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Another Week in Japan: Hardware and software numbers 3/17-3/23
Last week was the week of new releases! Anticipating high holiday sales, many publishers made sure to release their games last week, with a total of fifteen ending up in the top thirty (seven of those being DS titles). With this slew of new releases, though, a lot of games were bumped off the chart to make room. Etrian Odyssey II and Soma Bringer, for example, did not survive the onslaught. Yet, somehow Mario Kart DS managed to move up a spot -- that game never ceases to amaze us.The top of the heap was none other than Pokémon Ranger: Batonnage, which completely crushed the competition in its debut week. Sim City 2 DS did well also, ending up in the number four spot. In fact, this is the best an EA game has ever done in its first week in Japan, with the exception of the FIFA titles. Time Hollow and Super Dodgeball are some other notable new releases, ending up in spots ten and seventeen, respectively.
Kekkaishi ain't afraid of no ghost
Kekkaishi is a manga and anime series about high school kids who trap demons inside magical barriers in order to protect their haunted school. We think. Not having read the manga or seen the cartoon, we're mostly concerned with the Wii adaptation and the basic gameplay mechanic, which looks fun.You target crazy demon creatures with a reticle, then you apparently draw shapes around them, and fling the Wiimote upward to create barriers in those shapes. Once the monster is enclosed, you hit the B button to destroy it. If you forget the anime license, that actually sounds like an interesting basis for an arcade-style game with potentially enjoyable motion controls. But if you remember the anime license, it sounds like a recipe for wasted potential that we'll never see in the US anyway.
