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• Xenogears Perfect Works Translated

  Classic PSX RPG Xenogears may have had its share of flaws, but its ambition was impressive; the game contained so much mythology that much of the story ended up being untold (or told poorly) due to budget problems. Fans of Tetsuya Takahashi's epic tale followed the writer through a labyrinth of Xenosaga games some years later, but most were disappointed by a follow-up series that didn't stick to the plans laid out in a little book called Xenogears: Perfect Works. This Xenogears bible, released in Japan by DigiCube in 1998, wasn't just an all-encompassing source of information for all things Xenogears; it also indicated plans for the series as a whole, as Xenogears was intended to be the fifth episode of an epic saga. Unfortunately, this book has only been available in Japanese, and is notorious for its insane resale price--so you may want to sell your copy now that a completely scanned translation (AKA "scanslation") is available on the Internet for free. Read More... Posted Apr 15 2009, 01:30 PM by Bob Mackey with | with no comments Filed under: fan project, xenogears, fan projects, bob mackey, square enix

• The Japanese PlayStation Store Gets Final Fantasy VII, Life Declared "Unfair"

  Let's face facts; the American PlayStation Store is...not so good. Just take a look at the number of original Playstation games you can download in Japan, compared to what's available here. Go ahead, I'll wait. Surprised? Then you probably haven't been paying attention. No offense intended, of course, but if you've been following PlayStation Store release news since the PS3's launch, then you're probably familiar with the disappointment all PS3 owners feel when they see so many of their favorite games just out of arm's reach. Of course, it's always possible to go through the rigmarole of creating a Japanese account and "tricking" the PlayStation Store into thinking that you deserve access to its superior Japanese marketplace, but you shouldn't have to. Hell, if Sony got their act together and started pimping the PS3 as the place to get your affordable fix of their respectable and immense library (especially the PS2), I'd consider adding their new console to my rickety fire hazard of an entertainment center. Read More... Posted Apr 13 2009, 02:00 PM by Bob Mackey with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: sony, psn, ps3, bob mackey, square enix, playstation store

• Gradius ReBirth and The Joy of Sisyphean Gaming

  Every few years, I get the itch. I’ll be reading a book or sitting in café, enjoying the air and taking in some company, when my conscious mind will simply shut off. My eyes glaze over, I drool a bit, and whoever I happen to be with at the time starts to worry. They wonder if they’ll regret not bringing a tranq gun by the end of the day. It’d probably be wise for me to start wearing a medical bracelet. It should read: “John Constantine. Irregular shmup addiction. Administer either space/terrestrial, horizontal/vertical shooter immediately. Contact Dr. Vic Viper at Up, Down, Left, Right, B, A, Select, Start.” At the very least, it would ensure that no one gets hurt. While Derrick’s been having a renaissance with the genre and Joe’s all but abandoned it, my predilection for shoot ‘em ups has been constant over the past two decades. As I said, it isn’t regular. It just comes out of nowhere. It starts with having to track one down, preferably horizontal, with a killer soundtrack, and bright color. Then I go for weeks without playing anything except for stray, half hour sessions with them, games like Einhander, Life Force, or R-Type Final. Thing of it is, I’ve never gotten good at any of them. I wouldn’t say that I’m terrible. I can usually get through the first level of a shooter without dying or, in extreme cases, continuing on the first try. But I’ve never beaten one without cheating and I’m usually struggling to keep up just a few levels in. I love the ebb and flow of a great shmup, the movement from speed and escape to the sluggish crawl that almost always precedes some giant conflict against a screen filling boss. When I die, I smile, and start over. Bullet hell or Konami standard, I take immense satisfaction in pushing the rock uphill and letting it tumble back over me. Which, when you get down to it, flies in the face of what we expect to be a satisfying experience, right? When we judge games, the most damning thing you can say about it is that it’s frustrating, the highest praise that it challenges us in a way that makes us want to persevere, to master it. If you aren’t good at it and you don’t get better, what’s the point? Read More... Posted Mar 12 2009, 11:00 AM by John Constantine with | with no comments Filed under: john constantine, nintendo, wii, konami, shmup, gradius, einhander, squaresoft, square enix, shoot ‘em up, gradius rebirth, life force, r-type final, r-type

• Question of the Day: Ogre Battle and How Much Tutorial is Too Much?

