Nintendo 3DS Conference

As usual, NeoGAF has all the information one could ask for.

Things I like:

- Tales of the Abyss DS (it looks just as good as the ps2 original)
- virtual console for game boy games
- release date: March 11, 2011.

Things I don't like:
- $250. Sadface, groan, etc. I spend too much on games as it is.
- lack of American developer support
- lack of F-Zero 3DX

Still pretty amped, though. Thoughts?

Tales of Vesperia rocks!

It's been over 2 years since I bought Tales of Vesperia. As is my habit with JRPGS, I managed to get about 10-15 hours into the game before getting slogged with work and/or bored with the game and moving on. Longtime readers may recall my ramblings on the early portion of the game here

Last week I decided to give the game another go. Let's just say I'm glad that I did.

While the game does revel in moral ambiguity and individualism at some points (ya know, the usual "Just do what you want to do! That's what's important" demagoguery), it also does a fine job of showing how "doing things your own way" can often have negative consequences. The ending, in particular, does a spectacular job of showing the follies of proportionalism - even with the archetypical "save-the-world-from-the-the-evil-lord-of-darkness" plot, there's something to be said about the theme of this narrative and unique "riff" it puts on this familiar plot paradigm.

Still, a game ain't defined by its story, as important as that is. What really makes Tales of Vesperia such a great game a (particularly for those looking for a good "entry-level" Japanese role-playing game) is its accessibility; it really doesn't try to be anything more than an anime-style role-playing game, and it knows this. It is easier to complete than most other role-playing game, and can be enjoyed by 4 players, something which distinguishes it from other games of its genre. While calling it "kid-friendly" is perhaps too generous, the innuendos are mild and the violence isn't really problematic except for the under 5 crowd, which might find it a tad too scary (not to mention too complicated). It's a tad lacking in the tutorial side of things, but Tales has always thrived on a real-time driven battle system - one can easily learn basics by "trial-and-error" experimentation at the exposition of the game, unlike turn-based systems which are brutally unforgiving of entry-level mistakes), and Vesperia is no exception.

Don't expect much of brain workout from this one, though - the thrill of combat is what this game's all about. It's a nice recreational diversion, not meant to be indulged upon en masse. It's basically the sushi bar of video games. Something a little offbeat (especially to American sensibilities), not perfectly healthy, but certainly worth trying out.

FFXIII

Alright.

I just finished the 2nd of the 3 discs of the xbox 360 edition of Final Fantasy XIII.

Apparently, scenario and script writers in Japanese Role-playing game land have run the proverbial narrative well dry, so to speak. FFXIII has the usual "let's stop the evil God/empire/ubermench conglomerate-conspiracy" plotline, complete with the usual cast of cookie-cutter character archetypes to illustrate the anti-authoritarian allegory (with one noticeable exceptions, on which I will hopefully elaborate on in a future posting). However, the end of the second disc (about 23 hours into the game, FWIW), commences with the *ahem* "totally unexpected" awful truth trope - that is, the point in a JRPG where the main characters/"band of heroes" discover that what they THOUGHT was the bad guy really isn't the pernicious villian they presumed he/she/it was, but something else. In most games, this enemy is usually revealed (upon its defeat, of course) to be servant/pawn of the REALLY bad guy, the good guy in disguise, or the unwitting interlocuter in some grandiose scheme of some other entity yet to be fully revealed within the narrative. In the case of FFXIII, however...(SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!)

...

The "final boss"/king of the animist deities that acts as the catalyst to this major plot twist IS, in fact, the "bad guy" after all - but after you "defeat him," he just laughs you off and says that you can't kill him - AT LEAST NOT YET! Apparently, the animist deities in this game want their subservient human "tools" to kill them off - but on their terms, not the humans', so they still "win" at the end of the day.

WHAT?!?!?!?!

Nietzche, eat your heart out. Ugh. Thanks be to God for the resevoir of theological and theodical coherence in Catholicism. Beats JRPG nonsense anyday :)

In Case You Missed It (Because I Sure Did!): Dragon Quest IX release date is official

...as per neoGAF, portable old-school role-playing heads stateside July 11.

