My Thoughts on Street Fighter X Mega Man

Earlier today, Capcom made an announcement that they would be releasing a brand new Mega Man game in celebration of Mega Man’s 25th Anniversary. The main draw being that it’s a free, PC download title and hits two anniversaries in one; Street Fighter and Mega Man’s. It’s drawn in quite a few fanfare and criticism. As someone who’s been a fan of the series since his childhood and was annoyed by the company’s ridiculous decisions through out the past year, I felt it was best I give my two cents on the subject.

10 More Songs That Make Me Want to Play the Games They’re From

Obviously I simply couldn’t do only one list of 10 songs. So I’ve made a second one with a little more variety. Fewer RPGs and more action-oriented game tunes! Going by the same rules as the last – one tune per franchise and no specific order, let’s get straight to the music.

10 Songs That Make Me Want to Play the Games They’re From

It’s probably happened to you before. Out of nowhere you’ll start humming a tune you remembered from a game (or you’ll hear it) and then suddenly, you have a desire to play that game. That or it’s just me being stupid and not really having anything else more creative to write about. REGARDLESS; here’s my list of 10 songs from video games that make me want to play the games they’re from.

10 Recent Games That Need to be Localized

As new consoles and handhelds begin to pop up over time, new games pop up that make you say “I have to have THAT!” Unfortunately, along with the newer hardware comes region locking. As of 2012, the PS3 is currently the only platform that is 99.9% region free (Persona 4 Arena being the .1% as it is the only PS3 game with a region lock), while the Vita and Xbox 360 are partially unaffected by region locks (while the PSP is also region free, it’s becoming less and less relevant in the west, while the DS is also losing support to the 3DS). Because of said region locks, some games are just incapable of being played on a console/handheld of a different region. Thus leaving us to hope for localizations to happen. Sometimes, it just never happens. So I’ve compiled a list of 10 games that were either recently released elsewhere or are set for release that have no plans of being localized, but should.

6 Ways To Improve Nintendo’s eShop for 3DS

On February of this year, I became an owner of a Nintendo 3DS. My initial reason for buying one was because my DS Lite was having all sorts of problems and I was in dire need of playing Dragon Quest IX with something other than a D-Pad. Since then, I’ve managed to pick up 6 retail games, 7 3DS downloadable titles, and 11 Virtual Console games. Needless to say, I’m quite content with the handheld and still have plenty of other games to look forward to purchasing both physically and digitally. However, that isn’t to say all is well. As I have more games digitally, I’ve spent quite a bit of time on the eShop and have found there are a few flaws that really need some fixing up. Here’s a few things I feel Nintendo could improve on them.

Multiplatform Logic

So Nintendo made the announcement that Bayonetta 2 was actually being made. This shocked many, as it originally seemed like a sequel was never going to happen. Then another shock came in the form of exclusivity; the Wii U would be the only console to be getting Bayonetta 2. This pleased quite a few that were glad that a sequel was even being made and those who were on the fence about the Wii U have now been sold on it because of Bayonetta 2.

Then you have folks like this guy in the above image. When word broke out that Bayonetta 2 would be a Wii U exclusive, many were quick to become angry and throw a fit. Some legitimately angry that they’d have to purchase a new console to play the sequel, while others were more ridiculously upset over having to buy a Nintendo product due to fanboyism. Nevertheless, I found the above comment interesting because it shows just how very simple-minded some people are and how their emotions tend to cloud their thinking.

Let’s think about this for a moment. Going by his logic, the following should not have happened:

-Final Fantasy VII becoming a PlayStation exclusive
-Dragon Quest VII becoming a PlayStation exclusive
-Castlevania: Symphony of the Night coming to PlayStation
-Soul Calibur becoming a Dreamcast exclusive
-Mega Man 8 coming to both Saturn and PlayStation
-Mega Man X4 through X6 becoming PlayStation exclusives
-Oddworld: Munch’s Oddysee becoming an Xbox exclusive
-Dead or Alive 3 becoming an Xbox exclusive
-Ninja Gaiden becoming an Xbox exclusive
-Ace Combat 6 becoming an Xbox 360 exclusive
-Tenchu Z becoming an Xbox 360 exclusive
-Tales of Vesperia becoming a timed Xbox 360 exclusive
-Monster Hunter Tri becoming a Wii exclusive

This is just a small example of games we’ve seen appear on different company-branded consoles than their franchises’ previous entries have appeared on. If companies just kept games limited to one company’s platforms because their previous entries were on previous platforms, then the PlayStation brand would have had a hard time getting off the ground solely on new IPs. Any brand and company would. The fact is that Bayonetta 2 was, at one point, cancelled. Had Nintendo not chosen to publish Bayonetta 2, the game would have remained cancelled as Sega has been in a bit of a financial struggle to publish it themselves.

Toonami’s Return – Cartoon Network Still Sucks

A little before Adult Swim had its usual April Fool’s Day joke air, I commented that it’d be pretty funny if Toonami had aired instead of the usual airing of the movie “The Room.” Sure enough, that’s exactly what happened! Toonami aired the entire night through. Some classics were shown (such as Dragon Ball Z, Outlaw Star, Yu Yu Hakusho and even Blue Submarine No. 6), while some others that hadn’t aired before were shown (such as Trigun and Tenchi Muyo OVA 3). The night also featured a new game review, along with promo bumps all voiced by Steven Blum as TOM. Twitter had erupted with Tweets about Toonami airing. Later on, Adult Swim asked if it was something the fans wanted to see return.

