This Week’s Topics:
- Rundown Preamble Ramble: Review Score Ruminations
- Lufia I & II The Sinistrals Saga Announced (And a Retrospective of a Series with ONE Great Game)
- The Xbox Culling Continues… (Expand the Remittance)
- Dawngazer Announced by Former Unicorn Overlord Director (Birthed From The Flaming Orb of 2D Action RPGs)
Rundown Preamble Ramble:
Review Score Ruminations
As of writing, we are currently in the midst of the big autumnal avalanche of game releases. Septembergeddon, Octobergeddon, and the rest. It’s a terribly busy time for any professional game reviewer— not me though, I’m just a professional accountant (not certified though)— and the discourse around game reviews has cropped up yet again. It’s always held, but never reaches a full conclusion, as not everybody can agree, and the people arguing about it today were likely not around five years ago. And of all topics that persist around this time, one of the stickier one is the subject of review scores.
There has always been discourse around game reviews, based largely on a friction between the expectations of a fairly broad reader base and the select few publications seen as valuable enough to be respectable critics. Vocal readers, gassed up on manufactured hype, convinced they love a game before they even play it, and eager to preorder as a sign of support/loyalty, want “their games” to get high scores from every outlet. If their predisposed expectations are not conformed to, they become a bunch of sour babies.
Publishers want good reviews in order to drive up sales, bump accolades, and gain traction by having bigger numbers compared to “The Competition.” If they feel publications aren’t being fair, or are expendable, then they can easily stop inviting them to preview events— which are mostly digital these days— sending review codes, or just blacklist them.
Meanwhile, critics are generally people taking a “dream job pay slash” and exist in a pretty shitty predicament. They need to clear a game on a tight schedule, often just a few days, while performing other duties, write a review, assign a score, and balance several things in the process. Naturally, most reviewers worth listening to care about their opinion above all else, but there has been a history of flack and pressures for critics to conform.
Maybe the critic was assigned a game to review, but they don’t know or care much about it, yet know it is from a niche beloved franchise. Should they give it an inoffensive “fans of the genre” review with a 7/10, or give their actual opinion, however ignorant and unflattering it may be? See IGN’s infamous 3/10 review of God Hand (2006), written my Mr. IGN himself.
Should they write not their opinion, but from the lens of what 25-year-old cis straight Cracker boy Joe Schmoe from Idaho would like? Or should the critic just fall in line with the culture and deliver what people want, and what will make readers happy? Such as giving a hugely anticipated game and GOTY contender the expected 10/10? No publisher ever balked at a 10/10, or even a 9/10, right? And WHO wants to be the one guy who gave the latest generation defining Zelda game a paltry, offensive, 7/10? That’s a crime that warrants at least a decade of harassment!
Now, you might think this idea of social conformity for video game reviews sounds utterly ridiculous. However, it is a thing that I saw happen fairly often throughout my adolescence, and still see sparks of whenever I veer into game review discourse. A discourse that… basically boils down to a desire to see the perceived cultural quality of a game to be crystallized, canonized, and supported by perceived authority figures. Figures whose opinions can be summarized it a number with the veneer of objectivity by virtue of consensus. It might not be actually objective, but if most respectable people agree on a thing, then it’s pretty darn close to objective. If a game gets high scores from however many dozen publications, then it simply must be a good game.
For a lot of people— not even the troglodytes who participate in Metacritic score predictions— this is what they want from game reviews. A big number they can point at as a general representation of a game’s quality. Everything above an 80/100 is good, everything below that is mixed, and bad games… typically don’t even get reviewed nowadays. If a bunch of critics liked a thing, then it’s probably worth checking out if they were already interested. If something is lauded with praise, that can be an excuse and justification for new people to jump in, maybe expand their horizons, be part of a cultural moment.
The sensitive, or observant, folks in the audience may look at this and ask “what about the actual reviews though” as I’ve mostly been talking about review scores. And that’s part of a problem facing game reviews: Most people don’t care to read them. They just want the gist— is this game good? If so, how good is it? Is there any decidedly bad stuff in it?
