Before last year I had never seriously played a social game. I was never interested in Bejeweled or Farmville (as the later just seemed to be a lazy version of Harvest Moon to me) or any other Facebook/mobile game. Then last year I wrote about Valkyria Chronicles 3. If you have read those articles, you…
Like many people out there, I lost my Shepard in the time between Mass Effect 1 and 2—probably because I forgot to back her up before formatting my computer or some such nonsense. So after Mass Effect 2 came out, I discovered to my great sadness that I would be starting a new female Shepard.…
Back when I reviewed the first half of Ixion Saga DT late last year, I worried that the humor in the second half of this Capcom-produced deconstruction of fantasy anime wouldn’t live up to that of the first. And while there are some bigger misses in the humor department in the second half, there are…
Game & Wario is a new mini-game collection and spin-off of the WarioWare series for the Wii U. And of the minigames in the collection, many come with a short introduction cutscene starring Wario and/or the other characters from the WarioWare series. While they are often irrelevant to the actual gameplay of the attached minigame—other…
Despite being a phenomenon across the Western world these past three years, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic didn’t make its way to Japanese shores until last Tuesday. We here at Kotaku have already showed you the Japanese theme songs, but that doesn’t answer the real question on everyone’s minds: What do the ponies sound…
Game & Wario is a new mini-game collection on the Wii U which is a spinoff of Nintendo’s popular WarioWare series. One of the included mini-games is Gamer, an aptly titled game about what it’s like to be a young gamer. Gamer is actually multiple games in one. The first is the overall meta-game. You…
A week ago, the new movie Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods hit theaters across Japan. But that is not the only Dragon Ball-related thing to happen. This last Sunday, Dragon Ball Z returned to TV as part of the Dream 9 Toriko & One Piece & Dragon Ball Z Super Collaboration Special!! And, as…
When I looked at the first arc of the 2012 anime Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure earlier this year, I said that it captured the essence of the manga for better and worse. The second arc suffers from the same double-edged sword; but thanks to a far more interesting story and protagonist, it comes off much more…
Anime is by far the most popular piece of Japanese popular culture to leave Japan and spread to other parts of the world. But as the vast majority of anime series are adaptations, that leads to the question: From what are these anime adapted? Of course, most are originally manga series that become popular in…
Sword Art Online is a massively popular franchise in Japan. Last year it was the best selling light novel series in Japan and in my review of the first half of the anime I called it the smartest anime I had seen in years Yet in the half-a-decade since its first release, this franchise centered…
Back when the anime hit its halfway point last year, I called Sword Art Online the smartest anime I had seen in years And while the second half didn’t quite live up to the promise of the first half, I found it enjoyable nonetheless. But like many anime, Sword Art Online ended at the end…
Back when I reviewed the second half of the anime Sword Art Online, I lauded the sudden, and completely unexpected, ending of the series’ first story arc. [*Note: This article contains major spoilers on the first story arc of Sword Art Online] The characters had been told that the only way to end the VR…
There is no doubt that Dragon Ball is a world-wide phenomenon. Outside of the original manga, there have been several TV series in addition to the many original video animations. But beyond all that, there have been 17 Dragon Ball movies released in Japanese theaters since 1986. However, it has been almost 17 years since…
Over the years, there have been many games released in Japan only. Of these, a small number have gone on to become cult classics abroad—lost gems of gaming that the English-speaking world missed out on. Even now, with virtual consoles and re-releases, some of these games have never gotten an official international release (though many…
At first glance, anime Maoyu is hardly what you would call original. There are two worlds, a human world and a demon world, at war in a fantasy setting. And as these stories go, after many adventures, the Hero sets off to have his climatic one-on-one battle with the evil Demon King. But that’s where…
This past week saw the release in Japan of Earthbound(Mother 2) on the Wii U’s virtual console. To celebrate, Nintendo released a special episode of Retro Game Master (GameCenter CX) and even did a three-and-a-half hour playthrough of the game with Itoi, the game’s writer and director. The one other big thing they did was…
Robotics;Notes is a near future tale of a high school robotics club trying to build a giant robot and save their club from getting axed. It is also a story with A.I. ghosts, super powers, an apocalyptic prophecy, mysterious murders, and an international conspiracy. In other words, it is a ton of fun. Of course,…
This Sunday, I spent about an hour delving through the past 24 hours of messages on the Mother 2 MiiVerse page that went live last week as part of the Mother 2 (Earthbound) re-release on the Japanese Wii U virtual console. And what surprised me as I looked through the message board was the amount…
As part of the Famicon’s (Nintendo Entertainment System’s) 30th anniversary in Japan, Nintendo has been releasing various retro titles on the Wii U for the insanely low price of 30 yen ($0.32) The first title released this way was the NES classic Balloon Fighter. The following game was Fire Emblem: Monsho no Nazo, the first…
Psycho Pass is a cyberpunk police story in the same vein as Ghost in the Shell. But instead of being centered on the theme of cybernetics, Psycho Pass explores the concept of a society where your mental health is constantly scanned as a matter of public safety. Those with even the slightest case of mental…
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