Studio Trigger’s newest Anime masterpiece Kill La Kill is only three episodes in, Anime fans everywhere are loving it and it seems like we’re already getting prepared for some awesome merchandise that is set to head our way. Even the juggernaut of this year’s Anime releases, Attack on Titan, let the series run at least half it’s series before companies began designing merchandise for it.
Possibly because of it’s predecessor Gurren Lagann, Kill La Kill is getting a little bit of the special treatment, that’s not to say it is undeserved though. Merchandising company “Movic” has announced to lines of merchandise for the series so far; the first as a nice little letter opener that is made as a replica of main character Ryuko’s signature weapon the scissor sword and the second line of merch are a line of charms for each of the main characters that are in the shape of the first letter of their names and features their faces.
– Kill la Kill Character Charms –
As Movic are producing those pieces of merch, Coapa has already begun designing and producing a line of Kill La Kill shirts starting with a white T-Shirt that sports the 3 Stars that you would see on the stronger character’s “Goku Uniforms”. I guess now you can show other Anime fans just how tough you really are by flaunting your “3-Star Goku Shirt” as you strut around your local area.
The 15cm Scissor Sword letter openers will set you back 2,415yen each, the charms will cost you the same individidually and the shirt will go for a little bit more at 2,900yen. Not too expensive, not too cheap, I’d almost say it’s just right at this point in time. I can’t wait for the release of these items yet right now there has been no official release date, they producers of these items have just stated that they will be up for sale in December so it looks like this Christmas is going to be a good one!
Over the weekend on the Super Smash Bros. Official Website as one of their “Daily Pics” was an image of a very happy Pikachu which seems to feature what looks to be the back of Pokemon X’s own legendary stag; Xerneas. The high-resolution image is very basic and only has those two Pokemon present so it’s not a case of having mistook the picture for something else, it’s very clearly a picture of Xerneas…or a picture of Ditto as Xerneas, anything can happen in the Pokemon world.
What this is telling us that the legendary Pokemon will appear in the game but what it’s not telling us is what exactly it is going to appear as. It could be part of a stage hazard where in which Xerneas will appear for some fairy-type destruction or it could be used as part of the “Pokeball” item for all players to use if they’re lucky enough to bust him out of there.
At this point in time we’re all very unsure but I think that, in the near future, we’ll be finding out more about this game and hopefully more about the role of Xerneas within it. The next generation of Super Smash Bros. is set for release on the 3DS and the Wii U in 2014 so, until then, keep your eyes on the site for any and all news that will be released.
S&M Volume 1 Author:Mio Murao Publisher:eManga/DMG Release Date: September 24th, 2013 Price: $9.95 – Available Here
Overview
Just the letters S & M put together carry a very specific connotation, but there is a lot of range than can exist within the term. While S & M does match the nicknames of two of the characters back in school, it can also mean slave and master, which seems to fit well. Slave and master can go from a pair of completely willing participants all the way to one holding the control over the other leaving no choice. So, where within this range does the manga S&M fit and does the series hold enough drama to be able to carry the plot through this first volume.
Story S&M is the story of one of the absolute most safe minded individuals ever, Makoto Toda. Living by a simple principle of never having any regrets, Makoto has played it safe in ever aspect doing small and mundane tasks at work, being excessively conscientious of crossing streets, and marrying a reasonable woman. This of course does not make for a very exciting story, which is why Makoto does in fact have one decision that he has regretted relating to his school crush that will come back to haunt him in ways he could never imagine.
His troubles begin with his 20 year school reunion, where meeting with his old friends Makoto dreads coming face to face with his school crush for fear that she will somehow end up ruining his happy marriage and family. What he doesn’t know is that what is coming is much much worse, as instead of his school crush coming to the reunion her 20 year old daughter Saya arrives instead and spends much of the time speaking and getting to know Makoto. Saya appears to just be curious at first, wanting to know the man her mother liked so much in school, but becomes more and more unsettling as more is revealed. Saya doesn’t just want to get to know Makoto, she wants to have him like her mother never got a chance to.
