This Week’s Topics:
- Rundown Preamble Ramble: It’s Gonna Be A Bangin’ TSF Summer! (Also, Press-Switch v0.6b is OUT!!!)
- TSF Showcase 2024-21.1 Tenkôsei: Sayonara Anata (2007) [Transfer Students: Goodbye to You] or Switching: Goodbye Me
- TSF Showcase 2024-22 The God Power by Gregor Daniels
- TSF Showcase 2024-22.1 The God Power Seeks Another by Gregor Daniels
- Awaiting The Inevitable Segmented Summer Showcases (A Preamble to S3 2024)
- The Obligatory State of Play Summary (Let S3 2024 Begin!)
- Monster Hunter Musings (Natalie Avoids Talking About Monster Hunter Wilds)
- Dynasty Warriors X – The New Zero (Dynasty Warriors Reboot, Dynasty Warriors Origins, Announced)
- Japan Studio Died So Astro Bot Can Live (Standalone Astro Bot 3D Platformer Announced)
Hey hey Natalie.TF readers! It’s June, and you know what that means? It is spiritually summer! And while planning out this most luxurious of seasons, I came to a realization. That this is gonna be a bangin’ TSF Summer here on Natalie.TF!
What does that mean? Well, it means I’ve got a lot of TSF stuff in the pipeline.
Up until June 29th, I will be releasing chapters of Verde’s Doohickey 2.0: Sensational Summer Romp every day. A tried and true TSF story chock full of body swapping, sex swapping, and so much gosh darn banging that I don’t even want to count. It’s my biggest project ever, at an obscene 370,000 words! And the best part is that this is only the first two of five planned acts!
TSF Showcase will continue for the remainder of the summer, meaning every week I will dig through my collection— and recommendations from readers like you— to find TSF creations worthy of a look or discussion. They’re not proper reviews, they’re not blanket recommendations, they’re just me finding something— 80% of the time it’s some Japanese comic, going through it, and talking about the good, the bad, and the bizarre.
Also, TSF Showcase will be spun-off from Rundowns and spun off into its own segment starting July 7, 2024. Why? Because the compilation for Q2 2024 will already be too big for a single post, and these things have become rambly enough to deserve their own posts. I’ll create a big fat page with a list of all of them. …In fact, I should do the same for TSF Series.
My annual re:Dreamer re:review will go live on June 3rd. Honestly, this is mostly just an update of the 2023 review, which was an update of the 2022 review. Still, I’ve got to talk about some sick new additions, and delve into fresh development lore! Which you can read more about here in this 25,000 word update!
Press-Switch v0.6b… stealth launched this past week and I’m currently playing through it. It’s only one sub-route offshoot, about 90k words, but that’s what I call a novel’s worth of story, and it goes FREAKING HARD! Trigger let all his impulses on blast this time around— just like with the past… three releases of Press-Switch. I’ll have a gushing update to the v0.6a review that will go live on June 7th. Because the re:Dreamer re:review needs to get some time in the spotlight. For those who want to try it out, here are the download links and my preliminary flowchart.
Download Links:
Windows/Linux: MEGA, Direct
Mac: MEGA, Direct
WIP Flowchart:
Also… I think Trigger, or CobaltCore, owns press-switch.com, but Trigger hasn’t made a website for his game? Seriously?! I know he’s smart enough for that ish…
Student Transfer V8 is being polished up for release, and I have been keeping an eye on the git activity as animations are added and edits are being made. I’m guessing it’s at least two weeks away from release as of releasing this post. I’m not psyched about every route in this update, but it’s Student Transfer. I still value and love the sh*t outta it, and without it, TSF VNs would not be as common, and my friend Cassie wouldn’t exist.
So, yeah, the big three are all getting some love here, and probably within the same month!
Akumako: “Okay, but what about the rest of the summer? The f*ck are TSF fans supposed to do during July and August if everything comes out in June?”
One, TSF works are always coming out— there’s no damn season for them! For example, ImpUndernearth just released Ellie Skinsuit 7. And it’s AWESOME! The corruption arc has begun! The distribution of TSF content, like most stuff (content=stuff=stoofs), is regular, but random, and we happen to be in a good cosmic alignment at this exact moment. Which I find to be cause for celebration.
Two, this ain’t no Persona 5 crossover event coming to your favorite gacha addiction of choice! This sh*t will wait for you! If this is too much for you, or if you want more to enjoy throughout the summer… you stagger them out! And I’m going to be putting out over 350,000 words of TSF content this month. Which is too much for any sane person to read in a month, and I expect people to read it at their own pace! If they even bother! (I won’t blame you, I write like a rabbit sometimes.)
Considering everything I’m giving you people this June, I don’t want to hear any lip from you that this isn’t enough! This is a damn miracle, and I expect you to be grateful! …Or at least indifferent!
Also, I might be able to find enough time to write TSF Series #019 if I can spare a week with production on Psycho Shatter 1988. Which will be a TF story, but not a TSF story, aside from one female-to-male transformation sequence.
Akumako: “Oh? Is that a promise?”
No. I cannot promise something when treading unknown waters beyond the pale. But I will promise timely reviews of all of these games.…Unless I get bamboozled by a surprise IRS audit or something. …Or I need to go to the Southern District Court of New York to [REDACTED]
Also, this is gonna be a regular bangin’ summer for me, as I’m going on vacation in August! …Rather, I’m going to have friends come over. Natalie.TF secondary mascot, Cassie, and her live action boyfriend. Look forward to some hashtag content of us enjoying the sights and splendor of Chicago this August! ‘Cos I’m gonna make Cassie host a Rundown with me!
Akumako: “…Wait, so you’re going to f*ck your friend this summer?”
What? No! I might talk about p*rn more than the average coomer, but I’m still asexual, baby!
Akumako: “Then how’s it going to be bangin’?”
Fireworks!
Akumako: “…Yeah, I guess that checks out.”
And to kick off this bangin’ summer, we have… the first overtly negative TSF Showcase!
Akumako: “…You sure planned this out well.”
I sure did!
25 years after creating the prior showcase subject, Tenkôsei, director Nobuhiko Obayashi decided to revisit the ideas of one of his most successful films. Except this time it would be in a different setting, be made for and with a new generation of people, and was given even loftier goals, to be a movie “that will be passed down 50 years from now.”
After seeing what Obayashi did last time, I was excited. Tenkôsei (1982), while a bit messy, managed to capture a sense of earnestness and reality. Aside from a few missteps, it was a great body swap story in my book. After doing another 31 films— Japanese directors can have insane outputs like that— it would only make sense that Obayashi improved as a filmmaker, storyteller, and understood the assignment in remaking one of his most celebrated works. They would be older, wiser, and a more experienced storyteller, so what could go wrong?
…A lot, apparently, as 2007’s Tenkôsei: Sayonara Anata is not good.
In reprising elements from the original work, it either adds or subtracts the wrong thing, resulting in a lesser story with weaker characters. The majority of new elements introduced are either under-explored or underdeveloped. It completely changes the latter half of the movie by introducing a fascinating bit of body swap drama… while evidently not understanding the true weight of what it is doing. And it all ends on a note that made me reexamine a crucial perspective of body swapping, and even brought me to tears. …Before I realized that the filmmakers did not understand what they just did.
It’s a mess. I would be viciously curious to know how it was made and what the creative team was planning. And while I do not want to use TSF Showcase as a way to platform ‘bad works,’ I do want to critically analyze stories with big potential that they never achieve.
To illustrate the problems, I want to first give a synopsis so that you can play along, as otherwise I would get too sidetracked in my criticisms. Hopefully, I did a good job and you can play along, spotting some of the holes for yourself!
