Hm.

It would appear that my fellow c-bloggers are currently writing about video game-related collaborations and crossovers that they wish would happen. Interesting.

Most of the community’s focus, at least so far, has been on theoretical team-ups that, practically speaking, are incredibly unlikely to occur, but would inspire nothing short of delirium within certain specific segments of the fanbase if they did. An understandable trend, as imagining the impossible is kind of the point behind the assignment.

But guess what folks?

Over in my neck of the woods it’s already happening; has been, steadily, for several years now, in fact.

Sound like I’m yanking your chain? Read on: it’s absolutely true! All of it!...

…except for one TINY little problem.



It’s not exactly a household name for non-niche gamers, but weirdos like me tend to be at least somewhat familiar with a Japanese publisher/developer known as Idea Factory. Founded in the mid-to-late 90’s, the company’s comfort zone has always resided primarily within the RPG and strategy realms, but a couple of years ago the outfit decided to forge a brand new specialty for itself: collaborations.

And not just ANY collaborations, mind you: borderline-impossible ones.

LOADS of them.

So, greenhorn, you were impressed when Capcom managed to engineer a handful of joint productions with SNK and Namco? Sure, it allowed you to finally act out that Blanka/Kim Kap Hwan fan fiction you'd slaved over (minus the subtle ambience and philosophical undertones, of course), but you’re forgetting one important thing: some people, strange as it may sound, might have actually HEARD of Street Fighter and Fatal Fury. Moreover, the two series, gameplay-wise, at least superficially resemble each other. A crossover between the two had at least an iota of potential to turn something that might be mistaken for a profit – the entire notion actually made a certain type of sense.

Shh!...do you hear that? It’s the scornful laughter of Idea Factory, off in the distance, at Capcom’s pitifully tiny cojones.



Want to do a REAL collaboration, it mocks? Okay then: try putting the likes of Growlanser, Gungrave, and Code of the Samurai all together into one game…oh, and then top it all off with Shadow Hearts, just to keep things interesting. By the way, that’s all BEFORE you add a generous sampling of your own original characters and series into the mix.

Go ahead, we’ll wait.

…what’s that? Giving up already? *tsk tsk tsk*…

So, let’s recap for a moment…we, a company with a mere fraction of the history or industry-wide pull that an establishment like Capcom commands, managed to get Atlus (the Persona guys), RED Entertainment (Sakura Wars), and Aruze (the company that bought out those losers at SNK) to work with us, all at the same time…and did we mention that this was one of our very earliest shots at collaboration?



In case this fact wasn’t clear enough, no, Chaos Wars wasn’t exactly Infinity Ward and DICE putting out Call of Battle (with the Field of Duty map pack to follow), in terms of either buzz or market impact: that said, for fans of the obscure and semi-obscure series brought together therein by Idea Factory, this was a minor moon shot of sorts (especially seeing as the bugger actually ended up being localized, albeit terribly, in the USA, despite the fact that many of its individual portions never had been). Out here on the fringes we spend inordinate amounts of our time fervently praying that a given company’s last game sold enough copies to keep things afloat; the notion that somebody out there had enough faith in such offbeat brands – or was just plain crazy, either possibility worked for us – to combine them gave us hope that there might be (*gasp*) an adequately-marketable future for the stuff we liked to play.

As it turns out, our aspirations to this particular end were not misplaced in the least: Chaos Wars was just the beginning of Idea Factory’sFrankenstein-esque antics within the niche gaming world.

Consider Trinity Universe, which brought together Nippon Ichi fan favorites Etna, Flonne and Prinny from the Disgaea SRPG series, and threw them into cahoots with Violet and Pamela from Gust’s alchemy-centric “Atelier” line of role-playing games – the funny part is, this was actually a step down from their previous project, Cross Edge, in terms of sheer scope and ridiculousness. Not only were NIS and Gust on board for that one too, but so were none other than (*double gasp!*) Namco-Bandai, which owns the publishing right to the Gust-developed Ar Tonelico, and, yes, Capcom themselves, who lent five characters from the long-dormant Darkstalkers to the festivities.



Of course, even the above utterly pales in comparison to the likes of Hyperdimension Neptunia – not only did Idea Factory manage to knead in a particularly heavy dose of Sega (the main character is basically an anime girl version of a never-produced Sega system…who can summon Alex Kidd and Shinobi in battle), but the entire premise of the game is a spoof of the current-gen “console wars”, and features truckloads of winks at and references to the three “active” console makers and their innumerable products.

That’s not to say, of course, that there are no “official” guest stars to be found: not only are anthropomorphized takes on Gust, Nippon Ichi, and Idea Factory itself (under the nom de guerre of “IF”) present as playable characters, but so are RED and the visual novel-centric 5pb, via downloadable content. The recently-localized sequel, which shifts its focus to portable systems/girls, brings everyone back and invites Falcom (Ys, Legend of Heroes) and Cave (DoDonPachi, Mushihime-sama) over to play too. And they can wield The Power of Inafune…after being sent on their merry way by former Hudson Soft spokesperson Takahashi Meijin.



Oh, and did I forget to mention that Compile Heart, the Idea Factory subsidiary that directly developed Neptunia (and appears as yet another playable heroine), is formed partially of former staffers from dearly-departed Guardian Legend and Puyo-Puyo developer Compile? And that they’re working on another Neptunia sequel as we speak? And that Idea Factory is ALSO currently collaborating with Sting, developer of unique strategy hybrids Yggdra Union and Knights in the Nightmare?

Most of these names might not mean a heckuva lot to a majority of you, but rest assured: for a certain class of gamer, Nerd Heaven looks a lot like this. To put it bluntly, things are absolutely awesome in our quaint little neighborhood – our fellow connoisseurs of interactive digital entertainment can only hope that one day they may share in some similar manner of collaborative glory.

…yup, simply awesome.

*contented sigh*



…

…except, that is, for that one LITTLE problem I mentioned earlier.

...namely, the fact that most of these collaborations really aren’t all that great.

You see, in its native Japan Idea Factory is sometimes nicknamed “Idea F*ck”, a blunt reference to how many of its ideas end up going bad. And we’re not talking in terms of, say, graphical fidelity, which certainly isn’t the company’s strong suit but can be overlooked relatively easily by fans: we’re drilling straight to the core here. In a nutshell, IF is infamous for repeatedly attempting to whitewash major gameplay deficiencies with heaps of its aforementioned otaku appeal: yawning imbalances, jagged pacing, perplexing design choices, ludicrous overcomplication (for an idea of what you’re in for, check out this recounting of the skill system in Record of Agarest War), you name it and it’s probably brought at least one of Idea Factory’s titles crashing down. Both players and critics have panned release after release – for the record, while I personally wouldn’t have been QUITE as down on Neptunia as DToid was, there’s little in that review I can argue with on a point-by-point basis.



Yet somehow, amidst all of this, Idea Factory remains almost unbelievably prolific, cranking out game after game, and winning ally after ally for its joint projects (including an execrable tourney fighter, though to be fair they didn’t develop that one in-house) – what in the world is it that keeps them in business, in the face of so much subpar output?

Desperate nerds like myself, that’s what.

We’re either so taken with the idea of seeing our favorite characters all together in one place (in this way, we’re not much better than the eight-year-olds who beg their parents for a lousy license-based property just because a cartoon animal they like is on the box), or so eager to FINALLY see such a brazenly nerdy concept done right, that we continue to give the company second, third, and fourth chances to redeem themselves, insisting inwardly that once they see just enough of our vital support they’ll FINALLY have enough drive and resources to truly do our geeky exuberance justice. So we continue to put up with the gouge-worthy DLC and cheeky fan service (headed, perhaps inevitably, in ever-more-shameless directions), always in anticipation of that crowning moment when our loyal patience is at last rewarded in full.



By and large we’re still waiting, though this isn’t to say that there’s absolutely nothing to be hopeful about: despite their not-insubstantial flaws, Trinity Universe was a nice step up from Cross Edge, as was mk2 over the first Hyperdimension Neptunia. The potential for Idea Factory to refine its source material into a truly knockout crossover game is certainly there, though it’s yet to accomplish a heckuva lot more for fervent supporters than dragging them along until the other shoe drops with a resounding "clunk": will this clumsy, painful-to-watch dance ever change its tempo? Nobody knows, but for those out there snickering at “those ever-so-malleable losers” like myself, be forewarned, as there are portents here of what may well await more visible sectors of gaming in the not-too-distant future…or what may well have already landed in your posh backyard, even if you haven’t noticed.

Undoubtedly, a major part of the reason that IF has managed to amass so many alliances among niche developers is a matter of simple necessity: trapped in thrall to insular and picky fanbases, a number of these outfits have surmised that cooperating, instead of competing, with each other is an all but unavoidable path if they want to keep themselves open for business. Heck, look at Capcom and Namco, standard-bearers of the once-flagging fighting game…who once did this and are now doing this (oh, and were you aware that Guilty Gear developer Arc System Works is currently paired up with Atlus itself?). Though your Triple-A favorites may appear immune to such trends as of now, in such a high-stakes, rags-to-riches business as this one the next Rugrats Go Wild (or motion-controlled mini-game collection, for that matter) is never far off for a once-proud developer fallen on harder times.



On this side of the proverbial tracks, the future is now: our favored game makers are already huddling together in anticipation of the gathering storm. On the one hand, this sets the stage for some truly amazing collaborations that never could have come to pass otherwise…on the other, a well-set stage isn’t worth much if there aren’t any entertaining acts being performed on them, or if the performers themselves aren’t up to snuff. At this point the question is posed to the viewer: do you walk out of the theater right this second, or hang around in hopes that the upcoming show is the one you’ve been waiting for (the buzz has been great, after all)? What about after the next one? Or the one after that? You might roll your eyes at some of the out-crowd for having kept our butts obediently in our seats for so long, but trust me, once you find yourself in a similar position with a franchise you’ve loved for years the answer won’t come to you nearly so easily as you thought it would.

Thus, to all of you out there dreaming of the video game collaboration that will change everything, by all means keep dreaming – and keep on supporting the games you enjoy – in hopes that something special eventually comes out the other side. That said, don’t sigh “if only…” too loudly: someone out there is listening, and one day might just be crazy enough to give you almost exactly what you wish for.

