Can an Indie Game Like Trials and Visions of Mana Work?

Indies are indeed better than AAA games because of the fact that indie game developers bear no burden or influence of a AAA company so they would they take risks, their games are reasonably priced and they can develop their games however they want. There are indies that feel like AAA, so I have thought to myself that if I could suggest an indie title, I say an indie game like both Trials of Mana and Visions of Mana. But will an indie game like Square Enix's games work? Let's jump right in.

I am back with another creative post. So probably, it has come to my attention that indie games are better than AAA games. One of those things is wanting an indie game like both Trials of Mana and Visions of Mana. I talked about this in private, so I'm going to monologue in how would it work in this post as a concrete answer.

How Weapons Can Be Used:

First off, we need to talk about weapons and how they are used. The Mana franchise is known for characters that use weapons. Trials of Mana handles characters that wield one weapon and while Visions of Mana has three weapons for each character, depending on the Elemental Vessel they equipped. And this can be innovated so that each character would have three weapons, but would switch between three weapons in their arsenal on the fly and during a combo, like in Tower of Fantasy where characters switch weapons on the fly.

The Party:

Now let's go on to another important thing when it comes to an indie title inspired by the Trials of Mana remake and Visions of Mana, the party. You would know that in Visions of Mana, the party has up to five characters in a party while Trials of Mana has six characters, but can only choose three to be in the party. But if this indie game comes to fruition, we can change that with this innovative approach, all six characters in a party instead of choosing three characters.

The Characters:

Now that I talked about the party and weapons, let's talk about the characters. When it comes to an idea of a Trials and Visions of Mana-esque indie game, the characters in a party would be three male characters and three female characters like in Trials of Mana. There are a lot of possibilities for characters this game would have. Imagine if the indie devs make a character that would have dual fans, a spear and gauntlets in their arsenal like Careena, a character that would have cards, a sword and dual knives in their arsenal like Morley and a character that would have a flail, a scythe and boots for kick attacks like Palamena. And maybe they can also make a character that would have their original performance of having an original arsenal of weapons and maybe a character that would have dual knives, a broadsword and a scythe like Haseo from the .hack franchise, which I think it's perfect for a Darkness-type character.

Plus, there's a deep breath of fresh new ideas when it comes to developing characters and coming up with different combinations of weapons in their arsenal and that's something that indie devs that can take a crack of developing this game can really do without any constraints from a AAA company.

The Combat System:

The Trials of Mana remake has an innovative combat system that Visions of Mana has that finishing battles earns you EXP, money and items. It involves a border that appears during combat and can escape battles. But not in certain battles where the border is red, meaning that you can't escape. A combat system in an indie game like Trials and Visions of Mana can work like that, but can be innovated so that all six characters can be in battle and would earn the same amount of EXP. Think of Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness where it has all characters in a party in battle. It's something that this game can really have as this is an innovative approach.

Weapon Strikes:

You would know that Trials of Mana offers four Class Strikes and each character has their own Class Strike gauge and Visions of Mana has one cinematic Class Strike and one Class Strike gauge the player character must use. But I think an indie game can consolidate that so that each character would have their own Weapon Strike gauge like in Trials of Mana and would only have one cinematic Weapon Strike that would depend on the equipped weapon like in Visions of Mana. This is another thing that involves innovation.

Elemental Vessels:

They have been useful in Visions of Mana when it comes to what elementals enemies are weak, resistant and immune to and they change their class and appearance. But this can be innovated so that if characters are equipped with an Elemental Vessel, they offer elemental powers to their arsenal and appearance to change the way how Weapon Strikes work, but they would still switch weapons on the fly. And without an Elemental Vessel equipped, there are no elemental powers on their arsenal and appearance.

The Synergy System:

And why would I forget about this one feature that I thought would be nice? Escape from Ever After, a Paper Mario-inspired game I came across, is known for having the Synergy system to have abilities that function and measure how strong they are based on the current party and a gauge that fills up when complimenting each other and nailing actions. Honestly, I think this could definetely work in an indie Mana game. Here's what I think of the Synergy system in this game.

What is really cool is that the like the Synergy system in Escape from Ever After uses a gauge that holds up to five bars of SP, generic and character-specific abilities that based on the current party, there would be a gauge that holds up to five bars of the Synergy gauge that is filled up when a player character impresses their allies with their performance only the player character uses and general and character-specific abilities. Think of .hack//G.U. where it uses a Morale gauge that fills up when Haseo impresses his allies with his performance. Speaking of .hack//G.U., there is one thing that could apply to having a Synergy system.

If you're unaware, subsequent volumes of the series introduced powerful Awakening. Vol. 2: Reminisce introduced Divine Awakening, and Vol. 3: Redemption introduced Avatar Awakening. I think we can use both of them for the Synergy system in an indie game inspired by Trials of Mana and Visions of Mana. As I have said, there would be character-specific and general Synergy abilties, so Synergy abilities that consume four bars would work similar to Divine Awakening with a timing of a button press and Synergy abilities that consume all four bars would work similar to Avatar Awakening, but with a different twist that would fit the game's ecosystem to convert enemies into special materials. And they would be specific to each character, measure strength based on the current party. I seem to have a future post that talks about how would an indie game inspired by .hack//G.U. work, so stay tuned for that.

Skill Tree:

Most RPGs have skill trees and they are intended to upgrade a character's stats and learn new skills. Trials of Mana uses class switching and Visions of Mana uses points you receive from activating Elementites using Elemental Vessels and levelling up. But I think an indie game like these two games should use a skill tree to have increases to max stats and learn new skills, new magic and new Synergy abilities. Each character would have a skill tree, and just one, and they earn points from levelling up needed to unlock max stats and new abilities. Think of Tales of Xillia where you earn points for levelling up to increase max stats and new Artes through the Lillium Orb.

The Pilgrimage to the Mana Tree?:

I would love to see an indie game like Trials and Visions of Mana that would involve going on a pilgrimage to the Mana Tree, but it might have copyright issues. But I think we can change that so that the destination would be the Magic Fountain instead of the Mana Tree to avoid copyright issues. That said, the story would involve the party going on a pilgrimage to the Magic Fountain in the Sanctuary to see the world's goddess that maintains life and mana in the world needed for elementals to thrive. Along their way, they'll come across Elemental Vessels. But let's not forget about the threat that could tarnish the world if the fountain falls into evil hands.

I think this could lower the chance of an indie dev of this game getting sued by Square Enix over copyright infringement in terms of the story.

The Story:

I had to talk about this after highlighting the journey to get some details on how would the story unfold and now that the details I need, I can highlight how would story unfold.

The game's storyline would involve a protagonist, who would go on a pilgrimage to the Magic Fountain. Along the way, they meet companies who would join the protagonist on their journey. The forces of evil would come to awaken the threat that can plunge the world into a void of life when the fountain falls into evil hands. Once the fountain falls into evil hands, the threat would emerge and the world would tremble before the threat, which has been a trope villains embrace. It's up to the party to stop the forces of evil from awakening the threat and save the world.

These are the things that I think could work in an indie title inspired by Trials of Mana and Visions of Mana. If this game goes into production, they can be able to develop this game however they want without the shareholding constraints from a AAA game company and release it on both PC and console. And without the shareholding constraints, they will never be laid off, which has been the bone of contention and an ongoing issue among the game industry for years, or rely heavily on microtransactions and greed so that this game would be reasonably priced below $30, appease fans and they'll take some risks to provide innovation to this game. I think people might want this to happen to reflect the fact that people prefer indies over AAA games.

See, when you watch the official trailer and look at the screenshots of this game, you might say, "Dang, this indie game feels like Trials of Mana and Visions of Mana, but why all six characters are in battle?" and "Hold on a sec, am I seeing this character... play like Careena and... Haseo?! And how are they able to switch weapons?!" And that's because it will feel like Trials of Mana and Visions of Mana and have respective innovations that would be callbacks to Tower of Fantasy and Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness like switching weapons in game, even during a combo, and having the whole party in battle. Devs that can take a crack of making this game can literally make a character that feels like Careena and another that feels like Haseo to add a little bit of .hack//G.U, which would be nice for such an indie Haseo character. This applies to that Mightykeef video about Ananta being an upcoming free-to-play anime GTA clone with combat taken from Spider-Man, Sleeping Dogs and the Batman Arkham trilogy. Except that it's not a free-to-play indie title.

Indie games that feel like Square Enix's games are not as common of the game industry today, and it's largely dominated by Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 with its entry of being an indie Final Fantasy game nominated for Game of the Year at the Game Awards. To have indie games inspired by Square Enix's games is a great choice as there is a lot of attention, feedback and not a lot of money, especially to avoid greed. Now, if I recall, there is one indie game that is inspired by Kingdom Hearts and Devil May Cry and it's not an action RPG, and that is Geno Kids, which is now in Early Access. The only game that is purely inspired by Kingdom Hearts coming next year is Duskfade. There is literally one indie title that an indie Mana title can compete with if it goes into production. This means it'll likely do well if this game comes out to bank on the fact of attention.

Some of the things I mentioned in this idea of an indie Mana title can be used for the next Mana title, which may or may not be announced at the Game Awards. If you're interested in knowing more about my pitch to the next Mana title that is called Seasons of Mana or whatever it will be called, here's the link.

https://rpggameroom.blogspot.com/2024/10/seasons-of-mana-pitch.html

Why NOW Is the Time for a NEW SNK vs. Capcom

SNK vs. Capcom is a game that I think needs to come back from hibernation. And because of the popular characters that were released in both fighting games, I think now is the perfect time for SNK and Capcom characters from their fighting game IPs to clash once more, so today, I'm gonna be diving into a classic crossover fighting game that has been dormant for 26 years, SNK vs. Capcom.

I'll be the first to say that I am a huge fan of fighting games. SNK vs. Capcom or Capcom vs. SNK, in particular, brings the magic to the FGC. I like to investigate some details and hints towards a brand new Capcom vs. SNK. Will it come back? Is there's any evidence for it? Are the rumors true? Let's find out now.

Now, I like to preface that since SNK vs. Capcom was founded in 1999, 2024, the previous year marks SNK vs. Capcom's 25th Anniversary, so something did good happen in 2024. But for context, I'm gonna rewind back to 1999 when the series was founded, so I'll be right back into the present.

In 1999, SNK vs. Capcom: The Match of the Millennium was released for the Neo Geo Pocket Color as the first title of the franchise. Then it was ported to the Nintendo Switch in 2021. This is a game that features two on two tag battles and three on three queue battles from the King of Fighters franchise. The game was met with positive reception over the representation of SNK and Capcom characters battling it out. This franchise has characters from their fighting game IPs unlike in the Marvel vs. Capcom franchise where the Capcom side has various IPs.

