Nintendo DS software allows for classroom test taking. Only in Japan, of course.
Showing posts with label japan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label japan. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Friday, May 8, 2009
Post of the Day: 5.8.2009
Your flesh-and-blood girl not doing exactly what you want? Try your hand at a virtual girlfriend in Konami's Love Plus. Its too bad we'll never see this Japanese gem on this side of the Pacific. ;)
*hides*
Friday, May 1, 2009
JRPG Character Clichés - Really That Bad?
One of the biggest complaints about any JRPG made in the last decade (or more?) is that much of the time the characters are cliché. The male protagonist is a fatherless boy who falls in love with royalty, or he's a member of royalty himself and denounces his heritage or goes off on an adventure against the will of his family. The female protagonist is usually an important person - a member of royalty, a summoner, a well-regarded person in her community. No matter what it is, she always has some important aspect of her being that makes her hard to get for the male protagonist.
You also have other characters with highly cliché back stories. A thief, a funny boy/girl, that moe-themed ditzy female character, a well endowed female with a severe lack of clothing who is typically mysterious when you first meet her, the tortured soul who barely speaks and thinks that everyone is out to get him. The list goes on. Its possible that characters do not initially make up these archetypes, but certain personality traits and story elements relating to the characters usually fit into these broad categories.
All that aside, I'd like to focus on the typical "commoner complex" that more than a few main protagonists exhibit. This is a character back story cliché where they live in a simple village, usually with a single parent (the mother seems prominent here) or no parent at all, live a very simple life, have some wild dream of doing something important some day and, in most cases, have some sort of friend in the village that shares that dream or the early adventuring exploits of the protagonist.
Why is this such a common theme in JRPGs? The answer to that is simple - we, as gamers, can relate to that setting or one similar to it. Think about it. Many fantasy RPGs are based in a pseudo-medieval world and, in these especially, you see the above main protagonist cliché. The majority of people living in cities and villages in this time period on Earth were common folk. They weren't royalty, they weren't important in some way, they were common, everyday people, simple people, poor, not a lot going for them. If you were in that position, wouldn't you have big dreams that, in your mind, wouldn't be very attainable?
Carry that down to our time period here in the real world. The majority of people are middle- or lower-class citizens, we work blue-collar or lower white-collar "normal" jobs. We aren't CEOs, we aren't royalty, we aren't famous. We sometimes have dreams that are bigger than ourselves and are in many cases unattainable.
The bottom line is - these clichés are there because we relate to those types of situations on either a conscious or subconscious level. Are they over-done? Yes. Do gamers get tired of them after a while? Sure. Do they still have a place in the modern-day JRPG? Absolutely, perhaps even more so with the present state of the world's economy. No matter how much time goes by, the majority of people playing these games will still be able to relate to that simple "commoner complex" cliché more than just about any other back story created for the protagonists we follow for hours on end. And, because of that, these clichés will never cease to be found in our JRPGs. Sure, the circumstances surrounding the characters may be different, but at the heart we see these things because the developers know that we can relate to those types of characters. Are they wrong?
[Disclaimer: Nowhere did I say that all JRPG characters exhibit the above clichés, nor did I say that people can't relate to other types of characters. Just thought I'd clear the air.]
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Post of the Day: 4.23.2009
As you may or may not know, there was a lot of talk last week of the Final Fantasy XIII demo that was included in the Japanese version of Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children Complete. But, what you may not know is the demo is a very early version of that segment of the game, so there will be some major changes between the demo and the final release version. Here's a list.
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Post of the Day: 4.8.2009
Tales of Vesperia rage - only in Japan (or not?). Its a good thing I didn't buy this game (although I probably would buy it if I could, say, find it new for $20 somewhere). Now to decide if I should play the 360 version or wait for the enhanced PS3 version. Decisions, decisions...
Tri-Ace Has a New RPG in the Works
Ahhh, Tri-Ace, how I love thee. Along with Atlus and Level 5 you're one of my favorite Japanese RPG developers. I love the Star Ocean and Valkyrie Profile franchises and have much praise for the misunderstood Infinite Undiscovery. What do you have in store for us next? End of Eternity. It’s a generic name, for sure, but that never stopped you before.
The Japanese title was just announced, but its pretty likely it will appear in North America next year, and I'll be waiting for it. The art style could possibly elevate it above the helium-filled voices and cheesy dialog of most of your RPGs (but I still love 'em!). It appears this game might break out of that mold and, possibly, maybe, perhaps rise above and beyond what has come before. Oh, and its multi-platform - yay PS3! I'm looking forward to it!
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Post of the Day: 4.1.2009
Today the Interwebs was flooded with April Fool's jokes, and the gaming community sure wasn't spared. Check out the cruelest April Fool's joke in Japan.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Post of the Day: 2.26.2009
This right here would be why Microsoft spends millions of spacebucks dollars to steal JRPG exclusivity from Sony. By golly, they just might be on to something.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Post of the Day: 2.11.2009
I haven't played it yet, but its kinda cool that Tales of Vesperia is getting its own anime flick.
