This Week in Games

Ike's Back, Bricks Need a Budget, and Marissa Stole the Precious Nuggets

Welcome back, folks! Nintendo offered a "Year in Review" feature this week that covered my entire history with the Switch family of consoles. With all the games I've bought, there were surprisingly few games on that list—mostly the Xenoblade Chronicles titles, as you can imagine, plus whatever games I've worked on for reviews and such. What horrified me wasn't that I've invested 191 hours in my playthrough of Xenoblade Chronicles 3, but that I've been at it since July 30, 2022. I've been playing the same damn game for three years, almost as long as I've written this column! The hilarious part: the game with the second-longest playtime is Balatro, at 27 hours...

Video games are an expensive hobby, but being someone who grew up as a fan of LEGO... uh, so are LEGO sets. They're a phenomenal buildable toy and have been since 1949, but the price per brick in many sets can be rather wild. And there's me remembering when Toa canisters only cost about $10 USD a pop. There's been a lot of consternation about expensive LEGO sets as of late, since people are so short on cash—and the recent news about the upcoming Pokémon-themed LEGO sets doesn't help matters...

... I'll come back to this commercial in a second. Anyway, the LEGO Corporation revealed the prices for the upcoming Pokémon sets: the poseable Eevee set retails for US$60. The "Pikachu and Pokéball" set retails for US$200 (and includes alternate parts for modifying Pikachu's tail if you want your Pikachu to be female instead of male). And then there's the massive statue featuring Charizard, Blastoise, and Venusaur retailing for an eye-watering US$650. Oh, don't worry, there's also a Pokémon Center set... and it's exclusive to the LEGO website. You also get a complimentary set featuring the eight Kanto region badges if you order the starter statue set.

Look, I'm 36 years old; I haven't been the target demographic for a ton of the media I love for a very, very long time. But I've made peace with it: I'm literally playing with toys meant for someone else, and I don't let that ruin my life. It's no bones to me if the Teen Titans twerk and sing about waffles, because goodness knows grown-ups were insufferable about the stuff I liked when I was a tyke. But—and this is important—none of this is meant for kids. Even that earlier commercial was positively obnoxious in its desperate attempts to appeal to nostalgia. "Hey, 30-somethings! Is adulting hard? Here, have some packaged nostalgia for the price of a game console and then some! Aren't you glad to see all your favorite Pokémon again?" No, I'm not—my favorite Pokémon didn't appear until Gen 2, and even ignoring the Shuckle shading, I've been here since Day 1. Pokémon never left. You're charging me US$650 for statues I don't have space for of Pokémon that have been shoved in my face ever since GAME FREAK decided to capitulate to the people who hated the Gen V games. Even I don't want my childhood sold back to me; I was happy getting a complete set of the Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles turtles at US$10 a pop. I will never feel the need to pay currency for a Turtle toy designed to look like the original 1980s ones. I want to look forward, not backward.

I'm not even sure I can blame all of this on nostalgia-baiting, because even other 30-somethings I know hate the idea of these sets. Nobody just has US$650 lying around! A while back, I discussed the Animal Crossing sets; those can also be rather pricey, but at least they're sets: kids who like Animal Crossing can have their little Tom Nook minifigures and the Mable Sisters and such. These are all premium display-only sets destined to be in the background of some YouTuber's set, not actually played with. Die-hard Adult Fans of LEGO ("AFOL," for short) and scalpers will likely guarantee these sets sell, but I'm otherwise waiting for the day they make a REAL moneymaker: a tiny LEGO set of a Casteliacone cart with an included Cynthia minifigure. That's where the money is.

We owe the Pokémon Mega Bloks sets an apology. At least they're actual toys (and affordable).

Palworld is still a thing, lawsuit be damned! While Palworld took the world by storm in early 2024, the game has largely cooled off by now; it's had a few updates in the years since (some of which to change the use of in-game Palspheres, which are a point of contention regarding their lawsuit with The Pokémon Company International), but for the most part Palworld exists on an appearance in Once Human and their own in-game collaborations with Terrarria and, uh... Ultrakill? (Weird choice, but okay.) Given the game's early success, Pocketpair wasn't shy about exploring the idea of making a trading card game. After all, you can't really be "edgy Pokémon" without a trading card game of your own. Hence, we have news of a Palworld card game coming this summer!

