03.28.07
Posted in Japanese, News, Online gaming at 5:09 pm by yuka
Nintendo and Sega announced a title they’ll be working on together in which Mario and Sonic star: Mario & Sonic in Peking (Beijing) Olympic due to come out sometime this year. On the Wii platform, it’ll feature familiar characters from both companies like Yoshi, Tails and Knuckles.
Diddy Kong Racing (which some refer to as better than Mario Kart) is to be resurrected from the previous N64 platform onto the DS. The only difference would be its manoeuvrability and some character changes. Due to Rare’s rights, neither Banjo nor Conker will be making it in, but instead Dixie Kong and Tiny Kong (from DK 64) will be available. Although no date or price is set, release is due for both America and Europe, and possibly Japan.
Square Enix has announced the launching of FF Crystal Chronicles official blog site here. 4years since the release of their first GC title, they are currently working on two titles: FF CC Ring of Fate (DS) and FF CC Crystal Bearer (Wii). From tomorrow also, FF XI will have an upgrade available which features Chocobo Racing, although racing your own Chocobo against other players’ and gambling based on these races will not be available until this summer.
Not even in Beta yet, Nine Dragons looks set to be a good MMORPG from Japan. It boasts 9 factions and over 600 different moves from the world of martial arts. The first promo vid is of Shaolin monks for example. One for me to look out for, I suppose.
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03.19.07
Posted in Japanese, News at 2:14 pm by yuka
At GDC, Keiji Inafune had a little talk session, that revealed the stupidity of the Japanese game industries… actually, the naivety of the Japanese people as a whole. I’m fairly sure that most Japanese people who’d read this would be offended mightily and tell me that I’m a 非国民 (’hikokumin’: ancient term from back during WW2 about people who aren’t patriotic), but finally, Inafune (of Capcom) has pretty much made the same point. Japanese game developers are cowards. Anything that ‘hasn’t been done before’ is sure to fail. Really? But seriously, that kind of thinking itself hinders possible progresses that could be made by this one cultural industry.
As a good example of ’something that hasn’t been done before’, there’s Okami. Non-Japanese people may have no idea why it’s such a big step for us perhaps, but seriously, the characters in that game is familiar to most Japanese kids from a very early age. The realms of our folk/fairy tales had come alive in a non-anime format for the first time – how cool is that? I just wish that when the game appeared on shelves over here, they’d kept the characters’ names in Japanese. (As Inafune puts it however, Clover Studio collapsed because they had Okami down as an ‘art’, not a ‘product’.)
Most of you would love to play those weird and wonderful Japanese games, but they never come over here… or so I’ve been told. I suppose the Japanese cowardly nature tells us why. They think like this because it’s partly cultural, but partly due to their own bloody fault for being run rough shod over for the ‘wrongs we did back during the war’. Yeah sure, the Japs did some bad stuff back then, but so did everyone else – that’s what wars are. Get over it, teach the kids about the era between 1868 and 1945 properly (rather than glossing over facts) and move on from there! Can you now understand why I left Japan? I just couldn’t live in a place that was haunted by the past.
Talking of games that’ll never see the light of day over here, another manners game is coming out 26th April for approx. £20, titled これで恥をかかない明日つかえるDSビジネスマナー (translating roughly to: No more embarrassments, Use for tomorrow DS Business Manners). Obviously no use to people outside of Japan, it strictly tells you what to do in work situations. I did notice however, that although it covered business manners for Japanese working men inside Japan, it failed to even touch on manners with foreigners (like not bowing all the time like some idiot pigeon). You’re on your own there, dad, good luck :p
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03.15.07
Posted in Japanese, News at 12:49 am by yuka
WoW servers crashing got us off back into reality. Too early for our bedtime, so what better way to spend time than check out some news?
Okami has a soundtrack coming out. Not the original soundtrack, but played by piano, for approx. £16 and out 30th March. According to the usual sites, this is where they’re selling it from. 10 songs in 1CD, you can listen to parts of three on there. Also out on 30th September, is a special collector’s edition type merchandise: a fan with logo on the back (and apparently, it smells good when you fan yourself), and a doll of Issun (Issun-boshi was basically the Japanese equivalent of Tom Thumb) that glows in the dark, which you are supposed to attach to the fan. That is for approx. £20.
