The Video Game Library Newsletter - Vol. #011
Nobuo Uematsu, Worlds of Power, and Street Fighter II 🤤. PLUS - nearly 20 brand new announcements and releases to celebrate this week!
Welcome back to The Video Game Library Newsletter!
With Summer just around the corner, this year is giving us hundreds of great excuses to get out on the patio, pour ourselves a beverage of choice, and get lost in the pages. But first, time do dive into your #1 weekly newsletter for celebrating Video Game Books!
This week was another absolute barrage of exciting Kickstarter launches, major publisher announcements, and some surprise releases. News & Highlights has you covered with all the latest.
In Behind the Shelves, I chat about cataloguing some educational series this week from ABDO and Larousse; as well as uncovering five volumes of Fire Emblem Engage manga.
Recommended Reads had me flipping through Street Fighter II: Look & Find. Still as weird and wonderful as I remembered. So much nostalgia on those pages.
Here by popular demand, From the Archives (finally) spotlights Worlds of Power, the NES novel series that turned video games into gateway reads for a generation of Scholastic kids.
And finally, in Community Interview, Sebastian Deken breaks down his love for Final Fantasy VI, game music, and why Uematsu writes some of the most emotionally rich scores in gaming.
Volume 11 is packed! So without further ado…
📰 News & Highlights
Hide your wallet, folks! Kickstarter has been on fire lately, and the heavy-hitting publishers just aren’t letting up leading into the summer. Another BIG week of news all neatly compiled right here for you:
Starting off, the hotly anticipated Playing With History has officially launched on Kickstarter this week! An independent publication exploring iconic video games and the historic events, cultures, and people that inspired them.
And speaking of exciting Kickstarters, Playbug Books has just announced The NES-ential Celebration: 40th Anniversary Tribute Book. This will be a 300+ page love letter to the NES — featuring rare stories, stunning art, and exclusive extras. Still working with them on some details, but will be doing some deeper coverage on this one shortly!
And we’re not with Kickstarter done yet! Ian Scherer has announced Triangle X Squared O: The Wrestling Video Game Compendium - a comprehensive book dedicated entirely to the wild, weird, wonderful history of wrestling video games. The Kickstarter is set to launch on Jun. 16,
Lost In Cult have become a Newsletter staple - appearing in almost every issue! This time, they’ve just announced the next entry of their Design Works series - Mundaun: Design Works. Loving the spotlights on these amazing indie titles.
With a very proactive announcement, VIZ Media announced that Disney Twisted-Wonderland: The Manga – Book of Scarabia, Vol. 1 will be getting an English translation and release in March 2026, continuing the mobile game’s manga series out west.
Runescape: Untold Tales of the God Wars #3 from Titan Comics has hit shelves this week. These issues have been trickling out since 2023, and will be collected in a TPB later this year.
We’ve known about (and have been eagerly anticipating) Sea of Stars: Throes of the Watchmaker - The Concept Art of Bryce Kho for a while now; and it looks like on Jun. 3rd is officially went up for pre-order!
From Dark Horse Books this week, an exciting art book announcement: The Art of Vampire The Masquerade Bloodlines 2. Hoping to see this one hit its target of Dec. 2, and not be plagued by delays like we’ve seen happen so often as of late.
This week also saw the release of Worldbuilding for Game Designers by Steve Dee. This book explores how to build compelling, game-ready settings that invite players to live, play, and believe.
In bundled book news, Limited Run Games graces the newsletter yet again, this time with Sonic Racing CrossWorlds Collector’s Edition, who’s pre-orders just went up this week, and are inclusive of an artbook. Still working on getting a decent cover image to get it up on the site.
And with the recent news on Digimon Story: Time Stranger, the collector’s edition also comes with a 100-page artbook.
While not quite NEW, I’m very excited to see the A Profound Waste of Time (APWOT) trilogy get a reprint offering over on Kickstarter this week. This is easily one of my favourite series of indie mags.
LOVE: ARCO WADA FATE ART WORKS, released this week, gathers works from the Fate/EXTRA and Fate/EXTELLA subseries. It features everything from game box artwork, to character art, to rare promo illustrations.
