Operation Backlog Completion 2025

Exciting Surprises from the Nintendo Direct

 Video games  6 Responses »  Tagged with: , , ,
Sep 122025
 

Today’s hour-long Nintendo Direct is over! Did it have an amazing announcement that made me lose my mind? Not quite.

Did it still have some exciting surprises I can’t believe were announced? Actually, yes.

I’ll be covering the highlights for me, so be sure to check out the full Nintendo Direct if you want to see everything.

The Nintendo Direct began with a heavy focus on Mario for the 40th anniversary. I was hoping for a new 3D Mario game, but we didn’t get that. We did get a Super Mario Galaxy 1 & 2 bundle, however, with each game also available separate digitally. It’ll be out on October 2, so that’s pretty soon.

I enjoyed Super Mario Galaxy, if not quite as much as 64/Sunshine/Odyssey, but I never got around to playing the sequel. I’m tempted to pick it up for the Switch and finally play it there.

They’re also releasing Rosalina’s Storybook as a physical item, which is neat.

The new Yoshi game also got my attention. Yoshi and the Mysterious Book is a Switch 2 game announced for Spring 2026. It looks cute, like the sort of game I might play someday.

Speaking of Spring 2026, that’s also the release window for Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream, which got a new trailer at this Direct. I need it.

I love the new feature where you can grab a Mii and put them next to another one. That’s going to be great. (Of course, I hope they still randomly interact with each other on their own, too. That’s half the fun.)

It’s too bad it doesn’t have a release date, but you know what did get a release date? Hades II! Hades II will be out digitally on September 25, with the physical release to follow on November 20.

That’s really close. I might wait for the physical, not only because I want a physical copy, but also because I’m drowning in my backlog.

Meanwhile, I don’t know what Dragon Quest IV, V, and VI did, but Square Enix is jumping ahead to make Dragon Quest VII the next remake. Dragon Quest VII Reimagined will be out on February 5, 2026.

I have the 3DS version, but depending on how they compare, I might be tempted to get this one.

(Are we ever going to hear about Dragon Quest XII again??)

Soon after that came the news no one expected… Virtual Boy being added to Nintendo Switch Online, complete with a physical add-on accessory. I never saw that one coming.

Then came a welcome surprise for me… a new remake of Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly announced for 2026!

I had hoped to see Fatal Frame, but I was still surprised.

I never got around to playing Fatal Frame II on the PS2, and I was always disappointed that the Wii remake wasn’t available in North America, so I am definitely excited for this. Maybe we’ll see a Fatal Frame VI one of these days after all…

Metroid Prime 4 got a release date of December 4, Donkey Kong Bananza is getting DLC, and then it was Pokémon time.

Okay, it’s not a new Pokémon Mystery Dungeon like I predicted/hoped. It’s… Pokémon Pokopia, where you play a Ditto transformed into a human and shape the land into a home for other Pokémon. It sort of has Animal Crossing vibes, so I’m intrigued.

I thought they were announcing another game, too, but it turned out to be a DLC announcement for Z-A. Getting DLC announced before the game is even out was a little disappointing…

…but then the next announcement happened, and…

……

You can’t imagine my shock when I saw Nagito.

Danganropna 2 is getting a full remake in 2026, but not only will it include the original game, it also features an alternate scenario with different victims and culprits. It sounds like it’s going to be just as long as the original game, too, so we’re essentially getting two Danganronpa games in one.

They’re calling it Danganronpa 2×2. Danganronpa 4…..?

So that was absolutely wild.

Monster Hunter Stories 3 got a new trailer and a March 13, 2026 release date. I’ll definitely have played the second game by then, of course.

Finally, the last big announcement for me was the one they ended on: a brand-new Fire Emblem game. Fire Emblem: Fortune’s Weave looks beautiful, it’s due out in 2026, and it… seems to be set in the same universe as Three Houses?

I’m intrigued.

All right, those were the major highlights for me from the Nintendo Direct. It doesn’t have me running out to get a Switch 2 just yet, but there were some nice surprises in there. What were your favorite announcements?

Fatal Frame 4, Yakuza Ishin, and More Exciting Announcements!

 Video games  7 Responses »  Tagged with: , , , , , ,
Sep 142022
 

We ended up with a Nintendo Direct yesterday morning, a State of Play yesterday evening, and then the RGG Summit this morning, and we have so many exciting announcements to talk about, I can’t stand it!

So let’s go through these events and take a look at the highlights!

Nintendo Direct

The Nintendo Direct began with the announcement of the latest Fire Emblem game.

Now, it was actually leaked a while back, but most people dismissed it as being fake. Turns out it’s real, and the protagonists really do have that red-and-blue look seen in the leaks.

It seems there’s some sort of crossover aspect where you can summon characters from past Fire Emblem games… which is a little odd, but I’ll keep an open mind. The one thing I’m not crazy about, though, is the title. Fire Emblem Engage just sounds boring for a main series entry.

