Lollipop Chainsaw's Debut Trailer is Everything I Wanted

Now, while I don't usually like covering the exact same topic as Chance, sometimes it's got to inevitably happen, as, clearly we have similar tastes.  So when I saw his post showing off the Lollipop Chainsaw trailer I just had to bite the bullet on it because after I saw it, it was the only thing I wanted to talk about.  I've been sitting here for two hours trying to think of a new topic, and came up with a half-complete idea of a pokemon-centric post that I've more or less made already, so it'd just be reiteration.  Which...we all know I'm not above doing, but I didn't feel like it today.

So without further ado, this would be the trailer in question:



And like Chance said, it is a really nice trailer.

I have a couple complaints with it, in that it still looks fairly....well, not close to release, in terms of fluidity of movement which is understandable since it's not close to release, and I'm not absolutely sold on the VA for Juliet (hopefully she's just a stand-in or they tone her down/soften her voice).  The whole trailer could have used a little more audio management actually, but bleh, it was still fantastic.

What really makes me giddy about it is the style it imparts.  Sure, the majority of the trailer is just pre-rendered, but it sets the stage well enough and matches kind of what we've already seen and/or expected.  And the in-game parts don't really show off the animation style that previous screenshots have (the No More Heroes-esque cel-shading or whatever you want to name it), but the direction and the style with that is clear enough. 

Also apparently Juliet gets a grenade launcher for her Chainsaw.

Read that again with me:  Apparently Juliet gets a Grenade Launcher for her Chainsaw.

Day One, friends.  Unless something majorly bad comes out before then, this is a Day One purchase for me.  Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to watch this about ten more times.  In 720p.  Because I like it that much.  That should be saying something.

Lazy Sunday - A Piecemeal Post of Many Little Topics

First off, no this isn't about the song but I am very much a fan of The Lonely Island, so, hey that could work.

Today was....in all honesty, a completely uneventful day.  Not enough of anything happened to warrant a lot of discussion on it, but there's a lot of little things I could bring up to touch on, but not really speak on them at length, which is honestly a pretty frustrating experience.  I'm sitting here with topics in my head, swirling them around and figuring how many paragraphs I could get for each on, and it's just.....not really a lot.  But, in lieu of trying to force one to be any longer than any others, I figure I can just touch on them.  It'll be a pretty good reflection of this week, really, as I didn't do enough for it to make a big to-do, but I did enough.

I had considered another Weekly Wrap-Up in Gaming post, briefly, but when I recalled that my only exposure to games this week were the same as last week, I figured a retread wouldn't be in my best interest.  I have made enough progress into Darksiders that I feel I can speak on it a little more, but it's not all positive, and I'm still not done with the game of course.  But what I can say on it isn't enough for its own post, at least in my head I don't think it is, so it'll just be topic number one here.

First off, I'm seeing more and more what this "Rip-Off vs. Homage" debate was all about and while my position remains the same (pleasant homage), I'm getting a little fed up with the parts of other games that Darksiders tried to, er, show off or give some sort of flattering imitation of.  Namely, the Voidwalker.  Now, the game has started to grate on me a little (which I'm fully attributing to playing on Apocalyptic), but prior to getting the Voidwalker, it was a mere annoyance here and there.  But with this homage to Portal, I'm not....really that happy of a camper.  I mean, I liked Portal and all, but I didn't think it was a religious experience and I didn't beat it because fuck that goddamn Turret room in the last test before the...er....reveal?  It's not really a reveal if it's foreshadowed the entire game is it?  Bah, you probably know what point I'm talking about.

The problem with the Voidwalker sections is that they're simply not fun.  And even if they -were- fun, I've had to play with the Voidwalker for two hours.  I'm beyond sick of it by now, and I'm nowhere near done.  I still have one more leg of the 'dungeon' left at minimum before the boss itself, and I'm just....ragged from my experience with it.  I'm practically begging for Enemy Gauntlet rooms even though the enemies at this point can literally take off a third of my HP with one hit if they tried.  But at least I have some sort of semblance of control with the fighting, since I can really choose just how I go about it.  The puzzle sections really take that out of my hands, or at least they feel like they do, and it's really just....doing nothing positive.

Still, it's one bad section in an otherwise fun game.  I'm sure when I'm finally done with it, the game will remind me why I liked it in the first place and why it has so many vocal fans about.

