Ever since Nintendo revealed Mario & Luigi: Brothership in June of this year, fans have been wondering which studio was actually working on this colorful new RPG adventu?re, especially since the company is infamous for keeping this information? under wraps. After months of speculation, it seems we finally have a concrete answer.

After many months of theories and speculation, it seems we have a concrete answer. Twitter/X user Nintendeal recently discovered copyright text for Mario & Luigi: Brothership that seems to confirm that Acquire is developing the game. This is the studio behind the Tenchu series and the Octopath Traveler series (whi??ch it developed alongside Square Enix). ?Although, it is important to point out that Nintendo hasn't officially confirmed this information yet.

Nintendo fans previously thought that ILCA (The studio behind Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, One Piece Odyssey, and Sand Land) was developing Mario & Luigi: Brothership, but this new revelation apparently confirm?s that they were wrong, and that it was Acquire all along.

Fans reacted to this news with both excitement and relief, since the studio has previous experience with solid turn-based RPGs. Acquire has big shoes to fill, because AlphaDream, the studio that created the Mario & Luigi series and developed all the previous entries, sadly went bankrup??t in 2019.

Based on Acquire's previous experience, Mario & Luigi: Brothership is in good hands

Acquire is not a random small team that Nintendo hired but is actually a remarkable and important development studio within the industry, with tons of previous experience developing iconic and successful video games. Acquire has recorded its ent?ire history on its official website, and it's quite interesting.

The studio rose to fame with the release of the first two Tenchu games on PlayStation 1, which revolutionized the stealth genre. After that, it went on to develop the Way of the Samurai series on PlayStation 2 and subsequent consoles, but its biggest and most recognizable IP is undoubtedly Octopath Traveler, which it developed in collaboration with Square Enix. These are a pair of critically acclaimed turn-based RPGs that brought back the essence of the classic 2D Final Fantasy games. So, when taking Acquire's entire history into consideration, it's evident that Mario & Luigi: Brothership is in great hands, but we won't be 100% sure until the game launches o??n Nintendo Switch on November 7.

The post Mystery Solved: Mario & Luigi: Brothership was developed by t??he studio that made Octopath Trave??ler appeared first on Destructoid.

Oh, the places you'll go

With Octopath Traveler 2, Square Enix goes back to the formula of the first. Eight adventurers, each with their o??wn small-scale RPG quests, link up for one overarching journey??. Each one will have their own paths to walk, secrets to uncover, and nemeses to vanquish in a heroic fashion. And then, after everyone's had their origin story, a final chapter will bring it all together, forming the party that will tackle the greatest threat lurking just behind the curtain.

The road ahead was already laid out by its predecessor. But sometimes, it's as much about the journey as the destination. And where Octopath Traveler 2 doesn't just succeed but makes a mark is in how it takes yo??u there while making the long journey feel worthwhile?.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=52QAFdezH3s

Octopath Traveler 2 (PS5[reviewed], PS4, PC, Switch)
Developer: Square Enix, Acquire Corp.
Publisher: Square Enix
Released: February 24, 2023
MSRP: $59.99

When I wrote our review-in-progress a few weeks back, I was already much more invested in Octopath Traveler 2 than its predecessor. At roughly the halfway point of the story, I felt Acquire and Square Enix had found a spark in this set-up that didn't ever ignite for me in the first game. Its world felt more vibra??nt and alive, offering permutations and evolutions of its locales through the day-night cycle. Cryptic side-quests were more enticing because they allowed for clever Path Action solutions, and these Path Actions felt engaging to use.

Well, sitting at a triple-digits' worth of hours invested and credits rolled, I still dig Octopath Traveler 2. It's not often an RPG coaxes this many hours out of me and manage??s to stay in my good graces. But that's the magic at work here in the latest HD-2D adventure??.

The path less traveled

Let's pull the lens back to hour one, though. Octopath Traveler 2 has you select on??e of eight party members from the beginning. Every one of them will eventually be a piece of your party, at least if you want to see the end. For now, though, you focus on one. This one character becomes your focal point; you actually can't take the??m out of your party until you finish their entire storyline.

