If you thought that Compile Heart was done with announcing new Neptunia games then you’re quite wrong as they have announced a new crossover game with Neptunia and the Sega Hard Girls series. The title is called Chōjigen Taisen Neptune VS Sega Hard Girls: Yume no Gattai Special, simplified as Hyperdimension Neptunia VS Sega Hard Girls, and will be released on the PS Vita sometime in the future.
No details about the game were announced at the time but for those who are unaware, Sega Hard Girls is a series that re-imagined past Sega hardware systems as girls, including characters such as the Dreamcast, Sega Saturn, and Mega Drive.
We recently detailed what would be included in DLC pack 2 for Dragon Ball Xenoverse when it leaked out of major Japanese magazine V-Jump, but now we have full details and official screenshots from Bandai Namco giving us a look at just what you will be paying for in the yet to be dated DLC pack. The pack will include:
• Mira, Towa, Eis Shenron and Nuova Shenron as playable characters
• 3 Time Patrol Quests
• 3 Parallel Quests
• Pan GT as a Master and her 5 Master quests
• 6 full costumes from Pan, Gogeta, Super 17, Mira and Towa. (Not sure if there are actually only 5 costumes or one isn’t listed here).
• 24 signature moves from Pan, Mira, Towa, Eis Shenron and Nuova Shenron
• 6 new Z-Souls:
• Eis Shenron’s Z soul – I’m doing fine.
• Nuova Shenron’s Z soul – That’s how I fight!
• Pan’s Z soul (Master) 1 – This is my best move!
• Pan’s Z soul (Master) 2 – Dumped agaaaain!
• Mira’s Z soul – I feel it… A powerful energy!
•Towa’s Z soul – Revival of the Demon Realm is at hand
Pretty decent amount of content here and playing as two of the shadow dragons is definitely cool and will give us a nice portion of the GT roster. If I’m not mistaken (let me know if I am) this is the first time Eis Shenron is playable in any Dragon Ball game.
In a nice treat to ease the pain of some of the worst RNG implementation in recent gaming, Bandai Namco also announced that each week they will be giving away a Dragon Ball from the Time Space Delivery counter. Simply walk up to the counter and you can claim your prize. Dates for the Dragon Balls are below.
March 20th – Two-star Dragon Ball, Five-star Dragon Ball
March 27th – Three-star Dragon Ball
April 3rd – Six-star Dragon Ball
April 10th – Seven-star Dragon Ball
April 17th – One-star Dragon Ball
Pro tip, try and pick up the Dragon Ball from the Time Space Delivery counter as your last Dragon Ball as it takes much, much longer to get the last one then it does any other. You will not be able to claim the Ball if you already have it in your bag. Be sure to check out all the new screenshots of the DLC below and let us know if you will be picking up this pack or have already purchased a season pass. Happy Dragon Ball hunting!
Far Cry 4 “Valley of the Yetis” is possibly the biggest DLC for Far Cry 4 yet. It contains a side campaign with its own map set in a valley deep in the Himalayas. Far Cry 4 hero Ajay Ghale crash lands on the ridge after being shot down in his helicopter and must now fight his way back to the Golden Path against deranged cultists and Yetis.
Story
“Valley of the Yetis” revolves around cultists worshipping the demon Yalung and a relic buried deep in the Himalayas, which might give the cultists some influence over the Yetis living in the mountains. After his helicopter is shot down, Ajay becomes the wrench in the cultist’s plan after they kidnap Ajay’s pilot. It soon becomes apparent to Ajay that the only way out of the valley is to stop the cultists and destroy their relic.
Much like the base game, the plot of “Valley of the Yetis” is told through short cut scenes before missions. More of the story is fleshed out through writings scattered across the map. Considering the story involves Yetis, Ubisoft manages to push the boundaries of Far Cry 4’s lore just far enough as not to seem like a parody. Personally, I found the ending rather confusing.
Gameplay
Far Cry 4 “Valley of the Yetis” is completely separate from the base game. The map is self contained and players start with a fresh character as any skills or weapons earned in the base game does not carry over. The karma system is dropped and the remaining progression is compressed into about five hours, including all the side quests. Unlike the base game, the entire DLC can be played in co-op with the second player taking on the role of Hurk.
The mission pace runs in a cycle: a chance to roam around freely, a story mission, another chance to roam around, and finally a night defence mission. Unfortunately, this leads to a pretty bland and repetitive feel to the DLC. The difficulty is not hard at all, especially if the relay station gets outfitted with defences. The game gets a lot more interesting once Yetis start appearing in game. The Yetis can tank insane amounts of damage and are surprisingly mobile. Ajay can speed things up and do fatal damage by stunning a Yeti and then rushing in to do a takedown from behind. I found the takedowns to be a bit glitchy, as scooting around the Yeti while sticking too close to the body caused the takedown to not trigger at all, which can lead to some really sticky situations once the Yeti shakes off the stun.