A new RPG’s coming out for Wii this summer, from Koei for approx. £35.70. Titled Opoona. According to the developers, they wanted to make a game that was easy to play, and had characters that were simple and charming ‘just like children’ (not my choice of metaphor!). The creatures look cute anyhow. (Excuse the size of these things by the way… WP didn’t register the smaller versions for some unknown reason)
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03.13.07
Posted in Japanese, News at 6:50 pm by yuka
I came across this interesting article today – it’s about how the Brain Training game was developed. Made by a team of less than 10, it took them 3months to complete. It was so much of a big seller that in Japan alone, 3million copies were sold in total (both the original and the second sequel, which hasn’t been seen abroad).
People who hadn’t played games before, or those who recently weren’t playing games, had to be recaptured as a possible market. So they looked towards a book that had been selling well, titled 「川島隆太教授の脳を鍛える大人の計算ドリル」 which they basically turned into this best selling game, along with the voice recognition technology that the DS has.
Obviously voice recognition was going to be problematic. Although the base recognition was an adult’s voice, children’s voices (130 words, 20 kids) had to be put into the database. Then there were the accents… ‘kiiro’ is yellow, in Japanese. But some people would be pronouncing it as ‘chiiro’ or ‘iiro’ (especially when those people were fairly old), so they made sure that these little errors also would be in the database and therefore recognize that any of these possibilities were ‘right’. And then there was the writing. People when panicked or trying to write fast tend to have messy handwriting. So for that, more info was needed for the database to function.
Right from the outset, it seems the developers were thinking of other countries who could benefit from this… and so Nintendo America had the care of American English, while Nintendo Europe got an amazing 5 languages to cope with: English (UK), German, French, Spanish and Italian. Shimada, who ran the project recalls that they stuck to three main points: thinking of future steps, people concerned with the project had to be in tune with each other, and that it was crucial for them to always have an international outlook.
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03.08.07
Posted in Japanese, News at 7:10 pm by yuka
I suppose I should blame myself. We talked about getting it, thought about pre-ordering it, and never got round to it. Actually, that’s like our wedding problem too – we talk about it, but we haven’t even set the date. Sorry, I originally started talking about the Wii. In all the shops (online too), Wii is sold out. They don’t know when new ones are being shipped. For god’s sakes, it’s March! It’s been three months! The only consolation is that everyone everywhere who hasn’t got one is having trouble getting hold of even a rumour of one. (Of course, if you want to pay extortionate amounts of your hard-earned cash for a set of not-so-great-games and Wii, that’s up to you.) So, feel lucky and appreciate your Wii if you have one. Cuddle it to sleep, kiss it goodnight…
I personally don’t see what’s brilliant about Gears of War, but I hate that whole genre anyway, so I’m no judge. Apart from that game, there were a few other awards at the Game Developers’ Conference. Quite obviously, Miyamoto got one – namely, Lifetime Achievement Award. He said of this:
「この仕事を長いことしてきましたが、本当によかったと思っています。なかにはいろいろと恥ずかしいこともしてきましたが（笑）。こういう賞をもらうと、 “引退した”と思われてしまうかもしれませんが、僕は、若い人たちのエキスを吸って生きていく吸血鬼のような存在なので（笑）、これからも皆さんに気に入ってもらえるものを提供していきたいと思っています。僕たちを評価してくれるアメリカのチャレンジ精神に負けないように、これからも新しいものに挑戦し続けていきたいです」.
No doubt you’d need a translation of that:
“I’ve been doing this for a while now, but I really feel glad to have kept on, although there has been some embarrassing episodes. Having been given this kind of award, people might think I’ve retired, but I’m one of those vampiric people who drinks in young people’s essences and live on (laugh). I hope to produce more games that people like, and we’d not want to disappoint America’s challenging spirit by not trying new things.”
