Wednesday, May 28, 2008

BattleFantasia - Impressions




Take the speed and mechanics of Street Fighter 3, mix in a good helping of Miyazaki art style and RPG themes, and sprinkle some Guilty Gear over the top. If your brain isn't hurting from the madness by now, you would have created something very similar to BattleFantasia - the new fighting game from Arc System Works that was released earlier today in Japan.

Using my Japanese PSN account, I was able to download a demo of BattleFantasia to get some hands-on time before the game launched. Thankfully, the full version arrived today so I'm able to give you guys an idea of just how this game stacks up - online mode and all.

For those unfamiliar with BattleFantasia, it is a fairly unique take on 2D fighting. The graphics are actually in full 3D - both characters and backgrounds...but the fighting is strictly 2D (similar to how SF4 will be handled). The characters are well built and animate fluidly. The only issue I have is with the backgrounds, which are very plain when compared against the highly detailed character models.
The gameplay is actually based around the concept of "tachimawari" or "moving around", as opposed to the fast, combo-laden style of Guilty Gear. In the US, this translates to a game based mostly around the concept of "poking". In other words: dash in, do damage, and get the &*#@ out. Massive combos can be unleashed in the game as well, but are generally limited to a special character "hyper" mode that can be unleashed known as "Heat Up". The effects for this mode differ for each character, but in general this allows for larger combos and larger damage for many moves. Each character has a HP amount representing his/her lifebar, and HP amounts vary between characters (a large armored knight, for example, has more HP than the scantily clothed princess). In general, the characters with more HP tend to be larger and easier to hit than the smaller, faster characters with less HP. Surprisingly, this variance in life amounts does not appear to damage the balance of the game, although there does seem to be a slight descrepancy in the amount of characters in the "middle tier" as opposed to the top or bottom tiers which are fairly well defined.

The "Gachi" button handles parries and recoveries, and is the main gameplay mechanic for reversals and getting out of pressure situations. Street Fighter 3's parries are very similar to Gachi, although Gachi has a few traits specific to itself, not the least of which is the "Gachi Drive" which enables a player caught in a defensive guard to immediately reverse into an offensive position. This is a difficult technique to master due to the timing it requires and it appears I may have to spend a good deal of time playing the game before I'm able to master it.


There are only 12 selectable characters, but each one plays very differently. The personalities are varied and memorable, ranging from the typical "hero", to the "knight wannabe kid", to the "brooding angstmonger" to the "catgirl" (yes there is one), to the "furry" (yep, there's one of those too), to the "princess". I haven't had a chance to play through the story mode and find out the deal behind the majority of these characters yet, but I'm very much looking forward to it.

The game has the "old standbys" as far as modes are concerned: Arcade mode, Story mode (where you fight a range of battles following the story of each character - separated by cutscenes which are fully voiced), Survival mode, Practice mode, Gallery, and Network (among others).


What I want to focus on is the Network play, since that's what I'm sure most of you are concerned about... will an imported Japanese game even be playable online? Will they blockUS IPs? Is the lag even bearable?

From what I've managed to play, the answer to the first question is yes, the answer to the second question is no, and the answer to the third question is a "cautiously optimistic" yes.

Another PSN user going by the handle PiGnUTtZ and I fought about 20 matches tonight, and despite a couple of disconnects, the gameplay was VERY fluid. I'm not sure where the servers for the game are located or whether it's more of an issue of how far away each player is from one another, but PiGnUTtZ spoke perfect English and judging from his messages seemed to be either a US or UK player. I won't know how bad the lag is with Japanese players until I get a chance to test the Network mode more thoroughly over the next few days. The thing that shocked me more is apparently only 19 people have the game so far judging from the rankings list. I anticipate this won't be a very big seller, despite its quality...

Overall, color me impressed. Those expecting a new Guilty Gear may walk away a bit dissapointed with the modified gameplay mechanics, but those people weaned on games like Street Fighter 3 or Street Fighter Alpha will find a lot to like about this game. Plus, as the first in a line of "real" next-gen fighters (not including XBL/PSN fare) to hit the consoles this year, it gives the others a lot to live up to...even if nobody ends up playing it.

Battle Fantasia GET!

Not bad, PlayAsia.