Anyway, after a couple of announcements, the next major game was indeed the one I saw leaked the previous day, Fatal Frame: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse.

That’s right, the never-localized Fatal Frame 4 is being remastered for all major platforms and translated. It will be out in early 2023. It’s digital-only, but I’ll take what I can get!

The next wave of Xenoblade Chronicles 3 DLC was also announced for October 13, and I have every reason to believe I’ll still be playing by then.

Fist of the North Star is getting a boxing game, which I’m not interested in, but I had to mention just because of how unexpected it was.

Tunic is coming to the Switch as well.

And hey, remember when Square Enix announced a Front Mission remake for this summer and then never mentioned it again? It’s now set for October, and then the Front Mission 2 remake will be out in 2023. Oh, and they announced a Front Mission 3 remake, as well.

Speaking of remakes, Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life is being remade (as Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life), but that’s not all. They also announced Rune Factory 3 Special for 2023, and then teased more Rune Factory in development.

They specifically said “a new Rune Factory series,” so I’m not sure if that is just an odd way of saying Rune Factory 6, or if they mean a new subseries within Rune Factory.

In between Marvelous announcements, Square Enix revealed Octopath Traveler II and Theatrhythm: Final Bar Line.

(The trailer and description for Octopath Traveler II both mention intertwining stories, so I’ll keep an eye on it.)

After several more announcements, we got to the reveal that Ib is coming to the Switch. It’s a creepy game that looks like my sort of thing.

And it turns out the new Atelier game is Ryza 3 after all, as Gust revealed Atelier Ryza 3: Alchemist of the End & the Secret Key for February 24.

(Meanwhile, the Atelier 25th anniversary website was updated so that it now lists only 4 total projects, not 6. That still leaves one unannounced project, but… did they just change their minds? Then again, the Japanese website still lists 6 total but has the fourth filled by a Ryza 1 & 2 dual pack of some sort.)

(Update: The website now has 6 listed again.)

Moving on, I’ve never played Pikmin, but I’m happy for Pikmin fans that Pikmin 4 was at least acknowledged.

Square Enix was back with another Harvestella trailer, along with the announcement of a demo that’s out now.

We got a new Bayonetta 3 trailer, and it’s looking great!

Not only that, they also released an 8-minute gameplay video after the Nintendo Direct. I might have had concerns at one point, but Bayonetta 3 really looks fantastic.

Moving on, remember when we discussed the announcement of Rain Code, from the creator of Danganronpa? It was at the Nintendo Direct too! Now under the title Master Detective Archives: Rain Code, it definitely looks like a game I’ll be interested in.

Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII Reunion got a new trailer and a December 13 release date, and then they announced Tales of Symphonia Remastered, which I was super-excited about since Tales of Symphonia is one of my favorite games of all time…

…although right now, it’s unclear if this is an upgrade over the existing PS3/PC version or not. The official details claim it has visual improvements and “new gameplay enhancements,” but it also appears to be 30 fps.

There is a “Chosen Edition” available to order as well, but it’s not compelling enough to convince me despite how much I love the game.

Anyway, that’s it for the exciting Nintendo Direct announcements for me, although people excited for Breath of the Wild 2 can rest easy now that it’s officially titled The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom and has a May 12 release date.

That was an excellent Nintendo Direct. There are so many games I want, and the Fatal Frame news is fantastic! I was much less excited going into the State of Play last night, but little did I know what was in store…

State of Play

WE ARE GETTING YAKUZA ISHIN; THIS IS NOT A DRILL, ISHIN LOCALIZATION IS REAL!

I was idly watching the State of Play when suddenly it happened and I nearly lost my mind.

Ryu ga Gotoku Ishin is being remade and coming west under the title Like a Dragon: Ishin. In Japan, it’s called Ishin Kiwami.

The title concerned some people, but it still has action combat like it did before. It seems like they’re shifting away from the Yakuza title for the west and translating the Japanese title from now on.

It’s really happening! Ishin in English is no longer a dream! It’s coming out next February!

And then some other games were shown.

Okay, it was more exciting than that, but really, I was barely able to concentrate on the State of Play after Ishin. It was already the best State of Play ever, and it didn’t matter what else was shown.

But I did manage to scrape up some remaining focus for a few other games, such as Project Eve, which now has the title Stellar Blade and is set for 2023.

Team Ninja also announced a new action RPG called Rise of the Ronin that seems like it could be cool, although it’s open world, so we’ll see.

They ended with a new trailer for God of War Ragnarok, which I really should have been more excited about since it’s one of my most-anticipated games, but I was too busy screaming over Ishin.

And so, I left the State of Play satisfied and went to sleep last night with the knowledge that I need not feel tempted to wake up at 6 to watch the RGG Summit. They would show more Ishin, likely reveal Yakuza 8, and maybe announce PC ports of the Judgment games, as those had potentially leaked earlier in the day.

