The X Button

Zero Missions

This week's X Button falls on April Fool's Day, but I resolve not to spring any unpleasant lies upon you. In fact, I don't think any jokes this year will sur one of the more compelling hoaxes in a long time: YouTube channel, message board comments, an animation cel, and even an eBay auction for a lunchbox and thermos set. That's a lot of work. And hey, maybe the show is real in some unproduced-pilot sense, and we'll all feel cynical for doubting it.

That said, the game industry won't run short on less elaborate gags. As I write this, it's already the first of April in Japan, so plenty of companies there put together their obligatory silliness. You'll see a run-down in our news section, and my favorites so far are Sherlock Hound (and those “Canine Witness” banner ads I see sometimes), and CAPCOM spent some time on it. Taito's game system is just plain cute, and it reminds me of the clever April Fool's pranks that Irem used to pull…before they gave up on video games. It's good to see that some companies haven't.

Oh, and Sony announced that The Last Guardian is now a kart-racer based on the classic sci-fi film The Last Starfighter. Happy April 1st, everyone!

NEWS

FINAL FANTASY XV IS ALL ABOUT MEN, PERHAPS WOMEN IF THEY'RE QUIET
Let's see what the controversy radar picks up this week! Ah, it's Final Fantasy XV and director Hajime Tabata's explanation for the game's all-male playable cast of Noctis, Gladiolus, Ignis, and Prompto. He maintains that an absence of playable women is “more approachable for players” and that the group of heroes embodies a “boys will be boys” overtone that would fracture should a woman be part of their little road trip. As he clarified later in Famitsu, it's possible that a female character will the team as a guest, just to throw some of that feminized oil onto the manful fire.

This disappoints those hoping for a more traditional Final Fantasy lineup, which means at least three female characters (often falling into the categories of Cute Girl, Serious Mystery Woman, and Sweet Heroine). For a good while, Final Fantasy rosters were predominantly male, but recent games shifted things to an equal ratio; Final Fantasy XII and XIII have three men and three women in the party, and the recent Type-0 has pretty much the same split. Yet it's apparent that Final Fantasy XV aims to change a few traditions, so the player's party doesn't extend too far beyond the four leads. And that's a step backward.

Now, some allege that Final Fantasy XV doesn't care about women playing it, but I think the exact opposite is true. Square obviously wants its cast of attractive male heroes to appeal to the women and girls who make up a lot of Final Fantasy's demographic, and for this the staff thinks they don't need actual playable female characters in the game. There's a strong precedent for such pandering, of course. How many dating sims aimed at women are really about their heroines? The Japanese game market plays to female consumers with lineups of appealing, romance-ready guys, and Final Fantasy XV covers that base just as thoroughly as the latest anime season's crop of "fujoshi" series.

Final Fantasy XV leaves out players who want female party , but the game might address its women in other ways. Stella Nox Fleuret, the presumed heroine, still appears prominently, and it may be that much of Noctis' story concerns her. Final Fantasy XV could focus on how men perceive women, after all. Catherine, that richly weird puzzle-action fever dream from Atlus, concerned itself with such an idea, and the resulting game wasn't sexist so much as it was grimly honest about the warped and ragged views men can have. But I don't think we're in for that sort of story with Final Fantasy XV.

And who might the guest character be? Stella's a likely suspect, as are the mysterious (and possibly identical) Lunafreya Nox Fleuret and a black-haired woman who doesn't have a name as far as I can tell. Then there's the newly introduced mechanic, Cindy. She's technically not the mandatory Cid of the game (that's her grandfather), but she'll serve the role of recurring technician for the party.

I don't like her so far, and that's not just because the latest English-language trailer gives her a corny Southern-fried accent. As far as video-game grease monkeys go, she lacks the mercenary candor of Dr. Naomi from No More Heroes or the earnest charm of Licca Kusunoki from Gods Eater Burst. Final Fantasy XV may have some female-fan boxes checked, but it needs to work on catering to the connoisseur of ive mechanics.

GET YOUR FREE GURUMIN NOW
One of last year's best promotions came from the Steam Greenlight page for Gurumin: A Monstrous Adventure, a Falcom action-RPG first released in Japan back around 2004. Mastiff offered a free to everyone who signed up for the game's community and voted for a Steam release. That was mighty generous, and Mastiff isn't welshing on the deal. If you were part of the Gurumin voting public, you can nab your free game right now.

If you missed out on the offer, Gurumin: A Monstrous Adventure is still worth the ten (well, nine) bucks that Mastiff wants now. It's an enjoyable action-RPG about a girl befriending monsters, and it has an exceptional charm atop its typically sturdy Falcom design. The PC version is a slight improvement on the PSP port that Mastiff localized in 2007, and the Steam port seems to run well. Today's mercurial price drops and Steam sales may leave us wary of paying more than pocket change for a game, but Gurumin demands more attention than that.

TYRANO BUILDER BRINGS IDEAS, BIZARRE FANTASIES TO VISUAL-NOVEL LIFE
Visual novels may seem easier to make than your average first-person shooter or RPG, and that's technically true. Yet they still take a lot of work. TyranoBuilder, a new visual-novel creator, isn't without its complexities, but it's a very helpful tool for crafting stories, creating branches, and putting together the flow of a visual novel. Any nonsense you imagine can become a real game! See?