Back in 2000, Capcom vs. SNK: Millennium Fight 2000, the first title published by Capcom, released on Arcade, Dreamcast and PlayStation. It uses a ratio system that has up to four characters, but the combined ratios must equal and can't go any higher than four and two Grooves, with the SNK Groove based on the Extra mode used from KOF '94 to KOF '98 and the Capcom Groove based on the gameplay from the Street Fighter Alpha series. When 2001 came, Capcom vs. SNK 2: Mark of the Millennium 2001, another Capcom published title, came out for Arcade, Dreamcast, PlayStation 2, GameCube, original Xbox and PlayStation 3 through the PS2 Classics and uses the expanded Groove system that utilizes the core gameplay seen in classic Capcom and SNK titles. 2003 saw the release of SNK vs. Capcom: SvC Chaos, which received a mixed reception over a bland representation and then it was ported to PS4 and Switch in 2024 by Code Mystics with modern features.

After the release of SNK vs. Capcom: Card Fighters DS, the series has went on a hiatus for 18 years and fans are demanding for a new one. In 2021, Hideaki Itsuno had confirmed at one point that they were plans for Capcom vs. SNK 3 to use 3D models, but it was cancelled due to SNK's bankruptcy. There were interviews with SNK that it would be possible to renew their contract with Capcom for more titles, but both companies had agreed to not agree to collab with each other ever again in another interview and it's on the fault of games that are developed by SNK being met with mixed reception, but not the ones developed by Capcom and they're met with widespread positivity.

But fast forward to 2022, Eisuke Ogura and Shinkiro have done the hypest thing. They created special promotional posters that feature both companies' characters to celebrate EVO 2022, the first live tournament since the COVID-19 pandemic. The artwork at EVO paved the way for further collaborations between SNK and Capcom, sparking speculation and fan demand for SNK vs. Capcom's revival.

To push the speculation and fan demand even further, if we fast forward to 2024, multiple crossovers between SNK and Capcom came throughout the year in time for the franchise's 25th Anniversary. During the Summer Game Fest in June, Terry Bogard and Mai Shiranui were announced as guest characters that are a part of Street Fighter 6's second season, and during the Tokyo Game Show in September, Ken Masters and Chun-Li were also announced as guest characters as DLC for Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves. These announcements have sparked speculation and fan demand for a new Capcom vs. SNK game. The fan demand is very high and the odds for a revival weren't impossible, but in an interview, Oda stated that there were hurdles in the way.

However, while there was a big hurdle as Oda stated, SNK vs. Capcom could come back from hibernation because fast forward into today, the present time. If you have been living under a rock like Patrick, Mai Shiranui and Terry Bogard from Fatal Fury have been released on Street Fighter 6 while Ken Masters and Chun-Li from Street Fighter came out in Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves. These four popular characters have received innovations in two respective fighting games, with Terry and Mai's usage of the Drive system and Ken and Chun-Li's usage of the REV system. Their gameplay was universally met with total praise in both games, fueling fan demand and speculation for a potential a new game even further.

And because of Terry and Mai's debut to Street Fighter 6 with their usage of the Drive system and Ken and Chun-Li's debut to Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves with their usage of the REV system, it's safe to say that a new Capcom vs. SNK is likely to come into fruition instead of a new SNK vs. Capcom. Now, the reason why a new Capcom vs. SNK could be confirmed is because of not just Terry and Mai's usage of the Drive system and Ken and Chun-Li's usage of the REV system, but the ones published and developed by Capcom were met with acclaim while the ones developed by SNK were met with mixed reception, so I think it's best for a new Capcom vs. SNK to come to fruition since Capcom vs. SNK is very appealing.

Street Fighter 6 and Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves have shown that with the rich innovation, the right studio behind it, the right environment and the right controls, a fighter-esque masterclass of a game outside the AAA line of companies can be made by Capcom's small teams. They can take a crack at developing a new game with the freedom to develop the new Capcom vs. SNK title however they want without the shareholding shackles and constraints of a big AAA company. After all, bigger doesn't always mean better and smaller companies have agility and can take risks, but less money to mean that small or indie studios have no place for greed so that their games would be reasonably priced. However, playing as Terry and Mai in Street Fighter 6 and playing as Ken and Chun-Li in Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves could be used as an example to pitch a brand new title and to get that title approved by Capcom.

Both games featuring Terry, Mai, Ken and Chun-Li as guest stars have already shown that it serves as a masterclass of a crossover fighting game. In that masterclass is already gonna be the blueprints and DNA for a modern Capcom vs. SNK as playing as Terry and Mai on Street Fighter 6 and Ken and Chun-Li on Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves on Training Mode could serve as tech demos for a modern Capcom vs. SNK. And that modern Capcom vs. SNK game can use the RE Engine and must be based off of Capcom vs. SNK 2 to have a KOF-style 3v3 queue battles format and the CAPSNK Grooves format to have Grooves that utilize the gameplay based on Capcom and SNK's 2.5D games, two control types consisting of Arcade and Modern control types and a huge roster with an even number of characters.

This is a perfect legitimate way to confirm a brand new Capcom vs. SNK game that uses the RE Engine, six Grooves that utilize all of the core aspects from both companies' 2.5D games with Arcade and Modern controls and English voices in mind, so a new game like that sounds like an absolute blast to not just me, but to the rest of the FGC. So will it be a Capcom vs. SNK 3 or whatever it's gonna be called? I don't know and I don't care. I just want to see SNK and Capcom characters face each other again in a modern era with Grooves that utilize the core aspects used in 2.5D games and the RE Engine.

I think we're at the point in time when the Game Awards is fast approaching, so I think that a potential new Capcom vs. SNK might be announced at the Game Awards. We'll just have to wait and see.

The thing is, wanting SNK vs. Capcom to come back in a modern twist is not the only thing that we, the members of the FGC. Porting classic fighting games to modern consoles are also what we wanted. If you want to know more about it, here is the link below.

https://rpggameroom.blogspot.com/2025/10/blog-post-%20companies-plan-of-porting-classic-fighting-games-to-modern-platforms.html

FOLLOWING Things 2XKO REALLY Needs

The new patch for 2XKO came out recently and it looks dead on arrival with targeted nerfs for Yasuo, Ekko and Teemo, buffs for Blitzcrank and UI changes that involved the mode select screen with the all new Learning Hub tab that has tutorials, training, Bot Beatdown, combo trials and advanced, the polished fight card screen with both teams listed horizontally with the red and blue background, etc. But I figured that there are things 2XKO really lacks, so in this post, I'm gonna go over the following things that 2XKO really needs.

But before we get to the things I want, I like to preface that Shaun stated that they are working hard on bringing 2XKO to consoles in its full form as soon as possible. I'm glad to hear that because I want 2XKO to be brought to consoles as soon as possible so that we don't have to keep on playing the PC version when we want to play it on the big screen and that tournament organizers don't have to set up the PC version in offline tournaments as setting up the PC version of a fighting game in offline tournaments comes with problems when it comes to setting up controls and playing it on PS5 in offline tournaments would alleviate that.

This resulted in setting up an offline tournament for Them's Fightin' Herds on the PS5 version to alleviate problems of setting up controls completely. The control settings have unfolded really quick and that's the only thing that porting Them's Fightin' Herds to consoles has benefitted. Since they're working hard on bringing 2XKO to console as soon as possible, it can be either in early December or after the Game Awards, which I think it's perfect.

Now that you're caught up on my rambling about console, on to listing the things I want.

Custom Lobbies

I know that there are already custom lobbies, but currently, they are private lobbies. But this can be cranked up to 11 so that custom lobbies can be both public and private like in any traditional fighting game, especially when players claim that duos are better than solos. However, rewards can't be earned as they are only earned in Casual and Ranked matches.

An Ability to Duo with a Random Player

The survey has a page that lists the potential new features and one of them I put on top is the one I've been wanting since the game entered Closed Beta. It's the ability to duo up with a random player through matchmaking on both Casual and Ranked lobbies so that I wouldn't invite anyone for duos, especially when they're grinding the First Steps missions. It would be nice to have that.

Now, if this proves me right, there was a duos-only online tournament that became a hit. That is BoxJam Slam. It's like Sajam Slam, but dedicated to 2XKO and duos and hosted by Sajam and BoxBox. Riot saw this and decided to encourage duos at some point.

The Return of Two Characters Posing After a Round Win

Ever since Alpha Lab 1, 2XKO used to have a part where both the point and assist characters perform their win pose together when the assist character landed a killing blow. But now, it's removed and I like to see it return because I love seeing two characters perform their win pose. It's bars and I like to see it again.

Cross-Region Play

Riot has planned to support cross-region private matches, which is great, but I think it needs to be amped up a bit so that cross-region play can be done not just in private lobbies, but also in Casual and Ranked lobbies. This makes matchmaking lengths much shorter and since Riot is planning to improve netplay, if a player in North America is playing against a player outside of North America, the lag can be alleviated no matter what region or how high the ping count would be. Think of MultiVersus. There's no lag when playing against an opponent with high ping. If the game comes to console, crossplay will be supported, but not just for players in the same region, but across the globe as well.

Tony Cannon did an awesome monologue talking about how 2XKO handles online play and how they're looking to improve netplay. If you want to learn more about it, I have the link to it below.

https://2xko.riotgames.com/en-us/news/dev/how-2xko-handles-online-play/

Wi-Fi Indicator

Many fighting games like Tekken 8 use a Wi-Fi indicator. The only thing about this is that when lobby owners see the indicator, they kick those who use Wi-Fi out because of the fact that Wi-Fi is less stable than wired. I think 2XKO needs a Wi-Fi indicator to make it easy to tell if players are using Wi-Fi. I am welcoming Wi-Fi players, but they must check their connection first.

Character-specific Voice Lines for Tags

Closed Beta introduced intro dialogues between certain characters. The ones I like best are the ones between Yasuo and Darius and they slap because this duo became the most popular so far in Early Access. So I said to myself, what if 2XKO gets character-specific voice lines for tagging in like in BBTAG? I think they can work, only on those who have intro dialogues between them.

Tag Team Ultimates

2XKO has introduced something that draws inspiration from tag team wrestling. Duo Play is an inspiration from typical tag team wrestling. To make things interesting, 2XKO needs to have Tag Team Ultimates. Have you heard of tag team finishers? Well, here it is.

They can be performed with S1+S2+T when both teammates' super gauge is full. But the catch is that they are only available if the 2X Assist, Double Down or Freestyle Fuse is equipped and if the assist character is alive. They vary depending on the combination of characters, but only to certain characters that have intro dialogues between them. This may be quite a balancing act, but I think they could work in 2XKO.

Jukebox

I would love 2XKO to have a Jukebox feature to change the lobby music. It doesn't have to have music that play in a lobby, but music ranging from character themes to stage themes. I want to listen to Yasuo's theme in the lobby because it slaps to be the "Nothing personal, kid" type of vibe you would experience in Samurai Champloo. To add on to this, I also want a setting that changes the way the music plays in game.

Casual Queues in Training

Riot has confirmed that they are planning to bring Ranked queues in Training so that they don't have to exit and go to a Ranked lobby, which is nice, but I think Casual queues in Training should also be planned. Other fighting games have this and Ranked is a bit too serious and stressful, especially when it comes to ranking up.

