Blog Archives
Imagery Updates – Oodles of Content Added!
UPDATE: Since I haven’t heard back from the aforementioned developer about hosting their art, I decided to go ahead and put up a huge selection of art from Capcom’s Darkstalkers series. I’ve been meaning to do this for a while, so I’m glad I can conclude Misc. Imagery Page 3 with the brilliant designs of that franchise. Maybe one day I’ll be able to own a copy of one of the games. XD Also in Imagery news, I’ve added a fourth page to the Imagery Dropdown to try to help break it up a bit more. I’d like it to not have more than seven boxes, and already the new M-S section is at that maximum. XD I’ll have to probably add a fifth when I get the next Imagery (Rival Schools, FYI) uploaded. So anyway, enjoy the Darkstalkers art and I hope the changes to the menu are helpful. 
Original Post Follows:
Let’s break this down by page. Let’s begin with the Misc. Imagery:
Some new material for Odin Sphere, Zack & Wiki, God of War and Ghosts N’ Goblins!
New content for Bravely Default and Mega Man.
Four new galleries have been added, including our first anime-related Misc. selection! Battle Angel Alita begins that trend, and there will be more than three images for that in the future. Game-wise, we have a franchise-wide covering of Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles, some lovely background work for Etrian Odyssey 4, and creepy (but not the super-violent) Soul Sacrifice art. A fifth will be added tonight, probably. I’m waiting for permission on a gallery I wanted to display, but the creator hasn’t gotten back to me yet. Something else will pop up if I don’t hear anything by tonight. I also added some new stuff to the Resident Evil 6 section.
Lastly, Persona 4 Arena and Fire Emblem have one new image each, which are up above, so why link the pages? :p
Enjoy the new goodies!
News Roundup: 5/11/2012
Some things I’ve accumulated while I was busy studying/sicking:
Like Cultural Anxiety? I hope so. Well, in between my writings check out this Tumblr Box Vs. Box, which does a box art comparison much like I do, but without the in-depth textiness. I’ve gotten some ideas for future posts from there. Worth a look!
Curious about the Street Fighter manga by Masahiko Nakahira? Be curious no more, for Jason Thompson at ANN thoroughly details them out here. Now I want to read them!
If you want to wander through your days to the themes of the Gamecube Animal Crossing, now you can.
1UP’s The Grind digs into the latest Fire Emblem quite nicely here.
Okay, I think that’s all for now. I’ve got other things to do, so I’ll see you tomorrow!
Persona 4: The Animation to retain the P4 English Cast!…Maybe
Excellent news about Persona 4: The Animation: Sentai Filmworks, the official English licensor for the anime, confirmed today that they have gotten all of the major actors and actresses from Atlus’ localization to provide the voices for the English dub. This is the news I wanted to hear, as I adored the dub in P4, and will enjoy the anime ten times more with their involvement.
UPDATE – Er, it seems Sentai may have jumped the shark a bit with their announcement. Kotaku talked to several of the English VA’s from Persona 4, and it appears that they…well, they haven’t been asked to do the voices for the anime yet. So, I’m afraid I reported false information, and I apologize. Hopefully, Sentai will contract them all like they said they have and this can be confirmed as reality. Thanks to Jason X for bringing this to my attention.
Like this:
Cultural Anxiety: Conquest of the Crystal Palace/Matendouji (NES/Famicom)
Study 22 – Conquest of the Crystal Palace/Matendouji (Asmik/Quest, NES/Famicom)
The studio that would eventually create Ogre Battle/Tactics Ogre began in 1998 under a different moniker of Bothtec. This company released one game, The Scheme, for NEC’s PC-8801. After a name change to Quest, the company began working with the NES hardware. Matendouji was the first to be localized for overseas audiences, transformed into Conquest of the Crystal Palace. Later on, Quest focused on their aforementioned Ogre series, which would earn its rightful place as one of the finer strategy RPG franchises on the market. Their work would inspire the creation of Final Fantasy Tactics, thanks to three major members of Quest, Yasumi Matsuno, Hiroshi Minagawa, and Akihiko Yoshida, all joining Square and being a big part of FFT’s creation. Quest themselves would also become a part of the Square-Enix behemoth following the release of the GBA Tactics Ogre: The Knight of Lodis, and would lose their company identity entirely.
Asmik Corp, which is now known as Asmik Ace Entertainment, began in 1985 and produced their own games on top of localizing games from other companies. Their best known titles are the Game Boy Catrap (available on the 3DS Virtual Console!) and Boomer’s Adventures in ASMIK World for the NES. As of late they’ve been quiet on the gaming front, but the company still exists and continues to be a part of the Japanese entertainment industry.
Matendouji/Conquest stars a young man named Farron, who is actually a prince of the Crystal Palace. Along with his talking dog Zap, Farron marches off to reclaim his throne from the villain Zaras.
With that brief bit of exposition, let’s get into the meat of this post.