For all you French readers out there, Minecraft: Le Dragon by Nicky Drayden just hit shelves this week. The French translation of the original release back in 2021.
Though it originally released in 2017, Spanish publisher, Héroes De Papel, has just released a new “Definitive Edition” of Zelda, Detrás de la Leyenda. This new edition adds 35 pages of content, and covers up through Tears of the Kingdom.
And finally in Japan - the first issue of the Metaphor: ReFantazio manga has just released. This one will CERTAINLY be getting the English translation treatment soon.
And also Fire Emblem Engage #5 also hit shelves this week in Japan. Only learning about this series while assembling this week’s Newsletter. Amazing how much this has helped with our discovery!
Did I miss something cool? Want to see this laid out differently?
Drop it in the comments or swing by our Discord to share it with the community.
Let’s keep this celebration of game-inspired books going strong!
📚 Behind the Shelves
Every week, I take you behind the scenes of The Video Game Library. From surprising discoveries to cataloging challenges, there’s always something new as we dig deeper into this ever-expanding archive of game-related literature.
While I appreciate that it may not always appeal to the “hardcore” gamers and academics out there, I’m a firm believer in the value of educational books for young readers. That was this week’s focus.
First I started with cataloguing the full collection of ABDO Publishing along with all of its imprints. These focus heavily on eSports and iconic characters and companies; with a few early career books tossed in the mix. You can find the full catalogue here.
I also explored the French catalogue from Larousse, and discovered some educational books from Assassin’s Creed and Minecraft. This collection includes some history literature as well as some math and logic puzzle activity books.
The last chunk of effort worth noting from this week was my discovery of the Fire Emblem Engage manga series. Looks like 5 out so far!
This, as usual, is only a small sample of what we catalogued this week, so take a peek at the site to see everything! And while you’re at it, drop your thoughts in the comments below. Your feedback helps shape how we deliver these looks behind the curtain.
💡 Recommended Read of the Week
Looks And Find: Street Fighter II
Jeff Richner (Penciler), Dan Burr (Inker), Ray Fehrenbach (Inker), Marcus David (Colorist), Wally Lowe (Colorist), Kelly Hume (Letterer)
While time may have dampened my obsession with the franchise, my childhood was bright with my love of Street Fighter II. Even moreso than the game though, was the 2-season animated series airing on Cartoon Network. I was a pro when it came to the characters and the lore! And flipping through the pages of this book under the covers was where I exercised my knowledge.
Fast-forwarding 20 years, I was able to rediscover this Look & Find, and decided to dive in once again. Featuring all 16 world warriors across the many bizarre pages, this book will have you helping Blanka find his fishing gear, Ryu trounce M. Bison, and E. Honda "play hard" in his hot tub.... It's fantastic!
Each of the beautifully-coloured and action-packed 2-page spreads is dedicated to a character and their arena, though oddly enough, the book's 10 pages don't quite match its 16-person roster. Even so, the scenes are rife with hilarity and tons of familiar faces to quench your thirst for nostalgia. Balrog in Vegas. Blanka in Brazil. Chun-Li in China. You'll travel the world, just like in the game!
A sidepanel shares helpful images of the objects you need to search for, and the back of the book has some bonus challenges for the (T-)hawk-eyed readers. But beware, adding to the "difficulty", the on-page representations of those items will likely be found in a different pose. A magician standing idly at attention in the search panel, may be in the midst of performing a magic trick on stage in the scene. The added challenge makes it perfect for youth who already have experience with Look Books. And despite some pretty surprising editing gaffes which lead to lazy spelling mistakes, the book is successful in its goal - to be FUN.
Recommended for any kids (or adults) who enjoy Street Fighter or simply Look & Finds
You can find details about the Street Fighter II: Look and Find here
💾 From the Archives
Each week, I’ll dive deep into the shelves of The Video Game Library to spotlight a hidden gem or forgotten series — with the hope of surprising you with something new, unexpected, or long overlooked. This week, I wanted to share…
…easily the most requested ask for this From The Archives section.
