Editorial: The Wind Rises

So, you guys love Studio Ghibli, right? Well, they've got another film which made the rounds in Japan and should soon be on its way abroad. It's called The Wind Rises, and it's a embellished biography of a mister Jiro Horikoshi, a 20th-century Japanese plane designer. The plot follows how he survived the 1923 Kanto Earthquake, and went on to develop such planes as the Mitsubishi A5M and (not seen in the movie) A6M, known in World War II as the "Zero". Said movie is being directed by none other than Hayao Miyazaki, who at the age of 72 has announced that this will be his final film. (For real this time.) So given its historical insight, technical pedigree, and the simple fact that it's an anime film to be shown in mainstream American cinemas, you can bet your bottom dollar (yen?) that this'll be on my must-see list.

...

OR WILL IT?

See, The Wind Rises comes at an unfortunate point in Japan's real-world occurrences. The country is currently involved in numerous territorial disputes. China and Taiwan are making advances on the Senkaku Islands, whilst Japan is making its own claims on the Liancourt Rocks (owned by South Korea) and the Kuril Islands (owned by Russia; for the record, this particular argument is considerably more peaceable). Right-wing Japanese politicians, including Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, are considering changes to the country's constitution to cancel limitations on their armed forces, a result of World War II, have made public visits to the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, which both honours Japan's war dead and houses the ashes of war criminals convicted after WWII, and are shrugging off South Korean & Chinese demands for recognition and restitution for Japan's crimes committed before and during the war. (For their part, the Japanese claim the latter has already been resolved back when they established diplomatic relations with South Korea in 1965.)

With all this being the case, the implication would be that Miyazaki-sama is also in this boat. The movie depicts the creator of war machines that were used extensively by the Tojo war machine. You know, the same one that committed grave atrocities in China, Korea, and the Pacific? Ergo, this is the connection being trumpeted by groups such as South Korean netizens, who in all honesty have maintained a degree of anti-Japanese sentiment for a long time now. And by portraying a key component of said war machine without the negative consequences of its actions, not to mention neglecting the fact that Mitsubishi drafted 10,000 Koreans and/or Chinese as slave labour to build said planes, does the subject matter of The Wind Rises come across as insensitive at best?

Well... the truth isn't always that simple. Those of us who actually saw the darn film (or red its synopsis on Wikipedia) would know that when the film finally gets to depicting WWII, it's not exactly in a positive light. Apparently, the message the film portrays after all is said and done is that war is futile (understandably so; you'd say that too if you were on the losing side of a war). As a matter of fact, the right-wingers of Japan have themselves taken issue with Miyazaki-sama's own anti-war stance, exhibited both here and in earlier works like Nausicaä and Grave of the Fireflies (the latter directed by Isao Takahata). More to the point, Miyazaki has made the following disapproving statements about the aformentioned attempts to rewrite the constitution, in a letter for Studio Ghibli's in-house magazine:

"It goes without saying that I am against constitutional reform. [...] I'm taken aback by the lack of knowledge among government and political party leaders on historical facts. People who don't think enough shouldn't meddle with the constitution."

Oh, and off the record, I for one am willing to accept these lessening of constitutional restrictions on Japan's military -- IF and ONLY IF the lawmakers start owning up to the mistakes of their ancestors. I mean, seriously guys, it's not like you committed the atrocities personally, that was ages ago! What've you got to lose!? And hey, it's not like we Americans are innocent of whitewashing our own history! Pocahontas says hi. Then again, I don't believe there are any talking animals involved in The Wind Rises, so I suppose the whitewashing will only go so far this time around.

So, with all that said, would I still be willing to endorse this movie by purchasing a ticket?

...

It's Studio [verb]ing Ghibli, of course I'll see it! Seriously, it would take a lot of wrongdoing for me to forgo something like this in favour of the latest animated Hollywood drivel. (Seriously, Free Birds, what is this, 2006?) And works like this and From Up On Poppy Hill (which, sadly, only got a limited release in America... RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGE) show that Studio Ghibli themselves are branching out into new concepts. Whilst the company is known for its more fantastical fare, their two latest films represent a shift towards more grounded, historical, and personal subject matter. Yet at the same time, the animation style maintains the company's traditional whimsy, contributing just the right amount of a softened edge so that maybe we can forget the fact the actions of Jiro Horikoshi were used by an unspeakably evil force, and just absorb ourselves in his personal dramas. Walt Disney Pictures has announced plans to dub The Wind Rises and show it in America some time in 2014, so when it arrives, you can bet your bottom dollar (yen?) that I'll be there.

---

McCurry, Justin. "Japanese animator under fire for film tribute to warplane designer." The Guardian, 22 August 2013 http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/23/hayao-miyazaki-film-wind-rises.

Editorial: Nintendo 2DS and PlayStation Vita TV

The face of portable video games is changing. And I'm not just talking about the rising popularity and viability of smartphones and other smartphone-based hardware. (Darn you, iPad, for making this stuff harder to classify.)  I'm talking about the stuff put out by the establishment. We all know about Nintendo's 3DS and Sony's PlayStation Vita platforms, both put out earlier in the decade. But over the past week or two, they've both announced new models of these products, whilst scaled-down from their respective flagship products in their own ways, have the potential to open up new sections of the gaming market. Ladies and gentlemen, enter the Nintendo 2DS and PlayStation Vita TV.

The Nintendo 2DS.

