It's Japan Time Time! (Week #21)
Welp, everyone, it's been a pretty eventful week. Some very good news, some very bad news. It's been an emotional rollercoaster ride! But rest assured that, through good times and bad times, Japan Time Time will always be by your side.
All right, Toad. Spill the gory details. I can take it.
Well, I've run the calculations through the computer, and the result is always the same. Japan Time Time is... in dire financial straits.
Dire? How is an amateur humoristic review column supposed to spend money, anyway?
There are several factors involve. First, you have to remember that this is a nonprofit effort. And for some reason that was never adequately explained, we're based in an extravagant 60-story building in the middle of the big city. Most of our personel does nothing but clean up the place.
...Huh-uh. Go on.
And then you have the Nerd from the First Zelda Commercial's death. You might not know that, but he did a whole bunch of things around here. We've passed on some of his tasks to you since you killed him and all, but we've had to hire a lot of Pokémon cheap labor just to keep the place running.
That would explain why it seems only three people in this building can speak normally.
Monferno monferno!
i am serious pkmn & this is a serious building
PHOOOOOENIX WRIGHT!
We're looking into getting more actual people hired, but with our current financial situation, you might have to wait.
Ugh... This better be quick. I'm not sure I can take it much longer. If this keeps up, I might become the main character of those weird story sequences, and... that's just not my thing.
Like I said... ...Wait. I think I've got an idea. I've got a friend who might be interested in sponsoring us, but we'll need to run some commercials during the column.
Commercials? ...I'm not sure I like where this is headed.
WEEK #21: October 9th to 12th, 2007
Day 100: Entry 118: Zero Suit Samus: Special Moves
Bzzzzzzzzzzt! I can’t get enough of this.
Hm, looks like Nintendo wasn't paying attention to he day count after all! Or maybe I'm somehow off and two days ahead of them, or something, and they did drop their megaton bomb on the right day. Now... um...
...
...
...Acceptably sexy Samus...
Right. Now that this is out of the way, on to the slightly less good stuff!
Zero Suit Samus' moveset isn't really worth screaming about. She's got this gimmick going on where she has a gun that turns into a plasma whip somehow, and it seems that all of her moves rely on that. This all reminds me of the eternal question of wether or not it was a good idea to include Zero Suit Samus in the first place, since it's not like she does anything really interesting in-game. I can understand that having "one more" Metroid character is a much better option than, say, playable Lucario, but still...
...this just in! My Y chromosome has just called me a "freaking pansy", to paraphrase. This is a family blog, after all!... And now it said something I just can't repeat at all! Sheesh!
TODAY'S RATING: 1 Smash Icon out of 5!
COMMERCIAL BREAK!
Day 101: Entry 119: Kirby: Final Smash
Day 101: Entry 120: WarioWare: Ashley’s Theme
The "+1" simply stands for the subtle differences between American and British English.
Firstly, we have Kirby's Final Smash. We've known about that since way back in the days of the first trailer, and the update contains no real surprise at all to people who watched it and knew how the power's supposed to work in-game. Personally, I think Mike, another screen-clearing power, might've been more fun, but oh well. Oddly enough, it seems the Japanese version of the blog got a song to go along with this update. Since it's got vocals, they were the only ones to get it. Odd. All I know is that it's from one of the DS games I never played! Whee!
I'll go ahead and link to them both.
(Kirby's scary song thing.)
Speaking of songs I've never heard with japanese vocals, it's... Ashley's theme, from Wario Ware Touched! Okay, now that was incredibly random. I think that was the only excuse they could think of to put a song in the game featuring vocals by what sounds like a seven year old girl. At least it does in the japanese version, because the english singer (from the people at the Treehouse, whatever that is) sounds like she not only went through puberty several times already, but also kicked puberty's butt, then ran away and never looked back.
I find it amusing that they went through the trouble of linking to the alternate version on both versions of the blog (both versions that MATTER!). I mean, it's like they could tell that the average japanese fan would go "OOOOOH, american version! I must listen because english is cool!" while american fans did the exact opposite. I can picture it, now. When the game comes out, the english-speaking fans will turn the japanese voices on because "they sound way better", and vice versa for the tiny island nations east of here. I call this the "retarded fan demographic reverse moonspeak theorem". I should write some kind of thesis on that, because I think I'm on to something here.