Matendouji’s Famicom box is a little busy, but full of excellent anime designs and motifs. I wonder if Akihiko Yoshida was involved…this doesn’t resemble his present style. At any rate, it’s a fine introduction to Farron’s world.
Asmik’s spin on the box loses a lot of its Japanese anime roots, despite the Samurai armor adorning the big bad (Zaras?) villain Farron and Zap are facing off against. There’s not much resemblance of Farron’s Japanese design. He looks much more European in style. Zap is still decked out in some sort of armor, but it has a futuristic look to it over the more traditional Japanese armor he donned on the Famicom box. The composition isn’t terrible, and the shattering of the edges of the scene are clever…but it doesn’t do much for me, personally.
Screenshots ahoy! Japanese on the left, American on the right.
Quest’s title screen features chibi heads of the main cast, and some huge kanji representing the title. However, there’s something really wonderful about the approach Asmik ran with for the American title screen. I like the mood it creates. Definitely one of the nicer ones of the era.
The key difference here is that the Japanese version uses “lives” while the American uses “rest” to signify extra lives. Not sure why!
Asmik removed some of the more controversial elements of the game, including these skeletal babies that crawl around on the ground. Slugs replace them for America.
And then there’s this. This area is RADICALLY altered for America. The foreground titles are disturbingly fat baby heads. The background is full of freaky zombie faces. And the enemies are ghastly fetuses. In America, all of these were toned way down. The foreground is now standard cavern fare. The background are still creepy face-like things, but it’s not as drastic as before. And the enemies are now spiders and some weird fairy-esque thing I can’t quite make out. Massively different.
From here on in, I’ve only got American screens. I salute Asmik for their mostly hands-off approach to localization here, leaving much of the Japanese cultural roots intact for Conquest.
For example, the heaven kanji under Zap. Farron looks like a fairly typical anime hero, too, with a Japanese flair to him that wasn’t lost in translation.
The use of a scroll, with kanji, and Japanese imagery and artwork. That’s great spritework, I must say.
Here’s the store. Owner Kim has a nice anime look to her, doesn’t she? I love how this game embraces so much of its Japanese heritage, and how Asmik left it alone! It’s a wonderful thing. Even the box art features minute elements, although it was completely reworked into a more American style. On the whole, though, Conquest of the Crystal Palace managed to escape Japan relatively unscathed, and if Nintendo was not as strict with their NES censorship, it may have come with all of the freaky bits from the cave intact, too.
Sources:
Hardcore Gaming 101 Article on Conquest – http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/crystalpalace/crystalpalace.htm
Joystiq’s Virtually Overlooked on Conquest – http://www.joystiq.com/2008/05/22/virtually-overlooked-conquest-of-the-crystal-palace/
MobyGames Page for Conquest Images – http://www.mobygames.com/game/nes/conquest-of-the-crystal-palace/screenshots
Spil:Musset Museum page for Matendouji – http://www.spilmuseet.dk/infotitel.php?id=39640
Persona 4: The Animation is up on Hulu!
The first fifteen episodes are ready for viewing – they’re subtitled only, but it’s great to see it over here so quickly. I was a little astounded by the speed it was added onto Hulu – I expected to hear a little more about it before it was available to view. XD Regardless, I’ve heard some good buzz, and what little I checked out seemed pretty good animation wise, so give it a shot if you dig the game.
Trailer Tuesdays – First Edition
Welcome to Trailer Tuesdays! Pop some corn and dim the lights, because every week we will be highlighting various video game and movie trailers, both new and old. This first edition of Trailer Tuesdays is focusing on two anime-style trailers.
Xenoblade Chronicles (Monolith Soft, Nintendo)
“Sorry I kept you waiting,” Dunban says, as if speaking to the North American audience that has been waiting entirely too long to get its hands on Nintendo and Monolith Soft’s critically praised Wii RPG. If you’re a frequent visitor to LVLs, then you know we’ve been very heavy-handed about pushing the game, but we want it to be noticed. The game is already available in Europe and Australia, and will finally be available in North America on April 2 exclusively at GameStop and through Nintendo’s online store.
Better late than never, Dunban!
The Secret World of Arrietty (Studio Ghibli, Walt Disney Studios)
Studio Ghibli’s latest film is based on Mary Norton’s classic novel The Borrowers, with a screenplay penned by Hayao Miyazaki and Keiko Niwa. It also marks the directorial debut of Hiromasa Yonebayashi. The film has already been released in the UK to critical acclaim, and will see distribution in the US on February 17.
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Cultural Anxiety – Trojan/Tatakai no Banka (NES/Famicom)
I had plans to get Conquest of the Crystal Palace up for December, but a Hardcore Gaming 101 writer has mentioned his interest in doing a report on the game there, and that would be quite handy, so I’m going to hold off a bit and see what he comes up with. In the meantime, here’s a quickie on one of Capcom’s early NES/arcade efforts.
