A few days ago the demo for Yakuza 3 (Ryu Ga Gotoku 3 in Japan) came out on Japanese PSN. By cheating the system I downloaded the Japanese demo due to being a big fan of the Yakuza series. The demo has some flaws.

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You there, child, what are you playing? Ckeel Zoone Twooo? Fuck that shit, you`re going to play the game I loved as a kid, and you`re going to like it! The Graphics are kiddie and gay, you say, and not as high quality? Quiet Jimmy, or I`ll insert your PeeEsss Thrice or Hexbox 350 in to your rectum. That`s where you poop from.

Anyway. Back when I was a kid, back when Insomniac was still part of Universal Studios and didn`t make generic-looking system-seller FPSes, my dad got me one of them there Playstations, and I tell you it was darn nifty.  Years later, I decided to re-visit my childhood-favorite game. And I was plesantly suprised that the game has survived the test of time.
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”Men cry not for themselves, but for their comrades”

Crisis Core : Final Fantasy VII is the first good FFVII spinoff. Instead of being a gigantic clusterfuck of fanservice that was Advent Children or plain old crap like the Dirge Of Cerberus game, this game is actually worth your time.

The game tells the story of Zack Fair, Soldier 2nd Class (later 1st Class) and follows his adventures until his eventual demise that leads (indirectly) in to the original Final Fantasy VII. The plot of the game is quite interesting with some new characters together with some old ones returning. I`m happy that the game only has two scenes of over exaggerated Advent Children action and both of which turn out to be virtual reality, the rest of the game is down to earth in terms of action by Final Fantasy standards.

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Castlevania – The Dracula X Chronicles is a PSP remake of the PC Engine CD (TurboGrafix CD) game Castlevania : Rondo Of Blood (known in Japan as Akumajo Dracula – Chi No Rondo) with some great bonus content. Rondo Of Blood had never been released outside of Japan before this game.

Now, I haven`t played the original game but I hear that it stays very true to the original.

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Disgaea : Afternoon of Darkness is the enchanced port of the PS2 Strategy RPG Disgaea : Hour Of Darkness. The original game was developed by Japanese developer Nippon Ichi Software, published in America by Atlus but the PSP version was published by NiS America. The European version is published by Koei. Now, I am aware that there was a recent DS port but as far as I know the PSP version still remains the best version, therefore I will be reviewing the PSP version.

Gameplay

Now, the gameplay in the game is standard SRPG gameplay, you play on a isometric map divided in to a square grid resembling a checkerboard. Your objective (which sadly, never changes) is to dispose of all enemies on the map. You have the standard RPG commands such as attack, use skills unique to your character`s weapon or the character himself or herself. You also have the option to throw enemies, allies or Geo Cubes. For most of the time you will forget that you have the ability to throw things but if used effectively you can use the throw to a great advantage, such as throwing a weakening Geo Cube in to the Panel type that the enemies are standing on or throw an ally further than he can move by himself. If you throw an enemy of the same kind on top of an enemy, these two enemies will combine and level up. This works great for grinding but this might get you screwed over by creating an enemy too powerful to take on.

This game is a giant grinding fest that demands you to donate tens to hundreds of your life to the game. Nippon Ichi is particulary famous for creating SRPGs that demand you to grind a lot. Sure, you can breeze past the first few chapters without that much grinding but not grinding will come back later and bite you in the ass. Somehow I have currently made it to chapter 12 but I constantly have my ass kicked, therefore that leaves me only one choice : grind some more. Grinding actually replaces strategy in this game, as no problem can`t be solved by grinding and you don`t really have to use your head that much, but hey, that`s a thing most SRPGs suffer from, Disgaea just suffers from it more than a regular SRPG.

To mix things up a bit, the game also sports a mechanic called ”Geo Panels”. The squares on the map that glow in different colors are Geo Panels and if Geo Cubes are put on them, all panels of that color gain effects such as Invincibility or Bonus EXP or stat boosts. At the beginning these panels will mostly be to your advantage but later you will be cursing them for screwing you over so.

Anyway, by killing enemies you gain Mana which can be spent in the Dark Assembly to create more characters. The characters come in two types, Human Characters and Monsters. Human characters come in various classes such as Warrior, Mage, Monk, etc. and can use various weapon types, altough you should probably just stick with a weapon that is made for the specific class as Weapon Mastery rises faster with that type of weapon. For regular characters, their special moves are decided by their weapon type and mastery. As the mastery gets higher, the character learns new weapon-type specific special moves, which are the only moves regular characters learn and there is a wide variety of weapon types to chose from, such as swords, staffs, fists, guns, etc..  By defeating certain enemies for the first time, these enemy types become available in the Dark Assembly for creation. Monsters learn new, monster-specific special moves by leveling up.

There are also special characters such as Laharl, Etna, Flonne, etc. who join your party at certain plot points, usialy at the end of the chapter or by completing a bonus mission. Special characters learn both weapon-specific special moves and character specific moves by leveling up.

Plot, music, bonus content.

The plot of the game tells you the story of Laharl, the son of the deceased Overlord of the Netherworld and his servants as he goes on his quest to become the new Overlord and some other misadventures. The game is split in to seperate episodic chapters, most of the game`s chapters act as seperate scenarios but the final chapters of the game pulls everything together and connects everything. The game is humorous and charming. Most of the story is told trough portraits and dialouge boxes but there are some in-game cutscenes. There are multiple endings.

The soundtrack is solid but there are no truly memorable tracks. The English voicework is pretty bad but luckly you can change to the Japanese voice track which isn`t that bad. The PSP version has omitted the game`s themesong since Atlus holds the copyright to it.

