Japanese homebrew games that will blow your mind

by Eric Caoili { May 21st 2008 at 10:15AM }

Whenever the topic of internationally developed homebrew DS games comes up, as it often does among hip and attractive people, most people in "the scene" immediately think of France, whose homebrew community rivals North America's in both size and production. You'll see an occasional release from other countries, such as Spain or Korea, but you'll rarely see much activity elsewhere.

But what about Japan's scene? For a country with so many DSes and a strong independent game development community, outside of Infantile Paralysiser's MoonShell media player, we've hardly seen any DS homebrew projects cross the Pacific. Where are all the doujin developers?

At least one programmer in Japan has been working on creating games for the DS, and we're bringing him out of the shadows to highlight three of his projects, likely games that you've never even heard of, let alone seen. If you're interested in homebrew development at all, you definitely need to pay attention to MeRAMAN!

Tetris The Grand Master 3: Terror Instinct

You've likely seen some form of Arika's Tetris The Grand Master played before -- videos of Japanese gamers playing this insanely fast variant of Tetris often pop up in online gaming discussions, passed along with a "Can you believe this?" tone. Think of TGM3, an unofficial remake of the original arcade game, as a "serious business" version of Tetris DS.

In production since early March, TGM3 is one of the most polished homebrew titles we've ever played for the DS. Already, MeRAMAN's remake features editable controls and mechanics, online leaderboards, a configurable training mode, watchable replays for a single session lasting up to 30 minutes, and several game modes (Master, Death, 20G, and Legacy). You can even play with invisible blocks!

Gallery: NDS TGM

Rinlen

Based on the characters and voices of Yamaha Corporation's singing synthesizer software, Vocaloid 2, Rinlen allows you to (somewhat) control siblings Rin Kagamine and Len Kagamine -- you can throw onions across the screens and change their facial expressions by tapping different buttons -- while a catchy, synthy rendition of traditional Finnish polka tune "Ievan Polkka" plays.

Yeah, we don't understand the purpose of this application either, but it's immensely entertaining, nonetheless. We doubt Rinlen will ever leave our flashcarts.

NDS de Princess Bride!

This one somehow manages to be even more confounding than Rinlen! Though NDS de Princess Bride! isn't actually a real game, of course, it's too wild to not include! The scrolling arrows and Ouendan-esque elements following the character's movements are convincing, but this is more of a fun "what if?" software demonstration than it is a serious project or an actually released ROM.

You can actually find the original clip used for this demo on several different streaming video sites. The masked figure, Okamaid, has recorded a bunch of these performances, and in this one, she's dancing what looks like an Idolm@ster choreographed routine to singer Kotoko's "Princess Bride." Basically, it's a tangled mess of Japanese things we don't understand, like tentacle hentai or Gundam Mahjong DS.

Still, what Ouendan/Elite Beat Agents fan wouldn't love this?

Tags: arika, elite-beat-agents, elitebeatagents, hb08, joystiqfeatures, kotoko, MeRAMAN, nds-tgm, okamaid, ouendan, princess-bride, rhythm, rinlen, tetris, the-grand-master, vocaloid, yamaha

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

pas @ May 21st 2008 11:11AM

wow ! the grafix of the last look like a commercial game ! Anyways, the first is very polished indeed !

Great finds, thx.

morfeatire @ May 21st 2008 11:57AM

Someone downloaded Princess bride?
can someone give me the link?
I don't know japanese and was pretty lost in that site >_<

Thanks ^^

RupeeClock @ May 21st 2008 12:21PM

TETRIS TGM, ON MY DS.
You'd best not be shitting me because this is like, a dream come true.

Pino @ May 21st 2008 10:22PM

But is it better than Lockjaw?

RupeeClock @ May 21st 2008 10:32PM

Screw Lockjaw, I don't want to have to nitpick every bloody detail of tetris, and then have crappy graphics to go with it.

Tetris TGM is the standard for world records and the highest level players.

Actually, I've had the luck of playing again TGM Arika on Tetris DS online, he gave me 10 matches and DAMN was he good. He beat me every time, although I stood my own for a very long time against him.

BPM [MKWii: 2578 3585 8392] @ May 23rd 2008 5:33PM

Sorry, RupeeClock, but looks like I bumped you off the top 10 for 20G. :V

RupeeClock @ May 23rd 2008 5:35PM

Wait, I was on the record list?
Not that I care, I was just playing it for fun.

BPM [MKWii: 2578 3585 8392] @ May 23rd 2008 7:03PM

Right now, you're ranked #9 for Master 10 Width (lv.522).

You seem pretty good. Wanna play Tetris DS against me sometime? (the official one, that is)
My FC is 381399 963933. I can also be reached via AIM at Dark PikaMew or MSN at BPMdotEXE@hotmail.com.

Hope @ May 21st 2008 3:33PM

Princess Bride seems to play like a combo of Ouendan and a non-physical Para Para Paradise.

Ihar `Philips` Filipau @ May 21st 2008 3:51PM

> Rinlen
> ... we don't understand the purpose of this application either ...

Then you need to see original:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=WNDh_tFIHn4

Essentially, this is brainwashing endless /game/.

P.S. And this is original original:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=vjvVBCNcL_A&feature=related