Okay, what’s the most important part of any RPG, western or Japanese? Okay, yeah, the storyline, characters, and the battle system, but besides that? THE VILLAGE! Where else are your heroes going to go to get quests, restock items, hear the latest gossip, and lay their heads at night? Weather it’s Whiterun in Skyrim, The Town of Baron in Final Fantasy 4, Tristram in Diablo, Vizima in the Witcher, or even the Citadel in Mass Effect, the city/town/village is the glue the keeps the entire game together. Kairosoft’s downloadable title is one of the few games that simulates what goes on inside that village. You build a village from the ground up, building shops and houses for your residents. Your goal is to attract adventurers. These adventurers then go on quest that you give them, earn money, and (hopefully) spend it on your shops, thereby generating income for your village. You can hold special events, expand your town, and unlock new types of buildings. The only major issue with this is the one common to most business/city simulator games: once you begin to generate lots of income, the challenge disappears. Also you’re only in this for a high score. Even so, the game gets incredibly addictive, and you’ll love the 16-bit style retro graphics. If you got an iPhone or an Android, download this game and you’ll experience firsthand one of the most important, yet unappreciated parts of the role-playing-game genre.

There’s a White House petition going around to make region locking a thing of the past — at least in the United States of America. Does such a law have any chance of passing, and can it even be effective if it did? And what would the side-effects be? Vinnk and Sean discuss the perils and pitfalls of region locking, if it even makes sense any more in an increasingly digital-only medium, and the kinds of odd behaviors it causes in those who actually want to buy games or consoles across regions. We also discuss the (successful) GCW-Zero Kicstarter, and its inevitable ROM piracy implications.

Leave your own voicemail at 608-492-1923, or just share your thoughts in the show notes at FamicomDojo.TV:
http://famicomdojo.tv/podcast/69

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Streets of Rage 2 is a sequel to Sega’s classic beat-em-up, and it signified one of the best reasons to own a Sega Genesis back in the days. Taking control of one of four characters, you set out to rescue your friend from criminal overlord Mr. X. You (and a friend if playing co-op) will battle through 8 levels, such as a tropical island and an amusement park. The graphics are some of the best seen on the Genesis and the soundtrack, composed by Yuzo Koshiro is one of the best soundtracks in a 16 bit video game. The electronica/techno beats will keep your blood pumping as you beat up everyone in your way. It’s available in several Sega compilations, and you can buy it on just about every download service, so if you haven’t played this classic, now is a good time to do so.

I was surfing facebook earlier this evening when I saw a photo of a MOTU Classics Mantenna shared on the Masters of the Universe Classics facebook group and I did a double take. It sure looked like an official photo and legitimate photograph, but who can tell these days. We live in a world of Photoshop mockups. I put all the images from there into a gallery for everyone to see after the jump.

Can anyone verify if these are real?

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The Fast and Furious 6 is coming our way Memorial Day 2013 (May 27). We get our first look at some of the plot in this first extended trailer. Looks like pretty much the whole cast is back including Vin Diesel, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Tyrese Gibson, Ludacris and Paul Walker, among others.

I don’t really find anything extraordinary about this franchise, but I think its pretty far from awful too. You sit down and watch one of these movies and you are going to be entertained. You may not leave the theater with a new outlook on life, but you probably won’t feel as though you’ve wasted the evening. So far, this sixth installment feels in line with all of that.

Sean visits the Fangamer booth at MAGFest XI and comes away with some cool stuff. But will he also win the super-secret gashapon prize when he puts the magic coin into the machine? Don’t skip to the end to find out!

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Welcome to the Powet Top 5, where we explore the top (and bottom) 5 items we think are relevant to any of a variety of topics that span the imagination. Sit back, read, and respond.

The excellent Ni No Kuni, one of many awesome titles that has been or will be released this year.

If you’re reading this, then you already know that the world didn’t end back in December (f course if you were smart, you knew it wasn’t gonna end anyway). That’s a very good thing. Not only do you get to stay alive a lot longer, but there are some very awesome things coming this year. Several new gadgets and gizmos are hitting the block for gamers (including the PS4 and Xbox 720 is rumors hold true), several awesome movies are hitting theaters, and most importantly, several new games are coming out within these next twelve months. This past January has seen the release of the Devil May Cry reboot and the sure-to-be classic JRPG Ni No Kuni, but there are even more awesome titles hitting systems this year. Here are just 5 of the most anticipated.

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