Ramblings of a Crowe

Import Gaming

J wrote a great blog yesterday about video game representation in the US vs JapanHERE.

Honest, I agree with him, a sad truth I've resigned myself to. Sports games and first person shooters are popular here in the US. So are action adventure games that INVOLVE the military or car racing games. I find all these particularly boring. Especially sports game (except video golf. I LOVE videogame golf, but I can't stand the real thing.)

I'm mainly an RPG'er. I love them. I can't get enough of them. However, I've also come to enjoy action adventure games (that don't involve the military). I suppose some examples of the games genres I enjoy would be things like Final Fantasy, Xenosaga, Tales of Symphonia, Star Ocean, Dark Cloud, Devil May Cry, Chaos Legion, 7 Samurai, Spyro, Crash Banadacoot, Kingdom Hearts , Harvest Moon, etc...Those are some of my favorite games and series. I'm starting to get a bit more interested in horror games though....but I'm still pretty chicken. I'm thinking of getting my hands on Resident Evil 4. It looks really good.

Anyway, J and I have talked about this quite a bit. Discussing games that bomb here in the US but do well in Japan. Or even those that get an intitial release here, but then we never see the sequals again...J and I have discussed differences in the Animal Crossing releases, and he sums up the Xenosaga situation quite nicely. I doubt Xenosaga will finish it's story on US soil, despite the fact that it is indeed, an amazing game (which rivals any Final Fantasy I've seen so far).

I don't forsee anything changing much among American gamers. Rpg fans will remain the minority (though it's grown somewhat), while the rest of the game world enjoys shooting up various militaries, playing the sports they can watch on TV, or racing around town in stolen cars....Hence, I've been thinking a bit...to solve my troubles, I've been thinking of turning to a mod-chip or perhaps a slide card...though I will admit, I haven't done much research yet on these things, and am not exactly sure how they work or what they do. I'm in no hurry, but importing games would be fun...and though I'm not fluent in Japanese, I'm fairly certain I can understand enough to know what's going on (especially if there are subtitles, since I read Japanese better that I hear it). Cost is a concern, but maybe it would be better to have two PS2's if you plan on importing? Are these "pre-modded" consoles legit? Is it better to do it yourself? There's no way I'd drop 400 bucks on something that "might" work. *laughs*

I'm in no hurry. It's not that big of a deal to me, but something I might consider in the near future, once I find some decent information.

Well, I'm off to play Star Ocean! It's a great game so far, once you figure out the battle system...*laughs*

(Oh, Jay, I made a mistake, Baten Kaitos comes out in November here in the US. We'll see how it does then, but it is a cardgame, turn based RPG, and I'm skeptical how that will fly. This has perked my interest even more, since I've never played a cardgame RPG before...not to mention the Graphics are amazing...(Watch out Square, Namco is on a roll of late). .)

Posted by Zoso at September 2, 2004 10:13 AM