Pendulo Studios (the developers behind the million-selling adventure game trilogy Runaway and more recently The Next BIG Thing) have released new images for their latest adventure game Yesterday. An original and dark thriller set in New York City where mysterious events have been happening with police and the media giving little attention to them.
The story will be told from the perspective of three different playable characters, Henry White, a young and rich heir dedicated to a charitable organization, his friend Cooper and John Yesterday, a man who is dragged into the events after having his memory wiped.
Check out the images below:
The new images definitely show off the game’s strong art style and its colourful characters. Yesterday is set to be released for PC sometime in 2012.
Sekirei: Pure Engagement Studio: Seven Arcs Publisher: FUNimation Release Date: January 3, 2012 Price: $64.98 – Available Here
Overview:
Many anime can claim that they are action packed, but when too many series are action-oriented the genre can become muddled and seen as something to easily ignore. How does an anime series stand out above the rest? By having certain characteristics that make it unique from everything else out there, such is the case with Sekirei.
Sekirei originally began as a Japanese manga series created by Sakurako Gokurakuin and has been published monthly since 2004 and is still continuing today. If the running length of the manga doesn’t peak your interest already, then perhaps the knowledge that Sekirei has already seen one anime season and now FUNimation has brought Sekirei: Pure Engagement to North America to bring American fans. The first season can be picked up here, but does Sekirei: Pure Engagement bring with it the same titillating action of the first season?
Story:
Sekirei is a story that takes place in an future version of Japan where the powerful and mysterious MBI Corporation has begun something they are calling the Sekirei Plan. To commence with this plan, 108 Sekirei (beings with superhuman abilities) have been released in the city of Tokyo and these strange men and women must fight with one another and defeat each other until there is only one left standing.
To do this however, they must find their Ashikabi to unleash their true potential through a contract made with their Sekirei. Of course, this contract must be sealed with a kiss. The story follows Minato Sahashi, a man who now has entered into “contract” with four different Sekirei, two of which are deeply in love with him and even one that calls herself his “True Wife.”
The story of Sekirei: Pure Engagement is a straight continuation from the last season. After Minato and his Sekirei assisted another Ashikabi in escaping the locked city, MBI has increased security and the Disciplinary Squad is out for blood. However as Minato continues his daily life with his Sekirei at his home at the Izumo Inn, only a couple Sekirei remain unfeathered. The last of which are sitting right under his nose.
With only two Sekirei remaining to be obtained by the many Ashikabi taking part in the Sekirei Plan and the completion of Stage 2 nearly finished, MBI begins to move towards Stage 3. What could this possibly mean for Minato and his Sekirei? How can he fight to not only protect the ones that he loves, but also try to save those near him as well?
Now Sekirei Pure Engagement really isn’t the best part of the series to jump in on. The series is partially open to newcomers, however not watching the first season may cause a lot of confusion about the events occurring at any given time and only a few of the main characters are reintroduced. As such, Sekirei Pure Engagement does surpass the first season as far as story development goes. This includes a very interesting twist that, although some viewers may see it coming, should catch most by surprise with a well thought out and planned plot twist.
While there seems to be less action than in the first season, there still is plenty of action happening throughout the series. Now with the final Sekirei being feathered in this season, the action is taken to another level as far as intensity goes. Each of the Sekirei have their own unique abilities and powers, and most of Minato’s Sekirei see a boost in power and learn new abilities. Especially when the final Sekirei is feathered. Some of the Sekirei in Minato’s “harem” also see some character development as well, however this mostly applies to newly feathered Sekirei and only a few who return from the first season.
Those who are looking for action will find plenty in Sekirei, but they will also be treated to plenty of comedy and of course tons of breasts. Those watching should be laughing quite often, as long as they enjoy your standard ecchi comedy, usually involving Tsukiumi becoming angry with Minato over his actions with other Sekirei or the owner of Izumo Inn, Miya Asama, with her demonic presence.
That being said, there are so many breasts that you will lose count of how many will be appearing at a time. The series seems to almost flaunt the amount of breasts that exist in the series, especially with a heavily female oriented main cast. While Sekirei Pure Engagement may contain plenty of fan service and more boobs than you can shake a stick at, at its heart there is a great story to be had… also plenty of panty shots and full breasted action.
