HUGE News for 2XKO in 2026

Today, we have been given the huge news for 2XKO in 2026. Riot Games has released a roadmap of everything coming to 2XKO in 2026 and there is a couple of things that are huge in it. Let's jump right in.

Hello, everyone, and I'm here with a new post with huge and crazy news for us 2XKO fans that I did not see coming. I am aware that there is a turn-based RPG game I came across and all of its nuances with that. I have a post that talks about it coming really soon, so stay tuned for that. But today, I want to talk about something came across that came with a big holy crap.

Riot Games has just posted a roadmap containing everything coming to 2XKO in 2026. I'm not gonna go over everything, but I'm gonna go over what things blew my mind.

First off, we'll go over the character roadmap. The first half of the character roadmap has Caitlyn, Akali and Senna, our upcoming character launching in May 12 with the launch of Season 2 according to the Season 1 countdown. So far, the first half is all female, and that's actually a good thing. 2XKO needed more female characters anyway.

And here's the second half of the character roadmap. An extra sixth character has been added to the schedule. The second half has three unannounced characters.

2XKO is now having six new characters this year. The reason why we're getting six new characters this year is because the game is going to have three ingame seasons to have two new characters on each season after learning how we play in Early Access. To get a small summary of the character release cadence, Teemo and Warwick would fall within Season 0, Caitlyn and Akali would fall within Season 1, Senna and Character 4 will fall within Season 2 and Character 5 and Character 6 will fall within Season 3, to have an odd-numbered character roster, following MultiVersus' footsteps. Having six new characters this year is perfect. This could actually work for 2027 and beyond.

Speaking of which, this brings me to my point. Remember the part where they given us a Season 2 trailer for MultiVersus that contains Samurai Jack and Beetlejuice before Mortal Kombat 1 Top 6 at Evo 2024? I think we're gonna see a Season 2 trailer for 2XKO that contains Senna and Character 4 before 2XKO Top 8 at Evo Japan since Evo Japan is approaching.

Now, remember what I said that neither Kennen nor Miss Fortune are gonna come out in 2026? I have good news for you. Since we're getting a sixth character this year to fall with the fifth character in Season 3, I am coming to a conclusion to believe that Character 6 is either Kennen or Miss Fortune. However, since we already have Spirit Hills, an Ionia-themed stage and Akali, it leads me to predict that Character 6 is Miss Fortune to fall with Character 5 in Season 3 and that is because of the Brazen Hydra having wanted posters of Gangplank and Tahm Kench on the right side of the stage. I am still locking in Katarina as Character 4 to fall with Senna within Season 2.

Honorable mentions:

Gangplank
Ashe
Riven
Garen

Here are the four honorable mentions I went over on the last post, but one of them is Character 5. Since we already have a Noxus-themed stage and I am speculating that Miss Fortune can be Character 6 because of the Brazen Hydra having wanted posters of Gangplank and Tahm Kench, I'm scratching out Riven and Gangplank. That leaves Garen and Ashe remaining. Currently, we never had a Demacian character in 2XKO yet and Braum is currently the only Freljordian in the roster. These characters will come with a new stage in Season 3, but one of them is Character 5 while the other is scratched out. I am scratching Garen out for next year, so that leaves with Ashe to be Character 5 and come with a Freljord-themed stage in Season 3.

That said, I'm going to postulate the character release schedule. Now, before I begin, I want you know that postulate is to assume everything, so all of this I'm stating are hypothetical. You need to understand this. Here's what I think what the characters would be and when they are coming out.

The Caitlyn trailer came out January 13 and she came out on January 20 with Season 1, Ferros Promenade and the console launch. The Akali trailer dropped March 31 and she came out on April 7 within Season 1 with Caitlyn. The Senna trailer drops May 5 and releases in May 12 along with Season 2 and a new stage, which what we know for sure. The Katarina trailer dropped in July 7 and releases July 14, my father's birthday, within Season 2 with Senna. The Ashe trailer dropped early September and comes out one week after her trailer dropped with the launch of Season 3 and a Freljord-themed stage. And finally, the Miss Fortune trailer drops early November and came out a week in November after her trailer dropped within Season 3 with Ashe to round out 2026.

