Ghost trail

Muramasa is a great game. Muramasa has great music. There will be a soundtrack CD released on December 16th. Did I hear that from the game website? No. An import store newsletter? No. A game blog? No. I read it in an interview on Gamasutra with the composer, where the conversation went something like

"So, how about them Yanks?"

"Fine, thanks."

Then in passing it was mentioned that the album is due in December, which is like tomorrow. Once again, the collective internet has failed me. Thanks to interviewer Jeriaska for being the only one paying attention. (And the GS art guy who picked the thumbnail for the story.)

Port city

This week I have Yggdra Unison, and Kamen Rider Climax Heroes W marked down. I'm sort of weary of Yggdra since it's a Sting game of the DS, something they have yet to convince me that they know how to make. On top of which, it was originally a cellphone game. I don't know if that can even be considered an upgrade. Kamen Rider is background noise. The most important thing that's supposed to happen this week is USPS delivering my Mushihime/3D Heroes OST package.

Next week we get Samurai Spirits Sen, which I'm looking forward to more than I should be, frankly. Toshinden is also set to hit next week. Fighting games are officially back, if between the heavy hitters like Street Fighter and BlazBlue, we get shit filler like this. Now if only shooting games could come back into vogue.

Official Sexy Time

Was yesterday Porn Day or something in Japan? For some reason all sorts of wacky things involving varied states of nakedness happend on the same day. First, the gladiartix from Acquire's TGS booth showed up at Impress Watch HQ and posed for a few pics. She's seriously the best part of Gladiator Begins, I mean, just look a the screenshots. Needs more brown. Then D3 decided to announce some wholly inappropriate outfits for the Dream Club girls coming in December (on the 25th, no less. You can give D3 a Christmas present of ¥480 for the Bondage suit). I don't quite get the theme of these, other than "show 'em if you got 'em", or "dress up like a nun." Maybe she's got a leather thong on underneath that get-up, that would fit right in. Friday also happened to be the release date for a bunch of actual porn games, one of which stars a girl called Ramia, who is in fact a Lamia creature, half-snake half-woman, as seen in assorted pop culture fantasy works. An original take on the tried-and-true "childhood friend, all grown up" genre. Hilarity, amongst other things, ensues. It was also the release day for the demo version of Illusion's Real Kanojo. I'm still trying to download the fucking thing through bootleg webproxies. At 20Kb/s, it's like being back in the 56k days for fucks sake.

Overtime: The fun continued on Sunday at Spike's "We-publish-the-crap-no-one-else-would" show. Madworld cosplay and live demo. I kind of want to see that in video form, actually.

By default

This is pretty old by now, but I don't believe Japan ever got the memo. Tatsunoko VS Capcom Ultimate All-Stars will also feature Zero (the original from Mega Man X), and Joe The Condor, leaving only the fat dude and the shitty little kid absent from the original G-Force. Tekkaman Blade + Zero = January needs to get here now!

Time to upgrade

You may recall a few months back there was a big stink raised by some people with too much time on their hands about Illusion Soft games being sold on Amazon Marketplace. This prompted some other people with too much time on their hands, and the false impression that they are in fact the world's Though Police, to lobby the Japanese government, which led to an official review of the porn game industry. Thankfully, in true bureaucratic fashion, not a damn thing ever came out of that. The only thing it did get us, though, is Illusion IP blocking their site from foreigners. If you go to http://www.illusion.jp, you get a "O,SRY under maintenance LOL THXBY" text. After a little command line-fu and a Tor install, I could access the site just fine, though communication back and forth was slow due to the nature of the Tor network, making it a little hard to navigate. The moral of this story, Americans continue to fuck up everything they possibly can get their sausage fingers on. Support your specialty import shops.

The reason I made this post, is because Illusion has an impressive new game coming out, which I can't even get details on, due to the site being blocked. Bullshit notwithstanding, Real Kanojo looks hella impressive.

