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Tokyo Mono Harashi=?????
Dec. 4th, 2009 10:39 pmIs 2010 the year of disappointing sequels/remakes? I hope not!
I admit, I was very surprised to hear that Atlus was doing another game in the Kowloon Youma Gakuenki series. Even though I liked the game very much(and never played Tokyo Majin Gakuen, which had nothing to do with Atlus) and the game has a good reputation, didn't it sell like 47,000 copies? So I hunted down some Famitsu scans, linked from 2ch, and I admit that I'm a bit leery.
First of all, Kowloon Youma Gakuenki, unlike the Marvelous Entertainment-released Tokyo Majin Gakuen and the dreadful Asmik Tensho Gakuen series, was an Atlus/Shout!Designworks co-production. It has the same director and composer as Tokyo Majin Gakuen, and the rest is a mixture of Shout! Designworks and Atlus staff. It had a recurring character from Tokyo Majin Gakuen and the sister of another character, and in the 2nd playthrough, if you fulfilled certain conditions you could play as the main character from Tokyo Majin Gakuen. Granted, the game is not as dark as Tokyo Majin Gakuen and is pretty damn goofy at times, but it's generally regarded as the best in the series. I'm not sure if Tokyo Mono Harashi is tied into Kowloon Youma Gakuenki at all but I was very surprised to find out that Atlus booted the director and the composer!
To be truthful, I don't know the circumstances behind Imai and Nitta not working on the game. The new director is the same as the one from the Trauma Center series, and the composer is the one from Devil Survivor. The character designer and one of the scenario writers is the same as Kowloon Youma Gakuenki(though Imai wrote half the storylines in Kowloon Youma Gakuenki). I didn't see the Shout! Designworks label anywhere...
It looks like the same interface as Kowloon Youma Gakuenki, with 1/2 being adventure and the other half a dungeon crawler. But the artwork...! Granted, Shin Saito is an inconsistent artist(I just got both the Kowloon Youma Gakuenki scenario books and some of the original illustrations were laughably bad), but the character's poses are ripped straight off from Kowloon Youma Gakuenki...! It looks like a bad copy-paste job! Why is the pigtailed girl's "thoughtful" pose the exact same as Yacchi's "thoughtful" pose, to the point where it looks like only her hairstyle was changed? And that guy with the black hair...wasn't that Izawa's "angry" pose? And what's up with the guy who looks like a stocky white haired Minakami and even has the same voice actor as him! At least when they used the Tokyo Majin Gakuen voice pool for Kowloon Youma Gakuenki they shuffled the roles around so nobody was playing anybody who resembled a character they played before!
Maybe I'm being too harsh. I mean, it's not like the remaining staff is incompetent. But it seems like a blurry photocopy. Maybe Imai really did go off with the aliens. I'll miss his "brilliant" naming sense and his love of ripping off his favorite Japanese and American movies and TV shows...come to think of it, that's probably why Kowloon Youma Gakuenki never came out in America. Not only is the opener an "homage" to Cowboy Bebop, but I'm sure that there would be multiple lawsuits filed over the Indiana Jones/X-Files/Star Wars parodies... It's the first game I've ever played that got Ages 15 and up for sexual themes only!
I admit, I was very surprised to hear that Atlus was doing another game in the Kowloon Youma Gakuenki series. Even though I liked the game very much(and never played Tokyo Majin Gakuen, which had nothing to do with Atlus) and the game has a good reputation, didn't it sell like 47,000 copies? So I hunted down some Famitsu scans, linked from 2ch, and I admit that I'm a bit leery.
First of all, Kowloon Youma Gakuenki, unlike the Marvelous Entertainment-released Tokyo Majin Gakuen and the dreadful Asmik Tensho Gakuen series, was an Atlus/Shout!Designworks co-production. It has the same director and composer as Tokyo Majin Gakuen, and the rest is a mixture of Shout! Designworks and Atlus staff. It had a recurring character from Tokyo Majin Gakuen and the sister of another character, and in the 2nd playthrough, if you fulfilled certain conditions you could play as the main character from Tokyo Majin Gakuen. Granted, the game is not as dark as Tokyo Majin Gakuen and is pretty damn goofy at times, but it's generally regarded as the best in the series. I'm not sure if Tokyo Mono Harashi is tied into Kowloon Youma Gakuenki at all but I was very surprised to find out that Atlus booted the director and the composer!
To be truthful, I don't know the circumstances behind Imai and Nitta not working on the game. The new director is the same as the one from the Trauma Center series, and the composer is the one from Devil Survivor. The character designer and one of the scenario writers is the same as Kowloon Youma Gakuenki(though Imai wrote half the storylines in Kowloon Youma Gakuenki). I didn't see the Shout! Designworks label anywhere...
It looks like the same interface as Kowloon Youma Gakuenki, with 1/2 being adventure and the other half a dungeon crawler. But the artwork...! Granted, Shin Saito is an inconsistent artist(I just got both the Kowloon Youma Gakuenki scenario books and some of the original illustrations were laughably bad), but the character's poses are ripped straight off from Kowloon Youma Gakuenki...! It looks like a bad copy-paste job! Why is the pigtailed girl's "thoughtful" pose the exact same as Yacchi's "thoughtful" pose, to the point where it looks like only her hairstyle was changed? And that guy with the black hair...wasn't that Izawa's "angry" pose? And what's up with the guy who looks like a stocky white haired Minakami and even has the same voice actor as him! At least when they used the Tokyo Majin Gakuen voice pool for Kowloon Youma Gakuenki they shuffled the roles around so nobody was playing anybody who resembled a character they played before!
Maybe I'm being too harsh. I mean, it's not like the remaining staff is incompetent. But it seems like a blurry photocopy. Maybe Imai really did go off with the aliens. I'll miss his "brilliant" naming sense and his love of ripping off his favorite Japanese and American movies and TV shows...come to think of it, that's probably why Kowloon Youma Gakuenki never came out in America. Not only is the opener an "homage" to Cowboy Bebop, but I'm sure that there would be multiple lawsuits filed over the Indiana Jones/X-Files/Star Wars parodies... It's the first game I've ever played that got Ages 15 and up for sexual themes only!
