NOTE: THIS ANIME WAS WATCHED IN ENGLISH DUBBED FORM, AND WILL BE REVIEWED AS SUCH.
Well, I'm sure this will be a laughter-filled funfest...
What is the measure of a good person? Of a good deed? Of a good life? Is any one life worth more than another? What makes a person a complete monster? Is anyone ever truly irredeemable? And perhaps most distressingly, is there ever a time where it is acceptable to take anothers life?
From 1994-2001, Naoki Urasawa’s Monster worked towards answering all these questions and more. And from April 2004 to September 2005, an Anime adaptation was aired on NTV, and will be the subject of this review. An incredible work of dark, mature fiction that dips its hands into almost every moral dilemma imaginable, Urasawa’s black saga of violence, terror and regret is quite possibly Anime’s greatest counter to anyone who would dismiss the artform as “silly”, “immature” or “generic”.
Looks like there might be a reason to keep an eye on the NGP. The CEO of Falcom has said that the company is working on a new RPG for the handheld, hopefully to be released near launch. I haven’t found many reasons to look forward to the NGP just yet, but having Falcom supporting the handheld with RPGs would definitely be one of them.
In other Falcom related news, a new Legend of Heroes game for PSP will be arriving later this year in Japan. Eiyuu Densetsu: Aoi no Kiseki, sequel to Zero no Kiseki, has a release date of September 29th. A teaser has been put up on youtube, which you can see after the jump.
We first got the voice for Vincent. Then we got the voice for Catherine with a “C.” To round out this holy trinity, Michelle Ruff will be voicing Katherine with a “K.” Ruff has done voices for C. Viper from Street Fighter IV and Yukari from Persona 3. To our Anime people out there, she’s also done voice work for Bleach, Code Geass, Haruhi, and Durara!!
And so that’s the main cast. As Destructoid pointed out, Vincent, Catherine, and Katherine are being voiced by Persona 3 and 4 veterans. They’ve done some great work on those games, and I’m certain they won’t disappoint for this entry.
Hmmm, let’s see. I’m 22 years old, I go to college, and I can make my own decisions as to whether or not I want to see certain things. Soooooo, why the hell is our American cover for Dead or Alive Dimensions showing a severe lack of Kasumi’s thigh? Simple: Because Tecmo Koei (or Nintendo) still thinks that we’re children and can’t handle Kasumi’s inner thigh. Look, we grew up on the Thunder Thighs that is Chun-Li, the Bounceress known as Mai, and DAT ASS known as Ivy (and the rest of the female Soul Calbur cast). I think we can handle Kasumi.
Oh, while we’re at it, Dead Island‘s logo was deemed by the ESRB as “too grisly.” So apparently the ESRB thinks we’re no ready to see hanging zombies spelling out the “I” in “Island.”
Good to see the spirit of Thomas Bowdler is still alive and well in the minds of some people. Oi vey…
The week’s Famitsu revealed that Atlus is currently working on a sequel to Devil Survivior, a DS RPG released in 2009. Not only that, but Famitsu lists the game at being 95% complete! The story follows three classmates who gain the power to summon demons. They must use this power to stop mysterious entities known as the Septentrion, who attack Japan one Sunday and follow suit each day after. The cast only has seven days to stop them.
Yeah, these are our heroes. AKA the coolest old people you will ever see.
Note: This review will contain minor spoilers. Nothing you couldn’t see in the trailers, but if you want to be completely surprised by what you see, then don’t read until after you have watched the film.
There’s an old, very popular saying :”You can never go home”. For those who are extremely thick or just don’t want to think too hard about it, the quote is (for my purposes) talking about the unstoppable march of time, and how no matter how much we might want to return to certain periods in our life, we cannot, and must simply accept that.
Even sadder, this refers to the mundane as well as the temporal. In gaming, I’m sure everyone reading this has had the experience of trying to play an old favorite, anticipating a repeat of that glorious initial rush, and were crushed to find that their rose tinted memories were nearly incommensurable with what was before them. Sure, it was probably still fun, but was still a mere shadow of the ecstasy they once provided.
This proves true of movies as well. For the purposes of this review, let us talk about how it affects Kung Fu flicks. Now, it is true, Kung fu movies actually can weather the test of time better than most. Good action choreography is still good whenever it’s watched, and the classic stories and character types still provide just as much joy as they did in the lost days of yore. But despite the well aged aesthetics, the soul that was so paramount to these movies, that impalpable enthusiasm and spirit, faded with the mid-80’s.
