Why, hello. I'm just hear to point out that, this week here in Japan, three gorgeous, triple-A, four-star games are being released. If you value yourself as a gamer, you'll buy all three of them. Two of them are for PlayStation 2 and are released on December 8th, and one of them is for Nintendo DS and was released on the 1st.
 The first one is Rogue Galaxy, developed by Level-5, makers of 2004's insertcredit.com game of the year (or, uh, at least, the one I picked) Dragon Quest VIII. It's a mostly wonderful game, with a big budget, at that. It looks good, sounds good, plays very well, and -- well. I wrote up impressions here (on a thread that has fast disintegrated into bashing/defending Kingdom Hearts), and my . . . twin brother William wrote about it in his column on Next-Gen.biz last week. He does that column every week. Keep checking that website. It's great. Anyway, if these articles convince you, pick up the game here on Play-Asia. I'm not kidding; it's great. It's like a dungeon hack with a lot of personality. It's like Diablo II meets Dragon Quest VIII. It's like -- Skies of Arcadia, in space. I can't help comparing it to so many other things, because, well, it asks for it. The impression I get is, though the words are different, this game is speaking the same language, in the same accent, as the great 16-bit RPGs.
Next is Slime Morimori Dragon Quest, which you can play on your handy, region-free Nintendo DS right now if you're interested. There's not much text at all, and you needn't have played the first one (which is also excellent). I like the sequel far more than the first one. It's essentially a radical take on the tired old Zelda formula (we've been seeing a couple interesting angles on it, lately), only this time focusing on 2D. For the most part, you control your Slime hero, Slalin, as he manuvers a giant duck-shaped tank, loading cannons in little puzzle-like challenges. Watch the top screen for visual cues on how to attack the opposing tank, and eventually load yourself into the cannon and board the enemy vehicle, which functions as a fast-paced Zelda dungeon. There are towns and minigames as well.
And the last one is Ryu ga gotoku, covered a bit in the above-linked Next-Gen.biz article. This is Toshihiro Nagoshi (formerly of Amusement Vision)'s yakuza adventure, written by a Japanese crime novelist, with music that I swear is by Yuzo Koshiro. It's something like Shenmue for adults, and contains cracking dialogue that you'd be well off to learn Japanese from (if you want to talk like a yakuza). The battle system, unlike that of Shenmue, is hard and weighty. You can do really violent special attacks with Quick-Timer Event-like button presses, as long as there's a hard surface to slam someone against. The game is set in Shinjuku's Kabukicho, and you're a dude who just got off a ten-year prison sentence. You were framed for the murder of some old yakuza guy; sometimes, in the crowded streets of The 'Cho, guys notice you, and pick a fight; or maybe you'll bump into a girl, and she'll accuse you of being a pervert, and call some big dude from the sidelines -- probably the cleverest "random battles" in the history of RPGs. In addition, you can download the first in a series of two short films based on the game, directed by Takashi Miike, here. The second one will be available on Tsutaya.com this Friday. I'll be sure to link it. In case you didn't know, Takashi Miike is a director of excessively gory (or just plain excessively nonsensical (or excessively gory and nonsensical)) films about yakuza, zombies, or superheroes, and he is hailed as an artist by maybe three Japanese people and four million "indie" American hipsters and ordinary Europeans. So you know this game means business.
So there you have it! Buy these three games, and you're set for the month of December, without needing to lay a finger on Tales of the Abyss and Kingdom Hearts II. What a piece of garbage WANKING
This has been your impartial game-pushing reporter. Have a gorgeous day. And oh yeah -- we here at insert credit want to be the very first on the block to wish you and yours a Merry Christmas.
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