Author Archives: InTheSky

Yakuza 10th Anniversary Stage Event (January 31) for Taipei Game Show 2016 Planned

InTheSky January 17, 2016 Leave a reply

Taipei Game Show 2016 conference plans for Sony-associated properties (featuring first and third party developers) have been announced, and one of the events include a Yakuza series 10th Anniversary Stage Event on January 31st (3:00 PM to 4:00 PM UTC +8:00,) attended by the premier Yakuza man himself: Toshihiro Nagoshi.

Many of us may be more familiar with Tokyo Game Show, but Taipei Game Show is also a highly prominent premier gaming event. Here’s an idea of what Taipei Game Show was like last year. There were more than 1000 booths set up, and just shy of 200 companies with a presence at TGS Across four days, it drew in 300,000 visitors. Last year, it hosted events include game competitions, a cosplay event and a concert for game music, and even held a dedicated event for independent games. This all of after years of growth – in fact, the Taipei Game Show is now in its 14th year!

Here’s to hoping for a fun presentation! Nagoshi very regularly shows up to conferences to help promote Yakuza games (he was present for some time during this past Tokyo Game Show to help announce Yakuza 6.) It’s nice to see him regularly going to bat for a franchise that he’s so close to.

Project X Zone 2 North America Demo Coming January 26

InTheSky January 17, 2016 Leave a reply

Bandai Namco Entertainment has announced that the demo for Project X Zone 2 is scheduled to be made available to the public for downloading on January 26 for North America. A demo release date for Europe (January 21) was announced at the end of this past year.

As far as Sega characters go, Kiryu and Majima will be a playable team unit. The demo made available to Japanese players featured three different stages, and the demo offerings (made available in two packages, “A” and “B” versions) for the original Project X Zone that Western gamers received mirrored the Japanese offering, although Europe received the demos for the game later than North America. The tables have turned this time!

Project X Zone 2 is scheduled to be released in Western territories during the late end of February.

Atlus Moving Forward on EU Localizations? Odin Sphere Leifthrasir – Q2 2016, EFIGS

InTheSky January 16, 2016 3 Replies

Atlus CEO Naoto Hiraoka made some interesting comments regarding business plans for Atlus’s products moving forward – more specifically regarding release of Atlus products outside of Japan. This by way of Gematsu‘s translation of a Japanese Playstation Blog post featuring a reprinting of Hiraoka’s comments to a recent issue of Dengeki Playstation. By the way, if you didn’t already know, the Japanese Playstation Blog has been host to quite a few entries featuring Yakuza content as of late, so it’s been receiving quite some content featuring Sega properties.

I’ve reproduced the comments that Gematsu translated below, directly:

“In terms of the marketplace, from here on I want to put even more strength into our overseas efforts,” Hiraoka said. “Up until a few years ago, there were some things, including the development of our international website, that we left to staff overseas. However, in recent years we’ve been wanting to make sure everyone gets the same information, so we made it so you can jump to the global website from the home page of the official site in Japanese.”
Hiraoka continued: “As you can also see from the close Japanese and foreign release dates for Dragon’s Crown in 2013 due to its online elements, the barrier between the domestic and overseas market is dying. As for Odin Sphere: Leifthrasir, it will go on sale in America on June 7 and in Europe in Q2, and while it is slightly delayed from the Japanese release date, it will not only be localized into English, but also French, Italian, German, Spanish for a total of five languages.

What is mentioned here regarding websites and information is already observable. As my colleague Draikin pointed out, the English page for Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA F is actually hosted on Sega’s Japanese domain for Project DIVA games. While not Atlus-related, with Atlus being a part of Sega the point should be clear. If Sega West hosted it then it might offer its own signal about Sega West, but this is nice to see in any case.

Such comments do seem positive, in any case. Atlus has historically not had the strongest presence in Europe, whether in the form of a delayed release for Shin Megami Tensei IV or the lack of self-managed localizations for their products in Europe. In the past year NISAmerica handled distribution of Atlus titles. It isn’t entirely clear that Atlus will be publishing games themselves in Europe, so let us see what the company does with its next titles.

It’s interesting to note that Atlus sees the “domestic vs overseas barrier” as dissipating. Those are rather confident words. Sega has vowed to learn from Atlus since the latter’s acquisition, so one can hope that such a mindset is incorporated into the former’s company culture. Sega has been of the opinion that it’s important to adapt their games for Western tastes, but Atlus’s philosophy on localization doesn’t seem to view that as similarly necessary, or at least not to an especially significant degree. Atlus seems to take a stronger position on the “niche-ness” of their titles, and Sega so far seems keen on more broader reception of the comparatively niche IPs within their own stable.

