We're #3!

It only took three years, but the 360 finally got those 1 million sales in Japan. At this point it's sort of a non issue though, since it's already become the home to most of the niche genre publishers and developers. Still, it's a nice feather to have in one's cap. Looking forward to Mistwalker's new project, Deathsmiles, and Dream Club.

Maybe I shouldn't get ahead of myself

There is still zero confirmation that these games will come to the US, and if they don't I'm not going to bother picking them up. If Falcom doesn't want me to play their games, I'm not going to fight them, I'm tired of it. Nevertheless, I'm interested to hear about the two new Ys games that they have in the works. YsI&II Chronicles is a port of a tried and true game , so this one is a pretty safe bet. The one thing that bugs me is the MMO HUD. I hope they at least put a box or something around all that mess. All those random numbers look like crap just hanging there over the field graphics, like a debug build or something. Ys VII looks like a bit of a mixed bag. Firstly, it's very clearly an attempt to cash in on the popularity of "party" games like Monster Hunter. Even the graphics look like they're following the PSP trend of clunky 3D SD midgets. I'm not offended by the overall look, but neither am I thrilled with it. I don't know if it's a good thing that the character artwork looks similarly lame. At least that way it matches the game graphics. If I want good art, Ys I&II is there for that. That's why this is such an interesting project, we'll get a large portion of Ys almost in one dose. Ys I&II in July, and Ys VII in September. Maybe whoever localizes them, can bundle the games together for even more win. I'll buy that in a second. How about it Atlus? Guaranteed money.

You gotta make your own fun

Nothing happening this week, or next. It's a good time to catch up on stuff you might have missed, or pick up some junk people are clearing out. Like the item you see pictured on the left. Play-Asia's Spring sale is still going on too, and there are interesting things to be found there. It's also a good time to go through the old backlog pile. Since I just finished up Star Ocean 4 last night, I might give The Last Remnant a spin and play along with the PC guys.

Rise from your grave

Kenji Eno is back (again). He's actually helped put together a few iPhone games (Newtonica 1 & 2) so far, but now he's coming back to consoles. His new company, Fyto (From Yellow To Orange; "Fight") released a new WiiWare title on Friday during all the GDC hype. It's very simple and abstract in design, similar to the Newtonica titles. I guess that's his thing nowadays. The goal seems to be to strategically place little dudes onto the surface of an increasingly complex 3D polygonal object, and still maintain balance, so no one falls to their doom. Kinda neat, but I don't know if I'd fork over $10 for it. Maybe $5. If enough people do though, maybe we'll see D3.

Errm, what?

What the hell? 5pb is certainly not the first company to ship a buggy game, but ceasing distribution, more then a month after release, that's just odd as hell. After they get a patch out, will they bother to rerelease the game? The original or a reprint with the patch applied? I think the damage is already done here. Given its niche, no one will want to buy the game in six months anyway. Does this mean 5pb just severely limited the available quantity, making DOJ 360 rarer than it should be? We'll find out on eBay in three years I guess.

(The game is perfectly fine for average play and enjoyment. Only the second loop is affected by a showstopper bug.)

Now we wait

Let's see just how much influence this Famitsu has. They've just put up a promotional site for X-Blades. The game is without a doubt one of the most boring and derivative pieces of shit ever made, and made up entirely of bad ideas, not the least of which is the main character design. I'm not surprised, since the original game was developed by Russians, and attempts to ape the unique qualities of Japanese anime while spectacularly missing the point. Ubisoft has taken on the task of actually selling this garbage to the rest of the world. In Japan that means paying Famitsu to shill for you. So, let's wait and see exactly how many copies of this abysmal bastardization of a cultural export sells in its debut week, and see if the Japanese really will buy anything Famitsu tells them to. (My guess: under 1,000. I have faith in you, people of Japan. Don't let me down.)

The next generation

I'm sort of mildly still interested in Agarest Senki. It's still stupid expensive, so I'm not in a rush to pick up any of the versions available. Soon I'll have another one to glance over, Agarest Senki Zero. A prequel to the original game, developed by Compile Heart and RED. The game was kind of generic, but the art work was "nice," and it looks like the sequel won't disappoint. Still not worth the money though. More so than any technical achievement, this is nice to see because it means that Agarest Senki is one of the first next gen franchises, with two PS3 games and a 360 port.

