I'm going to try to keep this short because I usually write my blogs in Wordpad and paste them here but right now my Wordpad isn't working, so I'm writing this in Gamespot's annoying box thing.

Anyway, back about a year ago, I modded my PS2 to play Japanese games, pretty much just for one game (King of Colosseum 2). But I hoped I could get more use out of my ability to play import games. I'm constantly looking for new ones to buy for cheap prices, but finding Japanese games for low prices isn't very easy.

But I found two Japanese PS2 games on Ebay, paid about $6.00 for one and $5.00 for the other (including shipping). Now, I didn't have very high expectations for either of these games. The first one was TVDJ. That one was actually reviewed by Gamespot (it got a 2.5). It's a rhythm game, and a pretty mediocre one at that. It is pretty amusing though. You use the face buttons to mix a cartoon (literally being a TV DJ, get it? Heh). It's only four levels long, and each level has a 5-minute time limit but can be beaten in less than that. I can see why this never came out in America. Amusing for 5 bucks, but if I had spent any more than that, I would've felt ripped off.

The second game is Yoake no Mariko, and remembering that title is very difficult because, unlike King of Colosseum and TVDJ, the box only has Japanese text on it. It's another very odd game. Unfortunately, I can't even play it because it requires a Japanese microphone to play. Here's a video of the intro and gameplay I found on YouTube.

So neither game is very good, but they're both amusing and quite crazy Japanese fare. Another thing that's crazy is the disks themselves. In American games, the PS2 logo on the disk is either black or red, but the PS2 logo on both of these disks is pink. Very pretty. The TVDJ disk has a very light, almost glittery pink PS2 logo whereas the one for Yoake no Mariko is a solid pink. The one for King of Colosseum 2 is maroon. I wonder if every PS2 game ever released in Japan has a different colored PS2 logo on the disk? If my camera were working, I'd show you a picture of it.

Oh well, that's all. Overall, unless you want to buy every PS2 game ever made, I'd recommend you stay away from both TVDJ and Yoake no Mariko, which shouldn't be too hard because they were both Japan-only titles. They were actually both published by Sony, which kinda surprised me. Oh well. I hope I can find some good Japan-only PS2 games. I've actually tried to get my hands on the Japan-only PS2 port of the Saturn game NiGHTS into Dreams, or the Japanese PS2 version of Sonic Gems Collection (which includes Streets of Rage), but they're so rare, expensive and hard to find that I might never get those.

Well, seeya later. Man, Japanese games are quite wacko.