Tenkôsei: Sayonara Anata follows Kazuo Saito, a transfer student returning to his hometown of Nagato after spending a few years in Onomichi, who lives alone with his mother. When attending school, he encounters Kazumi Saito, his childhood friend— not family member— who regales him with embarrassing stories about his childhood. Stories which Kazuo does not really remember. The two head to Kazumi’s house, where she lives with 5 other family members, who run a soba restaurant together, just to introduce them. Wanting to reconnect, the two travel to the local Spring of Sabishira, to taste the local water. As Kazumi uses a… water cup on a long stick— I don’t know the exact name— the two fall into the fountain together where they, predictably, swap bodies.
Much like in the 1982 version, neither party realizes that they swapped bodies, but at least there is a tacit line about how their ‘minds went blank,’ and they go home, soaking wet. Kazuo is the first to arrive home, and he does not realize he swapped with Kazumi until he sees his discarded skirt and looks into the mirror. Afterwards, Kazuo confronts his mother, wearing nothing but his underwear. Kazuo’s mother freaks out over this half-naked girl claiming to be her son, and sends him off wearing a hoodie, hat, and sneakers. Which I just think is funny and cute.
Kazuo then meets up with a crying Kazumi, the two bike away for a heart-to-heart, and after failing to convince Kazuo’s mother, the two decide to live as each other for the time being. This includes attending dinner as each other, and here the film does something different by having Kazuo be a restaurant owner’s kid. So she is good at cooking, has good table etiquette, and prepares dinner for Kazuo’s mother without a second thought. While Kazuo does not know how to act like anything but a city boy, and just weirds out Kazumi’s family.
The two then have a phone conversation, where they talk more about their water-damaged cell phones than anything else, and Kazuo gets a call from Hiroshi. Hiroshi was a bit character in the 1982 original who has been promoted to being Kazumi’s boyfriend, and acts as a central character in the story. Also, this rendition reimagined him as a glasses-swearing class president type. Kazuo, predictably, does a poor job of acting like Kazumi in front of him.
The next morning, there is a new rendition of the morning scene in Kazumi’s bedroom. Except this one is far briefer, bereft of tension, and is played mostly for comedy as Kazumi’s entire family rushes into the room, catching Kazumi. Despite being an obvious conclusion, they do not assume that Kazumi and Kazuo had sex the following night, and this scene is never referenced again.
At school, things begin with a music lesson featuring over 40 students. Here, it is overtly stated that Kazuo is a piano player and the young female teacher, Mitsuko Ohno, calls on Kazumi to play the piano. As a reminder, ‘Kazuo’ started attending school yesterday, and Kazuo never spoke to her about his piano skills, so Miss Ohno is being rude here.. The pressure of this situation is so bad that… Kazumi decides to run up to the roof, saying she’s going to kill herself.
Kazuo follows Kasumi, navigating the school very well for someone who first stepped foot in it yesterday, and Mitsuko follows them. There, they have a minor scuffle that ends when Kazuo and Kazumi spin around and accidentally smack Mitsuko with one comically powerful strike. This rendition of a scene that worked vastly better in the 1982 version is followed by a new version of the greaser encounter. Sitting in the autumn woods, Kazuo and Kazumi are approached by a… 25-year-old man with a bug catching net and yo-yo. He is a pedophile. Kazuo promptly kicks him in the nuts so hard it causes internal bleeding. He also kicks his legs up and down afterwards, like an injured bug. Honestly, the funniest part of the movie.
Rather than just be a chance encounter though, this is followed up with a scene where Kazuo and Kazumi get punished by the… president of the educational committee— not the principal, for some reason. He reveals that the child predator was his grandson, and to keep the situation under wraps, and to avoid shame on his family, the kids won’t be punished. However, this leads Kazumi’s parents to believe that ‘Kazuo’ is a bad influence on their daughter. An idea that they become extra sure about after Kazuo tries making soba dough with his feet. A faux pas so severe it causes the soba-making grandfather to pass out in shock. Remember this, it’s important.
Next is the field trip and period chapter of the story, and it’s… just weird. It begins with Kazumi informing Kazuo that her period is coming up, Kazuo feels fatigued as it is seemingly beginning, and students then go to a nearby onsen… where Kazuo gets a bloody nose before passing out. This might be a way of visualizing a period through a nose bleed but I’m not convinced this was the best, or even a good, way to illustrate this. After this stint, Kazumi and Hisorshi have a chat, where Hiroshi claims to have figured out that a body swap is afoot, and claims he still loves Kazumi for her soul. Kazumi rejects this though, saying that Hiroshi actually loves her body, in a major bitch move that ends their romantic relationship.
As this happens, Kazuo is singing a song that just appeared in his mind while playing on a piano. For the record, this is implied to take place… maybe a week after their swap. Kazuo has not played the piano throughout the entire movie, let alone with Kazumi’s fingers, and is singing while playing the piano. Which is an impressive skill for someone in a new body. I’m reminded of that piano bit from the mass swap route of Press-Switch…
This marks the halfway point of the movie… and where things start getting very different. It turns out that Kazumi’s ‘period symptoms’ were actually symptoms of a rare disease that affects people in their adolescence and only has two to three months to live. This means Kazuo is confined in a hospital, receiving treatment from the physicians, and gradually losing the strength he needs to keep on living.
Kazumi is initially prohibited from visiting Kazuo in this state, but the lead doctor, who is also the president of the educational committee, eventually lets her in. What ensues is a bunch of weird inconsequential drama that I feel silly recapping. Kazuo’s ex-girlfriend, Akemi, arrives to see her ex-boyfriend as he slowly dies inside the body of a girl she never met. Kazuo shares what is meant to be a final conversation with his real mother. Kazuo learns more about the many members of Kazumi’s family. Then, after twenty minutes of this, they stage a hospital escape.
Kazumi, Akemi, Hiroshi, and the pedophile all work together to carry a wheelchair-bound Kazuo down the stairs and load up into a car. Where do they go? …Somewhere! Yeah, their location is never specified, and when they reach their destination… it’s just some woods. Not a town, not a speck of civilization, not a place that the characters have been to before or mentioned, just… woods. Also, Akemi and Hiroshi get together, because that is how heterosexuals function, before vanishing until the epilogue.
In the woods, as two kids with one backpack and a wheelchair, they meet up with a traveling troupe of kabuki performers, who give them a ride and let them stay at a hotel they’re performing at. Kazuo and Kazumi then share a room in a scene that… is one of the best scenes in the entire film. It captures the sense of dread and longing the two share as they come to accept the looming death over them. Kazumi’s request to see her body one final time is earnest and sentimental. The way the two embrace in one bed speaks to their closeness. And the way they repeatedly mutter “goodbye, me” says a lot about their unwillingness to actually depart with a part of themselves.
This is followed by a bunch of awkward nonsense, including a run-in with some lesbian-coded woodswomen, before the two return to the Spring of Sabishira. The two fall in, swap back to normal, and do not take off their heavy clothes despite it being… probably November at this point. Kazumi says that she wants things to be this way, that she is willing to die for Kazuo, Because she loves him more than anyone else.
The two then venture off into a scenic landscape, where Kazumi reprises the song that Kazuo sang in the onsen, because I guess it is a song tied to her heart. It is implied that Kazumi died right after singing this song, and things cut ahead from autumn to winter. The film briefly shows what life is like for Kazuo and other characters now that Kazumi has passed away, before concluding with Kazuo visiting Kazumi’s grave, saying goodbye to the child in him.