So what does this have to do with Gallants? Because, of all it’s many achievements, the best thing it did for me is showing that, even though you can’t go home permanently, you can still visit a lost time, if only for a few hours.
PSM3, a UK magazine that covers Sony’s gaming consoles, states that “MGS maestro Hideo Kojima’s got some big announcements for E3 in June: one a quasi-logical step for an existing game, the other…”
This excerpt only leaves us in suspense, but I’m sure everyone is already wondering which existing game the magazine is talking about. The Electronic Entertainment Expo is one of, if not the biggest, gaming events of the year. If Kojima’s saving these announcements for it, then you know the games are gonna be huge.
Personally, I’m hoping for a new Zone of the Enders game. Come on Kojima, it’s been a long enough wait.
This time on Game Music w/ the James, I bring an assortment of tracks that I can’t stop listening to. Most of these games deserve individual attention that might come over time, but for now they’re in an assortment of tracks that I can’t get out of my head for one reason or another.
What better place to start than… Mega Man 10?
I’ve run a game music presentation arguing with moderate success that Mega Man 10 has a superior soundtrack to 9 and deserves a little more attention than it seems to get. Not only is there a lot of good music, but it seems to have more variety as well. Take this track for instance, it has that little bit of heart put into it that gives it luster.
Our old friend, the high square wave with its flute-like timbre naturally gets the soprano treatment and almost feels like a vocal-soloist, especially in the last passage of the loop where it’s just gushing in its high notes and stealing the show. The accompaniment in lower register is brilliant, and while it never overpowers the soprano or tries to steal the spotlight, it provides a great counter-melody of its own. The same passage where the soprano is going all out has the accompaniment taking a more rapid, guitar like presence. The precussion/bass are cool, but what really shines is the interaction between the two top voices.
Typically I dislike remixed video game music. It loses a lot of the original flavor in the conversion and sometimes the new music sounds dull and lifeless. Then again, I’ve never really been an orchestral music kinda guy either until understanding it better. Regardless, this track, formerly in the SNES version of the game is given an amazing orchestration and is also part of one of my unforgettable gaming experiences.
The first time you hear this track on the battlefield is in the middle of a thunderstorm. When played connected to my TV, the thunderstorm with its loud booming and flashing made the battle more dramatic than it needed to be, but I loved every second of it.
The brass is what really sticks out, setting the flavor of the overall piece as well as dishing out the main melody, with phenomenal support from the strings. The woodwinds play a bigger role in the parts that bridge the main theme such as in the mysterious flute section, but what really gets me pumped is whenever the brass comes in, main melody and between.
My game of the year last year, Nier was great in story, presentation and especially the music. I remember the first time I heard this song, I was still measuring whether I loved or hated Nier. I had no expectations for it and only bought it because Kmart had a really good sale going on for the game. It was the middle of March and I just caught the flu. Somewhere in my fluctuating consciousness, I came across the area where this song played and I drifted off in sickness, thinking I was dying or something. I came back to Earth shortly after, but whenever I hear this it feels like my soul is slowly drifting away and… blah, this ain’t the place to get poetic.
The layered presentation of this piece is amazing. Beginning with light then heavy percussion, then adding in either a cello or a double bass and an electronic instrument before bringing in the Ooooo’s in the vocals and finally the main vocal melody where the entire ensemble stays in until the end. The soundtrack version kinda cheats by taking out the percussion for the final iteration of the main verse and giving it a proper ending, but it doesn’t happen like that in game.
Enjoy, and See you next Video Game Music w/ The James!
As you might notice from my recent posts, handheld gaming has taken an increasingly large portion of my coverage. All the good stuff just seems to be coming out this month in particular, and between running Tactics Ogre : Let Us Cling Together with Prota just after finishing Final Fantasy Tactics : The War of the Lions and the race to finish Pokemon White and Okamiden continuing, I haven’t really touched any of the big consoles this month.
That said, I’d like to discuss the next wave of handheld systems : the 3DS and the “NGP” along with my concerns for each.
