Retro Game Challenge was my major purchase for the month; it is by far the best game that I have played this year. I tried to play through my friends copy of the Japanese game but soon gave up on Star Prince as figuring out the exact nature of every challenge was beyond my Japanese ability. Could I have translated it or looked it up online? Sure, but why do that when I can just play Dragon Quest IV and enjoy its cute and quirky localization instead?
Since I have already played a large portion of the game, playing a few of the challenges I felt like I was just going through the motions to get to where I had been in the Japanese version. The localization has been the real star for me so far. The game is perhaps the best ode to EGM that I have seen yet; the GameFan magazine in the game is a really interesting amalgamated sense of the gaming magazine scene in general. I'm half sure they used Dan "Shoe" Hsu's photo likeness with the ubiquitously name "Dan Sock." I am also really enjoying the nostalgic feeling that I get playing the game in English. Little Arino does remind me of a lot of the friends I had when I was playing through NES games. How big secrets and rumors were, how cool you felt when you showed your friend the Konomi code or trying to convince your friend how cool your Power Glove was (Note: It wasn't). The English translation was able to really take me back and get that same feeling, that same excitement that I got out of playing games in that era, something that wasn't able to click in the Japanese version for me. Xseed did an amazing job and I know I'll be singing their praises for quite sometime.
Also, this is a nice respite from the avalanche of RPG content that is collapsing on the game industry in the next 3 months. I really should boycott some of these titles for a little while so I can get some more variety in my life, maybe play a shooter like Star Prince or an action game like Haggleman, but we shall see. I have a way of playing lame rpgs before much better games from other genres, a character trait that I need to work on. Oh well, now I have Guardia Quest in front of me, yet another old school style jrpg to take up too much of my time. Now, excuse me while I play some DQIV, still got a few hours till I beat that one and I need to get ready for DQV. NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! I'm addicted! Hook the Dragon Quest style gameplay to my veins.
Any who, is anyone else playing this game right now, or am I just jerking off to this game by myself when I should be on a date for Valentines day? C'mon, a little old school gaming can't hurt ya.
Dan Sock and Dan Hsu have nothing in common, one is pure good and one is pure evil, which is which? The World is still waiting to find out!
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