With the hotness

Capcom is going all out with promoting Tatsunoko VS Capcom Ultimate All-Stars, for some reason lately. To that end, they held an event of their own today. This was one of the prizes available through a lottery. Pretty much single-handedly beats anything from that Shooting Festa. Cave needs to partner up with Capcom again so they can get Shinkiro to do the art. The awesomeness would melt faces!

With the quickness

Shooting Festa 2010 went down today in Tokyo. Cave wasted no time announcing that Deathsmiles II X will be hitting the 360 on May 27th. There will be standard, and limited editions available costing ¥7,140 and ¥9,240 respectively. The LE will include a bonus soundtrack of remixes by various game musicians. (Where's Go Sato at?). In addition, Cave's classic Guwange will be hitting Xbox Live Arcade at some point to be arbitrarily determined by the powers that be (Microsoft). I guess they've since reversed their "no straight arcade ports" stance, which was responsible for the whole DoDonPachi DOJ BLEX debacle, and why Ketsui X isn't even out yet. That one's coming in April, finally, while the DOJ patch is currently being tested by Microsoft.

Overall, the whole show seemed like a more respectable event. Bigger, with more notable announcements, and guests. Also, proper equipment, although the Hori sticks were from the low-end Fighting Stick line. Looking forward to Shooting Festa 2011!

Dengeki: Managed to get a pic (it's the last one in the article) of the KOF Sky Stage demo setup featuring two Tournament Sticks from Mad Catz/MSY. Good show. Although it is widely held belief that Seimutsu joysticks are better for shooting games than the Sanwa parts found in those sticks. Still, credibility +10.

3G's: I was curious to find out what monitor they used in that Ketsui demo. I'm fairly certain it's an EIZO FlexScan SX3031W. A $3,000 monitor for a shooting game? I like that style. Whoever made that call is my hero.

The End (?)

I finished up Nostalgia last night. In true old-school RPG fashion, I chased the bad guy to the alternate dimension, kicked his ass, watched this other guy come out of nowhere, and proceeded to kick his ass too. The game never threw any surprises at me. If anything, it was a nice surprise how traditional and "safe" the whole thing was. It took me a little over 30 hours. Not too long, not too short, an excellent length for any RPG. That was for the main quest only, since I never bothered doing any of the optional Adventurer's Association quests, and never explored any of the optional dungeons. There's still plenty of stuff to do in the game, which brings me to my point. Why are these games so afraid of ending? Games like Persona 4 or Final Fantasy XII are insanely long because the developers want to give the players enough game substance so they feel satisfied. There's nothing wrong with that, but if there isn't a clear direction, or a clear end point, it starts to feel aimless, and boring after a while, and I'd bet most players never even finish these games. If a designer is hell bent on giving the player more time to spend in the game world, with the characters they've formed an attachment with, get cracking on that sequel/expansion pack/side story, instead of padding the main game with unnecessary crap.

In Nostalgia, after the last bosses are defeated, the player is once again given control of the party. The dungeon is collapsing, so it's time for a hasty retreat. What surprised me here was that enemies are still roaming the halls, and the save point is still functional. I was able to level up a few of my characters and save AFTER the big bad guy blew up. Once the party escapes the crumbling dungeon, it's time to watch the ending sequence and credits. During the banter one of the characters mentions about going on an easier adventure next time, everyone agrees and has a good laugh. Then I was given the option to save. Cool, that's all standard operating procedure. I noticed the name of the save file was something like “Adventurer's Epilogue.” that sounded interesting, so instead of turning the DS off, ejecting the cart, and popping in Sands Of Destruction, I decided to load up the cleared file. Instead of putting me back in the last dungeon (after I killed the last boss), I started out in London, the origin town. I had all my equipment, experience, and party members. After running around town, and talking to people, it seemed like I was actually back home after the conclusion of all that saving-the-world business. I'm essentially playing the ending. I can fly around the world, revisit old places, look for new adventures. That's cool and all, but what's the point? The credits rolled already, when is this new episode going to end? And if it does, will the credits roll again? Why did they roll in the first place if that wasn't the end? I'd say this extraneous content, ironically, is my only gripe with what otherwise is a very competent and taut gaming experience.

