The Last Continue of GameGuadia

Or, why I should stick to translations... or at least not plan to work on art projects while I have weekend work:

( Click this cut to see for yourself... this is my not-so-good, not-so-timely memorial to the AVGN x GCCX review / challenge of 2010 Street Fighter )

And that concludes the 2010 Street Fighter featurette... regular GCCX related programming shall be coming soon to lastcontinue...

(Edited to add: It looks like Arino-san's finger was on the B button when the player sprite wasn't even firing any shots at the screen... well, I'll let you use your imagination as to how that happened, since evoking the audience's imagination is the purpose of art... ^_^)

As promised, here's part 2 of the 2010 Street Fighter featurette... translations of the cutscenes and the ending of the Japanese version.

It's interesting how they not only named the planets in the Japanese version, but named the 2nd and 3rd planets so as to parody Star Wars... meanwhile, it looks like only the 3rd planet was named in the North American version.  (Stage 1, by the way, is Planet Earth.)

(Once again, the Japanese text credit goes to: Capcom Co., Ltd., kanji conversion by: GAME KOMMANDER)
The North American English text credit goes to: Capcom U.S.A., The Gaming Experience: Street Fighter 2010 on Youtube)

( Fade-in for cutscene translations )

The next part's gonna be something really crazy or really lame... I think my creativity is shot to ribbons with this particular one...

Happy New Year, everybody!
あけましておめでとうございます！

So Arino-san will be challenging 2010 Street Fighter for the very first GameCenter CX episode of 2010, which will air next Tuesday on January 5th. 
And assuming that his "Coming Soon" promo poster is accurate and not just a "Coming Soon" trailer where he adds a random game (like he did in an earlier episode's introduction with the N64 game Mischief Makers), James Rolfe--also known as the Angry Video Game Nerd--will also be reviewing it at roughly the same timeframe.
Which would mark the first time the exact same game is covered around the exact same time by both GCCX and AVGN.

While it's likely that the game choice is a pure coincidence due to it being the year 2010, and that I'm most likely the only one who feels this way--I already have some evil AVGN x GCCX crossover ideas and/or fanart (!!!!) in my mind, given that watching AVGN led me indirectly to GCCX... I may or may not bore you with how exactly I got into GCCX in a future post.

(Non-fans of AVGN/Cinemassacre, please don't mind me...)

Edited to add: From what James said in an interview 2 years ago (see the last sentence for details)... it looks like he may well go along with the 2010 Street Fighter review...

We're now getting into the home stretch for the introductory posts for GameCenter CX. Now let's talk about--the merch!

GameCenter CX has become such a phenomenon among Japan's TV viewers, to the point of inspiring the production and sales of:

• Six DVD-BOX collections (Japanese only, no subtitles), each containing a best-of compilation of episodes--the most recent of which was released one week ago in Japan on December 18, 2009. Many of the DVD-BOX collections have ranked near the top of Amazon.co.jp's most wanted preorders lists when they are announced.


• Four books (also Japanese only), which contain the following (the details I have for the 1st and 2nd book may be a little sketchy, because I only own the 3rd and the most recent book thus far):
  
  
  
  • The first book contains a synopsis of the first season.
  
  
  • The second book contains a synopsis of the 1st to 4th seasons. I believe that it also contains some interviews with selected Japanese game developers.
  
  
  • The third book can be said to be a "Making of GameCenter CX book". Among other things, the book follows the filming of selected TameGe segments and the The Northernmost Game in Japan: A Travelogue special. It also contains an encyclopedia of all the terms and concept that came up from the 1st to the 6th season of the show, several cute little 4-panel gag manga retelling classic moments from the show, and a short manga chronicling how an episode of GameCenter CX is made, entitled--fittingly enough--"The Making of GameCenter CX". This is my favourite GameCenter CX book so far.
  
  
  • The most recent book, GameCenter CX COMPLETE, is a compliation of interviews with Arino and the show's staff, as well as interviews between Arino and game developers Fujiwara Tokuro (藤原得郎, the creator of the Ghosts 'n Goblins franchises) and Sakurai Masahiro (桜井政博, the creator of the Kirby and Smash Bros. franchises--by the way, the first Smash Bros. game for the N64 is now out on Wii Virtual Console~). Many of these interviews have been previously serialized in Japanese video game magazine CONTINUE. Very informative, although not quite as entertaining as the third book.
  
  
  
  


• Two Nintendo DS games--the first of which is also released in North America as Retro Game Challenge by Xseed Games. The GameCenter CX show itself covered development process for both games, in the form of the the GameCenter CX Gameification Project segments (one per game).

In addition to the above merchandise--which can be easily imported from import retailers like Amazon.co.jp, CDJapan, Play-Asia, YesAsia--the GameCenter CX show staff also have booths at the Tokyo Game Show starting from 2006 (I believe), as well as other GCCX-themed events, where they sell T-shirts and trinkets that you are not likely to get anywhere else. (I think they used to sell GameCenter CX branded USB keys at one of their events--I can't find them anywhere on Amazon.co.jp. I'd kill for one of these things...)

And to close out this post:
Merry Christmas, happy Hanukkah, wish you the very best on Kwanzaa... and a belated birthday to the Emperor of Japan!

Ouch... sorry about the delay.
I know I said I'd post yesterday, but I got tied up with some Christmas errands, so...

So from time to time, GameCenter CX would put on a few specials, some challenging and others relaxing...

