The sound of one bone cracking

Followed by thousands more.

As for Arcana Heart 2, it was too late to cancel my order, so I got stuck with it. I'll give it a spin just for laughs. It was only intended as a test for a six-button pad I ordered anyway. The pad still hasn't showed up, so this makes the game completely useless. As for the pre-order bonus, I find it kind of odd that I keep getting these things. Either companies are printing up tons more of these things then they used to, and distributors are desperate to get rid of the things, so they are sending them out along with large orders even to overseas buyers. That or domestic demand is so low,that there are lots of these things left over after the first day sales. AH2 sold pretty good, so I don't think it's the latter. I guess Japanese publishers are inadvertently being nice to importers these days.

Follow-up: Watched Ong Bak 2. Very impressive movie, in one of the least impressive disc productions. I guess I shouldn't expect much from Malaysia, but damn, this WAS a cam job, albeit without the douchebags walking in front of the picture. Also, the menu lies, and only offers Chinese subtitles, even though there is a serviceable English subtitle track "hidden" on the disc. You'll need to use the subtitle button on the remote to access it. These guys are lucky they're only asking $12 for this, otherwise I'd feel ripped-off.

The actual movie content wasn't as impressive as the original, or subsequent releases from Jaa and company (Tom Yum Goong, Born To Fight, etc.). Probably because I'm used to the nonsense by now, but also because it was much more story heavy then any of their previous works. So much so that this movie is in fact only the first half of a multi-part story. The ending teases it a little bit asking the fans to hope for a conclusion, but the third Ong Bak is already in production, so we're getting one sooner than later. That doesn't mean that there wasn't ass kicking going on. There was tons of that, including all the popular movie hallmarks, Muay Thai, Kung Fu, a bit of drunken boxing, and assorted weapons like spears, swords, and a tiger taming staff, which was quite impressive to see. Plenty of elephants, explosions, and guys hitting solid objects at odd angles. Oh, and did I mention the alligator wrestling? There was some of that too, although I don't know if it qualifies as wrestling if the alligator winds up with a dagger through its belly. As I said, the action didn't disappoint, but neither did it "wow," like it used to. What was impressive was the actual production.

This is a period piece, set hundreds of years ago, in feudal Thailand. That means costumes, animals, and sets needed to be procured and built, since you can't very well shoot that in downtown Bangkok. I was genuinely impressed with the costumes, especially for the king and other assorted aristocrats, as well as the soldiers. The actors cast for those parts were equally impressive, given that they're real actors, not stuntmen. Come to think of it, Tony Jaa only had like one line in this whole movie. His young version did most of the talking, the adult character just drank and busted heads. That is rather ingenious in itself. Everyone concentrates on what they do best.

Great movie all around. Maybe it shouldn't have been called Ong Bak 2, though, since it really has no relation to the first one. Totally worth the $12. I'm glad that Tony (who co-directed this movie, by the way, along with his mentor/trainer Panna Rittikrai) and the production company are in this for the long haul, hell bent on putting Thailand on the action movie map. I support their decision.

While Ong Bak 2 was very entertaining and worth the price, Arcana Heart 2 was quite the opposite. It looks fine standing still, and before the fight begins, but as soon as a few special effects and moves start flying around, the game slows down terribly, and it also looks like it switches resolutions to try to keep up, since even the life bars flicker. Often, the game freezes completely, even the music, for a second while numbers get crunched, then the action resumes. This is even worse then early Saturn fighting games, before they came up with the RAM expansion cart. AH2 isn't even worth it at a discount, since it becomes literally unplayable at spots. It may be fun if everyone in the room is drunk and sucks at fighting games, but for serious play, this port fails. Which is a shame, since that actually is the whole point of Arcana Heart. The games are quite popular and regularly place in the top 10 arcade games according to Arcadia magazine, along the likes of Tekken 6 and King Of Fighters 98. Not worth the price of admission, and a complete disappointment. Maybe Examu can port it to XBLA or something, because the PS2 just can't handle this game.

I refuse to call it "Taisen"

It's a bad sign when Super Robot Wars OG is the best game of the week. SRWOG Saga , which has nothing to do with giant robots beating the crap out of each other in the first place, is the only thing we get this Tuesday. It's definitely one of those wait-for-clearance-sale things. It is however light years ahead of what Japan gets on Thursday. I eagerly await the Media Create sales numbers for X-Blades. They can maybe try to salvage it by slapping a Square Enix sticker on the box at the last minute. Next week is looking a hell of a lot better. Klonoa Wii and Raiden Fighters Aces hit America. Japan takes that week off, though. That will be the case for the majority of May, where US releases outnumber Japanese ones, but come May 28th I'll be in a world of financial hurt.