Second, and I already touched on this Friday, but with my internet woes (which, if you haven't noticed seem to have cleared for now), I couldn't really look into it as much as I had wanted to.  A few places have said it, but it caught my eye specifically at Joystiq, but with confirming that the Metal Gear Solid 3 in The Metal Gear Solid HD Collection was the Subsistence version, I could only question about the status of Metal Gear Solid 2.  Joystiq confuses me even more by pointing out that Kojima said MGS2 would be 'based' on Subsistence which raises multiple other questions.  Namely, he meant Substance, right?  And secondly, what the hell does "Based on" mean?  Will it only feature some of the content?  Will it really be 'based on' Subsistence and just be MGS2 with a fully manageable camera ala MGS3:S? (Or did it have that already...?)

I haven't really seen any answers to these floating around.  Suffice to say I'm not worried, just a little frustrated.  While I would love MGS2 to be the Substance version, if solely because I like the 'complete' feel, Metal Gear Solid 2 in HD is just about all I could want anyway.  But still, some answers would be nice.

And finally, I just want to, y'know, reiterate something I've been saying for a while now.  Nier is a fantastic game, and you would do well to go get yourself a copy of it.  After getting to the point in the game where I stopped playing (Just before the last ending of the game because of...personal issues) in the Let's Play I've been reading of the game, I just feel all these....well, feelings being stirred up again.  And it's not how much I hated this boss or this part of the game, or how fun it was when I killed this thing, but rather the impact the game had on me and still continues to do.

I lose man-cred saying this here, but Nier made me cry.  Several times.  And while I venture to say that that's not necessarily a hard task, it's hard enough that I can assure you that it's real.  The game, at points, is so tragic and beautiful and even touching that, looking back if I were to reshuffle my Games of the Year, Nier would have been number 2 for sure.  While God of War 3 was the better game, Nier was by and large the better story and had the better presentation, which I'm growing to learn is what I really care about in a game.

Like most games, I can say that it's a flawed game, especially so with some of the sidequests and where some of the cracks in design show, but unlike most games, I can say without hesitation that Nier is an important game.  Much like how some people hold Ico or Shadow of the Colossus dear because of the story (or the implications of one for the latter), Nier will always hold a spot in my heart because of the impact it had.

Well....that went on longer than I expected it to.  But, hey, more the better, right?  And I got to say a few things I've been meaning to say, anyways.

Music! Nier Edition, Part 2 (Also Internet Woes)

So, I'll get to the music in a moment here, but let me whinge for a moment.  There's something wrong with either my modem or router, which is making it so I just cannot load some websites.  I've elaborated on this problem before, but basically Joystiq, where I get most of my news and IGN, where I get all of my screenshots do not work.  This is....well, I'm sure you can understand how this is a problem.  I can still load and watch youtube videos fine, I can still do 90% of my daily routine just as well, it's just, well, the bare necessities for this blog's new stories (and some of my 'creative outlet' ones) have all but been rendered unusable for now.  Thankfully, I am positive it's the internet, and not the computer, so there's no hiatus this time unless something fries and oh god, I just jinxed it, didn't I.

Anyways, we'll just have to make do until I straighten things out with the ISP.  It could, of course, be an issue with the power flickers we've had every day for a month more or less, or just be damage related to that, but it's not like we'll ever be able to prove that and make AEP fix it.  Blah blah, big companies suck, etc. etc.  Given how I don't have a lot of resources, I'm not exactly too keen on writing about something without being able to link to a relevant story or add a few pictures, so I guess there is always the lovely fallback of....

Music!

Lately, I've been reading a Let's Play of Nier (which I've mentioned and won't link because you need to play the game first) and it's reminded me that the music from the game is just....fantastic.  Of course, we all know that already, yes?  (Btw, I need to fix the music links in that one, should be done soon.  Fixed.)  And while last time I more focused on some of the 'Nicer' tracks, the whole OST is fantastic and I would encourage you to listen to it.  (But don't read comments!  And I guess there might be a couple mild spoilers in the titles, but they're not immediately apparent.)

So I'm going to start off with what is, possibly, one of my favorite tracks, or at least one of the tracks I find myself listening to all the time.  It was originally meant for just one boss, but they realized that would just be silly to keep this fantastic piece for a (fairly forgettable) boss, and made it one of the general boss themes.  It's called "Deep Crimson Foe" and it most certainly sets the stage for a Boss Fight.




