Xbox Live Japanese Indie Games - Part 2

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The Xbox Live Indie Games community has been steadily growing over the past year as more and more independent developers are hitting the scene. What's been the biggest surprise lately is the amount of new Japanese indie games that have showing up given the Xbox 360's poor popularity in Japan. Hit the jump to check out the latest round of games to come up from Japan and whether they're worth playing.

Our first article found here reviewed the first two Japanese indie games to show up on the Marketplace, a cute anime-esque shoot em'up and an interactive novel "game". While they were a bit light on gameplay and translations, both showed promise for future games to come. So how do the next wave of games round up?

NOTE: Unfortunately, not everyone may have Japanese characters installed onto their computer so the next best solution was to use Google translations of certain games without an English title. All games should be recognizable by their screenshots, however.

Google Translation: Continuing long patience steel transmission ~ spring summer the Siyuutou ~

When I saw the screnshots for this game, my impression was that it was a side-scroller with an 80's ninja vibe to it. The intro started off strong, with nicely drawn stills showing promise. Boy, was I wrong. Instead the game is a shooter, where players control a ninja from left to right and you have to throw ninja stars at other rival ninjas on the other side of the screen while dodging their ninja stars and other enemies coming towards you on your side of the screen. Confusing? You betcha.

It took a few tries to get the gist of the gameplay because I couldn't figure out how to dodge the ninja's running toward you. Normally, you'd think there would be knife or some sort of attack but instead you hit up on the directional pad and your ninja will turn to stone and the enemy will run right past you. Well, that's real fun. The gameplay is a confusing mess and dodging the small, fast, barely visible ninja stars coming at you while trying to hide from the other ninjas is a pain. Unless you really like dodging super-fast projectiles in your games, I'd suggest avoiding this one.

Jump!!

If you don't mind repetition in your games, then Jump!! can be an extremely enjoyable title. First off, the presentation and graphics are very impressive. Jump!! has somewhat of a Cooking Momma style to it's graphics that lend nicely to the overall art design and works well with the game. The lack of translated text in cut-scenes makes it hard to follow along with the story as usual, but the premise behind the game is that you're a little elf girl and must make carefully timed jumps over obstacles like gaps and jumps, while the background is closing in on you similar to certain Super Mario Bros. levels. For only 80 points it's quite a deal, but as usual, be sure to check out the demo to see if it's your thang.

Babelfish Translation: Uneven Story Fellows

Now this is one interesting title because at first glance it looks like a Zelda clone. Not only does the character have blonde hair and carries a sword/shield combo almost exactly like Link in the the classic SNES title, Zelda: A Link to the Past, but everything from the castle to the art style is heavily Zelda influenced. The dungeons play out a little on the simplistic side since they're mostly just hitting switches and breaking certain colored blocks to move on.

Playing a little more, though, and you'll see the game has a very interesting retro twist. By going to the other side of town, you're met with a pixelated landscape. I thought the game was actually incomplete, but judging from the translated title, it looks like this is part of the game's story and charm. Since there's a lack of translation here as well, it's hard to know exactly what is going on and you might be missing out on important information for future quests. If the game had gets a translation or FAQ, then this can be a fun knockoff.

Ultimate Sacrifice

Easily the worst of the bunch is Ultimate Sacrifice; a slow, frustrating, and bland shoot em' up that has no redeeming qualities. The gameplay is immediately hampered down with sluggish controls that take a second to register and move at the pace of a snail under water. Just trying to shoot is a pain itself because your bullets, or whatever they are, spread out in an odd and uneven path which makes shooting down enemies tougher than it should be. And the boring cardboard cut-out graphics don't help much either. Ultimate Sacrifice is a game you shouldn't sacrifice the time to play.

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