“Valley of the Yetis” really starts to pick up the pace in the final two days of the DLC. The missions become a lot more exciting and the challenge ramps up nicely. I only wish that the developers were able to keep this pacing throughout the entire game. The level design is spot on, with even more emphasis on travelling around with the wingsuit and the grappling hook.
The DLC will take about five or six hours to complete in its entirety, including all the side missions. There are some extra activities that randomly spawn, but they are definitely not nearly as varied as the base game. Considering the amount of content and the price of the DLC, it is definitely on the high end of pricing, especially when purchased on its own.
Visuals
Far Cry 4 “Valley of the Yetis” expands the Himalayas portion of the base game into a full blown map, so it is visually distinct from the base game’s Kyrat map. The cultists take a lot of design cues from Pagan Min’s forces, but it does fit within the game’s lore. The Yetis are exactly what I would imagine real Yetis to look like, huge and quite terrifying. The cutscenes are a bit bland, as they all revolve around Ajay Ghale talking on the radio for the entire length of time.
Audio
The voice acting, the sound effects, and the music continue to be solid, but “Valley of the Yetis” feels a little desolate due to the radio silence in cars. After spending so many hours in Kyrat listening to Pagan Min’s rousing anthems and Rabi Ray Rana’s excellent hosting of Radio Free Kyrat, I drove around listening absolutely nothing but the sound of the engine and a growing feeling of disappointment.
Overall
The overall quality of “Valley of the Yetis” is a bit lacking when compared to the Far Cry 4’s polish. “Valley of the Yetis” is a little flaky on the pacing and the missions feel repetitive. For the Far Cry 4 fan who just needs more content or the co-op pair that want some actual story missions to enjoy together, “Valley of the Yetis” will satisfy; however, missing out on the DLC isn’t much of a loss, either.
Capsule Computers review guidelines can be found here.
More and more OELVNs have been making their way to the market lately, with many seeing large success on PC through Steam so it shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise that someone is trying to make things a little bit easier for people to create their own visual novel.
Today Nyu Media has announced that they are partnering with Japanese developer Strikeworks to release TyranoBuilder onto Steam. TyranoBuilder is a visual novel building tool that makes it easy to create visual novels that will work on PCs, Macs, iOS, and Android. You can check out the announcement trailer below while TyranoBuilder will be released for PC and Mac through Steam on March 27th for $14.99.
Space Dandyis about “a dandy guy…in space.” The dandy term is relative however. Space Dandy brings to my mind the zanyness of a show like Excel Saga mixed with FLCL…though very much without FLCL’s deeper sophisticated plot. Essentially Space Dandy follows the wacky misadventures of a human, called Dandy, a rundown robot named QT, and an cat-like alien from Betelgeuse nicknamed Meow. There are shades of Cowboy Bebop floating around in the ineptitude and goal of the Aloha Oe‘s crew as they fumble through space seeking to capture new aliens for rewards.
Story
The story of Space Dandy was surprising at first. The story isn’t a linear telling of a single narrative following the Aloha Oe‘s crew to any deeper sort of story arc. Rather, the zany antics of Dandy and his crew are told in a number of isolated tales that often have no bearing or impact upon each other. In fact, only two of the stories seem to make an actual lasting impact on the series at large: the somewhat unwilling recruitment of Meow to the crew and Dandy’s erstwhile love interest Scarlet the alien inspector.
The basic rinse and repeat plot that motivates the crew of the Aloha Oe is the hunt for unregistered aliens. Much like the Cowboy Bebop, Dandy and his crew roam around trying to catch aliens for bounty rewards. They usually meet with very little success, with various aliens turning out to not be aliens, escaping, or even just being let go. Sometimes this gets changed up for an episode to focus on different things, but this is the main characterization behind Dandy and how he behaves.
Many of the episodes end with the crew dead in some sort of way. This is thanks to the loose continuity, which barely ties anything together. Until I realized what kind of slapstick show this really was, it seems to be a very poor choice in storytelling. As I watched it with a friend, we started discussing the issues and poor storytelling within the series. But really, this isn’t the show for a hard science fiction fan to enjoy.
So what does Space Dandy bring to anime fans? What Dandy and his crew bring is a series of enjoyable one-off (mostly) episodes focusing on different narrative tropes. In one episode we see everyone in the universe becoming a zombie and the fallout, only for everything to be reset for the next story. In another, it’s a blatant rip off of Groundhog Day mixed in with the Japanese idea of struggling to succeed and take over the family business. Space Dandy chooses to explore many different styles of sci-fi narratives within it’s own stylized universe.
