Category: Entertainment & Lifestyle

Infinite sequences are all but a given in Versus series games like Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3, but most of the time they’re accomplished through team aerial combos (TAC) as multiple characters utilize assists and swaps to keep up the permanent pressure.

Non-TAC infinites are more rare, but certain characters can pull them off by repeating certain moves in certain situations. Performing these means you can force your opponent to watch and listen to the same repetitive sequence ad nauseam, which is perfect for when you really want to add insult to injury. Hayd3nplz has compiled a handful of non-TAC infinites in one convenient video for us to both refer to and enjoy.

One of these infinites features Frank West of Dead Rising fame, and utilizes just two moves on repeat: Snapshot and Hammer Throw.

Hammer Throw sees Frank get suddenly attacked by a zombie, but he evades the bite and tosses the zombie in his opponent’s direction. Snapshot stuns the opposition for a moment, but also helps Frank level up his Prestige Points.

If Frank manages to land a Hammer Throw from full screen, he can proceed to Snapshot>Hammer Throw for an infinite loop that your opponent can do nothing about except listen to the rhythmic sounds of Frank yelling “GET OFF ME!” and “SMILE!” with constant guttural zombie moans all the while.

Thanks to scaling, sequences like this quickly reduce in damage until they’re lopping off only negligible amounts. Hayd3nplz does this for 500 repetitions to get the combo counter maxed out, but shows us some mercy with a time skip.

C. Viper, Dante, Dr. Doom, Doctor Strange, and plenty of other characters have similar combos in the full video below. Remember only to use these combos for good, lest you find yourself suddenly not getting invited to any of your friends’ birthday parties.

The game is almost as far off from release now as it was from Soul Calibur 5

You know time really is flying by when you look down and realize Soul Calibur 6 somehow came out six years ago already, which is basically the same amount of time that fans had to wait from Soul Calibur 5 to 6.

To help celebrate the birthday / anniversary, SC6’s Director shared a special sketch he made for the occasion as well as a message for the dedicated fans.

Yoshinori “Masuteru” Takahashi revealed a lovely portrait he made featuring Xianghua along with the text SC6 and 6th.

“Our souls are still burning, right?” he wrote as a nod to the series and community.

While it is nice to see Soul Calibur get some more recognition, it is also an unfortunate reminder that the future of Siegfried, Mitsurugi, Taki, Talim, Nightmare and the rest looks fairly grim at the moment.

Even before SC6 released, Producer Motohiro Okubo was rather up front with players by saying it could be “the last” game if the performance wasn’t strong enough after all the convincing it took to make Bandai Namco following Soul Calibur 5’s failure.

『ソウルキャリバー6』発売6周年記念！
Soulcalibur6 6th Anniversary!

Our souls are still burning, right?
#SOULCALIBUR #ソウルキャリバー#キャリバー6くんおたおめ pic.twitter.com/kkc8FEsQ8g

— マステル高橋 / Yoshinori Takahashi (Masuteru) (@masuooyama) October 18, 2024

Things were looking good initially with SC6 receiving a “steady / favorable launch” in early 2019, and Bamco would give the game a second season of DLC that wasn’t initially planned, which concluded in 2020.

As of 2021, however, Soul Calibur 6 had reached over 2 million sales in almost five years.

That still put it ahead of SC5 (1.56 million in one year), SC3 and the original games, but still below SC2 and SC4 (2.3 million in 8 months) — and that’s the last we heard about it directly.

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So while SC6 hit pretty decently for the series, it still paled compared to Bamco’s other flagship 3D fighting game considering Tekken 7 eclipsed 11 million sales and Tekken 8 crossed 2 million in a month.

Okubo himself, who was the most vocal proponent of SC6 at Bamco, also left the company in 2021 though he still responded to Masuteru’s post in kind.

Still burning Masuteru sama

— Motohiro Okubo (@achilles_Okubo) October 18, 2024

Now with game development costs continuing to rise and Bandai Namco themselves facing cancelations and staff reductions, a new Soul Calibur doesn’t look to be in the cards any time soon.

Longtime Tekken Director Katsuhiro Harada wrote an extended letter earlier this year discussing the Tekken Project and Project Soul teams plus how they ended up in this situation.

