First off, I just want to say for anyone who may read this, not only will this be a review of a couple DS Crossovers I've played and completed but also an in depth examination of why some crossovers may not reach the US or the West in general. Again, what is said here after the short reviews are mere opinions and should not be taken as fact. However, if anyone wishes to add their two cents in, please do so in a respectable manner. Now, read on!
1. Shonen Sunday x Sunday Magazine: White Comic is a game that is a crossover of various manga and anime titles from the magazines of Shonen Sunday & Sunday Magazine. Storywise, it is typical of most crossovers. Boy gets sent to world by evil forces, boy has to go on a adventure to save the backwards world of all the characters from the various series. Now battlewise is where things get interesting. There is a six element system that works like a circle in that each Kanji represents a quality of all the protagonists. One is stronger than the next one therefore the next one is weaker to the one you used before. If you use the one that weakens the other against enemies, battle are a lot easier even against the bosses. Characters featured are from series such as Fairy Tail, Kekkaishi, Rave Master, Negima, etc. I give this game a 4 out of 5.
2. Dengeki Gakuen: Cross of Venus Special is a Tales of style like game that uses the heroines from the Dengeki Bunko light novels. Novels featured are Shakugan no Shana, Kino no Tabi, Asura Cryin', Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu, Iriya no Sora, UFO no Natsu, Toradora!, and To Aru Majutsu no Index which has two heroines. The interesting points of this game is the large database of novel information that the main heroine Kizuna keeps as you collect the 214 cards in the game. Also, the system in which cards are created is interesting in that it uses an alchemy style system. Put Card A & Card B together to make one. Certain combinations can net you rare cards such as Boss Summons or Summons of characters from various series. Cards can be leveled up using the Kanji which correspond to them. The higher the level, the stronger. The game story is about the real world colliding with the worlds of the novels and the main villain, Zetsu, is manipulating the storylines to where events are illogical or out of place. Your job is to assist them in fixing things in the worlds. I give this game a 3 out of 5.
3. Jump Ultimate Stars obviously improves from its predecessor Super Stars with its advanced deck making system, more characters to play as, and more to do. There's not much of a story but it basically is about saving the various universes from the evil(misguided) Dr. Mashirito from destroying the universes. There's a lot of replay value with this one in that you can level your favorite fighters and some of them even evolve like Seiya can use his Sagittarius Cloth, Patch becomes Super Patch, and Ichigo can use his Bankai. Awesome games. Definitely worth a perfect 5 out of 5!
4. Days of Memories seems to be a crossover of SNK Playmore's characters from its roster of fighters from Samurai Showdown to King of Fighters. Not a whole lot so far but it's just a run of the mill dating simulator and you can interact with the characters of these games. I'm still working on this one but it looks interesting. I don't know what to make of it so far. My score of this rather short game is a 2 out of 5 because the game itself only has 3 scenarios and are replayable but aren't worth it.
5. Super Robot Wars W, K, & L are obviously crossovers of various mecha anime series ranging from Gundam to Zoids. A recurring theme in all of them is a protagonist who often is not chosen and assigned to you and pilots a mech himself. Often, like in other games, you must not only resolve the storylines of the series in the games but also your own which is used to tie all these series together. These games I give a collective score of 3 out of 5. L alone deserves a 1 out of 5 because of it's high difficulty and poor story and system construction(The Rebuild of Evangelion storyline had some plot holes plus it was unresolved because the movie series is still ongoing. Instead, due to the other conflicts going on in L's world, the Human Instrumentality Project was put on hold.) W was a better play to me.
These are all great games but now, we go to why they are not available here. It seems in the world of anime and manga, they are often the most expensive and cost wise in that licenses can cost a hell of a lot of money, therefore it would make not much dollars and sense to the development branches over here to import and translate them. But it seems in Japan, they're willing to spend that level of money and still make a damn good title. Anime in the West is somewhat of a niche market and the games make not make much profit unlike their counterparts of Marvel vs Capcom or the latter. Mostly in the West, gamers seem to like the stuff that's already established and the characters are more well known than those of anime or manga. In fact, a lot of the series in some of these games are either not well known, or otherwise not that popular. Also, the companies that produced some of the series in Super Robot Wars are no longer around or otherwise not established here in the West.
Light Novels are more of a recent phenomenon in Japan with at least 2 new adaptations per season alone. 9 times out of 10, they are from Dengeki Bunko. There may be some future for them here in the West though. Another reason may be due to the fact that there may not be a company willing to give these games a shot in that the prevailing attitude in the West still is that anime quote, "Is stuff for kids." Which is not true because I see anime that is very violent and sometimes over the top. That may come from the people who still believe we are in the moe boom which ended years ago. Anime in the post-moe era seems to be either geared toward promoting a toy or other product or is sometimes a follow-up of an already existing anime. Granted, we still get original work but not as much.
The crossovers we seem to get often are games from First Party developers such as Square-Enix and Third-Party developer such as Nintendo and Sega.
Personally, I would like to see a Clamp crossover game in my lifetime. But yet, Tsubasa Chronicle has two DS games and in essence is a crossover of their most popular series even though all of them have some references or characters in some cases to other series. Angelic Layer & Chobits had Icchan as the creator and promoter of both Persocoms and the dolls as well. But Heroes Phantasia seems promising: http://heroes-p.channel.or.jp/
This concludes my examination of this topic. Comment please and make sure you try out these games if you want a challenge or two!