Okay, so… where do I even begin? Well, first, I need to talk about the cinematography. I don’t really have an eye for cinema, but there is one thing that I do know, and it’s that filmmakers should only use shots at an extreme angle, or dutch angles, when they have a reason to. …And most shots in Tenkôsei: Sayonara Anata are at an extreme or notable angle. Most of the ones that aren’t are shots that take place on angled terrain, like a hill, or feature some tilted object in the foreground or background.
The film is opposed to presenting things at a flat angle, and while most of these shots are inoffensive or not too remarkable, once I started seeing them, I could not stop. It is a truly baffling presentational choice that makes everything feel abnormal, off-kilter, and surreal, even when that’s utterly uncalled for. It reminds me of that Roger Ebert quote… “The director . . . has learned from better films that directors sometimes tilt their cameras, but he has not learned why.”
I praised Tenkôsei (1982) for feeling grounded in reality, for building a world that felt honest, with characters who felt like people. The dutch angles make it hard for this film to achieve the same allure, and… I was going to talk about the many ways that the story does not feel real. How its world feels more hollow, shallow, and like things were based more on established conventions of film, rather than capturing a contemporary reality. But then I realized that the film wasn’t even trying to do that.
The setting of Nagato is not afforded the same level of reverence in how it is depicted, and even if it was… half of the movie takes places in the woods, inn, and hospital. Characters are far more archetypical and plentiful, with Kazumi’s family being a bunch of simplistic personality types who are not meant to have depth. And despite arguably having more character to play with, I found the cast less engaging.
Hiroshi, as a character, starts out as a promising reinterpretation that has the ability to act as an intermediary between Kazuo and Kazumi. Yet, after being present in many key scenes in the first half, he barely does anything once the hospitalization chapter starts. And Akemi? She is not even in the movie for 15 minutes, does barely anything, and vanishes in a move that I can only describe as a reckless disregard.
Kazumi is described as a good-natured girl with a penchant for fantasy who diligently assists her family in their business. But when it comes to acting like Kazuo during the body swap… her behavior just feels inconsistent. She goes from being inconsolable to catering for her Kazuo’s mother, to being so filled with embarrassment that she wants to die. She is insufficiently masculine to assume the role of Kazuo, but the movie doesn’t really show much of her struggles. During the latter half of the film, I don’t get the impression she is fraught with depression or sorrow over what Kazuo is doing with her life, or the life she needs to live. Because the movie stops being about her struggles as a woman in the body of a man, and stops showing them.
Kazuo is given far more screen time and opportunity to flex his character. In this rendition, he’s a piano-player who is a bit rough around the edges. He acts more masculine than he should and draws concern from Kazumi’s family, but he’s mostly just oblivious to the struggles of having a larger family or the social cues before him. He’s too self-centered, but rather than view this as a character flaw… 45 minutes of this movie involves everybody caring for him after he gets a terminal illness. Dude doesn’t learn anything!
As for their relationship… the chemistry shared in the 1982 version is simply missing there. The characters talk and have time to themselves, but they don’t converse with each other in the same heartfelt way. I think this is plainly clear just by… watching various comparable scenes. In the post-swap bike scene of the 1982 film, there is some real tension and dread billowing between the two leads. While the 2007 equivalent of the scene captures many of the same beats, just… worse in about every way.
Emotions are dulled, the highs are missing, and the characters do not react to this body swap in the way a pair of 15-year-olds would. I want drama, I want two diametrically different people to cooperate over a shared conflict in order to develop strong bonds. I want to see these two grow as people by becoming each other. The movie thinks it is doing these things… but it just isn’t.
If I wanted to play ‘compare and contrast’ with the original, I would be here all day, so instead let me talk about the original things this story does, namely with the terminal illness. As a body swap fan, I think this is a bold decision that has some real, rarely explored, tension and drama to it. I have seen plenty of body swap stories about someone stealing a body to prolong their life at death’s door, but it is often with a sense of desperation, and I cannot think of a good example like this. Where two characters, swapped against their will, are faced with the reality that one of them is going to die.
The guilt, the regret, the self-loathing of the survivor, the hatred of the person diagnosed with death. There is a lot of rich potential with a story like that, especially if the two people are close, especially if they hate this situation, especially if this is not a natural illness. It’s such a good idea that I’m tempted to just stop writing this script so I could try my hand at it!
Unfortunately, the people behind Tenkôsei: Sayonara Anata looked at this idea… and did not see a vast ocean or opportunities. The actual execution of… everything during the latter half of the movie, teeters between misguided and inept. The story simply does not properly acknowledge the sense of strain this puts on Kazuo and Kazumi’s relationship, as it is too concerned about the other characters. They only spent two minutes together in the hospital, and the core of their conversation is Kazumi saying she’ll do anything for Kazuo, while Kazuo has already accepted his fate. This movie takes a fascinating idea… and delivers one of the most boring renditions imaginable.
They never feel like they have a real conversation about this, about their goals, about their desires, about what they always wanted to do, and about how Kazumi will need to live Kazuo’s life. Just having Kazuo tell Kazumi all about the life she’ll need to live going forward, about how to be a man, could be a gut-wrenching and touching moment, and be a great look into who Kazuo truly is. Who he is when talking about the person who will take his place when he’s gone from this mortal coil. Instead, there’s some worthless conversation about how the little girl character’s mother got run over by a drunk driver. Riveting!
The entire runaway chapter suffers from the fact that… the characters lack any real goal or drive. Kazuo just wants to leave the hospital and go somewhere else, and despite being told the two are very close at this point in the story, it really doesn’t feel like it. The only thing it feels like is two teens walking through the woods, meeting someone in a car, going on a ride, then getting dropped off in the woods, before doing the same darn thing!
There is something to enjoy with a crossdressing performer basically saying that Kazumi would make for a good crossdresser. I do think the scene the two share in the inn is a strong bonding experience. But their rationale and reason to go to the spring to drink the water is just… bizarre. The script could easily be rewritten so that… Kazuo gets a premonition about going back to the spring. I’m assuming they just have amnesia about the spring being the cause, but if the story needs to have them get back there. Maybe have them escape on their own, stay at a rural inn, and trek all the way there on foot, maybe camping together.
Nothing about the premise is bad or unworkable. There are just a bunch of tiny decisions that make this movie… frustrating. And I don’t think there is a greater frustration than the actual ending. After Kazumi sings her final song and dies, the story jumps to Kazuo, back in his own body, visiting Kazumi’s home. The viewer does not see Kazumi die, but the white flowers he brings are meant to imply that she passed away.
Kazumi’s family, fresh off her death, reminisce over something iconic Kazumi did as the grandfather makes soba, talking about how she used to stomp the soba with her feet, going so far as to call it “Kazumi’s way.” I mentioned this about 2,200 words ago, but this is something that Kazumi never actually did. Kazuo did this while in Kazumi’s body. But from Kazumi’s family’s perspective, this was the last action Kazumi took before she became stricken with her illness. Her last act when she was a happy and silly girl. It became an iconic moment for them, a memory that overwrote how Kazumi actually used to make soba.
…Kazuo did not just live Kazumi’s life, he effectively overwrote her loved one’s memories. When her family thinks back on her, they will not remember her, but Kazuo’s rendition of her. This is a… horrifying, disgusting concept. There is a saying that, after death, one lives in the memories of those they touched in their lives, and this… this is denying Kazumi that privilege. And her family, unless Kazuo tells them, will never know that they are doing this.
It is an idea so dark and morose that it genuinely brought me to tears while watching this movie. Because the guilt that I would feel over that would be so suffocating that… that’s all I could do in that situation.
…And you know how Kazuo reacts to all this? How is he living with himself knowing that Kazumi is dead and will never come back? He’s… fine. He’s unphased, unaffected, and is moving on with his life. He’s going on a trip back to Onomichi. It’s even implied that he’s going to get back together with Akemi.
