The X Button

Eating Well

This column deals with video games most of the time, but I figure I can squeeze in a tangentially related piece of news once a year. I normally use my allotment when Eden - It's an Endless World!, but this year I'll go with something close to my nerd core: Mystery Science Theater 3000.

MST3K, as it's commonly abbreviated, still enchants many with its premise of a good-natured guy launched into space by mad scientists, who feed him terrible movies in a convoluted bid for world domination. The laid-back hero, played first by show creator Joel Hodgson and later by Michael Nelson, endures the cheeseball films by mocking them with his robot companions. It's a brilliant show that touches on all sorts of humor, and it's probably my favorite TV series of all time. Rarely do I put together a column that doesn't have some vague MST3K reference in the title tags.

Fans often call for Mystery Science Theater 3000's return, since the series went out in 1999 with much of its potential intact. The staff moved on to other projects, including the very MST3K-like Cinematic Titanic and Rifftrax, but many still wanted a full MST3K revival. Now Hodgson has a Kickstarter for exactly that.

I retain some doubt about it. It'll have a new host and characters, and Hodgson has said that the original cast will be “invited back to write, produce, and do cameos.” Yet the Kickstarter shows only Hodgson so far, and it doesn't have the same appeal as the old MST3K episodes. I'm actually a little mad—genuinely nerd-mad like I rarely get—at the write-ups from Crow T. Robot and Tom Servo. Tom in particular sounds creepy and out of character. It's like seeing a Cowboy Bebop sequel where Jet Black is a sex offender.

Nevertheless, I'm excited to see Mystery Science Theater 3000 on track for a revival, and it's already three-fourths of the way to its initial funding goal. I can think of dozens of films I'd love to see lambasted on the new show, from Bloody Trail to Diatron 5. I hope they start with a full treatment of The Green Slime, a delightfully cornball 1968 piece that Hodgson used for the original MST3K pitch video.

And if I need to tie this to video games, MST3K actually cut a promo for an Official PlayStation Magazine demo disc. You can watch the whole thing here. It's a fun trip back to an era when I didn't need anything but Mystery Science Theater 3000 and video games. That's not true anyway...not entirely, anyway.

NEWS

STREET FIGHTER V BANS BUTT BEATINGS, BOTHERS BIASED BUMS
Capcom alters Street Fighter V with each build and beta test, but the latest one kicked off a controversy. In the newest release, Cammy's introduction now angles the viewpoint so as not to show her crotch so blatantly, while Rainbow Mika's Critical Art saw two cosmetic changes: she no longer slaps her butt before the move, and the grand finisher changed so she and her partner Nadesico aren't holding their opponent's legs apart any longer.

And this brought about much complaining, plus a few apparently genuine threats to cancel Street Fighter V pre-orders. It's all nonsense, though I do it that Mika's new finisher loses some of its visual impact. The original spread-legged version looked more comical, like some old Daffy Duck headplant gag. Now it looks more like an action figure stuck in the ground, or a circus acrobatic feat gone wrong. But that's a minor loss at best.

Some point out that Street Fighter V is already awash in sexualized female characters, that Mika and Cammy and newcomer Laura are all voluptuous and scantily clad. So why bother removing a buttslap or tilting a virtual camera? Fighting games go for idealized excess more than any other genre. They're creatures of the id, conjuring a surreal tempest of sex and violence, and that's part of what makes them fun. That's true, but there's a limit to just how far sexuality can go before it's off-putting, and Street Fighter V steps over that line very often.

Moreover, neither edit detracts much from the characters. My least favorite part of Ultra Street Fighter IV is the unavoidable pre-match closeup of Cammy's butt, partly because it's so blatant and partly because it doesn't match Cammy. She's an laconic special agent and former assassin; why would she wear a skimpy battle leotard and practically sit on the camera? Mika is less serious in demeanor and style, of course. She's a pro wrestler with a goofy costume and catchphrases and general gusto. Sexuality is an undeniable part of the wrestling scene, but it's only part of it. For Mika, the buttslaps and jiggling breasts override the delightfully outlandish element of pro-wrestler appeal, and the more Capcom balances that out, the better.

ZODIAC ARRIVES IN FINAL FANTASY STYLE
Zodiac: Orcanon Odyssey is a mobile RPG, but its ambitions run high. The development team ranges from Paris to Tokyo, and the staff includes a bevy of RPG vets: writer Kazushige Nakajima, and composers Hitoshi Sakimoto. The creators at Kobojo are clearly in love with the genre; even when CEO Mario Rizzo spent his days crafting Everquest vignettes at Sony, he'd go home and play Final Fantasy XII.

