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This Week in Games - Heads Butting over NieR, Level-5's Games A-far, and Bloodborne Goes to Hollywoo

Moving away from mobile, we have Snack World: Reloaded, a remake of a 2017 RPG series. This was another multimedia project for Level-5 back in the day, but neither it nor its anime ever came stateside—I will be surprised if this game comes to the U.S. The game shows our hero out adventuring with a gaggle of cartoonish friends, but not much in the way of story, just a fight against a large gorgon. And don't worry about the release date, it currently doesn't have one—there's nothing but a big "TBA" for this one's release.

Also makes me think about how many of their games are kinda in limbo; the Layton series in particular just BEGS for a rerelease.

In a series as convoluted as Nier where all of it is canon - no mater how contradictory it might be - having an entire game be unaccessible seems almost cruel. The really frustrating thing is that there wasn't actually much about the game that required it to be online and I don't think it would be all that hard to make an offline version. I would buy it.

Of course, this all hinges on whether or not the project actually comes out. In my time writing this column, I've seen announcements for movies and TV shows based on Golden Axe, Shinobi, Streets of Rage, Elden Ring, and Helldivers. And we've heard a fat lot of nothing about any of them since their announcement (even taking into consideration that Elden Ring and Helldivers are fairly recent announcements).

The preservation thing definitely highlights some differing cultural views on the subject. I'm not sure I agree that it goes against the creators' intentions when the intention would have been to leave it up for as long as it made money, and take it down when it didn't It's the kind of decision that comes from the corporate side of things, and I doubt too many artists would choose to see their work disappear entirely aside from things like personal embarrassment etc.

The anime was basically DOA outside of Japan on account of certain designs really not flying with the morality of the moment (and CGI being much harder to give the 4-Kids treatment), but the Switch version did get a (physical!) US release as Snack World: The Dungeon Crawl GOLD and my source for this is the case sitting over by my Switch reminding me I had been meaning to replay it. If Level-5 had more stateside than the niche fanbase that's been hanging on since the PS2 days, there would definitely have been discourse.

And yeah, we aren't entitled to have these things under the current systems. That said, it's also extremely frustrating when those who control them choose not to make them available. (Looks at ever-growing list of Crunchyroll licenses they refuse to release on disc). These companies were never our friends, but more and more we see the relationship being tipped in favor of them giving less and expecting more out of the customers.

Remember those commercials where Yoko Taro wers Emil's head as mask and keeps insulting Square Enix while rolling around? I wonder if things got ugly over this.

I think we also forget Level-5, despite their obvious success, had its fair share of misses and flops. Rogue Galaxy was fun, but also failed to hit a million units (probably from it being released at the tail end of the PS2's life cycle), White Knight Chronicles were BIG flops, Ni no Kuni II...existed. Also makes me think about how many of their games are kinda in limbo; the Layton series in particular just BEGS for a rerelease. Also doesn't help a lot of their biggest successes had companies like Sony, Nintendo, and Square-Enix involved.

I dunno, Hino is pushing 60 and Level-5 is over twenty-five years old. Hopefully they turn it around, but they are clearly going through it

Whatever happened to Taika Waititi's announced Akira adaptation? It's strange to see which projects actually come to fruition, and which get abandoned. Back in the day, I never thought we'd actually get that live action Death Note movie.

I imagine Japan having complete and unfettered access to Japanese media without any kind of geographic, availability, language, or monetary barrier lets them have a much more strict stance than westerners who always had to find ways to circumvent many hurdles to experience and enjoy Japanese media especially in the past.

I remember over a decade ago, Kat Bailey on USGamer made the bold-but-accurate claim that Level-5 was basically a Japanese Activision, constantly looking for their next big thing and not being afraid of what got trampled in their path along the way. You can see that with how they've treated their franchises once something else gets big; we didn't see another Professor Layton while Inazuma Eleven was king of the hill in Japan, and Inazuma Eleven was chopped liver when Yokai Watch was big. That they insist on making all of their major franchises multimedia-driven doesn't help; of all the problems they're having with producing DECAPOLICE or Holy Horror Mansion, having to organize a whole anime while they're at it can't be helping. These guys are making the same mistake Advent Rising made.

[That's a major generalization; plenty of Japanese films end up "lost," in some capacity. Sweet Home is a great example, IIRC that movie can't be released on DVD because of a tiff the studio had with the director.