Dragon’s Crown Is Alive, Gets A New Trailer [Screenshots Included]

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Previously on News Regarding Dragon’s Crown, Atlus took over publishing duties from UTV Ignition. They also started lending a hand in the actual development of the game. Since then, well not much else was known (outside of Atlus censoring the Amazon and the Sorceress in the U.S. side of the official website). The trailer itself is pretty short, but quite a few new things are shown. For starters, we see some new art for all the characters. We can also see what seems to be player indicators over each character’s head and damage output numbers for attacks. We also see some new locales not seen in the initial trailer, including a ruined tower that can be traversed from the inside and outside via magic carpet. Finally, we see more of that mysterious merchant-like person that followed the heroes in the previous trailer. This time, he’s accompanied by a fairy.

Many feared that the game was in trouble after reports surfaced that developer Vanillaware were having problems making both Grand Knights History and Dragon’s Crown at the same time. The troubles piled on after XSEED cancelled GKH‘s localization since Vanillaware would have to do the programming (XSEED lacks this), and they already had their hands full. Now that GKH is released in Japan, they can now focus on Dragon’s Crown development. Atlus is also reported to begin talking about the game this March. Screenshots from the trailer after the break.

Rejoice! Vanillaware’s Dragon’s Crown gets a new trailer! [Japanator]

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Night-Time Listenings Wrap-Up: Week of 2/11/13

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Sorry about not having a Night-Time Listening last week. But hey, we’re back, and we’re gonna show our love for Indie Games all month! We socked some dudes in Canada in Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. We flipped out over VVVVVV. Tower of Heaven made its glorious return to Night-Time Listening. We kept dying in Super Meat Boy. And finally we went simple with Art Style light trax.

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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Top 60 Most Wacky Bootleg Boxarts: PS2 Edition

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Last week, a new light was shined upon within the videogame community, followed by many faces of bewilderment, amazement, and side-splittting laughter. Coming from African game distributor Syrian Games, the games presented had boxart that can only be described as a drug-filled surrealist trip. Heads of characters photoshopped on the bodies of other characters, overly simple title fonts, and the overabundance of greenery and rainbows for relatively dark games. I mean, I’ve seen bootleg boxart before (namely from fake Famicom games), this but this a whole ‘nother level of zany. There were over 700 games in the PS2 section, and I sifted through all of them. Yes, I’m that serious. As I clicked page after page, I thought that it’d stopped be funny eventually. But it never did, and this is just the PS2 section. Rest assured, I wanted to show many of these and was initially raring to only show 20. But screw that, we’re going for 60!

So after the break, the The Top 60 Most Wacky Bootleg Boxarts: PS2 Edition.

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Yes, Shin Megami Tensei X Fire Emblem and “X” Are Getting Release In The U.S. (I Thought We Knew This Already)

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Several weeks ago Nintendo revealed in their Nintendo Direct presentation that they were collaborating with Atlus to make Shin Megami Tensei X Fire Emblem. After the awesome as hell revelation, there was also the reveal of “X”, that secret project that Xenoblade developers Monolith Soft was making. For some reason, there were, and still are, quite a few that were fearful that these games wouldn’t get a U.S. release. I don’t blame them given the state of JRPGs in the U.S. lately (though it is improving). But c’mon, it’s pretty obvious that the U.S. is getting these games. I mean, 1) they were announced on a U.S. Nintendo Direct, and 2) in the case of SMT X FE, the logo for Shin Megami Tensei that is used in the trailer (pictured) is the western logo. If it was just confirmed for Japan, they would use Japanese logo instead. Also, the Fire Emblem logo is also the western one used for Fire Emblem Awakening.

Unless otherwise stated, these games are 100% confirmed coming to the U.S. You can put your fears to rest.

Fangames And C&Ds: What To Do About Them

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Disclaimer: The Wired Fish does not promote copyright/trademark infringement nor encourage it. We still recommend contacting the original content holders on projects you’ll be undertaking should the need arise, and to abide by the law if a Cease & Desist is sent. Content holders are obligated to contact the author of this article should you not agree with this article. As with all of The Wired Fish, anything expressed on this site falls on the individual authors and not The Wired Fish as a whole nor our host WordPress.

On Friday, February 8, 2013, one of the most popular and most polished fangames in the brony community, MLP: Fighting is Magic, was served a cease and desist order from Hasbro, the makers of the My Little Pony franchise. It caused a massive ripple effect across both the brony community and the fighting game community. Mane6, the developers of Fighting is Magic, took steps to make sure that they would be in good standing with Hasbro when they started developing the game in 2011, namely by not profiting off the game and not accepting any donations from fans. Any donations that were brought up from tournaments went straight to charity. They stated this on their FAQ page when it was still up. While it was believed that Hasbro had no problem with the game (FAQ gone to confirm this), last Friday’s event proved otherwise.