TyranoBuilder won't do all of the work for you, of course. You'll need to supply character art, dialogue, and anything but the most basic backgrounds (that's why I pilfered the above princess from Terra Battle). Once you learn the program and create your own drawings, however, it's easy to assemble something with a convincing style. Even if you barely get your cyborg protagonist to the scene where she finds the ancient turtle-fueled dream engines of Hammurabi, you'll be blaming your own creative lulls instead of the tools at hand.

IMPORT ROUNDUP: MARCH

Shonen Jump breakout, Assassination Classroom pits a gaggle of delinquents against a new teacher who just happens to be a yellow, tentacled alien capable of destroying the world. In their attempts at xenocide, the students adopt personalized methods of murder and employ group tactics. That's a video game waiting to happen. Assassination Classroom: The Great Siege of Teacher Koro isn't quite as ambitious as its manga origins suggest, but it fits its premise into the notch of a semi-strategic action game. Players control big-headed versions of the Class 3-E misfits plus their own customized avatars, switching between them in elaborate attempts to pin down the smiley-faced alien teacher. He's susceptible to everything from hot springs to dirty magazines, but Koro proves a wily target and has a variety of attacks straight from the manga and anime series. Players can also control Koro in another mode, maneuvering him through student patrols and crossfire like a big yellow Solid Snake—one that makes children dizzy instead of snapping their necks, that is. Import Barrier: That dratted 3DS is still region-locked, though the game itself isn't so hard to understand. Domestic Release: Not likely. Assassination Classroom's manga and anime incarnations are gaining ground here, but the 3DS game isn't likely to them. The idea of armed students murdering their teacher is bound for parental outcry if Assassination Classroom hits it big, anyway. Classic Connections: There aren't too many callbacks in the 3DS game, but you'll see Koro in J-Stars Victory VS alongside many older manga characters. It'll be out in North America later this year, too.

DIGIMON STORY: CYBER SLEUTH Developer: Media.Vision Publisher: Bandai Namco Games Platform: Pokémon's electric rat to a game headlined by a baby T-Rex, but that's Nintendo money for you.

YAKUZA ZERO Developer: Shenmue and turns players loose in an arcade with some Sega classics. Here you'll find Space Harrier, Hang-On, OutRun, and Fantasy Zone. And you can play them on your Vita.

NEXT WEEK'S RELEASES

ETRIAN MYSTERY DUNGEON Developer: The Wanderer. No matter the class, most of their attacks wreak uncomfortable maladies on the enemies. Of course, the foes spit out their own nasty status effects, and the strongest ones, being proactive go-getters in a cutthroat corporate monster structure, venture outside of the labyrinths to attack the player's hometown. Can't blame them for going on the offense.

XENOBLADE CHRONICLES 3D Developer: Monolith Soft Publisher: Nintendo Platform: New Nintendo 3DS Release Date: April 10 Reyn Time: Not Internationally Recognized MSRP: $39.99 The original Wii release of Xenoblade Chronicles defied expectations. It became a critical and cult success in a time when far too many people use “Japanese RPG” as some strange pejorative. Thanks to Nintendo and GameStop's limited run of the game, it also became the rare modern title to command high eBay prices mere months after its release. And it became one of the few RPGs that explores the giant upright carcasses of two strange dueling aliens. Xenoblade's worlds are, in fact, a pair of bizarre titans frozen in mid-battle, and that lends an engaging sense of breadth to a massive open-world RPG. The player's party may trudge across spacious lands and fight inventively arranged battles, but that lush forest is on the leg of a mysterious ancient giant, and that mountain outcropping leads to an enormous blade thrust into the world-creature's chest. Atop a huge realm and a fast-paced combat system, Xenoblade provides the inevitable story of a young hero granted some mysterious ability that might unravel the world. This hero, named Shulk, gathers friends to help him, he visits curious new realms, and he fights against an insidious robotic empire called the Machina. But it's sewn together with some intriguing science-fiction beats, accomplished British voice acting, and little blobbish Nopon creatures who spout friendly lines like “Howya do?” and “Yes now?” when accosted. The 3D version of Xenoblade Chronicles is among the first games that work only on Nintendo's New 3DS, as opposed to those New 3DS titles that play just fine on an old system. The New 3DS serves the game with a faster processor and some expanded control options, and it adds a token-collecting mode where players can buy songs or character models. The Shulk Amiibo figure also works with this new version of Xenoblade, allowing players to collect tokens faster. Yes, Xenoblade isn't just a Nintendo title. It's a Nintendo franchise. I hope it'll open the door for 3DS ports of Pandora's Tower and The Last Story.

Also Available:
Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin arrives on PC, the PlayStations, and the Xboxes on April 7. It includes the game's three major DLC packs, and the Xbox One, Direct X 11, and PlayStation 4 versions have better looks and six-player online options. It's not a bad jump-in point, and Bandai Namco already has some pre-update DLC out for existing Dark Souls II owners.

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