During Anime Expo this week Sentai Filmworks started things off by announcing that they have acquired the license to release two older anime series in North America. These anime were previously licensed by ADV Films and will be released sometime in November. These anime are Yumeria and Divergence Eve and at the moment, Sentai hasn’t clarified what format these anime will be available on.
For those who don’t know, Yumeria is an anime based off a video game series which follows the story of a high school boy who dreams of a girl fighting monsters, only to wake up and find her next to him. One of Yumeria’s characters recently guest starred in Namco Bandai’s Project x Zone.
As for Divergence Eve, the series follows a rookie soldier named Misaki Kureha who battles against Ghouls who have traveled through dimensions.
During Anime Expo FUNimation had a number of announcements to make during Anime Expo and interestingly enough, one of these announcements involves a series that has long been published in the West by NIS America. Well… to be fair, NIS America handles the game series that the anime is based off of, but still this is quite surprising.
To be specific, the company announced that they have acquired the streaming rights to the Hyperdimension Neptunia anime which is set to begin in Japan on July 12th. The anime will feature both the CPUs and the CPU Candidates in an original storyline, not one directly from the video game franchise.
This week on Anime Say!I’m back with my thoughts on the Devil is a Part Timer anime. Devil is a Part Timer is a comedy anime that follows the Demon King as he gets a part time job at MgRonalds. It is a bizarre concept to say the very least, so what did I think of Devil is a Part Timer? Watch below to find out.
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What do you think of this anime impression? Let us know in the comments section below.
Nintendo have released a brand new trailer for the highly anticipated Wii U title Pikmin 3. The newest trailer gives a detailed look at the gameplay of Pikmin 3, showcasing the game’s new features as well as highlighting just how generally awesome Pikmin is.
Pikmin 3 is a difficult game to classify but it does require a lot of strategy in order to progress in the eerily familiar world of Pikmin as you can see in the trailer. Pikmin can be used for combat, construction, transport and all manner of other tasks. Pikmin 3 is of course the long awaited third installment of the franchise.
Pikmin 3 is slated for release on July 26th, 2013. Be sure to check out the trailer below for a look at what you can expect from this game.
A short while ago, the Vocaloid Night team have shared a new teaser image for their upcoming event hosted by SMASH! on their official Facebook Page. This image is similar to the previously released images of the show, but is a lot more condensed and is straight to the point on what people can expect from the Vocaloid themed dance party.
Vocaloid Night 2013 is a dance party themed on the Vocaloid phenomenon. It’s most popular creation, Hatsune Miku, is a highly regarded pop icon, not only in Japan; but around the world. The event is coming to Darling Harbour on the 10th of August. Pre-sale tickets are at $50.
This week’s Deal of the Week doesn’t go to one particular item, but Greenman Gaming’s 666 Sale. For the rest of the weekend, GMG has 6 deeply discounted titles on sale for 6 hours.
Amazon’s Summer Sale is in full swing this week, here are the best of the best!
I feel this bundle contains some of Rockstar’s best titles. The bundle contains Bully: Scholarship Edition, Grand Theft Auto Vice City, Grand Theft Auto San Andreas, Max Payne 2, and Midnight Club 2.
Not much information has been released at all since Focus Home Interactive and GIANTS Software announced that Farming Simulator would be making its way to console this year. While then all they really had to offer were some screenshots and promises about what the new version of the game would include, this time there is a trailer showing off some of the new features, mainly the new American setting that will accompany the usual European.
From the trailer this Farming Simulator for consoles is looking pretty good and it is nice to see the American farmland finally getting represented, plus it doesn’t hurt that it doubles the available land to farm. The equipment selection is still as vast as ever the trailer itself featuring the Case IH Axial-Flow harvester and the Magnum 340 as just a taste of those players can get for themselves.
Those wanting to see what the console version of Farming Simulator will have to offer can view the trailer embedded below. Farming Simulator will be releasing onto Xbox 360 and PS3 the first week of September.
Last time publisher Nordic Games was releasing information on their upcoming point-and-click adventure The Raven – Legacy of a Master Thief, it was in the form of a free graphic novel, while this time they have a full trailer featuring in-game graphics and commentary. The commentary is thanks to Executive Producer Marco Rosenberg of developer KING Art Games, and covers the influences and some of the features of their biggest adventure game ever.
Drawing from both Agatha Christie stories and 60’s – 70’s gangster films, The Raven – Legacy of a Master Thief is set to provide upwards of 20 hours of gameplay (depending on optional puzzles), with the developers also working to ensure that all the puzzles would feel realistic and logical within the game. Even more interesting is that the game will offer two different viewpoints as players will control the investigators and then the gangsters.