Hypothetical character roadmap:

Caitlyn + Ferros Promenade - January 2026
Akali - April 2026
Senna + New Stage - May 2026
Katarina - July 2026
Ashe + New Freljord-themed Stage - September 2026
Miss Fortune - November 2026

As I have said before, these are hypothetical. They don't confirm who they are or when they are releasing. But we do know that Senna is coming out alongside a new stage in May looking at the Season 1 countdown. And I'm sorry that it had to be all female because Darius, Illaoi and Braum are the sole characters from certain regions in the roster and they are the ones who have fighting game archetypes missing from the current roster.

Hypothetical 2026 character roster:

Ahri
Akali
Ashe
Blitzcrank
Braum
Caitlyn
Darius
Ekko
Illaoi
Jinx
Katarina
Miss Fortune
Senna
Teemo
Vi
Warwick
Yasuo

Despite the fact that we're getting an odd-numbered character roster of 17 this year because we're having an extra sixth character coming this year, I'm going to divide the roster into the SEGA and Capcom sides across the board and state the key points. Since 2026 is seeing the 17-character roster thanks to the extra upcoming character, the Capcom side will one less character than the SEGA side until the 18th character to launch next year. Let's get to dividing the roster. We'll start with the SEGA side.

Ahri remains on the SEGA side, but Braum, Darius, Illaoi, Vi and Yasuo move to the SEGA side, leaving Ashe, Katarina and Senna to be on the SEGA side with Ahri, Braum, Darius, Illaoi, Vi and Yasuo on the SEGA side. The SEGA side now has Ahri, Ashe, Braum, Darius, Illaoi, Katarina, Senna, Vi and Yasuo.

Akali, Teemo and Warwick remain on the Capcom side, but Blitzcrank, Caitlyn, Ekko, Jinx move to the Capcom side, leaving it open for Miss Fortune to be on the Capcom side with Akali, Blitzcrank, Caitlyn, Ekko, Teemo, and Warwick. The Capcom side now has Akali, Blitzcrank, Caitlyn, Ekko, Jinx, Miss Fortune, Teemo and Warwick.

Hypothetical SEGA side:

Ahri
Ashe
Braum
Darius
Illaoi
Katarina
Senna
Vi
Yasuo

Hypothetical Capcom side:

Akali
Blitzcrank
Caitlyn
Ekko
Jinx
Miss Fortune
Teemo
Warwick

Key points:

Ahri on the SEGA side = NiGHTS
Ashe on the SEGA side = Skies of Arcadia
Darius on the SEGA side = Valkyria Chronicles
Illaoi on the SEGA side = Ooga Booga
Katarina on the SEGA side = Valkyria Chronicles
Yasuo on the SEGA side = Blood Will Tell: Tezuka Osamu's Dororo
Akali on the Capcom side = Onimusha
Blitzcrank on the Capcom side = Mega Man X
Caitlyn on the Capcom side = Alien vs. Predator (Arcade game)
Warwick on the Capcom side = Darkstalkers

So we now have nine characters on the SEGA side and eight characters on the Capcom side in 2026 and key points to highlight the following. There is one thing that really piqued and caught my interest; Ashe, Darius and Katarina on the SEGA side for Skies of Arcadia and Valkyria Chronicles.

Now let's move on to the next piece of big news.

Here are the other things that are coming in 2026. We got 14 things coming in 2026. We know console launch, arcade skins, the launch celebration event, Ferros Promenade and local duos came out, so we can scratch them out, making it nine more to come.

We have two new stages outside of character releases coming out this year; the Blood Moon variant of Spirit Hills, which is coming out in the next patch, and a summer-variant Piltover-themed stage. There is one of the things that caught my interest.

