KOEI, Seriously, Please Start Announcing Localizations

KOEI really, really, really likes the Vita...

....in Japan.

No less than four Warriors titles are in production for the device at the moment, and it borders on absurd at just how much attention the Vita's getting from KOEI, even if it -is- half ports.  Yet, when those ports are Samurai Warriors 2 (and Xtreme Legends -and- Empires) and Warriors Orochi 3 (as an enhanced version of the game, same as PS3's enhanced version) you will be surprised at just how fucking okay I am with this.  Those two games join the line-up alongside Dynasty Warriors 8: Xtreme Legends (potentially 8 somewhere along the line too?) and the newly announced Shin Dynasty Warriors Gundam which are both being developed for PS3 -and- Vita.  And that's all of just what I know about, who the hell knows if there's other stuff that I've missed completely, because it's entirely possible.

The first reaction to this is supposed to be a level of cautious optimism, of course.  They're not exclusive games to the Vita, but they're being developed for it nonetheless, and that likely fosters a sort of side-by-side mentality about them.  Consumers will only buy one or the other by-and-large of course (KOEI ain't gonna touch Cross-buy with a ten foot pole) but it broadens the pool of potential buyers at the very least if you put both out, and there's no reason -not- to.  That they're coming to the Vita at all is a good sign no matter how you look at it.  I basically mention that side-by-side mentality for the localization aspect of the games, of course.  Speaking of...

The next reaction is the slow, creeping disdain and cynicism that one has naturally fostered for KOEI by this point when it comes to actually releasing games outside of Japan.  We did get the original Warriors Orochi 3 (as digital-only for PS3 which is something that I have ranted about enough), and we did get Samurai Warriors 2, Xtreme Legends and Empires way back in the day easy enough as well.  DW8:XL seems a given to come out over here, but I'm not pinning any hopes on disc-based, and Shin Dynasty Warriors Gundam....is the sticky one of the bunch.  We don't know anything about it really - is it just another DW: G game with a new name? - so it's hard to say one way or another, especially with Namco Bandai being involved on top of KOEI.  Warriors Orochi 3 coming out over here originally might even be a strike against its chances since WO3 Ultimate is a (highly) enhanced version of it.  But we'll just have to see on that, I suppose.

Now, as mentioned, the really sticky thing to wonder about if -any- of these games come out is format.  KOEI surprised the hell out of me by announcing DW8 on disc with a proper localization and such, but I expect that to be the exception rather than the rule moving forward.  I have zero problems throwing money at people at GameStop for a copy of a KOEI game on a disc.  Zero.  While I've raised a stink about digital-only in the past (and it's still an issue, though definitely something I've chilled out on some), I only have a few issues with throwing digital money at PSN for a copy of a KOEI game in digital form.  Those issues are primarily "How big is it" and "That's going to take fucking forever to download".  Which was a legitimate concern with my current PS3 - the fans kick on to 100% or seems like it, which means it's not long for this world.  It takes the better part of six hours to download one gig of data, I'd bet, so something like WO3 which was eleven gigs?  Ridiculous.  Cannot, will not ever happen unless I cart my system to someone else and it manages to not die after I delete 22 gigs of data to accommodate the strange way PSN downloads work with full games or something.

When I get a shiny new PS3 with 500 gigs of storage space this will....be far less of an issue.  It'll obviously still take fucking forever to download, but the great thing is that I might actually be able to let it.  In the end, it's all about just being able to buy and play a game that you want to play.  So when there's an unreasonable barrier, of course it's going to be frustrating, but I guess the option then just becomes "Make it work".  So maybe I will.  I can tell you with certainty that if the games come out in the West on Vita, I don't care what format, I will buy the ever-loving shit out of them.  I will make a KOEI page and it will have all the bubbles for Dynasty Warriors Next and Toukiden and whatever of the above titles actually come out, even if I have to buy them all digitally.  I will eschew whatever I have to in an effort to have multiple KOEI Warriors games at my fingertips.  And I will seriously consider a 32 gig stick if need-be.  You just have to make it happen, KOEI.