Now, to sound like a complete hypocrite, I think the japanese version sounds so incredibly, ridiculously adorable. That's it, I'm turning japanese on just for that.
TODAY'S RATING: 4 Smash Icons out of 5!
COMMERCIAL BREAK!
Day 102: Entry 121: Sonic
Day 102: Entry 122: Sonic the Hedgehog Joins the Brawl!
Day 102: Entry 123: Nintendo Conference Fall 2007 Movie
The one whose Smash appearance has been most desired dashes in from far away at supersonic speed.
Hey, you know who we haven't seen in a while? That's right, those guys.
SOOOOONIC!
I don't know what exactly Nintendo did a press conference for and why I wasn't informed prior, but it certainly beats an hour of gushing about huge sales increases, giving a game a release date and then announcing a fitness game as the greatest thing ever. Grumblegrumble. Stupid E3. Ironically (unfortunately? appropriately?) enough, those very guys in the picture above must not have been very impressed by the press conference I'm tangenting about. But I digress. We have just looked at the GREATEST UPDATE EVER.
There isn't a whole lot to be said about Sonic, actually. He's easily the third party character the most fans were clamoring for, and the only question, at this point, was wether or not Sega would decide to be mean and withhold the license to the character for some insane reason. Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games helped prove that they probably wouldn't, but it also brought a new argument for the naysayers. According to pretty much all announcements, M&S would be the first time the two characters appeared in the same game, meaning that they couldn't appear in Smash together or else the announcement would lie, and Nintendo should know that stuff to begin with. It's a little insane that they'd do something like that just to justify a line from an announcement about what seems to be a pretty crappy game overall, but that didn't stop the seeds of doubt from being sown. However, minimal research revealed that, even without the delay, M&S would be released before Brawl to begin with. This further goes to prove that you should never listen to what anyone on GameFAQs ever says. Sheesh.
Now, while the videos are awesome in their own right, I won't talk about those too much, at least not now. There are a lot of tiny points to adress here and there, most of which will probably get their own update in their own time anyway, so I may or may not do a Bonus Feature entry about them in the future.
But before we leave this update, I must first show you the latest developments in my crazy icon filename conspiracy theory. If you still believe this crazy old man after all this time, don your tinfoil hat and read on!
First, take a look at this chart.
I've already explained my theory before, but I think the picture here clarifies it. Plus, there have been one or two icons added since, I believe! For those of you who just joined in or weren't paying attention to my previous entries' insane ramblings, this is sorted by the numbering given to the world icons' filenames on the blog. So, all right.
01: That's the Smash icon! Nothing to see here.
02-11: Those are the worlds featured in the N64 SSB game! All of them are there and accounted for.
12-14: Those are the worlds introduced in Melee. Yup, there were only exactly three of them. Makes Brawl look just that much more epic by comparison, huh? The red X is because there is no world icon of that number by now, but if my theory is sound, we should be seeing Mr. Game and Watch's symbol, whatever it was, here.
15-20(+?): Those are the worlds introduced in Brawl! 6 slots so far, twice what Melee had. I originally thought they wouldn't mix up first and third party icons, but it seems I've been proven wrong, since Pit's bow comes asfter Snake's FOX symbol. Sonic has been added as numero 20, meaning that there is still at least one brand-new world to introduce! Hopefully we'll be seeing worlds 21, 22, 23 and whatnot, but it's good to know that at least we're certain they're not stopping there. It would be nice if they rounded up the amount of third party characters by adding a third one, wouldn't it?
Now, time to give this triple entry its rating. It features THE announcement everyone was waiting for, plus a video showing Sonic in action along with a song I really like and a glimpse at his (predictable but cool) final smash, plus a pretty badass video that didn't add much new but at least looked cooler than the Tokyo Game Show one. I was ready to give this entry a SIX! That's right, I really wanted to break the scoring system just for this! But... they had to be all evil and sneaky and give us something to angst over on what should have been the happiest day of our lives. As I reported earlier, the game had been delayed. But since that wasn't technically part of the update, and the news got an official entry to cry over two days later, I'll only be removing one icon, reducing this entry's score to five.
