The Japanese Angle 22/09

22 Sep 2008 at 12:21:46 by Jake Kawaguchi

Welcome back to The Japanese Angle, where I take a sideways look at the week’s happenings in Japan’s never-boring games industry. This week: big Wii monsters, debatable Xbox 360 success, a blatant Animal Crossing rip-off from Konami, and more…


Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom

First up, though, let me tell you a little about the game I’m most looking forward to in what’s left of 2008: Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom: Cross Generation Of Heroes.

No joke.

I’ll forgive you if you haven’t heard of Tatsunoko, but you’ll then have to forgive me for explaining it to you in this slightly patronising voice, OK?

Tatsunoko Production, you see, is the legendary Japanese anime studio behind the animated forms of such awesome IP as Time Bokan, Speed Racer and Yattaman. It’s a famous name in Japan, and for good reason – its style of animation and drawing is unique and instantly recognisable, a world away from the work of Studio Ghibli and other anime production companies.

Anyway, put the most famous Tatsunoko-schooled characters up against Capcom’s toughest fighters (including Ryu and Morrigan) and you get Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom, in the same vein as Capcom Vs. SNK and Marvel Vs. Capcom. So yeah, it’s just more of the same, but with different characters (obviously) and tweaked attack systems. However, it looks fairly stunning and in December it will simultaneously debut in Japan’s arcades and on Nintendo’s Wii. The Wii version will be compatible with the Classic Controller, which should be a perfect match for the 2D fighting, and it will also include a selection of Wii-exclusive mini-games – including one where you get to control Ryu in a 3D gym environment and make him attack inanimate objects. How cool is that?

(Check out the screenshot of the arcade version posited on this here page if you need more evidence of Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom’s merits.)


Monster Hunter 3

In Japan, Monster Hunter has outgrown Godzilla by a good few feet. The two recent PSP MH games have put the PSP back in contention against the DS, selling a few million copies without even trying. And of course the Wii isn’t doing too badly, either, which explains why Capcom decided to develop the online-oriented Monster Hunter 3 for Nintendo’s little white box.

MH3 (its title pronounced ‘Monster Hunter Tri’, for some reason) is still some way off from release in Japan, but its leading developers confirm in the latest issue of Famitsu that the game will be playable at TGS. I’ll stick my neck out and say that MH3 – sorry, MH Tri – is looking like the most advanced, technically ambitious Wii game yet. Squint and you could mistake it for a PS3 or Xbox 360 game; proof, perhaps, that gaming in 480p isn’t quite as limiting as the “Full HD, yeah!” crowd would have you believe. 


Nothing like Animal Crossing (honest)  

I have a lot of respect for Konami – I love the Goemon (aka Mystical Ninja) games, even if they have lost the plot in recent years; and it’s Winning Eleven over FIFA for me, no question – but all that Konami love turned to antipathy when I saw its new DS game, Tongari Boushi to Mahou no 365 Nichi (which literally, and rather ominously, translates as Pointy Hat and Magic 365 Days).  

This is pretty much the modern-day equivalent of The Great Giana Sisters, with Konami blatantly copying Animal Crossing: Wide World. It might well be a good game in its own right, but I don’t care. It even nicks the Wide World camera/scrolling system that makes that game world appear round. And Japanese gamers clearly aren’t impressed with this derivative effort, either. Comment posters on Japanese videogame news sites are complaining that Tongari Boushi looks “identical to Animal Crossing”, and they’re not wrong. It’s all a bit embarrassing for Konami. 


Xbox 360 no. 1 in Japan?

This all depends on whose numbers you believe to be correct. According to Japanese chart-tracking agency Media Create, 28,188 Xbox 360 consoles were sold in Japan last week, putting it in second place (among home consoles) behind the Wii. Meanwhile, using a slightly different calculator (or possibly an extremely big abacus), Enterbrain reckons Microsoft’s machine managed to rack up 28,681 transactions, making it the ichiban home console in Japan last week.

But really – who cares? The most important thing is that the Xbox 360 has turned in exactly the kind of performance Microsoft will have been hoping for after last week’s price cuts and the release of Infinite Undiscovery. And the challenge for the company remains the same: to keep the Xbox 360 in full view of Japan’s hitherto apathetic public, and to work to maintain this level of performance every week of the year.

Tip for the week: the next round of Xbox 360 sales to revert to sub-10k levels (no matter who’s collating the data).

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