More Female Characters:

Forgive me for making this point a dumb choice. I know this may be controversial, but hear me out as I talk about this. Female characters have been very important in fighting games. They are allowed to fight and they're welcome to join a tournament, especially in the very first Mortal Kombat where Sonya Blade is the only female character in the roster. This shows that women and girls need the same level of attention as men, especially in esports leagues.

Now, in this case, 2XKO currently has four female characters. To add on to this, Closed Beta introduced all-female matches as Vi made her debut and they are the best, especially when they draw inspiration from WWE Women's Championship. And the best thing about them is that they make me think of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer promo on the WB, which is now the CW. Plus, a fifth female character is coming to 2XKO, and that's Katarina, the Sinister Blade. We can be able to expect an all-female match to feature our red-haired assassin in 2XKO. More after Katarina are coming too.

The reason why I'm highlighting this is because this is in response to sexists who claimed that women are not allowed to participate in esports leagues. They should know that they are also allowed to be in esports leagues. Umisho is a perfect example of a female competitor. She won Guilty Gear Strive in EVO 2022 to show and convince sexists that women are also allowed to participate in fighting game tournaments. There's no rule against it. They need to understand that or they'll be made as enemies.

These are the following things that 2XKO definetely needs. I'm not saying that these are guaranteed, but what I'm just saying is that these are the things that NEED to be in the game and Riot will listen to my feedback here. And one of the planned things Riot is planning is the annual cadence of releasing five new characters per year, with Katarina being the guaranteed 12th character and the first 2026 character and it driven me to break down the characters I want. I have the link to the post that covers all of it below if you want to know more about it.

https://rpggameroom.blogspot.com/2025/10/2xkos-plan-for-releasing-five-new-characters-per-year.html

Why SEGA Quit the Console Business?

A lot of the gamers think they know exactly why SEGA had to abandon the console manufacturing business. But even SEGA fans may not know every detail. One X user named SuperSisi has prompted us to analyze SEGA's biggest mistakes that caused them to quit the console manufacturing business, so I'm gonna follow her advice and explain why SEGA had to quit manufacturing consoles to restructure themselves to being a third-party developer to release their games on non-SEGA platforms. But before we actually answer why SEGA has quit the console business to restructure themselves to being a third-party developer, we need to talk about the only things that were sold poorly.

First off, SEGA has released the SEGA CD. The SEGA CD plays games that use discs. The one that serves as a tech demo on how the SEGA CD works was Sonic the Hedgehog CD. However, upon release, reception was mixed with praising certain games, but criticizing its value for money and limited upgrades. It has become a dumpster fire of an add-on SEGA has developed that the SEGA CD's fate has been sealed because of its mixed reception.

Over to the 32X. It is another add-on for the SEGA Genesis as a low cost option for 32-bit games. The 32X was also met with poor reception to be criticized for its poor quality that it failed to attract third-party developers and consumers, its weak library, market fragmentation of the Genesis and poor marketing. SEGA sold 800,000 32X units and the rest at huge discounts until it was discontinued as they shifted their focus on the Saturn.

So, the SEGA Saturn is the 5th generation console that uses 64-bit games came out in 1994 in Japan and 1995 in North America. The console is successful in Japan, but failed in North America because of its 1995 rush here. The Saturn's game library was met generally with praise, but it was criticized for having a rushed 1995 release date and lacking a key Saturn-exclusive Sonic title, Sonic X-treme. The Japanese and American divisions exacerbating strategic chaos, which was caused by the Saturn's success in Japan and failure in America.

Now, if you don't know what Sonic X-treme is, it was a 3D platformer for the Saturn. This game uses open levels like Bug!. The storyline of this game follows Sonic's journey to stop Dr. Robotnik from stealing the six magic rings from Tiara Boobowski and her father and use them for evil.

However, it was cancelled because both teams behind this game were crippled two months before the deadline as SEGA announced in early 1997. It was after SEGA instead concetrated on making Nights Into Dreams and a port of the Genesis game, Sonic 3D Blast and the compilation, Sonic Jam for the 1996 holiday season. Because of an original Sonic the Hedgehog game like Sonic X-treme's cancellation and absence, the Saturn became a commercial failure and was slid into a bad Juju land.

Fortunately, there are later Sonic titles that use elements from X-treme, like Sonic Lost World and Sonic Frontiers. The concepts from the cancelled project do belong to SEGA, so they could use them for a brand new Sonic game, including the art of Tiara Boobowski, who seems to be Sonic's first love interest before Amy Rose and Sally Acorn. But that was way before Spyro the Dragon came out to have open levels akin to Sonic X-treme and before Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage! released to have Elora serve as Spyro's love interest and it's something that Sonic X-treme could have if SEGA had materialized it instead of cancelling it.

While the Saturn became a commercial flop due to its lack of a key original Sonic title, it ended up in the top three with the PS1 and Nintendo 64, which is not bad. After the Saturn was discontinued in North America in 1998, SEGA went on to move on to their next console, the SEGA Dreamcast.

The Dreamcast came out in 1998 in Japan and 1999 in North America and other countries. You probably didn't realize what made the Dreamcast so special. It was praised for innovation and its great library of games, including original Sonic platforming games. Not only SEGA didn't make a SEGA Pluto or whatever the name of the next console after Dreamcast. They knew that the Dreamcast would be their last console before they restructure themselves into being a third-party developer after it also slid into a bad Juju land with the Saturn, so we have to answer this question. Why did SEGA abandon the hardware market and restructure themselves as a third-party developer to release games on non-SEGA platforms, and what has caused the Dreamcast to fail and discontinue in 2001?

There is one obvious reason. The Dreamcast's commercial failure was caused by the PS2's launch being the eye of the storm SEGA was in. When the Dreamcast has launched, it was off to a rousing start for online play, until in 2000, Sony came along with the exceptional launch of the PS2. It has ruined SEGA's reputation as Sony was financially able to do everything SEGA couldn't that the PS2 became renowned in sales, even at launch.

Can you even believe that SEGA blatantly struggled on the Dreamcast so hard? The PS2 has nailed the grand slam with selling an outstanding number of units at launch. Sony made a nearly perfect developer-friendly console that has great games and key games exclusive to their platform. This exposed a HUGE reason why SEGA had to quit the console manufacturing business to restructure themselves into being a third-party developer in the software business because they were caught in the eye of the storm being the PlayStation 2's exceptional launch.

I have looked more into this and it turns out that SEGA wasn't the first company that restructured themselves as a third-party developer because of the Dreamcast's commercial failure because there are two companies that did this before SEGA did, like the 3DO Company and Atari. They are first two companies that restructured themselves into becoming third-party developers to release games on non-3DO and non-Atari platforms following the failures of the 3DO platform and the Atari Jaguar. It was clearly dunked on.

Now, I say that it's easy, but it's not. Shifting from being a console manufacturer to being a third-party developer is extremely difficult. They had to call it quits on manufacturing consoles and reorganize tech to develop games and release them on other consoles.

SEGA's shift from the console business to being a third-party developer comes with Microsoft taking their place as the console manufacturer for their first console, the original Xbox, to succeed what SEGA has failed with the Dreamcast. Following SEGA's shift to being a third-party developer after the Dreamcast dropped the ball because of the PS2's launch going off to a blazing start, they began porting their games that were released on the Dreamcast to the GameCube like Sonic Adventure 2 and Crazy Taxi. It became a starting point for SEGA being a third-party developer.

It turned out well that they went on to release games not on the GameCube, but other non-SEGA platforms in the 6th generation-era and beyond like Sonic Heroes, the first new Sonic title they ever released since their shift to being a third-party developer. Super Monkey Ball and Jet Set Radio Future would be launch titles for the GameCube and original Xbox. So far, SEGA releasing their games on non-SEGA consoles, even on this generation, went well so far and will never return to the old console manufacturing business following the failures of the 32X, Saturn and Dreamcast.

SEGA didn't have the time to come up with strategies or urge EA and SquareSoft to develop games to keep the Dreamcast alive because Sony has ruined their reputation. In fact, the Dreamcast's fate was sealed, it was reported that the PS2's overwhelming launch sales is a great sign that Sony was able to financially do everything SEGA couldn't because of the fact that the PS2 is developer-friendly and became the bestselling console of all time. It did well in both the American and Japanese markets that many third-party developers, including SEGA, were able to develop and release their games well on it without losing money. And if you were in the eye of the storm of the other console's launch, guess what you're doing almost every day! Imagine if your reputation was ruined. When your console gets off to a great start in your console manufacturing business, your foe's console launch has skyrocketed in sales and you had to restructure your business to being a third-party developer to release games on other platforms.

And it wasn't just the PS2 that became the most popular console, but the PS1 as well, Sony's very first console that is turning 31 years old soon. If you want to know more about the PS1 and PS2's spectacular launch sales and how both of them became a grand slam, I have the link to the post that covers it all.

https://rpggameroom.blogspot.com/2025/07/blog-post-the-ps1-and-ps2-became-gems-of-the-gaming-industry.html

SG's New Chapter is BIG

According to the statement, Jason Donnell of Autumn Games has stated that the next chapter of Skullgirls development is gonna be big and Autumn is stepping up to leading the development of Skullgirls. But how is this chapter big? Let's take a dive into the post.

I'm back with another standalone Skullgirls post. Also, as you can see, it has been a year since my father died and will soon be a year since I attended at my father's funeral at my old stomping grounds. But let's not talk about that and move on to something very interesting. Anyway, let's get right into the post.

Autumn Games has owned the rights of the Skullgirls IP from the get-go. For years, they have worked behind the scenes as the unwavering backbone of Skullgirls, ensuring its grouth. They have been working with multiple teams like Reverge Labs, Lab Zero Games, Future Club and Hidden Variable, before they quit Skullgirls development of course. Now, before I tell you what happened to Hidden Variable and why they quit Skullgirls development, I like to rewind back to the point where Hidden Variable took over for 2nd Encore's development.

Back in 2020, the developers had left Lab Zero Games because of Mike Z's behavior and went on to form their own development studio dubbed thee Future Club. This is a development studio they formed and it's basically the same people without Mike Z. They also stepped up for the development of the Skullgirls IP with Hidden Variable because they stated that they planned to work with the people who left Lab Zero, which is a great thing. Back in 2021, the next chapter of Skullgirls development has began with the Season 1 Pass that contains four new characters. Back in 2024, the Season 1 Pass containing Annie, Umbrella, Black Dahlia and Marie is complete and the update for the Nintendo Switch and Xbox ports were done and dusted so that they would double their efforts on the general balance patch. Originally, they wanted to bring in the additional voice content, but they decided to release it in 2025 for quality so that there wouldn't be problems. But what happened, and why we haven't gotten word about them?

Well, let's get to what is factual on what we heard on the grapevine of things. In November 1, 2024, the payments have rolled in and Hidden Variable stated that Autumn must make that payment to them. But Autumn refused to make a single payment they owed, not one. Because of Autumn's refusal to make payments, Hidden Variable has quit Skullgirls development because of the legal dispute with Autumn Games for alleged breaches of contract, implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing and for goods and services rendered according to the court papers and for $1.2 million in unpaid fees. That explains why we haven't gotten a roadmap in January. They also added that they wouldn't make further comments until the dispute is resolved. But we haven't heard from Hidden Variable yet because they are still having a legal battle with Autumn for eight months.

