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Mastiff Sinks Teeth Into Technic Beat, Gungrave OD
Thanks to GamerFeed for its news story noting that publisher Mastiff has picked up the quirky Arika-developed Technic Beat rhythm title for American release. It's explained: "Players listen to music represented in the game by radiating concentric rings of sound. Picking up the beat, they dance into the middle of the rings and try to 'catch' the music", and a hands-on preview at IGN PS2 has screenshots and more info on the "wickedly weird" PlayStation 2 title. Mastiff, the tiny U.S. publisher also responsible for bringing cult PS2 SRPG La Pucelle Tactics to the States, are also publishing PS2 action title Gungrave OD in the U.S., according to IGN, who describe the sequel to the somewhat one-note Sega-published shooter as "an assault on the senses."
I honestly wonder: if Gungrave didn't have the awesome Japanese character designs of Yashiro Nightow (Trigun), would it even be remotely popular?
I think most of the Gungrave's scuccess is because of Nightow.
Still, this is a good time to release Gungrave OD because Gungrave the anime TV series is getting its region 1 release.
When I started reading Philip K. Dick's books I soon got the feeling he was on drugs. I now know he was.
Why do I get the feeling LSD played some part in the concept for this game? Wow man look at the colour of the sound....
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
...'Play Jap.'
It's great that someone has finally figured out that bringing quirky and fun Japanese games over here is a wise idea. None of these games are going to sell a million units, hell, they probably won't sell 100,000 units but these games will sell.
I'm hoping that even with the cost of localizing text and other aspects of the game, Mastiff is still turning a profit. I've always been a big fan of importing games and I've been worried that the next generation of consoles will be much harder to hack and get imports up and running.
I'm on top of my game like I'm standin' on Xbox.
This looks really interesting. If it gets the marketing it deserves, it should have a good chance as the US market is slowly getting into games like this. It's a shame what happened to Rez, but since that time I think things have changed somewhat. At the very least, maybe people are finally getting bored with all of the sequels and movie licensed games.
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
Are they still in business?
They used to take overlooked Japanese games like this all the time and release them over in the States (when they weren't bringing out Japanese RPGs) -- they were (in)famous for their quirky sense of humor, resonance with fans, crazy in-box and preorder extras, and eternally pushed back release dates (see Magic Knights Rayearth for the Saturn).
Are they gone? Still making games? What's Victor Ireland doing right this minute? What's up?
The peoples of East Asia don't refer to non-Asians as "Occidentals" or even literally as "Westerners." So the term "Oriental" is archaic, and is avoided in informed conversations.
The people of Japan don't generally take offense at the word, "Jap." But Japanese-Americans and most informed people do, because of its common usage to refer to both Japanese nationals and Japanese-Americans (as if the groups were the same) during World War II.
Anyone who minds their mouths when speaking about non-Asian people should probably also mind their mouths in these cases regarding Asian people, lest you be accused of something I won't mention. But for those from whom racial epithets flow freely and without conscious cognizance, carry on, my ignorant friends. You're entertaining to everyone else.