Makoto problems of course only get worse, as Saya joins the company he works at as his subordinate and aims to have him any way that she can. From using other employees to get close to him, to blackmailing him with pictures of the two of the together, S&M is filled with drama as Makoto tries desperately to get a handle back on his life. Slave and master in the case of this series is Saya controlling Makoto to get whatever she wants, regardless of the fact that he wants nothing to do with it. Saya escalates more and more until she can get him to a point where he can do nothing, but whatever she says. There may not be the whips and leather readers may come in expecting, but Saya is the master and Makoto is now her slave.
Artwork
S&M does a good job with keeping the artwork for the most part realistic. There are a good number of characters throughout Volume 1 and there is a great job in ensuring that they are all varied enough to easily tell them apart. Makoto himself is given a distinguishing mark in the form of a mole between his eyebrows, to aid the reader even more in identifying him in the present and flashbacks despite all the characters he meets. Likewise the different clothing throughout is realistic from what is actually worn and how the characters are wearing them, especially with how Saya and her mother are both about teasing glances of their panties.
Nudity itself does come up a couple scenes per chapter, but the way that it is shown gives additional insight of the characters. Early on there is no shying away from characters being full nude, but as the story goes on and Makoto is forced to try and keep what is happening as secret as possible, the acts are often more covered up themselves although these acting are taking place in public as well.
Extra Content
This release has little in the way of bonus content to go with the 8 chapters that encompass S&M Volume 1. The book kicks off right away with the start of the first chapter and goes straight through until the end of the eighth, with not much else besides. However, this release has been made available in a multitude of digital formats for those wanting to be able to read the story however they would wish.
Overall
The title S&M may certainly catch a few eyes with the ideas that come to mind with the juxtaposition of the letters, but the story presented here is in fact much more dramatic than erotic in nature. Not that the situations the characters get into aren’t appealing to the eye or imagination, but the focus being much more on the emotions of both Makoto and Saya. Makoto as he slowly feels everything he has worked so hard to protect through his careful nature falling apart and Saya as she maliciously takes apart Makoto’s life to attain some sort of vengeance for her mother. A fairly deep emotional story with a decent amount of titillation that creates a stark introduction to the end of Makoto’s life as he knows it.
Capsule Computers review guidelines can be found here.
After the news that spread around late last week regarding the saving issues in Pokemon X and Y’s Lumiose City, Nintendo has officially recognised the problem and has followed up the recognition with an official map of Lumiose City labelling where you should NOT save as well as stating that them, alongside Game Freak, are working on an patch/update that will fix that issue as well as a few other issues within the game, luckily these other issues are minor and, well, pretty cool actually. I recently posted, within another article, the map of Lumiose City and where NOT to save, that image was in Japanese so I’ve placed the English image just below for you to reference while in-game.
– Lumios City Map –
Problems like the “Wondertrade Glitch” where in which a Pokemon that evolves and/or learns a new move from the Wondertrade option then looses it’s evolution and newly-learned move is another of the problems that is to be fixed in the update. Other glitches/bugs, like I just mentioned, do NOT break the game in any way so don’t stress too much about them if you’re not aware of them. These glitches, though, are actually very reminiscent of the original Red/Blue/Yellow games because, while they may be nuisance to some, a lot of people actually like them. I’m talking about the “Albino Pokemon” glitch which, in some cases, Pokemon are seen in the wild without any colour rendering them completely black and white as if they just came out of an old-school copying machine.
– Some examples of “Albino” Pokemon –
Fans seems to think this kind of thing is fairly cool and it definitely reminds me of the glitches in the original games. Even smaller ones like the “Glitchleo” stories where players have seen the Pokemon Litleo in the wild that just so happens to have it’s brown fur coat replaced with what looks like a similar, if not updated, pattern that we’ve previously seen on “Missingo”. They’re all very interesting and seeing as only one of these glitches is game-breaking, the others being overridden once the game is reset, they’re not too big of a deal to stress over. Nintendo has said to be releasing a patch into the eShop but they haven’t gotten specific about a time frame or what not so we’ll just have to be careful and hope for the best until it is releases. When it is released I guarantee you can see it here on the site as soon as we catch wind of it so keep an eye out.