As you’ve probably seen by now, a sequel to 2010’s Disney tribute/platformer Epic Mickey has been announced – not too surprisingly, a good amount of gamer chatter has bubbled forth in response, including quite a bit of early coverage right here on DToid. Most of the focus has been on the “homebound” console edition, subtitled The Power of Two, but there also exist rumblings of a portable iteration: right on cue, a handful of sites have gotten wind of an upcoming Nintendo Power issue which confirms that a 3DS version, Power of Illusion, will be hitting shelves around the same time as its big brother.

Feel free to check the link and have a look for yourself.

…

…

…

…you missed it, didn’t you?

Look again.

…

…THERE! See it? Right there:

Dreamrift, the studio formed by Henry Hatsworth alumni that brought us Monster Tale, is listed as Power of Illusion's developer in an online preview of the cover story.

…oh man. There IS some good left in this world.



In case you didn’t already know, I’m a big fan of these guys: Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure, in particular, stands as not only a personal favorite DS game and all-time platformer pick right alongside the likes of Super Mario World, but one of the few absolute goods that EA has ever seen fit to bestow upon gamers (I’m still convinced that the spillover good will from Hatsworth is what made Mirror’s Edge happen). Charming, creative and supremely fine-tuned, Hatsworth is both a mash note to the hard-boiled olden days of pixel-perfect character-based action gaming and a look ahead at ways to shake things up and keep the hallowed genre fresh for less-adapted audiences (one fellow c-blogger recently revisited the game here; also feel free to check out older writeups like this one). The studio’s first post-EA effort, the sorta-Metroidvania Monster Tale, didn’t rock my world in quite the same fashion but is still very much worth playing.

The thing is, ever since Monster Tale hit shelves, there has been virtual radio silence: though reviews for the former were positive, the developer had openly acknowledged the risk they were taking by putting out a brand-new IP on an aging system, and I feared that this admirable devotion to doing their own thing might have caught up to them in the worst way. While the afore-linked interview had quoted Dreamrift’s co-founder as saying the group had a 3DS project in the pipeline, I was still worried, especially considering what’s been happening to some of my other favorite developers lately.



Thankfully, it seems that Dreamrift is still alive and well: while I definitely would have preferred another original game for their 3DS announcement, I can’t complain too much about a licensed project keeping things afloat (WayForward could definitely use the competition, if nothing else). Will Power of Illusion be good? Like you I have no idea, but certainly hope so – heck, I don’t have a 3DS myself, but I’m half-tempted to pick up a copy just to show a little support (much as I’m doing with Gravity Rush for the Vita, another system I lack, at least so far). In any event, for the moment I’m just glad to see that at least one of my favored companies, and a standard-bearer for gaming as I most fondly know and remember it, hasn’t faded away along with the rest – if any guys from Dreamrift ever end up reading this by some odd twist of fate, best of luck and I’m pulling for you!

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P.S. – Yes, the title does say “shortblog” and the author is listed as “BulletMagnet”. Do not attempt to adjust your monitor.

As both a video gamer and a onetime student of the visual arts, I’ve never felt uncomfortable shining an occasional spotlight on the more “superficial” aspects of my favored pastime, snorts of “graphics whore” from certain unenlightened corners notwithstanding: scoff if you must, but once the “video” part has been unceremoniously nixed from the equation you’re no longer talking about the same medium that I am. I also like to keep in mind that not a single sprite, model, backdrop, or texture on that screen got there by itself: some real-life human being out there made it, spent time and effort designing and implementing it, and is in the end just as legitimate a contributor to the end product as the dialogue writer or control programmer or level layout constructor. Why, I ask, shouldn’t their share of the output be just as deserving of genuine, passionate attention and discussion as the rest, especially when it manages to distinguish itself to some degree? After all, if one person points out a flower in bloom and the other immediately starts spouting off about photosynthesis, nomenclature and biomes, one of these two, even if everything he says is factually correct, would be largely missing the point.

Of course, such rugged philosophical terrain is notoriously difficult to traverse (let alone map), thanks to everyone’s personal definitions of “artistic vision” and/or “artistic merit” differing (as well they should) to no end: for the sake of simplicity I tend to split the gaming community’s thoughts on the subject into two very rough (and frequently intermingled) “schools”. The first is what I call the “Technical” interpretation, wherein a game’s graphical quality is judged primarily in regard to how successfully its artists take advantage of the technology at their disposal, most often in pursuit of lifelike realism: I’d place most of today’s so-called “Triple-A” titles, like Uncharted and Gears of War, among many others, into this category. The visual achievements on display here are difficult to dispute from a purely “academic” standpoint, but since most competitors seek the same end goal (life-like imagery), it can sometimes be difficult to tell them apart at a glance, especially when they also happen to concern themselves with similar themes (modern military warfare, for instance).



Then there’s the second viewpoint, which I like to label the “Intuitive”. It’s both less attached to a single artistic “angle” and less reliant on the sheer “horsepower” of machines and their programmers, lending a central focus instead to the far less predictable whims of the draftsmen and doodlers dwelling within the earlier, looser stages of the creative process: as such, it’s even more difficult to judge objectively than its sibling. The best meager “definition” I can affix to an “Intuitively” appealing presentation is a visual style which is somehow almost impossible, even without prolonged study, to mistake for any other, to the point that it’s very frequently cited as a key component of a game’s overarching “identity”. Of course, there will never be anything remotely resembling a gamer-wide consensus on what “qualifies” or doesn’t, but at the same time every last one of us can say with the utmost confidence that we know an “Intuitive” masterpiece when we see it. In case you couldn’t tell, while I don’t consider this side of the equation innately “superior” to the other, it is the one I especially love indulging in, both alone and with fellow gamers.

However, I digress; whether or not you happen to see eye to eye with me on any of this is irrelevant…less so, in fact, with each passing second.

2011 has come and gone, and, from where I’m standing, has changed everything.

Almost everything.



Though it has amassed some extraordinarily passionate fans over the years, the “Intuitive” approach to gamers’ prying eyes has always played second fiddle to the “Technical” one – not without reason, as publishers and developers alike are under constant pressure to appeal to the largest (paying) audience possible, and taking a graphical route too open to interpretation and vulnerable to personal taste is almost certain to alienate a sizable portion of both consumers and reviewers from the word “go”, rendering the likelihood of a profitable return a coin toss at best. This reality manifests itself most everywhere you care to look: the Mario and Kirby series, for example, have consistently sown success for years, which is precisely why visual departures from the norm like the crayon-textured Yoshi’s Island and the craft store-chic Epic Yarn (to say nothing of the endearingly angular likes of Psychonauts or the hand-claymated Skullmonkeys) only pop up from their ranks on rare occasions.

In like manner, the bold, jarring visual styles lent to ambitious, sprawling adventure pieces like Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker and Okami have frequently been reassigned to lower-budget portable projects after their initial (and financially disappointing) high-end debuts…and they’re the lucky ones. The storybook aesthetics of Little King’s Story and Valkyria Chronicles always seem to have trouble meeting even modest expectations in the face of Starcraft and Command and Conquer. The very quirkiest, most-beloved Mother entry is destined for obscurity next to anything with the Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest logo on it. Killer 7 scraped together a single game: Kane and Lynch has two, so far. Even attempts to let uninitiated audiences down slowly by straddling the “Technical/Intuitive” line, a la Mirror’s Edge, routinely fail to make inroads…let’s not even get into Folklore.



“Intuitive” projects are not singularly doomed to failure, of course: the borderline-goofy minimalist veneers of Katamari Damacy and Minecraft have managed to carve out surprisingly robust niches for themselves, and fighting gamers were recently given the enviable choice between the heavy, inky Street Fighter IV, the anime-SFX-infused Blazblue, and the old-school spritework of King of Fighters. While we’re on the subject, Skullgirls’ gonzo “cheesecake with a dollop of macabre on top” take on things is currently waiting in the wings; the blossoming indie scene, not surprisingly, has been making countless artistic contributions of its own, from Limbo to Journey to Bastion to Sword and Sworcery EP to the Lotte Reiniger-esque Outland. An unbiased observer of the industry’s current state might very well come away with the impression that the “Intuitive” style is, at long last, making some real headway into the mainstream consciousness, and that even bigger, bolder, and higher-profile forays await just over the horizon.

Like you said, BM, 2011 changed everything, right?

Indeed it did. Unfortunately, what I see spread out before Intuitive gamers today is not an era of growth and expansion, but of heretofore-unseen retreat and regression, uncomfortable silences, the dead and dying carted off en masse, the planned victory parade “postponed” again and again and again.



Mind you, I took more than my fair share of trips to the local video game store this past year, but each time I left the house I could feel both my excitement and my nervousness spike, as if I had to beat the proverbial vultures to the door; I couldn’t shake the sense that, despite the undeniable slew of exciting releases that awaited me, I was somehow bearing witness to a hopeless, losing battle, and that the tide was about to turn decisively for the worse once and for all. A veritable army of my favorite developers, bless their hearts, were mounting not a glorious march to victory for my beloved Intuitive style, but the digital equivalent of the Charge of the Light Brigade – a brave but ill-conceived offensive maneuver which would end up costing them, and their supporters, very dearly in the end. As the year draws to a close it would appear that many of my fears in this area have come to pass with a terrible vengeance.

Three, in particular; you may have even heard of them.

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If you were like me at the time, when you first glimpsed a screenshot or two of Rez you probably wondered what the heck was going on amidst all the seemingly random lines and lights: once you actually got your hands on the game, however, you were somewhat taken aback (perhaps even disappointed) at how simple and traditional it was in terms of core gameplay concept. This was no accident: brought to bear by Tetsuya Mizuguchi (of Lumines and Space Channel 5 fame) and drawing inspiration from sources as diverse as Wassily Kandinsky and Underworld, Rez was primarily conceived not as a revolution in terms of mechanics but as a tentative video game foray into synaesthesia (further evidenced by its infamous “Trance Vibrator” peripheral). While developer United Game Artists was quietly dissolved a few years later, they’d gained enough notoriety to ensure that Rez, in time, would earn itself not only a re-release in HD on the 360 but admission into a Smithsonian art exhibition.



