Doujin games have now landed on Xbox Live!

[LordGeo]

The XNA development serivce has now brought about the first two doujin games to come to the Xbox Live Marketplace: Crescendo Symphony and Soredemo, Watashi wa Aishiteiru.

The first is a side-scrolling 2D shoot-em-up that's nothing amazing or original, but for 240 MP/$3 I don't think it's a bad purchase from what I've played of the demo; it's mostly in English, with the exception of the prologue which is in full Japanese characters. The second game is a full-on visual novel, so unless you can read and understand Japanese enough you will not get a lot of enjoyment out of this; this also sells for 240 MP/$3.

You don't need a Japanese account to download these games either... Just go into the marketplace and check out the "Indie Games" section; they're the only ones with Japanese characters for titles... Crescendo Symphony is right now the #2 Most Popular Indie Game and Aishiteru is #5. Here's hoping for more doujin games and hopefully better experiences through Xbox Live, but not a bad start I'd say.

[LordGeo]

Well I am certainly surprised... In just one day Soredemo, Watashi wa Aishiteru, the visual novel, is now the Most Popular Indie Game on the Xbox Live Marketplace! Crescendo Symphony went down to #5.

Either there are a lot of Japanese gamers getting this game, or the allure of a visual novel is just that strong outside of Japan (we don't have any over here on the 360, afterall).

[TheLaughingMan]

Wow, that's really cool. Thanks for posting this, i'll have to check them out. Hopefuly it'll open a good future for these...

[LordGeo]

Well, since then we've gotten two others, but neither of them seem to be that great.

The first, Ultimate Sacrifice, is another 2D shoot-em-up but apparently is so short that you can beat it within the limited time that the trial demo gives you; even though it's only 80 MP/$1, the fact that you can beat it under the trial time limit means that it's just as good a a free game... Too bad the gameplay didn't grab me; in my opinion Ultimate Sacrifice is just not a good shooter, even for only $1. Apparently Crescendo Symphony is also just one stage long, but Crescendo's idea is that you "loop" over and over to see how long you can last and to get a high score (again, I didn't buy it so I can't tell fully), while Sacrifice apparently just ends after that one stage.

The second, which I can't remember the name of (but it's all in kanji, so it's easy to ID), is a really odd self-scrolling mix between a beat-em-up, and shooting game, and ninjas. It's an odd but interesting mix, but the sheer difficulty (and that fact that you die in one hit) makes it a little hard to reccommend; now I do enjoy games that are hard, but this game just doesn't do it right. I defintely have to say that it's best to give the trial version of this game a try first.

[boogiecat]

Wow thanks for the info...Gotta try these games..