Andarwinism

Oh noes! Whatever will we do now? Who will make shit shovelware crap to clog up the Market now? Sorry Gameloft, but you quiting the Android platform can only raise it's cachet with users. Unfortunately, if these clowns quit, then real companies like Hudson, or Taito might not be so quick to put out new stuff. They're right, the "official" game scene on Android has been pretty dead, unfortunately, with with only 'tards like Glu Mobile or... or some guy named Phil Symonds putting stuff out. (What was the last game you put up there anyway Gameloft?) In the article they mention something about Google doing a terrible job promoting the platform. I should hope so, since it's not Google's job to do so. Taking money from suckers has usually been the domain of the carriers. That was when they owned the device and software, now that it's not theirs, they don't care. Google doesn't care either, they don't need that money. So it's all up to you and your games to sell it, guys. What a coincidence, when placed in an environment where your software's quality alone is its biggest marketing factor, you flounder and bail. Peace out Gameloft, and thanks for the laughs.

The official post

Now, Hori, I love you, but I'm going to have to call bullshit on your latest bullshit. Before there was a Real Arcade Pro, there was the Fighting Stick line of peripherals. You may remember them from the official DOA4 stick (<3 Kokoro <3), or the official Street Fighter IV/BlazBlue stick debacle, or last October. The 360 is drowning in a sea of these things, while the existence of the PS3 variant has been swept under the rug of RAP editions. So, take a good look at this Fighting Stick 3, what's the first thing you notice (besides that it's black, wiseass). Eight buttons. The 360 FSEX only ever had six (one of the principal reasons I replaced it). Since the FS line has been around for quite a while by now, Hori decided to do one of those "refresh" things that the kids these days like. Slap on a new coat of paint and jack the price 20%. Meet the new Playstation 3 Fighting Stick V3. Well looky here, I only see six face buttons. They are X, Circle, Square, Triangle, R1, and R2. The L buttons are located in the upper right corner, above the stick. Not only does this setup make Tekken 6's scenario mode (more) unplayable, it's a slap in the face of PS owners, who up to now have enjoyed a preferential treatment from Hori. Instead of raising the bar for everybody, they're going to lower it for the PS3 crowd. I think that's a shit call Hori. It's like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde over there, what's next? An arcade style pad for the 360 with an analog stick instead of a d-pad in the center of the face? Oh wait...

Thank God for pants

Today was the very specific day on which Amazon.com would take delivery of Hori's EX Pad 2. Yeah, it didn't quite happen like that. Amazon US didn't even bother making up a new date, Play-Asia still lists "Nov 2009" for the US version, and "December 2009" for JP, while Amazon Japan has a December 31st. So in true Hori tradition, this one will be available whenever you find it in a store.

In more concrete news, Mushihime-sama Futari Ver.1.5 is hitting the Xbox this Thursday, or earlier as is usually the case with these things. This one is more important than your average 360 import shooter though, because Cave will use the sales numbers from exporters (the guys who sell to people like Play-Asia and NCSX) to gauge foreign player interest. To help it shift as many copies as possible they've decided to forgo region coding, making this baby region-free and playable on all the world's Xboxes. High import sales equal more localizations, for those who haven't had their morning coffee yet. Cave games have been notoriously scarce in other territories, when even the likes of Chaos Field have made it over the Pacific. Unfortunately, I don't think they'll have much luck with that little experiment. Mushihime wasn't very warmly received by the shooting crowd, especially the Cave faithful. It obviously won them over with it's quality, some claiming that it's in fact Cave's best work to date, but most "casual" shooting fans don't appreciate the magical anime girls thing Cave has been doing for a few years now. If they ever finish that Ketsui port, that would be a better indicator of Cave's worldwide fanbase.

A last minute addition for me is the 3D Dot Game Heroes OST. The game is an homage to everything 8-bit, while the music is more along the 16-bit lines. Just how I like it.

Next week we get Yggdra Unison, a cellphone game ported to the DS, and Kamen Rider Climax Heroes W, a PS2 game ported to the Wii. Yggdra is getting bought no-questions-asked. I only put Climax Heroes down because I was in a fighting game mood, and it was announced before BlazBlue and KOF hit. If it's good I'll pick it up, otherwise, pass. Those "sentai" heroes are one aspect of Japanese pop media I can do without.

Academy of arts and shooting things

And the winner, for most unsurprising announcement is... G.Rev for Senko no Ronde DUO on 360. The only surprise is how quickly it came. Arcade games seem to have a lifespan of about 3 months these days, at most, before getting the port treatment, unless your name is Tekken. Some more fresh meat for my RAP-SE, mwahahaha...!

