Sega’s Phantasy Star Online 2 Episode 2 Deluxe Package for PC and Vita will release next week on March 20th. The contents of the Packages differ between the two platforms. The PC Package will feature three DVD’s and codes for special items, while the Vita version comes with a copy of the game and the codes for the same special items. These items were designed by manga artist and animator Mamoru Nagano, who is known for his mecha designs.
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Last week, Puyo Puyo Tetris Gumi hit store shelves in Japan to celebrate Puyo Puyo Tetris’s release. This candy, released in collaboration with Sega, features chewy fruit-flavored tetromino and Puyo (and Carbuncle!) pieces. There are candies for each of the seven tetromino pieces, as well as an assortment of colored Puyo’s.
Understandably, our non-Japanese readers may be disappointed with being unable to treat themselves to this delight. However, Japanese merchandise store Jbox is taking preorders for shipments of the candies. Preorders start at $2.00 and the site makes no promises about having an abundance of stock after the current preorder period. The candies will be shipping from Japan, and the site does have their policy on international shipping spelled out, for those interested.
Source: DailyOnigiri
Protoman85 updated his Youtube review series of the Yakuza franchise by covering Yakuza Kenzan! and the Yakuza movie.
Yakuza Kenzan! was the Yakuza franchise’s entrance into the next generation of consoles after the PS2. There are quite a few similarities to Ishin: namely, the presence of multiple fighting styles, playing “as Kazuma” under a different name, and the Edo period setting. Shortly after this game came out, Yakuza 3 was released, and though the latter was localized Kenzan! never left Asia.
The Yakuza movie is a live action adaptation of the first game. It was released to Japanese theaters in 2007 and directed by Takashi Miike, who might be recognized for the 2012 Gyakuten Saiban/Ace Attorney film among the eclectic tastes reflected in his extensive portfolio. As someone unfamiliar with all of his work, it seems by the time Miike worked on the Yakuza movie he was quite acquainted with depicting violence and the yakuza. The movie was released with English subtitles on DVD in 2010. The only acquaintance I have with the movie is a scene where Goro Majima and his gang look for Kazuma Kiryu, and personally it left a good impression.
Protoman85’s Yakuza Review series on Youtube moves forward with both Yakuza 4 and Yakuza: Dead Souls.
Yakuza 4 is a novel entry within the franchise. You play not only as Kazuma Kiryu, but also as three other characters: Taiga Saejima, an ex-Yakuza of the Ueno Seiwa clan and more recently an escaped convict; Masayoshi Tanimura, a cop who seems to also have a corrupted, darker side that loves gambling; and Shun Akiyama, a loan shark whose life circumstances, generosity and general philosophy of money deeply impacts his understanding of life and people. Each character comes with their own fighting style, storylines, and unique gameplay elements (for example, Akiyama is able to romance more hostesses than other characters.)
Yakuza: Dead Souls is a spinoff game set in a zombie-infested Kamurocho. IT also features four playable characters: Yakuza 2’s Ryuji Goda also perhaps identifiable as “the former dragon”; the return of Shun Akiyama from Yakuza 4; the affably crazy Goro Majima who makes his playable debut in a Yakuza game; and of course it’s not a proper Yakuza party without leading man Kazuma Kiryu. It’s a polarizing title in no small part due to being the last one localized, and the apparent ambition in developing Yakuza 5 perhaps only exacerbated the fans’ appetite for the next proper Yakuza game.
Check out the reviews, and share with us your experiences in the comments section!
Every so often, I’d think it be great to take an opportunity to highlight particularly cool content found amongst our staff that will be of interest to our readers. Whether these pieces now and in the future enrich your understanding of a franchise’s history or serve as a lighthearted complement to your experience of a franchise, I hope you’ll like these unearthed treasures.
First, I wanted to point our readers to a Gamasutra interview with series director Shuntaro Tanaka and game producer Ryutaro Nonaka. The article was published a couple of weeks after Valkyria Chronicles was released in North America. It’s a lengthy read and highly enjoyable. The interviewees spend some time talking about how Valkyria Chronicles evolved from a standard tactics-RPG to the genre-hybrid that incorporated action elements. The need to have players emotionally connect with the characters they played as significantly informed the developers’ decision to push Valkyria Chronicles’ gameplay in a new direction.