Also at the Conference, Sony introduced their new PS3 network service “Home”. The screenshots from the link will take you through: Central Lounge (communication via keyboard/Bluetooth), Character Customization (loads of possible combinations for clothing and facial expressions), Game Space (play a few free games with other players), Hall of Fame (trophies from the games you’ve played are displayed here, and other people can see it too), Private Room (your very own virtual home to be customized according to your tastes; friends can be invited also), Sports Lobby (sport-related games and news), Theatre Lobby (HD trailers of upcoming films and games; can also be used to show friends’ own movies), and Virtual PSP (a ‘remote’ that’ll let you go places).
Fire Emblem for the Wii looks fairly good. It’s the usual turn-based strategy game, and you can use three different controllers depending on your needs/tastes (GC controller, Wii remote, or the classic controller). On their official site, you can take a look at 2 sets of TV ads and 1 introduction movie (the latter telling you that if one of your characters die, there’s no way you can have him back). Out now in Japan, so how long do you think it’ll take for it to get abroad, eh?
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03.05.07
Posted in Japanese, News at 4:27 pm by yuka
Sometimes I think the Famitsu site people really don’t shop around for news, and instead go for all-round advertising depending on the money given to them by various companies. According to them, the last few days has been very quiet – no news worth reporting on, unless it’s to do with mobiles and Xbox360. Bollocks to that.
Well I’m downright jealous of the Japanese right now. Their version of Destroy All Humans! seem much better than the one over here. Maybe it’s the reviewer’s writing skills, or it really is something to be reckoned with. Apparently the localization team (from Sega) was pretty darn good – to the point that those aliens speak in a Kansai accent, and the whole game is peppered with parodies of fortean anime series and films, unique to the Japanese version only. Usually, the PS2 controls drive me up the wall (c’mon, no game needs that many buttons!), but I may have to give this one a try.
Playable between 1-4people is the upcoming Bomberman Land Wii. I suppose it’s the ’same old’ style, but it does come with 51 different types of mini-games and 3 modes of play: Land, Attraction and Battle. Out 8th March for approx. £29 in Japan.
Think Lemmings and you’ve got the gist of マリオvs.ドンキーコング2 ミニミニ大行進！ about right. Basically, with the stylus, you get to assign the mini Marios certain tasks to get to the level exit. DK will be lying in wait, of course, to fight Mario :) Out 12th April for approx. £24 on the DS. You can even edit your own levels and with the Wi-Fi get your friends to solve it. Quite cute, really.
Sega meanwhile has announced a new game for the Phantasy Star Universe series, subtitled Illuminus’ Desire for this year. You’ll need PS2, Xbox360 or Windows to play it, though no other details are available yet. Screenshots look quite good though, so I suppose a lot of Japanese folks will be stuck into that, rather than boggle around with something like Vanguard: Saga of Heroes which seemed half-assed in the game developers’ efforts department(I did review it a few articles back, and my opinions hasn’t changed much since then. The fact that you couldn’t stop spell-casting despite running away from target/jumping was a real downer – playability wasn’t great).
RPGs being the ever-favourite genre of my countrymen, some people have decided it’d be a great idea to get a member of the public to fill in a blank for them. Literally. Put something in the brackets: 偽りの〔 〕. Possible to vote from here apparently – the site seems half-done at this point in time – and you have until 16th April to do so. By the way, the brackets should contain a word/words that basically suggest that the object etc. is fake. Oh, and you need to provide them with reasons for your vote. 
The rough sketch of character actions is kind of nostalgic though – reminiscent of the mid-90s when such styles were in much in fashion.
It’s been decided that FF Tactics 獅子戦争 will be coming out on 10th May for approx. £25 for the PSP. Almost exactly 10years after it’s initial launch. And Square Enix is having a party (they didn’t last year) on 12th and 13th May at the Makuhari Messe (10am-5pm, free). So if you’re in Japan then, you might want to have a look around :)
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03.02.07
Posted in News, Online gaming, UK at 11:19 pm by yuka
Unconfirmed, but definitely rumoured, due to a very shoddily written article. Bone was one hell of a series. I even dreamt of the Red Dragon and the Rat Creatures, and have almost promised myself that once I own a pet, it shall be called Bartleby (I’ll even take a cuddly version of that cuteness!). That’s how influential and brilliant those comic books are. The Telltale games forum do not confirm this piece of news, but yes, it’d be cool :)
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