yet effective port of the first game launched three months after Yo-Kai Watch 4, but dropped off the charts after selling less than 14,000 copies. At least per Niche Barrier. Yikes. The Switch remaster was never released outside of Japan, despite the original game having gotten a full localization, as Nintendo didn’t want to bring over a dud.

From there, Level-5 attempted to revitalize the series in other ways, namely Holy Horror Mansion and Yo-Kai Watch: Puni Puni. Two games that have been AI games since their reveal.

Recognizing their losses, Level-5 decided to go back to the best-selling game(s) in what was their marquee series. For as big as Yo-Kai Watch was in Japan, any glance at the sales charts will show that sales had a clear peak and fell off afterward. Yo-Kai Watch 2 sold a cumulative 5.8 million units across its three versions in Japan, while Yo-Kai Watch 3 (2016) and Blasters (2015) each sold about 2.2 million across all versions. Why did people like it so much? Well, part of it was the structure of the game, being a time travelling adventure that had the foundation of the original with more “inspired” Yo-Kai and a more engaging push-pull that you’d expect from a sequel. Combined with cross-media synergy in 2014, it was THE game to get for one’s 3DS.

Thus leads to Level-5’s next remake project, Yo-Kai Watch 2: Haunted Domain, now in development, with only a single shot CG trailer to show off it exists. I am sure this made many Japanese 18-to-25-year-olds flip the frick out, and… I just hope they know that they are playing with AI generated fire. (They do not.)

I don’t even WANT to talk about any of the other stuff they showed at Level-5 Visions, such as their Professor Layton and the Curious Village remake. I would love that idea, except I cannot trust them, as they have shown themselves to be perfectly willing to peddle AI garbage as if it’s foie gras. Why would I want to buy or play these games when their owner wants to remove people from the development process?

Yu-Gi-Oh! GX Tag Force 3 Remake Announced
(Yu-Gi-Oh! GX is BACK! Let’s CHAZZ IT UP!)

Oh, HELL YES! I never owned a PSP, but I have only heard good things about the Yu-Gi-Oh! Tag Force games for the platform, as they were pretty thorough card RPGs with various life sim elements, and the novel feature of pairing up with your favorite characters from the show. I was decently into Yu-Gi-Oh! as a kid, binged all of Yu-Gi-Oh! GX last year, and got a Yu-Gi-Oh! bug in the process, so I have a certain learned fondness for these games.

Yu-Gi-Oh! GX Tag Force 3 (2008) was pretty much the ultimate Yu-Gi-Oh! GX game. It let you explore Duel Academy, hang out with all major characters, and enjoy an adaptation of the latter parts of the series, including the Japan-only fourth season. The game was localized in all major territories at launch, but like many PSP games, it laid by the wayside, ignored. Recognizing what they had Konami is giving the game a full note-for-note remake, Yu-Gi-Oh! Tag-Force GX! What changed? Well, most things beyond the localization. There’s new character art, higher resolution card scans, a fully reworked UX, entirely new character models, and online play so you can get your game on… line.

You might be thinking that I should criticize the look of the game, but as a PSP title, the original had various compromises, limited screen space, and was mostly spent in duels and navigating locales. The original world was made up of low poly isometric surfaces, which were abstract yet perfectly serviceable, while the chibi sprites of the characters were… very modular. They look more like something from Gaia Online than anything to me. So seeing the remake change them up for fixed camera angle 3D environments with 3D chibi characters… is an upgrade in my book. While the battle UX ditches the more abstract battle zone for something that’s location based, flatter, more functional, and features a better look at the characters. Who you WANT to see.

It seems like a remake that will lure in a lot of lapsed fans, as Yu-Gi-Oh! GX is enjoying its 20-year nostalgia cycle at the moment, and I doubt I’m the only one who binged the series with a friend in recent memory. I’d ask why exactly they’d go through with this now… but then I remembered that they started re-airing Yu-Gi-Oh! GX in Japan, so this is likely a synergy thing that’s resulting in a game I did not even know I wanted. Thanks Konami!

Yu-Gi-Oh! Tag-Force GX will be released on Switch, Switch 2, and PC via Steam on February 16, 2027. And with the game already being localized, I’m sure that everything will be okie dokie in that… AH SHIT!

WHY? Why must generative AI be put in GOOD games?

Akumako: “Oi! Look at the actual details. They only used AI in the translation process for ‘certain system languages.’ That’s prolly the Portuguese and Chinese localizations, which you literally do not care about. Besides, much of this is likely part of a machine translation process, not really AI. We didn’t need AI before to get a robot to translate for you, and if you are going to call Google Translate ‘AI,’ then bloody Google Maps is AI.”

I know—

Akumako: “Because I’m her Yubel!“

But it’s frustrating to have to apply nuance to a topic that is so radioactive. Radioactive in the sense that AI has, can, and will kill people. …Literally, because the militaries of the world want to make AI drones that can kill human and leave zero accountability. So the fact that EVERYTHING is getting smacked with the label makes it harder to justify an absolutist and principled approach without making compromises that feel silly.

…But assuming that JUST the localization for languages I can’t read were done by AI, then I don’t have problems about buying this game and Chazzing it up with Chazz… he was my favorite.

