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RPG Watch

If you're a fan of RPGs, I urge you
not to lose hope during these dark
times, because there are three note-
worthy RPGs hitting the stores this
summer. And as most RPG fans will
tell you, summer is the best time to
play Because all the time you'd nor-
mally spend on homework can be
poured into a RPG.

Granted, you don’t want to be
spending the whole summer
indoors—but at least you can
knock off a few of those deathly hot
days fighting evil.

Fist up, releasing anytime
between right now and May is La
Pucelle Tactics, which, as the name
gives away, is a tactical RPG.
Although it’s not just any Tactical
RPG, its a Nippon Ichi RPG.
That's right it’s the same people
who made Disgaea: Hour of
Darkness, the game that most of us
have been playing straight since late
last August.

As a friendly forewarning, this

visn’t a sequel, it’s not even really a

prequel; it’s just sort of the game
that came before Disgaea. It’s kind
of old and has dated graphics, but
the game play is the main reason
anyone is going to pick this up. I
suggest anyone who liked Disgaea,
or anyone who missed Disgaea and
now really, really wants to play a
good tactical RPG, should check
this out.

For midsummer we have Front
Mission 4. The Front Mission series
is a great one because it combines a
tactical RPG with robots and polit-
ical intrigue stories that would put
Tom Clancy to shame.

Oddly enough, not a_ huge

amount of details have come flood-
ing out for this title, despite the fact
that the Japanese version is almost
entirely in English. Not that it will
play on a North American PS2,
mind you.

The battle system works in a
turn-based manner, with each side
using a team of fully customizable
robots. How in depth is the cus-
tomization you ask? Basically you
can choose the legs, main body and
arms as parts and mix as match as
you wish—provided they are not
over the specified weight. You can
also equip a variety of hand-held
and shoulder-mounted weapons.
This isn't going to be the hit RPG
of the year, but those who are into
this type of game would be well
advised to pick it up when it hits
stores.

And finally appearing on the PS2
is the North American version of
Star Ocean: Till the End of Time
Directors Cut. If you're a regular
reader then you know I've pretty
much given this game 10/5 before it
has even come out. | believe that
Star Ocean will achieve a large
measure of success for its innova-
tion,

It has a fully 3D real-time combat
system with two party allies being
Al controlled, and it allows you to
take control of any of your three
party members during the battle.
All magic charges and casts are in
real time as well—same as with the
use of items in battle. There is also
an extremely in-depth item-creation
system that lets you make and
improve weapons, make food and
healing items, and even compose
music for instruments.

Now, since we didn’t get the reg-
ular edition, the Directors Cut, for

 

those who want to know, adds new
story sequences, expands the bonus
dungeon, adds an additional bonus
dungeon, and adds two new charac-
ters (bringing the total list of
playable characters up to 12). This
is the kind of RPG that sets the bar
for future games, and will probably
be on most people's best-of lists for
2004.

So yes, we will have something to

 
   
 

 

Disgaea
look forward to this summer, and to
keep us entertained. Provided of
course that none of this is pushed
back to a later release date. But
then, if you even slightly follow
games, you already know the pain
of having to wait another six
months for the game you have wait-
ed almost two years for. Such is life
when youre a gamer.

 

Trigun

The $60,000,000,000 Man

 

Well, Trigun isn't new by
any means, but it does come
in a slightly new package
from Pioneer, I mean

Geneon, with its new signa-
ture series. Basically it’s the
DVDs of old but popular
series you passed up because
of the huge price tag that
was attached.

Now you can get the same
great anime for less, actually
a lot less. It's enough to
make the people who paid
the Pioneer price a while
back bitter, very bitter.

At first, I swear I couldn't
figure out what was wrong
because the DVD auto
plays, that’s right—no
menu. Meaning you can
watch the entire DVD
without having to use the

menu. I find it odd because

 

the menu design was origi-
nally stylish, and functional.
Now for extras, they’re a lit-
tle on the thin side here.
There are no clean opening-
or-closing animations,
although I should state for
the record that this DVD
was first made before the
clean open-and-close laws
came into effect.