[caption id="attachment_364382" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

In my case, this was Throne, the thief and assassin who decided she'd had enough of this life and wanted out. She would remove the literal collar around her neck, and ki??ll anyone, even the patriarch and matriarch of her clandestine organization, just to never be forced to spill blood again. It's a good story, with lots of development for Throne as she explores what her life has meant so far and what freedom even means to someone who's been told what to do for so long.

?I could have gone to Ku instead and started with Hikari's tale of a usurping brother. Or Temenos' investigation into the murder of a church official, or Castti's search for her forgotten origin. Heck, even Partitio, this game's Merchant who determines that poverty is bad and all should share in prosperity rather than allow a select few to hoard it. Partitio rules.

My point is that every character is good in their own right, and none of them ever bored me or had story segments drag on. After selecting the starting character, I started to journey around the world, recruiting the rest and playing through their chapters; everyone's Chapter 1, then back through Chapter 2, so-on-and-so-forth. While I was certainly eager to see the conclusion of some over others, I was never loathed to boot up a new installment. It helps that Octopath Traveler 2's chapter variety is fantastic. Some characte??rs have individual chapters broken up, spread across locations and even continents. At least one didn't even h??ave any boss to fight, just conversations and Path Actions.

[caption id="attachment_369692" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

Travelers interlinked

A big point was made to interlink the stories of Octopath Traveler 2's protagonists more than the first did. And to be fa?ir, that has happened here. While the individual story chapters and cutscenes will still primarily focus on that character and any accompanying side characters, there are a few ways the Octo-pals connect more than they did in the predecessor.

Crossed Paths are a new set of stories required for the endgame, which sees the travelers going out in pairs on their own side journeys. They're just quick pairings, and the chapters aren't nearly as in-depth as the main story ones. But they do offer some fun interactions, like Castti bonding with Ochette over th??eir work to protect life or Partitio and Osvald becoming unlikely bros.

Travel banter will also pop up now and then, offering a little side chat similar to the skits seen in the Tales Of series. It might disappoint some that we don't constantly see this crew interacting, but I found it worked. A few scenes would make any character just jumping in to say something a bit odd, and more party banter feels like it would have left less space for the excellent supporting cast of Octopath Traveler 2. These skits also act as fun asides. One might be taki??ng the lead, while the others provide support, and the rest are off hanging out at the tavern or maybe doing their own thing.

[caption id="attachment_369689" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

I know that's a theater-of-the-mind approach, but Octopath Traveler 2 encourages an approach that feels very open. It wants you to explore and ?discover in this RPG sandbox it's made. That's felt most in its side stories, where even small chance encounters like a strange scholar or some weird vibes in a shop can lead to big surpr??ises.

Break it down now

All the words and stories do eventually turn to combat, though. Much like the narrative framing, combat is very similar in Octopath Traveler 2. Turn-by-turn action pits your party against enemies, with a timeline at the top informing you what's coming up an??d when. It's a basic but fluid system. Sometimes, I'd speed through combat, smashing A to smack down some low-level scrubs. But in a boss fight, I'd carefully count out turns, doing head-math on how many attacks and skills I'd need to use, in what order, and with how many Boost Points plus SP costs to avoid a massive attack loomi?ng at turn's end.

[caption id="attachment_369691" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

The Break and Boost elements are a core piece of Octopath 2's combat friction. Hit an enemy's designated vulnerabilities to knock off shield points, reduce them to 0 to Break them, then lay on the hurt. Simple enough, right? But it's getting there, and how you do it, that becomes complex and compelling. If Castti i??sn't holding a Sword, for example, she might not be able to hack? off a point of shield this turn. But maybe I can reach into my item bag and toss a one-time-use Soulstone for some Fire damage instead. Boosting increases the intensity of magic and some abilities but adds extra strikes if I just use Attack. Using Boost right away for a Break, versus saving it but giving the enemy extra turns, is a constant push-and-pull.