What the FK?

Some company called FK Digital is making an arcade fighter called Chaos Code. I've never heard of any of those two before. It looks like a high-res, 4:3 aspect, one-on-one fighter in the line of Arcana Heart or Melty Blood. I guess we can expect a gimped PS2 port at some point in the future? That's provided this one makes any money in the arcades. It looks like generic doujin anime crap, but then again MB IS generic doujin anime crap, and that one turned into a franchise, so you never know. My biggest worry is the developer. I never heard of this FK Digital, and the last thing we need is some Taiwanese cellphone manufacturer cashing in, or attempting to. (EDIT: It is doujin-crap-turned-arcade-game. Company really is based in Taiwan. I give up.)

I accidentally stumbled upon this while looking into the companies behind Kamen Rider Climax Heroes. The copyright text at the bottom of the page lists the usual suspects like Toei, Bandai Namco, and TV Asahi. It also contains three curios letters: ADK. It's probably nothing, though. They're included with the other license holders for the IP. They're probably from the TV show production part.

What ever happened to...?

That Tir Na Nog game? Maybe it's best that I didn't find out. The game comes out next week, and was reviewed in this week's Famitsu. 20/40 for the PSP port, and 17/40 for the PS2. That's impressively bad. Especially since dreck like X-Blades gets 26/40. I hope this helps drop the price to somewhere around $10 in a few weeks. I'd pick it up just for laughs. Given these recent developments, I'm curious to see what that new 50 Cent game is gonna get.

How about a Korean version?

BlazBlue is getting an OST album on July 1st. It's allegedly different from the already released Arcade OST. I was never a huge fan of the Arc System Works sound. It worked fine as BGM, but I wouldn't pop it into my CD player on its own. Now, if we had a Korean version, like Guilty Gear XX #Reload, that would be different. That soundtrack rocked hard. I hear that dude isn't too busy, get him on the phone Arcsy.

5pb ports gal-get games to 360

This hardly qualifies as news anymore. 5pb is porting a couple of the Memories Off games to the 360. One is a port of an already released PS2 game, one will be a new entry in the series, which also will see a PS2 version. More ADV games for the 360, good. More ports, not so good. At least they will have some improvements over the PS2 versions. Having only one million units, but the highest attach rate of any other console nets a platform projects like these. They're a license to print money. 360 is Dreamcast 2. Can I get an Amagami port then?

FInally, one of them understands

I find this news excellent, but I'm a little annoyed that I almost missed the announcement. First of all, I've never heard of GameSpite until about 10 minutes ago. Luckily, I've heard of the dude who runs it, so it passed my initial review process and got clicked on. The "it" that that the "one of then" "understands" is publishing a topic based, long-form article, non-monthly, mook-like publication that will hopefully contain interesting stuff to read for those of us who still know how to. It's basically Kevin Gifford's GameStoat mook brought to life by 1UP contributor Jeremy Parish. Which also happens to look exactly like my idea of what the modern day video game writing ecosystem should look like. Up-to-the-second news, previews, and ADD-fueled reviews on the web, more laid back, thoughtful, thematic pieces on paper. Sort of like the reverse of The Escapist.

I support this idea 1,000%. For the moment at least. As I said, I haven't ever heard of this venture up until now, nor have I read any of their past articles. I did just order the first volume book, so I'll give it a once-over when it shows up. Even still, I'll be picking up the first quarterly issue out of moral support if nothing else. It doesn't matter much frankly if the content sucks, it's the idea that's important. (Much like the games themselves.)

Back for more?

The first Oneechanbara movie was bad-to-mediocre, depending on how drunk you were while watching. I wasn't loosing sleep waiting for a sequel, but I'm getting one anyway. Oneechanbara The Movie Vortex is coming to DVD on July 3rd. The plot looks like it'll recall the the 360 game. I might be worried about that if I ever bothered to play it long enough to get the gist. I might be wrong, but the first movie looked like it took some liberties with the original game's story. I'll pick it up at some point, but not for $40. Maybe if there was a Blu-ray.

Here's one from a pro

SNK's shooting game aspirations may be entertaining to read about, but it remains to be seen just how relevant that game will be in the grand scheme of things. On the other hand, the shooting game experts at Cave are keeping busy after finishing up the Deathsmiles port, and are bringing the second Mushihime-sama game the the shooting-box 360. Mushihime-sama Futari is going to be a retail disc at some point in 2009, and will be based on the 1.5 revision. Following Deathsmiles' example, I wouldn't be surprised to see future revisions, like a Black Label, getting released as DLC. Nice job Cave, you have my support.