The PSP version also has an extra story mode called Etna mode where Etna accedentaly kills Laharl and replaces him as the main character. Also the PSP version has multiplayer which comes in three modes, ”Defeat The Leader”, ”Battle” and ”Capture The Flag”. Also the PSP version is the only version to support widescreen.

Get this game if you like strategy RPGs, you won`t regret it.

9/10

Ah, back in the 90s Capcom owned the licenses to a lot of awesome things, such as Disney and Marvel Comics and created some memorable and kickass games. They also owned the license to Jojo`s Bizarre Adventure and made one of the best overlooked 2D fighting games ever. This game is based off the popular in Japan manga series Jojo`s Bizarre Adventure, specificly Part 3, ”Stardust Crusaders”. The game is also known as Jojo`s Venture in some places.

Now, what is the most important thing in fighting games? Gameplay. The series`s unique form of superpowers called ”Stands” lend them self greatly to the gameplay of the game. The game uses 5 attack buttons instead of the Capcom standard 6, and the 6th button is used to activate the character`s Stand, a ghostly spirit that stands by the character and becomes the primary offense. This can be used in many different ways such as trapping your opponent between yourself and your stand or summoning your stand to attack as your character retreats. But some characters still use the stand button as a regular attack button due to their stands being perma-on. Stands also provide a slightly different, usually stronger moveset. If you take damage when your Stand is on, the Stand bar goes down, when it`s empty, your Stand shatters and you cannot guard for a few seconds. The Stand mechanic provides an interesting twist on fighting game character types like a trap setter or a charg character.

Aside from good gameplay, the game also provides other good things. The game combines Hirohiko Araki`s unique character designs with the standard Capcom anime-style sprites to create some interesting visuals. Sure it might not seem much if you look at the screen shots, but to a fan it brings joy. The game also has a interesting story mode which is somewhat deep for a fighting game. It tells you the tale of Jotaro Kujo and his friends as they venture to Egypt to defeat the vampire Dio, thus preventing Jotaro`s mother`s stand from slowly killing her. The story mode is composed largely of fights but also includes a lot of mini-games. The minigames in this game aren`t too bad, some of them being enjoyable, my favorite being the beat `em up segment where you fight zombies. The only problem some might have is that story mode forces to use a specific character in a specific plot point instead of letting you chose your own character, but this also lets you re-create scenes from the manga, which the story mode closely follows.

This game also has some internet fame due to Dio Brando`s super combo where he stops time, drops a road roller on his opponent, throws knives at his opponent, beats the road roller to an explosion and lets time resume.

This game has been released on the PS1 and a updated version on the Dreamcast. I reviewed the PS1 version.

I love this game. It provides hours of enjoyment.

8/10

Jump Ultimate Stars, quite possibly the best anime game ever made, with a whopping 300 characters from 41 different Shounen Jump franchises.

Jump Ultimate Stars is a DS 2D party fighting game along the lines of Super Smash Bros and the sequel to Jump Superstars. All of the characters were or are still having their adventures published in the Japanese manga magazine Weekly Shounen Jump. The game is developed by the Japanese developer Ganbarion, which also makes all the One Piece games.

Now, the novelty of this game is being able to play as popular Shounen Jump characters like Goku (Dragon Ball Z) or Naruto (from the series of the same name) or Ichigo (of Bleach fame) but the game also has some more obscure characters like Jotaro and Dio from Jojo`s Bizarre Adventure (a personal favorite of mine) or Kenshiro of Fist Of The North Star and some characters from series I had not heard of before such as Cobra or Jigoku Sensei Nube. Only a huge manga fan could recognize and appreciate all of the series included. The game sports a whopping 50+ playable characters, some with special forms that change their gameplay which in total gives the game around 62 playable characters.

Now, the gameplay in the game is very similar to the gameplay in Super Smash Bros. Now, in the game you have to make Koma (Japanese for ”Panel”) decks consisting of one Battle Character, one Support Character and one Help Character. Battle Characters are your playable characters and Support Characters can be called in for a support action such as an attack or status boost whereas Help Characters do not appear in battle and only provide stat boosts. You can have as many of any of these as you like, provided that you can fit these Komas in to the 5×4 Koma Grid and that the same character isn’t used more than once in the grid. There is also a Rock Paper Scissors mechanic in the game, each Battle Character comes with a certain attribute, Power, Knowledge and Laughter. Power beats Knowledge, Knowledge beats Laughter, Laughter beats Power. This system is somewhat unbalanced since most of the characters in the game are Power characters and some of the weakest are Knowledge, giving Laughter some advantage. In the game you can defeat your opponents in two ways, ether by knocking them out of the ring or depleting their health, which also turns them completely black and white.

The mission mode of the game needs some very basic knowledge of Japanese to understand the various mission objectives, or you can use some of the very useful guides found on the internet. The game`s learning curve is around 30 minutes until you can freely navigate around the menus without problem. The mission mode is fun at first, but then in the end it starts to be boring and the only reason why you play it is to get all komas and to get gems to upgrade komas in to stronger versions.

Now, just like in Smash Bros., the real reason why to get this the multiplayer, which can be played online thanks to the DS`s Wifi function. The only problem the multiplayer has, again, just like with Smash Bros., is that the community for this game is dumb and elitaristic.

Sadly, this game will never be released outside of Japan due to different publishers owning the licenses to the different series in the United States, and some franchises being unlicensed in America. The only way of getting this game in America or Europe is by buying it from import sites like http://www.play-asia.com

Also some anime fans might not like it that some characters from more recent series aren’t in their current powerlevel, not being included or not having a playable character such as in the case of Death Note.

8/10

This game is most certainly worth importing.