Author Archives: Steven

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About Steven

Editor-In-Chief of The Wired Fish since 2010. Suggestions, praise, and hate mail can be sent to steven@thewiredfishnetwork.com

Three Shmups, An Action RPG, And A Platform Hell Game Coming From Nyu Media This Fall

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Doujin publisher Nyu Media has sent out a newsletter to media outlets confirming that five new games will be coming this fall. Three of them are vertical shmup games from the Siter Skain series. Like The eXceed Collection, this series features different mechanics with each game when dealing with incoming enemies and bullets. Croixleur is an arena styled Action RPG where you control a girl donned in a maid outfit and use different weapons to take out enemies. Finally… Eryi’s Action. This game… Clearly this is inspired by the likes of Kaizo Mario, I Wanna Be The Guy, and Syobon Action (maybe this is where Eryi’s Action got its title from). You got hidden spikes, surprise enemies, and windmills out to kill you! I think Eryi’s Action and I are going to be juuuuuust fine. These five are set to release this fall on Steam (along with other distribution platforms) and from the publisher itself.

Product Descriptions after the break.

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I Stand On My Soapbox: The Summer Gaming Drought

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I Stand On My Soapbox is a series of editorials that cover more specific topics in the games industry and community. These articles are a little more extreme than normal editorials published here, and could just degenerate to outright ranting. Have fun and enjoy the show!

Why is this? Why the hell does this always happen? Why do game companies decide to keep all of their big releases for the holiday season? Hm? Why are all of these games pushed back to a very crowded time of the year for videogames, where it’s harder for most games to get noticed? Time and again I’ve seen companies release their game on November and December, get back their results, see their games flop, and wonder to hell and back why their games failed to sell. And yet, here we are in the middle of Summer just sitting back and twiddling out fingers wondering what game is coming out this Summer. Well guess what? There’s barely any, and it boggles my mind! You’d think Summer would be a perfect time to release these games. And yet, not a lot of companies see this. Well, I’m going to show why Summer is the best time to release videogames.

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Gonna Play Dragon Quest X? Better Keep Playing, Or Else…

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Wii MMO Dragon Quest X was just released in Japan last week with much acclaim. Not only is it the first MMO for the Dragon Quest series, it’s also the first (and only) MMO for the Wii. One aspect that wasn’t quite touched upon was that you have to keep playing the game, otherwise your character data would be deleted. In other words, it you don’t sign in to Dragon Quest X for 3 months, your character’s data will be kaput. This most likely is a measure to make sure that data keeping is fresh for the server to save and not have orphaned and dormant accounts clogging the server. But at the same time this could have severe repercussions for those that want to come back and play for a while after being gone for so long. Who’s to say someone won’t be able to play the game because of school or work (more on this later today) and finally find the time to play, only to be greeted with a deletion message. Oi vey…

So far this only applies to Japanese gamers as the game has yet to come out in the States. Only time will tell if this measure will carry over to the worldwide release.

Use It Or Lose It, “Dragon Quest X” Will Delete Online Data If Not Being Used [Complex]

Tron Bonne, Lady, And More Join The Fray In Project X Zone

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Confirming the scans that popped up some weeks ago, Tron Bonne has joined the Project X Zone cast of characters. Alongside her is a Servbot (a separate character). She’ll be without her fighting game staple Gustaff and fight on-foot (but will bring her MvC moves with her). Still on the Capcom side there’s Lady from Devil May Cry 3. On the Sega side is Bahn from the cage bashing fighting game Fighting Vipers. Finally on the Namco side, Lindow bumps up the Gods Eater crew to three. And the main characters from prequel Namco X Capcom, Reiji and Xiaomu, will represent Namco.

Character art after the break.

Project X Zone website

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A New Wheel Of Fate Is Turning: BlazBlue Chronophantasma Revealed

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As the U.S. starts their journey on Persona 4 Arena this week, Arc System Works has revealed the next chapter in the BlazBlue storyline, BlazBlue Chronophantasma. With this new bitch-to-type entry comes three new characters. The ultra feminine kimono-wearing Amane Nishiki, the ballistics packer Bullet, and the diesel as hell Azrael. Everyone else, save for Nu and Lambda, makes a return in this entry with new portraits and new moves at their disposal. Now keep in mind, this is definitely another sequel to BlazBlue, not an update like some of these poor chaps are thinking. Calamity Trigger was the first. Continuum Shift was the sequel. Continuum Shift II and Extend were updates. Chronophantasma is an new entry, not an update. One observant fan also noticed some new changes that will be introduced in this game, like removal of guard primers, a new Overdrive mechanic, and redrawn neutral sprites.