Now Rizzo and the rest of Kobojo have the classic RPG tribute they always wanted. Zodiac presents a gorgeously illustrated fantasy realm where a warrior named Cael is launched on a journey by an incident surrounding mysterious crystal shards. His companions include his knightly older sister Ulan, the winged warrior Kadyn, the towering beastman Dag, and Eko, a mer-mage who wears a diving suit on land. A landsuit. A walking suit. Whatever you call it.

Zodiac uses familiar sights, right down to the Final Fantasy crystal deal, but it looks handsome and sounds halfway fun. It's also out on iOS today, with Android, Vita, and PlayStation 4 versions to follow.

THE ADVENTURE OF VALKYRIE IS REBORN, BUT MAYBE NOT HERE
Project X Zone 2, that immense five-way collision between game companies, ships this week in Japan. It'll be out in North America early next year, when we'll see if the strategy-RPG does justice to a crossover cast that ranges from Mega Man X and Street Fighter to Saturn pitchman Segata Sanshiro. One thing we won't see here is Project X Zone 2's pre-order bonus game: a 3DS remake of Namco's The Adventure of Valkyrie.

The Adventure of Valkyrie started off as a Famciom action/RPG in 1986 and inspired The Legend of Valkyrie arcade game a few years later. The two combined in an Adventure remake for the PlayStation's Namco Anthology series, and that seems to be the basis for Project X Zone 2's revamp. In this able extra, players control Namco's adorable Valkyrie heroine as she frees a fantasy realm from evil dominion, and she gets help from Xiaomu, the wisecracking, fox-spirit spellcaster whose kitsune hair looks like a big Pikachu tail. Xiaomu's been a staple of crossovers since Namco X Capcom, and she's fully playable in sprite form throughout this new Adventure of Valkyrie. Bandai Namco confirmed to me that the bonus game won't be part of Project X Zone's North American release, but hey, both Xiaomu and Valkyrie are in the central game, along with dozens of other characters.

IMPORT ROUNDUP: OCTOBER

7TH DRAGON III CODE: VFD Developer: Sega Publisher: Sega Platform: Nintendo 3DS Some games openly glamorize dragons: they're heroes in Emerald Dragon and Breath of Fire, faithful steeds in Duel Masters. It's all built around a robust battle system that's just a little flashier than the typical dungeon crawl, and the game even lets characters go on dates with other party . There's no dragon dating, though. That'd be weird. Import Barrier: The battles have the familiar rhythm of enemy attacks and player turns, but the dialogue and the more intricate menus remain in Japanese. At least the basic commands are in English. Domestic Release: The entire 7th Dragon series is seemingly allergic to North America, even though many other dungeon hacks arrive here: Demon Gaze, Etrian Odyssey, and Operation Abyss. Perhaps that's part of the problem. Sega grew conservative in their localizations over the past few years, and no one's stepped up to claim a 7th Dragon title. Dragons: Plenty of 'em. You'll also face mutant rats and rogue security machines and other RPG standards, but the dragons are the real stars here.

GOD EATER RESURRECTION Developer: Shift Publisher: Bandai Namco Entertainment Platform: PlayStation 4 / PS Vita You might the original God Eater. It came here in its improved Gods Eater Burst form in 2011…and, well that was it for these shores. The God Eater games continue on in Japan, and they even inspired an anime series that you can watch streaming in the usual places (even though it's mediocre aside from looking good). Yet Namco Bandai hasn't seen fit to release another game here, even though God Eater has lapped itself with Resurrection, a PlayStation 4 and Vita remake of the game we knew as Gods Eater Burst. Resurrection recasts the first God Eater game with new graphics and manifold tiny enhancements. It still follows the impractically stylish of Fenrir, an organization that hunts down invading Aragami creatures in a world that's not doing so well. The cast includes such posturing hunters as the laconic Lindow Amamiya and the haughty Alisa Illinichina Amiella, but the player controls a male or female hunter of their own customization. Every Fenrir member gets a God Arc, a massive hybrid weapon that changes from a melee instrument to a firearm to a pair of enormous jaws that devours Aragami for their nutritious power-ups. Resurrection improves the original's PSP look and revives the story here and there, adding an epilogue that leads into God Eater 2. Combat also benefits from the sequel's six weapon categories, mid-transformation moves, and better opportunities to consume monsters. As they've done with other anime-game unions, Bandai Namco offers a “Cross-Play” bundle for Resurrection, including the PS4 and Vita versions as well as an anime Blu-Ray volume. Future releases will package the later anime episodes (assuming Pac-Man revamps. That, or Gods Eater Burst sold a lot worse than I've gathered. Dragons: Plenty of fierce reptilian Aragami can for dragons.