Courtesy of Bushiroad, the publishers of other card games like Cardfight!! Vanguard, Weiß Schwarz, and Shadowvere: Evolved, the card game will be mildly based on Palworld: players will collect resources to establish a base while their Pals use their unique abilities to progress the game state. Hey, it actually sounds like they made a system that wasn't just "Pokémon Trading Card Game, but with guns!" I do have to worry about Bushiroad handling it. Not that I don't think Cardfight!! Vanguard isn't fun, but Bushiroad games are somewhat infamous for their product churn. I have to wonder how they'll make that work with Palworld.

Do I think it'll compete with the Pokémon card game? I don't care. I largely forget Palworld exists until my Internet-buddies bring it up, and even then, it's more to shake their fist at Nintendo than to extol any virtue on Palworld's behalf. I genuinely don't know what anyone is supposed to get out of Palworld outside of thumbing your nose at some other game you don't like, but then again, I spend my time playing games and not doomscrolling social media. I do think pushing out a trading card game of your video game that isn't even in its 1.0 state does poke a few holes in your "We're just a tiny indie-game studio getting unfairly bullied by a big, mean corporation" narrative, but also, nobody working at Pocketpair deserves to lose their jobs or end up on the road. It'd just be nice to see them make something that isn't biting someone else's apple; between Craftopia, Never Grave, and Palworld looking like Temu Breath of the Wild, Hollow Knight, and Pokémon, I have to wonder if Pocketpair can ever come out of their own shadow.

At the very least, Palworld and Pokémon get to enjoy the same hellish torment that is card scalpers; good luck to folks genuinely interested in playing the Palworld card game...

We've gotten plenty of Fortnite collaborations with Japanese media, such that they're quite commonplace now. Where it was once novel to see franchises like Dragon Ball or even Jujutsu Kaisen get their time in what is possibly the most ubiquitous video game of the modern era, nowadays it's so common that I mostly struggle to find anything to say about them. But I do have words for this one collab, because it's a doozy: it's Kizuna Ai!

Vtubers have become a major part of the current Internet landscape, especially with figures like IronMouse being one of the biggest streamers on Twitch or the talents from HoloLive having themed nights at Dodger's Stadium. And one of the biggest figures who really helped the whole thing get off the ground was Kizuna Ai, the Japanese "virtual idol" who played games, panicked over irresponsible gacha game decisions, and tried her best to cuss in English. Taking the world by storm in 2016, Ai developed a passionate fanbase in the United States, with fans subtitling her most famous and memetic clips. Eventually, Ai retired in 2022, but she returned in mid-2025. And she hasn't really lost any of her luster.

There has been a bit of consternation regarding Ai's collab. Still, it's all the result of misunderstanding: folks see the name "Kizuna Ai" and think the "Ai" means "artificial intelligence." In reality, the "Ai" means "love." But also, most mainstream gamers probably don't know much Japanese to begin with, so it's an easy mistake to make. Heck, even Twitch made the mistake of assuming Vtubers were AI three years ago. There are also a lot of nasty stereotypes surrounding VTubers, like how they're all middle-aged men with voice changers or how they're all cam-girls. While several VTubers do dabble in lewd content, like Cottontail or Projekt Melody (sic), not all do. And while some VTubers like Zentreya use text-to-speech to communicate, not all do. Yeah, IronMouse has a high-pitched voice, but also, so does Lily Pichu, and Lily is 34. (Also, being Puerto Rican: yeah, it's not uncommon to meet 30-something women with squeaky voices back home.) As with Japanese RPGs or Japanese animation, there are a lot of stereotypes that outsiders like to bandy about.

Currently, Ai and her goodies go live in Fortnite on January 16. Once they do, there's no telling what might happen next; if the collab goes well enough, it might open the door to collaborations with other VTubers, such as the Hololive talents. Once again, we can thank Ai for breaking down those walls.

Back when the Switch 2 was announced, I joked that the GameCube version of Soul Calibur 2 being available on the console's Nintendo Switch+ service was worth the price of the console. But Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance practically goes for half of what a Switch 2 costs, that's just as good!