Saturday, February 7, 2009
New Star Ocean Changes Graphics for North American Release
Not that there's anything wrong with this, per se, I'm just curious why these changes were made. Check out the various screen shots from the game over in this post at Siliconera. Its fairly easy to spot the differences, even without reading the post itself.
1) The character portraits during battle are different. In the Japanese version, they're anime-inspired, in the North American version they're CG models. I can perhaps understand why the went this route, trying to appeal to the U.S. Xbox Live kiddies who may not really be into Japanese games, RPGs, anime or manga at all. Perhaps its even to give the game a more uniform appearance for release based on this region's culture. Do I like this change? Its not bad. The CG models are insanely well done, so I don't see a problem with it. Although, it may feel less like a Tri-Ace game without the anime portraits. Still, its no big deal.
2) The menu screens are different. Again, there's a colorful character silhouette backdrop to the menu screen on the Japanese copy, but on the North American version its a full-body CG graphic of the character and not a whole lot of color. The Japanese version gives me a very Persona-esque vibe, with the bold, contrasting colors. Again, the North American menu screen does give that portion of the game a more uniform appearance with the rest, copying the "CG model" look of it all. As Siliconera mentions, it also makes it look more distinctively sci-fi instead of anime-inspired. Do I like this change? I'm not sure, I really like the bold colors of the Japanese version, it gives that portion of the game a bit of character, but this is probably because I still have Persona 4 on the brain.
3) Character portraits next to their respective dialog segments were removed in the North American version. Why didn't they just change the anime portraits to CG renderings like on the battle screen? Curious...
This definitely isn't the first game to see changes between two different regions, but these are far from subtle - they're segments of the game that will spend a lot of time on your screen. I'm still curious as to the reasons they were made. Both versions aren't bad, they're just different, perhaps focusing on different audiences.
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Posts of the Day: 2.5.2009
Interesting posts are starting to pile up again, so here's a couple about Star Ocean: The Last Hope. The second one, a video preview on GameSpot, is so incredibly drool-worthy you might need to carry around a bucket.
Star Ocean 4 Kiosks (in Japan), New Faceplate (which we'll probably never see here)
GameSpot Video Preview of English Star Ocean: The Last Hope
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Post of the Day: 2.4.2009
Striking resemblance? Japanese pop singer a FFXIII character look-alike? You decide!
Friday, January 16, 2009
No FFXIII In North America Until 2010?
An article discovered on Reuters seems to have an interview with Square-Enix big-wig Yoichi Wada. In this interview he states that Final Fantasy XIII will likely see a 2009 release in Japan, but won't be released until after April 2010 in North America (for both the PS3 and 360 versions).
In this day in age, is it really still as difficult to do localization work as it was nearly 10 years ago? Why do we still have release dates that are far apart depending on where you live? This is so 1999. Simultaneous releases should be an industry standard instead of a rarity. Its hard to conceal my frustration even though I know the longer it takes, the better the game is likely to become. Still, with so many delays and very little information, its hard to be optimistic that even those vague dates given above won't be pushed back. We will likely not even see a demo for the game outside Japan this year.
If the insane delay on the North American FFXIII is because of releasing it on two platforms instead of just Sony's PS3, I will be very disappointed in Squeenix.
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
X-Blades Collector's Edition is Really Cool
I don't usually buy the collector's edition of many games. It seems that all the western-developed games that have really cool CEs are games I'm not interested in or not sure about and all the cool Japanese RPG CEs never get released stateside. I did purchase the Wrath of the Lich King CE (and Burning Crusade before that), mostly for the in-game vanity pet, but the other items that came with it were pretty nifty, as well (I'm always a sucker for behind-the-scenes DVDs). The last CE of a game I bought (besides WoW) was more of a "limited edition case" type release, and that was back when Final Fantasy XII came out. I still think its one of the coolest game cases ever, with its metallic finish and cool-to-the-touch feel. The case could probably survive a nuclear apocalypse.
So, there's this new action game on the horizon that features a rather scantily clad heroine - X-Blades. I haven't talked about this game at all here because, again, I'm not a fan of most action games. But still, seeing the collector's edition of this game makes me really hope more Japanese developers release their CEs stateside because I will buy them. Give me a really cool Star Ocean 4 and/or Final Fantasy XIII CE and I will pre-order that in a heartbeat.
Friday, October 10, 2008
New White Knight Chronicles Info
One of the RPGs I'm most anticipating (mostly because its a PS3 exclusive and developed by Level 5) it White Knight Chronicles. At the Tokyo Game Show this week, much more information was revealed about the title, which is due out in Japan on December 25.
Possibly the most interesting aspect of the game, in my opinion, is the character customization. Iits not done in the same usual way of the player customizing their own character. Instead, you're customizing a character who will appear throughout the game to help the main character. That is, in the single-player game (the main story). There will also be an online multiplayer aspect (no local multiplayer?), which allows you to hop online with three of your pals and traverse the world playing as your created character, but the quests you embark upon during this aspect of the game are completely separate (although my be distantly related) to the main single player story.
Sounds interesting, and the game looks amazing. I'm definitely looking forward to this game when it hits store shelves in North America, which is likely to happen sometime next year.
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