Holy crap, I own a PSP
Well, it took a while, but one birthday present finally arrived: my PSP from dear Jenna! Quick review of the system: it’s pretty slick, overall. I can’t get it on my home wireless network (it doesn’t support the WIFI security policy I use …). The analog … nub is kinda weird, but works OK enough. The UMD load times are kinda crap (maybe I should find a custom firmware that lets me rip my games to memory stick …). Everything else seems solid. The screen is nice, the buttons are as good as the Playstation controllers (not as nice as the old Saturn pads, but more than acceptable), and the headphone jack is actually not in a horrible place (or requires fucking proprietary adapters to use).
Now, I had picked up Gurumin for $15 from Wal-Mart in anticipation of this. This is a game that Falcom made back in 2004 for the PC, that they later ported to the PSP, which finally found a publisher in the US. It’s a game I know well and love. I kinda don’t want to review the whole game here; it’s very much like a Zelda game, only Parin uses an cartoonish mining drill instead of a sword (the game itself has a lot of this quirky kind of design to it). So, instead, I’ll just review what I’ve noticed so far about the US PSP version.
For one, it’s in English. Including all the voice acting (there’s an option to use the Japanese voices once you clear the game). And, well, the acting is pretty fair. The original wasn’t anything to write home about (Parin was usually pretty flat, even when she was trying to be snarky), but it’s not bad at all. They tried real hard to match the feel of most characters, nailing the four Phantoms well but Motoro sounded off. Minor quibbles, really.
The text translation is fine as far as I’ve seen; it keeps the fun tone and has, so far, kept the characterizations well. Almost every name I’ve seen (including trawling a guide) is 100% the same as the Japanese version; there really isn’t any need to change them, though, since the game was more quirky in the universal sense. There was some minor changes I noticed in the dialog so far. A few characters (Pino specifically) had one of those “cute” speech patterns in the Japanese version where they’d append something to their sentences; this is gone, obviously, since there’s no way to do that directly in English. I don’t see it as an issue, though, since the characters seem to work well. Pino also doesn’t refer to herself in third person either (or, not yet), which I do think they probably should have kept. They also chose to go with “monster” for the creatures Parin befriends; it’s a 100% technically correct translation of “obake” but I personally would have looked for something more esoteric or playful. Puku and the Phantom Prince also refer to Parin specifically as “human” which I don’t remember being a sticking detail in the original but could just be forgetting since I haven’t played it in a while. Again, minor things.
Graphically, it’s much the same. The original PC game wasn’t anything of a polygon pusher; almost everything is simple shading and textures. It’s charm comes from awesome art direction (something I wish more games bothered with). The game actually fits pretty well into the PSP’s abilities, although I’ve noticed some character pop in now and again. The given changes of making the logo full English are there. The title screen’s art is completely different (and still cute). Poko does the painting of the Falcom logo, although it’s still Parin’s Japanese VA that pronounces it. Everything else seems the same, except Parin’s animation for using the healing rings; in the PC version, she’s does a magical girl glowy light naked thing, but the PSP doesn’t do this (in the Japanese one as well). Amusingly, the game tutorial screens show the PC version. I have noticed some oddities due to loading of cut-scene animations, though: it seems that if they don’t load in time, they play out late until the next marker in the scene, then jump to the new stuff. Rather weird. The music and sound effects are the exact same, including the Japanese vocal song theme for the opening. I assume the ending theme is the same as well. I’m hoping they left the shop vocal theme in for the one difficulty setting (as well as translated all that text that I struggled to keep up with). I haven’t gotten any full outfits yet to see if the English VA does the different interpretations of battle cries yet, but I assume it’s there.
As for the gameplay, it seems just the same. Only … more floaty. While the original wasn’t the master of precision, the PSP version seems a bit floatier. I’m really not sure if it’s the game, me, of the PSP’s analog sliding thingie. I just know that if I can’t get used to it, there’s a few places that are going to be utter MURDER in anything but Beginner mode. Just have to wait and see. It also just seems a bit slower. Or I just don’t remember running this damn slow before. Also, the loading times are really annoying and jarring since I’m so used to this game flowing without break.
So, overall, nice port of a great and fun game. It’s just too bad nobody want to touch Falcom’s other PSP ports over here. The Legend of Heroes 6 games would be great to come out over here, but I’ve heard they’ve been passed on by most companies due to the sheer amount of text in them. Brandish, Zwei!!, and Vantage Master Portable might have a chance, but I doubt it. Ys Seven just came out; hope somebody picks that up but I don’t have much hope.