61 Frames Per Second : namco

Namco, Your Klonoa Commercial is Dangerously Misleading

John Constantine — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 01:00:00 GMT

Spoiler Warning. Giant, story-ruining, spoiler warning. Knock, knock. Who’s there? Spoiler Warning.

You know what, Namco, I’m getting a little tired of having to have these talks with you. I know you’re tired of it too. If you paid attention, this wouldn’t be happening. You’ve been doing a lot of good lately, and I want you to know I’m proud of you for it. Not only did you decide to remake Klonoa: Door to Phantomile on the game’s tenth anniversary, you brought back much of the Klonoa Works team to make it. Director Hideo Yoshizawa, artist Yoshihiko Arai, and composer Kanako Kakino. Wise, Namco, wise. You even decided against that atrocious redesign of Klonoa you were batting around last year.

This commercial, though, Namco. I don’t know if this is a very smart choice. It’s a little… misleading.

Yeah those kids sure are having fun. That announcer’s letting us know it too. Awesome. Some parent is going to buy Klonoa for their kid because it's about a fluffy bunny-cat man and his smiley face friend after watching this, for sure. Tell me this though?

How’s that happy kid going to feel when they get to the end of the eighth level and Klonoa's screaming, holding the corpse of his murdered grandfather?

How about when he beats it and he's told that Klonoa’s entire life was a lie and then the fluffy bunny-cat is forcefully torn out of reality, clutching onto the hands of the best friend that betrayed him?

Yeah. Way to think it through, Namco.

Editor’s Note: I wrote an article some months back identifying Shuichi Sakurazaki as the creator and director of Klonoa: Door to Phantomile. Seems that the credit should go to Hideo Yoshizawa. That said, as far as I can tell, these two men might be the same person. Anyone out there know what the deal is? The internet is less than forthcoming with the appropriate facts.

(Link: Kotaku)

Related links:

Klonoa: Careful, Namco. You Tread On My Dreams.
Klonoa's Truimphant(?) Return
Underrated: Klonoa Series
Where is Shuichi Sakurazaki, Creator of Ninja Gaiden?

Trailer Review: Katamari Damacy Tribute

John Constantine — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 22:00:00 GMT

Keita Takahashi made the right move in separating himself from Katamari Damacy. More of a good thing isn’t always what the world needs. Game sequels are, in principle, about improving on a solid foundation, molding an imperfect idea into something that is greater than its predecessor. Katamari Damacy was pretty much perfect on the first try and Takahashi knew that trying to bottle that lightning in a follow-up would end in failure. He did end up working on the first sequel, We Love Katamari, but he did it for the fans, not because he thought he could make a better game. Namco went ahead and made two more Takahashi-less Katamari games. They were not what you’d call great. Katamari Damacy Tribute, however, looks very promising.

Colorful cel-shading in place of Damacy’s usual subdued pastels is a nice start. Remixed classic Katamari tunes is even better. Most exciting though is the premise of this entry being a tribute to the original, and not an attempt to reinvent the wheel. When you have a game that’s more or less perfect as is, and you want to keep making money off it, the best thing you can do is just remake it with a nice graphical overhaul and some decent extra content. This is what is known as “The Nintendo Strategy”. Even without Takahashi on board, I have a good feeling about this one.

Related links:

Katamari in the Classroom
The 61FPS Review: Noby Noby Boy
Katamari Christmas - Rediscovering the Cosmos... Twice
Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 and the Second Chance

Namco, Why You Gotta Make Me Hit You: Sonic Co-Creator’s Unnecessary Pac-Man “Comeback”

John Constantine — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 00:30:00 GMT

Namco has hired Hirokazu Yasuhara to create a new Pac-Man to celebrate the little yellow glutton’s 30th anniversary in 2010. Namco chief of operations Makoto Iwai told Gamasutra that they’re making the game as a comeback vehicle for Pac-Man, to try and make him a relevant icon in today’s game market. When it comes to making great character-based games, you can’t do much better than Yasuhara. Yuji Naka’s gotten most of the glory, but Yasuhara was the real brains behind Sonic the Hedgehog’s glory days. He acted as director for the original Sonic trilogy on Genesis, was lead designer for Sonic 3 and Sonic & Knuckles, and headed up Sonic’s unfinished Saturn debut, Sonic Extreme. After leaving Sega, he joined Naughty Dog and acted as a designer for Jak 2 and 3 as well as Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune. That right there is a flawless pedigree, a veritable trail of excellence blazed across a decade and a half.

Why in the hell has this man been hired to make Pac-Man relevant again when Pac-Man’s creator already did just that two years ago? Someone please tell me how it makes sense to hire one of the best platformer designers of all time to make a freaking Pac-Man game? History has shown that a Pac-Man platformer is a terrible, terrible idea. Did Namco somehow forget Pac-Land? How about Pac-Man 2: The New Adventures or the Pac-Man World games? Is this selective memory or just idiocy? To quote one Tycho Brahe, which is it Namco? Assholes or retards? You don’t commemorate a game’s anniversary by making a game that is fundamentally different than the source material. I’m happy to hear Yasuhara’s getting more work, but this is a silly waste of a valuable resource.