ARMED SEVEN Developer:ASTRO PORT Publisher:Nyu Media Platforms:PC (Reviewed) Release Date: October 4, 2013 Price: $4.99 / £3.99 / €4.99 – Available Here
Overview
The indie game scene has been burgeoning in western culture for quite some time now. Virtually everyone, in the west at least, is familiar with titles like Fez, Limbo, Bastion, Minecraft, and Braid. The eastern indie scene, however, has felt conspicuously absent as western developers have made a name for themselves. With a renewed focus on bringing Japanese indie developers to the western audience, Nyu Media is hoping to help change that. Enter ASTRO PORT’s 2D side-scrolling shoot ’em up ARMED SEVEN. Does it have the chops to stand on its own or should it be disarmed? Let’s find out.
Story
Earth has seen its share of conflict. In 1989, 12 years after an alien army invaded earth, we’ve adapted the otherworldly tech to propel ourselves into an era of prosperity. An underground militant organization has stolen weapons from the Earth Federation whose future is now hanging in the balance. You must end the attack and save the Earth Federation!
Gameplay
Games like ARMED SEVEN have been around for decades. Fans of quarter-munchers like 1941 and the R-Type franchise just couldn’t get enough of all those bright colored projectiles flying all over the screen. ARMED SEVEN is aiming to scratch that same itch, and it does so quite handily.
The concept of ARMED SEVEN is quite simple: avoid incoming enemy fire while laying waste to everything in your path. To do that, you need responsive controls. ARMED SEVEN‘s controls can feel a little jarring at first, if for nothing more than menu navigation. Z is the primary key for maneuvering menus, and the Escape key totally shuts out the program. That confusion apart, the default movement keys are ‘WASD’ or the arrow keys with ‘Z’ and ‘X’ being used to fire your primary and special weapons, respectively. Once you’re in-game they’re quick to pick up on and feel fine, but that initial confusion feels unnecessary.
Once you’re through the basic menu, you can get down to brass tacks. When you begin the game, you’re given the ability to choose your own loadout. Unlike some other shmups where your weaponry can change change on the fly, the only power-ups you’ll get here are increased firepower and shields. Here you’ll choose one of four main weapons, sub weapons, and charge weapons, for a total of 12 weapons. This gives you a great deal of flexibility in how you build out the upcoming campaign. It’s fun to see how everything behaves and handles in the different situations.
As you play through ARMED SEVEN, you’ll experience a total of 7 levels and a total playthrough (provided you can survive long enough) will take you perhaps a half hour to complete. Each of the seven levels have their own unique set of enemies and obstacles, providing a fantastic sense of diversity as you work through the game. You’ll never get bored dealing with the same old enemies over and over again.
On top of working through the levels themselves, each level has a giant boss you’ll have to defeat to progress. These all have their own individual designs, weapons, and attack patterns, ensuring nothing feels like something you’ve already seen. They’re a ton of fun to fight, and the sheer scale of the battles feels like something straight out of an old-school boss fight.
Visuals ARMED SEVEN takes its inspiration straight from the shmups of old. Anyone who played arcade shoot ’em ups or was a fan of the Super Nintendo will get a great sense of nostalgia here. The character sprites look fantastic and all of the special effects feel like they were rendered straight off the Mode 7 graphics engine. Nothing looks shoddy or out of place – it’s clear a great deal of care and love went into crafting the look and feel of this game, right down to the few cutscenes you’ll get to see. That said, don’t expect the ability to tweak any visuals in ARMED SEVEN. You only get one resolution: 640×480.
Audio
The music in ARMED SEVEN is so good! Once again, the audio is totally built to sound like it came straight off the Super Nintendo or Sega Genesis, and it does a great job with it. Each level has its own track, and they all sound great. They help drive the gameplay while maintaining that classic feel, and since they change it up enough you’ll never get tired of the same old song.
