12.29.05
Posted in Japanese, Links, News at 4:29 pm by yuka
Oh the joys of WordPress. Last night as I tried to type this up, the whole thing disappeared off the face of this planet… it was almost enough to make me start smoking again. Well, here we go again, hoping for better luck this time.
The day before yesterday, Square Enix announced that Kingdom Hearts II, within three days of it being released in Japan, sold over a million copies of the game. Good for them. And they’ve also announced a new update on their Mana DS site – apparently they’ve added new moving images to do with character moves.
Dirge of Cerberus site has six categories: Story, Character, System, Download, Info and Promotional Video. I’d love to translate the whole site, but for now due to the possibility that WordPress might delete everything, I’ll just stick to the story… (by the way, it loads much in the same way as the Kingdom Hearts II site, so be patient): “As of now, the whole world is our arena. Those who are not worthy to be chosen will be faced with torture and misery. Three years after the story of Final Fantasy VII a mysterious gang of mecenaries started attacking the towns. This gang was the Deep Ground Soldiers (DG Soldiers) who were thought to have been buried underground when the meteor hit. This story’s main character, Vincent Valentine, is thought to have been involved in this incident… whether he was or not remains a mystery, as is what may have happened in those three years.”
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12.27.05
Posted in Japanese, News at 8:08 pm by yuka
Nintendo’s been reportedly celebrating the amazing progress the DS has made so far in the last year (and three weeks, if you want to be accurate!). The Touch! Generations series, especially has been a huge success.
President Iwata made a statement concerning games nowadays – that they have become increasingly difficult to play, and requiring more energy and hours for players. This needed to be rectified, as far as Nintendo was concerned… and so the birth of a new portable that required all participating players to learn how to use it from scratch. This way, at least, he said beginners and the more experienced gamers both could start from the same line.
So it has been proved. Nintendogs especially has managed to gain a 50% fan base of female players – something that has rarely happened (if at all) before. Certainly the age group most registered for DS play was between 25 and 34, but nonetheless, there were fans amongst those as young as pre-schoolers and those as old as the 45+. So far, Club Nintendo can boast 5 million+ DS sales.
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12.24.05
Posted in Japanese, News, Site news at 12:10 pm by yuka
Okami’s official site has new info (translation of the site in early January) – that the game based on characters and certain storylines from the Japanese folk/fairy tales is due for release on 20th April ‘06 for the PS2. Any updates concerning this will be posted as of when.
Okami is written 大神 in Japanese and literally translated will mean Big God. Whether the pun オオカミ is intentional or not (pronounced exactly the same, but with different intonations), the main character seems to be a big white wolf. I like puns :)
At the moment, I am away from home, so until I do get back in early January, I will not be taking on more translations, unless they’re of the very basic sort. And no, I will never accept hentai translations as some person on digg.com wanted. (Jeez… if you have to have a translator for such simple things, I have to wonder if this person really has brains…).
Anyhoo, Happy Christmas to you all :)
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12.22.05
Posted in Japanese, Links, News at 11:39 am by yuka
Dragon Quest – Boy Yangus – site has released a short video clip for the upcoming game. If you can stand the constant ‘buffering’ and not understanding the narration, click the button at bottom of page. It looks like one playable game – personal reminder to ask mate to send it :)
As of today also, Capcom has announced a Game on Demand service… as in, you can play those Capcom games on your computer, be it Windows or Macs. You will need to register, however, so click on the game you want to play and the first clickable bit, click – takes you to a pop up window for registering. Email address, retype email, User ID, password, retype password, sex: left is for women, right for men, date of birth (year, month, day), postcode (Japanese one I’m afraid), occupation (no doubt you can leave it blank or pick ‘other’ which is right at the bottom), click the obligatory ‘I agree’ with terms of contract etc., and then click the blue button – you’ve made it. So far, the games available are: Dino Crisis, Chaos Legion, Bio Hazard 3 and Rockman X5. From January, Bio Hazard 2 and Onimusha 3 will be available.
Kingdom Hearts II is out today in Japan, and the site has two new wallpapers added. You will need to put your name in to access the Flash site by the way. It’ll lead you to the main page which has the categories (from top): Story, Character, World, Twilight Town, Download, System and News.
Story: for some unknown reason, it was taking an unreasonable amount of time (I waited ten mins) to download, so let’s skip that, shall we?
