In the Hunter Center feature of Weekly Shonen Jump magazine, a poster for the recently revealedHunter x Hunter movie, Hunter x Hunter: The Scarlet Phantom, has made it’s way online.
The poster for Hunter x Hunter: The Scarlet Phantom can be seen to the right (click for larger version). The movie is said to focus on Kurapika, who is the only living member of the Kurta Clan after their massacre at the hands of the Phantom Troupe. The film is being written by Yoshihiro Togashi (the series creator) and is said to be canon.
The Scarlet Phantom poster features Kurapika with his scarlet eye focused on the tattoo of Troupe member #4, Hisoka (or previous #4 member). Be sure to let us know what you think in the comments section.
Knights of the Round Cable Developer:Dancing Dots and Focus Home Interactive Publisher:Chillingo Platforms: iPad, iPhone (reviewed), iPod Touch Release Date: 12 July 2012 Price: $0.99 AUD (HERE)
Overview
Mobile publishing house Chillingo is still at it, and this time they’re back with Knights of the Round Cable. Now if you’re like me, you probably hear “Knights of the Round…” and immediately jump onto the nearest table, kick the air in joyful dance, and start singing this gem from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Unfortunately, the two are not directly related, though that didn’t stop me from humming the song maniacally as I booted up the game. To be fair, Knights of the Round Cable’s premise is just as ridiculous as something from a Monty Python film: knights ride giant flying chickens to various levels of gem-collecting, rope-swinging adventures. Is this quirky platformer worthy of knighthood, or should we cry, “Off with its head!”?
Gameplay
It is very hard to categorize Knights of the Round Cable into any already established genre. While calling it a two-dimensional platformer is probably the closest thing to the truth, doing so would be a great disservice to the creative and quirky mechanics behind the game.
As one of several knights, it’s up to you to visit a myriad of castle, collecting gems as you go, and making sure that you don’t suffer death from various environmental hazards (see: ghosts, dragons, nose-diving crows). To do so, your knight will swing on various pegs to spin himself about, gather momentum, and fly through the air. He’s also incredibly springy and can bounce off of hard surfaces. The swinging mechanic is simply controlled using a tap interface: tap the right side of the screen to latch on to a peg, and tap the left side to reverse direction. The simple controls and gameplay lend themselves well to the old adage, “easy to use, hard to master”.
At first, you’ll probably find it difficult to even collect a single batch of gems, much less go on a collection streak the game calls a “Fiesta!”. But keep at it and you’ll get a sense of the game’s physics, your knight’s momentum, and you’ll begin to rack up triple Fiestas like it’s nobody’s business. Though why knights from England are having Spanish parties never ceases to boggle my mind. To be fair, it’s the less surprising than the fact that when you complete a castle (see: level, not even remotely an interior location) and move on to the next one, you are transported there by a giant flying chicken.
But chickens can’t fly!!! And they’re not giant!!!
Well apparently they were in AD 960.
As you move through castles, collecting gems on the way, you’ll gain some good old in-game gold, which can be spent on upgrading your knight’s health and purchasing coin-magnets. You can, however, also spend it on new knights, who each have different abilities. Everything that could possibly aid your playstyle is featured, from rocket boosts to a buffer health bar. Alternatively, you could always buy in-game coin with real world money. Strangely, none of the knights, except for the final “King Arthurion”, bear names that even remotely resemble Knights of the Round Table. Which is odd, because it’s not like there’s copyright laws surrounding old folk tales…
Progress in Knights of the Round Cable is achieved through completing missions (see: a three-star challenge system) that increase in difficulty as you go, and while the upgrades shop ensures you never truly feel like you’ve wasted time if you don’t complete a mission, as time goes by, there’s less to buy and still more to do. As such, the game can start feeling a little tedious, if not quite repetitive. It’s almost like the game’s concept, while deep and entertaining at its core, just isn’t enough to keep you in for an extended period of time. However, its simplicity and fun make sure that you’ll be enthralled by it for quite a few hours at least, which is more that can be said for many $60 games.
Audio & Visual
Knights of the Round Cable’s graphical design and presentation are solid. Though they won’t knock the socks off of your portable device’s screen, the look of the game is far higher than the standard set by many of the sloppily put together two-dimensional titles on the platform. Some of the effects, leaves blowing in the wind were thoroughly good to look at, in particular do a good job of making you have little “ooo” moments. It won’t take your breath away, but the game certainly looks pretty.
The sound in the game is serviceable. You won’t be knocking on your friends’ doors, begging them to listen to the cartoony theme, but nor will you put the phone on silent and cross your lucky stars you never have to hear the blasted thing again. I like to think it enhances the enjoyment of the game, like a middle of the range Shiraz alongside a well-peppered steak. High-brow similes aside, the game’s presentation does its job efficiently and complements the gameplay well.
Overall
Knights of the Round Cable is one of the few iOS games that I’ve recently played that can claim it’s done something truly different. This isn’t a revolution, and the game’s core mechanic eventually runs out of steam, but it is a new step in an interesting direction, and I can’t wait to see how this franchise mounts its siege for future instalments (see: a good game you should buy, and yes, that was one last castle-related pun. Just to horrify you).
This week’s line-up for the eShop is all about the handheld, meaning the 3DS and DS are the only platforms seeing love. Considering this is yet another week of the 8-Bit Summer though, that in itself is a good thing.
The most noteworthy release this week is the long-awaited Kid Icarus: Of Myths and Monsters for the Virtual Console. Yep, the first portable Pit is available, and with it comes that handheld goodness we all remember and love from the classic adventure. As expected, Myths and Monsters is priced at $3.99.
