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This Week in Games
My My Mai

by Heidi Kemps,

Hi folks! Looks like it's that time of week again. It's a little bit slow on the news front, but that's okay – more time to catch all the hot new anime being covered in the preview guide! And hey, how about that Jojo's Bizarre Adventure Part 6 anime announcement over the weekend? It's my personal favorite entry in the series, so I'm eager to see Jolyne and company get the animated treatment.

So, how are you all enjoying Monster Hunter Rise? It's weird, because I hadn't super-seriously played a Monster Hunter since MH3 back on the Wii, so I wasn't sure initially if I'd just be totally overwhelmed playing Rise. I got into the groove of things super quickly, though, thanks to a lot of the ways Capcom has streamlined the introductory experience. Of course, finding a weapon (Insect Glaive) that clicked with me from the start really helped, too.

Reception to MH Rise seems very positive everywhere, and the game's selling incredibly: 5 million units shipped worldwide, not counting download copies. It's pretty cool popping into random lobbies and seeing three other people with names in totally different languages all joining together to kill the hell out of some Khezus. The PC version of the game is coming in 2022, it seems. If you're planning to play it when it comes there… I can guarantee the wait will worth it, because it's great. You'll also likely get it with a better framerate plus all of the eventual add-ons and DLC baked-in, too!

PAC-MAN 99 IS ANNOUNCED…AND RELEASED

We've barely had time to mourn Mario 35's death, and already we've got another battle-royalificated classic to replace it! This time, Nintendo and Arika have teamed up with Bandai Namco games for… Pac-Man 99!

Take mechanics from the Pac-Man Championship Edition games, add a competitive slant, and this is what you get. It'll be free to all Switch Online owners, and you can download it… *checks notes* wait, right now?! Dang, Nintendo was aiming to fill that Mario 35-shaped void fast!

I've downloaded this, but I haven't had the time to try it out yet – I had a few streamers on in the background the other night playing, and they seemed interested in the game… though it seems like it has a few covert mechanics that you need to learn through failure before you can actually start doing well. Half of the time it felt like the folks playing were going “Wait, what? What happened? …Oh.” Looking forward to giving it a test run over the weekend (and also changing my user icon to be Mappy).

WE GOT DELAYS, BIG AND SMALL

Ahhhh, delays! They happen a lot in this business… and personally, after seeing some of the disasters that get rushed onto store shelves, I think they should probably happen more. This week brings us two high-profile delays. The first is Deathloop, Arkane Studios’ high-profile PS5 exclusive. It had been scheduled for May 25th, but instead, you'll be playing it on September 14th. It sucks because there still aren't all that many compelling PS5 exclusive titles yet, and now fans have to wait even longer for a big-name release that justifies the amount of money they had to pay a scalper to get a PS5. Y'all are just going to have to make do with Returnal for a while.

Across the Pacific, however, we have the ongoing saga of “seriously, something feels really bad at developer Level-5.” You might remember Inazuma Eleven Ares, the latest installment in the company's long-running shonen soccer RPG series, which was announced way back in 2016 for a 2018 release. Level-5 promoted the hell out of it, with new anime series, merchandise, and the media mixes they so love… only to delay it repeatedly. In late 2019, Level-5 announced that the game was being heavily reworked for a 2020 release as Inazuma Eleven: Heroes’ Great Road. Obviously, that didn't happen either.

So what's up with the game? In a message from Level-5's CEO Akihiro Hino, some new gameplay footage was shown off… before announcing that its new release date is now 2023. That means that if the game actually makes that release date, it will have been in development hell for nearly seven years.  Holy crap! They used to kick Inazuma Eleven games out almost yearly from 2008 to 2013, and now Heroes’ Great Road will be releasing a full decade after the last main series release.

I really have to wonder if the Inazuma Eleven franchise is worth the time and money that's been spent on trying to create this next game, but what else does Level-5 have nowadays? Yo-kai Watch is a shadow of its former self, and who knows what's up with Megaton Musashi… Still, seven years! I think that's a good sign that several things went horribly wrong in the making-of process… though we'll likely never know the particulars, sadly.

FIGHTING GAME NEWS ROUNDUP: THE MS. SKULLHEAD SHOW

It's officially spring, which means it's time for the Street Fighter V Spring Update! We've known for a while that Street Fighter III's Oro and Rival Schools's Akira were being planned for the fifth season of Street Fighter V's character editions, but thus far we'd only seen concept art. Now, it's time to see them in motion doing their fighter-y things!

Oro's whole bit in Street Fighter III was that, despite his goofy old-man-who-has-lived-in-a-cave-for-a-million-years appearance, he was so incredibly powerful that he actually tied one of his arms away to even up the odds against the supposedly less-insanely-strong rest of the cast. Unfortunately, we know how that turned out – Martial Arts Methuselah here wound up being chronically low-tier across the series. This time around, he's got his other arm out… but it's holding his brand-new turtle buddy, who he juggles around while he fights. It's a super cute idea, though I wonder how that's going to affect his attack recovery.

And here's a look at Akira in-game! She doesn't get quite the same deep dive as Rose or Oro did because she's still fairly early in development, but there's a lot here for the long-suffering fan of Rival Schools to savor, including an attack where she summons her brother Daigo.

There were some other announcements, too, such as a new Capcom Pro Tour and a paid DLC Premier Pass with a bunch of in-game goodies, but really, characters are what get people most excited, and they certainly delivered enough here to set social media abuzz. Also, Rose now has a release date of April 19th for Season Pass holders. But who is that mysterious final character? We still don't know… and probably won't until the next special Street Fighter V broadcast. Place your bets now!

Now, let's move on to Capcom's eternal rival. Who does SNK have to show us from the King of Fighters XV roster this week?

Unlike the previous silhouettes, the identity of this character was pretty darn obvious, so folks took the opportunity to meme it up in amusing ways.

It's Mai, in case you haven't already figured it out.

Of course Mai was gonna be in this, we knew that. This ain't KoFXII! Interestingly, she hasn't been confirmed for placement on a particular team yet, so we know the old-school Mai/King/Yuri team isn't happening. Who will her partners be, I wonder?

Well then, I think that's all for this wee- hold on, looks like a trailer just dropped as I was posting! Let's have a look at more Neo: The World Ends With You, coming to PS4, Switch, and… Epic Games Store? Oh dear…

Well, I know what to lead off with next week, at least. See you all again soon, and thanks for all of the well-wishes in the forum last week, you folks are the best. Laters!


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