Today Koei Tecmo had quite a lot to say and show off for Atelier Shallie: Alchemists of the Dusk Sea. First anyone who pre-orders the game in North America from GameStop will be given a DLC pack that includes a costume that looks like Escha Malier’s, a Flower Pareo costume, a Passion Dress, and the Atelier series music collection. Those who pre-order through Amazon will be given two exclusive compilations of music as an extra bonus
The company went on to release a large batch of gameplay clips showing off various elements of the game including introducing us to Shallotte Elminus, the second protagonist of Atelier Shallie. Shallote is a young poor alchemist with very little knowledge of the craft but is very eager to learn. Thankfully her devoted friend Miruca Crotze is an extremely skilled alchemist that is somewhat harsh with her words.
You can check out the trailers below and keep an eye out for Atelier Shallie: Alchemists of the Dusk Sea when it is released in North America on March 10 and in Europe on March 13.
It looks like Bethesda is going to make a big deal at E3 this year. I say that because the company has announced that they will be hosting their own E3 press conference for the first time ever. The press conference will be held in Hollywood, California on June 14th while E3 itself begins on June 16th and runs through June 18th.
The company has said they will reveal more details about how fans can possibly attend in the next few months but they have also assured fans that the event will be streamed on Twitch for everyone to see. Considering what Bethesda is currently working with and has worked on in the past, there is a good chance that DOOM might be shown off and we may even see the announcements of Dishonored 2, Fallout 4, some type of expansion for The Elder Scrolls Online, or perhaps something entirely new.
Today Aksys Games has released another trailer for Under Night In-Birth Exe:Late and unlike the last one, this one happens to be a video focused solely on showing off the fighters in the game. Each of the playable fighters are given a few seconds of time to show off their move set in this trailer and you can check it out below.
Developed by French Bread, best known for their work on the Melty Blood series and most recently on Dengeki Bunko Fighting Climax, Under Night In-Birth Exe:Late is set to be released for the PlayStation 3 in North America on February 24th.
Today Koei Tecmo released a new trailer for Deception IV: Another Princess showing off most of the new additions that have been added to this re-release. This includes highlighting the new main character Valgyrie and her abilty to kick enemies into traps as well as sadistically stomp on them when they are down.
Also shown off in the trailer is Valgyrie’s automaton servant Ephemera who will help guide her on her quest, a large number of new traps that players will be able to use in the game, and the return of the heroines from past Deception titles.
The video also highlights some of the modern day stages and traps that will be included in the game. You can check the trailer out below while Deception IV: Another Princess is set to be released in Japan on March 26th.
Remember Shadow Realms? It was a four versus one online multiplayer game for the PC that was announced last year by EA and BioWare Austin. Well I hope you weren’t looking forward to it as today the studio has announcedthat they have cancelled Shadow Realms and the reason they are giving is that there are “other projects for the team to work on.”
BioWare Austin said that they will try to figure out a way to thank players who signed up to try out the Shadow Realms closed Alpha but at the moment nothing has been revealed. The full message from BioWare Austin’s General Manager Jeff Hickman can be found below:
Today I’m sharing some important news about Shadow Realms and our BioWare Austin studio.
We’ve made the decision to not move forward with development of Shadow Realms. We fully recognize that this news is disappointing to some of our fans, so I want to explain more behind this decision.
While the team did amazing work on the game concept and we got lots of great feedback from our fans at events and through other game testing, right now there are other projects for the team to work on within the BioWare studios for the coming year and beyond. We’ve got an incredibly talented team here at the Austin studio, and they are excited and already deep on new projects within the BioWare family, ones that will make some great BioWare games even better.
These include additional ongoing enhancements to the award-winning Dragon Age: Inquisition, as well as the next game in the Mass Effect series and other new IP.
But the biggest focus for our team in BioWare Austin will be on Star Wars™: The Old Republic™. As every Star Wars™ fan knows, this is a massive year in the Star Wars universe. We have some great plans for expanding this epic game this year, and look forward to sharing the news about those plans with our players in the coming weeks.
For all the people that registered for the Shadow Realms Closed Alpha, we’re working on a way to say thank-you for signing up. To all those players that gave us feedback at Gamescom and PAX, and those that shared their thoughts and impressions in the past months, we thank you for being part of the conversation.
