This Week in Games

Welcome back, folks! I don’t talk about it much, but I love little tchotchkes—toys, y’know? A few years back, I watched a video from Chris “Vangelus” Ho on the Glyos system, an indie-toyline made by one Matt Doughty. The character aesthetics speaks to me, so I have a goodly collection of the dudes on my dresser—enough so that I force myself not to buy more because they’re quite the small platoon. But also, while the color waves are quite striking, many of the toys haven’t been panel-lined in years (Matt’s just one guy, after all). So late this weekend, I pulled out a Gundam marker and set to panel lining a creepy little Crayboth. It came out pretty well, and it felt nice to focus and get the lining right. I don’t think I’ll ever paint a Warhammer mini-figure (especially at the prices they go for), but even a little TLC on a toy makes it feel different. Spend an afternoon applying Repro-labels on a Transformer, it’s a great bit of meditation.

This is…

Tamagotchi Inducted Into 2025 Video Game Hall of Fame

I imagine most video game fans don’t think much of Tamagotchi. The whole ordeal is largely thought of by the public as a fad from the late ’90s. So I don’t blame people for being surprised that new Tamagotchi devices are still being made to this day. I wouldn’t say the brand is positively thriving, but it’s doing relatively well—enough so that it’s been inducted into The Strong National Museum of Play.

Tamagotchi got their start in 1996. Inspired by a commercial of a boy carrying his turtle around a city, Akihiro Yokoi and Aki Mitai developed these egg-shaped virtual pets with LCD screens. The idea was that Tamagotchi (a portmanteau of “tamago” and “uotchi,” the word for “egg” and “watch”) were electro-magnetic lifeforms from another planet, and that by housing them in the Tamagotchi device, they could be interacted with and raised. Tamagotchi had a life cycle, hatching from eggs and growing into new and varied forms based on their treatment. They had several needs: Tamagotchi needed to be fed, regularly played with, and disciplined to grow into proper adult forms. They’d poop, requiring regular cleaning. They could get sick, requiring you to treat their illnesses. Tamagotchi also required sleep, necessitating you to tuck them in and turn the light off every night at a certain time. Accomplishing all this allowed a Tamagotchi to grow into new forms once they reached a certain age (read: lived for enough days). Through satisfying certain hidden requirements (like attaining a specific number of care mistakes or disciplining the Tamagotchi enough), you could even unlock secret forms. As the franchise continued and newer pets were developed, Bandai developed and released Tamagotchi based around specific themes (angels and devils, sea creatures, plant-like creatures) while expanding the ways Tamagotchi could interact. These included paired devices like the Mesutchi and Osutchi, “gendered” Tamagotchi that could link up and get married once their relationship progressed enough, or the Tamagotchi Connection, which featured IR connectivity that could even allow Tamagotchi to create hybrid children. Many of these concepts and mechanics were reworked when Bandai decided to make a version of Tamagotchi ostensibly aimed more towards boys, hence the creation of the Digimon franchise. (I’ve covered most of this in a column from a few years ago.)

Not many of the recent Tamagotchi pets have been released in the United States, but the franchise has continued unabated long after the fad of the ’00s died down. And at the very least, a ton of the licensed crossover pets have been released stateside; you’ve likely seen the collaboration devices featuring Gudetama, Anya Forger, the Angels from Neon Genesis Evangelion, or the Kingdom Hearts. There have even been Tamagotchi based on Pikachu and Eevee from Pokémon. And that’s before you get into the video games; Tamagotchi Plaza, due out on Nintendo Switch and Switch 2, comes out this June 27th and allows you to play minigames with hordes of the bizarre little aliens.

The induction to the Video Game Hall of Fame is rather auspicious for Tamagotchi; back in 1997, Tamagotchi pets had earned an Ig Noble Prize in Economics for “diverting millions of person-hours of work into the husbandry of virtual pets.” Shigeru Miyamoto was a lot more impressed by them, mentioning at a Game Developer’s Conference that he felt that Tamagotchi far outperformed Mario 64 with nothing but tiny LCD screens.

While Tamas are just virtual pets, I do think there’s something to be said about Tamagotchi as actual simulacra of life forms; they eat and metabolize (read: they feed on batteries). They react to external stimuli (albeit, the pets haven’t been programmed to react to getting thrown around—yet). And in a way, they reproduce: it’s possible on several pets to breed Tamagotchi into new, bizarre hybrid forms. Akihiro Yokoi and Aki Mitai presented Tamagotchi as electro-wave aliens, but maybe they’re just terrestrial synthetic life? The rabbit hole goes deeper when you realize that their spear counterpart, Digimon, are supposed to be digital lifeforms—which Digimon literally are. (And things get weirder with the reveal that certain Digimon, like Nanimon, are canonically displaced Tamagotchi.)