Overall
Overall, I think it’s fair to say ASTRO PORT has done a fantastic job capturing that old-school arcade look and feel and putting their own spin on it. The game looks and sounds marvelous while maintaining a sense of 16-bit nostalgia, there’s a great sense of diversity in level and enemy design, and the customizable loadout system is a great touch. Anyone who sunk fistfuls of quarters into shmup arcade cabinets back in the day will really enjoy ARMED SEVEN.
Capsule Computers review guidelines can be found here.
Overview Ever since the first Disgaea game was released on the PlayStation 2 back in 2003 the game helped expand upon what, at the time, was a thriving strategy RPG genre. Over the past decade strategy RPGs have become rather uncommon but Nippon Ichi Software has always stayed true to form and over the years the Disgaea series has received not only a number of numbered titles but even a few spin-offs here and there.
Despite these games being numbered however, none of them directly followed a previously told story and while Laharl, Etna and Flonne have appeared in almost every game since, they have yet to star as the protagonists once again. That is until the company’s first sequel Disgaea D2: A Brighter Darkness was created and released in the West. Does the return of these signature characters make for an unbelievable game?
Story Disgaea D2: A Brighter Darkness takes place a number of years after the events of the first game with Laharl taking over for his father as the Overlord of the Netherworld. However thanks to his nature, there are many demons in the Netherworld who simply don’t care about him, don’t even know they have a leader or are actively planning on trying to dethrone him and replace him.
One such organization called the Krichevskoy Faction has been gaining quite a following and as such Laharl must finally start paying attention to what is happening around him. Unfortunately for him, things are more complicated as it seems as a new threat to the Netherworld begins to appear and change the world around him and to make matters worse, an angel named Sicily has appeared claiming to be his little sister. With everything happening at once only the classic crew of Laharl, Etna and Flonne can take and set everything right, or at least back to how they like it.
Now while the first Disgaea, Disgaea: Hour of Darkness, had a fair bit of drama and emotional moments here and there, this isn’t that game. This is probably for the best in all cases however thanks to the fact that Disgaea D2 plays as an almost direct sequel and gamers have already grown rather fond of the cast of characters and what better way to put together a game with these favorites than put them in a mostly comedic storyline with so many fourth wall breaking references, comedic violence and random twists and events that players will constantly be guessing as to what will happen next.
Sure there is something to be said for the lack of major drama in Disgaea D2 but despite that the game manages to offer a great and often humorous time where players will see everything from Laharl turning into a busty girl and Etna suddenly changing colors to battles that put the fate of the Netherworld in these strange characters’ hands. This makes the game highly enjoyable but it is worth noting that, while not entirely necessary, players will be able to get the biggest kick out of the game’s story if they have played the first game or at least know about the various events from Hour of Darkness before jumping into this one.
Gameplay Those familiar with what Disgaea has to offer will already know what they are getting into here, but for everyone else Disgaea D2 is a strategy RPG where combat takes place in a grid-based arena. While combat is a turn-based affair it is not your standard system where speed plays a factor in turn order. Instead each side takes a turn at one time, allowing the player to move or attack with all of their fighters while the enemy will also retaliate in the same manner. This makes placement and planning of battles a necessity as it is very easy to be wiped out thanks to poorly placed characters being swarmed by enemies.
Like more recent games in the series it is possible to have characters partner up with one another for team attacks if they are close together or use Geo Panels to take advantage of buffs or de-buffs and dish out extra damage and while actions can be taken one at a time, it is possible to plan an entire turn out and watch it occur in one session. Like I mentioned earlier, it is worth noting that the game does have a pretty significant difficulty level but compared to more recent titles, it feels a bit easier this time around as everything is explained early on and players are given free reign of how to fight from then on.
Disgaea D2’s battles usually always see the main cast of characters in the party but the player has the option to flesh out and expand their fighters by bringing in custom fighters of different classes and skills, giving players a chance to set their party up to fit their play style or change things around if a battle turns out to be giving them a rough time.
Put all of that together with the fact that players have the ability to use monsters as mounts in this game, though the system is a bit useful as it allows the character riding the monster to take less damage it ends up giving the player less to work with on the field. There is also the item world to explore which gives players a chance to dive into an item and venture through numerous levels of battles as they upgrade the item by going as far into it as possible.