The promise of an EFIGS localization is quite exciting, and a release window of Q2 2016 for Europe puts the region in close company with the US. This might bode well for Atlus and European Atlus fans!

Yakuza Kiwami PS4 Model Announced for Japan, Yakuza 6 Demo Scheduled After Kiwami Release

InTheSky January 14, 2016 Leave a reply

Sony has announced a new Yakuza Kiwami-themed model of PS4 for Japanese consumers, to be released on January 21st alongside Kiwami itself. If you didn’t remember, Sony produced Yakuza Zero-themed PS4’s too, to celebrate the release of the last major Yakuza game. What we’re getting here is basically the same idea as what we got with the Zero-themed PS4’s. The featured image for this article is taken from the Japanese Sony Playstation Store’s product page for the Yakuza Kiwami PS4’s; preorders are also being taken for the hardware now.

It will cost ¥36,980, and it includes a PS4 + Dualshock 4 controller (both of which are either Jet Black or Glacier White-colored, depending on your choice), HDMI and USB cables, a power cord, and added bonuses including a Kiwami-themed hard drive bay cover and a monoaural headset.

Let that sink in – Yakuza Kiwami will be out in Japan in less than a week!

Interestingly, it’s also been announced that a demo of Yakuza 6 will be made available for Yakuza Kiwami owners on January 28th – one week after Yakuza Kiwami is released. This is reported by Sega by way of Gematsu. The demo will feature Kiryu as a playable character. There isn’t really anything problematic about this decision in itself, in my opinion, but I’m not familiar with demos designed to accompany one game being made available after that game is released. I wonder if we may expect a similar situation for Valkyria Chronicles Remaster and Valkyria Azure Revolution? To be clear, we don’t have indication that such a course of action is set to happen, as of yet. Maybe it’s a reflection of a time that is increasingly relegating demos to the digital space rather than the physical space?

Yakuza 10th Anniversary Commemorative Book To be Released in Japan

InTheSky January 13, 2016 1 Reply

December 2015 marked the 10th anniversary of the Yakuza franchise’s lifetime in Japan. While the celebrations are already underway in the form of Yakuza Kiwami (a remake of the game that started the franchise) and Kiryu and Majima figmas, a new commemorative 10th anniversary Yakuza book is also in development. It will feature interviews with many development figures and various insights into the world-building and concept art pieces of the Yakuza games, also taking a look at the history of the series thus far.

It will cost ¥2,916 and is set to release on January 21st. The book is being published by Enterbrain.

Credit for the featured image goes to this post from the Japanese Yakuza Twitter account.

Valkyria Chronicles Remaster Preorder Update, JPN PS Page Updated With New (?) Screenshots

InTheSky January 9, 2016 4 Replies

The release date for the Valkyria Chronicles Remaster (February 10!) is fast approaching. With that in mind we’re going to see more promotional pushes for the game until the day arrives.

First, Sega finalized the product design for some of their preorder goods and posted them to the official Valkyria Project Twitter account. Follow it now if you haven’t already done so! The Valkyria Project Twitter account showed finalized goods design packages for three offerings earlier today:

Number 9 (GAMERS):

Number 10 (Game Shop Takarajima):

Number 11 (SEGA Store):

Lastly, there’s a new large promotional page for Valkyria Chronicles Remaster on Sony of Japan’s website. It debriefs you on the story, the CANVAS graphics engine, and the BLiTZ battle system. It also offers a bunch of screenshots for Valkyria Chronicles Remaster, like the one chosen for this article’s featured image.

However, there’s a problem. There’s nothing that differentiates this screenshot that we used for the featured image above (also reproduced placed below as the first of two screenshots, courtesy of Gematsu) and this second screenshot below, originally retrieved from IGN.

“New” Screenshot

Old PS3 Screenshot

The second one is for the PS3 version of the game. Besides offering a complete package in the form of trophies and the original version’s DLC, Valkyria Chronicles Remaster is advertised as being graphically enhanced (output at 1080p) and so exact similarities like this should not be possible. Some words from my colleague Draikin to shed more light on this situation:

For the game’s cutscenes, it could make sense that they look exactly the same as those of the PS3 version. The same was true for the PC version. While the majority of those scenes were rendered “in-engine” (using the same graphics engine as the one used for the game itself), they were actually pre-recorded and stored as movie files on the disc. It seems the developers couldn’t recreate those scenes, and had to reuse the same movie files. Of course, the difference in quality between the higher resolution in-game PC graphics and the lower resolution, aliased PS3 videos was very apparent. It looks like the PS4 version won’t have these scenes redone either, which is a shame, given the price they’re asking for the remastered version.

