Author Archives: Steven

About Steven

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

The Fighter Blocks While The Sorceress Casts in This Duo of Trailers

Leave a reply

The release of Dragon’s Crown draws ever closer in Japan, so Atlus will be putting together videos detailing each of the individual characters players can choose from. Starting with the Fighter, he seems to be the go-to person if you want a balanced character with attacks and defense. That shield of his can protect allies who might be in harm’s way. Take for instance the scene in 0:27. The Fighter stands in front of the Sorceress (more on her after the break), blocking enemy attacks while she casts some magic against the enemy. Alongside some sick combos, Fighter also has some good crowd control in the form of a shoulder tackle. If things get to hectic, the fighter can tackle an enemy, sending them flying across the screen and away from him (and probably to another ally that can properly deal with it). Fighter’s also got an attack that’ll bring surrounding enemies to a crumple state, giving him some room to breathe.

Continue reading →

Art Blogger Breaks Down Dragon’s Crown’s Various Influences

Leave a reply

The moment we laid eyes on Vanillaware’s upcoming Dragon’s Crown, we were absolutely floored by how beautifully detailed and stunningly animated the game was. Once again, Vanillaware’s expertise with 2D animation would be on full display, and this time in HD. With each trailer I posted here, I described to the best of my knowledge what I was seeing. And by best I meant “one the surface, what am I looking at.” However one art blogger, Richmond, took it one step further to analyze the various influences Dragon’s Crown had on display.

For his analysis, he watched the most recent trailer for the game (which now has an English version) Just to summarize a few of the many things he covers, much of what influences Dragon’s crown comes from Disney Cartoons, Greek mythology, sculpture, and architecture, Judeo-Christian motifs, Renaissance paintings, classic films, and Conan The Barbarian. He even analyzes things many might overlook, like an emblem on a knight, the parchment around the sword that’s stabbing a ghost knight, and even that other buxom sorceress. If you’re an art nut and/or wondering what makes this game tick, go on and read Richmond’s article over at Art-Eater. He’s also got something for you fighting game fans out there.

From Mickey Mouse to Jesus, This Dragon’s Crown Trailer is Full of Epic Homages [Art-Eater]

Shin Megami Tensei IV Coming To The U.S., Aiming For July 16th

2 Replies

Told ya there was nothing to worry about. Atlus has confirmed that Shin Megami Tensei IV will be crossing the pacific and hitting our shore this summer. As a matter of fact, it’ll be coming much earlier in summer than expected as many stores are pegging July 16th as the release date. If that’s the case, then damn Atlus isn’t playing with the localization then. Japan’s getting MegaTen IV in May, and we only have to wait two months for it. Other times, we’d be living Loading Bars, waiting for our turn to play the game while Japan already gets its fill.

With this, Project X Zone, Etrian Odyssey IV, Devil Summoner: Soul Hackers, and Devil Survivor 2: Break Record (yeah, that’s happening), the 3DS is shaping up to be a JRPG powerhouse. I wonder if the U.S. will get that sweet 3DS XL bundle. I know we’re getting the same boxart though. In a surprise twist, the western design of the title will keep its original 真・女神転生 in the title, with the familiar “Shin Megami Tensei” at the top. Usually Atlus completely removes that in favor of the western logo. That string of kanji (which just says Shin Megami Tensei) kinda become symbolic of the mainline series’ return, and many fans, both Japanese and western (including I), have taken a liking to it. Eh, then again, they kept it with Nocturne, a mainline entry in the series — albeit with much more downplayed kanji characters.

Okay I’ll shut up now. My inner graphic designer would stay here talking all night.

Shin Megami Tensei IV Coming To North America This Summer [Siliconera]
Shin Megami Tensei IV U.S. Website

[April Fools] Nintendo And Hasbro Announce Kirby X My Little Pony

5 Replies

If you thought Shin Megami Tensei X Fire Emblem was a weird crossover, then get a load of this. With the premier of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic in Japan close as hand, Nintendo and Hasbro announced that they’ll be partnering up to create a crossover game, tentatively titled Kirby X My Little Pony. While development is still in its early stages, Nintendo was willing to share some info regarding how the story will pan out and how the game will play.

Continue reading →

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

Leave a reply

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.

Continue reading →

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

Leave a reply

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.

Continue reading →

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

1 Reply

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).

Continue reading →

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

1 Reply

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]

Continue reading →

Patricia Wagon Is A Firefighter In Mighty Switch Force 2

2 Replies

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.

Continue reading →

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

1 Reply

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.

Continue reading →

Fighting Is Magic Devs Tease New Characters For New Fighting Game

Leave a reply

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

1 Reply

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

Leave a reply

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.

Continue reading →

Skullgirls Update: Big Band Fully Funded With 12 Days Remaining

1 Reply

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.

Continue reading →

Dead Island Publisher Acquires Saints Row, Reveals Trailer And Launch Date For Saints Row IV

Leave a reply

All is good in the land of The Saints. The much publicized collapse of THQ meant that properties were going to be sold off, including the Saints Row franchise. Volition, and its Saints Row game, went to Koch Media. Little did many knew was that Koch Media was the parent company of Deep Silver, the publisher of Dead Island and the upcoming Dead Island Riptide. As evidenced by the trailer they just revealed, Saints Row IV is alive and well. If fact, it has a release date: August 20, 2013.

Continue reading →