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Unchained Blades going to 3DS and PSP as a digital release
Over the weekend, we reported that XSEED was localizing Unchained Blades as a 3DS download. The publisher officially announced the title today, revealing that it's actually localizing both the 3DS and PSP versions of FuRyu's dungeon RPG, for digital release. It's an oddly fruitful day for first-person dungeon RPGs!XSEED talked up the old-school Game Arts cred of the game, which is directed by Lunar writer Toshio Akashi and features a story by Grandia's Takashi Hino. That story involves a group of monster people ("cowardly golem prince," "medusa priestess," etc., all designed by different artists) questing to win back the transformative power of a "dragon emperor."%Gallery-151675%
'Unchained Blades' coming to 3DS eShop via XSEED
This is going to sound pretty weird, because it involves clues to something you likely don't remember or know. The short version: Nintendo Power's table of contents reveals a game called "Unchained Blades" for 3DS, as a download.The long version: this is the reveal of something publisher XSEED was cryptically teasing yesterday, with a series of images on Twitter including a Tyrannosaurus Rex, a blade of grass, and a still from Ghost's famous pottery wheel scene. And now you're confused.It's now clear that the clues refer to the dungeon crawler released in Japan as UnchainBlades Rexx. (get it: "Unchained" Melody plus "blade" of grass plus T. "Rex.") It was a retail game over there, but being in Nintendo Power's "Download" section suggests that XSEED is improving the distribution method along with the name.
XSEED Games Ys-es into Steam market
XSEED is beginning to publish PC games for Steam, starting with a pair of Ys remakes. Ys: The Oath in Felghana will be available for purchase on March 19 for $14.99. It's coming out a while after the PSP version here, but in Japan this PC release predated the PSP by about five years.Perhaps even more exciting is Ys Origin, a prequel game that never got an official English release. XSEED plans to put that out on Steam at a later date.If you've never played an Ys game before, think old-school Zelda with more storyline. And even though Felghana is technically the third game in the storyline, you won't be lost if you jump in there. Basically, all you need to know is that Adol Christin is a really nice guy who will solve everyone's problems and kill everyone's monsters.%Gallery-150671%%Gallery-150669%
Sumioni: Demon Arts drawn to digital Vita release March 20
Looking for the next lovely thing to gawk at on your Vita's crazy screen? XSEED announced today that the sumi-e inspired action game Sumioni: Demon Arts will be available in North America on March 20. The PSN-exclusive release will sell for $19.99.The gorgeous ink-style vistas, touchscreen platform painting, and summonable "inkgods" will be included at launch, of course, as well multiple endings. Less essential features like leaderboards and extra DLC will be released later.%Gallery-149344%
Hironobu Sakaguchi made this Last Story trailer for you
If you've been ignoring The Last Story because you didn't want to get interested in a game you'd never be able to play, well, it's time to start watching trailers. And there's no better place to start than with this European trailer directed by Mistwalker's Hironobu Sakaguchi himself.Like the European release of Xenoblade Chronicles, this version of The Last Story has quite British voice acting. American publisher XSEED hasn't made any announcements about how it would handle voice recording, but we expect to hear the same accents when the North American version shows up this summer.
XSEED inks publishing deal for Vita platformer Sumioni: Demon Arts
XSEED is one of the most doggedly prolific PSP publishers, and it's continuing the trend with the Vita, announcing plans to publish Acquire's Sumioni: Demon Arts this spring in North America. Sumioni casts the player as an "ink demon," fighting through a sumi-e landscape. It combines traditional button controls for locomotion and combat, and touchscreen-based drawing to make new platforms, summon fire and lightning, and perform other feats. It's also, like, way pretty. You don't need us to tell you that! Gawk at the above trailer and see for yourself. Thanks, XSEED, for localizing one of the more interesting Japanese Vita launch games! It's not like we can just buy it from PSN in Japan.
Portabliss: Corpse Party (PSP)
Did you know that you can download handheld games now? That's amazingly convenient! The only inconvenient part of it is finding the right games to buy -- and that's where we come in, with our Portabliss column. In each installment, we'll tell you about a downloadable game on the iPhone, iPad, Android device, DSi, 3DS, PSP, etc. Today: Corpse Party. Technically, Corpse Party is a full-sized PSP game that just happens to be PSN-only, but it is a downloadable portable game, so I'm using this column as a convenient venue to talk about it. Because it is really, really cool. It may look cutesy and SNES-like, but the cognitive dissonance between that presentation and what is happening only serves to amplify the profound wrongness of every single moment of this game.
