slateblog

Before my PS3 died (twice) I had two PSN accounts. I would peruse the Japanese store every few weeks, downloading demos and seeing what was new. However, I can’t recall the login and haven’t checked the store in a while. This weekend I signed up for another Japanese account and had a peek at the store’s new layout this morning. There are some great classic games that aren’t available in the U.S. that I’m considering picking up.

PS1 and PC Engine classics cost 600¥, that seems reasonable! As of today, 600¥ translates to just under $6.50 US. Nice! However, I don’t know if it’s possible to use a U.S. credit card on a Japanese account. Over at Play Asia, you can get a 1,000¥ card for $17. That’s…not so reasonable. 1,000¥ wouldn’t do me much good, I’d need 2,000¥ (three classic games w/ 200¥ to spare) but those two PSN cards would cost me $35. Certainly not worth it. I may not dive in and get anything, but I thought I’d talk about what’s good on the Japanese PSN Store that isn’t yet on the U.S. store!

Playstation 2
I’m starting with the PS2 because none are really great. All cost 1,200¥ (~$13) but since the originals are region locked (are these?) even if you owned the titles, you couldn’t play them on the PS3. The games I looked at:

• Capcom Fighting Jam
• Capcom Vs SNK 2: Millionaire Fighting 2001
• Castlevania
• Neo Contra

Now, Capcom Fighting Evolution was the U.S. title and the game was just plain bad. That was a bad time for Capcom and it was before the company really started listening to fans.

CVS2 is widely regarded as a good title, but since I never liked SNK, I only played it for a short while. And I never chose SNK characters!!!

Castlevania was subtitled Lament Of Innocence here and it’s a title I never beat. The dungeons were so repetitive and devoid of character. Its sequel appeared to remedy some of these things…but I never beat that one either.

Finally, Neo Contra was the second Contra on the PS2 and while it was not anything like Shattered Soldier in layout or difficulty, I had fun playing it! I even wrote a mini FAQ on it. Is that worth $13? Nah…

Playstation 1
The PS1 had an impressive library of games and as the years pass, the games look worse and worse. However, a few titles piqued my interest, and for 600¥ each, they’re manageable downloads. There were two titles I didn’t expect to see, and all games were shooters. Let’s see.

DonPachi & DoDonPachi
I am a big DDP fan (evidence #1 / #2 / #3 / #4 / #5) While these are just the PS1 ports, they’re DDP on an American PS3! I can probably skip DonPachi. However, until DDP3 came out, DoDonPachi was my favorite shmup ever. The game is just incredible and this title trumps part 3 with its metal soundtrack.
Worth a few bucks? Absolutely. I’d pick this up in an instant.

But that’s not all…the Japanese store also has ThunderForce V, the two Ray Crisis titles and Einhander. The latter now fetches a ton of money in its original packaging and I regret selling it all those years back to fund a new PS1. I don’t know why it’s not available on the U.S. store, but I remember it being such a solid title, with different paths, awesome weapons and a pretty cool soundtrack.
And to think, everyone doubted Square could put out a good shooter!!!

PC Engine
My friend Dan got a TurboGrafx-16 way back in 1990ish and we all know nostalgia is a very powerful thing. Of course, I’ve gone back to play a lot of these games since, but without the hardware (and Japanese hardware at that!) there are many games I missed out on. And I much prefer the living room experience over
the PC/emulator one as the former is much more comfortable.

The Japanese store has all three PC Engine Ys titles. Ys Books I & II, Ys III: Wanders From Ys and Ys IV: The Dawn Of Ys. Sadly, none are viable purchase options as my Japanese is weaker than ever. Fortunately, I have Ys Chronicle and Ys: The Oath In Felghana on the PSP (Vita) and those cover I-III and Ys: Memories Of Celceta, the remake of part 4, will be coming to western shores this autumn. While I love Ys, I don’t need these titles.

Shooters were still the rage back in the early 90s and there are a number of good titles available. Blazing Lazers, Super Star Soldier and the Turbo Duo title Gate Of Thunder are all there. For 600¥, that’s pretty good. Again, I’ve already gone back to these titles in recent (~10 yrs now) years.

However, there was one title in particular I searched for. I’d easily drop the yen on this one. Devil Crash! As a kid I’d play the US title, Devil’s Crush and have great memories. Even going back to this a decade ago (thus the FAQ and the site) has a special place in my heart.

I’d go back to this game in an instant. The three levels, numerous little secrets (I still don’t know how to get the red ball), high score chasing…it’s just awesome. It’s one of the things I don’t like about this generation. With online leaderboards all the rage, we lose out on local high scores. I love the top-10 lists. Nowadays, games often just keep your best score which destroys local competition and doesn’t even allow me to chart my progress.

In any event, the tame is awesome and I would love to go back and play through it again. It’s only a couple of bucks. Worth it???

So…all in all…with 2,000¥ I think I’d have to pick up Einhander, DoDonPachi and Devil Crash. These three would be worthy entries into my PS3 collection and none require heavy translation. Alas, none are really necessary, so I may just avoid them all and save a few bucks for the impending release of the PS4. Oh, and that had BETTER have full PSN implementation. The new system won’t be backwards compatible, I’m almost certain, but I’d love to have PSN game purchases available. That would be awfully nice.