Thursday, September 30, 2004

poke-man little thing vol.2.
setting: 4kids lunch area.
About: the new pokemon epsodes/lincing naruto.

[guy1] ok, i like the idea of lincing naruto. it can be 4kid. *laughs then takes out a sandwitch*

[guy2]are you gunna eat that?
*guy 1 gives him the sandwitch then takes out some chips*

[guy2]can i have the chips?

[guy1] where the fu*k is your lunch!

[guy2] i ate it wow you were bit*hing about naruto.

[F.F.G (fat pkmn fan guy)] i got an idea of the new poke-mon eps.

[guy1] who the bloody F*ck let this pr*ck in.

[neo(from the martrix)] this is what you fu*ks get from making that damn peace of sh*t yu-gi-oh movie! *neo locks the door, leaving F.F.G and the 2 guys locked in.*

*10 hours later*
[F.F.G] ok this eps. will be called "the great puk-

[guy1] JUST SHUT THE FU*K UP U FAT FU*K, YOU HAVE BEEN TALKING FOR 10 FU*KIN HOURS!

[F.F.G] ok this eps is-



poke-man little thing part 3 coming soon.

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Wednesday, September 29, 2004

go go go
paste Rath Demondude on the "my otaku .come by user" and join his guide NOW!! its fu*kin alsome
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poke-mon little thing
i was bored so i made this
setting: 4kids.
About: the new pokemon epsodes

[guy1] ok, what should happen it episode 900,677,343,992,883,589,574,132,454,123,485,323,212,454,254,543,332,675,246,656,458,476,465,435,454,545,456 and 565,685,655,632,436,537,257,654,276,564,266,856,563,445,446,543,655,545,133,253,456,357,854,364,554,553,496.

[guy2] lets make a pokemon movie called "endest friend" and in the end ash go's to the supmeagblast leage in the end of the movie. then we make a new show called "pokemon supmeagblast leage" thats when ash meets kojo and-

[guy1] NO, NO, NO!! i am tried of making f**kin pokemon movies.

[guy2] then lets make a tv movie.

[guy1] no f**kin movies i said. lets lince naruto! then we can f**k up that, just like one peace.

*the guys walk away*

poke-mon little thing part 2 coming soon.
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Saturday, September 25, 2004

Day of berserk!!!
on oct.31, it will be the 1 day of berserk! i will have pictures of berserk anime/manga/ and the video game.
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Friday, September 24, 2004

TGS PARTY SATUAI DAY
the tgs party is on saturai day. remoneber.
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EVERY THING TGS!!!
PSP.

TOKYO--The Tokyo Game Show marks the playable debut of Sony's PSP handheld. While the actual hardware made its first appearance at this year's E3, there was very little playable software for it, and the units themselves were firmly bolted down and flanked by security guards. Naturally, once at TGS, we headed straight for the Sony booth to check out the dozens of fully playable units on display.

Other than some minor cosmetic tweaks, the PSP hardware hasn't changed tremendously since E3. You'll find a pretty extensive array of buttons along the bottom of the unit, including volume controls, the standard PlayStation "select" and "start" buttons, as well as additional buttons such as "home," a monitor icon, and a musical note icon that toggles the hardware's various functions. The lower right side of the unit is home to the power button, while the lower left features controls for the wireless antenna. There is a very slick-looking speaker along the top of the unit and it is bookended by the clear Lucite shoulder buttons.

The face of the unit is, of course, dominated by the massive screen, which is even sexier in person. To the left of the screen is the now-standard Sony control-cross D pad. Just below the buttons is what we originally thought was an analog stick-style disc, but we couldn't get a good feel for how responsive it was. The right side of the unit's face is home to the familiar square, triangle, X, and circle buttons. The only other element of note on the unit's face is a loop for a carrying strap on the lower left side, below the analog stick. We expect a flood of PSP-themed straps, much like the scores of cell phone straps, to rain down on Japan when the unit hits. (We can only hope that the US market scores some similar accessories.) While the back of the PSP was hard to see due to the security measures in place, it was still possible to see the unit's slots for Sony memory sticks.