Path of Radiance is a title deeply beloved by the Fire Emblem fanbase. And there's a lot that goes into that. While the two previous Fire Emblem games that were released in the United States were on the Game Boy Advance (The Binding Blade and Sacred Stones), Path of Radiance launched on the GameCube. At a time when there were precious few of the games available in the United States (and few titles overall on the GameCube), the title was a lighthouse.

Path of Radiance was really good. Telling the tale of the young mercenary Ike and his inherited squadron, the Greil Mercenaries, as they get caught up in a nation-wide battle, as they both protect Princess Elincia of Crimea and battle against the vile Lord Ashnard. There is also the matter of the titular Fire Emblem, which in this game is a medallion that contains the soul of an evil god. Path of Radiance and its sequel Radiant Dawn are noteworthy for having some of the most beloved casts in the series' history. It helps that Path of Radiance is one of the more "dignified" games in the series; while its characters are still plenty archetypal, they're not quite the gaggle of stereotypes like the Fire Emblem Fates cast. Much of the team is fairly down-to-Earth, like Mia the plucky myrmidon, or the perpetually hungry mage Ilyana. Nephenee is noteworthy both for being a powerhouse despite being a fairly standard woman-at-arms and for her in-game understated beauty. Titania is loved and respected as both one of the best pre-promoted units (a line of characters that usually tend to be pretty trash) and one of Fire Emblem's dark-horse favorite leading ladies. The surly Soren is also beloved by many, especially given the wildly popular Ike/Soren ship. Also, shout-out to the enemy Paladin Petrine, who is basically Cima Garahau from Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory.

Of course, that touches upon Path of Radiance's big twist. Most Fire Emblem games are no strangers to Manaketes, dragon-people who can shapeshift into actual dragons. Path of Radiance instead gave us the Laguz, an entire species of shapeshifters who can turn into cats, lions, ravens, herons, wolves—and dragons. Laguz presented an interesting twist: while most Laguz were vulnerable as humans, they could turn into animals once their energy had built up enough during battle. At that point, they'd wreak havoc on enemy units. They did, however, have unique weaknesses against certain spells or weapons, requiring a bit of strategy in positioning. Their involvement in the story also opened the door to a lot of drama, since many Human (or "Beorc,"  as the Laguz call them) discriminated against the Laguz. Famously, the support between fan-favorite cat-Laguz Lethe and the Wyvern Rider Jill explores the prejudices between both races. There is also the matter of the Branded, the cross-breed children of Laguz and Beorc parents...

Path of Radiance received a sequel on the Wii, Radiant Dawn, which continued the story and added the character Micaiah to the cast. The Path of Radiance crew has also made cameo appearances in later Fire Emblem titles, like Awakening and Engage, as well as Fire Emblem Heroes. Famously, Ike was also added to Super Smash Bros. Brawl, where he served as an even heavier variant to Marth and Roy. Path of Radiance also had the reputation of being one of the better games in the series... though that's not for presence of competition, as after Radiant Dawn released, the only other Fire Emblem to come stateside was the maligned 2008 Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon on Nintendo DS; we wouldn't get another Fire Emblem in America until 2012's Fire Emblem: Awakening on the 3DS in 2012, whereupon the series would become one of the bigger titles for Nintendo.

Wii games haven't been added to the Nintendo Switch Online service yet, so Radiant Dawn's future is still up in the air—but hey, Path of Radiance is back. For now, this'll do plenty.

Something I say a lot is how, because of Anime News Network's priorities, I never have to sacrifice coverage of a

The result is the closest thing you get to a multimedia franchise as you can get with mostly independent folks working at it; Touhou has inspired countless fan-games, remix albums, doujin manga (both erotic and safe-for-work), cosplayers, and so on for years. There are hundreds of characters with their own unique gimmicks, and libraries' worth of memes surrounding all of these characters. A handful of these have broken containment, but most people only really recognize Touhou on a second- or even third-hand basis. But Touhou has a massive footprint on the Japanese Internet, and McDonald's of Japan—ever quick on the uptake—has decided to capitalize upon that with a recent ad...

