Review: Comicloud, vol.1 no.1 (Digital Manga Anthology)

Medium: Digital Manga Anthology
Publisher: Bookloud
Release Date: July 28, 2010 (Worldwide)
Kindle marketplace link

I would not have known about the existence of the digital-only manga anthology Comicloud if not for @animeresearch on Twitter. So, all due respect to him for alerting me to it. Comicloud is published via the Amazon Kindle online marketplace, and as I have both an iPhone and an iPad with the Kindle application installed I was instantly curious.

First of all, I wanted to get all discussion of the application itself out of the way. Buying and downloading the eBook is seamless; the application takes you to the Kindle marketplace and back again straight away after a purchase. Downloading the book, even on multiple devices, is utterly painless. However, viewing the magazine itself has its issues — zooming into the pages is rather cumbersome and once zoomed in (especially on the iPad) you have to revert the page to its native size to turn the page. This issue is exacerbated by the fact that each page is shown at less than the full viewable area of your device so you get massive margins around each page.

Now, onto the anthology itself. The file size is rather dinky (9 MB, to be exact). While this is great for quick downloading on the move, the image quality suffers from this small size as zooming in even a little on the pages makes image compression readily visible. The size of the images that make up the anthology are rather small, resulting in massive margins around the pages on the iPad and noticeable amounts of unused space even on the smaller iPhone. This fact, combined with the previously mentioned issue of being unable to turn pages while zoomed in, makes reading the magazine a chore.

Another much more irritating issue is that both the translation and the editing feel lazy. The former is at least functional despite its poor use of punctuation, but the typesetting of the dialogue and sound effects feels very poorly handled and is detrimental to enjoyment of the magazine. All the text is presented plainly, sound effects outside of speech bubbles are untranslated and there is nothing to differentiate between sound effects and dialogue that are placed inside bubbles. The actual presentation of the content feels like an afterthought.

But what about this content then?

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Quadrifoglio 2 (By Takeshi Okamoto)

The longest of the individual contributions, Quadriofoglio follows the genius mechanic Yotsuba (no relation to the adorable character from the manga of the same name) as she joins a university car racing club and helps out at her family garage. I must admit I had severe flashbacks to Initial D while reading this due to the very impressive, photo-realistic drawings of the cars, and thankfully the people didn't look half bad either and were an engaging bunch to read about. The main problem I have with the series is a lack of any feeling of motion either within or between the separate panels, making it feel more like a series of stills than an ongoing, unfolding drama. In a manga about things that go “Vrooom!” around a track very fast this saps some of the fun out of it. Still, it’s a fun read and I would be I happy to see how it develops in further chapters. Searching for information of its predecessor (Quadrifoglio) has left me empty-handed, sadly.

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Kurogane (By Nanami Shizika)

So, let me outline the premise here: loser guy meets hot dense girl out of nowhere and has to live with her, and she inexplicably likes him. If you just passed out as a result of how generic that sounds, then you know how I felt reading it. The series even ticks the additional otaku bait box of having a trap turn up in the first 10 pages. Sadly the clunky translation hurts this series, making the main expository pages of this chapter read like a garbled mess and so I’m not sure if the premise has anything going for it. The art looks serviceable enough (especially the breasts of the main female character), but in general the whole package is woefully forgettable. It does however have the best sound effect in the anthology: "Hug!!" Two exclamation marks! Wowzah.

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Nobunagirl (By Taro Matsumoto)

Time for brutal honesty: Nobunagirl has terrible, awful art and is hard to take seriously. Both lineart and shading are all over the place and panels that should be badass inspire more laughter than awe. The plot jumps from a demon infested Warring States era featuring Oda Nobunaga into an even weirder sci-fi setting which has very little thought or care put into it. The last panel is so bizarre it has to be seen to be believed: a young girl riding on the back of a terribly drawn ripoff of the alien from ... Alien (1979). I think I uttered "Are you serious?" while reading it. Skip this.

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Kago Mania (By Shintaro Kago)

For me, the promise of content from the surreal mind of Shintaro Kago (who is called a "fantastic idea cartoonist" in his own bio) was the "killer app" that pushed me over the edge when buying this anthology. Imagine my surprise when the content supplied had much higher quality drawings than his usual fare, but then also imagine my disappointment when I discovered that he had only four pages in the magazine! Each page is a single, full-page image of a surreal idea given flight, and while I enjoyed them, it was all over too soon. What a shame.

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Overall, I feel conflicted about Comicloud. While I love the idea and dearly wish for it to find an audience, the content just isn't there yet. Over half of the 80 pages delivered are skippable and the rest feel cheapened by the small image size and poor typesetting.