Interesting to note that Nintendo, not Square-Enix, is the publisher this time around. The ESRB rating is E10+ (DQ VIII on the ps2 was rated "T for Teen," as have most other mainline entries in the Dragon Quest series). Hopefully Nintendo doesn't bungle the transliterations - I'm all for family-friendly games, but this is a game series where the dialogue contributes a great deal to the overall enjoyment of the game, and I'd hate to see a diluted translation of an excellent script just to maintain more accessibility amongst the younger gaming set.

Nintendo's got a pretty impressive teaser up on their official website, FWIW:

http://dragonquest.nintendo.com./

What's on the Horizon for 2010?

Though I've had some success in eliminating my gaming backlog this holiday season, I'd be kidding myself if I committed to doing this throughout the coming year.

So, here's a list of video games slated for a 2010 release that I'm looking forward to:

Pokemon Heartgold/Soulsilver (I'm a pokemaniac. Need I say more?)

Dragon Quest IX (portable Dragon Quest! WIll the soundtrack be as good as VIII's though?)

Final Fantasy XIII (all indications are that it is NOT like Final Fantasy XII, so I'm all in!)

Star Wars: The Old Republic (in spite of it being an MMO)

Super Mario Galaxy 2 (even though I haven't really played the first one!)

Yeah, it's rpg-heavy, but I'm a sucker for the genre, and even though there really isn't much else I'm interested in, DQ and Pokemon alone (let alone together!) will be enough for me in the coming year.

Dark Void, Capcom's latest action game, is out soon, too...anyone gonna go out and buy that one?

DS Game of the Year?

My brother picked up a fairly obscure Western DS RPG yesterday after seeing its high metacritic average (metacritic.com is a website that compiles reviews for a given video game and averages them into a composite score; for you movie buffs out there, think Rottentomatoes.com, but for video games):



IGN is calling it the "sleeper hit of the year." My brother bought it and was, for better or for worse, up until the wee hours of the morning playing it. He enthusiastically described the game mechanics in a way that was clearly meant to entice me to purchase a copy of my own - I may as yet do so, especially after reading IGN's review.

Has anyone else played this game?

For Those Who Still Think that Video Games have no Spiritual Value...

"One born of human flesh man,
man is now a race of some power
you, son of man,
must face the power you hold
and you must face your destiny as well...

Though your days be peaceful, the fated time draws near
I am your judgment
I sundered the tongues of your fathers
and shattered their arrogant power
so long as the Lord does not live in you, all living beings hold darkness in their hearts
if you truly wish to be yourself, then rise and fight the darkness within - the demon inside!
If you have the will to challenge your destiny, son of man, state your name!"

Ok, so it's not like this is like an ultra-deep theological exegesis or anything, but in all honesty, I've heard homilies at mass with less "spiritual value" than these two paragraphs. Reminds me of some of the psalms, actually. Perhaps my Catholic and Christian readers can chime in with their thoughts?

Anyway, here's the game from which the above monologue can be found:



Basically, the game's about a demon invasion in Tokyo. You play as a character who is given a handheld computer that is able to summon other demons to stave off the demon invasion in the city.

The occult thematic is obviously strong with this one; I find the theme and imagery somewhat disconcerting, but not being much of an expert on occult-related matters, I've had to rely on information from more learned sources than myself about just what exactly I should "watch out for" when I'm playing a game like this. I'm hoping to see more of the kind of stuff from the aforementioned excerpt as I play through it; apparently the game has multiple endings depending on what you do throughout the course of the game, so I may or may not find what I'm looking for. The game system itself, irrespective of the graphics, story, characters, music, and the like, is actually really, really fantastic; it's basically a "grid-based strategy" game (think chess) with the standard role-playing conventions one would associate with a Final Fantasy game. Either of these solitary game elements would probably make for an acceptable, though not exemplary, gaming experience, but they meshed peculiarly well in this game. Kudos to Atlus for creating a solid, if not spectacular, gameplay system.

I hope to have more to share about this game in a future post - which will most likely have to wait until the end of the week, as I'm Milwaukee bound tonight to visit some brother seminarians. St. Nicodemus, ora pro nobis!

Move Over Final Fantasy XIV...

Enter the real game of the show for e3 2009 - Star Wars: The Old Republic:



click here to view the incredible first trailer!