Romancing SaGa 3 Remake Announced
(Bless The SaGa Sickos!)

I REALLY need to just sit down and play a SaGa game one of these days, but I keep inflating these Rundowns until they are big enough to tread water. However, I know that these games have a fiercely dedicated fanbase, both in and out of Japan, full of people who like slightly hostile and unorthodox systems. Every SaGa game is different, has its fans and not-fans, but Romancing SaGa 3 (1995) is commonly cited as a highlight of the series. It’s a favorite in Japan, sold over 1.3 million copies, and the Anglosphere weirdos who played the 2000 fan translation seem to love it too. Because of course they do.

With the release of 2024’s Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven, a remake of the fifth game in the series, garnered praise and was enjoyed by a decent chunk of newcomers who saw it as a good entry point.While a fundamentally different game, it offered a more approachable modern surface while preserving its mechanical quirkiness and character. The biggest criticisms, other than it being a SaGa game, was that it wasn’t a remake of the third game… which is coming just a little over two years later under the name Romancing SaGa 3: Destinies United.

As a SaGa virgin, I have no idea what the hell is going on, but it looks like a bit of everything. Multiple protagonists to switch between as the game progresses while exploring a world full of sincere fantasy and silly nonsense like a snowman village, sentient battle racecars, and business sim minigames. It still has standard bar-based turn-based combat at its core, but with so many other little oddities that it looks like an experience that will stick with people.

Romancing SaGa 3: Destinies United will be released for PS5, Xbox Series, Switch, Switch 2, and PC on February 16, 2027

Torneko’s Mystery Dungeon is BACK
(It’s Time For A REAL Roguelike!)

Oh, this was a treat buried in a sizzle reel. I hate it when that happens!

One of the more enduring trends in modern game design is the use of randomization in order to make a game last longer. The player gets to engage in the core gameplay loop sooner, you can justify recycling content, and players can spend however long they feel in it before walking away satisfied. With every run being different, they have a certain compelling quality, luring people back for “just one more run” while making steady progress. Call it Roguelike, or Roguelite if you want to be a pedant, but either way it’s easy to attribute this genre to one game from 1980, when this was a concept developers were futzing with for decades before reaching its modern form. And, of all the games that crafted the rougelike genre, one of the most important was Chunsoft’s Mystery Dungeon series.

The premise is simple. You are a lone adventurer in a randomly generated dungeon, and need to survive, collect treasure, and get to the top/bottom before starving. The series has its own tentpole releases with the Shiren the Wanderer titles, including the quite successful Serpentcoil Island in 2024, but you probably know it through its Pokémon variants. I know I do! However, the series actually began with a Dragon Quest IV (1990) spin-off of all things, Torneko’s Great Adventure: Mystery Dungeon (1993).

Building off of Torneko’s chapter in Dragon Quest IV, Great Adventure followed the portly family man as he wanders into an ever-shifting dungeon to find supplies or face certain death at the hands of traps, monsters, or miscellaneous misfortunes. Raid a dungeon, get money and things to sell, and use them to upgrade Torneko’s shop and home. It was a novel loop in the original game, a bit repetitive if memory serves, but became a bold new concept. The game sold well and went on to influence Japanese dungeon RPGs in ways that are hard to overstate. I don’t want to say that, if you ever see a shifting dungeon in an anime or manga, it’s probably a direct/indirect Mystery Dungeon pastiche, but you can’t discount it NOT being that.

From the 90s to the late 2000s, Chunsoft was on a TEAR making these games, turning it into an annualized series. However, it fell by the wayside as indies started chomping at the genre and Chunsoft vored Spike to become Spike Chunsoft. Still, we do see their games semi-regularly, and through… some wizardry, Square Enix decided to bring back the original!

Shadow dropped after this Direct, Dragon Quest Heroes: Torneko’s Mystery Dungeon -Classic HD- is a souped up re-whatever of the original game, currently available for PS5, Xbox Series, Switch, Switch 2, and PC.

That’s right, rather than just port the game, maybe make it 16:9, the folks at Square Enix decided to try their hand at making the game 3D. The world was remade in polygons while adhering to the original spritework, cleanly adapting certain objects while adding new lighting effects, making the game significantly brighter. I can see why they did this… but I also wish they didn’t. As it is now, the game looks overly bright, like the sun is about to explode, while the whole look of the UI and its structure make me feel that something’s incomplete. The boring multilanguage font, the wide gaps between HUD elements, how small the action box looks when on a modern display, or the fact the game lacks multiple basic quality of life features seen in most of its successors. Like easy diagonal movement.

With the redone score, stark lighting, and weirdly minimal UI, something about this game looks just off to me. It’s not a full-blown remake, but not faithful enough to be the original, as you lack the look and feel of a Super Famicom game. It’s a “Classic HD” title that is in HD, but is not the classic in many important audiovisual manners. And rather than use the generally better PS1 or PS2 titles as a base, they are using the original, making these changes more extreme. I’m glad that Square Enix sought to clear out their back catalog like this… but one way or another. But I kind of wish they just did a basic repackaging instead.

