Digital Harinezumi 2++ review

In university, I practiced creative photography using my mom's Pentax SLR, a camera older than me. I became quite fond of the camera's honesty, not to mention the tricky, low-light bulb photography I could do with a tripod. But unlike many purists in the photography world, I found myself easily seduced away from the personality and warmth of film photography by the instant gratification and convenience of digital photography in the years that followed.

In an attempt to bridge the gap between the digital photography's convenience and analog photography's personality, Japanese cult camera maker SuperHeadz released the Digital Harinezumi (Japanese for "hedgehog"), a digital camera that emulates the lo-fi feel of old film shots with carefully tweaked saturation and contrast settings, in spring of 2009. The camera also boasted a video mode that did its best to imitate 8mm film. An upgraded sequel, the Digital Harinezumi 2, followed in November.

Currently the latest version of this product, the Digital Harinezumi 2++ offers greater convenience and image quality than its predecessor, while maintaining the same toy camera quirkiness that collectors and enthusiasts seek. Wife and I spent a day in Ueno with this little device and put it to the test.

Our first destination was the National Museum and Nature and Science and its temporary land mammal exhibition. The camera has two simulated ISO settings, 100 and 800 (the latter of which is sensitive enough for shooting in a dark indoor environment such as a museum without a flash). As a result, I was able to take a lot of goofy headshots of taxidermied animals...like this bear, who looks like he just heard a dirty joke.

I also grabbed the rare opportunity to use the Harinezumi to take a picture of a harinezumi:

Outdoor photography, especially in bright sunlight, is where the camera really shows off its characteristics. Its image processor washes certain tones out while boosting others. Which colors receive which treatment depends on the individual Harinezumi you buy; in keeping with the haphazard toy camera aesthetic, SuperHeadz thought it would be more appropriate if each unit had a slightly unique eye.

After leaving the museum, we headed for Ameya Yokocho, Ueno's famous street market district. It's a colorful place, ideal for testing out the camera's tendencies. It's also a good place for buying seafood.

The Harinezumi 2++, unlike the original Harinezumi, allows the user to use the camera's LCD screen as a viewfinder in all modes, but toward the end of the afternoon, I began to notice that some of my best photos resulted from ignoring the LCD screen completely and going for "lucky" shots.

The camera also shoots in a flattering monochrome mode, which I didn't use much on this outing, but plan to exploit in great depth in the near future.

As I said before, Ameyoko is a good place to buy seafood. We got a steal of a deal on some scallops and frozen salmon. Wife used those to cook up one of the best dinners we'd had in a long time:

So now that you've seen the pictures the Digital Harinezumi 2++ can produce, here's a breakdown of how I feel about it as a product.

What's Good

• It's small and light. Although its predominantly plastic construction also makes it feel cheap, it fits in a pocket and hardly weighs anything.

• It does what it's supposed to do. Manufactured nostalgia is what the Harinezumi is all about, and in that department, it delivers. Color exaggeration, contrast boosting and corner vignetting come together to produce some very convincing results.

• It offers a level of control. Although it's meant to recreate the chaos and unpredictability of low-tech film photography, the Digital Harinezumi 2++ sports two ISO settings, color and monochrome modes, a ten-second auto-timer and macro mode. And if you feel like you still have too much control over your shots, you can turn the preview mode off and use the folding plastic viewfinder (or no viewfinder at all).

• It's not too electricity-hungry. It runs on a single CR2 battery, admittedly not my favorite power source, since they are pricey (and rechargeable CR2s don't exist in Japan), but one CR2 will let you shoot constantly in video mode for almost two hours. To help you conserve power, the camera turns itself off after remaining idle for sixty seconds.

• The mic is surprisingly capable. I don't really recommend that anyone buy this camera mainly for the movie function, as the video you get is small (640x480) and poorly compressed. And it's likely that the vast majority of Harinezumi videos that appear on YouTube will be set to ambient music tracks (Four Tet comes to mind for some reason); it's just that kind of camera. All the same, when I did take video with sound, I was surprised at the fidelity of the tiny built-in microphone.

What's Bad

• It's overpriced. The camera can be purchased on its own for around ¥15,000, or in a "Box" that comes with a carrying pouch, a strap, a CR2 battery and a 2GB microSD card with USB reader for about ¥20,000. You could make the case that $150 is or isn't a reasonable asking price for such a simple camera, but let me be very clear about something: The Box version isn't worth the extra fifty bucks. The strap and pouch are nothing special. And if you own a Mac, I definitely cannot recommend the Box, as the included microSD card does not work with Mac OS.

