King Of Fighters XI

My left thumb is worn out today. I spent last evening playing King Of Fighters XI on PS2 (PAL version) with my brother. There are loads of characters to choose from, and I've only managed to unlock one extra character so far.

If I turn the difficulty to minimum and damage to maximum, I can sometimes get lucky and beat the game! ^_^;; Yeah, last bosses in these games are so dispropotionately difficult compared with all the other fights leading up to the end.

There seem to be slowdown issues, especially on the final boss. It's quite annoying. And, the text in story sequences flows off the side of the screen, so you can't read what's going on. Especially bad when the only story you get about the characters is their ending sequence! Buggy, buggy, buggy.

Persona 4 - UK release - very cheap

Persona 4 came out in English in the US last year, in the US. Lucky buyers received an art book with it as a preorder bonus. That does not appear to be available for the release of the game in the UK, but it is coming out at a cheaper price (yay!). It will be released on the 13th of March 2009. It's being published by Square-Enix!

If you preorder from play.com for £17.99 (free shipping) you get a t-shirt free.

If you preorder from Amazon.co.uk it costs £14.96 but there's no bonus item.

Upcoming UK PS2 game releases

According to Play.com, Baroque is coming out on 27/06/2008, and Growlanser: Heritage Of War is coming out on 13/06/2008. Both priced cheaply at £14.99 (RRP is £19.99).

It's quite surprising, as Baroque is a dungeon-crawler that's a port of a Sega Saturn game, and it's a long way through the Growlanser series to start releasing games now... I think this is the 5th one... the American version was way overpriced since it came with a load of useless stuff as a "Limited Edition" (I saw a lot of Ltd Ed versions in shops, no regular cheap version!)

BTW there's a special deal on at play.com at the moment, where if you spend £20 you can get £2 off by using the coupon code: NEWPLAY08. Offer runs out on the 25th of May. I'm undecided on whether there is anything on there at the moment that I'd like that doesn't look like its price will drop over time.

Neon Genesis Evangelion Battle Orchestra

I thought I'd make a few posts about games I've played recently.

Neon Genesis Evangelion Battle Orchestra is a multiplayer 2D fighter (with 3D models), like Smash Bros but Evangelion branded. It's for the Playstation 2 and has been released in Japan. It's by BROCCOLI, so you can hear Gendo say "Broccoli" every time it starts. :D The cast from the original TV series seems to be intact, though Ogata Megumi's performance as Shinji... sounds more like when she played Kyuu from Tantei Gakuen Q. -_-;

The graphics are redrawn and I don't really like the new designs - Shinji and his father have huge foreheads like they were the main guy in FLCL, they could fit a mecha in there. Rei is fluffy and moé and cute. Asuka is a werewolf. Only the yellow version of Eva Unit 00 is available. The music has been replaced, the only recognisable piece in the game is a new recording of "Tamashii no Rufuran" used as the opening theme. The moves seem limited. The Angels look and act so funny, it's great. They look even more like sock puppets and inflatable toys than they did in the series, and the black-and-white stripey floating ball Angel goes around punching everyone. Everything can be defeated with the tactic of "kick and punch and shoot it", none of your messy impenetrable shield / AT-Field business. More than ever it feels as though Eva was a tokusatsu show, man-in-a-cheesy-hero-costume fighting man-in-a-cheesy-monster-costume, as giants battling in the city, in 2, 3 or 4 player battles.

I like Eva games for that reason. They're light-hearted fun. ^_^

I played through Shinji's story mode that ends with him fighting Kaworu in an Eva (!) and Asuka's story mode which ends after she beats 9 mass-produced angels.

Oh and Gainax are sooooo interested in reinforcing the idea that Eva fans must spend more and more money to get new Eva stuff... you don't directly unlock new things to play with when you (for example) complate story mode. No, there's an in-game shop, and when you play, you win some money to spend in that shop, and when you complete something you may unlock new items in the shop. (e.g. characters to use in VS mode or BGM or whatever) -_-;

We saw Kensuke piloting an Eva in the demos but haven't unlocked him yet. The Gunbuster is also in there (another reason to want this game!), but we haven't unlocked that either. :(

Kengo 3 for PS2 is coming to the UK

It's listed in the preorders on GAME here for only £14.99, listed as "Ninja vs Samurai" - which is its sub-title. I placed an order today.

