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Tactical News

I've returned from this year's San Diego write about some of the ways the once comic-centric convention related to video games. I didn't get to everything, but I did edge into the Street Fighter IV to see Street Fighter X Tekken debuted to a crowd of screaming fighting-game fans.

It reminded me that some things are best appreciated amid the ravenous enthusiasm of devoted geeks. The Street Fighter X Tekken demo looked decent enough, but it was pretty much what you'd expect from such a company crossover. What made it exciting was the throng of fans who yelled and shrieked and tore their clothes at the sight of something new related to Street Fighter. This new-fangled Internet thing may bring us trailers and game demos in the comfort of our homes, but there's no substitute for live mass hysteria.

NEWS

TACTICS OGRE REMAKE ANNOUNCED, WILL BE BEST GAME EVER
The original Tactics Ogre is a cult classic in Japan, and with good reason: it's a sweeping, challenging, highly complicated strategy-RPG with only a few flaws to deny it greatness. It's far less known in North America, where the only officially released version is a now-rare Square Enix announced a PSP remake of Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together, assembled by the original's staff and already slated for a U.S. release.

Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together was the game that put director Yasumi Matsuno on the map back in 1995, and it has a lot of his favorite things: a huge stage of medieval war and politics, a large cast of scheming royals and suffering peasantry, and extensively customizable characters. It's the tale of one Denim Powell, who's at first merely fighting to survive alongside his initially level-headed sister Kachua and his increasingly ruthless pal Vice. Their story grows to span the entire land of Valeria, with a huge cast of characters caught up all of the plottings and goings-on. Each of the game's chapters ends with a key moral decision for Denim, and it changes both the game's storyline and the characters the player can recruit.

More importantly, Tactics Ogre is a depressing game. All of the story paths lead to massacres, assassinations, and various other horrors. No matter what you route you take, some trusted friend or ally will be killed. Oh, and every character, from the major players to the disposable soldiers, breathes out some tragic last words when dying on the field of battle. And that death is permanent, so you'd better plan your grid-based battle strategies with care.

The PSP revamp finds Yasumi Matsuno handling the story and game design, with the director's seat filled by Hiroshi Minagawa, art director on the original game (and the co-director of Final Fantasy XII after Matsuno departed). Original character designer Hitoshi Sakimoto are adding 15 new tracks to the original game's score. The game's graphics will be remodel while keeping the large-headed-sprites look of the original, and the gameplay will feature new skills, new character classes, and a wider range of battles. There's also a new character, a Walstanian spear-wielder named Ravness Loxaerion, and she'll have her own motivations, swayed loyalties, and despondent death quotes.

The remake's staff sounds intent on making the game accessible to modern gamers, which almost certainly means fixing the original's sometimes tedious battle animations, dull level-grinding, and frequently harsh difficulty. Tactics Ogre always was a cruelly challenging game (much more so than its descendant Final Fantasy Tactics), and yet it was satisfying in its complex, gloomy way. I can only hope that's kept intact for the remake.

For fans of Yasumi Matsuno, the real shock in all of this is seeing him back under Square Enix's auspices. In 2005, Matsuno quit directing Final Fantasy XII and left the company due to “health reasons,” which may have had something to do with Square Enix's producers and conflicts within the game's massive development staff. Well, he's apparently gotten over that to the point where he can rewrite and redesign Tactics Ogre.

The PSP remake is technically called Tactics Ogre: Wheel of Fate in Japan, but Square Enix seems to be going with the original subtitle, Let Us Cling Together, for North America. No matter what it's called, it's good to know that the game's English localization's in the hands of Kajiya Productions, the same translators who worked on Matsuno's Final Fantasy XII and Vagrant Story. The game has no release date anywhere at this point, and I doubt we'll see it until next year.

STREET FIGHTER X TEKKEN
I recapped some of the San Diego Comic-Con's game news last week, but one story stands out: Street Fighter X Tekken for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. It was rumored beforehand, but it was still quite amusing to see Tekken director Yoshinori Ono's , with both of them dressed like each game's lead characters.

Following the CAPCOM. The CAPCOM version of the game was briefly shown, and it surprised no fans at all by pitting Ryu and Chun-Li against Kazuya Mishima and Nina Williams. The background was really cool, though, and I hope that the game will show some ambition and include Street Fighter characters who aren't yet in the fourth installment, along with the more ridiculous (and therefore best) Tekken representatives.

Other details from Ono's : there's no new Darkstalkers yet, Street Fighter III 3rd Strike is coming to Super Street Fighter IV arcade release will be announced until the Tokyo Game Show at the earliest. And now I'm going to go write CAPCOM some more pleading letters on official Darkstalkers stationery.