The first thing that struck us about the PSP is its natural feel. Frankly, we haven't had our hands on hardware that has been such a good fit since the original Game Boy Advance, and the PSP's svelte ergonomics bode well for the countless hours we expect to lose playing games on it. Our affectations were also stolen by the screen, which is easily the most impressive display we've seen on a handheld gaming system. The lighted screen is a perfect showcase for the stunning visuals being cranked out by many PSP games, and it maintains a crisp display from nearly any angle. The hordes of lights and camera flashes did little to obscure our vision while playing the game on the unit. The wide-screen configuration and the screen light are a winning combination that breaks new ground on portable hardware, and it shows that more than a few people over at Sony are forward-thinking.

Of the many PSP units on the show floor, there were two basic flavors of hardware displays. Many kiosks and private demos were running off of developer kits connected to PSPs. But there were also plenty of freestanding, playable PSP units, although it appeared that they were running games off of a Sony memory stick. As a result, it was hard to definitively judge how the unit is going to handle running a game off a disc while maintaining a solid battery life. However, we expect Sony's engineers are serving up burnt offerings to the Dark Gods of Power Consumption to ensure that the PSP has a respectable amount of battery life.

Despite the fact that the noise level at the Tokyo Game Show is comparable to a train station at rush hour, the PSP's audio sounded surprisingly rich and clear through the din. Whether it’s the subtle tunes heard in Metal Gear Acid, the retro '90s Capcom music from Vampire Chronicle: The Chaos Tower, or the slick club beats from Bandai's Lumines, the PSP's versatile sound processor handled game audio with aplomb.

For those wondering just how the PSP hardware feels in comparison to Nintendo's upcoming DS, which we had the chance to play at this year's E3, the two are totally different animals. To be fair, we have yet to get our hands on the final DS hardware, which is undergoing a final round of tweaks. But, the DS that we've seen has been workmanlike in its style, whereas the PSP has a downright sexy design. Whereas the DS is larger and heavier, the PSP is considerably lighter and feels more comfortable. Of course, the unit's design doesn't have any effect on either platform's games. But for now, the PSP is certainly the most eye-catching and aesthetically pleasing of the two.

All told, despite the veil of secrecy surrounding it, the PSP has met our expectations and then some. The slick design and varied games on display at the Tokyo Game Show was a fine showcase for the portable unit's potential. The PSP is currently slated to ship later this year in Japan and next spring in the US. Look for more on the hardware soon

Gran Turismo 4

TOKYO--At a press conference earlier today, Kazunori Yamauchi, president of Polyphony Digital, revealed a plethora of new information on Gran Turismo 4--most of it good. We'll get the bad news out of the way first, though, which is that Gran Turismo 4 will not be shipping with any online functionality. Yamauchi cited "challenges" with the European and Japanese online infrastructures as the reason behind the decision--challenges that would presumably have taken until well after the game's targeted December release date to overcome. Polyphony now plans to release an online version of the game (or at least a very similar game) sometime next year.



Click to enlarge.
The focus of today's Gran Turismo 4 press conference was the game's newly announced B-Spec mode. Compatible with both the Arcade and Gran Turismo modes of play, the B-Spec option will essentially be an all-new way of playing (or not playing) the game. If you select the B-Spec option ahead of any race, you'll basically be choosing not to drive the car yourself but, instead, to just influence the way that the CPU driver in your seat does its job. You'll view the race from the same camera angles used in replays, and you'll determine how hard your driver pushes by hitting buttons numbered one (cruising) through five (driving on the edge). In addition to those buttons, you'll have the option to hit an overtake button that will see your driver actively trying to improve his position, and a button with a large letter "P" on it, which will have your driver pull into the pits at the next opportunity. Now, you might be thinking that the B-Spec mode is going to require you to do little more than stick your car on number five with the overtaking option highlighted. You'd be wrong.

For one thing, the CPU driver in your seat is capable of making mistakes, and is more likely to do so when he's driving aggressively. Yamauchi also pointed out that, in lengthy races, you'll need to look after your tires if you don't want to have to make lots of pit stops. Speaking of lengthy races, incidentally, Yamauchi--while demonstrating the B-Spec mode's Race Monitor screen--mentioned that it'll be possible to speed up races by up to four times, so you could theoretically run the Le Mans 24 Hour race in just six hours. The Race Monitor screen, which updates on the fly, will allow you to check out the current race standings as well as the distances between each of the cars so that you might make more informed decisions as to how to have your driver proceed.