Personally I am looking forward to the next few issues to see how the magazine develops, and hope that the hard work and enthusiasm that the editors clearly have for their product pays off.

[Bad]

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This review is based on the Kindle release, purchased by the reviewer.

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iPad Review Round-Up: iPhone Games II

Ed. Note: Welcome to the second half of Elliot's iPad Video Game Review Round-up: iPhone Edition. This time Elliot will again be looking at some iPhone games and how well they play when scaled up to the iPad. Next time, we'll be back to native iPad games.

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Chaos Rings

($9.99 – US App Store link – UK link)

If you were to write down a list of generic Square Enix RPG elements, you would end up with Chaos Rings as the result. Random, quasi-turn based battles with experience points and leveling, bland characters that have amnesia, dull puzzles and a big bad that stepped out of a crazy goth fashion catalog. Still, it’s a well put together package even with its lack of surprises, and blowing the app up on the iPad screen makes you appreciate the detail present in the graphics. Sadly the game is still rather expensive, so unless you already possess this or have a very long bus journey to fill, you may want to save your money for more inventive fare.

[Passable]

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Hook Champ

($2.99 – US App Store link – UK link)

Remember the ninja rope from Worms? Bet you would love a whole game of that with some Indiana Jones flavor and humor thrown in! Hook Champ is a game where you use a grappling hook to go right towards an exit while a demon tries to eat you. The pixel art graphics look great on the larger screen and the game is still great fun, but enlarging it has had the small side effect of putting the various buttons too far apart for comfort. This can lead to a lot of unintended deaths and frustration when your little dude falls into lava within grasping distance of the ending.

[Passable]

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Beneath a Steel Sky: Remastered

($2.99 – US App Store link – UK link)

If you recognize the name of this game, odds are you remember it from playing it on the PC years ago and have already bought it again. For those who do not know, Beneath a Steel Sky is one of those old-time point and click adventure games where you combine items and people to make your way through various puzzles. In this case, the main character Foster is kidnapped and taken to a city controlled by an omnipresent commuter called LINC, and you must strive to escape. This version includes a hint system, some updated graphics, and all the voice work from the original.

Blowing it up onto the iPad screen actually helps the game, as it makes interaction with items, especially those close together, much easier. A word of warning, however: this game, like many from its genre, suffers from rather inscrutable puzzle design and so you may find yourself using the hint system quite a lot, especially toward the end.

[Passable]

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iPad Review Round-Up: iPhone Games Worth Considering

One of the main reasons why I decided to go against my better judgment and buy an iPad was because I already had a glut of applications and games that I could transfer from my iPhone. With some minor exceptions, the iPad can run most software originally made for its smaller cousin, emulating them at either the original screen size or blown up to fill the iPad screen. The results of doing this can be somewhat mixed and so I wanted to run through some of the more popular games or apps (at least the ones I have) in order to highlight those apps that are well worth sticking on your iPad, whether you have an iPhone or not.

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Canabalt

($2.99 – US App Store link – UK link)

One of the best examples of one-button gaming, Canabalt has you running from a shadowy menace by jumping from rooftop to rooftop. The game both benefits and loses something by blowing it up on the iPad, as the distinctive art style losing some of its charm through the process of being enlarged. The gameplay remains as tactile as ever, and I must admit I have reached higher scores on the iPad because I don't have so much of the screen covered up by my huge thumbs. The game is still great fun and well worth picking up.

Note: in the time since this review was written, Canabalt has now been made to work natively on both iPhone and iPad in a single download!

[Recommended]

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Espgaluda II

($8.99 – US App Store link – UK link)

Espgaluda II is one of those crazy "bullet hell" games you may have heard about. I am a massive fan of these due to the challenge and unique art styles they present, even though I am utterly terrible at playing them. Fitting a fully realized shoot-em-up on the iPhone is already a marvelous achievement, even if everything feels a little cramped and at times it is hard to navigate through bullet patterns unless you squint and bring the phone right up to your face to see what is happening on screen. Running the game on the iPad alleviates this issue, and the blown up graphics look more impressive on the larger screen as you can see all the detail with greater clarity. Sadly the game is still rather short and on the easy side, but still well worth a look due to the high replayability on offer.

[Recommended]

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Space Invaders: Infinity Gene

($4.99 – US App Store link – UK link)

Sticking an already wonderful shoot-em-up with minimalistic graphics and a seemingly endless array of unlockables onto the iPad has encouraged me to play the whole thing through all over again. The whole package looks amazing on the larger screen and the controls work marvelously. If you somehow missed this before, get it now.

