Good-bye and Hello!

Hey folks. I've noticed recently that my readership has grown, and since I am considering doing this blogging thang seriously, I've registered a domain, and now host on my own server.

Please redirect your -bilingual gamer- fix to this website. This will be the permanent home of -bilingual gamer-, and over the next couple of months, it will grow, transform, and possibly be reborn. By which I mean, I will vamp up the site design, have a feature every week or two, and various backend stuff.

One thing won't change, however. And that is - -bilingual gamer- will be the spot to visit for the latest rumblings out of Japan, with the earliest most up-to-date news and the most natural translations.

Good-bye, and welcome to the new -bilingual gamer-

Quick News Get! Ring of Fates TV Adverts Roll Out

Nearing its release of August 23rd, TV commercials for Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates began broadcasting across Japan today.

The first one showcases the multiplayer mode, or how an actress and marketers have fun on the weekends, getting together to play DS, 'cos we're all gamers now in this day and age! See that look of amazement on the woman's face at the start? She ain't looking at the game - she's checking out her bank statement after this commercial aired.

The second commercial showcases gameplay in the single-player mode, and has less propaganda. The lack of marketing push-push in this one seems even...unnerving. As if Square-Enix just knows you'll go out and buy it, pretty woman or not.

Without further ado, check them out, and don't hesitate to post a comment! The lonely comments section needs a good ol' troll right about now...

Final Fantasy VII Party Like It's 1997

According to +D Games, Square-Enix will hold a special event commemorating the 10th Anniversary of Final Fantasy VII, from August 31st to September 3rd.

It will be held at "Spiral Garden" in Aoyama, Tokyo (a trendy area where a gaming otaku would probably not step into...zing!), and will showcase concept artwork and illustrations from FFVII as well as its milk-offs, err, spin-offs Before Crisis - Final Fantasy VII (for cellphones), Final Fantasy Advent Children, otherwise known as What Spirits Within Should Have Been, Dirge of Cerberus - Final Fantasy VII (known in some circles as Vincent Fanservice), and finally the upcoming PSP title Crisis Core - Final Fantasy VII, slated for a September 13th release.

Square-Enix will also be showing off promotional videos of each title, catering to the nostalgic crowd, thus making the ever-hopeful clamor even more for a Final Fantasy VII remake.

Archaic Sealed Heat's ASHes to Rise Up in October

With its release date of October 4th confirmed by Famitsu today, comes a flood of information on Archaic Sealed Heat for the Nintendo DS. Developed by Mistwalker, headed by the "Father of Final Fantasy" Hironobu Sakaguchi, known for his work on Xbox 360's Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey , ASH (for short) is a strategy RPG that has been building a lot of hype amongst the community ever since its announcement way, way back.

Nintendo's official site for the title now features more content than last reported. With two sections so far - "Story" and "Character", the website features a sort of prologue of the story as well as various character portraits and info on some of the classes featured in the game.

Here's a quick rundown of the "Story" section, by yours truly:

"In the 112nd Year of the Continent, September, lies the kingdom Millinear, surrounded by lush greenery.

The day the Princess Aisya turned 17, a ceremony for the royal succession was held.
The Regent Bullnequ, who nurtured Aisya after the passing of the last king,
wished more than anyone else that Aisya, now that she had matured, would take up the throne of the kingdom.
And there, at the ceremony of the nation, Aisya and Bullnequ, as well as her citizens cheered on.

As she was about to receive the ceremonial artifact, the armband of Millinear, things turned for the worse.

All of a sudden, a heretofore unseen giant wyrm, covered in flames, appeared out of the sky and attacked the kingdom.
The cheering turned to screams, and the beast's unearthly sounds echoed throughout the land.
A castle shattered and destroyed by flames, the noblemen of the House preparing for their deaths, and voices overshadowed by the fire.
Aisya looks on the scene, lost for words.
All that is left is destruction and ash.

As ash falls from the blue sky and covers the land like snowflowers, a wind blows, sweeping the ash away. As she sees this, Aisya is taken to despair.
She puts on the only thing left from the fire, the armband of Millinear, and returns to the castle, where beasts born of the flames attack her.

There, she finds Bullnequ and her other companions, reborn with the body of ash, surrounding to aid her.

Aisya then decides to embark on a journey to uncover the mystery of the fiery wyrm and to find a way to return the peoples' body from ash, the warriors of ash following close behind her."

Phew! That was one long translation! Here's hoping readers appreciated all that work...

The other section contains character information, including some of the classes that help out the team. So far out of the ten slots seemingly available on the site, four of the characters are revealed - Aisya, Bullnequ, Dan, and Emu. And out of the seven slots available for classes, there are five filled up so far - the white and black mages, the "itemer", the battler, and the stealer.

The title looks to be a solid strategy RPG, with an epic story and characters, on top of a gameplay that looks to utilise class management for its battling.

