Given the history of Japanese-to-US box art transformations, this was probably a knee jerk reaction. "They made another mugshot cover! Too in-your-face! Make it artsy! More artsy! More! There! Yes."

Britain successfully introduced a bill wherein it's illegal to depict pretty much any sort of moral debauchery. THAT is what people are afraid of. Think about that... Japan being afraid to turn into Britain.

Just as long as I don't have to watch her frolic in a field and share awkward, stilted love-you-no-love-you-mores with their Hayden Christensen lookalike.

@Fernando Jorge: Same here. Plus, my computer doesn't like it when I have forty different Youtube videos loaded in the same window.

@Fernando Jorge: It does, but at the same time, expecting a story on the line with Godfather parts 1 and 2 is unrealistic. Several videogames already have stories well on a par with Hollywood blockbusters already... And if you want to make a Videogame, then it's really, really, REALLY tough to make anything more…

@Fernando Jorge: Well, there's your answer, really... A story isn't a requirement for a game. And so, hiring a proper writer goes way low on the priority list when the budget gets drawn up.

@blaaps: Eegra tells the truth.

@Fernando Jorge: Videogames are different beasts from other media. No other media requires as much input as a basic requirement.

@ShadowOdin is gonna be King of Kotaku: It's more the "ooh shiny" effect than anything else. I've heard something about decent CG visuals being cheaper to produce than (good) 2D visuals these days, too, though I could be wrong.

@Jehuty: There's already a remake of the first X game for the PSP. It's pretty good.

@Archaotic: Now squeal like a pig!

@AchromaticMagus: Yeah, that's the thing. She doesn't even get namedropped until the last ten percent of the game, and you don't even see her until you fight her.

Instability, hmm? Like motion sickness? Well, technically the term's supposedly "simulation sickness". It's the reason why the Playstation 1 era was hell to me, and why I don't generally buy FPS games.

@nantukoprime: Yes.

@rorkimaru: I can sorta see that. I've done that with a few games... Mega Man Zero 2? Tough damn game, also by Capcom. I happily played that again once I'd finished it, perfecting each boss and getting a complete game. The difference in that one was that I wasn't punished later in the game (beyond having less…

@rorkimaru: Seriously? You enjoyed having to go through an entire level again because you failed to see through a ridiculously tough boss's attack patterns over the course of two lives?

@Jurec: Well, I was sorta adding to his sentence, not proclaiming love for him.

The punishment has a lot to do with it. Take a game like "Bangai-O Spirits", where the stages are never longer than 2-3 minutes. Since the challenges are so short, and a restart is pretty much instant, you can get away with some seriously brutal stuff.

@walls99: Yeah, pretty much. The first couple of worlds work to ease you into the controls and the feel of it all... And if you pay attention, there are a few places where you can gather extra lives fast, especially towards the end of the game where things actually get tough.

Finally embracing the Doki Doki Panic crossover, I see.