The Bandai Namco Japan Expo has begun so expect a lot of news from the company over the coming days. They have kicked off the expo with a huge bang, releasing an all new trailer for Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm Revolution showcasing characters, game play mechanics, game modes and limited edition content. Highlights of the trailer include some epic ultimate reveals, game play of characters such as Konohamaru, Iruka, Hashirama and more, overviews of the three new game play types in the game (Drive, Ultimate and Awakening), gameplay footage of the four character brawler style Ninja World Tournament Mode which is now revealed to have world exploration, story mode overviews and more. At the end of the trailer it was revealed their would be an exclusive animation for Day 1 buyers (for both the Collector’s Edition and Standard Edition) that has been labelled the Sunny-Side Battle and has Itachi wearing an apron to cook Sasuke an egg. Strange I know, but the animation will come on a separate DVD and the apron outfit that Itachi is wearing in it will be made available as free DLC to those who buy the game early. You can watch the trailer below for yourself.
That’s not all the Ninja News for today though. The Xbox 360 demo for Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm Revolution was released early today and is available now (at least in North America), with the online multiplayer being active only until July 24th. Unfortunately the PS3 version of the demo has been delayed in the states but is available from the Japanese PSN should you have access to a Japanese account. It is unknown if this delay will also effect the European/Australian markets so all we can say for now is keep an eye on the PSN or get a Japanese account. With the release of the demo someone was able to rip all the characters portraits from the game so we now have the full roster. It is important to note not all the characters below will be playable (some are support such as the Sound 4) and some are just alternate outfits such as the two Hinata portraits. The picture is below and can be clicked to make it larger. People may or may not be happy to know that the 100 character roster will see the return of the pre time skip characters, so all the young versions of the characters will be back after being absent in Storm 3 but present in Generations.
We’re still not done with the news however. Bandai Namco had another surprise in store with the announcement of the Storm League. The Storm League is an official website(which you can visit by clicking the link) that aims to prove who really is the best online at the Naruto Storm games and will provide a community driven place for users to find others to battle, create tournaments watch and stream live competition. Interesting the site is sponsored by ESL (Electronics Sports League) which indicates Bandai Namco may be getting more serious about the competitive scene when it comes to its anime fighters. You can view the Storm League trailer below. Let us know your thoughts on the roster and new trailer as well as the Storm League in the comments below! The full game releases on September 12th for the PS3 and Xbox 360.
On Monday Night Raw WWE took the time to reveal that none other than John Cena, the face of the company and current WWE World Heavyweight Champion, will be the man on the cover of WWE 2K15. This was then followed by 2K Sports releasing various box arts showing off the same image that can be seen above.
Last year 2K Sports gave fans of the game a chance to use a double sided cover that featured Daniel Bryan instead of The Rock, but it is currently unknown if there will be such an option this year. Currently WWE 2K15 is set to be released on the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3 on October 28th in North America and October 31st in PAL regions.
Last week we learned that a new original character named Lana the “White Witch” was going to be added to Hyrule Warriors and a few days after that we saw some of the first screenshots of her. Well today Koei Tecmo has released a gameplay trailer showing how Lana will play in the game as she makes use of magical blocks and spells to deal damage to her enemies.
You can check out the gameplay trailer below and be sure to keep an eye out for Hyrule Warriors once it is released for the Wii U in North America on September 26th and on September 19th in Europe.
Last week Koei Tecmo America said that they were going to be releasing Ar nosurge: Ode to an Unborn Star in North America but at that time, they could not give fans a solid date despite the European release of the game getting a set date of September 26th.
Well today, Koei Tecmo announced that Ar nosurge: Ode to an Unborn Star will be released in North America, as one would expect, September 23rd, a few days prior to the European release date. The game will be given both a physical and digital release in North America and will be priced at $49.99
So often in this day and age of gaming it is rare to see something new and unique. Most games out there are just variations on a well known genre. Battle Princess of Arcadias is a rare exception to the rule, and while at its core it is a combination RPG/third person brawler, its unique mechanics and RTS strategy really help it stand apart from the competition. While it has a few hiccups in terms of gameplay, it is still an awesome experience (especially if you are an anime fan).