It wasn't just Hidden Variable that is no longer involved in Skullgirls development, but Future Club as well, the same people minus Mike Z that quietly quit Skullgirls development as they were working on their first original indie title, Part Time Hero: I'm Broke, but I'm Here to Save the World. But it did not reach the funding goal. It fell way short from it. And now, they are on hibernation, but they'll be back at some point. And now, with literally no developer in sight, there's no way Skullgirls can continue active development... until one glimmer of hope came.

Jason Donnell of Autumn Games had released a statement saying that Skullgirls is more than just a game, it's a passion project. They are stepping up to reinvest in the IP. To make it even more groundbreaking, Guilds are coming to Mobile later this year and we're getting close to their release as they are in the final stages of testing. That is nice, but that's only just a taste on how Autumn would usurp Skullgirls development. Since Autumn is taking over, left over pieces of content such as the third Guest Star being Roxie, additional VO for the Season Pass characters and the second season of the Webtoon adaptation are still on the docket. Skullgirls is about to be taken into the next chapter and the Mobile release is going strong that we're even getting more Silver Variants every month and Guilds are getting closer to launch.

How is that possible? Well, Hidden Variable has said that they gave Autumn until January 21 to make payments they owe to them. However, when none of the payments came, Hidden Variable has provided Autumn with all of the account login information required to continue providing community support for the game so that it wouldn't cause a single damage to it so that Mobile and 2nd Encore would continue active development regardless. They done that before quitting Skullgirls development and suing Autumn.

Speaking of 2nd Encore, this brings me to my point. Remember what I said that additional VO for the Season Pass characters are still on the docket? I don't think that we're get the additional VO for the Season Pass characters this year Hidden Variable had originally planned before they quit Skullgirls development, so I have thought about this for a while and believe that Autumn is not gonna pick up where Hidden Variable left off during the development of 2nd Encore this year because they got to get the extraordinarily long promised feature being Guilds out of the way first before taking over 2nd Encore development. But that's just me speculating and spitballing. But it can be true because if we go back to Jason for a second here...

"However, it has become especially clear that we have not been delivering on our promises to you the fans; to bring new characters, stories, features, and game modes in the way you deserved. To be blunt, that is why we're making changes now."

"We are not a massive corporation stepping in to take over; we are game developers, storytellers, and passionate fans, just like you."

Now, this is something you need to hone in on. This means Autumn is making changes to guarantee us to bring in new characters, stories and all that to not just Mobile, but 2nd Encore as well in the way we wanted, so Roxie and the Season 2 Pass are thankfully still on the docket and this is considered as big. Just so you know, I don't think that Autumn is gonna poke the bear when it comes to Skullgirls that they wouldn't release new characters or pick up where Hidden Variable left off with development of left over content like additional VO for the Season Pass characters in 2nd Encore until the Guilds are released as Guilds are an extraordinarily long promised feature being the most important one and fair enough.

Since Skullgirls is staying, this also means the second season of the Webtoon adaptation is still on the docket, living up to the fact that the people at Autumn are not just game developers, but storytellers as well. I want to know what will happen next because Season 1 left me on a cliffhanger. And hey, you know what would be also cool? A Skullgirls anime adapatation on Netflix. With all of the awesomeness that would be Pokemon: Advanced Battle, Arcane, Sonic Prime, Johnny Test, League of Super Evil, Looney Tunes, Bob's Burgers, Kim Possible, Sonic the Hedgehog SatAM and even a little bit on Super Mario Bros. Z, an anime adaptation on Netflix would be awesome.

See, you would know that the 2nd Encore post from January 20th being the final post before January 21st when Hidden Variable stated that they're no longer involved in Skullgirls development due to Autumn being the subject of litigation reminds me of the transition between the Walt Disney Television logo to the Buena Vista International Inc. logo. However, it did not get as close as it did with the Cartoon Network skull logo. While Autumn taking over Skullgirls' ongoing development is a great deal, there is one thing that could've happened that serves as a silver-lining of all this.

Now, if I remember correctly, Naughty Dog and Sony had worked together under a licensing deal from Universal to make Crash Team Racing after Sony negotiated between the companies after Universal treated Naughty Dog poorly by turning off the air conditioning to the building, right? So, if Future Club was still involved in Skullgirls' development while Hidden Variable is still having a legal dispute with Autumn, then maybe they could negotiate between the companies so that both Hidden Variable and Future Club would work together under a licensing deal from Autumn so that Hidden Variable would have the least amount of contact with Autumn as possible.

But rest assured that this will be a good difference that if Autumn get Guilds out of the way in November or December, the new chapter of Skullgirls development can REALLY begin in 2026. That will hopefully light the way for a brilliant future for both 2nd Encore and Mobile. They will not make a lampoon out of themselves in both sections like they did to get themselves wound up getting sued by Hidden Variable for breach of contract and $1.2 million after their refusal to pay what they owe.

Speaking of making a lampoon out of themselves in both sections, did you know that moderators of the Skullheart forums made a lampoon out of themselves with their pig slop low content post penalty smear, on both the Beta thread and the visual issue reporting thread? I have the link to the post that covers all of that if you're interested.

https://rpggameroom.blogspot.com/2024/06/low-content-post-penalty-rant.html

PlayStation 2 Turns 25!

It's official, gaming fans. The PlayStation 2 has turned 25 when it came out in Japan and in North America. This is the console that became developer-friendly and has most popular and critically acclaimed titles. In fact, it is arguably one of our most favorite Sony consoles of all time. I'm gonna start from the beginning on playing PS2 games during my childhood as well as the life cycle.

October 26 is when the PS2 came out in North America. There was a point of time when I was playing PS2 games during my childhood when I was a kid. I have enjoyed a lot of them and I was astonished at them. This console became the most popular because of backwards compatibility to every PS1 game and accessory, most popular and acclaimed titles and all that. It became developer-friendly unlike other platforms that failed and didn't come close to the renowned Sony did in both eras. This has exposed a reason why I'm into PS2 games as I am with PS1 games because both consoles became renowned and so appealing.

I remember what former PlayStation boss, Jim Ryan, has said about PS1 and PS2 games while he was at a Gran Turismo event. He has disrespected and infuriated us retro gamers to our face by spurning retro gaming just because they looked ancient. He said all that about what we love and cherished for years. How dare he talk down to the golden media that is playing PS1 and PS2 games.

When the PS3 came out, none of the models support full backwards compatibility. Some are backwards compatible to PS1 games while some are backwards compatible to PS2 games. The PS3 has a vast library of PS1 games, but a limited selection of PS2 games, which doesn't do us any good. Then PS Now came to have a limited selection of PS2 games and that's not nearly enough. I have been wanting to revisit my PS2 games from my childhood other than the ones on PS Now, but none of Sony's modern platforms were fully backwards compatible to classic generations because of the PS3's Cell processor and PS Now has had a limited selection, rendering it terrible. For years, we've been requesting for an upgrade to PS Now that would bring in a PS1 catalog and a vast selection of games.

But fast forward to 2022, Sony has planned to compete with Xbox Game Pass by developing a beefed up PlayStation Plus with two additional tiers, Extra and Premium. The Premium Tier caught millions of players' eye that it offers a vast selection of PS1, PS2, PS3 and PSP games. This was met with fan excitement about those that are looking forward to playing their games they played during their childhood. However, when the service launched, there aren't any new PS2 games so far, until in 2024 when Sony has a brand new PS2 emulator to pave the way for more PS2 games. Finally, my endeavor to revisit PS2 games I played during my childhood has been claimed after all these years.

It went well with revisiting Sly Cooper and the Thievious Raccoonus, a PS2 game I played during my childhood. I pretty much loved it and I have beaten it, but not when I was a kid. It also went well with revisiting the sequel. I loved the innovations the game has made, having a Mickey, Donald and Goofy-style trio. I am looking forward to revisit Sly 3 and its crazy adventures soon. I gave my shoutout to Kevin Miller for killing the voice acting of Sly Cooper, both when I was a kid and in this generation.

And I heard Sucker Punch is eyeing on the return of Sly Cooper or the third Ghost game. I thought Sucker Punch said that they're done with Sly Cooper after Sanzaru took over. I think Sucker Punch should bring Sly Cooper back into the limelight and resolve the cliffhanger that was left off in Thieves in Time. Sly is stuck in Egypt and we need them to get him out of there lickety-split and maybe have an episode where the Cooper Gang goes to Hawaii in search of a new member of the Cooper Gang because none of the games involved a Hawaii episode.

To support a Hawaii episode for the new Sly Cooper, I made an Old Man Sly video where the Cooper Gang are going to Hawaii in search of a new member. I have the link, so go check it out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkREGugNbRI

Of course, I had to make this video that features the new gal from Hawaii where Old Man Sly throws a tantrum over desserts at Boss' Pizza & Chicken. I have the link to it below as well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4BTFMhNsfk

So originally, this video was supposed to cover that place I want to go in my old stomping grounds, Wana Pizza, but decided to make it Boss' Pizza & Chicken instead. How ironic that being around those people in big places at my old stomping grounds to bolster seeking my old friends and the Lerner and Rowe 222-2222 phone number on screen would apply to this.

I was able to put the whole Cooper Gang together, including the new gal from Hawaii between Penelope and Sly. Her name is Moana and this character's name is NOT affiliated with Disney in any way, shape or form or appear in any of the games. You need to understand this. Also, I have the next Old Man Sly in the works that is gonna be big. Keep your eyes peeled for that. Of course, Hawaii being a charming place I want to visit since I conquered my fear of flying is because of its names that originate there. However, nothing in that has ever got as close as it did with the part where I watched Moana 2 and the live action Lilo and Stitch remake, so I listened to Yasuo's theme in 2XKO for honor. Great movies by the way.

The process of releasing PS2 games is turning out to be smooth so far and had not backfired. Not one time. If I recall correctly, they have been releasing a lot of PS2 games so far to make things up, especially when PlayStation turned 30, three new PS2 games were revealed with a little bit of Sly Cooper news and it became a big win for us. See, I loved some of these games as a kid and been holding dearly to my heart today. But I prefer the ones that are third-party.

However, while the PS2 does have critically acclaimed and most popular titles like the PS1, there are two outliers that have games that were released on the PS2, but they couldn't become successful like those in the PS1 era, the orange marsupial Crash Bandicoot and the purple fiery roastmaster Spyro the Dragon. Both of them became kings of the PlayStation in their time in their original trilogies that became the most popular. Naughty Dog and Insomniac had a three-game contract with Universal to develop the original trilogies after the release of Way of the Warrior and Disruptor. They are the developers of Crash and Spyro that made Universal so amazing even though they treated them like crap just by turning off the air conditioner to the building during crunch time, which is just not cool.