We'll start with the 2DS. You know how the top screen on the 3DS can display images in stereoscopic 3D? Yeah, that was a neat feat of engineering, especially considering that you don't even need 3D glasses to see the effects. Welp, the 2DS is chucking that out of the window. The top screen will now only be able to display the simulated kind of 3D graphics, not the illusion-of-depth kind. Also, unlike the DS and 3DS families before them, the 2DS unit cannot be folded in half. The L and R triggers are located on the top corners of the unit, so as such the buttons are also located closer to the top screen. From a functional standpoint, this should draw the player's attention towards the top screen, unlike on the foldable DS/3DS units. How this works out for the player I have yet to see, although the reports I've read seem to reflect positively on its ergonomics. Of course, the Internet being what it is, such positive pre-release buzz has been drowned out by the masses condeming it because... reasons, I don't know. So is it an uninteresting, unnecessary piece of junk, as the netizens would have you believe?

Not so fast: it still runs the entire existing library of 3DS game cards, DS game cards, and downlodable titles from the Nintendo eShop. (In other news, Shantae is now available on the eShop for a paltry US$5. Get on that, peoples.) And even with the conspicuous absence of Mega Man Legends 3, the 3DS library alone already has a number of killer apps. Just off the top of my head I can think of Kid Icarus: Uprising, Super Mario 3D Land, and upcoming titles such as Pokemon X & Y and the new Super Smash Bros. Throw in the multitudes of DS and downloadable titles already available, and the 3DS is a fun platform, no matter how many dimensions are involved. The 2DS is expected to go on sale worldwide on 12 October 2013 (the same day Pokemon X & Y come out, whoda thunk?), at a price somewhere around US$130, $40 less than the base 3DS. So the best I can summarise it is that the 2DS is a cheap option to experience the many titles exclusive to the DS and 3DS's libraries, and shouldn't affect its bigger brothers in any way.

The PS Vita TV unit (left) and PS3 DualShock 3 controller (right).

On the other hand, we have the PlayStation Vita TV (Edit: later sold in North America as the PlayStation TV). Whilst able to run most of the same software as the original PlayStation Vita, the Vita TV model is a different animal entierly. Rather than being a stand-alone unit with its own screen and buttons, it plugs into a TV set (only HDMI hookups are supported) and uses existing PlayStation 3 and, in the future, PlayStation 4 controllers. Sorta defeats the purpose of owning a portable system, wouldn't you say? Not necessarily. I've tried the original Vita at game-store demos, and you can colour me unimpressed, mainly because the buttons and sticks are too small for my comfort. Even if you, the reader, have never had that problem,

The Vita TV is expected to run most existing Vita games on either card or download form, and by "most" I mean, don't expect games that are heavily dependent on the Vita's touchscreens, microphone, or camera to be supported. In addition, it should also be able to support PSP, PSone, and (presumably for Japan only) TurboGrafx-16 games that are available for download from the PlayStation Store. But here's the catch: right now, the Vita TV has only been anounced for a Japanese release in November 2013, with a retail price of around JPY10,000 (US$100). No plans have yet been made for an international release, but personally, I've got faith in that taking place. It's not like the PSX, that hybrid PlayStation 2 and DVR that Sony put out in the mid-2000s. Whereas the PSX crumpled under the weight of its own price before it could make it out of the country, the Vita TV ocupies a lower price level than the regular Vita. So if you've been enticed by the odd Vita or PSP game but haven't found enough incentive to buy one or the other, perhaps the Vita TV will give you a cheaper (and more hand-friendly) route of experiencing them... which is pretty much what I said about the 2DS. Great minds think alike, I guess.

So those are my thoughts on the 2DS and Vita TV, but before I go, allow me to apply them to what I expect for the future of console gaming. (And for the record, I'm building off of something I heard mused about on Brawl in the Family's podcast.) You know Nintendo's developing nearly identical titles for both the 3DS and Wii/Wii U? For example, Super Mario 3D Land/World, Mario Kart 7/8, and the new Super Smash Bros. This essentially means that they're making similar products twice in quick succession. All those extra resources, and any given customer is probably going to buy only one of them. I'd imagine Sony's developers are in the same boat with the PS3 and PSP, or PS3 and PS Vita, or PS4 and Vita, or however you want to mix it up.

The Sega Nomad, from 1995.

So here's my concept for the next video game console: a stand-alone portable system, with its own screen and inputs, but it can also plug into a TV and use that as the display, along with separate controllers. In other words, think a hybrid of the Vita TV and the Gamepad controller for Wii U. In fact, we kinda already had something like that. Anyone remember the Sega Nomad, a portable version of their famous Genesis console? Yeah, it was a huge flop, due to its poor battery life and the lateness with which it was released, but perhaps now the time and technology are ready for this dream to take form. But in the end, it all comes down to making memorable or desirable games, so get on that, developers. Work together and bring your A-game, and the future will be a very bright one indeed. Until then...

This is IchigoRyu.

You are the resistance.

Edit 24 Jan 2018: You know that concept I proposed for a new console, which could be used both as a TV-based console and a handheld?  Yeah, that pretty much describes the Nintendo Switch, which was unveiled in late 2016 and released in the following March.  Granted, I hadn't imagined its other feature of controllers that snap in and out of the unit's sides, but other than that?  I called it.  I FRICKIN' CALLED IT!!