Now, take the combined pedigree of everything mentioned up above, transfer the assets to a new Mizuguchi-headed company, advance the technology by a decade, deepen the mechanics (including a bona fide rhythm component, which ties players even more directly into the audiovisual experience), and then back it all up with the marketing muscle of publisher Ubisoft and a high-profile Gamestop “Epic Rewards” contest, not to mention bonus hype as the first “killer app” for the selling-like-hotcakes Kinect peripheral, a load of E3 awards, and positive critical reception upon release. The result? Child of Eden, which first popped up in our neck of the woods this past June: its bold, often abstract visual approach, as the record shows, hit at exactly the right time. Finally accomplishing what Rez never could, Child of Eden elicited mass acceptance from eager gamers of all sorts, who rewarded it with impressive sales numbers. The industry at large was finally forced to sit up and take note.

…oh. Wait a sec. Nix pretty much all of that (well, except the part about being “noted” by the higher-ups, though it’s not the sort of attention anyone wants). And no, the lower-priced PS3 edition, released a few months later, didn’t change the tone.

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To be fair, the optimists among us might venture, perhaps we should approach this from a different angle: maybe, instead of being too bold, Child of Eden wasn’t bold enough. As a “spiritual sequel” to an existing title, albeit a visually distinctive one, the odds were against it doing something truly unexpected and reaching its full potential – maybe a completely new idea was what the doctor ordered. Enter Takeyasu Sawaki, a Capcom alumnus whose previous design credits include the stylish Devil May Cry and Okami, and pair him up with producer Masato Kimura, whose industry expertise reaches all the way back to some of the SNES’s biggest hits – then, in an unprecedented move, undo the chains and let them run totally free. Come this past August, the fruit of their labors, El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron, at last descended to Earth.

As one progresses through the game’s levels an astounding selection of vibrant art styles rear their heads, each one more memorable than the last: stained-glass silhouettes, stark blacks speckled with only faint glimmers of light and movement, flowing watercolor pastiches, sunnily surreal cartoon playscapes, and myriad others that simply defy description (Sawaki has stated that even things he saw in his personal dreams served as influences throughout development, though he still wishes he could have implemented more variety), all of it translated onscreen with dazzling graphical panache (by the much-maligned Gamebryo engine, no less). Combat, the central focus play-wise, utilizes only a handful of button inputs, relying more on timing and crowd control strategies, hitting all the right marks for the “easy to learn, tough to master” bullet point on the back of the box; a smattering of side-scrolling platform segments serve as a different but equally-inviting canvas upon which to show off the creators’ collective vision.



Spot-weld the whole thing onto an out-of-left-field story loosely based on a non-canonical Biblical work and you’ve got a product difficult for anyone remotely “gaming-friendly” to ignore outright: in Japan, in fact, El Shaddai actually whipped up enough pre-release froth to inspire not only figurines but its own branded designer jeans, and even a full-fledged internet meme. Publisher Ignition was so encouraged by this early success that it was already throwing around additional ideas for the brand before the game ever saw daylight; even in the West, where the push to market wasn’t nearly so bottom-up in nature, critics were generally impressed, and even the less-enthralled ones couldn’t help but praise El Shaddai as a breath of fresh air amidst an increasingly murky sea of angrybrown.

So how’d it do?...well, you can feel free to look around for exact sales figures if you like, though it might be enough to know that the most recent of issue of Game Informer (for whatever it’s worth) referred to El Shaddai as a “notorious poor seller” right alongside Shadows of the Damned, and that its asking price has plummeted even faster than Child of Eden’s has. Oh, and Ignition has also shuttered its US dev branch, no longer develops games internally, and is staring down a buyout by Disney.

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Hmm…ah, that’s right, we’ve been forgetting something important all this time, silly us. Japanese game development is in stark decline, everyone knows that - thus, Sawaki’s determination to “embrace Japanese conventions” with El Shaddai was probably an unavoidable dead end from the outset. Now is the West’s time to shine, and wouldn’t you know it, longtime (and non-Japanese, just to clarify!) industry figure Michel Ancel steps up to the plate with none other than a brand new entry in the Rayman series, which, conveniently enough, first distinguished itself back in the 90’s largely thanks to memorably kooky art direction, and has managed to remain, against all odds, a viable license to this day (though of late its “Rabbids” spinoffs have been getting most of the attention). Could there be a more perfect setup for a dramatic eleventh-hour Intuitive turnaround?

Origins, which just graced shelves a mere month or two ago, rescues Rayman and company from the minigame-compilation wasteland and plops them back precisely where they belong: 2-D side-scrolling platform worlds stuffed to the gills with inspired, colorful nonsense. First conceived as a series of small-scale baby-step projects limited to digital distribution channels, as development went on and the potent possibilities behind the newly-minted “UbiArt” toolset (which allowed the game’s artists to more easily realize their visual concepts onscreen in playable form) manifested themselves in earnest, Ubisoft’s head honchos, still smarting from the fiscal wounds left by Child of Eden’s underperformance, eventually became convinced that going the full-fledged physical release route was once again warranted (just to be safe, though, they decided to give out some free stuff to encourage pre-orders).



Reviewers wholeheartedly agreed with this chosen path, and were almost without exception smitten with the game’s come-hither combination of, once again, simple pick-up-and-play controls (though later areas and challenges can challenge even grizzled old-schoolers), four-player simultaneous co-op, and gorgeous hi-res artwork. “Meet the New Crazy”, invited the ad campaign, and it wasn’t kidding – where else, within the span of a single level, can one emerge through a watermelon-rind gateway onto a city-sized glacier populated by chattering silverware and ice-skating lizard butlers, then swing through a hellish mariachi-accompanied adobe kitchen via lava-bathing chili peppers and bouncy sausages (not a euphemism!), and finish the whole mess off with a disco-ukulele flourish (that is, if you’ve scored highly enough)?

Nowhere, I think it’s pretty safe to say – and, based on the sales figures observed so far, we probably won’t be privy to such antics again. If you’ve still got the stomach to keep track, this game’s post-launch price drop, despite depressingly stiff competition, stands as the most rapid of the three (and yes, the decision to launch at the same time as the latest Call of Duty probably didn’t help, but seeing as Child of Eden was utterly trounced by the critically-panned Duke Nukem Forever I’m willing to call into question just how much of a difference it really would have made). In case you needed one last kick in the teeth, Ancel has apparently determined to use said sales as a way out the next time anybody asks how Beyond Good and Evil 2 is coming along.

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Three well-realized, visually striking games, all seemingly custom-tailored for long-overdue mass-audience integration. Three well-established visionary development heads at the helm. Three relatively modest budgets backed by three well-heeled ad campaigns. Three sets of glowing professional praise to finally spirit them above and beyond the high hopes that had been laid upon their shoulders.

Three icy, unambiguous rejections by the gaming populace at large. Three crippling, stinging failures.

In retrospect, one really can almost envision the makers of these three titles, half-exhausted by ever-louder demands to go big or go home, finally getting together and deciding that, within the confines of a six-month span, they would mount one last-ditch, all-or-nothing charge to arms in the name of the Intuitive art style – an even nerdier (if such a thing is possible) take on the climax of the Battle of the Hornburg from The Two Towers. If you’ll recall that famous scene, however, Tolkien’s desperate riders luck out, saved by the timely arrival of a powerful ally: unfortunately, I very much doubt that such an event is in the cards for Intuitive gamers, especially as recession-wary publishers grow ever more dismissive of any proposal that might not be a completely “sure thing” - something Intuitive titles, by definition, can never be.



With outside-the-box studios like Clover and Blue Tongue being eaten up alive and smaller, less risk-averse publishers like Atlus and Nippon Ichi faring little better (the recent acquisition of Atelier studio Gust by Koei Tecmo, entailing a new focus on social games, hit me particularly hard…and feel free to cue Team Ico, while we’re at it), I’m not holding my breath for that resplendent white horse to suddenly appear over the hill. The best the movement has to give, in terms of both quality and market-readiness, has already been given, and it was not nearly enough to succeed.

To be perfectly clear, I’m not afraid that the Intuitive approach is in danger of disappearing altogether: there will always be someone out there willing to invoke and nurture the outwardly “unsafe”. I DO predict, however, that fewer and fewer of these erstwhile gardeners will be able to bring their creations to life anywhere beyond the bounds of the indie or freeware realms: the shelves of brick-and-mortar stores and major digital retailers alike are destined to calcify into an even more focus-grouped, homogenous mass than they already are, and any gamers who remain determined to hunt down the few succulently Intuitive morsels still floating around out there will be forced to resort to ever more obscure (and in some cases shady) channels. Those unwilling or unable to take up residence in gaming’s back alleys will simply be left out in the cold.

2011 truly has changed everything…everything, that is, except me, and what I continue to look for and value in a video game.



To be fair, a few spots of interest do remain on the commercial horizon today: Vanillaware, creators of the painterly Odin Sphere and Muramasa: The Demon Blade, have already gotten their next two titles, Grand Knights History and Dragon’s Crown, picked up for localization, and a couple of portable offerings in the pipeline (Gravity Daze and Sumioni for the Vita, in particular) certainly have an Intuitive spirit about them. Will any of these succeed? I don’t know. Will they get as much support from above as their 2011 predecessors did? I very much doubt it. After such a disastrous series of high-profile burns, I don’t consider it outlandish to suggest that gamers won’t witness many more full-tilt charges at their ranks by teams that dare to buck visual trends – I anticipate a nigh-permanent return to extremely low print runs (if physical copies are in the cards at all), increasingly limited and obscure distribution channels, and a snowball’s chance of any real market penetration. The magnificent, hard-charging horses we marveled at this past year are being put out to pasture in favor of high walls and half-filled water balloons to occasionally lob over their edges.

It’s sad to think that this may well be the only recourse that both creators and consumers of Intuitive games can lean upon in this day and age –. I, for my part, can only tell you what my intuition tells me. It is good and right, I say, to admire the fearless Intuitive cavalry of 2011, to praise the flourishes of brilliant imagination that they’ve shared with us; amidst all the shimmering sabers and blaring trumpets, however, it behooves us all to remember that something important, something irreplaceable, has been trampled unceremoniously underfoot.



The gaming landscape has forever changed, but my resolution going forward, for better or worse, remains the same as every year before.

To offer, whenever I can, a small, earnest token of appreciation and support to those still acting in the behalf of gamers like myself…and to place fresh flowers in memory of the growing multitude no longer with us.

Whenever humanity encounters something really big that it can’t explain, it has a fascinating tendency to not only create its own explanations, but to grant them life. The sky, the sea, the past, the future, love, war, all of them have had countless stories written about them - or, more to the point, the something or someone said to embody them. As civilizations and cultures have died whilst others advance, and various phenomena are shifted, one by one, into the realm of the rational and mundane, these grand figures have lost much of the raw authority they once wielded, but their enduring presence within our collective imagination has proved as undying as they themselves were once supposed to be.