In addition to announcing the B-Spec mode, Yamauchi took a few minutes to go into greater detail about the game's photo mode--which was unveiled at E3 earlier this year. The photo mode will actually comprise two distinct methods for composing pictures: "photo travel" and "photo drive." The photo travel mode, which we got hands-on with at E3, will allow you to choose any car, place it in one of 15 different locations, and then shoot it from almost any angle imaginable. The photo drive mode, on the other hand, will allow you to take more action-oriented shots using race replays from any of the game's 50-plus tracks. The camera positions available to you in this mode will be more limited, but you'll still have over 300 to choose from at any time.

Amongst the 50-plus tracks in Gran Turismo 4 (not including the reverse versions) will be four that were unveiled for the first time today, namely El Capitan in Yosemite, California's Infineon Raceway, and Japan's Suzuka and Twin Ring Motegi circuits. Popular courses from previous Gran Turismo titles will also be in the game, and each has benefited from a GT4 makeover that not only makes them even more pleasing to the eye but also, in the case of those based on real-life tracks, more realistic. The only newly announced course available to race in the Tokyo Game Show demo version of the game was El Capitan, so as soon as the press conference was over we took the opportunity to test-drive a few different cars there. The scenery was arguably the most beautiful we've ever seen in a racing game, with mountains and trees stretching far into the horizon. Yamauchi believes that Gran Turismo 4 players should be able to enjoy travelling the world as much as they enjoy driving, and with that in mind it's not difficult to see why the game would feature a track in the Yosemite National Park.



Click to enlarge.
Amongst the cars we toured Yosemite in was the wedge-shaped Dome Zero concept car that dates back to the '70s--one of several cars that were revealed in Gran Turismo 4 for the first time today. Other models worthy of note that we got to see today (although not all of them were playable in the demo) included: the Mazda 6 MPS that was only unveiled in Paris two days ago; the upcoming BMW M5; Toyota's Motor Triathlon Race Car, which looks like the 4x4 offspring of a Formula 1 car and an SUV; Jay Leno's one-of-a-kind Tank Car, which is roughly twice the size of any other car in the game; and Chrysler's 1886 Tri-Wheel. During his presentation, Yamauchi confirmed that the final number of cars in Gran Turismo will be in excess of 650 from 80 different manufacturers, he had apparently hoped to include twice as many as that at one point, but given that each car in the game takes a designer approximately a month to model it simply wasn't possible.

Before wrapping up his presentation with the no online play bombshell, Yamauchi shared a few more new details about Gran Turismo 4: the game will feature Dolby Pro-Logic II support, you'll be able to fit no less than 1,000 cars in your garage this time around (as opposed to just 200 in GT3); and an in-game calendar will keep track of all of your significant achievements. Finally, the Japanese release for the game was confirmed for December 3, while North American and European releases were "targeted" for December 14.

Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII.

TOKYO--At the Tokyo Game Show today, Square Enix unveiled the first footage of Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII, the third leg of a new movement the company has dubbed "Compilation of Final Fantasy VII." Made up by the upcoming CG film Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children and the currently Japan-only mobile game Before Crisis - Final Fantasy VII, the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII will be completed with the addition of Dirge of Cerberus, which stars everyone's favorite undead dreamboat, Vincent. But with a genre that's thus far been listed as "TBA," just what kind of game is this?

Well, from the very brief video clip we saw at Square's press conference this morning at TGS, it's definitely an action game of some sort. There were certainly lots of guns, at least. Vincent was running and jumping and (from a third-person perspective) laying waste with a heavy machinegun, so it's not hard to imagine this is going to be a shooting-focused action game. The guy's got those wicked claws, too, so there could certainly be a melee component included as well. Just about the only hard fact we could glean from the trailer was that the game is set three years after the end of Final Fantasy VII, which would also place it sometime after Advent Children. Square Enix is being awfully mum with the details about the game, so we'll have to keep biting our nails for the time being.