He believes Soul Calibur largely lacks a driving force and vision to push the series to keep going because the veteran Project Soul members who would have taken on the leadership roles either moved up the corporate ladder or to a different studio entirely.

“I think that the fact that the number of members who had the drive to keep the title alive, even if they had to jump through all kinds of pressure, decreased as the organization changed, and that is one of the aspects that weakened Project Soul little by little,” said Harada. “I am not saying that is all But it was a big factor. Happened due to organizational policy, not individual problems.”

Harada also just recently spoke about how he’s “sad” Tekken is the only big 3D fighting game remaining, but he hasn’t given up hope on Soul Calibur returning at some point — and also recently shared his own of Persona 5’s Futaba.

“But from my point of view, I don’t think the fire of Project Soul has been extinguished,” Harada concluded in his letter. “There are still a few people in the company who have the will to do it. I would like to believe that they are just not united now.”

We’re not even sure if Project Soul still really exists at this point either considering their official website now just redirects to Bandai Namco’s Japanese page.

The fire might not be completely engulfed, but the point where the soul fully ignites once again with the flames of rebirth still seems way off in the distance.

Just last Tuesday, Masahiro Sakurai, creator of the Super Smash Bros. series, released his final scheduled YouTube video for his “Creating Games” channel. However, he also told fans to look forward to a “special finale episode” popping up in the future.

Earlier today, Masahiro Sakurai revealed that this special finale is now slated to air on October 22 at 20:00 JST. For those of us living in North America, that’s 4:00 a.m. on the West Coast and 7:00 a.m. on the East Coast.

In his post, Sakurai mentions that this video will span for over 40 minutes. Excluding compilations, this will be the longest running episode on the “Masahiro Sakurai on Creating Games” YouTube channel.

Sakurai acknowledges that this episode might appear at inconvenient times for certain users based on their time zones. Fortunately, the episode will still be viewable after it is streamed.

More than likely, this video will feature a review of everything that has been posted on the channel since its inception. Of course, there may be a few new details shared throughout the experience as well.

With a previous upload, Sakurai declared that he was still creating games for the time being despite previously saying that he was semi-retired. This led many fans to speculate that development on the next Super Smash Bros. entry after Super Smash Bros. Ultimate could potentially be in the works.

There are a number of factors that seem to support this theory. For example, Nintendo Shuntaro Furukawa recently stated that the Switch successor will be announced before the end of this fiscal year, which ends on April 1, 2025. Needless to say, Super Smash Bros. has appeared on every mainline console since its debut on the Nintendo 64.

Bandai Namco’s Studio 2 & Studio S has apparently recently filled job positions that sought developers experienced with action games played from a “side-view.” Notably, Studio 2 & Studio S are the developers Nintendo used to make games like Super Smash Bros. 4, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe.

Nintendo also recently pushed update 13.0.3 for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, which resolved a longstanding issue with the Global Smash Power system that’s been present since the game launched. The fact that any number of developers were able to sit down and apply this fix at all has huge implications for the future of the series.

Finally, it’s been rumored that GameCube controllers are once again back in reproduction. Though this could potentially be something related to GameCube games coming to the Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack membership, GameCube controllers have historically been a telltale sign of a new Super Smash Bros. entry being developed.

With the upcoming special finale episode, we’re unlikely to get any sort of confirmation on a new Super Smash Bros. title being in the works since Sakurai seems to value surprising fans. However, Sakurai may end up providing hints on what’s next for him during the broadcast.

Needless to say, it’s a video that’s certainly going to be worth checking out once it’s live on YouTube.

Look forward to the YouTube Premiere special finale of Masahiro Sakurai on Creating Games this coming Tuesday, October 22nd at 20:00 Japan time! (11:00 GMT) It’ll run a bit over 40 minutes.

It might be a bit difficult for my international viewers to tune in at that time, but… pic.twitter.com/czPbzHhPdW

— 桜井 政博 / Masahiro Sakurai (@Sora_Sakurai) October 20, 2024

Terry Bogard has been out in the hands of Street Fighter 6 players for almost a month now, but the SNK representative doesn’t appear to be getting off to the same blazing start the previous DLC characters saw.

