Check your UK newstand this month and you’ll find a couple of reviews for Bakushow, the PAL version of ArchimeDS. One was written by me for gamesTM and scored a 7/10 and the other was done by a good friend of mine for N.Revolution and scored an 8.

I know what you’re thinking. How could I score a game I love so much just 7/10? Well there are a number of reasons. One was that Bakushow is technically inferior to ArchimeDS as you’ll read in the review, the other is that I have to look at games from a slightly different perspective when writing for gamesTM.

It’s funny though. As I said to some of my colleagues when writing the review, ArchimeDS is one of those games that’s almost impossible to score as it relies so much on the input of the players. Just take a look at the Metacritic page for US release LOL. It’s scoring anywhere in the range between 1 and 10 and the funny thing is that I can’t bring myself to disagree with any of the reviews. More so than any other game before it, I think ArchimeDS is one that can provoke all kinds of responses: no one more ‘correct’ than the other. Apart from the one you’ll find on this blog, of course.

Whatever the reviews say, however. I reckon that ArchimeDS/LOL/Bakushow/whatever is a game that’s so unique, such a brave concept, that you should at least give it a try and then decide for yourself.

Some extremely nice person on YouTube has taken the time to upload and subtitle the first two Captain Rainbow trailers that are currently available on the Japanese Nintendo Channel.

And I’m glad he did as they reveal so much about the story as well as the situation with the Nintendo cameos. The appearance of Little Mac from Punch-Out!!, now overweight, is pretty funny. Oh and see if you can spot the robot from Giftpia in the 2nd vid.

The way the trailers are worded, there may be more of these videos as the weeks go by. If so, I’ll update this page with more trailers as they’re uploaded to YouTube.

EDIT: It seems that the subtitles only work when you’re on the actual YouTube website and not on the embedded videos. I’ll keep the latter here on the page but if you want to see the subs then click here to see the first vid and follow the prompts for the 2nd after the 1st finishes.

I finally finished Lack Of Love this weekend after neglecting the game for some time. What can I say? The ending’s great and truly felt like the climax of an emotional journey. If I get a chance next week, I’ll do it again and record the conclusion for YouTube.

After finishing the whole thing I got to thinking how much Ryuichi Sakamoto’s score really helps convey the emotion of the story and gameworld. Then I got to thinking that I might buy the soundtrack that was released alongside the game. Easier said than done. Though it was released on CD just 8 years ago I’ve found the L.O.L soundtrack quite hard to track down. The only place I saw it had an asking price of $99, which is a bit too rich for my blood.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that you can buy the whole thing on iTunes, however, for under a tenner. I prefer physical products, but if I don’t find a cheap CD soon then I may have to go for the digital version. I’m quite eager to see how the music holds up out of context.

The whole world seems to think that E3 2008 was a total wash out. WRONG! It was amazing…. Because 5 new screens of Little King’s Story were released. Check them out below.

Also, there was another game at E3 that was almost the literal opposite of a ‘little king’. I’m talking about Fat Princess, of course. It has nothing to do with Lovedelic (as far as I know) but I think it looks cool anyway.

Nintendo has announced a new Wii game, a week ahead of E3, and if “The Internet” is to be believed it is to be developed by skip. I’ve seen no official confirmation of that but having watched the video, all the signs are there. The animation, the sound effects, the very concept of the game - everything fits into the skip style. But why read my ramblings when you can watch the video for yourself? Here it is.

And if that wasn’t enough here’s a scan from Famitsu showing a few screenshots. And if the image at the top of this post looks like Birdo (of Super Mario Bros 2) then that’s because it is. The island in the game apparently features loads of ‘washed up” Nintendo mascots. Genius. I wonder if Chibi-Robo’s lost on the island too.

Oh and I’ve emailed skip to see if they really are behind Captain Rainbow but haven’t had a reply yet. Even if they’re not though, I reckon I’ll still love it. It looks brill.

UPDATE: I asked skip if they actually were behind Captain Rainbow and received a ‘no comment’. My thinking is that if they weren’t the developers then they would have just said ‘no’ outright. So it’s probably them. Probably.

IGN has a lovely update on Little King’s Story, featuring loads of news screenshots, sketches and gameplay info.

The more I see of this game, the more it seems like one of the most ‘lovedelic’ style games since the first Chibi-Robo. It seems to have heart, humour and originality in equal measure. And it’s coming out in English! Good times.

Every gaming publication in the world will report on this one but few of them will have the impotant details.

What am I talking about and why is Square-Enix’s remake relevant to this blog? It’s because Chrono Trigger was the first game that Kenichi Nishi worked on, alongside Keita Etoh, before moving on to Lovedelic. Both designers were responsible for the ‘Field Planning’. And though I have no idea what that actually means, I’d wager that Chrono Trigger has the best field planning ever seen in any game.

As a citizen of the overlooked continent of Europe I’ve never had the opportunity to play a legitimate version of Chrono Trigger so I’m quite looking forward to the DS remake. I’ll therefore be watching this website with much interest.

While we all had our eyes firmly glued on Route24, the sneaky guys at Audio Inc quietly released their own new game just a couple of weeks ago.

The game is called “Majin Tantei Nougame Neuro: Neuro to Miko no Bishoku Sanmai“. And while I have no idea what that means I do know that it’s based on an anime and is a Phoenix Wright style detective game with elements of comedy and supernatural drama. It also seems to be completely incomprehensible to anyone other than the Japanese. Which is a shame really. One of the defining qualities of the very best Lovedelic games is that they can be played and understood by anyone, no matter what language they speak. Audio’s games, however, don’t seem to fit this trend.

Maybe I should stop covering their work… What do you think?

Kenichi Nishi emailed this morning to ask if I would ‘advertise’ his new game, Newtonica. Of course I will, Ken!

Nishi has revealed very little about the game other than the fact that it will be exclusive to the iPhone and will utilise minimal graphics and sound. While Nishi has planned and designed the whole concept himself, the actual game appears to have been made in collaboration with Field System, who happen to be run by Hiroshi Suzuki, the director of skip Ltd.

With so few details around we’re going to have to wait until July 11th, when it’s likely that the first screenshots will be unveiled. Until then, let’s speculate away… With the game being on an Apple handheld it’s easy to suggest that it may be some sort of music game, perhaps making use of the player’s own playlist. But what of that name? The word ‘Newtonica’ suggests that it may have something to do with the work of Sir Isaac Newton. A gravity game perhaps? Maybe, but then ArchimeDS didn’t really have anything to do with Archimedes as far as I’m aware.

Looking back at Nishi’s previous games at Route24, skip and Lovedelic, they all share the theme of communication is some way or another. So perhaps Newtonica will continue this theme, maybe even using the telephone abilities of the handheld in some way. Again, maybe. But maybe it’ll just be a music game after all.

This is all academic of course, as I’ll probably never get to play the damn game. I don’t own an iPhone, can’t afford an iPhone and probably wouldn’t know how to use one anyway. I’ve owned some kind of mobile phone for the past 7 years now and have never been able to work out how to download games.

Oh well. If you are interested, keep an eye on the official website and look out for more info coming soon.