Game Review: Wave Race 64

Wave Race 64 

• Publisher: Nintendo 
• Developer: Nintendo 
• Release: Nintendo 64, 1 November 1996 
• Genre: Racing 
• Players: 1-2 
• Save: Built-in 
• Rarity/Cost: Common (US$5-20) 

Remember back at the start of the summer, when I rather ironically reviewed two snowboarding games at once? Well allow me to make it up to you by reviewing a more summery sports game before the equinox hits. And what better way to follow up 1080 Snowboarding than with Nintendo's other extreme-sports title, Wave Race 64? The sequel to a 1992 Game Boy title called simply Wave Race, its N64 sibling is, as the title suggests, a racing game on waves. Specifically, you and three other competitors are tasked with doing laps around one of eight waterlogged tracks, on stand-up, Kawasaki-model personal watercraft. (Fun Fact: Due to an expired licence, the Wii version replaces the Kawasaki billboards, seen in the picture below, with ads for the Nintendo DS and Wii. In a game originally from 1996. Go figs.)

Most of your time may be spent in the Championship mode, a series of races which lasts for, depending on the difficulty selected, six to eight events. In these events, the position each racer finishes in determines the points they get at the end of each race, and the winner of the series is determined from who has the most points. But at the same time, there's a target score which increases with each round, and if you don't meet or exceed this score, you're kicked out of the series and will have to try again. This lingering threat of failure could discourage some gamers from giving it that other try, but who am I to complain about a game punishing you for your mistakes? And besides it's not as if you'll necessarily fail out just for finishing a race in fourth, not if you've built up a wide enough margin, so what've you got to complain about?

You have to follow slalom buoys, or else get powered down.

But certainly a simple race off of some beach could grow boring quickly, especially if a total of only four racers are involved? Well, that's not all: you have to follow a series of buoys as well, indicating you to pass them on the left or the right, like a slalom course. If you miss enough of these buoys (the default is 5), you lose the race automatically. But there's positive reinforcement for following them, as well: for each buoy you pass, your top speed is increased, up to a maximum of five levels. And then they throw in obstacles, ramps, and of course, the waves themselves, so one thing's for certain: in terms of gameplay, Wave Race 64 is not lacking in variety.

Wave Race 64 is, on the other hand, somewhat lacking in content, with only eight tracks available for play (plus Dolphin Park, which is available only as a practise level or in Stunt mode). But just because the levels are limited in number doesn't mean they lack their own personalities. For example, on Southern Coast, the last level on all difficulties, the tide falls in the middle of the race, forcing you to dodge new obstacles you could run over on the first lap. Apart from this, a number of courses have shortcuts, some of which don't open until the second lap, and some of which are completely blocked off on certain difficulties. Even the tracks that are laid out in a simple oval are spiced up simply by the presence of those slalom buoys I mentioned earlier. Apart from the Championship mode, the game also features 2-player races, a Time Trial mode, and the Stunt mode, where you score points for driving through rings and perform rolls, flips, and other manoeuvers off of ramps. The array of available tricks is not wide, certainly not to the level of the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater games, and I wish the Stunt Mode runs lasted more than one lap, but it's a fun experience to mess around in.

Speaking of lacking content, the selection of characters consists of only four riders. All of them have different performance statistics; although they are not displayed, which would have been a great help, it's a pretty obvious guess that the one girl (default name A. Stewart) boasts sharper turning and slower speeds than the big guy (D. Mariner). But if you're looking to conquer the Expert (and Reverse) series, you won't need to bother with anybody but the third rider (M.Jeter). He and his watercraft have the cornering acumen of the lady I mentioned earlier, but without the sacrifice in speed. In fact, their steering is a bit too sharp. And this isn't like a 1080 Snowboarding level of uncontrollability, but make too sharp a turn and you'll lose valuable speed fast. Well fret not: that's where the engine customisation feature comes in! No matter which rider you choose to play as, you can adjust his/her machine's handling, grip, and acceleration/top-speed balance. Apart from the last of those criteria I mentioned, the game gives little direction as to what altering these specs will have on your performance, so let me help you a bit. Just stick to M.Jeter and set the Handling spec halfway to the left, to fix some of his understeer.

Considering the time this game was made, the wave physics are impressive.

Before going any further, let me state the fact that Wave Race 64 was released within the first months of the Nintendo 64's life cycle,  well before the console's full potential had been tapped. That said, this game has some really good graphics for its time, especially in the look and feel of the water. The waves in particular, whilst they might be script-generated, are handled rather realistically and are an excellent showcase of the game's water physics. Again, consider the primitive state of 3D graphics at the time, and this becomes an even more amazing feat in hindsight. The soundtrack is primarily light-rock fare that would sound more at home in 1986 than '96, but the title screen does use a nice, somewhat catchy guitar-driven theme which is incorporated into a number of the stages' background music. And of course there's the announcer, prone to stating the obvious and sometimes falling behind in his vocal updates.

All in all, there's not too much content to be found in Wave Race 64, not like today's triple-A title... sorry, I couldn't finish that sentence with a straight face. At any rate, the slalom system, Stunt Mode, and of course the wave physics make this game stand out among its contemporaries in the racing genre. In fact, given that this series only received one additional sequel, Wave Race: Blue Storm (GCN, 2001), that only serves to highlight the special place Wave Race 64 (and presumably, the other two games) holds in the gaming macrocosm. If you can find it for cheap, then by all means, give it a spin! Or... whatever they say in that regard for personal watercraft.

Positives:
+ Impressive wave effects and physics.
+ Courses that change in the middle of a race.
+ The buoy slalom system (arguably a negative).

Negatives:
- Disagreeable controls, if you're used to land-based driving games.
- The buoy slalom system (arguably a positive).