While this is as far from a confirmation as you can get, as he no longer works for Team Ninja or Koei Tecmo, Tomonobu Itagaki, who currently works at Valhalla Game Studios, has hinted that a localization of the Wii U’s Fatal Frame title The Raven Haired Shrine Maiden in a response on his Facebookpage.
Responding to a fan on his page, Itagaki stated the following:
“Hey guys, I strongly believe that Kikuchi Keisuke will release the Fatal Frame V in America, in many countries. He and me have same philosophy from Tecmo days. That’s what I can say for now. I want you guys to read between the lines.
Anyway I will play this game”.
Currently there has been no sign of Nintendo or Koei Tecmo looking to localize Fatal Frame: The Raven Haired Shrine Maiden since it was released in Japan back on September 27th so at the moment all fans can do is hope for the best.
Bandai Namco has released the opening movie for the arcade version of Tekken 7 which will start being rolled out on February 18th in Japan and you can check it out below. This English subtitled trailer shows Kazuya and Heihachi fighting a one on one battle inside of an active volcano.
Near the end of the video we are shown Kazumi Mishima, the mother of Kazuya and Heihachi’s wife who says that she must stop Heihachi at all costs and from here it looks like Kazuya obtained his Devil powers from his mother. It is worth noting that while this video is for the arcade release, Tekken 7 is currently being developed for the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 as well.
This week’s issue of Dengeki PlayStation is giving us our first look at the “Next Forms” that the goddesses will be able to take in Hyperdimension Neptunia Victory II. As we’ve previously heard, the Next Form is an additional transformation that goes past the original CPU form and with these changes come new combat abilities as well as a change in personality from how they usually act in their CPU forms which is already different from their standard personalities.
The scans for each goddess can be found below, first with Next Purple (Purple Heart / Neptune), Next Black (Black Heart / Noire), Next Green (Green Heart / Vert), and finally Next White (White Heart / Blanc).
Today Team Ninja and Koei Tecmo announced when and where fans of Dead or Alive 5: Last Round can expect the Battle Royale 2015 tournaments to take place. Partnering with Big E Gaming and Final Round LLC there will be twelve tournaments in total with eleven qualifier events held at major locations throughout North America as well as six sponsorships to the grand finals at NEC XVI in December.
The full tournament schedule can be found in the image below (click for high-res) and as for the game itself, Dead or Alive 5: Last Round is set to be released on the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on February 17th in North America and on Steam on March 30th.
Overview After exploring the lands of Arland for three titles, Koei Tecmo introduced fans of the series to a new land, new set of characters, and a change-up to many mechanics when they transitioned into the Dusk series with Atelier Ayesha: The Alchemist of Dusk. While this change may have been interesting in a few ways, each step forward was met with a step back that led to Ayesha being one of the weakest recent titles in the series. Now that Atelier Ayesha Plus: The Alchemist of Dusk has been released; is the title better than the original?
Story With Atelier Ayesha Plus the story moves away from the somewhat familiar lands of Arland into a new area where knowledge of true alchemy is all but forgotten and the people live in a land littered with the ruins of a once advanced civilization that fell long ago. Ayesha Altugle, a young girl working as an apothecary, lives near one of these ruins and lives alone after her sister, Nio, vanished years three prior and her grandfather’s death.
She manages to make a living out of harvesting medicinal herbs and creating medicine with her limited knowledge. That is until one day when going out to visit her sister’s grave, she witnesses evidence that her deceased sister might still be alive somewhere and after being informed by a strange man that the secret to Nio’s location depends on finding the meaning of the flowers around the grave and the only way to do that is to learn real Alchemy. With hope that her sister is alive, Ayesha begins her journey to save Nio.
As with past games, Atelier Ayesha Plus features a time limit of three years before the story ends and in this time players must try and balance how much time they spend exploring, synthesizing items, fighting enemies, completing quests, and actually progressing with the storyline since there are numerous endings that can be obtained in Atelier Ayesha Plus. Many of these endings require specific events to be completed or even saving Nio before the time limit runs out, meaning that there is plenty of replay value to be had thanks to the way that the time system keeps a limit on what players can do.
That being said, the time limit remains fairly lenient this time around as, unlike past games that required specific goals to be met at certain times or fail, in Atelier Ayesha Plus there is no imposed limitation which does lower the amount of urgency the player has in actually completing the main quest.