Players wanting to check out the trailer and commentary for themselves can find it embedded below. The Raven – Legacy of a Master Thief will feature 3 chapters with the first chapter releasing July 23rd, 2013 for XBLA, PSN, PC, Mac, and Linux.
Overview
While the backstory for indiePub’s newest game may not be the most original, their goal of tying several unique mechanics together while sharing an overarching narrative is a lofty goal. How does Capsizedhold up? Does it rock the boat or should you save the life raft for something else? Let’s find out.
Story
As your ship was making its way through space, something hit it, causing it to come crashing down on a nearby planet. In a quick bid for survival, you jumped into a life pod and jettisoned your way from the burning craft. Once you came to, you noticed that, amidst all the wreckage, several of your fellow crewmates were missing. Alone on a foreign world, you set out to gather the survivors back together and devise a way to get off this hostile, unknown planet.
Gameplay
At its core, Capsized is two-dimensional platforming game, but there are so many layers wrapped around it, you could never separate them. Your basic maneuvers are fairly similar to any other platformer: run, jump, and shoot. As a space traveler on a distant planet, though, you’ve packed a few additional tools in your escape pod to help out.
Most notably of your unique tools is an energy grappling hook. This lets you pick up rocks or other environmental objects and use them as cover or toss them to take out enemies, trigger traps, or activate a pressure plate – all physics based. It’s also fun to use on creatures themselves. You can throw them into walls or at other enemies for an entertaining way to eradicate pests.
In most platformers, you’ll be able to shoot up, down, or in front. Capsized takes that to the next level by using the right analog stick to control the direction you’re aiming. This allows for some deft maneuvering in intense firefights, which can be welcome when you’re surrounded on all sides. The unfortunate side effect is that it makes the game feel as though it was intended for a mouse and keyboard. It’s still a fantastic mechanic, but it can actually feel a little too accurate at times, so you may overcompensate.
Thoughtfully, the developers thought aim overcompensation may be an issue, so they gave you a button to simply target an enemy within your line of site. This is wonderfully helpful, to the extent that it may be the single most useful button in the game. It doesn’t muck up the difficulty in the process though. The game still provides a great challenge with the help.
Combat has a great flow to it. This is especially true when you’ve got a lot of foes and some room to maneuver. Mow ’em all down if you want! Can’t do that? Activate your jet pack and fly around, dodging and returning fire. It’s a satisfying engagement every time.
The game isn’t terribly long. They advertise that it’s “more than a dozen levels,” which is as accurate as they can get in marketing lingo. From start to end, the campaign will take no more than 4-5 hours to finish. In this case, that doesn’t feel too short. It manages to tell a full narrative arc and keep players engaged in the gameplay without wearing out your welcome.
Levels are well-designed affairs. Each one has its own unique objectives and mission layout that help keep things interesting. There are also several hidden areas in each mission that are worth your time to find. Many come with extra lives or ammunition for rare weapons.
The weapons in the game also have a great variety to them. There are over half a dozen different guns and on top of that, every gun (sans your primary blaster) have alternate fire modes that can really help out in a pinch. It’s fun to play around with everything and the game throws enough at you that you’ll have to experience multiple weapons to survive.
The enemies in the game are also wonderfully varied and, at times, downright vicious. Tribal aliens with bows or magic, alien wolves that charge, parasitic flying creatures, and poison gas are only a glimpse at the dangers you’ll face in Capsized.
Visuals & Audio Capsized is a wonderful looking game. From the hand-drawn storytelling scenes to level and creature design, nothing feels like it lacked attention. Characters and particle effects pop and draw attention constantly.
Though the world is mostly blues and greens, stages have enough variety to keep your eyes satisfied. Seeing the in-game physics help cement the world around you, too.
There isn’t a wide variety in the soundtrack, but what they’ve got works quite well for the mood of the game. It never feels out of place and helps drive the pace of the gameplay forward. Weapons fire a great sense of satisfaction thanks to great sound design as well.
Overall
Overall, Capsized is quite an enjoyable experience that delivers its payload without wearing out its welcome. Great visual design and sound help draw you into the world on this mysterious planet. Varied levels and mission structures keep things interesting, while a fluid, satisfying combat system gives you a good sense of control in the heat of combat. The controls may take a short while to sort out, but once you’re used to them, an exciting sci-fiadventure awaits you.
Capsule Computers review guidelines can be found here.