I don't even know where to begin with this one

Microsoft had a Spring Preview show yesterday in Japan, and it looks like SNK took this opportunity to go a little bit nuts. It's such a mixed bag of cool, weird, insignificant stuff, as well as known, expected, and unexpected that I'll just go down the list and try to figure it out as I go along.

First, they announced a port of King Of Fighters XII for the 360. (PS3 wasn't mentioned since this was an MS event, but the press release included it.) That's been one of those worst kept secrets up 'till now, since this is the first official announcement from SNK about it. It's coming in 2009, so they're not ready to spill any of their beans yet.

Next, and a bit more interestingly, Samurai Spirits Sen was announced only for the 360, no PS3. That one is also coming in 2009.

Then a whole load of Xbox Live Arcade stuff. At the top of the list is Garou Mark Of the Wolves. MOTW is great and all, but I'd rather have a sequel in 2009. Then KOF 2002 UM was announced as an XBLA title in addition to 98 UM. 2002 is coming along in 2010. WTF? '98 is still coming in '09. Better never then late? I certainly don't care about those games at this point, I sure as hell won't in 2010.

The most bizarre announcement by far is a new King Of Fighters game. Why is that bizarre? Due to the fact that King Of Fighters Sky Stage is not a fighter, but a vertical scrolling 2D shooter. Huh!? It looks very cool, and reminds me of Shikigami no Shiro at first glance, so I'm definitely in support of this, but I mean damn, SNK. How the hell did you come up with that one? Again, no solid details on this one either. Given SNK's shooting pedigree though, I do hope for outside involvement from someone like Skonec or Alfa System. That would be my dream game, frankly.

All this madness is up on SNK's consumer schedule page. Oh yeah, Maximum Impact Regulation A 2, whatever happened with that one SNK?

Quick picks

Pretty short list this week. Deathsmiles. That's it. Luckily, it happens to be a good game. Next week's outlook is quite a bit more grim. First is the forgettable American release of Super Robot Wars OG Saga, then the game I actually want to see fail, X-Blades gets released in Japan. It should be followed by a formal apology be the developers and publisher, for insulting everyone's intelligence.

Completion ratio

Despite my best efforts, I played through the Final Fantasy XIII demo a few times yesterday. Mainly due to the fact that the demo's final boss resorts to cheap-ass tactics in order to demonstrate the game's intended method of play to the player. Put plainly, you're supposed to air juggle the ever-loving shit out of everybody and anybody in this game. Rent-a-soldier? Air juggle. Robotic dog? Air juggle. Giant robotic dog boss? Air juggle. Too bad that the battle system doesn't make it easy on the player.

The game uses a derivative of the Active-Time-Battle system from past games, modified to allow for three consecutive attacks. With a single gauge charge the player can attack-attack- attack, attack-cast spell-cast spell, or knock enemy into the air-attack-attack. The entire gauge can also be spent on a single more powerful group spell. It sounds fine on paper, in practice it's akin to the real-time action based battles of Tales games controlled entirely through an unintuitive menu. During this demo, the menu can't even be navigated using the analog stick, requiring the player to take their thumb off of the stick to use the d-pad to dispatch the enemies, then back to the stick to run around the map. Hopefully this changes, since the transition from map to battle is very quick, and the battles themselves are vary fast paced. Because of this, you'll often be standing around like an idiot, trying to select an attack from the list while robot dogs are gnawing on your face. Cheap hits seem to be the underlying theme of this game so far.

Technically, this demo is also big let down from the anticipated level of visual fidelity set up by the trailer which plays before the title screen appears. The target renders of the CG cinemas Square has released in anticipation of this game are still far off for the in-game engine. It drops quite a few frames during the complicated pre-scripted cut scenes, as well as during the game play, whenever scripted events take place. The demo's stage is the aftermath of a train derailment, during the military counter attack. Sort of FF's version of the Allied invasion of Normandy, bullets and planes fly through the air, and stuff explodes all around the player. Again, impressive to read, not so much in action. The entire demo takes place on the train's track, which by definition is a straight line. While it has been warped by the train crash and following explosions, you're still just running in a straight line. Every so often a plane strafes the track ahead. It all feels like a amusement park ride. It looks scary, but it's intricately designed to not hurt you.