Visuals:
It’s a bit obvious that the main focus of Sekirei’s design department was created to make sure that the male viewer is pleased with what they are seeing. Most male characters in the series have very little special character design or unique appearances, while all of the female characters, even minor ones, receive a rather high amount of detail… also very large breasts.
When Seven Arcs created this anime, they obviously were focusing on creating girls with breasts larger than double Ds with only a few characters having either normal sized breasts or small breasts. Those who do end up having inferiority complexes due to their lack of breast size. Now, besides all the breasts that will be seen, the animation quality is quite high for Sekirei Pure Engagement with the battle animation seemingly always top notch. This is a major accomplishment considering the fact that all of the Sekirei possess specific superhuman abilities that are used as their primary offense.
That being said, the series does tend to use chibi-like art effects a bit too much where the character details drop significantly and used mostly for comedy. While it does help make a situation funnier in most occasions it feels overused and tends to hurt the series when a joke falls flat.
Audio:
Those hoping to hear the same voices from the first season will be glad to hear that the same voice actors are reprising their roles. This also means that FUNimation’s English voice track is as spectacular as usual with all of the characters providing an amazing performance. The Japanese voice track is also included with English subs so purists can enjoy that version as well. One voice actress who deserves special mention is Lydia Mackay and her performance of Tsukiumi. Tsukiumi’s vocabulary uses lots of old world English such as thou, doth and more which certainly increased the difficulty of providing quality voice work for the character but Lydia has done so admirably.
The opening song for the series is called “Hakuyoku no Seiyaku ~Pure Engagement~” while the ending song is “Onnaji Kimochi”. Both of these songs are sung by the Japanese voice actors for the first four Sekirei that were feathered by Minato. This includes Saori Hayami, Marina Inoue, Kana Hanazawa and Aya Endo who all do an interesting performance with the song. The opening song has a touching simple feeling to it while the ending is quite fitting.
Extras:
As standard with a FUNimation release, Sekirei Pure Engagement contains both a clean, creditless version of the opening and ending song but a nice little addition is also the inclusion of the episode 10 ending song “Oboeteiru kara.” Each song has also been given the English name, with the opening named “White Winged Vow Pure Engagement” the main ending song named “The Same Feelings” and the final special ending song is “I Remember, After All.”
Besides these inclusions, Episode 5 and Episode 10 both have received commentary from the ADR director as well as a few of the voice cast. Episode 5 contains commentary from Scott Sager, the ADR Director, Joel McDonald, the voice actor for Minato and Leah Clark the voice actress for Kagari. Episode 10 is provided commentary by Scott Sager again, Alexis Tipton the voice actress of Musubi and Jamie Marchi the voice actress for Uzume. As usual the commentaries are a mix of informative and hilarious with plenty of jokes and discussions that give us a look behind the scenes.
The most interesting extra however is the inclusion of an OVA which is labeled as Episode 0. The OVA takes place before the first episode of Sekirei Pure Engagement. This episode is pretty much a standalone one that contains nearly as much fan service and breasts than three of the normal series’ episodes combined. The episode is also full of various jokes, though most of them are focused on a particular Sekirei’s lacking bust.
Overall:
While Sekirei may not be everyone’s favorite anime and some may be put off by the amount of breasts and nipples that are visible on screen at any given moment, simply passing over it for these reasons would be a horrible shame. There are a few problems, such as some slow story development and a drop in the action, but Sekirei Pure Engagement surpasses the first season by providing an interesting story twist, a number of character defining moments and literally busts through its top with the amount of fan service on screen. While some may see it as a standard harem comedy, Sekirei has so much more to offer than fan service and should not be passed over.
Bravely Default: Flying Fairy has made an appearance at today’s Nintendo Direct conference. The trailer shown was that of Jump Festa, showing breathtaking artwork and a few glimpses of gameplay, limiting to exploration and a few battle animations. At the end of the trailer, it was revealed that there will be a demo of the game released in Spring 2012. It will be accompanied by an AR application released in the same period.
A release date for the game was not revealed outside of the vague 2012 release date revealed by Square Enix when the game was first revealed. With that said, this conference was about game that will see a release before April 2012, so it can be theorised that the game could see a release during the early 2012 period or beyond Spring 2012 since the demo will be released then.