Xbox 360 action shooter for the damned

Japanese-to-English machine translations are always a freaking gold mine for comedy. In between the broken grammar we can notice a few concrete details about the upcoming 360 port of G.Rev X Gulti's Mamonoro. As per norm, the game will include the original arcade version, in addition to an all new Story Mode. A new character will also be included. The other "norm" we get to experience is the additional content will be DLC. At first this was cool, but now it's getting on my nerves. Mostly since I have to use a pre-paid point card to buy this stuff, and all the import sellers jack the price of those to stupid highs.

DLC should be used to expand the life of a title past its traditional life cycle. If the average player plays a game for six months before shelving it, release something extra six months after release to keep him playing. It should be an additional bonus, not something that's been planned out from the start. If it's ready to go, put it on the disc. I don't think these console guys understand what digital distribution is for. Valve, or Blizzard should explain it to them.

Anyway, back to silly things. The limited edition will come with an INH DVD, THE PERFECT TERROR, and something called the 8-bit Arrange Version soundtrack CD. Both versions will be released June 25th, with the regular version costing ¥6,279, and the LE, ¥8,925. Damn you G.Rev, now I want the LE.

Square-Enix-dos-to Arts

I follow industry news, but rarely comment on it, since as a consumer, I'm not in any position to do so. This I find a little troubling though. Square Enix has over the years been placed in an "official leadership" position of the Japanese game industry by observers. They're always used as an example when talking about Japan, good or bad. I personally always saw them as the Japanese EA, tons of current crapware drowning out past glories and burning through goodwill faster then Sony. Now, it's even more appropriate to see them as such. Today it was announced that Eidos investors OK-ed the Square Enix merger. Which effectively brings all past SE and Eidos properties under a single brand. That's a lot of names, very few of which are worthwhile. Mathematically, the ratio of gems to turds just got a hell of a lot larger. All that mixed together averages out to some sort of formless gray blob of mediocrity. As time passes, consumers will forget what made each company unique, and will only see a dull gray giant peddling crap.

The company name is a little misleading too, since Sqare Enix is much more then just those two entities. The list of what now falls under the Square Enix label is pretty large, in addition to the obvious pillars of Squaresoft and Enix. Also included are Taito and now Eidos. Not to mention smaller fish that were swallowed up along with the principals, like Game Arts. All that under one roof, and they've put out maybe one or two good games over the past three years. Much like EA before them. So what are we to take away from this as gamers? Investors may be smiling, but I'm not.

Not what I expected

But oddly cool. 5pb unveiled their latest big deal project. The mystery red game turned out to be something called Lucian Bee's. It has a interesting 60's super spy/Charlie's Angels thing going on with the character designs and presentation. The main site is light on the details, only featuring the three main protagonists (?) and some nice techno spy theme. The country flag icons shown on there are also an interesting mix. Japan, USA, Great Britain, China, France, and The United Arab Emirates. WTF? The look is intriguing, but the things not shown on the site that I've heard are less so. The game is supposed to be a new kind of "otome" game, which is a dating sim for girls (guy-get game), and the system is the PS2. Is this the anti-Dream Club? Amagami manages to look good on the old hardware, but I'd appreciate it more if game devs finally moved on. The PSP is more up to speed, and quite popular these days, not to mention sexier, if you don't want to invest in HD development.

Oh, here it is

After releasing the 4th, 5th, and 6th BGM packs for Otomoedius G in January, it seems Konami found the 3rd pack lying under some crap, dusted it off, and put it up on XBLM. This one is branded with the dude character, so I can see why it wasn't high priority. The music is from the Thunder Cross/Space Manbow games, nothing to see here either. To make up for that, and after careful consideration, Konami must have decided that the game didn't have nearly enough girlies in it, so they've added two more, say hi to Esmeralda, and Poinny. The BGM pack, and each character are priced at 400 MSP apiece. I'm gonna need more points.