[Highly Recommended]

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Drop 7

($2.99 – US App Store link – UK link)

A particular favorite of mine, Drop 7 is a slim, elegant puzzle game where you make horizontal and vertical rows with numbered blocks to rack up points, kind of like Tetris. Sadly, the massive iPad screen makes the game feel rather clunky, changing from a simple one-handed game into an unwieldy overblown mess that is uncomfortable to play, and ruining the simple graphics that work so well on the smaller screen. Stick to playing this one on your iPhone or iPod.

Note: In the time since this review was initially written this game has now been updated to work natively on the iPad screen. It still suffers from the issues outlined above, sadly.

[Bad]

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Ace Combat Xi: Skies of Incursion

($4.99 – US App Store link – UK link)

At some point a while ago Konami decided to do something rather crazy and create an iteration of their air combat series for the iPhone, with this as the result. They also ignored getting the game text proofread and decided to nickel and dime customers by charging for DLC in the app, but that is beside the point.

While the game still looks and sounds great blown up onto the larger screen, the control system has suffered horribly. Given that many of the control methods rely on tilting the device, an easily accomplished exercise on the iPhone, the game is harder to control than a truck doing 100mph on an icy highway. You'll find yourself overcompensating constantly trying to control your plane and this combined with the tiny dead zone in the tilt sensor makes the game painful to play.

[Bad]

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Tilt to Live

($2.99 – US App Store link – UK link)

This game also relies entirely on tilting to control it, and to a higher degree of precision than in Ace Combat, or any other tilt-based game for that matter. Not only that, but you'll look an utter tit swaying your iPad around trying to engage with the Geometry Wars-style gameplay. Stick to playing it on the iPhone.

[Terrible]

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Ed. Note: The show will go on in a week or so with the second half of the iPad edition of Elliot's iPad game review series. Plus, we've got even MORE reviews of full iPad games coming as well.

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Review: Weekly Astro Boy Magazine (iPhone App)

Platform: iPhone, iPod Touch
Publishers: D-Arc, Inc. Tezuka Productions
Release Date: Oct. 2009 (US), Mar. 2010 (UK/AU/etc.)

During Tezuka Month you may have seen my breathless news post about how the Astro Boy iPhone app had been expanded to new countries, including my own native land of Great Britain. As previously mentioned, I had been aching to get my hands on the app since learning of its existence and cursing the arbitrary barriers preventing me from doing so.

So now that I actually have Weekly Astro Boy Magazine firmly installed on my iPhone, was the wait worth it?

To recap, the app allows you to read translated chapters of famous Tezuka manga such as Black Jack, Astro Boy and Dororo, on your iPhone or iPod Touch through a devoted e-reader application. The chapters are arranged into volumes which are released weekly for $1 (or your local equivalent) each, with the selection of manga on offer differing each week. You can pick and choose which volumes you download, so there is no obligation to keep forking out money.

First things first, this application is only available for the iPhone and iPod touch — no other handset types are covered so it you just bought a shiny Android (or any other mobile OS) device you are out of luck. Sorry!

In the app store you will find two versions of the program — a free version with a single issue of the magazine and a paid, $1 version with the first two issues. This is a rather confusing decision given the two could have easily been rolled into one free app that charged you for the second issue. Of course, this could be due to some bizarre rule on Apple's part regarding in-app purchases. Once downloaded, you can buy additional issues of the magazine from within the program, which would be a wonderful way to take the hassle out of getting more content if it was not for two major problems.

First, the purchasing and downloading system is very slow, and it often takes multiple attempts to confirm your purchase of a new volume. The app then takes an irritatingly long time to download your purchased content and has a tendency to fail to complete a download. These frequent failures are infuriating; it is a blessing that the application can resume partial downloads otherwise I would have quickly given up on using it. Due to these frustrations I tend to only download new issues of the magazine when I am work, where I can abuse the powerful wireless connection to get issues in a quarter of the time with fewer errors. A minor note to add here is that, without fail, each time I have downloaded a new issue I have received “Download failed” error at 99% complete only to have it show up, completed, in the program.

The second major problem with the program, and one that is entirely out of the hands of the publishers, is that while the app is downloading you are unable to do anything else on your device. Remember, no multi-tasking on iPhone OS! (At the time of writing, using OS 3.2) This includes viewing already downloaded issues. Add this to the frequent failures experienced while downloading and the entire process begins to become more and more unappealing.

