- PAC-MAN Championship Edition 2 (PS4, Xbox One, PC)
- Corona Blossom (PC) - Demo now out
- Conception II: Children of the Seven Stars (PC)
- Hatsune Miku: Project Diva X (PS4)
- Hatsune Miku: VR Future Live (PS4/PSVR)
- Arcade Archives: Shusse Ozumo (PS4)
- GOD EATER 2 Rage Burst (PC, PS Vita, PS4)
- Sword Art Online: Hollow Realization - (PS4, PS Vita)
- Sharin no Kuni: Kickstarter cancelled
Showing posts with label Bandai-Namco. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bandai-Namco. Show all posts
Friday, 22 July 2016
Japanese video game English localisation news - 96
Wow, there's been a lot this week.
Friday, 16 May 2014
Sword Art Online games coming to Europe
Bandai Namco are releasing the Sword Art Online games in English:
It's going to be a digital-download bundle containing an HD version of the PSP game "Infinity Moment" and the new Vita game "Hollow Fragment".
I really like the Sword Art Online anime. I've had SAO calendars on my wall this year and last year, and I happened to just start reading the first SAO novel (released by Yen Press), also looking forward to the 2nd series this summer. ^_^
Tuesday, 16 July 2013
One Piece Romance Dawn (3DS RPG) is coming to Europe!
I just spotted this earlier today, on the European Bandai-Namco website:
ONE PIECE: ROMANCE DAWNIt's a One Piece RPG, I haven't seen nearly far enough in the story - all I can say is it's set pre-New World. It comes out in November 2013, and I can't find any pre-orders open yet...
Thursday, 16 June 2011
New Dancing Eyes game announced for PS3 Move
official Dancing Eyes website
Yesssss. :D
Coincidentally, I was playing the 1996 version on the arcade machine at work last week to the vast amusement of a crowd of braying colleagues, staring on in disbelief and rapture, and suggesting "choose the schoolgirl! Yes, he's nice".
I was just browsing the list of games and someone was "what is that??" so I started it up at his request.
It's that lovely mixture of bizarre and somewhat NSFW-ness that added to everyone's entertainment.
Did anyone suspect that this is one of my all-time favourite arcade games? That it wasn't just luck and I have played it through to the end before? ...well, I forgot myself and picked it up straight off without instructions, so, er, something something something. ^_^
I was thinking at the time "I wish they'd made another game like this. Maybe someone like Tecmo would pick it up"
And here we are.
I dunno what's with this website, though; it seems to repeat the some things over and over, and I don't see any release date or price.
And I still kind of have a wish for Tecmo ladies.
This, and the Time Crisis / Razing Storm / Deadstorm Pirates pack (also from Namco) are the only things that are making me think "maybe there is something on PS3 / Move I'd like to play after all".
Yesssss. :D
Coincidentally, I was playing the 1996 version on the arcade machine at work last week to the vast amusement of a crowd of braying colleagues, staring on in disbelief and rapture, and suggesting "choose the schoolgirl! Yes, he's nice".
I was just browsing the list of games and someone was "what is that??" so I started it up at his request.
It's that lovely mixture of bizarre and somewhat NSFW-ness that added to everyone's entertainment.
Did anyone suspect that this is one of my all-time favourite arcade games? That it wasn't just luck and I have played it through to the end before? ...well, I forgot myself and picked it up straight off without instructions, so, er, something something something. ^_^
I was thinking at the time "I wish they'd made another game like this. Maybe someone like Tecmo would pick it up"
And here we are.
I dunno what's with this website, though; it seems to repeat the some things over and over, and I don't see any release date or price.
And I still kind of have a wish for Tecmo ladies.
This, and the Time Crisis / Razing Storm / Deadstorm Pirates pack (also from Namco) are the only things that are making me think "maybe there is something on PS3 / Move I'd like to play after all".
Wednesday, 24 March 2010
Katamari Forever (PS3) videogame review
I really could play Katamari Forever.
Since I played the first one, Katamari Damacy has been one of my favourite games.
The first Katamari Damacy game is truly a masterpiece, in my eyes. Roll, roll, roll your clump of stuff round and pick up more and more things. Such a tactile game. Such a happy feeling. Such detail! Each level is crafted so that you start off small and scales up wonderfully, barely noticeably... you play it first of all to discover your landscape, then to figure out the best paths around the course so that you can end up with the biggest katamari possible. There were different goals on different levels.
The music was so good too. It would loop round to infinity - without a pause to restart tracks, and I couldn't get bored of it. It sang happy songs to you. Nonsensical songs about rolling things up and love and joy.
That first game had some magic which I think the later games could not capture. They possessed an almost maniacal attention to detail in creating memorable objects and worlds to roll around, arranging objects amusingly, and yet having level design that meant there was a distinct element of getting to grasp with the environment, learning your surroundings, figuring out what the best path through to success is.