I don’t think you can lay the entirety of “raising simulators” at the feet of Tamagotchi. “Rearing” simulation games had existed for a while in gaming, particularly through games like the Princess Maker series or the Wonder Project games. But the entire genre owes a lot to ideas and quirks established by Tamagotchi, such as the varying adult forms triggered by in-game treatment. Most older monster-taming games like the Shin Megami Tensei titles or the Dragon Quest games that featured monster taming didn’t feature monster “evolution” as a mechanic; it’s fitting that there was eventually an Eevee-themed Tamagotchi because it’s hard to look at all of the varying evolution methods in Pokémon without wondering if some of that didn’t come from Tamagotchi. Nintendo even tried making their home-grown virtual pet in the form of the Pokémon Pikachu pets, with the Pokémon Pikachu 2 even featuring infrared compatibility with the GameBoy color via Mystery Gift, allowing players to unlock goodies in the Pokémon Gold/Silver games. This would later be revisited and enhanced via the PokéWalkers released alongside the Pokémon HeartGold/SoulSilver games.

Even if the Tamagotchi “fad” has long since ended and the franchise isn’t seeing the kind of runaway popularity it used to command, especially not in the United States, there’s something to be said about how well Tamagotchi has endured—even if Bandai Namco doesn’t support it much in the US. At the very least, the 20th Anniversary Edition versions of the Tamagotchi Connection pets (considered one of the best Tama-pets in the series) were released in the United States just last summer. While the prices for the individual shell designs can run the gamut on Amazon, it still shouldn’t be too hard to get one. If you’re interested in checking them out (and maybe looking for a different experience from the Digimon virtual pets), they’re worth your money. And Bandai Namco regularly releases the crossover pets in America as well; Bandai lists a number of the crossover pets on their website. Considering these include Tamas for Jujutsu Kaisen, Star Wars, and Jurassic Park, we can continue to see Tamagotchi in some manner or other released in the United States. Come to think of it, Pokémon‘s 30th anniversary is in 2026. I wonder what Bandai’s Tamagotchi people might be working on…

Yokō Tarō Cashes Another Check: The First Descendant Gets NieR:Automata Crossover

I can’t pretend I know much about The First Descendant; while a number of my Discord buddies got into it for about fifteen minutes after a vtuber streamed it, The First Descendant didn’t seem to catch on with my friends. It’s well into its second season, so it’s managed to find an audience, but a looter-shooter with beautiful customizable cyborg-women needs more of a hook. Come to think of it, there’s another sexy cyborg-woman you could count on for times like these…

Ah, that’ll do quite nicely! At PAX East this past week, Nexon reps announced that the upcoming third season of The First Descendant will feature a crossover with NieR:Automata. This comes with a caveat: because the team is focusing on official mainline content for the third season, this means that the season will only feature accessories from NieR:Automata. So don’t expect to take part in weird rituals with robots to become as gods. But don’t worry, you’ll be able to get A2 and 2B’s outfits, with 2B’s outfit also coming in a “damaged” skirtless variant. The NieR:Automata crossover also marks the first of many planned crossovers for The First Descendant, although what future crossovers we’ll see has been left unanswered. In the meantime, the NieR collab—as well as the rest of Season 3—comes this summer, along with new Descendants, new Weapons (including three new kinds of swords), and a new vehicle in the form of a hover bike.

Yokō Tarō, noted creator of the NieR series and fan of money, was unavailable for comment. Presumably, his opinion on the matter is “（◎血◎)”.

City of the Wolves Sales Figures Leave SNK Hungry, Mexican Fans Left in the Cold

Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves sure snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. From its cast consisting of various fan-favorites to interesting new mechanics like the Rev system, it seemed primed to take the fighting game community by storm. But with the one-two punch of its last two slots on its main roster going to, of all people, Cristiano Ronaldo (a world-renowned football champ with otherwise no connections to fighting games) and DJ Salvatore Ganacci (whose City of the Wolves cameo is what turned him into a household name) sucked the air out of the room. That both people have real-world connections to Saudi Prince Mohammad Bin Salman, who owns 96% of SNK, didn’t help matters—nor did Ronaldo’s various high-profile (and credible) assault charges. Even SNK didn’t seem happy having to put in either of those characters. Ganacci is halfway fun to play, but Ronaldo doesn’t even look like he belongs in the same game, and noticeably looks way uglier than the rest of the cast. Ronaldo doesn’t even feature in Arcade mode!

