Author Archives: InTheSky

Shin Megami Tensei X Fire Emblem Interview Series #2: toi8, Main Character Designer

The SMT X FE Developer Interview series continues with some words from main character designer toi8. Once again, Mystic of TRADUKOSOFT graciously translated the interview, which you can read here. I’ll summarize the interview below.

Due to the especially unique nature of this crossover and not having another reference point to help him find a way to articulate an aesthetic message to the game, toi8 admits being under quite some pressure to figure out how to do design characters when he first started. While the game is a crossover and a work of fiction, he still wanted something that could make the crossover make sense and feel consistent.

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Minigames in Hatsune Miku: Project Mirai Deluxe

In addition to the rhythm gaming core of Project Mirai Deluxe, the game will also offer a handful of minigames for players to check out. Sega recently took to the Japanese Project Mirai Deluxe website to announce these treats for gamers. Siliconera offers some insight in their recent article here.

Notably, a Puyo Puyo minigame is available in Project Mirai Deluxe, which should be accessible through this game’s “My Room” submenu. You can play one-player Puyo Puyo games against CPU opponents or locally play two-player games against a nearby friend as long as both players have copies of the game.

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Yakuza Stage Play Actors in Costume; Nico Stream and Merch Bonuses

Promotion is underway for the upcoming Yakuza 1-inspired stage play and with good reason: the Yakuza play is coming very soon! The production’s run is scheduled to start on the 24th of this month and end on the 29th. Commercials and promotional images featuring the characters of Kazuma Kiryu and Akira Nishikiyama are out now.

YakuzaFan recently made some important discoveries regarding the play. Attendees will be able to buy Yakuza-themed merchandise at the theatre, including mugs, shirts, file folders, and eye masks. In addition, the play’s April 29th showing will also be streamed through niconico, albeit at the price of 1600 nico points (and each point is worth one yen.) The broadcast is only available to viewers in Japan or those who use a Japanese proxy/find a way to connect to niconico through a Japanese IP address. Additionally, for those who may hope to take advantage of niconico’s timeshift feature, YakuzaFan notes: “If you do buy a ticket and use the time-shift feature to catch it later it will only be available for time shift up to 24 hours after the event, then it’s gone forever!”

Continue reading to check out the promotional materials that were recently released; be sure to check out the commercials! Viewers will be treated to peeks of other characters, including Haruka.

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Devil Survivor 2: Record Breaker, Etrian Mystery Dungeon, and Etrian Odyssey II: Untold Coming to Europe

NIS America recently announced that they will be distributing Devil Survivor 2: Record Breaker, Etrian Mystery Dungeon, and Etrian Odyssey II: Untold in Europe. The first two titles will arrive in Europe during the Fall of 2015, while Etrian Odyssey II: Untold has an early 2016 release planned for it. The price of the games hasn’t been announced yet (NISA Europe’s pricing has been rather controversial, so it’ll remain to be seen if the games will be reasonably priced).

Both physical and digital releases are planned for all three titles, per Siliconera.

It’s always good to see Atlus gamers in Europe, and European gamers in general, being given more timely releases than they’ve had to deal with in the past. After it took much strain and waiting for Ghostlight to bring Devil Survivor 2 to Europe, Devil Survivor 2: Record Breaker was something of a question mark considering that it was an expansion title and that Ghostlight isn’t a large publisher to begin with. Etrian Odyssey titles have been regularly coming to Europe after the original Etrian Odyssey II failed to come to European gamers, and interestingly NIS America also distributed Etrian Odyssey Untold: The Millennium Girl in Europe.

If you would like a rather personal (not crafted by myself, to specify) preview of the game with a variety of helpful opinions, consider reading this technologytell.com article.

Credit for the featured image goes to the megamitensei wiki.

Yakuza Zero’s Share Function on Playstation 4 Limited in Japan

Kotaku.au recently published an article describing perhaps a rather concerning scenario: it appears the Share functionality that is part of the Playstation 4 is restricted, to a degree, with regards to Yakuza Zero. Sharing is one of the hallmark features of the Playstation 4 (and arguably, a symbol of the direction of modern gaming in general), allowing gamers to share screenshots or videos of a game they’re playing with friends, or even stream their gameplay on Twitch as the person is playing.

Those who play games on the Playstation 4 may already be familiar with the message “Gameplay recording paused because you entered a blocked scene.” White text, black box. Essentially, what is happening with Yakuza Zero is that this message pops up whenever someone enters into the main story of the game or views certain cutscenes. What results is that, broadly speaking, it would seem players only have Sharing capabilities when at the title screen/interlude screens or when playing minigames. As the article mentions, it’s worth noting that Yakuza Ishin is even more restricted: Sharing of personal media from Yakuza Ishin only works when playing in an arena in game or after playing a certain mode that is unlocked after clearing Ishin, per Kotaku.

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Shin Megami Tensei X Fire Emblem Staff Interview 1: Shinjiro Takada

Following the release of the first gameplay and cinematic footage of Shin Megami Tensei X Fire Emblem during the April 1st Nintendo Direct, Shinjiro Takada of Atlus took to the game’s official website to wrote down some of his thoughts as part of the first of a Staff Interview series for the game. Shinjiro Takada was also the director of the Devil Survivor series of games.

That interview has been translated and posted on this website. The translator, Mystic of TRADUKO SOFT, is not officially affiliated with Atlus or Nintendo in any way, but hopes to share the contents of the interview with non-Japanese speaking audiences. After the break I’ll offer a summary from the blog post’s translation, but if you’d like to learn more be sure to visit the blog directly and view the results of the translator’s effort!

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English Etrian Mystery Dungeon System Videos

While all of the new media from the April 1st Nintendo Direct has caused quite a stir, it’s worth noting that the last round of promotional videos for Etrian Mystery Dungeon were put out a week and half ago by Atlus USA. They cover the Explorer’s Guild and Amber’s Restaurant, two useful focal points in the game.

The game comes out on April 7th in the US for the Nintendo 3DS. Check out the videos after the break!

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Stella Glow Coming to North America Through Atlus

Atlus USA just announced that they will be publishing Stella Glow for the Americas. There isn’t any new localized media out there for the announcement, but Atlus expects to share more on the game in the future. They do suggest that a 2015 release is planned – possibly late this year, if I had to guess.

If you recall, Sega is publishing the game in Japan. Imageepoch, the development team for this game, had run into financial difficulties and approached Sega about publishing the game, meant to celebrate Imageepoch’s 10th anniversary.

There have been games in the past localized and distributed for different regions by different publishing companies, but of course it’s hard not to notice that Sega is publishing the game in Japan and Atlus is handling publishing in the Americas, since Sega now owns Atlus. This shouldn’t necessarily sound any alarms for Atlus localizing internally-produced Sega games, as there isn’t anything to suggest such a future is in the cards just yet. By now, however, we can understand that there’s a pretty good working relationship between Sega and Atlus. Sega of Europe distributing Persona 4 Arena: Ultimax in Europe is one other such notable reference point.

Atlus’ PR statement was found in this NeoGAF topic announcing the game’s localization, reproduced below:

Here’s some great news for JRPG lovers: ATLUS USA will localize the upcoming RPG Stella Glow for the Americas! Developer Imageepoch, who you may recognize as the team behind the Luminous Arc series (the first two entries were published by ATLUS on the Nintendo DS), is back with a brand new IP for the 3DS! More details/assets/all that good stuff will be coming in due time (2015 release!), but for now, here’s a very brief press release!

We don’t have any localized assets yet, but here is the Japanese trailer and some artwork to tide you over!

Featured image courtesy of this Gematsu article.