Control: 3 buoys out of 5
Design: 4 buoys out of 5
Graphics: 5 buoys out of 5
Audio: 3 buoys out of 5

Value: 3 buoys out of 5
The Call: 75% (B-)

Editorial: Mighty No.9

Edit 24 Jan 2018: This article reflects Mighty No. 9 as it was presented in its Kickstarter campaign, from 2013.  If you want my review of the game we actually got, three frickin' years later, you may read it here.  This was also written  way before Capcom announced Mega Man 11, to be released later in 2018, but that's another story.

Something wonderful happened over the Labor Day weekend. Oh, and I'm spelling it "Labor" instead of "Labour" since I'm referring to an American holiday. But since this news mostly involves Japan, it doesn't matter anyway. So anyway, a project recently launched on the site Kickstarter to fund an independent game for PCs entitled Mighty No.9. Amazingly, the project met its base goal of US$900,000 in just about 24 hours. But that's not the best part: the project is led by a mister Keiji Inafune. You know, the creator of Mega Man who had a falling-out with Capcom and quit only to found his own company, named Comcept. That's right: Mighty No.9 is nothing less than a trademark-safe spiritual successor to Mega Man. So it should be no surprise that I fully endorse this project.

...

OR DO I? Read on.

As described on its page and pledge video on Kickstarter, Mighty No.9 is a 2-dimensional, jump-and-shoot platformer game starring a robot boy named Beck. His (and the game's) title apparently refers to him being the 9th in a series of robots, and his eight predecessors should serve as the game's bosses, akin to the Robot Masters from the 2-D Mega Man series. As in Mega Man, Beck can earn special weapons by defeating bosses, but he can also transform his own body to overcome obstacles. For example, he might be able to grow tank treads in order to safely cross a pit of spikes. If you're already a fan of classic Mega Man, I'll bet that prospect alone has already got you foaming at the mouth. ^_^

But what about the rest of us? I don't know about you, but I'm starting to get a little tired of the traditional 2-D style of Mega Man. Over the past five years or so, among the few Mega Man games Capcom has put out themselves, as well as any notable fan-games (or both, in the case of Street Fighter X Mega Man), nearly all releases have followed this format. They have also emulated the 8-bit graphical style of the NES era (Mighty No.9 will not, by the way). When throwing this into the equation, bear in mind that back in the day (let's say, ah... Mega Man IV on wards), Mega Man was the butt of many jokes for the same reason: slavish adherance to a formula without much -- if anything -- in the way of new mechanics to spice things up.

And that's why the Mega Man Legends series has garnered such great respect as a cult classic: it carried over the most basic of concepts, but in all other ways was unique. Whilst the two PlayStation games were rough around the edges technically, this had more to do with hardware limitations than anything else. It was the designs of the worlds and the personalities of the characters that contributed the most to make the games memorable in the minds of many players. Present company excluded, frankly, but I had more fun playing these games than most of the other Mega Man entries. Don't believe me? I reviewed 'em both. And not to spoil anything, but the ending of the second game also left us with more questions than answers -- not to mention the worst cliff-hanger ending since The Italian Job. It's all these reasons combined that made Capcom's decision to cancel pre-production of Mega Man Legends 3 such an unforgivable act. Even to this very day, it feels like something's been missing from my life ever since -- and I wasn't even following the project until that fateful day.

So with that being my mindset, let me ask the question: Will supporting or buying Mighty No.9 bring back Legends 3, even in the long term? I mean, on the surface, this could be interpreted as supporting Inafune-sama and Comcept to make more 2-D games that are not at all like the Legends series (minus the licence). But that's looking at the issue purely from a marketing perspective, and ignoring the human element. In his pledge video, Inafune describes Mighty No.9 as the realisation of a lifelong dream. But didn't he already say that about Legends 3? Well, who knows. Maybe this and/or subsequent projects may give Comcept enough clout that Capcom will give them the rights to develop Legends 3.

...And maybe monkeys will fly out of my butt.

Yeah, it's not that easy. Consider the fact that Inafune has in the past been a little... worrisome about the state of Japan's video game industry. In fact, some have speculated that such outbursts are the reason he quit Capcom and, subsequently, why his former bosses cancelled Legends 3 later on. For what it's worth, Capcom has denied this reason, but until they actually give us a reason themselves, I'm inclined to believe it. Assuming all this bad blood between the two parties is a real thing, I don't think Inafune has this kind of clout anymore, even as a third-party contractor. I'm not saying this idea is impossible, just improbable in the current climate.

With that said, it's up to us to politicise this development. Contribute to the game's Kickstarter fund. Remember that there an array of rewards available based on your pledge. (US$10,000 gives you, of all things, a dinner with Inafune-sama. I don't know why, but that concept just seems so amusing.) Then when it comes out for the general public, buy a copy (unless your pledge already guaranteed you one). And when you do, let Capcom know about it. They have Facebook pages, including a Japanese one. Make them understand that there is a place in the video game market for the simple charms of a robot boy, be him Mega or Mighty. And remember...

Legends Never Die.

This is IchigoRyu. You are the resistance.

