Some news from games in Japan

A bit of Japan news here (which as always we must keep in mind that something here may or may not show up outside of Japan although we always hope that it will), first with a look at another Bemani title from Konami known as Pop N’ Music Party, this is #16 I believe and includes more than 700 songs, with 40 new songs being added to the game along with new characters. The cabinet certainly is colorful and eye-catching, I’d like to see this game being played at least. Speaking of that I believe that it was an earlier Pop N’ Music game that was featured in a popular video that has made the rounds around the internet for a few years, the control panel looks similar but I have never played Pop N’ Music (imports are hard to come by where I’m at).

Also we have an update to the popular technical racer from Sega, Initial D4. While it is not entirely clear what the full details are regarding this update, it’s obvious that it includes some new cars and some improvements to the overall balance of the game. I was hoping to see this at ASI as I don’t know of any arcade near me that has an ID4 unit. Either way the game continues to look great and any improvements to the gameplay to what is already considered a great game deserves a thumbs up.

[The above via Ge-Sen and The Stinger Report]

Also there has been an update to the website for the new arcade fighter Blazblue that includes 2D character artwork against 3D backgrounds. They have posted a video there that shows more of the in-game action but I don’t know if the video is anything different from what was shown in AOU. I think that it looks pretty good and should please fans of these kinds of fighters that love to throw all these over-the-top effects on the screen with the moves. But they also have posted a PDF that shows the move sets for four of the characters.

[BlazBlue Official Website]