To me, it feels like an older, classic battle theme from days of yore that would have just sounded alright in chiptunes but now that it has the full orchestral experience is powerful and amazing.  It's kind of interesting really that it has that quality to it.  To me, at least.  (Of course I mean this in the best way possible; some of the older songs out there in chiptunes and 16-bit, etc. are still some of the best songs around.)

The next is another of the Boss Themes that....well, I can't really say a lot without spoiling.  Just that it's fantastic as well, and carries something of a feel from the previously linked song here, that I just can't put my finger on.  Still, I enjoy it just as much, as I will again state that I enjoy the entire OST.  This one is called "The Dark Colossus Destroys All".  Pleasant, right?




Since I've gone with the battle themes so far, I may as well throw one of the last ones into the mix as well.  I will say that one of the things Nier's soundtrack does and does it perfectly is that every song sets the mood that is necessary.  The battle themes are almost primal, heightening the senses and just making every boss fight you play, no matter how many times you play it, feel like it's the important one, the one you can't lose, and the one you will win, no matter what.  At least, again that's my opinion and feelings on it.  The last song to round out this trio of Battle Music is "Blu-Bird", which I have no knowledge of how or why the song is named that.  But it likely doesn't matter.




Fantastic.  Just fantastic.  I hope that does well enough in terms of content for now, seeing as there's not a lot else I can put out right now.

Ragedays

Have you ever had one of those days where you're just perpetually angry?  It ebbs a bit, sure, but then it comes back like it was never gone and all you can do is be pissed?  Especially because that day is the one day where everything decides to fuck with you.  Well, clearly, that is my day today.  It has been a loooooong day.  Not to whinge about everything, but I got really frustrated with Darksiders (seriously, who thinks a GIANT TELEPORTING SPIDER is a good boss?), then got frustrated with Phantasy Star Portable 1 (hey, another boss fight), then I come on the computer and the ISP is fucking with me again, and I can't access Joystiq (well, I can, sometimes) or IGN.  Or like, quite a few other sites.  Yet I can load youtube videos like a motherfucker.

I'm convinced it's a modem issue as, the first time this happened, it had been with another computer that isn't this one (wouldn't get on the goddamn Skype website to download the program, took quite a few tries to load the site, which mimics how I got Joystiq to work), and while I could check once more, I refuse to believe there's something wrong with this computer again because it's inconceivable.  After modem resets, tinkering with the router, a computer restart, etc, I still can't load IGN or the images from it, and I am just beyond caring at this point, since it'll be working tomorrow or my ISP is going to find that one of its buildings has burned to the ground mysteriously.

So, unfortunately, I just can't really muster a lot in the way of content tonight.  Thanks to Siliconera, we know that MGS3 in the MGS Collection is the Subsistence version, thus raising the number of games you get with the collection from three to five (since MGS3:S came with Metal Gear 1 and 2 MSX ports, not to make mention of the two copies of Peace Walker you get, One PS3, one digital PSP) and generally being pretty goddamn cool.  We can only hope that means the version of MGS2 is Substance as well, even though that will likely mean that I have to actually beat Snake Tales this time around.

Also thanks to Siliconera, we have our first glimpse at just how this whole PSP Remaster thing looks with a neat God of War video.  Pretty standard, showing off side-by-side videos, basically to point out that the PS3 version has no jaggies and generally looks a bit better.  Interestingly enough they only used Ghost of Sparta for comparison, which I said way back when it was a rumor that GoS would look just fine as an HD title, if just for the style it carries.  It was always Chains of Olympus I worried about and, well, my fears have not been at all assuaged, despite the shiny video provided.  We'll just see how that works out, of course.

So, even though I didn't mean to, I still ended up providing some content, so that makes me a little happier.  And the rage has ebbed a bit, so I'm going to go try to push it back some more with guilty pleasures.

Oh, Molyneux.

Back in June after E3, Peter Molyneux started hearing that everyone was referring to his upcoming game, Fable:  The Journey, as an "On-Rails Shooter", which was clearly not his intent.  Clearly.  He just decided to disable navigation before the demo was shown, because it 'wasn't quite ready yet' and clearly no repercussions could have come from this at all.  So he had a little sit-down with a bunch of journalists to make clear, in no uncertain terms that his game was not on rails, acknowledging that it was obvious people would think it was, given what they saw.  But it's not.  Remember this.