WRRYYYYYYYyyyyyy!!!!!?

Are they playing pogs!? Is that a GIANT pog? Am I drunk? (Answer: yes) Are these people drunk? (Answer: quite possibly) What the fuck is going on here? Thank you Dengeki for saving this week. Ikkitousen cosplay + crazy shit = win.

Giga power

It would seem SNK is getting back to business. After taking over 10 years to finally refresh the King Of Fighters series, they're not wasting any time cranking out the next iteration. KOF XIII was officially announced today, in typical KOF style, with only a logo. At least it's a nice looking one. In accordance with said KOF style, details will begin to trickle in from location tests, and magazine articles over the course of the year. If everything goes according to plan, KOF XIII should hit around November.

One reason they're being serious about it is that 2010 is the 20th Anniversary of the Neo Geo platform, where the King Of Fighters originated. To remind people that they were once a force to be reckoned with, SNK put up a Neo Geo Museum site with a brief history of the system, a game catalog, and print ad gallery and some new promotional goods for the 20th Anniversary.

It's a nice thing, but as a Neo Geo fan, I'd like to see something more in-depth. I recently had to do some internet detective work in order to find out which parts were originally used in SNK's Candy line of cabinets. It's nice to see a picture of it on the history page, but I'd like to see some more nerdy stuff on there. For example, the game catalog doesn't list the meg count for any of the games, something that was prominently used as a marketing gimmick back in those days. While that data can be easily obtained by anyone, some information that only SNK could provide, for example, could be the amount and size of the ROM chips used in the actual arcade cartridges. Something that can currently only be obtained from the MAME project's documentation (specifically its source code). And for the truly Neo faithful, finally finding out the missing NGH catalog entries would be a monumental event. Having an official source for _all_ things Neo Geo would be much appreciated by video game nerds the world over.

Last resort

Do you want to see how slow it has been? Here's a Japanese blog post featuring some of the elaborate shit people did to celebrate the birthday of my favorite Idolm@ster. Might as well join in on the fun, Happy birthday Chihaya Kisaragi!

Wankster's paradise

Man, shit's slow. It seems like the more interesting stuff comes out in stores, the less interesting the news gets. After scraping the bottom of the barrel, the best the internet could come up with are No More Heroes HD pre-order bonus (phone?) cards from select retailers (scroll down). These things have been getting seedier and seedier lately, I'm pretty sure they'll just feature hardcore lesbian pornography in a couple of years. I actually like the one with the violence, simply because it's something different. That wasn't even in the press release announcing the game's new official release date of April 15th. I had to stumble upon it all by myself while... wait, never mind.

Deadly rain

This week the US sees bargain bin fodder in Last Rebellion, Heavy Rain, and Deadly Premonition. It may seem odd that I'm not championing Heavy Rain, but I get a very Silent Hill 2 vibe from that game, and as we've just learned, that's not a good thing. It may be a technological circle jerk, but I don't care how immersive your atmosphere is, if your cast of characters look like junior high school teachers, my interest dissipates quite rapidly. Still, it is a game that doesn't take place in space, or star coiffure challenged marines, so I should support it on principal, and I will. When it's $19.99.

Unlike Heavy Rain, Deadly Premonition, or Rainy Woods as it was originally known, or Red Seeds Profile as it is now known, always aspired to be a low-budget release. It was developed for Marvelous Entertainment and will be released across both the PS3 and 360 platforms in Japan, but I guess Ignition got a few bucks from Microsoft to make this one a 360 counter-point to HR in America. I have a feeling this will backfire quite spectacularly. The reviews and comparisons will no doubt be more entertaining than the actual game(s).

Another game that's far more entertaining to talk about rather than play is Metal Slug 7. Released for the Nintendo DS two years ago, re-released with content that was supposed to have been there since day one on the PSP last year in Japan, it will finally see release in America, for some reason, courtesy of Atlus this week. To be perfectly blunt, the last good Metal Slug was the original on the Neo Geo. MS3 was decent fun too, but only because it had silly shit like aliens and giant enemy crabs in it. And zombies. After Nazis, aliens, and zombies, there really aren't too many enemy forces that one can shoehorn into a video game that can offer a fresh perspective on the action genre, except maybe lawyers?