Truth is I’m only angry about this is because of what a fantastic game Toru Iwatani’s Pac-Man Championship Edition is. It is the definitive version, and it perfectly modernized the 1980 classic in both presentation and play. You want to celebrate the 30th anniversary? Make an updated version of CE. You want to do something worthwhile with a talent like Yasuhara, Namco, you let him make you a brand new game.

God damn Pac-Land. Just listen to that music. That’s what hell sounds like.

Related links:

WAKA, WAKA: Pac-Man Championship Made Old School-er
Yeah, But Is It Art?: Pac-Man Championship Edition
Burn Your Skin for Pac-Man
Ms. Pac-Man: Feminist Champion

Wii Brings Silent Hill to Climax

John Constantine — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 00:00:00 GMT

No, wait. Rewind. Switch that. Climax is going to bring Silent Hill to the Wii!

The rumor going ‘round the campfire is that those nutty Brits behind Silent Hill: Origins will be remaking the original Silent Hill for both Wii and PSP. 61FPS just spent this past Monday celebrating Silent Hill’s tenth birthday. What better way to celebrate the occasion than by taking a stroll down memory lane, waggling as you go?

As I mentioned in the Silent Hill retrospective, the game’s actual play has aged terribly. It’s also never been available for any system other than the original Playstation. A remake, in this rare instance, is an excellent idea. Climax’s Origins, while not exactly stunning in its originality, at least shows the team’s ability to properly capture Silent Hill’s atmosphere while making it more functional by modern standards.

Between Silent Hill and Klonoa, the Wii is starting to play host to some excellent remakes. I’d prefer that Konami, Namco, and every other publisher out there pour their resources into original content for Nintendo’s box, but I can’t complain too much. These are games that deserve an audience. If there’s anything that the Wii has, it’s an audience.

(Link: VG247)

Related links:

10 Years Ago This Week: Silent Hill
Silent Hill: Homecoming is, Thankfully, Both Silent and Hilly
Screen Test: Silent Hill Homecoming
Klonoa: Careful, Namco. You Tread On My Dreams.
Underrated: Klonoa Series

WAKA, WAKA: Pac-Man Championship Made Old School-er

John Constantine — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 00:30:00 GMT

I was a little sad last month when putting together my closing-yet-incomplete thoughts on the games of 2008. During those twelve glorious months, the majority of the games I played to completion were from 2007. (The way 2009’s going at this point, it looks like this year’s going to be just the same.) So when I was thinking of the games that sparked my brain the most last year, some were sadly excluded from mention. My game of the year for 2007 and probably the game I played the most in 2008? Pac-Man Championship Edition.

No, seriously. That game is pure. Its rules are perfect. Its challenge increases seamlessly along with your skill. Its presentation is a quiet symphony of graphical polish and dynamic sound that encourages as much focus in a player as it does tension. It’s iconic but it’s also a legitimate sequel, improving on one of videogames’ most fundamental forms of play without relying heavily on nostalgia as a hook. It’s better than Pac-Man and it’s better than Ms. Pac-Man.

Crap, I’m tearing up just thinking about it!

Siliconera posted up this NES-styled mock up of Pac-Man Championship Edition and it really emphasizes how vital the widescreen format is in making PMCE a sequel that enhances Pac-Man fundamentals.

Without widescreen, PMCE is broken. The scrolling effect compensating for the smaller screen blocks you from tracking the ghosts at any given time, preventing you from plotting your course as you tear around the map gunning for a high score and bigger ghost-point chains. Shame it isn’t a real game. I’d love to try it side by side with the original.

Related links:

Game Compilations: The Good, the Bad, and the Fugly
Yeah, But Is It Art?: Pac-Man Championship Edition
Burn Your Skin for Pac-Man
Ms. Pac-Man: Feminist Champion

Fami Star Wars: Just Because It’s In English Doesn’t Mean It Makes Sense

John Constantine — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 23:00:00 GMT

You ever have that moment when you think about buying a game that you plain know you aren’t going to play that much, but you need to have it sitting on your shelf? You know, when you’re at the flea market and you drop fifteen bucks on a copy of Mega Man Soccer. Because it’s Mega Man Soccer, dag nab it, and that’s reason enough! This is sort of logic that’s been tempting me to spend forty dollars on this bad boy:

The cartridge alone is an insane piece of pop art. It wants to sit on a mantle above a fire place, radiating weirdness, cultural otherness, and raw, unadulterated sweetness. Not nearly as much weirdness, otherness, and sweetness as the actual game inside the cartridge, that goes without saying. As I mentioned in a post just a few weeks back, the damn game’s first level ends with Darth Vader transforming into a giant, anime-eyed scorpion.

Despite my hang ups about emulation, I may forego purchasing the actual cartridge of Namco’s monstrosity. According to Jeremy Parish’s minty fresh Retronauts blog, Romhacking.net just released an English translation patch for Fami Star Wars. This is just what this game needs: more cognitive dissonance. Text isn’t going to make it any easier to comprehend why Luke Skywalker has to save Obi-Wan Kenobi and Han Solo from side-scrolling levels. It couldn’t hurt though.