The Garden of Words Studios:CoMix Wave Films Publisher:Sentai Filmworks Format: Blu-Ray Release Date: August 6th, 2013 Price: $34.98 – Available Here
Overview
Makoto Shinkai first appeared on the anime scene with the amazing Voices of a Distant Star and in the time since continued to wow viewers with his movies. From interesting settings, to unique situations, to characters that viewers can’t help but feel for, Makoto has a way about creating a perfectly complete story in an OVA length animation. His latest, The Garden of Words, is now upon us, so it is time we find out if his spark for creating stories and visuals can still match his previous works, or if this is a miss lost in the crowd.
Story
At first glance, the premise of The Garden of Words may seem like it could be overly generic or predictable. The story of a young high school boy that starts developing a relationship with an older woman, is certainly something that could go in ways we’ve seen or heard about before, but the method of the story is so much more removed than that. The boy, Takao Akizuki, lives in his own world hoping to become a handmade shoemaker, while the woman, Yukari Yukino, is far more mysterious both to him and the viewer as neither knows who she is or what she does.
The relationship that the two develop starts from a chance encounter on a rainy day in the park, where Takao goes to avoid his first few periods of class and work on shoe designs. Here at the start of the rainy season, he meets a strange lady drinking beer and eating chocolate that he continues to see each rainy morning he returns to the park. The great boon of the movie is that it knows when to focus on something and when not to, as it is the start of the rainy season these encounters occur frequently, but much of it is covered in montage. While others might spend more time on this initial build up to pad out the time, here it focuses on only the most important parts of this relationship and allows viewers to form their own opinions on them warming up to each other.
Their relationship builds until they both find themselves wishing for rain to see the other, but when the end of the rainy season comes they find themselves separated. Takao busy with summer work, the story then focuses on Yukino and sheds light on why she has been going to the park. Because of the nature of these revelations, and how some aspects are left to viewer opinion, I’ll refrain from spoiling these, but with these revelations the story begins to build up. Ignited by an even more chance encounter, both characters are forced to face who they are in one of the most emotional scenes in a long time, capped off by a song suited perfectly to the themes of rain and loneliness.
Visuals
The animation quality of The Garden of Words is by far astounding. The attention to detail is immense as well as the realism, the surroundings refract onto the characters making them feel as if they are actually there, when many animation looks much like characters overlaid the much more detailed backgrounds. Blu-Ray is definitely the ideal because of this level of detail and how real some parts look, as on of the opening shots it was difficult to tell it was drawn.
Another interesting aspect of the visuals is the imagery, as Takao has aspersions of becoming a shoemaker there does end up being a lot of shots focused towards feet or shoes. Not really a big deal, and befitting the character, but the amount of these shots can be slightly staggering to the point of seeming fetishistic. Has a whole they have their place and definitely fit, so this is simply a heads up to keep those from getting caught off guard by this.
Audio The Garden of Words maintains its realism with its use of music, as its use it mainly limited to montages and the ending credits. The montages capture the atomosphere through the wonderful piano music that overlaps them, while the ending theme, “Rain” performed by Motohiro Hata, captures the essence of not only the rain so prevalent throughout the movie, but of a man meeting a woman in the rain and not wanting her to go. Outside of these songs the background noise is mainly the sound of the rain, but also other white noise from people talking to faint traffic. This is another small detail that helps to catch the realism and brings it to life.
The voice acting is incredible for both the original Japanese and the English dub, as the story features the two main characters so much and they are the ones doing the vast majority of the talking. Other characters range from a single line to two scenes at most, while either Takao and/or Yukino are in every scene. What makes the voice acting so incredible is not just how much is spent by the two main characters, but the tear filled climax that finds both the English and Japanese equally emotional, with both languages featuring the perfect actors to fit the emotion heavy scene.
Extras
The special features for this movie offer much more than a standard release, with two commentary tracks, storyboards, production stills from the English dub, interviews with the original Japanese actors and director, and a slew of trailers. The commentary are the most interesting as one features the English dub actors, the second features director Makoto Shinkai translated via subtitles giving more information on the process and elements of the film. The storyboards give a nice look at how the visuals progressed from throughout production, while the English dub production stills give a glimpse at the often overlooked process of their recording. The interviews give a lot more information from the Japanese actors and the director for those wanting even more, while the trailers include Makoto’s past works as well as recent and upcoming releases from Sentai Filmworks. All together providing more special features than some entire series’ of anime.
Overall The Garden of Words is a beautiful looking anime with fantastic music and actors with the ability to pull off such an emotional movie. Fans of Makoto Shinkai’s work have another great movie to add to their collection, while those that have missed his previous work have a perfect example of why is he so great at what he does. While short, a little more than 45 minutes in length, the movie feels neither rushed nor incomplete and there is plenty more value added bu the special features
Capsule Computers review guidelines can be found here.
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