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Famicom Detective Club is a pair of visual novels for people new to the genre
Nintendo's re-release of the Famicom Detective Club games is an interesting time capsule of the visual novel genre.
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]
Know Your Lore: Three Mages of Azeroth
The World of Warcraft is an expansive universe. You're playing the game, you're fighting the bosses, you know the how -- but do you know the why? Each week, Matthew Rossi and Anne Stickney make sure you Know Your Lore by covering the history of the story behind World of Warcraft. Last week, we talked about mages. This week, we talk about specific mages. Because for better or worse, mages have changed the very face of Azeroth and much of its history has been in reaction to them and their eternal quest for knowledge and power. And certainly, not always for the better. After all, it was the Highborne, specifically the cadre of Highborne mages under Xavius who served Queen Azshara who tapped into the power of the Well of Eternity in a mad effort to bring forth Sargeras into Azeroth. They weren't warlocks or priests or druids - they were mages, the rulers of a mage-ruled society (Azshara herself was terrifyingly adept with the art of the mage) and their desire to understand had warped into an obsession with control. They wanted total mastery over the Well of Eternity and the potent arcane power it loosed into Azeroth -- understanding it was no longer enough when dominance seemed within their reach, and it drove them mad. The path of the mage is, in its way, the most demanding of any because it requires the discipline of a skilled warrior and the flexibility of mind of the greatest sage. You must dominate the self, control your own inherent desires rather than be controlled by them. Even mages as great and powerful as Aegwynn failed because they lost the battle between the personal and the universal. Today we'll look at mages throughout Azeroth's history and discuss their role in events.
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]
Warlords of Draenor: Mages have 12 new talents
The twitter account of Chadd Nervig (better known as Celestalon) has become one of my favorites due to his willingness to talk about the various aspects of class design. One that he brought up recently was the difficulty of naming new abilities. His point about spell names needing to fill many different needs is pretty interesting, I think. While discussing this, a specific example popped up that seemed very worth mentioning here. .@talachit Mage talents have received significant revision. Currently: 12 brand new, 3 existing/old spells now talents, 4 w/ major changes. - Celestalon (@Celestalon) February 26, 2014 This sounds like a lot of new talents, not just to name, but in general. Twelve are entirely new, and another seven are either existing spells or old spells changed into talents or major revamps of talents. Frankly, I'm a little envious -- I wish Warriors were getting this kind of change. Edited to add: Celestalon mentioned in a tweet that there are 28 mage talents in all, not 21, because some are spec specific, so the number of 12 above ends up being not quite half.
Arcane Brilliance: A timely discussion
Every other week, WoW Insider brings you Arcane Brilliance for arcane, fire and frost mages. Stacey Landry is the resident mage here, bender of space and time, conjurer of delicious confectioneries and expert at dressing well while setting things on fire. I'm interrupting my planned final installment in the Challenge Mode tips series to talk about a more pressing topic. Things have really been heating up in the mage community over the past few days. (I'm sorry, I couldn't help it). It all started when Celestalon made his fateful tweet about button bloat, asking what ability we worried about losing that might potentially be cut. Discussions about button bloat have happened in the recent past, but this sparked the discussion anew. A few mages suggested Alter Time might be a suitable candidate for a variety of reasons. More mages began to speak up that were vehemently opposed to its removal. Both sides became more vocal and some heated forum posts were created. I don't mention this all to sow any more discord. At the end of the day, we're all robe-wearing, spell-flinging casters of magic. I'd like to see things kept civil. But it's a worthwhile discussion to have, if a "cut" is coming (and all evidence suggests that it is), what could we stand to lose and why?