The disc does have a
character sketch gallery that
is quite nice, and there are
no trailers for anything on
the DVD. And despite the
fact that this is just a reprint
of an earlier DVD, the pic-
ture quality is still good.
The colours are vibrant and
don't bleed together. In fact
sthe only problem with the
picture is that some still-
shots tend to jitter around a

bit. ’'m not sure if that’s a
defect of the DVD, or the
original animation process,
but it’s not very noticeable.
Lastly, both 2.0-channel
sounds tracks, English and
Japanese, are done rather
well for being regular stereo
tracks. I was also impressed
with the quality of the voice
acting and of the dub tim-
ing; Trigun is an early exam-
ple of an English version
done right.

So what’s an anime like
Trigun about anyway? Well,
it’s what you could call a
post-apocalyptic western,
although that’s not a real
genre, but it aptly describes
Trigun.

We follow the exploits of
two insurance agents, Millie
and Meryl, who are search-
ing for Vash the
Stampede—a man so dan-
gerous the government put
a $60,000,000,000 bounty

GR Page 16 http://www.otherpress.ca

on his head. Their job is to
try and prevent him from
causing too much damage
and havoc, and that’s only
after they find him.

Obviously, you know the
guy on the cover is going to
be Vash. The entertaining
part is that Vash doesn’t
quite have the personality of
a wanted gunman. Who has
ever watched a series with a
gunman that doesn’t fire his
gun, eats lots of donuts,
cries a lot, and doesn’t like
to see people get hurt or
killed?

The story does have
depth to it, but in the first
four episodes you don’t get
to any of it. This DVD is
pretty much a setting and
character introduction,
nicely setting the stage with
some comedy and a bit of
foreshadowing.

Is this series worth the
investment even though it’s

gong to be eight DVDs
long and is fairly old? I can
say without a doubt, yes.

First off, at the new pric-
ing point under the signa-
ture series its only $20,
which you cannot really
complain about, unless you
bought the DVD a couple
of years ago and paid twice
as much.

Secondly, this is a classic
of anime. It’s on a lot of fans
all time top-ten lists, mine
included. It’s got great char-
acter design, a stand out
story that blends comedy
with drama, an excellent
English voice-acting cast,
and a flawless English dub.
There isn’t much more you
can ask for in a series. If
you've neglected Trigun in
the past, nows your time
to add this gem to your
collection.

 

April 7, 2004

Anime Laser

This week’s look at what's going on
in the anime world.

 

What's Hot Right Now:

Inu. Yasha should barely qualify as
being entertainment, but with 15
DVDs out so far, the story that puts
most people to sleep just keeps on
going.

You've got to admire the brains
behind Jnu Yasha. | mean the writer
is committed enough to run a story
into the ground until people will lit-
erally stop watching. After 15 vol-
umes they've got about 25 of the
possible 25,000 jewel shards they
must collect, now that’s entertain-
ment. Hell, they might as well be
counting grains of sand, at least that
wouldn't put me to sleep as quickly.

 

What's Going to be Hot:

On the top of the “it took damn
well long enough” list is Ghost in the
Shell Stand Alone Complex, which
you may of may not remember had
a movie with a North American the-
atrical release in 1995.

The series takes place sometime
after the film, and has excellent
looking computer animation and
loads of action. Now, as for the
story—well, complex would be an
understatement. It seems that
whenever you go to the trouble of
blinking you've already missed large
portions of the plot. And really, who
doesn't enjoy a series that you have
to pay more attention to than a cal-
culus lecture?

 

What’s Hot in Japan:

There’s only one thing better than a
popular anime—a popular anime
that has more merchandise than
you can shake a stick at.

That’s where One Piece comes
in—it follows the adventures of the
wannabe pirate Luffy and his small
crew of misfits. And as polls show,
pirates rate an acceptable second
behind ninjas in cool professions.
They. may not have ninja stars but
they “Arrrr”, pirates, so you have to
give them that.