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THE COMMOTION OF HARUHI SUZUMIYA (Kadokawa showed off a bunch of mini-games for Haruhi Suzumiya no Gekidou (everyone's translating gekidou as “commotion” and so will I), leading some people, myself included, to assume that they'd cut the dancing game that was pretty much the title's centerpiece? No, you don't ? Good, because that was all a lie. The Commotion of Haruhi Suzumiya is out for the Wii in Japan, and it has both a dancing simulator and a pack of ing mini-games. Of course, no one's really importing it for the mini-games; they want the remote-based dance segment and the four new tangentially Haruhi-related songs it offers. Reactions so far have labeled the game's remote-tracking abilities as “tricky,” which may be apologist fan code for “an unplayable piece of shit.” There's something here for Haruhi fanatics, but anyone who's just mildly curious about the game can wait for their next anime convention, where they're sure to see this thing humiliating people in the game room. Odds of a Domestic Release: Sure, right after the turd-filled shooter Toilet Kids for the PC Engine, and that one fighting game where every character is construction equipment.

FRAGILE (Namco Bandai, Wii) It's hard to classify Fragile without turning to the widely inclusive genre of “action-adventure.” More than anything, the game focuses on exploring a world overtaken by post-apocalyptic decay, a world where a curly-haired boy named Seto hunts for any remnants of humanity. The first he finds is Ren, a pale slip of a girl singing beneath a night sky, but she's not the only one subsisting amid the ruins of an apparently modern civilization. Namco pitches the game as an RPG, though it approaches battles with an action-oriented interface, as Seto stabs or shoots ghostlike creatures and various monsters while sifting through dank basements and abandoned hallways. Fragile has earned a lot of attention on of its hauntingly gentle soundtrack and vibrant nighttime scenery, and there's clearly some distressing story to explain just what happened to the planet. It's hardly a savage nuclear-blasted struggle (read on for one of those), but Fragile is one of the more promising Wii titles for 2009. Odds of a Domestic Release: Pretty good, considering the lack of RPG-ish Wii games and Namco Bandai's promotion of it among the domestic gaming press. Perhaps the U.S. version will put more clothes on Ren.

HOKUTO NO KEN: RAOH GAIDEN TEN NO HAOH (Fist of the North Star fans seem to be realizing that Kenshiro, head-exploding series hero that he is, can be a bit one-note. In recent years, it's been Raoh, the most fearsome of Kenshiro's pseudo-brothers, who's earned movies, a TV show, and even a big fake funeral in his name. Based on the currently running (in Japan, of course) Raoh-centric TV series of the same name, Hokuto no Ken: Raoh Gaiden Ten no Haoh might be the first Fist of the North Star game that doesn't star Kenshiro. He's hidden in there, but Raoh Gaiden is all about Raoh and, to a lesser extent, ing characters from the series and recurring Fist lore. The lineup features Souga, Reina, Sakuya, Amiba, Uighur, Ryuro, Ryuga, Souther, Juda, and Raoh's three siblings: masked jerk Jagi, nice-guy Toki, and Kenshiro (fans will note that this may mark the most female characters to appear in any Fist of the North Star fighter so far, and no, I'm not counting Juda by mistake). Arc System Works, creators of Guilty Gear, put out a lovingly made 2-D Fist of the North Star fighter in 2006, but this PSP release wraps 3-D visuals around mostly 2-D gameplay. Raoh hogs the story mode, leaving the rest of the characters to slaughter each other in versus battles. Yet this is a fighter and not a side-scroller full of moronic drones, and so you'll have to work to see whatever body-bursting carnage the game has to offer. Odds of a Domestic Release: If Arc's better-looking 2-D Fist of the North Star fighter didn't make it over here, this won't either.

MY WORLD, MY WAY (Atlus, DS, $29.99) Atlus seems to be releasing a new RPG for every week of February, and they're leading with the charmingly solipsistic My World, My Way. In this RPG, a spurned, bratty princess named Elise sets off to become an itinerant hero for entirely selfish reasons, and she accomplishes this by actively re-shaping the countryside she encounters. While dealing with a slime sidekick and a hired antagonist (who resembles Kingdom Hearts II's Axel not a little), Elise creates and changes her environment by shuffling around sections of a grid-mapped world. The game's combat interface isn't too far from a regular, menu-driven Dragon Quest and the dungeons look like a typical 3-D action-RPG deal, but it's all in how the player sets up the stage. My World, My Way would make a fine sleeper hit, so here's hoping it uses its clever premise for enjoyable ends. And that it's not buried by all of the other RPGs that'll follow right behind it. Get Excited If: You've ever wanted to tear up an RPG dungeon and rebuild it.