In the early ‘90s, Scholastic released a curious collection of books that would go on to sell over a million copies - Worlds of Power, a series of short novels based on popular NES games like Metal Gear, Castlevania II, and Blaster Master. The brainchild of marketing guru Seth Godin under the pen name “F.X. Nine” (strategically chosen to ensure bookstores would file the books under “NIN”, right after Nintendo), the series was designed to get game-obsessed kids reading by tapping into the worlds they already loved. With simple language, thrilling action, and bonus game hints (a la tear-out cards), these paperbacks became an unlikely hit in classrooms across North America (and as I remember) especially through Scholastic book fairs and reading clubs.
Each of the ten books (including two “junior” editions) offered a loose adaptation of its respective game, often reimagining violent or complex storylines with a more kid-friendly tone. Godin personally outlined every story and worked with ghostwriters like Peter Lerangis (A.L. Singer) to bring them to life. Whether it was Mega Man battling Dr. Wily’s robot masters or a middle schooler getting sucked into the world of Castlevania, Worlds of Power blended adventure, literacy, and game fandom into one package.
Today, the series is fondly remembered by retro game fans, book collectors, and anyone who ever ordered from a Scholastic catalog. Podcasts like Pixel Lit and Retronauts have revisited the books, interviewing Godin and exploring their weird, wonderful legacy. For many, Worlds of Power wasn’t just an early piece of video game merchandise, it was a gateway to reading. And decades later, its creative fusion of games and literature still stands out as one of the most charming marketing experiments of the NES era.
You can browse through all 10 books in the series, right here!
✨ Community Interview
Sebastian Deken is a writer, musician, and lifelong gamer whose love for Final Fantasy VI inspired one of the most insightful books in the Boss Fight series. Blending musicology, memoir, and cultural critique, Deken explores what makes Uematsu’s score so emotionally powerful - and why the game still resonates decades later.
For all of you who experienced the iconic opera scene in Final Fantasy VI and felt its emotional pull, this one’s for you!
Enjoy!
To start us off, for those who may not know you yet - who is Sebastian Deken?
I’m a writer and musician, and I’ve lived in Queens, New York for about 15 years. But I was born and grew up in St. Louis, Missouri, and my blood runs thick with provel cheese.
And you’ve written a Final Fantasy VI book! What made this the game you wanted to write an entire book about?
On a personal level, there are a lot of games (and game soundtracks) I love, but this one is seared in my memory, and it’s really special to me for so many reasons—it hit at a time when I was figuring out who I was as a person and as a musician, it helped me connect with friends, and I replayed the game and soundtrack when I needed a little bit of comfort (and I needed a lot of comfort). And even though it became so familiar, every time I would play or listen again, I’d discover something new.
At a critical level, this game is a clear inflection in the history of games, RPGs specifically, and game music. The material around the game, and around its music, is so rich. There’s a lot of history, interviews, scholarship, and criticism out there already, but I also felt there were pieces of the story and of the analysis that were either missing or that I wanted more of.
On a practical level, I’d been doing some research on game music for grad school; it wasn’t specifically about FFVI but it did heavily involve Nobuo Uematsu. As I was wrapping up my degree, a buddy of mine told me Boss Fight Books was accepting pitches on FFVI. I had all this research under my belt, I was enthusiastic about the material, I was eager to write, and I felt like I would have a sporting chance with my pitch. The stars just kind of aligned!
You blend that musicology, personal reflection, humor, and cultural critique so smoothly in the book. Was that always the vision, or did it evolve as you wrote?
I think that was generally the idea from the start — but it definitely evolved as I wrote! I had a lot of ideas we had to whittle down or shave away in the interest of space (and focus). I get really excited when I talk about this stuff, and I sometimes find myself rambling. So I have to take this chance to thank my editors Gabe Durham and Mike Williams for their help in figuring out how to stay on track and piece things together.