Not enhanced

Things were going to happen this week, but then they got delayed. It's not so bad though, 'cause they weren't that good to begin with. But if you're bored, there's the Play-Asia Lucky Spring sale, where you can grab stuff like this, or this, or this. The only real thing then this week is Trigger Heart Exelica Enhanced for ye olde PS2. Buy one game for the price of three.

Phantastic show

I'd expect no less from 5pb, the record label/game publisher. They put on a show by the band Phantasm on March 14th. The problem is, Phantasm doesn't exist. It's the fictional rock band from the game/anime Chaos;Head. This makes the concert half rock show, half cosplay event. New trend incoming?

Phone From

From Software's Oreike has a date and price too. June 11th, and ¥3.990. It also has a pre-order bonus phone card with a picture of a girly in a compromising pose. Playing it safe, eh From? I don't know about the game, but I'd buy the OST in a second.

School's out, sucka: From Software held an information even on March 20th for college students interested in the game industry. They used Oreike as a feature, and had the producer answer questions from the audience. I like From, they're a cool company. I'd definitely be interested in a job there, so this is very cool to see.

Now that's more like it(?)

I was just looking over an email newsletter with some new import game prices, and wondered why they're so low? Amagami for $63*? What's with the budget price? In this economy? How about ¥7,140? That's the retail price for Arc System Works' BlazBlue home port. The game will hit stores on June 25th. Time to start saving.

* Turns out that was just a typo. The game is actually $73. All is as it should be.

I'm interested in this

Everyone keeps gushing over the Ys series, while I've always found them to be pretty lackluster. The excuse has always been that I've been doing it wrong, since I'd only played the SNES ports and such. Not having enough interest (or spare cash) to pick up any of the Japanese Windows releases, or the Turbo-Grafx 16 CD port of I&II, I only tried Konami's recent PSP port of Ark Of Napishtim (Ys 6). It seemed nice, but it couldn't hold my interest past the first dungeon. I guess Falcom decided it was time to let people like me in on the fun, and have announced that the latest main series title, Ys 7, will be a from-the-ground-up PSP game, not a PC-to-PSP port job. This piques my interest, since I'll be, for the first time, able to get the full Ys experience, without any outside factors possibly tainting it. In addition, they'll give me a crash course in Ys history with a(nother) Ys I&II compilation. This one too will be a PSP game, based on an earlier PC remake. That's cool for me, but I have a feeling long-time fans are not going to be happy about this.

I don't know about "high"

Trigger Heart Exelica Enhanced is coming next week, just in case you'd forgotten. Famitsu reminds everyone by putting up a stream of the opening FMV. The theme song and animation are sort of generic, but it's more then the Dreamcast version had, so I'm cool with it. I look forward to buying this game a third time regardless. I hope we can get a Trigger Heart Exelica 2 eventually. I don't think even I can care about this game if the port it a fourth time.

Shadow of the Bahamut

Damn it, Square Enix. Why does this game look so good in the artwork but so shitty in reality? Maybe the DS was a poor choice of platform for Blood Of Bahamut. Or they picked the wrong artists. It's giving me false hopes.

Speaking of crazy people

Mask's buddy, Goichi Suda (SUDA51) of Grasshopper Manufacture fame has a new blog over at Edge Online. This is the only blog he'll admit to owning on the entire internet. He will use the space to post pictures of his figurine collection, unlike most Japanese developer blogs, which usually have pictures of their dinners. Oh Suda, you rebel.

Somebody had fun

Mask finally has something to do. After months of playing nothing but Bully, he gets something new to occupy his brain. I think he liked MadWorld (which still has no Japanese release date), and now he gets to play around with GTA China Town Wars. It's cool to see a hardcore Japanese fan of Western games. For what it's worth, Microsoft have done a pretty good job with cross-pollination this gen. Pushing Western stuff in Japan while at the same time being good to Japanese devs in overseas markets, footing the bills publishing their stuff and sometimes even development costs. Microsoft saves video games? Bizzaro world indeed.