How did I miss this? Granted, there's no gameplay footage, but if an on-again, off-again Star Wars "fan" like me was willing to commit to purchasing this game on its release day, I can only imagine what the real Star Wars enthusiasts feel.

Then my brother curtly told me that this game, like FFXIV, is an MMO ("massively-multiplayer-online" game).

"You have been deceived." Indeed.

Why oh why must the most graphically impressive games be of a genre I absolutely despise? Well, ces't le vi. There are plenty of other games I'm looking forward to...like, say, the Nintendo DS role-playing game Infinite Space (which just released in Japan to a flurry of positive press and premiering at the very top of the weekly video games sales charts), or the intriguing , Let's Tap! for the Wii (a likely candidate for the next "kid-friendly games, parent-friendly prices" post, if nothing else), both of which happen to be published by Nintendo's former archcompetitor, Sega.

Unlike last summer, which proved to be quite the boon for gamers (high-profile video game releases of just about every imaginable genre graced just about every prominent piece of gaming hardware), this summer does look to be a tad on the slow side - which is probably better for an overweight gamehead like me, anyway. Gotta get some form of exercise besides Dance Dance Revolution, after all! Plus, with the Year of the Priest commencing today, one would think a seminarian would find something more Christ-like than lounging around playing video games all day.

So, to my fellow gamers - with the gaming pipeline so thin in the coming months, what do you plan on doing to beat the heat? What future releases do you have your eyes on?

St. Isidore, St. Gabriel, and St. John Vianney, pray for us!

Star Ocean vs. Star Trek

On Sunday night I saw the new Star Trek movie. It has its rough spots, particularly in the first half of the movie, but it all comes together quite nicely in the end. I left the theater feeling a little underwhelmed, but satisfied. I don't think it deserves the lavish critic praise its received (95% rating from rottentomatoes.com? are you kidding me?), but I can at least give the movie a mild recommendation.

I also managed to finish off Star Ocean this weekend, and my feelings regarding the game are actually remarkably similar. I made no secret of my disdain for the narrative portion of the game in my last post, but the second half of the game (the last two discs combined took me approximately 24 hours to complete, barely longer than the entirety of the first disc) actually incorporates some much-needed character development, plot expansion, and some much-needed puzzle elements into the mix. Rather than feeling embarrased that I was sitting through 30 minute sessions of vapid dialogue from inane, uninspired characters, I was genuinely impressed with the writing and the overall plot structure. The gameplay, too, generally improved as I gradually reached the game's climax - the characters eventually faced off with a nihilistic nemesis bent on destroying the universe in the name utilitarianism (are you paying attention, Trekkies?)! Overall, like Star Trek, I can't help but think the game has been excessively praised by too many people, but overall, I think that the gaming community has done a far better job assessing the merits and shortfalls of Star Ocean than most movie critics have done in their critique of Star Trek.

On one hand, I'm slightly surprised that my feelings regarding both Star Ocean and Star Trek are so similar; on the other hand, considering that Star Ocean Producer Yoshinori Yamagishi has said many times that the series is heavily influenced by the original Star Trek, maybe I shouldn't be so surprised that my sentiments regarding the former are so remarkably similar to my sentiments for the latter.

And so, a mild recommendation for both Star Trek and Star Ocean. Suffice it to say, both are good, but definitely not great.

Any thoughts?

Star Ocean Player Diary (Caution: story spoilers! You have been warned!)