  Ogre Battle: The March of the Black Queen hit Wii’s Virtual Console today. This is good for a variety of reasons. Quality Virtual Console releases are a rarity here in the far flung future of 2009. Ogre Battle is rare itself; its two English releases tend to fetch a pretty penny on Ebay. I’ve never played Yasumi Matsuno’s first foray into dense fantasy opera, so I’m looking forward to checking it out on the cheap. My history with the Ogre series is confined to Ogre Battle 64. OB64 was one of the only N64 games I ever owned and I spent many, many hours playing it in the spring of 2001. I had almost no idea what I was doing. OB64 throws you into the deep end as soon you start, burying you under a mountain of circuitous cutscenes and leaving you to figure out its blend of TRPG and RTS play on your own. I was pretty proud of myself for getting thirty hours into OB64 without a guide. That is, until I read a FAQ and found out about the nearly endless number of stats you have to consider if you want to actually see the game’s ending. Nothing in the game tells you about party loyalty or how to measure a unit’s leadership potential. Nothing in the game even indicates that these are things you’re supposed to account for. I love it when a game trusts me to learn how to play. I think that’s why people have responded so well to Retro Game Challenge. Even beyond its Famicom devotionals, the games trust you to learn their rules through play. Nothing is more frustrating than turning on a game and having to sit through an hour of tutorials, forcing you to plod through poorly acted scenes of someone telling you to press X to jump. By the same token, games like Ogre Battle are so complex that you need to have an in-game guide to teach you their rules by example. Read More... Posted Mar 02 2009, 05:00 PM by John Constantine with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: john constantine, wii, snes, Playstation, n64, super nintendo, virtual console, Retro game challenge, question of the day, square enix, tactics ogre, nintedo 64, ogre battle 64, march of the black queen, ogre battle, yasumi matsuno

• Star Ocean: The Last Hope Is Creepy as Hell

  Whenever I see media for Square-Enix's Star Ocean: The Last Hope (out this week if you didn't know), I can't help but feel a deep, troubling sickness in my soul as my skin literally tries to crawl off of my body to a safe place where the game's creepy anime RealDoll versions of human beings do not exist. Of course, I could just be feeling residual effects from having suffered through Star Ocean: Till the End of Time oh so many years ago, but that doesn't mean something is not very wrong about Star Ocean 4's creepy puppet people--especially when you consider the fact that the director harbors a desire to make "adult" games. I don't know if you can picture dead-eyed automatons like the one above bumping uglies, but I imagine the rape scene in Silent Hill 2 is far more arousing. Read More... Posted Feb 26 2009, 12:00 PM by Bob Mackey with | with no comments Filed under: uncanny valley, star ocean, jrpg, bob mackey, square enix, star ocean 4, tri-ace

• The Why, God, Why Report: Dragon Quest IX Delayed in Japan

  I shouldn't have to point this out here, but Japan takes their Dragon Quest seriously. Very seriously. It's been quite a long time since the country has seen an installment of the franchise that's such a national craze; the mega-awesome Dragon Quest VIII came out in late 2004, which means that fans have now been waiting over 4 years to destroy cute little slimes in a whole new incarnation. And, unfortunately, it looks like they'll be waiting just a bit longer with today's announcement (via a NEOGaf tip) that Dragon Quest IX's release date has been pushed all the way back to July 11--quite a ways away from the intended release date of March 28th. It goes without saying that this is bad news for Japan, and bad news for us; I was personally hoping for a Fall 2009 release in the States, but this substantial delay could make that a bit tricky. Read More... Posted Feb 12 2009, 07:30 PM by Bob Mackey with | with no comments Filed under: dragon quest, dragon quest iv, dragon quest ix, delays, square enix, dragon quest iv: chapters of the chosen, dragon quest v

• On the Importance of World Maps

  One of the major reasons JRPGs lost me a little during the last generation was the stripping away of one of the genre's most defining features: the explorable world map, which was taken out of many games in favor of less resource-intensive travel options. Now, I'm still a little conflicted about this; on one hand, I do like the intuitive menu-based exploration of games like Persona, and I've repeatedly learned (especially this fall with Opoona) that making a player traverse large expanses of land is an excellent way to pointlessly stretch out a game for dozens of hours. On the other hand, including a Super Mario World-ish map in an RPG always felt a little cheap and cop-outey to me; when I saw this choice show up in Final Fantasy X, I assumed that Square had signed some sort of contract with The Devil himself (little did I know they had done this a few months prior with Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within). It seems that the whole world map issue is entirely about fooling players into thinking your game world is more than a bunch of "rooms" stuck together, all while making sure not to bore them with interminable traveling. It's a tricky balance. Read More... Posted Feb 09 2009, 12:00 PM by Bob Mackey with | with 4 comment(s) Filed under: rpg, dragon quest, earthbound, jrpg, bob mackey, square enix, design