Amateur night

After all the AAA we get some B grade stuff for a change of pace. Some of it is even C grade. First we have Black Sigil, which is pretty much an RPG Maker project ported to the DS. I don't think even the devs would argue that one. Then we have another RPG Maker port, but this time coming from a respected developer/big publisher, Valkyrie Profile DS. Not interested in that one in the least, just pointing it out for comparison sake. Japan gets it even worse then us, but their stuff isn't pretending to be anything other then crap on a disc, Zero Cho Aniki. The irony? Cho Aniki is actually fun to play as a result of not taking itself seriously. Last, Japan gets one of those "adventure" games you keep hearing about. I'm only interested in Amagami because it has great art and character designs. It's also very graphically impressive, believe it or not, due to the amount of animation that goes on during the conversations. I'll grab any one of those games for no more then $20. Blah, blah, economy sucks.

Mad codes

Oh, look at the cute anime kids, and homicidal maniacs. The more you think about it, the more of an anomaly MadWorld becomes. It almost feels like that's part of the game. I have a feeling that Platinum and Sega were hoping to raise a row over it by putting extreme violence into a cartoon and releasing the game on the family-friendly Nintendo Wii. On the one hand, I dislike corporate baiting like that, on the other, if anything else, the game will become a great conversation piece to have in any game collection. As a side effect, Sega will get money. Good plan.

I'm really looking forward to Avalon Code personally. Where's the "from the makers of Alundra" box quote? If it's not anywhere near as brilliant, I'll be disappointed Matrix.

Update: I've played a little over two hours worth of Avalon Code. The graphics are extremely impressive, Matrix can easily be called the best 3D devs on the DS after the Final Fantasy remakes and this. The music is generic, the English dubbing is unappreciated, and low quality. Luckily the characters only have a single catch phrase they repeat every time you talk to them, and any story exposition is all mute text. That's a good thing, 'cause if I had to listen to these jokers explain to me what the hell is going on, I'd pop this cart out and toss it in the trash after the first cutscene. The story sounds epic in scope, but so far it's very slow to unravel. The game has been all tutorial and set-up so far. I still have no idea what's going on in this world. It also takes a little to get used to the controls, which require the use of the face buttons, AND the touchscreen. Luckily tapping the screen freezes the action allowing the player to make any changes and stuff without the fear of getting clobbered over the head by an ogre. I don't have any complaints about the game, yet I can't shake this feeling that it's more Alundra 2 then Alundra 1. It's unsettling.

Space diva

It's a boring Saturday, so here's a picture of Miku Hatsune dressed up like Ulala from Space Channel 5. That is all.

Dream site

The official, saccharine, Dream Club site has officially opened. So far it just has all the media released through Game Watch. All the girls have their mini bio's up, as well as a handful of screenshots showing them off during the karaoke minigame. I'd think Riho Futaba would have an unfair advantage here, seeing as how she's put out a few records by now. In case you're wondering, D3 has made Riho a sort of mascot, and she often makes cameos in other D3 games.

5pb is up to something

There is some sort of very red Flash(tm) animation that plays when you try to visit 5pb.com/games. It advertises a new project to be revealed on the 27th. It's being billed as 5pb X HuneX X Hirotaka Maeda. 5pb I'm fine with, I don't know who Maeda is, but the HuneX part has me worried. HuneX is D3's favorite developer. All the crap they've published that wasn't Tamsoft, has been HuneX. This basically screams corners will be cut. The concept looks like it may be grand, but I have a feeling its execution will be severely hampered by choice of developer (as well as publishers lack of funds). I don't mind low budget stuff, but it has to have charm. If these guys just try to out-Metal-Gear Metal Gear without the budget, that'll just be embarrassing. We'll have to wait and see what this turns out to be.

Update: I don't think is going to be what I think this is going to be. HuneX presence becomes a non-issue then. Carry on.

The end

More so then any other announcements of a manufacturer ending support for a product, this one is the bitterest pill to swallow. SNK is officially ending repair services for the Neo Geo MVS line of arcade hardware. Repair services will still be available through a third party, but when they run out of parts, that's it. Game over. The Neo Geo means a lot to me personally as a gamer, so seeing the coffin officially nailed shut is pretty depressing. The company and games may live on, but the hardware is what made them extra special.