One thing I knew I wanted to do from the start was to really break down some of the music and put it under a microscope to see what came of it. My undergrad degree is in French language literature, and the way I read and analyze prose is informed by the explication de texte, which is essentially (inexactly) a formal, technical close reading. I also studied music and had a brief career as a classical/opera singer, and part of that work is to understand and interpret the intent of the music well enough to channel some kind of meaning to an audience. From the beginning, I wanted to walk a tightrope between the two—both examine the music technically and make it sing for the reader.
You mention Nobuo Uematsu might be more of a Puccini than a Beethoven. What do you think that comparison says about his style, and why does it fit so well?
Let me start with what I didn’t talk about much in the book, which is how Uematsu is in many ways the Beethoven of game music. Alex Ross, longtime music critic of The New Yorker, published an essay there in 2014 called “Deus ex Musica,” which talks about the ways Beethoven defined and continues to define classical music, for better or worse. Ten years later, in 2024, ludomusicologist William Gibbons wrote a scholarly piece, “Ode to Joysticks” that talks about how Uematsu occupies the same space, for better or worse. They’re both right!
But in terms of musical style, it’s just not an accurate parallel. Beethoven is known for breaking the mold and for his extraordinary sophistication. Puccini, from my perspective, isn’t that. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries when composers sought to redefine the operatic form, allegedly caused riots, and curb-stomped the concept of harmony, Puccini was just out here chilling, writing lovely, conservatively inventive music. Uematsu’s ingenuity is naive, which I don’t mean pejoratively. It just doesn’t seem he sought to redefine or revolutionize. He just took familiar ideas and smiths them into new, memorable, lovable, and sometimes exquisite pieces (which is Puccini in a very rough nutshell). His work displays a consciousness of what the audience needs to hear to understand character, place, plot, and thematics immediately and deeply—more deeply than can be communicated through primitive computer graphics or dialog simple enough for a grade-schooler to understand.
And—I think I said this in my book—both Uematsu and Puccini write music for female characters that is utterly devastating.
Speaking of devastating, Final Fantasy VI’s music often carries more emotional weight than the dialogue. What do you think makes Uematsu’s work so enduring, even in a chiptune format?
The line between Uematsu’s ideas and his finished product seems to be very direct. Sometimes that makes his music edge close to derivative—but it’s impossible not to forgive him for that. But I think that frankness and familiarity is part of its memorability. Imagine the best pizza you’ve ever had, or the best grilled cheese, or the best burger and fries. (I didn’t have breakfast today.) These are familiar foods, but the great ones really stand out, right?
Uematsu’s music, in general but especially for Final Fantasy VI, is like that. You hear Locke’s theme, and it sounds almost like John Williams writing a hero’s theme in a movie score. All the ingredients are there, but it’s not John Williams. When you enter the Magitek factory, you’re greeted with clinks and clangs—a cheekily obvious choice for a steel-clad factory. This is Uematsu’s grilled cheese. It’s both familiar and distinct, unpredictably predictable, and always easy to grasp. Even the opera, a medium that’s so inaccessible to so many folks, is put right there within reach. The music feels immediate and understandable.
It’s a paradox; the things that should make it forgettable are the exact things that make it memorable.
You mention the opera. That scene in FFVI is iconic, but what do you think makes it still so resonant, even for players?
Classically, opera arias do not move the plot forward; rather, they let a character express feelings and develop or introduce thematic ideas, and they’re often showcases that allow the singer to demonstrate their virtuosity.
FFVI’s “Aria di mezzo carattere” does all of that. Within the context of the opera, it fulfills the role of an aria — letting Maria express her longing for Draco. It is also that within the context of FFVI’s story, allowing Celes to express herself in a way she hadn’t been able to offstage. It makes the game’s plot stand still just to add emotional weight. It’s designed to punch us in the gut.
(And while it doesn’t display any singing virtuosity, it certainly demonstrates Uematsu’s canniness and ability to write shatteringly for female characters)
Players were simply not prepared for that opera scene in 1994. We’d been primed to expect tuneless melodrama in sometimes annoying cutscenes. We’d otherwise have read dialogue and think “Oh. Celes feel sad. Me feel sad too.” We weren’t expecting to be invited into a character’s inner life in this way. The music expresses yearning really expertly; the vocal line never fully resolves, and we have to lean on the orchestra to get to that final cadence. It’s poetry.