Phew. At least we're back in a world where the laws of physics hold true.
TODAY'S RATING: FIVE Sonic Faces out of 5!
Oh, and my brother was right. Showing me the entry WAS something worth waking me up for. (The criteria being that it be more awesome than Sonic...Boom!'s Final Smash. It was.)
COMMERCIAL BREAK!
Day 103: Entry 124: Sonic: Special Moves
KEEEEEEEEEE!
Well, it's Sonic. No one was exactly expecting anything super-elaborate in the moves department, I'm pretty sure. In case anyone is wondering why I'm basically giving him a free pass while I frowned at Zero Suit Samus' originality, it's okay. It's just because I have sexist double standarts.
Now, there isn't a whole lot more to say about his moves. I know, I said there wasn't a lot to say about Sonic right above, then I went on a huge rant, but I mean it, this time! But there IS one thing that bothers me. Why the spring jump? That's pretty weird. Sonic isn't exactly the first video game character ever to have those. Mario had his trampolines too (except they were admittedly not featured as much). Plus, it's not like he's ever manifested the ability to make them appear out of thin air. Why not use, say, the homing attack to go up? It doesn't quite work that way, but this is smash. They take artistic liberties. Or, dunno, he could always chaos control himself up. Just because Shadow does it all the time and he won't doesn't mean he can't! Unless they wanted to include Shadow as a secret character, in which case allow me to cry a little.
Okay, I'm really done now.
TODAY'S RATING: 2 Smash Icons out of 5!
COMMERCIAL BREAK!
Day 104: Entry 125: New Launch and E for All
Day 104: Entry 126: Taking Snapshots
Today I have some good news and some bad news.
Ah, good news and bad news. But first, I'll get out of the way the irrelevant snapshots thing!
So, yay! The snapshots have stopped sucking! Finally, we have a reason to bother with trying to set up those elaborate funny screenshots, as seen in the "Congratulations" screens in Melee! E-peen, of course! If it turns out we can upload them to the Internet somehow, then I would be a very happy camper. If for some insane reason Japan Time Time is still ongoing after the game's been released, then I'll have the material required to make illustrations that aren't crappy MS Paints! Yay! Now I just need one of those "SD Card" things. Why are they super-deformed anyway?
Now, on to the main news. First, the delay, which I also helpfully reported yesterday. I've gotta say, I'm pretty disappointed. But I'm not gonna start pointing fingers, because that's a pretty massive job they had to do there, and I'm betting that the fact we had a release date to begin with back then was just because they had to show SOMETHING at E3, for lack of a playable demo or any worthwhile video or news at all. Better to give good news, retract them later and apologize than to give none at all, I guess.
But I'm not going to start going "Eh, it's not SO bad" either, because as you might have noticed by now, I'm emotionally invested into this game to a disturbing degree. Some see the bright side of things, saying that longer 'till the game's release means more Japan Time (and therefore more Japan Time Time, I might add!), but well. I'm not sure, do they still have four months' worth of interesting update material? Or are we going to see, as![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif)
ryuuzoku_aya put it, "ALL WEEK OF NOTHING BUT POKÉMON"? Maybe they'll switch to a M-W-F schedule instead, or something. But whatever happens, as I said, Japan Time Time will be there to bring you on-the-spot news, right to your doormat!
As for the "good news" that come after that, um. I don't know about you, but for me, that's not really good news. "Other people will be able to PLAY AS SONIC in exactly one week but NOT YOU" is not what I call good news. I heard some game sites got to play a demo already, and I'm steering clear of articles detailing those adventures for now, because hey, the last thing I need is more "eh, knew that already" mornings. So yes, while people have fun at E for All getting to play five minutes of the games I'm wetting my pants over, I'll be over here, preparing a Philosophy oral presentation. Bah.