Story
So as I am sure you are expecting from an anime-styled title like this, the story is a little bit out there. You primarily play as Princess Plume, the battle princess of the Schwert Kingdom who at the bequest of her brother the king (who incidentally is a goose… like an actual goose wearing a robe and crown) must defend the kingdom from all sorts of attacks from monsters and opposing forces.
Plume teams up with friends and employees to save the kingdom after the untimely death of her steward. Despite such a horrific act, the dialogue and story itself are all pretty light-hearted, although filled with quite a heaping serve of sexual innuendo. While the story serves its job of tying the missions together quite nicely, it is filled with a lot of unnecessary fluff and can really drag on at points which significantly lengthens a game that didn’t need it.
Gameplay
Battle Princes of Arcadias is a unique and exciting mix of genres. It is part side-scrolling beat em up, part RPG and part tactical RTS. Yep, you read that correctly. Now I can see why you would be confused, so let me explain each section in detail.
The game is entirely played in old-school arcade style side-scrolling beat-em up. You will enter a battle with three different characters. Each character has their own weapons and special skills and abilities that they can utilise in-battle. You are able to switch freely between your characters at will, and if you happen to have all three killed on you during the course of a stage, you will be forced to start over.
Here is where the RPG elements kick in. Not only do you have a veritable army of characters to choose from (in addition to the ACTUAL army that I will mention in just a moment), but each character levels up independently of everyone else. XP is earned by striking the killing blow against an enemy, and of course this bestows the usual bonuses we expect from RPGs – more HP, attack power, new skills and abilities. In addition, you can buy, upgrade and enhance weapons to further increase the skills of your fighters.
Ok, so far we have a mixture between side-scrolling action title and an old school RPG. Nothing new here right? WRONG! Some stages of the game will also have you commanding a squadron of soldiers, whilst you do battle with giant monsters or enemy forces of your own. Your squadron can be controlled via a few simple button presses, which means you wont ever be distracted by all of the action going on in the background, and can still focus on the enemies right in front of your face. The squadron gains bonuses if they are wielding the same weapon as your current playable character, and can replenish their soldier count by retreating from battle for a short while.
The RTS elements really shake up the formula and offer a new and frankly unique experience. Paying attention to two different things at once can be a bit tricky at first, but neither of the two gameplay styles are particularly deep or challenging, so you should be able to bounce between the two without any issues.
Battle Princess of Arcadias does have one gameplay issue where it really struggles; it is very grindy. The difficulty level takes sudden and unexpected jumps where you will find yourself facing off against enemies that are 10+ levels higher than you, necessitating a return to previous stages to grind your way through and level up some more. The game tries to make it a rewarding experience by grading you on your achievements at the end of each stage but it still feels tiresome and frustrating to have to spend hours facing the same horde of enemies before you can move on.
Visuals & Audio
Battle Princess of Arcadias is built almost entirely on 2d sprites, so it isn’t the most graphically intensive game out there, but it is still quite beautiful. Clearly inspired by a lot of Japanese anime, the game’s world and characters are all vibrant and colourful. Scarlet red hair, bright green foliage and just a veritable rainbow of colour make this a really compelling game to look at.
The sprites themselves are all drawn in an extremely high quality that makes them look sharp and their motions fluid even when performing the most intense attack combinations. The best way to describe them is being similar to “paper puppets.” The things you made as a kid where the arms and legs were thumb-tacked to the body. The overall look when you combine all of the visuals together is that of a simple but elegant animated diorama.
The audio itself is just as impressive. Often game designers will use a mixture of fully voiced cinematics and text only in-game dialogue. That isn’t the case here, and the entire game is fully voiced. Although for me, I didn’t get much out of the voice acting because it was entirely in Japanese (with no option for an English dub) I still admire the work that has gone into this world.
