Hello, and welcome once more to the latest edition of the column! Due to having to submit the last issue for publication a bit earlier than usual, I wasn’t able to incorporate much news from the 2026 Tokyo Game Show. And amidst a crunch period related to the release of Fire Emblem: Fortune’s Weave, I didn’t get the chance to watch the announcements as they happened. Jean-Karlo ran down some of the more notable announcements on the console and PC front, and while I spent some time combing through the latest, TGS was surprisingly light on big mobile news, at least of the kind that gets space right here on:

Astrae Oratio and Fareidolia Strut at TGS

While big on-stream announcements were a little bit scarce at TGS 2026 (beyond some interesting-but-not-showstopping new titles like Sanrio Kawaii Me Live! and Fragaria Memories), the show floor offered playable demos of two games on many anime otakus’ hype list: NC and Dynamis One’s Astrae Oratio and Nexon‘s Fareidolia, both due out in the near future on mobile and PC. These two titles are notable because they both have deep roots growing out of Blue Archive, Nexon‘s bishoujo gacha game, and one of the biggest things in the subculture scene this side of Kantai Collection. 

Astrae Oratio is the game that’s farther along, having entered a short closed beta test period just last week and with its release window seemingly set for sometime this year (or early next). Publisher NC has fully kicked off the game’s promotional cycle, too, releasing new trailers and previews for both the Japanese and Global/English editions and aiming for a simultaneous worldwide launch. Prior to all this new info coming out, Astrae Oratio was notable mainly for its origins. As mentioned back in May when NC unveiled its official title (and discarded the Project AT codename), Astrae Oratio is developed by Dynamis One, a studio founded by developers who once held key positions on Blue Archive‘s development team at Nexon, including Blue Archive‘s former director, lead scenario writer, art director, and other notable creatives.

Unfortunately, the circumstances of the staffers’ departures, and of its initially announced debut game, Project KV (which was cancelled barely a week after it was announced after igniting a public furor over its similarities to Blue Archive), proved controversial enough that South Korean authorities got involved, with studio leadership currently under investigation over accusations that they unlawfully poached development materials related to an unreleased Nexon project called MX Blade. While there’ve been no publicly announced results from that investigation so far, much of the curiosity surrounding Astrae Oratio and NC’s backing of Dynamis One stemmed from that bit of scandal. 

Now, though, the game can at least be seen on something approaching its own merits, and I must say that it makes quite the first impression. Though I didn’t get into the closed beta test, footage that’s emerged from it has revealed a game that seems to have a firm handle on the intriguing sensibilities and cutesy foundations that helped propel Blue Archive to its lead player in the “subculture game” (read: games designed to bait anime nerds and similar otaku) space. In fact, it wouldn’t be reductive to describe Astrae Oratio as “Blue Archive, but about witches instead of vaguely angelic students.” The game trades in the ultramodern urban aesthetics of Kivotos for a more specific place and time: Tokyo, in the early years of Japan’s Heisei era, which started in 1989. For Astrae Oratio‘s “Reisei era,” That means boxy cars, blocky electronics, CRT monitors and TVs, headphones with fuzzy foam earpads, constant shots of Tokyo Tower, and an art style that blends flashy, contemporary anime visual sensibilities with callbacks to the popular character design tropes millennials grew up with. The early-game tutorial characters even have a main menu theme that sounds a heck of a lot like the opening to Cardcaptor Sakura.

In terms of gameplay, Astrae Oratio seems to pull a fair bit from how Honkai: Star Rail does battles, but mixing in character-switching elements from fighting games and other real-time combat systems. Players need to attack an enemy while anticipating and countering their moves on a timeline, with what look like timing-based dodge and parry mechanics to spice things up. I’ve quite enjoyed Blue Archive, but acknowledge that the game feels a bit like it’s in something of a slump, trying to recapture some of the momentum it lost in earlier years and hold onto the goodwill Nexon jettisoned when recent changes to the gacha mechanics angered Japanese fans (and Global fans, by extension).

But if Astrae Oratio seems about ready to exit the gate with all cylinders pumping, seemingly targeted to dethrone its predecessor-turned-rival, Nexon‘s Fareidolia looks like the type of game to try to make space beside Blue Archive rather than take its seat. That makes sense, since it’s coming from the same part of Nexon: internal Studio Io Division. Not too much is known right now about how Fareidolia will turn out, but it’s definitely not a mere Blue Archive spinoff. In fact, judging by Ken’s account of the playable demo at TGS, it’s as different from Blue Archive as Arknights Endfield is from Arknights. 

The demo at TGS was pretty much restricted to Fareidolia‘s combat, and where Blue Archive is an isometric auto-battler, with little hands-on control beyond deciding when and where to place a character’s skills, Fareidolia is a hybrid turn-based tactical game reminiscent of something like Sega‘s Valkyria Chronicles. Units move freely in a battle space, and positioning plays a key role in making sure a character’s skills have optimum effect. 

The demo didn’t have much to indicate what Fareidolia will be like outside of combat, but early reporting and teasers suggest that the game’s got life sim elements to focus on alongside the combat. Just a handful of playable characters have been revealed so far, and all cohabitate with the player at Twilight Hall, a dorm of sorts that serves as a living space where the player bonds with their squaddies as they solve problems around a mystical world called Anima City, one that blends in Showa-era visual elements, like retro-looking tech and architecture enmeshed with more modern conveniences like smartphones and vending machines.

