Review: Dragon Ball Z – Ultimate Tenkaichi (PS3)

Last month’s moon clue was apparently about Castlevania, who knew? Join Aeropause as we try to sift the golden nuggets from the brown ones… and read-a-long!

Issue #230, July 2008
featured games: Castlevania Order of Ecclesia, Dragon Quest IV through VI, Viva Pinata Pocket Paradise, Ninjatown, Rayman Raving Rabbids TV Party, and a whole bunch of EA Sports games.

The ten page feature on Castlevania includes four on the new DS game, and a retrospective of the franchise narrated by producer Koji Igarashi. I personally haven’t played a Castlevania since the Game Boy, so let’s see what jumps out at me to grab the attention of a non-player.

There’s a great quote right off the bat, as Igarashi jokes that Order of Ecclesia features a female main character because their designers “put a lot of effort into designing the skirt animation” for a female character in a previous Castlevania game. We’ll be expecting big things from your draping, Igarashi-san!

The classic Castlevania whip seems to be replaced with a nicely complicated-sounding Glyph weapon system, where you collect and combine magical symbols to create your weapon attacks. Other Glyphs will provide new ways to explore the environment, such as the ability to walk through walls. Those of you wondering how this game will abuse the DS featureset can rest easy… touch controls are only used for menu screens.

Details are a bit vague, but Order of Ecclesia will feature WiFi Connection play, including an online item-trading system.

The retrospective covers the entire history of Castlevania titles, including those from non-Nintendo systems. Apparently it’s been almost twenty years since the Game Boy Castlevanias I enjoyed. Sheesh. The big reveal of this article is Haunted Castle, a 1988 arcade game that managed to be Castlevania without including “Castlevania” in the title. NP describes it as the most difficult game in the franchise.

Nintendo Power is no longer giving short shrift to M-rated games. There’s a page devoted to MadWorld, the darkly violent bloodsport game coming from the former Clover Studio team. NP even ran the screenshot of the enemy with a signpost rammed through his neck, although to be fair, it’s difficult to discern detail in MadWorld’s jumbled black-and-white screens.

I’ve definitely got an eye on MadWorld – I am LOVING No More Heroes right now, which shares some superficial similarities – but I have to request a formal cease to all the Most Dangerous Game rehashes. Manhunt, The Club, now MadWorld. It’s OK to try to develop a plot for your M-rated grossout gorefests, guys, without defaulting back to the moldy old “Running Man” trope. I expect a bit more from the makers of Okami.

And in the back of the magazine, there’s a fond look back at Conker’s Bad Fur Day, of all things! Now there’s a game that needs a Virtual Console release.

Strong Bad’s Cool Game for Attractive People – headed to WiiWare – was recently delayed, but that doesn’t stop Nintendo Power from doing a two-page interview with the guy. A little Homestar Runner goes a long way in my opinion, but Strong Bad (via his creators the Chapman brothers) manages to prove his gaming cred by name-dropping Adventures of Lolo, and mentioning that being on WiiWare means that his game will miss out on “the eight blank pages for Notes in the back of the manual.”

Strong Bad also has no patience for Nintendo Power’s creeping infatuation with poser talk. When asked who would win in a fight, Mr. T or Chuck Norris, he replies that he does not comment “on lame questions, trendy in-jokes and played-out internet gags.” I LOL’ed.

Carnival Games is coming to DS, proving that no Wii minigame collection is above being dimed out as a DS minigame collection. Nintendo Power even refers to it as “the popular Carnival Games series,” which makes me want to cry myself to sleep.

And also, there’s a Rayman Rabbids minigame game coming. Now that we’re all over the ugly little rabbid designs, the only item of note here is that some of the minigames will use the Wii Balance Board.

There’s a brilliant bit of writing in the Dragon Quest article by author Casey Loe. Square Enix is working on DS versions of three Dragon Quest classics… a “trilogy” that fans have come to associate with each other even though there are really separate games. Loe writes:

“Each Dragon Quest title represents a fresh start and a new story, so I don’t see too much of a connection between games in the series,” explains series creator Yuji Horii, inadvertently crapping all over my hook for this article.

I hope you’re enjoying these Read-a-long articles as much as I enjoy finding hidden gems that like one. That’s a spit-take, right there.

Old-school gaming mag readers may recall the name Shawn Smith, a former EGM writer who somehow got into the plush toy business and has now parleyed that into a DS game. Called Ninjatown, the game was under somewhat of a secret curtain when EGM interviewed Smith some months back. Well, I guess I can tell you guys now: it’s a tower defense game.

Which is no bad thing, particularly when the ninjas are this cute.

I’ll close out with a plea for the return of reader artwork, missing since the 2005 redesign. This month’s retrospective article (part of a series covering NP’s 20th anniversary) states that the reader art was pulled because they often did not receive enough art worthy to print, plus they thought it made NP too juvenile. I always liked seeing fan art, particularly when it came from young kids… proof that even elder statesmen like Mario and Kirby could continue to inspire the coming generations. Someday my son is going to draw a lumpy, half-traced Link and I’ll be ultra-proud.

But even though amateur art no longer decorates the letters section, readers still manage to drag the mag down to elementary school level with such insightful comments as “what does Fox McCloud eat,” “my girlfriend gets mad whenever I start talking about Legend of Zelda,” and “do Sonic’s shoes help him run that fast.”

Lightning Round
Virtual Console Staff Picks: River City Ransom (NES), Pokemon Puzzle League (N64)

Top scoring Wii review: LEGO Indiana Jones, 7.5 (all scores out of 10)
Top scoring DS review: Grid, 8.5; Etrian Odyssey II, 8.5
Lowest rated Wii review: Death Jr: Root of Evil, 7.0 (there’s only TWO Wii reviews this issue!)
Lowest rated DS review: Mister Slime, 6.0

Best Jay Leno Anecdote: The soon-to-be-ousted Tonight Show host once called the Nintendo hotline for help on Legend of Zelda.

Worst(?) News for PCs: The Wii release of Sam and Max Season One “features several enhancements over the original PC version, such as an improved interface and a run button.” Hah! A run button! Suck on that, PC owners!

Wrongest URL: NP misprinted an upcoming Spider-Man game’s website as “seize-control.com” when it is actually seizecontrol.com.

Somebody Else Under-Anticipated Nintendo Demand: When NP changed publishers, Nintendo’s always-excellent selection of sign-up/renewal bonuses went bye-bye. Under the new management, subscribers were promised a Phantom Hourglass Strategy Guide. I guess they didn’t print enough of those, because I got a poster book instead… along with an apology letter.

So there’s not even the option to wait while they print up more Phantom Hourglass books? I guess the poster book is OK, if you like your posters with staple holes. It is nice that the book includes artwork from notable third-party games like Okami, The World Ends With You, Trauma Center, and Sonic Chronicles.

Next month in Nintendo Power… the 20 year celebration hits full tilt. Join Aeropause next month for issue #231, where we find out what exactly that means. More Leno stories, perhaps.