The soundtrack is a bit of a mixed bag when it comes to genre and style. Harps and string music is used for the peaceful areas like the town square and the castle, but once you get into the game’s stages you are met with some pretty sweet rock and roll tunes, as well as a healthy assortment of heavy bass. Despite seeming so vastly different to the animation style, the audio seems to fit in perfectly and it really helps the action feel all that more exciting.
Overall
Battle Princess of Arcadias is an odd mix of genre’s that seems to just work. From its fluid yet relatively simple game mechanics to the beautiful art style and music choices, this is a solid package that just captures the spirit of gaming. The fact that you have to grind your way through levels several times can feel like a bit of a chore, but the characters are endearing enough that you likely wont mind all that much.
Capsule Computers review guidelines can be found here.
With The Devil is a Part-Timer! set to be released on July 22nd in a Blu-ray/DVD combo pack, FUNimation has released the first English dub clip for the series which gives us a sample of how Sadao and Chiho will sound once the series is released.
The English preview can be found below and the release itself is set to come with a number of extras, including two commentary tracks, clean opening and ending themes, and a behind the scenes piece with Jamie Marchi. For those who don’t know, The Devil is a Part-Timer! follows the story of Satan who has been driven out of his kingdom and forced into modern-day Tokyo where he must now work a simple job at a fast-food place to get by.
Today NIS America has released their very first English dubbed anime and it just so happens to be an English dub of one of the first anime series they released in North America, Toradora!. There are numerous versions of the release available from purchase not only through NIS America’s online store but also through Right Stuf and various other online retailers.
The $103.99 premium edition of Toradora! comes with a Blu-ray and DVD version of the series including all 25 episodes plus an OVA, a fully illustrated hardcover art book that contains all new content and illustrations, and a collectible slip case. There is also a standard edition containing both parts of the series for $90.98, though fans of the series can also choose to purchase each volume individually for $47.99 a piece.
Deep Silver announced the latest addition to the zombie series Dead Island today. Escape Dead Island is a third person survival mystery featuring a comic book art style closer to the free to play Dead Island Epidemic than the grittier and more realistic Dead Island FPS titles. Escape Dead Island stars Cliff Calo, the heir of a rich media mogul. Cliff has decided to travel to Banoi to unravel the mystery of the zombie virus. His plan goes off the rails as he slowly sinks into madness. The game is written by Emmy award winning author Anne Toole, who won her award based on her work writing The Witcher.
Escape Dead Island will launch in Fall 2014 for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PC. As a bonus, those who purchase the game from GameStop will get access to the Dead Island 2beta and a chance to win the GameStop July Epic Reward. The contest will fly the winner to Berlin, Germany to visit Yager’s offices, where they will be digitally scanned and added as a zombie in Dead Island 2.
Valiant Hearts: The Great War follows the recent, critically acclaimed entries in the Rayman series, and Child of Light, all developed within the UbiArt Framework. Child of Light proved that Ubisoft Montreal – what many would call the “flagship” studio amongst the lot – has the breadth in creativity to create a smaller, uniquely original and off-type game by their own standards, but Ubisoft Montpellier started this trend of painterly, digital releases with Rayman Originsin 2011, and are back for some healthy, in-house competition (although, they’ll never claim that) with Valiant Hearts: The Great War. It’s a gutsy move, a game about the personal struggles, loss and sorrows of World War I that isn’t just a downward spiral into depression…hell, it’s actually insane to attempt! And hard! This isn’t a shooter where you can easily relish in killing the unequivocally evil Nazis, after all….
Story
Valiant Hearts: The Great War follows four main protagonists: Karl, a German man living in France with his wife Marie, young son Victor and farming father-in-law Emile, the second of the four; Freddie, an American soldier who volunteered to join the French forces, and finally Anna, a Belgian nurse. After the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914, and WWI is incited, Karl, along with all other German civilians, is deported back to his homeland as the battle lines are drawn between the countries. He is conscripted into the German army and, mere months later, Emile is conscripted to the French army, leaving Marie alone with baby Victor, worried sick for the two most important men in her life, as was the reality for all wives and mothers during the war. Emile and Freddie meet at a Paris train depot, forming a bond built on their common circumstance and motivation – their loved ones. Freddie’s wife was killed in a German bombing raid, hence his thirst for revenge. As the tales of the main four are told, and move along from location to location – mostly through narration – their paths intertwine.
