Welcome back, folks! I’ve spoken before about my regrets over not having played any of the Daemon X Machina games. The good news is, I was given a chance to do so—and I’m currently stunned at how slept-on the games are. The sheer customization, the options in combat, the mech design, the controls…. I’m currently working on a thing™ regarding them, but it really breaks my heart that there are so few discussions about these games.
This is…
I know there’s a lot of grief over Horizon: Zero Dawn. Some people are especially weird about the game and its protagonist, Aloy. And I have never really played any of them (neither the two mainline games nor the LEGO adaptation). But they come off as otherwise-competent, lavishly-produced games that invariably get cursed with releasing around the same time as bigger games. That’s hardly Sony‘s fault, and you can’t blame them for actually standing by the games and supporting them. And you can’t blame Sony for protecting the game, either—this past week, Sony announced they are taking legal action against Tencent, over Horizon itself!
© Sony, Guerrilla Games
Tencent is one of the biggest companies in all of China, involved with not only game development but also film and television. Their announced title, Light of Motiram, has gotten some attention lately for its similarities to Horizon: Zero Dawn. The similarities are, uh, rather numerous: a post-apocalyptic setting wherein robotic animals roam, featuring a red-haired woman in tribal-esque gear as the protagonist. For bonus points: the protagonist fights mainly with a boy and arrows.
I don’t believe that mere surface-level details entail legal action as a necessity… but hit dogs holler, as the saying goes. That the reception on behalf of press regarding Light of Motiram seemingly defaults to compare it to Horizon doesn’t help matters; Sony‘s motion includes several articles from online publications drawing comparisons between the two games as evidence. Sony also presented evidence that Tencent had approached them in 2024 regarding the possibility of licensing Horizon: Zero Dawn from them, which Sony had refused.
© Tencent
I’m not a lawyer, so I’d leave any hard-and-fast conclusions to the legal experts. But I think there’s something to be said about making something so blatant in its inspirations that the comparisons are impossible to escape. It’s one thing for mise-en-scene—for games to have similar mechanical conventions due to genre conventions. Look back to CAPCOM‘s famous lawsuit against Data East over the alleged similarities between Street Fighter 2 and Fighter’s History; the conventions of a 2D fighting game are such that there are only so many ways to control or interact with the game, vis-a-vis controls or inputs. But compare, say, Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne and Dragon Quest Monsters: both are monster-taming RPGs, but both have completely different mechanics for taming, raising, training or interacting with your recruitable monsters: Nocturne has a complicated system of negotiation for recruiting monsters, while Dragon Quest Monsters tasks you with “scouting” monsters using specific moves or offering them items. It’s possible for games within the same genre to nevertheless have completely different mechanics and systems.
I think there are far worse things out there than for a game to be a blatant rip-off… but I also think that it’s somewhat intellectually dishonest to so blatantly copy the aesthetic of something else and then get defensive about it. You don’t accidentally make something that hews so closely like that. That doesn’t mean your copy doesn’t deserve to exist, but like… you can’t pretend this wasn’t your goal in the first place.
At any rate, a lot of the buzz on this lawsuit is rather placid; there seems to be a lot of agreement that this is pretty blatant plagiarism. Nothing to do with nothing, but Pokémon Legends: Z-A‘s release is going to be fun…
I don’t often focus on singular games returning to Nintendo Switch Online. Not that the service hasn’t brought back some major heavy-hitters (the peeps itching for Golden Sun can attest to that). I definitely would prefer a return to the proper “Virtual Console” approach from the Wii or 3DS where we could own bespoke digital copies of the games, but hey, can’t fault Nintendo for giving us a way to play old stuff like Tuff E Nuff or Survival Kids. But the moment people saw that the Nintendo Switch 2’s Joycons had mouse functionality, this show was called: what if Nintendo brought back Mario Paint…? Famous for being packed-in with a SNES-exclusive mouse, folks hoped against hope they could see this one to fruition.
In hindsight, this is a bit too obvious a move to call a “tiny miracle,” but it’s a show of generosity from Nintendo. Mario Paint is back!
Kudos to Nintendo for bringing back the fan-favorite narrator from the Earthbound NSO trailer to cover this video; the man clearly had a blast with this one. Anyway! Mario Paint is a curiosity from the SNES, and one that offered a glimpse into Nintendo‘s future attempts at their “Blue Ocean” strategy. It’s not a conventional game: about the only thing where scores or lives matter is in the (fan-favorite) fly-swatting minigame, Gnat Attack. Outside of that, Mario Paint is a 16-bit creative suite. You can color certain pre-made images, draw stamps, draw reasonably large vistas, storyboard simple animations, and compose MIDI sequences using the Super Mario World sound files. And… that’s it! Unlike the Game Boy Camera, you can’t unlock any new images or goodies. But like the Game Boy Camera, people have used Mario Paint as a platform for creation for years. Expanded versions of its music suite (particularly, Mario Paint Composer) have been used to make all kinds of of wild song covers. And even if the painting mode has a somewhat limited selection of colors, there’s still a crazy amount of stuff you can do with it, even with a modicum of guidance.
