Western fans of Namco’s long-running Tales RPG series have reason to celebrate. Tales of Xillia now has a firm release date. It will arrive in North America on August 6, 2013, and in Europe on August 9, 2013.

Tales of Xillia has been a huge success in Japan with over 740,000 copies sold since its release there on September 8, 2011. The game is a collaborative effort of both of the main Tales development teams, Team Destiny, with artwork by Mutsumi Inomata, and Team Symphonia, with artwork by Kosuke Fujishima. It allows the players to pick one of two main heroes from each development team, Milla Maxwell or Jude Mathis, respectively, at the start of the game. The game’s soundtrack  is composed by longtime Tales composer Motoi Sakuraba. The game will feature the series’ trademark action battle system.

Tales of Xillia will feature a premium collectors’ edition for the dedicated fans.

In addition, Namco is also preparing an elaborate limited premium edition of the game for both North America and Europe. The collectors’ edition includes the game, a 100-page art-book  a soundtrack CD, and a figure of the Team Destiny heroine, Milla Maxwell. The collectors’ edition will retail for USD $100. It will be available on the online store for European customers and at retail for the US and Canada.

Tales of Xillia will be available exclusively for the PlayStation 3.

Getting that JRPG itch? Feeling the need to grind for hours on end before advancing the storyline? Have the need to do tackle 10, 20, or even 30 side missions that have nothing to do with the main story? If you have experienced any of these symptoms then you might be suffering from acute Japanese Roll Playing Game withdrawal. I prescribe a 60 hour does of Ni No Kuni and you call me when you find your life again. Ni No Kuni is a sprawling JRPG for the PS3 that, while good, is not for everyone.

Ni No Kuni is about a boy named Oliver who loses his mom when she saves him from drowning. In his grief a fairy from another world appears and proclaims that there might be a chance to save his mom if he can save the other world and defeat the Dark Djinn. The story itself is pretty run of the mill, its not bad but it doesn’t have that charm you usually get from anything from Studio Ghibli. And the characters just aren’t that interesting.  There is so much exposition in this game that your head will spin long before you reach that halfway point. I know that a lot of JRPG games have a lot of exposition but in this game it just seemed so much more excessive. There’s also the fact that the reveal “surprises” that the player can figure out an hour before they actually do so. Supposedly shocking moments leave you yawn with boredom. I did not care for the story but at the very least it is terrible.

The real meat of this game is the battle and capture system, it’s almost like a mix between Pokemon and Final Fantasy XIII. You control one of three humans in battle and can switch between any of them on the fly. Each human has control of one of three “Familiars” or monsters.  All in all you can choose and switch between 12 characters in battle. Once you get the hang of it, it’s pretty fun. All monsters have a sign, which is almost like a type in Pokemon that are stronger and weaker to other signs. In all honesty though you can completely ignore that, I did and I got through the game just fine. The biggest problem I had with the game is the grinding system. For anyone unfamiliar with the term “grinding,” it’s when the player goes around engaging in battles over and over again for the purpose of gaining more levels and making you characters stronger. Now, normally I like grinding in JRPGs but you reach a point in Ni No Kuni where you can’t just grind, you have to find the right monster to grind with. If you don’t find these monsters or know where they are, grinding becomes extremely more difficult. And with a recommended level of 84 to beat the final boss, you NEED to grind.

Studio Ghibli nailed transferring their art style into this game. It’s a visually stunning game and huge with a large variety of environments to gawk over. The colors pop and the graphics are crisp. Music is also a big part of the game, from traveling on the seas to flying dragons, the music matches every scene and really punches home the epic or poignant situations. Voice acting is good, though sometimes a little off beat with what you might expect to hear. I didn’t expect the daughter of a sage that lives in a middle eastern inspired town to have a proper British accent but maybe that’s just me.

While Ni No Kuni is a good game, it’s just doesn’t have that extra push to be great. The visuals and music are stunning, but the story can never see to measure up. There’s plenty to do and you can spend way beyond 60 hours trying to do everything. Sadly, this game is definitely not for everyone. JRPG fans may enjoy it but if that genre isn’t your cup of tea, or you’re looking for a game to test the waters, this game isn’t for you.

Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance is like a kung-fu action movie that is hopped up on steroids that you just don’t want to end. Developed by Platinum Games (Bayonetta; Vanquish; Madworld) and published by published by Konami this is the mutant off spring of the formally cancelled Kojima Studios game Metal Gear Rising. The game was cancelled then later picked up by Platinum and completely reworked from the ground up with the consent of Hideo Kojima.

It’s an action, hack and slash game that is high paced and features an amazing new system mechanic. The mechanic is like bullet-time with a sword, but much cooler. Once doing enough damage to an enemy you are prompted with a slow down effect where you can in turn slice away at your opponent in slow motion. Doing so causes tons of dismemberment and it is truly a sight to behold. Mind you, this game is not for the faint of heart.

The story takes place four years after the events of Metal Gear Solid 4. You play as Raiden, the awesome ninja cyborg dude who used to suck in Metal Gear Solid 2…yeah that guy. You work for a Maverick security working to save money for his family by protecting Prime Minister N’Mani of an unknown African location. Next thing you know you are ambushed and the prime minister is captured then killed. During your rescue you become injured and defeated by one of the captors working for another group affiliated with Desperado Empires, a group associated with terrorism.

Not long after you soon end up trying to seek revenge a couple weeks later after your defeat. The story then unravels to several different plot points that seem very Metal Gear-esque. Without me spoiling the very convoluted plot, let me say it is all over the place with tons of codec dialogue and moments that will make you go “huh?”

Unfortunately the story mode is very short. I personally beat the game in a little under five hours. Granted those five hours were very awesome and filled with great action that is simply indescribable. Luckily, for those not willing to play the game multiple times, which I highly recommend, there are extra VR Missions that can be unlocked through the story. These test your sneaking ability and your combat skills. Not to mention the tons of skills and other statistical things you’d want to gain and extras to collect.

The sound design is another very strong component of this title. Composed by Jamie Christopherson it features amazing rock/techno/orchestral music. It’s so good I enjoy listening to it even after I am done with the game. Not to mention the awesome sounds of explosions, decapitation and sword slashes. It’s overall just awesome.

The graphics are also a marvel. Environments feature fully cut-able things from which you can wreak your destruction upon. The action looks so good as the game runs at a very smooth 60 fps. Sadly, some of the stages are just too open and barren. Understandable though considering how much work it must take to do such feats.

Most importantly is how the game plays. Safe to say it is very intuitive and yet simplistic. The game’s simple light and heavy attack system complement each other well. Combos are easy and fluent when stringing attacks together and can make you feel very badass. The only problem is the camera, which for the majority of the time works until there are either way too many enemies or you’re in a weird spot.

Overall Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance is an amazing experience that Metal Gear fans and action fans shouldn’t miss. Sure the campaign could stand to longer but, I wouldn’t be surprised if we were to see a sequel in the future.

Hello everyone its @GovPancakes from the @RealOtakuGamer and I am going to review  Konami’s Zone Of The Enders HD Collection. I have to put this out here, this review is going to be a ton of fun for me. I LOVE THIS SERIES AND FOR KONAMI TO PUT BOTH GAMES ON ONE DISK REMADE IN HD BLOWS MY MIND! When people say mecha games this is the first thing on my mind. This is is one of the most slept on Mech/RPG/Action games ever in my opinion.

Zone of the Enders is set in the future sometime in the late 22nd Century where humans have colonized Mars and several space colonies are set up around Jupiter. The Humans from earth and the humans who went into outer space of course separated from the people who went into outer space and those people who left became to be as “Enders”. The people of Mars and colonists of Jupiter begin to rise and form factions and the most well known one is BAHRAM. To avoid spoiling the story I will only tell the plot to the first game. The game starts out as Leo Stenbuck (the main protagonist) Colony gets invaded by BAHRAM to find an Orbital Frame (The main mechs of the series) called Jehuty. Leo watches as his town gets destroyed and falls upon Jehuty. He climbs aboard and starts his journey. Later down the line he conflicts with the BAHRAM organization and learns that Jehuty has a sister craft called Anubis led by the leader of the BAHRAM organization called Colonel Nohman. The story is driven by the rivalry of these two Orbital Frames and stopping each other.

