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The During Years

The first Game Center CX arrived in North America this past month as Retro Game Challenge , and Japan just saw a sequel full of more old-school classic games that never were. The first Retro Game Challenge stuck to emulating the 1980s and the world of 8-bit Nintendo games, though the second makes a few careful steps into the decade that followed. For example, there's the action- platformer Demon Returns, a mixture of Mario-ish play mechanics and Ghouls 'N Ghosts aesthetics, and it's followed by a slightly 16-bit Super Demon Returns. Most of the other games still go back to the '80s, of course. The maze game Wiz Man is part Pac-Man, part Mr. Do!, part Bubble Bobble. Mutekiken Kung Fu is, unsurprisingly, like Irem's Kung Fu Master and Karateka. Kugure! Girijan MAX is a jumpy platformer that recalls Nintendo's old LCD-based Game and Watch titles. Trio Toss is a Tetris clone for the Game Center CX universe's Game Boy facsimile. Then there's the two-volume Kacho wa Meitantei, a visual novel driven by dialogue and menu-based investigations. Some sequels even show up: Gun Duel is a two-player vertical shooter that follows the first Retro Game Challenge's Star Prince, while Guadia Quest Saga is the visually improved successor to the original game's Dragon Quest imitator.
Chances for a Domestic Release: Pretty good, as long as enough people buy Retro Game Challenge. So do that right now.

Say what you might about the quality of D3's “Simple” series of games, there's no question that it explores genres few companies would touch. The Hikyou Tankentai: Choutoko Special, for example, is the game I would have wanted more than anything when I was an 11-year-old kid who'd checked out every Loch Ness Monster book in the school library. Taking control of three cryptozoologist explorers, the player hunts down all sorts of strange creatures, including Bigfoot, Mothman, the Dover Demon, a realistic kappa, Owlman, the most ridiculous and horselike version of the Jersey Devil, Nessie, and, I sincerely hope, that skirt-wearing Flatwoods alien that was probably just an owl in a tree. The overhead view sticks with unspectacular, sprite-based graphics, but there's an elaborate system for taking and classifying photos of, say, Mothman's ear canal. The wilderness trek to find such undiscovered species leads to bears, snakes, and other creatures that must be subdued with repeated taps of the DS stylus. I'm sure 11-year-old me would've loved it.
Chances for a Domestic Release: Pretty low. Also, Nessie isn't real.

Japan's field of “adventure” games covers just about every possible anime-girl preference: schoolgirls, pop stars, cat girls, angels, mercenaries, 20,000-year-old demons who look 14, etc. Kira Kira Rock 'n Roll Show is for those who can't get enough of pop-punk anime girls. Players control Shikanosuke, a high-schooler who joins his classmates' band, d2b, by posing as a nun-like female bass player. Soon they've got a record contract and Shikanosuke's keeping up his cross-dressing act while sharing the stage with upbeat singer/guitarist Kirari, snobbish backup guitarist Sarina, and Chie, who's the drummer and Shikanosuke's childhood friend. As with any remotely interesting rock outfit, egos, money, romances, and creative differences rapidly spark discord in the group, with the player finding a path through it. That discord was accompanied by some adults-only content in Overdrive's original PC release of the game, but that's likely been toned down for the PlayStation 2. The game's cutesy, j-rock-ish aura remains intact, complete with theme songs that sound slightly less punkish than your basic All-American Rejects single. I doubt there will be heroin overdoses, murder-suicide pacts, concert riots, or public-indecency arrests in this little punk outfit.
Chances for a Domestic Release: Not good as far as the game goes. Perhaps a Kira Kira Rock 'N Roll anime series would fare better. I'm surprised one doesn't exist already.

AVALON CODE
Developer: Matrix
Publisher: XSEED
Platform: DS
MSRP: $34.99

Avalon Code has laid low for the past few months; so low, in fact, that I'd forgotten it was coming out in North America. It's an original RPG from Matrix, the developer of that 3-D Final Fantasy IV remake that Square released on the DS last year. Like that particular remake, Avalon Code uses polygon graphics that are considerably impressive for a DS title, though Avalon's characters have proportions slightly more realistic than Final Fantasy IV's apples-on-twigs people. It's also refreshing in its premise: the world is ending, and it falls to the player to record everything in a book. As you traverse the doomed globe, everything you encounter is cataloged in somewhat whimsical “codes.” Mixing these codes helps out a lot in the game's action-RPG battles, which involve both bookish strategy and heavy combos. Get Excited If: You want an RPG that's different in structure, if not in character design.