This past weekend marked the completion of approximately one-third of my escapade into tri-Ace’s Star Ocean (the game spans three disks, and I just completed the first of them this past weekend). The gorgeous graphics and intriguing dystopian plotline that fueled my initial foray into the great expanses of this game’s universe propel me no longer, and the only suitable sustenance I have to satiate my gaming appetite is garnered solely from foraging on the various hospitable planets I come across in this journey through the final frontier. Using the game’s clever item creation system, I can utilize the various items I’ve collected throughout my explorations – items that have very scant utilitarian value by themselves – to create other items that can help me in my dealings with planet natives, friend and foe alike. Unsurprisingly, the battles with hostile enemies end up absorbing quite a bit of time. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, either. The “fast-paced, action-based” fight sequences are enjoyable enough in their own right (when was the last time that magic spells and clashing swords were boring, anyway?), but it’s never an exercise in arbitrary button presses on a video game controller, as the system grants different rewards for different play styles. Wanna exclusively cast magic spells to wipe out enemies? A nice experience bonus awaits after battle. Would you rather blindside enemies and strike them when they aren’t expecting it? Congratulations, some extra gold is headed your way – just enough to buy that cool sword on sale at the bazaar in town!
Additionally, each playable character in the game gains “experience points” both individually and as an entire crew – the former type of experience can be “spent” to upgrade the character’s particular skills and parameters, making them more effective at fighting, foraging, etc. and the “team experience” is useful in the aforementioned item creation system. Even when exploration itself gets tedious (and it does – if my travels through the Star Ocean are any indication, the universe doesn’t hold much more than planets that are, by-and-large, replicas of medieval Europe populated by cat-eared humanoid life forms that look like they walked out of an anime convention), at least the battles and the item creation keeps me on my toes.
The gameplay systems, however, while certainly gratifying, hardly fulfill the game’s earlier promise of a deep, compelling narrative; with a game subtitled “the Last Hope,” I’d expect some treatment of this significant metaphysical theme. So far, I’ve got very little hope that the game will offer anything of the sort. The characters, like the game’s narrative, initially hold some promise, but are essentially static. Star Wars, among other movies, took a cast of characters that included aliens, cyborgs, and human beings of various ages and genders - all with different worldviews of the universe - into one of the most successful commercial franchises of all time; Star Ocean basically tries to replicate this success in a different medium, with a stronger presence of shamelessly scantily clad female characters for what seems to be no particular reason whatsoever. I suspect that even most juvenile game players would find them to be terribly uninteresting.
Nothing serves to demonstrate this point more effectively than to view one of the game’s numerous cut scenes, which generally involve one character apologizing to another for some vague reason, followed by an awkward 5-second pause, followed by some ghastly revelation of some grave secret that really isn’t that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things anyway. Even gaming veterans familiar with the generally poor plot direction of Japanese role-playing games will, I think, be squirming at the ludicrous excuse for a plot that this game presents to its audience.
Fortunately, one’s tolerance for poor voice acting, writing, and film direction need not be one’s personal barometer for enjoying the game, as the vast majority of these cut scenes are “skip-able.” Should you elect to do so, the synopses you’ll be forced to read are far more tolerable. Still, I can’t help but decry the game’s inexcusably bad narrative presentation. It’s not enough that Star Ocean fails to make the nuclear holocaust of planet earth into a genuinely interesting story; *SPOILER ALERT* it somehow manages to make the aftermath of the entire destruction of the earth of a parallel universe into one of the most derisibly bad melodramatic movie sequences I’ve ever seen. ****END SPOILER**** Resolving some conflict on one planet just lands the crew on a new one where the same ineffectual, uninteresting, virtually non-existant relationships between the characters take center stage over the far more interesting developments taking place all around them. Rinse, recycle, repeat ad nauseam, and you’ll probably understand why I question if the Star Ocean is worth playing to completion.
Philosophers such as Plato and the Angelic Doctor St. Thomas Aquinas lauded the relaxation from games as something virtuous in moderation, but if Star Ocean is merely an expensive piece of tinker toys and/or eye-candy, it’s not worth paying $60 for a new copy, harmless fun as the game itself may be. Human beings look for more than a quick fix for a longing for relaxation of the mind and/or body; we’re searching for fulfillment for the longings of the human heart! Art attempts in some way to “echo” this search; my journey through the Star Ocean has yielded scarcely even the slightest reverberation of this yearning’s fulfillment.
On the other hand, my escapades in the realm of videogame-dom (and my gallivanting exploits in the role-playing genre in particular) have also instilled in me the virtue of patience. As Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen says in Life of Christ, “…there are two [ways of viewing the world]: fast before Feast, or Feast and then hangover.” Perhaps my tedious time in tri-Ace’s Star Ocean will yield something more substantive in the near future. I certainly know better than to expect something from a videogame that only Christ can give, but it’s not unreasonable to expect something more than simple mind exercises and sensory overload from a particular form of media. If nothing else, a trek through the Star Ocean at least offers breathtaking visuals and a clever, if often redundant, battle system that makes mental micromanagement fun. The question for this discerning Catholic seminarian is this: Does it offer anything else? So far, the answer is a regrettable and definitive “no.”