Character: starting with Sora, you can scroll through and see the cast
World: if you’re familiar with the Disney productions, no problem
Twilight Town: it’s the first town you’re at… the rest is ‘under construction’
Download: 3 types of wallpapers in 3 different sizes
System: 1) Drive – Brave form, Wisdom form, Master form, Final form; 2) Invocation magic – Stitch, Chicken Little, Peter Pan, Genie
News: 1) Luxury Boxset – Ultimate hits and game (PS2), Chain of Memoris (GBA) and original poster for approx. £80; 2) (scrolling right) Promotion Video – Jump Fest; 3) Specs etc. – costs approx. £39; 4) Promotion Video – Tokyo Game Show; 5) Theme song; 6) Promotion Video – for stores; 7) if pre-ordered, depending on stock, possible to get a postcard calendar.
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12.21.05
Posted in Japanese, Links, News at 4:23 pm by yuka
Glad it’s a slow news day. My wireless connection was intermittent at best, and it’s only this late in the afternoon I manage to properly check the news without being thrown offline. As with everything driving me up the wall the last week, I blame the builders across the road (as usual, making such a racket as to wake the dead).
So to business… Welcome news for PSP owners: it has a new hard transparent cover (looks like this) to prevent unnecessary scratches, and of course, to keep the screen pristine. On sale in Japan from 24th Dec., costs around £9.50. Meanwhile… All the sites are yelling about the fifth anniversary of Phantasy Star Online – sorry, don’t know enough or care enough to comment much. And another game for the Xbox360 in development called Cry On…yes, how depressing. A girl -3D anime style- and her Giant companion, by the name of Boggle (who can incidentally shrink, only enlarging for fighting purposes), have a tear-jerking adventure.. or so they’re saying. Yes, another RPG, hoping to capture the minds of the Japanese youth, I’d imagine.
Last but not least, Jack Thompson-esque announcement from the ruling party (for the last 50 odd years with a year’s break), LDP… something about tightening laws on child porn and extreme violence in media (for those of you who can read Japanese, feel free to check out the statement). Apparently they’ve come to the conclusion that not only are the mental health of the youth at risk, but also the adults who partake in certain violent games. To my knowledge though, child porn was made illegal quite a while back… and the nerve of those politicians to cite porn in the same sentence as games… tut tut.
I realise I did say I’d translate the Shin Onimusha site, but please spare me the effort of reading through all that – suffice to say it’s one detailed website! Categories, from left: Story, Summary, Character, Movie, News, Radio, Extras and Promotion. The game’s set in 1598, around the time of Hideyoshi Toyotomi’s fragile reign (he was an ‘apprentice’ to Nobunaga Oda before him)… so it’s historically pretty accurate. If you’re interested but can’t decipher the jist of the site, feel free to contact me. Otherwise, enjoy a nice history lesson via Wikipedia :)
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12.20.05
Posted in Japanese, News at 12:43 pm by yuka
Legend of Mana DS site has added a new sub-topic on multi-play. Up to four players can play together using the wireless, to defeat monsters, bosses, work your way through dungeons etc. And erm, slightly unusual but bound to make it more interesting… you can use your ‘friends’ to get a rare item. No, you didn’t read me wrong. They give an example: “Use your radar effectively! Pop sneaks behind Flick with a hammer… and wham. Because Flick has nowhere to run, he bangs open the treasure box. On impact, both are sent flying, and in comes the Wanderer with the use of a flail, gets the item.” Nice ‘team-work’.
Shin Onimusha Dawn of Dreams meanwhile has so much merchandise spewing out of its… um, yes. In the form of comics or radio drama, Capcom is hoping they’ll fly off the shelves. (See? Pics)
It’s been practically yelled from every other game news site in Japan. Square Enix has introduced a game greeting card facility for members (just sign up as a new member and hey presto, you can send e-cards). You’ve got a selection of three types of cards: (from top) Christmas, New Year (to arrive on 1st-3rd Jan.), and Normal. The games involved are: Front Mission series, Legend of Mana DS, FF XI… and others that are less well-known in the western hemisphere.