Now the game play was first of its kind. On the original box for Zone Of The Enders 1 the box said “High Speed Mech Action” and thats exactly what it is. I used to describe it as “the Gundam game i always wanted”. The controls for 1 aren’t as smooth as the controls for two but when you jump into 2 you are going to feel amazing, but the controls for one aren’t horrible so make sure you play that one first. The controls are pretty simple and there are PLENTY of in game tutorials completely show you everything you need to know. It has a simple level up system where every time you level up your health increases, which you will need. During the games when you defeat certain enemies or find certain items, you are able to gain weapons and moves to further your moves list and making you feel like your in a giant mech like you see in anime. Also the environments play a role in the combat from throwing enemies into electrical fields or picking up pillars and throwing them at enemies. You can even grab enemies to use on other enemies! Some of the best game play for any mech game ever.

Zone of the Enders HD music and animated cut scenes have been revamped for the HD collection. When i saw the intro movie I was just shocked. The in game movies look SO good and shows a lot more depth then the originals. The music in the HD version is just “remix” versions of some of the first music, but over all the music for the game is still astounding and makes you feel like your right there in the mech. I hear of some frame rate drops but i haven’t experienced them myself.

In conclusion if you haven’t ever played Z.O.E. 1 or 2 go buy it. Its $40 for 2 amazing games. You will not be disappointed.

What do you get when you take the makers of Naruto: Ultimate Ninja & Ultimate Ninja Storm, and most of the .hack games? You get a game that plays like an anime, with an very basic gameplay mechanic, and the over the topness of Dragonball Z, and you’ll get CyberConnect2’s Asura’s Wrath. An original story developed by CyberConnect2 and produced by Capcom. The story focuses on the titular character, Asura. The game melds together Hinduism and Buddhism, with a splash of Science Fiction, giving the game an interesting blend with the anime style of the game. Now all these elements turned into a game is rather great blend, but to me personally, it fell short on quite a few instances throughout the game.

I’ll start with the good. The good revolves around the amazing story crafted from the tales in both Buddhism and Hinduism, and allowing for such a colorful story to be created, and played out in Parts, each named after the level of achieving enlightenment. The story centers around an age old war of apparent evil against the righteous elected Eight Guardian Generals to defeat the evil on Gaea or Earth. The evil is called the Gohma, and they ravaged the world and destroy anything that isn’t a Gohma. But behind the scenes, the leader of the Eight Guardian Generals, Deus, sets into place his plan to gain complete power over Gaea and the Gohma as well as be sole ruler in everything. But his plan requires Asura be the scapegoat for the Emperor’s murder, having his wife, Durga, killed, while kidnapping his daughter, Mithra. After being killed by Dues, Asura is sent to Naraka. Now Asura is already an angry demi-god, but once all these events transpire, and his death over the 12,000 years causes memory loss, he begins to gain them back and what he must fight for in a blood fueled and revenge induced rage to defeat all Seven Deities for killing him and his wife and rescue Mithra.

As I mentioned before, the game is played in parts, and each part is broken into a number of episodes, this is where the anime feel of the game comes in. Each episode starts with the naming the artist, producer, voice actors, and such. And at the end of each episode, it gives you a preview of the next in the form of the cinematics that will be played at some point during the episode. This nuance is quite cool, and makes you feel like you’re playing an anime, but after the 4th or 5th episode, its gets annoying and you just want to skip it, but you don’t want to miss anything. This and the way it’s played, its more on a level of a “interactive media” than video game. As you play, you’ll either love or hate the graphics of the game, which is a blend of anime, 3D CG graphics, and cel-shading, giving the game a gritty feeling, completely matching at times the mood and feeling of the characters. The level design, is limited since the arenas you fight in, are essentially set pieces, and no real exploration is given to you, the player, at any given time. You jump from one set piece, to the next, like an episode of any anime.