As he passes by Kazumi’s grave, he treats her death as the death of his childhood. Because that’s how he views Kazumi. Not as part of himself, but the girl who helped him… become a man. A dark note that frames Kazuo as someone who went through a life changing experience… and wants to forget all about it. It did not change his life, it just helped him grow up.
Oh, and then there’s the ending statement.
Everyone lives to leave their stories behind.
A person’s lifespan is limited, but a story lasts forever.
Children of the future, are you living to your fullest?
An ending statement that… I cannot help but read as a bitter, cold reminder to the presumably young audience that their lives can be cut short at any moment. So they need to use their life to write a story worth telling. It’s a sentiment that I can understand someone sharing, but the last thing the youth needs to be reminded is that they are going to die and, unless they are extraordinary, they are going to be forgotten. That’s sh*t that makes kids want to kill themselves.
…I don’t like this movie. It has moments of intrigue, passing bits of promise, but both become lost in the winds. As a successor to Tenkôsei (1982), it is worse on nearly every count. As a body swap story, it has good ideas, but nothing else. The more I talk about or think about Sayonara Anata, the more bitter I become.
I try to approach media with fairness and sympathy. I know I have made my fair share of utter garbage over the years, but when something wastes this much potential, when it comes from such a distinguished creator… I cannot help but get more than just disappointed.
So, I’m going to do us both a favor and move on to something better.
I have mad respect for anybody trying to make a career by independently publishing wackadoo TSF fiction. There are a few semi-notable people in that space, with one of the more prolific being Gregor Daniels. A writer with over 250 novellas under his belt, and who I’ve talked about on this site in the past. Honestly, his work can be a bit hit or miss. His characters can feel bland and their grasp on ‘reality’ can be a bit too simplistic to feel ‘real.’ But when they hit, they go hard and things can be a helluva lotta fun! Like with our subject today, The God Power!
The general premise is pretty simple. Billy’s a bullied high school student who gets access to the ability to reshape reality from an unnamed demonic entity who manifests itself as a cloud of smoke. Branded with a glowing pentagram on his hand— in case the satanic theming was too subtle— the entity encourages Billy to seek out revenge, to punish and torture his abusers to his heart’s content. A standard power fantasy narrative, but because this is from a TSF writer, their protagonist is more than a little curious about having the female form for themselves. …And just so happens to be a fan of transformation in general.
Billy starts using this power in more mundane ways. Preventing car collisions. Transforming his old lady neighbor in his trailer park home into a ‘centerfold model.” Changing his grades. Adding a few zeros to his bank account. The usual things a movie-like average teenage boy written from a perspective of American youth, crystalized from cultural touchstones of 1993 to 2008, would do. When choosing to pursue his first tormentor though, his powers— which otherwise work exactly how he wants them to— throw him into the boy of the lead bully’s girlfriend, Ariel.
Ariel as a character is… worth a tangent. She is the sole female character of the cast and her characterization is all over the place. She is the redheaded girlfriend of the high school quarterback, but she is also… childish in the way that screams this was written by a man. Ariel is obsessed with The Little Mermaid to the point where she named herself after her at age 18 and covers her walls with related posters. She has a seashell collection, a strong love of the beach, and also… stuffs her bra with tissues.
That obsession with that particular film is odd considering this story was released in 2022. The name change detail is presented as if one needs to be 18 to change their name, when they don’t. And… when I was 13 and picked up crossdressing and bra stuffing, I knew enough to not use tissues. I used cotton balls. So seeing this sexually active adult woman still using tissues to fill her bra does not make sense. She has money, she can buy pads.
Tangent aside, Billy masturbat*s in Ariel’s body while musing over how to best use his powers, as despite his routine abuse, he doesn’t consider himself an evil person. …But that also doesn’t mean he is above getting revenge in more cruel and unusual ways, as seen with how he treats his quarterback bully, Julian. Billy tries to work things out diplomatically, asking Julian to stop bullying him. But Julian thinks it is fair game to discriminate against someone for having the audacity to style their hair in a mullet and comes from a low-income household.
As diplomacy fails, Billy decides to warp reality to switch Julian and Ariel’s genitals. It’s a sudden, out of nowhere, bout of genital swapping that reminds me of a lot of skinsuit/bodysuit manga I’ve read, except instead of going for VIP, Billy is content with getting a blowj*b. Well, not even content. He remarks about how “dudes sucking dick [is] normal now,” so the sense of punishment is less severe. It’s a line that sticks in my mind even a week later, as it is trying to facilitate a fetishistic fantasy… while also acknowledging that a scene like this would work better in a story written 20 years ago.
The next chapter follows Billy possessing the body of the Black “hotshot wide receiver,” LJ, where he takes his time getting situated in it. Flipping through his phone, checking out some candids of fat asses, seeing that LJ and Ariel are sexting, all while… feeling up LJ’s co*ck through his pants. I’d comment on this being an intriguing move, as it is uncommon to see a TSF writer explore male characters enjoying the body of another man like this. Feeling up muscles, exerting strength or authority, or f*cking women out of their league? Sure, those are staples of the niche male-to-male possession (or body swap) (or takeover) genre. However, then I remembered this is a White guy possessing a Black guy, and it all made sense. I’ll just say there’s a long history of White men feeling up Black men’s penises.
As for the punishment, Billy devises a somewhat roundabout means of trapping LJ in the women’s bathroom, disappearing his clothes away, and conjuring a “big-tit brigade” to catch him. To humiliate him by being naked in a place he shouldn’t be. Desperate, terrified, and mortified, LJ then locks himself in a stall, only for Billy to reappear, suppressing his identity and wearing a shirt reading “on-demand genie services” so he can do some… attempted infomercial skit. He then goats LJ into saying “I wish they wouldn’t have noticed me in here” and… we get a quality skinsuit emergence transformation sequence.
LJ’s skin droops off, he yanks it away, and reveals a one-in-a-million hyper-attractive woman. But before LJ can even come to terms with what happened, Billy flushes his sheathe of skin down the toilet. Meaning the folks at a waste processing center are going to have one interesting night. LJ goes for the panic route with his reaction, losing all composure as the body has spent so long honing is suddenly lost and he is left with an overtly female physique. However, Billy is pissed that LJ did not immediately jump on being a girl so attractive they could make millions off of thirst traps and modeling. So he promptly steals his body for himself. At first to let LJ calm down… before deciding to let him stew in unexistence. Yeah, the White kid killed a Black kid and stole his body for his own perverted purposes. Tale as old as time.
The final target, Curtis, is honestly the least interesting interaction of the three. Billy arrives at Curtis’s house, sees him working on a car, promptly poofs a lawn chair, makes himself invisible, and starts feeling up his hot new body. He does this while watching Curtis in the background, waiting for some interesting prompt for him to monkey paw into something spicy. Said prompt comes up with an argument between Curtis and his mother, telling Curtis to grow up, which Billy reinterprets as an excuse to… make Curtis sh*t himself while transforming into a two-year-old girl. That transformation sounds like an interesting challenge to write, but most of the icky details are glossed over, and for good reason.
After the transformation, Curtis is not aware of any changes— his mind was overwritten and is in a divine recycling bin. He is just a happy little child whose parents love them unconditionally and drive away to see their aunt. Hell, Billy even goes so far as to write a good life for ‘Cynthia.’ Which isn’t so much as a punishment… as much as replacing a ‘bad’ person with a ‘good’ person. I think it is a cruel and unusual form of punishment murder, but the demonic haze who gave Billy these powers disagrees, voicing disappointment with him over his lack of violent rage. Billy says that he doesn’t want to hurt people like this, and the demon grumbles about how they’re going to lose a “wager” over this before disappearing.