Here’s some video to remind you why you should play this game:

Hit up Parish’s feature here and stick around to read the rest of the blog. Not only is Retronauts awesome, but you can catch the musings of 61FPS’ own Nadia Oxford and Bob Mackey there as well.

Related links:

Videogames: Star Wars' Last Hope
Star Wars: A New Halo
Star Wars, Lucasarts, Bioware: You’re Doing It Wrong.
Why Wasn’t The Clone Wars A Video Game?

Atlus Shows You Love, Localizes Damn Near Everything

John Constantine — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 01:00:00 GMT

Actually, half of that headline might be a blatant lie. Depending on your point of view, it’s a distinct possibility that Atlus hates you and everyone with a sweet tooth for melodrama, a lust for turn-based battles, and a fetish for watching numbers get higher. They hate you because no one in the world has the time to play everything they’re releasing over the next six months. It’s not like you can put off getting the games either. Atlus’ print runs are so small that it’s a guarantee you’ll be paying three times the release price on Ebay just six months after a game comes out. You are cruel, Atlus. But so, so giving.

Turns out that not only is Atlus giving the Playstation 2 one last morsel with Devil Summoner 2: Raidou Kuzunoha vs. King Abaddon this spring. They’re also releasing *breath* SMT: Devil Survivor, Dokapon Journey, Crimson Gem Saga, Knights in the Nightmare, and Super Robot Taisen OG Saga: Endless Frontier *phew*. It isn’t set in stone that Atlus will be releasing each and every one of these games in North America. They haven’t been officially announced. They did, however, all show up on Amazon’s schedule and then promptly disappear after word spread around the web. Considering Atlus’ relationship with Amazon – they’ve regularly run exclusive pre-order programs with the online retailer and have offered some games solely through the site – it’s a good bet they’ll all cross the Pacific.

Devil Survivor isn’t too big of a shock considering the Shin Megami Tensei franchise-umbrella’s growing popularity in the west. The same goes for Sting’s Knights in the Nightmare and Dokapon Journey, as they’re just the sort of cult software Atlus specializes in. The others, however, are pretty surprising. The Super Robot Taisen series has never managed to get much of a foothold in the west and OG Saga: Endless Frontier is covered in Namco’s characters. Crimson Gem Saga is even weirder. It’s original name is Astonishia Story 2. The original Astonishia Story actually came out in North America back in 2006 thanks to Ubisoft. Why the name change?

I’m pumped for Super Robot Taisen. Never got around to playing one of those. OG Saga: Endless Frontier has both giant robots and giant breasts so it seems like a good place to start.

(Link: Siliconera, NeoGAF)

Related links:

And Now Back to Our Regularly Scheduled Love: Atlus Reprints Persona 2
WTFriday: Atlus Takes on Third Wave Feminism
Persona 2: Innocent Sin Translation Complete
My Top 10 of 2008 in No Particular Order: Persona 3: FES
Persona 4: Harrowing, True Pre-Order Tales! With Prizes, Prizes, Priz-izes!

Up All Night With Jaleco: Never the Best, But Never Forgotten

John Constantine — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 20:00:00 GMT

Despite the solid gold righteousness of Barack Obama’s inauguration, this day’s still a little sad. As Joe noted, Jaleco Holdings has sold off their game developer/publisher subsidiary Jaleco to Korean MMO house Game Yarou and taken their leave of gaming for good. Ducking out of the videogame business because of "increasing competition (…) in the videogame market" isn’t an especially surprising move for a c-list – close to d-list really – publisher, but it’s still disconcerting to see a member of the old vanguard get shut down. Joe’s timeline of Jaleco is pretty thorough, but I wanted to make special note of a few other games they brought to the world. Let’s be honest: no Jaleco game, whether it was one they just published or one they created, could be considered one of the all time greats. But many of them were a hell of a lot of fun, and others were just plain freaking weird. All four of the following are perfect Up All Night candidates: they may or may not play that well, but they are trashy as all hell. Here’s to you, Jaleco.

Tuff E Nuff – SNES

Like Totally Rad, Tuff E Nuff is notable for its totally sweet name alone, but it earns extra points for being a decent one on one fighter in an age lousy with Street Fighter II wannabes. Tuff E Nuff is unassuming at first, revealing its merits slowly. The quality music, the solid character design, and the game’s story mode – which actually includes some character and skill leveling – are all charmers. It's story is suitably absurd and awesome.

Vampire Hunter D and Speed Racer - Playstation

Jaleco didn’t disappear entirely during the 32/64-bit console cycle. They just spent their time publishing games based on peculiar anime licenses. Most every other Japanese company was making PS1, Saturn, and N64 games based on internationally popular 90s anime like Cowboy Bebop and Gundam Wing. Jaleco, meanwhile, was making games out of properties decades past their prime. Vampire Hunter D, an action game in the Resident-Evil-tank-controls mode, and Speed Racer, a meat-and-potatoes racer based on the vintage cartoon, are both a bit crap. But they were still very playable back in 1999 and were, to the young anime nerd, mana from heaven when they came out in the US. VHD is actually still worth picking up if you have a soft spot for PS1 horror games.

