Monthly Archives: March 2013

Anime Theater: Basilisk

Like kunai in the throats of our hearts, these are the days of our...apparently very misty photo shoots.

Like kunai in the throats of our hearts, these are the days of our…intergalactic photo shoots.

Basilisk: Kouga Ninpo Cho (just Basilisk in its English distribution)
Year: 2005
American Distributor: Funimation

When I say “love story”, what comes to mind? If you’re a literary sort of any kind, or if you ever attended a New York school like myself, then whether you like it or not, the first thing that pops into your head is, of course, Romeo and Juliet. The tale of a true, deep love unfulfilled due to the cruel auspices of fate, and the warring passions of two families, R&J has been captivating audiences for almost half a millennium now. On the other side of the coin, we have the world of Anime, where everything, even the most staid premise can be made anew by the creative madness of the men and women who make these things. So what does this have to do with today’s subject? Well, if I was to describe Basilisk in a sentence, it would be to say that someone looked at that old tale of love and loss, and said “You know what would make this story AMAZING? Ninjas.”

In fairness though, despite that rather silly description, Basilisk is a mighty enjoyable, occasionally heartrending and endlessly creative (yes, creative) little gem for anyone who’s in the mood for some high romance, but feels that there should be a body-count. Just like any true-to-life love story…

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Night-Time Listenings Wrap-Up: Week of 3/25/13

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Man, these Night-Time Listenings are getting erratic. But another week is passed and this time we got music. This week was all about town themes. We stopped by Violet City from Pokemon G/S/C. Next we got happy in Rose Town from Super Mario RPG. We chilled out to the town theme of Legend of Legaia. Reloaded our ARMs in Wild ARMs. And finally it was a sunny day in Chrono Trigger.

If you want to see the music as it goes up (and not wait every Saturday for these wrap-ups), remember to go to our Tumblr page and follow it. Music for Night-Time Listenings goes up every weekday at 10PM.

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Mane6 Is Getting The Skullgirls Engine! And Robo Fortune Will Become An Actual Character!

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Looks like that C&D might’ve been a blessing in disguise. Not only is Friendship is Magic creator Lauren Faust in the Mane6 dev team, they now has access to the engine that helped make Skullgirls. Before all this, Mane6 was using Fighter Maker 2000, an old program they had to tinker with to get it to do what they wanted for their My Little Pony fighting game, Fighting is Magic. MikeZ, the creator of Skullgirls, offered to give Mane6 the Skullgirls Engine, also called the Z Engine. They declined the offer since development was very far long and porting would require starting from scratch.

Well, the C&D essentially made them start from scratch (minus the ponies of course). So now the option became available and the team can make a game using all the techniques and effects the Z Engine has to offer.

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Skullgirls Crowdfund Update: Third Character Successfully Funded With 38 Hours Left [UPDATE]

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We’re approaching the final hours of the Skullgirls Crowdfund campaign on Indiegogo, and earlier on Monday the creation of the third secret character was successfully funded. Overnight, the stage and story was funded as well, making this character a complete success. Unlike Squigly and Big Band, fans who donated to the crowdfund will get to choose who the third DLC character will be. To make things easier, Lab Zero updated their Indiegogo page to include a breakdown of who the characters are, what their story is, how they fight, and an idea of how they fight using established character examples (like Umbrella fighting like Order Sol from Guilty Gear).

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Hachimuse76: Final Fantasy X HD: Why Buy It?

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Christ, this title has more X’s than an abortion clinic. …Too soon?

I miss being a young gamer. I really do, the days when I could just fucking LOSE myself in a game are long behind me. Sure, I still play games. I relish them, I dissect them, I obsess over them. I am a gamer, always will be. But there was a time when I could just submerge myself in a good game universe, and nowhere was this more possible than with a good RPG. Towns, side-quests the villains, the heroes. The emotional drama, the world-shattering struggles. For hours a day, my life faded away, and these people and their trials and tribulations were EVERYTHING to me. The effect of those gaming experiences are as indelibly etched on me as any aspect of my traditional academic education or psychological development.

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Duck Tales Remastered Revealed, Being Developed By WayForward [UPDATE] Gameplay Video Included

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Well holy damn, who’d-a thought Duck Tales would be seeing a remake? Okay everyone wanted to see a remake, but Disney’s stance on their old Capcom-developed NES games was an unwavering “don’t care” or silence. For this remake, Capcom’s tapping into their old buddies WayForward, who previously published the first Shantae on Gameboy Color.

