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Chu Chu Chuuu! Shen Mue - Before The Millenium! The Shen Mue circus continues, with news that the Dreamcast release date in Japan, pushed right back to next Spring, has now been moved all the way forward again to December 29th, 1999. Needless to say, this massive 3-month shift in release date was completely unexpected, but nonetheless welcome.
Looking
at why this change occurred, a number of things are clear. Firstly, Shen
Mue is meant to be a segmentable story - there's already a "Chapter
2" planned that continues the narrative. So, in order to make the
end-of-December release, it's probably safe to presume that some of the
game has been shunted off "Chapter 1" and onto "Chapter
2". Thirdly, and most significantly, a number of the Christmas titles in Japan on other consoles have slipped. This was not a strong Christmas for Playstation in any case, save titles like Koudelka and Parasite Eve 2. But with the major Xmas release, Enix's Dragon Quest VII (3 million pre-orders already!) slipping from late December until February, the lack of major titles meant it was an opportunity Sega couldn't afford to miss. So, somehow, Sega is managing to scramble this title out before 2000, and what's even more impressive are the multiple layers of gameplay that continue to be revealed. For example, in Shen Mue Chapter 1: Yokosuka you can find a stray kitten, take it home, and care for it as a virtual pet, playing with it and feeding it. For many companies, this might be a game in itself! If you couple this with the continued revelations about scope (one of the mazes in the first chapter has 1200 rooms!), Shen Mue is one of the most eagerly awaited titles of all time. But is it going to be genius or flawed genius? I'm afraid I tend toward the flawed genius side, simply because this is a massive leap into more expansive game styles (especially with the new 'QTE' Dragon's Lair-style gameplay sequences), and there's no way it can be right first time. Or is there? We'll find out December 29th. Chrono Cross - The Next Big Thing? Because of the mass of Square products recently announced or released, it's been difficult to know what to focus on. But with the PSX title Chrono Cross, the latest game set in the Chrono Trigger universe, now released in Japan (and almost certain to sell hundreds of thousands in its first week on sale -- we'll find out in the next MGT Report), it seems necessary to focus on this title itself.
Something that's particularly interesting is that the Chrono Trigger Universe is much better known as a distinct universe alongside the Final Fantasy universe in Japan. And since Square's breakthrough to the mass market in the West with FF7, they've only really had a chance to push Final Fantasy as a franchise. But Chrono Cross is almost as beautiful looking as FF8, it's in 3D (very important for the Western market and why Legend Of Mana won't be quite as mainstream!), and it's already critically acclaimed in Japan. Famitsu magazine gave it 36/40, and with their notoriously tight marking, it's clearly a classy product. So will Square use this opportunity to promote Chrono Cross as a whole different universe and franchise? The game is confirmed as coming to the US towards the summer of 2000, and despite some game facets that may be alien to Final Fantasy fans, such as the doing-away of experience points, I'd like to highlight Chrono Cross as the potential jewel of Square's US/European output during the year 2000. But perhaps it'll end up being just a little too culturally different. We'll see. Playstation 2 News There's been a few new announcements about launch and forthcoming PS2 titles out of Japan, so let's take a moment to go through them here. Firstly, no doubt precipitated by the amazing technical demos of pyrotechnics, Sony have elaborated on their Fantavision title which is due out for launch in March 2000. It's a puzzle game where you have to make fireworks along different lines and themes, although it was originally announced as an 'action' title, so there's obviously some crazy joypad action in there too. Anyone remember the old Amiga animation title called "Fantavision," by the way? Also, Idea Factory's Sky Surfer has been unveiled properly for PS2, with screenshots looking absolutely phenomenal, and the idea being pretty hot, too. Yep, you're skydiving and doing tricks on a board at the same time, and there's even training stages where wind machines keep you just off the ground whilst you do tricks. Showing off the ground and clouds realistically as you plummet Earthwards is one of the things that wasn't really possible on other consoles. Whilst being graphically impressive, I do wonder whether the March 4th release-date will force the developers of Sky Surfer (and