61 Frames Per Second : xseed

Trailer Review: Muramasa – The Demon Blade

John Constantine — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 14:00:00 GMT

What can I say that hasn’t been said about Vanillaware’s two-dimensional skills. Undoubtedly, they can pay the bills. They are gorgeous. They are vivid. They are blinding in the extent of their flowing beauty, a realization of hand drawn gaming’s promise, a vision of the most fantastic landscapes while still evocative of the world’s natural beauty. Adjectives, adjectives, adjectives. Muramasa: The Demon Blade is good looking, god damn it. See what I mean?

This trailer is more than, as they say, a pretty face. Most promising is that Muramasa’s play looks fast, free of the slowdown that crippled much of Odin Sphere. The combat itself looks to be an evolution of that game’s combo-based slicing and dicing as well. Odin Sphere, like Princess Crown before it, was a little too awkward to be perfect, and it's heartening to see Muramasa is improving on the formula. Here’s hoping that Vanillaware has also grown a better sense of pacing. Their previous games have been uneven, to say the least.

Previous Trailer Reviews:

InFamous
Watchmen: The End is Nigh
Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure
Dante’s Inferno is Looking Even More… Something
Machinarium
Mightier
Demon’s Souls
Final Fantasy XIII Looks Disturbingly Interesting
Priston Tale II: The 2nd Enigma
King of the Fighters XII
Edge
Dante's Inferno
Star Wars: The Old Republic
Resident Evil 5

The 61FPS Review: Retro Game Challenge

Joe Keiser — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 15:15:00 GMT

I have a confession: every night, the part of my soul that is all id and desire has taken a spirit journey to Japan, where it developed Retro Game Challenge.

Of course that’s not actually true. But with an excellently executed premise that is laser-focused on the childhood dreams of the 20-something game player, it certainly feels true. It’s probably impossible to even review the game properly, as RGC is specifically designed to take the sort of person that would review a game and completely disarm them. I will try, but I wanted you to know going in that in this case, I don’t have any arms.

RGC has been called an 80s childhood simulator, but that’s not exactly true. It’s really more of an 80s nostalgia generator, the way kids of the time remember their favorite games rather than the warty and bug-ridden reality of the era. RGC contains eight games (though two are retreads, bringing the count of original games down to six) that are 8-bit-esque, and it walks a fine line with them: while together they illustrate the progression of 80s console game design, they are individually scrubbed of all the major annoyances that plagued the games of the day. So the games themselves are an enjoyable homage to the shooting, top-down racing, platforming and RPG genres as they existed then. The Star Soldier tribute Star Prince and 8-bit Symphony of the Night/Ninja Gaiden hybrid Haggle Man 3 are particular standouts.

But it’s the presentation of these games that makes RGC a truly charming work. If this were just a collection, it would have come off as some sort of competent but inexplicable NES tribute band. Instead, the game begins by warping you back to the 80s, where you and your buddy must take on the Famicom-based challenges of a mad gaming god. Games are unlocked as the decade progresses, in line with the trajectory of the industry as it actually happened. But it’s your little buddy Arino that really makes the game work. He always, always watches you play, cheering you on or making fun of you at exactly the right moments. He brings you the latest gaming tips from the schoolyard, which you are encouraged to try at your own peril (though they are sometimes true). He talks about how hungry he is, but never actually leaves to feed himself.

And he brings you the gaming magazine GameFan, a tribute print rag that’s loaded with cheat codes, in-jokes, and real world game journalists writing in the exclamation point-fueled style of the era. The bottom screen is devoted to this simulated meatspace, so you can leave up a game manual or magazine page down there, or a notebook page where you’ve written your favorite tips. More often then not it will just show you and Arino, cross-legged on the floor, worshipping the tiny cathode tube for hours.

That RGC actually knows how kids played games in the 80s and lovingly recreates that scenario right down to the parental screaming is what really makes the game something special. If you didn’t live through it, RGC could come across as a whitewashed history lesson, and might have some value if you’re wondering how any human being alive could have ever enjoyed Ninja Jajamaru-kun (we remember it playing more like Haggle Man). But if you’re the person who spent your childhood writing letters to dead tree gaming magazines and dreaming of the day that big in Japan cartridge would finally come to the US, you owe it to yourself to play Retro Game Challenge. You’ve not played games like this in some time, and you might be surprised to realize how much you miss it.

Rating: A

Related Links:

Retro Game Challenge is Out Today. You Will Buy It.
Trailer Review: Retro Game Master
Pole’s Big Adventure: Sega Rides the Retro Train, Takes Advantage of You

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

Populous: Text Based Tutorials Need to Die In A Fire

John Constantine — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Like every other Peter Molyneux game outside of Fable and its sequel, Populous escaped my attention the first time around. I remember sitting in my buddy Mike McBride’s house in the early ‘90s watching his brother play the game for hours and thinking, “I have absolutely no freaking idea what is going on! Why is nothing jumping or shooting?” XSEED, being the swell cats they are, sent us a copy of the new DS version of Molyneux’s classic, so I’m finally spending some time with the man’s much loved debut.

I have absolutely no freaking idea what is going on.

This is because Populous DS is frontloaded with that most dreaded of barriers between player and actual play: the text-based tutorial. Over the course of thirty minutes, you are given a text passage explaining the game’s basic rules and then asked to perform them individually, pretty much guaranteeing that you will retain none of the information you were just force-fed incrementally. Would it be so hard to have text pop-ups explaining the mechanics while you actually play the game instead of separating them? Is that really too much to ask in this magical day and age of narrative-integrated, in-play, and skippable tutorials?

You make it hard to love you, Populous DS. Dag nab it.

Editor’s Note: Text adventures are allowed to have text tutorials. I guess.

Related links:

Molyneux's Redemption?
Impressions: Fable 2
Screen Test: Fable 2
This Week in Shrieking Annoyances

Trailer Review: Retro Game Master

John Constantine — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 23:00:00 GMT

You know, not to be glib, but this is some meta shit right here. Follow me down the rabbit hole of abstraction, won’t you? Game Center CX is a show about a comedian pretending to be Japanese middle-manager who plays NES games in marathon sessions, with typically hilarious results. The show’s Americanized name is Retro Game Master, though the show currently has no distribution in the United States. XSEED games, a fairly new US game publisher that specializes in Japanese quirk, is publishing Retro Game Challenge, an English localization of GameCenter CX: Arino no Chōsenjō, a videogame made up of pretend NES games based on a show about a pretend man who plays real NES games. It boggles the mind!

Limited as the audience for Retro Game Challenge might be here in the States, I’m delighted that XSEED is bringing it over. I’ve been lusting for its collection of fake NES games since its Japanese release last year, and this trailer is hardly making the wait any easier. After catching a localized episode of the show last summer, I’m wondering how well the brand’s sense of humor is going to be translated in this little package. Does XSEED’s localization of the game preserve a strong tie to the show? Who knows. Check out the goods and let us know what you think in the comments.

(Link: Siliconera)

Previous Trailer Reviews:

Golden Axe: Beast Rider
House of the Dead: Overkill
Riz-Zoawd
Idolm@ster PSP
The Last Guy
Tecmo Bowl: Kickoff
Captain Rainbow
The Past and Future With Mega Man 9 and Chrono Trigger DS
Densetsu no Stafi 5
Sonic Unleashed
Infinite Undiscovery
Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood
Street Fighter 4
The Conduit
Mirror’s Edge