Gantz creator 奥浩哉 / Hiroya Oku has apparently turned his hand to character design for Soul Calibur IV, it has been revealed in the latest issue of Young Jump. His contribution will be one of his trademark top heavy females, a supernatural samurai in the Taki vein, wielding two swords and monikered “修羅”, Shura, cheerily meaning the scene of a bloodbath.
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According to a study conducted by the Japanese National PTA Congress, 2.5% of Japanese fifth grade elementary school pupils “often play” adult games, and only 5% are without a console or handheld, Mainichi reports.
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The superiority of Chinese engineering and their unique appreciation of intellectual property evidently know no bounds; first came the Wii, then the Chintendo Vii, and now a new successor emerges in the form of Eittek’s originally named MiWi.
This fine product continues in the same vein as the Vii, bringing you advanced cartridge based 16bit gaming reminiscent of the Wii at a vastly reduced price point. The erstwhile wireless controllers and sports games clearly aim to compete with Nintendo’s offering. As seems to be usual with these products, in game shots seem to be sadly lacking…
More pictures are mirrored below. Brought to my attention by GameSpark, with English info here and Chinese info here.
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With Metal Gear Solid 4 complete, all the details regarding the marketing arrangements in the game have come to light. It seems the game will be a vehicle for product placement on an unprecedented scale for an A-List title, with 10 product “collaborations” evident; but it is not so much the number as the prominence and lack of consideration for fit which stand out. Read on for the full details.
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Any ardent fan of the excellent Tales series of RPGs will already know about the magnificent looking テイルズ オブ ヴェスペリア / Tales of Vesperia, the latest and next generation incarnation of the series, but there has been something of an upset over the bizarre decision to release the game first on the Xbox360, with a PS3 release not even confirmed yet – whilst no denials, and the eminent logic of releasing the game to its main market on the PS3, as well as prior precedents in porting this series and others, all tend to suggest the PS3 release is all but inevitable, no official announcement has been forthcoming, until now… sort of.
It seems some observant soul managed to spot buried in a Bandai Namco financial presentation an entry (now amended) for ToV listed as due for release later in the year for both Xbox360 and PS3, however no sooner had the news got out than the document was amended to refer only to the Xbox360 release; the original page is mirrored below.
Just what kind of mistake this was may only be revealed by the passage of time, but most Tales fans can but hope it represents accidental confirmation of the PS3 release, and hopefully for this year and not next.
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According to the official announcement, Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots is now completed, so all that remains is to wait for the release. Whilst a variety of dubious marketing endeavours are underway (placing Regain into the game seems positively tawdry), the biggest change this brings is the opening of the official site, filled with movie based quizzes which you can “complete” for “Digital Download Points”, exchangeable for a variety of wallpapers and the like – how very original. Still the game movies are interesting enough.
Hideo Kojima may have put his foot in his mouth recently, and again just now if you read the drivel he spouts in the press conference comparing SCE to space pioneers, but this hardly has any bearing on what will doubtless prove to be the biggest PS3 release to date; it will certainly be interesting to see how well the PS3 fairs with the upcoming releases of its major titles – my guess is well.
Famitsu brings news of the story and characters of Persona 4, as well as more screenshots, due for release in a month or two, almost inexplicably for the PS2. The story centres around a string of murders at the protagonist’s school/countryside town, and the character featured is a ruffian; does this sound familiar to you?
The screens and details thus far revealed really do tend to mark this out as a rehash or expansion pack rather than a true sequel, although at least the production values will not be a let down, and the new setting looks to be a departure from the urban environments used previously. It looks interesting enough, but I am still a little disappointed that they chose the PS2 as platform, as it would be nice to see them push the series forward with a next generation game, rather than simply ride the coattails of the anime.
There was something of a furore when Metal Gear Solid 4 creator 小島秀夫 / Hideo Kojima gave an interview to Edge and was quoted as saying “The original vision was to go ten steps further, the reality was just one step”, amongst other negative statements about the PS3 platform. Now on his own blog, he denies all, and claims it was in fact a mistranslation; his humble and self abasing Japanese was distorted through translation and cultural misinterpretation, as well as shameless media exaggeration in pursuit of page views, and so he was grievously misquoted.
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Falcom offers up a promising looking action RPG for the PC, “ZWEI II”, set for release this summer, with a few screenshots just released, and mirrored below. This is refreshing news given the poor condition of PC gaming in Japan (if we exclude visual novels and the like), but what I am really keen to know is whether this will be fully voiced or not – no info as yet.
Graphics look none too bad; full 3d, and there is the comment that characters display their current equipment on their actual models, a nice touch. I am liable to comment favourably on any RPG involving demon girls – there is indeed one in evidence, with splendid crimson eyes the colour of hellfire, and she is co-protagonist. In case you were wondering, the original ZWEI is a title from 2001, which I will confess to having never heard of.
