This Week in Games

I Just Miss Julia Voth As Jill, Man

Great to see you back, guys! I was delighted last week with the reactions to the Breath of Fire discussion! There were a lot more fans of Dragon Quarter than I expected to see. Remember, I'm always open to discussing matters you want to bring to my attention! I can't promise always adding it to the column, but I am interested in what you guys have to say.

There was no time for Xenoblade, as we're all gearing up for the Manga Preview Guide. And we have a really fun game to cover that I look forward to sharing with you guys in the next two weeks. We have a long column this week, so let's dive in. This is...

It's a continuation of a story we covered a few weeks ago, and man, do I wish I had better news—especially for the reader that brought this one to my attention. American McGee and a few members of his team had finished a comprehensive world bible/production plan for a third entry to American McGee's Alice, which would've picked up where 2011's Alice: Madness Returns left off. McGee shared the series bible with fans for free and asked that fans spread the word wherever possible. Then, McGee made his pitch to EA. And the response... was different from what anyone would've hoped for.

"The dream is over." That hurts to read, and I can only imagine how much more it hurt American McGee to write that. On his Patreon page, he goes into further detail: EA nailed Alice's coffin utterly shut: they not only refused to fund the project following "an internal analysis of the IP, market conditions, and details of the production proposal," but they also added that because Alice was such "an important part of EA's overall game catalog," that "selling or licensing it isn't something they're prepared to do right now." McGee went on to underline that the IP wholly belongs to EA and that he has no further power to create a new game in the series. With the refusal, McGee graciously thanks all his teammates and fans for trying to get the art book off the ground but humbly accepted defeat, underlining that his relationship with the Alice series is at an end and that he'll be focusing on his family and his family business at Mysterious where he sells a (adorable) line of rabbit plushies themed after mental illness, the zodiac, and the LGBTQ+ spectrum.

Further clarifying, McGee stated that even if a new Alice project were to be greenlit in the future, he wouldn't want any involvement with the project. And I don't blame him. This is one of the sad parts of being a creator: sometimes, your baby gets taken away, and it's not your baby anymore. Fans of Gargoyles, Megas XLR, or Sym-Bionic Titan know this story well. Where one story closes, another begins—I wish the best to American McGee and his peers, and I hope that someday we're graced with their visions in some way or form.

The Mario movie is at the center of a culture war that isn't worth getting into: people are angry at the middling reviews it earned as if people not liking the Mario movie is somehow worth getting worked up over. There's plenty about that movie to get incensed over like longtime-Mario voice actor Charles Martinet being snubbed over the role in the name of Chris Pratt's stunt-casting. But the hits keep coming from Illumination and Nintendo: they utterly failed to credit the creator of the DK Rap.

Anyone who's watched the Game Grumps (or likes Rare's games) knows Grant Kirkhope. A longtime composer for the company (and the voice of Donkey Kong in Donkey Kong 64), Kirkhope was responsible for a ton of Rare's best music, ranging from Banjo-Kazooie to Goldeneye 007. And yes, he and his colleague George Andreas were responsible for the DK Rap, the tongue-in-cheek intro song used for Donkey Kong 64. And apparently, with Nintendo's Great Ape being in Illumination's Mario movie, they saw fit to use the song in the film! But they didn't credit Kirkhope or Andreas for their work, simply crediting the song to "Donkey Kong 64."

This is the kind of snubbing I'd expect from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, whom the estate of beloved comic artist and writer Jack Kirby had to sue over proper crediting for the creation of heroes like Thor. It doesn't help that the DK Rap had been the subject of much derision for so long; it had always been meant as a cheeky gaff, and it's only in the last few years that Kirkhope has seen people come around on it.

Why was the song not credited? Who's to say? Having been made by Rare (now owned by Microsoft) means that Nintendo could be iffy to credit someone not affiliated with Nintendo. It could be that someone didn't bother to look up the info. It should be noted, Kirkhope's Twitter thread also reveals that the metadata for the film's soundtrack doesn't credit Koji Kondo for his contributions to Mario's old songs—it's all credited to "Nintendo Co, LTD."

This does not inspire confidence in me; I don't look forward to these beloved series becoming battlegrounds over a company's refusal to credit the creatives that helped make them what they were. I want to think this was a simple mistake, and I hope this isn't repeated. In the meantime: we know the truth, Grant Kirkhope and George Andreas composed the DK Rap, and they did a bang-up job of it. Grant's a helluva guy; he can take it to the fridge. All together now: walnuts, peanuts, pineapple smells...!