Radirgy Noa, from Milestone/Lucky Co. hits Japan on Thursday. While I'm curious to see how a Milestone outsourced project winds up, I'm not willing to test it on my own skin. I'll wait for some other sucker to go for it.

That's enough for the riffraff. The real deal this week is Cave's latest, ESPGaluda II Black Label hitting the 360 on Thursday in Japan. As I mentioned last week, the standard edition will be region free, while the LE will be region locked. The reason is that Cave actually plays by the rules, and submits their code for certification across all regions where they what the game playable. Also, the way MS licensing works is that LE's are treated as separate versions from standard editions, and require separate certification. Unluckily for those who couldn't be bothered to pick up a J-360, the LE disc couldn't get certification in US/EU before the deadline.

Thursday was also supposed to be the release for No More Heroes Hero's Paradise for the PS360, but that one got delayed. Curses! So instead I bundled Zangeki no REGINLEIV with ESPGaluda II. Box-0-awesome incoming this weekend.

On Friday I get to do some movie shopping. Most importantly, I'll be picking up the Storm Warriors, AKA Storm Riders 2. The original Storm Riders was the very first HK action flick I saw, and is a very important factor in developing my tastes in cinema. It was also a pioneering effort in many areas of action film making, and it will be interesting to see if the original creators can still innovate and inspire the next decade of imitators.

Last and least, I'll be getting Vampire Girl VS Franken-girl. (Why DVD? Whhhyyyyyyy~!?) For the record, it's not because it's from the directors of Tokyo Gore Police. I hate Tokyo Gore Police. It's for Elly Otoguro, who played Aya in Onechanbara. You have to be a little bit crazy to take a role like that, and come back for more. I'll reward her effort, and maybe get some hot girl-on-girl action in the process. Everybody wins.

Satoworks

Oops. Forgot to link this on Friday. Sato was the character designer and lead CG artist on Silent Hill 1 and 2. It's a little known fact that I hate SH2, and my reasons for doing so are the characters themselves. Maybe it's 'cause they're actually so well designed I can't stand to look at them?

Real fake

Real Kanojo was released yesterday. After giving the demo a try back in December, I was underwhelmed by the game. It was essentially the same game they've been making for the past five years, just drowned in filters. The real reason for this post, is that Illusion Soft has finally joined the 20th century, and put up some of their older games for sale online, at Akibain.com. Damn it Illusion, I'm not joining another of these sites. All I'm saying is that Oppai Slider 2 better be offered at DLsite, or you and me gonna have problems.

(Actually, I should join and try to buy one of these, just to see if this move essentially obliterated their regional restriction plans. Sexy Beach 2 + the Chiku Chiku expansion for half the price of a retail release. Not bad.)

Love Plus + XX

Game news in general has sucked over the past week. The most important thing I've learned is that Konami's Love Plus is produced by the guy responsible for Rumble Roses. I expect an awesome crossover to come out of this, Uchida.

Insert... anything?

Man, AOU really sucks this year. SNK isn't there, again. Their latest game, Sky Stage, is out already, and can likely be found in the Taito booth, like at JAMMA. SEGA's biggest game is a port of the PSP Miku Hatsune rhythm game, and Evangelion 2.0 cosplay? Who the fuck is she supposed to be? Not to be outdone, Konami decided to port Metal Gear Online, and make it even more cumbersome to play. Weaksauce.

