Play Station Store

I finally connected my PS3 online and downloaded a few trial games as well as vol.117 of the weekly Toro Station from the Play Station Store.

Vol.117 features Tales of Innocence R for the PS3 and the local Hero (think Tiger & Bunny type of Hero but looks like Kamen Rider) for Aoimori. The TOIR part was so-so, since it's a remake port and the character design looked kinda dated to me.

The local Hero part, on the other hand, was quite interesting. All these hero stage shows I've seen in anime or drama actually do exist! And the enemy group for the Aoimori hero stage has the same name as the enemy for Akida (I think, can't quite remember), because the Akida hero keeps preventing them from doing bad things, so they've moved to harass the people of Aoimori instead! なんて面白い設定だ！ XD

After watching a few back number issues of Toro Station, I played the special trial version for Bleach: Soul Ignition's Hell chapter and the trial version of El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron.

I've been wanting to play Bleach: Soul Ignition since I saw the PV for it. It's actually available in R1 and has the option to switch to Japanese audio, but because there's text on screen and stuff, I'd prefer to get the R2 version. Need to wait until I head to the west coast to see if I can find it...

The game play itself kinda feels like Gundam Musou, and liken to the short experience I had with Gundam Musou 3, I had a bit of trouble adjusting the camera angle. Took me a while to somewhat get used to the many buttons (compared to the SNES and NDS) and the 3D field. Took me two tries to beat Kokuto, too. orz

El Shaddai's trial version contains segments from different stages so it was like an easy walk-through (of course, I also chose the easy mode to start with). This game is famed for its 大丈夫だ、問題ない unique art style and battle system, and I completely agree. It's fun to see Enoch getting stripped down to just one pair of jeans in the battle. The final verdict for the game seems to be slightly on the negative side, as it's not very long and the number of enemy encounters--the most fun part of the game--was not high enough. But I think I'm still going to keep an eye out for the title and grab it when it goes on sale.

Unfortunately, I don't have a JCB credit card so I can't purchase any of the games on the PS Store. They actually have quite a few direct ports of old Super Robot Wars games and Final Fantasy games as well. I really wanted to play Gun Parade March and Chrono Cross... orz

I'll make a North American account and see what's in their PS Store next week. Hopefully they'd at least have Chrono Cross and the old FF games that I can buy.