“As a long time gamer, I often find the stories told by games to be bothersome.” Kirby creator Masahiro Sakurai writes in his Weekly Famitsu column. Indeed, many games seem to take their time laying out the beginning of their stories, showing long (and sometimes unskippable) cutscenes, or limiting what actions the protagonist can take…
“What the hell is Demon Gaze?” was my first response when I heard about this new game for the PS Vita from Kadokawa Games. The game was released on January 24th in Japan under the genre of “dungeon RPG,” and almost immediately sold like crazy. Well… relatively crazy. It is a Vita game after all,…
2013 is only 1/12th over. With 11 months left and new console news on the horizon, Weekly Famitsu asked its readers what games they were looking forward to for this year. Here’s a list of the top 30 anticipated upcoming games for 2013 (note: All publishers and release dates are for Japanese release versions): 30…
Toukiden is the new PS Vita game from Tecmo Koei. Originally announced as an entirely new title from the Omega-Force development team (of Dynasty Warriors fame), the game trailer showed a female warrior hacking up and killing a giant creature in a very medieval Japan sort of setting. Well, according to information released to Weekly…
As previously reported, in Soul Sacrifice, players will find themselves making a lot of different choices as they progress through the story of a sacrificial lamb fighting through an evil sorcerer’s past in the form of a living book to gain the power to fight for his/her freedom. Japan’s gaming magazine Weekly Famitsu has revealed…
Metal Gear Rising Revengeance will be hitting stores in less than 3 weeks and anticipations are high. In this week’s Weekly Famitsu, Platinum Games producer Atsushi Inaba and director Kenji Saitou, along with Konami’s Kojima Production producer Yuuji Korekado and scenario writer Etsu Tamari sat down to talk about their upcoming Metal Gear. Metal Gear…
The Monster Hunter series wasn’t always the “monster” (heh heh) hit it is currently. Originally released for the PS2, the first game, Monster Hunter, and its sequel, Monster Hunter G, sold less than a million copies each. It wasn’t until the game went hand-held to the PSP with Monster Hunter Portable (Monster Hunter Freedom in…
Nintendo’s current president and regular spokesperson for Nintendo’s online press conference, “Nintendo Direct,” Satoru Iwata spoke today at an analyst presentation meeting on Nintendo’s plans for the upcoming business year. During the presentation, Iwata spoke of his “commitment” to a business profit goal of ¥100 billion (US$ 1.1 billion) by the end of the next…
Killer is Dead is the latest game from Grasshopper Manufacture and the mind of Suda 51. The game features the protagonist, Mondo Zappa, a professional “executioner” in a near-future world. The game is being created as a new chapter in the Suda 51 “assassin series”, following in the footsteps of killer7 and the No More…
A good anime, like any good artistic material, can move you, drive you, and stick with you for your entire life. Most of us only get to see the finished product (and maybe some behind the scenes footage from bonus features). While it is somewhat well-known that the working conditions for manga artists and animators…
Nintendo’s DS. With over 152 million units sold worldwide, the dual-screen portable console is without a doubt Nintendo’s biggest seller ever. But now, 8 years after its initial release, currently being outsold by its successor, the 3DS, it seems the DS is almost completely ready to quietly disappear into the night from the Japanese market.…
Anime director Satoshi Kon passed away on August 24th, 2010 after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer earlier the same year. Kon was famous for his anime movies: PERFECT BLUE, Millennium Actress, Tokyo Godfathers, and Paprica. His death was felt by the entire anime community. Many, including myself, wept upon reading his last words, written on…
Celebrating its 20th anniversary, Nippon Ichi Software, makers of the the Disgaea series, will be releasing Kamisama to Unmei Kakumei no Paradokusu (The Paradox of God and the Fate Revolution) on the PS3 next week. The game was announced last year, and was originally slated to hit stores in Japan on December 20th, but was…
Well, it’s been 3 months since Japan’s own version of SOPA was passed. For those unfamiliar or cannot be bothered to research: in October, the copying of copy-protected and encoded materials, the sale of software and hardware that circumvents copy or access protection, and the intentional download of illegally uploaded materials were deemed illegal and…
And so this is 2013, and what have we done? Another year over, and a new one’s just begun… Holiday songs aside, 2013 is upon us, and that means reflecting on the past year and looking forward to things to come. This week, Weekly Famitsu asked several Japanese game developers about their plans for 2013.…
Video game maker Capcom is 30 years old. To celebrate their 30th anniversary, the company is looking back to its roots. As a 30th anniversary celebration, Capcom is releasing the Capcom Arcade Cabinet Retro Game Collection: A collection of Capcom games from the 8-bit era. Capcom producer Kenji Kataoka spoke with Japanese game magazine Weekly…
If you couldn’t tell from my last couple of articles about the Hot Toys Movie Masterpiece figures, I’m a bit of a fan of the collectible figurine. I am also a big fan of the Avengers movie, so I guess it’s understandable that I’ve been giddy about the Movie Masterpiece versions of the characters that…
Cosplay: the amalgamation of the words “costume” and “play”, and the act of dressing up as a character from comics, manga, movies, anime… Pretty much anything from popular culture or a subculture that people like. For Japanese cosplayers, the culture of cosplay can be a world of fun, photos, and sometimes bitter and petty rivalry.…
Kuroko’s Basketball has been having it rough. The popular basket manga, or rather its creator, has been continuously threatened since last October, which has led to the cancellation of all Kuroko’s Basketball-related events, including a stage event at Jump Festa. More recently, Japan’s biggest independent doujinshi event, Comic Market (better known as Comiket), announced that…
Comic Market, better known among the subculture in Japan as “Comiket,” is currently a bi-annual 3-day event that takes place in Japan. This past December 29th to 31st was the 83rd Comiket, and Kotaku East had a chance to delve into the underbelly of what is currently the largest comic pop culture convention for the…
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