Interestingly, Dirge of Cerberus looked to be somewhat divorced from the Final Fantasy VII milieu. Whereas a recent trailer for Advent Children revealed that damn near everybody from FFVII will make at least a cameo appearance in the film, we only noticed Cait Sith in the brief Dirge of Cerberus footage--and come to think of it, Cait Sith is just about the only character we didn't see in the Advent Children trailer. Something's fishy here… In any case, several new characters and what appeared to be a new sort of enemy soldier were featured in the footage, so it seems that Vincent's first starring role will take him away from his former companions and subject him to new places and faces that we haven't seen before, either. But then, we only glimpsed a few seconds' worth of disjointed clips from the game, which is itself still early in development, so who knows what familiar scenery or personae will pop up in the final product.

While the footage we saw today helped to demystify what kind of game Dirge of Cerberus will be (it's definitely not an RPG, or a puzzle game, or a dating sim…), many questions remain. What of Vincent's cohorts, such as Cloud and Tifa? How exactly is Cerberus, the mythical three-headed dog, involved in the storyline? Why does Cait Sith have that goofy grin, anyway? Vincent may cry (ahem) if we don't learn the answers soon, but it seems that Square Enix is content to make us wait, for now.


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TGS!!Need for Speed Underground Rivals
EA Games has revealed the first details on Need for Speed Underground Rivals, its upcoming racing game for the PlayStation Portable handheld system. EA's Need for Speed racing series has been around for many years on many platforms, but it has only recently embraced the culture of underground street racing. Need for Speed Underground was released last year on the PS2, the Xbox, the GameCube, and the PC, and it was met with critical and consumer success thanks to its combination of high-speed racing, impressive graphics, and its tuning features, which let players build out and tweak their very own muscle car.



The game will feature new play modes and even Wi-Fi support.
EA Games is already working on the console sequel Need for Speed Underground 2, but it also has this new racer in the works for the PSP. Like with the previous games in the series, Rivals will let you play as an ambitious young racer seeking fame and a better ride in underground racing circuits. The game will feature 10 all-new tracks to race on--according to EA, these tracks have been "specially designed to maximize the experience on the handheld platform." Like with previous games, it will also feature a tuning system that will let you customize your cars to tweak their performance out on the road. The game will feature tuner cars from both Japan and America along with yet-unspecified new game modes. Interestingly, the game will also support competitive multiplayer play with new game modes and Wi-Fi support.

Need for Speed Underground Rivals is currently scheduled for release later this year in Japan and next spring in North America. Stay tuned to GameSpot for more details. For more PSP updates, check My Tokyo Game Show 2004 coverage. AND VIST ME PARTY.

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TGS!! Shining Tears!!
TOKYO--Shining Tears is one part of Sega's upcoming revival of its classic Shining role-playing game series that was one of the Japanese developer's crown jewels back in the 16-bit day. The series has seen installments across almost all of Sega's hardware but went quiet during the Dreamcast's all-too-brief life. Thankfully, Sega has recently announced a wave of games that are essentially different aspects of the franchise's revival. We had the chance to get an exclusive first look at Shining Tears, one of the two PlayStation 2 Shining games, at Sega's Haneda office, which offers up an original adventure that blends familiar gameplay elements with all new ones. The work-in-progress version we checked out offered a Legend of Zelda: The Four Swords-style experience that sends you on a quest to defend the fortress city you call home through a series of objective-based battles.



Your enemies will stop at nothing to steal your magic ring.
The game revolves around a young man who has, in the time-honored RPG tradition, lost his memory and gotten caught up in a war he doesn't quite understand. The city he lives in is under siege, and the reason, he is told, involves two magical rings of power. Want to guess which amnesiac local has one? You guessed it. This sends our muddle-headed hero off on a journey of discovery that will come to include friends who join him as he unravels the mystery of the ring and the loss of his memory. Since dangerous journeys usually mean progressively bigger trouble, you'll be able to fortify yourself with ever more-powerful weaponry, spells, and a rotating cast of allies.