I've got THIS

Get ready to see this icon a lot. "Picked up" the first Resident Evil 5 Alternative/Gold Edition extra episode, Lost In Nightmares, along with the first costume pack, "Warrior" Chris, and "Folklore" Sheva. For $7, that's not a bad deal. The episode is very short, and limited. It consists of two distinct halves, where the object is to kill the eight or so enemies found in this chapter. The enemy type is unique to this episode, though, and they don't go down easily or quietly. The first half is set in a mansion very much reminiscent of the original Resident Evil mansion on the outskirts of Racoon City. The producer mentioned that the point of this story was "fanservice," and it doesn't disappoint. The house is creepy and filled with the sort of obtuse puzzles that made the first game "memorable." The characters even poke fun at Ozwell E. Spencer's obsession with cranks. After finding all the passwords/crests/playing a sonata on the piano/saving your partner form becoming a "Jill sandwich," it's time to loose all your guns and fall into the catacombs underneath the house. Here, the object is to use environmental traps to off some more of those big ass, anchor-carrying dudes to get some more crests to unlock some more doors. Once that's out of the way, it's time to face off against Neo-Weker with his teleporting bullshit. You can't kill him, to preserve the integrity of the story, and the object is only to live long enough to see the cutscene of him and Jill falling out the window. One can mess around for a little longer, but there really isn't much to do once all the enemies have been dispatched, and doors unlocked. Once cleared, the player is given the option to play again as Jill, which gives a neat little "alternate path" when Chris assists her to jump across a large hole in the floor to unlock the dining room door. It lasts only a few moments, but it's a neat little detail. Also, since Jill is the musically inclined one, the player is left to deal with the QTE while Chris runs to get the crest. Then one of those anchor dudes bursts through the door, and you don't have the SMG to help him down. The producer said the team included as much variety they could, using the limited set pieces they had, so one can probably expect to be surprised almost every time. It cost only $5, and lasted about 40 minutes, but this little side story was easily the best part of RE5, and the most fun RE experience since the REmake on Gamecube. I call for a re-REmake!

I also tried out Barry in the new Mercenaries Reunion mode. I suck at Mercenaries, so I never did anything cool, but Barry is the same ol' Barry. Each character in this Mercenaries mode has a unique weapon load out, and Barry, true to form, packs not one, but two Magnum hand cannons. The bigger one shoots through schools. I think I took out like three guys with a half-assed shot, and knocked down everyone within ear-shot. I'll need to revisit this mode again after some practice. I can't wait to get my hands on "Heavy Metal" Chris in the next batch of DLC. Previously known as "Exoskeleton," this version carries a chaingun and ammunition pack as big as a Buick into battle. THAT'S the way I've always wanted to play me some Resident Evil.

Break out!

Making Princess Yggdra an actual guest scenario character is a good first step towards fixing what's wrong with Knights In the Nightmare. While we're thinking along those lines, making any of the established characters present in the story into playable units would go a lot further towards that goal. It also would destroy everything that KItN set out to do, but sometimes "tough love" is what's needed.

Aggrandizing returns

Oh look, Microsoft took my advice. We'll just ignore that there was no 2009 edition, and go straight into Shooting Festa 2010. It's bigger, but still Xbox-centric, and lacking booze. The only company that's really missing is Milestone, but that's nothing to loose sleep over in my book. Although, if you invited those guys to hang out with the likes of Ikeda and Fujino, maybe they'd learn something. I still support an annual shooting show for this purpose. More of a "Shooting Game Developers Conference" rather than a "Shooting Tokyo Game Show."

The invincible tiger VS the raging dragon

Ever since the early days of the SNES, when games first began to show compelling story telling capabilities, along side technical prowess, I've been waiting for a true East/West collaboration to deliver the best of both worlds. A few people have tried in the past, but the effort was almost always squandered, and failed to deliver. In the mean time, the make up of this relationship has also shifted around in my head (the original called for Western story-telling and Eastern technology). Maybe we'll finally see an honest try.

Gial force

Quite appropriately, this is a few days old, and will be very light on detail. It may in fact be completely wrong. Fuck if I care. Nippon Ichi makes games I couldn't possibly care about. They made a PSP game or some shit a few months ago. It probably sold like 1,000 copies. Time for a sequel, cause the kids obviously demand it! I have no idea what it's about, or what's supposed to be going on in these screens, I just really love this mock old school cover. Protip: If this was your actual box art, N1, I'd be buying your game.

Super fun time

I've essentially been on a never ending mission to find an e-tailor that sells import pre-paid cards for assorted online services since they first began to check credit card credentials. No fucking lawyers are going to tell me what I can and can't buy. The latest website that I've PayPal-ed over a few bucks to is Game Time Zone, which actually specializes in such cards, and emails the code within minutes of order confirmation. (They require extra hoop-jumping in the form of a phone call, but it's quite quick and painless.) I usually need Japanese codes, but ironically, I've purchased US codes from these guys, for both the PSN and XBL. That Resident Evil 5 DLC and gonna download itself. On the XBLA side of things, I finally got the chance to unlock the full version of 0 Day Attack On Earth and Jewelry Master Twinkle. I used to let Microsoft hold my credit card info, never again. I also took this opportunity to rate 0 Day' four out of the five available stars, what the fuck is wrong with you people!?

