a sobering update from Toshimichi Kuwahara, president of Thousand Games (QUESTER series, Synaptic Drive, Indie Game Web Only event planners, etc): they've not drawn an income for the past 2yrs, and they're turning to fanbox for support in what may very well be their last year of operation

the first new official globally-released Medabots game in a long while: the mobile auto-shooter Medabots Survivors, out February 25 on iOS/AND https://apps.apple.com/us/app/medabots-survivors/id6736600841 https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=jp.co.imagineer.medarotsurvivors

the recent Steam version of Karous must've done well off the rip, because RS34's bringing Radirgy Swag to PC on March 4: $11.99/¥1800 for the game, $6.99/ ¥1000 for the soundtrack https://store.steampowered.com/app/3179820/

you wanted a new Puyo Puyo game, you got it: a coalition of four welfare facilities have assembled a production team to produce Puyo Puyo Trainer, a version specifically optimised for folks in aged/nursing care and for use with training cognitive functions

Gunvein, one of the standout games from the international danmaku renaissance of the last several years, is discounted on PC for the first time in years, and on Switch for what might be the first time ever https://www.nintendo.com/us/store/products/gunvein-switch/

big EGG Console news: the line's coming to Steam (not a console, but who's counting), starting with Hydlide 3 (PC88) on Feb.25 icymi, EGG Console's an emulated reissue series of vintage Japanese computer games, spun off from the decades-old JP PC subscription service Project EGG

the APM3 arcade version of Cotton Rock With You, the upcoming sequel to Cotton Rock'n'Roll/Fantasy, will be going on location from Feb.25~Mar.3 @ HEY & Mar.4~10 @ Mikado https://www.success-corp.co.jp/topics/20260216/45093/ 🇯🇵 the loc build will include 8 characters & 10 stages

as announced via their sns acct: Shutaro Iida ("Curry The Kid"), director of Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night & a key figure on Castlevania's Aria of Sorrow, the DS trilogy & Harmony of Despair, among other games, succumbed to pancreatic cancer on February 10 R.I.P.

big ups to whichever D4E employee has been tasked with capturing the screenshots for the intl EGG Console releases—they've clearly been told to obfuscate the untranslated, JP-heavy nature of these releases, which results in lots of technically-not-deceptive captures of menus/demos mid-text refresh

as announced by online Sega history zine Beep21: Hideki Sato, the "father of Sega hardware" who stewarded the design of Sega's home consoles from the SG-1000 through to the Dreamcast & presided over the company from 2001~3, passed away on Feb.13 aged 77 🇯🇵 R.I.P.

two asides from this interview w Tsuyoshi Kaneda (ex-ASCII), ostensibly about Derby Stallion 🇯🇵 they're doing an interest check for a followup piece on the unreleased FC roguelike Dungeon Houroki they're still looking for leads on NES/Game Boy Wizardry director Hiroshi Mita, who's been MIA for yrs

catching up on Hamster's stream: more Console Archives titles: Dezaemon (FC) Gekioh: Shienryu (PS) The Drug Store (PS; unbranded reskin of The Drug Store Matsumoto KiYoshi de Okaimono!) L'Empereur (FC) Terra Cresta (FC) Ninja-kun II: Ashura no Shou (FC) Seicross (FC) Wolf Fang: Kuuga 2001 (PS)

Sanrio World Smash Ball is back! Sanrio Characters Smash Festa!, out this spring on Switch & PC; dev'd by indie studio Tatsumaki Games local 4-player multi, with online 1v1 coming later via patch (PC version's region-locked... https://store.steampowered.com/app/4337680/_/ )

