Sekai Project has announced that they have launched Winged Cloud’s Sakura Dungeon onto PC, Mac, and Linux through Steam. It is worth noting that the company has released this verson of the game as an all-ages version while the 18+ version containing nudity is being sold through Denpasoft. Both versions of the game are being priced at $19.99 but the Steam verson is being sold at a temporary 10% discount that will end on June 10th.
Sakura Dungeon follows the story of Yomi, an ancient fox spirit who awakens after several hundred years of deep sleep to find that possession of her lovingly made dungeon has been taken from her. The game is designed as a first-person dungeon crawling RPG and as such, Yomi who is now weak and vulnerable after losing her powers, must rely on the heroic knight Ceri to help her reclaim her dungeon.
Players can lead parties of up to six characters in combat, select from three difficulty settings, fight and capture over fifty different types of monsters, unlock CG art and sprites in the gallery, and even uncover various in-game outfits to equip.
Koji Igarashi has announced through Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night‘s Kickstarter Blogthat the game will be playable next week at E3 2016 at the Microsoft booth. The preview will be a demo of the Minerva Stage where players will encounter a handful of lesser demons and magi-crystals that drop from these enemies will also appear.
If you can’t make it to E3 but did back the game, you don’t have to worry as Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night‘s backers who pledged at the $60 tier will be given the demo on June 13th for the PC where the demo will be handled through Steam. To go along with this announcement the company has released a new trailer that you can check out below. As for the game itself, Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night is in development for the Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Wii U, PS Vita, and PC.
As with any good E3 season, the leaks are plentiful and this latest one comes in the form of the reveal of Injustice 2. A retail poster for Injustice 2 has appeared online after arriving at a large number of GameStop retailers across the country sporting the tagline “Every Battle Defines You.”
After certain sources confirmed the validity of the poster, Mortal Kombat co-creator and NetherRealms Studios founder Ed Boon has started to hint at the fact an announcement is coming. This includes a few modifications to his Twitter such as shifting his icon to II, posting a drum roll, and the below image.
Ubisoft has announced that they are planning on releasing a teaser trailer for Watch Dogs 2 on June 8th and to try and hype up that announcement the company decided to release a small thirty second teaser video simply titled “Hello World.” Well it appears that Twitch didn’t quite get the memo on keeping that second teaser video on the down low as the second video has already been revealed and can be found at the link here.
The first video can be found below where we see a character using his phone to control a screen in front of him. As you’ll see in that leaked video, Watch Dogs 2is set to be released on November 15th for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.
Get Your Heart Pounding and Slash Your Way to Love in the Dungeon-Crawler, Robot Love Story of the Year: “Heart&Slash”
Madrid, Spain (June 8, 2016) — 3D brawler Heart&Slash will be launched by publisher BadLand Games and studio Aheartfulofgames on June 24th, 2016 to Xbox One and PlayStation 4 worldwide. The PC version has been on Steam Early Access and the final version will launch in August in all territories.
Aheartfulofgames’ Creative Director Juan Raigada feels Early Access was an important step in the game’s development because “while we kickstarted the game, and had enough funding to see it through completion, we reached a stage in the development of Heart&Slash where we felt the need to gather as much feedback as possible to make the best game we could.” Now, after three years of development, taking into account the constructive criticism of Early Access players, Heart&Slash will be making its worldwide debut this summer. The title will also be getting a retail release in select territories.
Play as Heart, a malfunctioning robot, fighting for its identity against the minions of standardization. Along the way you meet Slash, a rough veteran of the dystopian world where Heart&Slash takes place. You will try to capture Slash’s attention through several playthroughs, but how you do it will depend on the player. For each ‘quest’ (each opportunity to woo Slash) you will have a couple of opportunities that will end up defining the relationship and how the story will end.
Will you choose independence, or will you change in order to be loved? Or will you find a balance that will allow the relationship to thrive?