Game Review: Beatmania

beatmania

• Publisher: Konami
• Developer: Konami
• Release: PlayStation 2, 28 March 2006
• Genre: Music
• Players: 1-2
• Save: Memory Card

If you've read this blog before, you may have picked up on the rumour that I am an avid fan of the Dance Dance Revolution video games. Welp, I've got a series going on the history of the darn thing, so I'm gonna confirm those rumours right now. You could say my mental trivia collection on the subject knows no bounds. And early on as I was learning about the many, many original songs Konami has produced for the games, they led me to the other series from their "Bemani" brand. First and foremost seems to be the combined force of beatmania and beatmania IIDX, their DJ simulation series. The number of games they've released in Japan is staggering: for example, there are 14 beatmania IIDX games available on the PlayStation 2 alone. Equally staggering is that none of them have been exported out of Asia. At least that was the case until Konami took a chance on a US release in 2006, simply titled beatmania.

Gameplay is designed around a special controller with seven buttons (laid out alternating in two rows, like part of a piano keyboard) and a turntable, plus Start and Select buttons. This thing is huge; I mean, the large buttons and spaces in between them have frequently left my fingers floundering to keep up, at least compared to using a piano or computer keyboard. And apparently the controllers on the arcade machines are even bigger. But what's neat about the Beatmania Controller is that the section with the buttons can be ejected from the rest of the body and turned around, thus supporting both right- and left-handed players. Considering that the ideal hand configuration is to use the turntable with your non-dominant hand, that was awfully nice of Konami to keep that possibility in mind.

During gameplay, coloured bars descend from the top of the screen -- blue and white for the keys, and red for the turntable -- and you have to press/scratch the appropriate object when these icons meet a bar at the bottom of the field. So what's your incentive for doing so? Well, beatmania doesn't use a traditional lifebar. In order for your performance to count as a "clear", you have to get the Groove Gauge filled to 80% or higher by the time the song ends. This means that even if the Groove Gauge falls to zero, you won't get kicked out mid-song. But don't take this as a blessing; just one miss is enough to knock 15-20% off of the meter, and it takes many, many correct hits to build up the same amount. Plus, you have the occasional song with a really tough passage at the end, designed to throw you off at the last minute ("Ska A Go Go" says hi).

The series' roots are represented in 5-Key mode.

Three major gameplay modes may be selected from the main menu. Game Mode lets you play sets of three songs, like in the arcade versions, Free Play lets you play any songs you've already tried in Game Mode as much as you want, and Expert Mode challenges you to clear back-to-back series of five songs apiece. Each of these three modes is also divided into two play styles: the 5-key beatmania and 7-key beatmania IIDX. The 5-key mode is, of course, easier than 7-key because your hands have less ground to cover, plus it's nice to see the series' early days represented, seeing as how newer releases have neglected this classic era. However, there is only one difficulty level for the songs in 5-key mode, versus four in IIDX, and most of the songs available in the 5-key mode aren't playable in IIDX, and vice-versa. In fact, most are exclusive to IIDX mode. It's almost as if they wanted to shift the focus on that...?

Starting out, you'll spend most of your time in Game Mode, trying to unlock everything in Free Play. Once you do, you'll have pretty much no reason to return to Game Mode. In fact, unlocking all the songs also awards you access to the Another difficulty level. I'm sure the purists will complain about this Americanised version of beatmania locking them out of a difficulty that is available from the start everywhere else, but as for the average Joe Six-Key like myself? Come on, as if I need this game to be even harder!! It's bad enough that the timing judgement demands the utmost precision in order to score Perfect marks, and that the Hyper-level charts (the next level under Another) are packed with many, many more notes than their DDR counterparts! Now you want to throw even more notes into the equation!? Well, buck that noise.

In addition to the main modes of play, beatmania also offers a free-practice mode and a tutorial. The tutorial does teach the basic mechanics but offers little advice in the way of advanced technique. I guess one pointer I could give you myself is to use your left (non-dominant) hand to cover the first two keys in addition to the turntable, scratching with your pinkie finger. Other than that, I can only tell you to practice. A lot. And while you're at it, try learning how to play a real piano. Who knows, some of that muscle memory might come in handy. You can also save replays of your best performances, and play them from the main menu. O-kay, that's not something you see every day, certainly not in this genre, but I appreciate the thought.

You think this looks hard? This is only the Normal level.

At least you have an array of modifiers to help you out or challenge you. Many of these work the same as in DDR, such as Mirror/Random, Hidden/Sudden, and the Speed modifiers. In fact, the speed modifiers are essential; on the default setting, the notes move so slowly that it can be hard to make out their position in the rhythm. Thus, the use of Hi-Speed 1 or 2 (or 3 for slow songs) is highly recommended. There's even an option to save your note-speed choices for each individual song, which is incredibly handy for the absent-minded of us (myself included ^^;). Furthermore, two different versions of the lifebar can be selected from this options menu: an easier (faster-filling, slower-falling) version of the regular Groove Gauge, and the Challenge lifebar, which drops the 80% clear requirement but kicks you out of the song instantly if it falls to zero. And finally, you can also have the computer automatically handle the turntable and/or (in IIDX mode) 6th and 7th keys, although doing so will pre-empt you from reaching the best grades.

If you're expecting to tap and scratch away to the best of the Top 40, don't. Out of the 50-some total tracks available for play, the number of licenced songs can be counted on your fingers. There's "Funky Town", that "delightful" one-hit wonder from Lipps, Inc., some less-exposed electronic dance jams (if you've actually heard of names like Timo Maas or Paul Grogan, more power to you), and cover versions of songs like "Celebration", "Toxic", and "You Really Got Me" (presumably the Van Halen version). Fortunately, the Konami-originals more than make up for this shortcoming. They've been brought in from all across beatmania's history (primarily the 1st through 8th IIDX versions), and cover all matter of genres, with a slight bias towards techno and trance. Not many songs which got their start in Dance Dance Revolution are represented here (I can think of "PARANOiA Max" and... that's about it), but the opposite is certainly true; songs like "5.1.1.", "Holic", "Colors", and "V", have become famous to players of both series. All the songs have their own background videos as well, showcasing various forms of 2-D animation, 3-D animation, and/or live-action footage, and each contributes to their song's identity.