© Nintendo
As limited as Mario Paint might be, the creatively inclined can still do a lot with it. Famously, its 16-bit trappings make it perfect for re-creating the aesthetic of PC-98 visual novels (which is apparently what Nintendo did to promote Mario Paint in Japan during the ’90s). Creativity is about doing the best with what you have, and folks can still do all kinds of fun stuff with Mario Paint, even now. Why, former Nintendo artist Takaya Imamura illustrated a nice portrait of Slippy Toad. Similarly, artists across Twitter and Bluesky have joined in the festivities, diving into Mario Paint wholeheartedly in the name of good-natured doodling. It helps that even if you don’t have a Switch 2, you can still play Mario Paint on the Switch—just plug in a USB-compatible mouse!
While I’m usually loath to have this kind of thing drop into my lap and still ask for more, I join the voices of many others in hoping that Mario Paint‘s 64DD sequel, Mario Artist, eventually comes to Nintendo Switch Online. Much like Mario Paint, it includes not just the basic painting suite but also an intuitive 3D sculpting suite, as well as Talent Studio, where you can animate your own little character into a variety of scenarios. Sadly, while a musical composition game was planned, it was ultimately cancelled due to the 64DD’s poor performance in Japan. Talent Studio in particular ended up having some major influence for Nintendo later on down the line, as it was planned to be revived as a concept as Stage Debut, a title planned for GameCube where players could import their own face onto a virtual character that could be staged into a variety of animations. Stage Debut never came to fruition… but the concept eventually was revisited and revitalized through Nintendo‘s Miis, which gave us such amusing things as Tomodachi Life and Miitopia.
As a side note: all of the amusing music from Mario Paint is also available on Nintendo‘s dedicated music app. In the meantime, we can enjoy this ode to creativity… and the many, many phalli people will be encouraged to draw.
Visa/Mastercard Stances on Content Come at a Heavy Price, Communities Worldwide Demand to Speak to Manager (Politely!)
Visa and Mastercard have long since been boogeymen for anyone trying to buy stuff on the Internet. As we’ve discussed in the past, these payment processors serve as the ultimate arbiters of all transactions online… which means they can decide not to allow people to buy certain things because it “goes against their values.” While these practices began with most forms of online sex work, games with “adult” content (read: pornography) have also come under fire for this in the past, leading to a lot of difficulties for anime fans who are trying to import doujinshi from Japan. But recently, this hit Steam, giving people an extremely vague set of guidelines for content that wouldn’t be allowed. And now, the screws have been put to Itch.io, a small website wherein creators can sell their independently-made works (from comics to games) to the public. Many titles were delisted, mostly titles that had “adult” or “NSFW” tags… but also others that dealt with LGBT themes/characters.
Many of these decisions are the result of Collective Shout, an Australian anti-pornography group with ties to right-wing political movements. While ostensibly Collective Shouts claims to fight the objectification of women, its previous efforts include attempts at preventing singers Snoop Dogg or Eminem from touring in Australia, or getting Detroit: Become Human banned in the country. (Both of these initiatives failed.)
Collective Shout’s efforts have led to thousands of indie creatives being left in limbo (many of them members of the queer community). It’s also led to a lot of downright puzzling removals, like Cara Cadaver getting banned for ‘sexual content’ (even when the game doesn’t have any explicit sexual content). More to the point, Cara Cadaver is a game that specifically tackles the topic of abuse against women from a trauma-informed and victim-centered approach (translation: it’s not about “glorifying” abuse). Nevertheless, this is the kind of game that Collective Shout co-founder Melinda Tankard Reist marks as a “rape-my-little-sister incest game.”
This doesn’t just stop at indie games, either: longtime anime fans would be familiar with the plight of Chaos;Head‘s banning on Steam (which was later reversed), or Dungeon Travelers 2 getting banned from Steam even though the game was rated by the ESRB and even released on the PS Vita in the past (and, curiously, sold at Walmart). While many have caterwauled about extended skirts in games, they can nevertheless be considered “censorship.” Actual games are being deplatformed and barred from purchase by consumers. For the uninitiated: this is called financial censorship.