...But wait. I've just had an idea. Right now, I'm totally broke, and thus can't afford plane tickets, lodging, food and a lookalike stand-in for the oral presentation. BUT! What if you and I, faithful Japan Time Time readers, put our resources together? The plan: In one week, raise enough funds to fly me to Los Angeles, where I will proceed to fight my way through the entrance of the convention hall (I might not have to fight for my life if YOU donate enough, though, improving your experience in the process!). Once in, I will wait in line for like seventeen hours to play three minutes of Smash against three strangers who, respectively, wants me to teach him how to play, keeps kicking my ass and refuses to refer to Samus as anything besides "the orange robot". After this, I will proceed to write out an account of my nirvana-like experience so intense, so vivid, that YOU, who helped me reach my unattainable goal, will feel just like you were there, playing in my place, feeling my pure, boiling, hatred as I sit in class, shaking my fist in the window's direction, not particularly caring if Los Angeles is even that way to begin with.
So, what are you waiting for?! Get that checkbook ready and CALL NOW!
Our telephonists are standing by! Donate generously!
(Damn it! He's hired telephonists!)
(Seventy-eight of them, to be precise. I'm not sure wether I should cry or curl up into foetal position and then cry.)
Just because I sound so cheerful doesn't mean the update isn't terrible news, though. At least Sakurai apologized, though! Of course, he apologizes over everything, but hey.
TODAY'S RATING: 1 Smash Icon out of 5!
1ST PLACE WINNER: Samus' special moves! Ahem. SONIC! If you were expecting anything else, may I remind you that it is technically legal for me to beat you within an inch of your life with a freaking two by four?
LAST PLACE LOSER: The delay announcement. It's like a small part of my soul was ripped out, only to be returned in around four months! Man, I wonder what it feels like not to have my emotional wellbeing affected by video game release dates.
With SUPER GREAT and SUPER BAD news mixed in with some pretty average entries, this score is rather unsurprising, isn't it?
THIS WEEK'S OVERALL RATING: 3 Smash Icons out of 5!
All right, that's a wrap. Get those credits rolling quick before he hires someone else on an insane money-making scheme!
I hope we're getting paid for those too.
Wait, what did they just call me?
Aw, poop. Missed midnight by like fifteen minutes.
All right, Toad. Spill the gory details. I can take it.
Well, I've run the calculations through the computer, and the result is always the same. Japan Time Time is... in dire financial straits.
Dire? How is an amateur humoristic review column supposed to spend money, anyway?
There are several factors involve. First, you have to remember that this is a nonprofit effort. And for some reason that was never adequately explained, we're based in an extravagant 60-story building in the middle of the big city. Most of our personel does nothing but clean up the place.
...Huh-uh. Go on.
And then you have the Nerd from the First Zelda Commercial's death. You might not know that, but he did a whole bunch of things around here. We've passed on some of his tasks to you since you killed him and all, but we've had to hire a lot of Pokémon cheap labor just to keep the place running.
That would explain why it seems only three people in this building can speak normally.
Monferno monferno!
i am serious pkmn & this is a serious building
PHOOOOOENIX WRIGHT!
We're looking into getting more actual people hired, but with our current financial situation, you might have to wait.
Ugh... This better be quick. I'm not sure I can take it much longer. If this keeps up, I might become the main character of those weird story sequences, and... that's just not my thing.
Like I said... ...Wait. I think I've got an idea. I've got a friend who might be interested in sponsoring us, but we'll need to run some commercials during the column.
Commercials? ...I'm not sure I like where this is headed.
WEEK #21: October 9th to 12th, 2007
Day 100: Entry 118: Zero Suit Samus: Special Moves
Bzzzzzzzzzzt! I can’t get enough of this.
Hm, looks like Nintendo wasn't paying attention to he day count after all! Or maybe I'm somehow off and two days ahead of them, or something, and they did drop their megaton bomb on the right day. Now... um...
...
...
...Acceptably sexy Samus...
Right. Now that this is out of the way, on to the slightly less good stuff!
Zero Suit Samus' moveset isn't really worth screaming about. She's got this gimmick going on where she has a gun that turns into a plasma whip somehow, and it seems that all of her moves rely on that. This all reminds me of the eternal question of wether or not it was a good idea to include Zero Suit Samus in the first place, since it's not like she does anything really interesting in-game. I can understand that having "one more" Metroid character is a much better option than, say, playable Lucario, but still...
