It's been a while since we saw anything of Hiroyuki Maeda's Lovely Lady Lab. Just in time for Valentine's day, he presents us with this lovely two-page spread featuring the girls from Amagami, a popular game of the dating-sim genre. The newest version of their game is coming to PS2 and PSP this month, and they're all ready for the holiday. Remember, guys get the chocolates on V-Day in this country.

So where should a game-conscious young Japanese man take his digital belle for the day? If they're in Tokyo, there's one spot in particular that's perfect for the video-game crowd: Luida's Bar. The DQ-themed establishment even has a special item on the menu, for that most romantic of gamer-geek dates.

Yes, they're making it a special day for everyone....

I originally heard of Tsukumonogatari while preparing the first Japandemonium column of the year. It was listed as an RPG to be released later in the month for the PSP, but all the updates I could find about it on Dengeki were like this:

Just from first appearances, I'd never have pegged this as an RPG. As an adventure game, definitely, and for the longest time I had nothing that really contradicted that impression. Late last week, I finally found something.

The game may have a strong amount of school-sim adventure running through it, but it has battles at least. It also has some sort of photography mini-game, by which the player can investigate potentially haunted objects and create photographic links that allow the wayward spirit to be summoned in battle.

The story is something like this. Yuto Ishigami was living the stereotypical Japanese high school life, right up to the point where a classmate shoves him out the window. After he wakes up again, he finds that he has second sight. The normality of his generic high school is shattered by the existence of two sorts of spirits. The Ayakashi (a Japanese word for "something strange or suspicious") are malignant spirits which delight in spreading chaos and misfortune. Also scattered throughout the school are yorishiro, or items which for some reason attract mystical forces like spirits. Using his cell phone camera, Yuto is able to access these spirits to do battle, much like in a MegaTen game.

Anyway, here's the human cast of fairly typical high school students and staff.

And here are some of the fairly atypical spirits to be recruited or battled throughout the game.

Tsukumonogatari hit the stores at the end of January. It was developed by a group called Killaware, and published by FuRyu.

About two weeks back Aquaplus made a big announcement concerning six new titles. Among the non-RPG titles were a fighting game called AquaPazza, a new adventure title called Jasmine, and an expanded version of the hit visual novel game To Heart 2. The first title up for the RPG half of the announcement was also To Heart 2. So... how does that compute?

Well, first one has to add a secondary title to it, like so: To Heart 2 - Dungeon Travelers. Then one has to re-skin a Wizardry-style interface and draw all the young ladies of the original game in various fantasy cosplay outfits. Plenty of cheesecake would have to be included as well. After some more digging, it seems that this game is an adapted version of "Final Dragon Chronicle: Guilty Requiem," which appeared in the compilation PC title Manaka de Ikuno!.

To Heart 2 - Dungeon Travelers is due out in May, so I'm sure we'll have plenty more to ogle before then. The other two RPGs that AquaPlus has announced are still a little murkier on the details, however.

Details on their respective stories might be lacking, but at least we have the titles: Utawarerumono 2 and Tears to Tiara 2. True to their origins, both games will combine strategy-RPG play with plotlines in the style of PC adventure games. In the scans you can see the hero and heroine for each title. There'll be more to come in the future, I'm sure.

It's time once more to venture into the realm of indie games. Last month I found a new title to talk about, called Rime Berta (pronounced REE-may). It's an SRPG being developed by Next-Soft.

In the far-off land of Sandia, a realm whose history has been lost to time, there stands a tower. At its base lies the sole human settlement in the region. At its top, so the legends claim, lies the power to grant any wish. No one has ever survived the ascent, however.

This is Livia. She's a young artisan from the town of Sandy at the base of the tower. The townsfolk are in the grip of a plague, and nothing seems to help. The only hope left is at the top. With her carefully crafted puppets fighting for her, she's ready to climb to the top of the world and back to save her family.

Livia has over twenty varieties of puppets at her disposal, all made to resemble anthropomorphic animals. The three seen above are the basic kitty-cat (fighter), flying squirrel (archer), and jellyfish (magician) models.

Rime Berta will work on any version of Windows from XP and up. There's no word yet as to when it'll actually be available, though.

A lot of work goes into making elite cyborg assassins. The crew of scientists behind the Black Rock Shooter project had to test things out first. And thus, BRS is not alone in her upcoming game. It's not easy being the last, desperate line of defense against the invading alien hordes, after all.

BRS is joined by the project's prototype model, codenamed Gray, seen on the right. She was apparently the seventh prototype the project produced, and the only one still alive. The character on the left is WRS. You get three guesses as to what that stands for. Just where WRS came from and what her goals are remains unknown. She may be the Mark II model, but then again she might be a product of the invaders' technology. She does make for a cool action figure, though.

This week's update bucks the trend and arrives early! This is largely due to the Foundation Day holiday tomorrow and my subsequent internet blackout as I do something, anything, with my girlfriend. Next week's update is a little up in the air, as I have about a dozen more student reports to finish for a different set of classes, and these are a bit more writing-intensive than the previous ones. Hopefully there won't be any issues.

And that's the news from Hi-no-Kuni,

Your man in Japan,

Gaijin Monogatari