In later games... the second game (We Love Katamari) was very good but didn't have the feeling of scaling up and felt a little too self-congratulory in places. Not only that, the first game feels eccentric but the second felt like it was trying to be weird and that just wasn't cool. The third game (Me & My Katamari) suffered from poor controls, levels that were just junk scattered willy-nilly leaving the game far too easy and levels far too short (I'd roll around with nothing left to roll up for the last few minutes) - plus, it was becoming for too into itself for comfort. The fourth game (Beautiful Katamari) is better than the PSP game, but is far, far, far too short and asks the player for too much downloadable content - plus its Xbox Live achievements system contains achievements for playing for 100 hours or something, which isn't an achievement, it's a waste of electricity. I wrote a little review of Beautiful Katamari in the past.
This new game is called "Katamari Tribute" in Japan. Perhaps that is a more descriptive title than Katamari Forever as this game is like a "Greatest Hits" of the older games. Various hand-picked levels from all of the previous games (including some that were paid-extra DLC) are in this game. There are also a few new levels, but not enough to really class the game as something new. It's on the PS3 so it's all in HD (in fact, it wil not let you play it on a standard definition screen, which was really annoying because it meant I had to buy a new monitor). You play the levels as before but with the ability to jump and with the inclusion of "broken hearts" which help you pick up lots more stuff. There is also a graphical filter on by default, which makes everything look like a chalk cartoon, which actually works really nicely. Later on you can unlock "drive mode" (the katamari moves faster and levels have shorter time limits), "classic mode" where appropriate (looks more like the older games and plays like them too).
It really is a game that I think serves as a good tribute. There's not much new content but I think they have chosen mainly good levels from the previous games and that to me is better than a slew of poor levels. The new gameplay modes do breathe new life into old levels as it sometimes encourages you to think up new strategies. The new graphical filters are mainly quite good looking. The music is mainly made up of remixes of old songs, and while it would have been nice for them to include the original versions of songs, these remixes are for the most part quite pleasant. Certainly there has been worse music in the 2nd to 4th Katamari games.
I do have some gripes with the game though.
The first is that the scoring system on the game seems quite harsh at first so even a seasoned katamari player like me got some not-excellent scores through my first playthrough. This is ok, it means you have to try harder and get better! What is not ok, however, is that the "King Of All Cosmos" and his robotic counterpart in this game use language in a way that seems far too abusive for what is otherwise a nice happy relaxing game. Even if you do reasonably well, they will insult and bully you. I just feel like... this game would be perfect for little children to play apart from that element. I would rather buy the Japanese version of the game and give it to them in a language they couldn't read than have them be abused in such a fashion.
In the past games... I used to really like the King Of All Cosmos, when I played the first and second games in Japanese. He spoke nonsense. Even though what he says is all in a language I am not fluent in, I could tell that a lot of his dialogue was often nonsense. And it sounded like someone messing round on a turntable, wiki wiki wah wah. When localised to English, his dialogue became proud and haughty as well as being random gibberish, and he would talk down to his son. I took a slight dislike to him, really. As time has gone on though, things have become steadily worse and in this game, he's just a jerk.
Maybe some people find that funny. I find it disharmonious to the rest of the game.
Plus, as the scoring system is stricter, you are more likely to have to suffer their abuse as you start, which is just plain unwelcoming.
My second gripe is that it's not entirely made clear how to unlock other modes, so the game ends up feeling a bit more repetitive than it ought to (even though I'm replaying levels I have replayed many times before).
I think I did originally have more gripes, but I can't remember them right now. Hehe!
Overall, I really like this game as a tribute to Katamari. I'm satisfied with it. I did wait and buy it for roughly 1/3rd of the original asking price though!
I'll leave this post with links I found to (yay!) translated stuff about the first game, just for the sake of golden memories.
Interview
How to build a King Of All Cosmos Kite
Since I played the first one, Katamari Damacy has been one of my favourite games.
The first Katamari Damacy game is truly a masterpiece, in my eyes. Roll, roll, roll your clump of stuff round and pick up more and more things. Such a tactile game. Such a happy feeling. Such detail! Each level is crafted so that you start off small and scales up wonderfully, barely noticeably... you play it first of all to discover your landscape, then to figure out the best paths around the course so that you can end up with the biggest katamari possible. There were different goals on different levels.
The music was so good too. It would loop round to infinity - without a pause to restart tracks, and I couldn't get bored of it. It sang happy songs to you. Nonsensical songs about rolling things up and love and joy.
That first game had some magic which I think the later games could not capture. They possessed an almost maniacal attention to detail in creating memorable objects and worlds to roll around, arranging objects amusingly, and yet having level design that meant there was a distinct element of getting to grasp with the environment, learning your surroundings, figuring out what the best path through to success is.