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More Details on クロスエッジ / Cross Edge / XEdge, the newly announced PS3 mixed franchise RPG are provided here by Famitsu. When I first heard of this game, I was sceptical, and seeing those screens (which look distinctly PS2 in calibre), and also hearing the somewhat mixed reception in the Japanese blogosphere has done nothing to allay my concerns, even if it does include Etna.
Including a bunch of popular characters from a variety of games and then letting the player dress them up might cut it for a dojin game, but my suspicion is that such a pastiche of characters will not result in a rewarding story. Perhaps it could more accurately be thought of as charcter goods. Still, it remains to be seen how this will turn out; the developers involved can hardly be keen for their characters to be involved in a licensing debacle (or can they?).
Those familiar with eroge and novels will know the two often intersect, with relatively frequent novelisations of erotic games being a feature of the genre; so it was with interest that I read a very firm rebuttal of the worry voiced that these conversions are slipping. Half Moon Diary provides a revealing graph, showing that novel releases are roughly stable at around 60 per year from two of the major publishers, and an impressive grand total of 540 titles since publishing got started in 1996. “官能小説 / sensual novels” are certainly popular in Japan, though I’m not sure these numbers comprise much more than a small fraction of the market, to say nothing of light novels and the like.
Forbes identifies Japan’s richest man as former Nintendo boss Hiroshi Yamauchi, in their list of the top 40 richest Japanese – naturally his appearance is due largely to the colossal success of the Nintendo Wii. I kept an eye open for anime/manga concerns in the list, but I didn’t see any (unless you count Eva themed pachinko machines); I presume these concerns are all subsumed into big media and publishing groups, and so their founders and bosses are just humdrum media moguls. There are, however, plenty of game related concerns in there.
The list makes interesting reading; leaving aside the numerous internet entrepreneurs, there are some familiar companies contributing their founders and managers: at number 25, we find Enix founder and Final Fantasy kingpin Yasuhiro Fukushima, with just over a billion dollars to his name, at 34 we find Konami founder Kagemasa Kozuki, with $790 million, close on his heels at 36 with $760 million is Sega Sammy boss Hajime Satomi, and Koei founders and Nobunaga’s Ambition creators Keiko and Yoichi Erikawa just squeeze onto the list at 39 with $720 million. Well done to them all.
Atelier Shallie Plus Trailers Unbearably Cute
Pyramid Head’s Great Knife Replicated
Mortal Kombat X DLC More Gruesome Than Ever
Splatoon “Super Play Time” Absolutely Cringe-worthy
Monster Hunter X Megaman Event Profusely Blue
Delectable Dizzy Cosplay by Lechat
Odin Sphere: Leifthrasir PV Certainly Nostalgic
XmasTrickStar “A White Christmas Indeed…”
Yandere Simulator Possibly Headed to Kickstarter
Hyrule Warriors Legends PV Clashes Interminably
Final Fantasy XIV Lord of Verminion Trailer Highly Adorable
Shingeki no Kyojin Fan Game Swoops In
Hypnotize My Girlfriend Quite Entrancing
Raunchy Reisen Inaba Cosplay by Tsuyato
The Asterisk War Trailer Battles Fiercely
Youmu Ero-Cosplay by Madoka Adachi Deadly Sexy
Strawberry Vinegar Trailer Nauseatingly Saccharine
Yandere Simulator Hits The Clubs
Buxom Onaho Swordstress Boasts “Swords” Of All Kinds
Shin Megami Tensei IV Livestream Battles It Out
Kantai Collection New Years Event “Yukatas-A-Plenty!”
Nekopara Volume 2 OP Absolutely Moe
Dead or Alive Xtreme 3 Bouncier Still
The Gods Have Animal Ears Far From Bestial
Final Fantasy IX Coming to PC & Smartphones
Hatsune Miku: Project Diva X Trailer Sings Divinely
I Take Down Kurogal Sk**ks Profusely Dark
Shingeki no Kyojin Trailers Rife with Action
Dengeki Bunko Yuuki Trailer Cuts Deep
Final Fantasy XIII × Louis Vuitton
Festive Riven Cosplay Hops to It
Valkyria Chronicles Remaster Trailer Advances
She Was Unpopular – “Actually She Was Anything But…”
Tap My Katamari Trailer Unsurprisingly Bizarre
Shimakaze Ero-Cosplay by Dango Gloriously Flat
Final Fantasy VII Remake “Censorship Incoming!”
Ultimate Ninja Storm 4 Trailer Unexpectedly “Sexy”
Fire Emblem: Fates English Gameplay Emerges
Miss Hisaki & I Her Butler Enviably Abusive
Project Diva X Costume Extravaganza
Sex Anime Online Quite The “Fantasy” Game
Pokkén Tournament Wii U “May Bomb Harder Than Arcades”