Between being a legitimately good remake of a beloved classic and the bundle of joy that is Moushley, Resident Evil 4 Remake has been a major hit this year. But it's not all peaches and cream for Leon S. Kennedy's Spanish Vacation because Capcom decided to end the whole shebang on a downer. For one thing, there was a recent free DLC pack that included the now-traditional "Mercenaries" mode to Resident Evil 4 Remake, allowing players to fight waves of Ganados in pursuit of the best score. But tucked along with that fun mode was... microtransactions. And they're not even good ones.

Resident Evil 4 Remake's economy allows players to upgrade all the firearms Leon can acquire. This was also in the original game; much of the optional content in the original Resident Evil 4 revolved around finding little Spinels that you could sell to the merchant for extra in-game cash. Or, you could hunt down rare and expensive treasures—or even treasures with slots for extra gems, which sold for huge dividends if you could locate all of the corresponding gems. It was a fun reason to explore each level carefully, with the downside that if you were like me and weren't very good at action games, you'd always be at a loss for enough money to improve your arsenal, making the rest of the game feel that much harder. Whether this was a good idea isn't my concern (especially since people still go apoplectic at the idea of easy modes in games). The point is that Resident Evil 4 Remake revamped the system by adding Requests: by satisfying specific Requests from the Merchant, you could earn Spinels you can exchange for upgrades. It's more or less the same system as the original Resident Evil 4; nothing too fancy there. But with the new DLC, there's now a storefront for upgrade tickets for each weapon in the game. For $2.99 a pop (or $9.99 if you want a five-pack), you can "skip the grind" and pay for your weapons to get better!

This sucks on a lot of levels. For starters, if you need to give people a paid alternative to any in-game system, you're not giving them options: you're holding them for ransom on pain of tedium. Giving folks the ability to "skip the grind" means you know something is poorly paced, and you'd rather folks pay for it instead of, y'know, properly rebalancing it. Not to mention, it's also very underhanded. Microtransactions have been rightfully maligned by audiences ever since Bethesda offered horse armor as paid DLC for The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, and its reputation has only marginally improved because there's just no real alternative anymore. The powers that be made "fetch" happen. Of course, the alternative that underhanded types came upon was to release a game without the in-game store, let the game garner positive reviews and word-of-mouth, then quietly add the in-game shop a few days after release once the game was already on store shelves—as made "popular" by Activision-Blizzard with Crash Team Racing in 2019. (It's amazing how often that company just openly shanks its audience, yet people still line up for seconds because they gave Alexstrasza a new garter belt or whatever.) This also means that the game in question now has misleading information on the cover: after all, the game didn't have microtransactions when the ESRB rated it, so there's nothing on the case to let potential buyers know that the game is nickel-and-diming you, and it's not like anyone at Walmart is gonna go around slapping "This Game Now Has A Cash Shop"-stickers onto their stock of games. Resident Evil 4 Remake had about two weeks to garner glowing reviews and ecstatic word-of-mouth from fans everywhere before quietly slipping this bundle of joy with the game.

Is it out of the ordinary for Resident Evil? No, it's not—Resident Evil Village also had paid DLC for improving their weapons. But it's the principle of the thing, and it sucks. I can't say I care about how this messes with the "balance" of the game (I'll let someone else spill digital ink on the integrity of survival-horror games dropping bricks onto people's faces). Still, Capcom didn't need to be this desperate for an extra $9.99.

Let's get some good news for Resident Evil; the franchise has never been hotter, so Capcom has decided to give it another go on the silver screen. Following on a lot of the recent CGI Resident Evil features, we're getting a new film: Resident Evil: Death Island.

Much of the movie seems to take up after 2017's Resident Evil: Vendetta and last year's Resident Evil: Infinite Darkness (which I covered with my colleague Nicky for This Week In Anime). It's also very clearly going for the fanservice route—in the "service to the fans" sense, not the "check out the ballistics on Chris Redfield" sense. The movie rounds up all of the biggest names in the Resident Evil series, starring Jill Valentine (in her Resident Evil 3 Remake guise), Leon S. Kennedy (looking a little aged-up from his Resident Evil 4 Remake design), Chris Redfield (looking a little less beefed-out than he was in Resident Evil: Village) and his sister Claire, and—oddly enough—Rebecca Chambers. It's an interesting cast, as many of these characters have yet to have the chance to interact with each other often. For the plot, the gang goes to Alcatraz to investigate a zombie outbreak. It's not Shakespeare, but it's enough.

