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[Continuing big sister site Gamasutra's 2009 retrospective, Brandon Sheffield reveals Gamasutra’s top 5 handheld games of 2009. Previously: Top 5 Biz Trends, Top 5 iPhone games, Top 5 Controversies, Top 5 PC games.]

This was an interesting year for handheld games, maybe even more for hardware than for software. Two new console iterations were released –- the DSi and the PSP Go, from Nintendo and Sony respectively -- and Nintendo announced a third DS model, the larger-screened DSi LL.

On the software end, despite many strong releases it was hardly a banner year. The luster of the new consoles has worn off, and developers are settling into their niches.

It’s at times like these when the more dedicated or core-oriented titles rise to the fore, and by and large, that’s what we celebrate here in our top 5 handheld games (which for our purposes does not include iPhone games, discussed in a separate Top 5).

Here are Brandon's picks for the top five handheld games of the year:

5. Holy Invasion of Privacy, Badman! What Did I Do To Deserve This? (Acquire/Nippon Ichi, PSP)

Holy Invasion of Privacy, Badman! is a weird little game. It turns the classic RPG model on its head, and makes you the lord of the underworld. You create a dungeonous path through which heroes will venture, trying to capture your demonic Boss Character and drag him back to the surface.

To stop him, you essentially manage a delicate ecosystem, created through your digging. Lower level monsters spread nutrients through the dungeon, growing larger monsters, who in turn consume the lower level monsters. It’s almost Sim Ant RPG, and the chunky graphics, irreverent humor, and thwarting of would-be heroes is an addictive and maddening construct.

The game, directed by Samurai Western stalwart Haruyuki Ohashi, was available on a download-only basis in North America, making it a good PSP Go candidate if ever there were one. This genre-spinning title makes it on our list for its weird premise, solid execution, and for flying in the face of convention.

4. Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure (EA Tiburon, Nintendo DS)

Henry Hatsworth represents the efforts of an indie sensibility (Kyle Gray of Experimental Gameplay Project fame) in a corporate world (EA Tiburon), and for that alone it should get some applause. The game is decidedly oldschool, and makes clever use of both screens in a frenetic action/puzzle hybrid.

Players control the mustachioed explorer Hatsworth on the top screen, in classic action-platforming fashion, while defeated enemies appear on the bottom screen in the “puzzle world,” threatening to bleed back into the top screen to take revenge. Player switched between the action-platforming world and the puzzle world in a constant tug-of-rope of enemy elimination and stage progression.

The 2D graphics were detailed and sublime (thanks Jay Epperson), the humor was irreverent, and the excellent music by Gene M. Rozenberg and Peter Lehman et al is still available for free download via the Hatsworth site. It was too hard, and nobody really bought it, but that doesn’t stop it from being one of the best!

3. Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars (Rockstar Leeds/Rockstar North, Nintendo DS/PSP)

Chinatown Wars shows that Western developers can take the handheld market seriously. As the DS and PSP have aged, it feels as though many developers have skewed their efforts to the younger set. Rockstar Leeds has taken it the other way, making a very large, very well put together game for older audiences.

Though sales haven’t matched the blockbuster status of GTA on consoles, the game received near-universal critical acclaim for returning the series to its top-down roots, and bringing a new, core experience to the PSP and DS.

On the PSP, the game is accompanied by a huge score of over 200 songs, including, surprisingly, traditional Chinese music alongside the usual hip-hop fare. The chunky 3D graphics (led by art director Ian Bowden) are appealing and scaled properly for the console, and for the GTA fan, there’s lots to like here. It’s as though Rockstar Leeds took the innovations of the III-and-up GTAs and squeezed them into an oldschool top-down package, bringing together the best of both worlds.

That fans didn’t support the game as much as they might have is distressing, but that does no damage to the quality of the game itself, which is well-deserving of a place on our list.

2. Might and Magic: Clash of Heroes (Capy Games, Nintendo DS)

You might not have heard of this one yet, but for my money, it’s the best DS game this year. The game fits into the Might and Magic universe, but really goes off in its own direction. The art style, driven by art director Nathan Vella, is pixel-based and very nice looking, straddling the line between Japanese and European pixel art styles, with elves, demons, and knights aplenty. But the real attraction is the battle system, devised by creative director Kris Piotrowski.