Fire Emblem 3DS has been officially named Fire Emblem: Kakusei (Awakening) and also has an official Japanese release date of April 19 2012, revealed in today’s Nintendo Direct conference held by Nintendo CEO Satori Iwata. It was also revealed that the game will feature very popular elements which were implemented in previous Fire Emblem games. In a video shown during the conference, the two particular elements shown were the free map system and the skills system. It had also touched upon customisation of the kingdom’s army.
Iwata, however, did not mention the paid downloadable content that was revealed by Nikkei earlier today. Iwata may have wanted to keep the details for a later date, including content and pricing. The video also included fantastic battle animation and two-on-one battles. With a release date on April 19, Fire Emblem: Awakening should see a release in English later in that month or early May.
Ah, yes. Those first date jitters. Everybody gets them, and as you see in the screenshot above, Iwata has them too. Why is Iwata on a couch with a cartoon female you ask? New LovePlus releases in Japan on February 14th, and the President of Nintendo caught up with the developers of the upcoming title during the Nintendo Direct feed.
New LovePlus utilizes the 3DS’ AR tech and cameras, letting players take photos of themselves and then watch as their virtual partners show them affection in the real world. As usual, there isn’t much of a chance we will see this released in the west, but it’s still yet another indication on the possibilities of the 3DS. Those who have a Japanese unit though can grab their own digital dame this Valentines day.
A new title for the Nintendo Wii was announced earlier at the Nintendo Direct conference. That title is the ‘unique’ Kiki Trick, a sound-based trivia game.
The game comes from WarioWare and Metroid creator Yoshio Sakamoto. The game focuses on utilising the sound effects to challenge players with trivia, such as figuring out popular phrases from gargled sentences to matching a sound effect to the correct video.
The title is set for a release on the 19th of January, 2012. At the conference the game was on show with Nintendo’s President Satoru Iwata playing the game, at which he seemed delighted. Stay tuned for more details on this quirky Wii game.
Dynasty Warriors fans finally have a date for the upcoming Dynasty Warriors Vs. on the 3DS. During the Nintendo Direct event, it was announced that the new spin on the multi-player hack and slash will be out in Japan on March 15th.
A very brief clip was also shown, displaying some footage of the gameplay we can expect. Other than the date and the small clip, players can also look forward to going online with Vs. with four player compatibility as that feature was also announced. Nintendo fans in general might also want to give this one another look as well, as Nintendo character costumes will also be included. We still don’t have a window on when we will see Dynasty Warriors Vs. will see the west, but one would expect Tecmo-Koei to elaborate in the near future.
It has been confirmed at the Nintendo Direct conference that the hotly anticipated Kid Icarus: Uprising will officially feature online multiplayer. Coupled with that confirmation was greater details of the online multiplayer feature.
It has been confirmed that the title will feature character and weaponry customization as well as a community function not unlike that seen in Mario Kart 7. Also announced is Battle Royale and Team Match battle modes.
The title is slated for a release on the 22nd of March, 2012 throughout Japan. It is to be presumed that a Western release is not too far off, given Nintendo’s habit of releasing 1st party titles generally at the same time, world-wide. Stay tuned as more news on Kid Icarus: Uprising becomes apparent.
Fairy Tail: Zeref Awakens, is the third Playstation Portable game based upon the popular Fairy Tail manga and anime series. It has been confirmed today in G-Magazine that the forthcoming title will feature new characters exclusive to the title designed by none other than series creator Hiro Mashima.
The game is set to feature the Nirvana, Edolas and Tenrou Island story arcs, with a cast of 35 playable characters. The title is currently slated for a vague release of sometime in ‘2012’.
Little else has been revealed about the game besides a nice piece of artwork from Mashima himself, which can be seen to the right, which features characters to be featured in the game. Stay tuned for more news on Fairy Tail: Zeref Awakens as it comes to light.
The ever allusive Wii U will be making an appearance next month at CES 2012, but it appears that the release window for the console has just been narrowed down ever so slightly. Nintendo is currently aiming to release their new home console sometime between June of 2012 and the end of 2012. This makes a decent amount of sense, as one would expect Nintendo to officially set a release date for the Wii U at E3 2012.
The old release window for the Wii U was sometime between April 2012 and December 2012, so although it may be further away, at least it has been narrowed down slightly. Still, Nintendo really does need to try and make the Wii U more public than they currently have, as most modern consumers have likely forgotten about its existence since its reveal six months ago.