I quite like the Kengo games. They may not be so great in the way people normally rate games, but they have a very "authentic" feel to them that I like. There's the singular focussed goal of becoming the best swordsman, there's the emphasis on learning your moves and strategising with them, and the patience and skill needed to win and move forward.

Persona 3 - UK release - free artbook

I also placed a preorder for Persona 3 for PS2. It comes out in the UK at the end of this month. I've preordered with GAME because it's the same price as everywhere else, but comes with a free artbook. Hooray!

Arcana Heart for PS2 - in English

Arcana Heart is, as far as I've heard, a really rather good 2D fighting game for PS2. On the professional level, it's pretty well balanced and is played at tournament level. For the rest of us, it's all-girl fighting and looks both cute and funny.

The Arcana Heart Official Website is open and contains wallpapers and stuff, so have a look. ^_^

3rd generation of PS2

http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2007/11/06/sony_ps2_redesign/

Oh, it's pretty much the same as the previous PS2 but lighter. Which makes it *more importable* if you want to buy a different-region console.

But I guess I have enough PS2s already... (2 European PAL, 1 US NTSC, one Asian NTSC)

Yay, Sony aren't treating the PS2 as dead. ^_^

Res 4 PS2 Chainsaw Controller £8.99

Random Bargain Of The Day:

Resident Evil 4 Chainsaw Controller now in stock at £8.99

I don't know if it's any use as a controller, or it's just something you keep as an ornamental piece.

SRWOG & GDF

Over this weekend, I intended to play a load of PS2 games with my brother, but ended up only playing two:

* Super Robot Wars Original Generations
* Global Defense Force

SRWOG is quite fun. ^_^ And Ryusei seems a good kind of guy. ^_^ ... what we did was... I got out my SRTOG (US GBA) cartridge and played that alongside the new Japanese PS2 version, so I would have a quick translation in front of me. However, the text in the PS2 version seems more in depth than on the GBA game, and I accidentally ended up on two different routes right from the first stage. You see, I'd spent ages trying to get the skill point on the first stage on the PS2 version, and couldn't be bothered on the GBA version, and I think that's why the stories were different and the game was a little harder on PS2. Diverging story, right from the first stage! O_O

It's also a bit awkward that the GBA menus are all laid out in one way, and the PS2 menus are in another way. That's because the amount of space available on the GBA screen is small, but the PS2 version has a luxurious amount in comparison... it's not meant to be used as a translation device for the PS2 game, either!

Global Defense Force is what I played at about 2am while I was asleep. It's pretty much identical to the first game, in format, that is, for the first few levels I played through... except... you now get a widely different choice of soldier to use. For the first two levels - set in London, whee! I accidentally helped destroy London! - I used the default soldier as in the first game. Then on the 3rd level, Tokyo, I decided to try out wave something plasma bullets... and I was like... "what is this? The Akihabara Defense Force???" because the character you get to control looks... *just like Halko Momoi in her kind of cosplay outfit* *kills things with lasers* *and can fly*. Ha! Brilliant!

She can't use vehicles, that's her limitation. But being able to fly...! She flies just like the people in Robot Alchemic Drive (R.A.D) (another Sandlot game), ah, it's so much fun!

And so I'm just blasting away, spinning round, playing "Momo-i VS the Giant Ants" and thinking... that would make a great concept album... or something... this is a good fun game, it least it was for me, but my brain was fast asleep...

I found a video of some gameplay, if you want a look. The picture's a bit dark and dull, and you don't get to see the hilarious image of giant ants flying off everywhere, but... you'll get the idea!

Oh yeah, I'm still playing Etrian Odyssey too. ^_^ I'm on the 4th Stratum!

Kuon for PS2 - PAL version

Here's another game that I've managed to buy (Amazon, £22 used), yet have never seen in an actual shop... Kuon, for PS2, the PAL version. I don't know why I've never seen a copy in shops; Japanese horror games seem quite popular, so you normally see at least a few copies of every release around, and this was supposedly released last year (almost to the day). There are 5 European languages on the back of the box, and it says "Made In Austria".

