Hot Japanese Imports: Hakuoki

Otome fans all throughout North America rejoiced when Aksys announced it would bring us Idea Factory’s PSP game, Hakuoki: Shinsengumi Kitan as Hakuouki: Demon of the Fleeting Blossom. 2012 is still a long ways away though, and that’s how long we have to wait before we’ll actually get to play it in English. In the meantime, here’s a brief recap on Hakuoki to help get you up to date on the series, anime and real Shinsengumi. What’s Hakuoki about? Chizuru Yukimura’s father was a famous doctor who was not only skilled in Japanese practices, but Western medicine as well. He…

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Popularity: 4% [?]

Hot Japanese Imports Review: Monster Hunter Portable 2nd G for PSP

Title: Monster Hunter Portable 2nd G Price: ¥ 2,100 System(s): PSP Release Date: March 27, 2008 Publisher (Developer): Capcom (Capcom) ESRB Rating: N/A, Cero C for Ages 15+ Pros: 400 missions to take and tons of monsters to slay. You can customize your character with tons of equipment, as well as get a Felyne friend who you can also equip and take with you on hunts. You can take on massive hunts where you go after multiple kinds of monsters. There’s an optional data install to decrease loading times. Cons: No online multiplayer unless you use Adhoc Party for PlayStation…

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Popularity: 2% [?]

Japan Import: Idolm@ster 2 getting a PS3 port

Namco Bandai’s Idolm@ster series isn’t an Xbox exclusive anymore. Of course, we kind of already knew that when Idolm@ster SP was released on the PSP and Dearly Stars appeared on the DS. But the core Idolm@ster games were only showing up on the Xbox 360. That changes on October 27, 2011, when The Idolm@ster 2 appears for the first time on the PS3. For those who’ve never heard of Idolm@ster before, think of it like this. It’s sort of like a pet raising game. Only instead of animals, you’re raising singers and trying to make them famous stars. You work…

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Popularity: unranked [?]

Hot Japanese Imports: Square Enix

Square Enix is like a member of the family for most gamers. The company has been around forever and is one of the biggest publishers and developers out there. It’s best known for its days as Square, when it made a name for itself creating some of the best RPGs ever, and has since branched out since acquiring Enix, Eidos and Taito to cover multiple genres. If you’ve been playing games for any substantial period of time, then odds are you’ve played at least one Square Enix game. Which is why we’re looking back at the company in today’s Important…

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Popularity: unranked [?]

Review: Rapid Angel for PS3, PSP

Title: Rapid Angel Price: $5.99 System(s): PS3, PSP (Originally on PS1) Release Date: July 5, 2011 (Originally August 13, 1998) Publisher (Developer): MonkeyPaw Games (Techno Soleil) ESRB Rating: N/A, Cero A for All Ages Pros: English instructions via the MonkeyPaw Games site. Multiple endings for each character. Can choose different responses for characters in different spots. Three starting characters and two hidden ones. Each character plays differently. All playable characters can guard against opponents attacks. Lots of replay value for completists. There’s actually a lot of voice acting, considering the age of the game. If you die in an area,…

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Popularity: 1% [?]

Review: Yakiniku Bugyou for PS3, PSP

Title: Yakiniku Bugyou Price: $5.99 System(s): PS3, PSP (Originally PS1) Release Date: July 5, 2011 (Originally May 25, 2001) Publisher (Developer): Monkeypaw Games (Media Entertainment) ESRB Rating: N/A. Cero A for All Ages Pros: English instructions via the MonkeyPaw Games site, 15 different customers, 12 different kinds of food, very simple to play, controls work perfectly, can be played easily without any knowledge of the Japanese language. Three difficulty levels for the single player and cooperative multiplayer modes. Cons: If you don’t know Japanese, you won’t know if people want food cooked well, medium or rare.  You may have a…

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Popularity: 2% [?]

Win Tokyo Game Show 2011 tickets on Twitter and Facebook

The Tokyo Game Show is coming up on September 15, 2011 and already people are starting to get excited. With good reason too, as it’s typically even bigger and better than E3. Especially since only the first two days are exclusive to press and industry officials, and the second two are for everyone. Of course, if you want to attend on September 17-18, 2011, you’ll have to pay ¥1,200 each day (~$15) to get in. That is, unless you win passes in one of the social network ticket giveaways the Tokyo Game Show is holding. The Tokyo Game Show Twitter…

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Popularity: 2% [?]

Hot Japanese Imports: Pocketstation and VMU

We’re now in the generation of hard drives, SD cards and even the occasional memory stick when it comes to backing up game saves. It almost makes it hard to believe that a few years ago the standard method was memory cards, plastic blocks gamers would shove into consoles or controllers so they could save their game progress. At the time, memory cards were the thing. They offered a sense of freedom gamers hadn’t had before, allowing them to take their game progress on the go with them, not bound by on-cartridge memory or those loathed passwords. Some companies decided…

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Popularity: 1% [?]

The Japanese PlayStation Store is finally back online!

The Great PlayStation Network Outage of 2011 first went down on April 20, 2011. North American, European, Australian and some Asian gamers went 24 days without any PSN services until they were restored May 15, 2011. They had to wait until June 1, 2011 to get access to the PlayStation Store again. Of course, that seems like nothing compared to what Japanese and other Asian territories have had to go through. Initial PlayStation Network services only first resumed there on May 28, 2011 and now, after over two months, the Japanese PlayStation Store is finally back online. All Japanese PlayStation…

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Popularity: 2% [?]

Japan Import: Fight your battles with music in Theatrhythm Final Fantasy

Remember how Square Enix threw everyone for a loop when it announced it’d be making Dissidia: Final Fantasy, a fighting RPG that took Final Fantasy heroes and villains and pitted them against each other? Well, brace yourself because it’s happening again. Only this time, it isn’t a fighting game. It’s a musical RPG. Not like Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure, NIS’ strategic RPG that occasionally had the characters break into song. Theatrhythm Final Fantasy is a 3DS RPG with Ouendan/Elite Beat Agents style cues to fight battles. Shonen Jump broke the news about Theatrhythm Final Fantasy in its latest issue. People…

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Popularity: 2% [?]