Happy New Year, everyone! We’re a little late this year (JJ clearly wasn’t thinking of this extremely important blog post when he went and impregnated his lovely wife last March), but at last, he has returned to the office from new baby duty, which means…we’re back with a fresh installment of our yearly tribute to the the best “nengajōs” (New Year’s cards) from around the Japanese gaming industry! (Surely you know what a nengajō is, by NOW, right? If not, you can read all about ‘em here.)
(If you missed our previous installments, check them out here: 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014)
The Chinese zodiac animal of choice for 2015 is the sheep, and so this year, we commissioned the fine folks at 256graph to take some art from a title near and dear to our hearts, Yacht Club Games’ amazing Shovel Knight, and inject said art with a taste of Nippon (and fleece) in honor of the game’s inevitable march toward Japan later this year. As always, they did an amazing job, and we are extremely happy with the results.
After you’re done printing yourself out a poster-sized copy of our nengajo, why not check out some of these other really cool cards we got from all over the Japanese gaming industry? (Click through for full-size versions!) Be sure to let us know your faves in the comments, and/or click on the names beneath each card to tweet at some of them directly!
07:25 – Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate Demo
10:07 – Polygon Life in Japan Cover Story
14:00 – Monster Strike
17:00 – John loves Amibos, Codename S.T.E.A.M. Sarah’s,Seijinshiki
28:48 – Driveclub
30:40 – Mario Galaxy 2 and downloadable Wii games
35:15 – Infamous: First Light, The Swapper, Hako-Boy
39:40 – Dreeps
45:00 – Rogue Legacy, Birth by Sleep
51:00 – Brandish dark legacy, Tales of Zestria
58:11 – Nintendo Direct
1:28:00 – Microsoft Windows Conference
1:40:56 – Other News
1:44:57 – Closing Comments
Example of crazy Japanese coming of age ceremony outfits,
And now…a list of music used in our previous episode!
8-4 Play 1/9/2015: AWESOME PODCAST DONE SLOW Intro: Nobuo Uematsu – Shiva’s Theme: Oblivion – Final Fantasy XIV Break: Hip Tanaka – GameBoy Tetris Ending: Yōko Shimomura – Swim This Way – Kingdom Hearts 2
As always, you can leave comments for us at the “Leave a Comment” link below or via Twitter at @84play. And if you’re new to the show, you can subscribe to 8-4 Play on iTunes right here. Subscribe today!
New Years in Japan, Final Fantasy XIV, Kingdom Hearts 2.5 HD, Battle of the Tetris games, Fantasy Life, Puzzle & Dragons: Super Mario Edition, CES, Steam Machines and more!
Running Time: 1:21:59
Time – Topic Discussed:
11:01 – New Years in Japan: Kouhaku and Gaki no Tsukai
20:06 – Final Fantasy XIV
22:35 – Monster Strike
28:58 – Kingdom Hearts 2.5 HD Remix
35:15 – Fantasy Life
37:28 – Tetris
44:05 – Puzzle & Dragons: Super Mario Bros. Edition
52:51 – CES 2015: Free-Form Displays
55:06 – Nintendo Free to Play
58:32 – Fan Remakes: Super Mario 64 HD and Pokemon Uranium
59:39 – Awesome Games Done Quick 2015: Pokemon Plays Twitch
1:03:40 – PSN Network Outages
1:06:37 – Other News: PS4, Mad Catz’s Controller, Steam Machines, Kickstarter
1:12:02 – Closing Comments
And now…a list of music used in our previous episode!
8-4 Play 12/26/2014: LAST PODCAST (I GAVE YOU MY HEART) Intro: Koji Kondo – Theme (Super Mario Bros. 2) Break: Exile – Last Christmas Ending: Olivia Newton John – Xanadu
As always, you can leave comments for us at the “Leave a Comment” link below or via Twitter at @84play. And if you’re new to the show, you can subscribe to 8-4 Play on iTunes right here. Subscribe today!