A month later, we got our answer; Toonami was coming back. However, there was a catch. Due to the small budget that Cartoon Network had given them, they were only able to secure two new shows, while the rest were standard Adult Swim programming that had already aired (along with a new episode of Bleach). The two new series’ are Deadman Wonderland and Casshern Sins. Deadman Wonderland is premiering for the first time in English in any manner, as it’s currently not available on home video in North America as of yet. Casshern Sins has been available for quite some time and is viewable on Netflix. However, both series’ have never appeared on cable television. While not big name shows many people have asked for, they’re welcome additions to the Toonami block. Unfortunately, many people have complained about the lack of any other shows, whether new or from the original Toonami lineups, being added on. It’s understandable that Adult Swim couldn’t afford to bring some of the older shows back, as some have either become unlicensed or the companies involved want too much money. In some cases, some shows are being aired by the competition (namely Naruto and Dragon Ball Z).

Due to all of this, Toonami’s got a long way to go to become the old, successful block it was. In order to afford more shows, it’s going to need to pull in a lot of viewers. However, I ultimately lay the blame on Cartoon Network for making this a difficult process. Let’s think back about this. Back around 2004, Toonami had only been airing Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z during its weekday run. Having two series’ run the block wouldn’t cut it. Especially when both series’ had finished their runs. CN had removed Toonami from weekdays, replacing it with Miguzi. Toonami was then put on Saturdays. It regained its spark of life with the addition of shows such as Teen Titans, Megas XLR, Justice League, Naruto and even the 4Kids dub of One Piece, which was more successful on Toonami than it was on 4Kids’ own Saturday morning block. Three years later, Toonami was suddenly cancelled. Many wondered why this happened, but here’s the sad truth: CN ran it to the ground, as they did when it aired on weekdays.

Around the time of Toonami’s end, CN had cancelled One Piece weeks before, was airing only two new premieres in the form of Naruto episodes while airing reruns of Dragon Ball Z, Samurai Jack, Blue Dragon and Bakugan. CN felt Toonami was no longer worth keeping around and ended it. In its place, it aired live-action movies. Eventually, the network would begin to air original, live-action programming, distancing itself from the “all cartoon” channel image it intended to be. Cutting around to today, we’re seeing the same uncaring attitude from the network again. Nickelodeon’s begun to give the channel a run for its money with its Nicktoons Network, along with Disney XD and newcomer The Hub. So one would think that trying to bring back a previously successful block back would bring in not only the old crowd, but a new one as well. It worked for Teen Nick with “The ’90s Are All That.”

Unfortunately, CN chose to place more money in getting shows such as a live-action, sketch comedy show featuring Nick Cannon and an animated version of Annoying Orange. On top of this, they’ve also gotten a second season for Level Up, another live-action sketch comedy, and a fifth season for Star Wars: The Clone Wars. If CN has the money to support shows like this, why oh why did they not give the same treatment to Toonami? Just how long can you drag The Clone Wars, anyway? The answer may simply be that Cartoon Network just sucks and is appealing to one of the worst generations of children out there.

I’ll still watch Toonami come this Saturday. I’ll support it for as long as it airs. It’s just a crying shame how poorly it’s been treated, even to this day, despite how badly the folks at Adult Swim want it to succeed.

A Link to My Past: Phantasy Star Online Part 1

As many of you probably already knew, the Sega Dreamcast is one of my absolute favorite consoles. What many of you probably don’t know that the Dreamcast was a first of many things for me.

• It was the first disc-based gaming console I ever owned.
• It was the first console to get me into online gaming.
• It was the first to introduce me to the Phantasy Star series.

On October 1, 2001, I got a Sega Dreamcast for my 16th birthday. At the time, my most current console was a Nintendo 64. I didn’t own a PlayStation or a Saturn because once the 32-bit/64-bit era came into full swing, my brother and I were only allowed one console per generation. By this point, Sega had announced several months before that they were dropping out of the console race, so Dreamcasts were dropping in price. The Dreamcast was bordering between $50 to $75 at this point, with retailers trying to get rid of whatever stock they had left over. Obviously this was also to make room for the upcoming PlayStation 2. Among the first games I ever got for my Dreamcast was an RPG titled Phantasy Star Online.

“VIZ needs better quality translations!”

One thing I noticed since the recent events is that a lot of people like to claim that VIZ’s translations of their various releases just don’t match up with Manga Stream. The claim is that VIZ either makes some censorship changes, gets translations wrong or is just outright slow. I can’t answer for all of these. However, I would like to remind these folks that fan translations are not flawless and as perfect as they like to think they are.

Viz’s “War on Manga”

Think the title is a little silly? Unfortunately, it’s an accurate portrayal on the exaggerations some fans are going as far as to make over on Viz’s Facebook page. Why is that? On February 11, 2012, manga scanlating group, Manga Stream, published a statement on their website that said they would be no longer doing fan scans of Weekly Shounen Jump manga due to demands from Viz. The following series’ were affected:

• Bleach
• Claymore
• D.Gray-man
• Hunter × Hunter
• Katekyo Hitman Reborn!
• Naruto
• One Piece

Needless to say, as soon as fans read this, the internet seemed to explode.