Author Archives: Draikin

Sega Reveals First Trailer for Phantasy Star Online 2: The Animation

Sega has streamed the first trailer for the upcoming anime Phantasy Star Online 2: The Animation, giving us a closer look at the setting and the three main characters. The trailer suggests that the anime isn’t actually set in the Phantasy Star Online 2 universe. Instead, it appears to be using a typical high-school setting, and Phantasy Star Online 2 is an MMO which the characters are playing (much like in the anime Sword Art Online).

Below you can find screenshots from the trailer showing the three main characters, and also the trailer itself. The anime is set to air in Japan in 2016.

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Phantasy Star Online 2 Coming to PS4 in Japan, Episode 4 Also Announced

Sega has made several Phantasy Star Online 2 announcements on a recent NicoNico livestream today, one of them announcing that Phantasy Star Online 2 will be heading to the PlayStation 4 in 2016, alongside a new Episode 4: Reborn expansion. Sega also announced that the PS4 version of the game will be playable at the upcoming Tokyo Game Show (September 2015).

Unfortunately there’s still no word on the status of the release of PSO2 for the West. While officially still delayed, many have lost hope in ever seeing the game released outside of Asia. However, the announcement of the PS4 version may be good news for us. After all, Sega’s CEO noted that, while the position of the PS4 still isn’t that strong in Japan, it’s registering record-breaking sales elsewhere. Since Sega sees an opportunity there, it would only make sense that they release Phantasy Star Online 2 worldwide. Let’s hope they see it the same way!

Hatsune Miku Stars in Her Own New Persona 4: Dancing All Night Trailer

We’ve already seen screenshots of Hatsune Miku from the upcoming Persona 4: Dancing All Night DLC for Japan, but Atlus has now posted a new trailer showing us actual gameplay featuring Miku, and also letting us hear her remix of the Persona 4 song “Heaven”. The trailer also reveals that the DLC will be released on August 27 in Japan.

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New Stella Glow Trailer Features English Version of the Game’s Theme Song

Atlus USA posted a new trailer for the English version of the 3DS strategy RPG Stella Glow, featuring the game’s opening animation. Unique for the western version of the game is an English version of the game’s theme song “Hikari no Metamorphosis”, which was re-recorded by the song’s original artist, Konomi Suzuki. That said, the original Japanese version of the song will also be included in the game.

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7th Dragon III Logo

Sega Unveils All 8 Character Classes for 7th Dragon III Code: VFD

RPGSite recently published an article writing that Sega released a large amount of visual media for 7th Dragon III Code: VFD. All eight classes for the game are now known, with the Rune-Knight and Mage classes being confirmed.

Sega also updated their official website for 7th Dragon III to show off some of the characters present in the game. You can see them by checking out the “WORLD” section of the website. The characters are grouped according to which setting they can be found in, and the left and right arrow sliders let you cycle between any available characters within a setting. There’s a “fourth” setting labeled “????” at the bottom with its own set of charcters too.

View a gallery of character class artwork below. Be sure to continue reading after this gallery to check out some in-game screenshots.

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Part 2 of the Yakuza 5 Developer Interview Talks About the Game’s Fanbase, Japanese Culture, Character Designs and More

Sony have released the second part in their Yakuza 5 developer interview, where Gio Corsi from PlayStation interviews the Yakuza series Director Toshihiro Nagoshi and Producer Masayoshi Yokoyama. In this part of the interview, they first discuss the international fanbase. Nagoshi thinks it makes sense that there’s a fanbase for the game outside of Japan given how unique the game is, even though he didn’t necessarily expect there to be one. When asked how much the game actually reflects the Japanese culture, Yokoyama mentions they put a lot of work in replicating real locations in Japan.

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New 7th Dragon III Code: VFD Trailer Shows the Game’s Past, Present and Future World

Sega of Japan have posted a new trailer for their upcoming 3DS RPG, 7th Dragon III Code: VFD, showing the game’s three different regions, each set in a different era. Shown in the trailer are respectively Tokyo (in the game’s present time), Atlantis (in the past) and Eden (in the future). The trailer also shows some of the characters the player will meet in the different timelines. You can watch the trailer below.

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Sega Releases New Character Trailer for Dengeki Bunko: Fighting Climax

Sega of America has released its first character trailer for Dengeki Bunko: Fighting Climax, featuring four of the game’s playable characters. In order of appearance in the trailer, they’re Asuna from Sword Art Online, Kuroyukihime from Accel World, Tomoka Minato from Ro-Kyu-Bu! and finally Shizuo Heiwajime from Durarara!!. You can watch the new trailer below!

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Sega-Sammy Holdings

Sega-Sammy Posts Loss for Q1 2016 Due to Lack of New Titles

Sega-Sammy has revealed its financial report for the first quarter of the financial year, detailing the performance of the Sega-Sammy Holding. While the group posted an operating income of ¥8,953 million ($72 million) in Q1 2015, they now posted an operating loss of ¥9,455 million ($76 million). Rather than bore you with all the numbers, I thought it’d be more interesting to make a few charts to show you how the results differ from the Q1 2015.

First, here’s a comparison between the net sales of all three segments mentioned earlier, in the first quarter of the fiscal year 2015, and the first quarter of the fiscal year 2016.

Q1 2016 Net SalesWhat stands out is of course a considerable drop in sales for the Pachinko/Pachislot business. In terms of sales, the results for the Entertainment and Resort business were more or less the same as the year before. Next, a similar chart, but now showing the actual net income.

Q1 2016 Net Income
As you can see, the big difference here between Q1 2015 and Q1 2016 is that the Pachinko/Pachislot side also posted a loss this time around. Evidently, with all the subsidiaries losing money, this explains why the group ended up posting an overall loss this time around, as the Pachinko/Pachislot business wasn’t there to make up for the losses incurred elsewhere.

Posting a loss is of course never a good thing, but the reason for it is obvious: they simply didn’t have a lot of new content to release in the first quarter. Something worth noting is that in terms of sales, the Entertainment business actually far exceeded the results of the Pachislot/Pachinko business this time around. Nevertheless, something that remains a problem for Sega-Sammy is the profitability of their gaming business (now reformed into “Sega Games”). The recent company restructure was no doubt done in order to resolve this situation and reduce costs.

For the Entertainment Contents business, the group did highlight the continued strong performance from titles such as Chain Chronicles, Puyopuyo!! Quest and Phantasy Star Online 2, alongside new releases such as Hortensia Saga and Monster Gear which are said to be “off to a flying start”. Sega-Sammy now expects to return to profitability for the second quarter, with several titles being released in the Pachinko and Pachislot business. On the mobile side, they’ll also be launching new mobile games “XUCCESS HEAVEN” and “CHAOS DRAGON.”

It’ll be interesting to see the result for the next quarter, as those will give us a better idea of whether or not the restructure proved worthwhile.

Atlus USA Reveals English Chie Trailer and “Backside Of The TV” Remix for Persona 4: Dancing All Night

Atlus USA have added two new videos for Persona 4: Dancing All Night on their YouTube channel, one of them being a character trailer for Chie, while the other is a music video for a remix of the “Backside Of The TV” song featured in Persona 4. We’ve seen the character trailer before in Japanese, although this time we get to hear the English voice actress for Chie. It’s probably no coincidence that Atlus USA revealed the video today, as July 30 is in fact Chie’s birthday. You can watch both videos below.

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