A natural tie-in to today's other announcement.

The entire Kingdom Hearts franchise will soon be joining Sora on Switch.

During today's Sora presentation for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, Masahiro Sakurai announced three remastered collections of Kingdom Hearts games will be released on Switch as streaming titles in the future. The three games are:

It's not an anime swordsman, because the weapon is a keyblade.

The final Smash Bros Ultimate DLC was the most requested fighter of all.

Sora, main character of the Kingdom Hearts franchise, will be the 89th and final fighter in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate when he launches on October 18. During the presentation, it was revealed that Sora was the most requested fighter overall in the 2014-15 "Smash Ballot" that was used to decide DLC fighters .

We follow up a week of 60 games in North America with a GOTY.

So last week, I mentioned that there were 47 games going into the week - and the final score ended up at 60. There's been MONTHS since I took over this column where we had fewer releases than that, so... geez, I know it was a quarter end but slow down you fools. Maybe some of those games should have moved to this week, considering we have a hardware rev on Friday.

Yes, the hug button is back.

A much-loved remake from the Wii era is itself getting re-released on Switch.

The WayForward-developed A Boy and His Blob, which originally launched on Wii in 2009, was confirmed for a Switch release this fall. It will be published by the retro specialist publisher Ziggurat Interactive, who recently published WayForward's BloodRayne games on Switch as well.

Perhaps a good sign for the main game's full release on Switch as well.

The wildly successful crowdfunding campaign for Suikoden spiritual successor Eiyuden Chronicle will bear some fruit on Switch.

During a 505 Games TGS presentation, the publisher confirmed that the prequel title Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising, which was a stretch goal in the initial campaign, would come to Switch in 2022. It was previously announced for PC and active PlayStation / Xbox consoles.

It was always burning since the world's been turning.

If there's a mishap cooking during this year's holiday season, the Firegirl will be able to put out the flame.

Firegirl, the side scrolling firefighter action game, will launch on Switch on December 14 (as spotted at Gematsu). The fires will be procedurally generated and, in a bit of realism, will have to be extinguished in three minutes. (Time bonuses will be awarded if certain tasks are completed.)

From a Square vet who doesn't think beating up your own party members is good game design.

There's more than one new RPG due for the eShop from Square this month.

During a Tokyo Game Show presentation this morning, Square Enix announced a new RPG titled Dungeon Encounters which will launch on October 14 for 3200 yen. The English language Square Enix Twitter have confirmed a worldwide launch.

As is apparently required by some obscure corner of Japanese law we don't have time to look up.

Capcom has given new details on Monster Hunter as part of their Tokyo Game Show presentation, including first details on the recently announced Sunbreak expansion.

Sunbreak

It turns out Centipede was just the harbinger of an invasion.

After decent critical reception, Atari is continuing on with their "Recharged" line of arcade remixes.

Following today's launch of Centipede Recharged, the latest iteration of the pre-NES company has announced three new games in that vein for release. The first will be Black Widow Recharged, which is slated to launch October 28 and attempts to modernize the 1982 vector-based shooter.

The professor is probably more talkative than they were in Fodlan.

Shin Megami Tensei V has brought in some heavy hitters for its English voice cast.

A new trailer has confirmed a large portion of the voices for the Western version of the game. The protagonist will be voiced by Casey Mongillo, whose previous voice credits include the Scorbunny family in the Pokemon... Read more...

Happy birthday to the original Diamond and Pearl, by the way.

On the 15th anniversary of Pokemon Diamond and Pearl's Japanese release, The Pokemon Company have dropped new trailers for the two Sinnoh-set games releasing in the next few months: Pokemon Legends: Arceus and Brilliant Diamond / Shining Pearl.

Legends Arceus will feature character customization... Read more...

A big week for the big ape.

Super Nintendo World is about to expand with Kong.

Nintendo and Universal Studios Japan have announced plans to expand the existing Super Nintendo World to include a Donkey Kong-themed world. No specific attraction names were planned, though a "roller coaster, interactive experiences and themed merchandise and food" are promised with guests "able to take a walk on the wild side".

There are two things ascending this week, and one of them is my credit card bill.

Sometimes, I blow my good material for this column ahead of time. Take this week, for example:

If you are a Switch dev who's thinking of shadowdropping something in NA next week:Don't.There's already nearly 50 games announced. You'll get buried like Booker T in Seattle.

We asked Nintendo a couple of burning questions.

We had a couple of questions for Nintendo regarding details of the Expansion Pack for Nintendo Switch Online, but Nintendo is not forthcoming with details yet.

Following yesterday's Nintendo Direct, we inquired to Nintendo about whether the Sega Genesis games would have online play in the Nintendo... Read more...

If you're not familiar, imagine if every Xenoblade 2 blade was a hot dude.

The next series to get the Warriors treatment from Koei Tecmo is one of the more unique Japanese franchises.

The combo kings have revealed Touken Ranbu Warriors, recently announced in Japan, will launch in the West on May 24, 2022 as a digital-only title. Touken Ranbu is a free to play web-based... Read more...

Strap in, this'll be a bit of a list.

Other news items from today's Nintendo Direct:

Working title no more.

The team behind Square Enix’s Triangle Strategy has officially announced the release date, dropped the working title and revealed changes in today’s Nintendo Direct. These changes were made according to player feedback in the survey that came packaged with February’s demo. These changes and additions include:

Let the lore speculation begin!

Nintendo has finally detailed the upcoming story DLC for Hyrule Warriors Age of Calamity entitled Guardian of Rememberance. The DLC will release on October 29th. It will include a new story including battles focused on both Kakariko and Gopanga village. New characters including Robbie, Purah, and... Read more...

You knew about the first one, but the second was... GOOD LORD.

The Nintendo Direct announced four different titles that will be available shortly on Switch:

Has Ninji always had button nipples?

Mario Golf: Super Rush will recieve a new, free content update later today. This update is to include both Koopa Troopa and Ninji as playable characters. Two new courses are also being added in snow and desert themes.

This follows after the previous update which included a New Donk City course based on the level of the same name in Super Mario Odyssey.