Black Rock Shooter is kind of a complex thing though, what with the music, and the game, and the animation. I'm not surprised that there's no talk of that making it's way here. Does it have much of a following in the West?

Love me some Image Epoch. I thought Arc Rise Fantasia was very cool on the Wii, and I played the first Luminous Arc into the ground. I didn't play Luminous Arc 2 as much as I'd have liked to (ie. at all), but it automatically gets points because Yasunori Mitsuda worked on the soundtrack.

And GiantBoyDetective also reminds me of my strong desire for any and all Venture Bros. information that may surface . . . although I guess that's not really game related.

I can respect that. I live so deep in my backlog that I now have a "frontlog." That's game that I buy but don't even have time to start because I can't crawl out of the backlog.

Definitely do. The Tales games have some of the most engaging combat engines on the market due to how active they are. It would be a shame to miss out.

Ah okay. Well the Tales game is easy enough to figure out. Most modern games in the series are all relatively the similar, but with new characters and settings. If you look up youtube videos of Tales of Vesperia, or read reviews of it, and just imagine the whole thing with a slightly more adult visual style, and…

Damn you're right! What what I thinking!

It's a JRPG for the 3DS from Matrix, which is the studio most know for the FFIII and FFIV remakes on the DS. Here is afew lovely screenshots and art resources to get you all excited and whatnot:

Amen brother. I don't think we have anything to worry about though. The majority of Matrix games get US releases. Even if Square decides to be stingy with us, someone like Xseed will pick up the slack like they did with Avalon Code and Nostalgia.

Agreed. This is a real coup. With this, Ni no Kuni, Growlanser, and Last Story on the way, and FF XIII-2, Graces F, and Xenoblade in previous months, it really hasn't been so rough being a JRPG fan lately. It's about damn time this generation started treating us right.

Oh for sure. I definitely consider the Crystarium a step down. It was a essentially a straight line with fancy graphics. All I'm saying is, one clearly sprung from the other, and it's baffling how people don't make the connection.

The college that I attended for my MA two years ago used, "For Both Sides of the Brain!" as their PR tagline during my stay. There were posters and banners plastered everywhere with the slogan on it. I found it incredibly tragic/hilarious that an institution of higher learning was announcing to the world that they…

It's all relative. XIII's endgame was tremendous, and could easily allow you to triple or double your playtime. The plains that open up near the end of the game were huge, and purposely left a great deal of ground uncovered during the actual storyline. There were sidequests, challenging giant enemies, and an…

Oh no doubt. Both are solid games, but like any/every game, both have their missteps. People who ignore that connection are simply refusing to take off their nostalgia goggles in regards to X. I mean, look at character development. If the Crystarium isn't a point-for-point evolution of the sphere grid, then I don't…

Yep. Then IX, happened which was so traditional that it was practically postmodern. Then X came, tested the waters with some new ideas, and was accepted. Then Square decided that since X shook things up but was okay, XII could happen and change everything. Then people bellyached again. It's a fine line Square walks…

Amen. I've had enough of asymmetrical shorts for this lifetime.

Finally someone else who isn't afraid to view X through a critical lense. That game was just as linear as XIII. Alot of people forget that. Sure the game opened up and let you explore much later . . . but guess what! So did XIII. XIII merely followed a precedent that X established, and popularized.

You're not alone. I'm a bit behind the 8-ball, and just beat XIII this past spring, but I enjoyed it alot. As is often the case with long running franchises that have tremendous fanbases, it's not that XIII is a bad game, it's just not the game that many people wanted/expect. There's a big difference.

Oh, there's no doubt about that. Sony needs to get their buns in gear and get some genuine killer app games on the Vita ASAP without Capcom's help. If anything, a higher install base for the system will encourage Capcom to explore a Vita version of Monster Hunter. Which will, in turn, sell more Vitas.

Not really. His assumption is based on good precedent. After all, Monster Hunter Tri was also technically Nintendo exclusive on the Wii, but the enhanced version, Portable 3rd came out on PSP and as an high-def port on PS3. Capcom may be greedy these days, but they're not stupid. They know that a LARGE contingency…