While most bishoujo gacha games in this vein tend to limit interactions to scripted animations or side stories, reports from Japanese news sites say that Fareidolia‘s daily life segments also feature an option for voice recognition, allowing players to address characters by name and call out to them while they lounge around onscreen. They’ll also be able to select dialog choices in conversations by reading them aloud. If it works (and hopefully isn’t being used to spy on you), it could be a fun immersion-boosting feature. Despite my own dedication to staying muted in as many calls as I can stand, I’ve always had a soft spot for voice-control games, ever since gimmicky titles like Lifeline and Tom Clancy’s Endwar let you talk to computers and control a game while doing so.

Right now, Fareidolia‘s looking more like a work in progress than a game that’s close to any real release window, but if nothing else, it does at least seem to promise a potentially unique experience for fans looking for more than “Blue Archive 2.”

Maiden’s Corner Mini-Edition: Love and Deepspace Promotes Literal Toxicity

One way to keep your game at the top of mind is with attention-grabbing promotions, and that’s an assignment that Love and Deepspace‘s social media team seems to understand well. It’s well understood that LADS rides high on spicy, sexy teaser clips, but it also makes headlines when the team in charge of the game’s Twitter account implies that what’s on offer is too hot for public consumption, as it did with summertime promos from earlier this year, opting to use saucy stick figures instead of footage from the game.

All that said, the latest promo might have backfired a little. On September 29th, the official Love and Deepspace Twitter account launched a web-based “Drink Event,” asking players to suggest ingredients to add to a handful of “Shimmering Blend” mocktails to share with their love interests.

The mocktails themselves were little more than cutesy juice mixes to serve as cover for a light raffle entry contest, but the promo quickly attracted attention outside the LADS-player sphere for suggesting garnishes of Datura and Fire Lily for two of the drinks. Though garnishes aren’t generally meant to be eaten, Datura and Fire Lily are, in real life, quite toxic plants, and shouldn’t be put anywhere near a person’s digestive system. The post was hit with a warning via Twitter‘s user notes feature, and the account also issued a “Safety Notice” via quote, advising players not to attempt to recreate or consume the drink recipes in reality.

While the kefuffle was ultimately rather harmless, it’s a bit of a shame that the drink recipes themselves are entirely fictional. I still remember the early 2020s, when official brand accounts helped spark a surge of interest in game- and anime-themed cooking pushed by recreating popular fictional food items for home-bound fans to try, like LeBlanc Curry from Persona 5 or Sekiro‘s Ohagi rice balls.

Heaven Burns Red Summons the Phantom Thieves to the Global Edition on October 8th

It took a little while, but the global edition of Wright Flyer Studio and Key‘s Heaven Burns Red finally has a date for the localized edition of its Persona 5 Royal crossover. Operation Takanawa Mementos ~Wake Your Heart~ will launch on October 8, 2026, just a few months after it launched in Japan. The global edition of Heaven Burns Red operates on an accelerated schedule to help it catch up after spending years without a global launch. Players will be able to roll on the gacha for Queen (Makoto Niijima) and Violet (Kasumi Yoshizawa), and participation will grant players a copy of Morgana.

I highly recommend folks give Heaven Burns Red a bit of a try, even if it’s a lot of visual novel to read through. Of the many VN-adjacent gacha games out there, I consider HBR among the best in the scene for character writing, and it benefits from being the baby of Key luminary Jun Maeda. The game’s main story is also on the road to ending for good, at least in Japan, so there’s no danger that you’ll be getting an incomplete experience.

Chaos Zero Nightmare To Tease its 1st Anniversary in October 10 Showcase

Publisher Smilegate is gearing up to celebrate the first anniversary of Chaos Zero Nightmare, its gacha deckbuilder. More details will be released in a showcase broadcast set for October 10th, but the teaser trailer promises a round of spooky stories and something that might strike fear into the hearts of CZN players: a sinisterly smiling Renoa. 

As passe as primarily 2D gacha RPGs seem to be these days, I’ve always somewhat preferred that style in my mobile games over the slick full-3D presentation of the market leaders. And when a game is in 3D, the more its style seems to emulate 2D, the more I’m drawn to it (Astrae Oratio is a strong example, to borrow an upcoming title). Though I never really got into Chaos Zero Nightmare, I quite liked the unusual choice of angles used for its battle sequences. It’s just a bit disappointing it didn’t hold to its initial horror and occult-themed roots as strongly as it could’ve, though if nothing else, the spooky story-themed Nightmare Carnival Event might bring some of that vibe back.

Punishing Gray Raven Launches Date A Live V Crossover, with Kurumi Tokisaki Joining

Though Kuro Games is better known these days as the Wuthering Waves developer, Punishing Gray Raven remains a vital, if lower-key feather in the studio’s cap. And if one’s a WuWa main, a glance at PGR does show where the larger title’s appetite for crossovers came from. The latest PGR event, which launched on September 29th, hooks players up with Kurumi Tokisaki, the fan-favorite time-manipulating heroine of Date A Live V.

As in other Date A Live media, Kurumi shows off her signature move, Zafkiel, to teleport around the battlefield and shoot the heck out of her opponents with antique flintlock firearms. Despite not making a huge impression when it was new to the seasonal anime churn, I’ve always found Date A Live to be a series with surprising endurance, coming back again and again despite years of separation between some of the seasons. And whenever the series makes news again (such as the recent announcement of Date A Live F Last Date), Kurumi-lovers are quick to proclaim (or re-proclaim) their love for the heterochromatic yandere.

Mobile MonHun Returns on October 29th with Monster Hunter Outlanders