Are complaints about games having microtransactions and loot boxes effective?

Many mobile games have microtransactions and loot boxes but not all mobile games have both features present. Also, other mobile games are like less dangerous than others due to having microtransaction feature only but the spending on it is still unlimited that it continues to pose danger of gaming addiction. Many developers who made those freemium mobile games have made tons of money off microtransaction feature and suffice to say, this has been the norm for mobile gaming nowadays. A paid mobile game is said not to have microtransaction features but they happen to be bigger financial advantage for game companies.

No matter how much you warn people about how dangerous the microtransaction and loot box features are when they are present together in a mobile game, there are scummy whales out there who continue to defend such games no matter how much greed and unusual stuff that are implemented. You can complain about such practices all you want but there are already games full of greed that we can rant on as they surpass many good mobile games through wickedness alone. Diablo Immortal is one of those games many people including me have ranted about.

Unfortunately, no matter how vocal we are, there are times where complaints are ignored or appreciated depending on the gaming controversy. It's like all Activision Blizzard cared for was the profits and I guess that the whales are to blame for making such mobile games like Diablo Immortal succeed.

An immature misconception is when people think that mobile gamers aren't real gamers and mobile games in general are total garbage. That's not an opinion at all. The only thing from me that can rival that misconception is that spinoff games of source material on mobile cannot be trusted and mobile games with endless paths of difficult stages/levels like Candy Crush games are not a fun experience. Your best solution will be to avoid those kinds of mobile games in the first place.

There were other past things I ranted because of how extremely disturbing they were like the M1 Fringe Festival of 2017, a game console with the most inappropriate design and a dance movie involving kids as main characters that would be released on Netflix two years ago. However, those were stories of the past times.

S**** Origins compilation controversy

Hate to blog anything related to that franchise I'm no longer a fan of but it seems that many journalists and content creators brought up AAA GAMES while the topic is about S***c Origins, the upcoming compilation game from Sega that will come up in two months or so. The reason has something to do with Sega emulating what other companies like Rockstar and Square Enix did to the original versions of the old games in favor of the remastered ones. Suffice to say, GTA Trilogy Definitive Edition is a disaster when it came out that Rockstar would eventually come up with a plan to reinstate the original versions of the old games on Rockstar Store which is still an incomplete amend they had made. Square Enix had pretty much done the same for some classic Final Fantasy games on mobile and PC in favor of the Pixel Remaster versions and the Pixel Remaster versions of the classic Final Fantasy games are said to be quite good.

So, what is Sega planning for this compilation this time? Well, they're planning to remove the original versions of the classic S***c games from Steam, PS3, Xbox 360 and even Playstation Now service in favor of the enhanced compilation version done by Christian Whitehead and Headcannon, who were behind the enhanced ports of some classics previously released on mobile with S**** CD enhanced version released on mobile, PC and consoles. The recent actions from Sega attracted the attention of some content creators who make news videos on big games like those AAA games for instance.

The gaming news that had both the upcoming S***c Origins and whatever AAA games mentioned was the reason I wrote this blog article in the first place. Even the content creators who make gaming news videos, ranted about this S***c Origins controversy in a professional way like proper adults.

Nintendo of America's alleged mistreatment of employees

Oh man, even Nintendo of America had gone on a similar treacherous route as some other big game companies like Konami, EA, Activision Blizzard do. The recent gaming news about Activision Blizzard's similar mistreatment to employees and toxic work environment was as serious as the previous gaming news regarding Konami of the present time.

There were labor complaints filed against Nintendo of America recently and they even put out a statement regarding this situation. Some of the big game companies are already on the dark and greedy side ever since many years ago with Konami being one of the examples regarding the dispute between them and Hideo Kojima for instance. Other than that side, there are still new games being made by those companies and especially that you get to see new games in classic Nintendo franchises. Some of the Pokemon commercials are good examples about playing together with a family or friend like it's one of the bright sides of Nintendo but Nintendo being on the super dark side is some moment nobody wants.

A controversy like the one caused recently from Nintendo of America is something of a kind that can attract those weirdos shilling on the Amico platform like they can label Nintendo certain things in an ignorant way while Intellivision and Tommy have their own controversies to address. Tommy's disrespectful and aggressive attitude towards gamers, critics and content creators is what should be addressed the most as it had been one of the causes of the Amico console falling apart as a product.

I guess that after the amount of gaming controversies you know of regarding Konami, EA or Activision Blizzard for instance, the group you do not want to encounter at all is a group of defensive scums defending Konami with no regards to or awareness of said controversies. There's no plan to give big game companies a second chance if they continue to make such greedy moves such as disregards for consumers and employees for instance. You can give them that chance but they will blow it after sometime.