After Naughty Dog and Insomniac left for Sony to make Jak and Daxter and Ratchet and Clank for the PS2, things took a turn for the franchises after the IPs were passed to different studios to continue the franchises. None of the games that came out after the original trilogies came close to the renowned the originals did. We can all agree that they all fell short because Universal became a terrible company and they had NO idea what they were doing. But I do love some of these games as a kid and been wanting to revisit them today. I don't care if none of them came close to how well the originals have performed. I just want to revisit the Wrath of Cortex, which sold more units than the original trilogy being an excuse to defend it and its great music.

But here's another thing. Not only the PS2 is developer-friendly, but has great games based on TV shows, movies and anime. The Simpsons: Hit & Run became a perfect example of a great game based on a TV show. While not critically acclaimed, it's a decent game overall. The plot is bearable and based on the unhinged moments we seen in the Simpsons. Then Buffy the Vampire Slayer came along to receive a video game adaptation. There are games based on anime like Dragon Ball Z, One Piece and Naruto. They became successful. These games are what made the PS2 so appealing. Japanese companies were able to develop games for the PS2 well without losing any money.

Japanese companies developing games on the PS2 led to releasing games by NIS, Square Enix and other companies. There is a vast majority of games released on the Japanese market. The GameCube also did do somewhat well in the Japanese market, but the original Xbox however, didn't do well in the Japanese market because the system was well-liked in the American market. This exposed why the PS2 became the bestselling system in the 6th generation because it was developer-friendly like the PS1.

Couple things to conclude with on what makes the PS2 generation the best generation like other consoles in the 6th generation is first off, the use of elements and things like Dolby Pro Logic II, Sofdec, ADX and THX, advanced power and games produced by nostalgic defunct video game companies. These respective elements have less room for error and their respective logos were present in retro 3D generations. And one of those games that use Sofdec and ADX coming to the classics catalog is Soul Calibur III. This is the first ever PS2 game that uses Sofdec and ADX to come to the classics catalog and the second PS2 game to use THX and it's a big win with Tekken 3. However, there won't be any trophies since it's a Bandai Namco title. But who cares about trophies? What matters is us revisiting this game.

Now let's go on to the next thing, nostalgic video game companies. I have to stress out nostalgic defunct video game companies. What do I mean is that I'm talking about nostalgic companies that started developing games on the third generation-era and went defunct during the fifth, sixth and seventh generation eras, like Midway, THQ, Universal (not the movie company), Namco, SquareSoft, Enix, Koei and Tecmo. The ones that aren't nostalgic are SEGA, EA, Activision, Ubisoft, Bandai Namco, Square Enix, Koei Tecmo, and WB Games. They aren't considered as nostalgic because they are still prevalent and around in today's market and in this generation.

This gaming generation does suck because of greed banked by AAA companies' handling of microtransactions and $70 games that caused frustration. That's why they prefer indies now because they're reasonably priced. I prefer indies too, especially the ones that are released on consoles. But I loved the new systems that produce faster loading times, 4K resolution at 60 FPS and Sony's innovative approach of the DualSense controller.

I prefer to play my oldies on PS5 rather than buying a PS2 or PS1 and its games because downloading classics on PS5 and PS4 is much faster and they have shorter load times when playing them in any of the modern systems. You don't even have to purchase a PS2 and its physical games. Heck, Tekken 3 launched in the classics catalog and this was met with excitement from nostalgic gamers.

When it comes to not just PS2 games, but also PS1 games that have silent copyright and trademark notice screens and logos after that, they have been my favorite part in gaming. I would reset my console to watch the flow over and over. Fast forward to now, playing PS1 and PS2 games given me an option to record the flows and that's something I would do. They don't take up too much space. See, embracing the copyright and trademark notice screens and the logos after them was the reason why the 6th generation of gaming had to be the best and I am still embracing them today once I record them.

There are endless possibilities for us retro gamers that will cherish the golden standard and fair enough, even on the PS6 and the PSVita 2 or whatever the new handheld console is gonna be called Sony is planning is being greenlit to have backwards compatibility support on PS4, PS5 and PS6, but not on PS1, PS2 and PS3 sadly due to two obvious things; the PS3's Cell processor and its notoriously weird structure. This hurdle prevented modern Sony consoles from achieving full backwards compatibility and is why the PS3 games are only available through streaming and it requires an Internet connection that playing remasters of games released on the PS3 is the way.

But the beefed up PlayStation Plus will continue on the new handheld console so that retro titles, with the exception of PS3 games, would be played on the go. I'm not getting the PS6, but I'm getting the new handheld console to play not just new games on the go, but to also play games I played in my childhood on the go, including PS2 games. But I look specifically at third-party games as they would be catering to using the respective elements and being produced by defunct game companies.

All of this is why the PS2 is our most favorite console of all time. We can be able to celebrate the console's 25th year by playing PS2 games on the PS4 and PS5, including Tomb Raider: Anniversary and Soul Calibur III, which are the two new PS2 games launching on the classics catalog this year and they are going to be a part of the PS2's 25th year celebration to make things even more exciting.

However, the lackluster one classic game per month release cadence was slammed by many, especially when there are many of their fan-favorites are just itching to be on the classics catalog. But Sony is listening to the criticism surrounding the one classic game per month release cadence and they will never return to their lackluster cadence ever again and hopefully picking up the pace by releasing five classic games per month, so this means the Simpsons Hit & Run, Ape Escape 3, Ratchet and Clank (Not the PS3 release) and other heavy hitters will have more of a chance. Regardless, the PS2's 25th anniversary will still be hype because we can play PS2 games on the PS4 and PS5, including the ones with emulation features.

We saw the brand's 30th anniversary celebration become even more hype because of PlayStation Plus Premium that we can be able to play PS1 games on the PS4 and PS5. I have the link to the post that covered it all right here.

https://rpggameroom.blogspot.com/2024/12/playstation-30th-anniversary-is-here.html

Companies' Plan of Porting Classic Fighting Games to Modern Platforms

There are diehard classic fighting game fans of the FGC that are wanting to revisit fighting games from back in the day and their wish has been fulfilled. Several companies are porting their beloved classic fighting games to modern consoles and I have some groundbreaking news to give you, so you must stay tuned until the end of the post. Anyway, let's dive right into the post.

If you're a big fan of Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat, you probably played any of these games in the 90s when you were younger, and that's nice. But specifically, I like to point out to the practice the companies are planning to do. It has come to my attention that companies like Capcom are open to porting their classic fighting games to modern platforms with online play with rollback netcode and a ton of other modern features. Diehard FGC members are itching to revisit classic fighting games back in the day and it's exactly happening.

First off, Capcom was able to compile their retro fighters into several compilations, like Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection and Capcom Fighting Collection 1 and 2 and Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics.th All of the compilations became successful among those of the FGC who like to revisit them when they were kids. All of the collections are available now, so go check them out.

Now, there is not one, but two companies that are following Capcom's footsteps. Warner Bros. and NetherRealm Studios have announced the Mortal Kombat Legacy Kollection. It's a compilation that has every classic Mortal Kombat game, including the two spin-offs that were universally hated, Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces. Both games were critically panned over bland and repetitive gameplay, poor storytelling and unbearable difficulty. Both games were universally hated. I am suprised that they revealed the two critical pan-worthy spin-offs instead of the 2000s 3D-era trilogy that involves switching between three fighting styles, so they might be seen in Vol. 2. Who knows? The collection is available now, so go check it out.

The FGC is in a bit of a thriving moment. Modern fighting games weren't hated. They have innovations that people favored. Marvel Tokon became a perfect example of being an innovative tag team-oriented fighting game with 4v4 combat that teams share with one health bar unlike typical tag-oriented fighting games. Marvel Tokon is developed by Arc System Works, the Japanese company that is not a part of Sony, so it is a AA developer free from influence of a AAA company, meaning that Arc System Works has somewhat of a freedom to develop their games however they want and they met the critieria indie and AA devs have met.

I have to cut to the chase and explain why I love to revisit fighting games from back in the day. When it comes to classic fighting games, they don't bear bad influences of AAA developers they have today, especially to the fifth, sixth and seventh generations of gaming, which I think it's perfect. I ignored compilations of retro fighting games as we have compilations of them in this generation today. That said, I like to talk about classic fighting games from retro 3D generations that are available in the classics catalog today.

Very loosely, there are classic fighting games currently available in the classics catalog. On the Nintendo side of things, Killer Instinct Gold is now available on the N64 Classics catalog and Soul Calibur II is available on the Switch 2-exclusive GameCube Classics catalog, so you need a Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack membership to play them. And on the Sony side of things, Tekken 2, Tekken 6 for the PSP and Soul Calibur: Broken Destiny are available now on the classics catalog and they are also purchaseable so that you can play them 24/7. And here's the groundbreaking part regarding classic fighting games.

During September's State of Play, two additional classic fighting games have been revealed. They were revealed to be Tekken 3 and Soul Calibur III. Bandai Namco, or should I say Namco's, threequels of fighting games are coming to the catalog later this year and this marks a less lackluster lineup. So why these games deserved to be in the classics catalog? Let's get to the topic.

First off, Tekken 3. This game is the peak of the franchise and the final game to ever be released on the PS1 before later games of the franchise get released on the PS2. It released in arcades before being ported to consoles. There's even a Tekken Force side scrolling beat-em-up game mode and a Tekken Ball game mode. My brother played this game when he was young. I played it when I was young as well and I pretty much loved it. I have been wanting this game to come to the PS3's library of PS1 games and it's finally available on classics catalog on the PS4 and PS5 along with Tekken 2. This month's lackluster lineup may have one game, but what matters is that it's one game I wished for and that's Tekken 3.

Interestingly, Tekken 3 won't be the only threequel under the Namco name because Soul Calibur III is also coming to the classics catalog later this year. This is another fighting game I played back in the day and it's a direct sequel to Soul Calibur II. I have rented it from Hollywood Video in my old stomping grounds and I loved it. And it uses Sofdec, ADX, and THX. We know Tomb Raider: Anniversary is launching in November, but it's unknown as to when Soul Calibur III is launching, but I would say December. You see, Sofdec, ADX and THX are the reason why the 6th generation-era had to be the best era and the first game that uses these elements coming to PlayStation Plus is Soul Calibur III.

And I have received another piece of groundbreaking news. Edia is open to bringing the original Battle Arena Toshinden trilogy released on the PS1 to modern consoles. This was met with excitement among fans who played these games before. I know I never played Battle Arena Toshinden, but I'm interested in these games. This is another big win for us in the fighting game community, along with Tekken 3 and Soul Calibur III launching this year, exciting the ever thriving FGC as they became a unwavering backbone of the community. It's possible that EVO and Combo Breaker are two tournaments that showcased throwback fighting games, so we can see a retro fighting game tournament someday.

We're seeing more classic fighting games released in 3D retro generations coming to the classics catalog. This means the first Tekken, Bloody Roar, Dragon Ball Z: Budokai, Naruto: Ultimate Ninja and Clash of Ninja, the 3D-era Mortal Kombat games that involve switching styles and even wrestling games that are more charming and revolutionary under the THQ umbrella than the ones under the 2K umbrella, especially the ones released on 6th generation titles, may have more of a guaranteed chance to release on Nintendo and Sony's classics catalog on their modern platforms. That's something we can chase for.