For the challenging ones--and by challenging, I mean possibly even more challenging than the regular challenges, at least for the viewers who are watching through it--GameCenter CX did three live specials (plus one "Fan Appreciation Day" special in 2006 where Arino played in the Fuji TV Multi-theatre in front of a live audience), in which Arino would play a game that he had previously challenged on live TV. Since I don't want to spoil things too much, finding out what exactly Arino challenged would be an exercise for the reader--let's say that you should be able to find your desired spoilers one click away from the blog.

For the relaxing ones--GameCenter CX would send Arino and the production staff to famous tourist areas in and beyond Japan in search of game centers and other amusement attractions. Here's a sampling, in chronological order:

Hot Springs and Games: A Travelogue
(温泉ゲーム紀行, Onsen Game Kiko)

A special aired at the end of the 1st season, in which Arino and staff travelled to Hakone, Japan--famous for its hot spring resorts--and hopped from one resort to another in search for various arcade games and amusement machines, and not to mention a nice place to take a relaxing bath. This special became the precursor to the recurring TamaGe segment where Arino visits various game centers and amusement attractions in Japan.

The Northernmost Game in Japan: A Travelogue
(最北端ゲーム紀行, Saihokutan Game Kiko)

A multi-part special aired in 2006 in which Arino, using time from his paternity leave, brought his GPS along and headed to Hokkaido--the northernmost island of the four islands that make up Japan. His mission: To find the arcade game / amusement machine with the northernmost latitude in all of the country.

GameCenter CX - A Commemorative 50th Episode: TamaGe in Korea by Economy Class
(ゲームセンターCX ５０回記念 たまゲーin韓国 byエコノミークラス

In July of 2007, to mark the 50th anniversary of the show, GameCenter CX flied Arino (via economy class, natch) to Seoul, Korea, where he visited several gaming establishments and interviewed one of Korea's best pro gamers.

The Southernmost Game in Japan: A Travelogue
(最南端ゲーム紀行, Sainantan Game Kiko)

Aired as part of the GameCenter CX 2008 Year-End Special. Similar in goal to the northernmost trip, except it took place in Okinawa, with 100% less half!nekkid!hotSpringSoaking!Arino.

The show's staff has also visited Cannes and Dubai to promote the show to international distributors, under the name Retro Game Master.

There are also year-end specials in 2008 and 2009; unlike the main episodes which air on Fuji TV TWO and Fuji TV Next (both pay-to-view satellite channels), these specials air on Fuji TV's main terrestial TV channel. In this special, Arino would invite fellow comedians and TV personalities to to sum up the year in GameCenter CX, current-gen gaming in Japan, as well as (at least for both of the specials) playing through one of the latest games in the Final Fantasy franchise (Dissidia: Final Fantasy for the PSP for 2008, and Final Fantasy XIII for 2009).

In the welcome post for my blog, I've mentioned that GameCenter CX is a TV show "which features a comedian struggling to complete older games, classic or otherwise, mostly dating from the Famicom/NES to the PlayStation era".  In practice, that remark doesn't actually cover the evolution of the show from its very first season in November 2003 to the seasons following it.   But how did the show evolve, you might ask? Well, I might as well tell you now (and hope I don't accidentally plagiarize from Crunk Games while I'm at it)...

The first episode of GameCenter CX aired on November 4, 2003, on Fuji TV TWO, one of Fuji TV's satellite channels.  In this inaugural episode, the comedian-host, Arino Shinya, visited Taito Corporation in order to do a profile on the company.  Throughout the episode, Arino was dressed in a mint-green worker's uniform, not unlike a worker at a game manufacturing plant; in fact, he even had a job title of "Manager" to match his salaryman persona--a persona which has persisted as of today, modulo a job promotion to his current title of Section Chief.  The episode consisted of:

• a presentation of Taito's classic titles;
• an interview with Nishikado Tomohiro, the creator of Space Invaders; and
• an attempt at beating Takeshi's Challenge (たけしの挑戦状, Takeshi no Chosenjo), a game supervised by Beat Takeshi (better known in the West as the famous film director Kitano Takeshi) notorious for its impossible difficulty and confusing goals.

The remaining episodes from the first season, which lasted from November 4, 2003 to May 30, 2004, all followed a similar formula to the first episode--with each episode featuring a visit to a major Japanese video game company to interview various game developers.  The following were, in order of importance, the main segments of episodes in the first season:

• "I'd like to meet this person" (この人に会いたい, Kono Hito ni Aitai)--in which Arino interviewed game developers working at the featured video game company; and
• "Arino's Challenge" (有野の挑戦, Arino no Chosen)--in which Arino was given a task to complete in a particular game developed by the featured video game company.  The challenge would either involve finishing the entire game, or it would be a smaller-scale task such as defeating the boss of a particular stage or getting a specific high score.  While the majority of the games that were featured are retro games, two in particular--Steel Battalion for Xbox and Angelique Trois for PlayStation 2--were on then current-gen platforms and are still, according to my definition, too new to be considered retro.

Starting in the second season, however, the production staff of GameCenter CX discovered that it was more challenging (pun intended?) than expected to dedicate each episode for video game companies profiles--given that the original developers of the game franchises being featured may not always remain at the companies being profiled, it became difficult to sort out the rights associated with the game franchises that  the production staff would like featured.  Moreover, the "Arino's Challenge" segment had always been popular among viewers.  As a result, the challenge segment became the main focus of GameCenter CX, with the goal revised to finishing the entire game being challenged and showing the audience the ending (or part thereof)--and this focus remains unchanged to this day.  The creator interviews were shortened for the second season, and were scrapped from subsequent seasons.

Tomorrow, I'll talk about the supporting segments in GameCenter CX.  Looks like I'll have some fun with those...

(And if you're wondering what the "CX" in the show title stands for--it is derived from Fuji TV's callsign, JOCX-TV.)