Konami took a gamble releasing beatmania in North America, and somehow despite Guitar Hero, and their own Dance Dance Revolution, putting the music-game genre in the forefront of popular opinion, it failed. Gee, I can't imagine why. The tracklist has little content that would entice neophytes, and the difficulty curve is steep. That said, for the adventurous rhythm gamer, it's not a total loss. Without a serious single-player framework like the Dance Master Mode from DDR Extreme 2, beatmania's replayability may seem limited, but there's always a chance that you'll want to stick around and play it hours on end, just to improve your high scores or conquer the next difficulty level. Heck, if it inspires you to import one of the many Japanese IIDX editions, so much the better.

Positives:
+ 5-key and 7-key modes are available.
+ The soundtrack covers a wide variety of musical genres.
+ Rather slick-looking background animations.

Negatives:
- The Beatmania Controller could stand to be a little more compact.
- The intricate charts and lifebar mechanics contribute to a steep difficulty curve.
- Limited replay appeal apart from setting records.
- Not many songs would interest non-fans.

Control: 3 keys out of 5
Design: 3 keys out of 5
Graphics: 4 keys out of 5
Audio: 5 keys out of 5

Value: 3 keys out of 5
The Call: 65% (C)

Dance Dance Retrospective: DDR X

It took me until the 15th anniversary of Dance Dance Revolution to talk about its 10th. Go figure. But whatevs, the time is right to talk about the game that took DDR into its second decade: 2008's DanceDanceRevolution X.

The new DDR X cabinet. ...In Japan.

For the first time in ten years and goodness knows how many games, Konami designed a new cabinet for the arcade version of X. The machine boasted a HD widescreen display, a new external light patterns, including LED bars along the sides, and USB ports which, rather than support profiles as I would've hoped :-(, replace the PlayStation Memory Card ports for the purposes of transferring edit charts from the home versions. At least... in Japan. In order to cut costs, the machines sold in America and Europe were co-manufactured by Raw Thrills... Seriously!? It's not bad enough that Raw Thrills produces inferior games in genres already conquered by the Japanese; now they have to go and ruin one of their franchises directly!? The result is that the HD monitor tends to lag behind the sound, throwing off timing (results may vary), the pads were constructed out of a single piece of metal instead of the "grid" pattern used before, thus being easier to break (again, results may vary), and those pretty light-bars on the sides were taken out. And the USB ports, while still present, were not supported by the home version, but instead a Web browser-based program which only supported a selection of songs from SuperNOVA on, and I couldn't even get the darn thing to work. As in SuperNOVA2, an e-Amusement kit is required for unlocking songs, and unlock codes were unveiled for regions in which the kit was unavailable.

So enough about the outside of the machine, what's going on inside? DDR X makes its own little attempts at modernising the experience, starting with a new difficulty rating scale. The old 1-to-10 scale from the MAX and SuperNOVA eras has been replaced with a scale going from 1 to a possible 20. All difficulties using the old scale have been adjusted, by a roughly 1 1/2-times increase. For example, "PARANOiA" Expert has gone from level 8 to 12, and "MAX 300" Expert from 10 to 15. As of 2013, the highest level ever achieved on this scale by an official chart is 19. And for those of you migrating to this series from Pump It Up!, this scale is also roughly analogous to the scale they introduced in PIU Exceed, back in 2004. It appears that Konami was only now trying to catch up with its competition... specifically, where its competition was that many years ago.

Want proof? DDR X also marks the debut of the Shock Arrow, which damages your Groove Gauge if you're stepping on any of the panels as it crosses the Step Zone. If this sounds like the mines from In The Groove (refresher), they are indeed similar, but with two differences. Shock Arrows always cover all four step directions, and if you hit them, all the arrows on screen will flash invisible for a brief moment. Sadly, the Shock Arrows are a bit under-used, only appearing on Challenge-level charts (themselves copies of other charts with Shock Arrows replacing some notes) for a scant number of songs, and you can't add them to edit data. At least it's fun to play with them every once in a while, and they would return for the next few games.

DDR X employs a new art direction for its background stages.

In contrast to the wide variety of colourful, computer-esque settings that the SuperNOVA games offered as backdrops, there are only six to be found in X. Some are grungy cityscapes, which tie in to urban elements like chain-link fences and masking-tape tags used in the predominantly yellow-orange UI. And then you lay eyes on the birthday cake stage and things start to get more complicated... They brought in new announcers, too: Justin and Wil-Dog from the band Ozomatli, who also contributed a song to the home version. Aaand... they suck. Their uncomfortable mixture of American street slang and gratuitous Japanese makes them the most grating out of all the announcers this series has ever had. On the bright side (figuratively, anyway), DDR X also adds a handful of new modifiers. The Screen Filter option darkens part of the background, making the arrows easier to see, which is a Godsend if sun glare has been a problem wherever you've been playing (in my case, the Jersey shore). You can also change the design of the arrows from the options menu, similar to what the later home games allow.