Some fans are disappointed that beloved Resident Evil mainstay Barry Burton has been snubbed for an appearance. Folks really do miss him and are clamoring for his return—even if he isn't as immediately conventionally attractive as Leon or Chris. And that's also the other thing people have been pointing out: Chris and Leon are obviously wearing their years. Leon doesn't exactly look haggard, but everyone's favorite nyan-nyan cherry boy looks his canonical age (as per Resident Evil lore, he's supposed to be 38 by the time of Death Island). Jill, however, is supposed to be 41 and looks like she hasn't aged a day since Resident Evil 3 Remake (where she'd be 24). Like, jeez, she's even wearing the same freaking outfit.

This is a thing game studios are iffy on: nobody seems to want to let their female characters age. And it's just the female characters—nobody took issue with Axel Stone getting hit by the "Daddy"-beam in Streets of Rage 4, but Blaze Fielding hasn't aged so much as a day. Not even a single laugh line on her face! I get that its because they're supposed to be sexy, but consider: Winona Ryder in Stranger Things (she was 43 when the show started in 2016), Cate Blanchett as Hela (which she played at the age of 47), or Monica Bellucci in S.P.E.C.T.R.E. (at the time, she was 50). Nobody said an older woman can't be drop-dead gorgeous. And even then, that's still an extremely shallow reading of the situation about conventional attractiveness, which I'm not smart enough to go too deeply into. Anyone who thinks an older woman can't be an action lead can tell that to Linda Hamilton or Cynthia Rothrock. Until then: way to be total wusses, Capcom.

Gripes about character ages aside, it's pretty obvious that Resident Evil: Death Island is gonna be a dumb, schlocky movie about pretty people shooting zombies, also a zombie-shark. Right off the bat, it's probably not gonna be a great movie, but I enjoyed Infinite Darkness enough, and heck, I'd probably have enjoyed it more if it was a movie and not a four-episode mini-series. So I'm looking forward to Death Island this summer. Worst-case scenario, it'll be... "borderline experimental."

E3 is going the way of the dodo, but publishers are quick to find their own excuses to host events for fans. Nintendo, the very first company to turn away from E3 in favor of their own "Nintendo Direct" streams, is breaking new ground by hosting... a live event for fans and families named "Nintendo Live."

So far, details on the event are sparse. We know it's planned for September and will be in Seattle, WA. I'd grouse about the distance, but Seattle also hosts conventions like Emerald City Comic Con and Sakura-Con. Also, Nintendo of America is based out of Redmond, WA, next door to Seattle. According to the info on the Nintendo Live website, the event is also trying to be an all-ages affair. This news surprises me; usually, when companies hold their own events, like Blizzcon, these events are just aimed at their general gaming audience. Nintendo is actively courting families, inviting folks to come over and try games or participate in tournaments. They've also announced photo-ops (likely with people in mascot costumes) and live stage events—so this probably will be a much more family-oriented PAX or Blizzcon. Will Nintendo make any big announcements? Eh, probably. It does seem like it'd be an awful waste to host a big, fancy-pants party for families and not take the chance to tell them and their kids, "Look forward to a new spimblee in Smarch!" On the other hand, I'm not about to become nor encourage one of those people who fling their chairs because a Nintendo Direct didn't have any news about... I dunno, Hollow Knight: Silksong. I don't see Nintendo abandoning the Nintendo Directs anytime soon; they're too entrenched in the fandom and far too convenient a device for building anticipation and "hype" within the fandom. We'll see how Nintendo Live turns out later this summer.

We got a good bit of Zelda news this past week! I do want to touch on something before we go into the Tears of the Kingdom news; the final volume of Akira Himekawa's manga adaptation for The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess is finally releasing, wrapping up a tale sixteen years in the making.