The interview covers a wide range of topics. Nonaka and Tanaka spend quite a bit of time talking with the interviewer about creating games for a particular audience. It starts with a conversation about mechanics that facilitate people making emotional decisions in playing Valkyria Chronicles, leads into comments about the appeal of certain graphical styles (“gritty realism” vs “blue skies”) to audiences, and then to the conceptual greatness of Toy Story and how, surprisingly, Pixar movies enjoy the same success in Japan that they do in America with adults being inclined to see some of their movies. They also go over their goals with the game and inspirations as artists. This is definitely something to read: not just as a Valkyria fan, but as someone who might like a variety of small insights into Japanese game development and how these artists work. I also found it interesting that Tanaka saw the Valkyria as analogous to weapons of mass destruction. I don’t entirely buy the connection, but it would explain some of Squad 7’s reticence to embrace the power of the Valkyria and the true explanation of history between Valkyria and the Darscens.
Secondly, I’d like to direct our readers to a performance of the Valkyria Chronicles Main Theme by L’Orchestre de Jeux Vidéos (abbreviated as OJV,) which is French for The Video Game Orchestra. Please be aware that this is not an official recording, and that all of the video after 3:43 is blank footage.
OJV are a Canadian orchestra group who regularly perform arrangements of video game music. This performance took place on January 21st, 2012. They have a Facebook Page that you can check out here, but do note that most all of the conversations and the news postings seem to be in French.
Nagoshi recently spoke to Siliconera about the differences between the PS4 and PS3 versions of Yakuza: Ishin. He prefaces his observations by stating that it was coincidental that the PS4’s release was such that it became possible to develop a PS4 version of Ishin. This was not accomplished without much effort to meet the Japanese launch deadline, he claims.
Nagoshi then explained that taking advantage of the PS4’s unique features was a constant focal point for the development team. He also revealed that Sony did make some suggestions to his team about elements to incorporate into the PS4 version.
Beyond talk about features, Nagoshi made an interesting statement regarding the PS4’s power and working with it:
“With high performance hardware comes the ability to make things more expressive. And the more time the modelers are able to pump into doing so, the more expressive the results we’ll be able to get. However, we do have a limited development budget and time. So from a producer’s standpoint, deciding how much of the hardware’s high performance we should take advantage of was particularly difficult.”
Coupled with his earlier statement on the timing of the PS4’s launch, it at least means that Yakuza: Ishin’s PS4’s version doesn’t represent the full rendering capacity of the PS4 and that the development team could have accomplished more with additional time. Gaming enthusiasts have made plenty of observations suggesting the PS4 version could have looked better. The PS4 is a powerful machine; Nagoshi calls it ten times more powerful than its predecessor, the PS3. The fact that two versions were being developed concurrently across console generations probably ate into the team’s time and budget, too.
That being said, the PS4 version does still contain the superior graphical experience. Fights are smoother and more effects are rendered. It runs at 60 frames per second on PS4 compared to the PS3’s 30 frames per second. However, Nagoshi stresses that the development spent considerable care on the PS3 version and that he believes the PS3 experience is one fans will still be happy with. In addition, he teases special bonus content for the PS3 version if the hard drive contains save data of previous Yakuza games on it.
With all of this in mind, Ishin will indeed be the last PS3 Yakuza game. A year ago, Nagoshi remarked that Yakuza 5 was the last PS3 Yakuza title in the series. However, the somewhat ambiguous word choice could suggest Yakuza 5 was to be the last mainline entry on the PS3. It’s likely Nagoshi’s team had already been working on the PS4 version by the time that statement was made. But this new Siliconera interview seems to suggest Ishin’s development initially started on the PS3.
Yakuza: Ishin is a PS4 launch title and both the PS3 and PS4 versions were released on February 22. The demo is also available on PSN.
Credit to Siliconera for the interview.
Protoman85’s review series of the Yakuza games continues with his Yakuza 3 entry. This game marks the series’ mainline debut onto the PS3 (Kenzan! was the first Yakuza title for the PS3.) Kazuma Kiryu attempts to start a new life for himself away from his past as yakuza and runs an orphanage for kids, but he soon finds himself involved in the world that he thought he would be leaving behind.
Click here to be directed to the Yakuza 3 review! And don’t forget your Aloha shirt.
Many of you are aware of SEGA-Sammy’s acquisition of Index Corporation (then-owner of Atlus and its subsidiaries) at the end of last year. SEGA-Sammy purchased the financially-troubled corporation and temporarily created the SEGA Dream Corporation, designed to manage Index’s business operations. Shortly thereafter, SEGA-Sammy fully assimilated Index by renaming SEGA Dream Corporation back to Index Corporation.
Now SEGA has that Index Corporation will be split into two separate entities. The first segment is a re-purposed Index Corporation, focused on such tasks as systems development and advertising. The other segment is Atlus, an entity purposed entirely for game development. Currently, Index Corporation houses 166 employees, and Atlus is staffed with 121. If only legally, it cements the preservation of Atlus proper. With this development, Persona series director Katsura Hashino took to the Japanese Persona website to post a personal statement, quoted here:
Hey all.