Players move their characters across a map grid ala Puzzle Quest et al, and battles are fought in traditional puzzle-style wells. Friendly units drop on the bottom screen, enemies on the top. You arrange your units into vertical formations for attacks, horizontal for defensive walls. The game gets a bit more complex than that, with larger units requiring more supports, but that’s the base of it – your units must fight through the enemy ranks to get at the opposing player at the other end of the screen.

Clash of Heroes switches it up by taking you through multiple characters, each with different native powers and units, including devastating attacks unique to each, while also giving you game-changing items to collect and the occasional gameplay switch (such as hitting buttons on the opposite screen in certain orders, escort missions, etc). This is Capy Games’ first boxed product, my personal favorite handheld game this year, and number two on our list.

1. Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor (Atlus, Nintendo DS)

This was only a Shin Megami Tensei game in the U.S., but fans flocked to it nonetheless. The game had an interesting premise – the main downtown areas of Tokyo have been sealed off, and within 7 days, everyone inside the sealed area will die. It’s up to you, and your devil-summoning pals, to survive the incident in this branching-path, non-linear storyline.

Though the art was by Atlus’ second-tier team (with less Kazuma Kaneko and more Suzuhito Yasuda), and the music was lackluster, the tactics-meets-dragonquest battle interface felt fresh (thanks to designer Shinjiro Takada), and the story kept users engaged. Like Persona 4 before it, the game set message boards ablaze with strategies, tactics/story comparisons, and general JRPG love.

Atlus has continued to prove that it’s one of the only companies trying to push the JRPG genre forward, and is doing so much to the delight and expansion of nascent Western audiences. SMT: Devil Survivor was one of the best, most complex, and most interesting core experiences on the DS, and for that it makes our number one.

Honorable mentions:

Scribblenauts (5th Cell, Nintendo DS) – The truest sandbox game on handhelds.
Crimson Gem Saga (IRONNOS Software, PSP) – Very nice high res 2D RPG.
Half-Minute Hero (Marvelous Entertainment, PSP) – Very nice low res 2D RPG.
Peggle Dual Shot (PopCap Games, Nintendo DS) – Horrifyingly addictive game that should not be allowed near anyone. Not on the main list only because it’s largely a port.
Monster Hunter Freedom Unite (Capcom, PSP) – Millions of Japanese fans can’t be wrong!
Little Big Planet PSP (Media Molecule/SCE Studios Cambridge, PSP) - It’s LBP on the PSP, innit?
Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box (Level 5, Nintendo DS) - Puzzles n’ such. Diabolical indeed.
Rhythm Heaven (Nintendo, Nintendo DS) – Push the buttons, get de riddims.
The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks (Nintendo, Nintendo DS) – Good game, but iterative.

Continuing the trend of producing new RPGs with old school graphics, music, and tropes, Disgaea house Nippon Ichi Software announced Classic Dungeon for the PSP, releasing in Japan on February 18th.

Like From Software/Silicon Studio's 3D Dot Game Heroes, it's an action RPG, and it even has a logo and a character creation tool that looks directly inspired by the PS3 game. In the above trailer, you can see the pixel editor to create familiar characters like the Disgaea series's Laharl and Prinny.

Classic Dungeon has you controlling blocky heroes (e.g. knights, mages) and clearing dungeons, which sounds your typical RPG fare. The character growth system, however, has a unique twist, as Andriasang explains:

"You place your characters on a chart, with your primary character in a central spot and the other characters in surrounding support sports. The primary character is the one that you control when entering the dungeons.

The support characters grow alongside the primary character, advancing differently and earning different skills depending on the structure of the chart you're using, their position on the chart, and on job of the primary character. As the primary character explores the dungeons, the support characters will come in for assists, acting as shields if you're about to incur damage from an enemy or trap.

When not in a dungeon, you're able to freely swap characters between support and primary roles. Additionally, the game offers a variety of charts, some allowing you to set more support characters, and some giving added effects to certain slots."

The game will also include ad-hoc co-op multiplayer, as well as an option to switch between standard and 8-bit soundtracks (Sega's 7th Dragon has a similar feature). NIS hasn't announced plans to release Classic Dungeon in the U.S., but I suspect they will eventually seeing as they were to bring over the Holy Invasion Of Privacy, Badman series.

