A great new patch was released today for Dark Souls II to prepare for the upcoming Scholar of the First Sin update. The most exciting thing about this patch has to be the grand new NPC known as The Scholar, as well as updated lore, items and more.
The patch is free for all versions of Dark Souls IIand went live last night. Even if you’ve beaten Dark Souls II, you can still track down this new character. Apparently, you’ll first encounter the Scholar in the Black Gulch at the end of the boss area for The Rotten. You’ll run into him at at other locations throughout Dark Souls II.
More lore has been added to Dark Souls story through its nontraditional methods of item descriptions. This new lore is supposed to be key pieces to the larger narrative embedded by From Software and provide new hints about what’s actually going on in Dark Souls.
The patch will be automatically added to the PS4 and Xbox One editions. The Dark Souls series is all about hiding things in weird places, so we’re only scratching the surface. You’ll have fun finding much more new stuff in the game.
Fruitbat Factory has announced that the localization for it’s visual novel/tactical RPG will be released later this year for the PS3. Eiyuu Senki – The World Conquest features over 70 characters from a number of famous Japanese artists. The characters are all based off of mythic characters and legends such as Beethoven and Tutankhamun, although they are all female.
Eiyuu Senki – The World Conquest has approximately 50 to 100 hours of gameplay according to the art lead Ozhan Sen. This of course depends on how much the player wishes to explore and unlock in the game. The gameplay is comprised of tactical turn based combat using the moe-styled heroine characters. Below is a feature list:
70+ stunning heroines to lead your armies and quest with
120+ cities to conquer across the world
Tactical turn based battles with countless skills, items and enemies to master
Multiple endings to reach in a huge, branching campaign
Full Japanese story and battle voices by famous voice acting celebrities
Eiyuu Senki – The World Conquest is planned for release in Summer 2015 worldwide.
Anime Consortium Japan has announced that they will be offering a special simultaneous stream of Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin when it begins airing on February 28th. Now the series will be streamed on Daisuki but unlike the other series on the site, this one will cost money to rent and watch, though the price has not been announced yet.
The company did announce that they will be selling a special export version of Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin Volume 1 that will be available for pre-order on February 4th. This limited edition release will ship on April 24th and feature various special features, Japanese and English voice tracks, and subtitles in a number of different languages and cost $94.99.
Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin is an OVA anime series that will be told in four parts and this first part is called “Blue-Eyed Casval” and Daisuke describes the episode as follows:
Universal Century 0068, Side 3 – The Autonomous Republic of Munzo. Zeon Zum Deikun attempts to declare complete independence of Munzo from the Earth Federation Government, while he preaches the evolutionary potential of humans who have advanced into outer space. Deikun however suddenly falls to his death in the middle of his speech at parliament.
Upon Deikun’s death, Jimba Ral spreads word of a House of Zabi conspiracy – but despite such efforts the power and sphere of influence of House of Zabi, led by Degwin Sodo Zabi, only seem to escalate.
While we witness for the first time the untold convulsions of Universal Century history, Casval and Artesia, just bereaved of their father, must face destinies which will be just as tumultuous as the very era itself.
Back when Outbreak Company started airing in Japan in fall 2013, Sentai Filmworks announced that they had acquired the license to the series and today they have announced the English dub cast for the series.
Currently they are planning on releasing Outbreak Company on Blu-ray and DVD on March 3rd and for those who don’t know, the story will follow Shinichi Kanou, an expert on everything “moe” thanks to his parents’ jobs in the anime, manga, and video game industries. This knowledge helps Shinichi qualify as an ambassador of moe to a newly discovered parallel world where dragons, magic, and elven maids exist.
The English dub will be directed by Kyle Jones and English dub cast is as follows:
Atlus has been running an extremely long Persona Channel stream and although most of the content in the stream so far has been fairly standard for Persona fans, the company did choose to reveal some of the tracks in the game, including the song “Pursuing my True Self” from Persona 4.
