Tales of Phantasia (GBA)
2006 Namco

In a nutshell: If you’ve played any other Tales game, just give this one a try. And if you haven’t, still give it a try. Depending on your tastes, though, you might want to go with the DeJap fan translation… Read the rest of this entry »

As the return of the comic and my number one time sink nears, it’s pretty clear I will need help getting the game/demo together. As such, I’d like to see about putting together a crack team of people with nothing better to do. There’s not money involved, just some more technical minded folks than me, preferably those who like to play/work on SHMUP-style games who can help tweak things, or some people who wouldn’t mind helping with some of the enemy sprites/NPC’s, so on.

Of course, there’ll be a need for play testers, eventually. I’ll update the project page soon with some more details on hopeful features.

All of this ‘new old school’ junk like Diebuster and Tengen Toppa Gurren-Lagann have actually made me go back and check out the real old stuff, most of which is thankfully discounted these days. The entirety of Giant Robo, for example, can be had for eighteen bucks- six glorious episodes of dark, retro-style science fiction that plays out like a comprehensible version of Big O, in a way. Not to mention it coming with the Ginrei Special that refreshingly spoofs itself.

Then there’s the Gunbuster re-release. Nuff said?