Now, game reviewers, and general fans of games criticism, have long-since looked at this perspective with some flavor of dissatisfaction. People are choosing to not engage with criticism, writing, and the expression of opinion of something as complex and multifaceted as a video game. A review can offer nuance, personal opinions, a new perspective, and make someone look at a work of art, in a whole new light, seeing someone else highlight themes, design considerations, and options that even a player might have missed, or just not understood.
The fact of the matter is that… many people just do not, will not, and socially cannot give a shit about any of that. Maybe if they like a game, but who can like every game? People want a quick and easy answer they can fall back on, and numbers are a great way to gauge quality. That is especially true when looking at dozens of games in totality and trying to figure out something like… what were the best RPGs for the 3DS? Are you going to read 5 reviews, averaging at 1,500 words each, of every RPG released for the platform and use that information to gauge which ones are the best? Hell no! It’s WAY easier to just go to Metacritic, select the platform and genre, and look at a list sorted by numbers.
Furthermore, it should be acknowledged that reading random reviews of things is not always a good time. While one may enjoy the opinions of others, nobody enjoys the opinions of everyone, and I tend to uphold trust as a high virtue. I don’t care what one random dude has to say about something. I’ve met dudes before, a solid third of them are stupid, maybe even half of them! Though, if they are the only dude who did a video on this obscure DS game, and have done dozens of similar reviews, then that gives them some credibility. Because who else is there talking about the Lufia II remake for DS? WHO?
Unless I gel with an opinion-haver, their words, their presentation, their uniquely raw style, I would probably trust an established publication more. Whether that be a games site that has weathered the storm since the 90s, a post-2008 nu-media site now owned by one of the ten mass media companies in America, or a niche yet respectable publication. Notice how I have not yet talked about the actual reviewer for these publications, and that’s because of the nature of most publications. The author is secondary to the brand, and most people don’t read the byline of the author whose work they’re reading when perusing articles. Hence, the Mr. IGN comment, as he is the owner, janitor, and editor-in-chief at Imagine Games Network, or whatever the acronym is supposed to stand for.
This changed drastically sometime in the mid-2000s, when gaming personalities, which were always a thing, became far more numerous and accessible. No longer were reviewers just writers, or just reviewers, but they became able to better spread and cultivate their personalities across various mediums. Social media, scripted video, podcasts, livestreaming, and so forth. This changed much of the way people communicate, access information, and… I could be here all day trying to break this down, but I do need to wrap this up.
Before, a game review was the most effective way for someone to express an opinion on a game, and it was relatively hard to get a platform to do so unless you worked for a big publication. Reviews were how official opinions were made about games. But through the medium of the internet, not only could anybody make a review, but their review could garner millions of views. And not only could they make a structured review, they could make something smaller, more compact, showing off one element about a game that’s good or bad, with color commentary. Or they could produce a novella-length essay about a game’s themes, merits, systems, and more.
The ability to express opinions on anything in the modern internet is exceedingly powerful compared to what was possible twenty years ago. Now, multiplatform digital influencers have far in a way more panache and reach over most games than any game review from a major publication could. The power balance had shifted far away from game reviews, or rather the type of game reviews that get reported on aggregate sites. People now clock the vibe of a game based on what they peep on their feeds or scope on their streams. Or, in the case of devout Steam users, they confer to the user review system, which is ripe for exploitation in the event of any controversy, queerness, or technical foibles, but achieves the purpose of Metacritic for many. Hell, it is even better in some respects.
Being a game reviewer in the modern climate also… kind of sucks, as the approach of a single static review does not really mesh with a product that is not static. Games launch in bad states, with bugs, missing content, systems that don’t work well, yet plenty of games undergo various system reworkings. Bugs are fixed, new areas are added, new characters are introduced, new story is grafted on, and what was a rough gem can be shined into something brilliant. Sure, a review of the launch version of the game has historical value, but it might not represent the game as it is three years after launch. Look at any major live service, and it becomes obvious that none of their success was tied to its Metacritic score, or even traditional reviews, as who would bother with that when the game is evolving every week?
It should also be noted that there are plenty of massive games that simply don’t have any placement on Metacritic or OpenCritic. Meccha Chameleon is one of the most successful games of the year, but only three outlets reviewed it, not enough for it to get a MetaCritic score. Monopoly Go! is a multi-billion dollar game played by millions, but it only has one critic review.