Retro fighting games from back in the day being ported to modern platforms aren't the only things to chase for because we're also chasing for not one, but two things; two of the Simpsons games developed by Radical and the original Crash and Spyro games. I have two links to two posts covering the following.

https://rpggameroom.blogspot.com/2025/04/radicals-two-simpsons-games.html

https://rpggameroom.blogspot.com/2025/10/playstations-two-legendary-ips.html

PlayStation's Two Legendary IPs

The PlayStation was established in 1994 when the first came out in Japan. Fast forward to 1996, and one of the legendary IPs came in and to 1998, another one came in. I like to talk about how PlayStation has those two kings in this post. We all know that PlayStation is the brand that was launched in 1994, the year I was born and the brand will soon be turning 31 this year. 1996, one man who worked for Universal was an executive producer named Mark Cerny and his friends, came in to hire the developers for their three-game contract.

Universal has brought on and hired Naughty Dog for their three-game contract after being impressed their first game that is a fighting game, Way of the Warrior, released on a platform called the 3DO. The system was licensed by Panasonic, Sanyo and Samsung and made by Trip Hawkins, the founder of EA. When Naughty Dog finished Way of the Warrior, they had a three-game contract with Universal. Naughty Dog wanted to make a 2.5D platformer that is family-friendly for the PS1. That's where Willy the Wombat comes in. Naughty Dog continued development, but wasn't a fan of the name and asked Universal if they can change it to something that fits well.

However, after the developers put in crates into the game in a way to make levels more fun and challenging, they came up with a different name, Crash Bandicoot. Universal didn't want to call it that however. It was all or nothing that Naughty Dog threatened to risk dropping the project completely if Universal doesn't accept the Crash Bandicoot name. So they did and Naughty Dog went on with the project. After Naughty Dog entered crunch time during the development of Crash Bandicoot: Warped, Universal caused the poor treatment to Naughty Dog by turning off the air conditioning to the building. How dare they turn off the air conditioner to the building during crunch time and treat Naughty Dog like garbage. It's not cool.

The only genius thing is that because Crash Bandicoot resonated well in the North American and Japanese markets as Sony is based on both countries, he became the first PlayStation mascot along with Mario being a mascot for Nintendo and Sonic being a mascot for SEGA. But there is a bit of a problem. Naughty Dog may have worked with Mark Cerny and directly with Sony to develop the original Crash titles, but neither Naughty Dog nor Sony owned the rights of Crash Bandicoot. Universal did, generally meaning that they can brand the IP however they wished and wanted.

Naughty Dog wanted to leave the Crash IP in its entirety once their three-game contract was up after Crash 3's release after they grew tired of Universal's poor treatment, but PlayStation wanted another Crash game. But following Universal's poor treatment, Naughty Dog refused to work with Universal. Additionally, they wanted to get away from the platforming scene and do something different like making a kart racer, so after Sony negotiated with the companies, PlayStation has conducted it so that Naughty Dog and Sony would work together under a licensing deal from Universal so that Naughty Dog would have the least amount of contact with Universal as possible.

This has resulted in the development of Crash Team Racing. This is a spin-off racing game that doesn't count as a mainline game because CTR was developed by Naughty Dog without a contract. But it would be Naughty Dog's final Crash game. Sony negotiatiing between the companies is a good deal after Naughty Dog refused to work with Universal after their poor treatment. However, nothing has ever gotten as close with Hidden Variable suing Autumn for a breach of contract and Future Club didn't even bother negotiating between the companies.

If you look at the release dates of each game, the first game came out in 1996. Then a sequel came in 1997, followed by the final game of the original trilogy in 1998. The cherry on top of it, CTR came out in 1999. Naughty Dog was able to release a game every year for four years. Skylanders also has the practice of releasing a game every year, but there are multple studios that are working on the projects to help alleviate the workload for all teams. Naughty Dog did it all solo.

Now let's move on to Insomniac Games. But I like to start from the beginning on talking about Insmoniac before getting to the point of making a legendary IP.

Insomniac Games was developing their very first game, Disruptor, for the 3DO. After looking at the Arabic hieroglyphics on the wall, they knew that the 3DO was sold poorly, so they came up with an idea to keep the Disruptor project alive by shifting it from being a 3DO-based platform to Sony's first console they just launched, the PlayStation. But with no money left in the bank and no resources in sight, they had one last chance left with a meeting of Mark Cerny, former executive producer of Universal. Mark was impressed with the team on how they were able to do with Disruptor, so in a spirit of commerce, they actually elected to publish Disruptor under the Universal umbrella for the PS1.

In terms of sales, the game didn't do well because it was intended for mature audiences, so Cerny knew that with the proper resources, Insomniac would be able to pursue something revolutionary. Cerny enlisted the team to make something that was more family-friendly to appeal to a larger audience, thus following Naughty Dog's footsteps. Craig Stitt had an idea that would fit perfectly, which is a little game about a dragon; a titular purple dragon that became the legend we all know and love, Spyro the Dragon.

Our titular purple dragon is also a family-friendly IP like Crash Bandicoot, but it's more charming than the other because of collecting gems and it's a 3D platformer with open exploration. And sequels in the original trilogy have two of the best goddesses, Elora the Faun and Bianca the Rabbit. These dudettes are canon and they are the best chicks like Sally Acorn and Bunnie Rabbot. This also defines the fact that Spyro is more charming than Crash Bandicoot and its two goddesses are what the forests make me think of. And it's not just the forests at my old stomping grounds, but also during my road trip when me and my family go through the highway between forests when we arrived in Missouri and until we arrived in Oklahoma, which has less trees, so I listened to Mortal Kombat 11's soundtrack to boost it.

Insomniac has followed Naughty Dog's footsteps and they were also treated like crap during crunch time like Naughty Dog was. Universal turned off the air conditioning and gutting their employees for how much for everything they're worth. That's why they didn't had the time to come up with fresh new ideas. However, they did come up with a new idea when developing Spyro: Year of the Dragon. They brought in four side characters, each came with their own theme that plays in their perspective. The experience in Insomniac's work of bringing in side characters became a fresh new idea in Year of the Dragon. It has got as close as it did with SEGA making Sonic's friends also playable in Sonic Frontiers.

After their three-game contract was up, Naughty Dog and Insomniac were done with Crash and Spyro and left to do other things, but Universal wasn't because Universal had owned the rights to both legendary IPs. PlayStation also had publishing rights, no ownership rights, generally stating that they funded the advertising and paid to keep their games exclusive on their platform, so the money for that deal went to Universal. Ted Price used the money provided by Universal during their contract time to bring the idea to fruition. Crash and Spyro became a legendary duo in North America, but not in Japan because in Japan, PaRappa the Rapper joined Crash and became a duo in the country.

To give you a brief summary, Naughty Dog and Insomniac had a three-game contract with Universal after they finished Way of the Warrior and Disruptor. Once Crash Bandicoot: Warped and Spyro: Year of the Dragon were made, their contract time was up and done. The developers walked away to do other things, leaving Universal to brand both IPs however they want since Universal owned two legendary IPs.

First off, Universal passed their Crash IP to Eurocom to develop their party game, Crash Bash, final Crash game to release on the PS1. Then they passed it to Traveller's Tales to develop their very first Crash game for the PS2 and Mark Cerny has their own team after leaving Universal to help them on the project titled Crash Bandicoot Worlds. It was originally a 3D free-roam game and planned to be published by Sony. But when Cerny left, Traveller's Tales went back to the drawing board and started from square one again without any programming Cerny had provided. This resulted in the creation of their first mainline Crash Bandicoot game that is not developed by Naughty Dog, Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex.

Behind the scenes, Wrath of Cortex was developed in multiple platforms beyond PlayStation because of their partnership with Konami. Upon release, the reviews were mixed with critics praising the return of elements seen in the original trilogy and criticizing the low innovation on elements from the originals, how they handled Coco and the long load times on the PS2 version when the Xbox and Gamecube versions have reduced load times being met with praise. But it sold well and passed the average sales of the original trilogy because of being multiplatform and a return to its roots of a 2.5D platformer after Crash Team Racing and Crash Bash, making this the most popular and bestselling Crash Bandicoot game of all time. While the game had mixed reviews, it was actually a good game overall. I played it back in the day and I pretty much loved it when I was a kid. I even realized why we are defending Wrath of Cortex in the first place. It's because the title has established a slightly larger audience than the original trilogy, making it as an excuse to do so.

Then Universal passed their Spyro IP to Check Six and Equinoxe for their first Spyro game not developed by Insomniac that became... oh my god, an unmitigated disaster, Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly.

Behind the scenes, Enter the Dragonfly kept on getting rewrites and ideas scrapped after nothing worked and so on, which is why Elora did not make it into the game. Then was given an awfully short development time to release it for the Christmas season. When the game was ready to release, it was a Homer Simpson mess that it was riddled with bugs with a big LMFAO because Universal couldn't figure out what they want to develop for a new Spyro game. I saw the video covering the bugs in the game and I laughed. But it turns out that Enter the Dragonfly wasn't the only game that became a mess because Sonic 06 was also a mess of game. I was at a loss for words on that one.

I have been wanting to revisit the original trilogies since the PS4 came out, but PS Now lacked a PS1 catalog and none of the modern consoles were fully backwards compatible because of the PS3's Cell processor and its notorious architecture. Fortunately, rewind back to 2022, Sony has planned a beefed up PlayStation Plus to have three tiers, with the highest offering a vast library of classics released on the PS1, PS2, PS3 and PSP. So far, their progress of bringing back their beloved games has turned out well, but still no Crash or Spyro game on the PS1 yet, until I realized something.

Crash Bandicoot has turned 29 this year while Spyro turned 27 this year. I wanted to revisit their original games, but I don't think that the original trilogies are gonna make it to the classics catalog until Crash turns 30 in 2026 and Spyro turns 30 in 2028. But that's just me speculating. We can find out if my speculation comes true or not. I do miss the charming polygon models of the original games, as well as hearing woahs often. Also, I can revisit Wrath of Cortex, but not Enter the Dragonfly because it was an unmitigated disaster and a rush of a game.

The PS1 era was defined as charming because of its two IPs that defined the generation of gaming. PlayStation was able to market Crash and Spyro games and donated their money to Mark Cerny of Universal to keep their games exclusive to the PS1. They only had publishing rights to the original games and never owned the rights to both games in terms of intellectual property. This also defined the PS1 era as charming.

It pretty much lived up to the idea of Universal enlisting Naughty Dog and Insomniac for their three-game contract after the release of Way of the Warrior and Disruptor. They are the two developers that were able to make three nearly perfect original games and they made Universal look amazing even though they treated them like garbage during crunch time where the devs had to stay and work after hours if they want to release a game every year. In fact, Naughty Dog and Insomniac are the reason why the original trilogies are the best games. After both companies parted ways with the series, Universal passed along to different studios to continue the franchises and they became a terrible company then.