See the reveal of this game only reminds me that I still have… Calamity Trigger to finish. Dear lord do I still have a long way to go. Welp, time to get crackin’! Chronophantasma is set to release this Winter in Japan. U.S. release is TBA, but it’s highly likely it’ll come here too in the future.

『ブレイブルー クロノファンタズマ』PV [YouTube, via Kotaku]

Night-Time Listenings Wrap-Up: Week of 7/30/12

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This week was dedicated to Hitoshi Sakimoto and his team at Basiscape. The games we covered from his amazing repertoire were Odin Sphere, Final Fantasy XII, Final Fantasy Advance, Valkyria Chronicles, and Final Fantasy Tactics A2.

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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Matsumoto: Wii U Controller Could Be Beneficial To JRPGs

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I know it’s more a Strategy Game than an SRPG, but think about it.

Marvelous AQL and The Last Story Lead Designer Takuya Matsumoto said in a Siliconera interview that the Wii U Gamepad could be beneficial for JRPG strategizing. “I feel that the Wii U’s interface… works best for browsing and arranging information,” said the Lead Designer, alluding to how menu heavy JRPGs can be at times. “This special feature will likely bring about opportunities for deep research into JRPG strategy.” He went on to say that other info, like bios, story synopsis, enemy bestiaries, etc. could also be handled by the Wii U Gamepad.

This could bring about a much more streamlined experience for JRPGs. Now by streamlined I don’t mean “dumbing-down,” but more that it’ll make the actual selecting of menu items a lot faster than on a standard controller layout. Think of how quickly you might’ve selected things on Wii games using the IR Pointer. It was pretty damn quick. Also, while Matsumoto says JRPG strategizing, this could apply to Strategy RPGs. Games like Final Fantasy Tactics, Disgaea, Valkyria Chronicles, and Front Mission could benefit from this approach. These games are rife important information on terrain, units, and other miscellaneous info that the gamepad could provide without having to take you to a separate screen on the TV, or clogging up the screen with info (think Final Fantasy Tactics Advance). Heck, it could even work for RTS games like Starcraft. Some might see the Gamepad being used for just menu based stuff like maps and menu items in the future, rather than playing a more pivotal role. It happened on the DS with one of the screens being used as such, and it was fine by me.

Wii U Controller Will Push JRPG Strategizing, Says The Last Story Lead Designer [Siliconera]

Katamari Damacey To Be Exhibited At MoMA

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Videogames are movin’ on up guys. Not to be outdone by the History of Videogames exhibit at the Smithsonian, the Museum of Modern Art in New York City is going to showcase Katamari Damacy as part of their Century of the Child: Growing By Design exhibit. The program’s goal is to showcase things that were created and geared towards children from 1900 to 2000. The showcases range from parks to toys to books and so on. Speaking of which, an Astro Boy manga is also being shown in the exhibit as well. Going back to Katamari Damacy for a bit, Namco Bandai’s VP of Marketing Carlson Choi stated in a press release”

“Namco Bandai Games’ Katamari Damacy has touched countless people, from children to adults, and is truly a modern video game classic. The inclusion of Katamari Damacy in this ground breaking exhibit is a testament to the creative designs embodied in Namco Bandai’s games and shows the importance of video games in peoples’ lives in addition to being a validation of video games as a modern form of interactive art.”

Not bad guys, not bad. If anyone is interested in seeing the exhibit, they can hit up the MoMA in New York City. They’re located in 11 West 53rd Street in Manhattan. The Exhibition started this past Sunday and goes on ’til November 5th.

Katamari Damacy exhibited at New York’s Museum of Modern Art [GameDynamo]

Playstation All-Stars Characters And Stages Leaked?

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Today a poster by the name of Luukyk over on NeoGAF posted up images and info that’s been supposedly downloaded from the beta of Sony’s crossover fighter Playstation All-Stars Battle Royale. From the image above, you can see that Raiden from Metal Gear Solid 4, Dante from the upcoming DmC: Devil May Cry, and Nariko from Heavenly Sword seem to be in it. Also, fan favorites Sir Dan Fortesque from Medieval and Spike from Ape Escape are in as well. Heihachi’s not much of a surpise since he’s already been revealed earlier. Some stages have also made the rounds here as well. For the stages, Columbia from Bioshock Infinite, Invasion from Killzone, Franzea from LocoRoco, and Timestation from Ape Escape are shown in the post (among others). There are also files from the Beta that suggest other characters popping in as assist characters in certain actions or are in the background (like Kuma showing up for some of Heihachi’s moves).

Part of me is kinda skeptical of these images. The stages I can believe, looks pretty legit. The characters though are… kinda questionable. However given Sony’s propensity to protect things with a spaghetti strainer, there might be some truth to the images here. You can see the images of the stages after the break.