Corpse Party starts boogeyin' this November
On today of all days, the haunt of all haunts, Corpse Party publisher XSEED chose to announce a November launch for its upcoming download-only PSP horror title. And while XSEED is "sorry to have missed Halloween," this carton of rotten eggs we plan on throwing in the company's general direction just isn't hearing it, frankly. At very least, the publisher has a decent explanation for the missed opportunity. "We wanted to make certain everything was perfect," a statement from XSEED localization specialist Tom Lipschultz on the US PlayStation Blog reads. He unfortunately didn't nail down a solid date for the game's launch, but did drop a brand new trailer, as seen above.
The best JRPG you haven't played yet
This is a column by Jason Schreier dedicated to the analysis (and occasional mocking) of his favorite genre, the Japanese role-playing game. Whether it's because they're too antiquated or just too niche, he believes JRPGs don't get enough attention in the gaming industry today. It's time to change that. Every good game has moments of euphoria, those revelatory points in an interactive adventure when we realize just how much fun we're having. They're different for everyone – some of us might be enamored by a combat system or nutty plot twist while others might find themselves romantically attracted to a main character's hair spikes – but everybody feels them. These moments are usually short and ephemeral, showing up every once in a while just to remind us that we're enjoying ourselves. As a general rule, the more time we spend thinking "Wow, this is great," the better the game. When something really blows us away, we're aware of it the whole time. Few JRPGs blow me away nowadays. For a while, I figured this was because I am cranky and cynical. Maybe this genre just isn't for me anymore, I thought to myself. Maybe I'll never enjoy Japanese role-playing games as much as I did when I was growing up. Maybe I'll never reignite that bliss I felt when I first delved into games like Suikoden and Xenogears. Maybe I'm too old. Then I played The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky.%Gallery-119078%
More details on XSEED's disturbing Corpse Party
The first announcement and trailer for XSEED's localization of Corpse Party focused on squicking us out with the game's premise -- a haunted elementary school filled with dead children -- but what about the actual game through which the squick is delivered? On the PlayStation Blog, XSEED Localization Specialist and chief Corpse Party booster Tom Lipschultz offered more detail on the gameplay. Corpse Party is a "horror adventure game" divided into five chapters, each focusing on a small group of characters trying to escape from the school. Rather than a "visual novel" style (like 999), "most of the game is fully interactive, allowing you to walk around and explore Heavenly Host Elementary as you see fit, carefully examining objects and piecing together the sordid history of the school at every turn." You'll have to make decisions about what to do, which could lead to a "bad" ending. At other times, you'll have to move quickly to escape a pursuing ghost or leave a trapped room, or you risk joining the party.
Xseed publishing Vanillaware's online RPG 'Grand Knights History'
XSEED has picked up Vanillaware's recent PSP release, the turn-based RPG Grand Knights History, with the intention to publish it in both UMD and digital releases this winter. Rising Star Games will publish it in Europe at an unspecified time. Vanillaware, if you can't quite place the name, is the developer of absurdly pretty 2D games like Muramasa: The Demon Blade, Odin Sphere, and the upcoming Dragon's Crown. Grand Knights History depicts a war between three European-style nations, Union, Avalon, and Logres. Players choose one of the factions, recruit teams of soldiers, and face off against the other two armies in battles that take place over 30 hours. Each team member is fully customizable. During TGS, I spoke with producer Yoshifumi Hashimoto, from development partner and publisher Marvelous, who explained the unique online functionality of this title -- the part that he thinks will help appeal to western audiences. "The way it works is you have these four parties online," composed from within a group of 32 characters you've built. "When you're online, you can take direct control of one of these; the other three will battle automatically. The other three parties are synced up to the server. But if you can't get online, all four will fight on their own." While the online play is seen as a feature to draw in western players, the choice of gameplay system displays what seems to be a uniquely Japanese view. "The reason this was chosen: we did Muramasa: The Demon Blade with Vanillaware previously," Hashimoto said, "an action game. Some people are good at action, and some people are not. So with this game -- everybody can play a turn-based battle, and so every player will be able to get through the story and see the end, which is what we wanted."%Gallery-134648%
Pick up info on Solatorobo's combat with these videos
We've talked about Solatorobo: Red the Hunter, but we haven't seen much of how the game works. In these videos (one above, two after the break) you can actually see for yourself what the combat is like, including the basic action of picking up and throwing enemies, and even a shooting match with a pirate airship. In this gameplay footage, you'll also see that the camera is sufficiently zoomed out for you to ignore that your character is a dog-man. That's helpful.%Gallery-132519%
The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky flying high after shipping 200,000 units
The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky was first released on PSP for Japan in October 2006, and for North America in March of this year, and has since steadily soared to 200,000 units shipped. Trails in the Sky began with a humble shipment of only 30,000, solidifying the game's status as an unexpected hit. Not to be outdone, the upcoming sequel, titled Trails of Blue, has passed 200,000 pre-orders in advance of its September release in Japan.