First post

I love it when a plan comes together. I love it even more when some unexpected shit happens. A big-ass box came today from California. Inside were my two Real Arcade Pro sticks from Hori USA. In addition to the sticks and invoice, there was also a letter from one Jun Asami, thanking me for my order, and also letting me know that I was the first customer at shophoriusa.com. I guess invoices #1-6 were internal tests or something. They were cool enough to throw in a Wireless Turbo Pad with the order. Free stuff, awesome! Thanks Hori USA, and Jun. I look forward to giving you a lot more of my money in the future.

(I'm going to have to find a better place to take these pictures. My workplace is far from photogenic.)

From the Software department

I wished for this when they announced The President edit character in 3D Dot Game Heroes. Not only has it slipped my mind completely by now, I actually said "who the hell is this supposed to be?" when I saw Raiko on the 3D Heroes edit character site. And I'm a week late. Switching character's is easy to do every time you start up the game, but what the hell am I going to do about my character's name? Can't very well have a bad-ass, un-dead samurai named "Wilson" saving the kingdom, now can I?

Give me Otogi 3, it can even use the 3D Hero's engine, I don't care!

In other From news, Ninja Blade is coming to PC sometime this month.

Also, 3D Dot Game Heroes is getting an OST on the 25th of November. The game, to be honest, is a little lackluster, mainly because it emulates the 8-bit style of game so faithfully. The music, on the other hand, is 100% awesome, also do to the fact it emulates the 8-bit style so well. I recommend picking up this disc next week, and waiting for Atlus to bring the game to America, that way you get to pay half of what I did. For $40, can't complain.

Even had an Xbox

They had one of those "History Of Videogames" exhibits this week somewhere in Japan. It was very by-the-numbers, but one thing was interesting to see: Ralph Baer's "Brown Box," the prototype for the Magnavox Odyssey, and inspiration for Atari's Pong game. The first home console. It's nice to see they're not starting the count with the Famicom.

King Fossil is not amused

Darius Burst is coming to the PSP at some point in the near future. It's not being developed by G.Rev, so I don't care. But, it's getting an awesome t-shirt to match. I'm interesting in this hell of a lot more than the game. Where the hell do I buy import clothing on the internets?

No more exclusives

No More Heroes is the best game on the Wii, and it'll be getting a sequel in early 2010. But, before that happens Marvelous decided to port the original to the HD consoles. So now No More Heroes is the best game on Xbox 360 and PS3 too. Therefore, logically, No More Heroes is now the best game of this generation. It's not just a simple port job, the HD versions will get a facelift, with updated textures and lighting, as well as new game modes, and a Japanese language voice track. An alleged Very Sweet Mode will feature the girls dressed up in silly outfits not originally seen during the course of the game. I hope "Very Sweet" doesn't also mean "very easy." There will also be a pre-order bonus artbook, with character illustrations by guest artists. Each version will have exclusive artwork. Gotta catch 'em all.

Bum rush

I wanted to support the Dreamcast homebrew scene since its demise, but the people and/or their games haven't been worth it up to now. Rush Rush Rally Racing is probably the least offensive of the projects I've seen so far, so it got bought. $15 for the game, $15.30 for shipping. €5 my ass. The dollar ain't that bad, yet. One thing that bugs me, right off the bat, is the Japanese on the spine and back. This isn't a Japanese game, why pretend? I hope it's not out of some misplaced perception that Japanese is somehow "cooler." This is also what bugged me about the original Neo Geo and Dreamcast release of Last Hope. That and the general retardation of the developers. This is exactly the sort of attitude we don't need shitting up any scene, let alone one as small as DC homebrew. If you're a German team, I expect to see "Fahrvergnügen" on the back of your box.

One of these things is not like the others

Slow news day, so here's a few more Arcana Heart 3 characters. I think that Eko girl is new. I'm pretty sure I would have remembered her if she was in 2, because the port would have slowed down to a godawful crawl like it did any time Catherine was on screen.

Spoiler alert

One is an award-winning film, one is a ham-fisted action flick. Also, one is boring, and one is fun. Can you guess which is which? (Hint: the cover image tells the whole story.)