When Acquire and Sony's PlayStation C.A.M.P.! development program last collaborated, the two produced the Yuusha no Kuse ni Namaikida series (a third game is already in the works!), recently brought to the States as Holy Invasion of Privacy, Badman.

The two Japanese groups debuted a new PSP project, One Million Ton Bara Bara, which looks to combine the cheerful tone of LocoRoco/Patapon with the tiny but characterful sprites of Badman. And the soundtrack, judging from the sample shared in the above trailer, is so cute it hurts my face.

In the portable title, you defend towns from giant hostile airships by breaking up the crafts piece by piece. The mechanics sound a lot like Qix, except you're avoiding missiles, droids, and other countermeasures while you tear the vessesls apart. You can also rescue prisoners trapped in the massive ships.

One Million Ton Bara Bara is slated to release in Japan some time in 2010. You can see more of the game and its characters at its official site.

[Via Andriasang]

['Battle Klaxon' is a bi-weekly GameSetWatch-exclusive column where traveling games journalist Quintin Smith fights to win a bit of glory for the beautiful, brave but overlooked games that people are missing in their lives. This week, we examine two different versions of panicked, squeaky-clean PSP title Holy Invasion of Privacy, Badman!]

There's been an odd glut of tongue-in-cheek Japanese games based on 16bit RPGs recently, games like Half Minute Hero and 3D Dot Heroes. I've already picked my favourite. I like it because it's about PANIC.

I love panic in games. That icy pang of realisation, the blitz of thoughts that follows, the test of keeping your cool. In panic you can find such easy access to that magical realm where the only things in existence are you and the game. And it's such a useful design tool!

Resident Evil 4 was full of boring bits like rooms where nothing happens or having to retrace your steps to stick a stone donkey tail on a carving of a donkey, but nobody noticed because those moments were respite from panic. Inaction became soothing, and a masterful action game became a game of the year.

My favourite of the comedy 16bit reimaginings, then: Holy Invasion of Privacy, Badman! is a PSP series which gives you the task of digging out a dungeon with the aim of killing the heroes that habitually raid it. The original game isn't great, but the sequel is, and that's getting released in America in Spring 2010 with the majestic title of Holy Invasion of Privacy, Badman! Time to Tighten Up Security.

The first game (out now in America as Holy Invasion of Privacy, Badman! What Did I Do To Deserve This?) is so impoverished in terms of content it resembles a prototype, which probably explains why it didn't get a boxed English language release and can currently be found in the shiny blue limbo of the Playstation Store.

And yeah, Holy Invasion of Privacy, Badman! does panic very, very well. Here's how it works:

You play the overlord of a 16bit RPG dungeon, which you view from a side-on perspective like you would an ant farm. The game is in digging out earth to create the tunnels and chambers of your dungeon while keeping it populated with monsters.

Every so often a bunch of nosy jerks known as 'Heroes' will come crashing through your front door, and the game asks where in your existing excavations you want to hide. The game is lost if the heroes find your squealing avatar and manage to drag him, trussed up like a common criminal, back to the surface.

Midnight Soil

What's alarming about this? Well, the way you enlist monsters, for one. Certain tiles of dirt contain nutrients, or, after a hero has cast a spell near them, magic. The more nutrients or magic in a square, the higher level the monster that comes staggering out when you dig out that tile. Fine. Except all but the lowest level slimes and sprites need to eat lower level monsters to survive and reproduce. You're not just filling your dungeon with employees, you're managing a fragile ecosystem, and nature runs its course so fast you're always returning to view parts of your dungeon to find they've changed.

Your lizardmen might have eaten all the dogs in their area and are starving as a result, or your faeries have reproduced like bunnies and set up shop where you were planning to lure a dragon. The exception to this rule is when you want the inevitable to happen for the purposes of something like evolution, whereupon you'll watch predator and pray avoid one another like opposing genders at a school prom. And that's not even the bad news.

Because your only real means of interacting with the world is permanently digging out these tiles, Badman's quirk is that, like a Go board, you only have a limited number of moves to choose from. While most defence games have you building, Badman gets you subtracting.

The irony is that the ultimate protection, 1000 feet of packed dirt, is there from the start, but you need to hide. So you dig down, dig deeper, always chipping away at your options and always panicking because of the acute awareness that you're backing yourself into a corner and sooner or later those heroes are gonna come for you.