Illbleed – Dreamcast

Carrier wasn’t Jaleco’s last hurrah in the States. That honor goes to Illbleed. Illbleed is loud, garish, ugly, and it controls like crap. It’s also hilarious, a gory, inappropriate mess, like the digital equivalent of a Troma movie. It’s technically a survival horror game, as you’re chief goal is to survive while the game tries to scare you, but it switches things up from the usual combat-plus-limited-resources model of the era. Illbleed is most often about identifying traps in the environment, utilizing different sense gauges (sight, hearing, smell, and “sixth sense”) to avoid them. It’s much better in theory than in execution, but still, A for effort.

Related links:

Mourning the End of Jaleco
Up All Night: Blackthorne
Up All Night: Bad Dudes
Up All Night: Nightmare Creatures

Ode to the Light Gun or The Only Peripheral You’ll Ever Need

John Constantine — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 20:30:00 GMT

Peripherals are bothersome. A controller is fine; it’s compact and, with the ubiquity of reliable, long-lasting wireless technology, they’ve become easy to store and maintain. These days, controllers just aren’t enough for developers. Every game has to have its own little thing. Oh, I need plastic guitars and drums to play this? A little plastic wheel to act like I’m steering? A massive twenty-four button console array meant to simulate the cockpit of a gigantic walking tank?! Well, la-di-da, Mr. Game Developer! I don’t live in some kind of mansion, I’ve already spent all my money on your products. I don’t have room to store a billion and one plastic devices used for only a single game.

Like every gamer born before 1990, though, there’s one peripheral my gaming home needs: the light gun. Nintendo may be the young family’s best friend these days, providing safe, accessible entertainment for all, but back in 1985, their consoles came with fake firearms. Those of us who grew up in the US and Europe got a grey Laser Tag knock off that was clearly — a toy later re-colored neon orange and grey to appear even more like a toy — but look at the original sumbitch Gunpei Yokoi designed for the system:

Now that’s the kind of weapon you can use to hold up a fake bank.

Much as I adore the light gun, it’s fallen on somewhat hard times. The decline of arcades in the Western world has kept many recent light gun equipped cabinets – like the ambitious House of the Dead 4 Experience, Rambo, and Silent Hill: The Arcade – confined to their native Japan. The other problem is that classic light guns can’t function on plasma or LCD televisions, barring owners from classic light gun goodness. There are modern equivalents, though, helping keep the tradition alive. Namco’s Guncon 3, which is only compatible with Time Crisis 4 on PS3 at the moment, gets the job done pretty well. Surprisingly enough, it’s the Wii and its remote that’s doing the most to keep the spirit of light guns alive. Nintendo themselves put out a new Zapper to compliment (amongst other games) ports of three Sega light gun classics, namely House of the Dead 2 & 3 and Ghost Squad. It isn’t much more than a plastic casing for the remote and nunchuck and it’s pretty uncomfortable to use. But it’s fighting the good fight. Sega also gets a high five, not just for keeping the genre of light gun game alive on Wii with decent ports, but for making an original House of the Dead for the system. And making this to go with it:

Sweet.

Editor's Note: I'm aware of Big Buck Hunter's proliferation across the land. But, seriously, screw that game.

Related links:

You’re Doing Great, Sega: Space Harrier Returns
Sega "Gets" the Wii
On Sega and the Proper Use of the Wii in 2009
Trailer Review: House of the Dead – Overkill

Fragile Criticism

John Constantine — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 23:45:00 GMT

It’s easy to lose perspective when you talk and write about videogames with any regularity. You start to lose sight of the way people who don’t eat, sleep, and breathe games see and understand games. You forget how many times you’ve said the word “Zelda” in the span of a month. You also tend to stop noticing the peculiar language you use. I’m not even talking about genre delineation, I mean just the words we use to describe and discuss videogames. Hands-on is an especially peculiar phrase. You don’t use it anywhere else. When I tell a friend what I had for lunch, I don’t tell them that I went hands-on with some sushi. (Well, except for that one time. That was different.) It just starts to lose meaning after awhile. That is, until you remember, that you don’t really know anything about a game until you actually have the controller in your hands and you’re playing it. All the screenshots, trailers, and press releases in the world won’t tell you what just a few minutes of hands-on time will.

Namco’s Fragile is what set me off on this train of thought. I’ve been a fairly vocal supporter of the game since the very first screen shots were shown off. Yes, it’s a Wii exclusive game that appears to be decidedly more traditional, but it’s Fragile’s visuals and trailer music that have really grabbed me. I’m an absolute sucker for both post-apocalyptic loneliness and spooky, desolate exploration. Just the idea of exploring abandoned cities by using the Wii remote as a flashlight has been enough to sell me on the game wholesale. But the truth is that I have absolutely no idea what you do in Fragile outside of guide a character around in third-person and point a flashlight at the corners of rooms. How does it feel to do these things? What else do you do? What’s the point, the goal?

