What is up with PayPal lately? Nyu Media’s Seon King announced the other day on Yatagarasu‘s Indiegogo page that PayPal was withholding 50% of the funding that they’re to receive from those who payed using PayPal to donate. Given that many prefer to make payments online using PayPal’s system, that’s a lot of money being held. $118,243 was raised for the project, many of which was payed using PayPal.
Doujin Publisher Nyu Media’s second wave of games got a bit of a head start last year with Eryi’s Action. But the meat of this second wave kicks in with the release of Croixleur, scheduled to be released on January 24th.
Developed by Souvenir Circ, the game pits you in an arena style fight against multiple enemies, climbing higher in the tower, and picking which portals to go through as you ascend. This gameplay style sounds reminiscent of Fairy Bloom Freesia, except the action is in full 3D and borrows a few traits from hack n’ slashers like Devil May Cry and Dynasty Warriors. While it seems to stress that it’s not an Action RPG, you still collect XP and level up, so I have no idea what’s going on there. Different weapons can be equipped for dispatching enemies, and each have their own special attacks. The game also has multiple endings depending on which portals you choose upon defeating enemies. Croixleur will also have three modes to choose from: Story Mode, Score Attack, and Survival Mode.
For now the game will be released on January 24th on the game’s homepage, with Desura and GamersGate getting it afterwards. The game is currently looking to get a release on Steam through Greenlight.
I’ve grown up with an average fascination for beat-’em-ups. My fascination only went as far the amount of games I’ve played, and unfortunately it never hit double-digits. But my knowledge of the genre is certainly larger than my actual playing of it. Edelweiss, the guys who made Ether Vapor, would dip their toes into this brawler genre, and with it take some inspiration from games like Smash Bros., Tales of, and Odin Sphere. The game: Fairy Bloom Freesia. Does fighting as a fairy sound like an awesome idea? Or is she better off hiding in a tree? Hit the jump to see how this game fares.
System: PC/Publisher:Nyu Media/Developer: Xtal Sword/Players: 1/Release Date: 9/14/12Around the beginning of my college years, I was introduced to a romhack called Kaizo Mario. I wasn’t playing the game, but we were watching someone else play the game. Basically Kaizo Mario took Super Mario World and made it extremely hard to the point of parody. To a select few, this was a good way to test one’s gaming mettle. To the rest, it was comedic! I Wanna Be The Guy, an indie game, took things to the next level by incorporating assets from old games like Kirby, Castlevania, and MegaMan, and making the game downright sadistic. Then came Syobon Action, which was a re-imagining of the first world of Super Mario Bros. and added some twists to intentionally kill the player. This one was more parody/puzzle than actually difficult. That brings us to today’s game, Eryi’s Action, one of the first (if not, the first) officially published game from this ilk of games. Is it worth buying just to die, or are you better off watching another schmuck die constantly and just laugh at him? After the break, I review Eryi’s Action.
System: PC/Publisher: Nyu Media/Developer: Tennen-sozai/Players: 1/Release Date: 3/29/12The shmup genre, a playstyle that’s lived longer than most of us on the staff. As we played these games and grew, our skills were honed to the point that memorization and bullet dodging became second nature. As time went on, a desire for a more… difficult approach arose, and along came the Bullet Hell Shooter. Like watching a fireworks show, the screen is littered with bullets with narrow passages of escape. Thanks to small hitboxes, escape was somewhat easy, and pretty cool at that. So in the heap of Bullet Hell Shooters comes a series of indie games called eXceed. The three games in the series sought to change things up a bit by introducing certain mechanics to the standard Bullet Hell formula. And now, they’re in a complete little package for a small price. Is it worth getting all three, getting part of ’em, or not bothering at all? After the jump, I breakdown each game of The eXceed Collection.
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.
System: PC/Publisher: Nyu Media/Developer: Edelweiss/Players: 1/Release Date:6/29/2012It’s kind of unfortunate to see space shooters fall by the wayside after the 16bit and 32-bit days. While there were some out there that really impressed, they’ve all fallen to the niche circle. Indie hit Touhou reached a level of popularity the likes of Gradius and R-Type. Then Ikaruga brought forth a space shooter with bullet hell elements. And now, the scene is mostly quiet, with ports and remakes of Shoot ‘Em Ups hitting the download scene. Alongside that, smaller teams have developed shooters of their own, bringing over ambitious ideas quenching the thirst of old-school shmup fans, if only temporarily. However most of them never made it outside of Japan. Here’s one of the few that managed to make it out, Ether Vapor Remaster. Will this quench that thirst for a while, or are you better off drinking water? After the jump, I Breakdown Ether Vapor Remaster.
None of them actually hit you, but you get the idea.
Slowly but surely doujin localizing company Nyu Media has been rising up in fame, finding its niche nicely in the download scene. Releasing indie games from Japan that would otherwise fly over most U.S. publishers heads, Nyu Media has brought over shmup game The eXceed Collection and adventure game Cherry Tree High Comedy Club. And so a new release dawns, Ether Vapor Remaster, an enhanced port of a shmup game originally released back in 2007 in Japan. I tried the game out… and (after some futzing with my shitty-ass computer to get it to work. I’ll talk about this some other time.), I was issued a pure ass beating only an old-school game can dish out.
In a world full of Battlefields, Call of Dutys, and Skyrims, it’s nice to play something out of the ordinary (and a helluva lot more colorful). So far, there’s primarily Atlus, NIS America, XSEED, and Ignition that cater to the niche market by bringing over Japanese games that the big guys are too scared to publish in the U.S. Well now you can add Nyu Media to the mix. They’ll be specializing in bringing doujin games over. “The high price of imports, limited distribution, and the language barrier have prevented gamers from fully enjoying many quality doujin games,” says founder Seon King on the company’s new page in regard to how hard it is to acquire these games and support the often small dev teams. So far they have six games they’ll be publishing this year, with more on the way in 2012. The gaame will be available on PC through regular distribution platforms. No word yet on if they’ll be publishing the games as downloadables on consoles and/or handhelds. You can hit up the company’s website to see what they’ll be bringing over.
[UPDATE] I’ve contacted Seon King, and he said that they’re in talks to release these games on online platforms like Steam. On the handheld/console front, they’ll also be release games on smartphone devices. There are currently no plans to release these games on PSN or XBLA (Understandably so since these services can have some steep hosting fees).
New Doujin Publisher, Nyu Media, Publishing Japanese Indie Games [Siliconera]
The Wired Fish Network 