Whatever the reason, City of the Wolves took a hit upon release; the game only sold a hair over 6300 copies at launch in Japan. That’s not just for its opening week—Famitsu didn’t cover City of the Wolves‘s opening week because it was Golden Week, which is a major holiday in Japan (and also the reason you were seeing so much art on Twitter of women in golden bikinis). That’s 6302 copies sold… in the first two weeks of sales. By comparison, King of Fighters XV sold 9000 copies in its (singular) opening week.

That’s the kind of poor performance where people start getting phone calls… and that’s apparently what happened: following City of the Wolves‘ poor performance in Japan, SNK CEO Kenji Matsuraba announced he was stepping down from his position in exchange for an “advisory” role. A genuine pity, it is; this was supposed to be the star-studded return of the Fatal Fury series, and it’s fallen flat on its face. While the door is admittedly wide open for City of the Wolves to save face and make back its money in later years with continued sales (much like 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim or Killer Is Dead), that takes time that The Powers That Be™ likely aren’t willing to grant.

There’s another angle that needs to be examined, given the culture surrounding City of the Wolves—and, indeed, the rest of the SNK fighting game staples. It’s well known that the SNK fighting games—Art of Fighting, King of Fighters, Fatal Fury, Samurai Shodown—have been far more popular in Mexico than they have been in the United States. The Mexican community for these games is thriving, so much so that there’s even a King of Fighters character who is famously named after a former Mexican employee at SNK (that being Ángel. SNK‘s continued popularity in Mexico is due to several cultural reasons—chief among them, SNK arcade machines were more affordable. Most people in Latin America didn’t quite grow up with local arcades, and many more likely wouldn’t have been able to afford establishing one. It was easier to get a random SNK machine with a few game boards installed and call it a day. It was around these SNK games that the Mexican community grew.

SNK has been aware of its Mexican fanbase for a long time, so much so that it has endeavored to keep its games affordable for Mexican players. As illustrated by Foxhack on Bluesky, older SNK titles retail for relatively cheap on Steam in Mexico. To wit, The King of Fighters 2002: Unlimited Match and CAPCOM Vs SNK: SVC Chaos retailed for the equivalent of US$15 and US$20 (which, in Mexican Pesos, is still about 150 and 230, respectively). But starting with The King of Fighters XIV, SNK started charging prices equal to American MSRP—that means City of the Wolves retails for as much as 1,100 pesos. That’s not the amount of money your average gamer can drop on a game!

With the concerns over rising game prices, people have understandably focused on the American market. That’s fair; we don’t pay for our games in CAD, after all. It needs to be underlined how, even if the US is the locus for the gaming industry worldwide, countries around the world pay prices far above what we would consider affordable. If anything, Mario Kart 8 retailing for US$80 is putting Americans at around what Canadians used to pay for video games! This matters a lot more for the Global South; people south of the border still love games, albeit struggle to afford them. Still, they’re no less important to the gaming world or the gaming community; plenty of artists, gamers, and creatives in Mexico or Brazil are out there. I recall a few years back when there was much hand-wringing over the weak Yen and how this would present obstacles for Japanese players flying to the United States. Not that that wasn’t a concern, but given how big the Mexican community for SNK games is—plus how much shakier the economy is for many Latin American countries—it broke my heart that there was no such concern for our Latino playmates. And things only get worse when you factor in how much riskier it is for anyone not-Caucasian flying into America!

Of course, there are still industrial realities regarding the worldwide gaming industry. No one company is responsible for chip shortages, manufacturing deficits, or madmen initiating trade wars. All the while, games haven’t gotten cheaper to produce. That’s not to say that there aren’t valid concerns on behalf of people worrying about the state of the game industry in America—but this kind of thing tends to roll downhill. We already saw Sony raise the price of the PS5 everywhere else except the United States (and they’re already eyeing a possible price increase), and Microsoft wasn’t far behind with the price increase of the Xbox Series X|S line. This isn’t just a Nintendo problem; Nintendo charging $80 for Mario Kart isn’t the smoking gun when Rockstar North has been manufacturing consent for a US$100 Grand Theft Auto 6 for years. The poor state of the industry affects gamers worldwide. The difference is, we in the US have more leverage to do something.

DesperaDrops Comes to PC

Let’s talk about DesperaDrops! As it happens, the Switch has basically inherited the PSP and the PS Vita’s position as the otome game console of choice. Plenty of otome games have made their home on the console, like Cupid Parasite, Hakuoki: Chronicles of Wind and Blossom and Amnesia Memories. And among them was DesperaDrops: a fascinating story about a woman finding herself escaping the law with a gaggle of wrongfully-accused criminals. In addition to its sharp writing (a cursory glance reveals that otome game fans hold the writing in DesperaDrops in high regard), it’s also noteworthy for featuring character designs and artwork from Yūsuke Kozaki. You’ll know their work from Fire Emblem: Awakening, AI: The Somnium Files and No More Heroes. There’s also a nifty “mission mode” where your protagonist can orchestrate large-scale heists with all of the paramours, guiding them as she oversees them on a mobile phone.

