Global Defence Force Tactics PS2 [REVIEW] | The GDF Deploys!

After unexpected delays, we’re tackling the final EDF title yet to be featured for Summer Of EDF, Global Defence Force Tactics on the mighty Playstation 2.

What happens when your budget game does well, you make a sequel, and since EDF 2 did sell very well in Japan for its budget price range in the Simple series catalogue, being the only title of the Simple label to sell over 200.000 copies, D3 figured to capitalize on its success (again, those today are small numbers but EDF was also sold as a budget title in Japan) and basically had a quick Tactics style spin-off made.

And keeping up with the previous marketing choices, EDF 2 Tactics would only be localized for PAL territories, as Global Defence Force Tactics.

Yep, they even kept the British spelling of “Defense”, it’s not a typo, it’s still a bit weird, but i guess why change it for a spin-off back then, would have made things even more confusing.

Also, as a personal note, i’m glad i bought this years ago, as now an used PAL copy asks for 50 bucks mininum, and it was already kinda rare before, being a very late PS2 release under the Essential Games budget release label used by D3 Publisher/Namco Bandai in Europe.

That said can actually see why you would made this, since the EDF series does lend itself to also become a tactical turn based rpg, this one developed by thinkarts, a very niche studio that worked under D3 doing other tactical games… and a PS2 port of that visual novel with Tomak: Save The Earth, you know, the “i can’t believe it’s not a Suda 51 joint” literal potted head of a goddess you have to literally nurture?

Which was actually rereleased globally and was a freebie on the Epic Game Store, this isn’t an ad (i don’t play Fornite and i think most people use their platform just to get free games, i buy games on Steam and Gog for PC), just an amazing set of coincidences.

Continua a leggere

One Piece: Grand Adventure PS2 [REVIEW] | Grand Battle Rushed

One Piece videogames were actually quite wild in terms of what got released out of Japan during the PS1 and PS2 era, with a very inconsistent series of releases outside of Japan, some esclusive to North America, some to European countries, some like One Piece for the GBA being the weird case of being regionally exclusive to North America, as in, there doesn’t exists a Japanese GBA cart of that game because it was never made in the first place.

One Piece Grand Adventure also falls into this category, as it was never released in Japan but made esclusively for North America and Europe, still by the same developer of the Grand Battle series (and behind a lot of One Piece games over the years), Ganbarion, to profit off the good sales for One Piece Grand Battle Rush (just One Piece Grand Battle in NA and EUR territories) on PS2.

I said PS2 as in the Gamecube version is a NA exclusive, in Europe we just got it on PS2.

But yeah, keep in the mind the “to profit off” part, which will also explain why this review might be shorter than expected.

Continua a leggere

One Piece: Grand Battle PS1 [REVIEW] | East Blue Smash Stone Brothers

As announced, we’ll be reviewing a handful of One Piece videogames this August, basically the entire Grand Battle sub-series… at least the games that got localized or released westward as well, so logically enough we’re starting out with One Piece Grand Battle, the first one, released for the PS1 in 2001 and brought to Europe in 2003.

It’s so early that it’s ALMOST the first game ever based on One Piece (that would be an action RPG-card thingie for the WonderSwan, never release outside of Japan, like the console itself), but it is the first game ever developed by Ganbarion, which will be handling a majority of the One Piece videogames for more than a decade (and also come back to developed One Piece World Seeker), alongside other anime related/based project for Namco Bandai, like the beloved Jump Super Stars for DS, Dragon Ball Fusions for the 3DS… and also Pandora’s Tower for the Wii.

Being this early in the One Piece anime it means it mostly depicts the “East Blue Saga” ensemble of arcs and basically the prelude of the Alabasta one, though here it stops even before Whisky Peak (due to some characters appearances), hence before Little Garden, so it’s kinda of tease, not gonna lie, but what can you do, it was pretty early in…

At least it has the classic “WE ARE” opening from the anime (kinda), might as well since the original japanese titles puts the “From TV Animation” well before the actual name of the game.

I didn’t play this one until i finally was able to find a copy for a reasonable prices years ago, i did actually play the PS2 game also called “One Piece Grand Battle” well before, so i was expecting a Power Stone clone, just less refined since it’s obvious a far earlier iteration on the idea…

Continua a leggere