by FEMAELSTROM, HSM team writer

When I first came to Home, one of the first places that I gravitated to was the Irem Square public space. It was so festive, and had a great little tune that played in the background. There was the entrance, then the large Bon Festival tower in the middle of the place. Around the perimeter of the tower were stands and booths that had games we could play. Up a ramp, there was a beautiful vista of the neighboring sea, complete with fireworks. The games at the bottom of the Bon tower included a blowdart game, where the player could shoot a blowdart at a rack of free items — and whatever you knocked down, you won. There was a game that let one scoop up fish with a paper paddle, and any fish you won, you got a replica for your own private ornament pile. There were vendors of free food, and all one had to do was walk up to them and ask for food — and voila, you were gifted with free Japanese food as more ornaments.

Does this sound familiar? Does this sound like Granzella’s Edo public space?

It does, and it should. Here’s why.

The original Irem Square.

Kazuma Kujo was the lead developer at the former game company known as Irem, who had a presence in Home long ago, with a beach where one could run underwater and collect free treasures, a cave from the game “Spelunker” (where I was able to score a rare item in the bottle of  the “Elixir of Immortality”) and of course the Bon festival at the Irem square.

On a personal note, I loved these places so much, and was sad when we lost them. The caves were rainy and wet, but dry and well crafted inside. This place became the popular hangout of the goth types close to its closing. Often, avatars could be seen standing in the rain or puddles with black clothing or wings (or both). The beach was a place that collected some trolls, but they were clustered together — so one could move away from them and enjoy the day of roaming under water and collecting the free items that would spawn, just for going to the space’s underwater area. The Bon festival at the Irem Square was (to me) the best. There was a bench that I sat at near the bottom of the angled ramp. It was great because you could watch the comings and goings of the people that ran around. That was what I loved to do with the early friends I made here in home.

Back to Kazuma Kujo.

He was the lead developer at Irem, and he was responsible for games that made Irem popular like “R-Type” and “Zettai Zetsumei Toshi,” which was a disaster simulation that made strides to break away from the man vs. man or robot or zombie genres, but instead made it a survival story of just surviving (known as Disaster Report and Raw Danger in the U.S). Despite it’s popularity, Irem had to cancel the game’s 4th installment because of the tsunami and earthquake disasters that sadly devastated Japan on March 11, 2011. In the wake of this disaster, the game could no longer be produced because of the real life events, (despite an outcry from a letter writing campaign to keep the game in development) and Irem began to shut down its computer gaming entities and began to develop for popular arcade games, namely pachinko games. With the closing of Irem’s computer gaming, Kazuma Kujo went on to make his own company, taking many Irem personnel with him: Granzella.

Irem Square’s overlook.

Granzella essentially picked up where Irem left off in Home. We got back a public beach, one-upped with a private beach estate in the Glittering Sands private estate that mirrored the public space. The Irem Beach was also replicated in the Private Hideaway beach in Home, again one-upped with a connection to a private space. The public space here is great as one can fossil dig, and yes, even go underwater to find free items. We got the great and wonderfully done Edo space with yet another private estate that directly ties in to it. It was at the Edo space that Granzella decided to bring back a small bit of the old Irem Square with the Bon festival recently. This was a great addition, with its only shortcoming being that it was a timed event and did leave. There one could play a Taiko drum, and dance the freely dispensed Bon festival dance, all the while still playing the regular games like the blow dart game, the fish catching game and of course the still popular Defend Edo game, which is re-skinned regularly to make it more interesting and worthy of return.

It would be very hard to list all the commodities that Granzella has made. It is safe though to say that they are all well crafted and highly detailed. Whether one wants to be a samurai, or a sexy succubus, or a school kid, or nurse, or run a burger joint, there are so many items to buy that we can wear or decorate with, that it is amazing. They have also made a few notable places like the Fossil museum where one can display their treasures massed from the Southern Island Getaway fossil dig and the Granzella Burger Restaurant.

I’m no Ringo, but playing this taiko drum was a fun add on.

Granzella has made a lot of wonderful properties that have made Home a much better place. All this came to mind as I strolled through the Bon festival, how that one company has made so much fun and well designed items so full of detail and quality. It brought to mind the early days for me of the old Irem square and how much that place meant to me in my primeval days here. This is an article to say thank you to Granzella for continuing the memories that were so popular to those that remember the Irem Square and look back fondly on those times. I do, and the Bon festival was a great treat that personally I would like to see as a permanent structure as it was in the days of Irem, but  what we had was great and I applaud Granzella for their work here in Home.

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One Response to “Thank You, Granzella”

1. Phoenix says:

   November 16, 2013 at 2:58 pm

   Wonderful recounting of Irem and Grandzella! I too remember Irem beach fondly. It was for me a fun and happy space, trolls notwithstanding. Reading this echos my own thoughts about these spaces and Grandzella. Nice one Strom.

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