Backfire: Bonus points for having Riki Takeuchi in your movie. Not enough to carry the win, though. Maybe if he was the star. Or driving a truck.

I'm a professional

This is another one of those public service announcements. I'm a big fan of Hori products, and recently have been getting serious about their arcade sticks. Since I just got Tekken on the PS3, and Mushihime is coming next week for the 360, I decided to go all out and pick up a Real Arcade Pro for each system. In addition to the vanilla RAP sticks, Hori has available a special edition for each system using 100% authentic arcade components, from the biggest names in arcade hardware, Sanwa and Seimitsu (PS3 and 360 respectively.) I've been down on them in the past for their thin 360 support, as well as their stock allocation, especially overseas (which up until recently was non-existent). It looks like they're doing the right thing, and making a real effort these days, not the least of which is their official web store. While the selection is small, it offers the core products for each system currently at the forefront of gaming (sorry, no PS2 RAP's for you). By far the biggest surprise is that the special edition RAP sticks are offered for sale to Americans, for reasonable prices. No more Paypal-ing shady forum denizens $350 for a box to arrive a month later. You have my moral, and most importantly, financial support Hori USA. Both, SE and SA RAP's for under $300 shipped. Hells yeah. The biggest reason I made this post was because my invoice number was 7. Hori is open for business people, buy, buy, buy. I expect to see triple digits before the year is up.

Shipping notification: I placed the order at around noon, and got a shipping confirmation by 4 PM. So far this experience has been outstanding. Especially after having cancelled an order for the exact same thing from a third party vendor this morning. Moral of this story: buy direct.

Now with new hat

This is another off-week, time to pick up some more silly things. The only stuff I have marked down in my calendar are the release date of the newest version of the Fedora Linux distribution, version 12 nicknamed Constantine, and the new King's Bounty game. Fedora 11 has been finicky since day one, so I hope 12 can iron out the kinks. The first ever Linux distribution I bought (as in a store, using real American money) was Red Hat's 6.0 Linux distro, back in 1999, along side maddog's Linux For Dummies. Long story short, it didn't live very long inside my Compaq Presario 1230 laptop, but it got the party started. I use Ubuntu mainly on various laptops and virtual machines both at home and at work, but my main desktop will always be Red Hat/Fedora.

As for King's Bounty, I always heard the PC guy's talk it up, but never had a PC capable of running it at any sort of playable state. Things have changed recently, so I'm sort of back in the PC game for the first time ever, actually. And look, here's a new PC game coming out, that doesn't have rednecks in space, or rednecks in jungles, or inner-city gangsters, designed by rednecks. I gave the demo a quick spin and was shocked to find a colorful, deep, turn-based RPG, starring a girl who doesn't look like Marylin Manson. Doubly so since the game is developed by a small Russian software house. The last time a small-time Russian developer was allowed to release a game into the world we got X-Blades for our troubles. You can see why I was skeptical at first. But King's Bounty Armored Princess did the trick, I salute you crazy Russian dudes, and will buy your game. If I can get my hand's on it. The last time I tried to buy something from Gamer's Gate I was curb stomped back into my own hemisphere. The exchange rate's have shifted a little since then, maybe my dollar is worth a little more than toilet paper these days. Last time I checked, though, they can use the toilet paper in Russia.

The great blue hope

SNK is really taking KOF Sky Stage seriously. I like that. In a post from yesterday on the game's developer blog we can see a few comparisons between in-game moves from the KOF fighters, and their attacks from Sky Stage. I wonder if this will be considered canon? It will certainly take some preassure off of the fighting games in terms of story telling, and can free up the development cycle for future installments. They can take six years to make a new fighter, if the fans get new, non-fighting entries in between. I'm up for that.

A case against dots

Sometimes curves are more appropriate. In all honesty, I just picked up Magna Carta II for the artwork. I picked up 3D Dot Game Heroes so I can play as the President from Metal Wolf Chaos. Now the two will have to fight for the title of "stupidest reason." I look forward to it.

Thumb wrestling

Le's do dis... real quick, I don't have time. Tekken is Tekken, nothing to see here. The combos you learned 10 years ago still work. Game loads a fuck-ton though, kinda kills the mood.