there is honestly nothing about the prospect of any of those four Warriors games on my Vita that I don't love

Mighty No. 9 is Mega Man, Funded, Awesome

It's simultaneously easy and incredibly difficult to believe that you have not heard of Mighty No. 9 at this point - on the one hand, it's been a busy weekend in North America at least, and that does sort of make it difficult to find out about Kickstarter news unless you're looking for it, but on the other hand, it feels like everybody already knows about Mighty No. 9.  So for those of you who don't know what the game it, it is basically Mega Man.  It looks like Mega Man, it has the same general concept as Mega Man, the same general playstyle as Mega Man and the same original creator as Mega Man.  Yes, Keiji Inafune, with his company Comcept USA, took to Kickstarter to get funding for the game known as Mighty No. 9 and did so in quite a swift amount of time - just around two days.  For a $900,000 goal on a busy weekend as it has been (PAX and Labor Day), it's rather impressive and it still has a run of 28 days before it closes down and locks in the exact final amount which, thanks to stretch goals, will more or less decide just how much Mighty No. 9 we're going to get.

The base game....well, why don't I let one of the Kickstarter Bullet Points explain that, yes?

• You play as Beck, the 9th in a line of powerful robots, and the only one not infected by a mysterious computer virus that has caused mechanized creatures the world over to go berserk. Run, jump, blast, and transform your way through six stages (or more, via stretch goals) you can tackle in any order you choose, using weapons and abilities stolen from your enemies to take down your fellow Mighty Number robots and confront the final evil that threatens the planet!

Blatant Mega Man comparisons aside (emphasis theirs, by the way, not mine), it says right there that the original goal is for six stages, but that seven and eight can be added through  the Stretch Goals and is specifically the first one at $1,200,000.  At this point in time, it's -almost- there even, being at $1,141,413 as I'm writing this (and updating constantly as I continue writing, and it wouldn't surprise me if it's fully to that goal by the time I'm finished).  It's not broken apart or anything - that stretch goal is the one that will add the stages for Mighty No. 7 and 8 and thus more or less make it even closer to the Mega Man games we all already know and love.  The other Stretch Goals include Mac and Linux versions (btw, base game is set only for PC, however...), New Game Plus and "Turbo Mode", a Making-Of Documentary and, of course, PS3/360/Wii U versions.  There are also two Stretch Goals which are....mysteries?  I guess?  Perhaps surprises along the way to spice things up or something.

If there's absolutely anything to be disappointed in at looking at Mighty No. 9, it's simply that the Console Versions are the very last Stretch Goal, set in at the $2,500,000 mark, and that there's no 3DS or Vita love, nor Next-Gen love aside from the Wii U.  Of course, Kickstarters are malleable by nature and the feedback on their official Twitter has stated that versions for all the consoles left out are possible, depending on funding and feedback.  The official statement re: PS4/XBone versions is that they're not planning on them due to lack of knowledge about the consoles which....is understandable since they're not even out yet, buy by the time Mighty No. 9 comes out, they will have been and for...a little while.  Obviously, I am that guy, always saying how I want everything on my Vita so this is certainly no exception, but mostly because it's a damn good fit.  Mega Man: Maverick Hunter X (which was free through Plus a while back) played wonderfully on the PSP (and the Vita as well) so Vita/3DS versions of the game just make sense, so long as they can work them properly.

Otherwise, I just haven't looked into it all that much because I don't really....need to.  It's a new, improved version of Mega Man with fun, new little twists and such, but is so much built on a foundation that I already know very well.  Conveniently, that means that I know it's going to be good with some level of certainty, which is nice to have.  However, as much as I like looking at Kickstarter projects - I prefer the ability to actually buy them when they're available or, in some cases, while they're on their way to being released, not when they're mere theories and concepts on paper and computer documents and files.  But I'm old-fashioned like that, it seems, especially when I consider that notion to be a silly one, since there are people who will un-ironically agree with my assertion that I'm old-fashioned because of that.  But that sort of stuff just makes my head hurt anymore.