In later games... the second game (We Love Katamari) was very good but didn't have the feeling of scaling up and felt a little too self-congratulory in places. Not only that, the first game feels eccentric but the second felt like it was trying to be weird and that just wasn't cool. The third game (Me & My Katamari) suffered from poor controls, levels that were just junk scattered willy-nilly leaving the game far too easy and levels far too short (I'd roll around with nothing left to roll up for the last few minutes) - plus, it was becoming for too into itself for comfort. The fourth game (Beautiful Katamari) is better than the PSP game, but is far, far, far too short and asks the player for too much downloadable content - plus its Xbox Live achievements system contains achievements for playing for 100 hours or something, which isn't an achievement, it's a waste of electricity. I wrote a little review of Beautiful Katamari in the past.
This new game is called "Katamari Tribute" in Japan. Perhaps that is a more descriptive title than Katamari Forever as this game is like a "Greatest Hits" of the older games. Various hand-picked levels from all of the previous games (including some that were paid-extra DLC) are in this game. There are also a few new levels, but not enough to really class the game as something new. It's on the PS3 so it's all in HD (in fact, it wil not let you play it on a standard definition screen, which was really annoying because it meant I had to buy a new monitor). You play the levels as before but with the ability to jump and with the inclusion of "broken hearts" which help you pick up lots more stuff. There is also a graphical filter on by default, which makes everything look like a chalk cartoon, which actually works really nicely. Later on you can unlock "drive mode" (the katamari moves faster and levels have shorter time limits), "classic mode" where appropriate (looks more like the older games and plays like them too).
It really is a game that I think serves as a good tribute. There's not much new content but I think they have chosen mainly good levels from the previous games and that to me is better than a slew of poor levels. The new gameplay modes do breathe new life into old levels as it sometimes encourages you to think up new strategies. The new graphical filters are mainly quite good looking. The music is mainly made up of remixes of old songs, and while it would have been nice for them to include the original versions of songs, these remixes are for the most part quite pleasant. Certainly there has been worse music in the 2nd to 4th Katamari games.
I do have some gripes with the game though.
The first is that the scoring system on the game seems quite harsh at first so even a seasoned katamari player like me got some not-excellent scores through my first playthrough. This is ok, it means you have to try harder and get better! What is not ok, however, is that the "King Of All Cosmos" and his robotic counterpart in this game use language in a way that seems far too abusive for what is otherwise a nice happy relaxing game. Even if you do reasonably well, they will insult and bully you. I just feel like... this game would be perfect for little children to play apart from that element. I would rather buy the Japanese version of the game and give it to them in a language they couldn't read than have them be abused in such a fashion.
In the past games... I used to really like the King Of All Cosmos, when I played the first and second games in Japanese. He spoke nonsense. Even though what he says is all in a language I am not fluent in, I could tell that a lot of his dialogue was often nonsense. And it sounded like someone messing round on a turntable, wiki wiki wah wah. When localised to English, his dialogue became proud and haughty as well as being random gibberish, and he would talk down to his son. I took a slight dislike to him, really. As time has gone on though, things have become steadily worse and in this game, he's just a jerk.
Maybe some people find that funny. I find it disharmonious to the rest of the game.
Plus, as the scoring system is stricter, you are more likely to have to suffer their abuse as you start, which is just plain unwelcoming.
My second gripe is that it's not entirely made clear how to unlock other modes, so the game ends up feeling a bit more repetitive than it ought to (even though I'm replaying levels I have replayed many times before).
I think I did originally have more gripes, but I can't remember them right now. Hehe!
Overall, I really like this game as a tribute to Katamari. I'm satisfied with it. I did wait and buy it for roughly 1/3rd of the original asking price though!
I'll leave this post with links I found to (yay!) translated stuff about the first game, just for the sake of golden memories.
Interview
How to build a King Of All Cosmos Kite
Wednesday, 9 July 2008
Beautiful Katamari
I bought a copy of this cheap online, it arrived last Saturday morning, at which point I immediately put it into my machine and had a go. Katamari Damacy is probably my favourite game of all time, you see, so I wanted to play my copy of the latest game for Xbox 360 as soon as possible. Then about 30 minutes later, I stopped because I had to leave and catch a train. I returned Sunday night. Worked all Monday. Somehow by Tuesday, I had finished the game. Even though I was also playing Space Giraffe and trying some Live Arcade demos.
Wow, this game must have lasted me about 5 hours maximum. It's the shortest full-price game I've played in a long time. Though I didn't get great scores on some of the stages, so I could go back... but that won't make it much longer.
