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Triggerheart Exelica screams onto XBLA on February 27
Triggerheart Exelica, everyone's favorite debris-flinging, vertical scrolling shooter, will finally make a move onto a console that hasn't been dead for seven years next Wednesday, when a translated and updated port will go on sale on Xbox Live Arcade for 800 MS Points, according to developer WARASHI Inc.. The above video gives a pretty good idea of what to expect -- It's one part Ikaruga, one part Olympic Hammer Throw, with just a dash of the near-constant screaming of generic Anime cyborg/heroines. Sounds like a winning combination to us!
DS Daily: Samurai Deeper Kyo and the last GBA game you played
Just when we thought we had played the last great GBA game, Siliconera pointed us towards Samurai Deeper Kyo, a slick action title recently brought to the US by Destineer. Marvelous Interactive published it in Japan back in 2002, but that doesn't take away from how fun it looks! The game only comes packed as a bonus with the Samurai Deeper Kyo anime series DVD set, so you'll find it difficult to acquire a copy. Anyway, the idea of having another GBA release to look forward to finding and playing reminded us how long it's been since we tapped that bottom box on the DS's initial menu screen. Months! How long has it been for you? And what was the last GBA game you loaded up?
Latest anime game: Afro Samurai
After the release of the Naruto game, did you just expect the graphical style of the game to be dead outside of DBZ fighters? We here at X3F certainly didn't, which is why we're not surprised at the recent announcement that there will be an Afro Samurai game. Which is great because the show's plot is almost tailor made for a video game, i.e. the story revolves around fights. Play magazine was given a preview of the game, and it appears to match the "hand drawn" look characteristic of cel-shaded-anime-licensed games (such as Naruto). If the gameplay is there to match the look, we could be looking at the beginnings of a very nice 3D action game. Not only could this end up a good game, but this news might just turn on a few folks to the (excellent, if derivative) anime mini-series.[Via Play magazine]
The best video game costumes at Katsucon '08
Sometimes it might seem like we here at Joystiq are wedded to our jobs -- that we spend every waking moment aggregating and writing about the latest video game news. Well that's just not true. We do get out occasionally, you know. To anime conventions, for instance.But even when we're supposedly "relaxing" at incredibly nerdy gatherings, like this weekend's Katsucon in Washington DC, we can't help but think of you, the reader, and how we can be serving you. With that in mind, please enjoy the below gallery, which features some of the more unique/interesting game-related costumes on display by attendees (not included: the million or so Final Fantasy/Kingdom Hearts related costumes around. Come on guys... originality counts!)%Gallery-16259%
Problem-solving in Petit Eva
This Petit Eva screen takes a bit of explaining, and we admit that we don't exactly know how it works logistically. Misato, the teacher, has lost all of her students' report cards, so Shinji and the rest of the class go to her home to help her look for them. But Misato's apartment is such a mess that it is deemed expedient to turn on fans and blow the clutter out of the way in the search for the missing report cards. You see now why Neon Genesis Evangelion is one of the greatest dramas in anime. In addition to "Touch Puzzles" like these, there will also be "Touch Action" segments which seem to involve clearing a path for a running Rei Ayanami clone, and "Heart Touch" segments in which Shinji must answer characters' questions correctly in order to boost relationships.Really, it's just like the original series: synchronizing brain function with a giant biomechanical robot in order to defeat supernatural monsters is roughly equivalent to moving the soccer ball.
ADV Films going Blu-ray exclusive?
We've been glossing this one over for some time now, as to this day we still can't find a confirmation from ADV Films one way or the other, but we felt it prudent to at least point out that the anime publisher could be going Blu-ray exclusive -- according to a "highly placed source at the company," anyway. ICv2 News has it that the company will be siding with Blu alone and releasing titles on the format "as early as this Spring," and while specifics weren't mentioned, said source was quoted as saying that newer flicks were "more important than catalog" films right now, so we'd expect some of the newest material to show up on BD first. Once again, we're taking this with a healthy dose of salt for the moment -- but it's not like we haven't seen major anime studios hem and haw over this very decision before.[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
ADV gives the thumbs up, goes Blu-ray
Anime fans, rejoice! It would appear that one of the big anime distributors in the US, ADV, have decided to back the Blu-ray format with their upcoming releases. This announcement will go into action sometime this Spring. Don't expect any old ADV titles right away, though. They plan to release their newest items on Blu-ray first, and any important backlog films later on. Anyone who watched Sony's release of Paprika on Blu-ray knows that even animation can benefit greatly with high-definition, so we gladly welcome this change with ADV. Hopefully they'll keep prices only marginally higher than DVD -- everyone knows anime DVDs are insanely overpriced.
