Went to Akihabara for the first time ever in my life, and of course this is what I return to the hotel with.
Category: Nintendo DS
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The Wizard of Oz: Beyond the Yellow Brick Road
There were countless reasons why I loved the last great hardware effort from Sega (the Dreamcast, of course), but somewhere at the top of that list was the overall wonder I felt at the system’s game library. It was the console that, for me, made gaming fun again, as it seemed developers Japanese and Western alike took chances on ideas that they might not have attempted elsewhere. It isn’t to say that every Dreamcast project was totally unique and groundbreaking, but there was this overall sense of creativity that seemed to re-assure games that it was okay to try new things and dare to be different. It was the world were Jet Set Radio, Seaman, Napple Tale, and Shenmue were the norm, not the niche; a world that I came to love living in.
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Rhythm Heaven
Honestly? I never expected Rhythm Heaven to come out in the United States. Its predecessor–a game known as Rhythm Tengoku on the GameBoy Advance–never came our way. Now, part of that was simply down to timing; it hit in Japan as the GBA was on its way out in favor of the DS, and by the time it had gone through localization and planning for a release over here it would have been even later to the party.
There was another reason that it ended up becoming a must-have import title and not a game given to the whole world, however; the game was very Japanese.
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Little Red Riding Hood’s Zombie BBQ
For a long time now, I’ve had a thing for Little Red Riding Hood. Not any specific girl, mind you, but the overall idea of the character herself. It’s a tale with a lot of potential, you’ve got to admit: young girl with a distinctive look, trying to save a loved one from the threat of a vicious wolf. I’ve even had, for many years, the perfect game based around the character planned out in my head. You’ve got Little Red Riding Hood, dressed in a blood-red Japanese Elegant Gothic Lolita-style outfit, traveling through the dark and daunting German countryside (complete with fully German voice acting), hunting down the bloodthirsty werewolves she has unwillingly been tasked with killing. In grand Devil May Cry fashion, the action is fast and furious, and you must fill your enemies full of silver bullets until they are severely weakened, giving Riding Hood the opportunity to relieve them of their heads with a swing of her mighty sword.
…er, anyhow, what I’m trying to say is, Little Red Riding Hood as a game character is an interesting proposition, and when I found out that not only would there be a game with her in it, but with her battling zombies of all things (another favorite of mine), I simply had to give the game a go.
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Retro Game Challenge
Shinya Arino–one of the two members of Japanese comedy duo Yoiko–hosts a late-night TV show in Japan called GameCenter CX. GCCX is a celebration of video gaming, but more specifically, it is a celebration of the days gone by of video gaming. Arino himself is a huge game fan, and every episode–at least, for every episode I myself have personally seen–he helps bring us a look back at gaming’s golden days, from what titles were released by a particular company back in the 80’s, to interviewing folks like Yuu Suzuki about his start at Sega, to meeting a man living somewhere in Tokyo who proudly owns every Famicom (Japan’s version of the NES) game ever released.
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