However, that would not work due to ONE unique feature that I haven’t mentioned, and it’s the fact that Torneko supports Twitch integration. Meaning you can stream the game and viewers can manipulate how hard the dungeon is. Want to fill the room with bombs or make it a monster den? Go for it! Want the next floor to be easy since the streamer is are close to the end? Can do! It’s actually a perfect feature to give to a game like this, and I have to imagine it’s the reason why someone was adamant about bringing back the original Mystery Dungeon. I just wish they didn’t go for this wishy-washy middle ground.

…When are we getting a Pokémon Mystery Dungeon 2: Explorers of the Sky remake? I want Spike Chunsoft to redeem themselves after the failings of their prior remake.

Next: The Portopia Serial Murder Case Announced
(The Mother of All Adventure Games is BACK!)

One of the best things about a Nintendo Direct is that, after going through the American announcements, you can head over to Nintendo of Japan’s YouTube page and find trailers for games that did not make the cut. This is how the Touhou 6 remake was revealed, and many other games share the same history. This time, the secret game was a bomb of cultural relevance to weird dorks like me, as it’s none other than a remake of the legendary The Portopia Serial Murder Case (1983).

Developed by Dragon Quest creator Yuji Horii, Portopia is the mother of all Japanese adventure games. You play as a detective and must investigate your surroundings, uncover conspiracies, and venture across multiple locations while trying to solve a murder mystery. It seems basic, but per a playthrough I watched, it’s surprisingly elaborate for its era, delivering a story that’s beyond anything I would expect from a 1983 game. It’s an essential part of adventure game history, of visual novel history, but it has been relegated to Japan, the Famicom, and cell phones for… over 40 years.

I would love to say that it’s a classic worth playing, but… I would be lying. Wanting to broaden my horizons, I played 30 minutes of Portopia a few months ago, and I did not like it, at all. I played the Famicom version, as it is the canon version, and found it to be an unpleasant experience in most ways. The game drops you into a town with little direction and an assistant to provide you with information, but only loose guides to help you figure out where to go. Conversations are engaged using a web of interactions spread across two pages that are useless in most instances, but you need to use all of them sometimes.

I would not mind wandering around if doing so was pleasant, but it really isn’t. There is no music and every action comes with a harsh sound effect that, generously approximates speech, but is simply unpleasant to listen to. After about 10 minutes, I had to mute the game. Meanwhile, the visuals are… almost endearing in their early computer simplicity, an upgrade over the original PC-6001 release, easily. However, they only occupy a small sliver of the screen and make the world feel distant and abstract, like you are looking at the world through a peephole.

Portopia is the type of game where a walkthrough can be the difference between one and ten hours of playtime, as it definitely relies on some rampant experimentation for the sake of it to get through. If I were viewing it just as an experience… I would not be able to recommend it. I don’t like this game, view its technical and aesthetic barriers as a wall. However, I WISH that I did, that there was a more accessible and pleasant version of the game that I could play.

…Then the monkey paw produced a Square Enix AI Tech Preview of Portopia, and it was one of the worst things to happen to gaming in the 2020s. Harsh, but true. The game was a partial remake of the original Portopia made using generative AI, a natural language interface model, and genuinely unpleasant visuals all around. It was ugly, inconsistent, did not function properly, and was just a damn disgrace. They took the work of humans and this endearing idea of talking to a computer, and bastardized it to such an extent that the characters felt less human than they did back in 1983.

…But then game in G-Mode from the rafters and smacked Square Enix right upside the head, telling them to FUCK OFF before doing it infinitely better. They went out and remade Portopia’s lesser known sequel, The Hokkaido Serial Murder Case in 2024! And it was GOOD! It looked a bit exaggerated and cartoonish in an 80s manga manner, but it’s the original game with modern flourishes, music, menu design, and a full English localization!

This apparently did well enough for them to get the chance to try something more acclimed, the original Portopia Serial Murder Case! With developer room6, they are remaking the game with actual music, voice acting, and graphics that make me FEEL something, instead of programmer sketches that made me feel nothing. I’m not in love with the art style, as it looks a bit flat in some sense, but it is a massive upgrade and makes this game a must-play for me.

This alone would be great news… but there are two catches. One good, and one bad. The good one is this release will contain five side scenarios, each following a different character, showing their perspective on this investigation and shining light onto the original mystery. While that’s a bit gauche, adding in a second scenario 40 years later, I can appreciate the desire to build upon what is otherwise a rather short game.

The bad catch is that an English language release was not announced, and the Steam page only lists Japanese. Considering that G-Mode is known for their Japanese-only releases of feature phone games, it’s easy to suspect that this may not be localized, but I find that hard to believe. The Hokkaido Serial Murder Case got put up on Steam in English, Japanese, and both flavors of Chinese. So why wouldn’t the more well known, and probably shorter, predecessor get a similar treatment? I’m hoping that this is a timing thing and G-Mode just didn’t have the localization ready yet, but I know I shouldn’t assume. Semi-related, but we still don’t know who is supposed to be localizing Kyoto Xanadu.

Next: The Portopia Serial Murder Case will be released in Japan sometime in 2027 for Switch, Switch 2, and PC

Kojima’s Physint Switches From Sony to Microsoft
(Old Sony is Dead, Just Accept It)

I swear, Sony is just trying to get people to dislike them at this point, knowing they are immune because everybody is just going to buy up GTA VI and play it for the next decade. They have market dominance and just do not seem to care anymore. We have seen plenty examples of this over the summer, but now they decided to go full stupid by trying to cancel the next Kojima Productions game.