Siliconera, bless their Japanophile souls, found a few clips of fighting in Fragile and they don’t give the best impression. There’s some first-person slingshotting of birds, which I’m in favor of because birds are dicks. There’s also some hitting of ghost jellyfish, which is fine, though I find ghost jellyfish to be pretty amiable in general. In both cases, hit points pop up above the enemies being struck. In both cases, the action looks weightless. There’s no utilization of sound or animation to imply actual impact between the controllable character and his would be aggressors. Frankly, after being so excited about the game, it’s unsettling to see it looking so empty and shallow.

But this all comes back to the main point: don’t judge a game by its cover, until you’ve actually controlled it. Then you can feel free to judge it by its cover. I’ve been trying to keep this in mind as I evaluate games before I actually play them. I love writing about trailers and screenshots, weighing the relative merits of games based on the impression they give through their presentation, both audio and visual. But that should never equate to an actual judgment on the quality of the game.

Related links:

Screen Test: Fragile
Lowering the Standard: Why Nintendo’s Hardcore vs. Casual Commitments Aren’t the Problem
Infamous: Unsung Contender of 2009

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

John Constantine — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 00:30:00 GMT

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.

In 2009, the following folks should resolve to do the following things:

EA – Stick to your guns and keep investing in new IP. 2008 was good stuff, Riccitello. Keep promoting Mirror’s Edge and Dead Space, they will find their audience. And EA Sports? How about SSX4 already.

Capcom – Resolve to support Dark Void with an aggressive marketing campaign and release it during the summer. Do not let this one die during the holiday rush. Also, Street Fighter III HD Remix. You know it would be sweet.

Atari – Do not release Ghosbusters until it is perfect.

Namco – Push Klonoa like you have never pushed a game in your entire lives. Tell people it will make them lose weight, tell them it will make them smarter. And knock it off with the nickel-and-dime DLC already, what is this, 2006?

Square-Enix – S-E, I want you to go out tomorrow, hop on a train, and pay Jupiter Games a visit. You cut them a check, and you tell them to make whatever they can imagine. The people who made The World Ends With You should be allowed to make whatever they like.

Konami – Release a press statement claiming you were forced to make Rock Revolution at gun point.

Midway – Um. Hang in there?

Activision – Give Neversoft the vacation they so desperately need and deserve.

Atlus – More PS1 reprints!

Take-Two – If Bioshock 2 looks stupid, don’t be afraid to cancel it.

Ubisoft – Release Beyond Good & Evil 2 by the end of the year. Please. PLEASE!

XSEED – Keep on keepin’ on, you guys. Can’t believe you actually localized Retro Game Master. Just awesome.

Tecmo-Koei – No Dynasty Warriors: Dead or Alive games. Just don’t. I know you're thinking about it.

SEGA – Disband Sonic Team. It’s over. Enough.

And that about covers it. Happy New Year, everyone.

Related links:

Microsoft’s New Year’s Resolution
Nintendo’s New Year’s Resolution
Sony’s New Year’s Resolution
Virtual Console New Year's Resolutions

Katamari Christmas - Rediscovering the Cosmos... Twice

Derrick Sanskrit — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 23:30:00 GMT

December 23rd, I'm home for the holidays, as are both of my sisters. I am just finishing my self-appointed task of the morning by clearing 100% of the Chroma Dam in de Blob when my elder sister asks what the gameplay is like and if she can learn. I begin to describe and then compare the feeling to that of Katamari Damacy. She is intrigued. I hand her the case to the original Katamari Damacy for Playstation 2. Her eyes light up as she pages through the manual. "Can I play this one?" "Sure." I turn off the Wii and go to make some tea. "Can I play it now?" "Oh, um...yeah, okay!"

A bit of background very quickly. My sister is not an avid gamer, but she is also not a n00b. She is at present the typical "casual" gamer. She plays Brain Age, Wii Fit, Guitar Hero and Scrabulous, but to the best of my memory she has not touched a traditional platformer since the original Super Mario Bros. And now here she was, playing a cult-hit Japanese game that required not one analog stick, but two!

Watching her play for the first time was a perfect case study in Katamari exposure: at first cautious of the unusual controls, then frustrated by the immense destructive properties of tiny household objects, then delighted to begin picking up the same objects that had once thwarted her, gradually gaining more and more control over her ball of junk. She yelped with excitement when first able to roll through a LEGO house, collecting each individual brick. She fumed at the King of All Cosmos and wondered aloud about the game designer's daddy issues. She began bopping and humming along with the notoriously upbeat and charming soundtrack. She failed at challenges repeatedly and exclaimed "One more time!", increasing her ball's size each attempt until completing the star to father's insincere approval. Her continued excitement over the game drew us all in, and soon enough our entire family was watching my sister roll up every scrap of household junk in the Takeda household.

She played the game every opportunity she had over the next five days. Mostly just making bigger and bigger stars, but occassionally the constellation challenges and a long morning of head-to-head multiplayer against our younger sister and me. When she started routinely kicking my butt in multiplayer, it was clear she'd fully wrapped her head around the game controls and mechanics, which unlike pretty much every other game out there are almost entirely unique to this franchise and unseen in games that don't include the word "katamari" in their title. She asked repeatedly if there was a version for DS or Wii so she could play it at home. When I said "not yet," she was relieved, knowing that owning a Katamari game of her own might result in never going to work again.