Arcane Brilliance: Challenge mode tips for mages part 2
Every other week, WoW Insider brings you Arcane Brilliance for arcane, fire and frost mages. Stacey Landry is the resident mage here, bender of space and time, conjurer of delicious confectioneries and expert at dressing well while setting things on fire. This is part two of three challenge mode tips for mages articles. Click here to go back and read part one. This week we're going to look at getting your gear ready to dive into challenge modes! First, a few loose ends. I neglected to mention another reward for finishing gold CMs: Challenger's Path. This is a teleport on an 8 hour cooldown that will take you straight to the entrance of a CM you achieved a gold rating in! Once you complete any CM, the teleport cooldown resets. They're very handy for getting around Pandaria. Some mages left comments about doing gold CMs as arcane. That's great! If you have any CM-specific arcane questions, I'm sure they'd be happy to share some of their strategy in the comments this week. I'll still be assuming you are probably frost. Frost is the most accessible and easiest option for the average mage, but I didn't say it couldn't be done by another spec. The reason for this is that frost scales better than the other two specs at lower item levels. It will perform well for you and can put out some serious AoE damage. Most mages doing CMs use it. Finally, Adam Koebel posted an introductory challenge mode guide this week. It also includes links to recommended strat videos. HamletEJ's were the ones I used.
Arcane Brilliance: Challenge mode tips for mages part 1
Every other week, WoW Insider brings you Arcane Brilliance for arcane, fire and frost mages. Stacey Landry is the resident mage here, bender of space and time, conjurer of delicious confectioneries and expert at dressing well while setting things on fire. Happy new year! Welcome to 2014. This week I'm going to talk about something we haven't looked at yet: challenge modes. Every column I've posted, someone has asked about or remarked on my current transmog. (Thank you for that. It warms my heart that you're also fashion-conscious). I'll admit, I haven't been able to change my transmog since I got the CM one. It's such a perfect combination of unique, exclusive, and also it's a credential. It says, "Trust me, I know what I'm doing here." But the best thing about it is that you don't need a raid group to get it. Why would you want to do challenge modes as a mage? Read on to find out.
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.
Preparation, Readiness, and other cooldown resetting abilities may have grim future
Classes with cooldown resetting abilities probably won't find one of Ghostcrawler's most recent tweet all that surprising. The abilities (Preparation, Readiness, etc.) have been targeted by several nerfs and changes this expansion. Ghostcrawler wrote the following in reply to a tweet that said it may be time to stop adding cooldown resetting abilities to the game if they're constantly going to be nerfed. @Divine_Namjoo We agree. I'm not sure that design angle has payed out well. - Greg Street (@Ghostcrawler) July 16, 2013 The abilities are particularly problematic in PvP, where players can chain several attacks or crowd control abilities together within a short period of time. What do you think? Do cooldown resetting abilities belong in the game? Are they overpowered?
RP Inside the Kirin Tor: 'There are specialists for everything, I suppose'
Dalaran remains one of the shining jewels of Azeroth. Many players make their homes in this glittering city in the sky. Horde and Alliance players alike have traditionally enjoyed the hospitality of the historically neutral Kirin Tor, who were content to cloister themselves to focus on matters of magic and learning. But Jaina Proudmoore's politics have pulled the Kirin Tor into alignment with the Alliance. The peaceful face of Dalaran is no more. The Kirin Tor have ejected the Sunreavers from its ranks and the city itself, throwing them into the Violet Hold or killing them outright (though some managed to escaped to Silvermoon). Roleplaying behind this volatile facade is one of WoW's most unique concept guilds, Moon Guard's Magus Senate of Dalaran. Comprised almost entirely of mages and other magic users, the guild turns magic to reflect upon arcane politics and the fireworks of world battle.
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."
Dev Watercooler: Watcher on encounter tuning
While it isn't quite the PvP watercooler post that some of you have been looking for, Ion "Watcher" Hazzikostas, the Lead Encounter Designer for the World of Warcraft team, published a blog post earlier today regarding encounter mechanics. It offers excellent insight behind various decisions to nerf or buff bosses. He went on to deliver the reasoning behind hotfixes to Heroic Gara'jal earlier in the expansion and how the Ring of Frost talent for mages made Heroic Will of the Emperor easy. In addition, Ion covered: Creative use of ingame mechanics vs exploits Adjusting the difficulty of encounters Unintended strategies How mages make life difficult for encounter designers Read on after the cut to see the full post!
