The Tokyo Game Show was something which happened a couple of weeks ago, which aside from meaning that this was something that I really should have posted two weeks ago, meant that Bamco released a new PS3 iM@S2 PV to coincide with the various promotional events they held over the weekend.

There’s a bunch of new announcements in there, but what does strike one as being rather odd is that they lead off with news about Jupiter, the boy band whose inclusion in the 360 version of the game resulted in what could only be described as an “interesting” reaction in portions of the fanbase. Well, okay, there’s other ways to describe it, but they aren’t ways that I’d care to use.

Not that the news really seems all that significant – the song you hear isn’t actually new, rather it’s something that’s already in the 360 version of iM@S2. Rather, it’s just not something they used in the games promotion, so most of those who hadn’t played the game probably haven’t heard it unless they’re curiously attached to the Jupiter boys. Honestly, I always thought that the song felt kind-of out-of-image for the group, to the point that I burst out laughing the first time I heard it.

What they’re actually announcing is that Jupiter now have a white costume.

No, what they’re really announcing here is that Jupiter are now included in S4U (Stage For You!) mode, the mode in iM@S2 that let’s the play mess around with performances without having to actually play the game part of iM@S2. It’s actually kind of less flexible than what you can do with performances in iM@S1 and Live For You, but those both make you play the game to access them.

It’s kind of curious that this is something that they’d do, given the popular opinion regarding Jupiter. I can understand why they’d want to do it – freed of the constraints of variable characters, the Jupiter dance routines are honestly rather more interesting than the regular idols. I mean, I can’t really picture Yukiho or Chihaya doing backflips…

Still a weird foot to put forward promotionally, though.

The inclusion of a new Ryuuguu Komachi song, Nanairo Botan (or is it Button?), makes rather more sense. I’ve heard the full song a couple of times thanks to the assorted live performances they streamed from TGS, and it’s catchy enough. I’m kind of curious as to what the context for it to be used in the game will be – there’s not really opportunity for it to be squeezed into the games main mode as it presently stands, so either they’re making changes to that, or Hyper Mode has some pretty substantial tweaks to it.

At least this should dispel myths that Ryuuguu Komachi only know one song!

I do have to say, though, the new Ryuuguu costume is ugly with a capital… well, I guess I didn’t use a capital there, so feel free to imagine that there’s one there expressing the appropriate level of ugliness – your lexicon of such terms in undoubtedly wider than mine anyhow. The sad thing is that it’ll probably be unlockable for the main cast to use, and if it’s anything like the old Ryuuguu costume, it’s stats will be absurd enough to make it really hard to build a convincing argument not to use it. Aside from it being ugly, obviously.

The only other news is that they’re going to be releasing a Hatsune Miku costume as DLC (though Rin/Len might have been more appropriate given, you know, the twins and all that). Way back when, they actually released Go My Way!! as a DLC song for one of the Project Diva games, so I guess this is Bamco finally getting some payback on that.

Though, honestly, it’s kind of a janky costume – they picked a pretty bad dance routine to show it off, as the way the sleeves warp as Miki clicks her fingers kind of shows that they never really intended for the things to be that long on any of the games costumes. Suppose there’s still time for them to correct that, but probably not.