Game reviews have value, have a point, and will never go away, as they are formalized expressions of people’s opinions on games, and people LOVE having those. Games have transformed, become living things in a world where publications are relied upon less and less. As such, the structure of professional number-dishing review outlets cannot capture or represent the vast majority of what gaming is, or what any quality consensus may be. Instead, people need to rely on influencers they trust and user-driven metrics to gauge a game’s quality, whether it be commences sections or user reviews. Some may see this as a form of liberation, a freedom from public institutions, but I tend to view this as a push toward deprofessionalization.
What was once guarded and formalized is now something where anybody can stir the discourse, and in a digital climate where negativity and simplicity are supreme, outrage merchants’ wares can sell exceedingly quickly. People who are shitty but good at gaming a system can become the loudest and most powerful voices in gaming discourse, with their word being law in several jurisdictions. They often operate on emotional reactions, rather than ones you wrote down, slept, and read back to yourself to make sure you didn’t sound like a hella fine dip.
There is a catharsis to this rawness, of not needing to abide by “good culture” and societal norms. But there is, and has been, a persistent fear that the rigor of professionalism would be optimized out of a society created by the bozos from the “move fast and break shit” school of demeanor.
…Yeesh, even I am getting sick of how many of these Rundowns conclude with “Ys, vat we have here is ackshually a social disease und we need a social worker!”
As a game reviewer, I probably should end this by saying what my thoughts are on game reviews, what they should be, and what I strive to do. And… I tend to have a very liberal perspective. Reviews are just expressions of opinions, and those should come in whatever form the reviewer thinks works best for them. I love deep dives, basically abridged walkthroughs, of games that show you what they’re all about, and I also appreciate punctual to the point short shit. For me, I just view game reviews as a way to state my thoughts on a game after I’m done with it, often going longer than I probably should. Why? Because I generally defer on the side of saying too much over too little, as I want my reviews to be comprehensive.
I also am, to the chagrin of some critics of game reviews, very fond of segregation. What did I think of the story, characters, and overall writing. How did I gel with its gameplay systems. What aspects of its presentation worked for me, and how did the technical mastery of various fields mesh into a singular cohesive whole. All before abridging my points and giving the final word in the conclusion to cap things off and give people the fucking short version. It works for me, so that’s what I do. …And THAT’S the Straight Dope!
Lufia I & II The Sinistrals Saga Announced
(And a Retrospective of a Series with ONE Great Game)
Goodness has this become a common trend. Popularized by Square Enix’s deluge of re-whatevers, we have seen a pleasant precipitation of 90s RPGs being re-whatevered. Between Suikoden, Lunar, Terranigma, Tales, it’s without question that 90s RPG nostalgia is en vogue, and for pretty obvious reasons. As longer, story-driven, less input intensive adventures, they managed to hook their way into the minds of players of the era, who are now in their 30s, 40s, and eager to spend some dochy on nostalgic properties. (Even the younger folks would have been weened on retro game influencers who gassed up these games.) Unlike shorter, more action-driven titles of the era, 90s RPGs are generally substantial 15+ hour affairs, making them an easier sell in terms of value, while modern emulation features smooth down some of the friction. (Speed up 4 lyfe!)
Admittedly, these games are more expensive to re-release than any game driven by action and with less than 2,000 words of text. However, a lean marketing campaign, basic QA, localization, getting a decent multiplatform emulator set up, and paying whatever licensing fees must be incurred is not that expensive. Hell, I would be SHOCKED if the Terranigma re-release has a budget over a million dollars. A price tag like that is a lot to the average person, but appealing for smaller publishers, such as Embracer Group’s Clear River Games, a boutique retro game re-release house that’s bringing back Terranigma… and now Lufia.
Lufia I & II The Sinistrals Saga is a compilation of Lufia & the Fortress of Doom (1993) and Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals (1995), a pair of Super Nintendo RPGs from developer Neverland and published by Taito. Both titles were fairly standard RPGs of the era, clearly taking heavy influence from the big boys of Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest. You’ve got dark entities trying to destroy the world, Adol Christin-looking-ass protagonists, dungeons galore, parties of four, turn-based combat, globe-trotting, you know the drill.
