Comiket 73 Games Preview Extravaganza

December 28th, 2007

The real meaning of the holiday season.

This is not meant as a comprehensive list… or possibly a particularly accurate one. The ratio of signal to noise is so awful when you try to look this stuff up, and my tendency to immediately close porn does occasionally keep me from immediately discovering some very awesome games. Anyway, my general process went: "Is it porn? Is it just a visual novel? Does it have a notice of attendance to C73? Great, grab screenshots… NEXT!" for about 90% of these, so take anything here with a grain of salt.

In absolutely no meaningful order whatsoever…

Fatal/Fake Crucis
http://www.lights-maguro.com/


Sequel to Fatal/Fake introducing 2 on 2 fights.

Defiant of Shrine Maiden
http://www.hachikuma.net/
 
Opening Movie
Touhou-based RPG. Made by the same people who have made Kanon and Air RPGs and the Touhou Captain Tsubasa clones.

りとるろわいやる!  
http://www.h4.dion.ne.jp/~furamen/top.htm

   
Little Busters Platformer (the title’s some pun on Little Busters that I really don’t feel like decyphering at the moment)

Suzumiya Haruhi no Gekitou Expansion
http://lost-identity.jp/souvenir/html/harugeki/index.html

Gameplay Video
The Haruhi Power Stone clone gets an expansion… and the ability to dress Kyon like a French tart.

TWilight refrAIN
http://blue.sakura.ne.jp/~loop/main.html


Sequel to TWilight INSanity, one of the best recent SHMUPs.

Recettear
http://egs.cug.net/

Gameplay Video, Trial Version (alt)
Easy Game Station’s Action RPG gets its trial version expanded

Mystical Chain
http://shakna.sblo.jp/

Touhou Platformer. Same people who did Endless Alice/Marisa and Rift in Friendship.

H@twunebench
http://fakefar.jp/ 
  
Another tech demo from Fake/Far (Mesogears) involving crazed Hatsune Mikus running all over the place. I don’t fully understand, but it frightens me.

Die Feen
http://www.nekomiminokakera.net/

Full version of their stylish SHMUP.

PatchCon! Defend the Library!
http://www.tasofro.net/

Gameplay Video
I have no clue. Some kind of tower defense/RTS with Touhou characters. It’s Tasofro (EFZ, Daybreak, IaMP), so I’m sure it’ll be awesome.

Magical Battle Arena
http://fly-system.net/


Gameplay Video
3D battler with various magical girls. Trial version will just have Lina and Nanoha.

Touhou Warring States
http://coolier.sytes.net:8080/genso/readme.html

Opening Video
Ro3K Clone with Touhou characters

Noroi-chan
http://hanesh.ifdef.jp/frame_index.html 

Gameplay Video
Horizontal SHMUP. Looks a bit wacky.

eXceed 2nd Vampire REX
http://www.tennen-sozai.com/top.htm

Gameplay Video
Sequel to exCeed 2nd Vampire (Ikaruga clone)

Rouen
http://www.seed-web.net/products/rouen_kai/index.htm

Gameplay Video
Flight sim. Don’t see many of these actually. Looks pretty decent too.

RayGing Blues
http://www.k2.dion.ne.jp/~itbs/pages/main.htm
   
Expansion/sequel to RayGing Blue, which was a pretty uninspired SHMUP anyway.

Gleam of Force
http://www13.plala.or.jp/french/french_index.htm

Another one of those really really bizarre French Bread fighters (Glove On Fight is another for example)

Ether Vapor
http://edelweiss.skr.jp/
 
Gameplay Video
The game is an amazing SHMUP featuring dynamic switching between horizontal, vertical and cinematic modes. I sure hope they get around to finishing it one day instead of updated trial versions every Comiket.

Aria Gondola Game
http://www5a.biglobe.ne.jp/~yuutaa/hp/game/aria/index.htm


Trial (alt)
Winner of the most creative title ever.

Space Dynagon
http://www20.cds.ne.jp/~murasame/games/dynagon.htm (blocks non-Japanese IPs)

Trial
Platine Dispositif adventure game. Sort of like Gauntlet with a time limit and chained explosions.

Rosenkreuz Stilette
http://kurotama.sakura.ne.jp/


Megaman Clone. It’s pretty awesome and this should be the full version.

 Boss Boss
http://www.yoshibaworks.com/bossboss/ 

Gameplay Video
Horizontal SHMUP. Honestly looks mediocre at best.

History of Alice
http://www.wa.commufa.jp/~gap/

Fighter based on characters from various Alicesoft games (Rance, Escalayer, etc). *shrug* Rance is a man’s man, but stiiiillll… I’m also pretty sure trials of this have been around for awhile.

むかしむかしあるところにとてつもなく仲の悪いツインテールの姉妹姫様がいらっしゃいましたとさ
http://www.daisessen.com/

Trial (alt)
SMB2 clone. This had a pretty solid demo at the last Comiket actually. Should be good. Yes, the title is really that long. No, I couldn’t bring myself to translate it.

命短したたかえ!乙女
http://www.project-ynp.com/


RTS from the makers of Alibat. Just a demo for this one.

Other Stuff

Final of Final
http://www.aquastyle.org/
 

Sample Video
Aquastyle actually just makes music videos spoofing SRW attacks using anime characters. This one looks to have a lot of Scryed and Big O stuff.

Battle Fantasia Sigma
http://www.botti.que.ne.jp/

The Battle Fantasia series is basically the same as above… only tending towards more magical girls and wackiness. This iteration looks to be a mechastravaganza though.

There’s some other stuff too… the 5th iteration of Tiger Quest (F/SN version of Dragon Quest), some weird sidescroller adventure called Via Navigo, and a kind of neat looking adventure/horror game called Corpse Party, etc etc but there were only a couple shots of those and other stuff just looked… horrendous. Let’s not even talk about Lucky Fighter 2… or the group that went from making Nanoha SHMUPs to making a columns clone that rewards you with loli porn. Great. That’s certainly a step… somewhere. *shudder*

Also, just FYI, I’m on a plane home tomorrow, so I’ll be slow on the draw for some of the early Comiket fun. Most of the game stuff is scheduled for the last day (31st) anyway, so it probably won’t matter, but *shrug*

Posted in Doujin | 7 Comments »

7 Shouts From the Peanut Gallery

  • Fallen Aizen says:

    Holy crap, those looks like awesome games. I wanna try them out :P

  • DiGiKerot says:

    Many thanks for doing this. I’ve done a manual trawl myself in previous years, and it’s such a pain in the arse weeding out the good from the many, many bad games. I look forward to reading your posts on the subject next week ^^

  • selkirk says:

    戦国幻想郷 is more like a Sengoku Rance clone than a Ro3K. Hope it’s not just a demo.

  • Aroduc says:

    Yeah, but I’m pretty sure that I can count the number of people who would understand if I said it was a Sengoku Rance clone on one hand. I’m not sure what else is out there as I’m not a huge fan of those games and generally steer clear.

  • Observer says:

    Ether Vapor IS coming out. FINALLY! Man that’s one hell of an epic shmup! <3

  • Tokome says:

    Man, the Gekitou game’s website won’t work. Something about being in a middle of preparation of something. Oh well, I have the game :D I’d like to try the Hatsune Miku one though.

  • Arrogance says:

    Hey, thanks for the list. These are exactly the kinds of games I like playing out of these Comikets, and no one else seems to want to make a list like this to help other like-minded gamers find what they’re after. Thanks again!