Here, however, is the good news: to borrow a phrase, “Everybody disliked that.” The result has been an explosion in coverage regarding Collective Shout’s efforts, including coverage on mainstream platforms like The Guardian. GAME, Germany’s game industry trade association, has also commented on the matter, stating “Creative forms of expression or certain themes in games must not be targeted by individual interests or campaigns from particularly vocal groups, as is currently being observed on Steam and Itch.io. The terms and services of global payment service providers […] must not conflict with European values such as freedom of expression or artistic freedom. While the story is constantly evolving as time goes by, it helps that people want to defend critically-applauded titles like Mouthwashing or Consume Me. (While it was believed at one point that these titles had been de-indexed from Itch.io, they had never been indexed. Nevertheless, one could easily see them coming under fire for their themes regarding assault towards women or disordered eating.) For what it’s worth, Itch.io is doing what it can to stand by adult creators; at the time of writing, Itch.io has re-indexed all free NSFW content. Itch.io has also marked Stripe as one of the payment processors with particular hang-ups on Adult content.
It also helps that internet-goers everywhere—from gamers, to game developers, to adult artists to non-adult artists and beyond—has gotten freaking pissed and have taken to the internet to oppose this. The American Civil Liberties Union has a petition demanding that Mastercard undo its unjust policies against sex workers online (at the time of writing, they’ve long surpassed their initial request of 150,000 signatures). Individuals have also taken to calling the customer support lines at Visa and Mastercard, politely asking why outside forces can determine what adults can purchase—and they’re not letting up.
It’s currently too soon to say how this will shake out; payment processors haven’t issued any kind of statement, at the time of writing, but people can smell where this was going. A lot of people warned that cracking down on sex workers would eventually lead to the LGBT community getting targeted next. Provided: adults should just be allowed to buy porn, man. Nobody cares what you jack it to when nobody’s looking (just, y’know, keep that between yourself and your Tomomi Harukawa bodypillow). But people do care about the folks who make this stuff. Our communities are held up by artists and fanfic writers—and we’re lesser without the means to pay each other for art of our favorites getting rogered. In the meantime, readers interested in standing for the rights of creatives and the current face of the Internet are encouraged to call Visa, Mastercard and PayPal and politely inquire about the nature of decision-making regarding permissible content for transactions.
Nintendo Partner Showcase 2025
Oh, jeez. Just as it looked like we wouldn’t get any sort of Nintendo Direct this month, Nintendo announced a total buzzer-beater at the last minute. Provided, it was a Partner Showcase. A lot of people really set their hopes high (I was seeing “leaks” and “rumors” regarding everything from Mega Man to Flower, Sun and Rain). I don’t think there was ever a way for people to walk away satisfied. That’s just the nature of Directs, I think. But I did see some folks talking about how dedicating parts of a Direct to sports games was a bad idea and that “Nintendo needs to remember who their fans are.” Naw man, Nintendo has never forgotten who their fans are—but Nintendo has a lot of fans, and a lot of people love Madden. Your Internet circle is a far, far smaller sample size than you think.
It’s not all doom and gloom, though—not if you actually like video games. We have a new Monster Hunter Stories! There’s been some grief over Monster Hunter Wilds (it’s sure gonna be fun when it gets reevaluated upon the release of a new Monster Hunter). But CAPCOM plugs ahead with the monster-taming spin-off. Here, your Hunter finds themselves in the middle of a war between two kingdoms. Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection sets itself apart from the other Monster Hunter Stories titles by its art style and tone. The first two games are a bit more colorful and obviously aimed at younger players. This one, while still rocking a more stylized look compared to the mainline Monster Hunter series, still looks a bit more grounded. Also, I think I heard Christina Vee in the trailer! This one is set for 2026.
We’re also getting a new Katamari Damacy game! The beloved widget series about the minuscule Prince of All Cosmos rolling up a big ball of stuff to please his emotionally abusive father returns with Once Upon A KATAMARI. Competitive co-op and head-to-head have been added, as well as a bunch of extra cousins to the main prince. You can also customize each Cousin’s face. More importantly, time travel is the central gimmick to this game, allowing the Prince to roll around different eras. There has been some consternation over whether series creator Keita Takahashi will be involved; there doesn’t seem to be any word of that, especially since Takahashi has only just released his newest title, To a T. At least we can rest assured, the soundtrack will be positively stellar; we’ve been promised a mix of new titles and old favorites. Look forward to it on October 24.
