Please note that this article contains distinct spoilers regarding Tokyo Mirage Sessions ♯FE. You have been warned!
There’s this moment in Dragon Ball Z at the end of the first significant story arc when Goku uses the Spirit Bomb. At this point, Goku has died, ventured through the afterlife, and returned from the grave when needed most to utilize a technique he could only learn from a nigh-god in another dimension. This attack, the Spirit Bomb, drains a tiny portion of power (“power” being vaguely nebulous in this case) from every living being on the planet, and combines all that strength into one focused “bomb” that he can hurl at his opponent, a giant monkey that is threatening everyone on Goku’s adopted planet (which is also Earth. You live there). In the grand scheme of narrative conceits, this is meant to be an important moment for Goku: he is the undisputed lead, the hero of this tale, but he cannot solve this problem with his own power. There is no solution here where Goku alone wins, so he must use this sacred technique, and, with the assistance of everyone on Earth, he can snatch victory from the hairy jaws of defeat. He can save the world thanks to the world. If this overarching metaphor isn’t obvious enough, Goku even whiffs his chance at pegging his opponent with this spirit ball, and requires another assist from another two fighters (one of which is best known for his propensity toward dying). Goku’s (currently) hated enemy is ultimately defeated by this spirit bomb, proving that it was not the super powerful Goku that was required to save the planet, but the strength of every person. Don’t put all of your faith in one “savior”, believe in the power of not one, but everyone.
And then Goku goes on to defeat every other opponent through hours and hours of one-on-one grunting ‘n punching. Goku is our Superman. Goku is our Jesus. All hail Goku, the guy that singlehandedly saved the world over and over again!
This happens often in fiction: the hero is the hero, and while there might be some moment or technique that uses “everyone’s power”, it all seems to come back to the one and only luminary. This is even more prevalent in videogames, as they are single-person experiences. Everyone in the party is working together to defeat the evil god du jour, but it all comes back to you, the exceptional player, making decisions, so the moral is muddied. And when you have RPGs that all but require the player to be the center of the universe, it gets even worse. That town lives or dies according to what sidequests you choose to complete, so it’s pretty obvious the world revolves around only you. Give me a moral about teamwork or whatever, fine, but in the end you intrinsically know that you are the only person that matters.
So you can imagine my surprise when Tokyo Mirage Sessions ♯FE actually pulled off a “spirit bomb” finale without making its main character the center of the universe….
Today we are going to talk about version erasure.
Long before the Switch, Vita, PSP, or even the Playstation 1 rerelease of Mega Man 1, Mega Man: The Wily Wars was released for the Sega Genesis in Japan as Rockman World. Much like Powered Up, the goal of Mega Man: The Wily Wars was to release Mega Man, Mega Man 2, and Mega Man 3 with a more modern update. Mind you, “update” for the time was simply revolutionizing the franchise to fit in 16-bits and maybe include an extra background layer or two… but it was still an upgrade to contemporary sensibilities. Nobody was going to sit down with their swank, fresh 4-button Sega Genesis controller and play something that looked like it belonged on the Nintendon’t. The very thought of such a thing! Mega Man: The Wily Wars is a Mega Man for the new, “Sega!” shouting generation of gamers that are not content with the 8-bits of pure garbage that is OG Quick Man.
On the other hand, from the all-important gameplay perspective, Mega Man: The Wily Wars feels like a photocopy of the original. In fact, it feels like a true “fan game”: a situation where the creators did not have access to the original code, and had to wing it according to fuzzy memories of the original. On a surface level, this is Mega Man 1-3, the end. But for someone that has played through those three titles approximately three billion times (for 
But, likely because of its lackluster “emulation” of the original titles, Mega Man: The Wily Wars has been lost to history. It’s not even available in the United States in any physical form! MM:TWW only appeared on The Sega Channel on this side of the pond, and when Sega turned off the lights on that early attempt at a gaming streaming service, it took Mega Man with it. So this title only saw a physical release in Japan and PAL regions, and then… never again. Mega Man 1-3 has been rereleased on practically every system since its conception, but only the NES versions. The Sega Genesis version, complete with its revamped graphics and new stages, hasn’t been seen in any way, shape, or form since 1995. It’s just… gone. Potential innovation in a franchise practically as old as gaming itself, and it doesn’t even warrant so much as an easter egg appearance in a single Capcom collection.
