BUTT FISH

[Green Gibbon!]

http://www.mmv.co.jp/special/game/psp/umihara/

I'm assuming this is a proper sequel and not just a remake. If it was anyone other than MMV, I might be excited. But even they can't screw up Umihara... r-right?

[Isuka]

After a quick check, it looks like this might be a new title given that the PlayStation one already was kind of a remake of the first game... unless that what they intend to do is port the PSX game. Also, both games were developed by different studios, it shouldn't be so hard to develop a competent new entry.

The use of diagonals reminded me all the backlash the PSP received because of the poor D-pad, anyone knows if this was corrected in the Slim model?

[Shadow Hog]

What the hell am I looking at? It's a fish... with legs.

Almost as disturbing as a fish with a man face that talks to me. Which I also haven't experienced.

[Isuka]

It's more likely than you think.
And it's still leagues behind a BUTT FISH.

[G.Silver]

I like the PSX version a lot better than the SNES one, but it's also the one I played first. The art here looks a lot like the PSX's.

[Protodude]

This is that series of sidescrollers, right? I remember seeing some screenshots of it but never played them. What's supposed to be so special about these?

[Locit]

Imagine Bionic Commando, but without the gun and incredibly cute/disturbing.

[Shadow Hog]

...oh, right! That game. I played it once, sucked, and never bothered to play it again, but I generally liked what I saw. The music was ace, certainly.

You'll forgive me for not remembering my obscure Japanese SNES games fast enough.

[Green Gibbon!]

It's a little bit like Bionic Commando, but there's alot more stuff you can do with the hook. It's also got fish. I like it better, myself.

I never played the PS version. Was it just a remake?

[G.Silver]

It's the same in terms of general design, I mean, nothing has changed, it's the same style backgrounds and enemies, even the boss tadpole can be beaten in exactly the same way, but everything looks smoother and more polished. The characters are detailed 2D sprites but the background "blocks" are now 3D, giving an odd sort of depth that looks pretty good. The distant backdrops are still photos of rivers and streams, and in the foreground there are large 2D standups of pencils and pocky boxes and other odd Japanese things. I don't recall if those were decorating the SF version's landscapes or not.

In gameplay, the levels are different but have a very similar flow, they teach you the same mechanics in the same order by having you do the same things. The physics behind the hook are more complicated, it feels a lot more like you really are on an elastic string, by comparison the SF one is a little more reliable and consistent, but it feels simpler. Not as extreme as comparing the first game to Bionic Commando, but there's definitely a big difference. I think it's a lot more exciting to play.

There are two releases of the PSX game, the first contains odd cut scenes where the protagonist advertises fishing supplies that I assume are real, and the second version (known as "shun" for "seasonal") replaces these ads with big full screen scrolling illustrations of the her instead. The newer version also supposedly has some new stages, but I never got to them, apparently accessing them requires using a kind of "rocket jump" technique to sling yourself across a big a hole that I could never manage to do.

[Green Gibbon!]

Some screenshots here:

http://japan.gamespot.com/psp/common/0, ... 54p,00.htm

[THEbigLANDMAN]

http://i1.tinypic.com/73pagrt.jpg

It's more likely than you think.
And it's still leagues behind a BUTT FISH.

What a sexy fish we've got here

[G.Silver]

Yeah looks just like it to me.

[Green Gibbon!]

So it's just a port of the PSX version, then? That's a bit disappointing. I still really want to play it, of course, but I want to play it on a PlayStation. 1.

[Neo]

http://www.genterprise.jp/umihara/
http://sega.jp/ds/umihara/

What the hell is this. Since when was a DS port in the works? Since then was it silently released last week?

Did anyone know about this? Have you played it? Does it suck?

[Shadow Hog]

Moreover, since when did Sega publish it?

[Protodude]

I've been playing it these past few days and was even going to make a thread about it soon. It has both the SNES and PS1 version, and there seems to be this different version of the PS1 version (which has DS in the title along with some Japanese) but it plays the exact same to me. It's actually my first time with this series, and I'm kicking myself for not having tried it sooner. It's balls to the wall hard but I'm loving it, and I love the simplistic music and surreal levels that go along with it. I find myself going back to the SNES version a bit more, but both are very good.

Also, there's a surprisingly large amount of porn out there of the heroine.......

[Shadow Hog]

She's a loli. You expected any less?

[Neo]

How can she be a loli with those huge melons attached to her chest?

So how does the game fare in comparison to the SNES original? Is it a faithful port? Moreover, is it worth importing?

[Protodude]

Well, I've never played either version before this but it plays fine and I haven't heard anything negative, so I'm assuming it's a good port.

I've actually been playing it on a flashcart, and it turns out there's an anti-piracylock on it that screws up the fishing rod, but there's a fixed rom out there for it. I'd like to own an actual copy some day, but I'm to much of a cheap-skate to pay for a new, full priced Japanese game, so I might wait for it to go on sale. If you've played both versions then you've pretty much played this game though.

Also, the main character is 19, so she's not a loli but she might be considered moé

[Dasher]

heheh cute fish, id love to see one in real life.

















maybe not.

Hmm..



yeah...