A Supernova of Star Ocean screenshots!

Those who frequent this blog know by now that I have a nasty habit of making promises I can't keep, so I'm not going to promise any new "player diary" postings on Star Ocean for the immediate future.

Seeing as I did, however, highlight the game's graphical granduer along with its rather seemingly dystopian storyline, I'd welcome anyone interested in the veracity of those claims to view the game's promotional trailer and screenshots (as seen here) both of which, I think, validate my claims from yesterday's postings.







Heck, even the game's boxart is beautiful!



St. John of the Cross, pray for us!

Player Diary: Persona 3

I bought this game off of Amazon as an early Christmas present to myself at the beginning of this month. I'm usually not one for purchasing much of anything online, but as any gaming buddy of mine will tell you, my normally fiscally conservative spending habits tend to buckle when my eyes spot a critically acclaimed Japanese role-playing game. When it's only $19.95 plus shipping and handling and comes with a free soundtrack and art book, well, even my rather obstinate and unreasonable case of online shopper's stigma is eradicated almost instantaneously.

I finally popped the game disk into my ps2 this morning, and I played for a good, oh, hour and 30 minutes or so. It was enough to get the general gist of the game's storyline premise, but that's about it. There's alot of in-game cut-scenes thus far, and not very much of anything else. Frankly, given how long I played, I'm surprised I remained as engaged as I did - usually, the first hour or so of role-playing games tend to be dominated by tutorials, and I 've grown to expect this over the course of many years as a gamer. I know when I can "zone out" without missing anything crucial. There really hasn't been any point so far where I've really "disengaged" in this way, and given how the game has done very little to engage me in terms of actual gameplay so far, I'm downright impressed.

Basically, you play as a high school transfer student who discovers that his dormmates are part of a secret school club dedicated to defeating people-eating monsters called "shadows." These shadows only appear during the "dark hour," beginning and ending at 12:00 midnight - the "hidden" time between one day and the next. How do you fight these shadows? Well, you take an "evoker" - a pistol - and shoot yourself in the head (!!!!) to summon a "persona" - a physical manifestation of the psyche that takes the form of some mythological god/goddess. When it's not "the dark hour," you attend school as a student, and the academic performance in classes and relationships your character develops with your friends effect your persona(s) ability to battle. When that "dark hour" comes again, it's time to take the fight to the shadow's nest - Tartarus, a gigantic skyscraper that just happens to render itself directly atop the school building where you attend classes during the day. The school, then, plays an crucial role in the game, an irony that is not lost on this college student currently enjoying respite from the drudgery of grueling schoolwork.

In summary, my Persona 3 experience thus far: its very Japanese, an interesting combination of two video game genres, very Japanese, and most assuredly deserving of it's "M for Mature" ESRB rating. And very Japanese.

Obviously I can expect suicide to be a prominent thematic in the game's story. Whether or not it retains the morally problematic depiction shown thus far (suicide as a way to unleash "inner power" is so unabashadly Nietzchean) remains to be seen. I'm a firm believer in not finishing games if they are not worth my time, and if the game communicates nothing but a morally evil message, well, it's certainly not worth my time. But whether or not that's the case with Persona 3 remains to be seen.

"Bid Farewell to your Bloodstained Past!"

J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis effectively demonstrated that high fantasy could be used as a form of Christian witness. Both of these writers used their mythic worlds of Middle Earth and Narnia to allegorically present Salvation history and the mystery of faith (among other things). Unfortunately, despite the fact that the video game market is saturated with games featuring settings that, in terms of scope and size, are not at all dissimilar to those of Tolkien and Lewis, these games rarely if ever communicate the values and deep mysteries of the Catholic faith. In fact, it’s not uncommon for the inverse to be true –the Playstation 2 game Xenosaga, for example, is teeming with scriptural allusions, but ultimately presents a Gnostic thematic completely contradictory to the truth of the Catholic faith. Still, some of these games do present some themes that, if not always explicitly Catholic, are powerful reminders of certain Christian virtues. Some of you may remember my entry about The World Ends With You from last month in which I praised the game’s story for presenting a powerful message of the dangers of self-destructive envy.

