Land of the Rising Thumb

Pokémon Platinum launched in Japan last Saturday, and I've been playing it on and off since then, mostly alternating it with the wonderful Rhythm Tengoku Gold. The display of (empty) Platinum game boxes at my local games shop had been pretty well decimated when I arrived at lunchtime, so it's clearly as popular as any other Pokémon titles, but what always surprises me about Pokémon (yep, I never learn) is how painfully slow the series' evolution is.

It's like Nintendo has a grand 100-year plan, designed to make sure that people continue to buy the games at least until Hiroshi Yamauchi turns 150, while deliberately keeping any new features to an absolute minimum so that the next Pokémon game will be another easy development ride. Of all Nintendo's other games, only Fire Emblem rivals Pokémon as the most eligible to provide evidence of Nintendo's laziness/conservatism (delete as appropriate).

There is, inevitably, some new stuff in Pokémon Platinum. But by "new stuff" I don't mean a reconstructed control system or anything of that importance. Nope: I mean five new pokémon (all of which happen to be different versions of Rotom), new forms for a couple of others, and a slightly expanded online mode where you get to battle, chat and play some simple touchscreen mini-games. Ho hum.

Of course there have been some interesting Pokémon spin-offs - Pokémon Snap on the N64, for example - but at this stage, the main line of Pokémon games is pretty much dead to me. And yet I foolishly bought a copy just to have my suspicions confirmed, so Nintendo wins...

I'll just have to console myself with a copy of Game & Watch Collection 2, which I've just ordered from Japan's Club Nintendo for 500 points. This is the follow-up to the first G&W Collection (obviously), which was given away some time back to Club Nintendo members who had accumulated big points balances. Anyway, the sequel contains DS versions of 1981-vintage Nintendo LCD games Parachute and Octopus, as well as a Parachute X Octopus remix that combines elements of both games. You'll probably be able to find copies on eBay sooner or later, so make an occasional search if you're interested.

Over on the PSP, the multiplayer adventure scene continues to fuel the format's success in Japan. After Capcom's first two Monster Hunter Portable games, Sega pulled off a surprising coup with Phantasy Star Portable, which, like the MH titles, has sold in great volumes (more than 620,000 copies to date), largely because of its four-player co-op mode. Next up is Capcom's Sengoku Basara Battle Heroes, due early in 2009 and again boasting a four-player game, including two-on-two battles, which should more or less guarantee its success in the Japanese PSP market.

Shuhei Yoshida, the biggest cheese at Sony Worldwide Studios, was complaining recently about what he saw as a shortage of big third-party IPs on the PSP, but publishers such as Square Enix, Capcom and Sega seem to be doing their best to get as many appealing PSP games into the Japanese market as possible.

And they're reaping the rewards, too, with impressive sales numbers. Still, it'll be interesting to see how many major new PSP titles are playable at next month's Tokyo Game Show, and I'll be sure to tell you all about it.

There are all sorts of interesting upcoming games from recognised publishers in keitai world, but I must confess to spending much of my phone-play time using MBGA.jp for legally free games. Some of the 100+ titles on Mobile Game Town are excellent; some of them are duffers; but all of them are effectively free, with MBGA apparently making its money from advertising and packet download rates.

Top of the MBGA charts this week is Afro Hammer (pictured above), a hammer throw simulation featuring characters who have funky haircuts. Naturally. Another popular MBGA title is Obake Arubaito - in other words, Ghost Part-time Employee - in which you have to save customers at your place of employment from... ghosts! Not bad for 0 yen.