While this all sounds like a fine setup for the type of turn-based strategy that the Shining series has been known for, Shining Tears focuses instead on real-time action. However, you'll still be doing plenty of hacking and slashing. You'll have to interact with other characters, some of whom will even join you. The game has a mission-based structure and will send you on journeys outside your fortress as you try to explore the world and make sense of it all. You'll visit towns where you can talk to the locals or make new friends. Once you have a full-on entourage, you can choose to hang out with them and do your own thing. Fortunately, your crew is more than just a collection of well wishers, since you can tap them to lend their skills in combat, though you'll only be able to have two active characters--your primary hero and a companion. Your companions all have unique talents which can come to affect your performance. Besides offering modest upgrades to your speed and other attributes depending on whom you use, your buddies will also let you alternate between light and dark alignment, which radically affects your performance in battle. Your dynamic duo will always consist of one dark-aligned character and one light-aligned character. So, your own personal alignment will change depending on that of your partner to keep the balance, so if you choose a dark alignment partner then your alignment will switch to light and vice versa. The resulting difference between both styles is what you'd expect. Light alignment will emphasize more ranged magic attacks and support style of play while dark alignment will focus on aggressive melee combat that gets you in much closer to your enemies.

The pairing of yourself and a computer-controlled partner will play out in one of two ways depending on whether or not you choose to play the game in two-player co-op mode with a friend, or with a computer-controlled character. When playing with a friend you'll be able to coordinate with your buddy to take on enemies in a pretty typical co-op style of play in which you work closely with your partner to defeat an impressively large horde of foes. When playing with a computer-controlled character, you can have them support you in a number of ways as well as take direct control of them with the right analog stock and actively direct their movement and attacks. The most useful aspect of this control is the ability to have your partner dash at your foes. This is because each of your companions has a unique secondary effect as they dash. For example, a female magician character we saw left behind particles of ice that caused extra damage to the enemies she hit while dashing. You'll also be able to use your partner for special team attacks that cause damage in a variety of different ways but are excellent at doling out serious punishment to large groups.



The game will have real-time battles that you fight with a teammate.
The graphics in the game are looking good and feature a distinct art style that helps give the various characters a distinct personality. The art is done in an ornate cartoon style that's almost "super deformed" but not quite. The end result is a look that stops short of cliché. The environments are richly detailed with 2D art. Also, much in the same vein as the GameCube's The Legend of Zelda: The Four Swords, you'll see a variety of supercharged special effects. The PlayStatiopn 2's added muscle allows for hordes of up to fifty enemies to be displayed which helps add to the game's epic atmosphere.

Shining Tears is an interesting new entry in the Shining series that looks to be adding a new perspective to the familiar formula. The game looks interesting and and features a good amount of depth beyond its combat system, such as the typical RPG trappings of items, equipment, and leveling up, that should make for a compelling experience. Shining Tears is currently scheduled to ship late this year in Japan with a US date to follow sometime next year. we will have more on this.

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Before Crisis - Final Fantasy VII Hands-On
TOKYO--Western gamers are always intensely interested in the comings and goings at Square Enix's Japanese headquarters, located in the bustling Shinjuku district of Tokyo. In this virtual mecca of the RPG world, we had an opportunity to play Before Crisis - Final Fantasy VII, one of the latest (and most controversial) chapters in one of the longest-running and most-respected RPG series on the market, at a Square Enix press event prior to the start of Toyko Game Show 2004. This action RPG is being developed by Square Enix's Final Fantasy brain trust for the Foma i900 series of mobile phones on NTT DoCoMo's iMode service--a very specific class of handset on a carrier that operates only in Japan. If you've been following the game's progress, you may have heard some detractors across the Pacific preemptively criticize Before Crisis for being equal parts greed-motivated misstep and monstrous crime of hubris, cursing Square Enix for forcing a huge part of its Final Fantasy-starved Western fan base to eat cake. After several hours of quality time with Before Crisis, we can safely say that there doesn't seem to be malicious intent on Square Enix's part: This game's level of technical accomplishment, which relies upon heavy usage of high-speed network streaming and camera-image recognition, would be more or less impossible to duplicate in the West at present, given our relatively backward command of cellular infrastructure.