Space Kabaam on Playstation 4 & Playstation 5

What is this bare-bones looking shit that was recently released on Playstation 4 & 5? Indeed, I have appreciation for indie games being on consoles, mobile, PC and even arcades but Space Kabaam by Auto Slavic looks like something that is being shown in a game jam event. It has one stage, no powerups, simple enemy ship attacks, bare-bones presentation and the game session behaves like an endless runner. The flow is there from start to finish in which the game jumps to in-game and then goes to result screen after the game is over. Even Big Rigs: Over The Road Racing and Popeye reboot have a proper flow although some stages in Big Rigs are not there or something that choosing them might result in a program crash. Desert Bus on Sega CD has an in-game session that doesn't end or something and that makes it more incomplete than other games I just mentioned.

If you want to play an endless runner-style shmup game with a complete presentation and sufficient contents, how about MUGEN Vritra on mobile and PC or Galaga Wars on mobile? MUGEN Vritra has one endless stage that is divided into randomly chosen areas and the player character which is the flying dragon has different weapons to choose from. Galaga Wars has multiple ships to choose from and each ship has its own set of weapons that can be upgraded just like in other endless runner games. It also has multiple stages but it is still an endless runner-style game. Once you reach the final stage, you'll remain there for the rest of the game session.

For an indie game in such an incomplete state, the release of Space Kabaam has left people baffled on how could Sony allow something like this to happen. The gameplay of Big Rigs: Over The Road Racing is unpolished with the game having incomplete set of race tracks and Popeye reboot has a few different maps and that's that. Space Kabaam has a severely bare-bones presentation I've ever seen and is not worth the time no matter which platform it is released on.

Even as an indie game, people expect a complete and interesting set of contents. Undertale has tons of unique stuffs and demonstrates the goodness of indie gaming on modern gaming platforms.

G-Darius HD Steam version

While the game performs faithfully to the arcade original with accurate emulation, the game name is still misleading as the visuals are more or less the same with the player ship being updated and the edges no longer looking jaggy in HD Mode so it's basically G-Darius in upscaled high-res glory. The Steam version of G-Darius HD has on more game mode exclusive to it, G-Darius Exhibition, which is an experimental game mode offering ultrawide gameplay experience with the HUD and in-game UI re-positioned. That game mode puts Playstation emulators with widescreen feature to shame with more accurate emulation M2 has come up with so far.

Some of the SNES and Genesis emulators have the widescreen feature but the games were designed with original aspect ratio in mind so there may be issues with that emulation feature. To get a true widescreen experience for SNES/Genesis games on those emulators, the games will need to be modified with widescreen in mind with the modification saved as a patch for the roms. But in case of Darius 1 & II, why would you want to come up with a widescreen patch for Genesis version of them when you can experience the arcade version instead? Just buy the compilation game or something like Darius Cozmic Collection for instance.

Like the previous M2 Shot Trigger games, some of the game modes for G-Darius HD are exclusively new which included M2 modifying the games with their own feature additions and other stuffs. As G-Darius Exhibition is an experimental game mode on what it's like to have a dual-screen game just like the other Darius games in the arcades excluding Darius Gaiden, only the boss battle feature made the cut although not all bosses are present in that mode. It's an awesome addition but if only it includes the whole game.

There was even a campaign taking place at Tsukumo PC shop's second floor at Akibahara where the Steam version of the game was being demonstrated there in G-Darius Exhibition game mode, allowing people to experience the ultra-wide gaming with sub-woofer installed in the seats. Sub woofers installed in the player's seats of the arcade cabinet have been a thing ever since the original Darius hit the arcades. Darius Burst Another Chronicle is the latest to have the similar cabinet setup. Like Darius I, II and Darius Burst Another Chronicle (Part of Chronicle Saviors) PC versions, there will be support for multiple monitors for G-Darius Exhibition game mode for G-Darius HD.

Mikado's Shooterfes event of this year

This one's a different story and something I don't blog about but from the list of games that will be displayed in Shooterfes event from Mikado that will take place this April, the game based on Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid franchise as published by Bushiroad and developed by Kaminari Games happens to be part of that list and that is reasonable for me to blog about since the game caused a controversy-to-be recently. The philosophy against such disturbing stuffs like those depicted in that game is stricter than before ever since I discovered a disturbing Netflix movie that caused a similar controversy two years ago but I don't know for sure if anyone is going to call out Kaminari Games and Bushiroad in a harsh way for that or not.

I should have been reminded earlier of a similar controversy SNK caused at a time when they released a series of those games for DS in the late 2000s although SNK was already given proper chances when they went back to producing good games again starting from King of Fighters XIV onwards. The concept of those games released on DS was about investigating and conducting checks on the subjects to determine if there's a mark on them somewhere and it was sickening and disturbing. At that time, SNK got away with it and we can recall some western reviewers giving the first game an instant 0/10. If that's the case, the ones who gave that game a 0/10 may as well criticize the game Kaminari Games developed based on Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid franchise in such a harsh way for repeating that same controversy SNK and Omocat caused. There's no realization on what Kaminari Games had done and the same can go for SNK for those games they made for DS at the time. At least, SNK Heroines Tag Team Frenzy's story acts as a proper message although the character customization feature has made it hypocritical quickly. It's a disappointment due to questionable graphics and gameplay style with the game's ending where the pocket dimension collapses and the game presentation having a lack of potential. It's better to be mediocre or mixed bag than being scored less than 5/10. However, this is not the case of the Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid shmup game for having more flaws than what KOF Sky Stage and SNK Heroines Tag Team Frenzy have.

