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For Famitsu, 428 equals 40
The Famitsu 40/40 has lost some of its lustre in recent times. Since 1998, the magazine has awarded nine perfect scores, but three have come in 2008, including one for Super Smash Bros. Brawl.However, even we found the latest game to receive the honor surprising. 428: The World Doesn't Change Even So is a "visual novel," a graphical text adventure from roguelike kings Chunsoft that keeps player interaction to a minimum. In other words, it's very unlike any other game to receive a flawless Famitsu grade. In fact, it's unlike most other games, period.We haven't posted a great deal about 428. That's not because we don't find it interesting -- we definitely do. It's because, as Alisha has noted, a game of its ilk is almost entirely impenetrable to our western eyes. Suffice to say, it has now been instantly promoted from "intriguing curio" to "must-own import." Not that a release outside Japan will ever happen.%Gallery-27138%
Not quite 428 screens, but a few
Titles like 428 -- a clear member of the outstretched-hand club, even if it's not box art -- make us wish we had a Japanese Wii. Also, that we could understand Japanese. That's probably pretty important when it comes to Sound Novels, and from these shots from the suspenseful 428: The World Doesn't Change Even So, the story looks like it might be worth following.Y'know, if we could. Instead, we'll just have to sift through the images and try to reconstruct the surreal story they paint. And we'll have to be happy with that, since the chances that we'll see an English version are somewhere between negative 15% and a cold day in hell. Too bad -- we really wanted to know what was going on here.%Gallery-27138%[Via GoNintendo]
Chunsoft reveals a suspenseful non-game
In Japan, developer Chunsoft isn't just known for inventing the Mystery Dungeon subgenre of roguelike RPGs. They're also responsible for the development of the "visual novel" genre: graphical text adventures that focus on telling a story with very little player involvement. Chunsoft calls these Sound Novels, a name they have trademarked.The company has announced thier latest Sound Novel as a Wii release. Like most other Chunsoft Sound Novels, the "suspense drama" 428: The World Doesn't Change Even So uses real photographs as backgrounds for its text; while early releases featured silhouettes, the later Sound Novels now use real actors as well. Also like other Sound Novels, it has approximately 0% chance of being released outside of Japan.
New 'sound novel' game from Sega coming to PS3!
The latest issue of Famitsu includes a few pages announcing a new upcoming Sega title for the PS3. The scans don't show much - even less to those of us who aren't fluent in Japanese - but feature some pretty exciting images. The game, Imabikisou, seems to be a bit thin on the ground in terms of details. It is been dubbed a 'Sound novel'. Presumably this will be an interactive story, like the 'Visual novels' that are so popular in Japan (we know them as 'dating sims' over here). Judging from the scans, Imabikisou will be based more on horror than romance, with perhaps more emphasis being put on the use of sound to create atmosphere in the story. Hence 'Sound novel'? This is all pure speculation, of course. There's not even any word on whether the game will escape Japan's borders. Be sure to check out the scans for yourself. As always, we will keep you posted.