NINJA STUDIO POSSIBLY DEAD, AND I AM TO BLAME
Boy, I'm quite the asshole. In my last column, I made fun of Ninja Studio's creatively bankrupt DS fighter Windy X Windam. This week, there are signs that Ninja Studio might be gone. Some are speculating that the developer, best known for the Izuna: Legend of the Unemployed Ninja dungeon-hacks, is out of business now that its website is no longer around. Of course, one can't assume that Ninja Studio's gone just because it lacks an Internet presence. The Japanese sites for Windy X Windam and the Izuna games are still up, so it might be that Ninja Studio's now merely part of cosplay strategy-RPG Tactics Layer. Even if it's true, we should all be nice and avoid making jokes about unemployed ninja.

IMPORT ROUNDUP: JULY

Fate/stay night was a story-driven adventure game with an RPG-ish cast to its fights. Well, now it's a proper Japanese RPG, one where the scenario of the original Fate/stay night reworks itself into a dungeon-crawling escapade. And it does so without its main character, Shiro Emiya. Instead, there's a player-named male-or-female lead to see all of the game's plot twists firsthand and meet the various sorcerers and servants involved in the War of the Grail. Most of the remaining characters are on hand, though some are noticeably redesigned: Rider's a scar-faced redhead in pirate garb, and Saber's now wearing a red dress that's shockingly open at the front. Rin Tohsaka, of course, looks like she always does. The gameplay follows many of the rules of traditional RPG combat, with plenty of flashing, extensively animated attacks. While the characters look a bit primitive, their story's conveyed through artwork and dialogue much of the time. Import Barrier: As with previous Fate games, there's a lot of dialogue that'll be lost on anyone who doesn't read Japanese Chances of a Domestic Release: CAPCOM's Fate/Unlimited Codes didn't catch on over here, so there won't be much interest in Fate/Extra.

POP to reach out to Japan's moe fans and create exuberant little girls who just happen to like Hello Kitty merchandise. Hello Kitty to Issho! Block Crash 1-2-3 is basically a Breakout title with about a hundred different levels, but that's not the selling point. The selling point is the cast of aren't-they-precious anime girls, all drawn in varying styles and shapes. Players guide balls through block-hitting stages craftily positioned before illustrations of the characters, and there's a share of themes and digital accessories for the PSP included with the game. All of this is designed to endear players to the heroines and, of course, their fondness for Hello Kitty hats, pins, and other products available for purchase. It's so shameless that it will almost certainly work. Import Barrier: The dialogue's all in Japanese, but the game's perfectly playable unless the ball-and-blocks concept of Breakout still eludes you after all these years. Chances of a Domestic Release: Uh…

METAL MAX 3 Developer: Crea-Tech Publisher: Enterbrain/Kadokawa Platform: Atlus' release of Metal Saga, a Metal Max spin-off, back in 2006. Import Barrier: An RPG requires some knowledge of its native language, but at least you can run it on a North American DS with no trouble. Chances of a Domestic Release: Not too bad, since Atlus picked up Metal Saga, and an RPG with tanks and mercs is right up many an American player's alley.

NEO GEO HEROES ULTIMATE SHOOTING Developer: TATE” version of the game, just like in them fancy arcades. Import Barrier: You'll miss little beyond the nuances of the game's storyline, such as it is. Chances of a Domestic Release: Fairly good, since SNK has a modest following over here. Perhaps a U.S. release of Neo Geo Heroes Ultimate Shooting will take some minds off of The King of Fighters XII's mass letdown.

NEXT WEEK'S (AND THIS WEEK'S) RELEASES

BLAYZBLOO: SUPER MELEE BRAWLERS ROYALE Developer: Power Stone, part Poy Poy, part Rakugaki Showtime, and part Smash Brothers mini-game. But hey, it's also five dollars. Five bucks won't even buy the squirrel-girl in regular BlazBlue.

franchise in recent years, though all signs point to it being better than that Wii fighting game everyone's already forgotten about.

Scott Pilgrim marketing push will be even more of a juggernaut. I won't mince words: I'm just a weensy little bit less than completely amazed by the Scott Pilgrim comic. That's odd, considering how its scenes of video-game callouts and modern wasted lives should interest me. Maybe the movie will change that. Or maybe the game will. As one might expect for a comic that staged a flashback as a River City Ransom tribute, the Scott Pilgrim game is a 2-D brawler with a deliberately sprite-styled look courtesy of Paul Robertson, who's made some seriously insane pixelly game art. Its playable cast features Scott. Ramona, Kim, Stephen, and one character who we're not supposed to reveal, and each has a distinct set of attacks. In keeping with the River City Ransom idea, all of the cast can gain levels and grab coins to purchase new stat-boosting items, while mini-games pop up in the form of the storyline's subspace excursions. This'll add to the game's local four-player mode, where you can actually be nice and share your loot. It's available on the PlayStation Network next week, but it's not on Xbox Live until the end of this month. You'll just have to read the comics or watch the movie. Or play River City Ransom.