Overall, I enjoyed my trip to Japan, even better than last time. Last time, we couldn’t or didn’t do nearly as much as we did last time. Also, me being of drinking age is also a plus. Aside from seeing all the new things that I didn’t see, it was rewarding to just wander around and see other things that weren’t educational. Not saying that it wasn’t a learning experience overall, it was just good to feel like it was a vacation as well as a academic field trip. It was also interesting to see Dr. C not act like a professor for once. I don’t know why but it’s always interesting to see academic officials act outside of their element. It was also interesting to see the CEO’s and other top flight officials to tell us about their companies and give us info on things that isn’t told to just anybody. After staying there for so long this time around, I realize how expensive it is to live there, however, I probably wouldn’t mind it. Besides, with all the walking I would be doing, I would lose all this weight. 
In conclusion….
D3
On one of our other stop and the “Grand Three Company Tour in a Day”…day, we visited D3. D3 is a gaming publisher in Japan that is known for for their simple series, in which they sale new games for low prices depending on the system that they come out for. A list of games that they have published include the Naruto: Clash of Ninja series and Dark Sector. Like most of the companies we visited, they make innovative moves in the cell phone market. In the case of D3, mobile games. The game that they showed us was a alien invasion defence game. It looked pretty good, both graphically and it flowed well. Usually, some mobile games with that much activity would have a little bit of a lag but this game was almost on par with playstation or xbox games. Needless to say when we got our hands on this game, we couldn’t put it down.
iNiS
iNiS was one of the gaming companies we visited. I personally was unfamiliar with iNiS as a company but I played Gitaroo Man and heard of Elite Beat Agents. Both of these games were made by iNiS….and I just found out that day. Anyway, we went into the meeting place where we were greeted by two guys who came from America to work for this company. One of them had the LONGEST AND MOST WELL KEPT PONY TAIL I HAVE EVER SEEN. They introduced us to their company and what they did. They even showed use a sneak peak of an upcoming (if it isn’t out already) of their XBOX 360 title “Lipz”. It’s a karaoke game similar to that of “SingStar” for the PS2 but there is a small yet innovative difference. The microphones are wireless and motion sensored. I thought that was cool and interesting to see in a game.
Dolby
We visited Dolby as one of the many places that we went to on that same day. When I say many, I mean three. Despite that it was a pretty busy day. Anyway, we visited Dolby and they showed what they had in the works. At first, I didn’t think Dolby was much more than what I thought it to be. When I thought Dolby, I thought “speakers” or “sound”. Dolby’s a good company when it comes those departments, that is certain, however the innovation they have planned was something that I wouldn’t have expected. On top of knowing that they have a hand in contributing to every electronic device that is used for information and entertainment, they have taken it a step further and are developing more with surround sound and enhancing the visual experience of the already crispy HD televisions. I didn’t know it could get any better. I wouldn’t have imagined this five years ago.
Game review: Tatsunoko vs Capcom
While visiting Akihabara, we went to the Taito Station. Taito Station was this multiple story arcade with different games on every floor. One game caught my interest more that most. Tatsunoko vs Capcom is the latest in the whole Capcom vs. universe. I’ve heard of this game before I went to Japan but I heard, at the time, it wasn’t going to come to the states so I more or less gave up hope. However, when I seen it at Taito Station, I wasted no time.
Now the game itself uses 3D graphics but is set on a 2D place, similar to Street Fighter 4. It’s a basic crossover game, characters from different universes fight each other with great visual effects and gluttonous moves and specials that you wouldn’t see anywhere else. The controls were four buttons instead of the usual six buttons.
The Capcom franchise had their usual go to characters, ie Ryu, Chun Li, Mega Man, and Morrigan. This time’s they’ve brought a couple of characters that I didn’t see coming. One was Roll, Mega Man’s sister. I’ve seen Roll in Marvel vs Capcom but in that one she was just a smaller feminine version of Mega Man. In this game they kept her character to how she was originally. Since Roll was designed as a cleaning robot, she fights with a broom. Another character was a mech from the game Lost Planet. They even included Batsu from Rival Schools. I didn’t play it or anything, but it told you what game that character was from when you selected it. To my surprise they had Soki from Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams and to add to my list of surprises (I just found this out recently) Viewtiful Joe was also a character from the Capcom franchise, but he’s only wii exclusive.
The characters from the Tatsunoko franchise, I must admit, I almost didn’t recognize at all. The only two characters that I’ve recognized was Falcon and Swan from G-Force (aka Gatchaman).
It’s a pretty simple game to play, probably because of the four buttons instead of six. The first time I played it I knew I would enjoy it. The first characters I picked was Ryu and Falcon (I thought I would go with what I knew as far as Tatsunoko went.). The was fun, controls were easy to use, and as usual, great visual effects. Especially, with the super moves. Falcon turned out to be a better character than I thought considering how old G-force is. The developers really amped him up for this game. Ryu is just as awesome as he’s always been, it just looks better with those graphics.