Akira Himekawa is a duo of female mangaka who have been adapting many of the Zelda games, both major titles like Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask and Skyward Sword as well as some of the smaller titles like Oracle of Seasons/Ages, Four Swords and Minish Cap. They've done a great job of adding story details to the original storylines, too, like a very tragic storyline for the dragon Volvagia or mixing Kafei and Anju more deeply into the plot of Majora's Mask. They had taken a long hiatus for the Twilight Princess, but the duo took it in their stride; being that Twilight Princess is a much darker story, the duo wanted the fans who'd grown up reading the Zelda manga to be able to get something that did the source material justice. With the final volume for Twilight Princess out, it's a bit of a watershed moment for fans of the Zelda manga. A whole generation of Zelda fans have grown up reading this manga, and Akira Himekawa are well aware of it. It's a special thing. To anyone who loves Zelda and hasn't tried the manga: do so. It's a lot of fun. I'm also That Bitch that goes wild for Shotaro Ishinomori's Link to the Past comic that ran in Nintendo Power; dunno if copies of that comic are still available, but it's freaking Zelda from the guy that made Kamen Rider.

With that out of the way: Nintendo released the final trailer for Tears of the Kingdom this week. While there's not much about the gameplay that's been revealed that we don't already know about—features like the Recall, Fuse, and Ultrahand abilities, mostly—the trailer does drop a lot of story details that fans are clamoring over.

Okay, so: first off, no playable Princess Zelda. Since the first trailer showed Zelda exploring a catacomb with Link, fans hoped Zelda would accompany Link on this adventure. No such luck; it's fair we stop hoping for this one. Playable Zelda is like Link with dialogue: the Zelda series won't do it. This isn't Lucy pulling away the football; it's just another case of fans setting their hearts on something that was never on the table and getting mad when their delusion doesn't come true (see: everyone still mad that Dante was never inducted into Super Smash Bros).

Some clips hinted at more dungeons this time, including Link dropping down into a laser tube. The lack of "proper" dungeons was a major complaint that many people had with Breath of the Wild; I personally think the shrines were a better idea that worked with the game's flow better, both not wasting people's time with too many extraneous puzzles while also giving players a constant stream of Spirit Orbs for increasing their stats. But more good set-piece dungeons would be a draw if they keep the pacing snappy.

While there haven't been any new abilities, the trailer did unveil new applications that I, at least, hadn't considered: we see Link use Recall to send a projectile back at an enemy (fans now wonder if you can use Recall to make a boomerang deal extra hits on an enemy), we see Link squaring up against a Guardian while riding a rudimentary wheeled mech made with Ultrahand, and we see Link wielding a large claymore with a shield Fused onto it. That last one blew people's minds; while we were ready for things like longer spears or improvised weapons, the idea of attaching a shield onto a two-handed weapon (whose real downside was that you couldn't use a shield with them) means that it's possible to completely rework weapons to function differently. Fuse is going to be big. Open world games will have to play a ton of catch-up from here on out.

What about story implications? There are plenty—Zelda isn't playable, but her presence lingers over the story. She's gone from desperately trying to find a solution to Ganon's blight to a woman with purpose, tasked with something "only [she] can do." Link's friends from Breath of the Wild are back, from the lovely, ass-kicking Gerudo Riju to Link's reaffirming fishy boyfriend, Sidon. We also see why the Master Sword is rusted over in the promo art and why Link's hand is emphasized: Link gets his hand covered in Blight fighting off some monsters, which likely Blights his hand and ruins the Master Sword. This is a problem because uh... Ganon's back. And he's been rehydrated. And his presence is making all of the monsters in Hyrule even stronger.

Fans are dehydrating at the sight of caked-out Ganondorf returning to ruin Link's day. In a fantastic twist, Ganon is voiced by Matthew Mercer. It's been a long journey for him; one of his first credits was playing Ganon in There Will Be Brawl. It's aged like milk (it's for the best that he's better-known for Jotaro Kujo and Critical Role), but I can only imagine how proud he is to finally voice the character he originally played in a fan-cast. Kudos to Mercer; he's come a long way in his career.

Also: Gleeok is in the trailer! Breath of the Wild did a fantastic job of bringing back classic Zelda monsters like the dreaded Lynels, so seeing Gleeok come back looking like a rune-covered King Ghidora is awesome. We can only hope other classic Zelda bosses like Manhandla, Gohma, Aquamentus, or Digdogger. We have a lot to look forward to on May 12. Not even a month until it comes out! You guys have to play it for me; I still haven't played Breath of the Wild—and that won't come until I finish Xenoblade 3.