The original Lufia is generally seen to be a good game in its own right, but nothing all too special. In the Super Nintendo library, there were oodles of games cut from a similar mold. However, as one that did release in North America, and start a series, it conferred a decent enough reputation. The narrative is a very straightforward quest. The cast is a rigid party of four without much characterization. Visuals and music are pretty much what plays in my brain when I think about “generic 16-bit RPG.” Looking back, the thing that strikes me most about this game is its battle UX. The overworld is darkened, wiggling enemy sprites are superseded onto it, characters all stand on their status windows, performing animations based on the player’s commands, which are made using a novel plus-shaped arrangement. Old UX design had no rules, and that makes it cool.
Much of the love for this series lies in its prequel, with Lufia II being one of the go-to “favorite RPGs for the SNES that wasn’t handled Square or Enix.” While the game might not look like much, it was a significant upgrade over the first game. The world is more earthen in its design and color palette. The story and characters were expanded considerably, with more banter, dramatic moments, and areas for the cast to stretch their emotional legs. While the gameplay was heavily refined into something that was, in many respects, ahead of its time. Random encounters were replaced with prowling overworld enemies who moved in tandem with the player. The protagonist gained items that could be used to interact with environments à la Zelda Mystic Quest. Combat was given a visual facelift with actual backgrounds and battle sprites for characters. And, just a few months before the release of Pokémon, the game let you use a “capsule” monster in battle, which would serve as a computer controlled fifth party member.
The game is also notable for the inclusion of a pleasantly innovative roguelike dungeon, The Ancient Cave. The layout changes whenever you enter it, every character is sent back to level 1, and you can scavenge for both permanent and run-specific upgrades as you go through an hours-long run. Was it the first roguelike mode in an otherwise campaign-driven JRPG? I dunno! Maybe!
I also have to pause and theorize why Lufia II has so much acclaim and ask if it’s because the game was one of the few SNES RPGs to release in Europe. North Americans might know the platform for its deluge of RPGs, but localization costs kept all but, like, 13 games from hitting Europe. I went through them, and all I counted was ActRaiser, ActRaiser 2, Breath of Fire II, Dungeon Master, Illusion of Gaia, Lagoon, Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals, Mystic Quest, Secret of Evermore, Secret of Mana, Shadowrun, Soul Blazer, and Terranigma. Of these games, the only traditional full part Japanese-style RPGs are Breath of Fire II and Lufia II. Meaning European turn-based JRPG fans had TWO options, on the whole console. It’s no wonder why Europeans have such a soft spot for Final Fantasy VII. For a lot of them, it was their FIRST JRPG ever!
Akumako: “What about RPGs on the Mega Drive? In Europe, it out-performed the Super Nintendo by 3 million units!”
…Just going off of listicles to refresh the noggin, they had Phantasy Star, Shining Force, Langrisser, Might and Magic II: Gates to Another World, and… I think that’s it for turn-based stuff. Just counting party-based JRPGs, not strategy RPGs, that’s three, and all of them are Phantasy Star games. BIG variety!
Akumako: “…I’ll let you continue to the next Lufia game.”
After Lufia II did well enough, Taito commissioned a third game to developer Nihon-Flex. This was to be Lufia III: Ruins Chaser, developed for the PS1. However, the developers went bankrupt before the game was finished, leaving Neverland to retool the concepts from Ruins Chaser into Lufia: The Legend Returns (2001) for Game Boy Color.
The Legend Return was NOT well received critically, in part because it was a late GBC game that came out after the GBA replaced it. Far as I could tell, it was actually a pretty novel and interesting game for the short-lived GBC library. It featured a full campaign, a novel 9 person battle system where you rotate between 3 active party members, and a skill-learning system to let the player really customize their party. It’s a curious game to pick apart, but between a need to grind, randomly generated dungeons, and ho-hum presentation did not endear it to a lot of people, just in general.
While Neverland was busy pursuing licensed PS2 projects, notably a few Shining Force games, Taito handed off Lufia to Atelier Double (Boku no Natsuyasumi, Quest: Brian’s Journey) for a GBA entry with Lufia: The Ruins of Lore (2002). Fans… did not like this one, at all, in part because it tried doing way too much for its own good. Capsule monsters were expanded as disc monsters, and can be evolved through various means, giving the player access to roughly 200 monsters to play around with.