My only beef with the game is the MOST ANNOYING BOSS I’ve fought since Gill. Apparently, it’s a giant ball with three forms. The first form wasn’t that difficult but still annoying. He had this one move that drained your super meter if you are hit by it. The second form just grew arms and legs but was the easiest to take care of. The third form was by far the most annoying. It grows a hand and hits you with tornadoes. It’s special in this form was a giant laser that just eats at your health and I don’t know if you can dodge it. Another special is when that had grabs and just murders you with the same laser. Needless to say I didn’t beat him however the game is coming here in winter so I’ll have my chance.
Den Den Town
While our stay in Osaka, we visited a nice little area called Den Den town. What I’ve noticed was how the consumer market was as far was shopping went. Since I was there, very few places for shopping were inside a mall. Every place we went to that had an inkling of shopping was outside somewhere or easily accessible. Anyway, we more or less broke off into groups and wandered around. What I enjoyed seeing was the electronics as well as the computers that they had. The most interesting one that I found was the laptop with an LCD screen where the touch panel for the mouse was. Now perhaps it’s because I’m kind if a big kid or my inner nerd was trying to come out, but I moved over to the area where all the toys were and I ran into a store that had a lot of figurines of characters from animes past and present. These were things that I’ve seen in the back of gaming magazines years ago and is more or less hard to find in the states unless you were willing to pay a hefty price for them. Den Den town and many other areas similar to Den Den town are something that wasn’t a culture shock, it was just an awesome thing to see.
Day 12
Clearly nothing happened after my adventure in Akasaka. Stumbling, well more or less, back to the hotel at 5 something in the morning with a lost voice, the only thing on my mind was going to bed…and food but the restaurant wasn’t open yet and I didn’t want to wait an hour or two before it opened so bed was my only option. Luckily for me, and to my added surprise, there was light outside at 4:45 am. That’s definitely something I am not used to. Not the mention that the subway lines were the clearest I have EVER seen them since my stay in Japan. As I’ve stated before nothing really happened on this day. I got back to the hotel and went to sleep. I must admit, even though we toured all these companies and walked to all these sites, it’s just as good to sit and relax in a foreign country.
All night clubbin’
On our free day, I had arranged to meet up with my buddy, Ray, from high school. I met up with him in Shibuya along with his friends from the school that his goes to out there. We walked around Shibuya our way to a club in Akasaka. He promotes the parties that go on out there. Eventually, we managed to get to the club in Akasaka about an hour or so later. As usual in the club scene around 8:30, no one was there. The party finally got started around 11:00 or so. Some more of Ray’s friends came to the party and I met them. The party it self was pretty fun but there was one problem. Since the subways stop running at midnight, one usually has two choices, either leave before midnight or wait until 5 am when the subways start up again. Needless to say, I stayed later. Apparently, this is how things go down in the club scene in Japan. Aside from the interesting events that went on, i.e. pole dancers and random 40 years guy trying to dance, the party was pretty hype. I managed to make it back to the hotel around 5:30 or so. I slept for a good while.
Awesome arcade
I haven’t been to an arcade lately that had more than 10 people in it. Since the emergence of consoles such as PS2 and to the present consoles, not many people have been in arcades as much as they use to be 10-15 years ago. Obviously in Japan, that’s not so. We manage to visit Taito game station in Akihabara. Similar to Club Sega, it actually had two or so more floors than Club Sega and somewhat better games. There was a gundam game that was a 5 on 5 death match format game. There were these pods that people went in and played. Problem is, you need a card which was 10 dollars and 5 dollars to play the game. I never got a chance to play it but it looked interesting. I played Chris K. and Kohl in Street Fighter 4. I must admit, Chris gave me a run for my money. My favorite game I played there was called Tatsunoko vs. Capcom. Another crossover game that hasn’t been seen for a long time. It was great but it had the MOST ANNOYING BOSS EVER. What I noticed while I was at the arcade was the amount of people that were there. There were kids coming from school in big groups playing games. I even seen people in suits playing Street Fighter or any other game that was there. I guess it was somewhat similar to someone going to people going to bars after work. This is a completely different contrast to the arcade scene in America.
Day 11 part 2…or something
Something that I didn’t mention in the last post was the trip to the JR Human Resources department. JR (Japan Rail) is basically the public transportation system that 98% (or at least seems that way) of Japan uses to get from one place to another. They have their business in not only how people get there but what they use to get on the subway or train. They intend to make it slightly easier on the commuter trying to get to work during the restless rush hour traffic. The SUICA cards we used we actually pretty cool. They were basically used to pay for the subway, similar to a bus card. The senors were so strong, you didn’t even have to take them out of the wallet. Just slap the wallet on the sensor and it read the card. Apparently, they will also be used same way sparty cash is used in the near future. There also mention of the use of the security cameras redesigned to detect if anything goes wrong in the station as well as a little kiosk that literally points you in the direction of any stop, restaurant, or shop you may be looking for.