I snark about Sony peering over Nintendo's shoulders a ton, but this vindicates me; after months of Nintendo hosting Directs practically one day after the next, Sony hosted a State of Play stream; the stream was almost half an hour, but it was dedicated to Final Fantasy XVI's lore and systems.

Clive's adventures in the land of Valisthea... doesn't terribly excite me. While I won't begrudge Square Enix for deciding to turn Final Fantasy XVI into an action game, it doesn't seem to do anything particularly unique as one. The civilized areas seem pretty drab, which is astounding considering how lively even the coldest, dankest castle room looks in Final Fantasy XIV. Thankfully, the other environs, like the caves or wilderness, are much lusher. The fights between Eikons are big and bombastic, but the rest of the combat seems to be just a simplified take on Devil May Cry. And I don't know if you know this, but... you can play Devil May Cry. Like, right now, even. And it's really good! Heck, you can even play Bayonetta. I'm not sure how much Final Fantasy fans want their RPG series to become a character action game series, and I'm not sure how much a character action game take on Final Fantasy will appeal to your average Joe Gamer. The trailer takes a lot of time composing a sizzle reel of actual in-game footage for combat, but little in the way of how it plays out.

There's also some controversy in how the action is being handled; because Square Enix knows that most RPG fans aren't that great at action games, they offer a trio of "Timely" equipment that slows the game down and simplifies combat. One ring slows combat whenever Clive is attacked, simplifying dodges. Another ring renders dodges entirely automatically (these rings are mutually exclusive), while one last ring simplifies combat and lets players fight simply by mashing the Square button. There's also a "Story-Focus Mode" option where the game starts you off with these rings equipped. This feels like a clumsy way to handle these matters; if you need equipment to add these mechanics back into the game, you've admitted to there being an entirely different way you could have made this game. Needing to depend on equipment feels sloppy and incomplete. I look over at Celeste and its comprehensive options menu that lets players tailor the game mechanics for an experience of player's choosing; if you could make equipment to add dodge windows or simple combos into your RPG, you could have just made this an option in the menu to begin with. It's like asking players to choose specific equipment to determine whether the Active Time Battle system is in Active or Wait mode. Also: Clive can have companions in battle, but they're wholly AI-driven. You don't really have any way of affecting their actions outside of influencing what actions they take based on your own—except for Torgal, a dog companion who you can direct in combat. And even then, this decision feels cynical, an attempt at fishing for "Can You Pet The Dog?" points more than anything else (why not extend the command systems to your human partners?).

As said earlier, the Eikon fights are the big set pieces. They're at least varied: they include shooter sequences where you play as Phoenix, beat-down brawls between Ifrit and other Eikons, or massive battles against mountain-sized Titan. And I want to be clear: these segments look undeniably cool! But something about them feels like I'm staring at an action game from over a decade ago. And not even in the sense of the game being a pleasant throw-back, because Square Enix is putting effort into matters—it feels like Square Enix's definition of "cool" is several years out-of-date. It's like making an open-world game but using Shenmue as your launch point. We know Square Enix, like many other Japanese developers, is trying to shake off the horrible reputation of the term "JRPG", but in doing so, it doesn't feel like they've replaced it with something good. And I can forgive a studio of RPG developers not knowing how to make a good action game, but the vibes feel off. And the Game of Thrones-inspired writing and an absolute dearth of racial diversity among the cast don't help. Just last week, we talked about the Breath of Fire games; the very first one, dating back to 1993, featured a Black party member: Danc (or "Karn" in the English localization). When an RPG from thirty years ago has more diversity than a game coming out now, you've got some issues.

I'm not convinced by Final Fantasy XVI, but hopefully, I'll be proven wrong when it lands on June 22. And... that was the State of Play! Many fans were hoping that there would also be a "surprise" reveal confirming a new Mortal Kombat, but no such luck. I'm hoping fans learn from this; developers aren't your monkey on a string. When they say, "This presentation will be about [X]," they aren't saying, "We'll also tease some new Hollow Knight stuff." Don't set yourself up for disappointment, and you, too, can enjoy press releases!

That'll do it for this week. A surprising amount of news! Between Zelda and Final Fantasy, we're gonna have a really fun summer. And hey, flowers are blooming! It's not quite spring yet (nowhere near warm enough), but I'm enjoying the sunlight we're getting. I look forward to more great Boktai days. I hope you guys have stuff to look forward to! I look forward to seeing you guys next week. Be good to each other, I'll see you in seven.