In the book, you break FFVI’s story into “three halves” and talk about the game as if it's practically an opera itself. When did that framework click for you?
There are two answers to this question. The first one is thanks to ludomusicologist Ryan Thompson, who posited that the game itself falls into the same three-act structure an opera might; each act beginning with a character waking up (Terra waking up after having her slave crown removed, Locke waking up after the battle to protect the frozen Esper, and Celes waking up after the end of the world). I remain blown away by this insight, and it has definitely changed the way I think about the game.
The second answer is really a question of logistics. I wanted the book to be approachable to folks who have never played the game, and that involved explaining the plot, which is so difficult to do for a game that begins in media res and that involves history, war, geopolitics, and the personal storylines of a dozen characters. So it became a question of explaining the game—easy to split in two thanks to the before-and-after of the apocalypse—and what did and did not fall within the bounds of the game, because that impacts the soundtrack. The stuff that falls outside the game is crucial to understand, but it’s also immaterial. It’s a huge part of the story that in some ways doesn’t exist!
Let’s talk limitations. You write about Uematsu composing with just a handful of channels and waveforms. Do you think today’s game composers still benefit from creative constraints?
I absolutely think so. How much one forms those boundaries, if at all, really depends on context. But there are some great modern game soundtracks that intentionally limit their own sounds; some games stick to chiptune are an obvious example, some games stick to one or just a few instruments, etc.. But I think more broadly, the success of a given work depends on the boundaries the composer, writer, designer, etc., sets for themselves, and how they use those to their advantage.
I recently played Octopath Traveler II and was struck by how the developers and creatives set storytelling limits for themselves. Narratives had to be discrete chapters, limited to specific characters or groups, and still be effective. The storytelling is further limited by the game’s form: it has to make sense regardless of the player’s choices, and there are a lot of ways a player can make it through the game start to finish (I sat down with my brother and tried to do the math—we were left scratching our heads, but with eight characters who have multiple-chapter stories, we’re talking exponents that could lead us to the quintillions? septillions? Don’t quote me on this.). It also sticks to HD-2D rather than going in on detailed 4K 3D graphics where everyone has a mouth full of teeth—another limiting factor. But I thought the game was still very successful, and part of what made it so fun was that I wasn’t thinking about all these limitations too much while playing it, except to reflect on how the developers made very smart choices.
What was it like working with Boss Fight Books? How did the collaboration start, and how hands-on (or hands-off) was the editorial process?
Boss Fight is a dream. I mentioned my editors Gabe Durham and Mike Williams, who were so great as the book was coming together. The whole thing started with their call for pitches on Final Fantasy VI; I sent one in and almost forgot I had. I’d just finished my MFA and was sending out queries and pitches and essays all over the place and was pretty used to radio silence. So when I heard back from Gabe, I almost lost my mind.
Boss Fight was extremely supportive as I was writing the book—and I needed that extra support! I started the work in 2016; after I signed with them, I started a job in progressive advocacy right before the 2016 elections; I got married; and I had a few personal crises along the way. I also have Bipolar II disorder, which means sometimes I’m extremely productive, and sometimes I can barely get out of bed. They were very understanding—but also very good at moving me forward when I thought I might not be able to.
What was the most fun part of writing this book? And what was the “I hate this, why did I say yes to this” part?
The most fun part was absolutely the research and analysis. I worked with Mike Williams and also did a lot of work independently. Part of it was to dive deep into the history and criticism that’s out there on FFVI (and the YouTube comments and ancient forum posts). Part of it was reading through scholarship on games and game music—that was especially fun because I failed music history as an undergrad! But my favorite part of this phase was analyzing the game and its music, including dumps of the soundtrack and sound samples, poking around various translations of the scripts, playing through it again and watching longplays, and more. There was one point at which I had a laptop open with my manuscript and sheet music up, two keyboards so I could play two things at the same time in the same octave, and an iPad where I was scribbling truly unhinged diagrams trying to identify relationships between tiny fragments of music in Kefka’s theme. There’s still stuff I realized I forgot to include, or that I realized after the fact!