It’s been a long time coming, but we’re finally able to stage our comeback as a company at last. (Sobs.)
It goes without saying, but I know we’ve made you, the fans, worry a lot these past several years. We lost that which we thought we could once take for granted when Atlus ceased to be a proper company. Atlus continued to live on as a brand, but we had to do a lot of soul searching during those years, especially with respect to what made our games enjoyable on their own terms and and what it means to us personally to bring those games to life.
I might be a bit overdramatic when I say this, but I think much like people, the games that leave a lasting impression upon us are the ones that charm us and challenge us alike, ones that require more than mere passiveness on our part to enjoy and set out to change the status quo with good intentions. While it’s important for players to enjoy themselves when playing video games, I want ours to linger on in their memories for other reasons beyond that. Those are the things I’ve kept at the forefront of my mind as I keep pursuing this life as a creator that I’ve gone down.
And that’s not going to change moving forward.
We want to keep making the games that’ll make you all happy as fans and while we’re working hard to bring them to you, I hope you’ll continue to voice your passionate support for us as you always have.
The initial announcement of the acquisition brought much angst over SEGA’s handling of its new partner, but so far it does not appear that SEGA wants to change much of Atlus in a way that concerns their fans. While SEGA mentioned that Atlus would be free to experiment with some of their dormant IPs and Atlus has reassured fans that the acquisition won’t change their game development, short of a currently improbable rumor claiming Atlus USA would be localizing Yakuza 5, there isn’t much recent intersecting that we know of with regards to creative projects. If nothing else, we can’t suspect a surprise Sonic the Hedgehog appearance in Persona Q or Persona 5…yet.
Segalization came upon a fun video review series by a Youtuber named Protoman85 on the Yakuza titles. They are enjoyable to watch, particularly because of the creativity and care placed into the editing of the videos alongside the colorful commentary. We hope that these videos can inspire newcomers to check out the series and fans to comment on the observations the author has made on the development of the games over time.
As of this article’s writing, both a video review of Yakuza 1 and Yakuza 2 have been uploaded. We’ll be making posts for each subsequent video Protoman85 releases. Check out the videos here:
Funimation’s rerelease of Sakura Wars: The Movie has been out for a couple of months now. If you haven’t already purchased it and have the ability to watch it, it’s worth checking out! Here are some reasons to you might want to buy this if you are on the fence.
First, it’s a graphical treat. The studio Production I.G. worked on the film. They also produced some footage for Sakura Wars II and III. The movie was originally release at the tail end of 2001, and this remaster for it produced in 2012 was kind to the visuals. This is most evident during scenes involving the Koubu’s and the Goraigoh’s launch.
The music, as usual for the series, is great. The first musical track I ever listened to from the franchise actually originated from this movie. It’s the track that plays when a certain character makes her/his long-awaited entrance: a riff on the anthemic Geki! Teikoku Kagekidan, but uniquely arranged and with a more booming orchestral feel.
The features are a welcome addition too. This isn’t a product overflowing with additional extras, but it definitely comes with key essentials. A Japanese audio track for anyone already in love with the classical seiyuu voices, and subtitles to accompany either English or Japanese voices. A couple of promotional trailers, including Funimation’s own production. And an amazing twenty-minute interview with series creator Ouji Hiroi, movie animation director Mitsuru Hongo, mecha designer Atsushi Takeuchi, and Production I.G. CEO Mitsuhisa Ishikawa. The interview series is wonderfully insightful and casual in approach. I found it especially funny and quirky that Hongo was interviewed with this back to the camera and Ishikawa exudes affability. Takeuchi is modest yet endearing, and just by listening to Hiroi it’s readily apparent that he is an artist driven by grand visions; he even made an interesting political observation in his interview.
There are some flaws with the movie, to be sure. Personally, I didn’t think all that much of the unfolding of the conflict throughout the course of the movie; it was not engaging or original. The villains are pretty bog-standard, and dealing with their weak presence throughout the movie is unfortunate. Strangely enough, it is a bit fitting that the scenario designer for the original Sakura Wars wrote for the game as a series of anime episodes, marking this entry as one of a kind in that respect. Also, this movie will be particularly alien for those unfamiliar with the franchise, as it’s not designed to introduce the characters and their backgrounds. It would serve newcomers well to acclimate themselves to the characters and some basic franchise lore before viewing the movie.
That being said, it’s well worth a watch and an enriching experience for the fans. New copies run for a little under $30 on the Funimation store’s product page and on Amazon. Be sure to support this work if you can!