MGS4 is also making a move into iPhone app territory.
Gametech has made PSP metal covers, as seen here. Perhaps not to be outdone, Nintendo has announced 3 new colour additions to their DSi range (as of 20th March), as seen here. On that press release, it also says DSi will be available first in Oceania (2nd April), Europe (3rd April) and North America (4th April). Available colours will be Black and Blue for the latter, Black and White for former. Actually it’s about time – my poor DS is on its last legs, turning off randomly when closing the lid.
Star Ocean 4 has done well in its first week of sale (166,000+) making it one of the most popular Xbox Japan titles (the highest number sold is still Blue Dragon but that has been out sometime).
Hello Kitty fans rejoice. There’s a PSP game titled ハローキティのハッピーアクセサリー (Hello Kitty’s Happy Accesory), out 28th May. ‘Clear mini-games to colour your PSP Hello Kitty style’, apparently. Scary?
Talking of scary, check this out. It’s one of a range of ’spy gadgets’ – a watch that records videos (comes with 4GB memory). Apparently one of the items that detectives and lawyers sometimes use. Why scary? Think weirdos on trains and under bridges having more gadgets at their disposal for their amusement, on top of what’s already out on the market!
It’s not all bad though. Sanmon (need FlashPlayer 9) has made a mobile game based on that infamous snoring politician (the one that slept at the G7 meeting the other week, who has since resigned). See the screenshots here.
Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day. Most people know what that is, but not the Japanese. They have a skewered version instead.
The Japanese believe the day is solely for girls to give ‘gifts of adoration’ (to use a WoW term) to boys, usually chocolates. It’s a one-way deal, you think. Not so! Exactly a month later on 14th March, we Japs have what we call White Day (don’t ask me why) where boys are required to give back gifts of equal value to girls, whether any mutual feelings exist or not. By no means are boys allowed to give gifts to the ones they like on Valentine’s, god forbid, though going on dates aren’t covered by this rather ridiculous rule. (Even businessmen aren’t immune to this forceful gift-giving operation. My dad works in an office full of girls… and every year, he brings home a load of chocolates around Valentine’s. Every year, my mum packs whatever they can’t manage and sends to me. Then about a month later, my poor dad has to fork out a few blings to give little gifts at his office.)
So, in the grand tradition of Japanese Valentine’s, some of the online games over there are having special events on. This article even has the headline: 女の戦いが始まる – A woman’s battle begins.
Sad news for DQ fans in Japan: DQ IX release date has been pushed back by nearly 3.5months. Originally supposed to be out 28th March, now it’s new date has been confirmed as 11th July. The ‘why’ has been explained in this article. The debugging process is expected to take some time. Mind, Europe release for these titles has been as usual, slow, so we won’t mind waiting a wee bit longer, do we?
Kojima, the celebrated guy behind the MGS series, is giving a talk at the GDC this year. Nintendo’s Iwata is also making an appearance. Hope the translators are good, or everything that gets reported is going to sound garbled.
More trailers available now for Street Fighter IV. Just to keep European gamers drooling probably. We won’t get this game for another while yet.
Apparently PSP sales have gone up to over 50million worldwide. So here goes the PSP-related news:
1) A PSP game titled 勇者30 (Heroes30) is due out 28th May. An RPG taking place over 500years of battles between humans and evil, from 4 different perspectives. The aim, apparently, is to win the battle in 30secs.
2) Another PSP game titled 遠隔操作 (Enkaku Sousa: Remote Control) caught my eye. Already out in Japan, it’s the detective-type story. Except you’re framed and in jail for a murder you didn’t commit, and you have 23days in which to solve the crime and thus get out of jail. So, gathering evidence via the only contact you’re allowed to have with the outside world (your lawyer), you ‘remote control’. Wonder if this will come over here? In Japan, they have a few titles from the Phoenix Wright series out, as opposed to just one here, so maybe not.
A Wii game that actually looks good? I know, I think I may have been fooled by a fox… in this case, famitsu. But look at Oboro Muramasa and tell me it doesn’t look even a little bit interesting (compared to all the dregs that’s been released for the Wii and DS lately, at least in Europe). It’s about a magic sword (妖刀) and you fight ‘youkai’ (妖怪… think monsters and creatures from fairy tales) like oni and dragons to tengu and bouzu. Maybe it’s my interest in things fortean, but hey, this looks good, and will gladly wait for reviews to come out! (game itself out on 9th April)
As can be seen here Club Nintendo (in Japan at least) intends to promote their products with: Wii Golden Wheel, Club Nintendo Calendar 2009 (set of 3), and Super Mario’s hat. They are for the Platinum members (400points+ between 1st. Oct ‘07 and 30th Sept. ‘08), while others under 400points will be eligible for Club Nintendo Calendar only. If this isn’t worldwide, we’re missing out by not living in Japan. Super Mario hat? I’ll wear that!