Importers beware! This title will utilise a lot of text, but does anyone listen to my advice anyway when it comes to AAA titles? A stateside release is still unconfirmed, but it is undoubtedly being prepped for release down the road.

Square-Enix Creates Chocobo Portal Site...More Games To Follow?

Square-Enix has just opened up a portal site for all things chocobo. Currently only a bare-bones website, it hosts two separate sections: "Game" and "History." The History page has a listing of all past Chocobo games, such as the Nintendo DS title (known outside of Japan as Final Fantasy: Chocobo Fables), as well as older Mysterious Dungeon games on the original PlayStation.

The "Game" section takes you to the official site of the upcoming Wii game, Chocobo's Mysterious Dungeon: Labyrinth of Forgetting. The page features only two sections so far (Story and Specs), and everything else displays a "Coming Soon" animation.

Opening up a portal site for chocobo games? That only means one thing - more and more chocobo games to milk, err, follow. Keep an eye on this site!

Bio Hazard: Umbrella Chronicles Dated/Priced for Japan

Capcom's second Bio Hazard entry on the Wii, known outside of Japan as Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles has now been dated and priced for Japan, according to +D Games. The first game to use Nintendo's Zapper peripheral, Umbrella Chronicles will be shooting into stores across Japan November 15th. Priced at 7340 Yen, it suggests that the title will ship with the Zapper peripheral, but this is not confirmed yet.

Umbrella Chronicles has been the recipient of mixed vibes from different gamers. It is an on-rails shooter, featuring scenes and characters from the Resident Evil series, and ever since the Gun Survivor series by Capcom, gamers have been wary of on-rails shooters.

We'll see how the title is received once it hits Japan. A release date outside of Japan has not been announced so far, but we shouldn't have to wait long.

Koei Unveils New Trailer for Dynasty Warriors Katana

Just moments ago on Koei's official site for Sengoku Musou Katana, the slash-tastic Wii game based on the Dynasty Warriors franchise, a new trailer was uploaded.

The promotional video shows a lot of gameplay, including rifle-targeting and horse-riding, apart from the Wii remote-controlled swordplay. Upon close inspection of the trailer, it seems the levels have mission-based structures to them, such as "Defeat 100 soldiers within 3 minutes," and "Beat the race on horseback," etc. Also, the game uses a targetting-system for your sword attacks, to create chains of attacks.

All in all, Koei's Wii entry into the franchise, set to be released in Japan September 20th, looks like a lot of mindless button-slashing (err, is that the new-gen version of button-mashing?), and though they've milked the franchise for years, it still manages to find an audience.

Check out the trailer on the official site by clicking on the "PV" button on the front page.

Opoona To Be In Orbit Awhile Longer

Koei's Opoona, a quirky space-themed RPG that had been picked up by the blogosphere, had seemed to disappear from the consciousness of savvy gamers, possibly remembered as "that nunchuk role-playing game." It had been announced fairly soon after the Wii launch, and garnered some attention from blogs, with loads of screens and a few videos. And then...nothing was heard.

We now know why - Koei has said in a statement via +D Games, "We apologise to those people looking forward to the game, as well as to those involved. However, we have reached a conclusion that the development needed a little while longer to polish up and reach a level that would be more rewarding to gamers."

So there you have it - it's been delayed. Initially scheduled to be released September 27th in Japan, it now has a date of November 1st. Hey, that's not too bad, right? Gamers with import-friendly Wiis will have to wait a little longer to get their mitts on this whimsical, if not downright weird, game.

Elderly Strolls IV: Oblivion

According to a lot of reports from Japanese gamers who got their hands on the finally-translated Oblivion for the Xbox 360, they are finding that the text in the game is extremely difficult to read.

Considering that Oblivion is one text megathon of a game, this must be tortuous for the Japanese who have waited more than a year to play the game. Even back when it was released in the Western world, posters on the 2chan forums were helping each other translate the game from import copies. This is one eagerly awaited game for Japanese 360 owners.

Unlike the famous Dead Rising and Lost Planet "small text" isses on standard-def tv sets, this particular issue is not about the text being small - it is more of an issue of the text itself being unreadable (well, difficult to be read at the least). We all know what Japanese writing looks like - imagine those characters being squished up and unclearly displayed.

Bethesda Softworks has apparently heard the cries and is working on a patch, but when that will come through is still uncertain. Quests are difficult to follow, as long as the text is difficult to read, and there are great chances of gamers making errors of judgement on what the kanji characters represent.

Let's just hope that when a Japanese gamer is told to "close a gate of oblivion", they don't think that they have "an oblivious chance of a date."

Quick Note to Precious Readers

Sorry to all the readers that expected updates throughout E3 and beyond! My broadband went belly-up (or maybe that should be belly-down...?), and on top of that I got busy with various enrolment procedures at uni, and first week of the semester was a bit chaotic...