Visuals
The visuals for Space Dandy are unsurprisingly high quality. There is a lot of detail and attention paid to the surrounds, whether the Aloha Oe is exploring ramen shops or just stopping in on Betelgeuse for repairs. Unlike a lot of modern anime, the styling is unique and fresh, with a lot of high quality backgrounds and character designs. The number of unique designs and layouts isn’t too surprising to see coming from Bones.
The Blu-ray’s are obviously higher quality than the DVD’s, but both show the crisp and fluid animation well. There’s a lot going on in every episode of Space Dandy and references abound, hidden in the background. The depth and detailing even of simple things is well done, and the art quality of the show is to be commended.
Audio
Space Dandy comes with two audio tracks, Japanese and English. Both audio tracks are surprisingly 5.1 audio tracks. It seems interesting that more and more anime is moving towards surround as opposed to the traditional 2.1 channel. I didn’t really notice a huge difference in quality down sampling to 2.1. Obviously the track isn’t optimized around the listener.
The actual soundtrack to Space Dandy isn’t standout. It’s well done and works for the series, but it lacks it’s own voice. It’s just not special. That being said, the voice tracks are well done. Space Dandy‘s Japanese Cast works well, as does the English cast. While I didn’t like that QT was effectively autotuned in the English cast, it did give him his own unique voice. I felt that the voices for either cast were well done and enjoyable in their own way. It was a nice change of pace and let me enjoy the visual nature of the show just that little bit more when watching in English.
Extras
The extras offered on disc aren’t anything special. Like most anime you’re receiving the bare minimum; some trailers and clean openings and closings. There’s a commentary for episode 10 as well, but like most anime there is very little offered outside of the actual episodes.
The best feature I saw from this set is something I’ve been wishing to see for a long time. Space Dandy includes a special mode to watch the episodes called “Marathon Mode.” What this does is it plays the intro and the closing for only the first and last episodes respectively, and cuts out the teasers for next time. This allows you to watch the discs in their entirety without having to do any manual skipping. It’s something I hope to see adopted more widely, especially for anime with a stronger narrative. Watching something like One Piece without needing to skip each opening and closing would be amazing.
Overall
What do I think of Space Dandy?I’d say Space Dandy is a fun romp but not exceptionally so. It’s an enjoyable look at Japanese comedic portrayals of different science fiction tropes and styles, but ultimately only good for laughs. If you’re looking for a hard sci-fi series, or even a comedy with a strong narrative, then you might want to look somewhere else.
That being said, Space Dandy is a good show, and well made by Bones. Funimation has done a good job with the dub, making this enjoyable for a wide range of anime fans. I enjoyed some of the characterizations and the takes on various science fiction tropes. I would recommend giving this a watch as long as you don’t take it seriously. If you liked Season One of Space Dandy, be on the look out for Season Two!
Capsule Computers review guidelines can be found here.
Idea Factory International has announced that PlayStation 4 owners can expect Omega Quintet to be released in North America on April 28th and on May 1st in Europe. To go along with this announcement the company has also released a large batch of new screenshots and two trailers for the game which can be found below as well as some new details concerning the game’s PVS mode.
The Promotional Video System as it is called allows players to create their own Verse Maiden performances by choosing the song, performers, solos, and dance moves. You can even make use of the PlayStation 4 camera to put yourself on the big screen and, for once, the PlayStation Move to add special effects to performances.
FUNimation Entertainment recently revealed that they will be releasing a premium edition Blu-ray set of the popular anime series Soul Eater on June 30, 2015.
The release will contain all 51 episodes, 80 minutes of on-disc extras and a hard-bound Soul Eater yearbook featuring 64 pages of glossy, full-colour art, including pages where fans can get voice actors from the show to sign messages for them. The release is not exclusive to any one retailer. FUNimation will only be producing a limited quantity of this premium edition release.
FUNimation will be releasing Soul Eater Not!, the prequel to Soul Eater, on the same day as the release of the premium edition Blu-ray. This will be the first special edition release of Soul Eater in North America.
Mileena’s dental situation is more vile than ever. Gross.
This week’s ‘Kombat Kast’ hosted by NetherRealm community Manager Tyler Landsdown and designer Derek Kirtzic was packed to the brim with kontent. Not only did we get the whips, sais and a little surprise that we were promised, but Test Your Luck and Kustom Kombat were played, the Scorpion ‘Kold War’ skin was revealed and Kung Jin joined the fray. And for those with the Mortal Kombat (2011)fight sticks on PS3, they will be compatible with the PS4 version of Mortal Kombat X!
fear-sAs’ Scorpion ‘Kold War’ skin, available with certain pre-orders
As the title references, Mileena and Takeda’s gameplay was demonstrated. Mileena’s variations are: Ethereal, Ravenous and Piercing. In the first, she gains the ability to throw her dagger to a spot, de-materialise and reappear at that location. The time she stays invisible can be controlled. In Ravenous, Mileena adds chain grapples to her arsenal, allowing the player to plug into her Tarkatan DNA and get an extra few bites out of her opponent. Or, just leapfrog them for humiliation (can also be chained to break their arms and kick them away). Finally, piercing takes advantage of her signature weapons, enabling numerous sai projectiles and altered normal combos. So she has a Mix-up, Grapple and Zoning game!