…Except disc monsters now take up a party slot, meaning if you want to use them, you are going to need to give a normal party member the boot. Random encounters are not a thing in Ruins of Lore, as is series tradition, but enemies now move erratically through each dungeon. The main party is expanded through a class system of 13 available classes that you could pursue, but with the disc monsters and a total of 5 party members, who had the patience to futz with that? Well, people who wanted to get through its long dungeons.
Atelier Double died two years after this, meaning the reigns to the series were handed back to Neverland. Rather than make Lufia V, Neverland ditched Taito to buddy up with Marvelous Interactive to develop the first six Rune Factory games. (Rune Factory 1 to 4, Frontier, and Tides of Destiny.) After Taito’s acquisition by Square Enix in 2005, Neverland decided to return to the Lufia series with a remake of the only widely acclaimed entry, Lufia II.
Lufia: Curse of the Sinistrals (2010) was a thorough reimagining for the Nintendo DS that was… barely recognizable as its source material. It was now an action RPG with puzzle elements and 3D environments that, while impressive on the DS, is seen as a downgrade looking back on it. This was an era where some publishers were getting shaky about the viability of turn-based RPGs, felt they had to modernize, and this was developer Neverland’s attempt at that. Unfortunately, in efforts to modernize the game, to streamline it for a casual audience, they made something that appealed to nobody. In fact, Curse was such a departure it could be considered one of the worst remakes of all time.
In 2013, Neverland died. Some of its staff filtered out to Marvelous, others just left the industry, and the rights for the series were preserved within Square Enix. Naturally, Square Enix is looking to capitalize off of their IP, but with no Neverland staff on staff, there’s nobody to lead the charge for a Lufia collection. Instead they gave Clear River the right to re-release the first two Lufia games.
Now, why only release the first two, when the series has four games that could easily be re-released? The same reason Lunar Remastered didn’t include Lunar: Sanposuru Gakuen (1996), Lunar Legend (2002), or Lunar: Dragon Song (2005). Because not enough people give a shit about Game Boy RPGs, mid GBA RPGs, or subpar DS-shaped duds.
Game collections, as a concept, have gone away from the idea of doing everything they can to doing as little as they need to, and I generally HATE to see it. The weird offshoots of a series are exactly the type of things that fans love, and if they are not included in a collection, then that makes them all the more obscure, ignorable, and easy to write off as being riff-raff, rubbish, or something not worthy of going into any form of the video game canon. And don’t tell me “they might re-release the other games later.” Sure, they might, but this is their best chance, and they’re not taking it!
That preamble aside, what makes this re-release different from what Mad Eddy would email you if you asked him real nice-like? Well, details are sparse, but there seem to be a few.
- The original Japanese script was rewritten by original scenario writer, and Lufia II director, Masahide Miyata.
- A new in-game font is being used for both games, which is more important than you may think.
- The original English localization has been replaced with a new updated localization, in order to maintain parity between the English, French, German, Spanish, Chinese, and Korean translations. Standard practice, and I can’t complain about that. Who knows what 1995 Natsume was doing!
- Unspecified gameplay improvements. Presumably this means save states, rewind, fast forward, display filters, borders, backgrounds.
They are not re-doing the visuals or anything, and from the provided snippets of footage, it looks like a pretty no frills re-release, and… that’s fine. They tried changing Lufia II before and, well, look at what happened. I’d rather they not try to significantly improve a classic than watch them screw it up spectacularly.
Lufia I & II The Sinistrals Saga will be released for PS5, Switch, Switch 2, and PC sometime in 2027.
The Xbox Culling Continues…
(Expand the Remittance)
In retrospect, the only wrong thing about declaring Xbox DEAD back in 2024 was that I said DEAD and not DYING, which is a far less sexy designation. I won’t bother recounting what’s going on with Xbox this past year. It’s basically being stripped for parts while the new executive, Renowned AI Natalist Asha Sharma, both takes the heat and tries to convince the diehard contingent of Xbox fans that she’s still based with the boyz. (Whatever that means!) From now on, I expect there to be grand cuts and announcements pertaining to The Great Xbox Reset every quarter. That means studios shuttering, losing resources, losing people, and the future for Xbox as a brand, as an institution, getting smaller and smaller. If freaking Id Software is not safe, then nobody is!
