Welcome back, folks. This is related to a big story for this week, but this past weekend, I listened to Utada Hikaru’s re-recording of “Simple And Clean”. It’s very emotional. Utada Hikaru is a good twenty-plus years older than when she originally recorded Simple And Clean in English—but for that matter, so am I. It’s not a sad thing. I think we’re all lucky we’re still here for this. Many folks sadly aren’t, but we can enjoy it for them together.

This is…

Kingdom Hearts Finally Comes To Steam

This is one of those stories that you can’t build up with a witty anecdote. Fans worldwide were surprised, delighted, and elated to see that Square Enix had announced that Kingdom Hearts would be coming to Steam.

For a long time, Kingdom Hearts‘s poor porting on PC had a lot of fans of the beloved RPG series asking, “What’s the deal with Kingdom Hearts?” You can get most of the games on Sony‘s consoles, no problem—of course. But the other consoles have it fairly spotty. Xbox never got the Story So Far set that compiled all of the necessary Kingdom Hearts knowledge (ergo, all of the major games and movies and text featuring the major story beats from the more-obscure titles like 358/2 Days or Union χ). Nintendo Switch finally got some of the Kingdom Hearts games, seemingly as part of Nintendo‘s deal with Square Enix to get Sora into Super Smash Bros Ultimate, and they’re the Cloud versions of the game, for whatever reason, so they’re unplayable. And on PC, Kingdom Hearts was available on the Epic Game Store… which folks didn’t want to resort to. I mean, really didn’t want to resort to. Thankfully, we don’t have to, courtesy of the new Steam port!

There’s a lot to pick at here. For one thing, Kingdom Hearts still really matters to people. It’s a great game series that served as a tremendous gateway drug for an entire generation of would-be anime fans. It tells the tale of a trio of Sora, Riku, and Kairi, three youths who desire to see the worlds beyond the horizon and get swept up in a war between enigmatic forces pondering the light and darkness that live within humanity’s hearts. It was a game intensely of its era, combining the then-bottomless hunger folks had for Final Fantasy with Disney’s ever-present monopoly—arguably, the latter coming off different than it would now, since early-00s Disney isn’t quite the same as post-Frozen Disney. Also, Disney’s access to talent meant that a ton of Kingdom Hearts‘s English cast was insanely stacked. Pre-Tangled Mandy Moore voicing Aeris Gainsborough, Christie Carlson Romano from Even Stevens and Kim Possible voicing Yuffie Kisaragi, freaking Lance Bass voicing Sephiroth. Plus, you had all of the traditional actors for all of the Disney characters, so Tony Anselmo and Bill Farmer as Donald and Goofy, Dan Castellaneta as Genie… the list goes on and on, and added tons of validity to Kingdom Hearts.

For teenagers back then, Kingdom Hearts wasn’t just a game. It was a full-on experience, a singular moment that could never be replicated. It’s a shame Kingdom Hearts came out around that time that everyone suddenly really started hating Japanese games because it also became the poster child for all of the “dumb” or “silly” things that people hated about games from Japan. People still refer to it all as “Kingdom Hearts bullshit.” Even with all the behind-the-scenes turmoil during Kingdom Hearts III‘s development, or whether or not KHIII was even worth the wait, it’s fair to say that Kingdom Hearts is still a massively-beloved foundational title.

This also speaks to just how much people really don’t like Epic Game Store. Kingdom Hearts 1.5+2.5 ReMIX, Kingdom Hearts HD 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue, Kingdom Hearts III + Re Mind and Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory have all been on Epic since 2021, but they’ve also failed to become top sellers for Epic. In the spirit of hating monopolies (and because Steam sucks in a lot of ways), there needs to be competition in terms of PC-based game platforms, but also, ignoring all of Epic Game Store’s unique issues, a lot of folks can’t even be bothered to install a second launcher to their PC after Steam. And this is on top of Epic giving some games away for free. Despite all its issues, Epic does have an infamously better revenue split with studios regarding game sales, but even that’s not enough for anyone to want to jump on board. If a game gets an exclusivity deal with Epic, it might get them a lot of short-term cash, but it’ll translate to a major dip in long-term sales. Speaking of cash, Square Enix has underlined their desire to get their games on further platforms; getting Kingdom Hearts on Steam makes sense at this point.