The community is outraged

What the hell is this crap? Sega and Sony are putting together a Valkyria Chronicles anime. That's all fine and good, even if it retells the story of the game shot for shot. What I take issue with is the dumbed down character design for the enemy commander, Radi Yager. Just what the hell happened to that skull on his shoulder? Frankly, that was the most interesting part of his design, and one of the first things I noticed about this game back when they announced it. By taking the skull away he's just any other generic anime bad guy. Which doesn't help him any with his role in the story.

Hell-bound

After DOJ, I can tell 5pb is begrudgingly doing this obligatory publicity for their Ketsui port. This introduction to the characters (ZZz...), story (lol) and game system (hint: shoot stuff to blow it up) is likely all we're gonna get before the game ships. When it does, it will feature the creatively titled X Mode, where guys you blow up spew a few last bullets in your general direction. I hate that shit in other games, so I definitely won't be clicking on that option, thanks anyway though, 5pb. Now if we can have 110% overscan in Tate mode, I'd really be happy.

It prints money

Pachinko is funny like that. This is actually the shit tie-in Pachislot variant we're talking about here, which is just, if not more so, lucrative, judging by the disparity between true Pachinko games, and these. Back to the point. The girl with the pink hair and big boobs is Rio, who's sort of an unofficial mascot for the game. Can you guess why? I have one of these games for the DS, it's pretty boring. Pachinko video games make about as much sense as pinball video games. The minigames are the most interesting part, but there just isn't enough "game" there.That apparently hasn't stopped five previous iterations from getting published (by Tecmo of all companies). Well here comes the sixth pachislot compilation featuring assorted slot games starring Rio, which are just an excuse to put up silly artwork of her in nurse outfits and such. I'd buy that for $20 maybe, with free shipping. Not going anywhere near it for full price though. Sorry Rio, try harder.

Any excuse to drink

I'm not sure I quite get this. Atlus and Sting are announcing a "partnership." Sting will develop original games and Atlus will publish them abroad. So, in other words, it's Tuesday? What's the news here? And what the hell happened to Genterprise? The article, and most likely the original source is light on details, but I guess that this is an announcement that Sting has ditched Generprise and will let Atlus put their name on the box in Japan, while Atlus will use Sting as high profile code monkeys for future Megaten spinoffs. Fine with me, as long as I get Dept.Heaven Ep.III.

Lukewarm date

Found an email in my inbox with a couple of dates for things I've mentioned before. Tactics Layer will hit stores on April 30th (...), and Claymore follows on May 28th. I was just thinking that my DS hasn't been getting much attention lately. I don't necessarily expect those two to turn any of that around, but a few mediocre games can add up to enough of a distraction to be worthwhile.

There will be blood

Sorry, couldn't think of anything better to put as the title. It fits pretty well though. Not much stuff on the horizon, but the few that are there are pretty big. Tuesday the Wii gets its own game-most-likely-to-get-banned-in-Germany, Madworld. The DS gets something much more easy to swallow in Avalon Code, from the makers of Alundra. Then the main event on Friday, Totally Spies! Japan sits this one out, probably cause they're already knee deep in blood and brains. Next week is also low key, but the mediocrity gets spread out a little more evenly. Can the best of American amateur RPG design, Black Sigil, dethrone the kings of shit games, Adon and Samson? Tune in next week (two weeks actually, when I get the games in the mail) to find out.

Year of the fighter, round 2

Will go nicely with my Neo Geo pad 2, heh heh heh...

Update: The DVD was... short. The basic combos were filler, crouching A, standing C, fireball, thanks Game Master. The Maniac Combo montage was much more entertaining, but only further emphasized how broken some characters are. Jhun and Athena being the worst. It was free, so no complaints.

The mission starts now, are you ready?

Here's the news all the internet dwelling shooting game nerds have been waiting for. The Xbox 360 port of Cave's cult favorite Ketsui Kizuna Jigokutachi Extra will ship on May 28th, at ¥6800. It'll come with a strategy booklet similar to DDP DOJ BLEX. 