With all that technical rigmarole out of the way, how does it perform when you view the manga you have downloaded? Very well, actually. I must admit I was rather dubious about viewing manga on the iPhone screen as I presumed it would involve an awful lot of moving the page to view the art in detail. I was pleasantly surprised to find that you can read a full page in the portrait orientation quite easily, although the finer details are lost on the more lavish titles included in the magazine. Zooming in/out and moving around the page are smooth and responsive and feel no more obstructive than using a physical book. There is a small delay when displaying a new page as the program loads the image, although this only manifests should you have your device playing music at the time and does not impact the viewing experience. It is also easy to confuse the application at times — should you accidentally turn the page, any attempt to stop it will confuse the program and you have to wait for the transition to complete before making any additional movements on the touchscreen. This may be an issue of an idiotic user however, as I am rather clumsy and tend to use the app while on a bumpy commute.

So far it feels like I am griping, but all of my complaints are incidental points - slip-ups on the path to greatness. The simple fact that this app exists and that it works as intended is a small marvel. For the equivalent of $1 you get a sizeable chunk of manga from a range of Tezuka's works, some of which may be difficult to get a hold of where you live. I personally have never seen a physical copy of Adolf, and the opportunity to read it in any form is wonderful even with the niggling issues attached. Plus — and this is a definite positive for me — it will not clutter your already overloaded bookshelf.

[Passable]

NOTE: At the time of writing, the iPad is not available in the UK, and so I have been unable to review this app on this new platform. The iTunes store lists that Weekly Astro Boy Magazine is compatible with the iPad, however. If you are lucky enough to have an iPad, please try the free version of this app and let us know how it is in the comments below!

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This review is based on the March 2010 version of the iPhone application, purchased by the reviewer.

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Weekly Astro Boy Magazine app now available to new lands

Starting today, anyone who owns an iPhone or iPod Touch (or even, presumably, an iPad, in the future) and lives in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand or other listed countries can download the stonking good App “Weekly Astro Boy Magazine”. They join Japanese, Canadian and American fans who have been able to get the app since its original launch in 2009.

While this would be great news at any other time of year, this is especially timely given the ongoing Ani-Gamers Tezuka Month celebrations, and that fact that I personally have been awaiting the release of this App with baited breath since its initial announcement.

The app works by first asking you to download a small reader application — costing $1 or the local equivalent — and then each week additional “issues” are published which the user can purchase, each for an additional $1. The individual issues contain a mixture of chapters from various Tezuka works including the titular Astro Boy, Black Jack, Dororo, and Phoenix. The translations are the same as those used in the domestically published works due to the program makers agreements with Tezuka Productions and publishers — for example the Dark Horse translation is used for the Astro Boy chapters.

A free version, containing the first issue of the magazine, is available for you to download and try with no obligation. In addition, you are under no obligation at any point to purchase new issues so you don't have to worry about the app siphoning money out of you.

A nice bonus is that all the previously released chapters are available for download in English in the new territories right now — I will freely admit abusing the wi-fi at my work office downloading additional issues of the magazine this afternoon.

From a brief play with the application this afternoon I am very happy with the viewing software — the user interface is well built for viewing the manga pages, if perhaps a little awkward when you want to change the issue you wish to read and I have a bad habit of exiting the reader application entirely when trying to do this. In addition there is no real way to know which chapters you are receiving each week short of subscribing to the Application's twitter feed (included at the foot of this post) The official website only lists the titles present in a volume, not the chapter names or any additional details. I would be interested to see how it performs on a iPad once they are released, due to the larger viewing area.

A special bonus for me is that the first Astro Boy Story serialised in the magazine is “The Greatest Robot on Earth”, the origin for the Naoki Urasawa adaption "Pluto" and a story I have wanted to read for a long time but never had the opportunity.

I heartily recommend that you give the App a try should you have an iPhone or iPod touch — it does have a free version after all.

[via astroboymagazine.com, AstroBoyMag official Twitter]

Check out more articles about Osamu Tezuka in our March 2010 Tezuka Theme Month!

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iObject! Phoenix Wright coming to iPhone

With touch controls, short episodic snippets, and a generally silly premise, the Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney series seems almost tailor-made for the iPhone platform, so it's no surprise (though it is quite a delight) to hear that Capcom's popular anime-style lawyer game will be coming to Apple's ubiquitous cell phone.

The game has only been announced for Japan so far, and Capcom mobile contents head Takeshi Tezuka did not give either release date or price details. However, he did say that the title would not be a simple port, and might even use the iPhone's "flick" interface to help with selecting commands.

While we have no word yet of a stateside release, such action seems likely considering Capcom's recent decision to port the series (originally released on Nintendo DS in the United States) to Nintendo's WiiWare downloadable content system in both the United States and Japan. The iPhone allows for a leverage of the touch controls of the DS version and the episodic format of the Wii version while bringing the game to an entirely new audience.

[via andriasang via Joystiq]

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