The demo is also completely devoid of any of the technical back end of a typical RPG. No experience points, no menu, no equipment, not items. While this will be present in the final game, releasing a demo without this basic feature doesn't do the game any favors. Someone mentioned this demo was 50% feature complete in a bid at damage control before its release. I hope the number is closer to 10, 'cause if this is half the game, the final whole will be a big disappointment. Especially given the huge hype and long wait. As it stands, this is not the game that will save the PS3.

The only area where the demo doesn't disappoint, is the audio. The music and sound effects are appropriate and entertaining. All those violins remind me of Chrono Cross. That's A-OK in my book. The voice acting for the characters is also fitting. Nothing that strikes me as being odd, anyway. The character designs themselves are a mixed bag, but they get the job done, especially given the demo's end scene. No complaints there. The FFVersusXII trailer is also a bright spot of this demo disc. Again, manly thanks to the music. In the end, the playable demo left me overall disappointed, and regretting the amount of money I spent on it. Compared to the FF demos of the past, this one can't compare.

Warehouse

Now we're collecting with real power. It's another one of those everything-I've-ordered-over-the-past-week-shows-up-at-the-same-time days. It's fun at first, but sorting all this crap out gets tedious sometimes. First we have the miscellaneous blue box that showed up Friday, that I didn't even have time to examine yesterday. How does something that supposedly lives inside a wooden cabinet get so beat up? Did the previous owners decide to play Frisbee with the fucking thing out in the parking lot one day? In any case, it's all part of the plan, you'll see.

Then we have some more assorted PCB's wrapped in cracked plastic and dust. That's a good analogy, but I'm not sure what for.




Then comes the oddest combination you'll ever see. I bought one out of self imposed obligation, and the other out of morbid curiosity. Guess which one's which.


(PS: Don't smoke, kids.)

Wasted

Damn. Ubisoft sure is giving it their all when it comes to pushing X-Blades in Japan. They've now put up a webcomic on the official site. Not just a shitty translation of some pre-existing crap they've had left over from the European launch either, but an original manga. Good show.

Now I'll almost feel bad when this game bombs. Let this be a lesson to you kids, games must be good if you want them to be successful. It's a shame they're wasting all this effort (and money) on a lousy project. The geniuses in the marketing department will probably decide that Japan doesn't like action games after their elaborate campaign fails. I've got a pro tip for ya, guy: Japan doesn't like shit games.

If a game must be shitty, it should at least have charm in spades. X-Blades does not. They may be trying to give it some, through this latest marketing effort, but it's not present in the game at all. Hell, if Ayumi was a goofball cartoon like in the manga, I wouldn't hate the game nearly as much. I might have even played it past the second level. The game in it's current state, however, is unbearable. It's like the bastard child of Bang Bus and Devil May Cry.

Seriously?

The second game was such a hit they're making a third one? Really SNK? Whether it's a good idea or not, here comes Doki Majou Plus.

The third Korean game

Well not quite, but Phantagram was involved with the first one, up to a point. Anyway, Famitsu drops the bomb on Ninety Nine Nights 2 this week too. It looks shiny and all, but I hope the devs of all these games understand that there's something more important then 1,800,000p. FRAMERATE. Tri-ace gets it, so I'm not worried about End Of Eternity, but I'm not sure these PC guys know about this. You can't swap GPU's on a dedicated hardware box. Additionally, and as a general rule, I shouldn't have to work to get the game to run well, the dev is the one who's responsible for performance. How do I say that in Korean? (And German, while we're at it? Crytek needs to learn this shit too.)

The other Korean game

The one besides Kingdom Under Fire. The latest issue of Weekly Famitsu also has the much delayed reveal of Softmax's Magna Carta 2. The game was announced even before the 360 itself was a reality. That's some development cycle. It does look good for it, though. Interestingly enough, it's based on Unreal Engine 3, like a few RPG projects so far. Both of those (Feel Plus' Lost Odyssey and Square Enix's The Last Remnant) are technical train wrecks. Let's see if the Koreans can figure out how to stream textures into the buffer without obvious pop-in or long load times.

Why not Shining Force X?

Too obvious? You surprise me, Sega, for multiple reasons. The new Shining Force game was revealed in this week's Famitsu. Normally I'd dismiss it, mainly due to the fact that Shining Force hasn't been relevant since about 1996. This one is very interesting for one simple reason, though, it's an arcade game. It looks to be some sort of multi-player action hybrid, probably closer to Phantasy Star Online then the strategy RPG's of old. I'll keep my eye on this one until it becomes obvious the game is junk. The site gets updated with relevant info this coming Monday. Hopefully Sega had a solid game concept before slapping the SF license on it. Arcade game at least still need to be good, otherwise no one would shell out the cash for the boards.

