Yumi's Odd Odssey / Umihara Kawase - out on 3DS eshop (NA)

[JEKKI]

yes! this game is out! after so long, one of the best games never released outside of Japan is finally out in America, and it's fantastic!!



trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkWKsTOuxy0

price: $30

I'm loving everything about this game, and if you love platformers, so should you!

as you play the game, you get better at it, get more accustomed to the game's systems and mechanics,

until you finally get to stages where you really need to understand the game to beat them,

and doing it feels so satisfying!

then once you do that, you do it again to lower your score.

for something that looks so cute and anime, this is definitely a hardcore gamer's game ^_^v

[CavZee]

I'm short on time and money at the moment but I'll be sure to pick it up the first time I see it on sale.

[Flake]

Am I missing something? Maybe the trailer is just not very good but this game doesn't look particularly fun.

[Valkyrie-Favor]

Play the SFC version, maybe on an emulator. They're pretty similar.

Generally these games are really ugly, slow-paced, and hard to learn. Very divisive.

[Scissors Shrimper]

Generally these games are really ugly

Abstract. Abstract is the word you're looking for. They do that quite well. However I suppose it would be hard to appreciate if you're narrow-minded when it comes to different art styles. I have no idea what you mean by "slow paced" though. These are games that can be beaten in less than 10 minutes.

[Valkyrie-Favor]

I choose my words carefully, and I meant to say ugly. I know what abstract means too. All art is completely abstract, so of course I'd never criticize any of it for abstractness. In principle, I don't have any distaste for drawings that don't look much like real objects either.

Let's contrast Umihara Kawase with a similar game that uses a similar ('abstract') art style.





Umihara Kawase has horrible digitized backgrounds, numbers in front of the action, and high-contrast, angled lines that just beg to be turned into dot crawl. If you ask me, the color and shapes of the platforms aren't very appealing either. On the other hand, Mirror's Edge's bonus levels are very well composed.

I don't expect a SNES game to look like a modern PC game, but this series has been on PSP and 3DS without improving much visually. It's ugly, the designers know it, and they don't care. Neither do the people who like these games...and I do.

[Godot102]

I bought this game recently. While the gameplay is fantastic, I can definitely agree that they could have worked on the presentation a bit more. The backgrounds look like something someone slapped together real quick in Unity. Generally, I can forgive this, but this was a game that was supposed to introduce the series to a bigger audience . The trailer Natsume put out also did not make the game seem interesting in the slightest. Between that, the multiple delays and the relatively high price of $30 you have a game that I doubt is going to sell well at all. Also the menu screens are kinda confusing at first and did not feel very intuitive to me.
Bottom line, I don't think Natsume did a good job at drawing newcomers to the series, which is a shame since once you get past the presentation, the game is actually very fun.

[Exhuminator]

the relatively high price of $30

Above all else, this was the bad idea. I'm a fan of the SFC version, and I was planning on picking the 3DS one up just because. But at $30, Natsume can forget it. This game should be $10 on the eShop. It'd actually sell at that price.

[CavZee]

the relatively high price of $30

Above all else, this was the bad idea. I'm a fan of the SFC version, and I was planning on picking the 3DS one up just because. But at $30, Natsume can forget it. This game should be $10 on the eShop. It'd actually sell at that price.

Yeah I mostly agree. I think the $30 price tag is keeping me away from this game more than anything.

[CavZee]

If anyone was interested, this game is on sale for $19.99 until 6/15. Dunno if I'll pick it up or not but figured I'd let everyone know.