Notable new songs include:

• "30 Lives (Up-Up-Down-Dance Mix)" by The Motion Sick. An alt-rock love song built around the Konami Code, of all things. And yes, they do work the code into the stepcharts. Made for the DDR Song Contest 2008.
• "A Geisha's Dream" by Naoki & SMiLE.dk. Pretty groundbreaking in that it's a collab between Konami and non-Konami acts, but in the end it just serves to cement SMiLE.dk's association with the DDR franchise.
• "Always On My Mind" by the Pet Shop Boys. This country classic was re-worked into a post-New Wave version by the band in 1987.
• "Here It Goes Again" by OK Go. And yes, it does use the "OK Go on Treadmills" music video.
• "U Can't Touch This" by MC Hammer. And yes, it does pause at the "Stop, Hammertime" line.
• A selection of old licences from 1st and 2ndMIX have been revived in the form of "2008 X-Edits". The steps bear plenty of resemblance to their original charts, all of them boast Shock Arrows on Challenge, but unfortunately, the edits made to the songs themselves kinda suck. It's like they tried to avoid using any passages from the original cuts. I realise that the cuts from older games are shorter than nowadays, but these are just jarring to anyone familiar with them. The following songs have been revived in this manner:
• "Butterfly" by SMiLE.dk (1st)
• "Boys" by SMiLE.dk (2ndMIX)
• "Dub-I-Dub" by Me & My (2ndMIX)
• "Get Up'n Move" by S&K (2ndMIX)
• "Hero" by Papaya (2ndMIX) (Only available on home version)
• In addition to the X-Edits, Shock Arrow charts are available for the following songs:
• "Dance Celebration" by Bill Hamel feat. kevens
• "Flight of the Phoenix" by Jena Rose
• "Horatio" by OR-IF-IS
• "On the Bounce" by Neuras
• "Saber Wing" by TAG
• The five X-Mixes, which are medleys of new songs. Like the Nonstop mixes from the Solo games and the Long Versions from 5thMIX, these require 2 stages to play.
• The following songs have been revived from the Hottest Party games, making their core series debut: 
• "Beautiful Inside (Cube::Hard Mix)" by NM feat. Alison Wade (HP)
• "Super Samurai" by jun (HP)
• "will" by Naoki (HP)
• "Into Your Heart (Ruffage Mix)" by Naoki feat. Yasmine (HP2)
• "Loving You (Epidemik Remix)" by Toni Leo (HP2)
• The new boss songs are listed below. In the arcade version, depending on the total difficulty ratings of the songs you chose before, you may get different songs.
• "On the Break" by Darwin. First available as a Final Stage.
• "Saber Wing" by TAG. First available as an Extra Stage.
• "Horatio" by OR-IF-IS. First available as an Extra Stage.
• "Saber Wing (Akira Ishihara Headshot Mix)" by TAG. First available as an Extra Stage.
• "On the Bounce" by Neuras. First available as an Encore Extra Stage.
• "Trigger" by sonic-coll. First available as an Encore Extra Stage.
• In addition to the boss songs, X also features "X-Special" charts, new Challenge-level charts for numerous classic songs, similar to the Groove Radar Specials from SuperNOVA2, but instead of trying to max out any one element of the Groove Radar, they're just all-around challenging. X-Special charts are available for:
• "PARANOiA" (1st)
• "Trip Machine" (1st)
• "PARANOiA Max (Dirty Mix)" (2ndMIX)
• "PARANOiA KCET (Clean Mix)" (2ndMIX)
• "SP-Trip Machine (Jungle Mix)" (2ndMIX)
• "Afronova" (3rdMIX)
• "PARANOiA Rebirth" (3rdMIX)
• "PARANOiA Evolution" (4thMIX)
• "Trip Machine Climax" (4thMIX)
• "Healing Vision" (5thMIX)
• "Candy" (MAX)
• "MAX 300" (MAX)
• "Kakumei" (MAX2)
• "MaxX Unlimited" (MAX2)
• "Dance Dance Revolution" (Extreme)
• "The Legend of MAX" (Extreme)

The home version of DDR X was, yet again, made for PlayStation 2. Thankfully (IMO), the shop system from the Extreme and SuperNOVA games has been scrapped; instead, you unlock most songs and content by playing through the Street Master Mode, which deals out missions in the context of stories for each of the game's characters. In practice, these are simple text-box vignettes which provide the most transparent excuses for getting them to dance against one another -- think the DDR equivalent of Professor Layton. Although I did enjoy the quiz missions where you choose an answer by getting the corresponding grade in a song. Don't take it too seriously, and you'll find it a fun way to see all the game has to offer.

With its anniversary out of the way, Dance Dance Revolution will now join the 7th console generation! ...Or not. Read what happens next time on the Dance Dance Retrospective!

Web Work Review: Kung Fu Cooking Girls

So I was trolling around deviantART one day and I read about this animated short called "BatMan in Shanghai", made for the DC Nation Shorts. It's title pretty much describes what it is: an alternate-universe Batman tale set in 1930s Shanghai, in which versions of Catwoman, Bane, and Batman fight over some scroll. And it was good. But then I heard the same team who made it, who call themselves Wolf Smoke Studios, did this other animated short called "Kung Fu Cooking Girls", which is also a more or less a case of Exactly What It Says On The Tin. And it was good. But it got me thinking a lot more than the other one, so please indulge me this opportunity to vomit the contents of my over-active mind.

