RPGamer - Japandemonium

This week's column is brought to you by a new Japandemonium logo, Strep Throat and its family of sicknesses. Gotta catch'em all!

First off, as custom, this week's Dengeki sales numbers! As per usual across the ocean, Pokémon is continuing the trend of screaming "You cannot defeat me! I am invincible!" as one of the games takes second spot again this week.

Pos.	Title	Publisher	Plat.	Sales	Total
2	Pokémon Fire Red / Leaf Green	Pokémon		75,848	1,654,533
13	Final Fantasy X-2 International + Last Mission	Square Enix		14,036	220,106
14	Shadow Hearts II	Aruze		11,727	94,860
17	Rockman EXE 4 Tournament: Red Sun / Blue Moon	Capcom		9,204	852,977
27	Pokémon Ruby & Sapphire	Pokémon		4,258	5,028,830

Title	Publisher	Plat.	Scores
Popolocrois: Tsuki no Okite no Bouken	Sony		7, 7, 7, 6 - (27 / 40)
Legend of Zelda: The Four Swords +	Nintendo		9, 8, 8, 8 - (33 / 40)

Nintendo has released new screens of Legend of Zelda: The Four Swords + for the GameCube, which features GBA compatibility. It is scheduled for release March 18. Wait...that's tomorrow! Here are a number of the screen shots of both the GameCube and Game Boy Advance modes. Expect even more coverage here at RPGamer in the next few days.

Speaking of Nintendo, they have also "announced" that in April, they will be "announcing" a new member in the Fire Emblem series. The developer Intelligent Systems has said in the past that a GameCube game in the series has been in the development stages for at least the last year. However, there's no guarantee that Nintendo's "announcement announcement" deals with said game or not.

For even more Fire Emblem goodness, Nintendo has mentioned a special character guide to be released in Japan on April 13th. The guide will have a plethora of character information and conversations, along with a bonus music CD filled to the brim with tracks from Fire Emblem: The Sealed Sword and Sword of Fire. The guide will set you back 2,800 yen.

Chun Soft, the developer of the GameCube RPG Homeland, which was mentioned in this column two weeks ago, has pushed back its release date from this summer to some undetermined date later in 2004. No reasons were given for the delay.

Nintendo plans on launching a new GBA wireless service in over 2,000 game stores around Japan on March 25. The boothes, called JoySpot, allows consumers to try out the wireless communications aspects of the GBA. The first games available will be Pokémon Fire Red and Leaf Green. Nintendo also plans to have a playable version of Mario Golf GBA Tour available at the booths April 22nd. It is intriguing if this new plan will aid GBA sales even more by showing more features of the GBA. It is unknown of Nintendo is planning for similar booths in North America, but if JoySpot works well in Japan, you never know.

Square Enix launched its "Tour de Japon" concert tour on March 14th in Tokyo, played by the New Tokyo Philharmonic. After another concert in Tokyo, the tour heads for Fukuoka, Nagoya, Osaka, Sapporo and Yokohama. Those of you who were lucky enough to purchase tickets ot the Los Angeles Dear Friends concert may be interested in the pieces played at the concert.
Part One

Square Enix also opened the Dragon Quest Vault again, in an attempt to slowly take over the world with an endless supply of Metal Slime. This week, we bring you a gallery of pictures from the latest in television advertising in Japan for Dragon Quest V. Why don't we get cool commercials over here like this?

Finally, not really from Japan, on March 21st at 9PM Eastern Time, GSN (the network for games, formerly the Game Show Network) will be showing a two hour documentary called "Video Game Invasion: The History of a Global Obsession". It will be narrated by none other than Tony Hawk. The documentary covers the evolution of video games. It should be a good watch.

Whew, another week gone by. I can hardly believe the first quarter of 2004 is nearly over. To celebrate, tuinte, our God of Templates, has a surprise for next week, if he gets off his lazy behind.

I would rant this week, but I have strep throat, so instead I think I will do what every good sick gamer does when they have a bug. I will go play a game. See you all next week.

My cake fell! What? I missed another installment? DAMMIT! Check out the archives.