They warned me

But I didn't listen. The Dream Club site was updated with frame-by-frame screen grabs for all the girls during their karaoke performances. The site is all Flash, so no links (Click the left option to enter the site -> click Special at the bottom -> click the third option in the list.) You know, someone with too much time on their hands, and a copy of Adobe Premiere can put those pics together into some silly animated .gif's...

Puzzle Bobble is here again

Just wanted to point out that Taito released a new Puzzle Bobble for the Wii via the WiiWare service last week. Why is Taito the only company that gets it on there? It's actually all thanks to Sqaure Enix, as much as I don't like to admit it. They get it pretty good too with their downloadable stuff, and I guess it caries over to their subsidiaries. Too bad either company's retail offerings are nowhere near as creative.

(My Wii coverage has fallen behind due to not currently residing in my house, and not having up-to-date firmware, preventing me from logging on to it's assorted online services.)

Definitely maybe

5pb is definitely releasing a game on July 30th. It will definitely be another PC-to-360 port of an adventure game. The game will definitely star a girl with animal ears. The price will definitely be ¥7,140 for the standard edition, and ¥9,240 for the limited. The name of the game is still up in the air though. Sometimes I get the feeling Japanese publishers priorities are a bit out of whack.

That's better

If there ever was a game made for the iPhone, it's Cameltry. I'd welcome more clones if only to teach people what makes a good game. Although it would seem that Taito doesn't even know anymore, since their own "sequel" fell a little flat.

Fun with fingers

The iPhone is for some odd reason becoming a shooting haven. It's odd because the shooting genre requires precision control and lightning fast response, two things that a touch screen and tilt sensors can't provide. Perfect example of this is AQI/Izumogasin's RayStorm clone (rip-off) Glandarius Wing Strike. (Couldn't even think up an original name for it?) You can see from the demonstration movie on the devs site, shooting is automatic, while ship movement is achieved through tapping the screen. That's the bare minimum for making the game playable, but why is the response of the ship so slow? The bullet patterns aren't enough to make a challenging game? They need to artificially increase the "difficulty" by making the control method unresponsive? This fails game design 101. What do they teach these guys at those iPhone programming seminars? How to count money?

King of the hill

Remember that Hummer racing game from Sega? They showed it off at last year's AM Show, along with Harley Davidson. Well the damn thing finally shipped to arcades. Damn Sega, delay much? I guess the nature of the business allows for such events. Still looks great. Now gimmie a Wii port with steering wheel support.

Happy Trigger

I remember when this used to pass for "news." To prove that Arc System Works is keeping it old school with their 2D fighter, BlazBlue, they've released the cover artwork for the upcoming home ports. The PS3 gets the three principal characters, while the 360 gets the main guy and the new chars added to the home port. Who does that guy in the back remind you of? There will also be a Fan Disk given out as a pre-order bonus with audio skits and PC wallpapers and such. I'm still debating which system to pick this one up for. As great as the Saturn USB pad support on the PS3 is, I don't feel this is a game that requires that level of precision. I'm not going to frankly play this one long enough, or seriously enough to care. Also, I have a few of Arcsy's 360 releases already, so this one would fit right in.

Insert bad joke here

Time Leap is finally coming out. It was one of the first adventure games announced for the 360, now it's not so pioneering anymore. It is still technically the best looking one of the bunch, and gives some actual 360 games a run for their money. $65? You know the economy is bad when gal-get games are priced under $80.

Spring cleaning

My calendar was just neatly cleaned out. Anything and everything for the next three weeks got delayed. Not surprisingly, they were all American releases. The few Japanese games scheduled are still right on track. Deathsmiles is probably the most relevant of them all, that's coming next week. This week is barren all across the board though. The biggest news is therefore the Final Fantasy XIII demo that comes bundled with the Final Fantasy VII Advent Children Blu-ray. As much as I hate FFVII, I'm interested in XIII so I'll be picking up the $60 demo. Maybe I should invest in some dust covers for the PS3 while I'm at it. It's going to be a long wait until the final game ships. In marginally related movie news, Tony Jaa is back mofos. Ong Bak 2 comes to R3 DVD (with English subtitles) at some point in the very near future. *Pre-orders*

