Are you interested in working for a game development studio? Can you speak Japanese? Do you have any idea of how to properly write game code? Because I can tell you, that last one's the only thing stopping me from submitting my CV right now. CyberConnect 2 put a big, two-page ad in this week's Famitsu for employees at its Fukuoka home office, as well as the Tokyo and Montreal branches. This includes positions for game and scenario design, programming, concept and technical art, management, and QA.

CC2 has also provided some nice artwork without any sort of context, so either someone was just doodling or they have a Nausicaä RPG in the works.

They say that when you die, your whole life flashes before your eyes. Such is the case with hapless hero Buck Frashbach as he faces the Lord of Darkness while still in the grip of the world's worst case of plot-induced amnesia ever. Unable at first to even recall his own name, he's left absolutely defenseless against His Infernal Majesty. If he, his friends, and the rest of human civilization are to survive, he's going to have to collect all his marbles of memory, and fast. Buck's about to live through The Longest Five Minutes in the World.

That's the actual translation of the title, by the way. Nippon Ichi has decided to gift us with an RPG told entirely in flashback form, as the hero struggles to remember all the events that have led him to this point, all the motivations he has to carry on, and hopefully a few good ideas as to how one slays a demon lord literally hellbent on conquering and/or destroying the world. The five-minute span of the title is the chatty adventure side of the game, where the Dark Lord is charging up for the coup-de-grâce and Buck's allies are desperately trying to help him remember how to fight. Every few seconds, they'll say something that sparks a memory in Buck's head, and the player is whisked away to guide the hero through one of his many past adventures, regaining experience and skill in the process.

Only time spent in front of the Dark Lord counts as part of the five minutes, thankfully. There seem to be a lot of oddball adventures packed into Buck's memory, from fated meetings and magic swords to dull lectures and ghostly sommeliers. Just from the Famitsu article, it sounds a lot like the RPG equivalent of a sitcom clip show.

The Longest Five Minutes in the World is due to be released on PS Vita July 28th.

One of the stranger titles of 2013-2014 was Akiba's Trip, where shadowy forces were converting the fashion-conscious denizens of Akihabara, Tokyo, into super-powered energy vampires, and the hero could only defeat his opponents by forcibly exposing as much of their skin as possible to direct sunlight via the act of stripping all their clothes off. It was certainly something worth mentioning for the concept alone, but it wasn't RPG enough to warrant coverage. The newest game in the series is a different story.

Akiba's Beat doesn't seem to have much in common with Strip, plotwise. The article in Famitsu describes it more generally as taking the DNA of the first game and applying it in new and interesting ways. Thus we get a cross between an action RPG and Persona 3.

The unlikely hero of the hour is Asahi Tachibana, who is a NEET (No Education, Employment, or Training). While nominally he attends a college in Tokyo, most of his time is spent hanging out in Akihabara doing not much at all. So when strange stuff begins to pop up, he at least doesn't have a lot of distracting school or work stuff to get in the way.

His list of allies is similarly stuck in Akihabara subculture tropes. There's Saki, mysterious college freshman and probable love interest, who has somehow partnered up with the bizarre little mascot-thing known as Pinkun. The teenybopper pop idol demographic is covered by Riyu, she of the bunny ears and the magical girl motif. In the "too cool for school" set, there's Yamato the high school sophomore. As for Miké (Mee-kay) the cat-girl... I'm not going there.

The strange force of darkness, whatever its true origin or nature, is overwriting parts of Akihabara's reality, creating dungeons in the process. Asahi et co. have the unenviable task of diving head-first into these strange diversions of reality, rescuing captives and destroying monsters in the process.

Akiba's Beat is being developed for Vita and PS4, and is scheduled for a fall release, presumably as a play on its name. (Aki is the Japanese word for autumn.)

--addendum: While I was dithering over the intro section, XSEED announced that this game is going to be released in the west. Hurray?

In the past, we had a look at Taiko no Tatsujin: Don and Katsu's Excellent Adventure, a 3DS version of the popular beat-rhythm arcade game with a Story Mode and a sort of RPG-lite battle system. Apparently it was popular, because Bandai-Namco is giving the concept another go.

Taiko no Tatsujin: Dokadon! Mystery Adventure follows the travels of Don, the little taiko drum that could, as he travels the world and visits all the mysterious spots it has to offer. Along the way he can recruit from a roster of over a hundred spirits, fairies, and assorted cutie cryptids to fight along to his beat.

There's a decent list of seventy-some new anime, J-pop, and other songs added to this version, along with the usual multi-player options. Taiko no Tatsujin: Dokadon! Mystery Adventure will hit the shelves next week in Japan.

If there's any certainty to be had in the gaming industry, it's that Gust has another Atelier game on the horizon. Unfortunately, the company seems to have abandoned its end-of-June release tradition, so it was only just a week or so ago that we got the first official word of the newest game of the series, Atelier Firis: Alchemist of the Mysterious Journey. If you're wondering how to pronounce her name right, keep in mind that in Japanese Firis and Phyllis are pretty much identical in sound. Anyway, here is Phyllis Firis:

She's a little cutie, isn't she? In fact, I think she might be the shortest principal heroine in an Atelier game to date (mini-Rorona notwithstanding). In a world full of mysteries, Firis has had a sheltered life, growing up in a little town deep underground. That's not the life for her, she's decided, and alchemy seems to be the best way out. So out into the wide world she goes, making her own way as she finds new and interesting things to make. At her side is her big sister Liane, an experienced huntress and guide who's rightfully concerned for Firis's safety out there.

The stated goal of the Gust developers for this title is to provide a game experience that is unique to every player. Whether or not they succeed at that remains to be seen, but the actual flow of the story has a strong "Choose Your Own Adventure" feel to it. Firis is always trying to go forward, but stuff gets in the way. How she chooses to deal with the obstacle has a definite impact. For example, when faced with a impassable river, she could either go back to the nearest town and help build a bridge, or take an alternate route through a dark and probably dangerous cave.

Wherever and however it ends, Firis's journey will take her a long way. She even gets seasonal changes of clothing, which is a rarity in this series. Whatever she wears, she remains a cute little shortstuff, and that's not likely to change. Likewise, item gathering and synthesis remain staples of the series, and Firis somehow has a magic tent that doubles as a fully functional atelier, despite being far too heavy for her to logically carry. And of course there are also monsters that need to be whacked into submission for fun, profit, or ingredients.

Yay, I managed to get this in before E3! There's a bunch of little stuff for after E3 as well, so... No, procrastination will probably win out.

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

Your man in Japan,

Gaijin Monogatari