Space marines VS hair

The closest to relevant thing I could scrape up for this week is the new Aliens VS Predator game. Aliens are pretty cool, the Predator is pretty cool too, but something never goes quite right when they get mashed together. It's probably all those bald space marines getting in the way. Or the fact that any story one may come up with for why those two factions would meet, could only ever be a razor thin excuse for violence. Either way, they're almost always boring as hell. I know SEGA's name is on the box, but I don't know who's ultimately responsible for this. Either way, pass.

This weekend we'll get a few paragraphs, and lousy pictures, about the new crane game machines from the Amusement Operators Union trade show. Next week is looking brighter. At least in terms of quantity, if not quality. US gets Last Rebellion. It's by Idea Factory. I don't even know if this one is out in Japan yet. Don't really care anymore, either. Most importantly, ESP Galuda II Black Label is hitting the 360. Oddly enough, the standard edition will be region free, so bitches can stop bitching, but the LE will be region locked, so bitches can keep on bitching. In other shooting news, Radirgy Noa is hitting the Wii on Thursday. Shooters for everybody, except the PS3, lolz. Then on Friday I get to buy a new DVD. Why am I still buying DVD's in the year 2010 Japan? At least Hong Kong figured that shit out by now.

How embarrassing: Whoops! I totally forgot that Resident Evil 5 Alternative Edition is hitting PS3 in Japan this week. Mainly since it was a complete waste of time and money until about Thursday of last week, when Barry Burton was revealed as a guest character in the new Mercenaries mode. Since the mainline RE game seems to get watered down more and more with each new iteration, Mercenaries is emerging as the biggest reason to pick up these games. Plus Barry is fucking awesome. The J-360 is not getting AE on a disc, but all the extras will (allegedly) be available as DLC. To celebrate instead, RE5 is getting the Platinum treatment. The game arrives as Gold Edition in America sometime in March, across both platforms. (The 360 Gold Edition disc will not contain the additional content. lol DVD.)

Also: Nippon Ichi's Classic Dungeon. Gonna wait on this one.

I'm not dead yet

But I did run out of stuff to post about. Thanks, in part, to (A) my own damn stupidity, and (B) fucking lawyers. I went ahead and jumped the gun in regards to picking up some Japanese XLA points from JapanVideoGames.com. That part worked great, and they emailed me the code in a few hours of hitting the PayPal button. I was going to use the points for Shooting Love 200X. Since the game was going to be a digital download, I wouldn't have anything to take a picture of. I decided to make a funny thumbnail of "nothing," the one you see up top. It still applies, since I didn't get jack shit out of this. Shooting Love is IP locked. There appears to be no way for me to download this on the American continent. I still have a small chance to game the system, but I don't have much faith it will work. Microsoft recently added the ability to purchase Marketplace items via the xbox.com website, which would be automatically downloaded the next time the user logged into Xbox Live using their console. The Xbox looks like a farly bulletproof system, but the PC is anything but. I was trying to use an anonymous proxy server in Korea to authorise the purchase online, then hoping that the Xbox didn't bother to check the IP with the mothership before downloading. Korea unfortunately is still not close enough. I need a server physically located in Japan to try again.

Burn cycle

I don't even need to make this into a joke, it's hilarious just by itself. Burning Rangers is getting brought to cellphones, under the name Burning Rescue. It won't be a straight port of the Saturn swansong, hence the name change. Instead it looks like some sort of Minesweeper clone, with a storyline. I'll buy that for a dollar.

Bad dudes VS Norse gods

We have a good week coming up, and to make up for it, next week is (almost) completely barren. Triangle Service's Shooting Love 200X is getting it's long overdue budget re-release through XBLA's Games On Demand, and Star Ocean 4 International is hitting the PS3 a year late, with marginal "improvements." The real deal this week is Sandlot's Zangeki no Reginleiv, which as far as I can tell is a made up word. I've been on the fence about SO4I. On the one hand I like that it's technically competent, using the Blu-ray storage capacity to fit the entire game efficiently on a single disc, while incorporating all region distinct version features (anime/CG portraits, five different voice and subtitle tracks). On the other hand, SO4 isn't really good enough to slog through again, for what seems like very little in the way of new content. Maybe if they threw in a new planet to explore, or something that's not part of the post-game super dungeon. I might grab this when it hits the bargain bin at Amazon.com. I'll pick up Shooting Love, since that one's already in the bin, and Zangeki since it'll be 2011 before any other regions see it.