It is interesting to note that the Dark Assembly has also returned and there are a number of new options available inside of it, including a “cheat shop” which allows players to change various elements of the game such as raising experience rates by sacrificing money drops among other things. This gives players an deep level of customization and the ability to reach even the coveted level 9999 faster and more fun than before.
Visuals In many ways Disgaea D2 has received the same visual upgrades that were part of Disgaea 4, including the way a number of enemy characters look. Following that trend the in-game sprites are rather impressive looking despite many of them being with the series for years at this point. The newly introduced enemies and characters look great in the game and the in-game combat is as stylish as ever with numerous over-the-top moves at the player’s disposal.
That being said, the battlefields the player will fight on loo rather poorly designed with numerous out-dated looking textures but this problem is alleviated by the variety of areas players will visit and just how colorful the world is. As for the in-game dialogue sequences, the character portraits are nicely detailed and as impressive as ever and work well with this style of game.
Audio Fans of the original three will be happy to hear that the English voices of Laharl and Flonne have been retained for Disgaea D2. It is worth noting that although Etna’s voice actress isn’t quite the same, it is the voice actress that has handled the character since the original game and she does a wondrous job voicing the character. As for the rest of the cast and voice work, the game has a nicely done English dub which works well with the tone of the story.
As for the game’s soundtrack, Disgaea D2 sports a varied set of background music that works well more often than not. While some pieces of music can be a bit grating after a while, especially during a long battle, it is an impressive offering that works well both when walking around the hub or fighting it out.
Overall Disgaea D2: A Brighter Darkness adds a few new features to what has already become one of the most refined strategy RPG in the industry. The game’s story brings back three favorite characters from the first game and provides an entertaining storyline. Of course it does require knowledge from the first game in the series to truly enjoy as there are a number of leaps that will be missed by those unfamiliar with the original Disgaea. That being said, Disgaea D2 offers a slightly more accessible but still incredibly deep and complicated experience.
Capsule Computers review guidelines can be found here.
Elemental Labs is a fresh developer that is looking to bring their first game to the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 in the form of REBORN. They have teamed up with acttil to help make this happen and have even launched a Kickstarter to help give themselves a push. We had a chance to speak with both the developer and acttil on a number of topics. Read below and see as they introduce their team and explain a few of their design decisions.
Q. Being a fresh studio, can you tell us a little about the team working to bring REBORN to life?
A. As a new studio, we have so much to prove. When I sought to create REBORN, I had a vision of how I wanted to run my studio, right down to the types of personalities I wanted employed. My vision for Elemental-Labs was to form a strong team with a wide range of skill sets, who are passionate, dedicated, and determined—but above else, they must have faith in each other.
In the early days of REBORN development, I had a huge up-hill battle not with the project itself, but rather with the formation of the team. With even less than a shoe-string budget available, I had to manage REBORN by investing my own “sweat equity” and personal capital to pay for various expenses like gas for transportation, and computer-related equipment. By working out of my parents’ garage, we managed to save money on lunches (as my parents were generous enough to cook for us!). We were also blessed to be able to convert the garage itself into our development studio. Furthermore, it was from this garage that I managed to spark the interest of our current team members. Countless hours on the Internet and hundreds of emails and Skype sessions later, we managed to form a strong group of skilled individuals who I believe will carry us to the forefront of an already difficult industry to break into. Each member brings a level of mastery, but more than that, each and every one of us are extremely optimistic, positive, and have taken a leap of faith to work on REBORN.
Since we do not have anything in the way of a budget at the moment, each teammate is dedicating their “sweat equity” to REBORN in hopes of future compensation—whether that will be in the form of royalties or straight-up payment on the back end. Myself aside, we currently have 23 team members working on REBORN in their spare time. Some of our teammates are international, but with a successful Kickstarter campaign, we want to bring them to the US so that they can work in our studio, creating a single physical work environment. As you will see throughout our campaign, each teammate is pouring their love and passion into REBORN. We want to assure our fans and the crowd-funding community that we want to make this game not only for us, but for you!
