Let The Game begin. Hello everyone, and welcome to Chapter 43 of the Tome of Silver. The show where I randomly select a game from my collection, review it, and add it to an evergrowing ranking list.
The story behind the creation of Black Rock Shooter is one that I find to be incredibly fascinating. In December of 2007, illustrator Japanese illustrator Ryohei Fuke, better known online as 'Huke' posted an image on the website Pixiv. The image featured a character Huke had designed himself, titled Black Rock Shooter.
The character possessed ghost-white skin, contrasted by their stylish black clothes and hair. Perhaps their most striking and recognizable feature was their blue eyes, one alight in a blue flame, a characteristic which has unfortunately been rendered more comical in recent years. This single piece of art was all there was to the character. They had no story or world attached to them, nor any notable personality. That air of mystery seemed to only draw in more viewers. Many were inspired by the artwork and fascinated with what Black Rock Shooter could be. Ryo, the songwriter of the Japanese Pop Rock Band Supercell, was one such person to be taken with the art. So taken, in fact, they wrote a song called "Black Rock Shooter" that used the same Vocaloid synthesizer as Hatsune Miku. Huke himself even collaborated with Supercell to make more illustrations to accompany the song. Just like that, Black Rock Shooter was thrust into the spotlight, eventually erupting into a multi-media franchise.
Over the years, Black Rock Shooter would have an OVA, several anime series, manga, and a video game released on the PSP. This game, simply titled Black Rock Shooter The Game, was released in Japan on August 25th, 2011. The game was eventually localized in 2013, having English text but maintaining the Japanese audio. However, the localized version was only on the Playstation Digital Store. The digital store is sadly no longer accessible, making English copies of the game no longer available without using an emulator. Since I prefer having a physical copy of a game when I can, my first experience was with the Japanese version. Thankfully, the game was shockingly easy to navigate, despite not speaking the language, and I was able to beat the game with little issue. Of course, this meant I had no clue what was going on in the story, so playing through the English version for this video would be the first time I got to properly experience it. Was I missing out on anything? Grab your oversized gun, let the fire in your eye erupt, and let’s turn the page to Black Rock Shooter: The Game for the PSP.