Koei

Game Description: Crimson Sea pits you against an unknown enemy that hides in the shadows. Vibration, sound, movement, everything hints at a presence that is slowly approaching. Where are they? Where will they appear? Experience the tension and thrill of the hunt. Then suddenly they're here—all around you. Thousands, tens of thousands of alien creatures fill the screen. Fear tightens its grip as you fire off burst after burst until gradually fear changes to the excitement of prevailing against overwhelming odds.

Gitaroo Man is probably the most demanding of rhythm games I've played and seems more improvisational in terms of working with beats than other music games like the flexibly challenging Dance Dance Revolution (DDR) series or Sega's more tempo-forgiving game, Rez.

It's only March, and it's already been a great season for diverse gamers. For proof, we need look no further than the niche genre of music gaming. For a category of entertainment that had formerly been labeled too Japanese for western tastes, music games seem to be here to stay. It's funny to look back and see that such a thing was almost unthinkable even as recently as five years ago.

According to the ESRB, this game contains: Mild Language

Game Description: Gitaroo Man is an entirely new type of music rhythm game, in which your instrument is actually your weapon in the fight against evil. Unlike traditional music games that simply require the player to press buttons in rhythm with onscreen actions, Gitaroo Man makes players use both the analog stick and controller buttons at the same time, thus manipulating the onscreen characters with jumps, ducks, and attacks.

Since Im not going to attempt to tackle the meta-issues or any cultural relevance here, Ill focus on the nuts and bolts of the game itself, irrespective of its historical background.

Game Description: As a young Buddhist monk in China, you’ve never had much cause for adventure in your sedentary life. Your life becomes very exciting when Lady Kannon, one of heaven’s six guardians, suddenly contacts you. Journeying through immense 3D maps, you’ll meet up with a host of amazing personalities in your search for the remaining five guardians of heaven. The object of the game is to bring the entire group to India; you’ll need all of the magic, weaponry, and reflexes you can drum up.

Saiyuki is at it's a heart a turn-based strategy role-playing game (RPG) similar to games like Final Fantasy Tactics and Vandal Hearts. Whether or not this genre is appropriate given the source material is debatable, but it's an interesting route the developers choose to take nonetheless.

According to ESRB, this game contains: Violence 

Chi has already touched on this in his main review, but I feel compelled to emphasize it even more. The amount of detail, especially historical detail that has gone into Dynasty Warriors 3 is simply mind-boggling. I can think of no other game that offers a database of information about people and events in the game as an option to select from the main menu screen. During the briefing before every battle, one of the options you are given is to read a brief historical context of the battle you are about to fight. The characters and battles in Dynasty Warriors 3 are based on a famous Chinese historical novel, The Romance Of The Three Kingdoms by Luo Guanzhong. (It is worth noting that those of us used to the Yale translations of the characters names will be confused at first, as Dynasty Warriors 3 uses a more modern translation (Cao Cao instead of Tsao Tsao, etc.)) Not only are you offered an incredible number of characters to play with, but no matter who you choose, you will be playing as a historical figure from one of the most interesting periods in China's rich history. Quite simply, Koei has created a game that is not only addictively fun, but educational.