I haven't had much free time to play games lately, yet I've managed to spend some time with the new JOJO fighting game 「JOJO'S BIZARRE ADVENTURE : ALL STAR BATTLE」 for the PS3.

After clearing more than half of the story scenarios, my impressions are a bit mixed.

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■I LIKE IT... THAT'S WHY.. IT WOULD BE NICE Your long time platonic love MISA has just married your older brother. Now you're left with no other choice but to foget the feelings you've always had for the woman that's just become your new sister.

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■SF・HARD ACTION・ADVENTURE CARMINE LT. KERNIGHAN is part of an elite AFW special forces unit sent by the army to crush a replicant uprising. His orders are clear: Eliminate them... with extreme prejudice....

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Today we will go back to 1990 and pay a visit to the the game center 「Z00N21」. Seems like a lively place.

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■CYBERPUNK HARD ACTION GAME Elite soldier KAY KURTZE was revived to become a WICKED ARMORED SOLDIER. Armed with hi-tech weapons and psychic powers. KAY won't stop at nothing to cleanse the S-CITY from the evil forces!

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■ORIGINAL BISHOUJO AVG SERIES 4TH UNIT ! A beautiful young woman is found unconscious near the crash site of a mysterious unmanned aircraft... This is only the beginning of the epic bishoujo AVG series from DATA WEST!

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CD-ROM実力No.1のデータウエスト、遂にメガ・デビュー! !
(Finally, the mega・debut of DATA WEST No1. CD-ROM achievement ! ! )

This is the promotional flyer for the would-be canceled MEGA-CD version of 「MERRYGOROUND」from DATA WEST.

MERRYGOROUND was the sixth entry in the 「4TH UNIT」game series. Which is one of the two AVG series that DATA WEST are mostly known for. With the other being 「THE PSYCHIC DETECTIVE」series.

MERRYGORUND was exclusive to the FM-TOWNS and it marked a departure from the previous entries. Leaving behind the traditional AVG conventions and adopting the 「DAPS」(DATAWEST ACTIVE PICTURE SYSTEM) visual conversation system that the company developed for the FM-TOWNS alongside THE PSYCHIC DETECTIVE series.

Thus this game was meant to be the triumphant entry of the 4TH UNIT and DAPS into the novel 16-bit console CD-ROM market, but alas the game was cancelled for some reason.

Eventually DATA WEST would release THE PSYCHIC DETECTIVE 「AYA」and 「OREGEL」for both the MCD and PCE systems. But although both were excellent conversions (unplayable for non-Japanese speakers though), they weren't as visually impressive as the FM-TOWNS originals.

It is unclear how far along the MCD version of MERRYGOROUND went into production. But given the above examples, one can conjecture how it could've turned out.

(C) DATA WEST

■CLASSIC PC EROGE ACTION 「WICKED CLUB」 is a demonic-themed eroge variant of the seminar arcade classic 「QIX」.

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■THRILLING AIR BIKE・CRASH ACTION GAME ! A.B. (AIR BIKE) COP is an intense sprite-scaling  battle crashing racing game developed by AICOM for the prolific SEGA X BOARD arcade hardware.

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■80'S TV DRAMA NOSTALGIA !



This is of my favorite TV drama series from the 80's : 「MIRROR OF JANUS」starring former OYANKO CLUB member MIYUKI SUIGURA and the always excellent SHINJI YAMASHITA.

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■HIGH・SPEED PRECISION・SHOOTING GAME A terrorist group has hijacked a high-speed train... World-class mercenary 「DUKE TOGO」has only 90 seconds to free the 15 hostages inside... Are you skilled enough to overcome this difficult challenge?

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