Koei Tecmo has announced what their game line up will be for Tokyo Game Show this year and with it the company also revealed a large number of titles that were previously unannounced for release in the West. The new localization announcements include Toukiden 2, Atelier Firis: The Alchemist of the Mysterious Journey, Nights of Azure 2, and Samurai Warriors: Sanada Maru, with a couple of these coming off as fairly surprising considering how recently they were revealed. Joining these games at Tokyo Game Show include the previously announced titles Beserk and Nioh.
Descriptions for each of these new titles have been given by Koei Tecmo and you can read them below:
Toukiden 2
Koei Tecmo is pleased to announce the return of the popular demon hunting RPG title Toukiden with the western release of its second installment in early 2017. Taking Oni-hunting to a brand new level, Toukiden 2 introduces an open-world environment filled with strange life forms, empty ruins, unexplored caves and fearsome Oni.
Players will take on the mantle of a Slayer charged with the task of defending humanity’s last remaining villages from the supernatural threat of Oni. Taking all types of shapes and sizes, these demons creep out of dark rifts in space and time to prey on mankind. Warriors from the ancient and secret cast of the Slayers are the only ones equipped to stop them!
Platforms, release date and further information on the western release of this title will be available in the following weeks.
Atelier Firis: The Alchemist and the Mysterious Journey
Developer Gust continues its trademark Atelier series with the follow-up to Atelier Sophie: The Alchemist and the Mysterious Book. The second part in the Mysterious trilogy, Atelier Firis, follows the journey of a young alchemist through an exciting and colorful world. While Firis travels, she learns more about synthesis and alchemy, meets interesting people, and amplifies the feeling of exploration with the immense expansion of the world map!
Atelier Firis: The Alchemist and the Mysterious Journey will be playable during Tokyo Games Show on PlayStation 4. More details on the title will be revealed in the following weeks.
Nights of Azure 2 (working title)
Following the success of Nights of Azure, which marked a darker direction for Gust, producer Keisuke Kikuchi returns to the demon-plagued world where players will follow the story of a young girl knight born from the blood of Arnice, the main character of Nights of Azure. Nights of Azure 2 (working title) maintains the same JRPG gameplay elements adored by dedicated fans of the studio and expands this new franchise’s horizons with a riveting new storyline! This title will be on display at the Koei Tecmo Games booth.
Samurai Warriors: Sanada Maru (working title)
Koei Tecmo and developer Omega Force are proud to announce the upcoming western release of a ‘one versus thousands’ tactical action title focused on a fan-favorite character from the Samurai Warriors franchise: Yukimura Sanada. In this character-driven epic, players will get a unique look into the Sanada clan’s inner workings before and during the 16th century conflict that drove two brothers to join opposite sides of a grand scale civil war.
This yet-to-be-named title will be released in the west in 2017 and is available for hands-on play on PlayStation 4 during Tokyo Games Show.
I say this because while this sequel does provide small pieces of information about events that happened in the past, this is meant to be a refresher course for fans who played the game less than a year ago and not newcomers and also since one of the most enjoyable parts of the series comes from the character interactions, players will want to see the more personal interactions that are only available with data from the first game instead of the more generic versions that come from playing the title on its own.
Characters in combat can still be linked to one another allowing them to perform follow-up attacks to off-balance enemies but this time around there is another aspect to the link system that has been added to the game. This is called overdrive mode and allows players to attack multiple times with linked characters and even use arts with instant cast times, something that can be rather essential at times since this game is no walk in the park in certain areas and this feature will likely turn the fight in your favor against some of these particularly difficult areas. Outside of the standard battles mentioned above there are also fights that involve Rean taking control of a certain giant mech and battle against other mechanized foes. These battles are a bit different from your standard and help spice up the action from time to time but are hardly as exciting as one would think.
One of the more impressive, albeit somewhat predictable, additions in this title happens to be the unlocking of an airship that can be outfitted with shops and used as a way to move quickly from place to place though players also eventually unlock a special motorcycle like vehicle. It is worth noting that with this faster pace of travel available to players after a certain point that it might be possible to miss smaller aspects of the game but thankfully the game offers small warnings when players reach points in the story where certain events will close out side quests, giving players a chance to revisit and examine areas they otherwise might have blown past.
As far as the soundtrack for the game is concerned, fans will be pleased to hear that the title continues to excel in this department by featuring a wide variety of tracks that sound fit perfectly for this type of game and utilize numerous tones to keep from sounding too familiar to one another.
Despite these threats players head to Nuka World and are run through a gauntlet of challenges before coming up against and taking down the Overboss in a boss fight with a fairly unique gimmick that requires the use of a water gun to drop his shields before unloading with your standard weaponry. As one would expect with bandit gangs, eliminating the previous leader now crowns the player as the new Overboss and with the help of the new companion Gage they are well on their way to trying to take Nuka World to a whole new level.
This bare minimum storytelling is helped a little bit by the various tid-bits of information players can find in the various terminals in Nuka World that describe just how bad things were at the park before the bombs fell and their reckless abandon for safety in the eyes of profit. There are a few decisions throughout the game that can determine just how bad you really want to be in Nuka World and although the real story involves going through with everything and being the Overboss, there is an option to simply slaughter every bandit in the park and liberate the traders that once used the park as a hub, but this really isn’t developed in any way other than a way for players to feel like they aren’t forced in only one direction, though considering only Preston really takes notice of the Lone Survivor’s actions in taking the gangs back to the Commonwealth, your choices here don’t really affect much.
These areas include a Galactic Zone filled with special rides and robotic enemies all with Nuka Cola themed paint-jobs and attacks and the only way to power them down is to gather various pieces of machinery scattered through the area, a western area called Dry Gulch that is perhaps the shortest of the bunch but gives players a chance to act out a spaghetti western or simply hack through it using robotics perks while taking down new worm enemies that bury underground and burst out of corpses, face off against spliced Gatorclaws while interacting with a Tarzan-like human in the Safari Zone, dealing with neon painted ghouls and tricky obstacles in the irradiated Kiddie Kingdom, and more.
As you’ve probably noticed, the lack of real story development or giving your choices any worthwhile impact means that Fallout 4: Nuka-World is the type of DLC that is all about combat and taking what you want by force, though as mentioned there are a couple of choices you can make to not be quite so evil while on this path. This means while there can be a few humorous side-quests to undertake, the majority of your time here will simply be spent gunning down the mutated creatures and robots in the park while doing little else so those hoping for a bit more roleplaying or story elements like Far Harbor will be disappointed.
This being a Bethesda title, one can expect various bugs to raise their heads but it is worth noting that throughout my time with Fallout 4: Nuka-World I encountered a particularly nasty one that forced me to start the entire DLC over from scratch as an NPC required to advance the story refused to say anything more than his initial praise for liberating every area of the park. This issue appears to be quite common and, at the time of writing, hasn’t been fixed so those who do wish to take on Nuka-World will need to keep an eye out. Other glitches such as gang leaders refusing to offer additional quests or talk in any form appeared fairly often as well but resolved themselves with simple reloads unlike the aforementioned problem.
The voice work throughout this DLC is fairly standard and fitting considering the gruff nature of the bandits that players will be dealing with though it is nice to note that the soundtrack does feature a number of unique themes that fit the hubs that players explore.