On Nintendo’s side, I can’t complain about the amount of quality games coming out. We’re getting great stuff, a couple of disappointments, but overall enough to keep me coming back for other games. If only the same treatment went toward the actual quality of the console, it would be perfect. Currently I own the original gray model, two DS Lites that have torn out L and R triggers from trying to figure out why they would stop working and a 3DS that not only has busted triggers, but shuts itself off randomly wasting hours I’ve spent on games not taking into account that I typically use my DS as my alarm clock so I can make it to class on time…
For me, this March is all about two things : The 3DS and the lovely RPGs coming out that also happen to be sequels : Okamiden which I’m halfway through and partially reviewed, Pokemon Black/White – my next review in progress, (Tales of) Ar Tonelico Qoga which I might get time for if I can finish the first two, The 3rd Birthday and the upcoming The Legend of Heroes : Trails in the Sky.
Original games also came out this month to great reception, but I’m here to talk sequels, and in this case, the two for DS and which of the two is more worthy of a purchase.
Getting both games on the same day, I was biased. As great as the last generation of Pokemon was (I beat one of every generation up to now, so the battle system has been growing a little stale), White and Black looked like it would be the same style with a little of that 3d effect, while Okamiden happens to be the successor to one of my top 5 PS2 games. The plan was to spend 80% of my time on Okami and 20% on the new Pokemon which surely could not achieve the magic of the old games…..
Wow, the Move makes me really feel like I'm falling! Wait...it doesn't?
Ken Levine, the man behind Bioshock, doesn’t want to add PlayStation Move support to the latest iteration of the popular series. As for why Levine isn’t behind the whole idea, “I’d never want to throw in Move support just because it’s going to make some first party happy or because some marketing department wants it on the box because, at the end of the day, gamers know,” he stated.
“If you don’t have anything special to say about that control device gamers are going to know. Do you want to play BioShock and it’s like, ‘okay, do you want to harvest or save Little Sister? Waggle left to harvest, waggle right to save!’ You can have Move support on your box but people are going to know you’re cheating them.”
Well, it's either a Japanese puzzle game, or the weirdest prison rape movie I've ever seen.
It is no secret to anyone who knows me that I am a huge fan of the Ace Attorney games. Sure, the gameplay can get a little boring, and outright irritating at times, but the incredibly well written characters, the intriguing storylines, the catchy, memorable music, and the frequently laugh inducing dialogue, all combine to make an experience that you certainly can’t find anywhere else.
So why have I devoted a paragraph to a game that is most certainly not the one I am reviewing? Because one cannot talk about GT:PD without mentioning that its creator is the same man who created everyones favorite spiky haired lawyer; Capcom wunderkind Shu Takumi. But is his new game another slam dunk of enjoyable creativity, or just a sad shadow of his courtroom opus? Continue reading →
Oh Pete, you just don’t know when to quit, do you?
During an interview with CVG, Lionhead Studios…head (?) Peter Molyneux stated that, should the next “Fable” game come to fruition, it will stand as a shining paragon of drama, world creation, and storytelling, and will also cure cancer and make delicious milkshakes. Only two of those are lies…
With all the games coming out this month, now is as good a time as any to start up a “first impressions” section. This one is going to be about the game Gods Eater Burst, which is Namco Bandai’s recent take on a Monster Hunter type game. To be honest, I started the game without expecting very much, but I have to say I came out a little impressed.
Current Status : 7 hours in, 3 major bosses defeated
It’s so awkward whenever Chibiterasu moves into a new screen, jumps into the portal and the camera zooms into his butthole…
Okami was quite possibly my favorite mid-life PS2 game. Ar Tonelico 2 was good, Persona 3 was fun (I was going through a big RPG phase at the time), but Okami is the game that I always swear to my friends blows even the Zelda games that came out around its time : Wind Waker and Twilight Princess out of the water… and more memorable than AT2/P3 for that matter.
It had everything I wanted : a nice variety of weapons (always was fond of the beads myself), one hell of a soundtrack/atmosphere, a beautiful art-style, a memorable cast and most of all, it had a lot of meat to it – plenty of dungeons and huge areas to explore and purify… and explore again. There were secrets all over the place and unique abilities to use on the canvas were abundant. Viewtiful Joe might be the series most people remember Clover for, but I was not a huge fan. Instead I’ll always remember them for one of the best adventure games I’ve played.
The second game, development switching to Capcom this time around had me skeptical for the longest. Intentionally I had not looked at any news or details until my copy came in. Chibiterasu is cool and all, but the way the first game ended, it looked like Amaterasu was going to move on to bigger things, different places. At first I was thinking that Chibiterasu would explore brand new regions in his stead, but I spoiled myself when I bumped into a track listing for the soundtrack… it was the same places you go through as Ammy!
Not sure what they're jumping at, but the boxart seems to give off the impression of great battles to come.
The Wired Fish Network 