...this just in! My Y chromosome has just called me a "freaking pansy", to paraphrase. This is a family blog, after all!... And now it said something I just can't repeat at all! Sheesh!
TODAY'S RATING: 1 Smash Icon out of 5!
COMMERCIAL BREAK!
Day 101: Entry 119: Kirby: Final Smash
Day 101: Entry 120: WarioWare: Ashley’s Theme
The "+1" simply stands for the subtle differences between American and British English.
Firstly, we have Kirby's Final Smash. We've known about that since way back in the days of the first trailer, and the update contains no real surprise at all to people who watched it and knew how the power's supposed to work in-game. Personally, I think Mike, another screen-clearing power, might've been more fun, but oh well. Oddly enough, it seems the Japanese version of the blog got a song to go along with this update. Since it's got vocals, they were the only ones to get it. Odd. All I know is that it's from one of the DS games I never played! Whee!
I'll go ahead and link to them both.
(Kirby's scary song thing.)
Speaking of songs I've never heard with japanese vocals, it's... Ashley's theme, from Wario Ware Touched! Okay, now that was incredibly random. I think that was the only excuse they could think of to put a song in the game featuring vocals by what sounds like a seven year old girl. At least it does in the japanese version, because the english singer (from the people at the Treehouse, whatever that is) sounds like she not only went through puberty several times already, but also kicked puberty's butt, then ran away and never looked back.
I find it amusing that they went through the trouble of linking to the alternate version on both versions of the blog (both versions that MATTER!). I mean, it's like they could tell that the average japanese fan would go "OOOOOH, american version! I must listen because english is cool!" while american fans did the exact opposite. I can picture it, now. When the game comes out, the english-speaking fans will turn the japanese voices on because "they sound way better", and vice versa for the tiny island nations east of here. I call this the "retarded fan demographic reverse moonspeak theorem". I should write some kind of thesis on that, because I think I'm on to something here.
Now, to sound like a complete hypocrite, I think the japanese version sounds so incredibly, ridiculously adorable. That's it, I'm turning japanese on just for that.
TODAY'S RATING: 4 Smash Icons out of 5!
COMMERCIAL BREAK!
Day 102: Entry 121: Sonic
Day 102: Entry 122: Sonic the Hedgehog Joins the Brawl!
Day 102: Entry 123: Nintendo Conference Fall 2007 Movie
The one whose Smash appearance has been most desired dashes in from far away at supersonic speed.
Hey, you know who we haven't seen in a while? That's right, those guys.
SOOOOONIC!
I don't know what exactly Nintendo did a press conference for and why I wasn't informed prior, but it certainly beats an hour of gushing about huge sales increases, giving a game a release date and then announcing a fitness game as the greatest thing ever. Grumblegrumble. Stupid E3. Ironically (unfortunately? appropriately?) enough, those very guys in the picture above must not have been very impressed by the press conference I'm tangenting about. But I digress. We have just looked at the GREATEST UPDATE EVER.
There isn't a whole lot to be said about Sonic, actually. He's easily the third party character the most fans were clamoring for, and the only question, at this point, was wether or not Sega would decide to be mean and withhold the license to the character for some insane reason. Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games helped prove that they probably wouldn't, but it also brought a new argument for the naysayers. According to pretty much all announcements, M&S would be the first time the two characters appeared in the same game, meaning that they couldn't appear in Smash together or else the announcement would lie, and Nintendo should know that stuff to begin with. It's a little insane that they'd do something like that just to justify a line from an announcement about what seems to be a pretty crappy game overall, but that didn't stop the seeds of doubt from being sown. However, minimal research revealed that, even without the delay, M&S would be released before Brawl to begin with. This further goes to prove that you should never listen to what anyone on GameFAQs ever says. Sheesh.
Now, while the videos are awesome in their own right, I won't talk about those too much, at least not now. There are a lot of tiny points to adress here and there, most of which will probably get their own update in their own time anyway, so I may or may not do a Bonus Feature entry about them in the future.
