I just discovered Chunsoft's Homeland, and now I'm sad that it never left Japan

Actually, the header above isn't completely accurate, as I know I heard about Homeland in some form or fashion around the time of its 2005 release.

I'm pretty sure my interest in this import-only GameCube title quickly vanished after I heard it was an MMO, though, so let's just pretend that I wasn't introduced to it before this past weekend, when I heard British game developer Hayden Scott-Baron mention it while listening to a recent episode of the Chic Pixel Plus! podcast.



Unsurprisingly, Scott-Baron's chatter caused me to look up a gameplay video of the title (see above or here) and, man, does it look good. I'm especially fond of its art style, which recalls other quirky titles of the same era like Chulip and GiFTPiA.

So, I'm now on the lookout for a cheap-ish copy of this Chunsoft-crafted (another point in its favor, by the way) curiosity. Sure, I won't be able to understand much, if any, of it for some time to come, and I won't be able to check out its online multi-player mode (thankfully, it has an offline single-player mode, too), but it's hard to care too deeply about that when everything looks as charming as it does here.

Attention Vita owners: Dokuro is now available for purchase via PSN

OK, so most of you probably don't own a Vita. And if you do, you likely already know that GungHo's 150-level puzzler-platformer Dokuro is hitting PSN today. Just in case any of you weren't aware of that fact, though, I thought I'd remind you.

Oh, and I also should remind you that this "two-dimensional Boxxle and ICO mixture with chalk graphics" title (according to NeoGAF user deimian86) will cost you just $19.99.

Here's a (Japanese) gameplay video of Dokuro--which is Japanese for "skull," basically--for those of you who've yet to see it in action:



If you just can't get enough of Dokuro, you may want to watch this video, too, which takes viewers through the game's Japanese demo. (Warning: The guy playing said demo is very annoying.)

Personally, if I owned a Vita I'd probably pick up the Japanese retail release of Dokuro, as I'm pretty fond of its box art, rather than the North American PSN version, but I'm weird like that.

See also: 'Surprise, surprise: The first (and only) Vita game that interests me is an odd, niche-y one'

If someone doesn't bring Beyond the Labyrinth to the States, I'm going to bust some skulls

Thanks to the 20 minutes of gameplay footage (below) of Beyond the Labyrinth that hit the Interwebs over the weekend, I'm once again frothing at the mouth for an English localization of this tri-Ace-developed, Konami-published, dungeon-crawling RPG.





Although I'm still a smidge unsure about this 3DS game's battle scenes--what's with all of the shifting around of those blue, green and red tabs on the bottom screen?--I'm feeling the exact opposite about the rest of it. I especially like the seeming omnipresence of its chatty, white-haired (or is it blue?) protagonist.

Are any of you also hoping Beyond the Labyrinth makes its way westward sometime this year? If so, why?

See also: 'Beyond the Labyrinth's battle scenes are as beautiful as its box art' and 'Konami's Beyond the Labyrinth (3DS) has some classy box art'

A few glimpses of Dragon Quest X (Wii) and Ni no Kuni (PS3) gameplay

I'm looking forward to getting my grubby hands on a good number of games at the moment, but only two of them are RPGs: Dragon Quest X for Wii and Ni no Kuni for PS3. (Oh, I just thought of another one: Paper Mario for 3DS. Still, my point stands.)

Since neither will hit store shelves in North America for some time (if ever, in the case of Ni no Kuni), I've decided to busy myself with searching for gameplay videos of both of the above-mentioned titles.

Well, I hit the jackpot earlier today. Here, for instance, is a smattering of gameplay footage of the Level 5-Studio Ghibli collaboration, shot on the floor of the Tokyo Game Show 2011:



Sure, the game's battle scenes look a bit boring, but its world map is a stunner.

As for Dragon Quest X, well, I can't share any YouTube videos of that much-anticipated title's first official trailer (included in the just-released-in-Japan Dragon Quest Collection) here, but I can direct you to a site where you can download an FLV version of said trailer.

If you can't be bothered with downloading and figuring out how to view an FLV file, you can always check out this post over at tinycartridge.com.