Another SF6 pro in C9|Lexx recently just dropped his new tier list for the game that includes Terry though it doesn’t feature him very high on the ranks.

The competitor who most recently finished in the top 8 for Ultimate Fighting Arena 2024 and top 16 for East Coast Throwdown 2024 has a solidified top 5 characters in the game currently.

There are 3 DLC characters among them with M. Bison, Ed and Rashid plus the only fighter who has two entrants confirmed for Capcom Cup 11 so far, Zangief.

Akuma and A.K.I. are just below them in A tier though as to why the demon isn’t among the peak fighters, Lexx says Akuma can be inconsistent in first-to-two settings because of his low health when powerhouses like Bison and Gief can wipe it all out in seconds.

It also seems Lexx rates his own main quite highly as well with Guile being among the A tier stars.

Like most of the rankings we’ve been seeing recently, however, Terry is not anywhere up there.

Instead, Mr. Bogard is sitting at the bottom of C tier, which would also have the latest DLC in the bottom 5 if these rows are ordered.

This isn’t as low as some Japanese pros like VARREL|Mago and Saishunkan|Nemo have placed Terry in their own tier lists, but also seemingly not as high as Phenom’s rankings.

With a big chance for players to prove Terry’s potential this weekend at the Capcom Pro Tour 2024 Super Premier Singapore event, that didn’t really pan out considering the farthest anyone took him was 97th place.

Meanwhile, there’s multiple of each Rashid, Bison, Ed and Akuma in the top 16 of the tournament.

Despite Terry’s ability to convert and rack up damage if given a chance, it seems his lack of great heavy attacks and ways to get in consistently without the potential for some big risk is still holding him back in the competitive meta of SF6 currently.

You can check out Lexx’s full tier list below.

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DLSS, short for deep learning super sampling, was a new feature first launched by Nvidia for the GeForce 20 series graphics cards back in September 2018. Essentially, DLSS uses AI for the purposes of improving images, upscaling, and frame rates, even on cheaper hardware.

Though a lot of technologies associated with AI have their share of limitations as well as morality concerns, DLSS has emerged as a powerful technology with very few disadvantages. However, despite all the upsides of DLSS, Capcom’s Street Fighter 6, originally released on June 2, 2023, has yet to implement support for DLSS.

In the best case scenario, according to IGN, DLSS is currently capable of boosting a game’s performance by about 300%. Of course, even an improvement of about 20% could be substantial in a lot of cases.

Frame Generation has recently been added to the most up-to-date versions of DLSS as a new feature. Essentially, AI is used to estimate what new frames are supposed to look like based on existing images. In other words, there would be less situations in which a game stutters or drops frames.

Due to the way that DLSS upscales lower-resolution images to generate 1080p, 1440p, or even 4K images, the workload on the graphics card is reduced, resulting in better frame rates. DLSS is able to use machine learning models to do this in real time.

Furthermore, DLSS is said to be a technology that’s constantly improving. Indeed, DLSS has seen significant improvements since it first launched back in 2018.

For fighting games, the improved frame rates would also mean that inputs should also become more responsive for players. We’d be less likely to see “dropped inputs” with improved frame rates. This is particularly important considering the impact of execution on fighting games.

With Street Fighter 6 in particular, this potentially reduces instances of inputs being dropped when something like a Drive Rush is activated due to the number of effects that appear on screen. Also, players should theoretically be able to respond more consistently to the opponent using a Drive Impact with a Drive Impact or Drive Parry with more precision.

It should be mentioned that some have reported that DLSS will make images appear less sharp. While this can be difficult to truly notice, games that utilize DLSS generally have a built-in option to turn it off should it become obstructive. Of course, it’s often instead stated that DLSS creates crisper images in general, though this can depend on the eye of the beholder.

On one hand, the Xbox Series and PlayStation 5 consoles do not currently support Nvidia DLSS upscaling technology. Meanwhile, Nvidia’s GPUs make up roughly about 88% of the graphics card users for PC. Should Capcom implement the feature, only PC gamers would actually benefit, leaving console gamers in the dust.

