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XSEED no longer publishing Muramasa
You should probably sit down, we have some bad news. According to NintendoEverything, XSEED has decided it will not publish the Wii exclusive Muramasa: The Demon Blade in North America. Muramasa: The Demon Blade -- which recently landed on store shelves in Japan -- is the new action role-playing title from Japanese developer Vanillaware, makers of the cult-hit Odin Sphere on PlayStation 2.Muramasa was originally planned for release in North America as part of its US publishing agreement with Marvelous Entertainment US. According to NintendoEverything, XSEED states it still believes in the game and "will look forward to seeing it release in North America" -- as long as it isn't released by them, apparently. If you thought the wait was going to be long before... grab a Snickers bar, kids.%Gallery-33431%
ESA admits two companies we've kind of heard of
The ESA announced today that Trion World Networks and XSEED Games have become members of the trade association. Trion has accumulated $100 million in funding without launching a game, while XSEED has released quite a few "off the beaten path" titles, like Retro Game Challenge.Following the announcement, Activision Blizzard left a voicemail with the ESA, playing "Don't Cha" by The Pussycat Dolls on repeat.
Drill Sergeant Mindstrong brings all the fun of math to boot camp
Confirmed: XSEED's Drill Sergeant Mindstrong is not Marvelous's Discipline. It lacks the subtly beautiful illustration, prison-escape plot, and freaky alien Wiimote analogue. Mindstrong substitutes an ugly cartoon drill sergeant and ape-armed avatars for all of those things.Drill Sergeant Mindstrong puts players into a brain-training boot camp, divided into "Focus Training" and "Basic Training" modes. In either mode, performing well increases a player's rank, and performing poorly increases the drill sergeant's anger level. When he can't stand your failures anymore, he will "embarrass players by making them do punishments right there on the spot." Maybe it automatically notifies friends that you're playing Drill Sergeant Mindstrong.The game is scheduled to come out on WiiWare next month.%Gallery-48851%
XSEED unleashing Drill Sergeant MindStrong on WiiWare
The ESRB ratings database has revealed the first WiiWare game from publisher XSEED: Drill Sergeant Mindstrong, which is, uh, a brain-training minigame collection. A weird one.The description of the game mentions minigames "in which players train and compete in math, rhythm, and reflex/timing drills guided by a trainer named Sergeant Mindstrong." The whole thing has a military theme, including a saluting minigame and one about marching in time. All the minigames will have "Hell" at the beginning of the title, like "Hell Roll Call." Siliconera speculates, because of the XSEED/Marvelous connection, that this is Discipline, the WiiWare game announced last year. The title fits, as well. However, Discipline is a sort of adventure about escaping from prison, and this is military brain training.
Rising Star taking Little King's Story on the road
Rising Star Games, Marvelous's European publishing partner, has high expectations for Little King's Story. The company plans a large marketing campaign in Europe for the adorable sim/RTS -- the region in which LKS will debut. Rising Star's Yen Hau sees the game as appealing to "'potentially anyone who owns a Wii." In addition to print and online advertising, Rising Star plans a "road show," about which few details are known other than that it will continue through May, when it will finish at the London MCM Expo. After the break, Rising Star's Tyrone Walcott provides the most detailed rundown of the gameplay we've seen yet, with plenty of accompanying video. %Gallery-24969%
Mark it in your datebook: Avalon Code coming March 10
The Marvelous/XSEED publishing superteam has announced a release date for Matrix Software's action RPG Avalon Code. Should you RPG fans finish Blue Dragon Plus and Legacy of Ys this week, you'll still have Avalon Code to look forward to on March 10.Avalon Code tasks players with filling a magical "Book of Prophecy" with monsters, people, and everything else found throughout the world. Once profiled, the pages from this book can then be used to alter the game world and "influence a myriad of parameters from monster attributes to weapon strength." The book is also useful for identifying stats and elemental weaknesses about monsters you encounter. %Gallery-22487%
Europe to learn 'Little King's Story' first
Marvelous is still assuring everybody that Little King's Story is coming out, announcing yet another release date. Unless another delay is in the forecast, the latest news should make European Wii owners happy: European publisher Rising Star Games is planning to release the game on April 24, before it comes out anywhere else. The last announced North American release date for the town-building RPG was February 17, but XSEED said even before then that the game was likely to be delayed -- which it obviously has. GameStop currently has a May 15 release date -- not to mention an adorable pre-order bonus! %Gallery-24969%
Being a 30 second hero ain't easy
Yuusha 30 looks to be quite a remarkable game. This action RPG has a rather unique twist: you have 30 seconds to do everything. Having so little time in an ever-present countdown really transforms the genre. Seeing our hero scuttle around trying to fight monsters, level up and find towns in 30 second increments is quite amusing -- we're sure with a PSP in our hands, we'd be sweating at the game's relentlessly chaotic pace. See gameplay footage after the break.
