This Week in Games

Birdo's Back, Tennis Rackets—and Comcept is Dead

Prince of Tennis Otome Game Comes to America

New Info on The Super Mario Galaxy Movie

Nintendo Finally Brings Back the Virtual Boy

We've been waiting for this one for a few months, but it's finally happening: Virtual Boy titles finally arrive on the Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pass this February 17! This isn't without its own fair share of Nintendoisms—you still need to buy a headset to play these games on the Switch. There's just no getting around that, even if the games are somehow being captured and represented on YouTube via just one screen. I'll still argue for Nintendo wanting to preserve the experience of playing these games in-context as much as possible, akin to the faux-SNES/Sega Genesis/Nintendo 64 controllers that have been released for the libraries of those respective consoles, but I won't lie: I wish we had an option. Although I do think some enterprising folks with 3D printers could engineer some kind of solution. But I'm getting ahead of myself, because there are games to discuss!

The Virtual Boy has an infamously small library of titles; one of the comments on this YouTube video claims that there are more cancelled titles for the Virtual Boy than there were actual released games—they're not kidding. Nintendo will be spreading out the releases over the course of 2026, but they will launch the service with six games. The Mansion of Innsmouth is a fascinating Japan-only survival-horror title; you explore a creepy mansion while shambling horrors assault you, which you fight off with limited ammo. 3-D Tetris is a fun take on the Tetris formula, requiring you place blocks into a flat row from a bird's-eye view without letting things pile too close to the "top" of the screen. Galactic Pinball is a space-themed pinball game with a minor cameo from Samus Aran, of all things. GOLF... I'm gonna hold your hand as I say this: it's a golf simulator. Teleroboxer is famously one of the most ambitious titles on the Virtual Boy, a first-person boxing game with phenomenally animated enemies and sophisticated mechanics. It'll be nice to see this one get re-evaluated with modern eyes. Red Alarm is a 3D rail shooter, think Star Fox without Star Fox. Wario Land is one of the more interesting titles, and the Virtual Boy title with the longest tail: it's the first Wario Land game! As in, the start of the Wario Land series! While Wario's playable debut came in Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3... well, the title gives that one away: that one's still technically a Super Mario Game sequel, the same way Yoshi's Island was officially a Super Mario World sequel. Wario Land gives Wario top billing, sending him into a cavernous dungeon where he uses his brute strength and various magical hats to overcome monsters and puzzles in pursuit of treasure. It's a surprisingly competent side-scroller, and it's a shame the title has been stuck on the Virtual Boy for so long... but hey, it's finally widely accessible!

The list of games promised throughout the rest of the year includes other Virtual Boy "favorites:" Mario Clash is a 3D remake of the original Mario Bros. (as in, the game where Mario and Luigi punched crabs in a sewer). Mario's Tennis is similarly the start of the Mario Tennis series, which got its start on the Virtual Boy. Space Invaders: Virtual Collection is 3D Space Invaders. V-Tetris is an actual Tetris title, no frills besides Type-C mode, where players can "loop" the screen left or right in a cylinder. Think 3D mode from Pokémon Puzzle League. Jack Bros. is a beloved Shin Megami Tensei spin-off where Jack Frost, Pyro Jack and Jack the Ripper have to climb their way back into the Demon World; while it was quite obscure during its original release (the cover art completely redesigned the Jack Bros), it's grown in recognition with the rising popularity of the Shin Megami Tensei series in the U.S. Vertical Force is a shoot-'em-up, but a rather sick one. Virtual Bowling... I'm gonna hold your hand as I say this, it's a bowling game. It's not even the only one on the Virtual Boy, assuming they can get the rights to Nester's Funky Bowling. But that does leave two new titles that have been announced for Virtual Boy: D-Hopper and Zero Racer!

As we mentioned, there were a lot of cancelled Virtual Boy titles in the wake of the console's failure (as a reminder, the Virtual Boy did so badly that the planned link cable for the console's various multiplayer games was never produced). So D-Hopper and Zero Racer being made available for the console is a tremendous boon. D-Hopper is something of a reverse Jack Bros.: you play as a baby dragon jumping your way up a tower from a bird's-eye view. The dragon is really cute! Zero Racer is a 3D racing game, and also a long-lost F-Zero spin-off. You and your futuristic overracer race through tunnels in wireframe worlds. Both of these games were effectively finished and ESRB-rated in the '90s; it's a real miracle to see them brought back.