It also says it's by FROM SOFTWARE, and it's rated age 16+, and... it doesn't look graphically spectacular, but atmosphere will be the key, and it looks interesting, has an ancient Japanese setting and comes dual language (though I haven't checked that yet). Here's the blurb:

WILL YOU BE ABLE TO CONTROL YOUR FEAR AND KEEP CALM ENOUGH TO INCARNATE TWO YOUNG WOMEN READY TO CHALLENGE THE WORLD OF SPIRITS?

* A UNIQUE, BLOODCURDLING ATMOSPHERE (UNCENSORED VERSION).
* A PERFECT BLEND OF ACTION AND ADVENTURE.
* PLAY THE ROLE OF TWO DIFFERENT CHARACTERS AND DISCOVER FOUR DIFFERENT ENDINGS.

That's a horrible first line. ^_^;;

I've uploaded the box art because this is the only place I've seen it close up. I like it better than the Japanese / American boxart...

Akai Ito - more translation help

I've had a look through ZoharContact's translation - which is very well written, btw - and I've made more helpful files:

HTML downloadable version
Plain Text downloadable version
Navigation help document so you can see which page links from which.

Akai Ito translation available!

Yay! ZoharContact's released her line-by-line translation of Akai Ito for PS2! You can read it on her website.

It's a huge huge translation!

It only covers Uzuki's route so far, but it's still huge!

Darwin for PS2

I found an interesting-looking game while browsing Amazon (UK) today:

Darwin for PS2, released ont he 23rd March 2007. I'd never heard of it before! The blurb is:

"From ape to human lead the evolution of mankind! Darwin is on a mission to broaden his horizons, evolving himself and his surroundings to a new life. Evolve everyone in your village from ape to human by teaching your troops to hunt, fight and speak"

So I was thinking... perhaps it's like Evo or the new Seaman game...

As it's a brand new game with an interesting concept that is selling really cheaply, I thought "maybe it's a Simple 2000 game" and looked on the D3 website.

I found the game here:
Simple 2000 Series #99 - the Genshijin (Commercial to watch)

It looks kind of like Pikmin... but with monkeys that evolve into hairy cavemen. I placed my order, since this looks interesting. It's also unusual to see a game being rated for ages 3+ (according to Amazon's box art) with that much blood in it.

I've just found a review of the game here. They seem to think it's a really good game considering that it's a Simple 2000 budget release.

Chulip for PS2

I'm currently playing a game called Chulip for the PS2. It's a very strange and very funny game about a boy who moves to a new town and has to kiss everyone there in order to win the heart of the girl he loves. I originally heard about it a few years ago... I read the review for it on gamefaqs and was sold. I wanted this game so much! But the game was only in Japanese! And there it stayed for many years. I bought the Japanese version, but it has too much text to play with my lack of reading skills. For years it was rumoured to be coming out in the US, but the release was endlessly put back. Then all of a sudden it was coming out on Valentine's Day this year! But... as a Gamestop/EB Games exclusive. I eventually got a copy, though, through the help of a kind American I know on a forum I frequent.

The game was made by Punchline - the same people that made Rule Of Rose, which I've played for a short while (Rule Of Rose isn't out in Europe either, but that's because 505 decided it was too controversial to sell). I decided that Rule Of Rose wasn't going to be a game I'd enjoy because I don't like the idea of letting myself be bullied in my free time. That's not fun! But Chulip is both fun and funny, from what I've seen so far. And weird!


That's the cover of the American version.


That's the cover of the Japanese version.

I like the original cover better. Seems that most people do. The new US one seems to have been made up out of a few wallpapers from the official Japanese site put together. >_<

So, uh, I'm going to go away and play this game for a bit. Byeee!

I'm cute and I'm a controller too!

That's what it says on the box. ^_^ Just as well it's a Dragon Quest Slime PS2 joypad and not, say, a 3 year old to babysit. It came in the post today, as a birthday present from my boyfriend ^__^ (it had been on backorder).




(the batteries ran out in my camera for the last pic... no flash...)

Captain Harlock Pachislot

There's a new Captain Harlock Pachislot game for PS2 out.