The latest news and updates on game releases from Japan. Includes reviews, videos and guides.

Alright, year end post, let’s do it!  2011, huh?  Weird year, gotta be honest with you.  I felt my enthusiasm for gaming shift and wane.  I took on new projects and abandoned old ones.  I went to my first ever Tokyo Game Show.  And, of course, I played a lot of video games.  Some of which were highly anticipated letdowns, while others grabbed me like I could never have imagined.

Here is the complete rundown of my gaming experiences in chronological order, complete with a number that best reflects my level of enjoyment:

Ah, yes, LittleBigPlanet 2.  My friends who don’t enjoy gaming as fervently as I do often complain that I don’t have enough multiplayer games.  I suppose this is a problem afflicting a great number of RPG enthusiasts.  LittleBigPlanet 2 was unique in that I greatly enjoyed it, and so did my less gaming-crazed friends.  Collecting items and playing the seemingly infinite number of player-created maps provided countless hours of genuine, memorable fun.  Ultimately where the fun on LBP2 lies is playing with others.  Once your friends start getting bored of it or moving on, well, the game is about as useful as a sack full of donkey teeth.

Read my review
Number score: 2^.5

Before 2011 I had never played a cover shooter, but the hype surrounding Mass Effect 2 was enough for me to give it a try when it arrived on the Playstation 3.  I enjoyed the game’s futuristic, deeply imaginative world.  The minor RPG elements attracted me as well, despite being somewhat shallow.  Some of my favorite moments were when I would discover something off the beaten path: a planet or area I was free to explore without being fired upon.  These moments were rare, and ultimately I grew weary of the repetitive firefights, never completing the game.

Number score: 1.111111111111111

Being an RPG lover, I should have loved Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together for the game’s rich history alone.  Sometimes, as I’ve learned, history just isn’t enough.  Playing this revamped port reminded me of reading The Scarlet Letter in high school: it was drawn out and painfully boring.  Yet all around me people had nothing but praise for what it accomplished back in its heyday.  While I don’t doubt that the game blazed some trails, there are more relevant titles out there in the tactical RPG genre.

Read my impressions
Number score: -.00000002

That’s right: we got a new generation of Pokémon this year with Pokémon Black and White. This was without a doubt the most story-driven game in the history of the franchise, and this sidestep of the classic formula was executed very well.  The characters were memorable, the climax epic, and the updated visuals drove it all home.  A slew of updates to a somewhat antiquated system made this the most user-friendly Pokémon title to date. My only complaint is that the difficulty may have been lowered too drastically, feeling a bit like the newest generation is Pokémon on easy mode.

Read my review
Number score: µ

I was quite enamored with Assassin’s Creed 2, but the game left me with a big cliffhanger. This led me to pick up Brotherhood on day one in the hopes that the story would continue to keep me as engaged. Rather, I found myself immersed in busywork as Ezio worked to establish his place in Rome. The monotony of that coupled with repetitious missions and story elements quickly turned my attention to the game’s multiplayer mode which proved more dynamic and challenging.  The thrill of the multiplayer mode, however, failed to be reason enough to leave the game in my Playstation 3.

Number score: pizza

I’d never played a Parasite Eve before this game, a problem I quickly remedied.  That left me lost on the characteristically “out there” Square Enix story.  I was also rather turned off by the fact that my character, Aya, had her clothes torn to shreds after only a few hours of playtime.  All that aside, the game’s gun-based action system combined with the unique ability to send Aya’s consciousness from person to person proved blazingly fast and enjoyable.  Still, even after beating Parasite Eve I honestly don’t understand what the hell is going on in The 3rd Birthday, or maybe I just don’t want to.

Number score: 3rd (duh)

To say that gamers had high expectations for Catherine is an understatement.  Early impressions led us to believe it would tackle sensitive gender issues rarely seen in the adolescent medium of video games.  Ultimately there wasn’t much going on under the surface in terms of story, and the bizarre alignment system caused the ending sequences to feel disjointed and awkward.  The puzzle based action proved fast and fun on easier levels but controller-snappingly difficult by the game’s exhausting conclusion.  The one area I can’t fault Catherine on is its beautiful and consistent presentation, making you feel as though you truly are an insomniac, whiling your time away at a local bar with good friends and the best Jukebox in town.

