Bangai-O Spirits (NDS)
2008 Treasure/D3 Publishers

The Short Version: BOOM BOOM BOOM RATTATATATATATATATA ZWMMM ZWMMM KABOOOM WHOOOOOOSH KABOOOOOM!!

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I just can’t shake this tired, bluesy feeling lately, though it’s mostly the fault of the late summer heat/humidity. It’s like my body saps up excess moisture in buckets and triples my body mass for however long it takes me to reach the next air conditioned building. Needless to say, I’m more of a winter type, but not so much that I’m one of those “Let’s jump in the freezing river!” psychos.

Uh, anyway.

In what could constitute another mini-review/impression bit, I gave in and picked up my own copy of Phantom Brave a couple weeks back, for $15 new. Whee. And, similar to how I latched onto Soul Nomad, I’m finding this other less-sung N1 title to be pretty enjoyable. The time-limited summoning is actually a lot less aggravating than it sounded on paper, as it sort of justifies the bloated casts these games end up with. The way items and confinement work adds a lot of possible dimensions to the play, and while Makai Kingdom expanded on the modified, grid-free engine, the plot was a lot weaker, and combat ended up repetitive and shallow. On the other hand, jetbikes.

Phantom Brave, on the other hand, is a regular puppy kicker of a yarn, featuring a quirky cast and witty script focused entirely on shoveling piles of horrible onto the head of a relentlessly optimistic little girl. Go Japan!

How come nobody went out of their way to tell me how awesome Scott Pilgrim was? I mean… I’m hurt. All this time I was so clueless that I thought Scott Pilgrim was a really popular artist/writer and not the title of the damn books!

Izuna 2: The Unemployed Ninja Returns (NDS)
2008 Atlus/Success/Ninja Studio

The Short Version: Some sequels really earn that ‘2′ next to the name. This would be one of those games, since it has at least twice as much to do in it. Not the most brutal of dungeon crawls, but boldly introduces being kind of actually fun into the genre.

DISCLAIMER: THE NINJA BOOBS IN THE PROMO MATERIAL ARE STILL A LIE.

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ROBOTECH: BATTLECRY (PS2)
Harmony Gold/TDK

The Short Version: Protoculture is a miraculous new energy source that can run a Veritech Fighter a virtually unlimited amount of time. Battlecry, however, runs out of steam early. Still. Robots. Whee.

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