There are lots of levels that are only available if you buy them separately and then get them with the download service. They cost 200 XBL points each, which works out as about £1.70 each, which seems cheap but that soon adds up! I really think those stages should have been built into the game, especially as it's so short. I bought two of the levels, though, just to see. I super-cleared one of them on the first try, so that wasn't much good value for money.
It's better than the PSP Katamari game. It's still far worse than the first one, and the second. But then again, the first game is made out of love, diligence, and good level design, and each following game has had a little less of all of those qualities each time. At least, that's my observation.
The online play is quite nice, I briefly tried it, but there's barely anyone playing it online anymore since it's now an "old" game.
Wow, this game must have lasted me about 5 hours maximum. It's the shortest full-price game I've played in a long time. Though I didn't get great scores on some of the stages, so I could go back... but that won't make it much longer.
There are lots of levels that are only available if you buy them separately and then get them with the download service. They cost 200 XBL points each, which works out as about £1.70 each, which seems cheap but that soon adds up! I really think those stages should have been built into the game, especially as it's so short. I bought two of the levels, though, just to see. I super-cleared one of them on the first try, so that wasn't much good value for money.
It's better than the PSP Katamari game. It's still far worse than the first one, and the second. But then again, the first game is made out of love, diligence, and good level design, and each following game has had a little less of all of those qualities each time. At least, that's my observation.
The online play is quite nice, I briefly tried it, but there's barely anyone playing it online anymore since it's now an "old" game.
Thursday, 19 April 2007
Beautiful Katamari - officially announced
Remember I mentioned there were rumours floating around about a new Katamari Damacy sequel?
The Magicbox has reported that Famitsu magazine reports that (yeah, I know, I know) Namco-Bandai have actually announced it, with screenshot pics published in Famitsu magazine. Follow the Magicbox link! Take a look!
Pretty, isn't it?
Even though the games have been rolling downhill since the 1st one, I'm still a big fan of the series. Even though the screenshots make it look no different than a polished-up version of the PSP game, which was the worst one by a long way. (But I blame the limitations of the system - PSP is too small for Katamari and the console lacks the appropriate control system)
I hope the soundtrack is as good as on the first game! And the attention to detail, and... well, everything that's lacking from the later two games.
I guess I'll have to actually buy either a PS3 or 360 when it comes out, depending on price and which port is best, which controls are best... whether I'll need to get an import console... whether there are any other games on the console worth playing...
Shame it's not coming out on wii, since it sounds the funnest of the 3 new consoles, but then, it would posibly be forced to use unsuitable controls (and we already found out that's bad via the PSP version)
Is this game really going to be a console seller? I don't know, but it's a Katamari Damacy game, and, as is embodied in the game itself... I really really like collecting things... ^_^;;
(Katamari Damacy is why I own a PSP! Even though all I play is Disgaea!)
The Magicbox has reported that Famitsu magazine reports that (yeah, I know, I know) Namco-Bandai have actually announced it, with screenshot pics published in Famitsu magazine. Follow the Magicbox link! Take a look!
Pretty, isn't it?
Even though the games have been rolling downhill since the 1st one, I'm still a big fan of the series. Even though the screenshots make it look no different than a polished-up version of the PSP game, which was the worst one by a long way. (But I blame the limitations of the system - PSP is too small for Katamari and the console lacks the appropriate control system)
I hope the soundtrack is as good as on the first game! And the attention to detail, and... well, everything that's lacking from the later two games.
I guess I'll have to actually buy either a PS3 or 360 when it comes out, depending on price and which port is best, which controls are best... whether I'll need to get an import console... whether there are any other games on the console worth playing...
Shame it's not coming out on wii, since it sounds the funnest of the 3 new consoles, but then, it would posibly be forced to use unsuitable controls (and we already found out that's bad via the PSP version)
Is this game really going to be a console seller? I don't know, but it's a Katamari Damacy game, and, as is embodied in the game itself... I really really like collecting things... ^_^;;
(Katamari Damacy is why I own a PSP! Even though all I play is Disgaea!)
Thursday, 22 March 2007
Beautiful Katamari
There are loads of rumours flying around at the moment that there'll be a new Katamari Damacy sequel game from Bandai-Namco... it may be for xbox 360, PS3, and/or wii. It may come out in October and/or November this year. If at all.
Apparently the rumour started here on "Orange Lounge Radio". There are a few variations on it.
There are also new t-shirts from Panic and they now ship to the UK, so I might get one. (or maybe not; I mean, they're not immediately iconically Katamari... except maybe the yellow one, which is ewwwww yellow...)
Apparently the rumour started here on "Orange Lounge Radio". There are a few variations on it.
There are also new t-shirts from Panic and they now ship to the UK, so I might get one. (or maybe not; I mean, they're not immediately iconically Katamari... except maybe the yellow one, which is ewwwww yellow...)
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