Thankfully, the base storyline of Atelier Ayesha Plus is rather enjoyable thanks to an enjoyable cast of characters, a couple of which appear in the rest of the Dusk trilogy. Unfortunately few of the characters that do end up as part of the story this time around are rather bland which is disappointing considering Gust’s track record. That being said, while the whole cast isn’t quite as strong as past games, Ayesha makes for a delightful lead. Ayesha’s journey is an emotional one and watching her interact and make friends with those she meets along the way makes for an enjoyable experience that players won’t mind visiting again.
Gameplay Now as I mentioned earlier, a lot of changes were made to various mechanics in Atelier Ayesha. Though the key aspects of fighting, exploring, and alchemy remained the same, almost every part of these aspects have been changed and they remain that way in Atelier Ayesha Plus. This will be a disappointment to some as Atelier Ayesha saw the introduction of a streamlined form of alchemy that removed a number of the more complex elements from the system.
In previous games, traits for created items were taken from the ingredients used to create them meaning that rare items could potentially give the player a unique skill but now all traits are applied automatically depending on the quality of the items used. While this is a good way to make alchemy easier for players to understand and lowers the difficulty of creating specific items, it does feel like the streamlining has lost something in the process.
Exploration and gathering materials remains pretty much the same as fans of the series will remember as they travel to various places and find harvest points. Though considering everything takes time, players will need to be careful about exploring too far or spending too long gathering items at one spot as days can tick past extremely fast if you don’t keep a close eye on how you manage your time. Thankfully Ayesha Plus does offer the choice of swapping party members at almost any time which does lower the time it used to take to swap members.
Combat is another aspect that has been modified with Atelier Ayesha as players will now be able to move around the field a bit and this remains true in Atelier Ayesha Plus. Once battle begins players will be able to move and attack from various angles which adds an extra layer of strategy to how these battles unfold as attacking from the back or targeting an enemy’s weak point will deal extra damage. It is worth noting that support attacks can only be performed by characters close to one another and considering how far players will sometimes venture out, it is important to make sure your positioning is for the best as even simple encounters can turn into dangerous battles.
Being an enhanced release, Atelier Ayesha Plus features a number of new additions as well as all of the DLC from the original release. One thing that is noticeable is that ingredients seem to be more plentiful in this release and that there are tons of new missions, bosses, and dungeons to explore later in the game. This adds something extra for returning players and nice challenges to tackle if you happen to have spare time on your hands thanks to proper time management.
Visuals Atelier Ayesha Plus has managed to make the transition to the PlayStation Vita relatively unscarred. The character models are still presented in beautiful detail and the designs of the environments remain impressive. This is good as the game has unfortunately opted to switch from the standard character portraits found in past Atelier titles to using only the 3D character models which, while nicely detailed, are nothing compared to how the gorgeous the character portraits used to be.
One thing that is noticeable however is that, while combat and the various special effects from attacks are still presented nicely, is the amount of slowdown that this Vita release has. Atelier Ayesha Plus often finds itself slowing down whenever anything too complicated happens in battle or even while exploring a field. While this was an issue in the original release, the frame rate issues seem to have grown in Atelier Ayesha Plus.
Audio Now back when Atelier Ayesha was originally released on the PlayStation 3, Koei Tecmo made the odd decision to not include the original Japanese voice track in the game. Thankfully in Atelier Ayesha Plus, that voice track is included and while many gamers may prefer the English dub, it does give returning fans a little something extra to look forward to. Especially since, comparing the two versions, a large number of scenes now contain Japanese voice work where the English counterpart had none, meaning that while both versions are serviceable, those who want a title with more voiced dialogue will opt for the Japanese track.
As far as the background music is concerned, that is where the Atelier series has always shined and it continues to do so in Atelier Ayesha Plus. Gust has provided an amazing soundtrack for Ayesha Plus, making it one of the best in the entire series as there are fitting tracks for nearly every situation, whether it is simple calm exploration or intense battles.
Overall
Atelier Ayesha Plus: The Alchemist of Dusk is an improvement over the original title released back in 2013 but only slightly. While the new additions to the game are a nice way to add some spice to the release and the addition of the previously missing Japanese voice track is a good touch, most of Atelier Ayesha Plus’ changes are simple at best compared to the original. Thanks to the way that the streamlined mechanics work, newcomers will find that Atelier Ayesha Plus will be the easiest and best way to jump into the game even if it remains one of the weaker recent titles in the series.
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