But as any high budget anime from any of the major anime production companies, the voice acting is top notch, and over the top as you would expect for a game like this. Each characters personality nailed down for the plot against the Emperor, to the self loathing of Yasha, the rage monster that is Asura, and the forgiving and imprisoned Mithra. The voice actors, be it in the original Japanese voices, or the English voices, they give their all to give you the player, the complete emotion of the scene present. As I’m not intimately familiar with Japanese voice acting, I’ll mention the outstanding voice action by Liam O’Brien (Asura), Robin Atkins Downes (Yasha), Kari Wahlgren (Mithra), and David Pizzuto (Deus), to name a few.

As the game, cannot stand alone on solely voice acting, high budget, and story, the gameplay is what brings people to the table to play, and the story is what makes them stay. And the gameplay for this game runs the gambit: Action, Beat ‘Em Up, Hack And Slash, Rail Shooter, Rhythm Game, Quick Time Events, and Third Person Shooter. At various points in the game, it turns into one of the many different game types. Each with a rather basic control scheme, nothing revolutionary, by no means. Much of the gameplay isn’t amazing; it’s rather pedestrian, and just to get you through an event that requires you to utterly destroy a Gohma, or one of the Deities. The game completely encompasses an over the top action, and consistently gives the player, the feeling, everything is certainly bigger and more angry from Asura, especially with the duel against Deus… but his anger is never abated.

The game comes down to, not in this exact order: cutscene, fight for a bit, cutscene, quick time, cutscene, button mash, and burst event which triggers more cutscenes. During some of these cutscenes, you’ll have to input a button that will appear on the screen for you to continue. This is where the gameplay is melded with the presentation of the game, allowing for the most over the top fights, and the badassery from Asura, and certain characters during their interactions with each other. For instance, the fight between Asura and Augus, you fight on the moon, and Augus, uses a Sword imbued with the mystic trait of extending no

matter the length, which ends with Asura and Augus plummeting towards Gaea with Asura being impaled back towards Gaea. But guess what, this all preceded by a hot springs quick time event involving a big busty servant.

Don’t get me wrong, Asura’s Wrath is an solid game, as long as you go into it, knowing full well, that you’re more so getting anime episodes in game form, where you slightly interact with the game and various quick time events, to spice up the ride during Asura’s anger induced revenge. The story with its roots in Buddhism and Hinduism, and sci-fi twist, allow for a fresh story, not done before. The game visually, isn’t stunning, but the gameplay melded with it, gives you a sensory overload, to a degree, allowing you to watch, somewhat at a distance, but still interact. At the end of the day, if you can get Asura’s Wrath for cheap, it’ll be worth the money, but when it was first released, I wouldn’t say the $60 price tag, was worth what was given at the end of the day.

Mahjong is a game that most people by now have played or at least have heard of. The game involves of different tiles and the goal is to match them all up to clear the game. The game is widely available, in fact most people play this at work when they should be working, since it’s available in most computers. This game finally came to the PS3 back in 2009.

Mahjong has been around for quite sometime and is generally known as a time killer in China. As stated earlier, you start with a stack of mahjong tiles that have icons as well numbers that are in a certain shape or pattern. These tiles are to be matched up with each other and removed from gameplay. The concept is very easy just continue doing this until the board game is complete and cleared out.

The controls can be a little frustrating. The cursor is pretty much the same cursor you see on a computer, but the PS3 controller is nowhere near as precise as a mouse, obivously. As you can see from the video, when you move the pointer with your D-pad or your left joystick the selector doesn’t snap to the tiles. Instead you are having to navigate to each tile individually. It would have been a lot easier to have your arrow glide past the block and just scroll to each one. You need to micromanage and adjust for every…. single…  move.

The developers of the game where able to give it a nice little twist, they took something that was old and gave it a new fresh look and concept. It features five parables that are told through nine chapters and narrated storybook cutscenes. After getting a piece of the story, you play a game of mahjong to advance to the next scene, which is a static background with the characters and objects moving around on top of the image, but it fails a bit. Example, the quality of the narration is bad. It’s one guy narrating the stories, and sounds tinny and echoy or far away. Also, the art is pretty plain and simple.