It took years for Universal to actually figure out what they were doing. They still struggled with figuring out how to make a decent Crash and Spyro game even though they became Vivendi Universal. Twinsanity became an obvious example. Dozens of gameplay hours have been cut from the game due to Universal not having any idea what they were doing.

Fast forward into now, Toys for Bob has spun off from Activision to become an indie developer and they are working on a brand new Spyro the Dragon game as the first indie title. They started development in January 2024 and we still haven't gotten word about it since. After hearing the new Spyro is gonna be big and ambitious, it's unlikely that the new Spyro is gonna be a modern Spyro that is based off of the Insomniac trilogy that was the most popular to get the same treatment as Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time. This means that it won't have the elements the original trilogy is known for like hub worlds with a bunch of levels, one boss, one flight level, collecting gems in a level and partaking missions. Instead, it's gonna be open world and have a skill tree. But will retain all that charm the original trilogy has. The only things I want in the new Spyro is having the goddesses from the sequels in the original trilogy and elemental breaths.

But Crash Bandicoot, on the other hand, is in a bit of a pickle. The next mainline game was in development, but it was then cancelled due to Xbox being let go. But we heard one developer under the Activision umbrella that we didn't know much about. They are called Iron Galaxy Studios, the developers of Killer Instinct. Iron Galaxy has developed Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3+4 after Vicarious Visions left Activision for Blizzard to become Blizzard Albany. And hey, maybe Iron Galaxy can take a crack of developing Crash Bandicoot 5 and team up with Toys for Bob for a Crash and Spyro crossover game.

So, this concludes on how the two IPs became so well-liked in the PlayStation. Both of these guys became kings and they made comebacks for the past few years. Crash and Spyro are two platformers that classify the PS1 era as charming and we can find out if the original games are gonna launch in PlayStation Plus during the 30th anniversary of the legendary duo or not. We will soon s ee. It's something that we've been chasing for since the launch of the beefed up PlayStation Plus with the introduction of the Premium tier offering classics.

2XKO Will Save the Gaming Industry

I think 2XKO will save the gaming industry. And I'm dead serious. I think 2XKO will save the game industry. I know that this is a bold take. I know that many people would disagree that 2XKO will not save the game industry, but it's okay because I'm gonna highlight and explain how 2XKO will save the game industry from a content perspective. Let's jump right in.

I am back with a back-to-back 2XKO post, because the first thing that a lot of people are going to say is that 2XKO will not save the game industry, but Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls will. In a way, yes, Marvel Tokon's announcement during State of Play definetely brought the Marvel fighting game foundation back into the limelight. But not as a free-to-play title, but as a successor to the Marvel vs. Capcom franchise to become the new heart of the FGC set to release in 2026. They did host a tournament during the game's Closed Beta, and that's the point of this.

See, we don't consider one-time purchases or Battle Passes a form of microtransactions being predatory. But there is one thing that is a form of predatory microtransactions, which is a gacha mechanic. Mario Kart Tour is an obvious example of being microtransactions-fueled. The game was criticized for having a gacha mechanic, Spotlight Pipes. It's like lootboxes, but uses pipes to give you a random item. Its $4.99 Gold Pass subscription is on there. Not so much of predatory microtransactions, but definetely not well thought out.

A young boy assisted by his father sued Nintendo for implementing the gacha mechanic. It became a controversial piece to undermine player enjoyment and pressured players to pay money for Rubies, so Nintendo has removed it and replaced it with a normal shop that contains new and old content, including the ones players' don't own yet, and made Spotlight Pipes earnable for free, thus making monetization duller to attract existing and new players.

As long as microtransactions are fair and less predatory and the free currency is kept in a free-to-play game, players can be able to enjoy their games smoothly and not be often pressured to pay money for premium currency to unlock low-tier items. It is possible to remove elements that involve gacha elements, pay-to-win scenarios and exploitative ways that encourage monetization over player enjoyment and that became easy to do. The thing is, you have to develop a game that undermines monetization and encourages player enjoyment. How do you do that? By making a free-to-play game that caters enjoyment and doesn't get in the way of the players' experience.

Each AAA company has revenues and they want to push the boundaries on monetization and greed so that they can make money, not to appease players, especially with $70-$80 games in this generation. One AAA company, like Ubisoft, believed that microtransactions make their paid games fun. But I argue that they don't, especially when they are predatory.

That's exactly why people, including myself, prefer indies now. And it's not the fact that small developers of their games have the creative freedom to develop their games however they want without the shareholding shackles of a AAA company so that they would throw out unique, innovative gameplay, unconventional art styles and strong personal narratives, which are the three practices that an AAA company wouldn't dare do. But better yet, they have less money so that their games would be reasonably priced and have no microtransactions in their paid games, like a gacha mechanic. The perfect examples would be Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, Hollow Knight: Silksong and a bunch of other indie titles to teach AAA gaming a lesson for putting the boundaries on greed and pricing their games at $70-$80. Sure, AAA games rely heavily on microtransactions, but not all AAA games have microtransactions.

When an indie game shows up, everyone says, "Holy crap, there's an indie game like a AAA game I loved? I gotta give this a try!" The thing is, there are a lot of indie games that are inspired by AAA releases, like Heroes of Mount Dragon being inspired by Dragon's Crown, Star Garden being inspired Kirby Air Riders and Escape from Ever After being inspired by Paper Mario. But indie games as a whole are better than AAA games. The reason being is because they avoid predatory monetization tactics. If you prefer AAA games more than indies, your money can go to waste and that's an issue as well.

You must fight both the poor side of the player base that say free content and reasonable prices are the best things ever and nothing can ever put a paywall behind them to the rich side of the player base that would be delighted to pay money on everything. Grabbing the interests of both sides of the player base is an extremely difficult practice. And sadly, there is an indie developer that took a crack of developing their free-to-play fighting game, but landed in a very awkward spot that makes it worse than a gacha mechanic.

After the release of Smash Ultimate, Player First Games developed their free-to-play platform fighter with characters from Warner Bros.'s IPs, MultiVersus. Things have gone well with Open Beta. Throughout the phase, it was generally met with acclaim, with critics praising the combat, team-oriented gameplay, presentation and faithfulness to the represented franchises and the player base became decent that it won Best Fighting Game at the Game Awards 2022 despite that one form of off-putting microtransactions, pressuring players to pay money for Gleamium to gain extra lives in a game mode. Not to buy epic skins. And the game was showcased at EVO 2022 to have a side tournament outside of the main lineup and became esports worthy.

However, as soon as the game has entered full release after hibernation, things have took a turn for the worse. The player base did not come close to the renowned Open Beta did. Warner Bros. struggled to maintain a renowned player base from the Open Beta and wasn't esports worthy like it was in Open Beta. Back in November, the game underperformed significantly, suffering a $100 million loss. That led to the decision to sunset the game and all of its entirety of support after a year since launch. How the game failed miserably is one possible explanation. And it's not shifting to Unreal Engine 5, releasing characters we didn't wish for like the Banana Guard or renaming Beetlejuice "Betelgeuse". No, the real source of MultiVersus' faiure and alienating a LOT of players is microtransactions at their predatory level.

When it comes to grinding, when MultiVersus relaunched, predatory microtransactions were implemented when they removed Gold, the game's free currency that is used to unlock characters, palettes and perks, to pressure players to pay money for Gleamium to unlock characters, palettes, lives and uncommon and rare time-limited skins like a Friday the 13th mask, a shark head, possession with dark energy from Trigon, summer outfits, being imbued with the cosmic energy and more. The Fighter and Perk currencies, none of them can unlock palettes or uncommon and rare time-limited skins or earnable through grinding daily and weekly missions or finishing matches and this has created a pay to progress scenario. This is defined as microtransactions that became a bottleneck on grinding. I call it grinding bottleneck microtransactions that create pay to progress scenarios.

When Season 4 of MultiVersus came out, the Fighter currency was removed in favor of Fighter Road to involve grinding enough XP to unlock characters. However, Fighter Road XP is not earnable through grinding daily and weekly missions. This however created even more pay to progress scenarios. This practice exposed why Warner Bros. had to sunset the game after five Seasons and how it became a commercial failure. During the game's full release, Player First Games has completely dropped the ball by taking microtransactions too far. That ball is the game's success in Open Beta.

I find it ironic that Mightykeef, a black comedian, would make an emotional skit to cover that, with Nintendo reacting to MultiVersus shutting down and to be honest, I expected that to drop because of the Harry Potter part and the "I'm gonna need you to never do that **** again, my boy" line. Boy howdy, that one just... came out of left field just like what I saw in the Simpsons, but didn't use pal.

See, Harry Potter is not in the game and he never will be along with other characters I wished for like Godzilla, Daffy Duck, Furiosa and even Barbie, because since Warner Bros. is shifting their business to bringing their collaborations to Fortnite, generally meaning that the characters from their IPs are gonna be used as skins, including new Scooby-Doo! skins that came to Fortnitemares this year, and Player First Games is shut down, MultiVersus will never again see the light of day and these characters I wished for will be used as skins in Fortnite and other games.

What is also funny to me is that when MultiVersus comes out, Nintendo became so jealous that Warner Bros. is trying to claim everything that they built just by beating 89 characters that Smash Ultimate has to become the lead company of a platform fighter, especially when it's multi-platform and has rollback netcode Smash Ultimate didn't have. However, following the announcement to shut down their game after Season 5 being the final Season because of microtransactions, it has stopped at 35 characters and that's the same number of characters Brawl has. MultiVersus' roster couldn't beat Smash Ultimate's roster. It fell short by 54 characters. It's not even close to the number of characters Smash Ultimate has. As it turned out, it wasn't just MultiVersus that became a failed Smash clone, but also other Smash clones as well and none of them came even close to the performance of the Smash franchise.

Even with microtransactions during full release, the game was not universally hated. Nevercake has posted an ad for the game. The decision to end all further support on the game was met with widespread disappointment and sadness, especially when they purchased the the third tier of the Founder's Pack that offers a number of character tickets that is overkill. In fact, for a lot of people, that was their favorite game and they made a petition to convince Warner Bros. to continue support on the game, but bring Gold back and phase out the Perk and Fighter currencies. You can't put the game into the Beta phase and remove the game's free currency at launch to encourage microtransactions to alienate a lot of players.

I like to point out that removing the game's free currency and pressuring players to pay real money for premium currency to unlock things that none of the currencies that were introduced at launch can unlock like palettes and uncommon and rare time-limited skins is a form of microtransactions and putting the aggression on monetization with pay to progress scenarios. That has ruined what could've been a phenomenal crossover platform fighter like it was in Open Beta, especially when it's being multi-platform outside the Nintendo line of consoles and having rollback netcode. Gold being the free currency is what made MultiVersus so phenomenal in the Beta.

When it comes to making a free-to-play fighting game, how do you develop a free-to-play fighting game that caters the best experience while also not alienating players? Well, let's take 2XKO as an example on how it became a success and how the devs of this game learned from MultiVersus' commercial failure.