Fans were delighted to see Pac-Man World remastered in Pac-Man World Re-Pac. The original Pac-Man World passed me by when it released “pack” in the day (hehehe), and regrettably, I haven’t gotten a chance to play the remaster. I’m assured it’s good, though! I noticed, though, a little bit of trepidation about the news of the sequel, Pac-Man 2, getting a remaster. On the one hand, the platforming and action are as fun as ever, but the levels aren’t as interesting, being your bog-standard platformer fare (jungle, ice world, fire world, those old chestnuts). I sadly lack any further insight into Pac-Man World 2 and its upcoming remaster—but it looks fun, it looks cute, and to the delight of Pac-Man fans everywhere, Martin T. Sherman has been brought back to voice Pac-Man! Pac-Man fans remember him best from Pac-Man World 3, I know him best as Teach from Xenoblade Chronicles 3. Look forward to this one on September 26.
Confirmation was given that Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles will release on the Switch 2 this September 30. Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero also releases on the Switch family this November 14. Folks holding out for Persona 3: Reload launching on the Switch 2 can look forward to it finally arriving on the console this October 23. Also, Yakuza Kiwami 2 releases on the Switch 2 on November 13; it’ll also launch in a two-pack with the original Yakuza Kiwami on the same day.
In another collaboration between Nintendo and Bandai Namco, we’re getting a third Hyrule Warriors—this one tying into Tears of the Kingdom. There’s some grief over this; a lot of people didn’t like what Age of Calamity “did to the timeline. Me, I don’t pay attention to the silliness that is the continued efforts at organizing the Zelda series into a timeline. Age of Imprisonment here explores Hyrule’s distant past, where Princess Zelda helps her ancestors in a war against an ancient evil. There are some nifty displays of Zelda using new powers, like using Stasis to time-freeze enemies and send projectiles back at them, or teaming up with King Rauru or Queen Sonia to use neat special attacks. There’s also a bit of fan service in the possibility of seeing the Ancient Sages unmasked; we see who is presumed to be the old Sage of Lightning (she’s a really cute Guerudo with bags under her eyes, I’m already smitten). There are also rumblings about what the end of the trailer signifies, wherein we see an ancient construct reassembling itself. Some theorize this might be how Age of Imprisonment brings Link back into the fold in a time when he’s not supposed to be around; other sharp-eared fans have noticed that Fi’s theme plays just before it’s revealed, theorizing if this isn’t also a possible link to Skyward Sword. Nothing to do but wait and see when Age of Imprisonment releases this Winter.
Oh look, it’s another one of those turn-based RPGs people say Square Enix doesn’t make anymore! I’m surprised they made a third one in the successful Octopath Traveler series. Octopath Traveler 0 frames itself as a prequel and features a few wrinkles. For starters, your protagonist is truly your own: you can design them at the start of the game. For another, it seems that your goal in the game is tied to the nature of your hometown, Wishvale; while Wishvale is destroyed at the beginning of the game, you can reconstruct it and repopulate it. Reminds me of the village function in Bravely Default. Also, it seems that Octopath Traveler 0 far exceeds the limitations of its predecessors; the trailer teases a battle with (one, two, three…) 32 party members! Octopath Traveler 0 releases this December 4. It’s just a shame that Square Enix isn’t making turn-based RPGs anymore, y’know?
Finally, Square Enix introduced a brand new game: The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales. While the title sounds fairly humdrum, the game itself is quite the throwback: it hearkens back to the action-RPGs of the past, like the older Ys titles or the Mana series. Elliot can equip a variety of weapons (the trailers show swords, bows, and sickles) to attack enemies, while also using Mana-esque charge attacks to deal greater damage. He also has a fairy companion, Faie, who not only helps out in combat but also assists with puzzles. The trailer shows Faie helping by letting Elliot teleport around maps and dash through collapsing floors. A demo for the game is already live, along with a player survey. I’m quite excited for this one! It has a 2026 release date. I’ll be keeping an eye on it.
Let’s wrap up with some quick tidbits
That’ll do it for this week. I made a lemon pie last weekend, and I was surprised at how easy (and tasty!) it was. So, as I’m wont to do, this is me encouraging you guys to try something new this weekend. You don’t have to make a lemon pie (though if you have a stand mixer, you’ll probably be able to make a nice meringue topping, which I figure might be better than plain old whipped cream). But hey, even trying a new flavor of ice cream would be a good use of your time. Get some air, pet some dogs, grab an elephant ear. 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 v-tubers, and tokusatsu. You can keep up with him at @ventcard.bsky.social.
Hi, I’m Raju Rastogi, and I run RJ BLOG. Here, I share anime reviews, news, and explainer articles in Hindi. It’s a fun space for anime lovers!