Back in 2024, KojiPro and Sony announced that they were working on Physint, an action espionage property that would be developed in collaboration with Sony’s Columbia Pictures. It was to be both a film and a video game, and if anybody could make that work, it’s Kojima. This seemed like a great deal for Sony, who has had a long and fruitful relationship with Sony, and would let him draw more people to Sony’s inevitable PlayStation 6. …But then, Sony negged on their contract, likely thinking it was too expensive or taking too long and allegedly planned on canning the whole game. That is until Microsoft swooped in to save the project from cancelation which… I think is the best example I could make of Sony just losing the plot.

While he has gone in and out of favor over the decades, Hideo Kojima is still a beloved figure in gaming, he has a fandom around himself, he makes interesting and absurd games, and is a creative who makes money. However, the decision makers at modern Sony don’t respect or care about that, so they ditched this project, after making a big deal about it. In doing so, they invited Microsoft, who is still technically a competitor, to swoop in and secure the publishing rights, both stealing and multiplying Sony’s goodwill

This means that KojiPro is now developing two games for Microsoft. The horror game, OD, and the action espionage game, Physint. Which is great for Microsoft… assuming they don’t cancel both or either. I do not trust Microsoft to ship most of the things they announced based on their track record. So considering how intensive these projects will be to develop, considering their relationship with Japanese studios, I’m reasonably concerned for… basically the entire future of Kojima Productions.

As for why this all happened, Jason Schrier did his thing and it’s pretty much the reason I have expected for much of Sony’s recent cultural pivots. They lost the people who led the ship and replaced them with a bunch of business people who view games as investment vehicles. To quote him, “But many of the PlayStation executives who had close relationships with Kojima have left the company in recent years, according to people familiar with the business.”

Sony is looking at the games market as a mature one, where they need to get people hooked, get them spending, and spend as little money as possible. Games are too expensive to make, so fewer ones need to be made, and their existing base, who would not leave the house if it was literally burning around them, needs to be exploited, not catered to.

…Also, Schrier also pointed out that Physint missed various internal deadlines and was already over-budget, but I have long-since accepted it as fact that most major games are late and over-budget. If you canned every project for being over-budget, you would only release one game every 3 years and developers would take 10 years to make a game.

Why is Final Fantasy VII LIKE THIS?
(This Segment Was A Mistake…)

Goldarn it. So, I was initially not going to cover this story, as it seems like such a done and dusted no shit, Sherlock type affair. Square Enix announced that they are planning on treating Final Fantasy VII as its own IP and pursuing projects based on it after completing the remake trilogy. Now, if you are doing a successful thing for almost a decade, it only makes sense to keep doing it, right? So of course Square Enix would not want to put the IP back in the bin and stop doing things with one of their most lucrative sub-properties.

Cloud and Sephiroth are in Smash, FFVII transcends the series, and it has the most iconic characters in the series. To explain why this situation is like this, I could just point at my How Square Enix Fumbled Final Fantasy section from a prior Rundown. Unfortunately, I got carried away and wrote all this despite knowing better. Personally, I blame Creampuff for shoving my face into it, the harlot.

So, why is Final Fantasy VII like this, why is it so big, and why is it special next to other entries in the series? Well, the short answer is that it’s complicated, but I’ll try.

In the 1980s, SquareSoft went from a struggling company to a mainstay name in the console RPG space with their Final Fantasy RPG series, which alongside its sibling series Mana, SaGa, and Chrono, made them a name worth looking at. However, they did not have a true breakout hit until Final Fantasy VII (1997) came out and was a monumental shift for RPGs. Partially because of the graphics, as this was among the first RPGs for the PS1 to use fully polygonal character models and beautiful (for the time) pre-rendered backgrounds, making it look truly next gen. Partially because of its cutscenes, which show why this was among the most expensive games ever made circa 1997, with some truly cutting edge shit.

However, the real and enduring allure was the story and characters. The game has a contemporary setting and is fundamentally about climate change, capitalism, and corporations churning through humanity. The protagonist is a country bumpkin who wanted to be a bold soldier, but saw that the institution he admired and wished to be part of was as shady and abusive as any other. His counterpart is the military’s greatest warrior who turned against humanity as a whole after learning he was manufactured for their own gain.

The protagonist has ample trauma, a dissociative identity, and gets fucked up over the course of the game. Not enough people talk about his wheelchair arc, when that is the most memorable part of the game to me. The protagonist is disabled, in body and head, and needs to have his childhood friend push him past his trauma. This is then followed up by his recovery and the famous “let’s mosey” line, which is great because of the context.

Meanwhile, the expanded cast are all well envisioned high personalities that, in retrospect, seem almost perfectly designed to facilitate a fandom. Compared to the fantasy trappings of RPGs of the era, the characters felt more relatable, had more stuff to say, and were further explored through a series of organically placed side quests. Their goal was still to save the world, but through its setting and its relation to what people saw in real life, it simply hit differently. And even to this day, I would say that very few RPGs aim for a cast or setting quite as distinctive as Final Fantasy VII. Even games like Persona and The World Ends With You just take place in regular-ass Japan but with magic ‘n’ bullshit. While SMT veers on the apocalyptic Tokyo setting, which is not as interesting as a globe-trotting adventure.

