Japan Gaming Guide

Osaka is well served when it comes to video game bars. Space Station and Bar Continue are both great places to enjoy alcohol enhanced gaming. Joining them on our list of haunts is ‘Bar Dendo’. Patrons can enjoy drinks while choosing from a huge range of software across a range of old and new systems.

The place is pretty small but staff and customers are friendly and easy to chat to.

Bar Dendo is tricky to find – it is a couple of blocks South-West of Niponbashi station inside a large multi-floored building with no obvious sign outside. The area is perhaps best described as unusual so keep that in mind if unusual areas aren’t your thing.

Here’s their homepage with map:

http://bar-dendo.com/

Mario Kart 8 launched a couple of days ago, and by all accounts it’s a cracker. The game is being described as the best in the series and is getting rave reviews all over the gaming media.

Nintendo Japan are running a promotion where buyers of the game get to try out two other games for a month. These games can then be purchased at a discount. They’re offering a pretty good selection: The Wonderful 101, Zelda: Wind Waker, Nintendoland, Pikmin 3 and Game and Wario. It looks like being a good way to check out any games you might have missed recently. Here’s the link.

A Final Fantasy symphony concert will take place in Tokyo on June 21.

The event will include songs played in order, to evoke the feel of playing through the game from start to finish. Final Fantasy composer Nobuo Uematsu will also be present at the concert.

Music has always been a huge part of the Final Fantasy games’ appeal and this event is sure to be popular. If you want to pick up a ticket they cost from 6500 to 10000 yen.

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Street Fighter, the biggest and most recognizable fighting game franchise to have ever been made, has become more than just a game – it’s become a legacy of the entire video game industry. With the impending release of Ultra Street Fighter IV, Capcom has managed to release a 72 minute video detailing the history of the game.

The video includes a lot of input not just from the people behind the creation of the game, but also to the people at the front lines that made the game as big as it is: the fans. With so many people growing up with the franchise, there are a select few that have managed to graduate from fan to a core part of the franchise. These include some iconic names for fans of the genre, such as Seth Killian, Capcom’s former community manager, and Erik Ko, chief of operations for Udon Comics, publishers of the many Street Fighter comics throughout the years.

Throughout its 25 years, it’s interesting to note that not all of these years were great ones. In fact, the fighting game community was without a new Street Fighter game in between 2000 and 2008, one of the longest dry spells for the franchise. While Street Fighter III was a critically acclaimed game and is still considered by many to be one of the best in the series, the fighting game community had dwindled to a shadow of what it was back in the glory days of the mid 90’s.

In order to rebuild the game, the creative team decided to take the game back to its roots and draw back the millions of players who were there for it when it first came to be. Yoshinori Ono, the current producer behind the SF IV games, talks about this in the video and it is this decision to move forward without forgetting their roots was the key to putting fighting games back on the map.

With more than 25 years behind it, it’s only normal to discover the iconic Street Fighter logo being utilized in places people never would have even imagined. Bet Fair even has a surprising slots game based on the series, something that even the most dedicated fighting game junkie would never expect to see.

25 years – a quarter of a century. How many other games, or brands, could even come close to that?

McDonalds Japan are giving away a range of Mario toys with Happy Sets. 6 versions of Mario are available as well as Yoshi and Princess Peach. These could well become collectors items, so if you feel like a trip to the Golden Arches, now is the time!

Full details here!

There are few things in life we like as much as video games, but beer is surely one of them. Once again we have found a place that combines the two. Bar Continue features a huge range of old and new consoles as well as board games that patrons are free to play while enjoying a beverage. There’s also a selection of original cocktails, including a ‘sonic the hedgehog’ and ‘chocobo’. The bar is packed full of gaming paraphernalia – you’re sure to find a few old favourites among the many controllers, systems and games on display.

Bar Continue is a few minutes walk from Osaka Shinsaibashi station. Another gaming bar, Space Station is nearby so you could easily check both out if you’re in town.

SNK fans will be pleased to hear that Yatagarasu Attack on Cataclysm has hit its crowdfunding goals and will be getting a load of new characters and extras. The game is developed by three former SNK developers.

This new version will be fully localized for English speakers.

The World Hobby Fair comes back to Osaka this Sunday. There are usually a few unreleased games on show so it is well worth a look if you are in the area. As well as video games there are also toys and card games on show.

Check out the official site here (Japanese)

At this time of year, with many of us eagerly waiting to see what new games or consoles Santa will bring us, it is easy to forget that not everyone is so fortunate. A year and a half after the earthquake and tsunami that devastated Eastern Japan, many people are still struggling to rebuild their homes and communities.

A group of expat gamers have decided to do something to help and have set up Game For Japan, a 24 hour telethon to raise money and awareness for those that survived the disaster. During the telethon, they will be playing games on a selection of Japanese consoles. They will also be giving away free games, and codes for PSN and XBox Live.

You can support the campaign by liking them on facebook and donating through their website.

The event begins on December 26th at 3PM, Japan time.

For more details check out their website and facebook page.

At the Game Developer’s Conference in San Francisco this month, Fez creator Phil Fish made a rather controversial statement. When taking questions after a screening of Indie Game: the Movie, Fish was asked his opinion on current Japanese game development. He quickly and bluntly replied that Japanese games nowadays “just suck.” This comment has sparked an Internet firestorm over the last few days, but is he justified in dismissing the entire country’s efforts? So, we ask, do today’s Japanese games really suck?

Unfortunately, there is no easy way to answer that question, and we certainly don’t have the resources to mount the kind of market research needed to get close to an answer. But we’ll look at some publicly available data and try to determine if any conclusions can be projected on this issue.

First, let’s look at research group NPD’s sales charts for the USA in 2011:

1. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (360, PS3, Wii, PC)
2. Just Dance 3 (Wii, 360, PS3)
3. Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (360, PS3, PC)
4. Battlefield 3 (360, PS3, PC)
5. Madden NFL 12 (360, PS3, Wii, PSP, PS2)
6. Call of Duty: Black Ops (360, PS3, Wii, NDS, PC)
7. Batman: Arkham City (360, PS3, PC)
8. Gears of War 3 (360)
9. Just Dance 2 (Wii)
10. Assassin’s Creed: Revelations (360, PS3, PC)

Not one Japanese-developed title on the list. It seems Americans weren’t crazy about Japanese games last year. Let’s see how the Japanese chart looks:

1. Mario Kart 7 (3DS)
2. Super Mario 3D Land (3DS)
3. Monster Hunter Freedom 3 (PSP)
4. Monster Hunter Tri G (3DS)
5. Final Fantasy XIII-2 (PS3, 360)
6. Final Fantasy Type-0 (PSP)
7. Rhythm Heaven Fever (Wii)
8. Tales of Xillia (PS3)
9. Wii Sports Resort (Wii)
10. Wii Party (Wii)

Here we see the reverse of the US chart, Japanese gamers didn’t seem to care for anything not from Japan.

What’s to conclude from this data? Japanese and American gamers have vastly different ideas of what sucks, and what works in the US market may not go over so well in the Japanese market (just ask Microsoft about that).