But before we leave this update, I must first show you the latest developments in my crazy icon filename conspiracy theory. If you still believe this crazy old man after all this time, don your tinfoil hat and read on!
First, take a look at this chart.
I've already explained my theory before, but I think the picture here clarifies it. Plus, there have been one or two icons added since, I believe! For those of you who just joined in or weren't paying attention to my previous entries' insane ramblings, this is sorted by the numbering given to the world icons' filenames on the blog. So, all right.
01: That's the Smash icon! Nothing to see here.
02-11: Those are the worlds featured in the N64 SSB game! All of them are there and accounted for.
12-14: Those are the worlds introduced in Melee. Yup, there were only exactly three of them. Makes Brawl look just that much more epic by comparison, huh? The red X is because there is no world icon of that number by now, but if my theory is sound, we should be seeing Mr. Game and Watch's symbol, whatever it was, here.
15-20(+?): Those are the worlds introduced in Brawl! 6 slots so far, twice what Melee had. I originally thought they wouldn't mix up first and third party icons, but it seems I've been proven wrong, since Pit's bow comes asfter Snake's FOX symbol. Sonic has been added as numero 20, meaning that there is still at least one brand-new world to introduce! Hopefully we'll be seeing worlds 21, 22, 23 and whatnot, but it's good to know that at least we're certain they're not stopping there. It would be nice if they rounded up the amount of third party characters by adding a third one, wouldn't it?
Now, time to give this triple entry its rating. It features THE announcement everyone was waiting for, plus a video showing Sonic in action along with a song I really like and a glimpse at his (predictable but cool) final smash, plus a pretty badass video that didn't add much new but at least looked cooler than the Tokyo Game Show one. I was ready to give this entry a SIX! That's right, I really wanted to break the scoring system just for this! But... they had to be all evil and sneaky and give us something to angst over on what should have been the happiest day of our lives. As I reported earlier, the game had been delayed. But since that wasn't technically part of the update, and the news got an official entry to cry over two days later, I'll only be removing one icon, reducing this entry's score to five.
Phew. At least we're back in a world where the laws of physics hold true.
TODAY'S RATING: FIVE Sonic Faces out of 5!
Oh, and my brother was right. Showing me the entry WAS something worth waking me up for. (The criteria being that it be more awesome than Sonic...Boom!'s Final Smash. It was.)
COMMERCIAL BREAK!
Day 103: Entry 124: Sonic: Special Moves
KEEEEEEEEEE!
Well, it's Sonic. No one was exactly expecting anything super-elaborate in the moves department, I'm pretty sure. In case anyone is wondering why I'm basically giving him a free pass while I frowned at Zero Suit Samus' originality, it's okay. It's just because I have sexist double standarts.
Now, there isn't a whole lot more to say about his moves. I know, I said there wasn't a lot to say about Sonic right above, then I went on a huge rant, but I mean it, this time! But there IS one thing that bothers me. Why the spring jump? That's pretty weird. Sonic isn't exactly the first video game character ever to have those. Mario had his trampolines too (except they were admittedly not featured as much). Plus, it's not like he's ever manifested the ability to make them appear out of thin air. Why not use, say, the homing attack to go up? It doesn't quite work that way, but this is smash. They take artistic liberties. Or, dunno, he could always chaos control himself up. Just because Shadow does it all the time and he won't doesn't mean he can't! Unless they wanted to include Shadow as a secret character, in which case allow me to cry a little.
Okay, I'm really done now.
TODAY'S RATING: 2 Smash Icons out of 5!
COMMERCIAL BREAK!
Day 104: Entry 125: New Launch and E for All
Day 104: Entry 126: Taking Snapshots
Today I have some good news and some bad news.
Ah, good news and bad news. But first, I'll get out of the way the irrelevant snapshots thing!
So, yay! The snapshots have stopped sucking! Finally, we have a reason to bother with trying to set up those elaborate funny screenshots, as seen in the "Congratulations" screens in Melee! E-peen, of course! If it turns out we can upload them to the Internet somehow, then I would be a very happy camper. If for some insane reason Japan Time Time is still ongoing after the game's been released, then I'll have the material required to make illustrations that aren't crappy MS Paints! Yay! Now I just need one of those "SD Card" things. Why are they super-deformed anyway?