Q. With Elemental Labs working on creating REBORN for the last nine months, why have they decided to launch a Kickstarter now?
A. (acttil) While working on the development of REBORN, many ups and downs have been encountered, and it sometimes seemed like they couldn’t continue to follow their dreams. As friends, we were encouraging them to continue working on their game, but the harsh reality was that they just did not have the funding to keep their team together. They have the passion and are dedicated to this project, but it would be very tough for anybody to keep going if they are unsure of where all their efforts would go. That is why we at acttil suggested to Franz, the CEO of Elemental-Labs, to get the game onto Kickstarter for the final push. We want to see them succeed, both as friends and professional partners. That is why we told Franz that we would support their Kickstarter campaign as much as we can as long as he was interested in giving it a try. We wish we could bring in enough funds to help them financially, but being a start-up company ourselves, personally investing in them is not an option. We believe that Elemental-Labs will make something exciting and fun to play if they reach their goal! So…here we are. We hope you’ll all see potential that we saw in this project, as well!
Q. When developing the game, what drew the company to keep it a PlayStation exclusive rather than branch out to other platforms?
A. It was my love for everything Sony, and especially my huge interest in the PSP and the PlayStation®2/ PlayStation®3 consoles that led me to reach out to SCEA. Not only that, but I was already one of the five “vendorized” companies with SCEA who helped to create dynamic and interactive websites, so the industry relationship was already there. One thing was for certain—SCEA needed to see a fully-developed Game Design Document, coupled with concept art, for them to take not just me, but anyone, seriously. Fortunately, SCEA shows a lot of respect toward indie developers like us, and they have been extremely helpful because they believe REBORN is a great concept to be nurtured. They are the first publisher who gave us our first shot in this industry, and because of that, we regard them highly. That is why we have chosen to make REBORN for PlayStation consoles, initially. That said, we are also PC gamers, so we want to be able to bring REBORN to Steam (Windows) with our initial goal, and to Wii-U and XBOX platforms at higher stretch goals.
Q. There are many different mythologies and legends that can be drawn upon, so why did you choose to focus on Japanese lore for REBORN?
A. I started tinkering with computers and playing video games at an early age. Playing games like The Killing Game Show on the Commodore 64, Blazing Lasers on turbografx 16, Rivercity Ransom on the NES, and Final Fight, Street Fighter II, and Final Fantasy games on SNES all had a great impact and influenced my childhood years. As I got older, I started tinkering with cars—specifically Japanese imports—and my affinity for Japanese culture grew from there. I was fortunate enough to take many trips to Japan over the years and make a great many friends there. Furthermore, I travelled through much of the country, learning and absorbing its rich and dynamic history and folklore. Japan is truly a spiritual place that is alluring because of its traditionalism juxtaposed with modern society. Therefore, making an RPG about a samurai in a cyberpunk world just seemed to mesh with my experiences perfectly.
Q. With many different samurai to choose from, especially those from the Sengoku era, what led to the decision to base the main character off of Miyamoto Musashi?
A. Every culture has its own folk heroes; for example, America has Davey Crockett, England has Robin Hood, and France has Joan of Arc. Japan has numerous samurai folk heroes, but Miyamoto Musashi is probably the most well-known. He is iconic not only in Japanese history, but also in the field of martial arts. Businessmen in Japan often adopt the philosophy of his book, THE BOOK OF 5 RINGS, when conducting business despite the fact that Musashi wrote the book to describe his philosophy regarding combat.
Q. The contrast between traditional Japanese lore and the advanced technological powers and augmentations created by Nexus Roku is stark. What led to the idea between traditional vs futuristic conflict?
A. I wanted to make a samurai game centered around Musashi, but rather than having it take place in 17th century Japan, I thought a hyper-modern setting would be an interesting approach. One day, I was having coffee at Night Owl (a quaint little coffee shop in downtown Fullerton) with Eric Thuan. I was telling him about the game’s concept. We came up with the idea that one of the themes we could include to make the story balanced, rich, and dynamic, was to explore themes of self-discipline and progress—maxims of many forms of martial arts—juxtaposed against technology, which is supposed to make life easier for all mankind. That is why we decided to inject WuXing and the five Chinese elements of nature.