Joystiq hands-on: Hero for 30sec
Ever heard of 15 minutes of fame? Sure you have. But what about 30 seconds of being a hero? We've reported a bit on this oddly-named RPG known as Hero for 30sec (Yuusha 30), but its unique concept on short bursts of gameplay had left us baffled. How does this work? How does this translate into an engaging RPG experience? These were questions we've been wondering for quite some time now. However, after having played it for ourselves this afternoon, we finally understand what the game is trying to achieve. Or, should we say, what one-fourth of the game is trying to achieve as Hero 30 still contains three other heroes and individual play-styles. The overall experience of the demo we've tried out is a refreshing, fast-paced take on the traditional J-RPG genre. If you like RPG exploration, but want to cut out the fat of boring random encounters and grinding, then this game might be for you.
Retro Game Challenge references the modern gaming world
We're pleased to see people around the internet playing the wonderful Retro Game Challenge and sharing their experiences with the not-actually-old games found in the collection. One of the most unexpectedly enjoyable parts of the game is conversing with the young version of the maniacal Arino (Game Center CX host Shinya Arino), who represents a startlingly authentic young gamer of the '80s -- sitting with him is eerily reminiscent of our own NES experiences with friends. But Arino's dialogue isn't entirely authentic -- a few anachronisms slip through, like The Wizard references made years before the movie actually came out. The screen above shows one such anachronism, seemingly a commentary on the current state of third-party games on Nintendo systems. We didn't hear the term "shovelware" until the early CD-ROM era, when it was used to describe a disc crammed full of old games -- ironically, precisely what Retro Game Challenge would be, were it not composed entirely of new games.Despite the use of the term "shovelware," Arino isn't even complaining! He concludes that even the most boring games can be enjoyable.%Gallery-27519%
Yuusha 30: Meet the 30sec squad
In Yuusha 30 -- a.k.a. Hero for 30sec -- players take on the role of four heroes, each with their own minigame based on distinctive genres: role-playing, action, shooting and real-time strategy. Developer Marvelous Entertainment hopes to pull players into the experience with short bursts of 30-second gaming. Beyond the description in an old issue of Famitsu and this teaser trailer, the rest of Hero for 30sec is a mystery. But we should expect to see more of this PSP title soon, as it hits stores in Japan this May. Meet the squad after the break.
Gamestop moves to the beat, will sell the Korg DS-10
Remember that really awesome drum synthesizer we got our hands on back at E3? Yeah, that puppy is the Korg DS-10, a nasty little drum synthesizer for your DS that provides a lot of the functions you'd only see in a high-priced box. The amount of control you have here is ridiculous, as you all should already know. And now, you can actually walk into a store and buy it, instead of ordering it online and waiting for it to arrive on your doorstep. But, then again, you have to walk into a Gamestop. Hmm, decisions, decisions ...No idea what we're talking about? Head past the break for video of the Korg DS-10 in action.%Gallery-27318%[Via Go Nintendo]
New RPG Yuusha 30 gives only 30 seconds of play time ...
That's really 30 seconds of play time allotted to clearing a particular game mode. You see Yuusha 30 (not to be confused with Yuusha no Kuse ni Namaikida) from Marvelous is a "new vibe RPG" according to the leaked pages of Famitsu due out later this week. It has four game modes which revolve around 30 seconds of microburst gameplay. Though it's not entirely clear, we'd assume each mode would have multiple "levels" of these 30-second trysts because a two-minute game just doesn't sound all too enticing ... or is it? Each mode will focus on different characters and will have unique gameplay. This includes a princess in a shooter, a fighter in a side-scrolling action title, a "devil king" in a strategy game and finally a knight in some regular action. What any of this has to do with one another and exactly how does this "new vibe" and 30 seconds of gameplay jive are all beyond us at the moment. Perhaps we'll know more once the new issue actually hits stores.