Kingdom Hearts 358/2Day is due to to come out February next year. Although price, colour and so forth are still unannounced, we do know for sure that they will be doing a collector’s edition of the game and a special edition only version of DSi.
Square Enix has also been busy with a new RPG titled Blood of Bahamut which allows multi-playability for the DS. When and what cost? That remains to be seen for the time being. The promo video starts playing as soon as you land on the page, so people with headphones, be wary… The basic jist of the story is that, people have long lived on ‘giant beasts’ and had learned to call them ‘home’ and worship them as deity. And these beasts woke up one day and started to cause havoc – of course, people fled. People despaired of their gods giving up on them and that’s when your characters come in. Fight those continental-sized beasts! In the ‘Characters’ page, the one ‘beast’ that has so far been introduced is called ‘Gigant’ – your knowledge of the English language will tell you why. I quite liked the story. Considering most fantasy RPGs revolve around ‘fight the big evil looming in not so distant future’ scenarios which kind of gets boring after a while, this doesn’t. ‘Fight the big land you were born and raised on because you have nowhere else to go’ is a bit more imaginative, isn’t it?
On the DS also, 世界のごはん しゃべる！DSお料理ナビ is coming out Dec. 4th for approx. £21. Translated loosely as “Food of the World Talk! DSCooking Navigation”, it talks to you as you try cook the item you’ve selected (like the Talk! DS titles previously, saying ‘ok’ or ‘in detail’ prompts will get you more detailed info on how to cook while your hands are busy elsewhere). Non-Japanese speakers will have a hard time deciphering, but if you’re into cooking anyway and can get the jist of it just by looking at each page (photo and video), you may have some luck (anyone reading who tried this software, and not native to Japan, let me know!).
On the food front:
1) Asahi (famous for beer and tea) has introduced a canned soup (thinking straight from the ‘hot’ row of vending machines) – corn potage with black sesame paste. 140yen.
2) Meiji (of chocolate fame) and Pokka (coffee and other drinks) collaborated to make these special edition of “Karl” – a kind of cheese puff type snack. One’s Corn Potage flavour, the other Clam Chowder. 148yen.
I’m thinking these editions of Karl might come over to the UK – check Japan Centre (London) or any of the nearby Chinese/Japanese supermarkets in and around Soho.
Buses in London are used for promo purposes for upcoming films. Buses in Tokyo are used for promo of games. But who in their right minds (apart from little kids) would want to go on a pink bus? Actually on a recent trip to Kochi (Shikoku), my parents caught the Anpanman Train without meaning to, and got off at the station, suddenly surrounded by little kids…
One of the perks of the summer for the Japanese is ‘horror stories’. The shivering that occurs from such stories are supposed to be a cure of sorts for the unbearable heat outside (80% or so of humidity plus the temperatures of around 35C). Hence one sees a lot of horror related games being released during this time. One so-called game titled 「手紙」 (”Tegami”: Letter) and its origins have resurfaced and are making the rounds again this summer. Scroll right to the bottom of this page and you can see the alleged screenshots (apparently Niko Niko Douga has parts of the game on display). This game is on the Super Famicom platform (coming under the genre of ’sound novels’) and seem to have a string of negativeness attached to it – the guy who made it committed suicide, and anyone who has ever played it disappaears or dies. A bit like The Ring really. I’d imagine it’s the game version of an urban legend, where no matter how much digging you do, you’re not going to be able to find what the origin of it all was.
Personally I don’t do make-ups – they’re bad for the skin, they’re incredibly oily at times and your whole face feels heavy from having some on (the bad side-effect of this is, that at 28, apparently I don’t look 18). But for a lot of the female population on this planet, make-up is something that is essential to everyday life apparently. Shiseido, the famous Japanese brand (that does fantastic moisturisers by the way) and Sega have teamed up on this occasion to produce an instructive software for the DS titled 「資生堂ビューティーソリューション開発センター監修 プロジェクト ビューティー」 (”Shiseido Beauty Solution Development Centre directing Project Beauty”). With the software costing £29 comes a DS ’scanner’ that remembers the contours of your face. The whole point of this is that it can instruct you in the best way to apply make-up to each individual. A pretty good idea, I think, especially for teenagers – teach them while they’re young!
FF soundtrack fans, note that Uematsu has released a new album on the 6th (”FF Remix”) for £12. The songs in this compilation are listed here. Apparently also available on iTunes Store, although for those without a Japanese account may have to go through the rather arduous process to find them.