However, while this could explain why some of the remaster screenshots look like the PS3 version, even the in-game screenshots being used appear to originate from the PS3 version. As listed above, some are clearly taken from old press material. While this doesn’t necesarilly have to mean anything, it’s odd that we haven’t (to my knowledge) seen any actual 1080P screenshots from the PS4 version. The one trailer we got didn’t have the quality needed to really compare the PS4 remaster’s graphics to those of the PC version. It seems we may have to wait for the game’s release before we can judge the quality of the PS4 port.

We invite additional thoughts and/or critical eyes on this matter! Let us know what you think and see. It’s only about a month until Valkyria Chronicles Remaster is released in Japan.

Crunchyroll to Stream Phantasy Star Online 2: The Animation

InTheSky January 8, 2016 Leave a reply

Crunchyroll has recently announced that it will be streaming Phantasy Star Online 2: The Animation for those who have a Crunchyroll membership. Episodes of the anime will broadcast every Friday at 10 P.M. PST, starting tomorrow. Members in the following territories will be able to view the anime (courtesy of the above-cited Crunchyroll article:)

USA, Canada, UK, Ireland, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands, Finland, Latin America, Turkey, the Middle East and North Africa

Not too long ago, it was announced that Sentai Filmworks had licensed Phantasy Star Online 2: The Animation and already have release plans of their own. Not a bad showing as far as anime companies go with regards to supporting the animated Phantasy Star Online 2 project, considering the game itself hasn’t been localized. However, there are many who probably already know of Phantasy Star Online 2 in spite of it not being localized, and even those who aren’t already familiar with Phantasy Star may find the characters, futurism, and school setting appealing.

Credit for the featured image goes to the above-cited Crunchyroll article.

Shin Megami Tensei IV: Final Early Copy Bonuses

InTheSky January 7, 2016 Leave a reply

Shin Megami Tensei IV: Final is set to release in Japan in about a month (February 10!). Ahead of the game’s launch, Atlus announced some early copy bonuses for Final. These images, taken from the official Shin Megami Tensei IV: Final website’s most recent blog post, offer a currently-planned look into the items being offered.

First is a sampling of a 3DS background theme, shown below:

It is one of three parts of the DLC set that is available for first-print copies. The other two parts are special in-game items, the Anarchy Earrings and the Peace Earrings (the 2nd and 3rd items referenced in the featured image at the top of the article.) The DLC set is accessible through a code provided in early-print copies and redeemable from release until February 19th of 2017.

Yakuza Kiwami: Shinichi Shinohara Short Interview Video

InTheSky January 5, 2016 Leave a reply

The Japanese YouTube channel for the Yakuza series uploaded a new brief interview with Shinichi Shinohara, the judo talent who is set to make a guest appearance as a character inspired by himself in Yakuza Kiwami. For those who are unaware, Shinohara’s character is from out-of-town and Kiryu will at times show him around Kamuro-cho, but under special circumstances Kiryu will also be able to fight him in an underground fight club.

The interview is about two minutes long, and in it Shinichi Shinohara answers a few questions. You also get some looks into the model design and face capture for Shinohara’s character, and Shinohara himself recording lines. It is a fun watch.

『龍が如く極』篠原信一スペシャルインタビュー

Watch this video on YouTube

Etrian Odyssey V Silence is Broken, Near the End of Development

InTheSky January 5, 2016 Leave a reply

It has been quite some time since Etrian Odyssey V was officially announced. Since its initial announcement during the tail end of 2014, we’ve seen the release of games like Etrian Odyssey 2 Untold: The Fafnir Knight, Persona 4: Dancing All Night, and Etrian Mystery Dungeon. It’s been busy for Atlus since the fifth mainline title’s reveal, but Atlus of Japan recently broke their silence on Etrian Odyssey V to confirm that the game is actually at the end of the development process, in an article posted to gamestalk which references comments in the next to-be-released issue of Famitsu. It’s a strange situation and I can’t help but wonder (as I’m sure many others have done) what prompted the delay and silence; we will likely learn more later.

You can browse the official Etrian Odyssey 5 website here if you like. There’s not much else besides the first promotional trailer, though. Check out the first promotional trailer below if you missed it the first time around.

【世界樹の迷宮Ⅴ】告知映像

Watch this video on YouTube