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Frima $5 PSP Minis bundle entertains, reveals terrible truth
If you're looking to have some bargain-priced fun with your PSP as you wait for its successor, we might point you to a new Frima bundle on the PlayStation Store that includes five PSP Minis games for just $5. They are: A Space Shooter for 2 Bucks! Young Thor Widgets Odyssey Widgets Odyssey 2 Zombie Tycoon We're sure there was a lot of excitement in the Frima offices when the "Awesome Summer Minis Bundle" was compiled, and we wish the dev the best. But it must have been a sobering moment to look at all the games together like that and realize "Hey, you know what, guys? We're not very good at making up names for things."
Castle Crashers featured in Japan's PSN 'Western Game Buyer Selection'
The American PSN recently got a storefront for imported Japanese games, but it's limited entirely to PSOne downloads. Sony is launching an import selection for the Japanese PSN as well, which includes more recent downloadables from the west. The inaugural offerings on the "Western Game Buyer Selection" label on November 25 will include Castle Crashers for ¥1,500, Comet Crash for ¥1,000, and the PlayStation Mini Young Thor for ¥500. The screenshots sent out by Sony include no Japanese text, so it's likely these will be dropped on PSN untranslated, like the PSOne Imports in North America. We hope for Japan's sake that Sony is as diligent about populating this service as MonkeyPaw Games is here. [Update: Pelfast studio head John Bates got in touch with us to let us know that Comet Crash, at least, has been professionally localized for Japan. So this is more than a simple storefront for unlocalized games!]
Review: Young Thor
We've never reviewed PlayStation Minis here at Joystiq, but we're branching out for Young Thor, an impressive game that's one of the best values $5 can get you on the PlayStation Network. A side-scrolling brawler, Young Thor is instantly accessible, but with enough depth to avoid making the experience too repetitive. While it's tempting to simply mash the Square button, developer Frima has done a good job of scaling the experience, introducing new enemies that demand new strategies. My own play style evolved as I learned to add more jumps and dodges while chaining Thor's lightning magic into combat. There's also a rudimentary XP system that boosts Thor's basic stats. However, don't expect to use your XP in any novel way. You can't customize your character, nor do you learn any new moves. The leveling seems to exist for the sole purpose of encouraging replays. Somebody out there will want to achieve a level 100 character, right? %Gallery-96998%
Young Thor hammers its way to Minis on July 20
PSN Minis is getting an appropriately sized hero later this month. Young Thor is the second Mini from Quebec-based developer Frima Studio, the team behind Zombie Tycoon. It's described as an "all-ages God of War," most likely because you will (cutely) murder the greatest icons of Norse mythology during your quest to save the world tree Yggdrasil. Like Kratos, chibi Thor is able to combine magic and melee attacks on the fly. In fact, players of Chains of Olympus will find themselves perfectly at home with the button map. Young Thor will be available in North America on July 20 for $5. Catch a video and some art after the break.%Gallery-96998%
