Vote for Upcoming HG101 Books!

I have some long-term projects that should be finishing up by the end of summer, so I wanted to get the gears moving to plan the next few HG101 books. I have a poll of eleven proposed topics, so feel free to vote, or if there's any other topics, feel free to write them in the comments. Please keep in mind that these are for focused topics, that kind that are usually about 100-150 pages in length. For anything larger, I'd probably need to find a publisher because these books lose cost efficiency at a bigger scale. You can vote for multiple topics, though obviously please don't vote for all of them because it doesn't give any useful feedback! I'll have the poll open for the next few weeks. My goal is to have something out before the end of the year, but we'll see how it goes.

I've also attached a preview PDF of a few of the proposed books, mainly ones I've already started. These are early unedited works in progress so please keep this in mind!

When planning HG101 books, I look at the current articles we have for the site and determine if they’re ready for print. Some of them are quite old so they may need to be updated (or completely rewritten) to be brought up to current standards, some of them just need some new reviews to make them current. In many cases I can write any follow-ups or make any revisions myself, but in other cases it may be outside my area of expertise and would need to either see if any of the HG101 regulars are interested or otherwise hunt for freelancers. Incidentally, if any of these end up getting greenlit and either you or someone you know is interested in covering some of these wanted games, please let me know!

I'm also slowly working on a book of retro anime that I gave a preview of around Christmas 2024, but that's a long-running project and I'm keeping that separate from these since it likely won't be ready for at least a few more years.

More Taito Arcade Classics

This is a follow-up to the Taito Arcade Classics book. The headliners here are Bubble Bobble and Pocky & Rocky, along with Chase HQ, Cleopatra Fortune, Raimais, and the Ray’z shoot-em-up series, plus it will also include works by Tengo Project, since two of their four recent games are Taito related. This one is the furthest along in production since it’s been planned for a long time but kept getting pushed back. Outside of filling in some brief write-ups of some minor games, most of this is already written.

Ys and Other Falcom Classics

The Ys series was one of HG101’s earliest articles so I’d like to devote a book to it. Some of the more in-depth version comparisons for the first two games never made it onto the old site due to formatting issues; this would be a good place to put them in print. This would also include several other Falcom franchises, including the Dragon Slayer games (including Xanadu, Romancia, Legacy of the Wizard, Legend of Xanadu, and Sorcerian), Zwei, Legend of Nayuta, Brandish, and a few others.

The Ys series article is in pretty good shape as it’s been kept current over the years, even if the intro needs to be rewritten a bit. However, I originally played these on portable systems so some of the articles use screenshots from the PSP/Vita versions, which look pretty bad (Memories in Celceta in particular), so I need to find the time to either replay to rather these on the PC versions or recruit someone to snag these. Most everything else is also already written and just needs some tuning.

I’d leave the Legend of Heroes and Trails RPG series to its own volume somewhere down the line, since we don’t have write-ups for most of these yet and it's a very big project to cover them.

Tecmo Arcade Classics

This would focus on Ninja Gaiden and Dead or Alive, along with various other Tecmo arcade properties (Rygar, Wild Fang, Angel Eyes, etc.). I’d pitched this in the last HG101 book poll several years ago and it didn’t get a whole lot of interest but with Ninja Gaiden returning, it might be a good opportunity to revisit. Beyond the Ninja Gaiden updates, we’d need someone to cover those Dead or Alive beach vacation spinoffs since there’s been a few since the last one we covered.

Guide to Beat-em-ups Vol. 2

More beat-em-ups! This would include early titles like Kung Fu Master and other works by Irem, games from Jaleco and several other lesser known developers, plus it would keep current with some newer beat-em-ups (like River City Girls 2 and TMNT Shredder’s Revenge) and assorted indie games.

Sega Console Classics Vol. 2

This would include various Genesis games we couldn’t fit in the first volume (Toejam & Earl, Ecco the Dolphin, Ristar, etc) plus the portable 2D Sonic games, the Sega Disney games, and The Ooze. There’s quite a lot here before we get into the Saturn era, but I do wonder if these really need to go in chronological order, since we cover a lot of Sega stuff already on site. I’d definitely love to get some proper book coverage for Sakura Wars and Valkyria Chronicles some day.