That's right. We're getting a new Fuse next month and this is something that we've been expecting. I am going to predict what the new Fuse would be. The new Fuse is gonna be Double Point.

What is Double Point? How it can work is that it can make the assist character the second point character with everything the point character has. But there is no tagging or assists. However, this new Fuse is gonna be exclusive to Duos in all game modes that if you have a duo partner, this Fuse would be available. In fact, what is really cool is that if both duos choose this Fuse, it'll become 2XKO Fever.

And there is another thing that made me very excited as I am with the new Fuse coming out next month.

A Duo Finder is officially coming to 2XKO. This is something that we have been wanting since Alpha Lab 1 and it's finally coming into fruition along with a new Fuse. Of course, by "we," I mean myself and the players who got an invite to Alpha Lab 1.

I am aware that a player wanting to duo up with someone is considered a scrub like using Pulse combos. Well, in a way, yes. But we're using the Duo Finder and it won't be just for grinding duo missions. It'll also be for fun and that's what matters the most that duos are more fun and more rewarding than solos, especially when it comes to working together. With a Duo Finder coming to 2XKO next month along with a new Fuse, Senna and Season 2, we can be able to easily find a partner to duo with in game. In game refers to finding an online partner to duo with. This feature was met with excitement that we wanted a feature that finds a duo in game for them.

They said that they're going make duos much easier to find and form, so here it is; a Duo Finder. This will make duos much easier to find and form online, encouraging online duos more than online solos. But I don't think that the Casual and Ranked lobbies are gonna have the same treatment as private lobbies, with readying up for solo and waiting for a partner to duo before readying up. I think that the Duo Finder gonna work similarly to the matchmaker, but will find you a partner to duo with.

Finally, we can no longer be forced to use rocks. This means we won't be forced to search for someone to duo with often in game. I have four characters in my character pool, with Akali as a newest addition and I'm looking set to add Senna to my pool.

While the roadmap has everything planned for 2026, there are more details to be announced and they're ironing out their upcoming patches for the rest of 2026. We can expect more things to come later this year.

2026 is set to be a huge year for 2XKO as they have a lot of things on the 2026 roadmap and I am already excited for it. We must not spare any of our energy to let 2XKO thrive if we don't want it to die and suffer that fate early like MultiVersus did no matter how trash it is.

Joe's Monologues - 4/5/2026

I haven't did a Joe's Monologues for a while. And now, the series is back. Today, we're gonna go over a couple of topics, so without further ado, let's begin.

Bug Fables: The Everlasting Sapling

We're gonna start with the elephant in the room, Bug Fables: The Everlasting Sapling. I am in the middle of the game and I have gone this far. I have recorded my gameplay videos in the source of starting my own Let's Play series. The game just blew me away. It given me some serious Paper Mario vibes that the gameplay is similar to that of the first two games of the series that were critically acclaimed. As soon as I finish Bug Fables, it's off to Escape from Ever After and I'll record its gameplay too.

And dang, the Watcher fight almost given me a headache. I lost on my first and second attempt. My first attempt became a failure because I was running low on TP that I should've get to Venus to replinish it. The second attempt also became a failure that I forgot to restock on recovery items. The third attempt became a success because I addressed the flaws by replinishing TP and stocking up on items. I guess third time's the charm is what they say.

Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds

Now let's go on to the next topic about a game that I haven't talked about, Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds. I have bought the game at a discounted price on the PS5 first. The game blew me away with the gameplay that involves switching courses through the CrossWorlds feature that was met with praise. There are non-Sonic characters that join the race. They got Joker from Persona 5, Hatsune Miku and a bunch of collaborations. They also have non-SEGA collaborations that are paid DLC. They are all great, but do you know what would I like to see in Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds? A Simpsons pack.

We have the SpongeBob SquarePants pack and the TMNT and Avatar packs are coming soon and Fortnite had a Simpsons mini season, so what we like to see is a Simpsons pack that contains Homer, Marge, Bart and Lisa as playable characters with voice acting and a lot of stuff like decals, effects and Springfield as a playable track.