• Trailer Review: Final Fantasy XIII Looks Disturbingly Interesting

  I'll admit that the creative direction of Final Fantasy XIII always bothered me a little--I was never a fan of Tetsuya Nomura's Japanese pop culture aesthetic--but after seeing the new trailer for Square's upcoming RPG (thanks 1UP), my tune's started to change a little. Only recently I've realized that I've begun to grow a little bored with the typical medieval trappings of JPRGs; I'm currently yawning my way through Tales of Vesperia, hoping something outside of swords and sorcery will eventually grab my interest. It's actually pretty exciting to see something from the JRPG extend far beyond the limitations of J.R.R. Tolkien and Gary Gygax, despite what my snotty 17 year-old self whined about FFVIII. "It's supposed to be Final Fantasy," indeed. Many of Nomura's games (or at least the ones he's had a hand in) have been slowly grasping at imitating the American blockbuster movie, and so far, Final Fantasy XIII seems to be the most extreme--or, according to some people, egregious--example of this mentality in action. Hell, when compared to the ninja acrobatics, machine gun fire, and exploding sky trains of XIII, Final Fantasy X almost seems like an art film. But, flashiness aside, perhaps the most notable feature of this new trailer is the actual gameplay on display; I'm not exactly sure what the hell's going on, but all of those numbers flying around certainly look exciting. Watch the trailer after the cut. Read More... Posted Jan 28 2009, 03:00 PM by Bob Mackey with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: trailer review, tetsuya nomura, final fantasy 13, bob mackey, square enix

• All the SaGa, A Fraction of the Time

  It hasn’t been easy, going this long without playing a single SaGa game. They’ve always been within reach and they’ve always been tantalizing. Every game in the series, with the exception of the Super Nintendo Romancing SaGas, has been released in English, and every one of those games has been gorgeous. But the beautiful graphics, art, and music, are apparently not unlike the vibrant coloring on dart frogs; they’re a warning, not an incentive to come and play. The SaGa series is probably the only franchise I’ve ever completely avoided based on reviews. When games are that widely reviled, it’s probably for a reason. The upcoming DS remake of SaGa 2 has me feeling a little reckless. I’m going to play that game when it comes out, because I’m curious, but before then, I feel I should build immunity to the poison. Now I just need to decide where to start. Lucky for me, Square-Enix just put out this video of clips from every single game in the series. It’s like looking at a menu. Read More... Posted Jan 20 2009, 04:00 PM by John Constantine with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: john constantine, square-enix, super nintendo, square enix, saga 2, final fantasy legend, romancing saga, saga frontier

• Final Fantasy XIII Delayed to 2010--Wait, Where Are You Going?

  Was 2006 really the last time we've seen the release of any major Square franchises? It may be hard to believe, but ever since Kingdom Hearts II and Final Fantasy XII hit store shelves, the company's been spinning their wheels with ports, remakes (admittedly, some worth playing), and abominable new franchises like The Last Remnant and Rediscovered Nondiscovery. At this point, I'm not holding out a lot of hope for seeing Final Fantasy XIII anytime soon--which is why I wasn't at all shocked to read a Guardian report proclaiming that the latest game in Square's most-famous franchise won't hit American shores until April of 2010 at the earliest. Read More... Posted Jan 16 2009, 12:00 PM by Bob Mackey with | with no comments Filed under: tetsuya nomura, final fantasy 13, bob mackey, delays, square enix