Ivalice Alliance and the Works of Yasumi Matsuno

This would cover Ogre Battle, Tactics Ogre, the various Final Fantasy Tactics games, Vagrant Story, Final Fantasy XII, and Crimson Shroud. Also included would be related games like Triangle Strategy and Unicorn Overlord, as well as earlier games by Quest / Bothtec. We have an Ogre Battle/Tactics Ogre article that needs updating with the new Tactics Ogre remake. Similarly, the Final Fantasy Tactics article is in good shape but it will need updating with the remake. We have Crimson Shroud but would need new articles for the rest – we have an old Vagrant Story piece that’s pretty good and may still be printed but we also need a more traditional HG101 piece along with it.

Lunar and Grandia (and other Game Arts and 16-bit JRPGs)

Lunar and Grandia both saw some retro re-releases, and the articles are basically complete, beyond any updates to address the remasters. This would also include earlier games by Game Arts (Thexder, Yumimi Mix) and probably some other 16-bit or 16-bit adjacent JRPGs like Lufia and Golden Sun.

Mascot Platformers

 This would focus games that were riding the popularity of Sonic the Hedgehog and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, with the focus mostly being on 2D/16-bit era games. Think Bubsy, Battletoads, Awesome Possum, Zool, Socket, High Seas Havoc, Cool Spot, Jazz Jackrabbit, Aero the Acrobat, Wonder Dog, Boogerman, Earthworm Jim, maybe squeeze Gex in there. We have a lot of these done and just need some tweaking, so it would just be a matter of filling in the blanks.

Capcom and SNK Classics

I’m very reluctant to publish a book devoted solely to either Capcom or SNK since they both work in official capacities with other publishers. This is especially the case with Capcom who’ve been known to cut down unofficial projects, especially for their fighting games. But I think having a book that focuses on their other arcade output. We’ve already covered beat-em-ups elsewhere and a few other big series were in previous books (Strider, Bionic Commando, Ghosts n’ Goblins), and fighting games are a no-go for now, so this would include other titles like Commando, Black Tiger, Magic Sword, and the 194X series on the Capcom side, and games like Ikari Warriors, Beast Busters, Athena, and Metal Slug on the SNK side.

Metal Gear, Silent Hill, and other Konami Classics

The previous Konami Classics volume covered Contra, Mystical Ninja, and a whole bunch of 80s/90s Famicom and arcade games. The focus with this volume would be Metal Gear and Silent Hill, along with other Hideo Kojima properties like Snatcher, Policenauts, and Zone of the Enders, plus whatever else we can squeeze in. The headlining articles are pretty recent and just need some brief updates to catch up on the remakes (and the new game coming out soon).

Fire Emblem, Advance Wars, and other Strategy Games

Another Nintendo dual header, featuring two of their strategy games. The Fire Emblem articles series is a bit of a mess, as parts of it have been updated and rewritten over the years and parts of it haven’t, plus a few of them need new screenshots. Also the last game covered was Fire Emblem Echoes for the 3DS so it definitely needs some updates with the Switch games to stay current. Advance Wars is mostly complete outside of needing to cover the Switch remake of the first game as well as the Battalion Wars games. I’d also like to include a few other SRPG/strategy games like Langrisser and Military Madness/Nectaris if I can fit them, though the current Langrisser article needs a massive overhaul and I have nothing for Nectaris.

Ace Attorney and Danganronpa

The two big mystery visual novel series. The Ace Attorney article is very old and probably needs a ground up rewrite, not to mention some English screenshots (the reviews of the original trilogy were written before there were any English versions, which goes to show how long it’s been.) Danganronpa is a little more current but I remember the Vita version stopped letting me take screencaps during the first chapter so I’d need to find a source of some later ones. I’d also include some related series like Rain Code and Hundred Line, and also stick in some earlier Japanese mystery games like Portopia and Famicom Detective Club, which are MOSTLY complete outside of needing a few for the Emio: The Smiling Man. (Maybe Jake Hunter if there are any Jake Hunter superfans out there?)