The reveal trailer starts off very serious, with quotes pulled from some of the game industry’s biggest creators. Then that ever catchy theme song starts up an plays in its entirety. While this ear-worm plays, we see some gameplay footage, and ohhhhh man I’m liking what I see. Much of what made the original NES game a hit is intact. Pogo-cane jumping, golf-club swinging, and then some. Many enemies make a return too with some amusing KO animations, like the mummy unraveling before falling off-screen. There’s also some locales I don’t remember seeing in the original NES game (or maybe it’s been so long that I don’t remember). I wonder how WayForward will handle The Moon Theme. Anyway, I’ll shut up and let you enjoy the trailer, unless you already watched it.

[UPDATE] Capcom Unity archived gameplay of Duck Tales on their Twitch Account. You can see it after the break.

Duck Tales Remastered – Announcement Trailer [HD] [Youtube, via Kotaku]

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Patricia Wagon Is A Firefighter In Mighty Switch Force 2

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Feels like yesterday when WayForward confirmed that a Mighty Switch Force sequel was underway. But little did we know was that the game’s main star, Patricia Wagon, would be something other than a police officer. In Mighty Switch Force 2, Patricia is now a firefighter and is trying to put out fires breaking out all over Tangent City. The Hooligan Sisters from the first game are back, and they’re good girls now. So now you have to save them instead of capture them. Judging by the screenshots of the game, there’s going to be some tricky water puzzles to deal with on top of the rescuing and firefighting.

WayForward sets the release date as “soon” for North America and Europe and will be available on the Nintendo eShop. I wonder if they’re will be a Hyperdrive version of this too… Screenshots after the break.

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The Wired Fish Podcast S4 – Episode 4

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The Wired Fish Podcast is back baby! This time we’ve used Google+ Hangouts On-Air to record our podcasts from our homes. So if you ever wish to catch us live, do follow our Facebook and Tumblr page. It’ll be where we post links to where you can catch us live. So what are you seeing up here? Well it’s the official release of that live recording, all cleaned up with graphics, trailers, and some neato music for the credits sequence. It’s also audio-only, so we don’t appear on-screen. Hmm, we haven’t done that since the very first episode of the podcast back in 2011.

So then, in this episode, we talked about the games we played. And remember, the format is different this season, so we may not stick to this topic for long. But we have a handy Timestamp of Contents after the break!

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New Dragon’s Crown Trailer And Release Date For Japan And U.S.

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Atlus said that they’d divulge new info on Dragon’s Crown today, and they’ve done just that. They released a new trailer, showing off a slew of new characters that we haven’t seen before. After the flourish of player characters, we see what looks to be a king and a queen (or maybe an artisan and a queen?). Right after them is a knight with with a sword through his chest holding a scroll, a priest, and a rather burly knight (the same knight from the initial reveal). We see a different merchant this time around, probably from the same guild as the other one we saw before. We then see a burly Conan-The-Barbarian looking dude and a menacing woman afterwards. Enemies perhaps? Then we see a man from the eyes of someone holding out his hands, a woman draped in a white gown lounging, and a mouse dancing someone’s hand.

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Unleash Your MIND In This New JRPG For The Playstation Vita

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Acquire, the developer of the PSP title Class of Heroes, has just announced their new game for the Playstation Vita. MIND≒0 is a dungeon crawler that takes place in both the real world and the mental world. Not much information is known right know, but it seems like the main setting for the real world is the player’s school, with other scenes also taking place in popular areas around Tokyo, while the mental world is where the characters can summon their MIND (Mental Inside Nobody Doll) to do battle against monsters. I kid you not, that’s what they’re actually called. If this is starting to sound a little familiar then don’t worry, you’re not the only one who thinks so.

From the character designs and the location of party member portraits outside of battle to the comic-like font used in battle for sound effects and the summoning of Mental Inside Nobody Dolls (I’m sorry, I can’t say that enough), this game definitely feels like it’s trying to reproduce the same kind of style we see in the Persona series. Could this be because of Persona 4: The Golden’s success on the handheld? Regardless, the game is said to be about 70% complete and, with an intended summer release for Japan, we shouldn’t have to wait too long to see how closely this may or may not resemble the beloved franchise. The gallery after the jump has several pieces of character art and screenshots from the game in case you’re interested in seeing all the similarities.

Vita RPG “Mind Zero” Announced [thesixthaxis]

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Fighting Is Magic Devs Tease New Characters For New Fighting Game

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Fresh off of the offer to use the Skullgirls engine by Lab Zero, the developers of the C&D’d Fighting Is Magic, Mane6, posted up an FAQ about what exactly they can do with the engine. Soon after that, the last question in the FAQ wondered about Mane6 using characters from Lauren Faust’s Milky Way and the Galaxy Girls (since now she’s involved in this new project). Of course they said no and that the characters would still be four-legged and brand new. They followed up: “Speaking of which, we think it might be cool to show you guys three of the character concepts we’ve come up with so far. We thought it would be fun to show you them in silhouette form first.” The above is what they showed.