If you wish to participate, you will need to sign up as a new member, so go click on the red square button at the top of the page and it’ll take you here. From the top again, fill in Member ID, Password, Retype password, Nickname, Email address (non-mobile ones) in half-width letters… all of the above must contain at least 4 letters. (Sheesh… you sure you still want to apply?) Then click Yes (left) or No (right) for periodic notices from Square Enix (I recommend you click No, unless you want to learn Japanese the hard way). Then there’s the blurb about rights and terms of contract… and underneath all of that, a small white button with 確認 on it. Press, and your membership will process…. Well, even if you don’t want to go through this rigmarole after all, the pics are nice :)
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12.19.05
Posted in Japanese, Links, News at 11:35 am by yuka
My, my… fancy that! Actually, I’m glad I’m not alone in condemning Capcom’s choice of advertising as regards their game Shin Onimusha Dawn of Dreams. It’s set to cost around £37, and is due out 26th Jan. ‘06 but whether even fans of the game can bear to buy it… it’s sadly been announced that Ayumi Hamazaki (a pop tart from back when who I remember vividly as nasally emitting sounds in a spectacularly off-key fashion) will be ’singing’ the theme tunes (this news courtsey of +D games). I will endeavour a site translation at a later date though, as disturbing as this news has been…
In other less frightening news, Legend of Mana 4 has been announced as coming out sometime in ‘06 on PS2. Any updates concerning this will be posted as of when. For screenshots, check out Famitsu site.)
Also coming out sometime in ‘06 and on PS2, Square Enix has announced a Dragon Quest game by the name of Yangus and the Mysterious Dungeon (Mysterious or Wonderful or just plain Strange, the translation go whichever way for 不思議). RPG, set in the time of when Yangus was young… Yangus, from the DQ VIII game, apparently. Not much else is known as of this moment though.
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12.18.05
Posted in Japanese at 12:34 am by yuka
Argh! … I thought my brain was going to give up then… You see, I just visited Namco’s homepage. Just thought I ought to try and find out if there was an update on Soul Calibur III, really. As it happens, there aren’t. But the thing is, trying to navigate through the site was a bloody nightmare. Typed in ソウルキャリバー which is Japanese for Soul Calibur, and pressed search. Apparently I’ve got the wrong search term… or so it tells me until after about repeating this for the fifth time, I get a decent page with some results on. Mind, even that isn’t quite clear, and it took me a further five minutes before I gave up my search. That’s just not customer-friendly.
Slightly better than the above, but still flipping annoying to navigate is the Sega homepage. Should you want to find out news from some weeks ago (say, about 5-8weeks that you may have missed), forget it – you ain’t getting that info.
You know, these are fairly respected game companies. I would’ve expected a better user-friendly interface. I mean, sure, there’re loads of colour on the pages, with all these cool animations and all… but at the end of the day, I do want to be able to find out what I’m looking for. I want to be able to find out what’s new for these companies – the news, you know? I don’t want flashy adverts in my face instead. It’s as if they’ve crammed everything onto their homepage, with no room to spare. Wonder why these Japanese sites are so bad…
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12.16.05
Posted in Japanese, Links, News at 1:01 pm by yuka
Few updates on the Animal Crossing DS site:
1) It’s now possible to get a little special prezzie (that you can’t get anywhere else) from your village chief – furniture from the ‘Mario series’. Aside from the participating stores, you can download at seven JR stations: Tokyo Station south tunnel, Yurakucho Station Kyobashi Exit, Ikebukuro Station Orange Road, Shibuya Station South Exit, Kichijoji Station 1F Tunnel, Yokohama Station Central North Exit, and Chiba Station 1F Tunnel. Once the bottle is delivered to your shore, transaction is complete.
2) Also, a message board feature at the top left corner of the site. Click on the page, and there’s a form to fill out…. perfect for kids.
Nintendogs has received an award from the Ministry of Culture today in the Entertainment Category (other categories include Art, Animation, Manga) – the only game to win in the category. All winner’s art etc., will be on display at Tokyo Photography Museum.
Namco’s ‘Tales of …’ series is back for a ‘06 release. Titled Tales of the Tempest and for the DS, the main character has been revealed (here). The main illustrator is the one responsible for Tales of Destiny and Tales of Eternia. Wireless play with other players are anticipated, as well as a unique DS-only RPG experience.
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12.15.05
Posted in Online gaming, UK at 4:54 pm by yuka
Wintermas? Yeah, apparently. That’s the WoW version of Christmas. It’s all very pretty with colourful lanterns decked out everywhere in IF, and random passersby knocking you down with a snowball. (Just don’t do the snowball trick in an instance please! My elf priest – who at the time was mind controlling – nearly died, for example.) Snowball pwnage, indeed.
Seeing it’s the first Wintermas themed WoW play over here, we’re all very excited. For those of you who insist on yelling to the public at large asking where the ‘costumes’ are, just go outside the gates of IF and you’ll see. No doubt many screenshots will be taken. Oh, and gingerbread cookies are selling at a sky high rate (1g for 5 being the lowest) in the AH, so just get one of your characters to learn it and make it (you will only need Cooking skill of 1). Now if anyone’s stupid enough to ask where to get everything (including ice cold milk!), you deserve to be snowballed repeatedly…
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