COLUMN: 'Roboto-chan!': Zeta no Ronde
['Roboto-chan!' is a fortnightly column, sometimes by a mysterious individual who goes by the moniker of Kurokishi. And sometimes not. The column covers videogames that feature robots and the pop-cultural folklore surrounding them. This edition covers the problems with releasing games outside the cultural cocoon they were created within.]
Senko no Ronde is a game that has caused a fair amount of confusion since it’s Western release on the 360. The traditional shoot-em-up fans think it’s awful, whereas the Virtual On crowd seem to be fine with it. Ultimately, the problem with it is the absence of the pop cultural mythos that gave it context within Japanese arcades, as it’s not trying to be either a shoot-em-up nor a Virtual On clone (though it does bear similarities with the latter).
Like many mecha games it’s trying to give form to something that has never actually existed in the real world. The issue is that without the understanding or knowledge of this inspiration the game is caught partially with its mechanical pants down. This is not to say that Senko no Ronde is unplayable without knowing its functional roots but the learning curve is made far more obtuse than it was actually intended.
Informed (or jaded) gamers consistently bemoan Japanese titles which fail to make it overseas. Japan has been, and still is, the center of the console gaming market, and many titles developed for this market are not considered for an international release for a plethora of reasons. Some titles may be too entrenched in Japanese culture to translate faithfully for other markets; other games may cater to niches in Japan which do not exist on the same scale in other countries; and sometimes works are turned down for release simply because it is thought that the overseas market cannot currently support another title in a particular genre.
In the middle of 1995 an interesting entry into the mecha gaming pantheon was unleashed upon an unsuspecting Japanese public. It was a mecha game set in the third person that didn’t actually allow you direct control of your creation. Instead, you programmed its AI to fight on your behalf. Now, as I write this several young games designers are probably running for the holy water and garlic, but having a game based around programming actually worked. 
Recently, at the Tokyo Game Show, a small video game company named
Americans love big things. Americans are a radically diverse people, but wherever in the United States you go, you'll find an appreciation for scale, even in unlikely places such as the South (I, for one, consider the monster truck fan to be a relative of Homo mechotakus, or the giant robot anime fan). It was only a matter of time before the United States would notice similar appreciation for size in their neighbor across the sea in the genre of giant robots, and attempt to create a work in that genre, combining both Japanese and American elements.
When people look at mecha games, outside of Japan, they often overlook the main sources of influence. After all, from a pop-cultural standpoint Japan is literally immersed in mecha. From anime to manga, mecha is all pervasive and has been around for over half a century.
What with the general populace savouring the bug blasting wonders of 
I had planned on doing a “best of 2006” list, much like the rest of the online throng. Yet, whilst on holiday in Japan, I feel compelled to cover something more pertinent. We all know that the Japanese arcade scene is still moderately thriving and suitably extreme in terms of hardware. However, some of the more interesting and unique arcade games often lack coverage.
As promised, here’s my low-down of a rather wonderful Japanese games developer by the name of 
I had planned on talking about a developer called 
The year was 2002 and you need to understand that Japan in November is cold, very cold indeed. At the time, the only thing between pneumonia and me was a faulty 
Interesting because most mecha games feature massive robots that are gigantic weapons of some kind. This game was almost the antithesis of that and had a tiny protagonist who really wasn’t that potent at all (he actually got left behind, so if anything he was the robotic equivalent of the kid with braces and thick rimmed glasses). 
The game isn’t a bad one really; each time you find one of the Petitmen they lend you their abilities allowing you to traverse the massive house with greater ease whilst also dispatching with the Space Pirates infestation. In addition, Pom has to find “Time Pieces” so that he can return to his time otherwise he gets stuck Groundhog Day-style. 