After trying out the DS game, and being impressed with 5pb's DOJ port, I'm definitely looking forward to this one. Hopefully they can work out the quirks and give fans a definitive version as a reward for waiting so long. Deathsmiles in April, Ketsui in May, Mamonoro in June, I like where this is going. Too bad we ran out of games to port. Hurry up and bring Deathsmiles 2, Senko no Ronde Duo, and Radirgy Noah out. Or get cracking on DoDonPachi Daifukatsu, let Arika take a shot at it in the interest of timeliness.

King of home ports

Last but not least, KOF XII is coming home in July. It's being ported by Ignition, so that's the American date. No price, specific day (surprise), or any other details were disclosed. No information on the Japanese version either. Doesn't matter much, since it's not like this game was ever a question mark, and July is still far off. The real-deal arcade version will ship in April (at 10 grand a pop), so I imagine SNK is busy making sure that goes smoothly, before worrying about cannibalizing their sales with a console port.

As a side note, KOF 2002 UM sold 19,473 copies last week, landing at number seven on the Top 10 best sellers for the week. Nice.

Calamity: triggered

Secondly, here's the PS360 port of BlazBlue. I might dedicate the PS3 as the fighter console, just to have a reason to power it up every once in a while, what with all the RPG's and shooters on the 360. That and the Sega USB pad control option really can't be beat. No price or date for this one yet, but it should be fairly high, and mid-summer-ish respectively.

Here comes a new challanger: Aksys is putting their money where their mouth is, and bringing the game to America.

The Xbox is cursed

Finally, all these internet rumors are getting officialized. Firstly, here's Mamoru-kun wa Norowarete Shimatta! 360. Will pick this up in June. What's with the ¥6,279 price tag though? That's strangely cheap, budget shooter price? Good for me, I ain't gonna complain. There will be a ¥8,925 limited edition with a OST and DVD too, so if I need to spend more money, I can.

Make-up assignment

I finally worked my way through my backlog pile . Now mind you, I just popped each game into the Xbox and played as long as I could before I felt I was wasting time. It's not like I completed any of these games yet, these are my initial impressions after a brief hands-on. Here's what I found:

• Onechanbara Bikini Samurai Squad is actually more fun then I remember. Last time I played this, it was one of the first action games on a next-gen system. (And one of the first 3D action games I played in a long time.) This time around I just got through Ninja Blade, in addition to all the other junk I have on my shelf (Devil May Cry, Kingdom Under Fire, etc.), which makes it feel like more of the same, but with more zombies. The framerate and screen tearing is still a little distracting, and the game is as low rent as you can get (hi, Tamsoft), but you know what? It's still fun as hell to walk into a room full of brain-dead enemies and slash them to ribbons. The US localization is a straight sub. They didn't even bother adding any fancy fonts either, so all the story text looks like badly spaced machine font. The audio is the same as it was in the Japanese version, even the horrid opening song. The only thing they removed was the title screen voice clip, since the name of the game is obviously different, although they could have kept it, and no one would know (or care). For half the price, it's and excellent localization. All the same DLC is also available. I'm not going to buy it again, but if someone wants it, it's there. D3-US is officially on my good side in terms of localizations.
• The Last Remnant is a game where you have no direct control over you actions at any given moment. After seeing pictures, watching videos, and reading about it, I was still left confused as to how this game could be playable. After actually experiencing it myself, it's obviously not. All interest in this one has disappeared into a shower of glowing particles after being blasted by a magical summon beast. I'll save it for a very rainy day, in the very distant future.
• Otomedius Gorgeous is pure nonsense. But it has that old-school shooter fun. I actually played this one right after trying out R-Type Dimensions, and I wound up playing this for quite a longer while. Will spend more time with it and a joystick soon.

That's enough riffraff, back to Star Ocean I go. I only got an hour in, but already it's comedic gold. "Unless we revert to old style weaponry, we won't stand a chance." Oh Tri-ace, you fuckers.