Why am I suggesting the Simpsons pack to come to Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds comes with two reasons. The first reason is to forward Fortnite's Simpsons mini season. The mini season was met with buzz and excitement that they would petition to make it permanent and it's a sign of nostalgia that the series' games are stuck in retro consoles and never been remade for modern consoles.

The second reason is to convince developers to bring the Simpsons back into the gaming realm with the rumored remaster of the Simpsons Hit and Run and make new games. They can take from what they learned from the original developers and apply it to future Simpsons games. A Simpsons pack with Homer, Marge, Bart and Lisa as playable characters and Springfield as a playable track in Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds sounds like a good feat to me, especially  because of Road Rage. It can pave the way for a new kart racer based on the Simpsons. But SEGA requires permission from Fox for that.

2XKO

And last but not least, 2XKO. This one is gonna be a doozy to talk about because we finally know when Akali is coming out; April 7, and it's not that long. Her moves are pretty insane. Development notes show that Akali is the fastest character in 2XKO, but her health pool is the lowest, deemed as risky and comes with Twilight Shroud, a unique mechanic Akali has to give her moves some buff.

Let me tell you; Akali is the character I wanted and theorized since they knew that Akali is the important character the roster needs and her theme is on point, deemed the best character theme that makes me wonder if she's like a pseudo Naruto character since she is actually getting her Naruto palette. See, Akali is Japanese like Yasuo, especially since they are on the Capcom side for Onimusha. However, nothing in that department has ever got as close as it did with Illaoi being on the SEGA side for Ooga Booga.

We had to wait until April for Akali's release because they had to nerf Ekko and Yasuo enough to create a balanced and healthy competitive meta and fix screen tearing on console in 1.1.3. Now that they got all of that done, with black smoke galore, kunai and Kama, her portable scythe, Akali is ready for battle in 1.1.5.

But Akali is not the only thing that is coming in 1.1.5 because local duos is also coming. It allows a player to look for a partner to duo up with in real life and play on the same console against players online and it's something people wanted. Which is nice, but it's only just a taste of how would they usurp investing in Duo Play even more. I can't wait to find out what will 1.1.5 have in store for us besides Akali and local duos against online players.

After Akali, it's off to waiting for Senna, who will come out with a new stage in Season 2. Thankfully, we're not being in the Senna waiting room or have an odd number of characters any longer because it's April and she's coming out on May 12 and that's when Season 2 will launch looking at the Season 1 countdown. Like, we know that Senna will swing her projectile weapon like Caitlyn does since she's a Marksman, come with a unique resource that fills up when collecting Mist and transform into a Wraith when she collects enough Mist like Warwick does with his Bloodlust gauge that fills up with his S2 specials, but that's only just the beginning. Her full trailer will drop one week before her release.

Since Evo is almost here, maybe they can announce the 15th and 16th characters after the Senna trailer at Evo Japan. They have to because Evo is the most prestigious event that has reveals, right? I want to see who they are. After all, 2XKO needs to have more characters and having a tag fighter with a small roster is a sign of claustrophobia and repetitiveness, especially in the competitive scenes. But having 16 characters this year is less repetitive and it's the number of characters X-Men vs. Street Fighter has.

Surely, Akali's debut in 2XKO could mean that Katarina could be the fourth character of the year to fall within Season 2 with Senna and that's what we came for since she was Thanos-snapped from the game's earlier stage of development. Now, I know that people are gonna complain when Katarina is scrapped. "Hello?! The red-haired assassin of Noxus?!" "For the love of God, Katarina was itching to be in the roster!"

I'm telling you, Arucelli's work on her concept art and submission to designers for her redesign stage confirms that our red-haired assassin is still planned. That aside, this brings me to my point. Remember what I said that Kennen and Miss Fortune are potentially making their debut to 2XKO this year? Since the seasonal structure is going to have three seasons that each come with a new stage, I don't think that Kennen nor Miss Fortune is gonna be the 16th character since Season 3 will have a new stage.