Nostalgia is actually really cool. It's 100% old-school. Plenty of games like to claim that they're "traditional," or "classic," but always fuck it up with some unnecessary gameplay gimmick. Nostalgia is classic RPG. Run around sewers, screen transition with a wipe into random battle, line up in front of a group of rats, trade hits until someone dies, play a musical fanfare and collect experience points. Old. School. Fun. Tengai Makyou artwork helps a great deal, too. I'm very glad I picked it up.

Haven't even opened Ikkitousen. I read up on it after I bought it, and it sounds like a less evolved game than Eloquent Fist. Not really interested now. I'll pop it in after the storm clears. I got 3D dot character to edit.

More on the way

Nothing this week. Thankfully, it's been a little hectic lately. Finished Bayonetta, just got 3D Dot Game Heroes, been ignoring Sin and Punishment 2, played through Tekken 6 Arcade mode a few times, didn't even touch Campaign mode. I'm picking up Samurai Princess this week, nothing else, I need a break. I have most of November to finish these before Mushihime-Sama Futari Ver.1.5 hits.

Arcana hope

Oh good, that little blond girl is back. Arcana Heart 3 got another one of those updates conforming three more characters/arcana/voice actresses. Damn, I never played Arcana Heart 2 long enough to know if that Fiona girl is new or not. The screens look good, as always. Man, I hope they don't fuck this one up by porting it to PSP or some shit. PS360 or don't bother.

20 years of shooting gods in the face with machineguns

On November 1st Square Enix decided to throw a formal event with the principal creators responsible for the various games in the SaGa series, commemorating its 20th anniversary. Of particular note is the gallery. Say what you want about the games themselves, but you can't deny the art has always been great.

The following is a public service announcement

Raiden Fighters Aces is going up on Xbox Live Games On Demand on the 17th. 2,000 MSP or ¥2,980. It's worth the price of admission for the music alone. This has been a public service announcement from BOTEC.

Doing it wrong

Le's do dis.... oh wait. This isn't Tekken 6...

Jumping the gun

Don't ask me how I came up with this*. There appears to be a UK based game publisher that for some reason has a SNK compilation before even SNK could come up with it. Other then Crossed Swords, the only other SNK property that hasn't been whored out has been Sengoku. Until now. (Note: the embedded YouTube clip is NOT from Sengoku Anthology. I refuse to believe there are no Sengoku vids up there, so that means the guy who built the website fouled up.) Thanks Bluestone Interactive! If I can find this thing for a reasonable price, I might just grab it. I always wanted to get into Sengoku. PC ports have always been a murky area where no one can actually be sure of anything. I wouldn't be surprised if SNK HQ didn't even know this existed. It was probably licensed out by their Korean office.

*I was looking into reports of an English language release of Artdink's A-Train 8. They seem to be largely true. Again, thanks to Bluestone. Three cheers for my new favorite company.

And the shark: There appears to be another company that lays claim to this stuff, and proudly, DHM Interactive. They're also advertising bringing crap like Windy X Windam to Europe. Yeah, I'd say they're responsible for this whole mess. In addition to the PC version of Sengoku Anthology, they mention that it's available on the PS2 as well. I haven't found any proof of that on any UK websites though. Maybe that's out of their jurisdiction, they do seem awfully French.

Platinum Street Fighter IV

Street Fighter IV is finally available for less than the cost of a black market kidney. But only in HK. Play-Asia has the Platinum Hits version for $29.90. I was going to pick it up for the Xbox, just to give Capcom a little extra support, but with Super coming out in a few months, it seems a little moot.

Powa gaiza

Bah, I was wrong. It's Terry Bogard. The updates seem to be coming fast and furious lately, I hope this means they're getting ready for general release.

Break time

After the madness of last week, we get a bit of a break. The only thing coming this week is 3D Dot Game Heroes in Japan, and nothing in America. Next week we don't even get any games, just a shitty DVD, Samurai Princess (from the makers of Tokyo Gore Police). That's the whole official title, they're not going to let anyone forget this is from the same clowns. I'll get it just to say I watched it, so I can be wholly justified in slagging it off at any future point in time. Just covering all bases.