I want this game right fucking now

I want to give you my monies, why don't you want them D3? Anyway, here's the first, of what I'm sure will become vary many, hype building exercises designed to whip their target demo into a frenzy. Too late man, you can save yourselves a lot of money by just giving me the damn game. Sigh. To make this seem like less of a slobbering rant, here's the official Dream Club site. It's actually been up since the last time the game was announced, but it hasn't received any real content to date. And yes, I found it by guessing the URL last time, bite me.

Homework

Man, Microsoft wasn't kidding with cost-cutting on hardware. Compared to my original, this newest Xbox feels almost completely different. First of all, the jet of air out of the rear vent is cool to the touch, that's huge right there. Cooler exhaust means less heat generated by the smaller components, which lend themselves to a reduced power draw, which translates into a smaller (internally) power supply. The brick is still huge, but it's about half the weight of the original, an addition to sucking up less juice. It's also not grounded, I don't know how I feel about that, but it at least means that if there is a small surge, the hardware can take it without frying itself. I don't know about quieter, but it sure is cooler. The optical disc drive is actually louder then before I think, since it now rattles in addition to spinning at 100,000RPM. Thankfully, "installing" (copying) the game to the hard disk drive solves that problem quite nicely, and has the neat side effect of reducing load times. Everybody wins.

I only had time to screw around with a few of the games in my pile:

• Star Ocean The Last Hope: Wow, I totally believe that this game is not just hokey anime plot about sending tweens into space to save the galaxy as we know it from an ancient evil because their character portraits are SO XTREME!
• DoDonPachi Dai-Ou-Jou Black Label EXTRA: Loads, a lot. But I don't mind because it has a great looking refresh rate (75Hz?) that makes it feel like a real arcade game. I don't know if it's real or fake, but 5pb is OK in my book for it.
• Ninja Blade: fucking rocks. That is all.
• Lost Odyssey: I've been wanting to replay this game for a while now, so I used this opportunity to screw around with it while testing some of the new features, like HDD installation. Now, I don't remember, did this game always have an 8-bit color depth? The scene right before the meteor crashes looks like a fucking Sega CD FMV. Despite that, the game remains as great as it ever was, mainly due to the fantastic music.
  

Packaged goods

There goes any free time I might have had left, as well as some hours of sleep. If posts suddenly stop appearing, this is the reason. As an aside, why is all this electronic shit so damn heavy? The box actually has pretty banged up corners, as if it was dropped several times over its lifetime already. The padding inside the box isn't exactly industrial strength, so I'm a little worried.

I'm also curious about the game. I fully expect it to be just the American disc inside the Japanese box. (Shitty 3D rendered character portraits, nice cover.) That is the easiest thing for Square Enix to do, as well as the cheapest. It's also the farthest from the best thing. The aesthetic changes were made to the original game in an effort to appeal to Western sensibilities, which makes zero sense itself, but that's beside the point. This version is meant to be sold in Asian territories, not in America/Europe. I'm positive the audience in these territories would appreciate the 2D Japanese anime character designs over the 3D renders from the US version. Therefore, this disc should contain 2D anime portraits and technicolor menus, in addition to the English language interface. In a perfect world, it would also feature Japanese voice track, with subtitles in various languages, but that's just wishful thinking on my part. I expect to be disappointed, while keeping a faint glimmer of hope for great justice.

Later that night: I hate it when I'm right.

Catch up time

After a bunch of busy weeks and big releases, we get a break. The only things on my calendar this week are Phantasy Star Portable on the PSP and King Of Fighters 98 Ultimate Match on the PS2, in America. This week was also supposed to be the domestic release of Raiden Fighters Aces, but the usual combination of niche genre, and incompetent publisher mucked things up, and now the game is listed for March 24th. I've lost much of the interest I had in PSU, mostly because Sega keeps insisting it's some online multiplayer nonsense, so I'm sitting that one out, at least until it's $19.99 with free shipping. 98 UM is also pretty weak on my radar, especially with 2002 UM en route. This one IS $19.99, but I still can't bring myself to pull the trigger. I'll have to wait and see if progressive scan was left intact, or if Ignition ripped it out to make space for... oh, wait, never mind. Those are the the most relevant events this week. Japan gets even less then us. The only thing they have is some little game called Biohazard 5 or something, I think it might be about killing giant bugs.