Conclusion:

It has been a while since my previous Joe's Monologues. I hope to see you in the next one.

How Violent Video Games CHANGED the Industry Forever

If you were to look at the history of video games and if you were going to ask what became the ongoing trend in gaming that changed the game industry forever, the answer, in my opinion, would be violent video games. If you go back to the beginning of video games, especially with the inception of 16-bit era home consoles consisting of the SNES, Genesis and even the SEGA CD, fighting games have always become a popular trend on the era. This was popularized by one of the popular fighting game franchises, Street Fighter. However, there is another popular fighting game franchise that sparked controversy, Mortal Kombat.

The very first Mortal Kombat was released in 1992 for arcades by Midway Games. But when Acclaim Entertainment ported it to the NES and Genesis, the game became egregiously controversial because of its photoreaslistic sprites with depictions of bloody violence with gore caused by Fatalities, unlike Street Fighter II, which uses traditional handmade sprites that resembled cartoon or comic book illustrations and has little to no blood. This served as a subject of starting the 1993-94 United States Senate hearings on controversial video games held by two senators, Joe Lieberman and Herb Kohl and covers in newspapers.

Nintendo and SEGA released Mortal Kombat, respectively. The SEGA Genesis version, while shipped, has eliminated the graphic effects and can be added by using a well-published cheat code titled "ABACABB" while Nintendo required Acclaim to replace blood with gray sweat, edit Fatalities and change other parts of the game's artwork to remove inappropriate elements like severed heads from spikes in a way for Nintendo to keep the SNES family-friendly on the SNES version, but the gray sweat effects can be reverted to the original red blood effects and bring back uncensored Fatalities via a Game Genie code input as BDB4-DD07. However, the SEGA Genesis version sold more than the SNES version.

But the first Mortal Kombat wasn't the only one that was graphically violent to be a part of the hearing because Night Trap was also a part of the hearing after it had sexual violence against women, deeming it very offensive. Lethal Enforcers' home console release is also obvious to have graphic violence. This prompted Toys "R" Us and KB Toys to remove the following games and peripherals that looked like guns from shelves and SEGA to cease making copies in January 1994.

SEGA created their own game rating system, the Videogame Rating Council, which used three ratings, GA, MA-13 and MA-17. When the SEGA Genesis version of Mortal Kombat was shipped to have toned down violence, it was given an MA-13 rating. After the respective extremely violent and offensive video games came out on home consoles, they became a part of the senate hearing talking about the following games. The hearing made calls to establish the rating system in North America, the Entertainment Software Ratings Board (ESRB).

The ESRB was established back in September 1994 by the ESA in response to the backlash and criticism regarding controversial video games that contain extreme violence or sexual content, especially after the 1993 congressional hearings following the home console releases of Mortal Kombat and Night Trap and even the home computer release of Doom. After the establishment date, future games beyond that date carry the ESRB rating. The Videogame Rating Council was eventually retired in favor of the ESRB.

While Mortal Kombat is aimed at mature audiences because of its graphic and gory nature that leads to getting an M rating, we did see one mainline game of the franchise that is not M-rated, Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe. It was given a T rating due to the inclusion of DC characters, which is why the violence and Fatalities were toned down. While the game was met with mixed reception, there is one thing that was quite interesting about this game.

When Raiden and Superman, the two leaders of their universes, destabilized the portal when taking down Shao Kahn and Darkseid, the two antagonists of both universes, they created a combined force behind the combat rage, Dark Kahn. It created my favorite events like Liu Kang and Scorpion ending up in Gotham, Raiden teleporting to a different world to save Liu Kang and even Raiden and Superman teaming up to defeat Dark Kahn to make the universes back to normal, which resulted a switcheroo of defeat -- Darkseid being bound in the Netherrealm and Shao Kahn being trapped in shattering pieces of glass. And to be honest, the parts of the story in Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe is really interesting to experience.