If you’re not inclined to play otome games on the Switch, then good news: DesperaDrops is releasing on Steam this May 27th! The PC port comes with the performance enhancements you’d expect on PC, plus the addition of “After Stories” for each of the seven paramours that take place after the events of the main game. And, upon release, it’ll be available in a two-pack with studio D3 Publisher’s previous otome game, Nightshade.

I wanna give a moment to give Nightshade its due, too. I hadn’t heard of the game until now, but the designs look downright amazing: ornate enough to be eye-catching, but not so ostentatious that the characters don’t look like they’d be able to sneak around anywhere. (Hey, man, I’m known for loving a ninja wearing bright red, but I can appreciate a good ninja design that has stealth in mind.) Folks interested in Nightshade are well served in trying it out; it’s set in 1500s Japan and its writing has been favorably compared to the likes of Hakuoki, which is high praise.

It’s here that I’d like to bring up a bit of how the This Week in Games sausage is made! I’ve mentioned this a lot, but one of the things that was asked of me when coming aboard this column was to offer better coverage to visual novels. Which I’ve striven to do! Many of the biggest franchises in anime had their origins as visual novels (like the Key stuff, Fate/stay night or ToHeart). And it really is a big deal that so many of the original Type-Moon games finally came to the United States. But one side of the visual novel industry that I’ll be quick to admit that I’ve faltered in covering is otome games. Not for lack of interest—otome games are a burgeoning market in the US, and games like Hakuoki have passionate, thriving fanbases. Even if it’s a fanbase I don’t belong to, I’m fascinated by how fanbases work. There’s a reason Love and Deepspace fans joke so much about unsatisfied niches, because Love and Deepspace satisfies a hiterto painfully ignored demographic (and is really, really good). Look, man, I jumped at the chance to import a Tomomi Harukawa dakimakura, I’m not about to make fun of anyone who’s down bad for Sylus.

The downside is that otome games are given extremely short thrift in gaming press. Like, even the open vitriol towards Japanese RPGs during the ’00s was something. Otome games don’t even get enough coverage to be sneered at. This isn’t even a “people complaining about Pokémon not having competition don’t play Monster Rancher“-problem, it’s a “this is a whole genre that exists and has a massively active player base that just flat-out gets ignored”-problem. And I really wanna do better by this community! I grew up loving RPGs during the era where people would breathlessly argue over how Japanese RPGs like Final Fantasy weren’t real RPGs, and I’ve read enough treatises from folks who argue similar matters over otome games. What’s more, there’s a lot of passion and effort put into the development of otome games. Like, again: DesperaDrops features a well-known artist whose work has been featured in several major game releases. And I literally hadn’t heard of this game until now. So here’s my promise to all my readers who enjoy otome games: I want to do right by you all, and I will put in more effort to actually keep up with developments in the world of otome games. My readers have taught me plenty about other games in the comments to these columns, be it for American games I haven’t heard of or providing historical context I wasn’t aware of. By that same token, I encourage you to be vocal about your appreciation of otome games. I have been interested in trying out Cupid Parasite, but I encourage you to bring up other otome games that you love.

The most important thing anyone can do is go off the beaten path when it comes to your interests. Heck, I actually have one of the Heaven Official’s Blessing novels on my backlog (I’m reading through Katanagatari at the moment). If there’s one thing that I enjoy about fandom for Japanese culture, it’s seeing how the different wings operate. It’s not that I want to like everything, it’s that my desire is to do right by the more underserved parts of the fanbase. Otome game fans deserve that as much as shojo fans, danmei fans and the folks who do wotagei routines for their favorite idols.

Let’s wrap up with some quick tidbits

That’ll do it for this week, I think. Spring is still Spring-ing, so the weather is hectic and still just a bit too chilly. But I’m hoping folks are doing well. It’s rough for a lot of folks, it’s a scary time for a lot of people and their families. I don’t blame people for wanting to escape from it all with games—but remember that games are at their best when they bring people together. It can be surprisingly easy to get a local fighting game event started, or to rent out a theater hall to play Halo on a big screen. Games are best shared with other people. Likewise—remember to take time to share with people who need it. Anyone reading this has a lot they can do to help the people around them, even if it’s just taking the time to ask them about their day. 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.