[G.Silver]

I just got this (an actual cart, guys) and I'm really loving it, of course. Between this and Ninja Five-O, my DS now has hardcore rubbering action in both holes.

The "DS" version of the PSX game appears to contain an extra 30 levels or so. I don't know how many levels of the original I saw. This game has a new map that shows what levels you've been to (and a "how many levels visited out of how many levels exist" indicator) and how the levels intersect (once you've been to them, anyway), and even the original PSX game has something like 120. I'm pretty sure I didn't even see half of them! The PS/DS versions also have a "zoom" control so you can be zoomed in to see the detail or zoomed out to see more terrain, and a detailed minimap on the lower screen shows your position, enemies, and level exits. You can also set the shoulder triggers to control the zoom (sort of weird, when I tried it). The default setting has the shoulder buttons set to nothing, which is strange, because in the original all four of the PSX's triggers were set to aim your shot at angles. I prefer having them set to the upper angles, this can really help when you're trying to keep Kawase-san from sliding down into spikes but also need to grapple onto something behind you. I do feel like the controls for reeling in are a little sluggish, I'm not sure if it's the game, me, or the DS control pad. If it's the pad, it's the first time I've prefered the PSX' digital pad for anything, ever.

I read over at Tiny Cartridge that the game only sold 4,200 copies its first day. I'm always a little suspicious of the first-day sales really being representative, especially in UmiKawa's case where they may have pissed a lot of people off with the PSP version and players were likely waiting to see how good a port it was. I hope they sold more, but obviously in the west the series is most famous for people emulating the Super Famicom version, so with the precedent already set I can't help but think people are already primed to steal it (also it's an older game being sold at full price, not really a great move). UmiKawa on the PSX is one of my all-time favorites, I've bought it twice already (once new from NCS, and once used while in Japan), and having it on the go is worth a lot to me personally. If anyone wants to buy it over at Play Asia, PM me for my $5 off coupon, I never seem to be able to use those things in time (my last one expired the day before I remembered to order this!)

[Neo]

Yeah, I just got this too. It's a pretty freaking sweet package. The original version is a direct port of the Super Famicom game, no strings attached. As such it doesn't keep track of any progress or allow you to set the controls, which is a bit of a shame. Apart from the screen having been cropped from 256x224 to the DS's 256x192 screen, it's a 1:1 replica and I can't find anything wrong with it. I think the music sounds a slight tad different (but this could very well be attributed to the DS's not-so-on-par sound capabilities) and there's some extra camera-related options, but that's about it. The touch-screen displays pictures of Umihara which change as you clear levels.

The feature presentation is the PlayStation sequel. Shun has two modes of play, the untouched game, and a DS remix mode which has a bunch more levels added for good measure. There's a few new features, and both versions are affected by them. The touch screen displays a minimap which displays the position of Umihara, fish and doors within a field. The face buttons can be swapped between four combinations, whichever suits your taste. L/R buttons can be set to fire the lure diagonally up or down, as well as control the zoom feature, which is completely dumb.

Let's discuss the zoom feature. Umihara Kawase on the Super Famicom ran at 256x224, as I've said before, so in the process of putting it on the DS, and because it's a 2D game and scaling the screen would look awful, they cropped the image to 256x192. So you lose a tiny bit (32 pixels, 16 on top and 16 on bottom) of viewing height, but the game is still perfectly playable.

The PlayStation, on the other hand, I think runs at 320x224. If you crop that to 256 pixels horizontally, you lose 64 pixels (32 to the left, 32 to the right), twice as much as you lose vertically. This significantly hampers your field of view, and several platforms are left just out of sight because of that. So, what did they come up with? The game can zoom in and out within the interval of 1:1 ratio and full downscaling to the DS screen size. The full view is crucial to play the game properly, but it kind of ruins the beautiful handdrawn visuals of the game with the DS's nearest neighbor scaling, so they give you a choice, which is very classy of them. Furthermore, an option exists to control zooming automatically, but I've found that it works like balls. The camera stays zoomed in at all times until you stretch the lure past a certain length. So the "platform out of sight" problem isn't fixed at all because you can't see it unless you try to hook it, so everything sucks but full zoom out. It doesn't look that bad, anyway.

Anyway, the DS remix also has a tutorial feature (which you can thankfully turn off), and you unlock illustrations and music in a gallery by clearing certain stages and reaching certain doors. There's also a little beastiary with cute little bios for all the defeatable swimmies in the game (even the damn bucket, but not the octopus, because you can't kill that). This only applies to Shun, as it seems they were desperately trying to make the SFC game seem even more detached.

An unexpected feature I didn't expect is the ability to share replays via local wireless. I'll be damned if anyone else in this whole country gets the game, though.

tl;dr it's good, go buy several copies

[Dr. BUGMAN]

Has there already been a price-drop for this? 'Cause as good as it sounds, $50+ for a portable is a little too steep for my tastes.

Am I to assume that this is now a limited print run and the price will remain static is what I'm asking.

[Neo]

Well, it's a Umihara Kawase game, it's probably only seeing a Japanese release and probably a limited one at that considering the high numbers it probably won't push. So if you really really want to get it I wouldn't fiddle around for too long.