I don't usually do this, I really don't. I hate stories on the Internet that make me watch videos, cause I am often at work, or on my phone, or whatever, goddammit I do not want to watch the video. But just this one time, I promise, would you watch this video before we do this? I wanna talk to you about it a little bit. So, I mean, if you could spare a minute and a half, just click it up. You don't even need sound if you don't have it I guess, but maybe put the sound. So, okay.


What the hell, right? Who are these people in the suits, grinning like idiots? Being trapped in nets? Look at the title! THE "DENPA" MEN: They Came By Wave! It reminds me of some crazy old series of trading cards from the 60s re-envisioned as a movie in the 90s. I love it. Even the first part is in caps! Not The Denpa Men, but THE "DENPA" MEN, even goddamned DENPA is in quotes, and that subtitle! They came by wave, a foreboding, horrible thought! They fucking rode the waves, into this house!! Gettin' their Denpa slime all over my walls and floor. You know what I thought of immediately after seeing this video for the first time? EarthBound.

I can't say for sure that there's any real connection to back it up, but the pieces are there. The company that made this game, Genius Sonority, is also made up heavily of members from Creatures, Inc., which most notably developed Mother on the Famicom, as well as EarthBound and even the failed Nintendo 64 version of Mother 3 before it was cancelled. THE "DENPA" MEN seems to share the same self-aware and quirky aesthetic. They use this now-popular anachronistic dude-speak. They strut their stuff despite being attached to a relatively standard Japanese RPG. They're cute, but creepy at the same time. It's almost like mid-90s Nintendo has returned to the present with their bizarre, postmodernist ad campaigns and peculiar magazine spots intact. It's the developers, sure, but it is also the localization team doing the project justice, and I know that this game is gonna be something real special because of it.

The demo for this game hit the eShop this morning, and I set to work catching my own set of DENPA MEN to fight with. In order to catch them you have to stand and spin furiously in circles, and pace your apartment and look like a total goddamned idiot, which is kind of great. You catch them how it shows in that commercial there, shooting the dudes with nets, but I guess different places will have different MENs or whatever. I want them! From there you go in and fight some stuff in a dungeon. Creatively attacking is just "automatically done," but you can choose to have them use skill points or not, kind of a conservation of magic type thing.

Also, it even looks like you can export your data from playing the demo to the full version when it is released next week! I CAME IN WAVES