Sega of America and Europe have announced that Shining Resonance Refrain will be released in the West on PS4, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One and PC. The game was previously released on PlayStation 3 exclusively in Japan. The localized version features dual audio with English and Japanese voices, as well as all of the original’s DLC. A new addition to the game is the “Refrain Mode,” which unlocks the Imperial Princess Excella and Dragonslayer Jinas as party members.
About a week ago, SEGA of Japan announced that they were running a series of polls to gauge fan interest levels in particular characters and franchises – most notably featuring a variety of legacy SEGA options.
During today’s SEGA Fes. stream, the results of the polls were announced. The corresponding NeoGAF thread (with specific post cited below) has compiled both the ranked results for each of the three polls and the number of votes each franchise received, with the top ten options being listed for each poll.
To recap, there were three questions: which franchise do you want to see revived, which brand are you most invested in, and who is your favorite SEGA character. The results are as follows (credited to NeoGAF user The Bankslammer, and Phanton River Stone for additional entries):
Continue reading
This past weekend saw the arrival of Wonder Festival 2016 Summer and a large haul of promotional images for SEGA, Atlus, King of Fighters, and Kantai Collection-related garage kits. We’ve included an exhaustive list of relevant announcement/work-in-progress images below. Please be advised that some of the garage kits and/or their source links are NSFW.
This is certainly a rather surprising announcement. Gematsu has just posted an article revealing that SEGA’s 2D fighter Blade Arcus from Shining EX, a crossover game featuring characters from Shining Blade and Shining Hearts, will be released on Steam as Blade Arcus from Shining: Battle Arena. The game is scheduled to be released on July 29, and its Steam page can be found here. Apparently Degica Games is responsible for bringing the game to PC, although they’re not listed as the publisher on the Steam page. At the time of writing, there’s also a live stream going on for the game at AnimEVO 2016. Below you can find the info posted on the Steam page, as well as the launch trailer posted on the Steam page! Interestingly, this PC version of the game will in fact support online play, something that was surprisingly absent from the console version of the game in Japan.
While the game was released on PS3 and PS4 last year in Japan, there’s no announcement regarding those versions heading to the West. In recent times, none of the main Shining RPG games have been localized for the West, making it all the more surprising to see this game released. But judging from the lack of announcement from SEGA, it doesn’t seem that they’re really involved with this PC version of the game, as it appears to be handled by Studio Saizensen and Degica Games.
Degica Games is currently running a giveway where you can win various prizes, which include preorder bonus items, such as a swimsuit calendar, the Doujinshi “Shining Heroines Works” and a soundtrack OST, that were included with the limited “Tony’s Premium Fan Box” Japanese PS4/PS3 release.
Thanks goes to Gematsu for their article on this announcement.
Late last year, SEGA released Blade Arcus from Shining EX for Playstation 4 and Playstation 3. We haven’t heard much of it since then, until a blog post from SEGA confirmed that Sonia Blanche of Shining Resonance, previously a paid-DLC character, can now be downloaded for free on the PS Store. When the game first launched, Sonia was only available to people who bought first-print copies of Blade Arcus from Shining EX, and these first-print copies contained a code to download Sonia.
Additionally, the blog post mentions that Blade Arcus from Shining EX will be discounted on the PS Store from July 6th to July 19th. That’s less than two weeks, and the discount period has already begun. The discount is 20% for people who don’t have a PS+ membership, and 40% for those who do have a membership.
Featured image and initial announcement credited to this official SEGA news post, dated June 6th, taken from the Shining website.
Last month Right Stuf launched its holiday sale discounting a large list of anime and manga lasting until December 27th. Since we last reported about the sale, various Sega and Atlus related items were added each day. You can check out what is on sale below. We’ve conveniently linked to each item, and organized them into separate table categories.
Online Anime and Manga store Right Stuf is having their annual holiday sale, discounting countless anime and manga titles until December 27th. The sale started a couple days ago, and new items are added every day. Because of that, we are unable to list all the Sega and Atlus related items that may end up being on sale.
It’s less than two weeks until the November 26th launch of Blade Arcus from Shining EX on Playstation 3 and Playstation 4 in Japan. Ahead of this occasion, Sega has released some new battle videos to promote the game.
The videos feature a couple of event scene dialogues for the cast members, and a couple rounds of fighting afterward. Continue reading to check out the two new videos! They make a point to highlight the special promotion for Sonia Blanche from Shining Resonance at the end of each video. It looks like waiting fans will have to keep an eye out for first-print copies!
Of the Shining Resonance characters, Sonia was always a clear favorite. She ended up overtaking the other heroine Kirika in popularity despite Kirika receiving slightly more promotion leading up to Shining Resonance‘s release.
So if there were a Shining Resonance character to be included in Blade Arcus from Shining EX, it’d naturally be Sonia. Sega recently uploaded a 2 minute showcasing a bit of Sonia’s fighting style. She is purely a short-ranged fighter, but some of her attacks come out quickly, and she has a handful of options with wide range (especially one of her aerial attacks!) The closer she is to the opponent, the more dangerous she becomes, as Sonia has some follow-up options even if her opponent is blocking. Unique to her character is the ability to play her Armonic (the sword that doubles as an instrument, unique to Resonance) as a violin. In addition, she can also access her “Dress Armor”, the golden armor that shows up sporadically towards the end of the trailer. On the flip side, she seems to move rather slowly when not attacking. So while Sonia is strong once she’s next to her opponent, Sonia also has to get in first.
Continue reading to watch the trailer for Sonia! Do remember that she is a bonus character exclusive to first print copies of Blade Arcus from Shining EX.
The official product page on the Blade Arcus subsection of Sega’s Shining website now lists Blade Arcus from Shining EX as 1-2 players but offline only. It’s a rather quiet and sudden revelation and it’s only recently coming to light.
Word started to spread earlier today when a fan-run Japanese Twitter account dedicated to Blade Arcus news claimed the absence of online play for Blade Arcus from Shining EX. There is a Japanese Shining PR Twitter account, but it made no public statements on online play (or the lack thereof.)
While the experience of online play can greatly vary for fighting games, omitting online play altogether is to be a part of a distinct minority as fighting games go nowadays. For those who would opt to import the game, this course of action suddenly becomes a lot less attractive since it is possible that not many prospective buyers will be within proximity to each other. Online play will also allow people to challenge others across great distances, including skilled players from Japan.
At the end of the day, we’re at the point nowadays where both offline and online play are taken as foregone conclusions for healthy fighting games with the aim of developing a following.
Credit for this featured image goes to this Famitsu article.