This month’s cullings were mostly centered around “remitting” studios as part of Microsoft’s corporate structure, and I need to pause to emphasize how bizarre this language is. The term remit is mostly used in a financial context, a remittance is a type of payment in my field, so what is Sharma actually saying here? It’s not a refrain, so I think she’s using it as a term to transfer authority, but that is a bizarre way to put it. It further leads me to believe that even her memos are AI generated, because who the fuck talks like this?
Anyway, here’s a summary of everything that Xbox DID to their studios this time:
- At least 238 people across Halo Studios and various other Xbox tendrils have had their employment canceled against their will.
- Rare, after losing everybody who made the Rare games people like, will be relegated to a subsidiary under Activision, and will likely be treated firmly as a live service studio. Because that is what they have been for the past decade.
- World’s Edge, the Age of Empire studio circa 2019, will be brought under Activision’s banner, in what I am guessing is a move to offload Xbox corporate overhead.
- Obsidian will become a subsidiary of Bethesda Entertainment, which I think it always should have been, given the overlap between the types of games Bethesda Softworks and Obsidian develop.
- Activision, not Halo Studios, will lead development on the next Halo title. Which stings extra hard because Microsoft could have just put Id Software in charge of the project, before they rushed out an expansion and gutted the studio.
- Following a new wave of layoffs, Halo Studios has been relegated to a small team that is effectively in community maintenance mode. Based on everything I have heard about Halo Studios, ranging from managerial ineptitude to abuse, this is probably for the best. You can’t reform the unreformable.
- Turn 10, after their failed Forza Motorsport reboot, will be consolidated into Playground Games as a single studio, which will likely suffer heavy layoffs after Fable ships next February.
- Undead Labs has become an independent studio, with a major much hyped release in the chamber with State of Decay 3, scheduled for release next year. Microsoft could have kept them on until the game launched, but they are no longer able to plan for one year in the future.
- Ninja Theory, following two separation attempts, Microsoft has begun “consultation with employees on a proposed closure.” Meaning Microsoft couldn’t, for some reason, have Ninja Theory act as an independent studio. This comes three months after they announced a new Hellblade game, simply entitled Senua, set for release next year.
- Arkane Lyon is still in the process of consultation, and should be its own independent studio by the end of the year.
At this point, I am utterly numb to Microsoft’s routine bumblings, and no longer expect anything of quality to come out of them. There is no plan, there is no vision, they are just managing off of vibes, not thinking actions beyond financial quarters, and trying to generate a lot of shareholder value until the fantasy of perpetual growth crashes. Nothing about the North American games industry is good, stable, or viable. It is only a matter of time before the whole thing collapses and the higher ups start seeing the adverse consequences of their actions.
Emphasis on seeing, as they will not be harmed, nor impaired, and shall be granted golden parachutes after destroying thousands of lives and billions in corporate value. All for what? All to perpetuate the machine of the stock market, of capital and the richest upper crust of society as they throttle and shake the machinations of the world to produce more imaginary value for them, and them alone.
I try to avoid hyperbole, for my shining orbs are murky and opaque, but I can see a dark miasma lurking forward. I do not know when the winds shall blow, but I do know that, much like with politics, we still have not seen how BAD things can get.
Dawngazer Announced by Former Unicorn Overlord Director
(Birthed From The Flaming Orb of 2D Action RPGs)
Despite their games routinely eluding me, my respect for Vanillaware is without question, as so few other developers take the same belabored and impassioned approach to crafting intricate 2D RPGs. Every frame of their games is a painting, and I am thrilled whenever they do something new. However, sometimes something new requires leaving behind one’s stomping grounds, taking corporate money, and launching a multimedia venture.
Takafumi Noma was originally a programmer at Nintendo, working on games such as Animal Crossing (2001) and New Super Mario Bros. (2006) who moved over to Vanillaware as a programmer. Noma made the magic work behind the scenes before leading their biggest tile yet, Unicorn Overlord (2024), as the game’s programmer/writer/director/character designer. (Don’t ask me why he’s just credited as the director.) After this impressive 15+ year run at the company, Noma left to lead his own studio, Ignisphere (there’s a Fireball20XL reference I could make, but I shan’t.)