Also on the Virtual Console comes Tumblepop, which is a fun little platformer that some might compare to the more recent Mutant Mudds, but with a vacuum instead of a water gun as a weapon. Tumblepop is one buck less than Icarus, at $2.99. Masyu by Nikoli is another typical puzzle title, bringing yet another Nikoli original to the service at $4.99.
Agetec are back with two titles this week, which include a sequel, Rabi Laby 2 that is only $1.99 and the ambitious Phantom Thief Stina and 30 Jewels for $4.99. Phantom Thief looks awesome based on the premise alone, as players can take the role of a thief or a detective and then choose if they want to heist jewels or fight crime.
Computer programming is definitely a niche subject for some, but it’s very interesting to see an app related to the profession hit the DSiWare. Petit Computer lets players study and use basic programming code in order to create and share music, images, and more for just $7.99.
Now if you are craving a sale, Mario’s Picross is available for $2.99 this weekend, from 9 a.m. Pacific time on Friday, July 20 through 9 p.m. Pacific time on Sunday, July 22. I highly reccommend this addictive title, as once you learn the game of picross, it’s almost impossible to put down.
And…that wraps up this week’s digital goods. Go…buy your games….enjoy them and let us know what you invested in down in the comments below.
After a year long beta phase, Drakensang Online finally emerges with over nine million registered users. Bigpoint is celebrating this exciting emergence by having the development team stage in-game events. Additionally, players will be able to acquire a +25% experience bonus during this weekend. The time frame for the bonus experience is [Friday 6pm CET until Monday 10am CET].
Offering hundreds of new quests and dozens of new monsters to kill, Drakensang Online’s newly released Atlantis expansion will keep you busy for awhile. Even take on the elite monster “Gorga the Snake” to prove your mettle. Check out the exciting new trailer below for glance at the large expansion.
Haven’t heard of Drakensang Online? Well, it’s the perfect time to join.
Today FUNimation’s October slate of anime releases has appeared on RightStuf and with it comes a number of release dates that anime fans have been waiting for. The biggest release of the October month is the release of an anime fans have waited a couple of years for, A Certain Magical Index. The twenty four episode series will be released in two parts.
Besides this release, there are a number of new releases as well including Deadman Wonderland which has been airing on Adult Swim, the recently announced Aria the Scarlet Ammo and the unique [C] – Control – The Money and Soul of Possibility.
The full list of releases and their prices can be found below:
Because you may just end up seeing a half-naked man. Today, game director of Persona 4 Arena Kazuhisa Wada revealed a few pieces of information about the game including the gallery mode where players will be able to listen to sound effects, voice samples and music while also checking out illustrations and the arcade endings for each character.
He also happened to reveal that when you win a fight using Teddie, he will unzip the bear suit for his victory pose. This pose will sometimes be shown as the normal Teddie, Teddie as a trap in his Alice costume or Teddie just plain naked. Don’t worry too heavily however, as the half-naked Teddie is going to be a rare occurrence.
Also revealed today was the fact that players will be able to create custom titles for use in online fights. These titles are crated from three different words provided by the title and there are over 3,000 different combinations that can be used.
Let’s face it, this onslaught against your bank account has been a losing one. There have just been too many deals over the Steam Summer Sale for that number to be very high at this point. Thankfully you’ve also probably obtained countless gems at prices so cheap that you would never have believed them before checking out these posts.
Steam’s eighth day of the Summer Sale has brought with it a number of other deals, including a massive discount on The Witcher 2 and Sniper Elite V2 which are both recently released titles. To go along with these games we have classics such as Alan Wake, Amnesia -The Dark Descent- and Fallout New Vegas. Can your money survive these deals and perhaps even the whole Summer Sale? Test your mettle against Steam’s Store here.
Those interested in the subsequent release of Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch enough to be interested in the Wizard’s Edition that they have announced for the game may be even more interested to hear that those pre-ordering in United States may be able to get even more. Ninostarter is a program currently running that was started by Namco Bandai to track the amount of people pre-ordering the Wizard’s Edition of the game through the clubNamco website.
So, the question is how does it work? Well, it’s pretty simple. Every pre-order of Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch–Wizard’s Edition made on the clubNamco website fills the bar until reaching a pre-order goal, which leads to a new bar and a new goal. However, the added content is only being added to those getting it in the United States. Pre-orders must be received before August 31st to count towards the promotion, so if you or a players you know would be interested in the Wizard’s Edition in the United States be sure to pre-order HERE or follow the Ninostarter progress HERE.
Today Tecmo Koei revealed a new gameplay trailer to show off their recently revealed tag-team gameplay mode which will be returning for Dead or Alive 5. In this trailer we are shown a number of combo attacks that players can perform with proper character switching and juggling techniques.
It is also worth noting that two characters have also been revealed in this trailer, Jann Lee and La Mariposa, also known as Lisa from past games. It is interesting to note however that Tecmo Koei only acknowledged Tina and Jann Lee’s existences in the trailer although Tina was previously revealed during E3, so perhaps this is not the last we’ve seen of Lisa before the game is released on September 25th.
Does the real money auction house and number of other issues revolving around Diablo 3 make you cringe for a simpler but equally enjoyable dungeon crawling experience? Well hopefully by the end of the Summer this year you will have a new alternative because Runic Games’ Torchlight 2 is still planned for a release sometime this summer.
Speaking with Joystiq, Runic president Travis Baldree has stated: “The end of summer is September 25th or something like that, right? We’re still trying to get it done for summer. It’s a big game and we’ve still got some polish to go.” So with summer already a month in, this gives Runic a little over two months to release the game and save gamers from Diablo 3 hell.
In the Hunter Center feature of Weekly Shonen Jump magazine, a poster for the recently revealed Hunter x Hunter movie, Hunter x Hunter: The Scarlet Phantom, has made it’s way online.