Rest assured that updates will keep on coming, and hopefully a feature or two on the horizon. Also, I plan on heavily revamping the site over the next couple of months, so look forward to a new snappy look!

E3 Hyperlinks

Many things to report from E3.

Microsoft was first up with the press conferences. It had a solid showing of upcoming games, such as Lost Odyssey and many US/European games, as well as a surprise sneak preview of Resident Evil 5, slated for a 2008 release.

Nintendo had a less stellar conference, mostly repeating their mantra of expanded gaming. It did, however, show off a solid build of Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, which showed great promise of its first person controls. Nintendo also showed off a teaser for Mario Kart Wii, with full online multiplayer, and a showed off two new controller peripherals, the Zapper (used for games such as Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles) and the steering wheel shell. Most interesting was the announcement of Wii Fit which should be a huge hit for Nintendo, much like its other non-games.

Sony had a mostly Western-games-focused showing, but did present the PSP redesign, as well as more Home announcements. It was also the scene of the new Metal Gear Solid 4 trailer, still insisting that it is (for now) a PlayStation 3 exclusive.

Overall, it was a solid E3, focused this time 'round on software, since all the systems were now released. Despite the chaos of the new E3, it mostly went smoothly. Check out some of the links below for an in-depth look at new games and announcements.

Super Mario Galaxy Hands-On @ IGN
Metroid Prime 3: Corruption Hands-On @ IGN
RE: Umbrella Chronicles Hands-On @ Wired
Zack and Wiki Hands-On @ Wired
Mario and Sonic at the Olympics @ IGN
Wii Fit Announced
PSP Redesign Hands-On

Dragon Quest Creator Discusses DQ Swords

Discussing at length his Wii project, Yuji Horii has written up an entry in Wii.com's "Creator's Voice." Posted a few days ago on the Japanese website, Horii goes through the development cycle of Dragon Quest Swords from its humble beginnings after seeing the Wii's development kits, receiving the support from Nintendo on how to manage the finer points of motion control, to fine tuning the gameplay to enable players of all skill levels to enjoy the game.

Noteworthy snippets of information found within the essay are that segments of town exploration are not on rails like the battlefield. These areas are controlled using the d-pad of the Wii remote. Horii always wanted the freedom of movement during town sequences, and had thoughts on using the analog control of the nunchuk. But seeing as though that may hinder the motion controls of sword swings, he decided on a "Simple Is Best" control scheme of just the Wii remote.

Also, players will find a feature called the "Pointer Lock," in which one can lock-on to an enemy using the A button, and proceed to slash the Wii remote to attack the monster. This was to counteract erroneous motion controls by having the player learn where to lock-on to before attacking the enemy. According to Horii, gamers will find through practice that the motion control will become second nature without the Pointer Lock.

DQ Swords looks like a game that could appeal to a wide range of players, with its engaging play style and Dragon Quest pedigree. Unfortunately, a date has not yet been set for release overseas, but here's hoping for that to change soon.

Go check the site for some new bite-sized gameplay videos, which are linked in blue text throughout the essay.

Website for Mistwalker's ASH opens

Mistwalker's DS debut, ASH - Archaic Sealed Heat, has just opened its official website, hosted by Nintendo of Japan. Currently it is just a teaser site, with a Flash logo, and rousing music by Hitoshi Sakimoto playing in the background.

As usual with Sakimoto's talent, who has previously worked on Final Fantasy Tactics and Final Fantasy XII, it has that celtic mixed with medieval sound. Here's hoping for a killer soundtrack.

IGN reported on this news, but missed mentioning that in the subtitle of the game, it states that it is a "Single Player Specific Simulation RPG." This almost means that, as is usual for Sakaguchi's work, it is a single-player focused game, and that it may end up not having any multi-player elements. We'll find out for certain at a later time.

With the website opening up on the eve of E3, here's hoping that it will appear at the event in some form, playable or not. It has been far too long since we heard anything about this title.

Check it out!

-bilingual gamer- begins.

I had so much time on my hands that I was getting more and more depressed and unmotivated. The more time that I spent doing nothing, the more and more uncreative I became. This had to stop. I needed to do something. Something meaningful and helpful. And I had a much-needed voice in the community. I was so sick of sites using machine translations of Japanese articles, always crude attempts at trying to make sense of the content. At first, these translations seemed humorous, a debauchery of language. But after awhile, it just needed to stop. The grass was greener on my side. I was lucky enough to spend about half each of my life in Japan and an English-language country. Both lines of blood coursed through my veins, and both spheres of culture bubbled inside my mind. So I finally made the decision, for once and for all, to begin this project, and that it wouldn't end haphazardly like the others. I have a passion for the industry, and I have a passion for language. I would combine these two, and create something meaningful and helpful to others and myself. It was also timely to begin a site such as this, as E3 is beginning this week, so I would have plenty of material to start on. To everyone who happens upon this page, I welcome you all, and hope you stay.