RE Anniversary

Normally anniversary puts me in a good mood and today is RE's 20th anniversary. I dusted off my old dioramas and games for the occasion but somehow this 20th anniversary feels especially hallow for me.

That means Capcom has not made a good RE game for more than 10 years. It's been more than 10 years since RE's best creative minds left the series after RE4. All Capcom does these days is basked in the old glory days and put out remasters of the RE classics.

The last RE game, Revelations 2 looked like junk compared with today's modern games. It scored pretty decent reviews but I honestly thought maybe RE6 is actually better. Revelation 2 was good enough to be heralded as the best RE game since RE4. Problem is we are still waiting for something better than RE4 that would set a new benchmark for the series.

 

That would never happen I fear. At least not in Capcom's offices.

Cold Feet, Wet Decision

I finally put my money where my mouth is and bought Fatal Frame V on the Wii U last month. The truth is I have always allocated the money for the full game in my Eshop wallet but get cold feet whenever I'm about to purchase it.

$50 is an awful lot for a digital game especially when you consider RE0 HD costs $20 and that is already a tough sell for some people. This is the story of how I ended up buying the game roughly four months after its release on Eshop.

I realised that all of the Wii U games I owned never came with a printed manual. It's just a box with a shiny disc inside. What's the point of insisting on a retail copy anymore when all you get is a shallow box with a disc inside? Of course, the main reason why most gamers prefer retail is they intend to sell the game back which is also the same reason publishers are pushing for a digital future. These issues are of little concern to me as I never intend to sell off any of my games.

The other thing was I still have plenty of unfinished Wii U games when Fatal Frame V came out last October. Sure I could drop everything on a dime and play FFV but finishing those games and waiting for a potential price drop felt like a better idea. I ended up spending the month of December and January finishing those games. By February, there was still no sign of any discount forthcoming for FFV and my Wii U was starting to gather dust.

I'm a big believer of timing these days, if I have the time and money to play these games now I should make the most of it. After all, what's the point of getting a game cheap like peanuts but you have better and newer games to play by then? Now FFV has my undivided attention and I was fully comfortable with paying the full price for it. A review of this game will follow shortly, or maybe I will start rambling next about how I came to buying Kiwami.

The Next Level

When I think of Level 5 I don't think of Professor Layton or Ni No Kuni like most do. I think of Jeanne D'Arc, the game that got me started on the world of tactical RPG.

I played some RPG prior to Jeanne but always have a lukewarm feeling about the genre. What is it that gamers like so much about RPG? The sappy storyline or fantasy setting were always a big bore for me.

I credit Jeanne D'Arc for starting me on this genre and showing me there are other RPG that interests me. This game and  the PSP system basically turned me into a RPG gamer. It paved the way for me to indulge in other RPG series like Fire Emblem and Valkyria Chronicles.

Sometimes, a special game is good enough to get a gamer started on a new genre. The first Resident Evil was one of those games that introduced many gamers to the survival horror genre. Jeanne D'Arc introduced me to the RPG genre as well as the Level-5 company.

Since competing Jeanne D'Arc, I have feverishly searched for the next Level 5 game that would give me the same feeling. There was one that came close (Rogue Galaxy) while the other is nothing like this (Attack of the Friday Monsters). But I reckon Jeanne D'Arc will always have a special place in my collection.

Local Fuss

Most of any recent Nintendo game localization has had some controvesy one way or another. The big recent fuss is Fire Emblem Fates that came out last month. Now Fire Emblem is this big Nintendo RPG franchise that suddenly found an audience because it has dating sim elements. The game has this petting feature where you can use the touch screen to pet your potential partner when you are alone. Yes it's as creepy as it sounds and Nintendo decided to removed it somewhat for the English version.

Now removing it is one thing but someone from the localisation team had the nerve to say content change is all part of the localization process. I couldn't disagree more with that statement.

While I don't expect everything in the original Japanese version to be translated word-for word, I do expect the content to remain the same. Unfortunately in most cases, content change usually means content removed. Paying for a game that is late to be localized is not ideal but paying for a game that is localized late with content removed is a double-whammy. Thankfully only Yakuza 3 comes to mind when speaking of such.

Unfortunatelty this is the price to pay for playing foreign-made games.

Fatal Frame V removed the risque bonus costumes for the English version as expected but Nintendo/Tecmo made up for it by replacing them with new costumes. It's a fair trade as Nintendo could have simply remove the costume without any new addition like what happened for Crimson Butterfly Remake.