Q. While REBORNS Japanese influences make Tokyo Game Show an interesting venue to debut at, why choose this time to reveal the game instead of during any of the other events throughout the year?
A. (acttil) Initially, we weren’t planning to hold a press event to announce REBORN at Tokyo Game Show. But we wanted to make a strong impression for our Kickstarter project because we’re just some no-name developer and publisher, to be honest. We wanted to make sure that our project would be seen by plenty of gamers. Timing-wise, Tokyo Game Show was the perfect outlet for us. Gamescom and PAX were too soon for us to make an announcement due to asset availability and our own schedule conflicts.
Q. Being the first title from Elemental Labs, creating REBORN with the PlayStation 4 in mind must have been quite the challenge, why choose to feature both a PlayStation 4 version of the game as well as one for the current Sony console?
A. When I originally started the creation process, I focused on making REBORN a 2D side-scrolling game exclusively for the PSVita. After showing our demo to SCEA, we were told that they wanted REBORN for their next-gen console, hence the PS4. We couldn’t believe it, and we were truly blessed to be in such a position, so we jumped in head first! Being an indie developer, we are fortunate that we can branch out and port REBORN to other consoles. This is something that we have considered in the past, but out of respect to the faith that SCEA has shown us, we will make REBORN available only on the PS4 and PS3 consoles initially, and then branch out to other platforms depending on whether or not we achieve our higher stretch goals.
As a first-time studio, we have so much to prove. We wanted to put everything on the line and go all the way with boosting our concept to look and feel next-gen. Initially, most of our demo was made with very low-count polygonal characters using the Unreal Engine 3’s mobile version for PSVita. We had a simple formula in mind when making our world: Keep the environments around 2-5k polygons, and the main playable characters at around 15k polygons. So when we were told to make REBORN for the next-gen PS4 console, we had to increase our poly-count. We are very happy with the outcome.
Q. The PlayStation Vita has been slowly gaining strength in the West and is now seeing more support from Sony in the way of Vita TV, could it be possible that REBORN may make its debut on the Vita as well?
A. Definitely! Not everybody has every console on the market. A lot of people may only have Vitas, and not the PS3 or the upcoming PS4, so we want as many people as possible to experience REBORN—especially on-the-go. It would be a great way to spend time while taking road trips in a car or sitting in an airplane on long flights.
Q. Many smaller studios attempt to handle their own press through simpler means or try to make it on word of mouth alone. Why did Elemental Labs choose to team up with acttil to help bring REBORN to the public eye?
A. Well, acttil is a small start-up publishing company and we’re a small start-up developer, so it seemed only fitting that we would team up and work together. Aside from that, acttil is comprised of very passionate people on their end, just like us, so we’re all very supportive of each other.
While Elemental Labs may have put their Kickstarteron hold for now, it is quite clear that they are very passionate about bringing REBORN to gamers and with a re-launch of their Kickstarter in November it will be interesting to see how things go from here.
There is a tendency with series that rely heavily on a romance element to take some considerable getting used to. Even in the case of romcoms like Noucome, until I know a little more about the character’s motivations I generally remain unmoved and continue watching more for the laughs than the romantic sub-plot. Baka to Test, Haganai, Oreimo, and even some less well known series like winter’s Oreshura were all great series in my mind simply because they managed to incite non-stop hilarity while still giving profound reasons behind why everyone loved the male lead so much. Failing to pull off this mixture is a critical failure for any anime in this genre, but will Noucome fall prey to this error? Will its gimmicky premise ware thin or will it find new ways to surprise us?
Choosing to focus more on establishing a plot after last week’s episode’s fixation on character introduction, episode 2 continued to tag us along with its wonderfully weird sense of humour and ever-present possibility to cause mayhem at the drop of a hat. Personally, I can’t think of a better way of demonstrating that ability than to have the main character of your anime receive a call from God within minutes of starting the episode. It would seem that in this universe you would be just in taking the Lord’s name in vain since he seemed no more divine than a call centre employee. It was about the time when he said he was only acting as God because the person before him got pregnant from an affair and became a shut-in that it finally hit me why this world is so messed up that a teenage boy could end up getting such a ridiculous curse.
