The X Button

Shining Forced

Girls RPG: Cinderella Life went through a strange identity crisis. At first it was a fairly successful cell-phone game called Cabaret Girls, where players took charge of a young woman's career as a club hostess. Then Level-5 brought it to the 3DS and recast it as a “Girls RPG,” suggesting it was aimed at kids. The hostess-club angle was smoothed over with a storyline about a legendary butterfly and other elements, making the game look more like Cave and Natsume's Princess Debut. Under the surface, however, it was still a girl-oriented title about a hostess club, and that's only a few steps away from making a kids' game about the fun and profit of a career in stripping. Level-5 simply didn't know who the game was for, and problems continued up to its release: its price dropped, it was branded with a Cero-C rating (for ages 15 and up), and the cover girl changed from a wide-eyed munchkin to the less jarring illustration seen here. And then it flopped.

Despite its muddled history and questionable premise, Cinderella Life (a.k.a. Cinderellife plays out much like other career simulators. Players start off in control of a country bumpkin who moves to the city and lands a job in a cabaret called Neosienne. As their newest member, she dresses up, buys new accessories, and chats with the club's clientele. Here the game invites a variety of anime characters along with the regular guests. Lupin III, Fujiko Mine, Sailor Moon's Tuxedo Mask, Inazuma Eleven's Endo and Kido, and even the freakish star of Warau Salesman are among the recognizable visitors who spend time with the player's avatar. And then they're charged a thousand dollars for a single bottle of champagne and pay it because they're embarrassed that they went to a hostess club in the first place.

Import Barrier: Cinderella Life keeps everything simple, presumably for a young age. That also helps people who know little Japanese, but 3DS games are still region-locked.

Chances of a Domestic Release: Not good, given the game's retail belly-flop and subtly inappropriate underpinnings.

The prestigious Gundam Unicorn anime series started a little over two years ago, so it's high time that it got a video game of its very own. And the first Gundam Unicorn title wasn't tossed to some under-experienced developer. No, it's the work of From Software, makers of Armored Core and Chromehounds and the anime-based Another Century's Episode titles. Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn offers two central modes. One follows the storyline of the anime series, in which a lad with the unlikely name of Banagher Links lands in the middle of a vicious power struggle between the Earth Federation and the remains of the Zeon forces. More to the point, he's also the pilot of yet another mysterious Gundam robot. All of this mode's missions and battles stay true to the anime, so players are stuck with that path no matter which character they're controlling, from Banagher to Marida Cruz to Full Frontal. The last of these proves that “Chronicle Asher” wasn't the most ridiculous nickname for a Char Aznable stand-in.

However, the game also has a “Custom Cast” mode where players head into battle with three fellow pilots, and things aren't nearly as restricted. Unencumbered by plot, players can tear through battles while their sidekicks accomplish minor objectives. This makes it easier to enjoy the game's free-roaming space combat and unique use of asteroids as cover. It's hardly Gears of War in that department, but it's an interesting addition to the usual straightforward style of a Gundam game. Bandai and Sunrise also packaged it well: a special edition includes not only a Blu-Ray disc that compiles the story of the first three anime episodes, but also a novel that sets up the game's bonus downloadable “War After the War” mission.

Import Barrier: It's all region-free, though you may need to know some Japanese (or at least find a decent FAQ) to understand some mission objectives.

Chances of a Domestic Release: Not all that great. The Gundam Unicorn anime itself has a hard enough time in North America.

At this writing, Dynasty Warriors has embraced Gundam, Fist of the North Star, and now One Piece. While I feel that Ruin Explorers is still unfairly overlooked for game adaptations, there's no denying that One Piece is better suited to a title where you pound hordes of enemies senseless on a battlefield. Pirate Warriors is essentially that, though the whole Dynasty Warriors formula is reworked a bit to allow for more boss battles in the spirit of One Piece's most memorable clashes. It's also a fairly ambitious game in the territory covered, since it starts at the very beginning of Monkey D. Luffy's pirate odyssey and ends at the time-skip that leads to the New World Saga. Of course, the game doesn't bother with every little plot point along the way, but it features all of the major enemies, including Buggy, Don Krieg, Crocodile, Akainu, and Blackbeard. And that's what the fans are after, isn't it?