Like their mortal subjects, they were painfully flawed: they could be distant, uncontrollable, fearsome, inscrutable, gullible, rash. Strangely enough, this was itself part of what endeared them to their worshippers: even the most powerful forces in existence, in their worst moments, were merely struggling with the same weaknesses and troubles that we ourselves face, and in some small way were aware of, and could act upon, the unbreakable bonds they shared with the tiny, insignificant people dwelling far below. Yeah, it’s still true that, even after the handfuls of rituals and sacrifices, humanity was pretty much always left on its own in the end, but finding one’s way in the world somehow became more fulfilling when you knew that someone, somewhere, was always watching, even if only out of morbid curiosity.



Recently, after finally setting up a long-overdue (and shamefully bloated) Backloggery for myself, I crunched a few numbers and stumbled across a not-quite-cosmic riddle of my own: amidst an age of gaming that has already been all but totally ceded to the West, and my immersion within the medium only expanding in the meantime, somewhere between 75 and 85 percent of my collection, consistently across all console generations, is currently comprised of “Eastern” games. Despite harboring an admitted distaste for the “gray, gritty, and gory” aesthetic of so much contemporary Western design, I certainly don’t consider myself a “chirpy, cliché and chauvinistic” Japanophile either, at least not enough to justify how skewed my gaming tastes have wound up. After giving the matter some thought, it turns out that something bigger is at work here.

I am, you might say, the child of an elder gaming god…and the resplendent palace where he and his countless brethren dwell can be glimpsed within the shimmering outline of the rising sun.



Video gaming as we know it was, like so many of the old gods, born from chaos, a product of the meandering minds of (Western) programmers and hobbyists tinkering with the cathode ray tubes and oscilloscopes originally intended for science experiments and missile defense systems. In the beginning, games were granted existence for the sole purpose of finding out what could be done with this state-of-the-art equipment: as Nolan Bushnell said of the first cabinet-based (and coolly-received) video game, Computer Space, “All my friends loved it. But all my friends were engineers.”

This tendency to construct one’s house upon a foundation of technological advancement above all else, I would argue, still exerts tremendous influence over “Western” game development down to this day: as more powerful and affordable hardware has ascended to prominence, many of the innate limitations that once dictated and defined what a video game could (or, possibly, should) be have lost their ability to smelt certain properties from the end product: only being the first to define the next “leap forward” matters any longer. It’s not inaccurate, I think, to state with conviction that many developers have moved away from creating “games” in the truest sense: a game, by definition, cannot exist without rules and limits, which themselves only exist to further the cause of their owner, and mean nothing in any other context. Thanks to this unceremonious rejection of traditional boundaries, gamers are being given fewer and fewer games in favor of more and more experiences – that is to say, Things That Happen (or as the front page might put it, Things That Are Things).



Think for a moment about the terms that, with increasing regularity, pepper gaming pitches, reviews and analyses in this day and age: Set Pieces. Events (quick-time and non). Moments. Very, very strictly meted-out bits of production-line “ooh” and “ahh”, painstakingly engineered for a single, one-time burst of admiration and devotion from the audience; the coding equivalent of an extravagantly-staged Mystery Play. Even within games whose reputations are built upon promises of “non-linearity” and “open-endedness”, there is almost always a decidedly methodical and self-assured design mentality at work – it’s never difficult to tell exactly which bits and pieces are the ones custom-tailored for critics to reference in their back-of-the-box quips, the ones you’re supposed to rave about to your pals, online and off, as soon as you finish. Every time your jaw drops open, you can almost feel the spoon being slid silently down your throat.

Then, of course, there are Achievements, a uniquely Western construct that imparts an additional “on-rails” element to just about any game: though end users can choose to mostly disregard them, developers are no longer granted that luxury, and this fact grows more obvious with each successive, increasingly-scripted release. And in the end, with precious few exceptions, once you’ve completed the often-arbitrary list of tasks compiled by the marketing department, the game is as “finished” as finished can get: there’s simply nothing else built in for you to do, unless you count deleting your data and starting all over. It’s like a step-by-step gospel of Why This Game Is Worth Playing, Period, with no space left for amendments: go here, do this, find these, kill those. Thou shalt, thou shalt not – *ker-PLUNK!* - and then you’re all done, ready to be roughly shoved towards the next sixty-dollar book in the canon (and to type up a new listing on eBay).



This isn’t to say, of course, that contemporary Western developers don’t create anything worth playing: far from it. I WOULD, however, charge them with getting too caught up in the “Enlightenment” movement that raw, heedless technical achievement has become: to put it another way, they’ve lost a lot of respect for what you might call the “primeval forces” of their profession.

Once upon a time, after all, video gaming was not subject only to the cryptic proclamations of cold, distant science, the One True Lord of the modern industry. No – in ancient days (y’know, the 80’s and 90’s) it was subject to the dizzying whims of a diverse pantheon, born of raw, crackling, exuberant energy and pure, unfocused, and sometimes downright intimidating willpower.

This is the way of the Old Gods. And this, above all else, is what critics of Eastern game design, sometimes unconsciously, are bad-mouthing when they accuse Japanese developers of reticence, stagnation, a stubborn unwillingness to “get with the program” and “give modern gamers what they (are supposed to) crave”. To them, the off-the-cuff, fireburst, whirlwind school of game design has been rendered irrelevant by means-tested commercial logic: to them I’d reply that, in gaming, as in life, the construct of reality is nothing without the pillars of myth.



These increasingly shrill voices have likely forgotten that, while video games are native to the West, they rose to power in the East: though Bushnell and his contemporaries had managed to find success earlier with the likes of Pong, the first title to truly spawn a bona fide “cult” was Taito’s Space Invaders, which proved so popular that Japan experienced a shortage of the 100-yen coins required to play it. At the time, the basic philosophy behind the two games was pretty much the same - keep things simple and self-evident enough to instantly appeal to average folks – and this design model endured on both continents throughout the arcade era. As crude as this mindset may sound in the age of multimillion-dollar, decade-long, headline-making gaming projects, even now it’s difficult to look back at that time and fail to marvel at the hundreds upon hundreds of minor (and not-so-minor) miracles that were wrought in those less-civilized days.

This, after all, was when all anyone ever expected or needed to judge one of your products was five free minutes and twenty-five cents: if they didn’t like what they saw, heard, and felt during those five minutes, that was the last quarter they’d ever spend on your big, expensive video machine until you came up with a better one, and arcade owners were not inclined to wait that long when dozens of other hopefuls were already clamoring for your cabinet space. In retrospect, such circumstances might sound downright impossible to succeed under: how in the world, after all, could the creators of these games ever adequately explain to their fans, as they do now, just how awesome they truly were?



How could gamers ever really understand what they were playing? Without exclusive interviews, how could the developers impart a rough idea of the playtime required for customers to overcome the initial learning curve, or which triggers one needed to trip to unlock the secret ending, or hint at the intriguing back story that made their seemingly-dull main character so much more appealing once you’d unlocked that one crucial cutscene? Without fan-fueled beta testing and real-time polling, how might they lay out the strategies and upgrades you’d need to excel during multiplayer sessions, to “properly” set off that fierce race to the top? Without regular trophy awards and stat tracking, how on earth did they set clear watermarks for what a “good” score might be, let alone a “great” one? When oh when did the creators ever get the chance to reveal exactly what made their precious baby tick, and how players should (nay, must!) approach it to squeeze the absolute maximum amount of pure entertainment out of every single second spent in front of that screen?

Answer: They didn’t. That was YOUR job. Their work could speak for itself.



This is the way of the Old Gods.

Are the controls adequate to accomplish the task I’ve been assigned? Do the rules make sense? Is the challenge level engaging but fair? Is the pacing brisk enough to keep me interested without over-stimulating me? Does the graphical and aural atmosphere pull me in? Is there enough depth to the experience that I feel free to experiment and delve further? A successful arcade game had to elicit positive responses to all those questions and more from the user within mere moments…and, believe it or not, that is exactly what they did.

Sure, the diehards could pick up those glossy magazines near the Toys R’ Us checkout counter and devour every last SUPER HOT PRO TIP they could get their mitts on, but this wasn’t necessary to enjoy the game, or to appraise its value. Those first five minutes might not be enough to give you total insight into every single facet of the game, but they WERE enough to determine, beyond the shadow of a doubt, whether or not you wanted to slip another quarter into that (hopefully-functioning) coin slot: seriously, did you pick your first character in Street Fighter II because of the high priority and low startup lag of his crouching medium kick?



Oh, and riddle me this: when are you officially “finished” with, say, Marvel vs. Capcom? When you’ve seen the end credits once? When you’ve done so with all the characters? When you’re at the top of the “Versus” board? When you’ve won EVO?

When are you “finished” with DoDonPachi? When you conquer the first loop? One-credit it? Find the true final boss? Score 100 million? 200 million? When you see bullet patterns dancing on the back of your eyelids as you fall asleep?

When is Puyo-Puyo Sun “finished”? Do you have to complete Normal mode? Hard mode? Put together a 7-chain? 8-chain? 10-chain? Once you’ve seen all the story interludes? Or once your friends stop playing and move on to Puyo Puyo~n before the online servers are shut down?

The Old Gods’ deafening silence on the matter speaks volumes – games that have received their blessing are NOT designed with “the end” (and/or the sequel) in mind. The gamers themselves must ford their own path, without the aid of infinite respawn checkpoints, and decide for themselves when, if ever, to stop.



This is the way of the Old Gods.

Though by turns cruel and covetous (i.e. stupidly hard and hungry for more of your tokens), these digital giants, diminished though they may be, have weathered the ages largely untouched by mass-marketable revisionism and reformation; even as everything around them changes, they remain what they are, no more and no less, for both better and worse. Even the “unconverted”, as a result, may find it difficult not to find something to admire in their earthy purity, their rough-hewn pixelated visages, their effortless radiation of the timeless magic that links brain to eye to hand to joystick to screen. In the end, yes, that’s all there ever really was to these regal figures, just imagination and dissonant energy and suspension of disbelief…but try to tell me that those very things aren’t exactly what video gaming, in its most essential form, is all about.