However, Ignisphere is also doubling as the name of a multimedia project through a collaboration with additional companies, it is slated to be a multimedia project led by a new action RPG. The other players are Monchrome Corporation (they do mobile game and anime co-development) and Good Smile Company (the Nendoroid guys who also do co-dev with games and anime). The venture will be explored through the usual merch, various light novel projects through Kadokawa’s Fujimi Fantasia Bunko, and oodles upon oodles of worldbuilding. You might expect an anime to serve as a pillar, but the only major project announced was the game, Dawngazer.
As for what Dawngazer will be, we don’t have the finest details. Interviews are pretty sparse and the teaser just shows a bunch of characters walking through a medieval fantasy town, with the art style being good, intricate, and well-animated, but lacking the detail and personality of a Vanillaware game. Because you can’t just MAKE a machine that does what Vanillaware learned to do over nearly 30 years!
Still, it’s from an acclaimed game developer, has some backing behind it, and has some cool fantasy critters. Like girls with heads that are fishes, cat maids, demos playing with dogs, and shrimpmen. That’s enough for me to get curious at the very least. Dawngazer will be released sometime in 2028 for PS5, Switch 2, and PC via Steam.
Progress Report 2026-09-27
I felt obligated to talk about the ongoing and murky subject of Destiny 2, which is undergoing what I would dismissively call a sunsetting. The developers are adding previously vaulted areas from before a significant engine upgrade back to the game, something that was once claimed to be impossible. Things like this are, one, desperate ways to bring back a collapsed player count for a live service on life support, and two, reminders that if devs say “this is impossible” they are possibly lying.
The entire situation around Bungie, and Destiny, is sad, unfortunate, and has resulted in many people having their careers functionally ended after nearly 20 years at the same company, divorced from their friends and crunch comrades. However, I do not see a likely or viable solution to the company at this point, and given how bloodthirsty AAA gaming writ large is at the moment, I am expecting them to die out before the end of the decade. I do not say this out of disdain, but from a forlorn resignation that things are going to only get worse, see above.
And yes, we’re FINALLY enjoying a SHORT Rundown after two STACKED weeks.
2026-09-20: Dated A Live with Cassie, finishing season 4. It was BORING! Played more FSN. Wrote 2,000 word Lufia bit, including looking at reviews and longplays so I had an inkling of what I was yapping about. Played more Fate Stay Night.
2026-09-21: Wrote 2,300 word preamble, as I wanted to talk about game review discourse based on a Tweet I saw. Wrote 1,200 words for next week’s preamble, because FUCK YOU! Played more Fate Stay Night.
2026-09-22: Wrote 750 words for the Xbox memo. Played more Donkey Kong 64. Played more Fate Stay Night.
2026-09-23: Played more Fate Stay Night. Edited this fat ornery cow from Felghana!
2026-09-24: BLOODY HELL! So much FATE! Also Missy. Shake the Missy!
2026-09-25: Work, Fate, Work, Missy, Fate, Fate, Fate! Wrote the 400 word Dawngazer bit.
2026-09-26: FINALLY! I finished Fate Stay night after 100.2 hours. I AM FREE! …Except I also need to watch the first season of the anime, as it was WAY bigger than the VN.
Natalie.TF To Do List
2026-10-07: Fate Stay Night Remastered Review (Shiba & Rain Request)DONE!2026-10-21: Natalie Rambles About Donkey Kong 64 RecompiledDONE!- 2026-11-11: Ecstatica Review
- 2026-11-18: TSF Series #020: Chateau de Bitz
- 2026-11-25: Money for Girls: Amortized Review
- 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
- 2027-02-03: Danganronpa 2×2: Super Summer Slayhem Review
- 2027-02-17: Metroid 6: Ravenous Review
- 2027-03-03: Muramasa: Re;Venant Blades Review
- 2027-07-15: Verde’s Doohickey 2.0: Sensational Summer Romp – Act IV: Post Psycho
- 2027-??-??: Beast of Re;Incarnation Review
- 2027-??-??: TSF Showcase: Chronicstuss (Ouran Request)
- 2027-??-??: A Mirror’s Curse Review (TSF Game)
- 2027-??-??: Thread – A Tale of Identity, Monsters, and College Review (TSF Game)