ArcheAge caster class detailed
AAportal has published another review of the recently concluded ArcheAge CBT3 event, this time focusing on the game's Mage class. The reviewer leveled his Mage to 21 and came away with a better understanding of the pre-defined spell schools (in this case illusion, death, and magic) as well as the corresponding special abilities. While most MMO mages are on the squishy side, we suspect that ArcheAge will buck that trend a bit, given the reviewer's observations that his Mage had a lot of hitpoints as well as a significant shield buff. Offense is, of course, the Mage's raison d'etre, and ArcheAge casters apparently pack a wallop (as well as two- to three- second cast times). It's not all wham-spam-thank-you-ma'am, though, as there is some strategy involved. Read all about it at AAportal, and check out the gameplay video after the cut.
The Queue: Dala-ran out of portals
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW Insider's daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Mathew McCurley will be your host today. The portals are gone! Run for your lives! Actually, I don't really care -- that's what mages are for, right? To boss around and hound for hours until they take me to the Undercity? What's that? You want a tip? Oh, come now, it's just pressing one button, and I'm thrifty and mean. Start casting, slave! Hey, it's Queue time!
Blood Sport: Beginner's guide to arena, part III
Want to crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentation of their women? Blood Sport investigates the entirety of all-things arena for gladiators and challengers alike. C. Christian Moore, multiple rank 1 gladiator, examines the latest arena strategy, trends, compositions and more in WoW.com's arena column. Listening Music: Modeselektor's Tetrispack. Allison Robert offered a challenge to our most beloved columnist last week. Ms. Roberts has chosen a clever and palatable piece with Richard Shindell's On-A-Sea-Of-Fleur-De-Lis. And now we come to my retaliation. My wife recommended our musical selection today -- it just happened to be on the absolute opposite end of the spectrum. How fitting. We love this song, albeit mostly for the intro. Upon your first listen, if you correctly predict the timing and type of shift in the first thirty seconds, serious e-props to you. To wit, Robert: pan flute > no pan flute. Your move. Last Week: part two of our beginner's arena guide. We featured the cute ukulele kid who pretty much controls the internet right now. After that, we discussed frequently asked questions from new arena players. We talked about how to spec and what team composition to choose, with two different types of answers (easy and long). Today, we'll be talking some very basic class strategy. If you know your class inside and out, you'll know what I'm going to say when it comes to your class and arena. You can still learn about other classes here. I've written over 2500 words about individual class perspective inside arenas, that's a lot. Full article after the break.
The Daily Quest: Guild switching
We here at WoW.com are on a Daily Quest to bring you interesting, informative and entertaining WoW-related links from around the blogosphere. Everyone's playing guild musical chairs: Sheep Blink Invis just disbanded one of their guilds, We Fly Spitfires wants to find one, Nibuca's working on names for hers, and Hots and Dots is seeking mages for theirs. Hopefully we made at least one match in there somewhere. Good luck to you guildless folks! Grandpappy Frostheim says Hunters these days have no respect, I tell ya. Planet of the Hats has a nice long post up about "gear pollution," a growing problem in the game. And OutDPS tells you how to hunt for Heroic Northrend Beasts. The encounter, not the actual beasts themselves. Click here to submit a link to TDQ
Blood Sport: Patch 3.3, part II
Want to crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentation of their women? Blood Sport investigates the entirety of all-things arena for gladiators and challengers alike. C. Christian Moore, multiple rank 1 gladiator, examines the latest arena strategy, trends, compositions and more in WoW.com's arena column. David Byrne and The Talking Heads are a personal favorite. Miles Fisher seems to love them as well. His cover of This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody) is homage to one of the most beautiful, striking melodies I've ever heard, and as such, it will be your listening music for the day. (NSFW Warning: The video is a parody/reenactment of American Psycho, so view carefully.) Last time, we went over the Will of the Forsaken nerf, 100% pet resilience, death knights, and druids. The patch looks to be a very interesting bag of surprises for arena enthusiasts, we're getting major changes to the way some races work, as well as nearly every class is getting a pretty substantial change or two which will probably help them in PvP. We don't normally see patches where most classes are buffed, but this could be one of them. Read on to find out what's up with hunters, mages, and paladins in Patch 3.3!
