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4-player Phantom Breaker: Battle Grounds beats up Vita this month
Retro-styled beat-em-up Phantom Breaker: Battle Grounds hits Western Vitas for the first time on July 29, both in North America and Europe. 5pb plans to release details on pricing and DLC soon, though it did confirm - no surprises - a PSN release only. Xbox 360 owners may already be familiar with the four-player chibi-fied spinoff of fighter Phantom Breaker. Oddly, that game is still limited to Japan, yet Battle Grounds will soon be in the West on two separate platforms. As for new content, in Japan the game received new modes and characters as DLC, but we'll have to see how much 5pb has brought across. [Image: 5pb Games]
Xbox One rises in Japan on September 4
Microsoft is bringing the Xbox One to Japan on September 4, some ten months after the console first hit store shelves in North America and Europe. Systems with or without Kinect are available at launch, with the peripheral-less unit priced 39,980 yen (around $392). Add in Kinect and the bundle goes up to 49,980 yen ($490). Japanese publisher Mages/5pb Games greeted the news by unveiling three titles for the system. The trio are visual novels Chaos;Child and Mystereet F: The Detective's Turn Call, and a tie-in for the anime series Psycho Pass. The Psycho Pass game and Mystereet F are in development at Mages' Div 8, the new studio headed by former Cave head Makoto Asada. According to Inside Games (via Siliconera), Asada has three more games in development for Xbox One. He plans to make an announcement on them at next month's E3 conference, so chances are we'll learn more about the floating girl teased as Div 8's "next project." [Image: Microsoft]
Time-bending puzzle game Constant C coming to XBLA March 12
International Games System's time-manipulating, gravity-shifting physics puzzler Constant C is getting a worldwide release via Xbox Live Arcade on March 12, Japanese publisher 5pb revealed this week. Constant C stars a rescue robot stranded aboard a space station where time has stopped. The robot can restore the flow of time using its Time Circle, temporarily bringing surrounding objects out of stasis and restoring gravity. Later stages require advanced techniques, challenging players to rotate their surroundings and manipulate inertia in order to dodge traps and solve puzzles. Constant C is also available for Windows via Desura. A Steam version has been successfully Greenlit, but is not yet available. [Image: IGS]
Time-tinkering platformer Constant C to land on Xbox 360 next spring
5pb Games (aka Mages) is bringing puzzle platformer Constant C to Xbox 360 in Spring 2014, though there's no word on the recently Greenlighted Steam version. The game's Steam Community page also promises Mac and Linux versions "in the near future." Constant C, already out on Windows PC via Desura, is based in a space station where time suddenly freezes - anything goes in space. The puzzling comes from making objects move through time, as well as some gravity shifting that's a little reminiscent of And Yet it Moves. As for the Xbox Live version, 5pb promises some "console-specific enhancements" such as revamped localization. There's no word yet on price, but the PC version goes for $10.
Former Cave head Asada working on Xbox One game at Mages
Makoto Asada is developing an unannounced Xbox One game at Mages/5pb, having left his job as head of shoot-em-up specialist Cave to work on the next-gen project. Asada moved on from Cave back in June after five years at the studio, having helped produce Guwange, EspGaluda 2, Akai Katana, and Deathsmiles among plenty of other games. Details on Asada's Xbox One game are sparse, but Dengeki Online (via Gematsu) does report it'll be packaged, and that more info should be forthcoming shortly. Mages also announced it's publishing Constant C, a 2D action-puzzle game that was one of the 100 recently Greenlighted on Steam. Mages is bringing Constant C to Xbox 360 as a downloadable game in early 2014, although it's unclear if that'll be limited to Japan or not.
Level-5 and Grasshopper's 'Liberation Maiden' becomes an adventure game
Grasshopper Manufacture and Japanese game publisher 5pb are adapting Liberation Maiden, the 3DS/iOS game in which the teenage president of Japan shoots down enemy structures from her flying mech, into a visual novel for PS3.Liberation Maiden SIN stars Kaido Kiyoto, chief of staff to president Shoko Ozora, and also, naturally, a mind reader. He works with the president and her cabinet of young women, because this is a visual novel and what would it even be about if not choosing who to date?This game involves a large portion of the Japanese game industry in some nominal way. 5pb is publishing a game based on a universe originally published by Level-5; Suda 51 and Grasshopper Manufacture designed the original game, and Suda is writing scenarios for this one; Grasshopper is now part of Gungho Online Entertainment, which is itself now part of telecom company Softbank.
Phantom Breaker spins off an XBLA brawler, available today
Phantom Breaker Battle Grounds, a new retro-style brawler, arrives on Xbox Live Arcade today, bringing cooperative side-scrolling gameplay for four players, and light RPG elements. It looks very Scott Pilgrim-esque.Like the Scott Pilgrim game, Battle Grounds is an adaptation based on another work, in this case the 2D fighting game Phantom Breaker. While this spinoff is coming today, that source game's status is something of a mystery. Originally announced for release early next year, the downloadable fighter is nowhere to be found.A status update on the game's Facebook page says that "The current boxed game business model and shifting digital gaming trends have made it difficult to bring this game to market as originally planned." Publisher 7sixty says the game has not been canceled, but offers "a heads-up that it is at a point where it is difficult to release the game as planned."