Other companies like Platinum Games, Granzella and the one behind G-Mode Archives to name a few will be involved besides Bushiroad and in case of Platinum Games, they have Sol Cresta to be shown at the event with Granzella showing R-Type Final 2. Game center Mikado already made livestreams of those two games as well as the Cave shooter games ported by Livewire for Switch. Other recent games include Cotton Reboot and Cotton Fantasy as well as recent ports of existing games to Exa-Arcadia platform such as Crimson Katana Exa Label, Cotton Fantasy Exa-Arcadia version, etc. Other upcoming Exa-Arcadia games are off-topic to this upcoming event as they are not shmup games.

There are many interesting and good contents from Netflix and Bushiroad with some Korean dramas and movies recently released on Netflix being a massive hit for instance. Those are what you should watch instead. There are also interesting shmup games out there in this April's Shooterfes list and M2 Shot Triggers, Arcade Archives, R-Type Final 2, Sol Cresta, Cotton Fantasy and Cotton Reboot to name a few are what you should take a look at instead of some disturbing shmup game Kaminari Games developed. You can buy that disturbing shmup game if you want but the filthy and sickening influence that caused many developers including Kaminari Games to make such a disturbing shmup game cannot be thrown away easily.

Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid shmup game controversy?

If "fan-service" is the only thing Kaminari Games had without anything else like a message or mistake realization when making a shmup game based on Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid franchise, perhaps, I sense a bigger gaming controversy drawing near. Back then, during the game development of Omori from Omocat and her team, there were already some controversies including the one involving some indecent words on the main character's T-shirt. She already realized her mistake at the time and fast forward to when the game, Omori, was finally released, it was quite successful with positive reviews. This one from Kaminari Games will put the previous gaming controversies I discovered to shame. Of course, there are other shmup games out there that are more disturbing than this and they happened to be released in recent years.

These are the following reasons on how the controversy-to-be regarding the game based on Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid franchise could happen:

1. Damage portraits taken from Caladrius - The bosses have multiple phases and when you complete one phase like that, a portrait of the boss character can be displayed. For the player character's side, the same thing can happen if you lose a life in Caladrius. In the Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid shmup game, you can switch between three active characters and each character has her own health gauge. Taking damage decreases health and triggers such portrait taken from Caladrius. For boss battles, the same thing applies to some of the bosses. Needless to say, the game consists of the characters of multiple age-ranges with some of them looking like pre-teens or something. It's basically a gaming controversy waiting to happen since even the pre-teened characters are put in the mix for the gameplay with Caladrius elements.
2. Questionable character design and hybrid - We can complain about weird character hybrids all we want but rather than complaining about it countless times, why don't we redo something with more decent character design unofficially? The character concept from the source material is already questionable enough and Kaminari Games had made things in the game quite disturbing.
3. Worst way the enemies and bosses are defeated in a shmup game - We thought that Natsuki Chronicles had the worst explosion effects when enemies are defeated in the land of 8th-Gen console era but this one from Kaminari Games goes in an unusual way. The enemies are blown away with trails of static smoke when defeated like you're playing a modern Bomberman game or Super Smash Bros and the bosses retreat upon defeat like you're playing a platformer game or something. At least, in Sisters Royale, the enemies explode upon defeat and the boss characters blow into large amounts of particles, pieces of crystals and other effects upon defeat while the game still resembles Castle of Shikigami series. Even KOF Sky Stage has the modern boss defeat effects that slow down the game.

The first reason as described above is the most obvious one on how the gaming controversy could happen for real but as this is the game based on Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid franchise, it's not like Kaminari Games or Bushiroad is fully to blame for such controversy. The others' opinions on the game may be positive just because it's based on Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid franchise like they can dismiss my thoughts on how controversial it is as something bullshit and whiny.

A game like this that's disturbing and released on Switch had become one of the reasons on why Tommy would make offensive remarks on that console on the forum while manufacturing the Amico. Indeed, the Switch has tons of mature games besides the family-friendly games and the games with ESRB T ratings but the real offense from him is the lack of research and labeling the Switch in such an ignorant way that the Switch owners would get offended by him. The recent crowd funding from Intellivision at Start Engine also had a share of ignorant remarks about how such games like the one developed by Kaminari Games had divided families apart.

For the game center Mikado's part, I think that their support streams for Raiden IV are the final straws for MOSS and Kaminari Games after the Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid shmup game's release.