07.28.07

Keep On Mashin’

Posted in Gaming, Rants at 7:37 am

So, today I bring you word on three four games, all of which bring the awesome sauce. Let’s start, then, with the three knowns…

Jump Ultimate Stars was a title I’d been looking forward to ever since I got to the Point of Frustration in Jump Superstars. Disregarding the WFC aspect of the game– which I’ve yet to try out– JUS is a major and welcome improvement to the original. The core gameplay– beat the snot out of your rival manga characters, and compose decks made of panels featuring said characters– is relatively unchanged, which makes sense as that was one of the better elements of JSS. The game’s been expanded with a ridiculous number of characters from an equally incredible number of series; there are some returning sets such as Hunter X Hunter, D.Gray Man, and (of course) Dragon Ball Z, but new series such as Saint Seiya also make appearances. More importantly, the unlock procedure for these characters is far less ridiculous than before; whereas JSS had you matching panels up by catchphrase/speaker (near impossible for illiterate importers such as myself), JUS uses a more traditional unlock store concept along the lines of Xenosaga’s skill trees crossed with Meteos’ currency system. Battling gets you points in certain colors, and you spend them in the store in varying amounts to unlock fighters. While it might be slightly easier to come by JSS in the stores– I believe it might still be in certain Best Buys around the country– if you’re new to the series, start with Ultimate Stars. It’s head-and-shoulders above the original.

Daigasso! Band Brothers! What a tease you have been to me; first by being a very well-received game in Japan alongside Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan!, and then by being eternally promised as “Jam With The Band” for US release after Elite Beat Agents hit it (relatively) big. Well, it’s more or less official now that “Jam” has been canned, and the copies of Daigasso were pretty plentiful at Mad Gear’s booth. On impulse, I picked it up on Friday and have not regretted it at all. The game is simple, along the lines of how I envisioned most portable music games should be: players follow a score by using the D-pad and buttons to match and hold notes. Come to think of it, Daigasso’s reliance on the traditional inputs might be why Nintendo was hesitant to bring it over (oh, and the licensing minefield that would need traversing for the music). It does play out much like Beatmania or Pop’n Music do when using a controller; that said, it is still quite an engaging and fun experience if you like music games. More specifically, if you like decent MIDI renditions of mostly familiar (but some obscure) J-pop and game tunes. There’s also some classical tunes and general-interest tracks; overall though most importers will probably gravitate to the game tracks, Ready Steady Go, and Smoke on the Water (which I did catch myself singing along to).

Jumping over to the Xbox, now, I’d noticed that Psychonauts was in the bargain bin, and naturally that meant I could finally give it a shot. Not that I wouldn’t have paid $50 for it if I had had an Xbox when it was released, or if I had actually seen a demo of it prior to this point. It plays itself out as a pretty straightforward 3-D platformer along the lines of Spyro or Mario, but the whacked-out characters and settings are truly the hand of Schaefer at play. I ran through the first level (”Basic Braining”) and was thoroughly amused; more than that, I was sufficiently challenged as to remain interested. That almost doesn’t happen too much these days. The dialogue and voice acting were far and away the best I’ve heard in a long time, even outstripping Disgaea. Still, the game has its flaws; ‘figments’, one of the many shinies that must be collected, are hard to see as they’re two-dimensional, translucent, and cast no shadow. Raz (the player character) has almost no psychic abilities at the start of the game save for a double-jump and a punching attack; the player needs to reach ‘Rank 10′ before a new ability is unlocked (which could take a while). Finally, some of the characters are just plain irritating for no reason. Nice to look at, yes (when they’re supposed to be), but they just irk me. I don’t know why. Overall, Psychonauts is a decent game well worth the budget price these days, though if there had been a demo available I probably would have snagged it back at $40 or $30.

Finally, I am aware of the very strong DS homebrew scene because of one title in particular: Cave Story. Yes, the DS port is coming along nicely; I picked up one of Datel’s dual-use products, the Games ‘n Music, specifically for the homebrew options it allowed me. First, the device: it works, kind of. It’s probably better to forego the card’s built-in firmware and put DSOrganize on it as the default shell. I haven’t tried its music or video capabilities, and the games pre-loaded onto the thing are nice demos but nothing to really scream about. As for Cave Story DS itself, the developer has made some very good strides; music and most visuals are running perfectly, and enemies are plentiful. It’s still in the alpha stage, though, so stuff like weapons and dialogue are still not quite there (all right, not there at all). I’ll be keeping an eye on it and playing with it as time goes on.

So, that’s the big game dump from Otakon and beyond. I don’t know if I’ll be getting the Otakon report finished this weekend or not– I hope to, but, but, Simpsons movie. We shall see. Catch you folks later.

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