The X Button
Mystery Hours
by Todd Ciolek,
Rumors about Final Fantasy are abundant, ridiculous, and sometimes true. Consider the story of a Disney-backed comic based on Final Fantasy IV. It sounds like a playground fib, but it certainly existed. Game Player's Strategy Guide to Dell Barras, and, for the covers, none other than Mike Mignola.
Busiek reportedly finished scripting the four-issue series, and Barras drew two of those issues before the whole project was canceled without ever seeing the comic racks. Sadly, those issues never leaked to the public, and for the longest time the only trace we had of them was the above ad. So Final Fantasy nerds like me were left to wonder.
Fortunately, Lost Levels forum member Johnny Undaunted and X-Men.
Perhaps we'll see more artifacts from this strange intersection of video games and Disney comics. Or perhaps Disney and Kingdom Hearts, will make a brand new Final Fantasy comic. And they can it in their Rescue Rangers series. That's still running, right?
Well, this column's Ultra Street Fighter IV contest is still running, at least. You have until the end of Thursday to send me (toddciolek at gmail.com) your suggestion as to which character should the Street Fighter cast. It can be anyone from any game! Just send the character's name, his or her or its title of origin, and whether you'd want the Xbox Live version. That's all I need!
NEWS
THE PERSONA 5 TRAILER IS UNFAIR
There's something fiendish about the first few glimpses of Persona 5's new trailer. When the game first appeared, I wished that it would leave the high-school settings of Atlus dashed those hopes last year by stating that the game had a high-school stage, but for a moment the Persona 5 trailer fooled me into thinking that at least the protagonist might not be a high-school kid. We first see him sitting on a train and dressed in what looks like a sensible day-to-day turtleneck and sport coat.
Yet the wider shots reveal that he's wearing a school uniform, so there go my last dim desires for a Persona 5 that's not tied to high school. In retrospect, that's a pretty silly reason to be disappointed, and the game's brief introduction isn't bad. The rest of the trailer shows the hero wandering the city and gawking at a silent blue explosion, which fits the usual Persona concept of unseen worlds lurking amid sprawls of modern mundanity. So we at least know that it won't be, say, a kart-racing game.
The trailer also confirms that Persona 5 will be yet another game straddling the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4. No differences between the versions were detailed, and both will be out in 2015. Based on the history of the series, I expect they will be followed by Persona 5 Arena, Persona 5 Golden, and maybe an actual Persona Kart.
NINTENDO'S NEW 3DS HAS A SECOND NUB, A XENOBLADE PORT
I was far less disheartened by Nintendo's announcement of a new 3DS. In truth, the uninventively named New Nintendo 3DS is two new models: the regular-size 3DS and the XL. It has two additional shoulder buttons, a faster processor, face buttons that are colored like a Super Famicom pad's, better 3-D, a second analog nub, and NFC for those Amiibo Nintendo figures that every kid will want this Christmas. Mark my words. Much like the Nintendo DSi, the New Nintendo 3DS will bring around a few games incompatible with the old 3DS. The most notable one so far is a portable version of Xenoblade Chronicles, Monolith Soft's currently pricey Wii RPG.
The sight of marginally upgraded Nintendo hardware isn't half as interesting as some new remarks from Shigeru Miyamoto, who told Edge that his development staff doesn't want to focus on people who “ively” take in games and do not “know how interesting it is if you move one step further and try to challenge yourself.” He also cited the rise of smartphones as the major reason that Nintendo's developers “do not have to worry about making games something that are relevant to general people's daily lives.”
Miyamoto's remarks suggest a change from Nintendo's plan during the Wii era, when the console sold exceptionally well with casual s. Now the Wii U struggles in sales and Nintendo evidently needs new directions. Yet most of the recently announced Wii U software fits into the same wide-appeal category that the company always favored. Mario spin-offs, party games, and a multiplayer shooter called Splatoon would fit on the Wii and GameCube. If Miyamoto's hinting at Nintendo's next major move, perhaps we simply haven't seen it yet.