The wicked Baron Von Dorf represents the face of the enemy, abducting Anna’s scientist father, with Karl forced to aid his superior. Van Dorf was also the guilty party behind the fatal bombing that took the life of Freddie’s beloved. Diary entries are added as missions are completed, penned by the main four, as well as Marie back in Saint Mihiel, offering multiple perspectives on the terrible conflict. There is death at every turn, and the survival of every single central or related supporting character would unfortunately be quite unrealistic…there are some sad moments to be had, that’s for certain. But everything that does happen, occurs according to the protocols of the time; Ubisoft Montpellier – other than what could be considered a racist Indian accent – upheld an extreme level of accuracy with respect, even including a bunch of historical facts, covering the gear used, letters home, conditions and more that really educates those who are uneducated on the lesser talked about war. The only disappointment lies in the poorly paced ebb and flow of the plot, with frequent and quick changes that don’t allows plot points to sizzle. As an aside, it is interesting that the only characters whose eyes aren’t covered by their hair or hats are the children; a symbolism of their innocence, perhaps?
Gameplay
Valiant Hearts: The Great Waris a 2.5D, side-scrolling adventure-puzzler as marketed and listed, but it is so much more than that. There are numerous stealth sections, which are creatively use depth and light/dark as part of the mechanics. There are also more straightforward, action-heavy sequences involving tanks shooting down helicopters, and even a boss battle or two of sorts that integrate unique puzzle elements. Then you’ve got the car-chase missions, which are shorter, but presented from a front-on camera and makes use of advanced motion comic-like trickery to portray a sense of speed and movement as Anna, the designated driver, slams the pedal to the metal. It’s amazing how much variety Ubisoft Montpellier were able to produce. Characters never speak unless in a cut-scene narration, with speech bubbles appearing over their heads in gameplay to visualise their verbal interactions. The intermittent car chases are more upbeat, as obstacles advance and enemy vehicles swerve to the rhythm of classical compositions, providing faster tempo sections that boast light-hearted atmospheres by comparison to most of the rest of the experience, breaking up the pace and tactfully ensuring a relative amusement to bleakness ratio.
Each of the four main protagonists have special, specific gameplay mechanics of their own. Emile, whether yielding a giant ladle or shovel, can dig through dirt mounds; Freddie carries wire cutters to snap barbed wire fences; Anna is a medic, and so can employ her skills in reviving others in a scrolling quicktime event (plus she’s the driver), and Karl – though the player gets the least amount of time with him – can take on disguises. There’s actually a fifth playable character that hasn’t been mentioned, and that’s Walt the dog. Man’s best friend pays a key part in solving many puzzles, able to be controlled and commanded by holding ‘LB’ and pressing one of multiple button prompts for different contextual actions, depending on the surroundings. He scratches at the ground to alert to the presence of a hidden collectible – of which there are 100 strewn about – can hold an item in his mouth, allowing you to carry another, can pull/push levers, and much more. The puzzles, and in actuality the entire game, are cleverly designed and executed. And if you miss a collectible, there’s no need to worry as you can restart every mission from the main menu. While you can’t restart from checkpoints, the missions themselves aren’t too long to cause you frustration in having to replay them from scratch and checkpoints do save after each discovery.
Visuals & Audio
Valiant Hearts: The Great War is dark in tone, and that translates to its visuals in regards to the muted hues that paint the world and its inhabitants throughout. However, Ubisoft Montpellier actually made use of a large colour palette, with a range of both warm and cool colours. One of the more beautiful landscape shots, and probably the only one in the game where you can just sit back and take in the beauty of your surrounds with fleeting, uninterrupted serenity, is Paris at night at the outset of Chapter 2 (shown below). On a whole, the hand-drawn visuals do not detract from the seriousness of the tale as some may have feared. It just works. Characters do mumble under their breath whilst interacting in gameplay, and while Emile boasts a French accent in these instances – as he should – his narration is inexplicably recorded with an American accent. Musically, piano and various horns serve as the foundation for the aural atmosphere, with some truly tender, poignant pieces written and performed with the former. But, the use of, most notably, Flight of the Bumblebee by Rimsky-Korsakov, and Hungarian Dance No. 5 by Johannes Brahms, in the car chase sequences is complete genius.
