In the Yakuza series, the protagonists do many things: Lead mobs, beat each other up, meet porn stars in clubs… Now, in Yakuza 5, it looks like we’ll be offered another perspective on the multiple protagonists where they’ll partake in other activities while they don’t pursue suspects, solve mysteries, or uncover conspiracies. Yakuza 5 will…
The Metal Gear series is 25 years old this year. From its modest beginnings on the MSX2 console (the what?), to its big break on the Playstation with Metal Gear Solid and now with the highly anticipated Metal Gear Rising Revengeance, Metal Gear has come a long way to become a globally popular series. But…
The Nintendo 3DS upgrade, the 3DS XL (“3DS LL” in Japan) will be hitting stores in Japan later this month and in the US in August. Looking at what will hopefully be a bigger launch than the launch for the original 3DS (Granted, they had to deal with a weak launch lineup and a major…
The Monster Hunter series will be getting its “fourth” numbered game (Seeing as they seem to have a different numbering system from the rest of us… What kind of game series considers “3rd” and “3” (tri) as two separate numbers?) next year with Monster Hunter 4 scheduled for release in Spring 2013. As a whole…
In Soul Sacrifice, players take on the role of an imprisoned servant awaiting imminent death who must fight their way to freedom by wielding the magic of sacrifice. Apparently pulling out your spine and wielding it as a sword is too dangerous to do alone. Two companion characters have been announced for the game: A…
Namco Bandai recently posted a teaser site for a new Japanese game “All Star Battle” (not to be confused with Playstation All-Stars Battle Royale) which featured a daily countdown and an image that slowly revealed itself. People anxiously waited, wondering what the reveal might be. Finally, the full image was revealed to show an image…
At the GDC in Taipei held at the Taipei International Conference Center in Taiwan, Motomu Toriyama of Square Enix held a presentation on the development between Final Fantasy XIII and Final Fantasy XIII-2. Toriyama, who held the position of director for both games, took the podium and revealed the inner working of development on Final…
Fighting games featuring characters from other fighting games or completely different genre games is nothing new. Still, the Virtua Fighter characters Sarah Bryant and Akira Yuki appearing in Dead or Alive 5 holds a little more meaning for the creators at Team Ninja than the average guest appearance. In a three-way interview with Weekly Famitsu,…
Gundam is a bit like a Japanese version of Star Trek: It’s an epic sci-fi fantasy series with multiple spin-offs and games (some of which fans don’t like to talk about), a massive fan base, a gargantuan library of technical information, and it all came from an original series that was canceled during its initial…
Superbrothers: Sword and Sworcery EP, winner of the 12th Annual Game Developers Choice Awards Best Handheld/Mobile Game, has received well-earned praise all around the globe. Now, the creators are finishing their victory lap around the globe with a visit to Tokyo. At an event in Japan, Craig Adams of Superbrothers and Kris Piotrowski of Capybara…
Fumito Ueda, the mind behind such classics as ICO and Shadow of the Colossus, left Sony last year much to the dismay of fans awaiting the release of his latest project, The Last Guardian. Since then, there’s been little news on his involvement with the project as an outside contractor and indeed how production on…
While the Japanese public watched a cult terrorist get arrested, its leaders in government quietly made a move that could make watching YouTube illegal in Japan… SOPA and PIPA are still rather fresh in people’s memories. For those of you who don’t know what SOPA and PIPA are, and yet are tech savvy enough to…
It looks like Nintendo’s latest Mario game, New Super Mario Bros 2, which is scheduled for release in August, is going for the gold. Literally. The Mario series has always been adding new costumes for the mustached plumber with every game. The previous announcement that New Super Mario Bros. 2 would include a variation of…
The Idolm@ster series is well renowned for its cute virtual idols and ability to suck money out of fans’ wallets with pricy DLC and slot machine-like tactics. Next up, snack wafers that let you make literal phone calls to your favorite virtual idols. The Idolm@aster Wafers 2 are small, plain, rectangular chocolate sandwich wafer snacks,…
It’s hard to believe it’s been 20 years since Kirby first appeared on the Nintendo Gameboy. I still remember the first time I saw that cute pink (Well, sort of cream-colored with black outlines on the Gameboy) innocent-looking little marshmallow suck a bird down his gullet and swallow it whole. Since then, the Kirby series…
In this week’s Weekly Famitsu, 12 game creators were asked what their 3 greatest influences were, from movies to books to other video games. Here’s what some their answers were: Katsura Hashino Game designer for Persona 3 and Persona 4, Hashino’s greatest film influence was the David Lynch film, Mulholland Drive. So much so that…
Mamoru Oshii, director of such animated films like Ghost in the Shell was recently revealed as the director of the Steel Battalion: Heavy Armor trailer. In the latest issue of Weekly Famitsu, the director offered his insight to the creation of the trailer and some impressions on the game itself. The 15 second trailer was…
Square Enix caused a lot of jaws to drop at E3 with the unveiling of its new Luminous Studio engine. The new game engine offers a whole new world in high quality graphic content for the creators of Final Fantasy. Square Enix CEO Youichi Wada spoke in an interview with Famitsu about the creation and…
With the 3DS, Nintendo brought us 3D imagery without the use of dopey glasses. Now, a company in Japan has developed a peripheral that can turn your iPhone into an instant 3D device. At the Wireless Japan 2012, an expo for wireless and smart phone devices and apps, Nippon System Project displayed its new “Picasso…
R4 cartridges, better known in Japan as Majicon, are a major thorn in Nintendo’s side. The importing and sale of these devices that allow people to play pirated DS games was ruled as illegal in Japan since 2008. Generally, Nintendo has opted for filing civil complaints or civil lawsuits against violators, but at last, it…
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