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Bizarre Love Triangle

I heard about Salty Bet last month, and I thought the idea quite banal. The site streams matches in MUGEN, that game engine that lets fans turn anything into a 2-D fighting-game character, whether it's a slightly tweaked Street Fighter icon or an MS Paint drawing of robot Mark Twain. The fighters all run on AI, so site visitors participate only by betting fake money and yelling at each other in an accompanying chatroom.

And now I can't get away from it. A good deal of the fun comes from the random matchups. Many of them involve pint-size SNK boss steamrolling an opponent. It's amusing to see just what people come up with for fan-made characters, and every now and then something remarkable manifests.

It also helps that Saltybet requires little attention. You can glance at it, place a bet, and then let it run in the background while you turn to more meaningful tasks. Of course, you can watch the fights and take in the chat, which captures fighting-game fans in both their amusing over-excitement and, unfortunately, their off-putting misogyny and racism. It's hard to resist predicting both the fight results and the betting odds, all in the hopes of reaping a big play-money payout with some unlikely character. I'm hoping to see fan-made versions of Valkyrie Profile's heroine or Sergio Aragones' Groo.

NEWS

MIGHTY NO. 9 GETS AS CLOSE TO A MEGA MAN REVIVAL AS THE LAW PERMITS
CAPCOM. In the years since he departed the company and founded a studio called Comcept, Inafune's made action games like Yaiba and Soul Sacrifice, with only his iOS side-scroller J.J. Rockets really cutting close to Mega Man territory. But Inafune can't escape the character he shepherded throughout his days at CAPCOM. It's time he made another Mega Man title the only way he can: by slapping a different name on it.

Mighty No. 9 is technically and legally not Mega Man, but the parallels are clear. A heroic little robot named Beck is the only one of nine mechanical masters to escape a corrupting virus, and he's forced to take out his fellow machines by swiping their powers for use in various side-scrolling stages. That's Mega Man in concept, but Inafune mixes in a new idea: Beck's acquired powers actually transform him, turning him into a tank, a hammer, or some other shape. That presents some interesting changes to the Mega Man formula, and Beck apparently has access to abilities beyond the usual boss-given weapons.

Much of Mighty No. 9 reflects the original Mega Man, including Inafune's collaboration with former CAPCOM employees like level designer Naoya “Tom Pon” Tomita, art director Shinsuke Komaki, and composer Manami Matsumae. The game repackages other elements of the franchise; the boss designs recall Mega Man X's Mavericks, and the proposed art for Beck's partner Call (yes, that's the joke) includes not only a facsimile of Mega Man's Roll, but also a pink-haired robot who wears an Eddie-like backpack and looks like Aero from the unjustly axed Mega Man Legends 3.

The project's already a success in one sense: the Kickstarter ed its $900,000 mark in under two days, and the game seems well on its way to reaching a number of stretch goals. The initial PC version of Mighty No. 9 has a generously estimated release date of Spring 2015, and developer Renegade Kid already offered to help port it to the 3DS. I hope it does well enough that we see Mighty No. 9 Legends in a few years.

NINTENDO ANNOUNCES 2DS, DRAWS APATHY
There's one important thing to about Nintendo's newly unveiled 2DS: if you're reading this, you're probably not its intended audience. Your children might be, though. Everything about the 2DS suggests the younger set: the handheld plays 3DS games without the 3-D effect that could potentially harm kids' eyes, it lacks the hinged design that children tend to break, and it's priced at a manageable $129. It's evidently Nintendo's attack on the encroachment of tablets into the realm of handheld games. The 2DS is meant for parents who want something that plays Pokémon, costs a third of an iPad's going rate, and won't let kids porn or run up equally obscene app purchases.

Of course, there's no reason the system won't appeal to the older gamer who doesn't care about Nintendo's 3-D experiments or a convenient, foldable design. The only concern, I think, is that the controls are mounted toward the top of the system, meaning that kids will hold the 2DS there…and possibly drop it a lot. Nintendo will find out if that's a liability after the handheld ships on October 12.

BRAVELY DEFAULT BRINGS ENHANCEMENTS, NEW TITLE TO THE U.S.
Bravely Default: Flying Fairy left a curious gap in the 3DS library last year, when it emerged as an extravagant Twitter feed suggests that we'll get the newly enhanced version of Bravely Default, subtitled For the Sequel, under the title Bravely Default: Where the Fairy Flies.