YAKUZA ZERO GOES TO 1988, DOESN'T MEET SHENMUE
The Yakuza series grew out of the hard lessons Yū Suzuki's would-be magnum opus, Shenmue was an ambitious and expensive attempt to tell an adventure tale in a painstakingly recreated 1980s Japan, but many of its attractions were humdrum payoffs considering how much Sega spent on the game. It's likely we'll never see a third Shenmue, but we'll see plenty of Yakuza titles. As a crime-drama take on the life simulator of Shenmue, Yakuza has players roaming seedy districts, romancing club hostesses, getting into punch-ups, and living the life of a semi-noble gangster. Not merely content to outshine Shenmue in general play, Yakuza now heads to Shenmue's home turf: the 1980s.
Yakuza Zero takes place in 1988, when thugs Kazuma Kiryu and Goro Majima were younger and perhaps a little more reckless. A murder mystery on the streets of Kamurocho in Tokyo draws Kiryu out of his service to the Dojima crime family, while Majima tries to hide his criminal history while running a club in Osaka's Soutenburi district. Both neighborhoods glow with all the seedy grandeur Japan's bubble economy could allow, and they supply the usual Yakuza vices of nightlife, dating, and perhaps even batting cages. The game's headed to the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4, and the latter s remote play through the PS Vita. More details will emerge at this month's Tokyo Game Show, but we can start bothering the good people of Sega for a localized version right now. I'm sure they enjoy that.
IMPORT ROUNDUP: AUGUST
LOST DIMENSION Developer: Lancarse Publisher: otaku away from the latest Neptunia. Import Barrier: You can play it on your domestic PS3 and Vita, but you'll miss out on the betrayals and investigations without some knowledge of Japanese. Chances of a Domestic Release: Not so good. No North American publishers have stepped up yet, and Lost Dimension barely charted during its launch week. Least Realistic Character: Mana Kawai, a cute-culture fan who drags her pink teddy bear backpack into battle. |
SHIN HAYARIGAMI  Developer: NIS America might just take a shot at this.Least Realistic Character: Saki, who isn't introduced to the player by bumbling through the hallway or talking about her favorite snack. Don't all women have to do that in video games? |
SUPER ROBOT WARS OG SAGA: MASOU KISHIN F - COFFIN OF THE END Developer: Amara Barton and her Galilnagant mecha. It's the villains who always get the attention.Import Barrier: The gameplay isn't hard to figure out if you've played a good amount of strategy-RPGs or, better yet, Super Robot Wars titles. The dialogue is all in Japanese, though. Chances of a Domestic Release: Minimal. While the OG Saga games have no burdensome anime licenses for North American publishers to surmount, Coffin of the End is the last chapter of a saga-within-a-saga. That makes it an awkward introduction to Super Robot Wars. Least Realistic Character: Saphine Grace, whose piloting dress resembles dominatrix formal wear and whose mecha resembles a naked mannequin being groped by a big metal crab. |
There's a triple dose of action-game exploitation this month. Marvelous has Compile Heart gives the Vita Ultra Dimension Action Neptunia U, wherein warrior-goddesses represent game consoles...and lose their clothes in the thick of battle. The Vita also gets D3's Bullet Girls, featuring young sharpshooters who...well, you get the idea. And guess what? The first two games stand a better chance of coming to America than any other imports we've discussed this week! That means something, but I'm afraid to know what.
NEXT WEEK'S RELEASES
DESTINY Developer: Bungie Publisher: Sony's bundling the game and a PlayStation 4 together for $449.99, hoping that you'll see it as the PS4's own Halo and forget that it's on other systems. The Xbox 360 and PS3 versions can be had in “Ghost Editions” with a steelbook case, a star chart, postcards, and a huge replica of the Ghost. It runs $150. The regular limited edition has the starmaps, the steelbook, the postcards, and a $100 price tag. Crazy. |
EXTRA LIVES: STREET FIGHTER II: THE ANIMATED MOVIE (THE GAME!)
