Tamyu

@Dextro

Except... They don`t? In speech you count using 10,000s instead of thousands, but in writing the commas stay in the exact same places.

I have never seen anyone Japanese write a number that way.

The service is already up and running now...

Looks more like they have split the services between different television stations and supporters. Fuji and NTV are doing the Itsu no ma ni TV (the Spotpass or whatever they`re calling it outside Japan), and this new one is getting things from other places including NHK (which is great, in my mind.)

@Bluebreaker

Full of them? I don`t know where you have been looking, but there are only a few - (maybe 5?)

The 360 is not the place to look for Japanese visual novel type games. The PSP and PS2 are.

I have a feeling that it is going to be voice acting that will stand in the way of success for these types of titles outside Japan. All of these recent titles are full voice.
Japan has a strong voice acting industry, with a lot of very skilled voice actors and actresses. If any of the dubs and game voice overs I have had the misfortune to encounter are anything to go by, there are maybe 2 good voice actors, 2 good voice actresses, and about 5 "anime cliche" sounding people who are passed around... The rest are absolutely awful.

In a game where dialog is 99% of the activity, and the goal is for players to "like" the characters - poor voice acting can really kill a game. They may do better off just removing the voices altogether, as it would have less a negative effect than someone sounding like they have are reading in a monotone.

As to the game itself - it was a huge hit in Japan... But I didn`t really like it. It seemed to hinge on cheapening the efforts and aspirations of various historical figures. Instead of wanting to better Japan or anything noble like that, the real reason was out of love for the heroine, etc... I couldn`t stop my eye rolling enough to actually get into the story.

Love the artist though.

This is kind of timely. I just picked up the novels a few days ago. Have yet to read them. (It is split into two volumes.)

It sold fairly well, so I`m guessing it is well written. I`ll be crossing my fingers that the translator does a good job.

The lack of bow kept me from playing all that long in this. That, and the fact that my Wii started dying just after finishing the offline.

Monster Hunter Frontier Online FTW. I don`t even want to know how many hours I have put into it. I`m actually glad that there is no way to see...

@Darkdrium
Yes, it`s a monthly service. But you don`t really have to have a Japanese credit card, although if you pay directly by credit card there may be that requirement. You can just buy prepaid cards, and use those to pay for it... Or register for a Paypal like service and pay through that.

I`ve never actually tried to get any of it working outside Japan, so can`t really comment on the difficulty. I do think that it might be a bit hard if you didn`t have a group of friends as there is a lot of chat going on even for the shortest tossed together party. But that is what the auto phrases are for.
I hadn`t thought about the item aspect... you do have a point. It would be pretty hard to distinguish between them. Then again, knowing what an item is won`t really change much as either you have one or you don`t. Just knowing the monster name will tell you what it`s from.

I got lucky and managed to get the game and the limited edition PSP for this one. There is still quite a shortage of the game. They seem to be pumping out copies at an incredible speed - stores are getting shipments in every day, sometimes twice a day... But they`re all small shipments, and mostly eaten up by the waiting lists before hitting the shelves. You`ll still see people lining up for a copy a week after release, which is amazing. You can`t even order it online - everywhere is sold out.

@Darkdrium

Monster Hunter Frontier is on the PC and 360. Quite a few unique monsters and a huge online community.
Not in English of course, but it isn`t as if there is a deep story to follow or anything. Just learn the names of the monsters and to distinguish between "defeat", "kill", and "trap" and you`re set.

I`ve both heard that the 360 version blocks ips from outside Japan, and that it doesn`t. (Or that it used to, but no longer does)

"PSP port of Monster Hunter 3"...
Port?
To me, that implies it came out on something else and is being re-released on a different system. It didn`t. Monster Hunter Portable 3 is not a port of Tri - they`re different games. They are the same series and share a lot of things, but I wouldn`t call them ports.