Two Toaplan collections came out yesterday. These feature all 16 of Toaplan's shmups (if you don't know who Toaplan are, they're one of the most legendary shmup developers of all time), 8 per volume and priced at £30 each in the UK, so a little under £4 per game. By all accounts these collections are faithful ports, run well and have a very solid amount of added quality of life features, especially given their budget price tag. A lot of these games have previously been very hard to get a hold of through legitimate means, and some are seeing their first official console release in decades. The collections are available both digitally and physically for the same price.

Looks like a win, win, win, win, win, right?

So what's the story on release day? That there's something not right? That the company releasing the games needs to get their act together? Uh-oh, what could it be…

https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2025/08/get-your-act-together-somethings-not-quite-right-with-clear-rivers-toaplan-collections

I'll save you a click: The problem is one volume doesn't have the Switch logo printed on its spine and the other is missing a full stop after 'vol'.

Let me repeat. The problem is there is a full stop missing on the spine.

Can we please fuck off with this shit? You don't see it to this sort of extreme with any other form of media. And before people say there are some real movie nerds out there or whatever, I know there are. But it is the prevalence of this sort of bullshit that makes the difference when it comes to gaming. This is a mainstream gaming media site. And I only half blame them – they publish this sort of crap because they know it's what gets gamers excited.

I wouldn't even mind so much if this was just one of many stories they ran on the collections, maybe alongside a review or a general news piece on the release. But this is their only story on the games.

I'm all for being critical of things that warrant it, but the pettiness you see in gaming, the seeming delight people take in actively searching out and finding issues is frankly insane.