If you want a contemporary RPG, and haven’t played FFVII, you fucked up.

I could list out other reasons. It came out at the perfect time for the PlayStation. It was given an ample marketing push by Sony. It was many people’s introduction into RPGs, games as a storytelling medium, and came out when a potent core of game likers were at their prime adolescent age for the game to impart on them. It was a game constantly pushed in magazines and communities, making it out to be one of THE games for one of the most influential game consoles of all time. (Get rekt Nintendorks, learn ya history.) RPGs were chasing after FF7 in its wake, trying to vie for its cultural relevance, while this game kicked off a legendary run for SquareSoft, pushing out bangers thrice a year.

Akumako: “It was also the first Final Fantasy game— fuck off Mystic Quest— to be released in Europe, and we all know how that was PALStation country.”

However, FFVII did it first, made the biggest splash, and is the one that people remember the most of this era. …And Square has been chasing after that high ever since then. It would be one thing if they kept trucking along, kept making new Final Fantasy games and maintaining a high level of quality. However, that was not really in the cards, and a lot of things happened all at once in the early 2000s. Not only was FFVII the first to hit it THAT HARD, it was the beginning, perhaps the peak, of a golden age of relevance that lasted less than a decade. …There is a comparison to Sonic to be made here, but I’m not going to try.

SquareSoft announced remakes of Final Fantasy VII, VIII, and IX for PS2, showing off Square’s bold ambitions for the series, and telling fans to expect a Final Fantasy VII remake. Unfortunately, the Final Fantasy series took its first major blow with the theatrical film Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (2001). This was a massively expensive bomb of a production that nearly caused Square to go under, before being bailed out through a pre-planned merger with Enix. Then under the new structure of Square Enix, the corporation had… an adjustment period.

The exact story behind this is murky, with a lot of names, recitations, and has been chronicled in better places than here, but the gist is that you cannot just merge two companies and expect them to get along hunky-dory. Someone needs to be the vaginal-maxxing top and someone else needs to be penile-minning the bottom, and unless you have consent, there’s gonna be some resentment here and everywhere. This could be worked around if management between both companies got along, but businessman know hate, not love, and many higher ups at SquareSoft left to pursue their own ventures.

So, you basically had Enix, which as just a game publisher, trying to take the reins over a bigger company that just released a bomb and lost… dozens of key staff members. With this gap in power, in structure, and a need to make money fast, there wasn’t much long-term thinking going on.

…But how did this affect Final Fantasy VII? Well, after being a finite work for 8 years, Square Enix decided to build on the original with a whole-ass multiverse. This was The Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, and it was… something, alright.

Advent Children was a CG movie that looked at the open conclusion of the original and grafted on a bunch of vague bullshit I didn’t understand when I was 14. All I remember is dilly-dally shilly-shally and some cool fight scenes, which I think is the optimal experience. Before Crisis was a mobile phone prequel where you played as the sick-as-hell CIA MOOKS working for the evil corporation. Crisis Core was a PSP prequel that messed with the background or the original game while fleshing out the minor character Zack and introducing GACKT to the series! Dirge of Cerberus was Final Fantasy VII X Shadow the Hedgehog, and while it stunk to play, its vibes were immaculate.

…ALL OF THAT happened in literally TWO YEARS! And that was NORMAL! Like I SAID, video games in the 2000s were DOPEST OF THE DOPE TO THE DOPETH DEGREE!

However, the true beginning of this venture was arguably in 2005 when Square Enix released a technical demonstration of what Final Fantasy VII’s iconic intro would look like on the upcoming PlayStation 3. People saw that, said they want a remake of FFVII, and Square Enix said no. In their defense, they were busy dealing with another problem, Fabula Nova Crystallis.

Desperate for vision after the turbulent development of Final Fantasy XII (2006), which took roughly 5 years and several directors, Square Enix wanted a plan to redefine Final Fantasy for the HD generation, and they wanted to make three or more tentpole games to do so. All of which would share the same universe, or mythos, and follow a variety of different gameplay and aesthetic styles. All would be about people battling against the cruel fate handed to them by a series of gods. And all were marred by developmental woes, undergoing a radical shift in development on some level.

This began a dark age for the series. The coveted and hyped Final Fantasy XIII (2009) was poised as a beginning of a new era and was praised by critics, too terrified by fanboys and corporate relations to score a game too low. It sold well, and had so much cut content that Square Enix was compelled to farm out two direct sequels to Tri-Ace. Sequels that, while flawed, were considerably better, but wound up defining the series for literally half a decade. It marked the turning point when Final Fantasy stopped being cool, and while there is a subset of fans who fondly remember these games, I was around for the vitriol as a self-described Final Fantasy fan. People were SICK of this universe, its terrible terminology, and poorly explored mythos.

Type-0 was a Japanese exclusive PSP game about high schoolers waging war with foreign nations, and… I thought it sucked narratively and played like dog-water. Fortunately, nobody seems to remember it nowadays. A fitting punishment!