One of the two worst parts was writing out the musical examples. This was a real FML moment. Aside from my paranoia about the accuracy of the transcriptions, I’d never prepared musical figures for publication, and I didn’t have anyone to help make sure I was doing it right—my worst nightmare was to find out I had written out the music incorrectly and have some expert in music engraving go “Haha, this guy’s a MORON and here’s a six-hour YouTube essay to prove it!” Maybe I still did it wrong and no one’s told me. I’d like to keep it that way!
The other worst part was revising myself. Some people hate the way their voices sound on tape—I hate rereading myself unless I feel really confident that I’ve just about got it right. My usual process (one I do not recommend to others) is to just delete the things I hate as I go and start over from scratch. This is where Mike and Gabe were really helpful—they talked me down from that ledge several times.
Beyond Final Fantasy VI, are the other games you think are deserving of a musical analysis in book form?
Right now, I’m going to have to say Animal Crossing: New Horizons. This is a quieter one, but the soundtrack stretches out for ages. I don’t think it would look the same as my or anyone else’s analysis of Final Fantasy VI. I want to read about how the music works and how it was written, of course, but also I want to hear about how we were collectively hearing it in the crater of the global pandemic, what its relationship was with other lockdown-era music and culture, thoughtful personal narratives from the author, and other ways this gentle music is powerful. I think an essay collection would work really well for this. In a way, that’s what the soundtrack is to begin with.
Another thing I really, really want to read is about composer Tim Follin (and his team-ups with his brother Geoff), especially his explosive music for the NES. I don’t think anyone else manipulated the NES’s hardware the way he did—I want to know how the hell he made the console sound like that, how it influenced his later career, and its legacy and influence on chiptune music as we know it today.
And lastly: Where can people find your work, follow your writing, or just stay in touch?
These days, you’ll really only catch me on Bluesky (@sebsational.bsky.social). Let’s be friends!
Lately I’ve been working on Popheist.com, a new worker-owned pop culture criticism outlet I helped found. While I’m mostly behind the scenes, I do have a small handful of very, very questionable pieces up. (You’ll see what I mean.)
I’ve also contributed to Video Game Maps: SNES - Volume 1 over at Retro Game Books, and I’ve got an essay forthcoming in the next volume of [lock-on].
Thanks for your time, Sebastian!
🙏 And THANK YOU for Reading
That’s a wrap for this week’s deep dive into all things video game literature. I hope you discovered something new, surprising, or just plain fun.
As always, your feedback helps shape this project—so don’t be shy! Drop a comment below, join the conversation on Discord, or just reply to this newsletter and share your thoughts.
And if you’re enjoying these weekly roundups, please consider supporting The Video Game Library with a paid subscription or forwarding this to a fellow fan. Every little bit helps us keep preserving and celebrating these incredible works—and the passionate people behind them.
Until next week — happy reading,
Dean (Founder, The Video Game Library)
The Worlds of Power book for Blaster Master is interesting in that it established elements that would later be used in the Blaster Master games, like the character Eve. And then Blaster Master Zero, a remake of the original, inserted her and made her a core part of the BMZ trilogy. Easily the most influence one of those books has had.
I liked the recent Guile Win Quote video for April Fools where he covers all the non video game but some kind of game incarnations of Street Fighter, which included the look and find book.
Thanks for the early reader focus in this one!
My 8 y.o. loves reading, and while I don't have too many complaints about that being the same handful of books over and over again, because he knows and loves the characters, I love finding options that help him to branch out a little more. The ABDO Publishing books at our local library have been huge for this (still finding characters he knows and loves before jumping in, but having a little bit of a challenge of something new as well), but I hadn't realized how extensive their full catalog is.
You can be sure that I'll be tracking down some of the ones he hasn't read yet for some new summer reading😁