In Before Crisis - Final Fantasy VII, you'll don the businesslike attire of the Turks.
Our demo copy of Before Crisis - Final Fantasy VII came installed on a black FOMA 900iV--the so-called "Cloud Phone," so named for its usage by spiky-haired Avalanche commando (and hero of Square's hit PlayStation RPG Final Fantasy VII) Cloud Strife in a recent Japanese advertising campaign. The game's title screen opens with a low-angle shot of the Shinra Corporation's headquarters in Midgar, panning gradually upward past the neon-red Japanese characters to the top of the skyscraper. At the start of each new game, you are offered a choice between four new Turk recruits, two male and two female. Fans of Final Fantasy VII will remember the Turks as a gang of sharp-dressed thugs--and like in that game, your recruit character will be dressed in a very conservative black-suit-and-tie ensemble over a white collared shirt. The first male recruit, a red-headed fellow who wields a spring-loaded baton in an underhand grip, is the only playable character who lacks a firearm at the outset. His compatriots--a blonde woman with short hair, a man with wild black hair who lacks a tie, and another girl with flowing brunette locks--all use guns of one sort or another. Each character has different strengths and weaknesses. The redhead, for instance, has a sizable advantage in hit points and melee damage but fewer magic points, while the brunette sacrifices hardiness for more magic energy and a shotgun that fires a blast in three directions. At a press conference yesterday, Square Enix personnel confirmed that Before Crisis will launch with only these four characters, but also promised that more playable Turks would be forthcoming.

After selecting your character and creating an account on Square Enix's Before Crisis server, you are taken to an options screen, where you can change the game's network settings, view your character's available missions, and create "materia"--the crystals of congealed organic force (called "mako energy") that serve as foci for magic spells in the world of Final Fantasy VII. Materia generation and management are important gameplay elements in Before Crisis - Final Fantasy VII. The Turks won't get far in combat without using offensive and defensive magic, so it's vital to outfit their weapons and armor with an assortment of materia before sending them off on a mission. Fortunately, the Turks are a part of Shinra's corporate hierarchy, so they have access to Shinra's advanced mako technology, which can synthesize materia in a laboratory setting. The game simulates this generative process via a brilliant utilization of the i900 series' onboard camera. Simply take a picture with the camera, and the game's onboard image-recognition software will distill the image down to its basic color and create a like-colored materia. Predominantly white pictures make white healing materia, while yellow and red pictures are good for lightning and fire magic, respectively. There appears to be no limit to the amount of materia you can create. However, the crystals gain power as they are used in combat--just as in the original Final Fantasy VII--so it's a good idea to keep a rotation going if you want to have access to a wide assortment of spells.

Once you've performed all these logistical tasks to your satisfaction, your newly equipped Turk can hit the mean streets of Midgar to crack some Avalanche skull. The advertising slogan that has been attached to Before Crisis in Japan translates roughly as "Turks vs. Avalanche: the night before the final battle." In this sense, the game is a true prequel to Final Fantasy VII, finally detailing the Turks' successful counterinsurgency operations against the Midgar-based Avalanche group, six years prior to Cloud's association with the rebels. The first game referred to this civil war only tangentially--here we learn that the Turks' victory over Avalanche was instrumental in establishing Shinra's hegemony over Midgar, allowing them an undisputed monopoly on power until the rebel army was resuscitated under a new generation of leaders that would include Cloud, Tifa, and Barret.

At the start of Before Crisis, however, the outcome of this secret war is still very much in doubt. Tseng, a commander in the Turks, dispatches your recruit to report on Avalanche's activities in a seedy part of Midgar characterized by storefronts and narrow alleyways. It turns out that one of the three principal leaders of Avalanche, a bandanna-wearing rebel named Sears, has prepared a strike against Shinra from the sewers. An in-game cinematic sequence shows the Avalanche band silently filtering onto the streets and overcoming several Shinra guards, at which point your character happens upon them. After a hasty consultation with headquarters on your cell phone, a confrontation ensues.

Combat is a simple enterprise in Before Crisis. The screen switches from navigation mode--where you maneuver your character through the streets, following a navigation arrow to your next objective and chatting with your boss on your mobile--to an open arena, where everyone draws their weapons and starts fighting. If you are battling with ranged weapons, the idea is to get the enemy in your line of fire while dodging his or her shots. Melee combat requires a little more cunning, because you must avoid the enemy's shots to get in close proximity. However, once you're in close, you can rapidly pound your opponent with your baton until he or she drops, never giving him or her a chance to answer. In either case, using your standard attack is a matter of moving around and pressing the action button at the right time. Square Enix has even added a convenient auto-maneuver feature to facilitate mobile combat--if you hold down the action key, your character will lock on to the nearest enemy, follow him or her around, and attack, always maintaining the correct angle to score a hit.