However, back in late 2021, Haruhiro Tsujimoto, Capcom’s Chief Operating Officer, revealed in an interview Capcom’s intent to focus on the PC as their main platform going forward. This was being done with a goal of splitting their games sales 50-50 alongside console game sales by 2022 or 2023.

Rumors have it that the Nintendo Switch successor, unofficially referred to as the “Nintendo Switch 2,” will utilize DLSS.

Meanwhile, Sony recently unveiled their PlayStation 5 Pro which utilizes PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution (PSSR). The concept of PSSR is eerily similar to Nvidia’s DLSS as it also enhances frame rates and picture quality through the usage of AI.

Needless to say, it seems like it may only be a matter of time before Microsoft begins incorporating a similar AI for the same purposes. As of right now, nothing has been announced on that front.

Like the recently released Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster, a Capcom game that utilize DLSS, Street Fighter 6 runs on the RE Engine. This suggests that Capcom should have no problem implementing DLSS into their latest fighter.

Regardless, Street Fighter 6 is one of many games that currently does not benefit from using DLSS, which is something that Capcom should greatly consider correcting at some point. Though Street Fighter 6 wasn’t designed with DLSS in mind, it wouldn’t be too much of an issue to simply patch it in.

In fact, it’s interesting to note that there exists a way to unofficially mod Street Fighter 6 to utilize DLSS. Ultimately, it’s just a matter of taking DLSS files and the REFramework file from a Resident Evil 4 Remake mod, and placing it into the Street Fighter 6 folder.

Those that have done this have reported that there are some visual glitches that still need to be worked out. For the team of developers behind Street Fighter 6, addressing these visual glitches and properly applying DLSS shouldn’t present much of a problem considering the success that one person has already been able achieve.

Overall, Street Fighter 6 can only benefit from the implementation of DLSS and Capcom is more than capable of doing it.

Although there’s over 180 playable fighters to pick from in Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero at launch, many players will naturally gravitate towards their favorites and strongest characters on the roster like Gogeta and Whis — but they won’t always be the best choice to bring into battle.

Instead of crafting a massive tier list with all of those combatants in the game, Soul Kings recently put together rankings for what he believes to be the top 20 secretly overpowered and underrated characters in Sparking Zero.

To be part of this list, fighters are generally on the least expensive side of DP cost, so they’re great to add to limited teams for their utility and skills that allow them to face off against the most physically powerful transformations, fusions and gods.

That’s why to kick off the list with B tier, Soul Kings has Yamcha up there as his first pick at just 3 DP, and he can get a lot done with that small cost because of his Afterimage and “Power Up to the Very Limit” skills alongside good melee combos and specials.

Anyone who’s run into players that like to troll others online probably won’t be too surprised to see Captain Ginyu up there in A tier too because of his body change ability to essentially “steal” one of the opponent’s best characters.

Sure, he can’t use the new character’s skills, but they can’t use Ginyu’s either — so it’s probably best to know how the character generally works just in case you get stuck with him.

While he doesn’t think Dragon Ball Daimga’s Goku is good, Soul Kings does think Goku (Teen) is good enough to get the job done as a 3 DP character that has Afterimage Strike as well as a pretty standard Kamehameha to rack up damage quickly.

If a low-cost character has Afterimage or Afterimage Strike, there’s a good chance they’re going to be on this list somewhere.

One who doesn’t have those speed skills, however, is Dr. Gero, but he still makes the ranks because of his life draining grabs that can be fairly simple to set up.

Moving on to S tier, we’ve got another small Goku with his base GT version not because that form is all that special, but he can transform into Super Saiyan 4 Goku pretty easily for like half of the DP cost.

That’s another trend among these ranks with okay fighters than can transform into much better versions of themselves like base Teen Gohan and Base Z Broly.

And then among the god tier, you’ve got the secret top fighter and fastest in the universe, Burter.

Plus, there’s no forgetting Yajirobe either, but it seems he’s about to get nerfed in Sparking Zero’s upcoming patch.

You can check out Soul Kings’ full tier list below as well as his video going over the picks though be warned there is some language present in there. And let us know what busted low-cost strategies you’ve found in the comments.

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We’re not breaking any news here when we say that Justin Wong is an absolute menace in Marvel vs. Capcom 2 (and we mean that in the most complimentary of ways).