Graveyard Humour

Did I mention you need to dig fast? The time frame on each party of heroes arriving is agonisingly tight, so you're often slicing out serpentine tunnels by holding down the dig button and sliding your pickaxe over the screen, praying you don't screw up that delicate ecosystem. You do, of course, and worse besides.

Whether you're extending your dungeon or cutting out delicious nutrient-rich tiles for the monsters within, you'll end up turning blind corners into smooth curves, putting safe spots in killzones and (most embarrassingly of all) knocking down walls and creating shortcuts that let heroes bypass whole areas of your dungeon.

And so you panic. You panic because there's no save, and your dungeon is in ruins, and you don't want to start the level again, and-- oh, mercy! Oh, mother! Here they come!

I'm a big fan of games which invisibly force you into role-playing your character through mechanics alone, so it makes me pretty happy when you end up every bit the bumbling villain in Badman. As a player you'll brood, you'll giggle, you'll hatch plots (the game's too fast-paced for any grand strategy, so hatch you must) and you'll panic when your schemes don't work out, most likely because you ruined them yourself. I love it.

Click here for a trailer and a little more info on Time To Tighten Up Security. And remember, don't bother with the first game! It's not being All It Can Be. Save yourself for this.

[Quinns is a freelance journalist who has fun working for Eurogamer, contributing to Rock Paper Shotgun and reading Every Game Ever. You can currently find him in the damp Irish city of Galway or at quintinsmithster at gmail dot com.]

[In an in-depth round-up from Japan for the GameSetWatch-exclusive 'Sound Current' column, Jeriaska speaks to a number of major soundtrack composers -- from Square Enix through Q Games to Capcom -- to document the major audio-related goings-on at the annual trade show.]

The 2009 Tokyo Game Show, which took place last week in Chiba, Japan, has often served as a platform for announcements related to video game music.

TGS offers a special opportunity for game companies to unveil debut trailers for newly revealed titles, hinting at what to expect from their musical scores. As the enjoyment of game soundtracks has traditionally transcended language barriers, audio-related news from the show tends to spread quickly among those who follow it internationally.

Game companies including Square Enix and Capcom have marked the occasion in recent years by debuting albums of remixed game themes at the Makuhari Messe exhibition hall. There also tend to be live music events, though 2009 proved to be an exception, perhaps a reflection of decreased attendance and economic recession. Nevertheless, a number of game designers and composers were on-hand to relate their views on current developments in game audio.

To focus on a few, Dylan Cuthbert was present at the Q-Games booth, offering news on the music of PixelJunk series installments PixelJunk Shooter and PixelJunk Monsters Deluxe. Dan Paladin provided some background on the process behind licensing tracks for The Behemoth games. Nigoro elaborated on how they are currently remixing their background music for the WiiWare remake of La-Mulana, and sound studio Noisycroak had details on the score for the third installment of Holy Invasion of Privacy, Badman.

This report offers some impressions from the designers participating in the event. In addition, Square Enix Music department director Soushi Yoshida provides an outline of the fourth volume of their annual music sampler, while sound director Ippo Yamada, who last year composed for Mega Man 9, introduces his new game arrangement compilation Chiptuned Rockman.

The Square Enix Music booth at the 2009 Tokyo Game Show

Square Enix has consistently led the way when it comes to promoting album releases at TGS. This year the company’s music-dedicated booth had on sale such recent releases as the Blood of Bahamut soundtrack album, Reunion Tracks (songs from Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children Complete for Blu-Ray) and the 20-disc SaGa series Premium Box. Those who made a purchase at the booth were treated to a sampler CD of material from upcoming game and album releases, the fourth such volume in consecutive years. Speaking with director Soushi Yoshida, we received an overview of the sampler foreshadowing the fourth quarter music releases from the company.

This year the sampler includes the previously unreleased music from the 2007 TGS promo for Final Fantasy XI: Wings of the Goddess, composed by Naoshi Mizuta. The same composer wrote the following track, the main theme of 4 Warriors of Light: Final Fantasy Gaiden. A Nintendo DS RPG, its score mixes classical music instruments with NES sound card samples. Hidenori Iwasaki's track on the sample, from the Wii action adventure title Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers, leads off with a lighthearted hoedown feel that is reminiscent of "Fiddle de Chocobo" from Final Fantasy VII.