They also released a new trailer showing off the intro theme for Persona 4: Dancing All Night which is called “Dance!.” In an interesting fashion, the theme song trailer below is subtitled entirely in English, though considering Atlus USA has already announced plans on releasing this rhythm PS Vita game in the West sometime in 2015 this shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise.
It has been a very long time since the Langrisser series has appeared in Japan. Fifteen years the last Langrisser title was originally released but it seems that Masaya Games is looking to bring out a brand new Langrisser for the Nintendo 3DS. This week’s issue of Famitsu magazine, courtesy of Otakomu, is saying that the game will be released in Japan this summer and it will no longer feature the classic art style of Satoshi Urushihara as the artwork is now being done by Hiroshi Kaieda.
It appears that unlike past games in the Langrisser series, the title will feature steampunk elements instead of fantasy elements found in past titles. The battles in Langrisser will feature 10 on 10 unit battles featuring chibi characters battling on a grid and the story takes place in a world flooded by water and follows a man with the sacred sword Excalibur who is willing to take down an empire to find a girl he once knew as a child.
A new four minute trailer for Senran Kagura: Estival Versus has been released by Marvelous today where the company highlights many of the improvements made to the game since the last release. This includes showing off how the game will look with its upgraded visuals on the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita and the twenty five total playable characters in the roster, five of which are brand new for Estival Versus.
Also shown is the newly modified costume destruction and the ability for outfits to get wet and dirty through fighting, PuruPuru finishes, multiplayer modes, the enhanced dressing room, and much more. Check out the trailer below and as for the game itself, Senran Kagura: Estival Versus is currently set for release in Japan on March 26th.
Game of Thrones – A Telltale Game Series: The Lost Lords is now available for most platforms and to commemorate this second episode’s release, Telltale Games has released a launch trailer giving us a bit of what fans of the series can expect.
In the trailer, found below, Elissa Forrester laments the current condition of her family, Mira struggles to assist her family from King’s Landing, and a long missing member of the Forrester family is tracked down in a distant land. That is only the tip of the iceberg however, as plenty of action is shown off and various other characters make an appearance as well.
Anime style fighting games have started to gain traction in the West in recent years and with Sega’s recent successful attempts localizing Hatsune Miku games, it looks like they are ready to step things up a bit. It has been announced that Sega will be releasing Dengeki Bunko: Fighting Climax in the West this Summer where it will be given a physical release as well as a digital release for the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita.
Dengeki Bunko: Fighting Climax features numerous characters from the Dengeki Bunko line-up, including fighters and assist characters from Sword Art Online, Spice and Wolf, Accel World, A Certain Magical Index, and many more. Check out the announcement trailer below.
Visual learner? No problem. Check out our video review at the bottom of the page.
Unless you’re an accountant or some other number crunching nerd, most gamers see the number pad as the vestigial remnant when computers were built with business in mind. The Roccat Ryos TKL Pro keyboard uses a tenkeyless design that ditches the number pad in favour of desktop space savings. The keyboard is available in a mindboggling number of keyboard languages and in four of the most popular Cherry MX switches.
The keyboard is packed in two boxes. The first outer box sports all of the technical information and pretty pictures to lure buyers when sitting on the local computer store shelf. The inner box is a more subdued and classy affair that is reminiscent of Apple packaging design. The inner box opens up to reveal the keyboard packed securely with a small instruction guide.
The Roccat Ryos TKL Pro is the smaller brother of the Roccat Ryos MK Pro. The TKL Pro is designed to take up the smallest footprint on a desk as possible and to be easy to carry to LAN parties. Num lock and the entire number pad has been completely eliminated, and the macro keys on the left side of the keyboard have met a similar fate as the number pad. The LEDs that indicate Caps Lock and Scroll Lock are on have been shifted underneath the Page Up/Down key cluster.
The keyboard features a shiny/matte design intended to stop fingerprints. The main body has a nifty dot design that gives the keyboard a unique look. The dots are shiny plastic, which reflects a little bit of light, but are small enough to hide any finger prints. There are feet on the bottom of the keyboard for those who prefer a steeper typing angle. The Roccat Ryos TKL Pro comes with an integrated wrist rest. Personally, I would have preferred a higher wrist rest, as I found my wrists to be at less than ideal angle when rested. The wrist rest is generously sized, which is a bit curious to me as the keyboard is designed to take the smallest footprint possible.
