Japanese video game English localisation news - 113

Featuring:

• Wild Romance (PC)
• Secrets of Me (PC)
• Princess Maker 2 Refine (PC)
• Pinball Parlor (PC)
• Gal*Gun: Double Peace (PC)

A bunch of Japanese video game music on Spotify

Spotify is now available in Japan, so I decided to explore it, and discovered that the entire Falcom game music library seems to be there under the artist name "Falcom Sound Team jdk". No kidding, there is decades of music in there, including - some albums have different versions for the different platforms each game was released on. Dozens upon dozens of albums. I scrolled for a good ten minutes and there was seemingly no end!

To follow up from my earlier post about the rare ANTHEM track "Xanadu" being available on Amazon, I notice that the same album "Falcom Classics" - containing that song - is out on Spotify. They also have "Falcom Special Box 90" which contains two later ANTHEM tracks - Holy Fighter and Protecters!

Then!

Then I went to "related artists" and discovered:

The entire 5 disc BAYONETTA soundtrack! I already have this on CD, it's amazing.

Yoko Shimomura (they mostly have Street Fighter music there, sadly hardly any Kingdom Hearts and no Mario & Luigi soundtracks)

Masafumi Takada - all Danganronpa soundtracks. =D

Capcom Sound Team - multiple Darkstalkers and Mega Man soundtracks, and also one Resident Evil soundtrack and a 1980s compilation which contains Ghosts & Goblins and so on...

SEGA - mostly modern Sonic soundtracks, but the Jet Set Radio soundtrack is also in there!

Akira Yamaoka - lots and lots of Silent Hill. Something about the title "The Best Of Silent Hill" feels really... no that's wrong you shouldn't do that!

Nobuo Uematsu - well, kind of expected him to be there with a lot of Final Fantasy, but it's actually mostly Distant Worlds versions of FF music, and the Blue Dragon soundtrack (which is also good .... apart from the cheesy battle theme)

Yasunori Mitsuda - a bunch of Chrono here and... "an cinniùint".

...

Also I know the Corona Blossom soundtrack is here on Spotify, yay, Momoi Halko!

...I'm sure there's going to be a ton more, but for now, I'm going to get back to listening to Falcom stuff while working. It's good! So good! :)

Zero Time Dilemma watches - they did actually arrive in the end.

A follow up to my previous Zero Time Dilemma watch post.

They arrived! Both of them in a single "Jiffy bag" envelope. How cheap.

The nice lady at Amazon refunded me the customs charge, so they did indeed end up costing me nothing (but an afternoon of convincing various reps to send me them).

Interestingly enough, there were no signs of any green customs slip on the package, so I would have been even more pissed off if I had actually been made to pay that £99 charge!

See those lovely cracked and broken plastic cases? The bits rumbling their way around inside?

One look and you know - these are definitely "freebies that come with a game" and not "$1200 worth of watches", dear Amazon promotions department!

Japanese video game English localisation news - 112

Featuring:

• Picontier (PC, 3DS, PS4)
• Princess Maker 2 Refine (PC)
• Tiny Metal (Kickstarter)
• Dead End Junction (PC)
• HEBEREKE!: March! Red Army Girls' Brigade (PC) (NOT IN ENGLISH)
• Gal*Gun: Double Peace (PC)
• Shall We Date? Princess Arthur (mobile)
• Dragon Ball Fusions (3DS)
• Root Letter (PS Vita, PS4)

Sluggish Morss

Yesterday afternoon, and this morning, I played through two games in a series of indie games - "Sluggish Morss: A Delicate Time In History" and "Sluggish Morss: ɯnʇıuıɟuı p∀" (which are actually the second and third Sluggish Morss games).

Then afterwards, I found the games on Gamejolt: http://gamejolt.com/@jackspinoza/games (huh, Ad Infinitum is free there... I already paid for it on itch.io.... oh well, it was just £1, I don't mind...), and then I found the first game - Sluggish Morss, and played through that too.

It's a series of very strange games. Games? Experiences. Let's call them experiences, that almost tell a story.

I felt that the first Sluggish Morss game - the one I played last - was pretty worthless, compared to the other two. It just seemed like... the only thing the creators really want to express is that they like things that look weird, and like to smoke a lot of pot. To me, it didn't feel like it has a lot of depth or insight. But... well, everything has to start somewhere. Maybe I wouldn't feel this way if I had played the games in chronological order.

So, onto "A Delicate Time In History", which was the first one I played. At first, it struck me that the game wasn't very good. It seemed enormously unpolished, and at first, there didn't seem much to latch onto - there was so much that was unfamiliar, but after a while I started to get it. It uses a lot of low-resolution digitised photography and synthesised voices, and human voices altered to sound synthetic.

The third game, "Sluggish Morss: ɯnʇıuıɟuı p∀", kept crashing, the first few times I played it - but that turned out ok, because as a little Easter egg, you get a different quote or image every time you start up the game, and I wouldn't have known otherwise. (I just closed lots of applications and it started working ok, no crashes). This one is much more polished and the artwork is much better, using a combination of glitchy pixel art and claymation. It seemed much shorter than "A Delicate Time In History".

