We were dismayed (but not surprised) when Aksys Games' Super Dodgeball Brawlers failed to ignite the sales chartz. In a DS Fanboy-run world, any new Kunio game would be the subject of massive in-store promotions, print, TV, and online advertising, and magazine covers galore. But in the inferior real world, it's just a cute DS game that reminds people of that one NES game they played on an emulator in college.
In case you are among the group interested in Brawlers, but didn't have the cash together to pick it up, Gamestop has dropped the price to $20. This game for $20 is the best post-E3 news yet!
We remarked yesterday how Theresia isn't the first survivalhorror title on the DS, but it's definitely shaping up to be the most eye-catching. We find the occasional use of color (usually red, in Theresia's case) nicely accentuates the largely black-and-white surreal visuals, making for a striking combination. You can see more in our new gallery for the game.
If you haven't already heard, this Arc System Works/Workjam collaboration is getting localized for North America this October by Aksys. Hopefully we'll be seeing some English screens soon, because we're looking forward to sinking our teeth into what sounds like a fairly highbrow plot!
Aksys Games announced today that they will release a localized version of the 505 Games/ Arc System Works-developed Princess on Ice in North America. This is the one ASW game whose U.S. release by Aksys we didn'tpredict.
The rhythm-based ice skating game features multiple playable characters, all with their own storylines. We assume the storylines are slightly more indepth than "And then she entered another ice skating competition." Winning competitions will unlock items, moves, and clothes, which can be used to customize each character.
In the press release, Aksys's Frank deWindt II exhorted gamers to "Experience the excitement of ice skating in the palm of your hand." That sounds unbelievably painful. Those skates are really sharp.
Aksys has announced that it will be localizing Theresia, a title jointly developed by Workjam and Arc System Works, for a U.S. release in October. Not to blow our own trumpet or anything, but we prophetic DS Fanboy blogger JC Fletcher totally called this move almost five months ago.
The game will join a small but growing group of DS survival horror titles played from the first-person perspective, and incorporates many staple features of the genre: corridor exploration, the collecting of clues, and deadly traps.
It also appears to have a fairly dark storyline, including ... unusual family relationships. Aksys Associate Marketing Manager Harry Chang notes that the female protagonist "loves her mom... a lot". Could this be a reference to something incestuous? We've consulted resident psychic JC for another prediction, and used our "incest" tag, just in case.
In a platform game, it's important that you be able to actually move from one platform to the next. Action game? It's similarly important that you be able to fight and move, in order to progress through the game. Few people would argue those points -- so why is the text in a text adventure often less than great?
Jake Hunter: Detective Chronicles could have been a great game. The potential is there, and there are a lot of great little touches. Unfortunately, the localized script is sloppy, and that, combined with the missing cases, makes this much more a miss than a hit.
It seems like only a few days ago when publisher Aksys Games announced that it would be localizing Super Dodgeball Brawlers and Jake Hunter: Detective Chronicles (Tantei Jinguji Saburo), much to our delight. Though both titles have been met with mixedreviews, we can't help but be thankful that someone took the risk to bring over these titles that likely would have stayed in Japan otherwise.
With both Super Dodgeball Brawlers and Jake Hunter now on store shelves, we chatted with the studio's localization crew -- associate producer Mike Manzanares, assistant associate producer Frank deWindt, and marketing director Gail Salamanca -- about the two titles and Aksys's future. Jump past the break for details on Super Dodgeball Brawlers' unlockables and Jake Hunter's abridged case load!
If you neglected to pick up Super Dodge Ball Brawlers two weeks ago -- and we suspect you did, considering how few people are talking about the game -- you can still terrorize playgrounds with River City Dodge Ball All Stars!!
Developed by doujin groups Miracle Kidz and Downtown7 (along with Famicom Kunio series creators Yoshimitsu Yoshida and Mokeke Sekimoto), this PC title was actually released several months ago in Japan, but the demo is still worth downloading and playing. Plus, there's an English version of the trial!
The game doesn't suffer from the slow pace many have complained about with the DS release, and it even offers two speeds -- Normal and Retro. River City Dodge Ball All Stars!! doesn't, however, include some of the cool features introduced in Super Dodge Ball Brawlers, like the equipment shop, throwable items on the field, and the 8-player local wireless brawl mode.
As its title suggests, the PC game comes with the added bonus of a roster filled with recognizable names from the River City Ransom cast! Smack people in the face as end-boss Slick! Dodge super shots as Zombies gang member Turk! Wear panties on your head as, uh, Panty!
With that said, we don't know how this weekend will unfold for us, from a game-playing perspective. So, what will we play? Wait, who cares! We're just some jerks who blog. Let's find out from more important people what they'll be enjoying this weekend.
Well folks, it would seem that all of our excitement over Jake Hunter: Detective Chronicles might have been wasted. What little in the way of reviews for the game online say it's kind of, well ... below mediocre. They aren't too kind to the game, but we can't say we blame them. The North American release only has three cases, where the Japanese release has six!