Who is the most obscure playable Street Fighter character? The currently running contest (send in your entries!) made me wonder this, and it's a difficult question. Might it be Captain Sawada from the Street Fighter: The Movie fighting game? Perhaps Joe or Geki from the first Street Fighter? We could dig through various Street Fighter bootleg titles if we're reaching deep. Yet my choice would be the Monitor Cyborg from CAPCOM's Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie game, itself a little-known fragment of a time when a fighting game could get a movie, a second movie, and games based on each.
Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie invariably comes up when people discuss the rare decent anime based on a fighting game. CAPCOM commissioned an animated Street Fighter film in 1994 to compete with Psychic Force, but it's a treat for fans who want to see their Street Fighter favorites in a movie that at least looks great.
CAPCOM got a little extra mileage out of the film's budget by putting together Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie game, or “Street Fighter II Movie,” as the spine says. Released for both the Saturn and PlayStation, it's not the first time CAPCOM turned a game into a movie and then into a game again.
The animated movie doesn't introduce many new characters; you have Senoh, a toady scientist of the evil Shadaloo syndicate (or “Shadowlaw,” as the movie and game call it), and you have the Monitor Cyborgs that Senoh and the vile Shadaloo overlord M. Bison send out to spy on the world's best martial artists. And since no one would want to control Senoh puttering around a lab, the animated movie-game casts you as a Monitor Cyborg.
True to its movie appearance, the Monitor Cyborg doesn't do that much for most the game. It just spends a lot of time watching the other characters fight. So the player sees clips from the film bordered by the cyborg's ocular frame of green grids and flickering lights. In order to learn moves, the cyborg's sight brings up a targeting indicator, and the player has to highlight special moves and damaging hits when they show up in the movie's animation. The Cyborg has a limited number of tries, and successful shots raise its power levels in various categories.
In this manner the game plays out major scenes from the movie, boxed and grainy and interactive only through the Cyborg's little crosshairs. A fighting game emerges only during the film's climactic battle between M. Bison, wandering hero Ryu, and a brainwashed version of Ryu's old pal Ken. Using the stats accumulated by watching clips, the Cyborg wields Ken's special moves in a fight against Ryu. The match uses the Super Street Fighter II engine and graphics, complete with a complete sprite for the Cyborg and a nice new background.
Lose the fight, and Ken and Ryu triumph just as they did in the movie. Win, and you'll get one of two endings. The bleaker one has the victorious Cyborg taking Vega's place among M. Bison's sub-bosses (Vega apparently not having survived his fight with Chun-Li). In the better ending our Cyborg hero, now knowing what it is to be like the hu-man, helps Ken and Ryu defeat Bison. And then it wanders off, having learned Ryu's special technique for stoic walkaways.
It makes for an interesting piece of Street Fighter memorabilia, though it's not that great of a game. The movie segments are pixelly and cloistered while the point-and-click interface rarely seems like actual gameplay—though it's better than most of the alleged “interactive movie” titles one saw in the mid-1990s. At least CAPCOM and Group TAC made new animation for the endings, plus an intro that features Cammy perhaps more than the actual movie does.
Atop the regular movie-watching mode, the game has a plain ol' fighting-game arena for two players to spar, and you can pit the built-up Cyborg against holograms as much as you please. There's a database as well, both in the movie and without. It'll please those who've ever needed in-game readouts for Street Fighter luminaries' measurements, though Chun-Li's weight is still just question marks. You know how women are. Haw.
In game form, Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie is strictly for those devoted types who want to know T. Hawk's bust size. The scaled-down footage is no substitute for a nice, full version of the actual film (where's our domestic Blu-Ray?), and the whole thing has little value beyond a collection showpiece.
It has Monitor Cyborg, though. The robot never appeared in later Street Fighter games, not even in backgrounds or endings. You'll see Senoh briefly in a Street Fighter Alpha 2 scene, but not the Cyborg. At most, its appearance re-emerged in the bald, grimacing Seth from Street Fighter IV. Yet the Cyborg has its moment here, and it has a place among the stranger characters in the Street Fighter roster.
Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie isn't terribly common, and it hangs around the $25 range when it shows up. The PlayStation version seems to be a touch more rare than the Saturn one.
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