03.05.07
Kansai Aliens and Mario Lemmings
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 :)