Overall
It’s difficult to make a game based on such depressing blights on humanity as WWI was, where the intent is to tell a touching, realistic and honest-to-the-situation story, but it’s even more so to keep it from being absolutely grim to the point where players see no fun in the experience, and therefore have little motivation to play it. It’s a balancing act that Ubisoft Montpellier have succeeded in with Valiant Hearts: The Great War. At first glance, and after being given the synopsis, its cartoonish style might seem antithetical to the narrative tone, but in keeping the above in mind, these design considerations are indeed necessary. Valiant Hearts: The Great War is touching, informative and entertaining. Ubisoft has successfully continued their run of great, artistic, indie-esque, UbiArt Framework titles with Valiant Hearts: The Great War, and seem to have carved a certain niche for themselves, especially for typically being known as one of the largest AAA, blockbuster publishers in the industry.
Capsule Computers review guidelines can be found here.
2013 was the first year that the Official Pokemon Video Game Championships ran in Australia but unfortunately the event didn’t have much notice and was held within PAX, which tickets were sold out for long before the championships were announced. Well this year the Big N are stepping it up in a big way and claiming it as the ultimate day of Pokemon fun with contests, giveaways, a free Pokemon distribution and more! Apart from the main draw of the National competition, other events that will be present on the day include:
Shiny Mamoswine Event Distribution. At the 2013 Pokémon World Championships, Arash Ommati led an epic team to victory to become World Champion. Now you can add a Mamoswine to your game based on one of the stars from his winning party! This Lv. 50 Shiny Mamoswine is built to do massive damage with four devastating attacks—Icicle Spear, Earthquake, Icicle Crash, and Rock Slide. It is also holding a Choice Scarf to help make up for Mamoswine’s relatively slow speed.
Cosplay competition with awesome prizes! Do you have a favourite Pokémon or Pokémon trainer? Why not come dressed in cosplay and you could win some great prizes! There will be a Pokémon cosplay competition running on the day so come along and dress to impress!
Pokemon merchandise and collectibles sale! There will be a vast range of Pokémon collectibles and merchandise available to purchase on the day– As well as great collectible prizes and giveaways!
Pokemon XY Episodes and movies screenings! Be sure to check out the latest Pokémon animated movies and TV series in the Main Foyer. There will also be special screenings on the new Pokémon XY series on the big screen in the Main Hall! These will also be on sale during the event.
Pokemon Art Academy and Link Battle area! Want to learn how to draw Pokémon? Come check out the Pokémon Art Academy Interactive area just off the Main Hall. Pokémon Link Battle will also be there for you to test your quick wits and matching skills!
Train – Battle – Trade Lounge for Pokemon Trainers! Check out the Train – Battle – Trade Lounge for a relaxed place to Train Battle and Trade your Pokémon with other trainers! There will also be a charging table for all trainers needing to charge up low batteries on their console.
Prizes for all junior competitors! All Junior competitors will receive a special prize for competing, so make sure you train up your favourite team and come along to gear up for some amazing battles with other competitors in your division! The website has a few awesome looking mega evolution figures with the text example only next to it, so don’t get your hopes up but that could be what the prize is.
Trading Card Lounge! Never played the Pokémon Trading Card Game before? Banter Toys will be running demonstrations for all new players in the Trading Card Game Lounge! Learn to play the trading card game for the first time and everyone who gets involved will receive a free Ultra Pro Pokémon card sleeve.
All this is happening at Melbourne Town Hall – 90-130 Swanston Street, Melbourne VIC on Sunday July 13th. Registration opens at 8am and closes at 10pm so make sure to grab your 3DS and get down early to secure your place in the championships and best of luck to all Pokemon trainers competing! Those looking to compete can fill out a pre-registration form at this link!