The next chapter picks up a week later. Billy has spent the entire time in LJ’s transformed body, hasn’t used his new powers to do things like stop wars or mind control world leaders, and hasn’t undone the transformations to his former bullies. Why make this take place a week later rather than a day? No clue! It’s just set-up for Billy to encounter the demonic entity, who attempts to reign control over Billy’s body by… transforming it into a demon. With horns, a giant frame, leathery wings, and taloned feet, all through a well done transformation sequence.
It’s an appropriately wild escalation of events, seeing Billy both lose autonomy while the entity tries to morph his form into something more fitting for their purposes as they go on a violent rampage. Flying through the skies at obscene, disorientating speeds. Breaking doors, furniture, and roofs, all while Billy grapples for control, pushing forward his influence before the demon can kill someone. It’s a cool sequence… though, it doesn’t go on for very long. The demon only really has two targets to go after now that LJ is inexistent, and with Cynthia… the demon just watches as a car crash is about to happen, only for Billy to stop it. It really makes the demon look like some chump, but not in a way I think was intentional.
After calling Billy too soft, the demon then undoes the transformation… while Billy is several hundred feet high in the air. Rather than die then and there… Billy instead casually falls out of the sky outside of Ariel’s house, naked, disorientated, and still in LJ’s modified body. His powers, and the related pentagram, are both gone, meaning he is stuck like this… but he quickly shrugs this off. After all, he is the one who got pissed at LJ for not realizing how profitable a body like this could be. Though, he doesn’t seem to be as concerned with the fact he’s Black now, as his only concerns are about being a woman. Which… fair enough. $5 million in the bank and a ‘top percentage’ body address most of life’s concerns.
While musing to himself, Billy realizes that, if he and LJ are basically one person now, that means he must have a sexual relationship with Ariel. Ariel cannot control herself, Billy is so thrilled that someone has a sexual interest in him that he accepts the weirdness of the situation, and the two have a prolonged sex scene to end things off. Billy discards all concerns about his new life, as he did ultimately get what he wanted. Nobody’s going to bully him anymore. …At least until he picks up modeling. Because models and idols are feisty.
That would be a fine enough ending, a sufficiently accepting note to end this bizarre series of transformation-riddled strain of thought. But Daniels ends things on a more open note, answering how Billy arrived at Ariel’s house… by revealing that Ariel has been branded with a pentagram. And unlike Billy, she appears to be the more vengeful sort.
If you are familiar with my TSF anthology series— brilliantly entitled TSF Series— you could tell that I have a certain love for more eccentric plots that go in wild directions. And that’s pretty much that The God Power offers here. It starts basic enough, but as transformations pile on top of each other, the normal world is wrought into something extraordinary.
Whenever I was getting a bit settled into things working one way, it pulls a pivot out of left field, introduces something unprecedented, and just keeps on going. I appreciate and admire its creative energy and conviction. …But I do need to point out its depth, as the story is only 11,830 words long.
This shorter length is a criticism that I have with a lot of ‘published digital fiction.’ The algorithms that push and denote ebook sales make word count a highly important feature. People— according to algorithms— want to get something worth their money… without being bogged down by something that takes more than an hour to read. It can lead to a lot of stories that are complete, yet feel like they don’t go in hard or deep enough. Sometimes 12,000 words is the perfect length for a story. I personally think I did a good job managing 12,748 words with TSF Series #013: Delusion Kamera – Poolside Switching. But when an author consistently shoots for the same word count, I think it might negatively affect the end product.
…Though, it’s clearly good for productivity. Gregor Daniels put out 12 novellas from January to May of 2024. I wish I had that focus, but I’m too busy with larger scale projects and offshoots… like this! With that level of output, a few duds are almost inevitable… but The God Power is a good, fun, TF-riddled time!
Now, I would be inclined to end things here, as I just promoted a good work from a bigger-than-me-yet-still-small author. …But I am a stickler for covering sequels, and a sequel was released on April 12, 2024. It is not overtly a TSF story in the same way as the first one was. It’s more of a wackadoo TF story that targets… I’m not sure furry would be the best term, but it’s at least three times as weird and crazy as the first one.
I thought about treating this as a regular Rundown segment but… screw it. If that Slowpoke hentai comic was TSF enough for me, this meets the bare minimum.
The God Power Seeks Another is an indirect successive entry into The God Power series. Same demonic entity. Same set of powers. Same basic premise. Same continuity? Maybe, who knows, it doesn’t really matter. The mantle of protagonist is handed to Jared, a twenty-something guy who has been trying to make it in corporate America, but he lost his job due to nepotism. Frustrated, Jared engages in the American pastime of drunk driving and finds himself in the local police station jail, where he hears a demonic entity who offers him great power. Power that he immediately uses to secure his freedom, only to test it on an unnamed guard, who does not consider sex work to be ‘real work’ and views prostitutes as objects.
As punishment for having bad beliefs— and being a cop— Jared transforms the guard into a busty redhead who he commands to give him a blowj*b. The guard promptly does so, Jared grows his dick to a firm 9 inches, because of course he does. Right after he finishes, the two sex workers in the cell next to him come out, dressed as cops, where they arrest the transformed redhead for… nepotism.
It’s a bizarre projection of Jared’s morals. While I fully understand why a hungover guy with god powers would turn the first thing into an unrealistically idealized woman and f*ck them, the conclusion is just… random. And politically confusing, as I cannot really imagine the sex workers wanting to be a cop. That’s like a rabbit wanting to become a wolf.
This display is followed by Jared storming back to his old job. Turning his plain clothes into a suit, walking back his desk, and poofing away any trace of his replacement before kicking up his feet. But before he can get situated, he is greeted by the branch president, Natalie— no relation— to come strutting in, along with her burnout of a boyfriend, Gareth. Rather than just making them believe his reality, Jared lets the two bicker over the situation, using his demonic powers to make the two transparently honest for comedic effect. The two argue, Natalie calls Gareth a “dweeb,” when I think she’s supposed to call him an ass because, as the argument progresses, Jared makes Gareth hee-haw like a donkey, or ass.
Anybody who was ‘activated’ by Pinocchio (1940) would think that they know what’s in store next… but no, it’s somehow even weirder than that. Jared makes Gareth perform anilingus on Natalie’s fat tanned ass… but then he has Gareth’s head merge into her butt. Thus leading into a transformation sequence where Gareth’s body merges with Natalie’s to become a human centaur. Specifically, a nudist human centaur, because it’s not like centaurs can wear clothes besides shirts. Why doesn’t she wear a shirt anymore? …All Jareds are horny.
I’d assume he would just have sex with this new centaur woman creature he birthed from his wild mind, but he just… lets her go. Instead, Jared decides to use his powers to cut police salaries in order to help homeless people. Which… goldarn it. Defund the police doesn’t actually mean paying cops less. It means paying departments less, so they can’t hurt people who are voicing discontent with the government in an alleged democracy. I hate cops as much as the next leftist, but I recognize that most of them are working class.
Anyway, the middle chapter of this story is mostly dedicated to Jared using his powers in a more frivolous, petty manner. And one that really raises questions about his morality. Jared claims to not be a greedy person, but he also claims to lack a “moral center,” and the traces of malice in his actions makes it harder to believe he will just undo them. Unlike Billy from The God Power, Jared doesn’t second guess himself. His morals are a lot looser, and the only thing stopping him from pursuing greater extremes is that… he just doesn’t want to rule or dominate. He renovates his inherited house with magic, gives himself some steady investments, that sort of thing.