City Connection streamed Culdcept The First last night, including a look at the EN option (~44mins) https://youtu.be/M4TV9lmLVc0?t=2636 🇯🇵 it's also getting standalone physicals, separate from the Begins SE—what's odd is CC's publishing the PS5 version & Neos is publishing the Switch version

two early-cut Hopemoon reissues announced for G-MODE Archives: the roguelike Kishinden STRIKE G, and the Japanese mythology-themed Shinseiki Densetsu Omagatsuka additionally, Monstrewaltz hit Steam today; it's been on JP Switch for a minute https://store.steampowered.com/app/4192750/GMODE/

out now https://store.steampowered.com/app/3991300/Mukuro_no_Rasen/ Mukuro no Rasen is the second game in Matrix Corp's new "Matrix Creators" line of indie games from old-school veterans: the first game in this series, SAKA-DOH, launched last week to my knowledge, this one's entirely a|-free

ayy

first Culdcept, now Brigandine: Brigandine Abyss, out worldwide for PC/Switch 2/PS5/XB this year unlike Culdcept, the original creators aren't involved in this one, but lots of notable names are, incl. Masayuki Horikawa (ex-IntSys); dev's by Adglobe, studio of Sengoku Basara creator Makoto Yamamoto

now with demo, get at it (JP/CN-only; EN loc's still TBA) https://store.steampowered.com/app/4012840/Hyper_Euphoria/

R-Type Tactics Cosmos 1+2 listings are up for Switch 1/2: no upgrade path, no cross-save, etc—they are multi-language, if you're not willing to wait for the intl release https://store-jp.nintendo.com/item/software/D70010000107381 🇯🇵 https://store-jp.nintendo.com/item/software/D70010000060580 🇯🇵

huh, Japan's getting LRG's reissue+expanded hack of the NES Jaws game alongside the rest of the world tomorrow... the store page (direct TL of one of the EN listings, probably) doesn't do much to explain or emphasise the origins of the game or the significance of the do-over, but what else is new

Pixel Co.ltd's delisting Horgihugh with Friends from the JP Switch eShop & discontinuing related merch from Feb.28: in short, the BGM came from Motoaki Furukawa, who went on to screw them via years of unpaid labour & then counter-sue for emotional damages, so they'd just rather not sell it anymore

I'm sure Inoue's just yapping, but I wonder... could the random Kinect-controlled DDP dump they crammed into Instant Brain be a remnant of them planning something like this for Esprade...?

Back to our shmup roots, this week we have a super in-depth Esprade interview with art director Junya Inoue! I've wanted to do this one for a long time and it didn't disappoint: tons of fascinating lore on the characters and world design. Plus concept art! shmuplations.com/esprade/

out February 25 on PC & smartphones: Revenger ORIGIN, a reissue of the galakei RPG Revenger, originally made for & distributed by Opendoor's RPG Daishuugo service and now back in the hands of its original creator https://store.steampowered.com/app/4340390/Revenger_ORIGIN/ 🇯🇵

it only took two years but Gigabash's Ultraman collab DLC's finally available in Japan (but still not available in China, afaik) this game's a Malaysia-borne kaiju fighter & the most credible modern successor to Pipeworks Godzilla, Destroy All Monsters, etc: they've gotten Godzilla, Gamera etc

a lil late for Battle Garegga's 30th, but this came up with someone & I was surprised they didn't know the lore, so... yknow GR_ALL, the Garegga BGM collection for X68000 .mdx format? Manabu Namiki made & uploaded em himself, before the game came out, w the presumption that it'd never get a OST

out Feb.13: Mukuro no Rasen, a stick-&-one-button ninja action game directed by ex-Namco, Custom Robo series creator Kohji Kenjoh https://store.steampowered.com/app/3991300/Mukuro_no_Rasen/ music by Nakayama Raiden (ex-Zuntata) & Sean Bialo (Donut Dodo, MMPR Rita's Rewind, Shredder's Revenge DLC)

seeing is believing, but...? https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/3229260/view/534374481398858286 "We are continuing work on a number of additional fixes and improvements, including the implementation of rollback netcode."

not only did they work on this version, they hid a few EN msgs behind passwords https://tcrf.net/Godzilla_(Game_Boy) the msg to "Coats" is exclusive to the intl ROM—Taniguchi started working for Compile while in HS & they took a yr off to go on exchange in the US, & Coats is the surname of his host

a left-of-centre announcement from Wonfes: Changeable Guardian Estique II, a sequel to the recent FC/NES STG developed by an assemblage of veteran devs—this news was revealed in conjunction with a model kit of the player-mech from designer Kenki Fujioka, which'll be bundled with the new game

afaik this wasn't public knowledge until now... as revealed by his son: Kazuo Sawa, veteran game composer/programmer whose works include the many Famicom Kunio-kun games, Battle of Olympus & many others (on & off-record), passed away at some point during the last couple years... R.I.P.