So once again the topic of fangames has hit the forefront of the gaming periphery. Fangames are a form of expression, a way of showing adoration for a show/videogame/movie you like. In other words, it is another form of fanart. Unlike the typical form fanart – the most common being drawings – fangames take more time to make and are generally much lower in quantity. But, like some fanart, many fangames tend to be rather amateurish and crude, either making something poorly from scratch or poorly reusing assets from other games. But there are some out there that excel beyond the norm, creating new content or using currently available assets and making something equal to or beyond the quality of the original. It’s these games though that tend to get the dreaded cease & desist order, with companies fearing it being a little too close to their product.

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Weeks Away From Launch, Rayman Legends Gets Delayed To September (Same Month As GTA V’s Release)

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Like the header suggests, this is Delaying-Anarchy-Reigns levels of stupid. Previously Rayman Legends was slated to release on the Wii U on February 26th. Ubisoft then announced that the game would go multiplatform, no longer being a Wii U exlusive. I see no problem with this as I still don’t own a Wii U (yet) and might have a better chance getting it for my PS3. Plus, more people get to play the game. Then came the announcement immediately afterward that the game would be delayed to September 2013. Woah! That’s a deep delay, almost as deep as Anarchy Reigns‘ delay.

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Patent Trolls On The Loose Again, Going After… Podcasters?

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When my colleague Anthony showed this on the staff page, I very much surprised at what I was reading. I mean, the usual targets patent trolls claim as theirs is tech stuff, so something like podcasts is not even in my purview. But lo and behold Patent trolls have sunk to a new low. According to Julie Samuels of lobby group Electronic Frontier Foundation, a company called Personal Audio are going after podcasters for supposedly “claiming that it owns a patent that covers podcasting technology.” She explains that Personal Audio is using very broad terminology to catch many in its huge web of deception. One example she presents is how they define distribution of episodes.

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GameStop To Close Around 500 Of Its Stores Nationwide

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Ah GameStop, a store with a storied history with many of us here at The Wired Fish. Gamestop’s annual sales report came in for 2012, and it’s not pretty. Gamestop sales took a hit last year with more people getting their games either online via Amazon or Wal-Mart, downloading digital versions of games, or getting their used game fix from Target and Best Buy. There’s also Gamefly and its slow, but useful, rental service for checking one’s doubts about a game. And in the wake of rumors of Anti-Used game features in the upcoming PS4 and Xbox Durango, the bread and butter of Gamestop’s business, the heat is on for the used game giant.

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Grasshopper Manufacture Bought By GungHo, Killer Is Dead To Be Published By XSEED

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Last week came news that Grasshopper Manufacture, the developer known for housing the batshit insane Suda 51, was bought up by GungHo Entertainment. GungHo is known for hosting the servers for Ragnarok Online and acquiring Gravity Co. Ltd., the developers of the game. GungHo also hosted the servers for MMORPG Shin Megami Tensei Imagine (which is now run by Atlus Online). Given the track record of this company, it seems like a strange choice for them to acquire Grasshopper Manufacture since GM has no experience with online games. However GungHo has faith in this new venture, stating in a press release, “We believe the strength of a publisher lies in its creative talent so with the addition of GRASSHOPPER MANUFACTURE and SUDA51 we are adding some of the most innovative talent in today’s gaming world.” The press release also touts GungHo’s access to AAA resources that Grasshopper can use in its development of future titles.

The other news regarding this acquisition is the announcement of Killer Is Dead‘s U.S. release. Grasshopper’s latest game will be published by rising niche publisher and fan favorite XSEED. Interestingly, GungHo already has a U.S. publishing branch with GungHo Online Entertainment America, and is run by XSEED’s former president, Jun Iwasaki. XSEED themselves have published several GungHo games, so it seems like these two publishers have a good relationship going. So why bother with a U.S. publishing branch for GungHo?

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Night-Time Listenings Wrap-Up: Week of 1/28/13

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Happy Late New Year! Well, I got a good month off from doing this segment, but it’s time Night-Time Listenings returned. And since this is a new year, let’s head to the future, all the way to the year of the futuristic racers. So all this week we payed homage to the Futuristic racer, which was filled with crunchy guitars, thumping basses, and speaker busting noises. Featured this week was F-ZERO, Extreme G, Kinetica, F-ZERO GX, and Wipeout HD Fury.

