Japanese gamers or workers at gaming stores (where pretty much all the information on this site came from) usually has a little diary that comments on everything from their cats to games they are playing. I pretty like the idea, but obviously a busy working adult who happens to run a PSP information website can’t possibly write diary everyday, so here’s a weekly one for those who are interested and a chance to write about things that due to time constraint, can’t be posted on weekdays.

Thanks to the convenience and the reliability of Play-Asia.com, the last few weeks of 2007 saw plenty of arrivals in my mailbox, as the picture above shown. Three Japanese games and an Asia version that is essentially the Japanese version, I hope my bare bone Japanese will improve after this. Gran Turismo 5 Prologue was an impulse purchase, simply because I hardly care about racing games accept the WipEout series. But man look at the graphics, the attention to details, the challenges and the online races, the last one can easily justify the $50 Sony and Play-Asia.com decided to charge me.

The game I played most is however, not in the picture. It’s Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions, I think I’m about to finish it, if not for the new games, I will certainly spend more time leveling up in the game. Haven’t check out R-Type Tactics yet, but Yuusha no Kuse ni Namaikida is pretty cool so far. This seems like a little side project that turns out well for Sony, the game sold 28,000 first week according to Famitsu, almost 10,000 copies better than Silent Hill Origins.

Yuusha no Kuse ni Namaikida also has one of the best manual for a PSP game so far (above image). I hope I can actually come out with a guide to help those who stucked, but it’s probably a little too late now. The mag behind those games are Famitsu Taiwan, which usually come out in parallel with the Japanese version in Taiwan. They have done some refinement to some of the columns now, and it’s nice and clearer to read now. Weekly Famitsu is certainly the best gaming magazine out there, the strategy guides are professionally done and this week it has GT5P, which will certainly help newbies like me.

On to this week’s PSP news, Monster Hunter Portable 2nd G first ever video really reminds me how far I’m behind in Monster Hunter Portable 2nd. I really need to find some time to go back into the wild. Do check out our Top 5 PSP game of 2007, and we got an unlikely winner that you can’t find elsewhere :) Also Famitsu just released their Top 10 news of 2007, nothing specific to PSP but Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep’s announcement at Tokyo Game Show 2007, together with the DS and mobile versions, was at the ninth spot. Next week, will PSP be the star of the rankings? Both Star Ocean The First Departure and Suzumiya Haruhi no Yakusoku’s first day sales are really hot, and with that, it ends a great year for our system. Next year, with the encouraging sales of the system, we’ll surely see plenty of new games from Japan.

Posted in Blog, PSP on Sunday, December 30th, 2007 at 7:48 pm |
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