Overall, I felt that although "A Delicate Time In History" wasn't as "good" in terms of game / art quality, it had more impact overall, mainly through its dialogue and songs.

It's all very experimental and exploratory. I especially enjoyed the philosophical musings on the subject of just how meaningless a person's life is in terms of space and time, demonstrated by making the people on board the Sluggish Morss travel at FTL speeds, which makes them forward-only time travellers. How even what we normally think of as immortality would be meaningless on the scale of stars exploding and galaxies imploding.

I feel like "A Delicate Time In History" was definitely worth the time invested in playing through it, and "ɯnʇıuıɟuı p∀" was a feast for the eyes. Interesting stuff. If you're ever feeling like your gaming palate has become too samey and are seeking a "different" experience in gaming, take a look at this, bringing along an open mind.

Japanese video game English localisation news - 111

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Japanese video game English localisation news - 110

Tokyo Game Show 2016 is on, so there's a lot of stuff in the pipeline... wonder how much of it will get an international release...

Featuring:

• God Wars: Future Past (PS4, PS Vita)
• Digimon World: Next Order (PS4)
• Berserk and the Band of the Hawk (PS4, PS Vita, PC)
• Resident Evil 7 (PS4, PS VR, Xbox One, PC)
• Summon Night 6 Wonderful Edition (PS Vita, PS4)
• Harmonia (PC)

Japanese video game English localisation news - 109

Featuring:

• Nioh (PS4)
• Gal Gun Double Peace (PC)
• Fate/EXTELLA: The Umbral Star (PS4, PS Vita)
• PSYCHO-PASS: Mandatory Happiness (PS4, PS Vita, PC)
• [Romance game x Stepbrother] Otouto Scramble (PC - Steam Greenlight)
• Kanji no Owari (PC - Steam Greenlight)
• Mad Father (PC)
• Exist Archive: The Other Side of the Sky (PS4, PS Vita)

Japanese video game English localisation news - 108

Tutturu ♪

Steins;Gate (PC) is now available to buy on Steam!
http://store.steampowered.com/app/412830/

Also, Koei Tecmo have announced their line-up for TGS 2016, and confirms all the titles for Western release:

• Berserk (working title) (PS4, PS Vita, PC)
• Nioh (PS4)
• Toukiden 2 
• Atelier Firis: The Alchemist and the Mysterious Journey (PS4)
• Nights of Azure 2 (working title) (PS4)
• Samurai Warriors: Sanada Maru (working title) (PS4)

Source: koeitecmoeurope

Japanese video game English localisation news - 107

Featuring:

• Super Mario Run (mobile)
• River City: Tokyo Rumble (3DS)
• PS4 Pro, PS4 slim
• Gochi-Show! -How To Learn Japanese Cooking Game- (PC)
• Gochi-Show! for Girls -How To Learn Japanese Cooking Game- (PC)
• Adventure World (PC)
• Pale Moon Crisis (PC)
• SMILE GAME BUILDER (PC)
• Moekuri! ~International Edition~ (PC)
• Deserter Simulator (PC)

Amazon / Aksys Games' unholy mess of Zero Time Dilemma watch deliveries

Oh God. Here we go.

July 2015

Preorders open for "Zero Escape 3 - Limited Edition!" (it wasn't named "Zero Time Dilemma" yet). All us excited Zero Escape fans run to our browsers and visit www.amazon.com to order a copy or two. It comes with a copy of the game, and a replica watch, modelled on the one in the game. Each Zero Escape game has used a different watch, and they are very important and symbolic to the series. So this is cool!

Although I am in the UK, and the offer is on Amazon.com, Aksys state that they don't mind who orders from where, so I go ahead and order two copies - a 3DS copy (I have an import USA 3DS), and a PS Vita version. It is my intention that I am buying one copy for me, and another copy for my brother. It was, after all, by brother who first brought Kotaro Uchikoshi's writing talent to my attention, all those years back when I first got him a copy of Ever 17 back when Hirameki were still around selling copies.

I pay for the games, I pay for the shipping, and pre-pay the customs charges, it comes to over $100. It will be worth it! Yes!

Late June 2016.

Zero Time Dilemma is out, but there has been a problem with the watches! They have been damaged in transit, and so all us Zero Escape fans get an email apologising, and they promise to send out the games as soon as possible, the watches after a while longer, and give us $10 per game store credit to appease us. Not like that goes anywhere when you're an international customer, but I appreciate the gesture.

This is such a kerfuffle that it appear in the news on Siliconera, Kotaku, Polygon... I joke that it's a zero timepiece dilemma and get 34 upvotes, which pleases me far more than it ought to.

8th September 2016. 

I receive an email, which I expect all us lovely patient Zero Escape fans who ordered the Ltd Edition game from Amazon have also received. It says that I have received promotional credit thanks to my order, includes a link to a PDF "premium booklet", and there's a link for more details. So I follow it!

...is this a puzzle? XD

It leads to a page on Amazon marked "Zero Time Dilemma: Bonus Watch by Aksys". There's a watch there and it costs $500. So I put two of them in my basket and head to the checkout to see if the credit works. It doesn't. Oh God it fails so bad.

a) It only removes the cost of one watch
b) It charges me for shipping
c) It charges me for pre-paying customs.