The only thing of barely marginal note next week is the Data East Arcade Classics collection for the Wii. On that Amazon page, you'll notice that the game's release date is listed as this week, but do to the incompetent nature of American distribution channels, next week is the most realistic date for when boxes will actually appear on shelves. Data East is easily a fourth string dev, and exactly how "classic" their games are is up for debate, but anything that keeps the old 16-bit arcade magic going is OK in my book. If I find a few extra bucks in the couch cushions, I'll grab it. The Year Of the Wii continues.

Left behind

Games have been "3D" for the past 10 years, people. When talking about 3D display technology, can we use some sort of varying descriptor, like "4D" or some shit? I just clicked two stories back to back expecting something completely not what they were talking about.

Cellphone games = justified

Aroma Planning is a fetish-y Japanese porn producer. Currently they're spamming the Android Market with little touch apps that feature 10 pictures of mostly girl's asses in tight shorts, skirts, etc. where the object is to find her "secret" spot. Once you do, the phone vibrates, and you can flip to the next picture. There is currently a shitload of them on there, most are free, some are paid, with prices ranging from the reasonable ¥100, the the ludicrous ¥10,000. They all also currently sport the average user rating of one star. I guess American kids just don't understand Aroma Planning. I hope this catches on. If Soft On Demand gets me a Zenra Volleyball game, I'll pay real money for it.

Stacking the deck

See, this is what I'm talking about. Suda51 + Shinji Mikami + Akira Yamaoka = oh SNAP!

The memory remains

It snowed today. That's not uncommon around here. Neither is being let down by the newest entry in a game franchise. I was willing to overlook the flaws in No More Heroes 2, because I was sure that the end would justify the means. The first game had an absolutely warped final act, even more so if you went for the "true" ending. I should have known something was up, since that ending pretty much blew any chances for a sequel out of the water. The endgame sequence in No More Heroes 2 was a huge let down in every way. The main enemy was established during the first five minutes of the game, and was never replaced by a bigger bad, something quite common in Japanese game design, and something the first game did with great effect. It was especially disappointing, since by that time the game looked like it had shifted out of neutral, and was starting to move under its own power, instead of coasting.

The battle with Ryuji, while a poorly implemented and unnecessarily aggravating ended quite nicely. The supermarket level and boss fight with Margaret was the sole shining moment in the entire game. The no. 2 ranked assassin, Alice, and her level were very well designed and excelled in everything, until the actual battle started. A bit of fanservice in the forms of fighting against the giant-brain-in-the-machine, Letz Shake, and getting control over Shinobu and Henry round out the list of things that were impressive. The last time I remember making a list of things that didn't suck about a game I was playing Final Fantasy VII.

When the main enemy is introduced we were shown a shadow of a little troll at the top of a skyscraper. After fighting to the top of the building hours later, we're greeted by the little troll, who sounds just as annoying as he looks. The battle starts of on an interesting note, which gets squashed before it can even become relevant after his first stage is defeated after about a minute. Following that little diversion, the real fight starts against his powered up second form, which uses all the game's technical faults to his advantage. Did you know that an enemy can register damage to Travis while he's just beginning to get up from being knocked down? You'll learn that one very quickly. Combine this with an attack that knocks Travis back down, and a corner, and you've got a brilliant new meta game, 'give the player a heart attack,' it's like the last boss is actually trying to kill _me_. The difficulty of the game seems to be based around punishing certain actions the player can learn to over-rely on. If the fourth hit of a sword combo knocks the opponent down, instantly counter with a move that instead knocks the player down. This strategy fails when the player switches tactics to something the developers didn't account for. If the boss knocks me down on the fourth hit, I'll just hit him three times, run around, jump back in, hit him three more time, repeat. This is lazy and boring game design. When the last boss battle is phoned in, you've got to worry for the rest of the game. Once that headache is out of the way, we get to the dumbest part.