• Menu navigation is cumbersome. Granted, this camera only has a few adjustable settings, and two of them (still/video and normal/macro) can be toggled with a single button stroke. But every time you want to change the image resolution, ISO speed, timer, review on/off, preview on/off, color/monochrome setting or sound on/off for video mode, you'll have to cycle through all seven of those options, each of which gets its own screen in the menu. I found myself muttering "come on, come on" more than once while fumbling with the menu mode.

• Video recording is 640x480 at 29 fps and that's that. Come on, SuperHeadz, really? 640x480? In this day and age? Do I have to remind you that analog film, the medium you're trying to emulate, had better resolution than the majority of 20th century televisions? I know you're going for retrograde, but spring for a bigger video resolution with your next upgrade.

LINK:

Official website (English)

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Watch my video review of the AOKI Premium Wash Suit, an invention that could do to your work ethic what the advent of frozen pizza did to your eating habits.

My Kind of RPG

If there's one thing for which I respect Japanese game publishers to no end, it's that they've got guts. You don't give a game a title that takes longer to say than it does to write unless you're reasonably sure the game will live up to its epic moniker. And in the case of Banpresto's Mugen no Frontier: Super Robot Taisen - OG Saga, the title leaves some awfully big shoes to be filled (WARNING: the above link leads to Banpresto's very noisy Mugen no Frontier website).

Released yesterday in Japan, this game is a spin-off of Super Robot Taisen, a franchise that, in all honesty, didn't interest me in the slightest until they decided to cram it full of sexy android women. The game (whose long, tall title translates as Endless Frontier: Super Robot Wars - OG Saga) makes use of the button-tapping RPG battle system used in Namco x Capcom, a cross-brand fan service orgy unleashed by Mugen no Frontier developer Monolith Soft on PS2 owners in 2005. The result is unmistakably an RPG, but with a reduced dependence on clunky menu navigation during battles. And while the game's simplistic, top-down map wandering is also a hallmark of a boring genre, its in-battle sprite animations are good enough to make a lot of fighting games jealous.

Square Enix could win back my respect if they would put this much artistic flair into one of their Final Fantasy re-re-re-releases. Punishing enemies in Mugen no Frontier becomes a joyful occasion as you chain together one well-timed attack after another, and then hand the assault off to your teammate, occasionally unleashing an aesthetically pleasing super move.

As for the OG in the title, I apparently haven't played long enough to reach the "original gangstas" part of the story yet, but give me some time. I've only had the game in my possession for a day.

Mugen no Frontier: Super Robot Taisen - OG Saga has been rated B for boobs. That bounce. During battle. Here's the promo video, to prove it:

A Tale of Two Tactics

With Final Fantasy Tactics: The Lion War out for the PSP worldwide and Final Fantasy Tactics A2: Fuuketsu no Grimoir out for the DS in Japan, I have decided to play referee in a battle royale between the two titles. I have divided the competition into seven fair and comprehensive categories. Reap the benefits of my opinionations: It's time for A Tale of Two Tactics!

ROUND 1: Touch Pen Functionality

The DS game comes out of its corner swinging, but no punches connect. Although FFTA2 is a DS title, it makes no meaningful use of the touch screen. This isn't necessarilly good nor bad; I'd much rather a developer elect to ignore the DS's touch screen entirely than try to force touch pen functionality into a game where it doesn't belong. If you're looking for a scribbling good time, however, you'll have to find it in a different franchise. So at the end of Round 1, we have no score.

Round 1 Result: DRAW

ROUND 2: Run Speed

As you may remember from my angry post back in May, Square Enix's sloppy, emulation-dependent PSP port of Final Fantasy Tactics suffers from some pretty shameful slowdown. The animation associated with something as simple as dumping a potion over a partymember's head causes the game to get arthritic. When the annoyance factor of a game's slowdown exceeds the merits of playing through the game, the game ceases to be worth the time it takes to play it. FFTA2, on the other hand, is DS-native, and was therefore developed with the DS and only the DS in mind. It feels much more like the kind of polished product gamers have come to expect from Square Enix. A2 scores a point this round.