Final Fantasy Versus XIII was a title that spent a decade in development, built on a half-finished engine, underwent countless development pivots, and suffered from chronic staff shortages. The game was eventually rebooted as Final Fantasy XV (2016), where it shipped half-finished, with a holey story, tie-in movie, and two waves of planned DLC. Unfortunately, due to some spat between the game’s director Hajime Tabata and upper brass, these plans were cut off, only 5 of the 8 announced DLCs were released. The game was left as an ambitious mess that, somehow, managed to sell over 10 million units, but its messy development failed to endear long-term love for the series. In part because, at this point, there was no cohesion with the series.

One of the great things about the first 20 years of Final Fantasy was how every game was different. Different systems, different characters, and a different world, it had variety, but kept people coming back due to a consistent quality. If you have familiarity or consistency, you can be a critical, commercial, and cultural success. Unfortunately, in the subsequent 20 years, the series has lacked both. Every game is functionally its own IP, deviating so much that it’s hard for the series to maintain and draw in new fans who weren’t alive for the good years.

Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn (2013), as an MMO with its own gameplay, world, characters, and races, is effectively its own IP. An IP that appeals to the breed of people who are into MMOs and long-form multi-year game storytelling paired with moderate to heavy socialization. It can be one of the best stories in gaming, but unless Square Enix pulls a DQX and makes an (Asian-only) offline version, which they should, it will forever be rejected by a vocal subset of people. …I begrudgingly am part of that subset.

Final Fantasy XVI (2023) was a quality action RPG with a lore and story that were overly inspired by contemporary dark fantasy. The story is a lot more dour with systemic oppression the protagonist just sorta accepts. The world feels smaller in part due to excess of Caucasians and its fixation on a singular player character. While the conclusion, in trying to be different, goes against something I find to be more Final Fantasy than blue menus: Hope and optimism.

Hell, the series was SO misdirected in the early 2010s that Square Enix originally planned on giving the next mainline title over to Eidos Montreal, but that plan, known as Project W, was scrapped after some early leaks. THANKS NEOGAF!

So, what the hell are you supposed to do at this point? Hold the line with what works, Final Fantasy VII.

…This segment has gone on too long already, so I’ll trust you are familiar with the ebb and flow of the Final Fantasy VII remake trilogy. The remake was initially announced at E3 2015, where it was to be co-developed by CyberConnect2. CC2 was then taken off of the project for suspicious reasons, and development restarted, leading to the release of Final Fantasy VII Remake (2020) shortly after the start of the pandemic as a PS4 exclusive. The game did well, got rave reviews, but the community was split on it after 5 years of prepping and theorizing. Some appreciated its changes and decision to not be a direct remake, others hated all this ghost fuckery, some thought it did a great job of capturing the original, others thought it was modern AAA trite.

Regardless, this was a remake of the most iconic segments of FFVII, so many were satisfied by it and the series struggled to find a sizable audience with the release of the second part, Rebirth, in 2024. The game was a PS5 exclusive in a time when the console was still building up units (less than 60 million sold). Many people had gotten their fill of FFVII with remake and were not looking for seconds. Its pivot to an open world structure turned many off, as Rebirth was just gushing with diversions. However, price cuts, ports, and technical updates eventually cross the game into a range Square Enix was happy with.

Thus leading into the final part of this trilogy, Final Fantasy VII Revelation, which purports to be another massive entry with more playable characters, a class system, and oodles to do in its expansive world. A world that will be further broadened with post-launch DLC.

Why do all this? Well, because the remake of Final Fantasy VII in the modern era was always going to be a decade-long project due to the game’s scale and its success has been leading Square Enix over the past few years. The remake trilogy is selling, it is getting a lot of love and hype from fans, development in-house is going well, and the games are getting hit with high critic scores, which look nice on a shelf.

…Also, there was a remake of Crisis Core in 2022, but I don’t think people paid much attention to that one.

Square Enix does not know what to do with Final Fantasy XVII. They are so deeply concerned about playing it safe that they are positioning Final Fantasy Resonance as the next big game in the series before Revelation. When, really, it’s a remake of a mobile game that’s full of callbacks and cameos from the series’ golden age. I played the demo, think Final Fantasy Resonance is a pretty good game, but it is shameless in how much it is trying to appeal to the forty-something fans of the initial run of games.

Akumako: “Or thirtysomethings like you!”

Guilty as charged!

So, again, what’s a Square Enix supposed to do? …Reheat old trappings for the same base and hope that a serviceable niche of youths latches onto what their cool uncs are doing.

Akumako: “Eh, Zoomies allegedly don’t work that way. You were weaned on the teats of racist/sexist elder millennial uncs as an adolescence, but that approach went out of style when every teenager became a Content Creator.”

…Yeah, the Zoomies just care about their Personas and Deltarunes as far as I can tell, not really any big establishment IP… and that’s probably for the best. I would sooner have a 21-year-old play Moon: Remix RPG Adventure than play Final Fantasy VII, as I think it will help them understand the modern world better.

Akumako: “That doesn’t help Square Enix though! Pretend that you’re a devil on the CEO’s shoulder, what would you tell them to do?”