Read my review
number score: <3

I owe a lot to the Disgaea franchise for turning me into such a demanding gamer. It made me expect more out of a game — more hours, better story, and perhaps most of all: a good laugh.  For this very reason the updated graphics in Disgaea 4 weren’t enough to make me feel like the game was a new Disgaea experience.  While a colorful cast of characters helped, the story still felt all too formulaic when compared to that of its predecessors.

Read my review
number score: 9,999

There is a very good reason my list of gaming accomplishment for the year ends with Dark Souls.  I enjoyed it so much that other titles on my list once considered “must plays” weren’t even purchased.  Once I’d experienced the lore of Dark Souls, story telling in any other game felt heavy handed and obtuse.  Other combat systems felt oppressively boring or simple.  The game’s structural changes and imaginative online interactions proved to take a great game and breathe new life into it.  If you cling to such notions, I can say that for me, Dark Souls is easily my game of the year.

Read my review
number score: 0 (because YOU DIED)

There you have it: my abbreviated opinions on every new game that I’ve played this year.  All in all, feels like a lot of build up leading to a lot of let down.  Also, an alarming lack of new intellectual properties is rather disheartening.

Being only one person limits my scope of what I can experience in a year’s time.  Here are the games I regrettably haven’t been able to play this year:

• Zelda: Skyward Sword
• The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
• Deus Ex
• Some others, I forget

So what about me, huh?  Surely more happened for me this year than sitting in front of a television, jaw ajar, mouth-breathing faintly as my brain drums up material for reviews.  Why, yes.  A lot happened!

Like…

I went to Japan:

You can read about the trip in greater detail (1,2), but here are the highlights:

• Ate some of the best food of my life, including ramen that, while delicious, is known to cause vomiting (I didn’t vomit)
• Went to the top of Tokyo Tower
• Drank a lot of Japanese beer
• Watched Japanese television like it was my job
• Survived a Typhoon
• Went to Tokyo Game Show
• Had a monkey climb on my leg at Arashiyama
• Saw the lifesize Silver Rathalos at Universal Studios Japan

And I did it all in two weeks.  Bam.

Back in August I decided I didn’t have enough on my plate so Sarah and I began a new podcast, My Fair Hunter, based around one simple premise: teach Sarah to play Monster Hunter Tri and record it.  Well, episode 18 went up the other day, so we’re still going strong despite a few bumps along the way.  The podcast has been a lot of work but also rewarding in its own right.  I’ve met a lot of great Monster Hunter fans and now Sarah has contracted an appreciation for the game as well.  I don’t know how much she’s learned, but if I am passing on my love of the game than the podcast is a success.

This year I also had quite a nostalgia kickback, jumping out of the blinding brightness of mainstream games to bask in the shade of simpler times.  I attribute this shift in attention to two factors:

• Disappointment at a number of highly anticipated titles
• Acquisition of a PSP Go

The first factor, concerning disappointment, we’ve covered already with my summaries of the games I played throughout the year, most of which were a let down.

The PSP Go changed things for me in a big way.  Up until then I couldn’t get over the fact that portable games were simply that, destined to be played on a small screen, making them inherently worse than console games.  Once the library of the PS One Classics expanded to include a number of titles very much worth revisiting I began to change my opinion.  It was around that time that I acquired my PSP Go and went a little accessory crazy.  Among the discounted accessories I purchased were a docking station allowing me to play my PSP Go on my TV.  I could even connect a Dualshock 3 controller to the device via Bluetooth.  This resulted in, what I consider to be, the greatest way to experience these worthwhile classics: I could play on the go at work or etc., return home an continue on the big screen with a wireless controller.  Amazing.

Then Capcom released Breath of Fire IV as a PS One Classic.  I hadn’t revisited the game in years, but it left a huge impression on me back in the day, so I downloaded it day one.  My eagerness to replicate my earlier experiences with the game led to me digging up the Prima guide buried among my old books.  Breath of Fire IV was as powerful as I’d remembered, and I played it all the way through to the end, actually having the credits roll on the plane ride home from Japan.  If I’d have told 15 year old Roy that he would someday play Breath of Fire IV while riding the subway in Tokyo on a portable device he probably would have laughed at me, then skateboarded off into the sunset.  This was one of my best gaming memories of the year.

So to recap, 2011 was a strange year for me.  Many of the games I had high hopes for let me down, and I think this damaged my innocent, childlike faith in the gaming industry.  The days are over in which I draw genuine excitement over minor PR announcements.  But where one catalyst for excitement has expired, I am confident another will rise to take its place.  I look forward to finding my new orientation in life, and have a strong feeling I will be finding it in 2012.