Japan Review Check: Majin, Kinect Joy Ride

Bit of a slow week for console games right now worldwide. That goes double for Japan, where the top-rated game coming out (according toFamitsumagazine, at least) isZombie Daisuki, a cutesy DS game where you raise an army of zombies to fight monsters and defeat bosses for you. It's from Chun Soft, best known for the roguelike RPGs they've released a bunch of on the DS, and it cleaned up in the review pages of this week's issue, earning 33 points and the only Gold award this time around.

Whether it'll ever leave Japanese shores is a question we won't explore here. Instead, let's check out the other interesting games coming out in the next week over there:

-Majin and the Forsaken Kingdom(8/8/7/8, 31 points): Interestingly,Famitsu's scores for Game Republic's latest pretty well match what the Western media gave, on the average. There's no"home field"score boost, in other words, which is a bit of a surprise considering how muchFamitsuhyped the project once upon a time.

"Majin's dialogue and mannerisms are really cute,"one reviewer said,"and it's fun how you're going on this adventure with him. The story's nice, too, and I enjoyed how the hero and Majin have to work together, dividing their powers."

However, the game's assorted faults couldn't be ignored by the review crew:"In a way, the game's a little too simple for me, which led to disappointment. It's a shame that you're asked to do the same kind of actions so often in the puzzles, such as dealing with levers to open gates and so on. The camera angle has a habit of changing on you in the midst of battle, too, which is a little rough."

-Kinect Joy Ride(7/7/7/7, 28 points): The least noticed game in the Kinect launch lineup does about as well as you'd expect inFamitsu."It's the sort of thing that families and young children can easily enjoy,"one reviewer began. The controls are certainly simple enough for that, and the fact that there's a lot more to it than just racing (like score for tricks and doing poses) is nice."

Things went downhill from there, though."Trying to drive the way you want can be frustrating,"another editor wrote,"but you get ample chances to make up for mistakes, and it's a simple enough race game that I can deal with it. However, the game itself is too basic, really, and there's no depth at all to it. I get the impression that there's just not enough here."

-Venus&Braves(8/8/8/7, 31 points): This PSP game is a port of an RPG originally released by Namco on the PS2 in 2003. The game wound up being a Japan-only release at the time, something many RPG fans lamented due to its distinct look and uncommon, isometrically-oriented battle system.

"There's a lot of unique little quirks to this game,"saidFamitsu,"from how you need to position your party members in battle based on their skills to how you can have the offspring of members join the party later on. The battles seem simple at first -- just a matter of switching units in and out -- but it unlocks a great deal of tactical elements for you to play with as you figure out who to put in and who to have deal the final blow."

The PSP port has a few problems, though. One of the more noticeable ones: The voiced narration in the cutscenes doesn't always match the onscreen text, something two out of four reviewers brought up. More worrying, though:"The system is addictively novel at the beginning, but you go through long series of fighting the same sort of enemies. This makes the game seem more and more like work the further you advance."

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