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PAL gamers will also be able to download a demo for Etrian Odyssey IV on August 15. Atlus and NIS America have a publishing agreement to bring Atlus' titles to Europe, which started with Persona 4: Golden.
Ranko Tsukigime's Longest Day is a high-speed side-scrolling platformer for the PS3 developed by Suda51 as part of Short Peace, an animated film omnibus directed by Katsuhiro Otomo of Akira fame and animated by veterans of the anime industry. Working with Suda51 is Tokyo Jungle director Youhei Takaoka and No More Heroes artist Yusuke Kozaki.
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The game is a high speed side-scrolling platformer in which you play as Ranko Tsukigime, the daughter of a Japanese business conglomerate who lives the life of a school girl during the day and a hitman at night. Determined not to lose against the rest of Short Peace, the game boasts detailed animations and levels with dizzying powers called Effects.
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Ranko Tsukigime's Longest Day and Short Peace will be packaged together starting on January 16, 2014.
Developed by The World Ends With You and Picross-e maker Jupiter, Pictologica Final Fantasy mashes Final Fantasy style battles with Picross puzzles underneath. These puzzles are simpler than Picross-e because they're designed for rapid play. See the five rows? Each one represents one character in your party. When you correctly identify which squares are filled up for a row that character will attack. The faster you complete a puzzle, the more damage you deal.
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Pictologica Final Fantasy is in development for iOS and Android.
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Ichigo Kurosaki is a playable character in J-Stars Victory Vs., a mashup fighting game with Jump characters from Namco Bandai. He joins Goku, Naruto, Luffy, Toriko, and Kenshin who are also confirmed for J-Stars Victory Vs.
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This week’s Dengeki PlayStaton magazine featured an interview with Gust’s director Yoshito Okamura, who hinted that they’ll be releasing a new Atelier game, that may not be related to the Dusk series. In addition, he also says that the Dusk series will continue and won’t end with Atelier Escha & Logy: Alchemists of the Dusk Sky.
Previously, Okamura mentioned that there won’t be a plus version of Atelier Rorona. The other two games in the Arland trilogy got expanded ports for PlayStation Vita and were released as, Atelier Totori Plus and Atelier Meruru Plus. Okamura said that they’d like to make an expansion for it in the future that will show the reason why they saved it for last. According to the Dengeki PlayStation interview, we may be seeing a remake for Atelier Rorona before we see a completely new Atelier series.
“Since becoming part of Tecmo Koei, we now have the grounds to make big titles, while keeping true to Gust’s identity.” says Okamura in the interview. The director also reveals his intention to step down from the development of the Atelier series, with the reason being that when the same person continues developing a title, the game’s content will always be too similar to one another.
Here are some highlights from the interview:
There are no plans to end the Dusk series anytime soon, as there are still plenty left to do.Gust’s next title may not be part of the Dusk series, although it’s not certain.There will be a new Atelier game released next year, as they have no intention to break the pattern of releasing a new title per year so fans will have something to look forward to every year.Since merging with Tecmo Koei, Gust now have the grounds to develop bigger titles and still keep true to their essence.Gust are currently training their young developers so they can carry on with the future of the Atelier series, along with new IPs, all while changing the future of the company from within.Director Yoshito Okamura feels that someone else must be entrusted with Atelier. Not because he dislikes making it, but because he feels that if the same person keeps working on it, the games will always be too similar.This year is Gust’s 20th anniversary, as they’re looking forward to taking on greater challenges.Bloomberg Japan is reporting (via: Hachima) that around 20 companies have expressed interest in bidding for Index Holdings, Atlus’ parent company, following news of its bankruptcy.
Among these is Sega Sammy, Bloomberg says. Additionally, Bloomberg’s sources tell them that the bid for the company has gone up to 20 billion yen (about $200 million), up from the previously expected value of 15 billion yen.
Candidates for the bid are expected to be narrowed down by next week, according to Bloomberg, with the possibility of a deal being as early as the end of August.
At the Pokémon Game Show in Tokyo this past weekend, The Pokémon Company announced that 172 million units of Pokémon games have been sold across the world.
The last two major Pokémon games, Black/White and Black 2/White 2 have sold 15.42 million and 7.81 million units worldwide, as of March 31st, 2013.
The next two games in the Pokémon series are Pokémon X and Pokémon Y, and will launch worldwide on October 12th.
It’s been a couple years since localization firm Active Gaming Media launched an indie game funding, localization and publishing service called Playism. One of the games on there is the RPG-styled Artifact Adventure, which is a spitting image of Enix’s earlier Dragon Quest games.
While Artifact Adventure might look exactly like an older Dragon Quest game, it’s actually considered a “retro-style free scenario RPG”. You start the game by creating your character and picking one of the six available class-types.
Next, you’ll be making a choice that will have a huge impact on the rest of the game, by choosing between having the airship that allows you to freely fly around the world, or the “Artifact” which grants you a special ability which can only be acquired at the start.
Once you make your selection, the adventure begins. The gameplay is similar to older RPGs, but Artifact Adventure has a wide range of quests, which can change the outcome of the story according to the choices made by the player. Furthermore, there are over 70 scenes and more than 100 endings to boot, so that might make things a little tough to find the game’s true ending.
Artifact Adventure is currently available for PC through Playism for 1,050 yen.
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Speaking at Tokyo Game Show, Grasshopper Manufacture and GungHo Online Entertainment shared more information about upcoming online action RPG Lily Bergamo, including the current working name of their heroine—Tae Ioroi.
Grasshopper CEO Goichi Suda also dropped a hint on how development plans to go, saying it would be possible for players to play on smartphones by themselves or alongside the previously announced PlayStation 4 version.