10yo Yuuki is the global Puyo Puyo champ, put em in crossworlds the winner's promised a ¥1M prize, but idk if or how they'll get paid out, as they're too young for the pro license...

i’ll be doing commentary for the Grand Prix Finals over on the Ascension restream at twitch.tv/AscensionPuyo starting around midnight PT

today's the day (15:00 🇯🇵 time)—everyone complaining about the lack of Puyo stuff's gonna show up for this, right? the pre-event: a tournament to determine who gets the next round of pro licenses (required for cash payouts), live from 10:00 (<1hr from now) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaeHu56VNwE

not only does the gun talk, but it's voiced by Goku herself, Masako Nozawa between Nozawa, the Namco-produced video loops & the jillion ROMs required to store all the video, DECO took a bath on this game, but somehow made back all their money and then some with Locked'n Loaded aka GUNHARD

from Hamster's stream, some photos of the Cool Boarders team at UEP Systems circa '96, which was 6 devs at most (not counting outsourced helpers)—all but one of em came fresh out of school with zero practical experience, but somehow managed to make Cool Boarders from scratch in ~6 months

on tonight's Hamster stream, they said the original version of the guidebook retailed for maybe ¥550 (& sold 500k+)

Tecmo's rep brought along some Ninja Ryukenden II docs, mostly technical info on the construction of the cinema scenes & background data—they didn't offer an especially close look at anything, but the doodle on the cover's cute, at least

another Culdcept Begins interview with Suzuki & Nagashima 🇯🇵 this one offers a little more insight into why it's been so long since the last game: in addition to companies' conservatism about making a bold new game, the state of the industry simply saw multiple projects canned before they could begin

Neos producer/creative director Akira Nagashimi, director Masamichi Harukiba & series creator/Omiya Soft founder Hideo Suzuki talk Culdcept Begins 🇯🇵 some extra info: Grounding's the developer; Satoshi Matsuura's handling chara design; music by Noisycroak; design assistance from Takayuki Jingu

went looking for people digging into Console Archives stuff and the topic of the moment is "lol listen to the way the American announcer said "Doraemon"'

future Console Archives games: (EN titles) Dezaemon Plus (PS) Doraemon (FC) Magmax (FC) Master of Monsters: DIsciples of Gaia (PS) Monster Farm Jump (PS) Nobunaga no Yabou: Zenkokuban (FC) Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure (PS) Sonic Wings Special (PS) UFO: A Day in the Life (PS)

Hamster annoucned ACA2 Rave Racer... and Console Archives! Cool Boarders, Ninja Ryukenden 2, Doraemon FC, fuckin UFO: Day In The Life...

Culdcept's back! Culdcept Begins, out July 16; very different artstyle

another Konami comp for Switch & Switch 2: Super Bomberman Collection, out today also includes FC Bomberman (maybe a bonus? didn't catch the details)

Ganbare Goemon Daishuugo!, a 40th-anniv Goemon comp with 13 games spanning FC/SFC/GB, out July 2

out now! $20 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/shiren-serpentcoil-island/id6754688764 https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.SpikeChunsoft.ShirenTheWanderer6Plus.ww&hl=en&gl=us

a tidbit from MSX co-creator Kazuhiko Nishi: ASCII registered the "NSX" trademark as a precautionary measure but licensed it to Honda for free, purely bc Nishi liked their cars—as a thankyou, Honda sent him an NSX, serial number 256, but he eventually sold it when he was short on cash

just saw a press release on this a|-based physics-y god game that uses "from the guy who made that one tech demo that Hayao Miyazaki shat all over" as a selling point ¯\_______(ツ)_______/¯ https://store.steampowered.com/app/2452130/ANLIFE_MotionLearning_Life_Evolution/