TENCHU: SHADOW ASSASSINS (Acquire, the developer that created the first two Tenchus for the PlayStation. Now that their other ninja offering, Shinobido Imashime, will never become a series, Acquire turns to what is technically the fourth proper Tenchu. The storyline revives Rikimaru and his faster, weaker female comrade Ayame in a world of hazardous stealthy missions, which, while not as rigid as the worst Splinter Cells, make things quite lethal for ninja who get spotted by enemies. It's also the first Tenchu for the Wii, raising the question of just how suitable remote-waving motion controls can be for a game where precision is of the essence. It might degenerate into a hacking, slashing, remote-flailing mess, but at least you'll have 17 different weapons to swing around in the game. And there's always the PSP version. Get Excited If: You played Tenchu and felt like stealthily waving the controller around.

Super Spacefortress Macross
Banpresto wisely based its 1992 Macross arcade game on Do You Love, the TV show's prettier, more compact movie retelling. A vertically scrolling shooter of modest design, Super Spacefortress Macross (the in-game title) gives players a Valkyrie fighter capable of transforming into a F-15ish jet, a robot Battroid, and an amusing plane-with-arms-and-feet Gerwalk mode. Each has a slightly different attack: the jet fighter shoots straight ahead, the Gerwalk fires slim lasers, and the Battroid spews missiles. Unfortunately, Banpresto ignored others Macross games that let players switch forms with the touch of a button. Instead, Super Spacefortress demands that you grab special power-up capsules to change a Valkyrie's configuration. These capsules burst onto the screen every ten seconds, making them just a needless complication. Players can also grab heavy armor that absorbs one direct hit and locks a Valkyrie into Battroid mode, but it hardly makes up for not being able to twirl a jet fighter through a cloud of missiles, morph into a robot, and unload everything into a Zentradi warship.

At least Super Spacefortress Macross has the right atmosphere. Its seven stages cover every major battle from Do You Love, including a final run into Zentradi leader Golg Boddole Zer's vegetable-like battleship. The visuals show a lot of hand-drawn detail, particularly in an opening crawl through the interior cityscape of the SDF-1, where downed fighters tumble to the streets below. Also impressive for a 1992 arcade game are the intermissions, all animated with large sprites and occasional voice samples, which tie into the soundtrack's attempts at aping the movie's music.

As a shooter, Super Spacefortress Macross pushes few boundaries. It's certainly challenging, with thick fleets of Zentran and Meltran forces firing all sorts of missiles and bullets and drone fighters, but there's a noticeable lack of interesting patterns in them. Only the later bosses throw out any remotely creative attacks, and the ending is merely a short recreation of the movie's closing credits. The years have changed little about Super Spacefortress Macross; it was purely average fan-bait then, and it's purely average fan-bait now.

Super Spacefortress Macross II
Someone at Banpresto clearly picked up on criticisms that the company's first Macross arcade game was too staid a shooter, because 1993's Super Spacefortress Macross II aims for something different. Many arcade shooters reward high scores, but Macross II focuses an entire game around them. It presents three different paths through various anime locales (including a space armada hilariously filled with pop-star holograms), and players get about two minutes to reach a pre-set score. Instead of evading bullets and snatching power-ups, the game emphasizes shooting down enemies and grabbing the Macross symbols that pop out. It's a novel idea among the rampantly unimaginative shooters of the early 1990s, but Macross II never makes it work. The levels are barren and unsatisfying, and both competitive two-player modes seem dull.

Perhaps realizing that no one actually liked Macross II, Banpresto pays little attention to its storyline. Players control either Silvie Gena or Major Nexx, but there's nothing in the way of plot sequences or endings. The game mimics the mecha designs of Macross II and occasionally shows a full-screen centerfold illustration of alien singer Ishtar, yet the whole thing could just as easily be some generic 1990s shooter, right down to the forgettable music. Macross II was an unambitious mound of clichés later banished from the series canon, but Banpresto's arcade game is a different sort of failure, one that takes new ideas and goes nowhere with them.

OVA series involve reunited high-school rivals Isamu Dyson and Guld Bowman beating the shit out of each other over any matter more important than the last purple jellybean. Banpresto didn't care about that, though, because Macross Plus has a stunning climax full of explosions and mecha battles, and it could be expanded into a seven-level shooter. Since a story didn't matter much in an arcade game, the designers were also free to add another selectable Valkyrie fighter. Along with Isamu's VF-19 and Guld's VF-21, there's a yellow VF-11 piloted by a blue-haired woman who's never properly identified in the game. Prevailing fan theory has it that she's Komillia Jenius.