Game Informer (65/100) says "This is a brief and functional title, but it lacks the flair and intrigue to pull off the film noir aesthetic. It's also hard to get over the fact that Jake Hunter looks like he should be ordering Jägerbombs and hitting on your sister instead of solving cases."
Nintendo Power (50/100) thinks "The game would have benefited from some compelling touch-screen use (for puzzles or combat, perhaps), but as is, it barely puts the 'interactive' in 'interactive novel.'" [June 2008, p.89]
1UP (D-) is of the mind that this game isn't even qualified to be in the bargain bin: "Each case is stupidly linear (to the point where you cannot leave an area until you perform the game-moving action), the script is riddled with typos (at one point, a character refers to a mobile phone as a "sell phone"), and the static character art exemplifies the cheapness of the entire package."
With Super Dodgeball Brawlers releasing late last week, we've finally got enough reviews in that we felt comfortable putting up a Metareview for the game. Also, you all have likely had enough time with it to form your own opinions. So, without further ado, let's get to it:
Play Magazine (85/100) grades it as good, but thinks the characters are a bit too slow: "This is damn near as good a version of Dodgeball as I could ask for...if only overall character speed could be tweaked." [May 2008, p.66]
Nintendo Power (65/100) says "Dodgeball fans won't be disappointed with Brawlers, but if you've been waiting for something new to bring you back on the court, the wait continues." [June 2008, p.89]
1UP (58/100) thinks that it's not as good as the first game: "It's certainly entertaining enough, and it offers plenty of detail for dedicated gamers to sink their teeth into. But will fans still be playing it two decades from now? Probably not. It's an acceptable rendition of a time-tested classic -- a little too complex to stand beside its classic inspiration, a little too primitive to stand up to contemporary releases, but still decent."
Any of you with the game want to chime in? Is it as good as the original NES title?
With our Metareview feature, we comb the internet for reviews on popular games and conveniently place them into one post. But, we also like to review things ourselves, when time permits. So, be sure to check those out!
Are you sitting there and reading this? May we ask why? You have a game that you should be out getting right now! Okay, you ordered it online? Fine, you may read the rest of this then.
Seriously, only one game is on our mind right now: Super Dodgeball Brawlers. We've been waiting on this sucker for what seems like forever now and we're finally going to be able to play it. How many of you out there are doing the same this weekend? If not Brawlers, then what will you be playing?
North American publisher Aksys has accompanied Super Dodgeball Brawlers' stateside release this week with an image bonanza of (Japanese) screenshots, character art, and other promotional assets, all of which we've conveniently collected for you in the gallery below.
Apparently, lots of people are having trouble finding the game in stores, so here's an opportunity for you to flip past the screenshots quickly to approximate an animated match, imagining that you're really playing the game. We had no problem finding Super Dodgeball Brawlers ourselves, as most of the GameStops around our area kept two copies on their shelves.
In related news, Fujitsu also plans to ship Super Dodgeball Brawlers to stores in Korea next week and has released a huge, 80-image-strong batch of Korean-translated screens, which, for some reason, includes shots from the staff credits and celebration scene that appears after a completed tournament. Perhaps they were accidentally released in Fujitsu's rush to get the word out -- the word(s) being "Kunio in Korea!"
Before we go into fits induced by the awesome fact that Super Dodgeball Brawlers is releasing in a mere two weeks, we figured that the least we could do is spread some love for an aspect of the original game that's often ignored -- its music.
Of course, the best thing to do with great video game music is remix it, and The Bad Dudes have done just that. Taking Kazuo Sawa's score from the original Super Dodge Ball (NES) and arranging it with some ethnic flavor (based on the different teams' countries of origin) makes for a great combination. Don't just take out word for it, though -- give it a listen or download the zip file over at No Balls, No Glory.
Aksys also plans to use this EP to promote the upcoming DS remake, which is set to hit American stores on May 27th.
Paging through the magazine, however, we spotted at least two advertisements that we wanted to share with you. As we were tearing them out to throw into our scanner, we thought, "Why not post all of the other DS ads (and the cover)?" Join us past the break for the scanned pages!
Okay, folks, the next few months are going to be absolutely, 100% crazy hard on our wallets. With some very awesome looking titles coming around the bend in May and beyond, we were wondering how you were preparing yourself? Super Dodgeball Brawlers hits this month, which will be an absolute must-buy for everyone, as well as some other quality titles (Drone Tactics, Puchi Puchi Virus). Still, it's nothing compared with how difficult June will be for our bank account.
What're you most looking forward to in the coming months? The summer is going to be great for DS gamers, so what are you waiting on and how excited are you for it?
We were dismayed (but not surprised) when Aksys Games' Super Dodgeball Brawlers failed to ignite the sales chartz. In a DS Fanboy-run world, any new Kunio game would be the subject of massive in-store promotions, print, TV, and online advertising, and magazine covers galore. But in the inferior real world, it's just a cute DS game that reminds people of that one NES game they played on an emulator in college.
Aksys Games announced today that they will release a localized version of the 505 Games/ Arc System Works-developed 
