Sunday, December 22, 2013

Journal Entry #5: Saint Seiya: Lost Canvas

EPISODES: 26/26



AIR DATE: 24/06/2009 : END DATE: 20/07/2011 : STATUS: CompletedSaint Seiya is a series written by Masami Kurumada. However the lost canvas - the myth of hades, is a spin off / alternative work written by Shiori Teshirogi.

Season's Greetings... and a look back at my geeky 2013

IT'S THAT TIME OF THE YEAR AGAIN, WHERE WE ALL WISH EACH OTHER THE BEST OF WISHES, A GOOD HEALTH AND MAY ALL YOUR GEEKY DREAMS COME TRUE.



And it is that time where we on the blog-o-sphere tend to look back at our resolutions of the past year, and what we managed, and what failed.

Saint Seiya: Brave Soldiers

There is a term used in Japan to describe the bevy of licensed anime and manga games released every year: "kyara-ge," an abbreviation of "character games." The term carries some negative connotations, since it's generally presumed that the quality of the game itself will be subpar compared to its non-licensed peers. But as kids who grew up with classic series reach adulthood and get jobs developing games themselves, there have been marked improvements in kyara-ge: when you have genuine affection for a licensed franchise, you feel a lot more invested in the quality of the product. It's still exceptionally rare to find kyara-ge on the level of something like Batman: Arkham City, but these games are often at least mildly enjoyable--a category that Saint Seiya: Brave Soldiers falls into nicely.



Saint Seiya: Brave Soldiers is a one-on-one 3D fighting game based on Saint Seiya, a Japanese anime and manga franchise that began in the mid-'80s. Many kids growing up around that time period, especially from France, Italy, and Latin America, have fond memories of Knights of the Zodiac, which had a following comparable to that of The Transformers or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in North America. Previous Saint Seiya games have actually been localized and released in several of these territories--including a Warriors-style PlayStation 3 action game--but this is the first time Namco Bandai games has released a Saint Seiya game in English. From the heavens to the oceans to the underworld, everywhere is a battlefield!