I bring this all up, because this chapter sees a doberman take a sh*t on Jared’s lawn, the owner refuses to pick it up, so Jared does two things. One, he alters reality around the dog owner, forcing them to act like a dog, despite still being a human and capable of doing things like bag up their own poop. Two, he turns the male doberman into a sexy fat-titted dog woman who he names Zoey and gives her human level intelligence, while retaining her dog-like qualities. Such as her love of fetching balls, the snout on her face, her wagging tail, and so forth. …Going into this story, I did not expect Jared to be a furry, or for the main ‘gender swap’ to involve an animal.
Now, this is an example of TSF per my own definition, but one that I have more mixed feelings about classifying as TSF. Generally I tend to not consider animal to human transformations to be the same thing as TSF, even if the animal undergoes a change in sex. They can be if the animal in question is sufficiently characterized or has some personality ascribed to it. Particularly if they are capable of speech and are treated as a gendered character. Dogs typically are not treated too differently based on their sex, and the best way to give them character is… to make them talk.
So if someone decided to create something where Garfield was transformed into a female cat, human woman, or a humanoid cat woman— and they have— that would be TSF. Some random girl beaver becoming a hunky lumberjack man in a piece of shifter fiction? Technically, but not spiritually TSF. Any Pokémon becoming a female gijinka? Yes. Any Pokémon becoming a male gijinka? …Only if they are female coded Pokémon, because male is seen as the default when designing most things in this imperfect, imprecise world. I do not have hardline stances on this, I would need to hear from other people on this über niche topic and see what they have to say before I commit to anything.
Anyway, Jared is doing pretty damn good at this point. He has a cozy managerial job with a big salary, a house with no mortgage, a dog girl who he brings into work, and he traded in his 9 inch dick for a 10 incher. He’s content, and the demonic entity… cannot stand this. They childishly remark “f*ck you, Jared” and then disappear, taking their power away— unlike in the first story— before finding a new host. And who do they choose other than… Natalie!
Natalie is back to normal— back to a standard two-legged human, and she is a right pissed! Jared tries to apologize, but he turned her into an exhibitionist freak for the past week or so and created a dog he can f*ck without breaking a law (unless he’s in West Virginia or New Mexico). So Natalie sees no reason to not impose cruel and unusual punishment. Which involves… ass-voring his face into a face puss*! Natalie replaces her lower abdomen and vagin* with Jared’s face, connects his neck to her ass, and effectively becomes a humanoid centaur again… but with a Jared’s face for her front puss*. The rest of his body then feminizes, he loses his penis in exchange for a back puss*, but doesn’t grow breasts, and… The story doesn’t actually specify what happened with Jared’s arms. But I’m assuming they weren’t dangling between two sets of legs. Because that would just look bad.
I need to pause and highlight how this is such a layered and multifaceted transformation drawing upon so many niches. The idea of putting a person’s face where their genitals should be is, itself, a fetish that I have not thought of in years, but marked one of my first exposures to the wild end. Particularly with this two part comic by someone named Ariel that I’m sharing because I could not find it in five minutes. Is there even an audience for something this niche? This is a commercial product, so there has to be an audience in mind. But is that total global audience more than a few thousand people?
The actual mechanics of the transformation, seeing Jared’s head getting eaten, or vored, by Natalie’s ass, only to reappear on the other side are also strange. It’s more of a conjoinment than a fusion or merge, but it also robs Jared of his autonomy, unable to move anything beyond his face. Yet he and Natalie share most senses. They cannot see out of each other’s eyes, but Natalie seems to be able to feel Jared’s mouth. …I don’t know how to classify any of this.
Next, there’s the TSF element. Jared loses control of his body beneath the neck, but that body is given feminine features, a vagin*, but no breasts. Is this TSF? Yes, by my definition. But the eccentricities of the transformations surrounding it are so extreme that I feel that doing so is more like saying any movie with a spooky scene is a horror movie. The fact that there are three edge cases— the semi-random prison guard TF, the dog woman, and the man turned into a female human centaur back half— is enough for me to say… yeah, it is TSF.
Anyway, what does Vengeful Natalie decide to do next, now that Jared is her front puss*? Go around the office and have him give men blowj*bs as a form of punishment. Which is a bit questionable, as the prior entry’s protagonist realized that blowj*bs were a bad way to punish their enemy. But Vengeful Natalie does a full tour from the office, so I guess the actual punishment is repeated sexual acts to the point of mental and physical fatigue.
After this… the story just goes completely bonkers. And that’s saying something! Vengeful Natalie decides to take an elevator to an isolated fantasy beach island, where she meets her boyfriend, Gareth. Gareth rightfully points out how evil Vengeful Natalie is. In response to his burgeoning insolence, he is transformed into an idealized lover, right outta a cliché romance novel, fully identity death’d. In a more tame writer, this could lead into a wackadoo human centaur sex scene. …But instead Daniels decided to turn both Gareth and Vengeful Natalie into horse centaurs and have them have sex on an isolated beach.
I’m not going to divulge the details too much because, frankly, this insanity is best witnessed in its rawest form. But also because… it’s getting outside of my comfort zone. Now I love horses. I would dare say that they are the best of all the animals. I might even call these hideous monsters my friends. I am, per my own objective analysis, a furry. But I’m just not into centaurs. Horse heads attached to man’s legs? Absolutely! Centaurs though? Nah, throw them in the trash.
Jared more or less becomes an observer during this, just laying witness to this rambunctious horseplay, but it all comes to an end in the epilogue. The demonic entity is displeased with how un-greedy Vengeful Natalie was, as they wanted her to take over the world and bring forth a veritable golden age of oppression. I’m assuming this is still part of the “wager” they made in the original story. But they’re both duds, so the entity exerts its power— power it seemingly lacked in the first installment— to send Jared and Vengeful Natalie to the police station jail. There, they meet the guard, untransformed and now bearing a pentagram on his hand. And if there’s one force that should never get their hands on demon powers… it’s the f*cking cops.
The God Power Seeks Another is a gosh darn trip. Looking at it critically, I’m pretty sure this novel was just an excuse for its creator to pursue more bizarre and eclectic transformations. And after he’s written over 250 novellas in about 12 years, I can’t really blame him. However, the escalation, just seeing this madness unfold, is deeply captivating in its own right. Sometimes all you need to make a good bit of TF fiction is a willingness to go further and more outlandish than anyone else would. …And I can’t picture many others having the boldness needed to keep going with something like this.
That being said, it is definitely not the most tightly wound story— Zoey just vanishes after Jared’s transformation into a face puss*. A few details are skipped past in a way that feels like an oversight. And the ending feels like more of an invitation for greater insanity than a satisfying conclusion. Is the reader supposed to sympathize with Jared and Vengeful Natalie? Think that they got their just desserts for abusing divine powers? The God Power was an open ending but here? The only question is how much of a world will be left after this nameless cop manifests his desires unto the world.
But does that really matter when the goal is just to take a bunch of wackadoo ideas and puree them into a viscous cream? …NOPE!
It’s early June, so you know what that means? Game showcases galore! Yes, even though E3 is done and dusted forevermore, this time of year is still treated as a prime opportunity for game publishers to do big showcases. It’s something I’m not properly excited for, as I’ve mostly switched over to only playing TSF visual novels and… a browser-based Pokémon roguelike that I’ve invested an embarrassing amount of time into.
For as much as people can bemoan the state of modern gaming, there is no shortage of quality games filling the market, and if you disagree… you’re a picky little prick! I’ll admit that my tastes have been more niche for quite some time, but I see new and interesting games crop up all the time. The indie scene is overflowing with quality games, and with emulation… you can pretty easily get yourself a library of titles the industry doesn’t want to tell you.