1. Shonen Sunday x Sunday Magazine: White Comic is a game that is a crossover of various manga and anime titles from the magazines of Shonen Sunday & Sunday Magazine. Storywise, it is typical of most crossovers. Boy gets sent to world by evil forces, boy has to go on a adventure to save the backwards world of all the characters from the various series. Now battlewise is where things get interesting. There is a six element system that works like a circle in that each Kanji represents a quality of all the protagonists. One is stronger than the next one therefore the next one is weaker to the one you used before. If you use the one that weakens the other against enemies, battle are a lot easier even against the bosses. Characters featured are from series such as Fairy Tail, Kekkaishi, Rave Master, Negima, etc. I give this game a 4 out of 5.
2. Dengeki Gakuen: Cross of Venus Special is a Tales of style like game that uses the heroines from the Dengeki Bunko light novels. Novels featured are Shakugan no Shana, Kino no Tabi, Asura Cryin', Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu, Iriya no Sora, UFO no Natsu, Toradora!, and To Aru Majutsu no Index which has two heroines. The interesting points of this game is the large database of novel information that the main heroine Kizuna keeps as you collect the 214 cards in the game. Also, the system in which cards are created is interesting in that it uses an alchemy style system. Put Card A & Card B together to make one. Certain combinations can net you rare cards such as Boss Summons or Summons of characters from various series. Cards can be leveled up using the Kanji which correspond to them. The higher the level, the stronger. The game story is about the real world colliding with the worlds of the novels and the main villain, Zetsu, is manipulating the storylines to where events are illogical or out of place. Your job is to assist them in fixing things in the worlds. I give this game a 3 out of 5.
3. Jump Ultimate Stars obviously improves from its predecessor Super Stars with its advanced deck making system, more characters to play as, and more to do. There's not much of a story but it basically is about saving the various universes from the evil(misguided) Dr. Mashirito from destroying the universes. There's a lot of replay value with this one in that you can level your favorite fighters and some of them even evolve like Seiya can use his Sagittarius Cloth, Patch becomes Super Patch, and Ichigo can use his Bankai. Awesome games. Definitely worth a perfect 5 out of 5!
4. Days of Memories seems to be a crossover of SNK Playmore's characters from its roster of fighters from Samurai Showdown to King of Fighters. Not a whole lot so far but it's just a run of the mill dating simulator and you can interact with the characters of these games. I'm still working on this one but it looks interesting. I don't know what to make of it so far. My score of this rather short game is a 2 out of 5 because the game itself only has 3 scenarios and are replayable but aren't worth it.
5. Super Robot Wars W, K, & L are obviously crossovers of various mecha anime series ranging from Gundam to Zoids. A recurring theme in all of them is a protagonist who often is not chosen and assigned to you and pilots a mech himself. Often, like in other games, you must not only resolve the storylines of the series in the games but also your own which is used to tie all these series together. These games I give a collective score of 3 out of 5. L alone deserves a 1 out of 5 because of it's high difficulty and poor story and system construction(The Rebuild of Evangelion storyline had some plot holes plus it was unresolved because the movie series is still ongoing. Instead, due to the other conflicts going on in L's world, the Human Instrumentality Project was put on hold.) W was a better play to me.
These are all great games but now, we go to why they are not available here. It seems in the world of anime and manga, they are often the most expensive and cost wise in that licenses can cost a hell of a lot of money, therefore it would make not much dollars and sense to the development branches over here to import and translate them. But it seems in Japan, they're willing to spend that level of money and still make a damn good title. Anime in the West is somewhat of a niche market and the games make not make much profit unlike their counterparts of Marvel vs Capcom or the latter. Mostly in the West, gamers seem to like the stuff that's already established and the characters are more well known than those of anime or manga. In fact, a lot of the series in some of these games are either not well known, or otherwise not that popular. Also, the companies that produced some of the series in Super Robot Wars are no longer around or otherwise not established here in the West.
Light Novels are more of a recent phenomenon in Japan with at least 2 new adaptations per season alone. 9 times out of 10, they are from Dengeki Bunko. There may be some future for them here in the West though. Another reason may be due to the fact that there may not be a company willing to give these games a shot in that the prevailing attitude in the West still is that anime quote, "Is stuff for kids." Which is not true because I see anime that is very violent and sometimes over the top. That may come from the people who still believe we are in the moe boom which ended years ago. Anime in the post-moe era seems to be either geared toward promoting a toy or other product or is sometimes a follow-up of an already existing anime. Granted, we still get original work but not as much.
The crossovers we seem to get often are games from First Party developers such as Square-Enix and Third-Party developer such as Nintendo and Sega.
Personally, I would like to see a Clamp crossover game in my lifetime. But yet, Tsubasa Chronicle has two DS games and in essence is a crossover of their most popular series even though all of them have some references or characters in some cases to other series. Angelic Layer & Chobits had Icchan as the creator and promoter of both Persocoms and the dolls as well. But Heroes Phantasia seems promising: http://heroes-p.channel.or.jp/
This concludes my examination of this topic. Comment please and make sure you try out these games if you want a challenge or two!
I wouldn't say that Dengeki releases 9/10 because that'd mean that every single light novel is published by Kadokawa.
