Can we rebuild it?

Post Date: February 24, 2010 - 8:01 PM

Some intrepid soul stumbled upon an old RPG Maker 2000 game called Romancing Walker and started a liveblog of it on the TV Tropes forum. I remember playing this game…it’s got a sound concept, though it’s incredibly hard to play through. It’s not that the game’s difficult…it’s just that the translation is very, very literal and filled with both Engrish and what’s known to some as “gratuitous Japanese” (I think I noticed the translator leaving in words like “baka” and “sugoi” from place to place). I’d like to try to retool the script so that it’s a bit more accessible to most other gamers (think Final Fantasy Tactics on the PSP vs. Final Fantasy Tactics on the PS1), but I probably may wind up not releasing it at all, since almost everyone (including both the game’s original author and the translator) has moved on from RPG Maker 2000, and releasing it would be tantamount to stealing…not that anybody would want to really play a game that’s almost a decade old using an engine that’s also a decade old.

Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: When video games and anime clash, everybody wins

Post Date: February 22, 2010 - 8:53 PM

So Capcom’s invaded the comic book universe with Marvel vs. Capcom, and they’ve taken on a rival video game company with the SNK vs. Capcom series, so…where do they go from here? It seems the answer to that question is “the anime world”, as they’re now butting heads with the various masked heroes from Tatsunoko’s library in Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: Ultimate All Stars. Click to read more…

New challengers HAVE arrived!

Post Date: February 20, 2010 - 9:19 PM

So it turns out that the rumors of Ibuki, Makoto and Dudley joining the Super Street Fighter IV roster were correct all along. This would bring the playable character roster to about 34 or 35, right up there with Tekken, which in its latest incarnation has 40, by my estimation. Of course, if Capcom were to add Birdie, Eagle, Yun and Yang, and several other characters, there’d be more than enough for them to kick-start the real Capcom Fighting All-Stars.

That last one isn’t likely to happen any time soon, but one can dream…Oh, well…there’s always MUGEN…

NPD vs. Capcom

Post Date: February 17, 2010 - 7:07 PM

Looking at the latest sales figures for Tatsunoko vs. Capcom, I’m surprised that it’s selling as well as it has been. Now, just 100,000 copies in two weeks is definitely nothing to sneeze at (your average Mario game will sell that much in one day), but is still impressive for a console that isn’t known for its versus fighters. The Vs. Capcom series isn’t traditionally a big-seller anyway. The last games in the series to crack the 200k barrier were Capcom vs. SNK and Capcom vs. SNK 2, if these figures kept by VGChartz.com are any indication.

There are still some gamers out there who will insist that TvsC will sell better if they had been released on the PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360. Of course, the games would then be drowned out by the likes of Bayonetta and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 instead of New Super Mario Bros. Wii, and people would still complain about them not selling well enough. I still say, “Let’s just be glad that this game’s even coming to the U.S. at all, and enjoy!”

It’s a…series of Gundams!

Post Date: February 15, 2010 - 8:51 AM

There’s going to be a new Gundam series available on DVD and Blu-Ray starting next month (called Gundam Unicorn; you can stop laughing…now). To commemorate this release, Sunrise has released streaming video of some of the older series that have been broadcast in the U.S., including the original Mobile Suit Gundam, its sequel Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam, and the “re-imagining” of the series Mobile Suit Gundam Seed. Anime News Network is going to have all of them available for a limited time on the “Video” section of the website (MS Gundam has English dub versions of all of its episodes while the others have the original Japanese audio with English subtitles).

Having only watched Gundam 00 in its entirety, I felt compelled to go back to the original MS Gundam to see where it all began. I know, it’s more than three decades old, but in order to know the history of the franchise, it’s best to start at where it got its roots. There are only 43 episodes of this series, because one was taken out of circulation by its creator, and it got cancelled with six episodes to go due to low ratings. Best get this while you can, because they’re only going to be up on ANN for two more months until the next batch comes in (Gundam Wing and Gundam Seed Destiny).