YOMAWARI Developer: NIS America is surprisingly quiet about Yomawari, despite it being an apparently easy localization. It's likely we'll see it brought over next year. Dragons: There are some traditional dragons in the mix, though Yomawari's creatures lean more toward classic Japanese yokai than Westernized giant lizards.

NEXT WEEK'S RELEASES

MOCO MOCO FRIENDS Developer: Racjin Publisher: Aksys Games Platform: Nintendo 3DS Release Date: November 17 Stuffed Animals: Not That Kind MSRP: $39.99 Moco Moco Friends is a brave, brave little game. It's a cute and inoffensive tale about young girls gathering together living toys and traveling through dungeons, and yet the timing is bold. Moco Moco Friends clearly imitates Pokémon in its smorgasbord of cuddly little creatures, and it's a dungeon crawler arriving in North America three days before Pokémon Super Mystery Dungeon...which is both a Pokémon game and a dungeon crawler. It may be all fluffy critters and pink hats and magical wands that look like smiling cats, but Moco Moco Friends is ballsy as hell. Of course, there's nothing combative about Moco Moco Friends. It's set in a world called Dreamtopia, and humans live in harmony with sentient stuffed animals called Plushkins. Magicians who befriend these creatures are Plushkin Masters, and the youthful students of the Plushkin Magic School compete in their plush-recruiting prowess. The academy's lowest scorer is a narcoleptic dope named Moco, yet she still manages to graduate and soldier on among her fellow alumni, whose quirks range from random singing to unvarnished academic jealousy. As with many dungeon crawlers, Moco Moco Friends starts players off in a central city, from which they'll explore numerous caves and ruins. Battles are turn-based and involve the Plushkin using their special skills to attack other Plushkin, who smile cheerfully even when they're being smacked in the face by an energy bolt. And so Moco Moco Friends will remain happy, even when Pokémon trounces it in the market.

POKEMON SUPER MYSTERY DUNGEON Developer: Adventures of the Little Koala.

Yasunori Mitsuda of Chrono Cross and Xenogears is on the soundtrack.

SWORD ART ONLINE: LOST SONG Developer: Artdink / Bandai Namco Games Publisher: Bandai Namco Games Platform: PlayStation 4 / PS Vita Release Date: November 17 Infidelity: No MSRP: $59.99 (PS4) / $39.99 (Vita) Hollow Fragment and Infinity Moment weren't terrible attempts at turning Sword Art Online into the video game it always partly was. Yet they were predictable and constrained and just weren't...well, Online, were they? Hollow Fragment allowed for local multiplayer, but neither game let the player explore an online world like the fictional MMORPG envisioned in the Sword Art Online novels and anime series. Of course, that MMORPG kidnaps s and kills them in real life if they lose the game, so perhaps Bandai Namco assumed that fans would be naturally afraid of the Internet. Sword Art Online: Lost Song stages both online multiplayer and solo campaigns in the realm of Svart Alfheim, a mass of floating islands in the larger frame of ALfheim Online. Unbearably perfect protagonists Kirito and Asuna head there with the major Sword Art Online characters, including prior games' Strea and Philia (and even the heretofore manga-exclusive Lux). Svart Alfheim brings up a new struggle and new characters to match: Seven is a professor studying the online realm, Sumeragi is her sword-wielding Undine helper, and Rain is a deceitful Leprechaun dual-wielder. Note that she's a Leprechaun in Sword Art Online's elflike, winged, normal-sized capacity, and not in the diminutive, gold-hoarding sense of Warwick Davis or Darby O'Gill And The Little People. What a different game that would make. True to the aerial scenery of Svart Alfheim, the three-character parties can explore on foot or unfurl their wings and take to the sky. Combat is possible in either mode, and the flying mechanics recall Artdink's Macross shooters (minus the Itano Circus missile storms). Players aren't limited to controlling Kirito, either, as other Sword Art Online regulars and fully customized avatars are playable. This means that Lost Song loses the dating side-games of its predecessors, but those were a bad influence. Kirito and Asuna are married and have a daughter, after all.

Also Available:
With Mario Maker serving as Nintendo's big Mario salvo for the holidays, Mario Tennis Ultra Smash plays mop-up in the Christmas rush. It retains the rules of its predecessor while adding a Mega Battle mode where mushrooms appear on the court and make Mario and company larger. The roster includes regulars like Mario, Luigi, Daisy, Peach, Toad, Donkey Kong, Wario, and Waluigi, with new additions in Rosalina, Toadette, and a Sprixie Princess. I'm still waiting for Wart from Super Mario Bros. 2 to make his tennis comeback.

---