You'll be able to use materia to conjure devastating magic spells.
Fighting standard enemies one-on-one isn't particularly challenging, but they usually come at you in twos and threes, making their attacks much more difficult to avoid. It is in these situations that you must resort to using your materia. Offensive spells are much more powerful than regular attacks--a typical shotgun blast may hit for 15 HP, while a fire or lightning spell will take off 60 HP--and, more importantly, most of them are "area-effect" abilities that will strike multiple targets. To get maximum benefit out of your magic, you have to run circles around your opponents, carefully maneuvering them into range so you can nail them with a spell. It's vital to conserve your magic, as there doesn't seem to be any way to regain MP during the course of a mission at this point. Square Enix plans to increase the possible number of color combinations, so that the most powerful magic will require complex, multihued mixtures. There are also tentative plans to enable materia trading over the network, although these features haven't yet been discussed in any detail.

Before Crisis - Final Fantasy VII is seeded with substantial RPG elements to foster extended play. Your characters will gain levels as they become more experienced, increasing their ability scores and making them much more effective in combat. For example, gaining a single level will increase the damage dealt by a baton blow from 20 to 25. In addition, the game is very liberal in its use of dialogue. It seems like you can't enter a fight or move to a new area without the game cutting away to cover the goings-on at Turk headquarters, or a terse conversation between your character and a rebel leader. Most of this dialogue is scripted in the early going (and you are free to skip through it using the right soft key), but on later levels, including one that is clearly recognizable as Junon, you'll have a chance to speak freely to civilians to gather intel on Avalanche. Even though the gameplay is mission-based, you'll be able to return to levels you've previously completed to level your character up. The overall effect of these features is to make Before Crisis - Final Fantasy VII feel like a legitimate entry in the Final Fantasy pantheon, rather than a shoddy spin-off.

The game's strong audio-visual components bolster this impression. Before Crisis - Final Fantasy VII is a treat graphically--thanks in part to the FOMA i900 series' expansive QVGA screen, the acuity of which is largely beyond the range of the Western mobile experience. The backgrounds are fantastically detailed, down to the cobblestones on the streets of Midgar. Spells and other special effects produce impressively clear gradients of red, orange, and yellow. The character models are large, and they have more frames of animation than you might expect from a mobile game. Before Crisis - Final Fantasy VII's sound is among the best we've heard in a mobile game. The game's driving industrial beats, screaming guitars, and sharp sound effects lend themselves to the effect of playing a console game in miniature. On the other side of the coin, there is a heavy price to pay for all of Before Crisis' finery. Most seriously, the game is plagued by long loading times, sometimes clocking in at 90 seconds between levels. These loads aren't particularly smooth, either--our handset crashed fairly routinely during the process, although this was likely due to the fact that we were running the game on Square Enix's brand-new server. The game runs quite smoothly for a downloadable Java application, but its frame rate may disappoint console gamers used to lifelike FMV sequences and fluid combat animations. Finally, we noticed that the game drained the 900iV's battery at a very rapid clip. None of these deficiencies are particularly surprising, given the amount of envelope-pushing Square Enix is attempting in this game. Nevertheless, we hope that the developer will continue to optimize the experience.

In all, Before Crisis - Final Fantasy VII seems as if it will deliver a gaming experience worth the tremendous amount of hype, as well as the yen that millions of Japanese gamers will spend to play it. Square Enix's strategy of transition to "polymorphic" content, which many in the games industry have derided as a fool's errand, is appearing more justified than ever, given the level of polish it's managed to apply to Before Crisis--and the increasingly lethargic performance of the Japanese console gaming market. It's entirely possible that the game will be an instant hit in Japan, and that it will generate tons of revenue for both Square Enix and NTT DoCoMo via subscription pricing and data-transfer fees.