2XKO is essentially a free-to-play League of Legends fighting game. Tag-oriented, duo play and SEGA vs. Capcom-style gameplay. In fact, it is arguably one of the games that I felt comfortable playing anytime soon on both PC and console and it's easy to recommend it to Deen and Noid for their Father and Son Beatdown of this game now that the game is open for everyone to download. Well, during Early Access. The game is technically available for everyone, but they are looking at Seasons, ranked, content and competitive scenes and they're focusing on the work that takes to shift from the Alpha Lab playtests to a full-featured game on console before fully launching it.

It's so much fun to play that kids would stay home from school to play this game and the matches are fun to spectate, whether it's intro dialogues between Ahri and Yasuo, experiencing people disrespecting those who use pulse combos, a planned cadence of releasing five new Champs per year, finisher cosmetics, Teemo and Warwick being in the mix, Ultimate finishes, making quips about characters, Jinx's theme fitting well with the action, listening to Yasuo's theme and creating the synergy from Vi teaming up with her childhood sister Jinx after making her debut, courtesy of Arcane.

Not only the game's development has turned out well, but also hit a problem back in 2020 when they tested out early tag gameplay that they had to go back to the drawing board and update the game's art design, making characters veer from their MOBA counterparts to blend in well in a fighting game environment and produce fast-paced gameplay and cel shading used in Guilty Gear and other Arc titles that use cel shading.

Here's one thing that you didn't know. Did you know that Darius has no wrapping around his arms, Ahri's legs are thin, wears a purple rope around her waist and a necklace, and Ekko has dreads in their updated art style? I think the reasoning for the art style update is because the original art style based on League of Legends first seen in 2019 when 2XKO was Project L became slow-paced in a fighting game. That explains why Katarina had to be cut from the game undergoing design updates to make her blend well in a fighting game environment. But she's gonna make her debut in Season 1 guaranteed.

They have been working on the game for six years since 2019. Their first demo at EVO turned out to be a hit with feedback from players kicking in back in 2023. It pretty much went well with Alpha Lab 1, the first invite-only at home playtest. Then Alpha Lab 2 came along to have drastic gameplay changes based on player feedback. While a smaller playtest, feedback was given to the team. Playtesting was then taken to the next level with Closed Beta being the final invite-only play window before the game is fully released with a focus on leaving the servers online for the foreseeable future in a way to warm things up. Invites were automatically sent to those who played in any of their Alpha Lab playtests.

After Closed Beta, the game is publicly available in Early Access on PC. It marks the game being available for everyone to download, breaking the invite-only barrier. Now, this is where you might say, "Come on, you already got an invite to Closed Beta. Why did you care about Early Access in the first place?". Well, to answer your question, Closed Beta was considered just a warmup. All of our progress we made during Closed Beta had to be reset in Early Access. It breaks the invite-only barrier so that the game would be available for everyone with things that are introduced to be looked at.

Also, after the announcement of Early Access, gameplay trailers and moveset showcase videos are also released. They are for characters who never received one in the first place. The official character art are also being released for every character in light of the game being available for free to the public with seasonal content.

But how Riot learned from MultiVersus' untapped potential, you ask? Well, they laser-focused in on what made the invite-only betas so appealing. They taken that full potential and success from invite-only playtests and amplified and multiplied it in Early Access and beyond, not breaking it by implementing microtransactions. New ways to earn Credits were introduced to take that full potential from the invite-only betas and made it shine throughout the game's development so that players can be able to grind well without hitting a bottleneck.

What I said above stated that again, Riot has laser-focused in on what made the invite-only playtests so appealing to learn from MultiVersus' commercial failure. And instead of fragmenting and borderline taking microtransactions too far to put bottlenecks on grinding, they polished and multiplied what made 2XKO's trilogy of invite-only playtests so appealing in Early Access. New ways to earn Credits like combo trials would make it shine throughout the game's development cycle, so currency-wise, they honored the invite-only trilogy and improved the foundation with one butt to kick at Early Access and will continue that full potential when the game officially launches. However, Player First Games has alienated a lot of players when they implemented bottleneck-worthy microtransactions at launch by removing Gold and pressuring players to pay money for Gleamium to unlock characters, palettes, lives and uncommon and rare skins. But this is where the story comes in to fix that.

If you don't know what Credits is, I'll explain what it is. Credits is 2XKO's free currency that is used to unlock Champions, chromas, stages and avatar cosmetics and has all ways to earn them for free, like finishing matches in Casual and Ranked lobbies, completing the lessons in Tutorial and grinding daily and weekly missions and the Battle Pass. However, the limit is 12,000 Credits. Riot has thought about the predatory monetization tactics Player First Games has implemented to produce pay to progress scenarios that alienate a lot of players during the game's full release and went the extra mile to improve how Credits are earned by adding new ways to earn them like completing combo trials.

Credits being the game's free currency is what made the invite-only betas so appealing. Without it, we would be often pressured to pay real money for premium currency, KO Coins, to unlock characters, chromas, stages and avatar cosmetics. The player base will be alienated and they would sunset the game prematurely. That's how MultiVersus became a commercial failure and why Warner Bros. had to sunset it prematurely. It lives up to the idea of, "Hey, we learned from MultiVersus' commercial failure. We must leave our free currency alone so that players can be able to purchase characters, stages and other items with them."

Plus, to give you a small insight on how new Champions become available to purchase with Credits, starting in Season 1 when the game is fully launched, new Champions become available to unlock with 10,000 Credits once the first three weeks of each new Season is up. Same with the stages; new stages become available to unlock with 7,500 Credits from the get-go of a new Season. This tells us that Riot has learned from MultiVersus' commercial failure by simply leaving the Credits alone and adding new ways to earn them so that when 2XKO is fully released, we can be able to unlock characters and stages with Credits, not through microtransactions. Grinding weekly and daily missions to earn Credits would speed up the process of unlocking every character and stage without ever being pressured to pay real money for KO Coins before a new Season launches.

Implying that this free practice is gonna make 2XKO so appealing, thinking about that one form of predatory monetization mechanics Player First Games put into MultiVersus. And that one form of predatory microtransactions is removing the free currency and pressuring players to pay money for Gleamium to unlock characters, time-limited rare and uncommon skins and palettes to create pay-to-progress scenarios.

See, Riot didn't just learn from MultiVersus' commercial failure. They also embraced the trope that has been used a lot and the concept of the game's full potential so much that it became a core backbone of the FGC. They even went as far as supporting online and offline tournaments dedicated to 2XKO esports for the rest of 2025 through the First Impact program and even planning to support more tournaments in 2026 and beyond, including BoxJam Slam, the duos-only tournament to encourage duos, planning a patch that resolves stability issues, bringing Arcane skins to characters that are featured in Netflix's hit show to honor it, making the game a good influence to Teamfight Tactics to have a 2XKO Coliseum, listening to the players' feedback and even straight up confirming that Katarina would be the first 2026 post-launch Champion to be met with widespread praise and excitement as her name is listed on the game's Wikipedia page.

However, despite Early Access breaking the invite-only barrier to make the game available to download for free, 2XKO's Metacritic score remains a mystery because it is not yet officially released, I'll update this part here once the game's Metacritic score has been revealed. But MultiVersus, on the other hand, did receive a Metacritic score of 75 out of 100, which is seemingly decent, but met with mixed reviews with those praising the combat and representation of Warner Bros.' IPs battling each other for supremacy and criticizing microtransactions being predatory, especially during full release.

With everything said and done, here's the main point I would like to make. There are some companies that try to figure out how to make a free-to-play live service fighting game that is successful. Warner Bros. made their free-to-play fighting game that is a platform fighter with their IPs battling each other. It became a success and achieved its full potential in Open Beta. However, when the game is fully released, that full potential from the Open Beta was broken because Gold, MultiVersus' free currency used to unlock characters, palettes and perks, was removed to put provide predatory monetization tactics and they had to make a decision to shut down their game after Season 5 and shift their business to bringing their characters to Fortnite as skins.

But Riot has learned from this enigma. They made a free-to-play fighting game that continued its full potential from the invite-only trilogy of play windows and that's because of leaving the free currency alone and adding new ways to earn Credits. And that full potential from Early Access will continue once 2XKO officially launches, meaning that now they made microtransactions fair and less predatory and won't be shifting their business to bringing their characters with the same art style to Fortnite as skins.

Development and content choices to create future free-to-play fighting games, meaning that if and when a platform fighter goes into production, they now know how to learn from MultiVersus' commercial failure and untapped potential and make microtransactions less predatory. They can simply implement the free currency in the game from the get-go of the game's development to unlock characters and palettes, launch the game with it and leave it alone. They don't have to re-figure or retool it from the ground up. The game's free currency is how microtransactions became less predatory.

Not only that. Riot has went the extra mile to make 2XKO worthy of unleashing its full potential in the FGC and in the competitive scene and opened up to limitless creativity, meaning that if other companies behind their free-to-play games like Hi-Rez, Blizzard or any other company, including indie devs, plan to take a crack of developing a free-to-play live service fighting game, they'll be able to learn from MultiVersus' commercial failure and not make microtransactions predatory as they will alienate a lot of players so that their game would succeed and devs wouldn't shift their business to bringing their characters to Fortnite as skins. They can use 2XKO as a leading example of a commercially successful free-to-play live service fighting game still having that free currency implemented from the get-go and being player base-alienating microtransactions-free.

In conclusion, while in Early Access, I think 2XKO will literally save the gaming industry, by being a free-to-play live service fighting game that has the free currency and no off-putting microtransactions once the game is officially launched. MultiVersus' commercial failure because of aggressive monetization practices putting the bottlenecks on grinding became a lesson learned by the other companies of the game industry and the first company that learned from it is Riot with the entry of 2XKO being a commercial success and having no grinding bottlenecks throughout the game's development cycle in Early Access and onwards. But does that mean the game is perfect? No, it doesn't because the game doesn't have to be perfect, even when the game is fully released as long as game succeeds and that's what matters.

While all of this sounds great, there is a bit of a silver-lining to all this. If Player First Games left the Gold currency alone and added new ways to earn Gold like grinding daily and weekly missions instead of taking microtransactions too far, then MultiVersus wouldn't be sunset prematurely, because again, removing Gold to pressure players into paying real money for Gleamium to unlock characters, palettes and uncommon and rare skins is defined as a form of microtransactions and the source of the game's failure and alienating a lot of players. It's something that Riot didn't do when developing 2XKO.

Also, I would like to point out that starting in 2027, we should see each new Season launching two new Champions. The first Champ of the Season gets available to unlock with 1,000 KO Points, 1 Champion Token, by redeeming Battle Pass XP or purchasing the Ultra tier until the first five weeks of a Season is up and that first Champion of the Season becomes available to unlock with 10,000 Credits and the second Champion of the Season gets launched with the same algorithm; unlocked with 1,000 KO Points, redeeming Battle Pass XP during the Recruitment Event or purchasing the Ultra tier and with 10,000 Credits when the Season is over, thus following MultiVersus' footsteps and giving us ten new Champions in 2027 and beyond to expand the roster faster, but minus the microtransactions.