IF Musou

Some actual stuff is beginning to trickle in. The people at Aksys Games are out to prove to everyone that they're crazy, and have decided to release Cave's Deathsmiles into the wilderness of Walmart. I'm not looking to subsidize another company's march towards bankruptcy, so I'll be passing on this one. I was all gung-ho for picking up Ninety-Nine Nights II when it hits this week in America, and the import version a month later, but after giving the downloadable demo a try over the weekend, I'm kind of sucked. The game looks fantastic, in still shots. There are tons of enemies and characters on screen , and shit's exploding and crumbling all over the place, which takes quite a toll on the old 360 hardware. The game barely gets up to 30 frames-per-second when the action starts. There is also some sort of haze filter thing over everything making it kind of hard to tell what the hell is going on in there. The music didn't impress me much either. Needs more metal. I'm still interested, but I might just grab one version instead of both. I just hope Konami doesn't make my mind up for me with region locks. (For reference, the original US N3 was not region locked. It was also self-published by Microsoft.) Then comes another half-assed HD RPG from Idea Factory/Nippon Ichi/and a couple more third string devs. If these guys have to gang up together to make HD games, that's fine, I just wish they made them more interesting. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy to slap some middling crap on a disc, release it with no marketing, and then complain that making HD games is hard when it sells 5,000 copies in its first week. I was going to pick this up just to show my support, but after Cross Edge and Agarest Senki I'm a little gunshy of anything with Idea Factory's name on the box.

Japan is a little worse off, but they get one title that at least is guaranteed to be of top quality. BlazBlue Continuum Shift hits with all its varied wares. The basic game across both HD platforms, Limited Editions with figurines and artbooks and stuff, special edition joysticks, and of course, those pre-order bonus cards. I've actually become less and less interested in this game as time passed. I picked up the first one because it was the first fighter for the HD platforms. It was pretty much Guilty Gear HD. I've never cared much for Guilty Gear to begin with, and it's a distant third behind Capcom and SNK's fighters. With Super Street Fighter IV, and KOF XIII on the horizon, I'm not exactly short of quality fighting games. On top of which, this game looks like it adds less to the formula than even SSFIV did. I might pick it up eventually for cheap, but I'm not holding my breath. Other than that, Japan also gets a bunch of Tecmo Koei's Musou games re-released as budget editions. This is notable because these games sell for stupid high prices upon launch, so getting them for cheap is quite a feat. It's also mind boggling that people willingly pay those prices for what are very boring, and not well designed games over and over. Ironically, the marked down price is higher than what I paid for my entry into the series, making these editions still rip-offs. Also, it looks like only the Sony versions are being discounted, so PS2 and PSP only. So not worth it.