Anyways, Mega M- Mighty No. 9.  It's going to be a thing and it's likely going to be fantastic.  Let's just see where all it ends up landing and how the Kickstarter plays out.  Certainly going to be interesting if nothing else.

I personally just love how tongue-in-cheek against Capcom the whole thing is

Bonus Post - What's Been Going On Lately?

Above is the song that I linked to in the New Little King's Story post I made earlier, or rather, finished earlier, which was originally going to be used in a post the previous night where I just grumbled loudly about bullshit I didn't/don't want to get into and not actually talk about -anything-.  As noted in said NLKS post (which was supposed to go up last night, meaning the rage post was from the night before last) I hit save instead of publish and then closed the tab because I was, well, pissed.  So last night, I went "Oh, that was silly, but no sense in fixing my mistake and posting it since it's got no content and is just anger" and instead started the NLKS post which explained the lack of post from the night before.  While I was writing that, as I noted on my Twitter, there was a little friend drama occurring that I got dragged into.  I'm sure I don't have to tell you, but when two of your friends are having a -large- fight, and you end up on the blamed end because you didn't stick up for either of them (because they were both wrong), well, it kind of hampers morale.  So, what does all this mean, exactly?

It means that it just hasn't been a good week.

Rather, August just wasn't a good month in general.  I was on-and-off with allergies, and while my mood was mostly stable, my inspiration and my actual -ability- to write sort of fluctuated which I'm sure is residual from my moping around and such from The Great Mogs Funk of 2013.  Of course, at the end of the month here, I started working again and my current work will go on until at least the 20th of this month, if not til the -end- of September.  It's not easy work.  It's manual labor work, it's intensive, and it's something that requires proper timing and precision over several hours.  It's tiring, is my point, and going from not really working to being ridiculously busy is not an easy transition to make in ideal circumstances and I am clearly not in ideal circumstances by any flip of the coin.  So it's just a lot of stuff all at once as it usually happens and it just gets in the way and is annoying.

What -hasn't- helped things is that my pool of topics to talk about of a night has shrunk considerably for the bulk of summer, and I think that has shown itself at several points.  As I've stated before, during the summer it's simply -too hot- to play my PS3 for extended periods of time because it'll just erupt into flames and drag $170 out of my wallet for a replacement for a unit that I don't even want anymore.  I have an old 80 gig with backwards compatibility and not to sound like a jackass, but I don't even want that.  I don't use it because what if my PS3 seizes up and dies while I'm playing like, Shadow Hearts:  Covenant?  Drakengard?  Those aren't easy games to get anymore and yes, while you're -supposed- to get your disc back when you get the replacement unit, who knows if there's edge cases where they go "Oh, sorry, it was lost/destroyed" and who knows what happens in that case?  It's simply easier to just -not- deal with that nonsense.

That's why the goal has shifted as such.  I believe I mentioned it in the past, but I was giving serious consideration into the 500 GB GTA V Bundle at GameStop, and when I went there this past week to pick up Killer is Dead, I did it.  I put down $50 of the whole purchase and I feel good about it.  The Super Slim is a device that I actually like the looks of, it's small, it runs cool, it doesn't draw a lot of power, and if it breaks, I can open it and get my disc.  But, of course, it's not going to break - I'm confident that, like Microsoft with the latest and greatest models of the 360, they've figured out that over-heating thing something fierce and it only happens in the edgest of edge cases now - like Store Demos and the like.  So for $270 ($220, technically since the 50 is already down) I'm getting a PS3 that would otherwise cost $300 in a different bundle with Grand Theft Auto V, something I was already going to pay $60 additionally for, and another Dualshock 3 so I can have proper couch-multiplayer if I so desire and have someone else around.  Or if I just want to switch controllers.  It seemed like a no-brainer, especially because the cool system and the 500 gigs of on-board storage means I'll...actually look into downloading PS3 games I've gotten from Plus, which is a bevy of opportunity on its own merits alone.

