1/28/11

[NDS] もえスタ~萌える東大英語塾~


It's oftentimes a running joke in Japanese media how the general populace are required to learn English as a second language, but most of them almost always fall flat when it comes to practical use due to it's purported "difficulty". As a Japanese language student, I find myself befuddled by this mentality mainly because English is built on just a few simple rules, whereas Japanese has more complicated quirks, leading a handful of frustrated people to call it "The Language Of The Infinite".

To make the "Language Of The Not-So-Infinite" less difficult, a few English-themed edutainment games have been circulating around. Of course, with the still-prevailing moe culture among otaku fandom, decrypting the lingo will bear more fruit when you feature cute 2D girls as your virtual tutors. Unfortunately, most of these games still fall under the hit-or-miss category, with one or more factors (uncomfortable testing system, poor seiyuu diction, etc.) ruining the whole thing. Mirai Shonen's Moe Star: Moeru Toudai Eigo Juku is one of the more notable titles of it's kind, and while I personally do not need to learn English, I was still curious to know how this game plays out.

1/11/11

[その他] 皆さん、あけおめ!

 どう? 着物、似合うかしら?

Happy new year to everyone! December proved to be a rather trying time for me since I'm preparing to move to a different place, but it's not without it's rewards. I'm not the sort who seriously plans stuff through, but here are my projected inputs for the coming days:

12/1/10

[PSP]ティンクル☆くるせいだーす Starlit Brave!!


It's a common behavioral trait among us gamers to loathe intrusive advertisements within the games we play. We tend to think that the developers are total sellouts and that they taint the gameplay with ubiquitously annoying marketing gimmicks from their money-hungry sponsors, coming in the form of either a poorly conceptualized corporate avatar or direct injection of the product in question as a key item.

However loathsome it comes off as, the fact remains that it is oftentimes a necessary evil. Also, you have to admit that some gimmicks actually work and enhances the experience instead of taking away from it. For instance, if you take a battle-oriented galge like Twinkle Crusaders and crowd their existing female populace with the femme fatales of Dengeki Bunko and other greats from Ascii Media Works, what do you get? Twinkle Crusaders Starlit Brave!!, a mish-mash of moe madness packed in a bonus UMD from the limited edition pack of Twinkle Crusaders GoGo!!