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Huge discounts and prizes at Play Asia's Year of the Rat Lucky Sale
Bringing in the Chinese New Year, import shop Play Asia has slashed the prices on over five thousand of its in-stock games and accessories. What's more, each order you put in between today and February 29th will count towards an entry for you to win a variety of Japanese consoles, games, and store credits. There's just too many items on sale to list, so we've picked out a few from the DS and GBA sections that might pique your interest. DS game sales: Ryuusei no RockMan: Dragon, Leo, and Pegasus - $48.90 $9.90 Nodame Cantabile - $48.90 $14.90 Operation: Vietnam (US) - $24.90 $16.90 Slide Adventure: Mag Kid - $58.90 $19.90 Oshare Majo Love and Berry (DS Collection) - $58.90 $19.90 K-1 World GP - $48.90 $24.90 Moero! Nekketsu Rhythm Damashii Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan 2 - $48.90 $29.90 Jump past the break for the accessory and GBA bargains!
Learn Nodame Cantabile's controls from a person in a mongoose suit
Last time we saw Nodame Cantabile: Dream Orchestra, we speculated that the control scheme would be disappointingly vanilla. We were totally wrong! And here to demonstrate the depths of our wrongness is a person in a mongoose suit (as seen in the anime).Unfortunately, the game doesn't include a mongoose suit, or we'd be confirming Game of the Year right now.As pantomimed by the mongoose, the game will use a different gestural control method for each instrument. The on-screen display is the same -- notes moving from right to left across the screen -- but the motion required to correctly play those notes differs by instrument. When playing violin, you hold the Nunchuk up, hold the Z button, and wave the Wii Remote back and forth like a bow. When playing piano, you hold both controllers upside down and press the B and Z buttons while shaking the controller (to determine the intensity of the keypress). Timpani and conducting segments use similarly representative controller motions. Check the link for screens of all of these modes in action, and mongoosey demonstrations.The game will also include, as a preorder gift, a little piano-shaped case, which is just the right size for a Wiimote and Nunchuk. We have suddenly developed an interest in the licensed classical music game! Anime/manga fans: start getting really interested in Nodame Cantabile, please, for our sake.
Play Asia conducting a Nodame Cantabile sale
We've put up several posts in the past about Nodame Cantabile, a conductor-themed rhythm game that follows Ouendan's tap-circles-to-the-beat formula, hoping someone would eventually pick it up and let us know how its mechanics compare against its predecessor's. If we haven't convinced you to try it out yet, perhaps Play Asia's discounted price will; the import shop will have the Bandai title listed at $14.90 ($2.90 US shipping) until next Monday, less than half of its original price!Speaking of Nodame Cantabile DS, have you ever seen the commercial that aired for it in Japan? It's pretty wacky! Jump past the break to watch the clip.[Via CAG]
Import impressions: Nodame Cantabile
Hey, you guys like rhythm games, right? Maybe just a little? They seem to be kinda popular. Just a guess. Game|Life's Chris Kohler got his hands on the latest non-Ouendan rhythm game to hit Japan, Nodame Cantabile, and served up some melodic stylings on the manga-based title. Unfortunately, it seems Nodame's classical music studies can't quite compare to some of the other rhythm games, but there's some good news to balance the bad. Nodame Cantabile seems somewhat import-friendly -- from the sound of it, you can skip a lot of the dialogue and just run around and hit the performance spots instead. Better still? The price is dropping like a rock, so it may be cheaper to import when compared to certain other hot Japanese titles. The interface changes up some of what we've learned to expect with Ouendan and Elite Beat Agents as well; rather than hitting fixed points, the input circles move, which adds a little more challenge to the mix, but not enough to make it a stand-out. Still, with the possibility of budget prices, this one may be a nice choice for fans of the manga or the rhythm game explosion.
Friday Video: Masters of drums
Since Taiko Drum Master was announced this week for the DS, and we also happen to be a little fond of rhythm games, we thought we'd bring you another pair of videos dedicated to getting your drum on. The first makes us yearn for arcades, because there's nothing like huge drums or motorcycles and steering wheels to really get you in the game. We also want that guy's skill, because he really knows how to rock out. The video was originally posted to Chris Kohler's Game|Life blog, so you've probably seen it before, but we felt it was a good finisher for the week. The second shows off a Taiko Drum Master mini-game featured in Nodame Cantabile, which was recently released in Japan.
More hot rhythm game action
If you don't want to (or can't) try the flash-based preview of Nodame Cantabile DS, you can always kick back and watch this video. Not into this kind of thing? Maybe you should give it another try, because we have seen the future, and it is the rhythm game ... at least, it seems to have a lock on a big part of the DS's future. The game is out for the DS this week in Japan.
Osu! Tatakae! Nodame Cantabile!
We've already helped a student pass his exams in Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan, and then we reunited a little girl with her dead father in Elite Beat Agents, so what's the next challenge on our rhythm-gaming plate? Turning our eyes towards Namco Bandai Games' Nodame Cantabile, it looks like we'll be conducting music with a ragtag class of students. The Nintendo DS has been home to many manga/anime licenses, so it's no surprise seeing the shoujo series appear on the handheld. Judging by what we've seen so far, the game plays like a simplified version of Ouendan. Players tap a series of floating notes in time with the music, filling up a "life" gauge with each successful hit. Missing a beat depletes the gauge, ending the level when the gauge is emptied. A flash demo of the game has been put up to promote Nodame Cantabile DS, and you don't even need to know any Japanese to play! Check it out after the post break. [Via NeoGAF]