However, this would be the final game to be published by Midway before their liquidation. Then the 2011 reboot of Mortal Kombat came out as the first game of the franchise published by WB Games and developed under the NetherRealm Studios umbrella to return to its roots of a 2D fighter, which of course, retained the series' controversy regarding graphic violence and marks of start of strong language where you will hear bad words from certain characters.

There are child-friendly games that have violence in them, but the physical inflict in them is not graphic and has no blood. Take Pokémon for example. It's a child-friendly IP that doesn't have any mature content in them and has content appropriate for all ages, including adults, who also play child-friendly games. That's why the IP is mostly rated E for Everyone, like other IPs that are family-friendly like Super Mario, Sonic the Hedgehog and many others. These are the ones that have non-graphic violence. This type of violence is called cartoon violence.

Violence is something that has zero-tolerance in real life. Let me give you an example. I'll talk about school violence. It is essentially an offense that leads to suspensions or expulsion, except to bullies. Basically hitting others that lead to consequences and it's something that must be avoided. In fact, it happened back in the day. But violence in video games is a staple in the industry today that it has much more tolerance than violence in real life.

Controversial video games became the source of starting the predicament of them having sexual content and excessively extreme violence, so what are two controversial games that sparked the creation of the ESRB upon release on home consoles? Mortal Kombat and Night Trap. That started the predicament and sparked the hearings that allowed experts to make calls to establish the ESRB. That's how violent video games changed the industry forever. The trend of violence in video games will continue as future games with violence will come upon us.

I seem to have another backstory blog post coming soon, so stay tuned for that.

I Bought TWO Paper Mario-Inspired Games

Paper Mario is franchise that still holds a lot of magic for people today since the remastered Switch release of The Thousand-Year Door came out. But what if I told you that there are two games inspired by Paper Mario that don't star the Nintendo characters that I bought on Steam? Let's jump right in.

Today, I'm talking about one of the franchises I haven't talked about in a while that became an inspiration for the two games, Paper Mario. So, Paper Mario has a dedicated fan base, especially to the RPG genre. The fan favorites are usually the original Paper Mario and the Thousand Year Door, with Super Paper Mario trailing behind due to the turn-based RPG mechanics introduced in the first two games.

And as we get to the 3DS era, Nintendo tried something new to the series to change up the genre to action-adventure. And it pretty much became divisive with Sticker Star. Then Color Splash for the WiiU came along to use cards that are purchased with coins. It became a flop due to having the action-adventure format Sticker Star had. Then the series was taken to the next level with the Origami King. While has the return of favored RPG elements and removed unwanted features, it became criticized nevertheless due to continuing the action-adventure format from both previous games.

When Nintendo confirms a new game, they try something new and take liberty of the story, characters and gameplay. However, none of the three games since Sticker Star were nowhere near as good as the first two games of the series according to the fans. They have all been met with backlash and disdain. The only conception is that the first two games were better than later games since Sticker Star.

But what I like to also talk about now, though, is not one, but two Paper Mario-esque games that I have bought on Steam and both of them have blew my mind. There are Bug Fables: The Everlasting Sapling and Escape from Ever After. These are the two games that are inspired by Paper Mario. I'm going to into detail about both of them. I'm gonna start with Bug Fables.

Bug Fables is an adventure RPG where you play as the trio consisting of Vi, Kabbu and Leif as they uncover the secrets of the Land of Bugaria and embark on an epic pilgrimage to the Everlasting Sapling, the treasure that can grant immortality.

The gameplay in Bug Fables is similar to Paper Mario that you must time your button presses and press the right button to reduce damage and make successful attacks. It uses teamwork points (TP) required to perform skills. Once you defeated an enemy, you earn EXP. Get enough of them and you'll go up a level and would be prompted choose either increasing max HP, max TP or max MP, which is from equipping medals that you can find outside of combat and equip them. They vary by points, so equip them carefully. But there is one key difference. Since the trio is you must play, you have the whole trio in combat instead of having two characters in battle.