Make no mistake, both East and West alike have been plagued for years by worthless unlockable tchotchkes, parasitic DLC, and other cynical means of “enhancing replay value” (is there a more soullessly corporate piece of gaming lingo in existence?), and the once-mighty gaming temples known as arcades have toppled from grace in spectacular fashion across all continents, retaining only a handful of devotees across the globe. In the meantime, the spirit of these “Old Gods” burns decidedly stronger in the East, just as it always has. Not only does the proud arcade scene yet retain a notable foothold here, but Japanese developers keep the most tightly-controlled game design elements where they belong: within the game itself, not in how the player takes it in. They continue to make (Japanese) games, not (Hollywood) experiences.

To some, this is a frustrating farce of childish longing for a golden age that never really was; to me, right or wrong, it’s a due display of reverence for the powers, both real and imagined, which granted that original, vital spark, not of existence, but of life to video games, a display for which I will continue to express my own appreciation.

The East, after all, is where those majestic Old Gods still dwell, and where I, as a gamer, dwell also.

Hi again, all: as promised in the previous installment, I’ve got some more stuff to talk about regarding what I’ve been up to lately. Let’s get right down to brass tacks: though I haven’t written much here, there is one thing I haven’t stopped doing…

Keeping up with obscure gaming news.

That’s right – it’s been awhile since this blog’s recurring news feature, The Obscurer Tribune, stopped updating regularly, but that doesn’t mean my desire to spread the word about the oddball side of gaming has diminished one bit. Even after stepping back from DToid, I found myself, almost subconsciously, stockpiling links to notable stories – eventually it became clear that some things can only be put off for so long.



To be perfectly blunt – I am not again taking up a set schedule for either the Tribune or this blog. That ship, for the time being at least, has sailed. What I AM doing is publishing what you might call a special “Digest Edition” of the Tribune, composed of what I consider to be the most noteworthy offbeat gaming items I’ve glimpsed since I ceased blogging. It’s not as in-depth as previous issues, but hopefully it’ll make you aware of at least a handful of things you weren’t up on before.

Since this is a highly condensed edition covering several months’ worth of content, I’ve limited its scope mostly to stuff not covered on DT or in previous blogs, so if you observe something that’s missing it’s probably been mentioned elsewhere (though I’m still as open to outside material as ever!) Anyway, on to the good stuff!

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I already discussed a couple of recently-released Cave shooters in the first “Up To” article, but there’s still more business afoot: first and foremost, the upcoming 360 port of Akai Katana, out in late May. Unfortunately, AK is going to be region-locked (the developer apparently hopes an outside publisher will pick it up eventually), but even if you don’t have plans to pick up a J360 you might still want to set up a Japanese account, because that’ll let you download a demo for the title. (Additional DT coverage here and here.)

Discouraged by the region-locking news above? Don’t be too sad: there are other unlocked Cave shooters to snag, and they just got cheaper! Mushihime-sama Futari (check out my “How-To” if you’re not familiar with it) earned a “Platinum” reprint back in November, and ESPGaluda II just got one this past month: if you’re holding off on importing because it’s “too expensive” you’re REALLY running out of excuses now!

Additional tidbits on the Deathsmiles front: first, the game is on its way to the iPhone – keep an eye out for further info as it develops. Also, back in February the US version of the game was patched to adjust slowdown levels and fix a few other things, so if you (like me) don’t hook your 360 up to the ‘net too often you might want to make sure you download that bit. Finally, the big one: Deathsmiles IIX is coming to America, as an untranslated, 30-buck “Game on Demand” downloadable title. Cave will be publishing itself, since Aksys, sadly, doesn’t seem interested in revisiting its role with the first game for the time being, though Rising Star is supposedly considering bringing the sequel to Europe.

Cave’s not the only one putting out new shooters, of course (though it can sometimes feel like it) – Wii importers can also pick up Milestone Collection 2, which keeps all three shooters from the first collection (Chaos Field, Radirgy, and Karous) and bundles two newer products, Illvelo and Radirgy Noah, in with them. Karous is also making a solo trip to the 3DS at some point.

The game is out in Japan, but there’s still no official release date for Otomedius Excellent in the West: that said, Gamestop is hinting that it might finally make its way here in July for a measly 30 bucks, though obviously that needs to be taken with a grain of salt for now. On a related note, a moment of silence, please: Konami’s planned Gradius for the PS3 has officially been canned.

Touhou fans have undoubtedly already been following this, but let it be known to everyone that ZUN’s next shooter, Ten Desires, is almost ready to go, and will be out over the summer: there’s already a demo out there if you want to sample it. Naturally, there are plenty of trinkets for diehards to pick up, though apparently ZUN is clamping down a bit in this area…

On the “it’s still technically a shooter!” front, “fight off the love-crazy schoolgirls” pseudo-lightgun game GalGun has been out in Japan for a bit now, as has a demo you can download with a Japanese XBL account: inexplicably, though, a patch has since been uploaded as well, which disables camera angles low enough to peek under enemies’ skirts, basically rendering moot the reason why 95 percent of buyers got the game in the first place (and does some other stuff too, not like it matters). Ecchi sorts, consider yourselves warned. The less-lecherous among us might be more interested in upcoming doujin run-n-gun Gun Lord.

Time for a little moichindising! Cave is selling some new (and expensive) stuff in its online shop, while fans of G. Rev’s Under Defeat might be interested in a newly-released Superplay DVD featuring near-impossible player footage, to make you feel even more inadequate! There are also a couple of new models floating around out there, though the links seem to be escaping me at the moment, except these bits of Touhou…in the meantime, look for the latest issue of Retro Gamer magazine, which features a writeup on Cave.

Finally, a quick downloadable/indie shooter roundup, for any of you wanting to use this feature as a jumping-off point: check out Strania (another one from G. Rev, which now has DLC available), 99 Bullets (which limits how many shots you can fire each stage), Viriax a hybrid from the guy who made Hydorah), Galaga Legions DX (no explanation needed), Gatling Gears (a co-op twin-stick release), Shield the Beat (a rhythm game with a shmup veneer), Level 2 (a metal concept album you can play), Lunaria (from the Bike Banditz folks), and Jamestown (about the well-documented British colonization of Mars). Oh, and don’t forget Trouble Witches Neo!




I know most of you have been primarily excited about the rebirth of CURLEH MUSTACHE (yay), the latest helping of TOASTY (meh), or yet another lazy and unnecessary appearance by Evil Ryu (boo), but there’s actually quite a lot of other stuff going on in the fighting world beneath the surface: let’s start with all-girl brawler Arcana Heart 3, which was just released digitally in the US. PAL gamers will be getting a physical version in June, including a nice LE, which I’ve already surrendered and pre-ordered: in the meantime, Siliconera’s posted a nice series of “tutorial” articles on the game. Here’s the latest, with links to the previous ones. Sega’s also got a dog in the fight with Chaos Code.

Going back in time a little ways, SNK’s obscure tourney fighters Aggressors of Dark Kombat and Savage Reign are headed for the Wii’s virtual console: too bad they didn’t go with superior sequel Kizuna Encounter for the latter, or, uh, Neo Geo Battle Coliseum for the former, maybe? Capcom, meanwhile is still plugging away at the promised online-enabled Third Strike, and announced that Alpha 3 will be joining it – gonna hafta keep holding your breath when it comes to Rival Schools, though.

Namco, meanwhile, is taking its sweet time on Tekken x Street Fighter, but somehow I think Soul Calibur V will tide a lot of you over. In any case, it’ll never top Tekken: Blood Vengeance, since video game-themed CG movies are guaranteed hits! Always! A slightly less-sarcastically-cited sure success would be yet another embarrassing Ivy figure, but if you ever wondered what on Earth the designers were thinking (aside from the obvious), there’s a system in place, and don’t you forget it!

Siliconera recently posted a two-part interview with Daisuke Ishiwatari (the Guilty Gear guy), which has him talking about a variety of topics, though most of you are probably too busy messing with Blazblue: Continuum Shift’s latest DLC. On a related and uplifting note, Aksys is selling Blazblue t-shirts to fund Japan quake relief.

On the “doujin” front, I would be remiss not to mention Skullgirls, which should finally see daylight over the summer, as well as offer a new video for Card Sagas Wars (is it truly possible for me to pine for a game with Master Chief in it?). Oh, and then there’s Under Night In-Birth, the newest effort from the guys who brought you Melty Blood.

Speaking of fighting games based on eroge, there are quite a few of those in the pipeline right now: Aquaplus has Aquapazza, BaseSon has Koihime Musou, Alchemist offers Ougon Musou Kyoku X, and, while not technically VN-based, 5pb gives us Phantom Breaker. There’s a demo on Japanese XBL for that last one, if you’re interested.

In terms of “sorta-fighters”, feel free to check out half-puzzlers Slam Bolt Scrappers and Word Fighter, not to mention Kenka Bancho offshoot Gachitora: The Roughneck Teacher in High School: where else will you be able to use flaming tigers to strip problem students naked?…totally metaphorically, of course. Then there’s Lord of Vermilion Re:2, a card game borrowing characters from all over the dang place. Oh, and did I mention that Guardian Heroes is coming to XBLA? Mighta forgotten that…

Finally, yeah, I’m still a total sucker for the silly things Kotaku sometimes posts, like this one, and this one…and what the heck, this too. Less-goofy readers than myself might still be interested in an upcoming Street Fighter motion comic, which will certainly provide you with your daily recommended allowance of Delta Red tuchus. Last but not least, take a gander at this interesting c-blog about a recent bit of tournament controversy.




I’m still not sure what to expect from the Black Rock Shooter PSP RPG, but one thing’s for sure: you hafta check out the bonus figurine from the limited edition! In other “what the heck IS this?” news, something called Black Sting is also in the works, but I know next to nothing about it, unless I’ve missed some manner of reveal since January. For something dwelling in slightly more familiar (though not yet localized) territory, read an interview with one of the folks behind Half-Minute Hero Second.

I’m a bit nervous when it comes to Gust these days after the disappointing Ar Tonelico Qoga, but I’m still happy to see screens and a trailer for Atelier Meruru…by the way, NISA, any chance we’ll be seeing Totori stateside?

…ah, okay, that’ll do nicely.

Of course, the developer is already busy with Nora and the Carving Studio, a joint venture with the Etrian Odyssey folks…out on the periphery, you’ll have to import this figure, but Udon has come to the rescue on the art book front, as they’re bringing the Official Chronicle artbook for the Atelier games stateside! They’re supposedly doing the same for an Ar Tonelico book too…cue the Futurama “SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY!” caption.