MadWorld isn't shy about taking comic-book violence to extremes. Hell, the look of the game is pure Sin City: black-and-white but for the copious bloodsprays and onomatopoeic worlds that pop up as enemies are slaughtered. That's only one of MadWorld's inspirations, as it also seems to draw on the kitschy, futuristic social commentary of The Running Man (both the Richard Bachman story and the Schwarzenegger flick) and Rockstar's notorious, gory Manhunt. In MadWorld, a TV series called Death Watch tracks the resulting carnage when the inhabitants of a cordoned-off city are required to butcher each other. The player's avatar in all this is Jack, a most unapologetic ruffian capable of killing his opponents in various interesting ways, from grinding them in machinery to slicing them up with chainsaw gauntlets, from impaling them on various sharp objects to just bashing them into viscera-strewn stains on the ground. There's some supposedly wry plotting behind it all, and Platinum Games surprised some by roping in script assistance from Yasumi Matsuno, architect of medieval-flavored (and comparatively dignified) games like Vagrant Story, Final Fantasy XII, and Tactics Ogre. There are few Eastern European political struggles in MadWorld but if you want the old Matsuno, you can just buy Ogre Battle on the Wii's Virtual Console.
Get Excited If: No More Heroes wasn't bloody enough for you.

To clear up any confusion, Student Alliance is not Gust's Mana Khemia 2. It's just the PSP version of the original Mana Khemia: Alchemist of Al-Revis. As implied in that subtitle, Mana Khemia owes a bit to Gust's own Atelier Iris series, in that alchemic item-creation is key to making sure characters have the latest items, weapons, and armor. Unlike the last Atelier Iris, Mana Khemia plants itself at an alchemy college, where a formerly secluded young man named Vayne enrolls to discover things about himself and his famous alchemist dad. As this is a Gust game, there are many young women waiting for him. Jessica is clumsy, earnest, and tragically ill. Nikki is an energetic beast-girl. Pamela is a ghost-girl fixated on cute things. And so on. Mana Khemia infuses this familiar setup with a school-like game system, where alchemy and RPG-style quests must be accomplished in set periods of time. One more thing: Student Alliance has bounced around release schedules for a while, so another delay is possible.
Get Excited If: You wanted Atelier Iris to be more like Harry Potter.

One can assume that anyone interested in Resident Evil 5 has played the demo and gotten a good idea of what they're in for: roaming through the streets of a African slum filled with parasite-infected humans whose heads explode into buglike remains when shot. If the gameplay seems no more fluid than Resident Evil 4's, Resident Evil 5 broadens the scope of it all considerably and adds a partner for the lead character. Chris Redfield is that lead this time, and he's accompanied by Sheva, who proves more nimble in jumping across gaps between buildings, climbing to high points, and, well, needing cover fire from a player-controlled Chris. This also creates a two-player mode that works out fairly well in the demo. In its plot, Resident Evil 5 expands on the Las Plagas conspiracy started in Resident Evil 4, though I prefer to judge Resident Evil stories by just how often their corniest lines get quoted. I expect that the latest will deliver on that at least.
Get Excited If: You still call these games “survival horror.”

Most of those who remember Samurai Shodown fondly are thinking of the second game, which arguably stands as the finest example of the franchise's strengths: gorgeous backgrounds, likeable fighters, lots of little hand-drawn details, and slow, rewarding gameplay. Every sequel after that did something wrong. Samurai Shodown III complicated everything, ditched popular characters, and had far too high damage settings; IV added only two cast members and did little beyond patching up III's faults; V was pretty bland despite some promising new fighters; and VI, while perhaps the best game in the series since II, was barely noticed by anyone. All of these games can be found in the upcoming Samurai Shodown Anthology, along with the Special version of Samurai Shodown V. You'll likely ignore half the series, but it's worth grabbing this for the other half.
Get Excited If: You've been waiting for an affordable version of Samurai Shodown VI