• Why, God, Why: More SaGa Games on the Way

  I don't "get" Akitoshi Kawazu. More importantly, I don't get his games. And I certainly don't get how anyone could possibly enjoy the SaGa series. No offense intended if you happen to be a Kawazu fan, of course; but for me, playing the SaGa series has always been the equivalent of heading outside to enjoy a nice summer day and immediately getting taken out by a sniper before making it past the front porch. When you play a SaGa game, it's like entering into some bizarro video game world where all the rules have changed and you might need to saw off one of your feet to escape. Needless to say, I wasn't too thrilled when I saw GoNintendo's report (via Japanese mag Shonen Jump) that the second SaGa game, released for the original Game Boy in America as Final Fantasy Legend II, will see a DS remake this year. I'm slightly consoled by the fact that SaGa 2 isn't quite as devious as some of Kawazu's later games, but this kind of thinking will only lead to me trying it and then hating myself just a few short hours later. I'm not about to embarrass myself and tell you the exact number of times I've come crawling back to the SaGa series thinking things would somehow be different, but here's a hint: too damned many. It's not clear if this game is going to make it over to America, but one thing is certain: Kawazu's contempt for the human race will continue unabated. Read More... Posted Jan 14 2009, 05:00 PM by Bob Mackey with | with 5 comment(s) Filed under: final fantasy, ds, akitoshi kawazu, bob mackey, square enix, saga

• New Year’s Resolutions For a Few Of Our Favorite Publishers

  Now, to close out the first full week of 2009, we will do for videogame publishers what we did for console makers: we will tell them how to live their sordid, godforsaken lives! You’d think developers would make the list, but no. No, I tend to trust them, so they will be left to their own devices, free from the crushing logic of advice from 61 Frames Per Second. Read More... Posted Jan 09 2009, 07:30 PM by John Constantine with | with 3 comment(s) Filed under: john constantine, ea, capcom, konami, ubisoft, Ghostbusters, dark void, sega, atari, activision, retro game master, atlus, koei, tecmo, namco, neversoft, xseed, midway, bioshock 2, square enix, street fighter iii, take two, beyond good & evil 2, the world end with you

• My Top 10 of 2008 in No Particular Order: Dragon Quest IV: Chapters of the Chosen

  It's the end of another year, and that can only mean one thing: it's list season. Inevitably, you're going to see top ten lists by the thousands; and, as an official member of the enthusiast press, I'm afraid I can't violate my directive. But, to make things a little more interesting, I've decided to assemble my 10 favorite games of this year in non-hierarchical form because--let's face facts--it's hard to pick a favorite. And unlike other top 10 lists, this one will be doled out to you in piecemeal over the next several excruciating days! Please enjoy. It seems that surprise has been a common factor in nearly all of my top ten of 2008 entries; with quite a few of the games that ended up as my favorites this year, I either didn't know what to expect, or I wasn't expecting much.  But the DS remake of Dragon Quest IV was a little different--after all, it was a Dragon Quest game, and those buggers are about as familiar as you can get.  Of course, I assumed the same thing of Square's Final Fantasy IV remake earlier in the summer, only to find the impressive technical improvements outweighed by a baffling new skill system and an unwarranted increase in difficulty.  Thankfully, Dragon Quest IV: Chapters of the Chosen took a markedly different path; instead of warping its gentle features into the twisted form of a more modern RPG, the Enix side of Square Enix (and I can only assume the company is run this way) decided to preserve the super-fast, super-addictive game play of the original title by sprucing up the graphics a tiny bit, and generally making the already-simple NES RPG even more user friendly than it was in 1990. Read More... Posted Dec 19 2008, 12:00 PM by Bob Mackey with | with no comments Filed under: dragon quest, bob mackey, dragon quest iv, top 10, top 10 of 2008, square enix

• Every Day is Better With Two Scoops of Final Fantasy XIII

  There’s some speculation out and about on the internets that, even though there’s going to be a Japanese playable demo in March, Final Fantasy XIII will not be released outside of Japan until 2010. That means a full four years will have passed between the game’s debut and when we actually get to play the game. That is just shy of a videogame console’s traditional lifespan. Clearly, Square-Enix hates us all. And since there’s nothing quite like salting a wound, S-E is releasing a magazine in Japan tomorrow entitled Re: Final Fantasy XIII. The mag has a bunch of art and screens that people have been staring at for some two and a half years already as well as a DVD with the trailers for Final Fantasy XIII and Final Fantasy Versus XIII that were shown at last summer’s DKS3137 event behind closed doors. Yes, Square-Enix is making people pay for trailers for their games. That is not nice. But, thankfully, the internet exists, and so, naturally, these trailers have already been ripped from the DVD and are free to watch right here. Read More... Posted Dec 12 2008, 06:00 PM by John Constantine with | with 4 comment(s) Filed under: john constantine, final fantasy, final fantasy 13, final fantasy xiii, square enix, final fantasy versus xiii