Favorite (New) Robot Master: Hyper Storm H is a giant blue monster that feels like a refugee from the 
Dragon Ball Z has seen a new videogame every seven seconds since the controller was invented. Sailor Moon hasn’t seen a legitimate console title since the Playstation 1.
Dragon Ball Z lends itself naturally to 
And, given Sailor Moon seemed to be at the height of its popularity roughly around the era of the SNES, we did see a number of variations on what could be done with the Sailor Scouts. Well, “we” is kind of a misnomer: Japan saw a lot of Sailor Moon games, and Western countries got a random smattering of whatever was available and easily translated. The United States of Dumberica was clearly not worthy of the Sailor Moon JRPG… which is probably just as well, as it seems to rely heavily on one-person parties, and that is exactly zero fun in your average JRPG. And Europe saw a random beat ‘em up or two. But, if you were really lucky, you might have been in one of the approximately 0.0002 arcades in the world that contained the Sailor Moon arcade game, Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon.
But, assuming you are a student of beat ‘em ups from the 90’s (which I, a beatemupologist, clearly am), you will notice some significant variations from the norm. For one thing, this is (probably? Prove me wrong!) the only beat ‘em up out there with a completely female cast. Yes, it’s a “side-effect” of the source material, but that means there are no 
An Amazonian monster woman with gnarly teeth
System: Arcade. Any Sailor Moon beat ‘em ups for any other systems will not be acknowledged.
It is the rare licensed game that grants you greater insight into the source material.
And Dragon Ball FighterZ seems to clearly elucidate why: DBZ games shouldn’t follow DBZ. Okay, yes, you need to have Goku and Cell and all kinds of crazy “he’s moving too fast for saiyan eyes” flurry punches, but you absolutely have to drop the many “this happens every episode so it should be in the game” quirks of the series. Flight? It sounds cool, but grant your fighters the ability to “stand” on different planes, and everything gets too… chase-y. Just let DBZ fighters feel like regular fighting game characters, and maybe add in a homing punch or two. And beam fights? It seems like every DBZ fighting game has had some desperate need to make big, dramatic moments out of two dudes grunting and shoving lasers while the player is expected to hammer buttons or rotate a joystick. And that has never been fun. Ever! DBFZ makes it clear that you could get an amazing DBZ fighting game out of a traditional fighter, and you can still include DBZ tropes. Just showing a little restraint for the sake of genre helps.
So it’s only natural that all these fighters wind up in a pretty sprawling story mode. Arcade modes are the lifeblood of fighting games, but DBZ has always been two parts muscles dudes to its 98 parts soap opera. Of course we have to have a new villain and an excuse for why only two people can fight each other at one time (as opposed to how, in the series proper, only two people can fight at a time because… uhh… senzu beans?). The excuse du jour is that the previously unseen Android 21 has activated some random machine that Dr. Gero left behind, and now “a human soul” must bond with DBZ heroes and villains alike to grant the fighters access to their innate super destructive muscle powers. Nobody was expecting “the hero is the player” meta shenanigans from a DBZ game, but, hey, it works in this context. And it grants us an excuse for Goku to be “level 1” even though he has successfully fought his way through multiple realities at this point (and thus should be capable of punching Captain Ginyu straight through to the Sailor Moon universe).
Sure, we all say we want to see the return of the Dragon Ball OG characters. Yes, we all claim we want to see the humans take the spotlight again, and shake these damn saiyans off their high perch. But you know what? Krillin is cool, but Toriyama already told his story. You could even claim some of the latter DBZ characters have completed arcs, too (Gohan comes to mind here). But the story keeps going, and the main character keeps finding new worlds and universes. Bald Guy and Bald Guy with Three Eyes are neat, but there’s a God of Destruction on the table now, and he’s a kitty cat, so what’s his deal? Silent assassin from another universe? Sounds good, too. Goku, but genocidally evil? That’s a cool story! And… I already know Krillin’s story. He’s a guy that likes porn and is always going to be second banana to Goku. I don’t need him in my party right now. Even his wife tosses a better destructo disc.
Story Similarities: For some reason, every time the party retreats to Bulma’s ship and chats about the next move, I am reminded of 