Inspired by this rediscovery of the modern classic (and some newly acquired iTunes gift cards), I downloaded the new I Love Katamari game (shown at left) onto my iPod Touch. It plays just like the Playstation version, only with tilt and touch controls and smaller environments. And it is fantastic. "Why doesn't everybody know about this game?" my sister asked, Dualshock controller back in hand. "I love it so much!"

So, Namco, I know you've been hearing thing for a while now, but you should really release a Katamari game for the Wii. The tilt controls from the iPod version would translate splendidly to a sideways Wiimote (with the minimal other controls mapped to the buttons), the bright, happy aesthetic will fit in wonderfully on the Wii, and casual gamers like my sister will absolutely buy and play the sweet heck out of it once made aware of what the game is. Strong word of mouth made the series a hit on other platforms, and that should carry over to the Wii as well, but there's a huge audience of Wii Fit and Guitar Hero players out there who've never heard of Katamari Damacy and would love it if given the opportunity.

Related Articles:
Katamari in the Classroom Part 1
Katamari in the Classroom Part 2
What Games Actually Appeal To Casual Gamers
What The Hell Does Casual Mean?

Klonoa: Careful, Namco. You Tread On My Dreams.

John Constantine — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 19:00:00 GMT

I’m not a purist. No, really. When it comes to classics being revisited, modernized, or remade, I don’t need every facet of the past perfectly preserved just the way I remember it in order to get a desperate nostalgic thrill. I delight in Mega Man 9 because it’s a great game whose presentation and technological limitations are carefully made design choices, not because it’s a new NES game. I’ll let you in on a secret: I actually like Mega Man 7 and 8. Yeah, that’s right. I think they’re good games. Not as good as their forebears, but all the same. When the new Bionic Commando was announced last year, even before Rearmed was revealed, I didn’t balk at Radd Spencer’s Adam-Duritz-makeover. I think the new look is cool, especially the way his dreads flow behind him like delicate willow branches as he soars through dystopian cityscapes and… oh! Excuse me. What I’m getting at is that not everything from yesterday is sacred. Some things, especially in games, should be changed. Final Fantasy III DS is a good thing. The NES original is just too slow now. Tomb Raider Anniversary preserves a revolutionary game’s best qualities while also making it, you know, playable. In with the new, out with the old may not be an all-encompassing maxim, but it’s more often than not good advice.

That said, Namco, if you go through with this, I will hurt you.

The Raw Meat Cowboy himself over at GoNintendo received a survey from Namco-Bandai today, the subject of which was their impending Wii remake of Klonoa: Door to Phantomile. RMC has smartly inferred that Namco is testing the waters to see if Klonoa should be localized for North America. One of the questions in the survey asks which of these two character designs is preferable:

Yes, there on the right is Klonoa, already slightly altered to more closely resemble his 21st century self than the Klonoa of 1998. It’s great, he’s looking good. On the left, is some monstrosity, a Japanese Poochie, his raised ears giving off a deliberate whiff of the EXTREME. He has just enough buckles and straps to satisfy a Nomura. The implication is that Namco thinks this bastard would be more suited to North America’s indelicate palette.

Now, there are going to be some vague spoilers here, so beware. Even beyond the fantastic platforming, level design, and soundtrack, what makes Door to Phantomile so special is that it subverts expectation. Klonoa himself, and his introduction in the game, portray complete innocence, a cutesy cartoon anthropomorphic at play in a pleasant fantasy world. But the game quickly becomes melancholic, and by game’s end, the pleasant Disney aesthetic is pulled away, violently, to reveal that the story is, in fact, a tragedy. The game is about a loss of innocence, and the character’s design is essential to that theme. This redesign places the character more firmly in a recognizable, and marketable, anime tradition, where existential angst is an expected component. Remaking Klonoa in this image completely betrays the point of Shuichi Sakurazaki’s story.

Don’t do this, Namco.

(Link: GoNintendo)

Related links:

Where is Shuichi Sakurazaki, Creator of Ninja Gaiden?
Klonoa's Truimphant(?) Return
Christmas in Nintendoland: The Tokyo Conference
The Tale of the Identical Box Art
Lowering the Standard: Why Nintendo’s Hardcore vs. Casual Commitments Aren’t the Problem
Abominations of Technology: Pre-Rendered Graphics

Why Am I Playing This: Star Fox Assault

Bob Mackey — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 02:00:00 GMT

Star Fox is undoubtedly Nintendo's own Sonic the Hedgehog; it's an increasingly irrelevant series saddled with a creepy furry vibe and plagued with "innovation" instead of being designed with a thoughtful reflection of what made the first two games so great. And because my GameFly queue was so overloaded with in-demand games like Sly 3: Band of Thieves, you get to read about Fox McCloud and his friends.

I am a bad person.