developers of many other launch titles!) to polish it a little less than they might otherwise do. We'll just see what happens, though - but I expect the best launch titles to be those where the gameplay is already set and it's only really graphical enhancements that make a difference, such as Tekken Tag and Gran Turismo 2000. Finally, Koei have announced that they'll be shipping 3 titles at PS2 launch on March 4th, 2000. One of these is the widely heralded "Kessen" (it'll be interesting to see how the gameplay holds up!), and another appears to be an action title based on the Romance Of The 3 Kingdoms series, a lot more well-known in Japan than here. But nevertheless, all the titles will be very interesting, as they'll all hold hints as to the actual power of the PS2 over time. Other News As was quite widely reported in the Western press, Sega of Japan was raided by the Fair Trade Commission on Thursday 11th November, looking into possible monopolistic practices such as fixed pricing of Dreamcasts and coercion to stop retailers selling used DC software. Needless to say, whatever the outcome, this wasn't the best PR stunt for Sega, and the rescheduling of Shen Mue may have looked even more enticing at that point, simply to take publicity away from the embarassing investigation. Metal Gear: Ghost Babel for the Gameboy Color looks like a must-have title, especially as it's being developed in-house at Konami and Hideo Kojima seem to be actually producing it (unlike, say, the Resident Evil Gameboy conversion, which, although possibly high-quality, is being done continents away from the birthplace of the original game!) It's link-cable compatible (first ever multiplayer "MGS" action?) and there are over 180 stages. Can't wait. Sega's Power Smash, also known as Virtua Tennis, is now getting extensive Japanese previews in its arcade Naomi incarnation, and it looks absolutely phenomenal. Developed in-house in Japan at R+D Dept. 3 (remember, no AM3 now!), it also features licenses from real-life players such as Tim Henman and Jim Courier. With the cartoony Smash Court Tennis series arguably still ruling the roost when it comes to tennis titles, it was about time another style took the playability crown -- but will Power Smash be the game to do it? Look for it on Dreamcast early next year.
At this particular time of the year, pre-Christmas (and with no Thanksgiving holiday to egg gamers on to buy games!), it's fairly quiet in terms of sales in Japan, allowing particularly low-sellers to get near the top of the charts. In this particular case, Sega/Sonic Team's cute and very addictive puzzler, Chu Chu Rocket, debuts at the top of the charts. But with only 35,000 sales, even with a reduced price point and custom controller bundling at the higher end, it has to be said that this isn't the best sell-through (especially considering leading games from other publishers can sell 500,000 or much more in their first week, admittedly on the massively more established Playstation.) However, puzzle games such as Chu Chu Rocket are likely to be steady sellers over a long period of time, and Chu Chu Rocket is a multiplayer game to rival the best on other consoles, such as Super Smash Brothers on the N64, if a bit more cerebral, so... things aren't all bad for Sega. But then, they're hardly rosy either, are they? Going down the charts, Square's PSX re-issue of the classic SNES RPG Chrono Trigger continues to sell steadily, building on the re-issue success of Final Fantasy Anthology, the FFV and FFVI retreads (which are also doing pretty well in the States.) These titles don't ship the amounts of a Resident Evil, but 150,000 for Chrono Trigger over just a couple of weeks, due no doubt in part to the 20 new minutes of anime sequences inserted into the title, is pretty impressive going. Further down the charts, a number of RPGs continue to sell well, including Koei's new Saiyugi. And Vivarium's bizarre Seaman, now restocked after it sold out in a lot of Japanese stores, continues its mini-phenomenon status - like many other virtual pet style games, it's as popular with females in Japan as males. The other interesting titles? The Tenchu player-map-designed add-on disc sneaks stealthily into the bottom half of the chart, and a never-ever-popular-outside-Japan Pachinko Sim also makes it on there... so now you know! Simon Carless is a game designer/project director at a UK games developer. His game credits include design on PC and Playstation titles for (amongst others) Eidos and GT Interactive. He can be contacted at h0l@mono211.com. Simon would like to thank Magic Box, Re:Tokyo, Gamespot, FGNOnline, Core Magazine, and his other Japanese sources for the information that helps to write this column. |
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