Okay, so we need to have a talk about this Japanese-Kids-Who-Collect-Shit genre of gaming.

Pokemon. Digimon. Yugioh. Medabots. Card Fighters, Duel Masters, yadda yadda yadda. It’s not so much the games themselves that get me, rather, it’s the way that in all these scenarios the battle game of the day is completely and utterly engrained into the lies of everyone, in all walks of life. I guess it adds to the immersion value of the bright and cheery worlds they spin, but it just seems odd that everyone from people’s parents to the school administration keeps a Pokeball or Robocube or whatever handy just in case some kid wanders by looking for a fight.

Musing on Pokemon, I’ve always wondered; Are there normal plants and animals in the Pokemon universe? I mean- people gotta eat something, preferably something that’s not too cute, poisonous, and conducting electricity. Or are there simply chefs who specialize in catching Pokemon en masse to slaughter and cook? Again, not that it’d make an appealing menu if your entrees were grass/rock types.

The next game of one of these series should address what happens when a fad dies. Maybe in a belated Medabots sequel, where Ikki wanders about town looking for someone to Robattle with a box full of enough bot parts to buy a used car, only to find the other kids are playing some collectible card game where famous war criminals wage mystical battle.

…Oh yeah, and those collectors’ magazine covers are fugly. Just sayin’.

I received in the mail Monday one (1) MicroSD card and one (1) DS M3 Simply card thing, allowing me to turn my DS into an even more powerful timesink than ever. Mainly I’ve been using it to play Super Robot Wars W, which is really only the second ‘true’ SRW I’ve played if you want to disregard Original Generation and its lack of crossover stories.

It’s kind of like out of control fan fiction, and if the game itself weren’t so damn fun, I’d probably laugh my ass off at the idea of a tense standoff between the Mobile Battleship Nadesico and the Jovian forces being crashed by none other than-

Okay, so it still made me laugh my ass off.

What’s kind of striking me odd is that this game is just so much easier than the OG’s, and I don’t even read that much Japanese. (Mainly, I know the game system well enough I can guess who has which buffs  by their cost, and know the other menus pretty much by feel alone.) Rather than the system of upgrades I was used to where you blow money on each, individual weapon as well as the mech stats, it’s seemingly reverted to a single upgradeable firepower stat. Pilot skills are learned from found items instead of forcing you to spend hard earned battle points. And for some inexplicable reason, upgrading the main character’s mecha also affects the battleship his family is crewing. I know they combine later, though, so maybe that’s the plot excuse. Not that I’m complaining.

Starting work on the next comic chapter now that I’m satisfied with my start on the game demo- I figured if I got some of the spriting out of the way that’d be enough for a while since That’s usually the stage I get bored/discouraged with. I’ll see about a proper page for it pretty soon.

Anyone who knows me or pays a sliver of attention during my reviews knows I have a fixation on a certain NES action RPG/shooter, which shall remain nameless aside from its initials, TGL. The more I think about some of the things the game attempted/pulled off, the more I wonder why the hell more decent attempts at a sequel haven’t been done.

It’s always been a distant, lesser dream of mine to have a hand in the creation of a successor to the throne. If not an (un)official sequel, then at least a game that pays tribue to the holy trinity of exploration, shooting, and uh… robot chicks. I get needlessly fired up whenever I hear of something in the works that even faintly smacks of influence from TGL, probably too much so.

Lunar Knights has come about the closest so far. Even then, I think the shooting segments with the Diebuster-like rocketships are a little goofy and awkward- the stylus control means you can’t steer and fire at the same time, and the enemies are so damned repetitive up until you reach the recurring, near-comical boss. (Nya!) Still, it’s a great little game and a little more engrossing in play style than…

Sigma Star Saga. It might’ve been unfair of me to review the game in the style of a grizzled detective grilling someone like a fraud. It had some great points, in particular the weapon customization system which brought a touch of Gunstar Heroes into the proceedings. Unfortunately, while the story was pretty engrossing and graphics big and detailed, the overworld/exploration scenes were pretty damned dull and didn’t make use of your weapon combos, and the shooter segments had a tendency to gimp you with a random ship and inability to swap out those weapons in flight. Better luck with Super Shantae DS Advance, chief.

I haven’t played Scurge: Hive yet, but it kind of puts me in mind of the game as well in that it involves a solitary female soldiering her way through a colony full of contagious mutants. I guess in a way that makes it more properly similar to something based on Alien, or a Metroid title. I’m hesitant to really play it since it has isometric perspective hopping puzzles, which reeeeally made Solstice for me. The fact it comes in fundamentally identical DS and a cheaper GBA release kind of makes my eyebrow raise.

I’ve kicked around some ideas for said successor game, of course. As someone who’s never finished an RPG Maker project, though, I have no clue how much progress I could actually make on my own as far as designing GIANT, INTERCONNECTING MAZES and skin o’ the teeth shmup levels. If anyone’s interested in hearing more later on, feel free to drop a comment or something.

Oh yeah. And it turns out the spam problem is exclusive to the Yggdra Union review for some reason, possibly because the title is in reference to labor unions. Whatever.