Rumor: Leaked stages and characters from Playstation All-Stars Battle Royale [NeoGAF]

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Night-Time Listenings Wrap-Up: Week of 7/23/12

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This week in Night-Time Listening, we chilled. We really chilled. So chilled you’d freeze. We started out with music from Viewpoint. Then we hit up the smooth sounds of OutRun 2006. We flew on our Rocketbelt with Pilotwings. We were at the ocaenside with Chrono Cross. And we camped in an icy mountain in Xenoblade.

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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New Project X Zone Scans Show Tron Bonne In Action

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Well well well, looks like we have a couple of Bonnes in the audience. Scans from a magazine (probably Famitsu) featuring Project X Zone have show screenshots of characters not officially revealed yet. Reiji and Xiaomu, the main original characters from Namco X Capcom, are present in the game. Tron Bonne from the legendary Mega Man Legends series is also here as well. So far it’s not known if they’ll be playable or be used for something else. It’s painfully ironic how she’s in this game, a 3DS game mind you, and last year the game she was supposed to appear in got canceled, which was also a 3DS game. Hope maybe?

You can see the scans after the break.

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Final Fantasy Versus XIII Actually NOT Cancelled

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Last week it was rumored that Final Fantasy Versus XIII was cancelled after Kotaku’s Brian Ashcraft laid out a somewhat detailed breakdown (in conjunction with “sources”) on how little of Versus XIII was actually shown to the public and its absence from major conventions like E3, TGS, and Gamescom. Square Enix head honcho Yoichi Wada stepped in to confirm that Final Fantasy Versus XIII was very much alive and that he had come back from a meeting regarding the game. Via Twitter, he stated, “There’s someone making a false rumor that Versus was cancelled. Haha…Just a minute ago, the regular Versus meeting ended. If you saw the presentation of the city, it’d knock you off your feet~lol”

Looks like Versus XIII is alive and well. However, I still have this feeling it won’t be keeping that Versus name for long. Still though, I wish Square would just show something already with the game! I wanna see this city Wada’s going on about!

Wada’s Twitter, via Kotaku

Night-Time Listenings Wrap-Up: Week of 7/16/12

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This week we went back to the 90s again. This time we covered music that was inspired by what was playing on the airwaves at the time. The streets were cleaned with Street of Rage. Then we jammed to the music of Sonic The Hedgehog 3. We played hard with Killer Instinct 2/Gold. We prowled the urban jungle in Street Fighter III. And finally, we rocked out to Maximum Carnage.

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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Rumor: Nintendo Negotiating With Microsoft On Rare Properties (And Maybe Even Rare Itself)

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Before Retro Studios became Nintendo’s new Rare, Rareware was the talk of the town during the old days of Nintendo. They developed hits like the Donkey Kong Country trilogy on the SNES and a plethora of games on the N64, including Banjo Kazooie, Goldeneye 007, Conker’s Bad Fur Day, Jet Force Gemini, and others. Microsoft bought Rare near the start of the new millennium, with Nintendo selling off the rest of their shares to Microsoft. Today Rare makes Kinect games and are the developers of the Xbox Live Avatars.

According to an anonymous tipster on ZeldaInformer, Nintendo is in talks with Microsoft to buy back the Banjo-Kazooie IP. The article does state that there could be the possibility that Nintendo might want all of Rare back with them to keep Banjo-Kazooie, but also obtain all of Rare’s other properties. There’s of course lots of hopeful words, some that sound way too good to be true. If Nintendo wanted Rare back, who’s to say Microsoft might keep some of Rare’s properties (like Nintendo did with their own)?. And who’s to say Nintendo could obtain many assets from Rare, but Microsoft keeps the Rare name? Lots of questions, barely any answers. But do take this news as it is: a rumor. One Big. Ass. Rumor.

Rumor: Nintendo Attempting to Negotiate its Way Into Ownership of Banjo and Kazooie [ZeldaInformer, via NUReviews]

Did Activision Tell Nintendo To Make The Wii U Pro Controller Look The Way It Is?

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According to Michael Pachter… the reason why the Wii U Pro Controller looks like an Xbox 360 controller is because companies like Activision would not bring over certain games if Nintendo didn’t have a conventional controller. This is mainly in regards to First-Person Shooters. Now I know what you’re thinking, “Pachter? Really?” I know, I know. But to put things into perspective, we haven’t heard much from companies like Activision on the Wii U. Not that Nintendo needs anyone of that ilk, but they do bring in a great deal of that gamer cash, and console makers do get some piece of that pie. But if this is true and this is what companies considered “conventional,” then is show how safe and scared of change these companies are.

Now if you excuse me, I must pay a visit to my Super Scope memorial.

Nintendo rumored to have made the Wii U Pro controller at Activision’s behest [Ubergizmo]