11.18.08
Blood of Bahamut
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…