This week’s issue of Japan’s Famitsu magazine features no game reviews. This is the second issue in a row to feature zero review coverage, despite the fact that there’s actually a fair number of titles coming to Japan next week — including Homefront, Persona 2 for the PSP, and the latest in the Super Robot Taisen series. This suggests that the lack of reviews is less a problem of nothing to cover and more an issue of Famitsu’s editorial staff facing logistical problems in the wake of the March 11 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami.
What’s particularly interesting about the missing reviews — particularly important because Famitsu’s are thought to hold the most clout among any Japanese media outlet — is that this is the first time the mag’s missed a week of game reviews since they instituted the four-person “Cross Review” section way back in issue 10, dated October 31, 1986. The current issue, the second one in a row to lack Cross Reviews, is #1166, meaning that Famitsu featured game reviews in 1155 consecutive issues. That’s a lot of games, as anyone can see — as of the end of 2009, Famitsu had reviewed a total of 14,288 games, with 86 different editors and freelancers making appearances in the review ranks. (The Cross Review system was also the direct inspiration for Electronic Gaming Monthly’s “Review Crew” section, which lasted for nearly the entire length of the mag’s original run from 1989 to 2009.)
Despite looming blackouts, shortages of things like milk and cigarettes, and fears of ongoing radiation leaks, life in Tokyo is gradually returning to the normal grind. Perhaps the return of regular Cross Reviews will give Japanese gamers the sense of relief they’re hoping for…or, at the very least, something to gripe about again on message boards.