Metal Gear Solid 4 related news now:
1) Konami has announced 3 passwords (for once you’ve cleared the game) to get hold of certain items, as seen here.
2) Figumate and Konami have teamed up to produce these rather cutesy dolls (all not exceeding 7cm, out 11th Dec from Konami Style) of the characters from the game. Snake is the second one from left, unbelievably. Figumate is a company that excels at making things cute, but poor Snake!
This game titled Panda-san Diary has even me going all watery-eyed at the prospect of my very own panda, albeit on my DS. It’s lame, just like those ones about cats, dogs and rodents that’re on the shelves of your local game shop. But, it’s a panda, dammit! It’s a cute fluffy panda. Look at those screenshots and tell me you don’t like pandas. Ueno Zoo in Tokyo is doing a limited edition campaign to celebrate the launch of the game (coming out 31st July, £24).
ゲゲゲの鬼太郎 妖怪大激戦 is also out for the DS this summer (”Gegege no Kitaro Youkai Daigekisen” £24) bringing its usual fortean charm. Adventure game that’s based on those brilliant manga books by Shigeru Mizuki, imagine Mario games turned infinitely more Japanese-esque (remember Mario turning into a ‘racoon’? ‘tanuki’ is what it was, rather. or turning himself into a ‘jizou’?).
This is as I remember the opening theme, and below, as my dad would’ve remembered it:
As of today, PSP has a sytem software update, version 4.05 – for full info, just go to a Sony site in your own language.
LocoRoco 2 is in the piplelines, as is Patapon 2 (out this winter). Is it my imagination, or are they following the grand Hollywood trend of making sequels? Actually, they’re both great games so they do deserve to… just shame about the possible titles.
Quite literally. I’ve been wallowing in nostalgia this afternoon, and finally found what I was looking for. Good ol’ Youtube. So no games-related stuff, but enjoy:
My other half suggested we go look for songs that could help him learn Japanese a bit more – start him off with kiddie songs from my childhood :)
Wii Bomberman is due out in June, under the genre of Comical Action. Nothing really comical about it really, if you want to be PC. Screenshots can be seen at above link.
For 800 Wii points, as of this spring, we’re allowed to pop bubble wrap to our heart’s content. In Japan, it’ll come out with the title おうちで∞プチプチWii (infinity popping Wii @home). Apparently, you are able to feel the ‘pop’ too. So no more need to go looking for those elusive sheets of bubble wrap! And yes, you can 2-player it, if you’re the competitive type.
Space Invaders: Get Even is coming out sometime this year for the Wii also. Taito seems to want to push for Space Invaders having their 30th anniversary, so you get to play as them… for a change. I managed to find a huge article here, but Taito’s site itself didn’t seem to have any press releases concerning the game. Kind of disappointing that. Oh, and if you go to Taito-related game centres in Japan, you might be able to win one of these below. Glow in the dark pillows – beats me… I’d have thought you wouldn’t want your pillows to glow.
小さな王様と約束の国FFCC has new wallpapers up. Some are limited edition – until its release on 25th. The game itself will be available via the Wii store for 1500points.
Following on from the total weirdness of WarioWare is ミブリー＆テブリー (Miburi: gesture, Teburi: manual gesture). With gestures as clues, you type in words to get along with your adventuring. According to a reviewer, it’s totally addictive. Wonder if that’s a title that’ll come here? Been out in Japan since 21st Feb.
Lastly for the DS, people who are desperate to learn English words, can now have the aid of 初歩からはじめる 大人の英単語練習. Now if only they’d decide to make one for learning Japanese… be a great help to so many Japanophiles!
Press release from Sony shows the new colour version for the PSP – Matte Bronze.
New Wii channel called テレビの友チャンネル Gガイド for Wii has been released. Showing up to a week in advance, you can see TV programmes in your region, and can tell your friends about them in advance. All using the Wii remote. Although it says in the article that the channel itself is available from Wii for free download, I have no idea if it works outside Japan as of yet. It does pretty much what some of our TV services do anyway, but probably a new thing for the Japanese population.
Also on Wii, Biohazard 0 due to be released (originally from GC) this summer. And there’s this new DS game that’s classed as ‘puzzle adventure’, also on release this summer titled リクとヨハン～消えた2枚の絵～ (subtitle: Disappearance of the Two Paintings). Solve puzzles to find out whodunnit, is the gist of this. You will need to be able to understand Japanese for this though until they decide it’s ok to port it over to English (so don’t come crying to me asking for translation of the whole ruddy game!).