Like most mechanical keyboards, the Roccat Ryos TKL Pro is a pretty hefty beast. Between the generously sized rubber feet on the bottom of the keyboard and its weight, I found it impossible to move the keyboard around when typing. There are several channels built underneath the keyboard that serve as cable management. The channels seem to fit the standard USB cable gauge. The channels are a straight U shape, so slightly thinner cables will fall out if the keyboard is lifted.
I was initially a little hesitant about using a tenkeyless design, as I am pretty attached to my number pad due to my experience with data entry tasks. I was quite surprised that I did not actually miss the number pad as much as I thought I would. There is definitely a transition period going from a classic keyboard design. For the first few days, I found myself reaching for the arrow keys and suddenly feeling a little lost as I reached to the end of the keyboard, but I quickly adapted.
Since the macro keys on the left side of the keyboard have been nixed, users will have to rely on the main keyboard and the three thumb buttons to bind their macros. The Caps Lock button is by default rebound to Roccat’s signature Easy-Shift[+] button, which will trigger an alternate state for all buttons in the Easy Shift zone. This allows a majority of the keyboard to be turned into a giant macro keypad without interrupting regular typing functionality. Replacing the dreaded Caps Lock key with the Easy-Shift[+] button is a stroke of genius, especially for small handed folk like me. The Easy-Shift[+] function effectively doubles the possible macros available in a small space. When used in conjunction with a Roccat mouse with Roccat Talk functionality, the Easy-Shift[+] button can apply to both devices.
The keyboard is available in four of the most common Cherry MX mechanical switches, so every user is almost guaranteed to find something to their liking. The switches are capped off with laser etched and UV coated keycaps. I like the fact the space bar received the same laser etching as the rest of the key. Unlike many other lit gaming keyboards, a subtle line is cut through the center of the space bar, allowing for the bar to be lit up.
Each key is armed with a blue LED. The light is blindingly bright at maximum brightness and illuminated on a per key basis with the drivers. Due to the locations of the LED on the switch, larger keycaps like the Windows key and the media buttons of the function keys are not evenly lit.
Roccat’s drivers tend to be tightly packed with functionality. The Roccat Ryos TKL Pro’s drivers are no different. Roccat has gone above and beyond by allowing every key to be disabled or remapped. The drivers come with a set of pre-loaded macros for many games, but the listing is starting to show its age. Older games like Command & Conquer 3 and Crysis are due to be replaced with some newer titles. Recording your own macros with the manager is a snap, simply hit the record button and start hitting keys.
The drivers is packed with lighting options. There are two levels of control, but even the simpler automatic setting is still pretty daunting. It took a good twenty minutes of fiddling around before I really got a hang of the LED control schemes. A set of YouTube tutorials would be extremely helpful in cutting down the learning curve with the keyboard. Roccat has provided a bunch of neat visual effects for the LED. My favourite is probably the fade effect that will turn off or on a key momentarily after it has been pressed. The LED’s have a consistent brightness across the board. Unfortunately, the LED brightness cannot be tweaked on a per key basis. It would be great to have WASD keys lit up brighter than the rest of the keyboard for gaming in dark rooms.
I’m not ready to spend the rest of my life with a tenkeyless keyboard, but if I had to it would be with the Roccat Ryos TKL Pro. The Easy-Shift[+] and the three thumb keys allows the keyboard to punch well above its weight. The per key lighting system is pure eye candy and the huge number of variations means gamers can get their switch preference in their local keyboard format. If you are looking for a great compact gaming keyboard, look no further.
Capsule Computers review guidelines can be found here.
The company did announce that they will be selling a special export version of Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin Volume 1 that will be available for pre-order on February 4th. This limited edition release will ship on April 24th and feature various special features, Japanese and English voice tracks, and subtitles in a number of different languages and cost $94.99.