Having a running time of about six minutes, not including credits, the plot of this video is simple enough. A traveller walks into a village, discovers himself to be hungry, and is called upon by two rival food vendors. One is a Chinese girl selling dim sum (shrimp-filled dumplings), and one is an Occidental (presumably American) girl selling sub sandwiches. They compete to get his attention, only to forget about the man and fight each other directly. Eventually they forget all about the man, who crawls over to yet another restaurant, and finally gets something to eat as the catfight rages on until the credits roll. This sort of love-triangle story archetype is a dime a dozen, something you might find in rom-com anime like Ranma 1/2 or Tenchi Muyo!. Essentially, this tale teaches the moral that if you keep trying to one-up other people, you'll lose sight if what's really important, in this case, doing business with a customer. But by presenting a conflict of East versus West, it permits me to inject my own crazy interpretations, so let's have at it.

The Chinese girl, heretofore referred as Girl Number One in a vague Lonely Island reference, certainly lives up to the expectations set up by the title of this film. She uses kung fu in her cooking: first she throws the shrimp fillings in the air and, with lightning-fast reflexes, catches them in their buns, and to top it off, she cooks them by levitating the basket in a sphere of chi. Simply awesome. I do love a girl with huge... talents. (And I meant that both literally and as a Sailor Moon in-joke.) The Western girl (Girl Number Two) is certainly overshadowed in this department (although her speed at assembling that sandwich is nothing to sneeze at), but she makes up for it in sex appeal, all but flirting with her potential customer (why not call him Steve, just to wrap up the "Just 2 Guyz" reference) in a getup lifted from Gurren Lagann's Yoko. Not that Girl Number One is lacking in this aspect either; I'm guessing she doesn't have a bra under that apron-top-thingie. Regardless, Girl Number One calls Girl Number Two out on this, and on the lack of technical skill in preparing her food. Meanwhile, what sort of smack can Girl Number Two talk about Girl Number One's food? That it's not worth feeding to the pigs. Well, that's just your problem, lady. The way I see it, responding to objective criticism with a subjective insult is just petty. And at the end of it all, the two girls expend all that energy and waste all that food (as complained by "Steve" himself), only for "Steve" to find another place to eat altogether. It's tempting as a viewer to emotionally latch on to either of the two girls, but in the end "Steve" is the protagonist, so it's nice to see his conflict (read: hunger) resolved.

So based on what I just described, the inferrence to draw would be that the Chinese take greater care in not just the preparation of food, but everything they do, whereas their Western counterparts just don't understand the tradition and diligence that goes into making great works, right? Well, it's not that simple, and in fact it falls apart if we were to apply it to real-world macroeconomics. As I have been led to believe, America and allies have been doing most of the industrial innovation in the past few years, as opposed to China being ripe with cheap production labour. Granted, that role has the potential to change -- the quite likely potential, at that -- so we can't apply that to the movie. Besides, it's not as if Girl Number Two is completely out of Girl Number One's league; when they fight each other directly, they're pretty much evenly matched, and their fight ends without conclusion.

But what if the behaviour of the girls could be a representation of Chinese and American mindsets about each other? As mentioned before, Girl Number One can get rather hot-tempered in her attempts to prove herself to "Steve" and Girl Number Two who, in turn, goes for sex appeal over technical skill in doing the same. This may, more plausibly, be seen as a commentary on the mentalities of China and America, both as nationalities and as people. Communist nationalism aside, it is imaginable that the Chinese, and for that matter many other peoples of the East, take offence at the heretofore unrestricted dominance the West has had over politics and culture over the past century or two. Meanwhile, the way in which Girl Number Two attempts to connect with "Steve" suggest that both the works America produces, along with the tastes of American consumers, are geared towards the lowest common denominator. Man, when I put it like that, I really come across as siding with Girl Number One, if not the Chinese as a whole. But who's to say Girl Number One really is better? It's never revealed, but is there possibly any talent she lacks but Girl Number Two possess? (Besides the obvious "talents".) See, this is why you should never draw these kinds of inferences without knowing the whole story.

Why am I telling you all this, especially if it may never even have been intended by its creators at all? Think about it: with China's economic power growing as it has been over the past few decades, the country stands to play a far bigger part in more than just the economic sector. What I mean is that we may soon encounter pieces of media that are not only produced, but conceived in China. Like this film, having been produced by a Shanghai-based studio. So as potential viewers of this media, we need to brace ourselves for what sorts of ideas will be presented therein. If you're worried about the next generation of the Red Scare, I wouldn't. Ever since the end of the Cold War, and the death of Mao Zedong before that, it feels like the Chinse government has become less concerned with spreading the Communist revolution than with just the usual amassment of riches. So we can expect more depictions of rivalries between China and the West, if not on an ideological level, then on economical or cultural terms.

But enough about the message that "Kung Fu Cooking Girls" may or may not be trying to promote; is it any good? Well, the plot is action-packed and concise, with no more main characters or minutes of running time than it needs to get its point across. Enough visual stylings are borrowed from Japanese anime for it to feel familiar, but are used just loosely enough to create a completely new aesthetic identity. The animation is a little sketchy, with roughly drawn outlines barely containing their colours, but for a short film produced by five people (not including music and voice acting), would you really expect a whole lot more? After all, they've got the frenetic pace of the fight scenes down pat, although considering the great Chinese tradition of martial-arts films, I can't say I'm surprised. But most importantly, I had fun and it made me think a little, which I for one value above all other qualities. The future of Chinese media is yet to be set in stone, but for now? Godspeed, Wolf Smoke Studios. Take the time to perfect your craft, and you may one day become animation's equivalent of Girl Number One.

The Call: 5 dim-sum out of 5 (A)