Features:
Fight using 75 different weapons and 60 different body parts that will change the way the game plays. Teleport, stop time, fly with a jetpack, wall-jump, discover enemy weaknesses and so on. From the trivial to the game-changing, you can try thousands of different combinations.
Die and try again. Permadeath means Heart&Slash is not an easy game. But dying shouldn’t matter as robots can be easily and indefinitely cloned. Every time you start a new game, the levels you fight through, and the items or weapons you collect, will change.
A unique art style that will bring back the memories of game systems long gone.
The game will have almost no downtime. Levels are short and brutal, and the game, in a successful run, should not be too taxing on your time (whether you will ever be able to make a successful run is another matter). Ultimately, playing Heart&Slash is not about mastering one system. Instead, it’s about being able to adapt to what you are given and making the best out of it.
About BadLand Games: BadLand Games is an international publishing company that firmly believes in the need to support emerging talent. We are passionate gamers on a mission to find the diamonds in the rough. Working alongside talented developers, we bring captivating, outstanding games to the masses. We’re always on the lookout for enthusiastic and dedicated developers with all sorts of games from Beat-Em-Up to RPG to Puzzle and everything in between.
About Aheartfulofgames: Aheartfulofgames is a small studio dedicated to breathing new life into old ideas. We have a tiny budget but big hearts and we are giving it all to make this game (our first) the best we can.
Square Enix has announced that they are planning on releasing World of Final Fantasy for the PlayStation 4 and PS Vita on October 25th in North America, October 27th in Japan, and finally on October 28th in Europe. Those who pre-order the game will get a day one edition that will include Sephiroth as a special summon to help players in battle.
To go along with this announcement Square Enix has released the E3 2016 trailer for World of Final Fantasy and you can check that out below alongside a fresh overview of the game and a number of new screenshots:
In World of Final Fantasy, players lead a pair of twins, Reynn and Lann, through the land of Grymoire on a search to rediscover their lost memories. Throughout their adventure, players will collect, raise and battle adorable beings of classic Final Fantasy lore, including cactuar, chocobo and behemoth, to create customizable, strategic tower combinations to take on the most challenging of opponents.
Square Enix has announced that they are planning on releasing Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age for the PlayStation 4 worldwide sometime in 2017. This game is a remaster of the original Final Fantasy XII and features the previously Japan-only Final Fantasy XII International Zodiac Job System that adds a number of reconstructed game design elements and additional systems to the game.
The company has also added further improvements and graphical upgrades to the game such as high-res upgrades for backgrounds, character models, and all 2D parts including fonts, high-res upgrades for movie scenes, and the introduction of current generation visual expression. To go along with this announcement the company has released a teaser trailer for Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age as well as a few screenshots. Those who attend E3 2016 will find that the game will be playable at the company’s booth between June 14th and the 16th.
XSEED Games has announced that they are going to be handling three new titles over the course of the year and will be showing them off at E3 2016. These titles are all indies, though one stands out a bit compared to the other two. First we have Touhou: Scarlet Curiosity, the second Touhou game to now be localized, for the PlayStation 4 where players will play as Remilia Scarlet, the Scarlet Devil vampire as well as her maid Sakuya Izayoi. Rather than play as a bullet hell title, this game is one that takes an action RPG approach with fast paced combat. Currently the company is aiming to have Touhou: Scarlet Curiosity released digitally for the PlayStation 4 sometime in the fall.
The title that stands out the most in this triple announcement comes in the form of WayForward’s Shantae: Half-Genie Hero. The company has announced that they will be publishing the title at retail and digitally on the PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, and Wii U sometime this fall. In the magical world of Sequin Land lives Shantae, a spirited young half-genie.
She has dedicated her life to defending her home of Scuttle Town from evil in all forms, and has been called upon again as pirates attack! Using her trademark Hair-Whip Attack and special ability to transform herself into various kinds of creatures by way of magical belly-dancing, she must fight her way through steamy jungles, ancient ruins, and stormy deserts to topple the villainous Barons behind each criminal caper, preparing for the ultimate showdown against her arch-nemesis: the bodacious buccaneer Risky Boots!