This is a major issue. It’s obvious what led to this: in the wake of Steam’s success (with Steam largely having gained momentum by having been attached to Valve’s must-play PC titles), everyone else wanted to make their online platform exclusively for their titles: EA had Origin, Ubisoft had Ubisoft Connect, Bethesda made their own, but none of these gained tractions outside of their proprietary titles, so they exist largely as annoyances for people who want to play Bioshock or Mass Effect 2 on PC. The only genuine competitor would be Good Old Games (a.k.a., “GOG”), but GOG has the benefit of also being a phenomenal platform for older PC titles like the Ultima games. They have a phenomenal selection, and they are well-curated. I tried playing the Steam version of Darkstone and discovered it needed a ton of player mods to render properly on my PC. So I double-dipped and got the GOG version: it had the mods packed in from the get-go.

But with that said, Steam still needs competition. For one thing, Steam’s quality control is pretty bad—if they have any. All you need to get your game on Steam is pay a few hundred bucks. Of course, this means that it’s possible for a lot of literal garbage to make its way onto Steam (some games exist only to inflate Achievement scores), as well as a lot of asset flips and cheap edge lord garbage. Also, Steam’s extremely selective attitude towards Japanese visual novels is well-documented. With Steam being as big as they are, they’ve got no incentive to change their policies—to say nothing of how a monopoly is just bad for people all around. People deserve options, good ones. It just speaks to how badly Epic Game Store flubbed their shot that people really, really don’t wanna resort to them.

In honor of the Kingdom Hearts games finally making it to Steam, artist Utada Hikaru re-recorded the English version of their single Simple And Clean, which garnered fame among fans in America as the “theme” to Kingdom Hearts. It was all over the trailer. It has a jaunty techno-remix at the start of the game, and it plays during the heart-wrenching ending. Suffice it to say, Square Enix knows how much Kingdom Hearts means to folks in the U.S., and they were not playing around with the Steam port. For all folks know, this means that Kingdom Hearts is finally playable on PC—for better or worse. I hope they run better than the Epic Game Store versions, too.

The Kingdom Hearts games finally launch on Steam on June 13. As if we didn’t have enough RPGs to play this summer…

AQUAPLUS is a massive name in Japanese visual novels. The last time we spoke of them, they had just been acquired by HIKE. But AQUAPLUS COO Naoya Shimokawa was hopeful about the merger, hoping that HIKE‘s resources would facilitate new projects at AQUAPLUS. He hoped that AQUAPLUS would go forward with making inexpensive games with a modern style. And that “modern style” is a pretty important factor because all of AQUAPLUS‘ best games have been around for years. AQUAPLUS is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, with an expo announced for this November. But there is a wrinkle in this formula.

The teaser does a great job listing all of AQUAPLUS‘s releases and their major titles. Depending on how old you are, you either played Comic Party, Tears to Tiara, or White Album (which recently released on Steam), or you remember their many anime adaptations. But two of their bigger hits were the beloved ToHeart series and Utawarerumono—also, let me take a moment to give a major finger-wag at all the wiseguys who look at Utawarerumono and decide it’s “too hard to pronounce.” It’s not that hard, guys; you don’t have to keep resorting to “Underwater Ray Romano.” At any rate, those last two names are fairly important because AQUAPLUS is teasing new entries in the ToHeart and Utawarerumono series, scheduled for 2025. We’ll likely hear more news about them at the 30th Anniversary expo this November. This is pretty big news!

The name ToHeart likely doesn’t mean much to modern bishoujo fans, but it’s pretty foundational to the genre. I’ve given this anecdote before, but in an old episode of ANNCast, Daryl Surat once pointed out that moé fans likely wouldn’t look to the genre’s past in any capacity. Interest in the genre mostly boiled down to just watching the most recent work (which mirrors anime fans today in a lot of ways—isekai fans likely would never watch Twelve Kingdoms or read Red River). And while I don’t believe that liking a genre means you have to obey some dumb canon, it does help to at least be aware of the older stuff to see what’s been done before. We had comments from last week’s columns wondering why anyone would bother releasing Kanon in the U.S. 24 years after the fact; I’d argue that it’s never too late to bring something over, even if the “real fans” have already bought a copy. Especially since there are a lot of people who still haven’t heard of Kanon. Old stuff doesn’t stop mattering just because it’s old, and even if newer fans are allergic to anything from more than five years ago, there is plenty to appreciate from older media—especially considering how influential or foundational it might be to a genre.