The game's environment and combat is off the chain and blew me away. But one bullcrap problem I'm having is that I can't switch between fullscreen and windowed on the fly with the F11 key. But this is not the only problem. I'm playing it on a DualSense controller, but the game shows incorrect button glyphs. But overall, it's a decent Paper Mario-inspired game.

As soon as I finish Bug Fables, I'm gonna start playing the other one as the coin is flipped to Escape from Ever After. Escape from Ever After is also an adventure RPG where it has the main character, Flynt Buckler, who is a classic fairytale adventurer that meets his allies along with way. His arch-enemy is an evil dragon named Tinder. Flynt has came across something weird when he stormed Tinder's castle. It was converted into corporate offices.

The demo of this game was a limited time demo. I was able to download the demo so that I can get to try it out. The gameplay in Escape from Ever After is also similar to Paper Mario. You have two characters in combat and make right button presses and timings to block attacks and nail moves. There's a gauge that the party shares called Mocha Points (MP). Skills consume this resource. There is even a gauge that fills up when performing correct actions and consumes from synergy skills that measure depending on the current party. The gauge is the Synergy Gauge. It's something that the Paper Mario franchise never had.

At the end of each battle, you earn EXP. Earn 100 EXP and you'll be able to go up a level and choose either increasing max HP, max MP or max BP, which stands for Badge Points. You find badges outside of combat and they vary by points like the medals system in Bug Fables. The best part is, I can switch between windowed and fullscreen on Escape from Ever After..

I have downloaded the demo version before it went away and the game blew me away. The combat is godlike and the environment and music are well done. Now that's a unique style that gets the Lost Odyssey seal of approval. In fact, the game as a whole is goshdarn charming and decent like Bug Fables is.

I was able to buy Escape from Ever After at a discounted price, but I won't play it until I finish Bug Fables, after I decided to play and beat Bug Fables before I play Escape from Ever After. It's not like saying I hate deciding which Paper Mario-inspired game to play first could anger Poseidon, right?

Here's the thing. Paper Mario's fanbase is to the first two games that use RPG elements and we have both titles inspired by the franchise. If you look at the Metacritic scores for both of them, Bug Fables has scored an 86 out of 100 and Escape from Ever After has scored an 82 out of 100, with the average score of an 83 out of 100, indicating that both games are being generally favorable and met with great reception by critics. They both pay homage to the first two games of the franchise and they became games for Paper Mario fans, including me.

Both of them are inspired by the first two games of the Paper Mario franchise that they are both indies that became well-liked because they bank on the fact of smaller teams avoiding practices that bigger companies do and having the tendency to do things bigger companies wouldn't do.

That being said, I decided to make a Venn diagram to compare the differences between Bug Fables and Escape from Ever After and state what things both games have.

Right off the bat, I'm gonna be taking the initial Venn diagram between both Bug Fables: The Everlasting Sapling and Escape from Ever After. Because this is a Venn diagram, the middle part has common denominators between both Paper Mario-inspired games. I colored the left circle green for Bug Fables and the right circle indigo for Escape from Ever After, which I found interesting. First off, we need to go over the common denominators or similarities between both games and that's the point of making a crossover game between two games. Here are the common denominators between them.

Bug Fables and Escape from Ever After are both Paper Mario-inspired games. They involve nailing attacks with the right button presses, both stories go by chapters, have separate save files, recovering resources after levelling up and prompts for choosing a max stat after going up a level. There's even out of combat actions and gibberish in dialogs depending on the character. There's the badge system that involves equipping badges to give the party the edge and change the style.

So we now have the similarities between Bug Fables and Escape from Ever After. The information that we can have without a focused point of view.

Now let's go on to the next phase; stating the differences between two games and what they are.

Bug Fables uses berries as currency, the whole trio is in combat, save points that fully recover HP and TP, has quests posted on the board and a turn relay system.