Star Fox Assault gets a bad rap for a good reason; it starts you off in a level very similar to that of the original Star Fox or Star Fox 64. It's not quite as well-designed as Nintendo's own handiwork, though it's a reasonable facsimile. But when you get to the second level, the fine people at Namco decide to make Star Fox the on-foot shooter it apparently always wanted to be--and the third level's not much different. Just like with Sonic the Hedgehog, you'd think it would be so damn easy to make a Star Fox game; put me on rails with limited range, give me some optional paths, and BAM! You have what may be called Star Fox. But--as the similarly-wonky DS Star Fox proved to us all--there's a time and place for needless creativity, and Star Fox isn't it.

Because Nintendo can't seem to get their shit together when it comes to Star Fox, I've compiled a list of tips that just may save the series. I hope they appreciate the minutes of work that went into this.

How to Not Ruin Star Fox:

- Make the game yourself, Nintendo. I know one of your talented teams is eager to work on Pet a Dog 2009, but wouldn't they be more productive elsewhere? They'll thank you, as will the rest of society.

- Keep the chatter in the Arwings. I've had my share of awkward cutscenes and I don't believe I need to see any more. Especially between characters with creepy possum teeth.

- Dispose of Crystal. You see that "sexy" image of Crystal lounging in a chair? IT'S OFFICIAL ART. Nintendo, ask yourself if this is the damage you want to inflict upon children. Look at the horrors a single Sonic the Hedgehog cartoon created.

- No one gets out of the Arwings. Not even to pee.

- Bring back the N64 voice cast. Since most of us have already memorized all of Star Fox 64's dialogue, it's only fair that these people give us more.

I'll be waiting eagerly next to my mailbox for the standard unsolicited consulting fee.

Related Links:

The Ten Most Adventurous Sequels in Gaming History, Part 3
Lowering the Standard: Why Nintendo’s Hardcore vs. Casual Commitments Aren’t the Problem
The Erotic Adventure of Little Mac

Where Will You Go, Tecmo? What Will Happen to Our Love?

John Constantine — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 22:00:00 GMT

This has been something of a tumultuous year for Tecmo. In the past twelve months, they’ve shipped just four games, three of which are Ninja Gaiden games. The fourth, Fatal Frame IV for Wii, wasn’t even developed in house (it was handled by Suda 51’s Grasshopper Manufacture.) None of these games were actually published by Tecmo, relying on companies as diverse as Eidos, Ubisoft, Microsoft, and Nintendo for distribution. In June, their public face and star designer, the outspoken, boozing womanizer Tomonobu Itagaki, quit the company days after Ninja Gaiden II released to middling reviews. In August, their president resigned and Square-Enix tried to take over the company. Today, Tecmo announced they’ll be the latest Japanese company to find refuge from shrinking domestic business by consolidating. Their new partner will be Koei.

Tecmo, I’m worried about you. Times are tough for Japanese developers developing traditional games for home consoles. We’ve had wonderful times together and I’m still looking forward to Tecmo Bowl: Kickoff this fall. Remember all the good times we had with Tecmo Bowl? Yeah. Corporate mergers are a good thing for Japanese developers. Look at Namco-Bandai, that’s gone well! That totally cut down on all those terrible licensed anime games Bandai made. Mergers are also good for creativity. Sega totally kept their strong creative streak after ducking out of the hardware business and merging with Sammy. Look at Square and Enix! They keep on making the same new, adventurous software they did fifteen years ago when they don’t have to. Why, they could just keep on cranking out things with the words Final and Fantasy on them and make a buck.

…

Bottom line, I’m concerned about Tecmo retaining their identity after the merger. They are, after all, merging with the house of Dynasty Warriors. Tecmo doesn’t always release great games, but they have a rich history of fun and interesting games. It would be a shame to see them just fade away.

(Link: Edge Online)

Related links:

Trailer Review: Tecmo Bowl – Kickoff
Whatcha Playing: Ninja Gaiden Dragon Sword
The 61FPS Review: Ninja Gaiden 2
Where is Shuichi Sakurazaki, Creator of Ninja Gaiden?

Where is Shuichi Sakurazaki, Creator of Ninja Gaiden?

John Constantine — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 17:00:00 GMT

While they might not be rock stars quite yet, it’s great that videogame developers are becoming more and more recognizable by name. Many, many people know who Hideo Kojima is and what Kojima Prodcutions makes. Sega didn’t just contract Platinum Games to make a few killer titles for them, they signed them on for the name recognition, for the artists’ cred. Back in the day, it wasn’t the people who created games that got recognized. It was only franchise names and publishers that got the love. In 2008, it’s widely known that Tomonobu Itagaki is the head honcho behind Ninja Gaiden. But who is the brain behind Ninja Gaiden on the NES?

After doing a bit of digging, I found that Ninja Gaiden and its first sequel were designed by a fellow named Shuichi Sakurazaki and Tecmo’s Team Strong. The game’s trademark cutscenes, arguably the first of their kind, were penned by Sakurazaki himself. But that’s where the information trail ends, with nary an interview with or a Wikipedia page on the man to be found. I found only two other games credited to Sakurazaki, and surprising ones at that. If IMDB is to be believed, Sakurazaki is the writer behind two of videogames’ strangest scripts, namely Namco’s Klonoa: Door to Phantomile and Klonoa 2. Platformers with adorable anthropomorphic characters, the original Klonoa games hid tragic stories underneath a playful façade.