All this to say that ToHeart was pretty

important as far as landmark titles for romantic comedies, harem comedies, and maybe even the development of moé. It’s a tough game to pin down because it’s an ensemble piece; the “main” story is more of a pretense to explore specific scenarios populated by very defined, beloved characters. Today, the cast would seem rather archetypal. In the 1990s, Multi the robot-girl was the robot girl and likely defined an entire generation of robot girls (if not popularizing the idea of robot girls with weird headphone-ears). To Heart 2 was a similarly massive hit, introducing a brand new cast of characters, including a curious alien girl who greets people by raising her arms and shouting “Ruuuu~!” a pair of rascally twins, and your two childhood friends—which includes the spunky redhead Tamaki Kousaka, one of my favorite anime darlings. Sadly, I’m entirely too late to find any Tamaki merch in this day and age, and any attempt at Googling Tamaki back in the day would only turn up the loser from Ouran High School Host Club. I digress; the point is, ToHeart and To Heart 2 were huge back in the day and even got anime adaptations—several, even, in the case of To Heart 2. Any new ToHeart game likely means we won’t be seeing any of the old cast; AQUAPLUS may well design a wholly-new cast for us (alas, Tamaki…), but if there’s something AQUAPLUS is good at, it’s designing charming, memorable ensemble casts.

Conversely, there’s Utawarerumono. The story of a masked man rediscovering his identity after waking up in a world full of animal people, Utawarerumono is surprising in combining its visual novel storytelling with strategy gameplay. It has seen a bunch of video game sequels, spin-offs, and an animated adaptation that, as I recall, did alright. The mainline ToHeart titles have never really been made available in the U.S.—only the Dungeon Traveller spin-offs for To Heart 2 have. While the first game is on Steam, the second one was infamously refused on Steam for… whatever reason (even though the ESRB already rated it for its PS Vita release and was even sold at Walmart). Utawarerumono, on the other hand, has a pretty strong presence on Steam. A new Utawarerumono might build on the previous story. Or not. There’s plenty of time for AQUAPLUS to surprise us.

The expo is slated for November; we’ll likely hear more news then. I’m looking forward to it! When a studio like AQUAPLUS gets the gears moving for new bishoujo titles, you listen.

Sony‘s 2024 State of Play

Sony‘s State of Play was up this week! And on Thursday, right before our deadline! As usual, we’ll be picking and choosing—being that This Week in Games is a weekly column, there isn’t much value in discussing a ton of stuff you already know. Especially if so much of it reveals a whole new slew of 5v5 or 6v6 hero shooters…! I get it, Activision-Blizzard messed up with Overwatch so there’s now a niche in the industry, but even without the constant deluge of competitive shooters we’re getting, there is already a glut of entertainment as far as gaming is concerned. And it doesn’t help that on top of choice paralysis, mass audiences are just sticking to the same handful of “forever-games” (Minecraft, Fortnite, etc). The appeal is obvious: most folks only buy one or two games a year, and it’s easier just to play a few minutes of Fortnite to grind out some EXP and maybe earn a few emotes or skins than dedicate a whole chunk of your time to something more sophisticated or complicated like Elden Ring. Besides, your brain can’t tell between dopamine earned from Fortnite and beating a Deviljho. Hence, I don’t see Marvel Rivals or Concord lasting very long.

Koei Tecmo and Omega Studios present Dynasty Warriors: Origins! Remember that era where the “origins” subtitle was slapped onto everything, even if it wasn’t a prequel? It seems like that doesn’t apply here, where the Dynasty Warriors games all take place in an extremely stylized version of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms (except for Lu Bu and Zhuge Liang, courtesy name Kongming, did—all of that is historical), Origins seems to take place earlier in the Romance featuring a player-made character. The trailer lets us see a generic rent-a-protagonist leading armies and mowing down legions of footsoldiers, all while using various weapons.