The new version of Bravely Default offers a few more options as players tread through the game's tale of adventurers, crystals, empires, and other things we all liked back in the oldest Final Fantasies. The enhanced version of the game has options to speed up combat, auto-battle, and, best of all, lessen the rate of random encounters. Equipment screens are more helpful as well, and the backdrops of towns and cities look a bit sharper. Will Bravely Default do well without Final Fantasy in its title? Will it do well with “Where the Fairy Flies” in its title? I think it will.

IMPORT ROUNDUP: AUGUST

Saint Seiya: Brave Warriors, so perhaps they'll do the same for All Star Battle. Strangest Design: In JoJo's Bizarre Adventure it's very hard to choose, but I think Giorno Giovanna's hair stands out as one of the oddest coiffures in the series.

HOT-BLOODED TOUGH GUY KUNIO: FIGHTING CONCERTO Developer: Million Co. Ltd. Publisher: Arc System Works Platform: Nintendo 3DS Many Technos Japan's Kunio-Kun games from the NES era, though not as a specific series. They were known by different titles in different genres, and most kids quickly noticed how the same blocky characters appeared in Super Dodge Ball, Nintendo World Cup, Crash 'N The Boys: Street Challenge, and the esteemed River City Ransom. The last of these remains one of the biggest cult classics of the NES, and that may be why Million, owner of old Technos properties, put together a new Kunio-Kun game in the same spirit: Hot-Blooded Tough Guy Kunio: Fighting Concerto. This 3DS outing recalls River City Ransom instantly with opening scenes of street toughs sparking a turf war, and the resulting brawl, scripted by Kunio-Kun creator Yoshihisa Kishimoto, sends Kunio through various Tokyo districts full of equally square-headed thugs. Kunio-Kun SP's central mode plays much like River City Ransom and all of those other Kunio-Kun brawlers that Technos never brought to North America. It's easy to dash, jump-kick, and pick up and toss any weaponlike objects that fall to the ground. Enemies also utter dialogue upon defeat, though their lines seem more elaborate than River City Ransom's classic “Barf!” exclamation. Stores offer upgrades (and, we assume, free smiles) and restorative meals while Kunio and his companions bash their way around, and the heroes can take on part-time jobs when defeated goons don't leave enough cash behind them. In tribute to other Kunio-Kun games, the multiplayer modes include a dodgeball battle with over thirty characters, and there's also a general-purpose four-player slugfest for those who prefer less sportsmanlike diversions. It's all a rather reassuring tribute to Kunio-Kun games as we knew them twenty years ago. Import Barrier: The 3DS remains region-locked, and the game needs a little knowledge of Japanese to decode the menus and modes. As for the story, you could always pretend it's River City Ransom and that everyone has names like “Alex” and “Slick.” Chances of a Domestic Release: The last Kunio-kun game to reach North America was River City Soccer Hooligans in 2010. This makes Aksys the most likely localizer, and they have no plans for the game right now. Strangest Design: Possibly the guy at the upper-right of the cover, who carries a gun and looks a little like the protagonist of Retro City Rampage.

ROMEO VS. JULIET Developer: Hakuōki and Sweet Fuse, though QuinRose doesn't have the same relationship with U.S. publishers. Strangest Design: The apparently original character Lawrence Globus, who walks around with a bandolier of machine-gun rounds on his formal vestments.

NEXT WEEK'S RELEASES

KINGDOM HEARTS HD 1.5 REMIX Developer: Square Enix Publisher: Square Enix Platform: PlayStation 3 Release Date: September 10 MSRP: $39.99 Will Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 Remix catch you up entirely on the franchise's ever-growing sugary birthday cake of Disney staples and Square Enix stylings? Well, not quite. But it'll come close. Remix includes Kingdom Hearts III rolls around next year. This Remix adds other minor improvements on top of sharpening up the collected games. The controls are now much closer in line with Kingdom Hearts II. The viewpoint is easily managed with the controller's right thumbstick, and both combat and exploration are easier with context-sensing commands. Those are small changes, but they're welcome updates to the original design choices of the first Kingdom Hearts, now over ten years old. Of course, such enhancements won't win over those uninterested in the Kingdom Hearts saga. It's still the upbeat tale of teenagers wielding keyblades in battles with negative emotional personification and Disney villains, all with the tone of a kid-hero manga series. For those curious, though, this is an opportune place to start. Then you'll understand when people inevitably joke about the next Kingdom Hearts having a Song of the South stage.

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