The fighting game legend who is widely considered the best of the best in the game has been having a blast with the new Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection lately, with dozens of clips of his incredible abilities being posted and shared on social media since the game released last month. Well, throw another unbelievable clip on the top of the pile as Justin himself recently shared footage of him hitting the sneakiest Akuma Raging Demon set up we’ve ever seen in MvC2.

This highlight begins like any other with JWong having two characters with low health left on his team while his opponent is down to their last one and is just a couple of hits away from being knocked out.

In this particular match, we see Justin using Psylocke and Akuma with his Psylocke being the active character. They face off against a solo Magneto, and things seem pretty par for the course as Justin super jumps around the screen and whiffs air attacks to try and catch the opponent meeting him in the air.

There comes a point where Justin uses one of Psylocke’s supers in the air just out of range of the opponent. Magneto doesn’t make contact with it, so he ends up dropping down out of view as the camera is fixed up high on Psylocke.

Now, in this scenario any player would stay grounded and wait for Psylocke’s telekinetic butterflies to disappear before trying to punish as jumping up to try and catch her would likely result in being hit themselves. Knowing this, Justin Wong performed a Delayed Hyper Combo to cancel the ending of Psylocke’s super into, you guessed it, Akuma’s Raging Demon.

Within the blink of an eye, we see the camera shift down to the ground, Akuma appear and strike his Raging Demon pose, and snatch the unsuspecting Magneto up in the super for the KO. It all happens so fast, and with it starting completely off-screen, this is easily the sneakiest and filthiest Raging Demon we’ve seen in Marvel vs. Capcom 2.

Even Justin Wong tweeted, “Be honest… You got caught right?” along with the clip signifying just how aware he is of the potency of this set up. I don’t think anyone in this scenario would have escaped this before seeing the clip below.

Be honest…

You got caught right? pic.twitter.com/rkKM9TWUko

— Justin Wong (@JWonggg) October 17, 2024

With the exception of an upcoming special finale episode, Masahiro Sakurai has effectively wrapped up his YouTube channel project. Needless to say, fans of Super Smash Bros. have been speculating that Sakurai is already deep into development of the next entry in the series.

Sakurai doesn’t currently see the series continuing without his involvement, but he supposedly would actually like to leave it to someone else. In an email interview with The Verge back in 2019, Sakurai discussed the need for the franchise to eliminate its dependence on his vision for it.

“What would convince you to come back to make another Smash?” asked The Verge. “Do you think, if you did return, your role would be different or reduced?”

“Basically, if I were to have the opportunity to work on another Super Smash Bros. game, that means we would have to shrink the roster, but we need to think about whether fans would be pleased about that.” — Masahiro Sakurai

“I think we’ve reached the limit, at least in terms of volume of content and fighters,” responded Sakurai. “Basically, if I were to have the opportunity to work on another Super Smash Bros. game, that means we would have to shrink the roster, but we need to think about whether fans would be pleased about that.”

Indeed, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate truly is a special game considering its “Everyone Is Here” theme, which is a concept that apparently stunned the rest of the development team into silence upon first presenting it. Needless to say, Sakurai has been adamant that this is the sort of thing that could’ve only happened this one time in the entire series.

As such, even Sakurai has had a hard time envisioning a way to follow up Super Smash Bros. Ultimate considering that the roster may have to be trimmed down. The process of cutting characters is one that Sakurai himself loathes doing as he knows that some fans will inevitably be disappointed. Sakurai describes this as being stressful “almost to the brink of death.”

Of course, Sakurai now seems to acknowledge that there are still some fans that may never be truly satisfied even after bringing back every fighter for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate simply because their specific hopes and wishes weren’t met. Needless to say, Sakurai might be able to ease up on stressing himself out so much with this newfound knowledge.

“The current Super Smash Bros. has too much of my personality poured into it. In order for a long-time series to continue thriving today, we need to think about eliminating the series’ dependence on just one person’s vision.” — Masahiro Sakurai

“Also, I’ve been doing too much of the work myself, so I’d need to resolve that, too,” continued Sakurai during his email exchange with The Verge. “The current Super Smash Bros. has too much of my personality poured into it. In order for a long-time series to continue thriving today, we need to think about eliminating the series’ dependence on just one person’s vision.”