I liked that game, burned time. Which is what I would need when I was bored. Although I really can’t recommend to download this one. This game has plenty of potential if the story line, graphics and sound were a bit better. Not to mention the controls. The music is relaxing and calming. Once again as I stated in my Super Stardust HD review, this was one of those games that I downloaded mainly for the trophies.

Street Fighter X Tekken is back and much better with it’s recent 2013 update. Improving the core mechanics of its fighting system and making every match more fun, Street Fighter X Tekken finally deserves the recognition it should deserve.

Upon starting up your copy of SFxT, you are prompted with an update to the game which will in turn change a huge portion of the game. For starters, the damage is more apparent as combos just seem to hurt more and it also helps that when tagging out your point character, any damage received takes longer to regenerate. It helps to alleviate the frequency of time outs that the prior version had far too many of.

There are also small changes done such as more time added to Pandora Mode, having the Fight! logo remove quicker and not having the camera pan in at the end of a Cross Rush combo. It helps to quicken up the pace while also making matches seem in better control of the player(s).

Even subtle tweaks such as gems not being so bright on top of characters helps. There are also tons of character specific changes that alter the majority of the rosters take on their matchups. I almost forgot to mention in my opinion the biggest change to the system, normally when you are attacked you have two different parts of health (yellow life & red life). The red life is recoverable when the character is not on point but now as soon as a throw is performed on any character with red life all of their recoverable health is gone along with the damage of the throw. It invokes a certain mind game mechanic in competition especially since you cannot roll safely off a knockdown.

With all these changes made to the game it helps freshen up a lifeless corpse that everyone in the fighting game community had long forgotten. But I sense a strong sense of change happening to make this dead game rise from its grave. I strongly recommend any naysayer of the game to try it again. Who knows, it might change your opinion. Plus its free…what harm can it do?

Ladies and Gentlemen, the Gentlemen Thief that stole your hearts in the early 2000′s, looking for his family legacy book, the Thieveous Raccoonus, has returned. His name is Sly Cooper of the Cooper lineage. The raccoon with the blue cap and gold cane has made his return in an all new game, Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time or Sly 4. This’ll serve as a preview of the game, by using the early access code from the Ratchet & Clank Collection.

The game gives you a single level to play; a rather dangerous, Big Top Circus. The look and feel of the game reminds you of the art styles from the first three games. The cel-shaded character models and surroundings, reminds you of the old games, but also serves as a below standard, when it comes to current PS3 games. Don’t get me wrong, that’s what makes it work for Sly 4, it’s showing that the game isn’t about graphics but story and gameplay.

Moving into gameplay, the controls will be familiar to anybody who has played any of the Sly games. They introduced a new feature, which I’m hoping will give a new level of gameplay. The game has costumes. Yes costumes. These costumes allow Sly, and in theory, the rest of the gang: Bentley, Murray, Carmelita, and new addition, Sir Galleth, to complete various tasks and puzzles throughout the game. The costume used in the Big Top for Sly to turn into Robin Hood, shooting arrows with ropes attached to them, to travel across the level. Additionally, each time you fire an arrow, you control the flight of it until you hit the target to cross.

Admittedly, it’s only one level but it brings the cel-shaded graphics, nostalgia, fun & basic gameplay, amazing writing, and just the fun that comes with a Sly game. Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time demo was due out two days ago for PSN Plus members, and the 29th, for the rest of the PSN, and the official release is February 5th.

Capcom wanted to reboot the Devil May Cry games to bring in new life and a new crowd into Dante’s universe. Sarah, who hasn’t played all the way through any of the previous DMC games, enjoyed this game as a newcomer. I, on the other hand, played all of the other games and really enjoyed the series. I must admit, I was one of those people who threw a temper tantrum when I heard about the reboot and saw the new Dante. But I wanted to give this game a fair shake, so how does DMC hold up to a fan of the original? It has its ups and downs, but overall it’s a solid game that original fans should play.

