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Kotaku East
You Can Drive A Cab, Shoot A Deer, Dance On Stage, And Hit A Ball In Yakuza 5
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…
By Toshi Nakamura Published July 12, 2012 -
Kotaku East
Hideo Kojima Never Expected Metal Gear Solid To Do Well In The West
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…
By Toshi Nakamura Published July 12, 2012 -
Kotaku East
Japanese Poll: Most Gamers Plan To Buy A 3DS XL, Even Though Most Already Own A 3DS
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…
By Toshi Nakamura Published July 12, 2012 -
Kotaku East
Monster Hunter 4 Will Have A Bunch Of New Features… No News On A PS Vita Version
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…
By Toshi Nakamura Published July 5, 2012 -
Kotaku East
Here Are A Couple Of Companions For Your Journey Into The World Of Soul Sacrifice
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…
By Toshi Nakamura Published July 5, 2012 -
Kotaku EastNamco Bandai Announces New JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure Game, But Not Before Confusing The Hell Out Of People
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…
By Toshi Nakamura Published July 5, 2012 -
Kotaku East
The Road to Final Fantasy XIII-2
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…
By Toshi Nakamura Published June 28, 2012 -
Kotaku East
How Virtua Fighter Was Dead Or Alive‘s Daddy
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,…
By Toshi Nakamura Published June 28, 2012 -
Kotaku East
Namco Bandai’s Latest Gundam Game Is Free*! (*Not Completely)
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…
By Toshi Nakamura Published June 28, 2012 -
Kotaku East
Sword & Sworcery EP Gets A Japanese Version And An Awesome Remix Album
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…
By Toshi Nakamura Published June 21, 2012 -
Kotaku East
(Brief) Reassuring Words From The Last Guardian‘s Lead Creator
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…
By Toshi Nakamura Published June 21, 2012 -
Kotaku East
Come October, YouTube Could Be Outlawed In Japan
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…
By Toshi Nakamura Published June 21, 2012 -
Kotaku East
New Super Mario Bros. 2 Features The Midas Touch And Co-op Play
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…
By Toshi Nakamura Published June 14, 2012 -
Kotaku East
The Latest Idolm@ster Product Offers (Virtual) Conversations With Virtual Idols
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,…
By Toshi Nakamura Published June 14, 2012 -
Kotaku East
“Kirb” Your Enthusiasm With These 6 Classic Kirby Games In One
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…
By Toshi Nakamura Published June 14, 2012 -
Kotaku East
Japanese Gaming’s Unexpected Influences
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…
By Toshi Nakamura Published June 7, 2012 -
Kotaku EastThis Is More Than 15 Seconds of Live-Action Badass Mecha Battles
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…
By Toshi Nakamura Published June 7, 2012 -
Kotaku East
That Stunning New Final Fantasy Tech? That’s Not for Sale.
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…
By Toshi Nakamura Published June 7, 2012 -
Kotaku East
This Magic Film Can Turn Your iPhone into a 3DS (Well, Sorta)
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…
By Toshi Nakamura Published May 31, 2012 -
Kotaku East
Nintendo: Take That, Pirates!
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…
By Toshi Nakamura Published May 31, 2012
Toshi Nakamura
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