Of course, Gust isn’t the only bunch raising a pre-emptive eyebrow on my end…you all know I love Vanillaware, and that I’m eager to see more of Grand Knights History, but the underlying structure sounds odd…turn-based combat with an online multiplayer component? Well, it’d help to eliminate the sometimes-stiff real-time mechanics from Odin Sphere and Muramasa, but I’m still hesitant to throw myself at it with abandon.

Sting, after the brilliant Knights in the Nightmare, is also taking things in an unusual direction, with Gungnir, a “relatively traditional” SRPG…considering that the company’s more experimental games tend to be their best (IMO), I’m holding out hopes for Gloria Union instead. Weirdest of all, though, is the news that the Soldner-X guys are working on a downloadable SRPG for the PS3…saddest of all, Irem’s confirmed that Bumpy Trot 2 is no more.

I’ve also been a bit nonplussed by good ol’ Atlus lately…while Persona 2: Innocent Sin looks good (and is hopefully coming our way eventually), I’m somehow having trouble getting equally excited about Devil Survivor 2 (and Overclocked, like 99 percent of the 3DS library so far, isn’t even on my radar).

The “weirdest name of the issue” award goes to PSP dungeon crawler UnchainBlades ReXX, “weirdest concept” is bestowed upon rhythm/RPG hybrid Sequence, and “weirdest theme” honors are claimed by the Wii’s Pandora’s Tower, which has you hunting down monsters and feeding their raw meat to a very hesitant vegetarian. In slightly less-strange sectors Square has two new entries in the successful Chaos Rings saga in the works for the iPhone, Gamevil is taking much the same route with Zenonia 3, and Tri-Ace has two more for us, namely Frontier Gate on the PSP and Beyond the Labyrinth for 3DS.

Out in figurine land, a trio of Falcom ladies will be getting new super-deformed Nendoroid releases: which ones? Well, we don’t know yet: people hafta go and vote for their favorites first! There certainly are plenty to choose from…anyway, another Plenair has hit the scene since last issue, as has an impressive papercraft of Aegis from Persona 3.

As a final note: Herr Sterling, today, we stand united!




Cave Story 3D aka Pretty Much the Only Reason I Might Remotely Consider a 3DS At This Point, will be on our shelves in August, so I’ve got ‘til then to decide whether to cough up the 250 bucks…oh, and while I’m at it, Happy B-day, Pixel!

I personally wasn’t particularly taken by the Japanese Catherine demo (maybe being able to read the text would help), but Atlus’ recent decision to use tamer box art in some displays has sparked a bit of discussion on the c-blogs…not that any of this matters to the nutcases at Aksys, who responded to Atlus’ request for fan ad submissions with a not-so-veiled plug for Agarest War Zero. In any event, that IS a pretty nice LE.

Of course, then there’s the other Japanese-exclusive (for now) demo I tried, namely El Shaddai: Rise of the Metatron. Again, I wish I knew a bit more about what was going on, but I generally tend to concur with Herr Sterling’s thoughts – dang that’s pretty, dang that’s tough. I found the platforming controls a little stiff, though combat felt pretty good…wonder if they’ll include an unlockable plastic chibi mode to go with its accompanying fashion line? Ah, and check out this nifty early concept demo, if you haven’t seen it before (heck, even if you have, watch it again).

Two of the more interesting (IMO) gaming companies on the scene, namely Marvelous and AQ Interactive, are merging – to read some comments on this development from Xseed (who are owned by AQ and have worked with Marvelous), click here. On a separate front, both The Last Guardian and the Ico/Shadow of the Colossus HD package have been delayed (again), but some guy is apparently tinkering with a Game Boy-styled SoTC – sadly, LEGO Ico is just a fantasy, as is not having to import Solatorobo.

Several anticipated (by me) downloadable offerings have finally seen daylight, some after lengthy delays: to whit, we’ve got Cave mini-platformer Nin Nin Jump, Square’s Strider-esque Moon Diver, Ikaruga-gone-platforming Outland, and Capybara’s HD-ized and rebalanced port of Might and Magic: Clash of Heroes. Oh, and some of you might be aware of Koumajou Densetsu, a Touhou fangame that plays like a Castlevania title: did you know they’ve got another one? WayForward fanboy that I am, though, I have a special place where my heart would be for Mighty Milky Way…

Of course, there are a whole bunch of others that we’re still waiting for, but all of the following are (apparently) still alive: Fez certainly comes to mind, as do the lovely-looking Bastion and Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet, despite a long hunk of downtime for all three. If you’re in the mood for the read even less traveled, you might prefer to keep an eye on Pickdun, Terraria, Perfect Cell, or Warp. One promising title that probably won’t be finished, unfortunately, is The Iconoclasts, by the guy who did Noitu Love – you can, however, download the unfinished product to see what might have been.

Yeah, I know, Portal STILL isn’t really obscure enough to deserve coverage in this pseudo-periodical, especially when I already mentioned it last time around, but frankly, I don’t care, especially when its sequel has a nifty comic tie-in, cool poster, and free DLC attached to it. I do hope Master Newell is pleased by my efforts bzzzt…the assimilation has already begun.

Aaaand it’s time to dump most of the stuff that wouldn’t fit anyplace else into a single paragraph: Japan has received SNK Arcade Classics 0 on the PSP, though I’m still hoping for a “Volume 2” with a better game selection. Speaking of PSP, dimension-hopping puzzler Crush is being remade for the 3DS, with a brighter vibe than before, though presumably not as gonzo as crossover card game Weiss Schwartz, which is being digitized, but never localized thanks to one of the biggest messes of copyright shenanigans since Super Robot Taisen.

A couple more miscellaneous articles you ought to read: first, a decent write-up on the so-called “hardcore” Japanese game development mindset. Second, though I’m not personally a Mega Man fan, shmups.com forum member undamned (who IS a big fan, obviously) made a neat discovery recently: Mega Man mini-pinball! Also, Scribblenauts stuff!

Mario (yeah, that Mario) is probably the least-qualified possible candidate for a write-up in the Tribune, but this video, as utterly wrong as it is, made me laugh too hard not to share it. Oh, and by the way, did you ever wonder why some of the “building block” levels in the background of Super Mario Land 2 had a “N&B” insignia on them? Now you know!

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Well, I’ll have to leave it there for now: hope you enjoyed the temporary return of the Tribune. Hopefully I’ll be able to do another one like it at some point, though heaven only knows when that might be: ‘til then, thanks for reading and keep gaming obscurely!

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Oh, but before I go, just one or two other things I’ll note quickly about what’s been happening in my neck of the woods.

When I first announced my semi-departure from blogging here, I mentioned that after months of unemployment (which was, incidentally, the catalyst that got me blogging in the first place), I’d managed to find a bit of work: part-time, but steady. In case you’re interested I’m still at the same job, and saving up for a sorely-needed replacement for my current car: it’s hardly an ideal position to be in, but it’s definitely better than where I was, so I’m glad to have managed to hang on as long as I have. Hopefully something better awaits, but for now this is it.

I also, to Wry Guy’s horror, got picked up for a seasonal gig at Gamestop this past holiday season, and they’ve kept me on since then to fill in various scheduling gaps: retail work is retail work, of course, but it was handy to have that employee discount when I was picking up all those new releases earlier this year. As with any such job there are countless stories to relate (even with my limited hours), but they’ll have to wait for another day.

Finally, as I mentioned earlier, when I first announced that I’d be stepping away from this blog for awhile, I said I had other projects on the back burner: believe it or not, while I’m still working my way through the list, I have actually managed to finish a couple of them. You might have already noticed a few of them in the sidebar, but here they are in case you didn’t:

First off, I’ve done a bit more work for Racketboy, which offered me my very first “published” writing gig a little while back – as with my previous two projects, this one is a system-based shmupping guide, though I’ve shifted my focus from the 32-bit systems to the PS2. Did you know that such an “uber-mainstream” system actually has one of the greatest scrolling shooter lineups ever? Have a read and you may well be surprised! I’m currently finishing up another project for the site…keep an eye on that sidebar!

I’ve also managed to get myself a new outside client, namely Hardcore Gaming 101, home to a whole slew of articles on unusual games. Once again, my initial contributions to the page are shooter-related: specifically, we’ve got Deathsmiles, which was just recently released in Europe, and Espgaluda, whose second iteration was ported to iOS around a year ago. Both of these articles need an update, which I plan to do soon, but if you’ve ever been curious about those two series (or others; several shmup-centric posts by other writers have gone up there lately), hopefully these bits will tell you most of the “essential” stuff. I also hope to do more work here at some point; I’ll keep you posted as best I can.

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Guess that’s about it for the time being. Hopefully you didn’t mind my catching up with you all a bit, as I’ve enjoyed getting back in touch with the community, if only for a short (by my standards, anyway) time: I don’t know when I’ll be able to blog here next, but until then you can rest assured that I’m still gaming and writing away, among other things. ‘Til then, see you around the comments, on the forums, or wherever. :)

Hello everyone…or at least everyone who remembers me!

Hope you’ve all been well – as you might be aware, I still pop in here regularly to look around and comment, it’s been some time since I last blogged myself. At this point I feel it’s high time to catch up a bit, and let you know what I’ve been up to: why now? There are a few reasons, but one particularly strong motivator wills me to write about gaming at this particular point in time:

The first four months of 2011 have saddled me with perhaps the most densely-packed new release schedule I’ve EVER experienced.

In a nutshell, I’m even MORE backlogged, broke, and over-stimulated than I’ve been in a long time: simultaneously, of course, I’m also in the mood to celebrate. Most gamers end up feeling “the crunch” around the holiday season, when publishers try to take advantage of audiences out gift shopping for each other, but for an aficionado of the offbeat these sudden gluts of interesting stuff can pop up just about anytime, especially when compounded by delays or other schedule changes – it’s already tough for my fellow weirdos and myself to prioritize one’s precious gaming time (or even keep track of all that’s out there), but it’s impossible not to feel a bit warm and fuzzy (and raring to blog!) at times like these.

So off we go: for anyone interested, I’ve cobbled together a list of all the new releases, import and domestic, that I’ve picked up from this past January through April, in order of their debuts, plus a handful of impressions and other thoughts about each. I haven’t played the whole batch to completion, obviously, but hopefully any curious onlookers will have a better idea of what’s going on after reading about one. Though I guess the video embeds will probably help too. Anyhow, as always, feel free to ask questions afterwards if I’ve neglected something!