Now that we've built up your hopes, we must deliver the inevitable letdown: This game will not see the light of day outside of Japan for at least another year, if ever. Disappointing though it may be, we must acknowledge that Square Enix is probably doing the right thing by withholding this type of content from the world market at present. Until we achieve a level of technical savvy (and broad market penetration) consonant with that of NTT DoCoMo, any effort on Square Enix's part to sell new mobile Final Fantasy games to the West would be futile. We've seen firsthand that Before Crisis strains even the mighty NTT DoCoMo's resources--and this is the same operator that pioneered mobile data services, way back in the 1990s. Simply put, you wouldn't want to play a game like Before Crisis on a typical Verizon or Cingular handset, and we can't imagine that Square Enix would want you to. It appears that Before Crisis' main draw will be its completion of Final Fantasy VII's backstory, which will spread through the Internet at the speed of blog whether we have a chance to play through it or not--and with any luck, Advent Children and Final Fantasy XII will sate our hunger until the cellular gap closes. For more updates, be sure to check My coverage of Tokyo Game Show 2004 (coimg soon).


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New details on Nintendo DS launch; pack-in demo announced
Metroid Prime Hunters: First Hunt, featuring four-player wireless play, will come bundled with every system. Launch software to be shown in October.
In an early-morning teleconference today, Nintendo executives Reggie Fils-Aime, George Harrison, and Perrin Kaplan released additional details on the launch of the Nintendo DS. Most importantly, Fils-Aime revealed that Metroid Prime Hunters: First Hunt, a playable demo of the upcoming DS title, will be bundled in with each Nintendo DS system sold this fall.

Metroid Prime: Hunters, a first-person shooter featuring four-player wireless multiplayer, will feature a number of improvements on the E3 version. As Nintendo software impresario Shigeru Miyamoto said in an E3 interview, the final game will feature a standard D-pad-and-buttons control scheme in addition to the stylus control shown off at E3. First Hunt should reflect this as well. "We've improved the playability and have done different things from the player-control standpoint," Fils-Aime said this morning. "The game has changed modestly for the better."

As for further details on the software launch lineup, Fils-Aime revealed this morning that Nintendo will show off the launch lineup to "key media and analysts" at the Gamers' Summit in Seattle in the first week of October. Nintendo was tight-lipped on the subject this morning, stating only that a total of 120 games, from both Nintendo and third parties, are currently in development. Also, as stated in the press release last night, PictoChat, the DS' own drawing-and-text-based chat utility, will be embedded in the DS hardware so all DS users will be able to chat wirelessly with each other--right out of the box.

Nintendo will reveal software pricing at a later date, but did state for now that the business model for DS software is "more attractive" to third parties than the GBA, which suggests a lower price point. Also suggesting a lower price point for DS media is the fact that a demo cartridge is packed in with the hardware. DS media was again confirmed to be 1GB in size.

George Harrison then addressed the marketing efforts that will be undertaken for the DS launch. More than 12,000 interactive DS demo units will be placed in mass-market and specialty stores. Some units, he commented, will actually feature two DS systems so players can experiment with the wireless functionality.

Harrison went on to comment that the DS will be backed by the largest launch budget that Nintendo has ever put behind one of its platforms, console or handheld--$40 million. Harrison also announced that the number of DS units that will be available across all territories during the fiscal year (which ends in March 2005) will be 4 million, up from the previously quoted figure of 3.5 million. Nintendo did not give specifics as to how this launch stock would be split among the four territories (US, Japan, Europe, and Australia) in which Nintendo plans to launch the system before the end of the 2004 fiscal year.

Fils-Aime also briefly commented on the PSP--more specifically, on the lack of any details on the system's launch at Sony's press conference today in Japan. "In many ways, what has transpired overnight does not surprise us," Fils-Aime said. "There has been a lack of detailed info on the PSP for quite some time, and we expect that to continue as they deal with their tough issues on battery life and other challenges."

As previously reported, the Nintendo DS will launch in the US on November 21 and in Japan on December 3, marking the first time that Nintendo has ever launched new hardware outside of Japan. The reasoning behind the new approach is that the US and Japanese holiday shopping seasons are slightly different--Japanese holiday shopping is generally at its peak around New Year's. The price in the US will be $149.99.

Nintendo revealed a few more miscellaneous details: The system will launch only in the silver/black color shown in currently available pictures, although more colors will probably be added later; battery life is 6-10 hours depending on the application; and Game Boy/Game Boy Color games will not be compatible with the DS, although all Game Boy Advance games will work with the system in single-player mode.

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