Who is Shuichi Sakurazaki? Where has he gone and what was his inspiration for such memorable and strange games? If anyone out there knows, I am all ears.

More Where Is?:

Yasunori Mitsuda
Landstalker PSP
Joe Madureira
Wii’s Disaster: Day of Crisis
Yu Suzuki
The City of Metronome
New Indiana Jones
Doug TenNapel
Victor Ireland

Related links:

Whatcha Playing: Ninja Gaiden Dragon Sword
The 61FPS Review: Ninja Gaiden 2

Pay-Per-Grind: Tales of Vesperia Let’s You Level With Cash

John Constantine — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 20:00:00 GMT

We’ve been talking a whole hell of a lot about role-playing games around these parts lately. Of course, we’ve also been musing on the amount of time you need to spend playing certain games, RPGs in particular. Cutting the grind out of RPGs is an entire industry when it comes to MMOs. Don’t have two-hundred thirty-nine hours to pour into World of Warcraft? Well, there are a number of fine, trustworthy organizations based out of China and elsewhere that will get you your level-65 character for a few measly sawbucks. When it comes to the single-player, console RPG, though, you have one of two choices for beefing up your characters: you either cheat (in-game exploit or using a Gameshark-style device) or you put in the many, many hours necessary to max out your party. But, like so much in the age of downloadable content, the times are a changin’. Namco’s Tales of Vesperia got its first downloadable content this week and, for just a few hundred Microsoft Points, you can buy your characters ten levels of experience.

Call me crazy, but doesn’t this defeat the point of the console RPG? At the end of the day this games only give two types of satisfaction to the player, completing a narrative and watching numbers go up. Most RPGs are not difficult but the reason to play them is engaging in a basic routine of rock, paper, scissor, and feeling an admittedly shallow sense of accomplishment as statistics associated with your characters rise. Paying money for increased stats might shorten the game, giving more access to the narrative, but why play an RPG for just that? It’s like you’re getting ripped off by yourself and Namco simultaneously.

(Link: Kotaku)

Related links:

Time Investment
Gaming on a Train: Final Fantasy IV
Final Fantasy IV DS: Love, Hope and Betrayal For the Busy Commuter
Know Your Final Fantasy IV Trivia. It Could Save Your Life.

It’s Madness!: Evo Championship 2K8 Starts Friday, Baby

John Constantine — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 21:00:00 GMT

The headline above may or may not mean anything to you. If it does, chances are you’re going to be spending August 8th through the 10th in Las Vegas screaming at arcade cabinets or constantly updating YouTube to check out the latest match footage. However, if everything I’ve just written reads like Sanskrit to you (not Derrick. The dead language.), the annual Evo Championship is the closest thing competition level gaming has ever had to a Super Bowl. Warriors gather from around the world and engage in combat. They don’t actually fight each other or anything. They fight in a selection of two-dimensional and three-dimensional fighting games including a number of Street Fighter titles, Tekken, and Smash Bros. It is an epic event.

If this sounds silly to you, well, you clearly haven’t seen this.

Can you believe people get this excited over a Street Fighter match? Doesn’t it seem like an awesome time? Looks way more fun than actually watching people beat the crap out of each other, if you ask me. Here’s hoping this year’s tournament has fights as exciting and memorable as that epic 2004 final. Here’s Evo’s official preview video of the event.

For anyone attending, please shoot 61FPS an email and let us know your thoughts on Street Fighter IV, Tatsunoko vs. Capcom, and Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo HD.

Good luck to you, fighters!

Related links:

For Love of the Game: Street Fighter One
We Can Kick Salman Rushdie’s Ass in Street Fighter
Street Fighter II HD Update – Hitbox-o-Rama
Alternate Soundtrack: Super Street Fighter II vs The Go! Team

Screen Test: Fragile

John Constantine — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 18:00:00 GMT

I’m as bad as every other slavering fanboy on the internet when it comes to Wii software, ranting about the garbage publishers have vomited onto the system, games that would have been visual embarrassments on the Dreamcast with gameplay that makes Tamagotchis seem like the most sophisticated machines on earth. Instead of a new 2D adventure, Konami makes a Castlevania fighting game. Instead of a brand new Rygar game, Tecmo ports over a six year-old PS2 title. Instead of a fresh Resident Evil, Capcom makes a glorified light gun game.

The worst part is that some people are making very promising titles for the Wii, yet no one knows about them. Case in point: Namco’s Fragile.

All anyone knows about Fragile at this point (some eighteen months after its announcement) is that it takes place after the end of the world. You play as a young man named Seto and you explore an abandoned earth. It’s developed by tri-Crescendo and Namco says it’s an RPG. It is also absolutely gorgeous.

If more games on Wii looks like Fragile, I probably wouldn’t spend so much time ranting about it.

Many thanks to NeoGAF user Stormbringer for pointing us to these new screens. Check out the rest right here.

Previous Screen Tests:

Fallout 3
Final Fantasy Versus XIII
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed
Alone in the Dark
Silent Hill Homecoming