RGG Summit 2022

The RGG Summit did indeed bring new information about Ishin, along with a new trailer and some surprising details. Like a Dragon: Ishin will be released on February 21, and several characters have been recast with characters from Yakuza 0 and Yakuza: Like a Dragon.

Notable replacements include the three lieutenants from Yakuza 0, but a gameplay trailer that surfaced later on also showed characters like Bacchus (along with a plethora of delightful mini-games).

They also officially announced, uh… Like a Dragon 8. No, that’s really what it’s called in the west. That’s why I mentioned earlier in this post that they seem to have dropped “Yakuza” as the localized title. It will be out in 2024, and is said to be the largest game in the series to date.

Also, it seems Kiryu will be back with a new haircut (disguise?) as a second protagonist.

It should be fun to explain to people that the series order goes Yakuza 6, Yakuza: Like a Dragon, Like a Dragon 8. They should never have dropped the 7 for the English title.

And with Ishin and 8 both shown, that was tha–

Nope! They also announced Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name, a game set after Yakuza 6 that follows Kiryu in the events leading up to 7 and 8. It is said to be about half the length of a regular Yakuza game, and will be out in 2023. Like Ishin, it will be an action game.

And that was the end of the RGG Summit. No Judgment news, so–

Then Sega shadow-dropped Judgment and Lost Judgment on Steam, both separately and in a new bundle called The Judgment Collection. If the rumors of Judgment being in danger of cancellation were ever true, this should put an end to that now.

Conclusion

My poor backlog.

I Finally Played Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water (on the Wii U)

 Reviews, Video games  No Responses »  Tagged with: , ,
Nov 222021
 

Although I didn’t finish in time for Halloween like I planned, this weekend I finally finished Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water.

You might be wondering why I say “finally.” Well, that’s because I bought Maiden of Black Water at launch for the Wii U. And yes, that’s the version I stubbornly decided to play.

The Wii U is practically made to order for Fatal Frame. A game about fighting with a camera, played on a system in which you’re holding a second screen in your hands already? I couldn’t pass up playing Fatal Frame this way, and while the two screens weren’t as different as I would have liked, angling the GamePad to get a better shot of a ghost made it worth it.

(I’d have re-bought it when the remaster came out if we got a physical copy this time…)

If you’re unfamiliar with the Fatal Frame series, the concept at the heart of the gameplay is that you have a special camera known as the Camera Obscura that allows you to damage ghosts by taking pictures of them.

Taking the shot right as the ghost is attacking deals more damage, and Maiden of Black Water also has you deal more damage for getting five or more targets in the shot at once. This includes spirit orbs that appear as you photograph the ghosts. Ghosts often disappear and reappear elsewhere, turning combat into a frantic affair as you try to keep track of enemies and time your shots.

You earn points for your photographs, which you can use to improve your camera, along with special lenses and upgrades you can equip for additional effects and bonuses.

Unfortunately, I didn’t really find Maiden of Black Water scary. Combat could be intense, and the story had its share of creepy and disturbing moments, but it didn’t have that same sense of dread and tension that the first game had.

(I haven’t played 2 or 3 yet, so I can’t make comparisons to those.)

Water plays a key role in the story and lore, and there’s a gameplay mechanic where getting wet makes it more likely that ghosts will appear. Of course, the game frequently puts you in situations where it’s raining or you have to wade through a river. This should add tension, but I never found water to feel like as big of a threat as it wanted me to.

The whole game feels significantly different from the older games in the series, and not just because of the modern controls and over-the-shoulder camera. If you’re expecting the classic survival horror approach to exploration, puzzle-solving, and unlocking new areas, there’s only a small amount of that here.

There is exploration, as you visit a number of large areas ranging from forests to shrines, with film and healing items to be discovered as you explore, along with ghosts to photograph. But you also revisit these areas, and going through the same area to find more items made it feel less like I was exploring an area to discover it, which took away from the atmosphere and reduce the amount of exploration I did later on.

Maiden of Black Water is divided into chapters. It follows three main characters, each delving into the secrets of the sinister and somber Mt. Hikami for his or her own reasons. At the end of each chapter, you’re given a grade and a chance to spend points on additional items before starting the next chapter. Items also don’t carry over between chapters (and I was halfway through the game before I realized that). The characters always seem to return from the mountain at the end of a chapter, so each new chapter begins with them setting out again for one reason or another.

All of this makes the game feel very different, very segmented compared to the exploration-driven focus of survival horror, and I wasn’t a big fan.

Story-wise, it was fine. You find notes throughout the game providing more details about what’s at work on the mountain, and it had enough unsettling and emotional moments to be interesting enough despite a few questionable choices. I enjoyed it as a ghost story, even if I didn’t enjoy it as a survival horror game.

My final feelings on Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water are mixed. It was a fine ghost story and some parts were fun, but it wasn’t quite what I hoped for from Fatal Frame. If and when we get a Fatal Frame 6, I hope it follows the survival horror structure more closely.

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