Man oh man! Last night I FINALLY finished Tenchi no Mon (PSP) and boy what a journey that was. I' ve traditionally always hated RPGs other than the Ys series, so it was sort of surprising even to me that I bothered with the Famitsu demo and then purchased the game when it was released.

I' m also surprised that I finished it, cause not only is it an action RPG but the game isn' t import friendly at all, EVERYTHING is in Japanese. Despite that, I was completely enthralled by the game from beginning to end, and even when I was seriously stuck/lost for a while in the game, backtracking non-stop to previously visited areas I just couldn' t put the game down.

There are some folks b' tching about the lack of camera control, and while the game does lack a controllable camera, the game' s default camera is pretty good and follows the action well. There are only LESS than a handful of times when having control over the camera would have been nice, but all in all I have no complaints. Some are also complaining about the lack of a block button, and while the game doesn' t have a standalone block/guard button you Can make your character automatically block while getting pummeled.

The game has a number of cool elements. I enjoyed leveling up my character and his spell attacks or " Chi blasts" by pummeling enemies. It kinda became like a drug addiction for me and I ended up completely maxing out his HP meter as well as 4 out of 5 of his spell attacks. There wasn' t enough time to upgrade the last one as they awarded it to me too late in the game. The action happens completely in real-time and you can charge and use your magic anytime during combat. The spell attacks can be upgraded up to three levels and look cool at each level, with of course the level 3 " Chi blasts" /Spell attacks/Whatever the heck you wanna call them looking the most impressive. The closest example I can think of at the moment are the magic attacks in Sega' s Golden Axe where you can unleash magic of different strengths.

The coolest aspect of the game however is no doubt the variety of moves at your disposal, the ability to acquire many more along the way, and more importantly the ability to create and customize your own attack sequences. The fighting in the game is primarily sword-based but there are a good number of melee attack moves combined with sword attack moves. By the middle portion of the game I had my character performing some incredibly wicked combo strings.

Cycling through the items in your inventory as well as your different combos is easily accomplished in real-time with the press of a button. The game looks beautifully detailed and the music, sound effects, and voice-acting are pretty good as well. This is definitely one of the more impressive PSP offerings to me.

After engaging in an epic battle against the final boss and after all the cinematic cutscenes were over and the credits started to roll I literally let out a shout in ecstatic glee, lol.

Crap, I kind of just rambled on and on about the game without meaning to, lol.

Anyways, SONY dammit, hear my plea! I know GameStop' s website has the game listed for release near the end of this year under the ' Kingdom Paradise' title but I want some official confirmation!!!