Now, on to the main news. First, the delay, which I also helpfully reported yesterday. I've gotta say, I'm pretty disappointed. But I'm not gonna start pointing fingers, because that's a pretty massive job they had to do there, and I'm betting that the fact we had a release date to begin with back then was just because they had to show SOMETHING at E3, for lack of a playable demo or any worthwhile video or news at all. Better to give good news, retract them later and apologize than to give none at all, I guess.
But I'm not going to start going "Eh, it's not SO bad" either, because as you might have noticed by now, I'm emotionally invested into this game to a disturbing degree. Some see the bright side of things, saying that longer 'till the game's release means more Japan Time (and therefore more Japan Time Time, I might add!), but well. I'm not sure, do they still have four months' worth of interesting update material? Or are we going to see, as
ryuuzoku_aya put it, "ALL WEEK OF NOTHING BUT POKÉMON"? Maybe they'll switch to a M-W-F schedule instead, or something. But whatever happens, as I said, Japan Time Time will be there to bring you on-the-spot news, right to your doormat!As for the "good news" that come after that, um. I don't know about you, but for me, that's not really good news. "Other people will be able to PLAY AS SONIC in exactly one week but NOT YOU" is not what I call good news. I heard some game sites got to play a demo already, and I'm steering clear of articles detailing those adventures for now, because hey, the last thing I need is more "eh, knew that already" mornings. So yes, while people have fun at E for All getting to play five minutes of the games I'm wetting my pants over, I'll be over here, preparing a Philosophy oral presentation. Bah.
...But wait. I've just had an idea. Right now, I'm totally broke, and thus can't afford plane tickets, lodging, food and a lookalike stand-in for the oral presentation. BUT! What if you and I, faithful Japan Time Time readers, put our resources together? The plan: In one week, raise enough funds to fly me to Los Angeles, where I will proceed to fight my way through the entrance of the convention hall (I might not have to fight for my life if YOU donate enough, though, improving your experience in the process!). Once in, I will wait in line for like seventeen hours to play three minutes of Smash against three strangers who, respectively, wants me to teach him how to play, keeps kicking my ass and refuses to refer to Samus as anything besides "the orange robot". After this, I will proceed to write out an account of my nirvana-like experience so intense, so vivid, that YOU, who helped me reach my unattainable goal, will feel just like you were there, playing in my place, feeling my pure, boiling, hatred as I sit in class, shaking my fist in the window's direction, not particularly caring if Los Angeles is even that way to begin with.
So, what are you waiting for?! Get that checkbook ready and CALL NOW!
Our telephonists are standing by! Donate generously!
(Damn it! He's hired telephonists!)
(Seventy-eight of them, to be precise. I'm not sure wether I should cry or curl up into foetal position and then cry.)
Just because I sound so cheerful doesn't mean the update isn't terrible news, though. At least Sakurai apologized, though! Of course, he apologizes over everything, but hey.
TODAY'S RATING: 1 Smash Icon out of 5!
GAME!
1ST PLACE WINNER: Samus' special moves! Ahem. SONIC! If you were expecting anything else, may I remind you that it is technically legal for me to beat you within an inch of your life with a freaking two by four?
LAST PLACE LOSER: The delay announcement. It's like a small part of my soul was ripped out, only to be returned in around four months! Man, I wonder what it feels like not to have my emotional wellbeing affected by video game release dates.
With SUPER GREAT and SUPER BAD news mixed in with some pretty average entries, this score is rather unsurprising, isn't it?
THIS WEEK'S OVERALL RATING: 3 Smash Icons out of 5!
All right, that's a wrap. Get those credits rolling quick before he hires someone else on an insane money-making scheme!
I hope we're getting paid for those too.
Wait, what did they just call me?
Aw, poop. Missed midnight by like fifteen minutes.
Yeah, I woke my brother up Wednesday morning when I saw Sonic there. I look forward to seeing whatever music is selectable on the Sonic stages too since Sonic does have some pretty awesome music.