Final Fantasy, the forefather of fantasy role-playing video games and generally the most well-known and critically acclaimed of the genre today, has a mixed record in terms of compatibility with Catholic values. For example, Final Fantasy XII, the most recent mainline entry in the series on the Playstation 2, has a morally problematic narrative which culminates in a “kill God” conclusion (borrowing from Nietzsche’s infamous “God is dead” Nihilist writings); conversely, the story of Final Fantasy X (also for the Playstation 2) has been compared to a religious pilgrimage and appropriately concludes with the defeat of a monster called Sin.

I’m currently playing through the fourth entry of this acclaimed video game series (first available for the Super Nintendo in 1993 and subsequently released on the Game Boy Advance and, as of last week, on the Nintendo DS, which is the version I’m now playing), and it seems to hold the most promise of any narrative in any Final Fantasy game I’ve played. Having played through about three quarters of the Game Boy Advance version of the game about two years ago, I’m quite familiar at this point with the game’s main character, Cecil, a Dark Knight who, after destroying villages and taking lives by order of his King, eventually undergoes a sort of conversion experience, casting off his armor of Darkness and becoming a Paladin of Light. Recalling the words of Archbishop Sheen, St. Francis of Assisi, and many other holy men and women, I thought this moment not only served as a reminder that we are to be of the Light (and not the darkness), but the way in which the scene is presented mirrors the Sacrament of Reconciliation – the advertisements for the game itself echo the same theme: “Bid Farewell to your Bloodstained Past.”

There is the caveat that this moment of conversion and forgiveness does seem to lack the most important element: God Himself. Scripture itself attests that God is the one who shall take our hearts of stone and place new hearts within us; Final Fantasy IV seems to emphasize the inward human self more than the salvific presence of a Divine Savior, even in the vaguest of terms. Still, I never did complete the game the first time, and the revamped presentation and translation of this Nintendo DS version may shed new light on the deeper intricacies of the story and its relevance to the mystery of sin and God’s forgiveness.

Those who read this blog often know all to well by now the erratic infrequency of my posting here, and this game promises to retain this trend. To be quite blunt, this game is difficult – very difficult. Having just completed the extremely easy Rocket Slime, adjusting to this game is naturally going to make the experience even more prolonged. I may end up posting multiple player diary entries for this one; stay tuned until then.

Player Diary: The World Ends With You

I will admit that I purchased the Nintendo DS game The World Ends With You (henceforth referred to as TWEWY for the sake of brevity) with a bit of pretension. $40 is a steep asking price for a handheld video game, and the lackluster previous efforts of Jupiter (the game’s developer) certainly did not inspire any extra confidence in my selection. The game’s widespread critical acclaim and the lavish recommendations of a respected friend of mine certainly helped to assuage my initial hesitations, but I think that the game’s story concept may have been the tipping point in my decision. Ever wanted to know what happens when a self-absorbed, fashion-conscious teenager from Tokyo’s bustling commercial district gets recruited for a 7-day contest with his life on the line as collateral?

It sounds like something straight out of a horror movie (2002’s mystery-thriller The Ring comes to mind, especially with the “7 days” plot device). I realize that such films don’t appeal to everyone and, at times, have a negligible moral and/or spiritual value (if any at all). That being the case, I can understand why someone might not find the game’s story as interesting as I did. But TWEWY is a far cry from Resident Evil. Rather than focusing on sharp, edge-of-your seat graphic images to elicit an emotional thrill from the game player, TWEWY primarily utilizes its characters and setting, emphasizing exploration and character development, to help the player progress through the game’s narrative.

As long as I’m on the subject of narrative, I would like to take the opportunity to mention that this game presents a surprising amount of positive Christian themes throughout the duration of the game. During the story’s exposition, Neku, the game’s protagonist, is the archetype practitioner of what G.K. Chesterton famously called the most hideous of all religions – the worship of the inner god, the self. Without giving away too much, I can say affirmatively that by the story’s conclusion, Neku is no longer a self-centered egotist – his transformation, though not quite complete by the game’s reprisal, reminds us of the Christian call to conversion: the removal of our hardened hearts of stone for hearts of compassion.