If I had to guess, Koei Tecmo and Omega Studios are flexing the phenomenal Nioh character creator in letting us design our general. There’s a lot of potential here! While Dynasty Warriors 9‘s open-world system wasn’t very well-received, the other Dynasty Warriors games and their myriad musou spin-offs are all good fun and make for great button-mashers. The Legend of Zelda: Hyrule Warriors, One Piece: Pirate Warriors, the belated Dynasty Warriors: Gundam (bring back Master Asia!), Fist of the North Star: Ken’s Rage… the formula lends itself well to a bunch of different series. I wish we’d get a Kamen Rider Musou game. The one thing sticking in my craw is the art. The previous Dynasty Warriors games are very colorful in their approaches, with bright, stylized character designs. Dynasty Warriors: Origins is far more desaturated and muted. I’m not crazy about the change, but it’s been brought to my attention that the last two “traditional” Dynasty Warriors titles didn’t do so hot. Hopefully, this game injects some life into this series.

I had to double-take several times during Infinity Nikki‘s segment because I had to make sure I was watching a State of Play and not a Nintendo Direct. Infinity Nikki is extremely not the kind of game I expected to see launching on the PS5. I imagine folks probably skipped it when they saw a winsome female protagonist and her cat-critter partner (or the trailer started playing jazz), but it stands out. Much like SHIFT UP with Stellar Blade, Infinity Nikki comes from Infold, best known for their mobile titles like Nikki. Infinity Nikki represents their transition to consoles, and it’s looking pretty impressive! Think of it as an adventure game with a Style Savvy or Fashion Dreamer twist; Nikki and her cat-buddy arrive in the magical world of Miraland, where fashion can grant you magic powers. You can collect new outfit parts in dungeons (where you can swap between Nikki and her partner), design new outfits, and even take photos of them. The whole thing is very whimsical and fun-looking. While I imagine the dungeons might be fairly simple, everything else is pretty stellar, and the aesthetic is a much-needed change of pace for a PlayStation game. I’ll be surprised if this remains a PS5 exclusive. The trailer ends with Nikki seemingly meeting Queen Marika from Elden Ring. If it’s not her… well, it’s close enough. Infinity Nikki will begin beta-testing soon; I’m looking forward to it.

Also from Infold Games is Ballad of Antara, which seems to be a much more typical “epic” action-adventure game. Much of the vibes remind me of Elden Ring, with a world stuck in the ruins of a bygone age and the pursuit of new magic to resurrect the world. Combat seems fun, but I hope it’s more of a traditional action game, not another Souls-like. Souls-likes are great! Souls-likes are fun! But it would be nice to play a traditional action game where you don’t lose all your currency upon death or have lore fed in disappointingly disjointed item descriptions! Not all action games need that bleeding stamina bar! We’ll know more about Ballad of Antara in the coming months as it comes out next year.

From Chinese studio Everstone Studios, we have Where Winds Meet, which, aw darn, another Souls-like? For crying out loud, we don’t see the character do anything but parry chains of attacks. It sure is nice that bosses have amazing moves; remember when action games let us do moves like that with a few button presses? Does anyone remember action games before they split off into “complicated character-action games” and “Souls-likes”? You guys are seriously about to make me compliment Mortal Kombat and wish they’d bring back Shaolin Monks. Ugh. Anyway, Where Winds Meet looks phenomenal otherwise. Everstone is leaning in hard on the Wuxia-inspired aesthetic, down to lifting certain scenes from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, like the battle in the bamboo grove. But again, most of the cool stuff in the trailer looks like it’s either a cutscene or a boss attack that we’re intended to parry and counter with a riposte before dodge-rolling a few feet away to wait for the next telegraphed move… hopefully, Where Winds Meet can channel some of Wo Long‘s energy to help make it feel different. Wo Long‘s spirit meter helped keep battles fast-paced and channel that “Wuxia energy.” No word yet on a release, but it’s looking good so far (never mind my griping about Souls-likes).

We finally have a trailer for the Silent Hill 2 remake! This game has a ton riding upon it. Folks are still extremely sore at how Konami has handled the Silent Hill franchise, Masahiro Ito regrets ever designing Pyramid Head in the first place, and the original Silent Hill 2 is one of the most beloved psychological horror games ever made. So expectations are pretty inflated. It looks… okay. I don’t have enough experience with Silent Hill to make an informed claim, but folks are hopeful. For now, we can look forward to an October 8 release date. Heads are going to roll if this game misses the mark.

Monster Hunter Wilds is up next and it’s looking amazing. I do regret that they’re going back to the Monster Hunter World-style of gameplay and aesthetic—I’m sorry, World looks so dull to me. I’ve always preferred the aesthetic of the 3DS Monster Hunters, and Rise tapped into that well with its faux-Japanese aesthetic and not the “everybody looks like they need a shower” designs of World.