So what's been going on lately is a lot of change.  Which means a lot of stress which means a lot of wasted time which means that I don't get a lot of work done.  Obviously, I apologize for that and it's a silly thing overall, but, well, y'gotta have pride in whatever you do, and I certainly do here.  I'm pretty certain that people read this blog nightly, judging by the view counts, and I imagine you people are the few and the proud, as it were, so you deserve a little transparency when I can offer it.  And that's what it is.  The next few weeks are going to still be rough, but when Grand Theft Auto V comes out, I'll have not only the game, but a new PS3 that I can use and abuse wholly for entertainment purposes on an unprecedented level which will allow me to get through my backlog and allow me to provide some more content for you guys where it might otherwise be absent or lacking.  It's not too far off.

As always, thanks for reading, folks.

as if I needed another reason to be excited for GTAV, I mean have you even seen that game

Oh, My, New Little King's Story is Delightful

I have to be careful with this one here because it seems that I have not been good with first impressions lately, both with the whole Touch My Katamari thing the other week and....some other things in my personal life that are -very- frustrating and the entire reason why I actually didn't get a post out last night.  Or rather, why I typed up a short post and, still in a blind fury, hit "Save" instead of "Publish" and closed the window so I could go be angry until I wanted to relax, which is when I turned to New Little King's Story.  You'll notice that the post is still not up, which is...mostly because it was me embedding a youtube video of a Halestorm song and typing a few angry sentences about how I wasn't able to do a proper post.  So you didn't really miss anything but the song which you are not missing now.  But that all is a terrible tangent and I've gone completely off-point.

Ahem.

Anyways, I bought New Little King's Story because it was going for a paltry $9.79 thanks to the wonderful Japanese Games Sale that I talked about a couple weeks ago.  Unfortunately I didn't play it until the sale was over (as it was just a couple days ago that I started playing it.) so I couldn't recommend it before it went back to retail price and it's -seeming- like that might be a bad thing.  I'm absolutely enchanted with the game from the start of it, so it's obviously endeared itself to me, surprising myself, to the point where I might be tempted to recommend it to others.  Except I'm wary to do so, mostly because of the issues mentioned above.  Especially with the price back up to $20 in North America, it's something I want to be a little certain on before I shout that you need New Little King's Story in your life if I do indeed end up doing just that.  I'll have to probably....like, beat the game first before I can decide if I'm going to do that or not and I'm not even -close- to that point.

What New Little King's Story -is- is something that I can't quite put a finger on, mechanics-wise.  It's like a really odd blend of what I can only assume Pikmin is like (having never played it) as well as the sort of easy-job system that probably has a better example than Fat Princess, but that's all I can come up with.  Basically the jobs, like in Fat Princess, are designated by hats, and you get the hats from buildings.  In NLKS' case, you send the members of your Royal Guard (basically people that you make follow you around) running into a building that gives (or sells in some cases) the hat you want them to wear and they walk out with that job.  There's a little more of a level of permanency to it than you might expect in that, while you can switch their jobs, and there doesn't seem to be a reason -not- to do so if you aren't so inclined, they will stay in that job from day-to-day.  So when you finish up for the night (game has a Day/Night cycle) and get up the next day, when you walk around town to pick your Guard again, those who were Grunts yesterday, Farmers, etc. will all still be in that job, mingling with the townsfolk until you recruit them again.

