Too Skimpy?

Skimpy costumes featured from left to right starting with the top row:

Row 1: The Justin Bailey leotard that happens to be what Samus wears in the second-best ending of Metroid (Metroid, 1986, Famicom Disk System, NES), Tyris Flare's bikini (without vambraces) (Golden Axe, 1989, Arcade, Sega Genesis), Hiromi's leotard (without armour) (Burning Force, 1989, Arcade), Silk's bikini (Cotton Series, 1991, various platforms starting with the Arcade), the green leotard worn by Celes (without belt and cape) (Final Fantasy VI, 1994, various platforms starting with the SNES).

Row 2: The swimsuit worn by Arle in the Puyo Puyo CD system version error screen (Puyo Puyo CD, 1994, TurboGrafx CD), Twinkle's leotard (Puzzle Bobble 3/Bust-A-Move 3, 1996, various platforms starting with the Arcade), Arle's PuyoLympics attire (PuyoLympics, 1998, PC), Arle's two-piece swimsuit in PuyoLympics (PuyoLympics, 1998, PC), Metroid Fusion ending outfit (Metroid Fusion, 2002, Game Boy Advance).

Row 3: Rikku's yellow bikini (Final Fantasy X-2, 2003, PlayStation 2), Metroid: Zero Mission ending outfit (Metroid: Zero Mission, 2004, Game Boy Advance), Peach's soccer attire (Super Mario Strikers, 2005, GameCube), Daisy's soccer attire (without armour) (Mario Strikers Charged, 2007, Wii).

Having female characters wear skimpy costumes sounds ridiculous, if the last panel was anything. However, the skimpy costumes are not the problem. It's the scenarios that the attires worn by the characters that make the video game players question the appropriateness of such costumes.

Note: Although this comic covers the topic on skimpy female costumes featured in video games from 1986 to 2007, not all skimpy female costumes found in video games from that time period are featured in this comic, with the biggest omission being Super Metroid's ending outfit, which was featured in a comic posted earlier on this blog.

The Truth About Pikmin Series Treasures

The Pikmin series is more than just a video game series about an astronaut (or cosmonaut for Russian readers) named Olimar meeting the titular leaf/bud/flower-headed sprites. The treasures that Olimar and the Pikmin encounter are based on objects found in real life, indicating that whichever planet Olimar crashed on once had human life on them. Another clue that supports the theory that PNF-404 was Earth in a life after humans was that Olimar had a Geiger Counter, which is used to measure radiation. Given that the Geiger Counter was going wild and letting out a lot of noise, this could be proof that PNF-404 could be Earth in a life after humans perished from high radiation levels.

Speaking of real life objects, some of these treasures found in the Pikmin games are video game-related items including game cartridges, a game disk, controller parts, parts that used to be R.O.B. the Robotic Operating Buddy (The head and the gyro blocks) and a Game and Watch handheld (The game in particular being Ball). There are references to other Nintendo franchises, mostly from the Mario series, with the most notable one being Mario Paint. While batteries and an SD card, which are featured as treasures, are not video game items, some of the batteries featured as treasures were the power source for some models of the Game Boy handhelds (excluding the Game Boy Advance SP and Game Boy Micro), and the SD card was a storage device for the DSi, DSi XL, 3DS, 3DS XL and 2DS handhelds. A few of the treasures in Pikmin 2 reappeared in Pikmin 3 as fruits, with all of them being from the fruit-themed Succulent Series. This could be a hint that whichever planet inhabited by Pikmin (excluding Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour) once had human life on them.

Thanks A Hundred!

Author's Note: Finally, one hundred comics at last. To all readers, thank you for helping Neo Retro Union reach this milestone in these tough times. Although this is Neo Retro Union's 100th comic, it is, however, not the 100th blog post, as the one hundred comics do not count the "Submit your entry comics" blog posts.

If you want to know why there is almost nobody in this comic celebrating this milestone, it's because of social distancing measures due to the pandemic that forced many people into lockdowns.

In need of a redesign

It's official. The Tokyo Olympic Games, along with the Euro Cup and Copa America, will be postponed to 2021 as a result of a devastating pandemic that not only killed tens of thousands, but forced many events to be either postponed or cancelled.

Speaking of the Olympic Games, the video games based on the greatest amateur sports event will need to be renamed, redesigned and relabeled in response to the postponement. So please, change the name and redesign the box art for the two video games, Sega.

Update: The delayed Olympic Games in Tokyo has gone ahead as planned, and it was concluded as scheduled. But the cover art for the video game adaptations of the Tokyo Olympic Games did not get a redesign.

No more April Fool's Day

Let's be honest. April Fool's Day was a mistake. We should not be observing it at all. Microsoft and Google have decided to ban observing the tradition, especially when we have more than enough trouble filtering out fake news. To make matters worse, pestilence is ravaging the globe, meaning we should cancel 2020's April Fool's Day, and perhaps stop observing April Fool's Day altogether.

The Very Last Chance

If the pandemic delaying everything else that has not been cancelled, including the Super Smash Bros Ultimate's Fighters Pass Volume 2 DLC schedule was any indication, some characters will never get to take part in an official dueling league video game. Excluding Waluigi due to his self-pity and him being out of character in every Mario spin-off game he has appeared in, Sakura Kinomoto could be one of the biggest omissions from Smash Bros, especially when there is no official dueling league video game (excluding doujin games such as Magical Battle Arena and Magical Heroine Plus) that features magical girls. And chances of her becoming a dueling league super star are getting slimmer, not only because Masahiro Sakurai's health had been detrimental to him, but he said that "it's a total blank slate" after Smash Bros Ultimate's DLC is complete. Even his no non-video game characters policy is very unfriendly to our cute heroine, who understands that Sakurai's health is not in good shape for reasons unrelated to the pandemic. She also acknowledges that Super Smash Bros Ultimate will be the last game in the series due to the game being released in a very turbulent time. In other words, this could be our pretty mahou shoujo (magical girl) heroine's last chance to be in an official dueling league video game before the turbulent times become a devastating massacre not unlike the World of Light campaign's opening cinematic.

Hope for the future

We should not let a devastating pestilence, along with the bad things in this comic bring our mood down. Even if they could, we must remember that things will get worse before they get better. Also, Jesus came to our world to warn us that there will be deceptions, wars, famines, pestilence and tribulation before his Second Coming brings all of them to an end.

Perhaps our world is suffering too much because we chose the wrong date to observe the start of the New Year. In fact, our calendar really needs a reboot...