…Pursue more remakes and re-releases! The people want HD-2D remakes of old shit, like Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy VI, so give it to them. Bring back your PS1 golden era titles however you can. Put every Dragon Quest on modern systems. Do the obvious re-release and re-jiggering of Final Fantasy VII: Ever Crisis, the FFVII gacha. And seriously consider an offline Final Fantasy XIV, all expansions included, just running a scaled down version of the tech used by the game.

Akumako: “No new original games?”

I don’t think you need to at this point no? Because if you haven’t played a game then, well, shit, it’s a new game to you, innit? And if you already played it, and don’t want to play it again, here’s 20 more from your backlog. Buh-bye!

And lo, Natalie exploded.

A Whole Bunch of Steam Achievements Leaked
(Because That’s How Modern Game Dev Works!)

So, this is an odd story. The night of September 8, 2026, right before a big Nintendo Direct, there was a leak published on achievement site Exophase detailing the achievements of several upcoming games. Now, this was almost certainly an issue on Valve’s end, rather than any publisher accidentally pre-publishing anything, and was likely a simple human error involving security. It happens, Exophase did not do anything wrong by accessing this publicly available information, and now we have some details about various upcoming titles. These include but are not limited to the following:

Kingdom Hearts IV, detailing various worlds the game will be set in, and giving some vague hints at the plot of the game. Which is a feast for KH diehards, who have gone stir crazy during this giga pause. Those who played Kingdom Hearts III (2019) in middle school are currently adults!

A re-whatever of Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney (2012), which was pretty much a match made in heaven for fans of DS adventure games, but didn’t quite stick the landing. (And arguably did more harm than good to the release structure of Ace Attorney.) I was never in too deep into either series to be invested, but I want every game to be released from console jail. I’m hoping that it will be a straight port or a Capcom joint because, as I said earlier, I’m pretty sure that Level-5 would eat my shoes if they could.

There was an unannounced Twin Peaks game. A re-whatever of Shrek 2, because why not at this point? A Nickelodeon life sim because Larry Ellison needs more money. A new Sonic, as shocking as that may be. However, the most notable information from this leak was easily the achievements for Persona 6, a game we have not seen ANY footage of.

Now, achievement lists are generally pretty light with details, and if you’re smart with how they’re written, and what icons you use, they will only offer hints or general descriptions, and not fulfill many plot details. Sure, location and character names will be there, but nothing that wouldn’t be found in pre-release material. …But we have not gotten those for Persona 6 yet, so this is a treat!

Per these details, the protagonist is part of a group called Hex, who will be arresting perpetrators because… Persona is made by a bunch of lib shit made by dudes on the sunny side of 45. “Bloodstruck” skills are a thing. The setting is shifting from Tokyo proper to South Tokyo, Yokohama. And there are some manner of investigations, because they need to feign the idea that cops are detective when no, they are soldiers of the state. None of which is more informative than what I would expect from a halfway decent reveal trailer.

While this leak makes all the sense in the world to me, I saw that many people who were surprised that achievements were in Steam’s database so soon. Some of these games are over 6 months away, maybe even a full year. Isn’t this pretty early for that data to be on Steam’s servers? And the answer is yes, this is very early… if you think it’s still 2011.

Back in the PS3 era, it was common for achievements to be among the last things added to any game, something done in tandem with the bug crunch, compliance, and adding a few final things to a game. However, as development times got longer and achievement technology got more standardized, that changes. In the modern climate, things like Quality Assurance, localization, and testing follow a far more organized structure, and in this era of 4 to 7 year development timelines, it is not uncommon for games to be content complete a year before release. While much work still needs to be done, including rebalancing, minor side content, final VA work, localization, bug squishing, and general polish, they’re all done in tandem.

One of these tasks, necessary for every non-Nintendo SKU, is designing and assigning achievements for a game. These are typically relatively easy to add on modern platforms, and to minimize the instances where they fail to activate, they are implemented into dev environments early, to ensure that they work and stay working. If achievements are broken in a game, then many dedicated players will simply not play it. Naturally, no major release wants to lose thousands of players for fickle reasons like that, so it is common policy to add achievements early on. Many games are developed for PC first for testing and optimization reasons, and Steam offers various online services for developers, or at least privileged developers, so Steam is probably the first to know about these achievements.

…At least they were. Who knows how publishers will react to this news!

Progress Report 2026-09-13

So while bored and looking for something to watch I decided to check out the first episode of the latest indie animation hit Pretty Pretty Please I Don’t Want to be a Magical Girl. I did not like it, as it struck me as a very… disingenuous. Despite being a 2025-born project, it feels like a 5 years post-Madoka “genre reconstruction” by someone who once liked magical girls and knows a lot about the genre, but feels they cannot earnestly engage with the subject matter. As such, they try to put a spin on it, mask their criticisms under fairly crude humor and a sense of irony, while deconstructing the genre by doing what you don’t expect. The magical girl wants to be normal, beats people with a rusty pipe, has a de-transformation sequence, loves school, and is dispassionate about her duties.