The third game announced for localization is called Exile’s End and will be released digitally for the PlayStation 4, PS VIta and Wii U later this summer. The title is set in the distant future where mega-corporation Ravenwood exists more as an interplanetary government than a company, controlling commerce and manipulating the economy with its own private army. So when its president’s son goes missing on a remote mining planet and all contact is lost, the company quickly dispatches a team of mercenaries to investigate.
Immediately upon their arrival in orbit, however, the team’s ship experiences an electrical failure and careens toward the surface. Numerous soldiers eject from the crashing ship via escape pods, but only one seems to make landfall relatively unscathed: an old, embittered private named Jameson. In his efforts to restore communications on the planet, he ends up discovering the remains of the mining colony and learns a truth far more sinister than he ever could have imagined.
The developers Acquire have announced that they are working on a new game in the Akiba’s series and unlike the last two, this one will be a bit different as it will be an action RPG called Akiba’s Beat that will be released on the PlayStation 4 and PS Vita. As detailed by Famitsu, the title will follow a group of seven characters that have been imprisoned in an Akihabara that has been eroded by delusions and where Sunday is on constant repeat. Players will delve into dungeons that are designed to be embodiment of delusions and face off against enemies that are created as symbols.
So far only the protagonist, Asahi Tachibana, and a girl named Saki Hoshino have been revealed as characters in the game with the protagonist being a 19 year old NEET who has recently moved to Tokyo while the girl recently moved to Akihabara to attend a vocational school while also working with “Pin-kun” to protect the peace.
Deadpool is a much beloved character of the Marvel comic universe who serves as a comedic foil of the traditional heroes of the X-men universe (especially Wolverine). Whereas the trials and tribulations of the X-men are faced by characters who do with a sombre gravitas, Deadpool approaches his adventures with a significant amount of childlike glee. His comedic contrast to the rest of his self-serious comic book hero colleagues has earned him a significant fanbase. A fanbase which, when test footage was leaked for a possible Deadpool film, caused enough of a ruckus to force the hands of studio executives to greenlight its production. Below are my thoughts on the film which fans asked for, so please, grab a taco and read on…
Story
The narrative basically tells the origin story of the eponymous anti-hero, Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds), and how he became the ‘merc with the mouth’. We see how Wade Wilson, Deadpool’s alter ego, lives his life working as a (reasonably) kind-hearted mercenary until he meets Vanessa Carlysle (Morena Baccarin) and his life changes. After a whirlwind romance with Vanessa, he gets diagnosed with terminal cancer and faces the prospect of having the love of his watch him slowly wither away and die. He instead decides to leave Vanessa and enter into a secretive program which offers him an experimental cure for his cancer. Although the program successfully cures his cancer by activating his mutant genes and giving him a vastly accelerated healing factor (along with the side effect of hideously scarring him), it is revealed the program actually has the aim of turning him into a super-powered slave to be sold to wealthy customers. Wade escapes and seeks revenge against the organisation which duped him as well as searching for a cure to his disfigurement.
This story oscillates between tragedy and comedy at a very fast pace. If the saying goes that “there is a fine line between tragedy and comedy”, then this film dances back and forth across that line with impunity. I pretty much experienced emotional whiplash as this film jumped from heavier dramatic elements to comedic quips and slapstick. Ostensibly, this film can be classified as a black comedy with some sequences that focus more upon the ‘dark’ and less upon the comedy. Although I have no problem with comedies exploring heavier themes, there really wasn’t much time to transition between the light and dark comfortably for the audience so it ends up having this stark contrast between the drama and the comedy. This can be quite jarring but I ultimately enjoyed the film’s narrative pace, but it can be draining so you have been warned.
