It’s a slow news day, so I will therefore work my panties up into a knot:

LOOK AT THIS!

I guarantee most of you won’t give a damn, but my knotted panties must express my outrage and horror. The article is about a Japanese DS game making its way stateside. Okay, fine, whatever. However, three things are making me frothy in a really bad way (and I absolutely apologize for the mental image of frothy, knotted panties):

• The character pictured is a direct rip-off (you say homage, I say die die die) of my beloved Jet Set Radio Future
• The game is by Square Enix, makers of Final Fantasy and my most hated of all loaves
• There’s a character in the game actually nicknamed Beat, which is the name of the main JSR guy

AUGH! I STILL haven’t forgiven Square Enix for the 30-some hours I spent “playing” (23 of those hours were watching cut scenes) Final Fantasy X with NO FUCKING IDEA WHATSOEVER what I was doing, and now THIS? Stealing the art style and characters from my most favourite of all games ever? OH THE OUTRAGE AND HORROR (hey, I said it was a slow news day)!

Worse than my outrage though is my thoroughly piqued curiosity. The game is reportedly good – although there are millions of FF fans out there who don’t know any better either – and I’m horribly drawn to it based on that one dude in purple alone. There’s no North American release date, but there are ways around that if you don’t mind not understanding any of the text or dialogue in an imported game.

What to do? Continue my full on Square Enix rage, or set aside my admittedly bizarre prejudices and see if the game does in fact hold my interest? It’s really hard to tell if it will – the shot of the guy in purple isn’t game play, it appears to be from a – wait for it – cut scene. The screens of actual game play show a confusing and heavily pixilated mash of button pressing, nothing at all like JSRF. I am all mixed up in the feelings. It’s like going through puberty again, only nothing like it whatsoever.