Solatorobo ships with soundtrack
Solatorobo: Red The Hunter, now the best shot at a light-hearted, island-based treasure hunting adventure (with Mega Man Legends 3 gone), will come with a nice bonus if you purchase one of the first-run copies: a soundtrack. In a distinctly Atlus-like move, XSEED is bundling a 24-track soundtrack CD with the initial shipment of the DS game. XSEED also shared some new images of the beautiful floating-island locations in CyberConnect2's game, along with a couple of in-game screenshots. What lovely places to instruct a walking robot to pick up and throw every single available piece of scenery.%Gallery-130259%
Reel in Prope's Fishing Resort this fall
XSEED is continuing its cozy relationships with both Bandai Namco (which has resulted in Retro Game Challenge, among other things) and developer Prope (whose Ivy the Kiwi? was published by XSEED), announcing a North American release of the Wii fishing game from Yuji Naka's company, Fishing Resort. It's a third-party Wii game in 2011, and thus a rarity. The Wii game puts equal emphasis on both the "fishing" and "resort" aspects -- of course you'll be able to cast for over 200 varieties of fish (and play fishing-related minigames), but you're also given the choice to explore your island surroundings at your leisure, finding spots in different locales from which to fish. And should you develop some skill at the art of virtual fishing, you can take part in competitive play for up to four, and tell the world an incredibly accurate fish story via the leaderboards.%Gallery-128972%
Solatorobo: Red the Hunter flies to North America, published by XSEED
Namco Bandai published CyberConnect2's DS action-RPG, Solatorobo: Red the Hunter, in Japan. Nintendo itself picked the game up for Europe and now, finally, XSEED has announced that it'll bring the game to North America this fall. The Tail Concerto-esque Solatorobo stars Red Savarin, a dog-man with a walking robot that he uses to explore a series of floating islands. His quest starts as a treasure hunt, but ends up tangled in bigger events (as all RPG undertakings are destined to). Luckily, it all leads to plenty of opportunities for that robot to pick up and throw heavy objects and enemies. Check out a trailer after the break and try not to focus on the fact that the game stars anthropomorphic animals.%Gallery-127106%
Wizardry: Labyrinth of Lost Souls finds a home on PSN
The positively historical first-person RPG series Wizardry will continue in North America and Europe in as modern a manner as can be: a downloadable PSN game for PS3. XSEED is localizing Acquire's Wizardry: Torawareshi Tamashii no Meikyū for the West as Wizardry: Labyrinth of Lost Souls. Though the series started in America (in 1981!) in recent years it's been more popular in Japan, with sequels developed by Japanese companies and released only in Japan. That explains why this version looks a bit more anime than the original did. Players will be able to explore a grid-based dungeon and fight 120 different monsters, all with hand-drawn 2D sprites, sometime this spring.%Gallery-119622%
XSEED explains The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky's family history
click to embiggen A few weeks ago, we asked NIS America to explain the semi-inscrutable title of Ar Tonelico Qoga: Knell of Ar Ciel. Having had our minds expanded by that new knowledge, we then went looking for more games with absolutely crucial information you (and we) might not know. And that's The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky. Unbeknownst to most gamers, the PSP RPG is part of a very long, very populous series -- one with dozens of games, spinoffs, and even spinoff series. In fact, it's distantly related to the NES's Faxanadu and Legacy of the Wizard. In response to our query, Tom Lipschultz, localization specialist for publisher XSEED, dropped an unprecedented amount of RPG history on us. If you'd like to know more about Trails in the Sky's lineage than you thought possible, read on.%Gallery-119078%
A very Korg DS-10 Plus Christmas
Kanji Honma created an entire Christmas album using Korg DS-10 Plus. Christmas Dinner is available on iTunes and Amazon, if you want to finally one Mannheim Steamroller album your parents insist on playing for his synthesized music. Check out a surprisingly funky "Jingle Bells" after the break.
Ys: The Oath in Felghana in stores and on PSN Nov. 2
XSEED has clarified the announced "November" release date for Ys: The Oath in Felghana -- and it's about as early in November as it can possibly be. If you're up for a classic top-down action RPG for your PSP, you can grab this remake on November 2. The special edition version (pictured) will be available from Amazon, GameStop, Videogamesplus.ca and "other fine retailers," and will include a soundtrack and desk calendar. The regular edition will be available in both UMD and download forms for $30.
