Hong Kong 97 Review

There’s something that piques my interest about games that are hard to find.  Obviously they have collector’s value and that almost makes playing them feel like a privilege, like getting to see one-of-a-kind artifacts in person.  I have a few games myself that are considered pretty rare, like One Piece: Unlimited Adventure and Dokapon Kingdom, but for some of the obscenely rare ones like Limbo of the Lost, which was taken off store shelves within a week and only in another country, you pretty much have no choice but to pirate them.  Such is this case with Hong Kong 97, probably the single rarest game I’ve ever heard of.  It was released only in Japan on floppy discs for the Super Famicom, but they’re impossible to actually find.  Even pictures of physical copies online are hard to find and stores refused to sell it when it first came out.  After playing it for myself, I think I have an idea as to why.

Resident Evil 2: The Board Game Review

Video games making a transition to tabletop games is as old as the games themselves, dating all the way back to the Pac Man board game.  With enough effort into the design, some of them work really well, like the Doom board game (both the old one and the one based on the remake from Fantasy Flight Games) or the Exceed system putting Street Fighter and Shovel Knight characters in the game.

Being a Resident Evil fan, I’m fond of the Resident Evil Deck Building Game, a highly customizable card game about inventory management featuring screenshots, characters and monsters spanning all the Resident Evil games up to 5.  I have 4 of the 5 sets available and it’s a great game I never run out of new ways to play with.

After seeing how well Resident Evil could be made into a deck builder, I was really intrigued about the Resident Evil 2 board game by Steamforged Games, who previously made the Dark Souls board game.  I haven’t played that one, in fact I haven’t played any of the Dark Souls video games either, but from what I can tell audience reactions were mixed.  Looking past that, the developer’s blog detailing the way the RE2 board game translates the video game as well as how they balanced and tested it really drew me in with the level of detail and thought they were putting into the board game.

I wanted to contribute to the Kickstarter, but was only one week late for the deadline by the time I even found out it existed so I ended up getting the core game and the “B-files” expansion at retail prices online because it doesn’t seem like any game stores are selling it yet.  Being a highly detailed board game, it costs a premium.  In total those two boxes cost me $130 dollars and that was after I found lower prices and got some shipping and tax off.  How much it’s really worth will vary from person to person, but even if it’s a bad game, it might be worth it for the collector’s value.  It’s a good thing then that it’s a great game as well.

MDK2 Review

[Note: This review was written way back in 2011 before this blog even existed, though a few minor grammar mistakes have been changed.  Thought it might be neat to share one of the oldies.]

One thing I have always wanted out of Wiiware and the Virtual console is more games from the late 90s, the N64 era.  Being a kid raised on the system, I’ve never been bothered by their now-primitive technical capabilities, and having a game in 3D allows for better immersion and emulation of modern day games.  Unfortunately, most of the N64 games on the virtual console I either already have or didn’t really interest me, so it was a breath of fresh air to finally get the kind of game I was looking for with the Wiiware release of the 1998 PC game MDK2, and while the game certainly shows its age, it’s still a fairly enjoyable experience.

YIIK: A Postmodern RPG Review

While I am definitely a fan of JRPGs (I seem to be one of the only people who likes the original Persona’s remake), I’ve never played some of the more talked-about ones like Earthbound or, even still, Persona 5 (that will be a while).  I’ve also never been into what’s called “post-modernism.”  I guess I interpret things too logically.  I didn’t take much interest in Undertale and the apparent metacommentary in the Danganronpa games and Metal Gear Solid 2 fly right over my head.  I may not be the target audience for a game that calls itself a “postmodern RPG”, but I keep an open mind and I can get behind a game made by 90s gamers full of strangeness and references.  Plus I can recommend practically anything, even a little bit, if the writing’s good, no matter how dreary the rest of it is.  As for whether or not it deserves any recommendation at all, that’s what we’re here to find out.

Persona 3: Dancing in Moonlight Review

I was very late to play Persona 4: Dancing All Night.  I remember the hype back when it came out, but I didn’t pay it much mind.  Compared to the likes of The Rhythm of Fighters and especially Theatrhythm Final Fantasy: Curtain Call, Dancing All Night’s song list looks really paltry.  It limits itself to one game and its spin-offs and a good fraction of the songs are remixes, limiting its actual track list even further.  I knew there was a story to it, but I didn’t think it could be anything more than a joke scenario or half-baked excuse to get everyone dancing, like Senran Kagura Dekamori.

Once I actually got around to playing it, I loved it.  The whole game radiated energy and fun.  The dancing, music and accompanying visuals made for an explosion of color and lights like it was party time all the time, right down to the menus.  Simply buying stuff had Tanaka’s notoriously catchy and in-your-face theme play while Patrick Seitz yells at you and the menu music was always on point.  You could dress up everyone in all sorts of outfits for added flair and all the songs had a variety of partners with their own little duo dances during the mid-sections.

The story was better than I expected too.  The dancing was worked into an established theme that fit with the Persona universe and it had a lot of detail put into what was happening.  It was great seeing returning characters like Nanako and Kojima contribute to the plot and the new characters were very sweet and endearing.  It was a solid and highly polished package and I wish I played it sooner.

As you can expect, that got me excited for the new dancing games based on Persona 3 and 5, but mostly 3 because I played it many years ago and in recent years have come off the arena games and Persona Q, familiarizing myself with the cast even more.  I’m currently in the process of playing every Persona game in order and I’m still on 2: Innocent Sin so I haven’t played Persona 5.  As far as I’m aware, the main character has a bunch of crystal skulls and fights Batman, Viewtiful Joe, Klonoa and Hitler.

My excitement took a hit after it was announced that the Playstation Vita version of the game would not be available for retail and would only be available for download.  We all know what I think about that.

I would get more mad, but Atlus has been in my good graces, unlike Bandai Namco.  Atlus has always been very good about releasing Vita games physically.  The Vanillaware trilogy, all the Persona games and even lesser games like Conception 2 have all been on cartridges.  Atlus is like Bandai Namco’s good counterpart that actually cares and doesn’t want to be garbage.  I’m going to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that this is an honest mistake on somebody’s part there.  With Vita cartridges ending production in 2019, someone may have missed a deadline or something.

They try to offset this major shortcoming with bonuses and pricing.  Vita owners buying it on the first week get Vita-exclusive costumes, but those costumes were available on the physical version in Japan so that’s not really a bonus.  It’s just implementing something to patch up their mistake.  Early purchases also give both versions of each game one of the DLC songs with their own dancer, both of which were not pre-order bonuses in Japan and are a $5 value.  Added onto that is the Vita version being $40 instead of the usual 50 for physical Vita games.  With all of that, there’s a bit more value in these games than other new Vita games.  Whether it makes up for not being able to own a copy depends on the overall value of the game and that’s what we’re here to look at.

Since I haven’t played Persona 5 and know barely anything about it, I’m sticking to Dancing in Moonlight for this review so I know more than half of what I’m writing about.