Gaming might be suffering from late stage capitalism (which should be called endgame capitalism, because it sounds cooler) but you can find gold if you are willing to dig for it.
For example, there was a 5 hour long Japanese indie game expo that was largely ignored by major gaming outlets aside from Gematsu. I did not watch it— I was sleeping— but it was a showcase of dope-ass game after dope-ass game!
- Maid Cafe on Electric Street is an adorable pixelated simulation adventure game about Akiba maids— one of the best things.
- Moonless Moon is a gorgeous looking worlds-spanning visual novel that’s labeled as a text adventure for some weird reason.
- BAN: The Prologue of GUCHA GUCHA looks like an ugly PS2 horror game in the good way!
- Nightmare Operator is an action horror title that beautifully infuses modern sensibilities and techniques along with a slick yet true PS1 aesthetic.
- Type-NOISE: Shonen Shojo is a genre warping escape room adventure game that looks damn near psychedelic with some of its artwork.
- All in Abyss: Judge the Fake is a character-driven poker adventure game about people trying to amass fortunes through the art of gambling! Which is such a dope idea that I cannot believe I’ve never seen it before!
- Blade Chimera is the latest Metroidvania from the folks at Team Ladybug, manufacturers of several dope Metroidvanias!
- Yunyun Syndrome!? Rhythm Psychosis is “a rhythm adventure game about a psychotic hikikomori girl – also an avid anonymous poster – who corrupts the world with her severe brain rot from listening to too many denpa songs.” Which is a kamige if I’ve ever seen one. If only I could play rhythm games…
Sadly, games are so often pushed as financial products, as assets that companies invest in, expecting a return on investment and the development of intangible assets of nebulous value. It is getting more overt in the AAA space and… f*ck the AAA space. I have nothing but love for the programmers, designers, artists, QA folks, and every boots-on-the-ground person making these games. But they are so often so worsened by managerial mandates that it’s tempting to just pretend it doesn’t exist.
AAA games are too expensive, feature too many extraneous details, take too long to make, and need to do obscene numbers to break even. Publishers should recognize how these massive investments are too risky. But in the go-go world of modern finance and modern money, risk is seen as an enviable thing for some fundamentally stupid reason.
…However, I still care about them, the development of major IP, the offerings of major game studios who participate in the console space, and I recognize that many AAA games… are good, actually. It’s just the live service crap that’s deliberately made worse to increase player retention.
Sony had their big late spring State of Play event this week, and… there are a few things that I at least want to bring up. I’ll give the big boys their own sections, but lemme snipe off the stragglers first.
God of War Ragnarok is coming to PC on September 19, 2024. Further cementing PlayStation’s strategy for the platform. Release marquee titles as console exclusives, port them to PC after accumulating most sales, enjoy the extra revenue on these large investments, build up additional hype for the next entry in the IP. I would say something cheeky about God of War 8 (2022) here, but that game did not stick with the zeitgeist like the 2018 entry.
The Until Dawn remake— which I dislike on principle— screwed up the lighting of the original, as some executive thought that a game meant to feel cold, dark, and abrasive needed more bright yellow in its color scheme. Gosh, why is it so hard to remember that colors are the most important visual element of… anything? Are the lizard people actually real?!
Infinity Nikki is an “open-world dress-up adventure game” and it looks amazing. It is a gob-smackingly gorgeous title set in a lusciously detailed fantasy world about a girl and her pet bipedal cat exploring and looking for dope photo ops! And rather than just be a walking and photo sim, it is a… real-ass 3D platformer, complete with boss battles. I somehow missed this title when it was revealed in December 2022, but it looks everything I want out of big budget games. Cute girls, killer threads, big band music, the prettiest of vistas, adorable mascots. This is a GOTY candidate if I’ve ever seen one.
The combat system of Silent Hill 2 (2024) is trying to make the game into modern Resident Evil, when subpar combat was a feature in Silent Hill 2 (2001). It was supposed to play and feel awkward, but we cannot have that in what Konami wants to be their Resident Evil. Because it’s not like these two games were different on purpose. Aside from that… the tone is just different, just off, in a way that makes this feel like a different game. I get that’s part of the MO, but I don’t think people want a different take on a title selling itself off of the renown of another.
Download the original and install the mods to make it work on modern systems. Abandonware sites have already done you a solid and bundled it all together. I know that I was initially defensive of this game when it was just revealed, but now that I’ve seen several minutes of gameplay, I can tell that nobody wants this. So don’t buy it on October 8, 2024. Watch a streamer play it instead and judge it as harshly as you deem to be appropriate.
After being announced at The Game Awards last year, Monster Hunter Wilds got its ‘1st trailer‘ and looks like what it says on the tin. A successor to Monster Hunter World, a title that will always linger in my mind as the one that forever changed the Monster Hunter series.
This is an utterly unrelated tangent, but I find it interesting how this series evolved. The original PS2 entries were deliberately niche games, requiring methodical hunting and combat that lacked the spectacle or simplicity of other action games on the platform. However, the series did not really become big until the PSP entries, where it became an iconic series for the platform… in Japan. The games were localized, but a big allure of these games was playing with friends, and online multiplayer of the era was dominated by consoles. Sure, portables could do it, but it just did not fit with the cultural sensibilities. Also, westerners are, generally, more fussy with camera controls than Japanese game likers, and the PSP was notorious, in the west at least, for its lack of analog camera control.
This divide continued into the 3DS era, where the lauded Monster Hunter 4 skipped the western market until after its updated ‘Ultimate’ version. And where Monster Hunter (X) Generations came out on the 3DS in the west in 2016. …The year of peak Nintendo madness. And even when the series’s pre-HD swansong came out on Switch via a remaster, it did not hit the international market until August 2018. Meaning it was released after World, and World changed everything.
World, while derided by some vocal members of the MonHun OG English Krew, was the first Monster Hunter game for many international audiences. It sold over 25 million units. And while it did sell well in Japan, console sales have steadily been declining in Japan. Even after a decade, there were over twice as many PSPs and PS1 sold in the region as PS4s (source, though it has some holes). While I’m sure World had an impressive attach rate, there were far more non-Japanese players playing Monster Hunter than Japanese players.
It seemed like the series was moving in a new direction with that, and when Monster Hunter Rise came out for Switch in 2021, as the first new portable entry in 6 years… the pattern repeated. The game sold over 7.5 million units in its launch year, and Japan shipments were just over 2.3 million. This diehard Japanese series achieved more international recognition, which in turn changes how the series is perceived and marketed.
Why am I bringing this up? Because this is something you rarely ever see with series like this. If something is big in Japan, for over a decade, its rare for it to become even bigger in the international markets. …But I guess that’s the power of putting a game on the right platform. Something that, in today’s climate is rather trivial… at least in the west.
By targeting PS5, Japanese developers will inevitably limit their market share, and the numbers are so severe, I’m starting to think Japanese developers will start abandoning it. The system crossed 4 million units about a year ago, and had a great 2023 in Japan, so the lifetime sales are probably over 5 million. But that is nothing next to the 34 million Switches in the country. So if a game wants to target a Japanese audience… it just makes sense for the Switch to be the lead platform. However… MonHun doesn’t need the Japanese audience to be successful. And big graphics, per the data lead to bigger sales.
Monster Hunter Wilds is coming out for PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC via Steam in 2015.
Omega Force is in such a strange place with the Dynasty Warriors series. The games hit it big during the PS2 era, becoming sizable hits in Japan for channeling a stylish power fantasy filled with elegantly designed characters and technical feats only possible on modern gaming hardware. However, the games developed a poor reputation in the west, due to the frequency of their releases, localizations that prioritized… entertainment, and game critics just not liking them. The Dynasty Warriors, or Musou, series was seen in a pretty negative light for quite some time, and often brushed aside. …However, there was a gradual turnaround about a decade ago, when people started… actually playing them!