Nutshell

Here's a pretty good cross section of my interests. This is the second half of my Play-Asia Spring sale haul, and a couple of side attractions that all happened to show up at the same time. From left to right we have, Takara's Battle Arena Toshinden 2. I used to love this game back in the day, when it was the only other fighting game besides Tekken. By any other standards, however, it's pretty wretched. The music and character designs save it though, and for $9 one can't complain. (On a side note, after I purchased this particular copy, I learned of a "Plus" version of the game which is supposedly technically improved. I almost tracked it down out of curiosity, but I stopped myself at the last minute when I realized I'd be buying Toshinden 2 AGAIN. Thanks, but no.) Next we have Psyvariar The Mix CD. This was originally going to be a musical batch of purchases, but they all went before I had a chance to pull the trigger. This one was the one I was most interested in anyway. A handful of Psyvariar tunes remixed by assorted DJ's. Psyvariar music was always cool, laid back electronic stuff, especially Psyvariar 2, and this remix CD doesn't disappoint. Some tracks are even chiptune versions of the original sounds. Cool stuff from everyone involved. (WASi303 on the piano FTW. Where's Psyvariar 3?) Then we get to the naughty bits. Leah Dizon is a French/Chinese American gal who's trying to make it as an idol in Japan. She has her fans. I just think she's easy on the eyes, so the DVD on sale goes into the shopping cart. Last, and least, we have one of those red X18 rated Saturn games with low quality animated T&A. Most of them are Mahjong and beyond my tolerance level. This one is supposed to be a puzzle game (more jigsaw then Tetris), so I'll see Atlus was onto something here when I dust off the Saturn later this weekend.

Then we have some anime DVD's. Not just any anime, the complete Berserk TV series, all six discs stuffed into a single disc sized DVD case. I think it's worth it just to see that. Also the art on the packaging and the discs themselves is great. Bought it 'cause everything old is good again (still). Or, new shit sucks. Seriously, it's sad to see sometimes. I shudder to think what a Berserk remake would look like.

Finally, we have a mysterious black box. What would I possibly use this for? It will hopefully become clear soon enough. (Hint: it's not for holding up a rickety table end.)

That's that. Bad fighting games, shooting game music, ethnically exotic girls, bloody anime, arcade games from 1996. All we're missing is some Napalm Death.

Howdy neighbor

I just noticed that the official Dream Club blog is hosted at blogspot. That's neat. But is it necessary? This game has a snowball's chance in hell of coming to America, so is wider 'net exposure really necessary? Livedoor would have been just fine for this one. Now something like End Of Eternity, that would benefit from a blogger account more then DC.

Calamity is right

And here I was thinking that the 360 is finally getting some respect. The official BlazBlue sticks have been revealed. Hori RAP for the PS3 and the Fighting Stick EX2 for the 360. And they want $99 for that shit? Fuck you Hori.

Congraturation!

I was just looking for any evidence of this "April 2009" date sticking too. SNK proved me wrong and started distribution of the KOF XII kits today. Much earlier then I anticipated. Honestly, I thought they'd slip into May or June, or squeeze it in at the last minute on April 30th or something. I like being proven wrong. Although, to be frank, this game was late by about 4 years, longer if you count the promises of a from-the-ground-up new KOF made in 2000 or there abouts. Never mind that now. Thanks SNK, for saving video games.

Now the hard part begins. Since I don't have an arcade near me, I won't play this one in a cab, so a console port is my only option. An early port will hurt sales of the board though, so it's in SNK's best interest to hold off on porting this for at least a few months. Good for them, bad for me, since I'll have to sit on my hands until they get it to me. I guess I'll just have to hook up some of the old systems and play through 94-2002. 2003 and XI are fail, so I'm not going to bother.

Tsukibito site

SNK opened the Tsukibito site today. Nothing there yet that wasn't revealed originally. Art and character designs are all types of weird. I'll keep an eye on this probably out of curiosity alone.

Musical interlude

Konami released the seventh BGM pack for Otomedius G, containing remixes from Gradius Gaiden and a couple from an olden Famicom Disk System game called Falsion. (Akira Yamaoka did one of them.)  Talk about scraping the bottom of the barrel. They also released school uniforms for some of the other girls. Talk about milking. 400 MSP for the BGM pack, 150 each per outfit (600 for all four, 1,000 total for today's content. That's $12.50 in real world money for all this stuff. Six packs have been released to date, that's 2,400 MS points, which translates to $30 in additional music alone. Not bad Konami.)