You might be familiar with Bad Apple, a music video that's made the rounds on the Internet for ages and ages. The story for Bad Apple is pretty simple: it's a monochromatic music video featuring a rather seamless transition of several Touhou characters, starting with Reimu herself throwing an apple into the air and ending with an apple landing in Reimu's hand. The video alone has a pretty extensive history as a meme; the song itself is from the third stage of the fourth Touhou game, Lotus Land Story. In 2007, Alstroemeria Records released a cover of the song with vocals provided by the singer nomico (sic). In 2008, a user on Nico Nico Douga (a legendary Japanese video website known as the birthplace of many a Japanese meme) produced a storyboard for a possible music video set to Alstroemeria's cover of the song; he had a vision, but lacked the animation skill to bring it to fruition. One year later, NND user あにら animated the music video as a shadowplay. Bad Apple went on to experience plenty of animated Internet fame, with folks finding all kinds of ways to animate it in the weirdest of places. Alstroemeria Records even went so far as to use the Bad Apple video as the official music video for their cover of the song a decade later! So, of course, McDonald's uses it to hawk chicken nuggets...

... but that wasn't deep enough. Because there was another famous crossover between McDonald's and Touhou that McDonald's of Japan couldn't bear overlooking for this collab! You might have seen this video, Ronald McDonald insanity; it's a MAD consisting of a variety of clips of a series of McDonalds commercials featuring Donald McDonald performing a famed "Ran Ran Ruu~" dance and other silly things, like falling backwards on a bench in a park, all done to the tune of U.N. Owen Was Her, the secret stage theme from the Touhou game Embodiment of Scarlet Devil. (As a reminder: "Ronald McDonald" is named "Donald McDonald" in Japan. I don't know why.) So, of course, the best thing to do is to have Flandre Scarlett's silhouette doing the "Ran Ran Ruu~" dance, because U.N. Owen Was Her was her theme specifically, while Reimu falls backwards on a bench. That's right: this video is a recursive Touhou meme twice over. There are layers to this piece of Japanese Internet archaeology! Oh, and because they hadn't stuffed enough into the video: you can see a silhouette of a Yukkuri at the end. Yukkuris were the result of someone making off-model ASCII faces of Touhou protagonists Reimu and Marissa saying "Yukkuri!" (translated to "Take it easy!") on a Japanese image board. They've since become iconic memes within Touhou.

It's not the first time Japanese McDonald's has made very, very obscure references like this, but with them going this deep in the weeds, this blows stuff like the McDonald's Char Aznable ad clean out of the water. Especially since something like Mobile Suit Gundam is practically mainstream compared to Touhou. You might as well see Denny's making Gachimuchi references. I have no choice but to applaud them for this wild deep dive; I felt like I was going crazy seeing Reimu in that bench.

For folks who'd like to take this opportunity to explore Touhou, you're in luck: the games being doujin means you have countless options. There are plenty of ways to get the mainline danmaku games if you know where to look. There are also plenty of Touhou games that have seen official releases in America; Antimony of Common Flowers, a fighting-game spin-off, was the first to get an official English release. Both Koumajou Remilia games reimagine the plot and setting of Embodiment of Scarlet Devil as a classic Castlevania title, complete with gothic artwork evoking the style of Ayami Kojima; they also have voice acting featuring performances by Eri Kitamura and Aoi Yūki. For a more conventional "metroidvania" experience, you can look up Touhou: Luna Nights. And if you've ever wanted to play Shin Megami Tensei with Touhou, look no further than Artificial Dream in Arcadia. All these titles and more are available on Steam. But for now, we can only wonder what other deep cuts McDonald's of Japan will toss at us. Maybe Gachimuchi is in the cards. Or perhaps even... la criatura

That'll do it for this week, I think. There's a lot of fear going around at the moment; despite our best efforts, it seems the horrors continue daily, not just weekly. I encourage my readers to do what you can for your fellows—but remember to breathe, and remember to give yourself room. One day at a time, that's the motto. I need you guys to stick around; you never know when another tiny miracle will present itself. Be good to each other. I'll see you in seven.

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 Japanese RPGs, eating popcorn, watching VTuber content, and watching tokusatsu. You can keep up with him at @ventcard.bsky.social.