Also, the monsters in World didn’t impress me much. In Wilds, you embark into the Forbidden Lands to hunt monsters, as is the series’ style. The support characters look great, especially since we have what looks like a half-Wyvernian gyaru as a supporter. Some folks theorize she might be a grown-up Little Miss Forge from Monster Hunter 4 UItimate; wouldn’t that be nice?

It’s still too soon to tell what Wilds is going for, but the trailer gives us plenty to look forward to. The monsters are, well, they’re the Worlds aesthetic, so the only new monster we’ve seen is the weird, hairy naked-mole-rat beasts that I’m guessing are supposed to be a blend of bulldogs with giant bears? Eh. They’re taking one good cue from Rise: mounts! We have bird-like Seikrets instead of Palamutes now (boo, bring back the dogs!), along with hints at an incredible feature: the ability to swap weapons on the fly during a hunt. During the trailer, we see our hunter mounting their Seikret and sheathing their Great Sword, replacing it with a Bowgun. For a long time, Monster Hunter has been very firm regarding your loadout; if you’re on a hunt, you use what you have. This is a good bit of flexibility and opens the door to a lot of strategy. I’m not into the aesthetics or the vibes, but Wilds looks good. Looking forward to it next year; apparently, it’ll also come out on Xbox and Steam.

Finally, we have Astro Bot! All I can say is—wow! I never played Astro’s Playroom, but I think I will. Astro Bot takes the charming little Astro robot and his giant PS5 controller across a bunch of platformer worlds where they’ll face off against all manner of cute enemies. There are also a ton of other Astros dressed up as PlayStation characters, like Nathan Drake (yawn), the little-robed adventurers from Journey (wow!), Parappa the Rapper (hey, how about a new game?), Ico, and Wander from Shadow of the Colossus. The game looks cute, and I love how much fun they’ve had dressing up the PS5 and its paraphernalia as actual characters. Astro’s Playroom is pre-installed in every PS5. Sony‘s done a bad job of putting the word out if that’s the case. Why are we constantly remaking The Last of Us when we have Astro here being a cute little bean?! Look forward to Astro’s Playroom this September 6.

Marvelous Game Showcase 2024

Ah, but it wasn’t enough for Sony to have a massive showcase—Marvelous had one, too! Now, we love Rune Factory here at This Week in Games, so we had to take the time to go over this one. Folks might be balking at the number of farming sims we’re getting today, and while they’re not all made equal, there will never be a substitute for Marvelous’s brand of farming. They made the genre courtesy of the Story of Seasons games. So, let’s break down what they have cooking for us! This is Marvelous’s second annual showcase, and they even had voice actress Sora Amamiya narrating for us. Nice of them to get Miia from Monster Musume! I miss what they did last year’s showcase with explaining the “theme” behind each game like “Life,” “Experiences,” or “East meets West,” but I imagine that’s because these projects are much farther along in their development now.

Let me prelude this by saying that I don’t like Fairy Tail. Whenever someone tried gassing up Fairy Tail to me, I wondered if we were both speaking English because so much of it sounded so pedestrian. It and Black Clover occupy the same space for me where they’re great if you’ve never read any other shonen battle manga before (especially since Fairy Tail never escaped the One Piece rip-off allegations). But Hiro Mashima is a great character designer, and I did love Rave Master when I was younger, so I do give him recognition. Anyway, Mashima is responsible for the character designs of this upcoming game, Farmagia. Formerly known as “Project Magia,” the game blends fantasy-style farming with combat. The key twist here is that each character introduced has a monster partner that helps them in combat. We didn’t see any gameplay footage, just the animated intro, but project manager Takehiro Ishida emphasizes that the game revolves around cooperation with monsters. Fittingly, what appears to be the villain has his own partner—an evil-looking dragon. I’m not sure how Farmagia is going to stand out from Rune Factory since Rune Factory also uses fantasy magic and cooperation with monsters as heavy themes (these were especially prominent in Rune Factory 3). But we’ll see more as Farmagia gears up for its release later this year.