It’s the sort of thing that works as a skit better than a series in my mind, as it’s… antithetical to the reasons why people like the genre. The appeal of magical girls is seeing regular people claim great power to make a difference in the world, combatting injustice, fighting against conspiracies, and saving the things they care about. It’s a display of heroics and virtue against the face of adversity that’s at the heart of why many people like Kamen Rider, Super Sentai, or even superheroes more broadly. Now, all of these things are ripe for deconstructions, analyzing the use of children as pawns for greater powers, the fantastical idea that fighting can change the world, or just making the antagonists beyond comprehension.

Subversions of these ideas have been popular for over two decades, but they almost always have a clear point or message to them that you can suss out pretty easily. But here? I just don’t see that. The protagonist isn’t a reluctant hero, someone who is in over their head, or someone who exists outside of a broader system. She is just a teenager who does not want to be a magical girl, but is, and she bemoans about it, overexaggerating, making quips, and viewing it as a chore. She’s disinterested, apathetic, and just wants to be normal. She has a friend who is all about this though, and who should ideally be the magical girl, but, lol, she’s not, she’s just the sidekick. Ain’t that funny? …No, not really.

It doesn’t even do the Doki Doki Literature Club (2017) thing where it lure you in before shitting down your mouth in a way that’s hella effective if you’re 12. Or a streamer, same diff. To make a subversion work, I think it needs to come from a place of love, of affection, but also a desire to see it explore something more tangible, beyond the realm of what is normal, and likely with some level of horror. It’s why works like Evangelion and Madoka are so beloved, because they are deeply sincere and genuine. Without sincerity, I don’t think you have much, period.

2026-09-06: Wrote the 1,100 word Big Walk preamble for this week, watched Dragon Maid with the friends, played more Fate Stay Night. Wrote 2,700 words on Final Fantasy VII because I took that BAIT!

2026-09-07: Finished the Unlimited Blade Works route of Fate Stay Night, both endings. FAR better than the Fate route, but also this game did not need to be this long. It simply did not, in any sense of the world, and it is not compartmentalized enough to justify its length. Then I chatted with Creampuff for TOO LONG and played the Lightspeed Lina playtest demo.

2026-09-08: Wrote 2,200 words for the Zelda Nintendo Direct, started writing about the Steam achievement leak, decided to edit the FF7, preamble, and Zelda bits. Worked until like 22:00, so I was a bit spent when I resumed nighttime stuff. Wrote 600 words for the Steam leak stuff.

2026-09-09: Watched Nintendo Direct, saw the Kojima Production news, wrote 6,100 words of stuff about them in total. This Rundown is too damn big.

2026-09-10: Edited the last remnants of this ornery ho and ditched her in the river like the Talking Heads told me to. Decided to play some demos, including finishing the Final Fantasy Resonance demo. What a good game for 40-year-olds.

2026-09-11: Not a lot of time spent working, but I was low energy after crying myself to sleep last night. Finished my time with the Lightspeed Lina demo, resumed Donkey Kong 64 for a bit, started Heaven’s Feel in Fate Stay Night, wrote 1,000 words for next week’s preamble.

2026-09-12: Wrote 1,300 word Lightspeed Lina bit. Felt more of Heaven’s Ample Bosom, because she’s going to become a flesh monster by the end, thanks in-game trailer! Wrote 2,100 words about Blizzcon. I could have edited that section and added it here but, eh, screw it. 15k words is already Plentils with avocado.

Natalie.TF To Do List

2026-10-21: Fate Stay Night Remastered Review (Shiba & Rain Request)
2026-10-28: Natalie Rambles About Donkey Kong 64 Recompiled
2026-11-11: Ecstatica Review
2026-11-18: TSF Series #020: Chateau del Bitz
2026-12-09: Natalie Rambles About Delicious in Dungeon
2026-12-30: Natalie Rambles About 2026
2026-??-??: Coffee Buns Review (TSF Game)
2026-??-??: re:Dreamer Review #6
2027-??-??: TSF Showcase: Chronicstuss (Ouran Request)
2027-??-??: Beast of Reincarnation Review
2027-??-??: A Mirror’s Curse Review (TSF Game)
2027-??-??: Thread – A Tale of Identity, Monsters, and College Review (TSF Game)

Rundown Preamble Ramble:Nattie Did The Walkin’

Nintendo Direct Double Digest – Part One(The Ocarina Remake Section)

Nintendo Direct Double Digest – Part Two(The General Section)

Metroid 6: Ravenous Announced(Samus is BACK and She’s Hungry Like The METROID!)

Kirby and the World Beyond Announced(Kirby Breaks the Seal and Goes OPEN WORLD)

Yo-Kai Watch 2 Remake Announced!(Knowing Level-5, It Will Be AI Slop!)

Yu-Gi-Oh! GX Tag Force 3 Remake Announced(Yu-Gi-Oh! GX is BACK! Let’s CHAZZ IT UP!)

Romancing SaGa 3 Remake Announced(Bless The SaGa Sickos!)

Torneko’s Mystery Dungeon is BACK(It’s Time For A REAL Roguelike!)

Next: The Portopia Serial Murder Case Announced(The Mother of All Adventure Games is BACK!)

Kojima’s Physint Switches From Sony to Microsoft(Old Sony is Dead, Just Accept It)

Why is Final Fantasy VII LIKE THIS?(This Segment Was A Mistake…)

A Whole Bunch of Steam Achievements Leaked(Because That’s How Modern Game Dev Works!)