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Prinny 2: Dawn of Operation Panties, Dood! (Jan 11)

As you can tell from my review of the first Prinny, I want to like those dopey, explodey critters more than I actually do, but an excess of rote memorization and finger-killing button mashing kept me from doing so the first time around. At first glance the sequel appears to have made a few well-intentioned concessions to the less-masochistic among us: the various “tricks” and exploits necessary for success are more clearly explained at the start, and more importantly the “combo” meter is no longer utterly useless.

However, as noted by a fellow c-blogger, these improvements are largely rendered irrelevant: Prinny is, of course, still a weakling, and a single misstep is often enough to send him (and you) hurtling backwards, right off a platform and into a pit. To prevent this from happening, many areas still require a very specific sequence of actions on your part, and when little random things start popping up everywhere to throw your rhythm off, that’s a recipe for disaster – too much disaster for my liking. I suggest platforming masochists stick with Super Meat Boy. (DToid review here.)



DoDonPachi Dai-Fukkatsu Black Label (Feb 3)

…er, I think I’ll just abbreviate it DFKBL and be done with it. Anyway, the “regular” edition of Dai-Fukkatsu came to the (Japanese) 360 a few months ago, and I was honestly a bit underwhelmed by it: the DonPachi shooters are favorites of mine, but this latest entry just came across as excess for the sake of excess, and didn’t feel as well-tuned as its illustrious predecessors. When a “Black Label” revision was announced soon afterwards I was skeptical, but decided to give Cave a second chance: thank goodness I did. The stages, ships, and modes are much the same (save a few welcome tweaks, including the ability to turn the “auto-bomb” off), but the game system itself has been granted a necessary near-overhaul.

First and foremost, you can now fire your “main” and “laser” shots simultaneously to inflict extra damage, but doing this fills up a “rank” meter: the higher it builds, the angrier enemies get at you. At the same time, of course, your scoring possibilities also skyrocket, so the idea is to spend as much time at “P.O.’ed to the max” settings without being utterly flattened; easier said than done, naturally. Hypers (which allow your shots to cancel enemy bullets) can now be “shut off” early to save energy, but aren’t as abusable when it comes to building chains. Oh, and if you buy the retail version, you get an exclusive “Arrange” mode which takes all this stuff and dollops the proximity system from Ketsui on top: yeah, it’s pretty bonkers. This is an expensive add-on, and region-locked too, but for those with the means to snag it this bad boy definitely comes recommended.



Marvel vs Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds (Feb 15)

It’s a crying shame that this cross-promotion never actually happened, but considering how bleak prospects once looked for another Marvel/Capcom crossover one can’t complain TOO much. I’m hardly a fighting game expert, but I enjoyed MvC2 for what it was, though I obviously never got into the “whoever blinks first gets caught in an infinite” tournament mindset – this followup seems to take at least a slightly more “reserved” tack, with a smaller and better-balanced cast (though certain roster choices did make me scratch my head), which at the end of the day (along with glitch fixes and other patches) I’d call a decidedly wise design decision.

I’m not as huge of a fan of the new control scheme, as I tend to have an easier time keeping track of attacks clearly marked “punch” or “kick” as opposed to vanilla “weak” and “strong”, but it’s hardly an impossible adjustment to make – even on a pad I can generally do what I mean to do, though I’m nowhere near fast enough (or proficient enough on a joystick) to pull off anything impressive. A more in-depth “training/tutorial” mode would also have been appreciated for n00bs like myself, but I can say that about pretty much every fighter except Continuum Shift – all in all, it’s good to see these two perennially pugilistic universes beating the tar out of each other again. (DToid review here.)



Hyperdimension Neptunia (Feb 15)

Crossover RPG Trinity Universe was, I thought, an encouraging step in the right direction for much-maligned developer Idea Factory – while far from perfect, it partially overcame the company’s infamous penchant for burying bountiful surface appeal underneath layer after unnecessary layer of ill-conceived gameplay systems, and was fun enough for me to see through to the end. Then came news that a modified version of its base framework would appear in a new game, starring anthropomorphized characters spoofing the current generation of consoles: is there any way to make a hopeful nerd more excited? Then it came out.

To the credit of publisher NIS America, they did a darn good job on the localization: the uniquely Japanese sense of goofiness is intact, but everything flows nicely for English speakers in terms of dialogue and characterization. Tragically, the rest of the game doesn’t keep pace: the still-second-rate presentation I might have been able to forgive, but the limited cast (plus the extra sting of DLC characters, a trend I dislike, to put it mildly), one-step-forward-one-step-back battle system (no manual healing? really?), and baffling inventory setup go a long way in rendering the title’s gloriously pure geek appeal null and void. That said, Neptunia isn't a total tragedy, but IS a truly shameful waste of potential: a sequel is apparently in the works, but I’m running seriously low on patience at this point (yes, even in the face of a laser-breathing Inafune). IF, you’ve done this enough times now that you should be getting it right a lot more often. (DToid reviw here.)



Radiant Historia (Feb 22)

Atlus definitely knows how to hype a game, so when this one popped up seemingly out of nowhere I was a bit suspicious – having been disappointed by the similarly-sprung Hexyz Force (Sting, what happened?), I watched from a distance for awhile before finally deciding to take a chance and go for the pre-order: happily, I ended up bringing home perhaps the most pleasant surprise of the year so far. For starters, it’s one of the rare RPGs you can put down for awhile and then resume without being totally lost: as you work through the timeline a perusable record is kept of all the game’s major events, and your allies all retain their levels and equipment no matter how many times you dimension-hop, so if you hate that nagging feeling of “maybe I oughta just restart…” give Historia a try.

The aforementioned time-travel theme and grid-based battle system are both well-implemented and fun, but what honestly impressed me most were the characters, both playable and NPC: it’s been a long time since a JRPG truly nailed a more “low-key” style, where everyone seems at least somewhat grounded in reality and don’t go out of their way to be “memorable” (which, in all likelihood, would just make me want to forget them). Kudos to the localizers and translators for doing a bang-up job on this front. Listen to Wry Guy, and pick this one up - encourage Atlus to make more like this! NOT THIS! (DToid review here



Ys 1 & 2 Chronicles (Feb 22)

Xseed did some mighty fine work with Ys Seven and Oath in Felghana late last year, so this one was obviously on my list too, especially since it was slated as superior to the DS compilation from a year or two earlier. It is a pretty impressive package, with nicely-revamped graphics, three (awesome) soundtracks to choose from and a handful of other extras, but I’ve also got a caveat for anyone considering a purchase: these are REALLY old games.

That’s part of the appeal, of course – “combat” is primarily running into enemies at particular angles, if you need a general idea of what you’re in for – but other recalcitrant “old school” elements, like super-obscure means of progression (especially in the first Ys) and an abundance of quick, “what just happened” deaths, tend not to endear themselves to modern gamers so easily. This state of affairs is understandable, since TOO many updates and adjustments would have resulted in purists crying foul, but if you’re curious about the Ys series I’d personally recommend starting with Oath in Felghana or the PS2 version of Ark of Napishtim, and deciding how far back in time you’d like to go from there. (DToid review here.)



Muchi Muchi Pork! and Pink Sweets (Feb 24)

If there were two Cave shooters seemingly destined to remain obscure arcade exclusives, these were it: kooky, fan-servicey, and Freakin’ Tough, neither were ever destined for mass audiences. Lo and behold, the developer suddenly decides to bundle ‘em together on the 360, with a nice load of bonuses in tow: alongside the original “Arcade” modes for each game are tweaked “1.1” versions and all-new “Arrange” variations, plus first-print buyers can download a “Matsuri” version of Pork! which adds some bosses from Pink to the recipe.

The graphics haven’t been enhanced at all, but they’re still lookers to be sure, and once you’ve got a handle on how everything works both titles are lots of fun, but their limited commercial viability means that Cave didn’t devote enough time to getting the details right: the “Arcade” modes for both are imperfect, scores from them and “1.1” modes are not separated, and several other annoying omissions exist (oh, and forget about the “infinite lives trick” in Pink if you were counting on that). Still, this is a package well worth picking up for shmup fans, and it’s region-free, so get importing, ALL of you!



Okamiden (Mar10)

I’d actually just finished up the first Okami on the PS2 not long before this came out, so at first the timing seemed ideal to take this one for a spin…as fate would have it, though, I’ve actually devoted less time to this one so far than any of the batch o’ new stuff covered here (sorry, but I really AM overloaded!). From what I’ve seen of it up to this point, though, it’s about as good a “conversion” (for lack of a better term) of Okami to the DS as one might expect: this, as it happens, is both its best and worst aspect.

While the cel-shaded “ink painting” style still looks like a million bucks on the small screen, the lack of a second analog stick makes moving around and seeing what’s going on more cumbersome than in its big brother. The amount of reused assets (guess who needs another drying pole?) doesn’t help matters either, though, again, it’s impressive from a technical standpoint how much they were able to do with the hardware (albeit with some additional loading). I can’t say a heckuva lot more than this at the moment…except that, yeah, that li’l puppy bugger is stupidly cute. I’m man enough to admit it. (DToid review here.)



Ar Tonelico Qoga: Knell of Ar Ciel ( Mar 15)

If you ever check out the pair of writeups I did on Ar Tonelico II, then you’ll know I’m a pretty big fan of the series: despite being aimed squarely at the “otaku” brain, its world is unique and well-realized, and treating your party’s physically- and magically-inclined characters as separate “groups” adds a neat dimension to combat. II’s ending suggested a sequel, and here it is: once again, the West is lucky enough to get a shot at it, but despite serving (presumably) as the saga's conclusion this one is sadly the weak link of the bunch.

The primary culprit here is the ill-fitting, real-time Star Ocean-esque battle system: ally AI is non-existent, with no way to alter your comrades' behavior, and physical attacks are so clunky and inconsequential that their only real use is to build up the Reyvateil’s powerful songs for the killing blow whilst spamming healing items. The attractive art and setting are still here, and the “diving” mechanic remains intriguing, but the “naughty” elements are also starting to cross the line from “oh Japan” to “eww, Japan”. If you’ve tried the Ar Tonelico games before you already know if it’s worth your time to see the tale through to its conclusion: if you’re not sure, start with the first two and you’ll quickly find out. (DToid review here. As a side point, apparently the trigger to obtain the “true” ending is rather obtuse, but I managed to stumble onto it without knowing what it was. Make of that what you will.)