I try contacting Aksys Games but that does NOTHING. I guess it is the middle of the night for them, though.

So I head on over to Customer Services and chat to a nice fellow who says he'd love to give me credit for both watches but he can't, because this is something that Promotions and Marketing handle. So he's sent the details over to them and he promises they'll get in touch within 24 hours.

A few hours later I get an email from the Promotions department, telling me that promotions are limited to ONE PER CUSTOMER. It links me to terms which it says are specific to this promotion: http://www.amazon.com/promos/

No. That's the generic promos Terms and Conditions.

I take another look at the Bonus Watch page on Amazon. For some reason the cost is now up to $600 and the page is filling up with 1-star reviews from people in the same boat as me.

And why is this even going through the promotions department to begin with? All it is, is that we're waiting on watches that failed to ship with the original game! It's not an Amazon special promotion item, it's an unfulfilled partial shipment.

So I went to the message from Amazon, and clicked the "Was this representative helpful? NO" option. Filled in the subsequent form with "terrible! Your policies on this matter are bad!" etc. It did not make me feel better. Then when that was completed, it showed me options to contact another representative. So I clicked... via chat.

This time, I seem to be in contact with an American representative. This is my impression because of her name, the way she reacts to things, and the fact she says "crud" and "darn" when things go wrong, instead of just saying nothing and pretending everything is going perfectly fine.

I explain to her what's happened and she asks me to be patient and allow her time to read through my orders and work out what's been going on. So I allow her that.

And eventually, she comes back and sends me a link to the promotions T & Cs and tells me I'm only allowed one.

I tell her that it seems like she's shutting me out. She asks me to get on the phone. I tell her that that's shutting me out too. I want her to listen, pay attention, and get this sorted out now.

So I re-explain that this was never set up as an Amazon promotion to begin with, and if these were the terms, they should have been stated back in 2015 and not right now. That it was part of the Limited Edition package which was supposed to have been included, but couldn't be fulfilled at the time, and I am owed the second half of the goods I am waiting for, which are the sole reason I bought the Limited Edition and not the Standard Edition.

Something clicks! Suddenly she has an epiphany! *_*

It came with a watch, and was not an edition exclusive to an Amazon promotion, it was originally a bundle!

(Did I accidentally manage to put her in mortal danger? Did a morphogenetic field come into effect and suddenly she channelled the solution from another member of Amazon staff nearby?)

And then all she wants to do is set things right for me.

So what ended happening was an unholy kludge of a workaround but god I hope it works, because if not I end up with no watches and $129 towards nothing.

I ordered two $600 watches, had $620 taken off the price as promotional credit (the promo credit for the watch and the other $20 they gave me in apology for it being late), there was still shipping and customs charges on top of that.... oh my god I have never placed such an expensive order for watches in my entire life! Perhaps... not on anything else as an internet purchase, not in one order!

Then the lovely Amazon representative jumped onto the order, and somehow reduced it to $129, which I will be charged on my credit card, and then she'll refund that amount after it ships. I have not had a shipping confirmation yet! But I have this in writing, that I will get a refund! Oh, oh, oh, I hope this all works! I want my watches but this is a serious amount of money on the line!

I did mention to her that the Bonus Watch page is filling up with 1-star reviews that are people in the same situation as me, but I don't know how their orders will be dealt with.

UPDATE: 10th September, item was shipped. 12th September, 3pm: no refund in sight!

Japanese video game English localisation news - 106

Featuring:

• Kingdom's Item Shop (3DS)
• Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Spirit of Justice (3DS)
• Final Fight 1, 2 and 3 (Virtual Console: New 3DS)
• ChronoClock (PC) (kickstarter)
• Steins;Gate (iOS)

MINUS ZERO - PC game review

Normally if I play a game on Steam and want to post a review, I just post it there. But I've tried to post a review for this game a few times this afternoon and it's just not working, so I'll post it here instead. :)

It's a fun little shoot-em-up by Triangle Service, originally part of the "Shooting Love, 200X" compilation, and is currently in Steam's big "Shoot-em-up sale", priced at £1.19 including 25% discount.

Japanese video game English localisation news - 105

Featuring:

• Ne no Kami - The Two Princess Knights of Kyoto (PC)
• 3DS Nintendo Direct

Castle Of Illusion being withdrawn from sale

Heads up: the remake of Castle Of Illusion (Starring Mickey Mouse) is getting removed from sale, from Friday (i.e. tomorrow). If you own it, you'll still be able to download it, though.

Source: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2016-08-31-castle-of-illusion-remake-will-be-removed-from-sale-on-friday

The PC version is 85% off right now at a few places:

https://www.humblebundle.com/store/castle-of-illusion
https://www.bundlestars.com/en/game/castle-of-illusion
https://www.indiegala.com/store/product/castle-of-illusion/227600
https://uk.gamesplanet.com/game/castle-of-illusion-steam-key--1219-1

I think it was also in the retro sale on PSN last week, but the price has gone back up now.