When Sakurai says that he’s been doing too much of the work himself, he’s not exaggerating. During the development of Super Smash Bros. Melee, Sakurai worked 13 months straight without a single day off, and while only stopping to sleep for four hours after working a 40 hour work cycle. Needless to say, the experience ended up landing Sakurai in the hospital when he inevitably passed out.

Regardless, Sakurai has gone on the record and stated that he would prefer to leave development of the Super Smash Bros. series to someone else as it’s been very difficult for him. In fact, he’s apparently tried to do just this before, but it didn’t work out. As such, the Super Smash Bros. series is currently too dependent on Sakurai himself being involved.

“Of course, this is the way it is now because we weren’t successful in splitting the vision between multiple people before,” continued Sakurai in the interview with The Verge. “This would be a challenge for the future and something that needs to be discussed with Nintendo, if there were to be a next installment in the Super Smash Bros. series.”

“This would be a challenge for the future and something that needs to be discussed with Nintendo, if there were to be a next installment in the Super Smash Bros. series.” — Masahiro Sakurai

At this point, there are plenty of telltale signs that seem to indicate development for the next entry in the franchise has begun. For example, we appear to be close to the end of the Nintendo Switch’s lifecycle.

According to Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa, the Switch successor is slated to be announced before the end of this fiscal year, which concludes on April 1, 2025. Nintendo will likely want to continue the trend of releasing a new Super Smash Bros. entry for every mainline Nintendo console since the Nintendo 64, especially considering that Super Smash Bros. Ultimate sits as the third best-selling game on the Switch with over 34.66 million sales at this point.

Additionally, Bandai Namco’s Studio 2 & Studio S, the developers behind Super Smash Bros. 4 and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, recently filled positions seeking game designers experienced with action games played from a “side-view.” If this game is what we believe it to be, then it would mean that Bandai Namco will be returning to develop their third Super Smash Bros. title.

Though Super Smash Bros. Ultimate’s developers are finished with balance updates for the game, they recently pushed update 13.0.3 out. While this patch only addressed a single issue associated with the online ranking system, the fact that any number of developers sat down to work on this at all has huge implications for the future of the series.

Finally, it’s also been rumored that GameCube controllers are once again in production, which could be tied to Nintendo preparing for the GameCube library on the Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack membership, a new Super Smash Bros. entry, or both. Regardless, Nintendo has a history of bringing the GameCube controller back to production specifically for the Super Smash Bros. series, even though the GameCube generation has long since passed.

Sakurai’s philosophy for developing the Super Smash Bros. franchise has typically been to develop each entry as though it could be the last one. Due to this, it’s becoming increasingly more difficult to have later entries top its predecessor.

At this point, not even Sakurai himself is sure on how a sequel can come after Super Smash Bros. Ultimate without its “Everyone Is Here” theme, which almost didn’t even happen to begin with. Regardless, Sakurai understands that the series right now is not able to continue at all unless he gets involved.

Even Satoru Iwata was aware of this fact as far back as Super Smash Bros. Brawl considering how he went out of his way to recruit Sakurai as the game director of next Super Smash Bros. title after Super Smash Bros. Melee. Had Sakurai not accepted this position, Iwata’s only backup plan was to port Super Smash Bros. Melee to the Wii with online features.

Having said all of this, Sakurai believes that there might someday be a Super Smash Bros. that he’s not involved with. Since Super Smash Bros. Ultimate’s release, Sakurai has, on more than a few occasions, declared that we’re not yet at that point, but it sounds as though he may attempt to ween himself away from the series with the development of the next one.

For the series to continue in the distant future, more influence from other developers’ visions may be incorporated with the next game or two within the series. We’ll just have to see how different things appear going forward.

Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero launched with a roster of 182 characters. Playable fighters include Turles, Super Garlic Jr., Lord Slug, Android 13, Janemba, Tapion, Bojack, Broly, Cooler, Metal Cooler, and many many more.

