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You give the game your all...you stay up latenights...you've hunted around on the web...and still
you just can't get past that point in the game. Not all is lost!
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Journey to the Promised Land Warning: include(inc-ffwNav.php) [function.include]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /web/sites/hustler/tipstricks.com/features-FFW-May11.php on line 43 Warning: include() [function.include]: Failed opening 'inc-ffwNav.php' for inclusion (include_path='.:/usr/local/lib/php') in /web/sites/hustler/tipstricks.com/features-FFW-May11.php on line 43 May 11, 2007I wake up at the ungodly hour of 6:00 AM and can’t get back to sleep. Since I don’t need to show up at the Tecmo offices until 3:00 PM, I check out the Tokyo subway map and decide it shouldn’t take me more than 10 hours to figure it out.
After I check out of my hotel, it occurs to me that I’m going to get on the subway during morning rush hour, a notoriously crowded time on Japanese subway trains where people are literally pressed into each other like sardines. On top of this, I have a suitcase to worry about. Despite several near misses where my body got inside a subway car but my suitcase almost didn’t, both of us manage to get to Shibuya in one piece, where I stash the suitcase into a coin locker somewhere in the bowels of Shibuya station.
My first thought is to go to the land of a million video game stores, Akihabara, since, well, what else are gamers supposed to do in Japan? Check out its natural beauty? I’m journeying solo at this point, but since Japan is supposed to be one of the safest countries in the entire world, I am blindsided when a teenaged-looking Japanese man sidles up to me outside a subway station and flashes a police badge that looks like it came out of a gumball machine. When I express doubt that he’s a policeman, he unzips his windbreaker to reveal another police badge pinned to his shoulder, and then two other men with similar badges close in. The only thing I can understand is that they want to see my passport for some reason. Like most confrontational situations in which I’m not sure which path to choose, I go with the one of least resistance and let them check it out. I make a mental note not to carry it with me in public next time. Were they policemen or con men? Why am I still not sure?
Since my trip to Akihabara was tainted, I decided to head to Ueno to see if I could find Yamashiro, the seven-story toy store. Instead I am distracted by a sign for the Ueno Zoo. And the Ueno Zoo has penguins! I follow the crowd and am rewarded by arriving at the penguin exhibit right during feeding time, as Magellanic and Rockhopper penguins swarm around a penguin keeper who is giving some kind of lecture in Japanese.
I leave Ueno and head to Ichigaya, to meet with Tomonobu Itagaki at the Team Ninja offices. In keeping with his rock star reputation, Mr. Itagaki is late for our appointment, because he went out to eat lunch. Tecmo has several buildings within several blocks of each other, but the Team Ninja building is the one with all the mystique. Just like when entering most Japanese households, the employees there are expected to take off their shoes before entering the main office. I meet with Mr. Itagaki in a separate area for a demo of Ninja Gaiden Dragon Sword and a one-on-one interview session. You can read the results of that meeting in the August issue.
Later that night, Tecmo throws a party/press conference inside Club Camelot in Shibuya. American classic rock blasts in the background, smoke fills the air and a disco ball scatters light all around. It’s completely different from the Square Enix press conference, but even in a drunken haze I still remember that I need to take a train to Makuhari tonight, that my suitcase is somewhere in Shibuya station and that if I go to karaoke at Pasela, which the Tecmo folks are threatening to do, I’ll never make it to my first interview at tomorrow's show in time. I go on a trek through Shibuya in search of the coin locker where I stashed my suitcase. The only reason I ever find it again is because my friend Taeko, who lives in Japan and a fellow journalist, Christian Nutt help me out, plus I remembered it was somewhere near Beard Papa Sweets, the best creampuff store in the universe.
When I check into the APA hotel in Makuhari, I feel vindicated in bringing along The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap, because the Triforce is in the ceiling of my room.
Also, instead of prepping for the next day’s grueling interview schedule of approximately 50-per-hour, I watch Japanese television. I am rewarded by a game show where the contestants play a version of Pong on a life-sized electronic tennis court.
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