Next, we have news about the upcoming Story of Seasons title. Sadly, it’s still in production—there isn’t much to see from it other than a sizzle reel showing. Provided, it’s a sizzle reel of a ton of Story of Seasons animals in an idyllic field of grass, milling about without a care in the world. I’m not about to complain about that! Like many others, I would take a bullet for those adorable cows! (I already have plates and screws in both my arms, what difference will a little more metal make?) Series producer Hikaru Nakano explains that their goal with this new Story of Seasons title is to improve the graphical fidelity of the games. While Story of Seasons is best known for its charming, simplistic art style (again: look at the blobby cows), there is a lot of room for improvement. Nakano points to small details in the trailer like the lighting during the daytime or fireworks in the skies at night. He also pointed out the desire to bring out the beauty of each season. Also, they’ve introduced a cute little glider you can use to float around. So far, so good! We’ll keep you guys posted on this one.

The showcase also dedicated some time to mobile games and arcade machines that Marvelous is working on for the Japanese market. Hence Bikkuriman, which the trailer’s subtitles make sure to point out will be Japan-only. A Japanese series of mobile titles, the games revolve around cute little chibi versions of folkloric heroes battling it out to collect stickers. No plans to bring Bikkuriman stateside, so I think it’ll be alright if I gloss over it. Because Marvelous also works on arcade machines, they also introduced a new device they have in development—and it’s a Pokémon arcade game! It’s quite similar to other child-oriented arcade machines from Japan, like the many Dragon Ball, Kamen Rider or Yōkai Watch machines where you can print out cards of unlocked characters through gameplay. In Frienda‘s case, players can earn little plastic plates with the art of Pokémon printed on them. (I’d ask for a Shuckle card, but I feel like Frienda might leave Shuckle out in the cold…) The machine features a big touchscreen and a dual-screen set-up for co-op mode where both screens are used for one big display. Players will tap the buttons to damage wild Pokémon, reducing their health in an attempt to capture them. The catch: you need to pay an extra 100 yen to capture them and get the printed plate, and higher-ranked plates are locked behind co-op mode. It looks fun, at least, and the plates are neat.

I don’t want to dwell on this too long because the next bit is just for a crane machine that I know we’ll never see in the U.S. But the moment I saw the little Story of Seasons cow plushies in the machine, I lost my shit and started giggling. This machine, the Try Catch, spins your prize in the claw after you’ve caught it. If the prize doesn’t fall out, the trap door at the bottom of the machine opens and you get your prized Story of Season moo-moo. Then the next prize falls in the machine for you to try again. Maybe I’ve watched too much Vinesauce, but the whole thing made me laugh way harder than it should. All it needs is Vinesauce Vinny‘s famous “SPEEN!“ to be perfect. Marvelous, take note. Also, a shout-out to Chatyot; I’ve had some Vinesauce fans hit me up on Twitter and thank me for the occasional shout-outs. I am glad to have you guys reading! The Try Catch machines launch in Japan this November, but the fluffy Story of Seasons cows will launch as prizes this July. They’re fluffy, either 18 or 78 cm big (the font makes it hard to tell), and they come in various cow colors. I look forward to seeing them staring at me from someone’s plushie pile on their bed.

Because Marvelous does make other stuff besides farming sims, Marvelous also showcased a trio of indie games they’re working on. Bo: Path of the Teal Lotus, from Squid Shock Studios and co-produced by Marvelous and Humble Bundle, is a lovely-looking 2D platformer featuring yokai in a fantasy Japanese setting. It looks cute and emphasizes mobility, using your bo staff to pogo-hop in the air. It lists July 18 as the release date in Japan and Asia—no word on a US release. Death The Guitar was also showcased. Famed as BitSummit’s Game of 2023, you play as a sentient electric guitar out to avenge your owner. It’s a fun puzzle platformer, letting you use soundwaves from electric amps to jump around. It releases in 2025. Finally, there’s Moonlight Peaks, which looks like an adorable cross between Animal Crossing and Story of Seasons with a smattering of general Halloween love tossed in. You play as Dracula’s vampiric child growing magical fruits and veggies in your garden to use as potion ingredients. There is also a romance system with the locals which includes all manner of monster-people to woo. The 2D profile pics seem a bit disjointed from the Animal Crossing-styled character models, but it’s looking cute at least. It won’t be out for a while, though—the showcase lists it as releasing in 2026.