I genuinely think that many vocal people just never tried or got invested in these games until then, writing them off based on reputation. Because I remember games like Dynasty Warriors 8 Xtreme Legends, Samurai Warriors 4, Warriors Orochi 3, One Piece: Pirate Warriors 3, and Hyrule Warriors being cited as when the series started getting good (again). And it’s easy to see why. Those games were throbbing with content, diversions, and things to do, all tied into a single value-rich package. …But that was like 2013 to 2016, and views on the titles started souring around the time Warriors All-Stars and Fire Emblem Warriors came out in 2017. They were less polished and refined titles that felt like more of the same and were not as… enthusiastic in their design.
All of this led to 2018’s Dynasty Warriors 9, the Musou series’ bold attempt to branch off into the open world genre… and it sucked! Series developer Omega Force tried to salvage this, going so far as to release an expansion in 2021/2022, but they pretty clearly knew the title was not what people wanted.
With Dynasty Warriors on the backburner, Omega Force instead worked on various other titles that had a… spectrum of quality. Persona 5 Strikers, Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes, and Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity were all well-received side stories that used the traditional gameplay of the Musou series. They put story at the forefront, built on familiar characters, and are basically spinoff sequels. While the 2021 reboot that was Samurai Warriors 5… just picked up the core Musou series from where it was in 2017. Without much, if any, improvements, and from what I recall, less content than Samurai Warriors 4.
I would go deeper but… I only ever played the demo of Age of Calamity, and my mental image of Musou is basically just Capcom’s Sengoku Basara 3. So I might have generalized.
Anyway, with this unenviable position, Omega Force has opted to… just start over with a Dynasty Warriors reboot, ditching the numbering scheme and calling the game Dynasty Warriors: Origins. …The reveal trailer looks dark and boring, completely ignoring the value of camp that earlier titles so valued and provided. People like camp and fun action and endearing character banter. You make anime games that are predicated on just that, and you make those semi-realistic looking guff with zoomed in trailer camera footage? Did you learn nothing?
I’m bitter because I did this history lesson before watching the trailer, but it does not look good.
Dynasty Warriors: Origins is coming out for PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC via Steam in 2015.
I semi-regularly rag on Sony for basically being a completely different company than the ragtag group who developed the PlayStation and forged some of the most wonderful platforms of all time. …Because it is true, and I bloody hate it when this modern American company pretends that they are the ones who made anything more recent than the PS4. They weren’t. The Ship of Theseus might still have some boards from the original boat, but it’s barely recognizable from where it is today. And nothing cements that better than how flippantly they closed Japan Studios, reducing it to just Team Asobi. A good mid-scale developer, with something like 50 employees, and while they mostly worked on supplemental stuff, they do good work.
But just knowing that Team Asobi is all that remains of Japan Studio, that aside from them and Polyphony Digital, Sony is just done with Japan? It makes my blood hot with frustration. Because Japan Studio was the second greatest game developer of all time. The first being Nintendo, third being Sega, and fourth being your favorite. I love them too!
I feel like such a bitch for thinking about this whenever I see Astro Bot, but… how can I? Astro Bot is a 2000’s-Apple-lookin’-ass robot and while they are a cute little thing, their design just screams corporate and design committee to me. They are designed to look good as various tchotchkes, are malleable enough to wear the skins of other people, while being simple enough for a child to draw. They are also so slick and versatile that they may as well be made of magic, avoiding the clunk or machine-ness of a robot, aside from an LED screen for a face. Their tiny little cape just strikes me as a tryhard attempt to look like a protagonist, as they would be too generic otherwise. And… just compare them to any other mascot that Sony has pushed. Astro Bot is missing something vital.
I know this is a cruel reaction to have. Plenty of people fell in love with this little dude in their VR debut, and really wished the Astro’s Playroom game that came bundled with the PS5 was a full campaign, instead of being an hour-long novelty. And I want there to be more non-indie 3D platformers. That genre is really good, and I hate that mediocre licensed games give it a bad name, when they are cheaper to make than many other 3D game genres.
Anyway, this all builds up to the reveal of the frustratingly titled Astro Bot. A full retail 3D platforming adventure featuring Astro Bot, and it looks really damn good. The game looks utterly gorgeous, filled with vibrant colors, elegant animations, and varied locales. The levels are filled with unique Nintendo-esque setpieces to create a memorable journey filled with moments of delight wrapped around a solid foundation. …But rather than forge and find its own identity, the game is a f*cking crossover featuring other Astro Bots cosplaying as PlayStation IPs. Such as Ico, Parappa the Rapper, Uncharted, God of War, and Journey. Oh, and the game uses PlayStation consoles and accessories as spaceships. Stuff Sony is too embarrassed to celebrate in a way more meaningful than this.
It all just makes this game feel like an exercise in branding above all else. One that has its own bouts of creativity, as seen with its bombastic boss battles, but is ultimately beholden to promoting PlayStation as a brand. In reaffirming fandom and infecting others with it by wrapping it around what looks like a refined and polished experience.
Yes, I know this is a bit of an extreme or radical take but… it’s what I felt watching the trailer.
For those who do not view this as a cynical product abusing creativity for profit, Astro Bot will be released for PS5 on September 6, 2024.
There were some other things I could talk about, but… I’m crunching to get things done with re:Dreamer and Press-Switch, so I had to cap this off on Thursday and hope for the best.
2024-05-26: Oops! I was busy with a To Love Ru marathon with Cassie and a shopping trip with my mother. But I did a good two hours of research for one chapter for PS 1988 and read this week’s TSF Showcase subject.
2024-05-27: f*cking balls, I need to stop with the daily classic runs of PokéRogue. It is my ultimate weakness. Despite my best intentions, all I did was write 3,200 words for this week’s Rundown and read The God Power 2: Centaur Madness.
2024-05-28: Wrote 750 word intro for this Rundown, picked out screencaps, made the header image, and wrote 1,300 words for the TSF Showcase. Wrote 1,500 words for the chapter 4 outline for PS 1988, because I went into too much detail.
2024-05-29: Trigger bamboozled me and decided to release Press-Switch v0.6b 11 days after saying it would come in the ‘coming weeks.’ 11 days ain’t weeks by any definition, ya jerk! So I spent my afternoon and evening pouring through code, crafting the flowchart, and skipping through dialogue to figure out what funky sh*t he got up to with this update. Next time, I gotta ask for early access for flowchart purposes.
2024-05-30: Wrote 2,800 words on the S3 and PlayStation whatever bullsh*t, played some Press-Switch, read some of CapCap’s latest 25k word update. Yes, they are CapCap to me, and have been since 2020.
2024-05-31:Read the latest entry in the CapCap Chronicles and finished off the re:Dreamer re:review. That sh*t is rocked, co*cked, and ret-2-f*ck!
2024-06-01:I, somehow, got caught to to the new v0.6b content in Press-Switch and finished most of it. I still need to screw around with the Olivian family stuff though. I’ll get the review ready for Friday, as I want the re:Dreamer review to breathe for a little while. You know, while it is being BURIED in novel chapter releases. I’m good at this!
Current Word Count: 0
Estimated Word Count: 88,000
Words Edited: 0
Total Chapters: 14
Chapters Outlined: 4
Chapters Drafted: 0
Chapters Edited: 0
Header Images Made: 0
Days Until Deadline: 156
And I just realized I will need to do research for most chapters of this motherf*cker… Vee DARN!