It’s also worth noting that the presentation of these positive thematic elements is not limited to exploits of the main character - the supporting characters undergo their own conversion experiences, as well. Shiki, Neku’s female companion in the 7-day contest, learns a powerful lesson about the self-destructive powers of envy. There’s also quite a bit of Christological symbology interspersed throughout the game, as well, though this particular nuance of the game’s story doesn’t always hit the mark. The game borrows quite a bit from Christian and Jewish theology, but it takes cues from Eastern mythology, as well (the Chinese Zodiac, for example, clearly influenced the names of game locations and certain characters). Some Taoist philosophy seems to be shoehorned into the game at various intervals, and at times, the game even seems to relish in a rather relativistic ethic. There was even a point – near the game’s finale, no less – where I feared the game was going to indulge in the Nihilist “kill God” conclusion seen in the His Dark Materials book trilogy (and various video games, such as Final Fantasy XII), I was happily surprised to see that the game does quite the opposite. While the correlation to a Catholic understanding of God’s mercy and love is by no means perfect, the game seems to reaffirm the existence of a loving God rather than deny it.

Despite the fact that the game takes place in Tokyo, Japan, the game’s depiction of Tokyo’s thriving Shibuya commercial district is such that the setting seems authentically Western – in fact, I’d wager that if it weren’t for the fact that TWEWY features prominent Tokyo locals, I’d be hard pressed to distinguish the game’s setting from that of any major downtown city across the North American continent.

The game also benefits from a slavishly transliterated script. This makes the characters seem as authentically "Western" as the game's location, for better of for worse; since features teenagers so prominently, you can probably guess that their language is – well, far from immaculate, to say the least! There’s a fair amount of foul language and a few very mild references to homosexual activity. That being said, I still think that the “T for Teen” ESRB rating is quite appropriate for this game. A teen with a well-formed conscience will, I imagine, have no problems gleaning the many positive fruits of this game’s narrative while leaving the poor ones to rot.


Of course, to focus exclusively on the game’s narrative would be quite silly. What is, exactly, the value of the actual “game” in this “videogame”?

Well, at it’s core, TWEWY is a real-time Japanese role-playing game. The main focus of the game is on combat, where the player controls the game’s characters in some sort of battle scenario. In TWEWY, the player controls the protagonist, Neku, using the touch-screen on the Nintendo DS. Before battle, Neku can equip different “pins” for the fight. These “pins” allow Neku to perform different sorts of attacks. For example, one pin might strike an enemy with lightning, while another will allow Neku to teleport and dodge enemy attacks. More importantly, using the pins is no small order: the aforementioned lightning pin works, for example, by drawing circles on the touch screen, while the teleportation pin is activated by simply poking the screen. Since you can only take a certain number of pins into battle (and you can only use pins a certain number of times in a row), you have to plan carefully before and during each fight.

The game also allows incorporates the fashion motif very well into these battles. The type of clothing Neku wears into battle with effect the way he fights enemies (for example, wearing one shirt will makes his attacks stronger, while another might help to dodge enemy attacks). More importantly, as in reality, clothes all have brandnames. One brand might be more popular in a certain part of Tokyo than another, and the game grants Neku extra attack power if he respects the fashion sensibilities of the area he’s fighting in. It’s a pretty clever mechanic that really added to the authenticity of the game’s setting in addition to making the game more challenging.
As the game player, you’ll not only control Neku, but another character is also at your disposal on the top screen of the Nintendo DS. Here, you’ll once again have the opportunity to equip your character with certain sets of clothing, but you’ll attack and defend against enemy attacks by using the directional pad instead of the touch screen.
The real challenge is trying to control both characters simultaneously! It’s rather difficult at first, but it’s fast, frantic, and fun in a very strategic way. It challenges the player to think critically and quickly - no small feat in the world of video games. And if you don’t want to worry about both screens at once, it’s no problem – the game has adjustable difficulty that allows the game’s CPU to control the top screen for you.

I’ve been playing TWEWY quite a bit since I bought it last month, and, needless to say, I’ve enjoyed what I played. It’s certainly been one of the best $40 I’ve spent in a long while. While by no means is the above description adequate to cover every aspect of the game, I do hope that it sufficiently covers the basics. Feel free to contact/comment if you have any more questions about the game.