Sgt. Frog makes a compelling argument for manga licenses
We generally approach anime and manga games hesitantly, much like one would approach a bear trap surrounded by a moat. But Namco Bandai's latest Sgt. Frog (Keroro Gunso) game, Super Movie Version Sgt. Frog 3: It's an Adventure in the Sky! looks not only really dang cute but also very clear and colorful.As the title suggests, this game ties into an upcoming theatrical release, meaning that it is not only an anime license, but a movie license as well. If more movies would do things like completely changing the genre for a boss battle (like the shmup seen in Dengeki's screens), we might not be so harsh on licenses. Also if they weren't terrible all the time.
Rosario + Video
Capcom has released a trailer of their game adaptation of the conceptually wacky manga series Rosario + Vampire (Rosario and the Vampire). As you'd expect for a game based on manga and anime, the trailer spends most of its time showing some anime footage, then fits some actual gameplay in at the end. Past the adventure-game-style location searching, past the cutscene of the poor protagonist being bitten by his vampire girlfriend (what did he expect?) and past the clicking-on-floating-hearts minigame, you can catch a glimpse of the unusual touchscreen-based combat. On the bottom screen, it looks just like an Ouendan-type thing. On the top, it's a 2D fighting game!
GeGeGe no Kitarou to feature jacket gliding, wang monsters
In our enthusiasm to learn more about Namco Bandai's latest 2D platformers, Kekkaishi: Kokubourou Shuurai and GeGeGe no Kitarou: Youkai Daigekisen, both based on anime licenses, we came across this screenshot for the latter (minus the picard-wtf.jpg photoshop, of course).Sure, Touch Detective introduced phallic creatures to the DS years ago, but that mushroom thing was cartoonish and nonthreatening. As for this thing? This wrinkled beast? We imagine that if Picard and crew were to ever bump heads with this walking willy, screens would be off-ed, shields would be raised, and photon torpedoes would be fired. "Ensign, get us out of here! Maximum warp!"Deformed wang monster aside, GeGeGe no Kitarou looks to be a tame platformer with some gliding portions to keep things interesting. Float past the break for a few more of the screenshots we grabbed from Famitsu.
Namco Bandai fires Gundam OO onto the DS
Good news, Gundam fans! (And we know you must be out there, or else there wouldn't be so many games based on this anime franchise.) Namco Bandai just announced a new title for the DS that's scheduled for release in March 2008. The game will be based on the most recent Gundam series, Gundam OO. Of course, like the G Generation games, these probably won't be released outside of Japan (blame your respective countries for not loving anime enough, the fools), but we're sure hardcores won't mind importing.Also, if you love a good dose of mech porn giant gun-toting robots, Famitsu scans of the game are sitting pretty after the break.
Code Geass PSP game includes full episodes
The upcoming PSP Code Geass game will feature full episodes of the popular anime series. Well, at least in the limited edition of the game. The adventure will be available on PSP and PS2 in March 2008 (in Japan, of course). And while details are slim on this release, we're intrigued by this classy synergy of game and video. We'd love to see future PSP releases take advantage of the multimedia capabilities of the system. Imagine if Bleach: Heat the Soul actually included episodes of the anime? That would be too cool.[Via PSPHyper]
Confirmed: Yggdra Union intro is pretty
Before, we could only presume that Yggdra Union's anime intro was going to be pretty. Now, we can confirm that it is. This PSP remake of the cult GBA RPG features high-quality anime cinematics that expands the game's universe far from its humble GBA origins. But that's not all! There's more videos to be discovered at Sting's official website. [Via PSPHyper]
Two cute anime games for Japan
These two games are almost intolerably cute -- our internal cute-ometers are spinning out of control, having long since passed "awwww". The first, Yes! PreCure 5, is an isometric 2D action game from Bandai based on a magical girl anime. The premise of the anime involves, according to Wikipedia, a girl named Nozomi receiving a "Pinky Catch" from a pink butterfly, thus enabling her to transform into "Cure Dream", at which point she begins assembling a team of young girls as "Pretty Cure." Each member of Pretty Cure has her own special attacks, like "Mint Protection!" and "Cure Lemonade!" Hapi Hapi Clover is too cute to be the work of humans. We assume that some cuteness-making computer is working night and day churning out dangerous levels of cute, stopping only for Mallomars and hugs. The game is an adventure game with included minigames (an adorable Breakout-type game is shown in the link); the anime and manga seem to be about rabbits having cute adventures in the woods -- and learning.Read - Yes! PreCure 5Read - Hapi Hapi Clover
DS Fanboy Review: Fullmetal Alchemist Trading Card Game
Fullmetal Alchemist: Trading Card Game on the DS suffers from its source material on two different levels. First, the original property, Fullmetal Alchemist, doesn't really lend itself to a card game. Fullmetal Alchemist, for the uninitiated, is a show about two brothers who attempt to use alchemy to revive their dead mother, but fail and accidentally maim one brother and trap the other brother's soul in a suit of armor. Then they have adventures!The card game, then, revolves not around simple competition with adversaries, as would be expected of card games; or rather, it does, but altercations are treated in the card game's "storyline" as ancillary to the goal of locating the powerful alchemical relic, the Philosopher's Stone, and fixing their bodies. Perhaps, then, FMA was not the ideal choice of properties to translate into cards.Second, the DS game suffers by being such a faithful translation of said card game, which, to be blunt, is far too complicated to be worth attempting. The DS game makes valiant attempts to streamline the process and teach the game, but every person on Earth who has a strong enough interest in Fullmetal Alchemist to learn the card game has done so, and nobody else has any reason to try.
