Game Spotlight – Gunparade March

“In 1945, World War II was abruptly ended when an alien race appeared on Earth and began to slaughter the human population. This alien force, known as the “Phantom Beasts” had effectively taken over more than half of the Earth.

The year is 1999 – 54 years later, mankind is still fighting to survive against the alien forces. Earth forces now use advanced mecha called Humanoid Walking Tanks (HWTs) to combat the invaders, but throughout the ordeal, far too many pilots have been killed in action. To ensure the future of the human race, the Japanese government enforced a student draft which recruited high school students to become HWT pilots. Gunparade March follows the lives of the 5121th Platoon, which consists mainly of drafted high school students and their struggle to defeat the Phantom Beasts and at the same time, lead a normal social life.”

Gunparade March is a Japanese Life Simulation / RPG released in 2000 for the Sony Playstation.

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Fantranslated Japanese Tabletop RPGs – Kamigakari

A fantranslation for Japanese TRPG Kamigakari has been released. Featuring art from Yoshinori Shizuma, an artist well-known for his work on Kantai Collection, here is some information about this TRPG from the translator itself.

SRW DB Full Release!

Some of you may have noticed a new page go up a while ago for the demo of SRW DB – an SRW fangame by me (Me).

Well, I am now happy to announce that the project is complete! You can download or learn more about SRW DB on its page. Enjoy!

Fantranslated Japanese Tabletop RPGs – Tokyo Nova

Another big name Tabletop RPG has now been tackled! Tokyo Nova is a Cyberpunk TRPG with an interesting gimmick – instead of being resolved with dice as is the classic method, it utilizes standard playing card decks instead!

Rambal Ral: Ara Fell

(Articles in the Ramble Ral section are presented “as is” with minor editing. For more information please see its section page. They will probably contain spoilers for the game in question)

Help! I’ve Ara Fallen and I can’t get up!

So, I’m a bit disappointed in how they advertised Ara Fell and what the final result is – the Steam page listed it as “A combination of the best parts of JRPG and WRPG with an open world” and… well, no, it really isn’t.

Simulation RPG Construction (SRC) Scenario Roundup: Part 3 – The Works of 米屋

Welcome back to another installment of SRC Scenario Round-Up, where we bring your attention to the most interesting fan-made scenarios for this SRPG engine. (If you have no idea what SRC is or need a refresher, go here)

The previous installments of these posts tended to split itself on a variety of creators, but for this one, we will be looking at the works of 米屋, a talented scenario designer with a heavy focus on Toku-like scenarios compared to the usual Mecha fare.

Fantranslated Japanese Tabletop RPGs – Night Wizard 3E

A Christmas Gift from its kind translator – a partial fantranslation for Night Wizard 3E has been made available.

Originally published in 2002, Night Wizard is a “modern magic” world in which magic-using teenagers known as Wizards fight against invading demons called Emulators.

Kickstarter Notice: Shinobigami – Ninja Battle Japanese TRPG

From the translators of other Japanese Tabletop RPG hits such as Tenran and Ryuutama comes a new Kickstarter for “Shinobigami”

From the Kickstarter description:
“Shinobigami is a fast one-session RPG focusing on character drama, stories of conflict and cooperation, and light tactical strategy in a dark modern “World of Shadows” setting where mysterious ninja exist and engage in inter-clan conflict in an ongoing hidden cold war.”

Just being from a different country isn’t the only selling point of the game – Shinobigami’s design plays around with several conventions of the genre that is not usually done – for example, by having the Player Characters be “Frenemies” – people who are allied through mutual goals now but may each have their own separate agendas and skillfully manipulating your allies while covering your tracks is the order of the day, very reminiscent of another well-known TRPG “Paranoia.”

You can find the Kickstarter here

Fantranslated Japanese Tabletop RPGs – Monotone Museum

Yet another addition to the slow, yet ongoing process of making more Japanese RPGs available to English reading audiences comes “Monotone Museum”

As stated by the author, “Monotone Museum was actually created as an example of how someone with no previous game design experience–namely Sugano Tasuke, an illustrator–could easily make their own tabletop RPG using SRS” (SRS is a popular Tabletop RPG engine in Japan, somewhat similar to the d20 system in the West)

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This release is considered the “final” release by the translator and contains translations for things such as the background setting and a “replay” (transcript of a sample game), but no game rules.

Why? In his own words “Since underneath the fluff SRS is nigh-identical in every game that uses it, you can just use the rules from another F.E.A.R. title like Double Cross or Night Wizard if you want to experience Monotone Museum in something pretty close to its original form.”

You can download the translation here.

A Look At: Super Tokusatsu Taisen 2001

The Super Robot Wars series has been a popular franchise for Banpresto featuring crossovers from many mecha series. Given the number of licensed games they produce, it didn’t take long before someone got a bright idea – why not take the engine for those games and utilize it with other properties?

That’s the story, but the final question is: how did the game go?