Evangelion, Fate/Stay Night and Hatsune Miku in Phantasy Star Portable 2

A collaboration has been announced for coming the Phantasy Star Portable 2 PSP game, which would now include costumes and weapons from Evangelion, Fate/Stay Night and Hatsune Miku.


More than anything, the announcement seems to indicate that Hatsune Miku has now reached a popularity that is on par with Evangelion!


For a speech synthesizer vocaloid character, this is quite an achievement that the maker, Yamaha, probably would have never dreamed of. However, it seems that subsequent vocaloid characters such as Kagamine Rin/Len and Megurine Luka are nowhere near as famous.
I wonder how many copies of the game will be sold purely due to the respective series' fans pulled in by this collaboration.

More pics at inside-games.

Read the rest

Sin and Punishment 2: Successor to the Sky

Originally titled Tsumi to Batsu Sora no Koukeisha (罪と罰 宇宙の後継者), a new trailer for this Wii game has just been released.


The main characters of this game are Kachi, a girl from the outer sky/space, and Isa, a boy from the inner sky/space who is trying to get her.


Unlike the first game, the Japanese version has Japanese voice over instead of English. The genre of the game is 3D action shooting, which doesn't usually result in a memorable story, the trailer seems to hint a fairly decent story.

While the release date of this game in Japan is at the end of the month (29 October), the scheduled release date in North America & Europe is not too far away, Q1 2010.
Have you played the first Sin and Punishment game on the Wii or the Nintendo 64?

Japanese official site: Sin and Punishment 2

Read the rest

New Nintendo DS before the end of the year

Looks like its real this time. After many rumors and false news about an update to the Nintendo DS, a real one is coming to Japan this year.

The price is reported to be below 20,000 yen ($190), an increase from the current 16,800 yen. The second update to the third DS hardware will also be equipped with a built-in camera, music player, and more advanced wireless capabilities.
With the PSP launching its third hardware update next month and having the upper hand in sales against the DS in the last few months, the new hardware update is timed well.

While having a portable machine that can do more is always nice, not sure how these new features will improve the DS's main purpose, which is gaming. Especially since the new features will result in a price hike as well. At most some new games can have an optional quest/mode that utilizes the new features. Making the new feature as a main requirement would result in much less user base, so it won't happen for a while.

News from Reuters

Read the rest

Lucky Star OVA, Dragon Ball DS and others

Aside from the release of Lucky Star OVA tomorrow (26 September) in Japan, the past week has seen the release of a number of anime related games such as Dragon Ball DS, World Destruction, Soul Eater(Wii). Also another game not directly related to a particular anime, another game to the Super Robot Wars franchise, Super Robot Wars Z.


Dragon Ball DS　「ドラゴンボールDS」
Official site
Screenshots from Famitsu
Release date:18 September 2008
By: Bandai Namco Games
Platform: Nintendo DS
Also known as Dragon Ball Origins in the US.
The games follows the original Dragon Ball Story when Goku is still a kid. This actually looks
very interesting if you are a dragon ball fan, and wants to relive the story again in a different form. This game will be released in English in November this year, so there is no need to import unless you prefer the Japanese version

World Destruction　「ワールド･デストラクション」
Official site
Screenshots from Famitsu
Release date: 25 September 2008
By: Sega
Platform: Nintendo DS
The anime started broadcasting a few months ago, and this is the RPG game that accompanies it.
While game adaptation of an anime usually left something to be desired, the screen shots from this game does look nice.

Super Robot Wars Z 「スーパーロボット対戦Z」
Official site
Release date: 25 September 2008 (Japan)
By:Banpresto (Bandai Namco Games)
Platform: Sony PS2
Also known as Super Robot Taisen Z, this title adds a number of new robot series that has not appear in the series before, like Eureka Seven

Soul Eater:Monotone Princess 「ソウルイーター モノトーン プリンセス」
Official Site
Release date: 25September 2008 (Japan)
By: Square Enix
Platform: Nintendo Wii
The game looks like an action adventure type, with the main character exploring the world and defeat enemies.

Lucky Star OVA
Looks like the OVA will be based on Konata and friends playing a MMORPG. There is a Lucky Star light novel which is based on the exact same idea. I wonder if the story from the OVA will be based on the light novel too.

Read the rest