Study 21 – Trojan/Tatakai no Banka (Capcom, NES/Famicom)
Trojan/Tatakai no Banka is one of Capcom’s earlier games, originally released in 1986 in arcades. It stars the titular Trojan, a warrior who is living in a dystopic Mad Max-esque future where demons have shaken up civilization into a chaotic mess, and their influence dictates the world’s people save a few strong fighters. Trojan is one of these special humans immune to the demon’s corruption, and armed with a sword and shield he prepares to wipe out the threat and save the world. Fairly straightforward storyline, really.
The game was a moderate hit worthy of receiving a NES/Famicom port, which Capcom performed in the last half of 1986, releasing it in time for the holidays in Japan in December, and in February 1987 in the US. The game mixes up the gameplay a tad, as Wikipedia details:
The NES version of Trojan features several significant changes to the game, such as the addition of new power-ups and hidden rooms, as well as an alternative Versus Mode, where two players compete against each other in a best-two-out-of-three duel, making it Capcom’s first attempt in the fighting game genre.
So, this game does mean something to the greater Capcom sphere. Unfortunately, the gameplay is a trainwreck. It’s clunky, your hero’s animation is slower than his foes, and the shield/sword dynamic the game wants to utilize isn’t too effective or fun to control. Capcom revisited the concept with Tiger Road in 1987, but moved on to better action gameplay engines and concepts following that.
Ignoring the arcade version (which used the same promo materials), let’s focus on the boxes and title screens.
I love Japanese auction sites sometimes – you find better boxes there. Anyway, this was special art done for the Famicom box, and it’s definitely in the anime vein. Trojan doesn’t look too shabby – he’s doing exactly what he’s capable of in the game itself. Iron Fist or whatever his name is looks wonky, that he does – sort of like Guts Man, actually. XD
The NES box reuses that lovely holographic grid Capcom adored in their early days (as well as their audacious “High Resolution Graphics” claim). The art is plucked right from the arcade flyer, which at least shows some artistic credence (compared to, say, Mega Man). Despite this being the official art for the arcade in both regions, I think Capcom’s choice for the more dystopic sci-fi styled poster over the Famicom’s Tezuka-esque piece was regionally considered. Trojan looks decently bad ass in a He-Man sort of way, and that villainous scum behind him looks pretty menacing and an adequate super hero antagonist…in short, it attempts to appeal to an American comic/sci-fi crowd. Does it work? Well, that’s up to the viewer, I suppose.
A quick title screen comparison:
Not much to comment on. Different logos and more text in the copyright for the US game (which is on the right). From what I could tell, the innards of the game were untouched in localization.
It’s fascinating to me how a game with a dystopic post-apocalyptic scenario can be interpreted in such distinct cultural ways. Even a game whose guts are minimally altered can see drastic changes in its box art, and it’s one reason I enjoy composing these posts and am thrilled about doing this kind of thing for a career (wish me luck!).
Sources:
Joystiq piece on Trojan – http://www.joystiq.com/2007/07/12/virtually-overlooked-trojan/
StrategyWiki guide for Trojan – http://strategywiki.org/wiki/Trojan
GameFAQs Image page for Trojan – http://www.gamefaqs.com/nes/587732-trojan/images
Spidershinya’s Yahoo blog – http://blogs.yahoo.co.jp/spidershinya/60766453.html
Wikipedia page for Trojan – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trojan_(video_game)
Rurouni Kenshin manga to be revived by Watsuki, plus other news!
Anime News Network has the scoop, so I’m just going to quote them:
Manga creator Nobuhiro Watsuki will be resuming his Rurouni Kenshin series for a brief run starting in the June issue of Shueisha’s Jump Square magazine, which will ship on May 2, 2012. The magazine’s advertising describes the samurai manga’s return as a “reboot,” although the magazine may not be using the term with the English denotation in mind. More details will be in upcoming issues of Jump Square.
Keishi Ōtomo’s live-action Rurouni Kenshin film will open in Japan on August 25, 2012. The first half of the new Rurouni Kenshin: Shin Kyoto-Hen anime project just opened in two theaters last week, and the second half is slated to be completed next summer. Viz Media publishes the manga in North America.
Very exciting! I hope a lot of this stuff makes it to America, too. Also, Aniplex’s Limited Edition releases of the Kenshin OVA’s Trust and Betrayal, Reflection and The Movie are all out in the States. They’re not cheap, but the packaging looks quite lavish. Not a bad time to be a fan of the series, I must say.
Rurouni Kenshin New Kyoto Arc OVA Trailer!
Not a ton of footage there, but enough to get me quite excited! It’s looking quite nice, and I can only hope the intensity of the TV series of this arc carries over to here. I wonder if anyone will license it for America or if Aniplex themselves will do it (and if they do so, will they dub it? And will they recruit any of Media Blasters’ group to reprise their roles? So many questions!).
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