After demonstrating his power in true priceless Noucome fashion by turning Kanade into a girl (and inciting a great what-if story at the end of the episode) , God did eventually give the plot some direction by setting up a series of missions for Kanade. Complete them all and he will have his curse lifted, fail once and it stays with him forever. Truly this is a cruel and angry god … Or one that just enjoys messing with his subjects … One of the two. So, that seems to be where this anime is heading. Setting up a mission each week which Kanade has to complete in whatever wacky way is necessary, no doubt with the “assistance” of his new companion, the self-titled Chocolat, and his teacher who unexpectedly revealed that she was afflicted with Absolute Choice in the past as well. Noucome definitely took a step in the right direction by adding something more than just the multiple choice curse to give the plot some more substance. I did have fears that the concept would get dry very quickly, but now my only worry is that it will become quickly repetitive. Hopefully, my fears will not come to pass.
To kick off the missions, Kanade was presented with the monumental task of making the cold, dry Yukihira laugh from the bottom of her heart. Now, I can’t be sure that some of the punchlines weren’t lost in translation, but wow were all of his jokes terrible. Don’t get me wrong, I was laughing the whole time with my face thoroughly buried in my palms, but that was because I was so taken aback by how ludicrous this show is! It seems that Kanade will stop at no length to get rid of his curse, even if that means losing every tiny shred of dignity that he still has left. To nobody’s surprise his efforts failed monumentally, actually resulting in her being a lot more amusing than Kanade by threatening to sue him for stealing her jokes. Once again, Yukihira has managed to steal my affections with her arid, sarcastic personality. So far she is my favourite part of Noucome by quite some way.
Speaking of feelings of love and Yukihira, the cliffhanger of episode 2 left us with something completely unexpected that I was unbelievably happy to see. Yukihira was crying and muttering about how she thought Kanade must think she is a weirdo! Proof that she has feelings for Kanade if ever I heard them… Finally, some feelings beyond embarrassment and surprise! My hopes for this anime have soared and only episode 3 will tell if my new-found expectations are met or if Noucome ends up being another flat, humdrum harem anime.
Noucome definitely hasn’t impacted upon me enough to call it a great series out of the blocks, but it has given us some direction, a set of goals constructed by god himself. Granted, it would seem that he has immediately failed the first mission so for all we know he could have locked himself into the curse forever and we could be back to square one next episode, but I highly doubt that. Paramount to the success of this episode in my eyes though was that through all of the cringeworthy humour, a small glimmer of emotion appeared completely out of the blue. My first thoughts are that the next episode will contain flashbacks that will reveal the crux of Yukihira’s apparent love for Kanade. If they are as memorable as in the series that I listed earlier, then Noucome will cease to be just an outrageously silly comedy and should start to garner some following as something with feeling, not just boobs and stupidity.
For more impressions from the CC Anime team of Autumn’s best and worst anime, head over to our Anime Impressions page and check out what’s on offer!
This best deal in this edition is 75% off Bioshock Infinite at Amazon. This is a second chance for those who missed the 24 hour sale at Greenman Gaming. $9.99 is hands down the lowest price for the game so far. It is an excellent price for a well regarded game.
The bundle contains Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Modern Warfare 2, and Modern Warfare 3. Additionally, it comes with a $5.00 off coupon for Call of Duty: Ghosts
The Pack contains Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion, The Political Machine 2012, Galactic Civilization I, Galactic Civilization II, Fallen Enchantress, and Demi God. All of the games in the pack are available separately at 75% off.
Bethesda have released a brand new trailer that takes a look into the deep customization available in Elder Scrolls Online’s character creation feature.
The trailer features developers who worked on the game themselves discussing what went into making the character creation feature as well as what they believed fans wanted from the feature. They also detail what is available in the final product for players to utilize when crafting their ideal character to use in the game.
You can check out the Elder Scrolls Online character creation trailer below for a great bit of insight into the game and in particular its character creation components.