The story starts with you more or less building a domain from which to rule and that's a pretty decent start-up as any I've heard really.  Neighboring areas have monsters that don't trouble you unless you step out into the wilderness and even then they're start-of-the-game monsters so you won't be too fussed.  Though it introduces a system where a Miniboss controls the monsters of the area and when it's defeated, you gain control of the land.  So clearly, that's the idea to start out with so you can build more buildings and expand your kingdom for more subjects who will be more recruits with more jobs.  Etc. etc.  What this also means is that you should generally give a good bit of thought into your Royal Guard because there's certain things that you -don't- want to do, and the list includes: walking across a long, long distance with a group of grunts only to find out you need a carpenter to build a stairway, and walking directly into the den of a miniboss with a Hunter, Two Farmers and Two Carpenters.  Both can be very frustrating situations, let me tell you.

I haven't really even gotten into the meat of the game, though I suspect the meat is what my next objective is, so I'm -close-.  But even then, it's the first of many bits that comprise the meat, so it's going to be a fairly lengthy game, I'm guessing.  That's good.  I'm hoping that by the time I'm finished with NLKS, I'll think of it as the right length instead of wishing it'd been more or, even worse, thinking there was entirely too much there.  But I don't know -how- the game will get to a point where it will be too much of what I consider a good thing, nor do I know how this good thing can wear out its welcome.  So, overall, I'm just being quite positive about it.  It's going to be a nice ride in the meanwhile, figuring out the further nuances with the game and the jobs that it'll continue to offer.  And I'm sure this isn't going to be the last post that I make on the game, so there's that to look forward to as well.

I was lucky in that one miniboss encounter, however, since it just sat there and let my Hunter murder the shit out of it

Well, That Was Short-Lived

I would like to start off by saying that I'm sorry.  Kind of.  I'm sorry if, after my faint praise of the game and its low, low sale price were enticing enough for you to have bought the game, then I apologize.  Not because Touch My Katamari eventually turns into a game that lives and breathes on punching you in the dick and laughing at your torment or anything, no.  In fact, it's very fair and when you unlock the Eternal Modes for the levels, it's quite enjoyable indeed.  Fundamentally, there's not a whole lot wrong with the game part of the game if you don't count the fact that it's kind of short.  There is something, however, that is one of those naturally terrible things that just grate on me because it screams of design that you should never ever ever incorporate into a game.  Ever.

The currency of the game world in Touch My Katamari is Candy.  You get candies for finishing requests (based on your performance), for buying things for the King (never as many as you spent) and for playing every day.  That last one is the key - playing a few days in a row will only get you a couple to a handful of candies, whereas a full ten days in a row and thereafter will get you 256 candies simply for loading up the game.  That seems like a lot, right?  It does.  Until you learn that everything costs thousands of candies.  Some of it is the low thousands so it's not -bad-, since you're earning a couple hundred easy from requests anyway (so long as you're not getting really low scores, which you -won't- in Eternal because you'll be rolling all of the things), but it's still a bit of a slog to buy everything.  Even utilizing Candy Tickets, which multiply your candies earned in a request by 2, then 4, then 8 (if you use three at a time) won't get you a -lot-, but it'll get you a good amount towards buying things.

And if you want all the dozen trophies that Touch My Katamari has to offer, then you're going to have to buy all the things.  Specifically all of the music (you'll want to anyway, the music is more or less pretty good) and all the King's clothes, which is where the issue is.  You see, the upper echelon of outfits for the King's wardrobe will cost in the high thousands per piece meaning you're kind of stuck playing the levels over and over and over and over again...which is fine in theory.  Either that or, if you're going for the mega secret ultimate hidden item, which is literally a golden poop soft-serve that costs a grand 76,500 Candies which is...far more than the rest of the items in the game combined.  By quite a wide margin.  Given that your biggest get for a single level using three candy tickets if you finish off all the bonus things in the same level (which are one-time-only affairs) is probably somewhere around 1,000-1,400 candies.  Maybe.  For about 15-20 minutes playtime.  You....can see how this will end up being a sort of a problem.