Appearing next on the sampler, arrange album Love SQ appears to be positioning itself as a high profile equivalent of the doujin arrange albums made by Square Enix fans. The game company is recruiting popular artists outside of games to remix Final Fantasy, SaGa, Chrono and Mana titles published during the Squaresoft days. While jazz musicians PE’Z can be heard performing a big band rendition of the Final Fantasy IV theme on the sampler, Sexy Synthesizer, note native and others will also appear on the full album.

Following Love SQ, C+D makes an appearance. Revisiting “Calling” and "Déjà Vu" from The World Ends With You, the arrangement throws some old school game sound effects into the mix, likely presaging a retro remix compilation. Another album revealed by the sampler is a follow-up to Piano Collections Kingdom Hearts. Yoko Shimomura’s music from the series will be further treated to live music arrangements, as a result of the greater-than-expected popularity of the original. The song “Sinister Sundown” is present on the sampler. “Senkou,” a battle theme from Final Fantasy XIII by Masashi Hamauzu, rounds out the album, juxtaposing an austere full orchestra recording with metal-style electric guitar.

Square Enix Music director Soushi Yoshida provides a rundown of the Volume 4 Sampler

While the XBox Live Arcade title Castle Crashers may be less well known within Japan than in English-language regions, developers The Behemoth had a booth set up to show off the playable build of their as of yet untitled third game. PixelJunk Eden composer and art director Baiyon dropped by to talk with art director Dan Paladin and exchange illustrations. The Behemoth has been influenced by classic Japanese videogames, fueling discussions at TGS.

Not only was Paladin responsible for the art for Castle Crashers, he wrote the introductory and ending music themes. Asked how composers were contacted for the game, Paladin explained that all the music was discovered via the Newgrounds site. Formed in 1995 to host Flash games and movies, the website has served as a portal for connecting game designers with user-generated content that is available to license.

"Game 3" is currently without a soundtrack, and a similar process of scouring Newgrounds is planned. The art director says, "I wish more people would go to the Newgrounds audio portal and approach those guys, because they would love to work on other games."

WiiWare is currently anticipating several 2D games from developer Nicalis. Recently the company announced that they will be localizing a downloadable title by Nigoro, a small team previously responsible for the slapping-based Flash game title Rose & Camellia.

The team is currently putting the final touches on a full remake of their archeological adventure title La-Mulana, an auteur creation in the same vain as Nicalis titles NightSky (formerly Night Game) and Cave Story. The music is being fully arranged for the Wii by game designers Naramura and Samejima.

Kyoto-based developer Q-Games had a booth at the Tokyo Game Show to demo their upcoming Playstation 3 title PixelJunk Shooter. The game includes music by High Frequency Bandwidth, one half of the techno group The Orb. Company president Dylan Cuthbert has been following the artists' releases for years, and he describes the Shooter soundtrack as a mix of genres, “very modern sounding.”

Also new to the PixelJunk series are ten or so additional music tracks by Otograph, which are being added to the PSP downloadable title PixelJunk Monsters Deluxe. The game became available October 1st on the Playstation Network. Not only are there new songs, Otograph has created several music videos, which can be unlocked by meeting certain conditions in the game. The omake extras underscore artists Takashi Iura and Sachiyo Oshima's history as audio/ visual creators, having made interactive installments for numerous Kyoto art exhibits.

Q-Games president Dylan Cuthbert describes the soundtracks to the upcoming Pixeljunk installments

Nigoro talks La-Mulana music

NIS America hosted an event during the Tokyo Game Show to announce the localization of two new titles. Localizer Allison Walter confirmed that role-playing title Atelier Rorona is scheduled for release in English-language regions on the Playstation 3 with music by Ken Nakagawa. The sequel to Holy Invasion of Privacy, Badman is also in the midst of being translated, and is headed to the PSP. Music from the first two titles is available to sample on the official site for the album release published by Aniplex Records.

Proceeding in parallel with the localization, musician Hideki Sakamoto is already in the process of composing the score for the third game in the series, titled Yuusha no Kuse ni Namaiki da 3D. A play on words, the installment does not actually take the retro series into the third dimension. Rather, it features three dungeons as opposed to a single playing field. Members of Sakamoto's sound studio Noisycroak will be performing all the instruments for the soundtrack.

