What are you playing? Options

[Colonel Mustard]

An easy question: what game have you got in your console/PC/whatever at the moment? I've got Metal Gear Solid 4 in at the moment, and I'm enjoying it immensely. A bit cutscene heavy, but one of the things I like in games is the storyline, so I'm not too bothered.

[jack cloudy]

Pie throwing at a wedding? Shooting cans of fizzy drinks up into orbit? That's not the Japan I know. That's just plain weird.

That said, they do make some good stuff. (when they're not high on drugs)
Like Gundam (though Tomino should learn not to kill'em all)
Armored Core
Super Robot Taisen...Ok, so the good stuff tends to be for geeks with a rather narrow field of interest. I mean, I just listed the robots, but I could also list magical girls if I had more than a passing interest in them. I like the ones in this game I'm going to worship now, but that's more because of the irony. They're uber cute...and liberally toss around more firepower than your average army.

Err right, the most japanese game that I have played (and still play, from time to time) would have to be Disgaea for the DS. At first glance, it's just another turn-based tactical rpg in the vein of Final Fantasy tactics. But the setting, oh boy the setting!

The story can be described as: Join the pure evil (He's perfected the laugh of the Overlord, so he's damn evil) ruler of hell on his whacky adventures, doing acts of despicable evil, battling mid-bosses called mid-boss, while accompanied by, in no particular order...A devil girl with a severe backstabbing disorder which she does not even attempt to hide at all! (It's ok, a real demon is ambitious.)

The angel-in-training/assassin sent from the heavens who would rather preach all day about flowers, love and kindness! Also, love is the most powerfull weapon of mass destruction in the multiverse.(Note: friendship does not work that way!)

A Buck Rogers/Flash Gordon/Captain Kirk parody who really is the dumbest bag of testosterone ever!(Never loses his shirt, thank god)

Robbie the robot from Forbidden Planet! (ok, he's got a new name but dangit, it's him)

Penguins that explode when thrown! Also slave-labour (Dood, this is not what I had in mind when they said I could reincarnate in order to redeem my sins.)

And a hundred lolis with more firepower than the US nuclear arsenal. (Be glad no one is interested in conquering the garbage dump called earth. I mean, these lolis were created in a single week by a bored overlord and are themselves less than a week old. Give them a year, and they'll become more powerfull than the Death Star...individually)

The average gameplay turn is something along the lines of:
1: Giggling death loli summons a multiple miles high golem that shoots lightning from its fingertips. Or if she's nearly out of magic and running on empty fumes, holy deathlasers from outer space. Buh-bye! (I thought magical girls were supposed to be sugarly sweet and friendly? What's with the mass-genocide?!)
2: Overlord summons a meteor and rides it to the ground...while laughing. HAAHAHAHA (There go the dinosaurs, again.)
3: Various other lolis that are neither as giggling nor as deathdealing as the first one go to town with swords that can cause tornadoes, axes that make the ground explode into a crater, guns that can fire rapidly enough to keep their user airborne and bows...nah, scratch the bows. They suck.
4: Werecat (more like catgirl) does her best Fist of the North star impression. Attattattatatata and all that. In other words, rapid-fire punching.
5: Prinnie (penguin) breathes a sigh of relief as it finds out that everyone had been too busy killing stuff to notice that they had a walking grenade on their side just begging to be used. Dood.
End turn.

So yeah, it's final fantasy tactics, dressed up in a parody of japanese otaku culture and with even the most basic techniques/spells tuned up to eleven when it comes down to visuals. That miles-high golem? It's not even the most powerful spell in its category. And I love it for that whackiness.

Oh, and before I forget to mention...Nippon ichi (the makers of Disgaea) love their grinding. Maximum level? 9999. Level of the final boss? Somewhere around 110/120. Level of the first bonus boss? 2000. And unlike some examples, you can recruit her after kicking the crap out of her and she loses none of her strength when on your side. Then there are more bonus bosses after her...Who also join upon defeat. More powerful ones to.
That final boss is so screwed.

Man I need to get back to playing. The manual had a picture of a Super Sentai (power ranger) used on the player's side. I want to unlock that class.