This is where that bit about the 256 candies per day comes into play.  See, the silly thing about Touch My Katamari is that, even though there's something that clearly checks an external source for the date and time (the rank/title vendor, basically - you title will upgrade as you continue to play the game which eventually gives you candy multiplier bonuses that do not stack with tickets) you can go into a menu (guides suggest the curio menu) switch to settings, advance the day by one, go back into the game, exit the menu and get handed 256 candies.  You can repeat this process over and over and over again and it will take you a long time, but it will be far, far faster than getting the candies legitimately.  And by far, far faster, I mean it will take hours of your life and cause you to advance the clock manually, day-by-day, to June 22nd, 2014 if you started today with a no-streak (meaning the first ten days were building up to the 256).  Like I did.  Today.  Right before I bought the golden poop soft-serve and got the trophy for getting the golden poop soft-serve, uploaded my save data to online storage and deleted that shit.

That is really my main issue with the game other than it being short, but it's a pretty damn serious issue if you have terrible not-actually-OCD-but-let's-call-it-that-anyway like I do, and as a design philosophy, it's abhorrent.  You might think, with Namco and the way they treat Katamari games, that it was a trick to get you to -buy- candy with real money, but no, that's not even an option.  You can by Fan Damacies (that are otherwise completely random spawns) which you trade for Candy Tickets (and also unlock the free DLC missions with) and that's basically the gist of the whole....real-money aspect to it.  Aside from maybe buying more music or something, I didn't really look into it.  And it's not that I was going to buy candy, it's just that I was assured that that's what Namco wanted me to do.  But no....no it was not.  Which makes the decision even more baffling.  Still, for $3.75 and Eternal Modes, it was a rather fun, enjoyable game that would've been easily "alright" if it wasn't for that whole glaring issue.  As it stands, I just can't continue to recommend it unless you just...don't care about trophies at all.  Which is probably the healthy move.

it burns usssss, needs the trophies precious

Nintendo Announces the 2DS, Nobody Knows What the Hell

In a stunning, out-of-friggin'-nowhere announcement that Nintendo made today (alongside a few others), it seems that they've developed and created a new 3DS that will be out in just under two months when Pokemon X and Y hit the shelves.  Actually calling it a new 3DS is...a little tricky, however, because it lacks the titular element that made the 3DS the 3DS.  So much so, that it has a different name entirely:  the Nintendo 2DS.  It means exactly what it says on the tin, because the shiny 3D effects that the 3DS outputs and whatnot are entirely stripped from this new system, leaving every game (even the ones specifically designed around the 3D effect) stuck in the 2D plane literally and figuratively as opposed to the quasi-3D plane that they previously achieved through the 3DS' (admittedly alright) methods.  Because, you know, that was necessary.

The 2DS does quite a bit more to differentiate itself from the 3DS aside from simply losing the 3D, however.  Gone is the clamshell design that, while it apparently sometimes causes scratches to the upper screen, made the device a portable one which is...you know, the point of it.  Size Comparison shots put the new 2DS at about the size of an original 3DS unfolded, but just a bit smaller while retaining screen size.  I think.  Looks like it at least.  Basically this thing is not going into your pocket to make use of Streetpassing and the mobility-centric things that Ninendo designed for the 3DS specifically so you would walk around with it in your pocket unless you just really have big pockets and aren't worried about the exposed screens getting all mussed up.  Thanks to the shell-less design, however, we finally do have proper Start and Select buttons (possibly....they have to be better than the crappy ones on the 3DS and XL) and a Home Button that looks a -little- better, even if it's specifically reminiscent of iDevices.  The entire aesthetic and layout is changed as well and looks....terribly uncomfortable, with the main things directly in the middle with the shoulder buttons on the top of it.  Given its smaller size, maybe it's better than it looks (in fact, it almost assuredly is) but it doesn't give the best first impression.