As mentioned earlier, there are sadly some gaps in the Virtual Boy library. Nester's Funky Bowling is nowhere to be seen. Nester is themself a rather deep cut, since he was the mascot of Nintendo Power magazine in its early days. He's better known for having debuted alongside a fictionalized version of former Nintendo Power editor Howard Philips; bit of a shame that the only game he was ever in was a bowling game on the Virtual Boy, but by the time the Virtual Boy came out Nester was something of an artifact in the magazine (here's a hint: the kid's name is "NES-ter"). But one of the other missing titles is Virtual Lab, a curious game that goes for four figures on eBay. It's a rather simple puzzle game where players take sections of what appears to be throbbing intestines and form a connected chain of them on a playing field. There's not much in the way of 3D in the game, outside of a clumsy attempt at adding jiggle physics to the game's mascot, who stands next to the screen reacting to your progress. But there's a story to the entirety of Virtual Lab: as it turns out, the entire game was made by a single transgender woman named Megu-tan. Megu-tan had worked on a number of other games, like Quiz Toukou Shashin. She effectively made Virtual Lab alone, with the in-game character being something of a self-insert. According to an interview with Bad Game Hall of Fame, the in-game character was given large breasts because of Megu-tan's then-frustrations at not being able to afford top surgery. (According to the interview, Megu-tan was quite shocked to learn that the character in question was later arbitrarily given the age of 13 years old in the game's manual.) Megu-tan's interview is fascinating, and while several tragedies led to her leaving the game industry, she's quite active in the VRChat community; according to the Bad Game Hall of Fame, Megu-tan is currently remixing Virtual Lab's soundtrack and even made a VRChat avatar based on the Virtual Lab girl! Megu-tan is cited as claiming that a possible reason for Virtual Lab's absence is that nobody knows where the rights to the game ended up. An absolute pity, I hope another tiny miracle can come true for it.

Games aside, the Virtual Boy's housings are already up for pre-sale on Nintendo's store. They've also announced what could be the most important feature ever for the game: the ability to change the screen color, from the trademark black-and-red to various shades of green to even a simple monochromatic black-and-white affair. This won't be available until later on in the year, but it's an absolute game-changer for the Virtual Boy.

Comcept is Dead

Here's news I never thought I'd ever live to cover in my professional career: Comcept is dead. Dead-dead. Dead and gone forever. Yes, Virginia, Comcept still existed! The company's dissolution was announced on Gamebiz and made official as of this past January 13. According to the article, Comcept had tried merging with Level-5's Osaka-based studio to form Level-5 Comcept; in the wake of Inafune's departure from the company in 2024, the studio was renamed Level-5 Osaka Office. And we all know how that worked out: Inafune was serving as the Producer to Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time, but his decisions led to that version of the game seeing "harsh criticism," leading to Inafune's departure and Level-5 scrambling to reassess matters. Level-5's dalliances with Generative AI aside, it worked out for them: Fantasy Life i actually released to the market.

Comcept... man, where to begin? Following Inafune's dramatic departure from CAPCOM, which left poor Mega Man in the lurch, Inafune founded two companies: Comcept, whose job it was to develop ideas for titles, and Intercept, whose job it was to bring those ideas to fruition.  (As others have pointed out before me, this comes off as Inafune wanting to be a glorified "Ideas Guy.") Inafune had several titles proposed, like Kaio: King of Pirates, a nautical take on Romance of the Three Kingdoms starring pirate penguins (which was cancelled). There was also the disastrous Mighty No. 9, Inafune's much-anticipated and highly successful crowdfunding-funded Mega Man spiritual successor that landed like a wet fart with fans still sore about Mega Man Legends 3's cancellation. There was also the sad case of Red Ash, a similar spiritual successor to Mega Man Legends, which failed to develop as a game but got an animated short.

Mighty No. 9's tales of mismanagement are well-known at this point: the record-breaking Kickstarter campaign was a victim of its own success, with Kickstarter fees leaving Inafune and Comcept with about half of the funding they had earned. But that excess funding was supposed to go towards tons of features and ports of the game that never materialized--like the announced PS Vita and Nintendo 3DS versions that never materialized. Not to mention, Mighty No. 9 was being produced for all of those consoles at the same time; instead of, say, WayForward Tech with Shantae (perfecting the game on one platform, then slowly bringing the game to every other console), Mighty No. 9 was hobbled by having to run on a variety of platforms while accommodating their varying processing abilities. Not to mention, a ton of the backer rewards were... not handled well. We're talking instruction manuals that didn't fit in the boxes for the game.

A lot of painful lessons were learned with Mighty No. 9: the truth of where Mega Man's positives came from, Kickstarter campaigns being no barometer for quality of the finished product, the need to be conservative with backer rewards, and not overextend yourself... but unfortunately, Inafune walked away with the reputation of having scammed folks. I still reject that notion: the fact that Mighty No. 9 doesn't resemble a lot of the concept art doesn't mean people were bait-and-switched (Raziel from Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver doesn't look anything like his concept art). But I do think that Inafune's failings as a project lead were plenty apparent, and if Mighty No. 9 didn't prove it, Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Stole Time did; Level-5 being as open about Inafune's issues as Producer on that game is pretty damning. Sure, they didn't out Inafune by name, but their making it as obvious as they did about the troubles stemming from his involvement is eyebrow-raising alone, considering how otherwise tight-lipped devs would be.

Where does Inafune go from here? I genuinely don't know; the man's name is toxic. Regardless of how you feel about Mighty No. 9, Inafune has lost his good standing with the fanbase. The recency of Fantasy Life i's issues doesn't help. Honestly, maybe the guy should go back into marketing? Hideaki Kamiya always had Inafune dead to rights; "He's a businessman, not a creator," after all.

Let's wrap up with some quick tidbits