From the creators of the visual novels Chaos;Head and Steins;Gate comes the anime adaptation of their latest game, Robotics;Notes. While at first the Robotics;Notes anime seems like little more than a near-future high school slice-of-life story, it soon devolves into a myriad of different stories, often of completely different genres. Good — A Realistic Giant…
When I heard about Moero Downhill Night Blaze (and its recent Western release), it was described as a Japanese-made “adult 3D racer”—a description that sent my mind reeling. How do you make a game that is both a porn game and a racing game? My mind came up with more than a few “interesting” theories,…
Nearly two decades ago, Japan redefined the cyberpunk genre with the groundbreaking anime Ghost in the Shell. A police mystery, Ghost in the Shell used its futuristic framework to explore the relationship between cybernetics and the very nature of the human soul. This season in Japan marks the release of a new anime that is…
Over the weekend, Hideki Kamiya—director of Resident Evil 2, Devil May Cry, Okami, Viewtiful Joe, and Bayonetta—was asked over twitter about his opinion of Valve, Steam, and PC gaming in general. He responded thusly: While Western readers may feel that Kamiya not knowing about Valve is akin to an American developer not knowing about Nintendo,…
Moero Downhill Night Blaze is the latest adult visual novel in the Moero Downhill Night series of street racing-themed games. In most visual novels (“adult” or otherwise), the gameplay is little more than a few major choices set up in a choose-your-own-adventure type story. However, Moero Downhill Night Blaze moves well outside the visual novel…
This year, anime that focus on games and game-related culture have been quite numerous. One of these, Btooom! (the onomatopoeic sound effect for a bomb exploding) ended its television run last week in Japan. Like Hunger Games and Battle Royale, Btooom! follows a group of people stranded away from civilization and forced to fight in…
Tell me if you’ve heard this one before: A teenager from our world is magically transported to a fantasy world where he/she is the key to saving the kingdom—or perhaps the entire world. Of course you have. Ixion Saga DT is an anime built around this most common of themes, seeking to deconstruct it piece…
Earlier this year when Sword Art Online hit its halfway point, I called it the smartest anime I had seen in years because of its in-depth look at the long-term effects of being trapped in a virtual reality world. This last week Sword Art Online finished its run on Japanese TV. And while the second…
Jump Festa, Shonen Jump’s own convention, is a mix of manga, anime, video games, and card games. There are various events, art galleries, game booths, card tournaments, Jump-themed food stalls, and endless amounts of stage shows. But no matter where you look, there is one thing that permeates the entire show floor: an unending sea…
After the success of Tales of Innocence R in Japan, Bandai-Namco is moving another of last generation’s portable titles over to the PlayStation Vita—this time in the form of Tales of Hearts R. Today at Jump Festa 2013, Kotaku East was able to spend some time with the first playable demo of this Tales series…
Announced back during this year’s Tokyo Game Show, Kingdom Hearts 1.5 HD ReMIX is a PS3 HD remaster of Kingdom Hearts Final Mix and its sequel Kingdom Hearts Re:Chain of Memories—as well as a collection of CG cutscenes from Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days. Today at Jump Festa 2013 in Japan, Kotaku East was able to…
Back in June, Bandai-Namco announced that Tales of Xillia, the first Tales game designed specifically for the PS3, would be heading to America, Europe, and Australia in 2013. But while Western fans can do nothing but wait anxiously, Japanese fans have had time to play not only the original game but also its sequel. Tales…
Japan: The birthplace of Mario, Sonic, Final Fantasy, and Street Fighter—just to name a few. Each year scores of games are made and released here. The best of these come to the West—or rather most of the best do. Each year, a few great titles manage to slip through the cracks for whatever reason and…
I love JRPGs. Since discovering them in the sixth grade, I have played dozens upon dozens of them. But my primary reason for playing them has always been the plot—the epic 40-plus-hour adventure. The battle system, on the other hand, has tended to be rather a boring chunk of useless padding—it’s just something that comes…
While the first game in the series has yet to leave Japanese shores, Tales of Xillia 2 was recently released in Japan. Using the same engine as the first game, Xillia 2 mixes an anime-style RPG with the fast and furious battles the series is famous for. Xillia 2 sports a few changes over the…
As the Macross 30th Anniversary year comes to a close, Bandai-Namco is preparing to release Macross 30: The Voice that Connects the Galaxy, the first full-length Macross game on the PlayStation 3. This “flight simulation RPG” mega-crossover game includes characters and transforming fighter planes from across all five main Macross series. But how exactly does…
I’ve been playing video games for as long as I can remember. I started with an Atari 2600 before moving on to the good old NES and beyond. Yet, in all that time I have never enjoyed versus gaming. Perhaps this is because, as a kid, I was the youngest of my game playing friends—and…
Back in May, we took a look at the first Phoenix Wright musical, Ace Attorney: Truth Resurrected. The musical presented a retelling of the final case in the DS remake of the first game, “From the Ashes.” And it was so well done that I went so far as to say that it was better…
The Professor Layton series follows an English gentleman solving brain teasers and occult mysteries with his apprentice Luke. The Ace Attorney series follows lawyer Phoenix Wright as he breaks down the logical flaws in witnesses’ testimonies to protect his clients and uncover the truth in a court of law. At first glance they might not…
Back in the days before the infamous Grand Theft Auto “Hot Coffee” scandal, it was common practice in game development to simply leave unfinished content on the disk. Sometimes this data was cut due to time issues, other times it was old data from early in the game’s development that no longer fit the vision…
Mode
Follow us