Something else that's rather interesting about the 2DS is that, thanks to the lack of a Clamshell design, the two screens of the handheld are actually -one- screen this time around.  Which means that the whole thing is a touch screen, but you can only make use of the bottom half of it.  This is mostly a cost-cutting measure as is most of the design choices with the 2DS.  And at a pricepoint of $129.99, it's pretty obvious why.  By cutting all of the bells, whistles and some basic functionality, they're able to put out a really dumb iteration of the 3DS which is selling fine thank you specifically to market towards kids on the day that Pokemon comes out.  Because the people who really want Pokemon are not the people who have already bought a 3DS, clearly.  The fence-sitting "only going to buy one when Pokemon comes out" crowd is clearly a large one that deserves some subset of pandering to.  And the argument, again is, "It's for kids!" but what kid has been crowing about a 3DS since it came out that -doesn't- have one?  And how many of those kids who haven't gotten one are actually going to get this one?

The answer is:  Probably a lot.  Because it doesn't make sense.  The only -actual- level this makes any bit of sense on is the financial one, which I suppose is the only level it needs to function on, but still.  It's beyond silly to design a console specifically around a feature and then remove that feature just because.  You could draw some allusions to Microsoft and the recent shenanigans they made, but it's a highly different beast for very simple reasons:  1) Microsoft's original XBone was detrimental and harmful to the gaming model as a whole and would have not been sustainable on the level they were expecting and 2) Their decisions to remove the functions was purely reactionary.  Perhaps if the 3DS had been the 2DS from the on-set after the original announcement and people went "We don't need 3D, 3D is lame!" and such, then, yes, that would have been reactionary and comparable.  But this is just mucking about with something simply to squeeze a little more money out of it in a ridiculous fashion and it comes off as one of those "Nintendo Desperate" moves in an atmosphere where they don't need to be desperate just yet.

I really had to resist the urge to add the "I never asked for this" jpeg

BigFest Looks Like It Might Be Something

BigFest is one of the games that was just announced at GamesCom and like most of the Vita announcements, this one was Indie-Oriented - but in a far different way.  It's being developed by what I can only assume is an Indie team, "On the Metal" apparently, but it's one of Sony's ideas simply handed down to the team to develop, or so the (European) Playstation Blog says.  At its core, it's essentially a Theme Park Game (You remember those, right?) in which the idea is to run not a Theme Park, but a music festival, setting up booths and the stage, customizing the set-list and such and making sure everything runs smoothly so that your visitors are happy.  It's a management Sim which, I have been begging for on the Vita because Sim games on a portable just make sense and only now is it finally appearing as such, but not quite in a way I would've anticipated.  Though it is in one that I'm willing to give a try with.

The reason why this game beats Indie at its core is not because of the developer or the concept, but because of the content.  Music Festivals need music - that is the point of them - and the actual music that you'll be using will not be canned music from a database or pre-arranged songs unique to the game, but tapped directly from an independent source rife with bands who are not signed with record labels.  Actual Indie bands, not, you know, bands that adhere to the "Indie Scene", since that was a thing for a little while.  Music-snobbery aside, that along makes it a fascinating prospect; one that many are already interpreting as a way for Sony to gather some intelligence for their Music Division which would be a brilliant idea, so long as it's done through a workable, enjoyable game in the process.

There's not a whole lot about the game that's really known at this point - it's only announced for the Vita and it makes the most sense there, and there's some (hopefully alpha) footage of it shown in the above video, but that's about the gist of it.  And really, that's the bulk of what needs to be said of it at this point - It's an interesting looking game with an interesting looking concept that will hopefully be executed well enough to draw attention to itself and the crux of its creation.  Don't really need to go off into a tangent about this or that related to it.

Or at least, that's what I'm telling myself because I've had a headache for ten hours and I can barely focus and I just want to go to sleep.

I do hope that it's successful (and Football Manager) if just to bring more Simulation games to the system KOEI