The shapes look very Pokemon like, especially the one on the far right. The general guessing consensus is that the one on the left is a llama or an alpaca. The one on the right is some sort of deer. The middle figure looks very familiar however, having the same kinds of proportions as Faust’s pony design. But people are guessing it to be a cow. From the looks of things, the game seems to be shaping up pretty well, and we might have something close to Pokemon Type Wild with the Skullgirls Engine (if the SG crowdfund goes that far).

Skullgirls engine FAQ + teaser [Mane6 Dev Blog]

New Title From The Creators of Bastion, Transistor Revealed

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Supergiant Games, the creators of the indie hit Bastion, have just revealed the trailer for a new game they’re currently working on. Transistor is set to be a sci-fi action rpg that stars a red-haired heroine who, after nearly being killed by a mysterious group, wields the very weapon they used against her in order to discover it’s origins and keep its original possessors from reacquiring it.

Anyone who knows me can tell you how much I like playing as a character with red hair, especially when I can use a massive two-handed sword, so part of me feels like this game is being made for me. But that aside, the trailer looks very promising. The art style is stunning and definitely captures the futuristic setting of the title. And if the song in the trailer is any indication, the soundtrack should end up being quite intoxicating. Bastion’s soundtrack has received universal praise, so the composer’s return to this game is a huge plus.

Transistor, named after the weapon the heroine attains, is expected to be released early 2014, however no platforms have been announced at this time. More information should be announced at PAX East later this week. In the meantime, if anyone is interested in checking out Supergiant Games’ previous work, Bastion is currently on a “pay-what-you-want” sale at the humble bundle store that should last the whole week. I’ve actually been meaning to start up my copy of Bastion soon and this reveal only makes me that much more eager to try it out.

Also, am I the only one who thought the Transistor resembled the Monado a bit at the 0:41 second mark?

First Look at Our Next Game: Transistor [Supergiant Games]

New Shin Megami Tensei IV Trailer Released, Teases Link To Strange Journey

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The 5/23 Japan release of Shin Megami Tensei IV draws ever closer. With time comes more trailers for the game. Much of what is shown in this one is pretty much the same thing we’ve seen so far. Some new scenes are thrown in there, but the general message is nothing we haven’t heard before. There are two things that I did notice though. One is a demon stopping the fight to talk to you after you wipe out almost its whole team. A plea to come to a compromise to let it go, or a desire to join your ranks? Another interesting bit comes up around 3:29. Is that the armor from Strange Journey I see? Why yes, yes it is. Is this just a fanservice battle thrown in for the hell of it, or is there a legitimate link between SMT IV and Strange Journey? Well know for sure when the game releases.

No word yet if it’ll get localized for the West. Still, I have hope they’ll bring it over. So far most MegaTen games have gotten released here after Nocturne. Heck, they’re bringing over Devil Summoner Soul Hackers. They’re even reprinting both of those Raidou Kuzunoha games — for the PS2 no less! So I’m confident it’s coming over.

『真・女神転生IV』フォーストレーラー [Youtube]

John Riccitiello No Longer CEO Of EA

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Fresh off of a disastrous launch of the newest SimCity, John Riccitiello did what many higher-ups do when something very embarrassing and damaging happens. He quit. Riccitiello took over EA in 2007, and upon joining recognized how predatory the company was before he took over, namely during the 6th generation when EA would simply buy up companies left and right and close them soon afterwards in hopes of not having to compete. In a sense, he helped EA turn a new leaf in the beginning of this generation, ushering in new IPs and taking risks that the gave company investors routine heart attacks. DICE and Visceral Games (then EA Redwood Shores) made Mirror’s Edge and Dead Space, new IP for the company. They helped out Harmonix with ditributing Rock Band and Double Fine with Brutal Legend. EA partners gave smaller devs a chance to be published by a big company without the risk of being absorbed or getting their IP taken. All was good, and I forgave EA for its crimes in the 6th generation. I was liking this new CEO.

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Skullgirls Update: Big Band Fully Funded With 12 Days Remaining

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What I’d tell you? He was bound to get funded within the month, it was only a matter of time. While not as fast as Squigly, Big Band’s crowdfunding took a little over two weeks to reach its mark, $400,000 for the whole campaign. Big Band himself was funded a couple of days ago, but today both his stage and story has been fully funded, marking his campaign a full success. Like Squigly, Big Band will be free for the first three months after release and you’ll keep him after the time is up if you managed to get him.

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