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Giana Sisters Twisted Dreams Heading To PSN Later This Year

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Developer Black Forest Games has confirmed via their stream that their game, Giana Sisters Twisted Dreams will be console bound this around the Spring/Summer. Released on PC late last year after a successful Kickstarter campaign, this latest game gave players the ability to switch between both Cute and Punk variants of Giana, both having abilities exclusive to each type. Changing between the two also changed the world around Giana, with the dream side for Punk Giana and the nightmare side for Cute Giana. This mechanic as a big departure for the once clone game, nixing its more traditional Mario-like platforming to a more puzzle-platforming approach similar to other indie games in the market.

Black Forest has also enlisted the aid of original Giana Sisters composer Chris Hulsbeck and Swedish sid-metal band Machinae Supremacy. Giana Sisters DS composer Fabian Del Priore also returns. These three at the helm help to make the music match the changing mechanic, with Cute getting a more standard composition and Punk getting Machinae’s metal music.

So far there’s no word yet if the game will also be released on XBLA. It is however currently available on Steam, Origin, and Amazon.

[via Giana Sisters Facebook Page]

Maker Of Smash Bros. Injured Due To Repetitive Strain

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In the middle of developing the next Smash Bros. game for Wii U and 3DS, Masahiro Sakurai is reported to be suffering from repetitive strain injury for a lot of hard work. According to Polygon, the Smash Bros. creator has to now use a trackball to work. Sakurai states that his inability to use his arm is getting to “the point where it’s starting to restrict my work and lifestyle.” Along with using a trackball, he’s trying to see if he can issue vocal commands for those he’s supervising. He’s also attempting to use his left arm to work, but it’s not going so well.

Working with mouse and keyboard for extended periods of time can become quite a strain on your arm/wrist. I should know. Twice my left wrist went out of whack, making me unable to do much on work The Wired Fish both late last year and in late 2011. Both times were the result of mice that didn’t conform well to my hand and as a result screwed up my wrist. This never happened to me before 2011, but my time on a computer (which is a lot) probably contributed to my wrist being unfriendly to certain kinds of mice. With a bad wrist (or a bad arm in Sakurai’s case), all you can do is either use your other arm, or just take a break to keep it steady until it’s more functional.

Take a break if you must Sakurai. Last thing we need is someone getting ill from overwork.

Kirby creator gets bad RSI, extols the virtues of trackballs [Polygon, via Siliconera]

Rasslin’ Rants – Royal Rumble 2013

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Finally…The Rock has come back to part time wrestling!

Hello and welcome to another edition of Rasslin’ Rants. So yeah, the Road to WrestleMania is officially underway with this past Sunday’s Royal Rumble PPV. I want to get this out of the way and say this show wasn’t very good. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the Royal Rumble (abbreviated RR for this article), it’s a 30-man over the top rope battle royal where the winner gets a WWE or World Heavyweight Championship match at WrestleMania. Seems like a good idea in theory, creating new main event people in the process, but that’s not always the case. Sometimes, WWE uses this as an extremely lazy way of rehashing something from the past. Such is the case for this event. Anyways, here’s what I thought of the show.

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6:00 Inferno : Ni no Kuni (Part 4) I got a boat.

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Periodically I run a live stream called 6:00 Inferno. Things don’t always burn, but I play games both new and old, and I’m always in for the long haul. I might live in New York, but I like to pretend I’m from the west-coast, so I run on pacific — not eastern time. Stream details on top of page!

Last time I almost became an Oliver sandwich and obtained a boat. Watch me sail around to places I probably shouldn’t go before I get my ass kicked enough times to continue the story in Hamelin. I really like the sailing song actually, so I hope to be able to do a lot. Inferno starts in 5 or so minutes, be there!

The Wired Fish Podcast S4 – Episode 3

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“Live In Your World. Play In Ours.” That was the slogan for much of the PS2’s lifecycle. While the PS2’s time was long over, that thought was only subjective as games were still being made for it well after its time supposedly passed. Games like Persona 4 and Jak and Daxter: The Lost Frontier were showed that the PS2 still had a beating heart, but it was obvious that it’s days were numbers (or were in fact up). Finally, Sony stepped in to confirm that manufacturing of all PS2 systems had ceased in all territories earlier this year, marking an end to an era. Not since the Japanese Famicom have we seen a console stay in production this long, even after support for the game dropped to near zero. And thus we look back on the era that kicked off the new millennium, the Playstation 2.

Timestamp of Contents after the break.

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