Though I've already brought this up, I have to wonder: Sonic talks in his games, but Nintendo games like Mario and Link traditionally have them NOT talking. At the most they grunt, yelp, call themselves Mario, or declare that they're going to win. What effect will this have on Adventure Mode? Will Sonic suddenly be rendered mute? Will we actually have a voice acted Link? Is Christopher Lee going to be the voice of the Ancient Minister? Where does Cam Clarke come into all of this (face it, you know he will)?
I think THE song I wanted the most to begin with was already Live and Learn, which is great already, but it's true that there are plenty of other tracks I'd like to see in. Since they're apparently trying to represent different generations and whatnot, I'm betting we'll hear the Green Hill Zone theme, maybe something from one of the Sonic Advances, and if we're lucky/unlucky, something from the first Sonic Adventure (Open your Heart?). I'm admittedly biased towards wanting more SA2 songs, since it was admittedly the first Sonic game I played through whole. (A dirty Nintendo fanboy I am.)
And that's an interesting question. So far we've seen nothing but mostly-mute shortish cutscenes, and most of the major players are the strong, silent type. Peach and Zelda, who are usually more chatty than that, shut their pieholes in the first cutscenes, too. So I'm betting they'll just going for the silent movie treatment in general, maybe with the occasional voice clip or solo scene (a la Snake) from those who do blab on and on in some of their games. It's not like either Snake or Sonic didn't have games were they WERE technically mute, either.
I'd be nice if they actually considered voice acting for some of their more chatty characters (like Peach, and hearing the Pokemon Trainer yell 'GO, CHARIZARD!' occasionally would be sweet). I'm afraid you're probably right with the silent movie treatment since major voice-acting with those guys would probably go against the Nintendo silent protagonist tradition.
And well, Peach already has some voice clips ('Ai-YA!' and whatnot), but hearing some more actual lines could be neat. And if they give Pokémon Trainer a voice, major bonus points if they use Ash's voice actor. I mean, I think Pikachu has his anime voice (the japanese one, but we hear it in both versions anyway), at least, and it seems they draw a lot of inspiration from it in general.
He's easily the third party character the most fans were clamoring for, and the only question, at this point, was wether or not Sega would decide to be mean and withhold the license to the character for some insane reason. - One of the reasons I had been certain Sonic would be in Brawl was that insane is right - Sega has a lot more to gain from Sonic in Smash than Nintendo does, I think. Sega is in poor straits, none of their new Sonic games are living up to the old ones, they don't have their console business anymore, they can really use any PR boost and commercial exposure they can - and what exposure is better than a role in one of the biggest franchises period? Keep Sonic in the public eye, try to drum up more interest and keep people buying Sonic games.
Also, at least just my opinion: too much original content in this one. I hate to say it, but I generally just skim past that stuff in these posts and go to the commentary about the game; this one made even that difficult, though, with just Commercial Break, Commercial Break, Commercial Break. That's me, anyway.
(Did I go back add "Snake!" to the start of this reply after writing it solely so I could use the Psycho Mantis codec icon for the first time? ...shut up, that's why!)
And yeah, the Sonic thing does make sense, looking back. Still didn't stop people from being paranoid, though!
Also sorry you didn't like those! I was considering putting "commercial breaks" in the two or three following weeks, but maybe it'd be better to put them into a Bonus Feature of their own instead. I'd like to hear the rest of the world's opinion on this before making a decision, though, which is made hard by the fact that I think you're the only one who's actually commented on the original content at all so far.
I liked "Peligro! Viene un rival!" a lot though.
But yeah, I've thought about it a bit, and I'll keep on writing those talking-head bits and other irrelevant stuffs, but I'll try not to let them overtake the entry's meat unless I feel that I've had a really great idea or I'm doing another Power Hour special. It's possible that you'll still be seeing things like Dr. Wily and Solid Snake popping up in the middle of a long and strange Phoenix Wright-esque tangent, though!
And yes, the image made me laugh out loud when I stumbled upon it (making sure that other languages' pages had multi-language song links too, just for possible nitpicking), so I nabbed it. I think a lot of things are inherently funnier in either Spanish or German.