Also the Arrange Soundtrack for Star Ocean The Last Hope came out today. I've listened to the samples on the site, but I can't tell what the hell is arranged? I've been sort of on the fence about getting the full OST, if this disc is cheap, maybe I'll grab it instead. The music in SO4 is good, but not "have to get the $40 OST" great. 

New releases

There's a couple of updates on Dream Club up at Famitsu, but I'm too embarrased to report on 'em. The game may be ingenious in concept, but it's definitelly one of those things that you don't want to have other people see you playing, unless everybody present is drunk, which would actually add to the meta-greatness of it. Hmm, not a bad idea, the LE should be bundled with a bottle of sake. Hey D3, I'm giving you gold here. In any case, Cosplay Day and fram-by-frame screengrabs.

Window shopping

A lot of stuff is actually coming out this week, but I'm not really interested in any of it. First, Ninja Blade is hitting the US. Game is great, but not good enough to buy twice, especially since the disc is the same as the Asia version I already have. It would only be worth it if they fixed some of the cheap bosses, but that can be distributed in a downloadable patch nowadays. Quite a handful of games, especially 2D fighters, are released on both the Wii and PS2. That's great, but for some damn reason the Wii version is always weeks late, and also costs $10 more. Sometimes there's a good reason to wait, like Samurai Shodown Anthology's progressive scan video signal, but oftentimes it's the same code inside a different colored box. Speaking of PS2/Wii ports, Aksys is taking this Arc System Works partnership a little too seriously, and are bringing Guilty Gear XX ^Core Plus to America. They must love reprinting manuals or some shit, 'cause they just released this game like six months ago. The usual deal, PS2/PSP version this week, possibly superior Wii version in May. (Oddly enough, the Wii version of GGXX^Core+ doesn't exist in Japan.) I'll probably wait for that one. Japan has it a little better, mainly since they're getting NEW games that we'll have to wait six months to a year for. Arcana Heart 2 is keeping the PS2 alive, and Oboro Muramasa Youtouden is keeping 2D alive. I'd love to grab both, but $160 for two games? No thank you. (Who am I kidding, I'll probably be clicking the "Add to cart" button this Thursday. Oh look, Arcana Heart is in stock now...)

Too late: I did buy Arcana Heart 2, but am in the process of cancelling my order. The port is shit. Slowdown, down scaled effects, loading, no progressive scan, it's like a PSX port of an SNK game or some shit.

Claymore details

Claymore DS finally has all its pertinent details revealed. The game will be released May 28th, at a price of ¥4,890. The official site blog has an image of the promotional fliers that incorporate the cover artwork for the game. It's all very by-the-numbers so far, I'd almost go as far as to call it boring. Even the opening CG looks like it uses the Mega House Clare figure as a base for her 3D model. It was, frankly, the last inspired thing with the Claymore name attached to it. I hope the game can at least deliver something resembling fun. (I also hope the manga can get its ass in gear too, Claymore is coasting all across the board these days.)

You finally did it, you bastards

Not just any bastards either, Bandai Namco, of all people, went and did it. (Shock) Queen's Blade is finally getting a video game. Surprisingly, it's an SRPG for the PSP. I guess my idea of a fighter is a relic from a time when fighting games were popular, we seem to be living in the SRPG age these days. I don't mind one bit, frankly, I like SRPG's. The screens look great too, not like a cheap cash-in. (Awe) The graphics are cool, colorful, 2D, SD sprites, intermixed with images from the Queen's Blade battle books. Easily portable hentai art, with a video game mixed in. What's faster than day 1? Day 0? The only thing that raises my eyebrow is the original, non-henati fodder characters. (A dude!? In MY Queen's Blade!?) Why? That's not the point of this, Namco. The battle system looks like it has some sort of rhythm/timing thing going on, and focuses on breaking your opponents armor, or what passes for "armor" in the QB world anyway. These are all Good Ideas(tm). See kids, this is how you make a licensed game. (Now, where's Risty?)

Side note: Just went to the Queen's Blade site, and it looks like Dizzy from Guilty Gear X is getting her own Queen's Gate book. Mai Shiranui on... errm, VS Dizzy. Yeah, that's the ticket...

