I would love to believe that the opening 30 to 45 minutes of gameplay in Theatrhythm: Final Fantasy was a carefully orchestrated plot, one conceived in some smoky Japanese bar one night when staff from both Square Enix and indieszero went out drinking together. The goal would be a scathing commentary on Japan’s RPG industry, and how—inexplicably—so many of its offering force players to sit through 5 to 10 hours of boredom in order to get to the “good stuff.”
Category: B
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Valhalla Knights
Though survival horror may have swept into my life and stole away my heart, there is no genre of video game that I have loved longer or more completely than Japanese RPGs. Almost twenty years ago I first set out into the world of Phantasy Star, and from that moment on, I knew the genre was for me. Unfortunately, the love affair has been a bit rocky as the years have gone on. I still love JRPGs, but there’s just no getting around it; the genre, in my eyes, just hasn’t seen the kind of gameplay progression that other genres have seen, and has suffered because of that.
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Rule of Rose
Way back in 1999, I got my first taste of Konami’s new horror series Silent Hill. While the mechanics behind the game itself weren’t of the utmost quality, all of the story-line elements had been crafted with such care and dedication that Silent Hill was no longer a game, but a mental and emotional experience. I bring this up because my introduction to Rule of Rose brought up many of the exact same feelings. Not since the tale of Harry Mason and the search for his lost daughter has a horror title so perfectly, yet so seemingly easily, created an entire universe and mythos that clicks from the very moment it begins.
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