Japanese Exclusive?! NOOO!

I know theres a few of you out there who have the same feelings as I do on this, because surly I cannot be the only one.

Who among you Gammabytes have ever had his happen: You're online, or reading a magazine, and you see a feature on a game that looks really f*ckin' badass. You wait. And wait. And wait. You see all this new info, along with videos and screenshots of the game that promises happiness for your soul. But something never comes. Never, in all that time waiting, did you see a North American release date. The game gets released in Japan, and still you wait, weeks, months, years, but it never comes.

This, fills my heart with sorrow.

I'm sure many of you have had similar experiences, and know my pain.

So, to vent, and to spread knowledge of exclusive games to our friends from the land of the rising sun, I bring you my top Japanese Exclusive games!

Tales of Innocence

Many of you out there know of this series - the Tales series. Games like Tales of Phantasia, Tales of Symphonia, and Tales of Destiny 1&2 are popular an our side of the world, but even more so in the land to the east. So much that they have exclusive titles that we havnt even heard of. Tales of Innocence is one of those titles, and its story is amazing.

The game revolves around a group of lovable characters. The main character is Ruco Milda, a shy boy who lives in the capitol city Regnum. After meeting the other protagonists of the game, Ruca finds that he and the others are Inousha - Beings that have special powers. These beings look exactly the same as humans, except for one thing. Their shadows do not match their bodies. The shadows that the Inousha have show the body that their soul belongs to. Thats right, the Inousha are incarnates. Each person who is an Inousha is the reincarnated soul of a person that fell in the war of heaven. Have I got your attention yet? I thought so.

The game plays very similar to the Tales games we know. Since the only other Tales game I've played is Symphonia, I'll relate it to that and say that the battle system is pretty well exactly the same. You move the character with the directional pad, attack with A and use special attacks with X. The Overworld map of the game is crawling with monsters, and if you touch one you will engage it in battle.

With a familiar battle system, and an awesome story, I highly suggest you take a look at this game if you can understand Japanese. If not, you can read the comics online, which give you the entire story and beautiful images to look at.

Fatal Frame IV: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse (Zero: Tsukihami no Kamen)

This game was a surprise to everyone. Not only was it a new game in the Fatal Frame series, but it was being Directed by Suda51 for the Nintendo Wii.

The game is completely unrelated to the previous Fatal Frame games, but like them, has a cast of woman at its core. 1o years prior to the games present, 5 girls were kidnapped and taken to an island near Honshu called Rougetsu. The girls were saved by a detective, who was in pursuit of a wanted killer. Several years later, two of the girls died, and the remaining three girls have decided to go back to the island to dig up the memories of the past.

True to the name, Fatal Frame 4 brings back the classic weapon of the franchise, the Camera Obscura. The camera is used to exorcise the various ghosts and spirits you find along your travels. Also included in the game is a new weapon, the Spirit Flashlight. The flashlight exorcises spirits using the light of the moon. Unlike the Camera Obscura, the Spirit Flash Light does not need to recharge after a shot, but required the Lunar Spirit Gauge to have a charge, and that charge replenishes over time.

It has recently been brought to my attention that an unofficial patch has been released for the game, changing the Japanese text and subtitles to English. There is also another unofficial patch in development that will replace the Japanese voice acting with English.

These are but two of the games that have failed to receive localized versions, but are two of the ones i have wanted to see the most. If you have any games that you would like me to cover in the future, please leave me a comment, or an email at averageheightproductions@gmail.com

-Paul S.