Now, today, he's given us another little tidbit of information namely that Fable:  The Journey will not feature Guns, nor Swordplay, two staples of the Fable franchise (well, guns starting at Fable 3, I imagine) because swordplay on Kinect looks silly because Kinect offers no Feedback.  While true, this sounds like every shade of cop-out.  "We could have done melee weapons, but the one thing I hate about melee weapons, and guns as well, is that the human brain is encoded to expect recoil from those things.", Molyneux says, and then goes on to say, "The thing about magic is there's nothing encoded in your mind about how it should feel.". 

...

That just sounds silly, man.

Again, this is true; we don't have any sort of preconceived notion on what shooting a fireball from your hand feels like.  But this is mostly because it's an impossible task.  And I don't know about you, but I would expect feedback and/or recoil from launching a fireball from the palm of my hand!  So there.  I've ripped his entire stance asunder, and that's that.

For what it's worth, after seeing the screenshots of the game, I can actually see it not being -entirely- on-rails.  But....the new possibility doesn't look much more fun.  Rather than a guided experience, I would assume one controls the reigns of the (seemingly ever-present) horse companion to navigate tracks, not unlike another horseback game recently shown off.  Which...looks just lovely doesn't it?

A Look Back - Drakengard

Drakengard is one of those games where I'm going to gush about it for quite a few paragraphs here, but I need you to understand here and now that it is actually kind of a not good game.  In that the actual gameplay of it is like a Dynasty Warriors game (well, the ground portions), but 100x more stiff and wooden and just...not fun.  As a general statement of course, I had fun with it, but my enjoyment isn't a statement of fact and my warning that you will likely not have fun playing it should be enough.  So, how is it that I can sit here and claim that there is something to praise about this game, when in fact I have just said the game is not that good?  Easily.

You see, much like you don't go to an action movie expecting a deep, involved plot, you shouldn't go into Drakengard expecting good gameplay; instead, you should simply go into it expecting to have one of the most....unique story experiences any game around can offer.  It's hard to say much without spoiling the game, and I cannot promise that I won't do that, but if I'm going to, I will let you know first obviously.  But something that can be said for the game without spoiling too much is that it has five different endings, each one more insane than the last.  And the way it's handled is quite interesting, really.

Drakengard's story takes place over chapters and verses, not unlike a book, and once you clear the first ending, new verses open up that eventually lead into new chapters that take the game in entirely different directions.  Believe me, when I say entirely different directions, I mean entirely different directions.  Like, things that make you go "What the Christ?!" loudly and unapologetically.  But not in the traditional "Let's throw shit against a wall and see what sticks", but in a way that's....hard to explain, really.  It's very deliberate and while it doesn't make sense, it does.  Again, this is a lot of talking out of both sides of my mouth here, but short of spoiling the game, that's about all I can do.  I think I'll just do a section here in a few paragraphs about it.

On the same level of the story are the characters which, in stark contrast of 99% of the games out there, are in fact designed to be the absolute worst types of people.  And not in the campy sort of "Haha, he's a killer, but it's okay because he has a rogueish grin" or anything of that sort.  Just in the "These are the worst types of people in the world, yet they're trying to save it because they're not wimps" way.

Take our main character Caim, for example.  At the start of the game, Caim's goal is simply to protect his sister Furiae, who possesses (or rather, -is-) the Goddess Seal, one of the six seals that keeps the world together, from the "Empire" who has gone to war with, essentially, the rest of the world who bands together to form the "Union".  Seems fairly standard, right?  Well, it starts getting a little more involved when you realize (almost instantaneously) that Caim's parents were murdered by an Empire's Dragon, so his fighting against the Empire might not be, and in fact isn't, so altruistic.  He hates the Empire so much that, after being dealt an assuredly mortal wound in a battle with the Empire, he decides to enter into a Pact with a dragon that the Union had managed to capture during the battle. Being a non-Empire dragon doesn't make it any better, as Caim still hates Dragons as a whole (who could blame him), but his need for blood was greater than his hatred of the beasts.