Escape from Ever After uses two characters in combat, uses the Synergy System that measures strength based on the current party and a gauge that fills up from making right button presses, vending machines that fully restore HP and MP and coins as currency.

And here's the full Venn diagram containing both games' similarities and differences exclusive to one game. This is the final diagram to have everything.

As of right now, I decided to suspend playing Bug Fables until I get a new gaming headset for quality. It has a mic that cancels the background noise so that you would only hear me without hearing any background noises, including the fan noises and my mother calling me, especially when I'm recording. Now, if a third Paper Mario-inspired game is in production, will it be themed around superhero comics, Greek Mythology or whatever theme? I don't know and I don't care. We like to see a third Paper Mario-inspired game. Escape from Ever After and Bug Fables are available now on PC and console, so go check it out.

I'm on the verge of playing through Bug Fables and recording my gameplay videos and sharing them on my separate gaming channel where you'll find my gameplay videos and clips at. I'm starting my own Let's Play series and on a journey to become a Let's Player like other YouTubers before me.

Both games' gameplay is identical to the first two Paper Mario games, meaning if and when Nintendo is planning to make a brand new Paper Mario game, they must make a modern Paper Mario title and base it off of the first two games that received critical acclaim with to take the original foundation and amplify and multiply it, not break and change it like they did with the disdained trio of games in the action-adventure genre since Sticker Star. That's how Bug Fables and Escape from Ever After became well-liked and well-received from fans that both of them use the gameplay identical to the first two Paper Mario games.

The indie game department comes with having two Paper Mario-inspired games, so do you know what is coming in the indie game department? An indie 2XKO with Saturday AM characters called Saturday AM: Battle Manga. I have a post that talks about it, so here's the link to it.

https://rpggameroom.blogspot.com/2026/01/saturday-am-battle-manga-indie-2xko-in.html

Stop with the One-Game Per Month Nonsense. Please.

So far, Sony has been releasing one classic game per-month for PlayStation Plus Premium and this practice has happened for the seventh month in a row and met with backlash that I agree with. Now, this post is not clickbait or opinion-based. This is a serious post that I'm gonna make because I agree with the backlash regarding the dumb and laughable cadence of one classic game per month. I'm serious and I'm not joking. Why am I making this serious post is because a lot of people, including me, are fed up with Sony releasing one classic game per month as it happens the seventh month in a row and this cycle needs to stop. I kid you not.

Premium is literally starving for more classic games. This practice began later in 2025 and Sony needs to divert their resources to Implicit Conversions to give us more than one classic game per month. I agree with the backlash. The one-game-per-month release cadence is making fans mad. Literally, one game isn't gonna do it. It does nothing but make fans mad and make them a laughingstock when there are a lot of them just itching to be in the catalog. Serioulsly, Sony needs to stop releasing one game per month and continue releasing more than one game per month. I mean, there are games I wished for in that cadence, but still.

This just tells me that Sony is absolutely tone-deaf, acting like little babies with the cadence of giving us one game per month and making Premium a joke, especially when there are a lot of games out there like Crash Bandicoot, Spyro the Dragon, Ratchet & Clank, the Simpsons Hit & Run and even Tak among many others. Why can't Sony understand or recognize this? We're getting Tekken: Dark Resurrection this month. This is a PSP release of the PS3 release that was met with mixed reception. There are a lot of games just itching to be in the catalog, yet Sony is investing into being a laughingstock.

And Sony, if you're reading this, please for the love of God, please lay off of and refrain from the one classic game per month release cadence, even though there are a couple of them I played during my childhood in it. All that does is nothing but make you a laughingstock and make fans upset when there are a lot of heavy hitters and classic games we play during our childhood out there. Just invest your resources to Implicit Conversions to give us more than one classic game per month. Heck, might as well pick up and pace and shift to giving us five classic games per month. That could increase the pace of releasing classic games in a faster pace. That's all I wanted to say. Please give us more than one classic game per month. That's all I ask.