Why does it seem like I’m always so drawn to the female characters that Atlus produces?
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Filed Under | Cosplay, Cute Girls, Gallery, Video Games |
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| Tags | atlus, catherine, ps3, xbox 360 |
There are many interesting aspects of Persona 3 Portable – the PlayStation Portable port of Atlus’s mega-popular JRPG – but one of the ones I’ve noticed so far has to do with the faculty of Gekkoukan High. See, in the original Persona 3, most of the teachers didn’t actually have any portrait art. In the switch to P3P – where most backgrounds are flat and no longer feature polygonal characters – the teachers all received portrait art.
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Filed Under | Cute Girls, Gallery, Video Games | |
| Tags | art, cute, persona 3, persona 3 portable, psp, shin megami tensei |
In 1988, I played a relatively unknown Master System RPG titled Phantasy Star, and it forever changed me as a fan of video games. Then, eight years later, another Japan-born role-playing romp would come along and leave an equally impactful mark on my life; the similarly obscure Atlus release Revelations: Persona.
Phantasy Star taught me that I loved JRPGs; Persona taught me what I wanted from them.
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Filed Under | A, Japan, Japanese Culture, PlayStation Portable, Review, RPG, Video Games | |
| Tags | atlus, jrpg, megaten, persona, shin megami tensei |
Rachel Shepard–the particular Commander Shepard that inhabits the world of Mass Effect which finds itself brought to life every time my Xbox 360 powers up as of late–seems well on her way in her quest to romance her teammate Garrus Vakarian. I have to admit: her interest in Garrus has come as a bit of a surprise to me.
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Filed Under | Feature, Video Games | |
| Tags | mass effect 2, persona 4, romance |
Yankii (or, depending on how you romanize it, “yankee”): A slang term sometimes used for Americans outside of the States, and people from the Northern U.S. by, well, us Yankees. It has also, however, come to be a nickname for delinquent youth in Japan, specifically those that skip school, get in fights, don’t care about social norms, and do such unspeakable things as dying their hair to a color other than black.
What is it about this lifestyle that is so interesting, and at times almost romanticized, as we might do here in the West with the “greaser” subculture from the 1950’s? Whatever it is, there’s no denying it: the life of a yankii is a whirlwind of adventure and excitement.
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Filed Under | Action, Japan, Japanese Culture, PlayStation Portable, Review, Video Games | |
| Tags | atlus, yankii |
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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Filed Under | A, Japan, Nintendo DS, Review, RPG, Video Games | |
| Tags | jrpg, nds, xseed |
When 2009 comes to a close and we look back to reflect on the year now behind us, a countless amount of lists will emerge that attempt to run down, in order, the “best” or “worst” of varies things over that past year. This will, of course, also happen in our little video game industry, and while not all of the nominations or winners may yet be clear, it isn’t hard to make an educated guess (or two) at what may be up for awards.
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Filed Under | PlayStation Portable, Review, RPG, Video Games | |
| Tags | xseed |
Devil Summoner: Raidou Kuzunoha vs. The Soulless Army was an interesting departure for Atlus and their Devil Summoner series. Coming from a company typically known for in-depth role-playing sagas, Soulless Army still had MegaTen-style RPG underpinnings, but then contained an action-oriented combat system and more adventure-esque exploration in a project that reminded me of what Square had attempted many years before with Parasite Eve. While not without faults, it was a fresh take on the series and held a lot of potential should Atlus see fit to give the idea another try.
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Filed Under | A, Adventure, PlayStation 2, Review, Video Games | |
| Tags | atlus, devil summoner, megaten, shin megami tensei |
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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Filed Under | Nintendo DS, Review, Rhythm, Video Games | |
| Tags | nds, nintendo, rhythm heaven, rhythm tengoku, tsunku |
Let’s make a checklist of things that I like.
Cute Japanese girls? Check.
Girls in fashionable outfits? Check.
Cowgirls? Check.
Samurais? Check.
Schoolgirls? Check
Gun-toating girls? Check.
Zombies? Check?
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Filed Under | Action, Cute Girls, D, DVD, Japan, Review | |
| Tags | cowgirls, ninjas, onechanbara, swords, zombies |