Takeda‘s variations are called Shirai Ryu, Lasher and Ronin. The most former adds teleports and utilises his retractable whips in a manner very reminiscent of Scorpion’s trademark spear. Lasher electrifies said whips, also adding a couple rangier attacks that can trip up the opponent for a juggle (on EX) and also enhances his flurry punch attack in both power and range. The final variation cements Takeda’s instant reputation as an incredibly dangerous bad-ass with dual plasma swords at his disposal. With the new weapons comes a beam projectile, a projectile reflect and a manual plasma trap. Is there anything Takeda can’t do?
As a special treat (as if it wasn’t planned!) Kung Jin’s gameplay was also explored. The cousin of Kung Lao, as tournament player guest Steve Brownback (who pulls off a Kitana Brutality late in the stream) called him, has Ancestral, Bojutsu and Shaolin variations. Ancestral sees the archer show off his archery skills, naturally. Among his jump arrows is the ability to augment his arrows with fire, meter-burning energy and stun capacity. Each effect lasts 6 seconds. Bojutsu involves Kung Jin using his bow as a staff, with the ornamental dragon head turning into a bludgeoning mass of metal. Oh, and it can shoot overhead fireballs. Lastly, Shaolin adds a shakram as a nod to Kung Lao, which can be thrown akin to Jade’s glave…almost exactly actually. Or Tanya’s boomerang (my hopes of her inclusion have died with this reveal).
‘Rain Assist’ is only one of multiple buffs likely “deconfirming” characters as playable
Their first fatalities were also demoed, but my descriptions will never do them justice. You can watch everything unfold in the meaty stream itself, embedded below. Additionally, you will witness some entertaining Test Your Luck match-ups, and Kustom Kombat, which is basically a mode allowing the combatants to choose the buffs found in Test Your Luck beforehand. Oh, and you better think twice about quitting an online match-up now…unless you like utter embarrassment. Quitters get Quitalities now! Check it all out in the stream below! Mortal Kombat X releases April 14th for the Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC.
MKX Kombat Kast: Episode 6 – Whips, Sais And A Little Surprise
Sentai Filmworks has just announced their acquisition of the home video distribution rights for the anime series Windy Tales.
Windy Tales (Fuujin Monogatari) is an original 13-episode anime series created by Minami Otori and produced by Production I.G. It features music by famous composer Kenji Kawai and is directed by Junji Nishimura, who may be known by some anime fans as the director of many episodes of Ranma 1/2. The series originally aired in Japan from September 2004 to February 2005, and was dubbed into English by Animax Asia for their broadcast of the series. Sentai Filmworks has not yet stated if their release will contain this dub, if they will produce a brand-new dub for it or if they will be producing a subtitled-only release.
Sentai Filmworks describes the series as follows:
It has been said that air becomes wind when it is agitated. As luck would have it, a small unassuming village in the Japanese countryside, known as the Village of the Wind, harbors a group of mysterious wind handlers who tempt fate. In this town, young Nao is an 8th grader who discovers a cat high above where she normally shoots her digital camera. Nao is one of only two members of her school’s Digital Camera Club, and she already sees the world through a different lens than most. The other member of the club is Miki, Nao’s friend and photography aid, although she doesn’t seem too interested in the hobby herself. Now, the two friends, along with Jun who seems to follow them everywhere they go, find themselves searching outside of the Village of the Wind for the secret of how it all works. Will these children be the ones to discover the truth and understand the mystery of this powerful force? With the wind at their back, they are determined to grasp its meaning in WINDY TALES.
The series will be available on home video in the near future.
The first major batch of EvolveDLC is landing on March 31, 2015. The Behemoth monster, four new playable hunters, two maps, and the new Observer Mode will be available. Behemoth is free to all who pre-ordered the game or purchased the Monster Expansion Pack for $22.95 AUD.
The four hunters can be purchased for $11.25 each or as part of the Evolve “Hunting Season Pass” for $33.45. Torvald is a the new cyborg Assault character, Crow is a Trapper who specializes in tracking, Slim is a genetically modified combat Medic, and Sunny is a Support character toting a nuclear grenade launcher.
The new Observer Mode and the two new maps will be free to all owners of Evolve. Observer Mode allows players to spectate games and add colour commentary. The two new maps are Broken Hill Mine and Broken Hill Foundry. The maps will launch on Xbox One on March 31, 2015 and then on PlayStation 4 and Windows on April 30, 2015.