This is where I need to stop and explain the principle behind "Pacts" since they are a central focus of the game.  A Pact, in Drakengard world, is when a human and a beast merge their life force into one for any number of reasons, whether they be that the two are friends or that they're both trying to avoid death.  The latter being Caim and the Red Dragon's reason.  Upon entering a pact, both become bound to one another in such a way that, should one perish, the other will as well.  They also gain the ability to speak to one another telepathically, and on occasion, hear the telepathic conversations of other pact-partners.  Of course, there's a downside (as if the whole 'one life' thing wasn't enough of one) where the Human in the deal pays what is known as a "Pact Price".  It's different for everyone, and varies by the person and the pact-beast, but some notable examples through the game are:  Caim loses his ability to speak, another party member loses his ability to see, and a third party member loses her ability to conceive.  (Also, possibly her sanity.)

As I stated, through the Pact, Caim loses his ability to speak (shown by the pact-mark on his tongue, every pact price has a mark) but gains strength, not only in being healed but in having a new Dragon ally, reluctant as she might be.  Now, able to take it to the Empire harder than ever before, that is exactly what Caim does.  Sure, you end up learning their true motives and the like, but the most important part to Caim is that he burns the Empire alive.  And does he ever.

One of the mainstays of the game is that you'll collect an entire arsenal of new weapons to stab, slice and otherwise maim any Empire soldier, beast or....thing that looks at you funny.  And while this is fairly standard, what makes it so nice in Drakengard is that each weapon has a story attached to it that you unlock as you power it up more and more.  Weapons in Drakengard "Level Up" so to speak, after set numbers of kills.  With the level up, the weapon A) Changes in appearance, B) Gets Stronger (usually), and C) Opens up a new paragraph of the story.  (Each weapon only has four levels, which is worth mentioning, so the stories are ~four paragraphs long.  Just enough to be a neat or, in some cases less neat tale.  And they get worse than that.)

The actual gameplay of the game, as I've mentioned a few times, is nothing really to write home about.  The weapons all have their own...'combos' which are, again, akin to Dynasty Warriors and other such hack-n-slash games, but is nowhere near fluid or, really, 'fun'.  At its best, it's tolerable, but at its worst it becomes what can be called with no exaggeration, "a slog", which is unfortunate really.  It does get slightly better, of course, with Dragon-back combat, which takes two forms.  In aerial missions, you have several flying targets and the Dragon controls more like it's in a Star Fox or Panzer Dragoon game than what you'd expect.  You have an aiming reticule, and the dragon has two forms of fireballs:  One standard that you can fire semi-normally, or you can charge that to lock-on to a target and launch several smaller fireballs at it.  The other form of Dragon-back combat is when you can simply jump on the dragon on a normal ground mission and burninate all your foes (provided they don't have a magical shield).  While fun, it does completely neglect your weapons and eventually just feels like you're cheapening yourself out of wholesale slaughter.

It's easy for someone to look at the game and come to the (wrong) conclusion that the game is just being Grim-dark for Grim-dark's sake.  It's not, though, not at all, and there's really not an easy way to say it to you so that you'll know it for true other than just trying to assure you that the game has actual, tangible depth in the story, and it's really not that heavy-handed or poorly done.  And I really mean this; it's easy for me to try and assure you that it's a worthy game since it's a game that is one of my favorites, but I already warned you away from playing it, so there's nothing for me to lose here.

Indeed, the best way, I think, so experience the depths of batshit crazy that Drakengard dips into is by reading the wonderful Screenshot Let's Play of the game by The Dark Id.  He's quick to point out the game's flaws, which are numerous, but he also does a fantastic job of letting the game speak for itself when necessary, even going so far as to let us know some of the details that are exceedingly toned down for the Non-Japan release of the game.  Interestingly enough, he then goes on to do Nier (which I advise you heavily against reading until you yourself have played the game, ironically enough) and Drakengard 2 (which he claimed he wasn't going to do, going so far as to do a whole update at the end of Drakengard to spoil everything about the ill-gotten sequel) which are equally entertaining in their own ways.

I have a lot of fond memories with the game, as well as a lot of not-so fond memories.  One of the latter being that I spent two years trying to beat the last boss of the game.  I don't mean that in the cutesy "Tee-hee, it too me forever" way, I mean that every now and then over the course of TWO YEARS, I put in Drakengard and tried to beat the very last boss, which was jarring not only in setting, but in the fact that it turned into an entirely different game.  Where Drakengard was a Hack-N-Slash, the final boss was....a rhythm game.  Yes, you read that right, and not only was it a rhythm game, but a rhythm game born from the deepest depths of Hell, intent on stomping you over and over until you were its bitch.