The story isn’t really all that creative when it comes to its plot points and development. It follows along at its own pace and largely resolves in the way that you’d expect. The narrative largely serves as a vehicle for the audience to see Deadpool on the screen. The strength of the film lies in this character and the comedy of his actions and dialogue. Although the story may be cliché, the character is certainly not.
The writing and performance of Deadpool is absolutely spot-on with the comedic and dramatic aspects. He’s a character who, although suffering through hardships, always engages them with a sense of humour. His witty one-liners and meta-textual, fourth-wall-breaking quips are hilarious. Reynolds does amazing work in bringing this character to life by giving his manic personality depth beyond the sardonic wit. He creates a character who can believably undergo the transformation from Wade Wilson to Deadpool in a relatively realistic manner. We see Wade’s humour carry over and evolve into his insane alter ego. It’s easy to see why Deadpool is so beloved as a character as he draws upon an unlimited arsenal of pop-culture references to comment upon the film delivered directly to the audience.
The ensemble cast turn in a very good performance with everyone performing at a high standard but largely they are defined by their relationship to Deadpool. Ed Skrein as Francis/Ajax does well as the amoral British villain who can make Deadpool seem like the lesser of two evils (for the sake of the audience identifying with him). Baccarin as Vanessa creates a character which I can only describe as a ‘manic pixie nightmare girl’ and creates a believable romantic counterpart to Deadpool. Stefan Kapičić works well as the voice of Colossus with a believable Eastern European accent and a strong by-the-books mannerism which sets him in stark contrast to the protagonist. Brianna Hildebrand does very well as Negasonic Teenage Warhead and Leslie Uggams as Blind Al get to deliver some of the best one-liners in the film with very strong performances from both of them. Although this film is certainly centred on Deadpool, I definitely loved the presence of Hildebrand and Uggams especially in how they interacted with him.
Visuals & Audio
The balance in the action sequences between CGI spectacle and live-action performance has found a comfortable middle ground. The film features some very beautiful and funny CGI sequences, with the opening credits certainly being one of the best introductions to a character I have ever encountered. Likewise, the sequences with live actors and stuntmen is suitably dynamic and energetic as Deadpool fights his way through various goons. These two blend together very well to create a nice, neat visual package which isn’t overly saturated with digital effects.
The film makes awesome use of an excellent soundtrack composed of both an original score and various popular tracks. The film makes strategic use of its track to emphasis certain points about a scene or characters as they come up. An example of this can be found in the sweeping orchestral music which plays whenever the X-men or Xavier’s school is shown on screen to reinforce their traditionally heroic status. Furthermore, the film creates hilarious juxtaposition with its song choices throughout with the opening credits being a strong example of this with Angel of the Morning playing as we experience a frozen moment of carnage. It’s a great sequence which exemplifies the conflicting dualities of the Deadpool persona.
Extras
The Blu-ray features some quite interesting extra content alongside the movie proper. The audio commentary by the director, Tim Miller, is interesting to hear as he gives a breakdown of the plot beats and visuals of each scene and shot. It’s a pleasure to hear a man who is passionate about his art talk in depth about the reasoning and motivation behind the choices he made in his work. Alongside this, we get a behind-the-scenes documentary exploring the production of the film from creative inception to cinematic release. This will certainly interest fans and anyone who has an interest in the process which goes on with film making.
Overall
So overall, I very much enjoyed this film and the extra material on the Blu-ray. The narrative of the film largely serves as a method to deliver Reynold’s Deadpool character to his audience although it does oscillate quite severely at times. The ensemble cast work well to provide Reynolds with interesting personas to interact with and also give him what-for. The visuals and audio are superb with lots of love clearly being put in to craft the various sequences of the film. The blu-ray extras are certainly expansive and quite interesting for fans of the film to go through. I have no problem recommending this film and blu-ray to anyone who has a sense of humour which is rude, crude, and just a little bit crazy… just like Deadpool.
Capsule Computers review guidelines can be found here.