Street Fighter Mouse Generation is due out this spring. Free to download, free to play. As can be seen here, you can model your own characters, and play only using the mouse (no keyboards!). Strangely enough, one of the stages seen above is of a typical Japanese kid’s room… you can almost imagine how many otakus played out a fighting scenario in this way with their plastic figurines.
1) Titled ９９のなみだ (99 Tears), this DS software helps you cry. Crying, according to the game makers, is a natural process we should indulge in more often, as it helps us relax…based on scientific research. It has a database of over 200 ’sad’ stories that will enable you to cry, of which 99 will be chosen for you. Out for £17.50 this spring. I’d much prefer laughing for relaxation, personally. I do like the idea that you blow out the lamp on screen to end the session though – it automatically switches the DS off.
2) できたよ! ママ。 わんにゃんクラブ おんなのこ (I’ve done it Mum! Girl version) is an education software for pre-school kids, as can be seen. It does make me wonder though if parents these days don’t really care about the raising of their kids. There is a Boy version too. Out this spring at £17.50.
March 6th will see a new PS3 colour – Satin Silver. The same colour controller will also be sold then for £24.
March 19th will be the release of a bigger battery pack for the PSP-2000, also £24. According to SCE, gaming will last 7-10hours, films/videos will last 7-9hours on this new battery. Only 3 of the colours will be available for the battery cover – Piano Black, Ceramic White, Ice Silver – and further colours may come out depending on ‘user needs’. The new bigger battery and cover will only be sold as a set, and there are no further plans to separately sell them.
Also out now, is Flexible Hand Grip Pad Advance for PSP-2000. At £4.30, fairly cheap. Wonder if anyone will make something similar for the DS (it makes your hands into misshapen claws if played for too long).
Mobile users in Japan are lucky enough to get a free game from @nifty. It looks like those Loco Roco creatures mixed with Tetris, developed by Square Enix. Titled Fumikes（フミケス）. Whilst browsing, also came across Hysteric Wife :) Move your mouse to move ‘you’, throw eggs at wife’s head to hinder her in the obstacle course that includes sheep and rocks. How many business men will be playing this at work, I wonder.
Lastly, a ‘horror adventure’ that’s coming out this summer on Wii: 零～月蝕の仮面～ (Zero – Tsukihami no Kamen). The screenshots seen here are atmospheric, and look great. The game itself is about you fighting spirits of the netherworld. Grasshopper’s Suda was director for this, so interest has been mounting.
So many DS software to do with lifestyle choices available now. Newest among these…
1) かんたん！ たのしい！ お菓子ナビDS (Kantan! Tanoshii! Okashi Nabi DS: Easy! Fun! Sweets Navi DS)
Basically teaches you how to bake the more popular desserts. If you are a fan of baking however, do keep in mind that the flour that the Japanese population uses and the ones you use may differ (and yes, it does matter a great deal – for fluffier Japanese style cakes, you need less than 10% gluten), so make allowances for subtle changes in the directions/amount. Out mid-March for £17.50.
2) ビジネス力検定 (Business Exam)
Tests out your ‘Business Power’, like how to talk to customers in certain situations, how to improve cashflow… that kind of thing. It is entirely in Japanese however, and will likely only apply to Japanese businessmen. Dad, you can always make your subordinates do this. Out 27th March for £13.
3) 開一夫先生（東京大学）監修 すくすく子育てDS 赤ちゃんと遊ぼう！ (ParentingDS Play with your baby!)
Yes, you didn’t misread it. Parenting DS. Teaches the parent how to play with the baby/toddler, not only using the DS (sticky hands beware!) but in pretend games etc. So expect a generation or so of kids who grew up on this stuff to be conformists extraordinaires and bore the hell out of you. Out this spring for £17.50.
The Skype/PS3 thing hasn’t exactly fallen through but is in murky waters so expect the mic (single and twin packs both) to be sold later than originally announced. They haven’t yet announced when exactly though.
This is part of the promo vid for カドゥケウス NEW BLOOD Caduceus – you guessed it. You get to operate, and 2-player mode is also available (both players will need the nunchaku). Already out in Japan for £26.40 or so, hoping it gets over here. On their official site more vids are available from the Downloads section (from top of Movie section: Opening, Promotion, TV ad, Played).
Lastly, a bit of a downer. Soul Calibur IV will be coming out soon (hopefully without all the malarkey from last game) and they’ve announced Yoda and Darth Vader will be characters available for play. Except… well, Xbox360 players get Yoda, while PS3 players get Darth Vader. Why it has to be this gay I don’t quite get. I’m sure loads of people would love to see the two fight together.