Blue Dragon anime headed to XBLM for the free
In celebration of Blue Dragon becoming a part of the Platinum Collection on November 1st, Xbox Japan will be offering a few episodes of the Japanese exclusive Blue Dragon anime series anime series to the XBLM for free.Available on the Marketplace from November 15th through January 15th will be free downloads of the first two Blue Dragon anime episodes to all Xbox Live members (silver or gold). The anime series is a semi-hit in Japan's Saturday morning cartoon circuit, so we just might be in for some entertaining anime fun or a lot of dragon confusion. Whichever it ends up being, we're sill excited and you can't take that away from us.
Meowth is pretty much the best Pokemon ever
var digg_url = 'http://digg.com/nintendo_wii/Meowth_is_pretty_much_the_best_Pokemon_ever'; With this morning's Smash Dojo announcement, we thought that today was as good a time as any to remind you about why Meowth is the awesomest Pokemon of all time (the anime character, not the species). Of the hundreds of reasons we could bring up to support this argument, we've picked out five for you to chew on: Meowth is one of the VERY few Pokemon who can converse with humans. Respect. Meowth actually taught himself to speak and walk upright, all so he could win the heart of a female who rejected him. He eventually got over her trifling ways and pursued other flames. Even though he grew up in Hollywood, Meowth has a Brooklyn accent. That's just how he rolls. Like Pikachu, Meowth doesn't bother with that Poke Ball mess. He has more dignity than that. Because of Meowth's intense determination to mimic human traits, he never learned a lot of battle moves, including his species' signature attack, Pay Day. Despite that, he still rocked Brock's Onix, acting as both trainer and Pokemon, throwing buckets of water on the boulder-ish creature. BONUS: Meowth cranks dat Soulja Boy. To further prove our point, we've embedded past the post break two clips from "Go West, Young Meowth," quite possibly the finest Pokemon episode in existence. There might be superior episodes that don't currently exist in our present dimension or timeline, but we haven't seen them yet.
New Tachikoma spider robot on the loose
Ghost in the Shell fans, unite. Your favorite killer spider is back once more, as Bandai is delivering a newfangled version which stands 9.5-centimeters high and connects to your PC via USB. Apparently, this creature comes bundled with software which enables it to play back voice messages and fire up mini-games when it's not emitting sounds through the built-in speaker or catching your eye with its integrated LEDs. Unfortunately, it looks like this creature won't actually be uncaged until next February, but that'll give you some time to save up the ¥13,440 ($115) that you'll need come launch day.[Via TokyoMango]
Major Dream's not-so-major screenshots
Famitsu has put up the first screenshots we've seen for Major Dream, Takara Tomy's recently announced Wii game for the baseball anime, and ... They look exactly like how you'd expect a low-budget anime sports title to look like. What's up with the crotch pinstripes in the above image? His outfit resembles a wacky line graph more than it does a baseball uniform. Even with the game's Eyeshield 21 similarities, all the motion blur in the world couldn't distract us from that mess of stripes.
Starz to bring Ghost in the Shell, Tokko, Astro Boy, others to Xbox Live
Sometimes, a story comes as a surprise, and sometimes you're surprised that it hasn't gone down yet. Today's news of Starz Media dropping a big chunk of anime on to the Xbox Live Video Marketplace is definitely one of the latter occurrences. Beginning today (and continuing over the coming weeks) you'll be able to find titles from the Starz anime library like Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex (Seasons 1 & 2), Street Fighter II V, Noein, Tokko, Virus and Astro Boy on the service. The good news doesn't stop there. Looking over the catalog of titles under Starz's umbrella, we can see plenty of reasons to get excited. Now, if you'll excuse us, we have to go pray for Appleseed.