Then we have news on Rune Factory. Amamiya pointed out that this year marks Rune Factory‘s 18th anniversary! The showcase had a neat little primer going over the series’ evolution over the past 18 years. Series director Shiro Maekawa also showed up with some choice words to lead people into the reveal of the newest Rune Factory title. Last year, we saw that two of them were in development: a proper Rune Factory 6 and the other with the working title of “Project Dragon.” The teaser showcased the new Earthmate protagonists: the male Subaru and the female Kaguya. Both characters seem to have their unique fighting styles, combined with a traditional Japanese drum-and-dance-styled magic system. Also, the combat looks flashier than in other Rune Factory games, especially with the inclusion of two new weapon types: bows and talismans. According to Maekawa, dance will factor into their magical abilities. It is an interesting notion and an excellent way to incorporate traditional Japanese flavor beyond just slapping characters into kimonos. Hence, Subaru and Kaguya are called “Earth Dancers,” not the series-standard “Earthmates.” We don’t have much more on Project Dragon, not even a formal title, so nothing to do but keep waiting for more news.

Marvelous wrapped up by showing this tiny tidbit from their new sequel to Daemon X Machina, subtitled Titanic Scion. I feel bad because I don’t know anything about Daemon X Machina and I don’t know anybody else who does. It seems like a kickass mech simulator game like Armored Core, but I’ve never had the time to try it out. Marvelous is putting a ton of work into it and I hope it bears fruit because the designs look sick—as well as a total 180 from what Marvelous is mostly known for. Maybe they can sweeten the pot by sticking a Story of Seasons cow in a plugsuit?

That about wraps up our two showcases. Join us next year when Sony and Marvelous decide to have their showcases on the same day again!

Let’s wrap up with some quick tidbits

Heads-up, NIKKE fans! If you enjoyed the Vampire Survivors-esque Memory of Goddess mini-game from the Red Ash event and have been missing it for these past six months, SHIFT UP has heard your cries! Memory of Goddess is slated to become a permanent mini-game starting June 30th—including several upgrades!

We finally have news on the HD-2D Dragon Quest III: The Seeds of Salvation remake! In honor of, uh, “Dragon Quest Day, Square Enix put out a teaser for the game, featuring the bird-like emblem of Erdrick and the promise of more news to come. The video teases, “the legend of Erdrick draws near.” The teaser also confirms that the remake will be headed to Nintendo Switch as well as PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and Steam. Scuttlebutt has it that this might also hint at Dragon Quest and Dragon Quest II: Luminaries of the Legendary Line also getting remade, but I doubt it—remember folks, Dragon Quest III is a prequel!

If you need Earthbound merch, there’s good news for you! There are now official plushies for sale of Lucky and Gorgeous, the frontmen of the in-universe band, The Runaway Five. (Or you could pretend they’re anime plushies of John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd, that works too.) They’ll start selling on June 4 for 6,600 yen—move fast before they run away from you!

Atlus is doing plenty to get the word out about Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance, including a curious trailer where Jim Ojala (better known as the creator of the masks worn by the band Slipknot) creates masks based off of demons found in SMTV:V.

CAPCOM must be happy; Dragon’s Dogma II has surpassed three million units in sales! Vindication at last!

Alicesoft, best known as the Japanese studio behind the Rance series of adult PC games, recently put out a hiring call; applicants are encouraged to apply if they wish to work with the director, Fuurin, in promoting the “married woman and cheating genres.”

NIS America has announced a new demo for The Legend of Heroes: Trails through Daybreak, releasing next week! The demo for the Nintendo Switch only covers the prologue of the game, while the demo on PS5 will also include Chapter One. Why the disparity in content? NIS America cites size limitations on demos for the Switch.

That’ll do it for this week. We have an exciting review for folks in the next few weeks; I’ve been working hard and I look forward to sharing it with everyone in due time. I’m also looking forward to the Tokyo Game Show later this summer, if only because there’s a chance—a chance that there might be news on IZUNA 3. Look man, I’m seriously jonesing here. I dreamed last weekend I was offered the opportunity to preview the game. Of course, this also involved Adrian Monk having to investigate some kidnapped journalists (I’ve been watching Monk lately), but at least the version of IZUNA 3 in my dream looked fun. Good pixel art, as I remember. Pray for me and my obsession. Be good to each other; I’ll see you in seven.

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This Week In Games! is written from idyllic Portland by Jean-Karlo Lemus. When not collaborating with Anime News Network, Jean-Karlo can be found playing JRPGs, eating popcorn, watching v-tubers, and tokusatsu. You can keep up with him at @mouse_inhouse or @ventcard.bsky.social.

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