In case the first two forms weren't annoying enough, we get the third. Usually, in boss design, each successive form is more powerful (harder) than the previous one. Sometimes the designers throw a curve, where the final form is much weaker, but that's usually after a marathon battle where they want to give the player a little extra emphasis on the victory. The final form of the NMH 2 last boss is more powerful, in that his attacks do more damage, but he is not harder. For his final form the boss grows to many times the size of Travis, who stays at his original size. Due to this some compromises had to be made to the way they interact with each other. Basically the giant boss floats conveniently next to the platform Travis runs around on, and lets the player pound on him until he reels back for a big swing or a beam attack. If you get hit by those, you're pretty much hosed, but they're very easy to dodge. This form lasts less time than even the first form, and feels therefore, completely unnecessary. I didn't accomplish anything but finally end this annoying event, and can finally watch the following cutscene, which just further waters down the impact of what just happened.

Immediately after the boss dies, Travis is falling off the building he was just fighting on. He's saved at the last minute, as per cliche. In this case, it would have had more impact, pardon the pun, if he simply fell to his death after climbing to the figurative and literal top. That is irony. Anything else, is sabotaging any attempt at relevant storytelling. If the player felt the whole game experience was a waste of time, as I did, he'd be satisfied to finally have it end, and see everyone involved get what they deserved for putting us through that. I think it would be what Suda would want. I have a feeling the quality control issues with this game all stem from the fact that Suda had very little hands-on time with this game. (Which makes me wonder just what the hell he's been doing?) His name is always last in the credits, and only mentioned in some sort of lofty ceremonial position like "executive president" or some shit. Sort of like SEGA or Sony CEO's get top billing on the games their company puts out, even though they likely have zero programing experience, or talent of any sort. I have a feeling this was not something Suda wanted his name on to begin with. It wouldn't surprise me if it was in fact Ubisoft who were responsible for fast-tracking this project. No More Heroes I'm sure was much more popular in the West than Japan. I know Suda is a genius creator, but he is also smart enough to know that bills need to be paid. Even though I was not happy with Grasshopper Manufacturer's latest, I hope it goes on to be a success, and helps fund that Michigan remake.

Redundancy, redundancy, redundancy

This looks kind of hot. A little unnecessary, but hot. I'm always on the lookout for new plasticy crap. Cool to see the 'Commander' line return, too.

Discount love

Every so often, the industry puts its collective brains together, and they come up with something that makes sense. Shooting Love 200X was an overpriced piece of dubious quality software. It is also readily available in stores, despite being part of a genre that has notoriously short shelf lives. To say demand was low would be being generous. I also never bothered to pick it up, since I'm still trying to come to terms with the developer's last game, Trizeal on Dreamcast. Despite all that, Microsoft will add Shooting Love 200X to it's Games On Demand service on February 9th, and price it at 2,000 MSP, or ¥2,940. That's over 40% off, good price.

(Also, Dream Club is getting Platinum'ed in March...)

Reverting to old-style weaponry

Not much happening this week. Gives me some time to pay off my credit cards before March. White Knight Chronicles started off interesting, was turned into something not quite so, then Sony left it sitting in the sun for years, before finally shipping a crate of it over to us. Next week is a little better. Star Ocean 4 International is hitting internationally, Radirgy is getting a sequel no one really asked for, and Sandlot's Zangeki no Reginleiv is hitting the only territory it will hit in 2010.

Since WKC is the only RPG on the PS3 that isn't made by Idea Factory, I'll be picking it up. Also, Zangeki looks like a serious effort by Nintendo to have a "gamer's game." I'll check it out, heard good things about Sandlot. On the flipside, I think I'm done supporting Milestone. They've given me four half-assed games over the years, and have had their output distributed worldwide across multiple platforms. That's more than most other shooting game devs, who are arguably more deserving of the exposure.

Nevermind: My order was slow to ship out, which gave me plenty of time to sleep on it, as well as do my homework. After which I've come to the conclusion that White Knight Chronicles is not the game I've been looking for to justify Level 5's existence. I gave them plenty of chances, I think I'm done with them.