That integration will leverage on the strengths of online capabilities, said GungHo Online Entertainment’s CEO Kazuki Morishita, allowing both smartphone and PlayStation gamers to be in “the same world”, but possibly in different sections of it.
Tae lives in the not-so-distant future of 2043, with the exact locale of the game still unannounced. In our previous interview with Suda and GungHo Online Entertainment’s CEO Kazuki Morishita, they hinted that the world draws from both Japan and Western cultures, but have so far declined to say where exactly the story will take place.
On stage for the talk were Grasshopper’s CEO Goichi Suda, game director Nobutaka Ichiki and designer Yusuke Kozaki.
Lily Bergamo is currently set for a 2014 release date, with Suda saying they hope to have a playable version by Tokyo Game Show next year.
Last week, Capcom held an exclusive hands-on Monster Hunter 4 event called “Summer Hunting Tryouts”. In our earlier report of the event, we got a closer look at the new Insect Staff weapon. Following the event, Capcom shared a video summarizing it, along with a presentation showing the Charge Axe and the new jump actions.
For those of you who missed the latest trailer for Monster Hunter 4, the above video shows it off at the 3:23 mark. At the 15:50 mark of the video, fans who got to try out the Charge Axe and Insect staff got to voice their opinions on the new weapons thus far. According to several of the players at the event, the Insect Staff was a little tricky to handle at first, but after playing around with it, it almost felt like second nature.
One particular Switch Axe veteran went in thinking that the Charge Axe would be very similar to his weapon of choice, as it has similar mode-switching features; however, he comments that it was completely different from what he expected, and he feels that Capcom did a great job giving both weapons their own unique feel when you use them.
Other comments include how tough the fight against Goa Magara was, along how fun and useful the jumping feature is, as it adds a completely new dimension to the hunt.
At 19:20, Monster Hunter 4 producer Ryozo Tsujimoto and director Kaname Fujioka give us another look at hunting with Charge Axes, as both key developers go on to man the weapon for the hunt. They decide on fighting a Great Jaggi to make things easier to see, and a little less hectic compared to the likes of Goa Magara.
Fujioka starts out by giving an explanation of the basic controls for the weapon’s Sword-mode. According to the director, it is simple to use, and has some nice mobile attacks, such as the forward-dashing slash. Once you switch to Axe mode, it has a heavier and slower feel, but it does considerably more damage compared to the Sword-mode. Fujioka says that he believes players will be switching between both modes, as the basic play-style of the weapon.
The director then gives us a look at what it’s like to stock energy in Sword-mode, by taking down some helpless herbivores. The bottles that get filled on the upper-left part of the screen are your energy stock. Fujioka adds that the play-style will revolve around stocking up bottles, then unleashing it in Axe-mode for powerful attacks. For closer details regarding the charges, check out our report on their earlier presentation.
Next, the developers demonstrate the jumping feature that can be done by running off ledges. This action can be followed up with jump-attacks. Knowing the range and distance of your jumps will be a crucial factor in landing the hits.
Those of you who’ve played past Monster Hunter titles know that you can’t sprint while having a weapon out, so you might be wondering how this action will be possible unless you sheath your weapon. Tsujimoto shows that you can still do jump actions by simply dodge-rolling while you’re near a ledge. As seen in the demonstration, these jumps cover slightly less distance compared to the non-weapon holding version, so it could take some getting used to, as well.
Starting at 25:45 the two decide to take on the Great Jaggi. According to Tsujimoto, remembering the field will be a bigger factor compared to past titles, as it will be more important to know the whereabouts of specific features and where monsters can be found.
Many players who got to try the demo stated that it was pretty tough to jump-attack monsters and actually remain on top of them. Director Fujioka explains that you’ll need to press X or A while you’re on top and the monster is calm. Once it starts going wild, you’ll have to hold down the R button to stay on it, otherwise it will knock you out. You will then have to wait for it to calm down again until you can resume attacking. You “win” the fight once the blue bar fills up all the way, and according to the developers, it is very satisfying.
Monster Hunter 4 will be slated for release on September 14th for Nintendo 3DS.
Animal Crossing is known as Animal Forest in Japan and way before Tom Nook peddled his wares to players Nintendo made a game called The Forest of Beginning.
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The Forest of Beginning feels kind of like a precursor to the entire Animal Crossing series even if it doesn't have animals in it. You play as a boy who travels to a rural village where his grandpa lives to spend summer vacation. You meet a mysterious girl there. but nobody in the village knows who she is. Bewildered, you set off to find her. The Forest of Beginning has players interact with villagers just like Animal Crossing. Also like Animal Crossing there are mini-games like fishing and menko (a Japanese card game). The Forest of Beginning wasn't widely distributed since it was only a Nintendo Power (not the magazine, the rewriteable Super Famicom cartridge) release.
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The Forest of Beginning will be re-released as a Wii U Virtual Console download along with the Famicom version of The Tower of Druaga on August 21.
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Project Phoenix has Western staff members on the development team too like Vaughan Smith who worked on L.A. Noire and Steffen Unger who worked on Halo 4 to handle the game's 3D models. Nobuo Uematsu is also working on the game as the lead composer.
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Project Phoenix was quickly funded on Kickstarter. The fundraiser has 28 days to go and the next round of funding will be used to make detailed cities and customizable characters. If the project reaches $1,025,000 the game will add an overworld and a battle inside a Kraken.
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Creative Intelligence Arts plans to release Project Phoenix in 2015 for PC, Mac, and Linux. iOS and Android versions will also be made, but the game will be different for mobile platforms. PlayStation 4 is also being considered, but other platforms have not been finalized. A digital download is $20 and includes access to a closed beta. A digital collectors edition with a making of documentary, soundtrack, and art book is $50. Super reward tiers include creating a boss, NPC, and playable character which require a $10,000 investment.