Like the Gundam Unicorn game above, One Piece: Pirate Warriors includes a manga-accurate central storyline as well as an extra mode that throws plot fidelity out the window. Called “Another Log,” this second mode allows players to explore various scenarios with the game's controllable cast: Luffy, Nami, Sanji, Zoro, Usopp, Tony Tony Chopper, Nico Robin, Franky, Brook, Jinbe, Boa, Whitebeard/Edward Newgate, and Portgas. The play mechanics do a respectable job of recreating The One Piece characters' comical attacks, even though the packs of rival pirates and marines and prison guards are just as stupid as the blade-fodder of any given Dynasty Warriors.

Import Barrier: The gameplay's quite easy to pick up, and One Piece fans have already seen most of the story.

Chances of a Domestic Release: Between a U.S. trademark and Dynasty Warriors producer Kenichi Ogasawara mentioning the game's potential in the West, you can count on seeing Pirate Warriors here before long.

My, how time can change a series. Fifteen years ago, the Shining games were mostly cute little strategy-RPGs with elf wizards and centaur knights all rendered in charming storybook style. Today, Shining games are mostly action-RPGs stocked with all sorts of scantily dressed heroines and the art of Tony Taka. Shining Blade changes things yet again, since it's an RPG with a combo-driven battle system. During combat, characters roam freely and use a power gauge to attack (which is sorta like Valkyria Chronicles). They also join up for combination moves where each party member's strike is controlled by a different PSP face button (which is sorta like Valkyrie Profile). That's all a little bit different from the previous Shining games, though Shining Blade keeps Tony Taka as its character designer.

There's far less invention in Shining Blade's storyline, which finds the world threatened by a cult's plot to revive an ancient evil called the Dark Dragon. The solution lies in the Shining Blade sword and a diva, a woman who can presumably sing the big bad menace back into oblivion. At the center of all this is Reiji (or “Rage”), a swordsman who traipses around the world alongside swordswomen Yukihime and Sakuya, elf archer Altena, dragoon Roselinde, wolf-man rebel Fenrir, and others. The divas are all particularly useful, as their songs function as spells during combat. And they aren't even the limit of Shining Blade's large cast of female characters, which also includes bakers, schoolgirls, nuns, knights, and what appears to be a gun-toting android girl named Cerberus. Many of them will look familiar to fans of the past few Shining titles. Old-school Shining Force holdouts will surely cringe at what the series has become, but even they must give Shining Blade a little credit for trying out some new gameplay for the franchise.

Import Barrier: As a rule, RPGs don't make for smooth sailing unless you understand the text. That applies to Shining Blade.

Chances of a Domestic Release: Not terribly good, considering that Sega abandoned any plans to translate Valkyria Chronicles 3 for the domestic PSP. Perhaps some downloadable version could be worked out for the Vita, but don't hold your breath.

One could call Xenoblade Chronicles a Japanese RPG for people who hate Japanese RPGs, but that's not really true. It's a game for people who frequently complain that modern RPGs, not just Japan's, are too derivative, too tedious in their exploration, and too reliant on overblown, overlong melodramatic bluster. For one thing, Xenoblade's probably the first ever RPG set upon two giant alien creatures whose bodies were frozen in mid-battle long ago. In the ages that followed, life developed on both alien corpses: the Mechonis now hosts machine beings, while the Bionis is home to a variety of flesh-and-blood animals, including humans and other sentient races. The Mechon hordes routinely attack Bionis, but the beleaguered “Homs” (humans, in other words) find protection in the Monado, a mysterious blade that harms only inanimate objects and grants occasional glimpses into the future. During a particularly tragic Mechon assault, the sword ends up in the hands of Shulk, one of those thoughtful RPG heroes who's more than most suspect. Joined by half a dozen stereotypes, Shulk roams through valleys, dungeons, and spacious grasslands—all of which are located on a giant creature's dead body.

Xenoblade is very much the opposite of Monolith's other major RPG project, the Xenosaga series. While Xenosaga was relentlessly cinematic in its storytelling, Xenoblade tilts much more in favor of someone playing the game. There's an extravagant world to explore, and you're seldom hemmed in: feel free to head any direction you like, and don't worry if you leap over the railing and plunge off a cliff and into a lake. And there's a reason to look around, as Xenoblade has a few hundred side-quests. The combat system also fits nicely into all this roaming: battles are quick and rely on characters' unique abilities. Similar to Final Fantasy XII minus the automated Gambit system, Xenoblade puts three party members into real-time clashes that demand quick tactical choices and teamwork. It's a polished experiment in a genre that normally sticks to the tried and true, and it might be a rare experiment as well—the North American's version available only through GameStop stores and Nintendo's website.