This Week in Japan: Hyping the 360
Today's Week in Japan column analyzes Famitsu's 100-page Final Fantasy XII layout, and stirs up some Xbox 360 excitement for the "drop-dead gorgeous" Ninety-Nine Nights and the newly announced Gundam FPS. Tim Rogers has more within...
I SUDDENLY WANT TO PLAY NINETY-NINE NIGHTS
How did this happen so suddenly? Why do I suddenly want to play Ninety-Nine Nights? Probably because they started showing real screenshots of it, and not just screenshots from the demo. Oh my lord, this is a really nice-looking game. Okay, I'll play it.
This week's Famitsu reveals new playable characters, including an orc-man named Leuu, a demonic-looking two-sword-wielding warrior named Dwykfarrio (whose name I will not make fun of because his face and hair are too incredibly cool), and an armored, bearded, medieval-fantasy-looking knight with a thick and ragged black fur cape. The many of these screenshots showcase a battlefield where particle-effected snow is falling is the real clincher. A stage outside a castle wall looks equally impressive. I need to get that HDTV in my apartment already.
It took me this long to see why Microsoft is so certain it's going to be a big seller. Couldn't they have shown us some of this earlier? I mean, it seriously looks gorgeous. It looks drop-dead gorgeous. There are no stronger words I can apply to a videogame based on screenshots than those right there. In this age of HD, where cel-shading and CG FMV had become so "the norm" that they're boring, it takes only one thing to make a game that looks impressive to your average, jaded consumer. That one thing is hard to fake. That one thing is "guts." And Ninety-Nine Nights has it.
Furthermore, it has been revealed lately that the story in this game kind of kicks ass. A novelization of it is making the rounds, and it has evoked a quiet awe on Japanese messageboards. Comments surrounding it include "Are they allowed to MAKE games with stories that don't suck?"
It's known that Tetsuya Mizuguchi penned the in-game script himself, and that the in-game cinemas are vigorous, powerful, and dramatic.
As for how well the game will sell -- well, this expert analyst (heh heh) predicts that it won't sell more than 100,000 copies. Just a hunch. If it sells more than 120,000 copies, I'll legally change my name to "Klarrann."
Okay, so the "hunch" refers to the fact that, so far, only 120,000 Xbox 360 units have sold in Japan, and clearly not everyone owning the system will buy Ninety-Nine Nights. Plus, some of the people who do own 360s might also be planning to spend all their gaming yen that week on Mother 3.
HOWEVER, THE XBOX 360 MAY RISE YET
The rumors of a "re-launch" of the unit in Japan have recently been quieted. (I take it their were quieted when one guy in the proverbial room stood up and said, "Uh, has it actually been launched, period?") However, all the same, the system's profile got about 200,000 units more attractive just yesterday, at the Tokyo International Forum in Ginza, when Microsoft announced their plans for this fiscal year with the Xbox 360 here in Japan.
A few weeks ago, they unveiled this Xbox 360 with a blue Adidas faceplate, set to look like the 2006 Japan National Team World Cup Soccer jersey. I meant to report on this; I ended up never reporting it because the only thing I could think to say was "Who are they trying to sell the system to? Hardcore soccer fans? Don't those people play Winning Eleven on their PlayStation2's?"
Just yesterday, though, they dropped something of a bombshell. Well -- there were two bombshells. The smaller bombshell was that Tri-Ace, a Square-Enix developer, would be making a game for Xbox 360, and that Square-Enix themselves would be producing an original shooter, tentatively called "Sylph." Tri-Ace is an odd choice; it strikes me that Microsoft asked a foreign game fan with a strong liking for Star Ocean "What development team should we commission to make a game for us?" Tri-Ace makes games that sell, at the most, half a million copies. Previously, Tri-Ace's games have sold mostly thanks to word of mouth, though recently, with the Valkyrie Profile sequel (targeted to sell about half a million), they've been blitz-marketing it to consumers who probably couldn't care less. It will, nonetheless, still sell its target.
Microsoft said a few weeks ago that they had a bombshell announcement of an RPG that would sell "at least a half a million copies" if it were on PlayStation2. That must be the Tri-Ace game. It sounds about right. It would have been too much of a stretch to convince Square-Enix to make a Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest, because Square-Enix's market research has them convinced that while they make games that sell games, they do not make games that sell consoles. This is all well and good.
GUNDAM IT!!
However, the real bombshell announcement made yesterday was the Gundam first-person-shooter being developed by an Dimps and published by Bandai-Namco. The game looks positively gorgeous. Drop-dead gorgeous. The grass textures, the lighting. The robots look like "de-familiarized" Gundams, almost as they'd look if they were to exist in the real world.
The gameplay will involve hardy Gundam pilots shooting each other on foot, and also boarding Gundam robots for more giant-scale combat. The stages promise to be enormous, featuring urban environments, grassy fields of battle, and even outer space.
As a person who has never loved Gundam, seeing this game makes me think it might be time to get into the mythos. The game takes place during the "One Year War" continuity, which a friend tells me is "The very beginning" of the "story." I say to this -- what better place to start?
Microsoft had previously announced this game, back when they announced the Xbox 360's Japanese debut. They said they had Japanese developers making Japanese games they would target at the Japanese consumers, yet all this amounted to, at the time, was them using the word "Japanese" too much. They said Bandai was making a Gundam game, and . . . come on, you can't blame us for thinking it was just going to be some arcade port/rehash. They should have felt fully confident in the game, and said, "Bandai is making a Gundam game, and it will be totally sweet." It seriously looks of Halo-esque production values.
At the press conference, the new Xbox head, Takashi Sensui, said that the Gundam FPS is "a game only the Japanese could make." He also said it could only be made on Xbox 360. Simple words, yet deeply interesting. For example, Americans definitely could have made a similar game, especially since the game uses such an American design aesthetic. However, perhaps he meant "only Japanese people could make a Gundam FPS that sells to Japanese consumers"? It's a nuance thing. For another thing, sure, I'd imagine the game could have been for PlayStation3. It "must" be for the Xbox 360 because it "is" for the Xbox 360. This, again, is "Japanese nuance."
If nothing else -- adding giant robots to the "blockbuster FPS" genre was a move so bold and brilliant that we file it under "so obvious it wasn't obvious at all." With its tight aesthetic, the game will no doubt win many fans and imitators in the Western market as well. I mean, the text on one of the screenshots is in English, which should prove that this game is as meant for America as it is for Japan.