BattleFantasia for PS3 is currently waiting on my doorstep. Impressions and a possible review will be up tonight (depending on whether or not the online mode is working, since the game technically isn't available in Japanese retailers until tomorrow).

Monday, May 26, 2008

Xbox 360 region locking... なぜ?!


During my trip to Japan, I couldn't help but notice the sad, pathetic state of affairs concerning the Microsoft XBOX 360. There are loads of Western games, as expected, available on the console. But surprisingly, there are also a fair amount of Japanese exclusives. A few PS2 RPG ports, shooters such as Raiden Collection, action games like Guilty Gear 2 Overture and Oneechanbara X, and upcoming titles such as Battle Fantasia and Otomedius G.

The sad thing? Not a single one of these titles will play on an NTSC/UC 360. This is due to an optional (I repeat, OPTIONAL) region lock Microsoft put in place - and left it up to developers whether or not they wished to utilize it to keep their games playable only on their home turf. This region lock is two hex digits burned to a specific data area on each DVD9, telling the XBOX 360 which region the disc belongs to, and whether or not it should be allowed to play.

Now, I can understand Western developers wanting to region-lock their titles due to a possible impact in sales in home territory if a game is released overseas first. But given the XBOX 360's limited installed base in Japan (500,000 as of April 2008), it doesn't make sense for Japanese developers to lock American and European gamers out. Even more interesting is that this trend is REVERSED. Looking at sites like Play Asia, it's plain as day just how many games coming from the US do not contain region locking (spoiler: almost all games are region free) - yet all games coming out of Japan have region locks in place. W T F. Logically, it would make more sense for the Japanese games to be region free, since it would be sales for the developer and publisher from markets where the games may not be released for financial reasons. By locking out US and EU gamers, these publishers and developers are limiting their possible sales to the 500,000 units in Japan, rather than the 20 million worldwide. It just doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me - most of the time.

Don't get me wrong - in certain cases, region locking makes sense for the publisher. For example: Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey both experienced slight delays in the US due to marketing issues. The Asian version of these games shipped a few months prior to the US release with an English translation on the discs. Due to the expense Microsoft incurred to develop these titles as exclusives, it would make sense that they wouldn't want to have sales numbers skewed in the US by overzealous importers. In cases like this, region locking makes sense. I'm not saying I LIKE it - in fact, I would have much rather had my Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey a few months early - but since sales of imports don't count domestically, it can be a serious issue for business negotiations between console manufacturers and developers. This is especially the case for "niche" titles (like the fighting and RPG genres), where big sales numbers in a region with a large install base could in theory be used to secure more exclusives from developers in a region where the install base isn't quite as high (Japan, in this case). Add to this the fact that RPG fans are fairly import-savvy to begin with, and Microsoft could have had a serious problem on their hands without region locking. There are also issues with games containing licensed content, such as Rock Band (one of the few American 360 titles known to have a region lock) - just because a song is licensed in one region doesn't mean a different set of rights applies overseas.

I'm still holding out a small fragment of hope that a third party will crack the code and come up with some sort of XBOX 360 freeloader, allowing imports to be played on US consoles freely... however, that would introduce a whole NEW set of issues. When you sign up for XBOX Live, you have to agree to an EULA which basically says M$ can delete your account or ban you from the service for whatever reason it sees fit (this very same clause was invoked when a HALO 3 'closed beta' was found on a console not signed up for participating - those poor guys got their XBOXes permanently banned from Live). So would M$ decide to ban all US/EU accounts shown to have played Japanese games/unlocked Japanese achievements? Sadly, I wouldn't put it past them. This is probably the very same reason that a freeloader has yet to be developed. Getting hit with a class action lawsuit for mass bannings from Live is probably not something Datel would want to deal with...

This whole issue is a real shame. I'd love to take my Battle Fantasia with achievement points, and I'd love to be playing Otomedius G later this year on my US console (as I thoroughly enjoyed the arcade version while in Japan), but Japanese publishers seem intent on not letting this happen. As such, I'll be ordering a PS3 version of Battle Fantasia and hope for a port of Otomedius G sometime in the future.

Sunday, May 11, 2008

What's this?





Hmmm.....

Memories

With ACEN fast approaching, I decided I should post some reminders of the fun we've had in years past....stylized, of course. Ironically, this year they're giving out tickets for the ACEN masquerade, rather than deal with...well.... this....