Ben-DutkaThere are already a ton of great PS1 classics on the PlayStation Network…but there can always be more.
And because it's an excellent opportunity to provide Western gamers with titles they likely never saw before during the PS1 era, it has been announced that MonkeyPaw Games will be bringing over a bunch of Japanese PS1 games. This according to some new ESRB ratings , which tell us what the first five games on the import list will be: Cho Aniki , a "homoerotic shooter," Gaia Seed , a shooter by Techno Soleil that is "highly valued" in Japan, Outlaws of the Lost Dynasty , a fighter, Magical Drop F , a RPG based on the Magical Drop puzzle series, and Blockids , a Breakout -like title that actually was released in the US. The other four were not. And like most other classics on the PSN, these new Japanese games will be playable on either the PlayStation 3 or PlayStation Portable. MonkeyPaw CEO John Greiner says he wants to provide US gamers with experiences "that feed into the fascination with Japanese gaming and culture."
Well, at least someone believes we even have that fascination in this country. 'cough' not Wada 'cough'
Alright!! Even more variety! The only thing these PS1 titles need now is trophy support!
OMG…FFVII, FFVIII, FFIX, FFT Trophies.
…
……
………….
'dies'
Trophies would be hard to do for PS1 classics unless there was an external PS1 trophy application that could read your game saves for high scores and game clear data and the like.
I know…but the idea has me frazzled.
Me too, When i read it, the first thing my mind did was try to work out a way to do it. That's where the external application idea comes from. Sony could push out a PS3 application via PSN that could inspect your PS1 game saves and award trophies based on your game play after it first reads the file. Oh, this is something that a third party could do, if Sony got on board I could see someone developing a little $5 app that awards trophies based on PS1 game progress.
Here are some ideas for trophies:
FF7-
-WEAPONs of Mass Destruction- "Platinum"-Defeat Emerald with all your party members alive, and also defeat Ruby weapon on first try.
-APtitude – "Gold" – Max out every Materia once (including the Enemy Skill materia)
-Say Hello to my Little Friend- "Gold"- Get the Ultimate weapons for every character.
-MMPR – "Gold" – Morph every morphable enemy at least once.
– Level up! – "Gold" – Reach level 99 with every character. (except Aer. ofc)
I could make some for FF8 and FF9, but trying to think up these take time.
An APP store would be ideal for the PSN. I submitted that idea on the blog share. A trophy app would invigorate the PS1 titles even more.
It could be like the trophies on GTAIV or The Force Unleashed.
If they can do it with Monkey Island, they can do it with PS1 games.
Is MonkeyPaw going to be translating these games? Not sure how well a untranslated JRPG well sell in the states.
Having said that, I've been waiting for this to happen for a long time.
That was my impression – that they'd be translating the games – at least doing text translations and subtitles.
I don't mind having Japanese voices, as long as they have subtitles to which you can understand what they are saying.
No translation.
MonkeyPaw is releasing these as is, but they should all be easily playable. None are RPGs. They are fighters; shooters; and puzzle games, all of which are pick up and play.
@Orvisman, I thought MonkeyPaw was the name of the company that was going to get into the business of bringing JRPGs and other similarly Japanese games to the west with more limited localizations? Arcade games like these don't require that, but I thought that was part of what they were going to do?
"In case you're interested in playing any of these titles, you should know they're not being localized. MonkeyPaw Games president John Greiner confirmed they're merely coming straight from the Japanese PSN store but they should be quite playable anyway."
I'm glad they are bringing more PS1 classics, because I've seen a lot of PS1 game's i wanted but never was released in the US, and some that i have never known about that i missed out on.
Keep bringing more!
Orvisman,
I believe you're wrong about MonkeyPaw just bringing them over.
If I still remember right Highlander was talking about the need for a lot of Japaneses games being localized, so they could also be released outside of Japan too.
And that's when I found & then posted to Highlander. the Article stating that the founder was starting up his new company, MonkeyPaw Games just to localize the niche Japanese games so they came be released outside of Japan.
I'm not sure which actual thread it's in, but I think I posted it around 6 to 8 weeks back
"In case you're interested in playing any of these titles, you should know they're not being localized. MonkeyPaw Games president John Greiner confirmed they're merely coming straight from the Japanese PSN store but they should be quite playable anyway."
Ah, I've seen a video of PS1 Cho Aniki with commentary. Truly bizzare game, it is.
Orvisman,
Well I guess I'm wrong about it then.
But if I still go back to the original MPGames article, the founder of MonkeyPaw had stated it was his whole reason for forming his new company MPG, just to do localizations for everyone's Japanese games.
Guess we'll have to wait & see if he's changed his thinking on putting out localization for all the games, or not.
*EDIT*
I guess you are right, cause now it doesn't even mention localizing all games on his new site…..
http://www.monkeypawgames.com/
A damned shame though!!!!
Last edited by BikerSaint on 7/14/2010 2:21:59 PM
Interesting, I like this
Very very good news, I don't know anything about the ones mentioned, but more ps1 games on psn is music to my ears.
do u think the japs made their own version of medal of honor for the ps1where u play in the Imperial Army during WW2? because i would totally buy that.
when i say japs, i don't mean it racially. just an abbreviation
I'm pretty sure there are air sims that deal with Pearl Harbor from the Japanese POV.
Hah you realize that typing "Japanese" is actually fewer characters than typing your reasoning behind the abbreviation?
I'd be quite interested in such a game, though.
If these sell well here i can just imagine Wada's head exploding.
I have Tecmo's 2001 "Monster Farm" for my PS1.
But I'll be damned if I can figure the game out, never mind actually being able to play it.
I have about 4 more PS1 Imports too, but I'm too frigging brain dead & totally exhausted to think what ones they are, as I just got done a little 18 hour mini-marathon, playing inFamous from 6 PM last night till 12:30 this afternoon.
And I did that after promising myself that I'd only play 2 hours hours & get to bed early….
Yeah right, that really worked out well, LOL
Who's wada?
The biggest a**hole of our era, also known as Square-Enix CEO
Last edited by hellish_devil on 7/13/2010 4:41:18 PM
Wada you want to know? (lame wada joke i know) :p
I guess this is cool if you're Japanese and live in the states. Other than that, why the hell would I want a homoerotic game in Japanese? Certainly there's better things to do with my time.
What we need is a company to go a step further than Monkey Paw Games. we need a company to work with Japanese publishers to handle text only translations of Japanese titles so that there is an English menu option and English subtitles for all spoken dialog. From this initial translation, other common western language translations could easily be done. Either way, for a very limited investment of time and effort during development, a game could ship with multiple languages and be far more attractive for import sales in the west, or even limited release in the west.
This sounds good, more classics is definitely appreciated, especially from the Japanese store that seems to be overflowing with them… How many PSone games are in the US store? There's only about 60 in the Euro store, a lot of it made up of disney rubbish.
Shame MPG changed some of their mission statement from doing all the localization, to just bringing over Japanese games.
I'm guessing that although they wanted to solely do that(and they still will), but they couldn't get any of the Japanese developers yet to pony up the extra money involved to localize it for their games.
So until they can get to butter their bread more often, they're just doing the next best thing, by bringing games that have never left Japan, out & about now.
Anyway, here's what Greiner's now saying on his MPG site…
http://www.MonkeyPawGames.com
ape escape?
i would kill to see the original ape escape game on the PSN!