This sort of bugs me

Sony has been revising the PS2 hardware pretty much ever since they've first brought it to market. With every revision they almost always break compatibility with some thing or other, whether it be an obscure game or a peripheral. When the slim "PSTwo" was brought out, it pretty much obsoleted all previous peripherals Sony had released, requiring new ones to be made. One of the most obvious ones was the vertical stand. Since the system was now a fraction of it's former size, it needed a new, smaller stand. That's fine, they can redesign their products all they want, I have no problem with that. What bugs me is, limiting the availability of these products to select markets. Especially when they add functionality to the system. (PocketStation anyone?) When you do, you're now selling a feature deficient product. Depending on the feature in question, this will either slightly annoy, or severely piss off your customers, a bad thing to be doing in any business. The item you see pictured here is the new slim PS2 90,000 series vertical stand. Due to reasons known only to Sony, you can't use the slim 70,000 stand on the new models. This stand is a necessity if you want to stand your brand new slim PS2 up on the shelf along with the Xbox 360 and Wii (and PS3 if you got one of the 'tard boxes without PS2 backwards compatibility). It's a small, simple thing, a piece of metal with plastic sides that hold the PSTwo upright. It probably costs under $10 to make, and can easily retail for twice that amount. It doesn't take up too much space, or weigh any more than a DualShock controller. Why then did I have to scour the entirety of the internet, in two different languages, and had to PayPal a guy in Hong Kong $30 to have his friend in Japan go down to his local shop, pick one up, and stick it in a bubble mailer to get it to me a week later? Because Sony decided it wasn't necessary to sell such a peripheral in the United States. Obviously a niche market in their overall global strategy. Besides, it's not like there are a lot of slim 90,000 series PS2's out there. Or maybe the big American home entertainment centers have plenty of room for a PS2 lying on its side. No need to release it there. Good job Sony, some dude in Japan just made $10, and he wasn't your employee (maybe...).

If anybody else wants to get one, the site I got it from was GameBaz. It looks and sounds all sorts of illegitimate, but it worked, and fairly quickly too. The item actually shipped from Japan, so it had the usual care applied to it, and took exactly a week to get to me. I'm very satisfied with the service, and I'd buy from this guy again. He has those pre-paid online store cards the kids these days like. The prices aren't the cheapest around, but that's literally the price you pay for availability, since no one else bothers selling these things.

Shooter's generation

This week is so dead, I completely forgot to post something yesterday. That and it's safest to avoid the internet on April Fool's Day anyway. Today isn't much better, but at least I get some stuff to interest me. First, G.Rev is having a location test this weekend for Senko no Ronde DUO, and they released some new media to help remind people what this game is. The characters look like they'd fit better in with the Persona kids, than a shooting game, but style is style and any genre can benefit from it. I'm very curious to see what this "assist character" mechanic consists of. One can notice that principal characters are shown in the assist slot of the HUD, which leads me to assume that any character can be picked as a partner, much like KOF's striker system, instead of Marvel VS Capcom's pre-designed helpers. This would mean that the game has at least 23 unique playable characters, judging by the artwork, which is certainly a record for a shooting game.

The name of the game this generation seems to be "microtransactions," and Konami seems to have found their Idolm@ster in Otomedius G. They've released a bunch of new things for nerds to spend their yens on. Gamerpictures, a theme, and a new stage featuring Gradius' Moai heads. I think that's great, but seeing those gray bastards reminds me that I'd like to see a real Gradius HD. I'll but that for ¥8,700 Konami, do it!

Diminishing returns

Here's the first half of my Play-Asia Spring sale haul. Herein we have a game from 1995, a game from 2004, and a game from 2006. I find it heartbreaking that the game from '95 is far superior in technical performance, graphical style, and gameplay enjoyment to the latter-day games. First of all, character and mecha designs by Masamune Shirow > all, second, 60 FPS, third, light gun, control pad, AND mouse support. Horned Owl is a perfect example of everything that the original PSX generation of games did right. It's made up of 3D polygon stages, 2D sprites, and anime cinemas. SNES++ Those are frankly all the ingredients one needs to make a great video game. Drakengard, on the other hand, looks very drab, and plays like a Sengoku Musou clone, but at least it also moves at a decent frame rate, and allows for melee or aerial combat at the press of a button with seamless transition. JoJo so far is the most disappointing. Watch a comic style cinema (still pictures+voiceover) for 10 minutes, begin shitty brawling stage, watch 10 minute comic style cinema, repeat. I never expected anything more, but I hoped for the fighting to be at least a little bit more entertaining. It's not. "Bandai fighting game" tells you all you'll need to know about this one, unfortunately. Part 2 will be here next week. Nothing too surprising in there though. Let's just say that a legendary Batlle will be fought in an Arena, between "gods of battle"...2. In hindsight, I'd rather have picked up Fushigi no Dungeon DC and Ookuki over this junk, maybe next year.