Monster Tale (Mar 16)

Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure is one of my favorite DS titles (heck, one of my all-time favorite platformers, period), so when I heard that several of the people involved with it were working on a sprite-based “Metroidvania” title, I was nothing short of ecstatic. The end result is both all I hoped it would be and a victim of my probably-unfair expectations: starting with the bad news, the charming pseudo-British Hatsworth cast and art style have been largely supplanted by a decided “white guy trying to do anime” vibe (this is why I hate conventional marketing wisdom so much), and the interconnected areas, while attractive, are not expansive or secret-ridden enough to match their more established competition.

On the bright side, Hatsworth’s controls and combat were top-notch, and they’re even better here: your main character can still freely mix up close- and long-range attacks with a little timing practice, and the addition of a monster pal, whose special techniques can be activated pretty much at will, opens up even more options to smack your adversaries silly. Encounters play out as continuing “experiments” to try and beat the most loot out of everything and evolve your buddy into new forms, making the required backtracking much more bearable and giving the game more bite than its focus-grouped veneer suggests. I do wish a more challenging extra mode unlocked after finishing: it would have suited this game much better than the already-taxing Hatsworth’s brutal “Gentleman Mode” did. (DToid review here.)



Eschatos (Apr 7)

A few of you might be aware of Judgment Silversword, a fan-made shoot-em-up that eventually earned itself a physical (and very expensive on the secondhand market) release on the Wonderswan handheld; few have tried it, but those who have give it nothing but effervescent praise. If that line caught your attention, note that this 360 shmup is a spiritual sequel, featuring the same original programmer and publisher: though its graphics are laughably outdated, the rest of the game (and its region-free status) make a strong case for your import dollars.

Basically, across all modes you’ve got a “narrow” shot, “wide” shot, and limited frontal shield, which must be used in tandem to plow through the legions of aliens between you and the end credits. “Standard” mode keeps things simple: kill every enemy onscreen, and do it fast, for the most points. “Advanced” makes things more interesting: here, you can power up your shots, but this weakens your shield, which you’ll want to use to cancel bullets for extra points, so you’ll have to strike a balance between offensive and defensive power to excel. Both modes have three default difficulty variations, alongside “Time Attack” and “Endless”: oh, and did I mention that Judgment Silversword and its “remix”, Cardinal Sins, are included on-disc as bonuses? If you’re hankering for a shooting experience that harkens back to the good old days, look past the unattractive exterior and pick this up.



Bullet Soul (Apr 7)

5pb, known primarily for its visual novels, hasn’t exactly endeared itself to shmuppers lately: Cave hired them to port DoDonPachi Dai-Ou-Jou Black Label to the 360 a few years back, and the result was a semi-disaster until they brought in outside help to patch it much later on. Seemingly undaunted, however, the company soon announced an all-new shooter, developed entirely in-house: to call me and many others skeptical was an understatement. Then, however, I headed to the game’s official page, and was promptly knocked on my tuchus by more 80’s-style cheesiness than one could shake a sparkly neon glow stick at: not long after this, it was confirmed that 5pb was reaching out to international buyers by making Bullet Soul region-free. Against my better judgment, I decided to give these guys one more shot at winning me over.

In terms of over-the-top insanity, the final product certainly doesn’t disappoint: ludicrous characters, boatloads of evil robots and alien bugs, big loud explosions, screen-covering homing lasers, huge “BONUS!” messages popping up all over the place, it’s all here, in spades. Despite how busy it is, the basic idea is pretty easy to grasp: you’ve got a “normal” and “focused” shot, plus a supply of smart bombs, and killing any enemy cancels all their bullets into “souls” which cannot harm you. If this makes the game sound easy, it is, until you try for a high score: to rack up points you have to destroy enemies up close, which forces you to be much more efficient with your kills to avoid being point-blanked. What’s here is fun, but it’s a little sparse: apart from a few “trick kills” there are no other scoring aspects to practice (the “souls” do absolutely nothing), and the only additional “modes” are single-stage score attacks. There’s DLC on the way, but that’s rather cold comfort: I recommend downloading the demo on Japanese XBL before plunking down the cash.



Portal 2 (Apr 19)

The day I finally picked this one up officially marked the end of “Utterly Bonkers Gaming Glut 2011”…phew. That said, the original Portal is one of the few first-person games I’ve ever been able to get into, let alone (eventually) finish, so I was quite excited about the prospect of another like it, though some of the nutso stuff shown in the trailers made me feel even more inadequate: against all odds, as it turns out, I managed to make it through the single-player mode with few problems (and if a doofus like me can do it, so can anyone). The new elements do complicate things a bit, but there tend to be fewer choices of where to place portals than before, so you don’t have to fumble around as much when looking for a solution: this does take a bit of the “edge” off of the experience, but I’d say it was largely a necessity.

On other fronts, GLaDOS is still a hoot, and I ended up liking the dimwitted Wheatley more than I thought I would: Aperture founder Cave Johnson also gets a good performance from That Guy From Law and Order: SVU, but I found some of his script lines to reek more of “sledgehammer wit” than anything else (seriously, nobody likes a good jab at ethics-free corporate science than I do, but it does need a bit of, y’know, nuance to really hit the mark). I don’t go online much so co-op is probably destined to sit idle (unfortunate, since it’s supposed to be good), but it can’t really be helped: I do hope Valve supports the community on all three platforms, though I ended up buying the PS3 version (which is linked to its PC counterpart) just in case…aaaaand naturally, the PSN goes down. (DToid review here.)

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Well, there you have it: the list of games I've picked up at launch these past four months. These aren't all I've played, of course, but I won’t go much deeper into that here: what I WILL devote a bit of space to is a short rundown of a few new games from this period that I was also watching, but eventually passed up to make room for the rest…and why I ended up deciding as I did. Feel free to take me to task on any of the points I bring up: as you can see from the above section, my resistance to the prospect of another offbeat product to add to my collection is pathetically weak!

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Lost In Shadow – The nifty visual style and concept perked up my proverbial ears, but the second I heard the platforming and combat controls compared to the original Prince of Persia’s, that was it for me. With so much else crowding my gaming schedule, I just couldn’t see myself devoting much time to an interface that would in all likelihood drive me nuts, even with some redeeming elements surrounding it.

de Blob 2 – I generally enjoyed the first de Blob on Wii, at least for the 15-buck price tag I eventually got it at, so when a sequel appeared at a slightly reduced price point I decided it deserved at least a quick spin. Good thing I tried before I buyed…er, bought – it’s still colorful, bright, and full of infectious energy, but the edges are also still rough, from weird-feeling jumping and camera controls to irritating glitches (when a beach umbrella opened up and trapped me inside it, that was when I decided to pass). I expected a bit more polish from a sequel…though I am still a bit curious as to how the DS version plays.

Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together – As someone who spent a decent amount of time with the first Ogre Battle, those pre-order tarot cards looked mighty tempting, but I was forced to lay off: to state it plainly, I just don’t have the same time or patience to devote to twenty-character, 45-minute battles as I used to, even if the experience is a “high-quality” one. I'd be ashamed to admit how many SRPGs I have languishing on my shelf, thanks to my hesitance to ever start one with the intention of finishing it...and I thought my attention span might actually improve as I got older.

Phantom Brave: The Hermuda Triangle – To put it bluntly, despite the handful of extras I’ve already bought this thing twice, and am in no hurry to do so again, even for a measly twenty. Also see my previous comments about my…malleable relationship with SRPGs.

Jikandia: The Timeless Land – Apparently some of the same guys behind Half-Minute Hero worked on this, so I became immediately interested: the PSN demo, however, left me mostly unimpressed. The visual style and theme are endearing, but the platforming and combat are bone-simple: that’s not necessarily a negative, until you apply the “time gimmick”. Basically, you can choose to have a stage run from 3 minutes to a half-hour, or anything in between: nice in concept, but the longer you choose to stay in a level the better loot starts popping up, so you’re forced to repeat the same landscapes until you’re sick of them if you want the best stuff. Not a wise decision to actively push players into going against what the game does best.

The 3rd Birthday – Weirdness is my thing, and Parasite Eve is definitely weird, but third-person shooters (even weird ones) usually aren’t, especially on the less-than-ideal PSP format. Maybe I’ll give it a rent at some point, but I don’t see my inherent curiosity leading me a whole lot farther than that, unfortunately – Square, for Pete's sake, stop doing this to me!

The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky – As much as I like Falcom and JRPGs, any of the latter which even flirt with the “generic” label are an instant turn-off to me these days: from what I hear Trails is very well-crafted and got a great localization, but I just can’t get past the exterior layers and combat system, both of which I’ve seen a million times before, when I could be playing something like Shadow Hearts instead. Part of me hopes that the game sells well and that the sequels follow it here, but I’m afraid that if this happens it won’t be any of my doing.

Mamoru-kun is Cursed! Widescreen Edition – I’m glad to see the regionless PS3 finally getting a little shmup support, and certainly don’t mind the prospect of getting the DLC characters for free here, but I DO already own this game on the 360, and despite its charms I’m in no big hurry to fork over another wad for pretty much the same thing. A bunch of reported freezing bugs doesn’t exactly stoke my enthusiasm either.

Final Fantasy IV: The Complete Collection – FF4 was my very first RPG (as FF2 on the SNES, of course), and will always hold a special place in my heart, but as I said in the Trails segment above, at this point I’ve played so many of the darn things that they really need to do something different to keep me interested. Prettified graphics (well, minus some of those character sprites, which look more deformed than the originals) and the After Years bonus stuff is all well and good, but I think I’ll wait ‘til the price comes down a bit, at the very least.

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I guess that about does it concerning my semi-relevant gaming thoughts and experiences for this year so far - hopefully you’ve encountered something of interest in there someplace. As you might expect, while the rest of 2011 doesn't look nearly as crowded for me, there ARE still several items coming down the pike that I'm watching intently (and, in some cases, have already plunked down money for). I plan on discussing those too...



…in my NEXT blog entry, which should be showing up here pretty soon.

Thanks for reading everyone, it’s good to write a little for you again: oh, and if you come back for Part 2 of “What I've Been Up To”, you might find a little surprise waiting there! :)