This Wednesday past was a public holiday, but I didn't get much rest. It also happened to be the day of my school's happyoukai, or Family Show. Happyoukai is a major part of the school year for most kindergartens and elementary schools in the country. Similar to Sports Day, it's a time to show what the students can do, usually with song and dance numbers or small skits. All the parents cram into an auditorium, and watch the kids cavort on stage.

So how did my group do? Better than last year, so I'm happy for that. Granted, this year's performance was a small disaster, but compared to last year's unmitigated disaster, I shall take satisfaction where I can.

Anyway, I'm tired, so I'll keep this part short this week. On with the column!

For a while now, Famitsu Weekly has been running a weekly column on video game advertising of yesteryear. Each week is a different game, with various propaganda and posters to look at. This past week was the classic Famicom title Mother. It looked interesting, so I thought I would share:

Some demons are loose, and they're up to no good. Who ya gonna call? COSPLAYERS!

That would not be nearly so bizarre a statement if it weren't true, but yes, Ninja Studio and D3 Publishers have seen fit to grace the gaming world with Tactics Layer - Chronicle of Ritinagart, where the only people who can save the fantasy world from total destruction are a bunch of teenybopper costume-fanatics from Shibuya. While other tactical games have class systems that make some sort of sense in a medieval fantasy setting, Tactics Layer puts a whole new meaning on the expression "The clothes make the man." Or in this case, the girl. Characters must change outfits in order to gain access to new or different skills, and in keeping with the wide variety of costume fetishes in Japan, an equally wide selection of clothing is available here. Teen Idol, Policewoman, Stewardess, Geisha, Lace Queen, Schoolgirl Uniform, Nurse, Princess, Doctor, Nun -- all these and more are available, though what use they might be in battle I have no idea. It's just that sort of game.

The story is as follows: Once upon a time, there was a beautiful little paradise called Ritinagart, where everything was sunshine and kittens. Then one day, the wicked demon lord Garasha and his five generals invaded from a neighboring dimension, and things weren't very nice after that. Being a peaceful, happy little realm, there were few competent warriors to be had. Help was needed, but from where? A girl named Risa (first character picture above) was sent to a completely different dimension (Tokyo) to recruit. What she got was a silent protagonist and a gaggle of overly fashion-conscious high school students. It has yet to be seen if this makes any difference in the current war effort, but at least they're photogenic.

And finally, there's a lot of sketchy concept art to see, but I got tired from coding all the other image links. If you're interested, you can check that one out for yourself.

Okay, here is a title I'm not quite sure about. It's listed as a simulation RPG in the magazine, but on the internet, it's mentioned several times as action-adventure. Moreover, this game and its predecessor apparently have different production companies -- though in all likelihood, this is just because Gung-Ho Works bought out the original company. In any case, Japandemonium now presents Ecolis II - Island Floating on the Blue Sea.

Set 10 years after the first Ecolis title, this game follows the adventures of Doribou as he works to find the Mountain God's Egg and return his big brother Dorian (hero of the previous game) back to normal. To do so, he'll have to travel the high seas, recruit large numbers of cute, fluffy animals, and eventually take on the voracious Shell-Beast and the wicked Pussycat Pirates. The game's major premise is ecological, so part of what Doribou does regularly is clean up junk or eliminate pollution sources. As he collects usable bits of junk, he can build new Eco-mecha -- cute, monocular robots which have their own strengths and weaknesses.

Ecolis has many of the gameplay characteristics of a real-time strategy game, and resembles Pikmin, at least from what I can see in these scans. Cute little sidekicks are directed with the stylus to attack, defend, pick up trash, or just run around in circles. The floating island of the title is Chisai-jima, which Doribou can customize to his heart's content, changing elevations, buildings, and defences to ward off the pirates. With Chisai-jima, Doribou can travel to the other islands of the Mana Archipelago, and eventually find the Egg. Good luck, little guy.

On the subject of floating islands, there's an all-new, original mobile phone called Fly-Height Cloudia. While not much has been said on the game's story, it seems to involve a generic Empire bent on conquering a sky-borne realm, as well as dead people mysteriously returning to life. Battlewise, it looks a lot like one of the SNES-period Final Fantasy games. Just see for yourself:

Since this isn't available for Yahoo! Softbank phones, I probably won't ever get a chance to play this one. I'm not sure if my phone's up to the challenge, either. Still, there has been precedent for cell-phone games jumping to more accessible platforms. Maybe this one will make the cut.

Last week, Famitsu released the Top 30 sales data for the DS and PSP, for all games released between the first of January and the thirty-first of December, 2008. These are all the RPGs on those two lists:

Position	Title	Publisher	Number Sold	Release Date
DS Releases
1	Pokémon Platinum	Nintendo	2,187,337	9/13/08
3	Dragon Quest V	Square Enix	1,176,082	7/17/08
5	Pokémon Ranger - Shadows of Almia	Nintendo	855,427	3/20/08
9	Chrono Trigger DS	Square Enix	433, 988	11/20/08
14	Fire Emblem DS	Nintendo	252,309	8/7/08
15	Bokura wa Kaseki Horidar	Nintendo	240,176	4/17/08
17	Inazuma Eleven	Level Five	229,011	8/22/08
20	Tales of Hearts (both versions)	Bandai Namco	176,526	12/18/08
22	Mega Man Star Force 3	Capcom	174,426	11/13/08
26	Harvest Moon - Sun and Friends	Marvelous	154,525	2/21/08
27	Etrian Odyssey II	Atlus	145,421	2/21/08
29	Valkyrie Profile - Covenant of the Plume	Square Enix	136,948	11/01/09
PSP
2	Dissidia Final Fantasy	Square Enix	660,262	12/18/08
3	Phantasy Star Portable	Sega	633,954	7/31/08
10	Super Robot Wars A Portable	Bandai Namco	171,475	6/19/08
13	Yuusha no kuse ni namaikida or2	Acquire	146,767	10/16/08
14	Star Ocean 2 - Second Evolution	Square Enix	143,424	4/2/08
19	Valhalla Knights 2	Marvelous	89,004	5/29/08
20	Tales of Rebirth	Bandai Namco	83,016	3/19/08
22	Legend of Heroes - Sora no Kiseki the 3rd	Falcom	77,972	7/24/08
24	Class of Heroes	Acquire	67,774	6/26/08
25	Patapon 2	SCE	62,459	11/27/08
30	Yggdra Union	Sting	45,928	1/24/08

The much-awaited DS installment of the Dragon Quest series, Dragon Quest IX: Defender of the Stars has seen a sudden delay in production, with the previous release date of March 26th pushed back to July 11th. This comes as a big shock to the game store down the road from my school, which has proudly displayed its intention of opening at 7 AM on the 26th for some weeks now.

"Developmental issues" with the software were cited as the source of the delay, but no further details are available.

Tomorrow is the big V-Day, so I've got to run! Any romantic questions for next week's Culture Corner would be welcome.

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

Your man in Japan,

Gaijin Monogatari