Corpse Party butters up iOS in Japan
Corpse Party was a pleasant surprise on PSP -- well, "pleasant" in that it was a good game. There's nothing pleasant about being trapped in an inescapable nightmare dimension of malicious ghosts and dead children. And now it's moving to iOS, at least in Japan, where it will be even more convenient to access the game's unexpectedly disturbing imagery (and random asides about hemorrhoid cream).Publisher 5pb will release a port of the PC98/PC/PSP game Corpse Party Blood Cover Repeated Fear this Thursday, on February 9. The app will sell for the terrifyingly steep price of 2,200 yen ($29). We're inquiring with American publisher XSEED about a localized (hopefully cheaper) release.
Phantom Breaker gets a new website, trailer and arcade stick giveaway
With all the hubbub lately over SoulCalibur 5's recent release and the impending punches contained within next month's Street Fighter X Tekken, its easy to lose track of more obsure upcoming releases like Phantom Breaker. The 360 exclusive fighter, developed by 5pb of Japan and localized for North American audiences by 7sixty, now has an English website and a new trailer to go with it, as seen above.7sixty is also giving away two limited edition Phantom Breaker-themed Fusion Sapphire arcade sticks from boutique custom shop eightarc. Considering that only those deeply mired in the intricacies of the fighting game community know of eightarc's existence, this contest at least shows that 7sixty knows how to do its homework, if nothing else. You can enter for your chance to win either on the game's official site, or at its Facebook page.
Phantom Breaker trailer materializes
You probably have a good idea of what Phantom Breaker is about -- it's a fighting game, after all -- but now you can familiarize yourself with 7sixty's Xbox 360 fighting game with a trailer. Enjoy the flashy effects and big, big combos!
2D fighter 'Phantom Breaker' on the way from publisher 7sixty
If you've been following 5pb's Japan-only Xbox fighting game Phantom Breaker, then, well, you're a bit ahead of us. Regardless, the 2D fighter will become a lot more accessible this year, when publisher 7sixty plans to localize it for release in North America. The Amazon page linked to by the publisher says it's due on January 31; however, it also says that SouthPeak is the publisher, so don't put too much stock in it. We're asking for more details. Phantom Breaker is about a fighting tournament in Tokyo held by "Phantom," which promises to grant wishes to the winner. This attracts the attention of a variety of familiar anime-style characters, along with guests from other 5pb games like Steins;Gate and Chaos;Head Noah -- which would mean something if you lived in Japan, we assure you.%Gallery-142905% Update: 7sixty is a SouthPeak subsidiary, hence the name on the Amazon page.
5PB throwing another Corpse Party in Japan
We've just received our first Corpse Party game in the west thanks to XSEED. Meanwhile, in Japan, the unfathomably icky adventure game series is getting a third PSP installment, published by 5PB. Dengeki PlayStation magazine reports (via Siliconera) that Corpse Party 2U will be released on PSP in Japan sometime next year. That's good news for those of us who have experienced the delightfully dismal Corpse Party -- another game is the first step toward another localized game. On the other hand, it's bad news for some fictional Japanese teenagers.
Bullet Soul to show Japanese 360 owners what's shmup
We know the idea of a current-day shmup where the player spends more time firing bullets than avoiding them is pretty crazy, but that's actually the gameplay mechanic of 5pb's Bullet Soul. The look of this retail Xbox 360 title is the work of Bakemonogatari character designer Akio Wantanabe (any anime fans guess that before reading this far?), while on the soundtrack side, the team of Kenji Ito (Romancing SaGa) and Kouta Takahashi (Klonoa) are composing and arranging the tunes, respectively. Bullet Soul is due out in Japan this winter.
Hideo Kojima linked to adventure game project
In a recent interview with Japanese gaming news site 4Gamer (as translated by Andriasang), Chiyomaru Shikura, the CEO of music publisher 5pb, revealed his upcoming foray into the world of interactive electronic games. When asked about his upcoming projects, Shikura explained that one title will carry quite a bit of clout -- specifically, the one on which he's collaborating with "Konami's Hideo Kojima." "Kojima said that he wanted to make an adventure game," Shikura explained, adding, "we're still at the level of 'let's lock ourselves away in the mountains somewhere and work on the plot,' so the specifics haven't been finalized." If this project comes together, we're really hoping to see some classic-style, point-and-click adventure game puzzles -- just imagine what positively insane item combinations Kojima could think up.
Item Getter screens light on actual items
Item Getter boasts the greatest name* in the history of all video games, but we're not entirely sure it's accurate. Sure, this screen is heavy on the items -- just look at 'em! mayhap they are catching them all! -- but the rest? Pffft. Drawing-by-Pixel Getter, maybe, or Rune-Scribbling Getter, those seem more on the spot, even if they don't sound as good. Map Getter! That works, right? Though it may already be taken as a backup for Etrian Odyssey. They better do something about the title of this RPG, because no one seems to be getting a single item in any of these screens, and that's just false damned advertising. At that point, why not just name your game Fantasy Warrior Quest XVI: Starry Nights of the Crystal Protectors or something?Item Getter was initially scheduled for release in Japan early next year, but has been pushed back to February. Unsurprisingly, despite what we see in these screens, it is in fact all about collecting items.*This is a lie. Probably.%Gallery-38976%