PLOT

This retelling of DMC brings back first big baddy of the series, Mundus, as the Demon overlord who killed Dante’s mother and imprisoned his Father for all eternity. No longer half demon, but half demon and half angel, Dante is recruited by his long lost brother Vergil to take down Mundus and free humanity while hacking and slashing every demon in Limbo along the way. One of the best things of this story is the relationship between Dante, Vergil, and Kat. Dante comes off as punkish and uncaring at first and through Kat finds something worth fighting for. Vergil and Dante really feel like brothers here, I really loved the little banter they had closer to the end of the game one upping each other by saying how they are stronger or smarter than the other. Mundus, however, felt really bland as a villain. He has more personality than in the original game, but it’s still very cookie cutter villain. The story is pretty predictable and not great but was able to create some pretty tense cut scenes which I never saw in any of the original DMCs. But the biggest issue I had, and maybe it’s because I’m a fan of the original, was Dante. Dante was a punk and a smart ass, not emo, and that’s perfectly fine. Yet a lot of his quips fell flat. It felt like Ninja Theory couldn’t decide if they wanted their Dante to be his own man or harp back to the original. His dialogue lacked the charm it felt like it was going for. Overall, the story wasn’t great but still good.

Design

DMC takes place in Limbo, a parallel world where the demons reside. Levels are impressive, with ever changing landscapes and the world literally trying to kill you.  It makes for some fun platforming action. My favorite had to have been the club level, which looks like every raver’s dream. Yet it seems that near the end, the developers ran out of ideas and fall back on some contrive and all too familiar level design. The graphics are good and flow smoothly. I didn’t run into any lag, which is important for a combat game that moves this quickly. There were a few times when textures took a while to pop up during cut scenes but that rarely happened. Overall a great looking game

Combat

The most important aspect of any Devil May Cry game is the combat, and it shines here.  You will get access to five weapons and 3 guns over the course of the game, all of which you can switch to on the fly. This can make for some crazy combos. While the initial combat is easy enough for newcomers to grasp, veterans can appreciate the depth of the hack-n-slash of DMC. And with the new emphasis on air combo and juggling, you can literally fly upward and off the screen if you time all your moves right. Fans of the hack-n-slash genre will enjoy this game. A problem I ran into is that when you finally unlock your devil trigger, the ability to slow down time and fling all your enemies in the air to do extra damage, it takes so long to build up the meter that it becomes almost unusable. Not a huge issue but still an annoyance. After each play through you unlock more difficult settings that remix the enemies you run into and with some settings making you die in one hit. This provides moderate replayability reserved only for the most serious of DMC fans.

Rating 

Overall this game hits many of the marks it sets out to hit, while not a perfect game, its still solid and a “Hell” of a lot of fun. See what I did there?  Yes, this is a different Dante and a different DMC but long time fans should give this game a try before making their decision, you may be surprised in how much you like it. I give this DMC: Devil May Cry 8 out of 10

I don’t think I’ve ever been more excited for a game than I am for The Last of Us. To be released on May 7, 2013, way to long for me to wait, Naughty Dog has announced 2 special editions for the game; the Survival Edition, and the Post-Pandemic Edition

The Survival Edition will come with The Art of The Last of Us, an over 170 page hardcover art book done by Dark Horse, the comic The Last of Us: American Dreams #1, which goes into Ellie’s backstory and comes in a variant cover only found in the Survival Edition, a steelbook edition of the game, and the Sights & Sounds DLC. This DLC includes the official soundtrack, a dynamic theme, and avatars featuring Joey and Ellie. The Survival Edition will retail for $79.99 and the artbook included will be sold separately for $39.99.

The Post-Pandemic Edition will include both the Steelbook edition of the game and the comic The Last of Us: American Dreams #1 as well. What’s also included is a 12” Premium Statue of Joel and Ellie done by Project Triforce and two DLC packs. The Sights & Sounds DLC, and the Survival Pack DLC. This includes a bonus XP and melee booster for multiplayer, and customizable character items and skins for the single player. The Post-Pandemic Edition will retail for $159.99 at Gamestop exclusively and is in limited supply.

Preorder today and look forward to our review!