The result was possibly one of the most infamous "Trollings" a developer and/or a game has ever delivered unto a player, and again, I won't spoil it for you, but it is, in fact, hilarious.  Whether it was the fact that I had finally beaten it put me in a state of such advanced euphoria that I laughed it off, or because it's genuinely a goddamn good trolling, I could do nothing for ten minutes after finally completely beating Drakengard but laugh and laugh and laugh.

And the truly magnificent part of it, is that that ending is directly related to Nier, which as you may know is one of my other favorite games.  I can't say how, and you might know already, but it's an amazing feat that I can only applaud and appreciate, and it makes the whole experience of both games that much better.

So while Drakengard is definitely a flawed game, to me it's an important one, since it really actually does things with its story and goes places other games dare not go in a way that most games would do nowhere near as well as Drakengard managed.  And that's why I look back on it fondly.

Disgaea 3 Getting the Portable Treatment...On Vita!

Just today, it was confirmed that like Disgaea 1 and 2, Disgaea 3 will find itself in the palms of your hand for a portable experience.  Only this time, it will be on the Vita as Disgaea 3 Returns.  Apt enough, considering it is, well, returning to retail, though for a different market of course.  Again, like the previous two games in their handheld debuts, Disgaea 3's handheld version will have a little added incentive for getting it; namely Disgaea 3 Returns will come with all the DLC the PS3 version got, as well as two extra characters and four new scenarios.  On top of the tweaking the game will receive as well, as reports are saying Disgaea 3 Returns will have Disgaea 4's portrait system at the very least.

You guys know me - this news made me quite happy indeed and even though I have Disgaea 3 for PS3 already, I am fairly tempted to (and likely will) double-dip, just for the DLC and new things alone.  My relationship with the Disgaea series isn't the best, though; I simply don't have the required need for grinding to get the full experience of a Disgaea game, and even had I had said need I believe I burnt it out with Disgaea 2, my first introduction into the series.  Around the time of Disgaea 2's release, perhaps a little after, I got the compulsive need to start looking around for all of NIS's titles, seeing how rare they eventually became.  Indeed, I rounded out my collection with the bulk of them:  Makai Kingdom, Phantom Brave, Disgaea 1-3, La Pucelle Tactics, and even Disgaea 1 for PSP (I did, actually buy a copy of Rhapsody:  A Musical Adventure, even, but that was for my girlfriend) but around then....I just stopped.  My dips into Makai Kingdom and La Pucelle were brief, my experience with Phantom Brave is literally non-existant and Disgaea 1 was only played on the PSP.

It's not that I dislike NIS's games, of course.  Far from it.  I just, again, lack the desire, the urge to grind levels, item levels, this and that, reincarnate and grind again, which takes away a lot of the experience and nags at me that I'm not willing to take all the game has to give.  And it's an issue with Strategy/Tactics RPGs in general too as I just don't want to play those games all the time.  I burn myself out too easily I suppose, by trying to do this and that for the 'perfect' experience and when I get right before that, I stop.  Still, this has, of course, rekindled my interest in it all going so far as to make me think about digging my copy of Disgaea:  Afternoon of Darkness out of the drawer it rests within and giving it another go.  Hmm...

Still, news of this new version of Disgaea 3 on the Vita is welcome even though I believe it's considered a weaker game by NIS standards, though I didn't really see it that way with my experience with the title.  The whole problematic situation with Disgaea 3's trophy patch (You'll probably have to delete your save data and then Oh, hey, I guess you won't) was a bit off-putting to my experience with the game as a whole, especially so when my perusing of the trophy list instilled a horror into me that still hasn't lifted.  (Really, Clear an entire Land of Carnage Item World without leaving?!  Reverse Pirating?!)  I......I imagine that won't clear up with the Vita release much, now will it?

Hmm...Well, I guess I'll wait and see with this one.

Update!:  Siliconera (and, well, youtube) has provided us all with a look at Disgaea 3 Returns' trailer which features a look at both new characters to the game.  According to the article (which is according to the trailer, I suppose.  I don't know a lick of japanese characters so...) the girl with the tail is named Ruchiru.  (Which will likely not be what we get to know her as, of course.)




That is....well, it's a thing.  Looks just like Disgaea 3, which isn't hard since, well, one could never confuse Disgaea 3 for taking full advantage of the PS3's graphics potential.  Which isn't a bad thing, of coure.