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Phantasy Star Portable 2 headed to North America and Europe this fall
Here's the best news for PSP owners who love futuristic co-op dungeon crawling since, well, Phantasy Star Portable: Sega has announced that it's localizing Phantasy Star Portable 2, with a fall release planned in both North America and Europe. Taking place after the events of Phantasy Star Universe, Portable 2 features the people of Gurhal facing a new, less easily defeated threat: scarcity of resources. We'll have to play the game's story mode and some online quests (that's right, unlike the first Phantasy Star Portable, this one's playable online) before we discover how that issue is resolved, though we do know how Sega of Japan acquired the resources it used to produce the game: advertising tie-ins! We really hope the Pizza Hut box item makes it into the Western version. %Gallery-93480%
Aksys shooting Castle of Shikigami III at the U.S.
Aksys Games announced today that they will localize Alfa System's vertical shooter Shikigami no Shiro III as Castle of Shikigami III. The game, featuring 10 characters (who fly around and shoot magical bullet things) will be released in the spring of 2008. It seems that only the Wii version is being localized, and not the Xbox 360 version.We're a little surprised to see a 2D shooter being released in the U.S. outside of the Virtual Console (which is shmupland). But we shouldn't be -- it was published in Japan by Arc System Works, and Aksys seems to have swept up all of their Nintendo content for localization. Just to be clear, we are thrilled about that. Check out the press release after the break and enjoy our gallery of brightly-colored, confusing screens!
Shikigami no Shiro III: a shooter with the human touch
The Shikigami no Shiro series is pretty weird, for a number of reasons: first, the truly off-putting budget US release with the generic Charlie's Angels boxart; second, that the latest iteration of a shooter series is being released in 2007 at all; but most importantly, and most pertinent to actual gameplay, that Shikigami no Shiro III includes a variety of characters, in the same vein as a fighting game. That the game is being released on the Wii seems fairly standard for a shooter, if anything could be "standard" about a modern entry in this classic genre.The latest screenshots show the basic projectiles fired by some of the characters. Yes, you play as a flying human in this game, and not a spaceship or multi-headed dragon. That's something. We can't wait to float around as the classy Munchausen and shoot crystals from our outstretched hands. We can only assume that he's fresh from washing single handkerchiefs in a cocktail shaker.
TGS07: Beautiful new Tales of Innocence trailer
The post-show media just keeps rolling in! We're not complaining, though ... far from it, when the media in question is as mind-boggling as this Tales of Innocence trailer. Even us dedicated DS fans are sometimes impressed with the capabilities creative developers can wring out of our handheld. This latest Tales installment is due for release in December in Japan, and there's no word on localization, but after seeing this trailer, we can only hope Namco Bandai picks up the slack. [Thanks, creamsugar!]