However, it turns out that most of the villains that appear throughout the Dragon Ball Z movies aren’t actually canonical to the main timeline. Back in 2019, Dragon Ball University released a compilation that explains why almost all of the movies can’t happen (before Dragon Ball Z: Battle Gods, which ended up getting retconned and revised for Dragon Ball Super anyhow).

Starting with Garlic Jr., problems immediately arise as the plot effectively has it so that Goku must rescue his son, Gohan, from Garlic Jr. In order for this to happen, it would have to be before the arrival of Raditz to Earth, but this exposes the existence of Gohan to Bulma, Roshi, and Krillin. Despite this, they end up being incredibly shocked to learn that Goku has a son in the first episode of Dragon Ball Z.

The only logical explanation here is that the movies basically act as an alternate timeline of events to the series’ main story. The events of Dragon Ball Z: Dead Zone, the movie in which Garlic Jr. debuts in, is theorized to happen at the same time as the first episode of Dragon Ball Z, but in a parallel universe.

Meanwhile, the events of The World’s Strongest, featuring Dr. Wheelo as the main antagonist, appears to happen after the battle with Nappa and Vegeta. However, Earth’s Dragon Balls and Piccolo both still appear to be around despite contradictions.

On the other hand, Dragon Ball Z: Bojack Unbound, while likely still not canon to the main story, still feels like a plausible story that’s without major errors that would indicate otherwise. Similar things could be said of Dragon Ball Z: Cooler’s Revenge, but not Dragon Ball Z: The Return of Cooler.

Check it all out below:

Metaphor: ReFantazio has been wildly successful in terms of critical and player reception, and the new, highly-regarded RPG is exceptional for the developers of Shin Megami Tensei and Persona for reasons beyond the accolades.

The Atlus 35th Anniversary Edition of Metaphor includes a special history book for the studio, which features a surprise cameo from Tekken’s Director.

Longtime head of the Tekken Project team, Katsuhiro Harada, was among the 35 developers to be included at the end of the book to talk about their own history / relationship with Atlus and their games.

Harada took things even farther than most by also showing off his skills as an artist with a bonus sketch of presumably his favorite character from Persona 5.

That would be for Futaba Sakura from the Phantom Thieves gang, and his portrait is actually pretty cute.

We don’t typically get to see these sorts of skills out of the veteran developer, so this is cool.

Thanks to MarkMan, we can also see the full message he left in the book too.

This is really cool to see in the Atlus 35th anniversary book!! pic.twitter.com/Fx5eKYmyMC

— Mark Julio 『マークマン』 (@MarkMan23) October 15, 2024

“Happy 35th Anniversary! This is supposed to be Sakura-san… Atlus-san, please unban me…

“Congratulations on 35 years of Atlus. I decided to draw Sakura-san from the Persona series, since I felt an affinity with her as a fellow glasses character (although they’re sunglasses in my case).

“Thinking on it, our relationship goes all the way back to when Namco published Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei… Back in 1987, I was still a student and hadn’t joined Namco yet, but I remember getting pretty hooked on it as a player.

“While it feels like I’ve only made trouble for you recently, I’m looking forward to us working together.”

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We’re not really sure what trouble he’s talking about, but sounds like they probably blocked him on social media, which is funny considering he’s in Atlus’ book.

The text bubble with Harada’s sketched head is also basically him asking to be unbanned too.

Tekken’s Director posted that he received his copy of Metaphor recently as well with a photo and scan of the drawing he included.

On top of that, he also shared his first draft of Futaba’s sketch that Harada claims his friends stopped him from completing because they felt she looked “a bit erotic.” — so it seems he started over with a more neutral expression.

Incidentally, my first drawing of Futaba Sakura for the #Metaphor : ReFantazio bonus “Atlus Brand 35th History Book” was stopped at all costs by my friends because it was a bit erotic. this one…
ちなみに当初描いてたやつは若干エロいのでは？という理由で知人に制止されました。 pic.twitter.com/6W2eOhJ25b

— Katsuhiro Harada (@Harada_TEKKEN) October 16, 2024

Now Harada is probably getting bombarded with requests to put Persona and Metaphor characters in Tekken 8, which probably wouldn’t be all that odd at this point beyond the clashing art styles.

He did already try and get KFC’s Colonel Sanders into Tekken as a guest, so nothing may be off the table.