Nice Package! (Ore no Shikabane, PlayStation)

Truth be told, I completely ignored the Japanese PlayStation game known as Ore no Shikabane o Koete Yuke for a good couple of years after I first became aware of it due to its cover art, which I found oddly creepy.



Eventually, I learned more about this Alfa System-developed game, and what I learned prompted me to have a change of heart about it.

Specifically, I learned that Ore no Shikabane o Koete Yuke (Over My Dead Body in English) is an RPG with a really cool art style and an intriguing premise that revolves around the son of a legendary warrior who has been cursed--along with any and all offspring--to age much faster than usual. The only way to get rid of said curse is to kill the demon who put it on you, so that's exactly what you and your spawn are tasked with doing throughout the course of this game (or so I've been told).



Which I guess helps explain why both the box cover and manual cover produced for Ore no Shikabane--or, Oreshika, as it's known in Japan--feature close-up shots of children's faces.



Speaking of Oreshika's manual, it's a real doozy--as in, it's almost biblical compared to your typical, run-of-the-mill PlayStation instruction booklet.

Although most of its many pages are rather boring and are filled with a ton of text (such as the example showcased in the photo above), a choice few feature gorgeous illustrations like the one that can be seen below.

Here's another pretty good example, I think. Plus, the art in the snapshot below includes a bit of beefcake, which is never a bad thing, if you ask me. 

Please accept my apologies for not chronicling via a photo or two the CD that contains all of Oreshika's surely convoluted code. If memory serves, I passed on doing so because the disc in question is of the mirrored-surface-bearing-a-not-entirely-appealing-design variety.



Anyway, I know I say this all the time, but I really am going to do my best to pop this game into my adorable Japanese PSone sometime soon and at least try to stumble my way through its first few hours. After I do that, I'll return here and share my thoughts in some form or fashion.

In the meantime, have any of you played either this game or its Vita-based sequel, which was released in the West earlier this year?