Muramasa: The Demon Blade cuts down Japan this April
Word on the street is that the highly stylish and, well, one of our most-watched games, Muramasa: The Demon Blade, will hit Japanese retail in April of this year. We've got no firm date yet, however an April release in Japan means that we could be seeing it localized in North America this holiday season. It is coming to Europe in November, after all (not taking into account summer placeholders).It's a long wait, but one we'll gladly suffer for what we're sure is going to be a wonderful game.%Gallery-33431%
Up close and personal with Arc Rise Fantasia
Ever since we've learned that Arc Rise Fantasia was going to break out of Japan, we've wanted to see more of the RPG, but there was a long gap and not a lot to see. Now, however, we can check out ... well, honestly, it's a bunch of poses. Sometimes the same pose against a different background. There's serious fighty business going down, though, so they're worth a look. We've gone too long without some quality time traveling the world in search of turn-based battle. Now if only we had a firm date ....%Gallery-26466%
XSEED warns of possible Little King's Story delay
NeoGAFfer "Hero of legend" periodically sends emails containing other forum members' questions to XSEED's Ken Berry, and actually gets substantive responses! Most of the questions are in the area of "would XSEED localize (game)?" -- and those are illuminating -- but occasionally a question about the company's existing lineup slips through, as was the case in the last round. In a response to a query about the Little King's Story release date, Berry mentioned that the company has been "shooting for a February release date, but good chance that it will be delayed past that right now." The question related to Canadian stores, but we would expect the release date to be the same across North America. So, yeah. That February 17 release date on Nintendo's Q1 releases list? Don't count on it. %Gallery-24969%
Doors to official Retro Game Challenge site creak open
Retro Game Challenge's official site recently opened to the public, with a design that is particularly righteous, to use appropriately '80s parlance. By using the on-screen TV remote to navigate the site, you'll be able to view the above trailer, read a synopsis of the utterly daft story, and browse screens of (some of) the games you'll have to beat to overcome the creepy Game Master Arino: games like Cosmic Gate, Guadia Quest: Feast of the Mad King, Rally King, and the very awesome-looking Star Prince. Feel free to peruse the 30 new English language shots in our gallery. Oh yes, and there are wallpapers. Very, very rad wallpapers. Wallpapers that are so unlimited in their supreme radness that they have totally replaced our self-made Josh Groban tribute background -- at least until tomorrow. %Gallery-27519%[Thanks to everyone who sent this in!]
XSEED drawing Muramasa: The Demon Blade this summer?
We were thrilled by the implication that Muramasa: The Demon Blade's planned November 2009 European release date meant a similar date for North America -- just because the date made the whole thing seem more real. Now, according to retailers, we may have a release window for Vanillaware's unsettlingly gorgeous side-scrolling action RPG that doesn't seem like it's five million years away. Both GameStop and Amazon report summer release dates for the title: Gamestop says July 15, and Amazon on July 28. Even if it is earlier than November, July may seem like a long time from now -- but Wii action gamers will probably have a lot to play in the first half of the year, including stuff like House of the Dead: Overkill, MadWorld, Onechanbara: Bikini Zombie Slayers, and The Conduit.%Gallery-33431%[Via Siliconera]
Avalon Code all dressed up for your viewing pleasure
Matrix Software's intriguing Avalon Code may be in limbo at the moment -- already out in Japan, and not scheduled for release in English until next year -- but that doesn't mean we're not keeping an eye on the ARPG. You may not be wielding your own special book for a while yet, but you can certainly watch someone else do it. In Japanese. And admire their elaborate costumes while you're at it. Gallery: Avalon Code
Get zapped into the '80s with Retro Game Challenge
A collection of original Famicom-style games on the DS doesn't need a story to be awesome, but Retro Game Challenge has one, and it is wonderfully amusing. The embodiment of Game Center CX star Shinya Arino's gaming frustration becomes personified inside his DS and sends you, as a potential challenger, into the past to play old games with his childhood self.Of course, in this version, he's just some guy named Arino who gets upset with games. It still works, kind of. 1UP's preview goes into the localization in more detail, including the use of Western game journalism in-jokes in the fake GameFan Magazine found in-game. More videos of the localized Retro Game Challenge, including a readthrough of a GameFan issue, follow the post break.%Gallery-27519%
