Entries from The Asian Power Hour tagged with 'Japan'
Almost a year later...Juushinden: RFID battling game update
Looks like it's still going strong! With the fourth expansion to come out in 9 months, it seems that there is a strong market for home based RFID CCGs, not just in the arcade. Two things that probably helped...
Battle Fantasia: An Arcade 2D Fighter/RPG From the Makers of Guilty Gear
Ever wondered what Odin Sphere would feel like as an arcade style fighter? Well, Arc System Works is porting over their arcade version (Released April 2007) of Battle Fantasia to both the PS3 (Thank you Region Free!) and XBOX...
Kidou Senshi Gundam: Gundam Vs Gundam releases in arcades...console port will probably sell oodles of PS3 units.
Being a big fan of the Gundam: Rengou vs Zaft arcade (wonderfully ported to PS2 and PSP) series, I had known about a new Gundam mash-up game that was a combination of a multitude of characters from 00 to...
Square-Enix makes a stand in the RFID arena
"> After acquiring the more arcade heavy portfolio of Taito a while back, Square-Enix looks like it's setting it's eyes on the new, but growing trend of RFID card games in the Japanese arcade sector. Besides the paper rock scissors...
Tetsudou Seminar: JR-Hen
Came across this interesting little quiz game for the DS based solely on the Japan Rail (JR) system. Seems like there's just no stopping the Train fascination in Japan, I remember running across an old steam locomotive demo in...
Otaku Culture Exhibit
When I was traveling around in Japan last year, I was bummed because I wasn't able to attend a an exhibit in Osaka on the history of Japanese toy giant Kaiyodo, and the growth of Otaku culture. However, I...
RFID card battling game Juushinden roars onto the Nintendo DS
As usual, I'm excited by any RFID collectible game tech and it just so happens that I was in the right time and the right place to see the release of Juushinden: Ultimate Beast Battlers in Taiwan. The gameplay...
Konami launches test location for a new Bemani game
So it seems there's finally going to be a new product in the Bemani line after years of waiting. Apparently this one is called Ju-Beat. There's apparently one test location and here's what we know so far: 1. It's...
State of the Wii. Wii Fit and interface design.
Rather soon after it came out, I've been sort of an anti-Wii advocate. I truly believe that the future of gaming (in drawing in new players) lies in accessible interfaces and easily grasped gameplay. Easy to understand, but still...
Portable gaming in a public venue.
More exciting news for me. You might recall that Kotaku did a post a while back about that Monster Hunter "event" in Akiba that just didn't fly. Well, it seems there's a lot more love here in Taiwan. As...
RIP SLYME Loco Rocos through Mario
Ok, I love this. Japanese rap group RIP SLYME recently released the video for their new song, SPEED KING. It's basically a psychedelic Loco-Roco style romp through the reimagined world of Super Mario. The song's OK, but the video is...
Midi Music Visualizations
Ok, these are absolutely amazing. This comes from Japan, of course Japan, because people seem to have an abundance of free time there. A mysterious fellow, "Jinja", made these music visualizations by basically showing the piano keyroll of the midi...
Grand Theft Auto Otaku Mod
Thanks to Rossmassler for tipping me off on this, an absolutely insane mod for GTA San Andreas. A few changes include the main character being changed to the two girls from Lucky Star (You control one and the other follows),...
Otaku Breakdance Throwdown
Random Otaku challenges a pro bboy in Akihabara. He even breaks out moves from Haruhi. He may not have the power moves, but he has way better setups. I bet that other guy was soooooo surprised, like "zomg wtf" surprised....
Guitar Freaks V3 Hits US Shores
Well...this makes me extremely happy. I waltzed by Arcade Infinity in Diamondbar the other night hoping that their Guitar Freaks V2 machine would actually be working, and lo and behold, V3, the newest installment of Konami's long running Guitar...
Monsters, Mars, and Giant Robots, oh my!
I accidentally stumbled across my copy of Negadon; The Monster from Mars (惑星大怪獣ネガドン) today, and put it on in the background as I was doing working up some Ouendan 2. I had completely forgotten about this movie, but remembered...
Nintendo DS Replacing Textbooks in Kyoto
Nintendo DS's are being introduced to junior high schools in Kyoto after an initial experiment showed that student's English scores improved dramatically after using Language based games, versus traditional textbooks. This is nothing terribly new as far as educational...
Boo-Hoo For You!
A brief little website complete with cutesy J-Popesque flash cartoon by cell phone OS developer Symbian explaining what amazing technology Japanese smartphones are capable of, and how they're trying to bring these features to the US through their new...
Recent Gaming Trends in Japan
I've just finished posting a series of articles on some research I did on my recent trip to Japan. You can find them on my IMD blog, and some more pictures on the IMD Flickr pool. If anyone is...
Al's big adventure, or how Al almost got his ass killed.
So to start off, this was probably one of the most enlightening and RPG like experiences I've ever had. I'll classify this experience as an MMRRPG (Massively Multi-player Real Life Role Playing Game) and like the dork I am,...
Recent Trends in Japanese Gaming Part 6; The Toy Invasion
Something really interesting that I’ve seen lately is the melding of the toy and hobby industry with the game industry. Konami has released a line of action figures that come with software and a code that you can use...
Recent Trends in Japanese Gaming: Part 5; Arcades
Some other interesting arcade trends to come out in Japan in the past few years that have been ramping up include: Quiz based games, such as Magical Quiz Academy. Recently even Konami has come up with their own version. It’s...
Recent Trends in Japanese Gaming: Part 4; Arcade CCGs
I’m really interested in all those RFID CCG card games in Japanese arcades and it was a pleasant surprise for me to find out that they’ve only grown in popularity since I’ve last been arcade hopping. Three of my favorites...
Recent Trends in Japanese Gaming: Part 3; PC/Console MMOS
Being a big fan of MMOs, I decided to go and figure do a bit of research on the Japanese, MMO market, which really has never taken off. Of the classic computer MMORPGS, there are quite a few in the...
Recent Trends in Japanese Gaming: Part 2; Language Trainers
Drifting to and fro through Tokyo, I found some other interesting things. There seems to be a huge influx of software for the Nintendo DS using games to teach English for the TOEIC (Test Of English for International Communication)...
Recent Trends in Japanese Gaming: Part 1; Portable Trends
On my recent trip to Japan, there were some interesting things that I stumbled across besides my harrowing mountaintop adventure. Rummaging through the various game stores across Tokyo, I noticed a few things about gaming in Japan at the moment...
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