Hachimuse: Remembering Roger Ebert

A life worth giving a thumbs-up to.

“So on this day of reflection I say again, thank you for going on this journey with me. I’ll see you at the movies.”

-Roger Ebert, on his last post on his website, April 2nd, 2013

Roger Ebert, one of the men most responsible for the modern age of media review, passed away April 4th at the age of 70 after a long, hard-fought battle with Thyroid cancer. His death leaves a gaping hole in the world of reviewing of any kind, and he will be missed terribly. Continue reading →

The Wired Fish Podcast S4 – Episode 5 (2 Parts)

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We’ve got two things to talk about today, and the first one is very serious. It was speculated (then revealed after recording) that the shooter at Sandy Hook, Adam Lanza, used first-person shooters like Call of Duty to train himself how to use a gun. Then again, the guy had a huge cache of guns in his basement and was quite nutso. Still, that didn’t stop the press from latching on to the videogame violence headline. This is what we’re here to talk about.

After that, talked bout PAX East game reveals. One of the biggest reveals was DuckTales Remastered. WayForward’s handling development, which makes us all the more giddy. What else at PAX East filled us with this kind of excitement? Well, you’ll have to load up part 2 after the break!

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

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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

The MoMA Needs To Step-Up Their Game In uh… Games

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To spoil an art exhibit about videogames, you will need:

1 Tbs apathy
14 Videogames
14 Misleading gallery labels
13 Generic controllers, damaged

Take the fourteen videogames, and place them against a black backdrop of minimalist design. Condense titles that are too large for a quick play through, into videogame trailers and pair them with screenshots so visitors know why these games are important. Next, connect generic controllers to the computers running emulation software to negate any Continue reading →

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

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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.

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Anime Theater: Basilisk

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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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