Round 2 Result: Final Fantasy Tactics A2

ROUND 3: Character Design

While I'd like to praise both games for being devoid of Amano Yoshitaka's shitty artwork (seriously, look at his box art for Front Mission 1st...it will probably be the last thing you ever see), I have give this round to the PSP title. Yoshida Akihiro's character designs for FFT are child-like without being too cute, while the hodgepodge of kids, anthropomorphic rabbits and dog-alligator hybrids that populate FFTA2 is just a little too Pokemon for my tastes. The PSP game wins this round with room to spare.

Round 3 Result: Final Fantasy Tactics: The Lion War

ROUND 4: Magic Casting

In the original FFT and its PSP remake, casting a magic spell entails waiting a turn or two while the magician "charges." Because the turn of the spell's target sometimes occurs before the magic actually happens, the player must constantly consult the turn list to make sure that the knight he's about to zap with lightning isn't about to walk into a crowd of friendlies, causing collateral lightning damage. Where I come from, that kind of micromanagement is more often associated with work than games. Thankfully, FFTA2 does away with this charging system so that a fledgling mage can still lay the magical smack down on his foes without worrying that he might be setting his party up for humiliation. Point, FFTA2.

Round 4 Result: Final Fantasy Tactics A2

ROUND 5: Undoability

In FFT, you can't undo the "MOVE" phase of your turn, even if you haven't yet finished the "ACT" phase. This unnecessarily unforgiving aspect of the game engine can make the "tactics" feel more like "craptics." But with the extra-yasashii battle rules of FFTA2, those "craptics" have changed into "fantastics!" Or, at least, "reasonabletics."

(Remember, after walking in the woods, you should always check yourself for "deertics.")

Round 5 Result: Final Fantasy Tactics A2

ROUND 6: Map Visibility

Although FFT boasts 3D maps that can be rotated and tilted for a total of eight possible viewpoints (and sometimes every single one of those eight viewpoints is unsatisfactory...but I digress), FFTA2 is all 2D, all the time. Of course, the maps are all designed with that in mind, and so shouldn't have blind spots, but sometimes the positions of characters on the map conspire with the map itself to make things hard to see. I'll give this point to the PSP game, but both titles should take a lesson from Wild Arms Crossfire, which features a much more useful in-game camera.

Round 6 Result: Final Fantasy Tactics: The Lion War

ROUND 7: Random Encounters

I HATE random battles in any and all role-playing games. They should be banned from the industry, especially in turn-based strategy RPGs where a single battle can take a half an hour to finish. Since FFTA2 doesn't have little bands of mountain lions, goblins and squid-men jumping out from behind every other bush and boulder while your party is walking around on the map screen, that game takes the winning point in the seventh and final round of my battle royale.

Round 7 Result: FFTA2

FINAL RESULT

FFTA2 for DS: 4 points

FFT for PSP: 2 points

There you have it. Final Fantasy Tactics A2 is better than the PSP remake of the original Tactics. Ah-ah-ah, no arguing. It's settled. I've proven it scientifically.

50 Hit Points for 200 Yen

March 16 is the release date for Square Enix's Final Fantasy XII, the latest installment in one of the most hard-to-kill video game franchises in history. In anticipation of said release, Square Enix has enlisted the help of beverage giant Suntory, who is currently selling a promotional tie-in item called Final Fantasy XII Potion.

Needless to say, I had to run to the convenience store and pick up a bottle of this so-called Potion. The clear, 120 mL drink is sold in an attractive blue bottle with a label that seems to scream, DRINK ME. But I became suspicious when I found the Potion shelved with "health drinks" like Arinamin and Yunker...such drinks are popular for on-the-go business types in Japan, but they are loaded with caffeine and they usually taste like Robitussen. Determined to be "investigative" in my "reporting," however, I twisted off the cap and drank the thing a few minutes before typing this entry.

In accordance with my suspicions, the Final Fantasy XII Potion tasted awful. Like the ill-advised marriage of grapefruit juice and cough syrup. And the caffeine is making my hands twitch while I type this.

While I was doing research on the game's release schedule I stumbled on a message board where American otaku were lamenting the unlikelihood of this drink's stateside release. But those gamers aren't missing anything. This drink will not heal your light wounds. And the target demographic for American Final Fantasy fans is a group that should not be consuming more caffeine.