Speaking on the subject of the upcoming score, Sakamoto offered a few details on the music for the series. "In the previous installments, the concept for the score was to limit ourselves only to instruments practiced in elementary school," he said. "These were all performed by our co-workers at Noisycroak, every one of whom has memories of practicing them as kids." In terms of what to expect from Badman 3D, he mentioned, "This time out, it almost sounds as if an adult were providing backup. We have some elaborate use of string instruments for one of the songs, and it's perhaps the biggest departure from the previous games. "

Noisycroak musicians Hideki Sakamoto, Tsuyoshi Yukawa, Keisuke Itou & Hiroyoshi Kato

It has been said that '08 was witness to an 8-bit boom in Japan, a phenomenon linked to the time warp undertaken by the Mega Man series. Last year at TGS, Inti Creates announced Rockman 9 Arrange Soundtrack, and this time at the show a related album was made available for the first time at the Capcom CD shop. "Chiptuned Rockman" compiles various artists’ remixes of Mega Man series music, transformed and expanded upon within the domain of 8-bit Famicom chip music.

The CD divides its playlist on the one hand between SNES or Playstation tunes given retro revisions and on the other, classic 8-bit themes like "Snake Man" and "Air Man" treated to Blip Festival-style improvisatory riffs. Ippo Yamada, sound director at Inti Creates, described it as a natural product of collaborating with chiptune artist hally, opening the doors to the participation of twenty musicians. They include international artists Zinger, from Sweden, and Virt, who this year arranged "Freddie Freeloader" for the 8-bit Miles Davis tribute Kind of Bloop.

Primarily Chiptuned Rockman is a collaboration between composers and chip music artists based in Japan. KPLECRAFT, a duo that last year performed live at the EXTRA Hyper Game Music Event, brings their high octane club music style to the iconic Mega Man 2 intro. Cave shooter music composer Manabu Namiki remixes Mega Man: The Wily Wars, while Akari Kaida, having arranged "Jewel Temptation" last year, makes a return. Also participating are Inti Creates composers Ryo Kawakami and Hiroki Isogai.

While live performances all but vanished from the Tokyo Game Show this year, there appear to have been signs present at the Makuhari Messe of collaborations flourishing among musicians via digital media. Whether through the remixing of classics like Final Fantasy and Mega Man, or the localization of downloadable content, a number of unique music projects are transcending the particularities of geographic location. The economic climate alone appears to be a compelling reason for musicians to investigate what creative opportunities are existing elsewhere in the world.

Ippo Yamada introduces Chiptuned Rockman

[Images courtesy of Square Enix and Capcom. Interpretation by Miyu. Additional translation by Yoshi Miyamoto. Photos by Jeriaska.]

The 3D in Yuusha no Kuse ni Namaikida 3D, Acquire's third entry to what we know as the Holy Invasion of Privacy Badman series, doesn't mean you'll need a pair of glasses with colored filters to properly play the game; it actually refers to the three dungeon types in the new game.

The game's primary dungeon is the story mode, tasking players with managing and defending your monster-filled lairs across three areas and 33 levels from glory-seeking heroes, according to Siliconera. The second mode, the "everyday dungeon" has only 10 stages, and the third mode is still unrevealed.

Yuusha no Kuse ni Namaikida 3D's primary new gimmick, though, is the introduction of water that you can flood your dungeons with for added protection against adventurers out to slay your demon lord. It looks like you can even drop a whale into your underground hideout!

After teasing the mystery game on its company site for a week, From Software (Ninja Blade, Demon's Souls) revealed its next title in the latest issue of Famitsu, 3D Dot Game Heroes.

Seemingly modeled after 8-bit RPGs, 3D Dot Game Heroes distinguishes itself with a curious visual style reminiscent of Takara Tomy/Tomytec's .S toys (pictured below), which provide kits for owners to build sprite scenes using colored pegs to represent pixels. Instead of limiting itself to 2D characters and landscapes, the game renders every sprite and area with chunky 3D squares.

This title follows a recent string of Japanese-developed classic RPG parodies -- Holy Invasion of Privacy Badman, Kimi no Yuusha, Guadia Quest (from Retro Game Challenge), Yuusha 30, and Nanashi no Game. Unlike those games, however, 3D Dot Game Heroes won't release for handhelds; so far, it's a PlayStation 3 exclusive.

Hopefully, a stateside publisher like Atlus U.S.A. or XSEED will decide this game's worth bringing over to North America.

[Via Examiner]