Abilities and equipment offer a lot of ways to customize and optimize, letting fighters specialize deeper into their roles, and then picking up subclasses to learn from others. Support Skills let you pick up anything from an extra Boost Point to a free revive. Octopath Traveler 2 k?ept me customizing and refining my team throughout the story, and with each character having their own chapters, I was not-so-subtly encourag??ed to keep swapping around and testing out different interactions and strategies.

The world comes alive

Of course, the HD-2D art looks fantastic. Team Asano's style has become a bit of a measuring stick for pixel RPGs, but Octopath Traveler 2 still manages to surprise me with new vistas or gorgeous effects. Solistia, the game's setting, is beautifully laid out too, with everything from deep woods and windy deserts?? to frigid cliffs. Just as resplendent are the cities and villages that dot the world.

[caption id="attachment_366362" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

The new day-night cycle lets you manually swap times, and NPCs will change locations and activities based on what time of day it is. Additionally, certain events will only play out if you let the day linger long enough to reach sunset, or the night into dawn. These link into Path Actions, the special abilities that you let get items or information, or even lead NPCs to other places. Or they just inform you a little more of the world. I've solved at least two puzzles by just waiting to see if an NPC would move. Octopath Traveler 2's time is malleable, but there's a? solid-enough illusion that it doesn't move only at your whim.

I have to mention the soundtrack too. I loved the Octopath Traveler soundtrack, and the work on Octopath Traveler 2 is just as fantastic. While the soaring theme and other melodi??es ar?e still here, some new additions really amp up big moments. "Partitio's Theme" is, specifically, a banger.

The never-ending story

Every aspect of Octopath Traveler 2 just clicks into place with one another, always giving me a reason to journey somewhere new. In the first game, I just main-lined through the story beats. In Octopath Traveler 2, I'd talk to NPCs in new towns just to see if there was something interesting to find, and importantly, t?hat interest was often rewarded.

If there's any hang-up, it's the sheer breadth of Octopath Traveler 2. There is, frankly, a lot of g?ame here. The main story alone will likely take you close to 8??0 hours to see through, and additional side content will just keep stacking up. I never felt it too necessary to grind, though there were a couple of times I'd set out just to bolster an under-utilized party member.

[caption id="attachment_369693" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

It's a long journ??ey, and a worthwhile one, but I also get that for some, the amount of hours is a big hurdle. There were a few times around the Chapter 2 to 3 area that I felt the forward momentum lose steam, too. And a lot of the game's best options, like the ability to read travel banter you might have missed in past Chapters, are a little too tucked away.

Going home

Still, all that said, Octopath Traveler 2 has eaten up my life for the better part of a month, and I've still loved it. It's a full realization of everything that made the original Octopath Traveler good, but built out and expanded upon so much that it feels like a? new structure.

I'm still eager to jump back into it, even after seeing the credits roll. There are lingering questions I s?till have, and little tidbits I want to investigate. There's an NPC I only discovered late in the game, a swordsman in training, who you can Challenge using Hikari's Path Action. Every time I've come back, he's a little bit stronger thanks to our last fight. I'm literall?y training this guy up so I can, hopefully, uncover some secret or hidden move for Hikari to unleash on the remaining secret bosses I want to tackle.

Octopath Traveler 2 isn't just a great end destination, but a fulfilling journey too. It has a lively world, intricate and engaging combat, fluid progression and builds that reward tinkering, an incredible score, and excellent arcs for all of its protagonists. It somehow has everything I'd want out of an RPG inspired by the old days, but moving forward into new ones too. It took me a long time to get here, but Octopath Traveler 2 is a road worth traveling.

_{[This review is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.]}

The post Review: Octopath Traveler 2 appeared first on Destructoid.

Halfway in, and Octopath 2 feels like it's surpassing its predecessor

Octopath Traveler, and its follow-up Octopath Traveler 2, both start off with an interesting but challenging narrative format: take eight adventurers, tell their?? origin stories, and weave their fates together into a greater anthology. These eight heroes grow into their own in their stories and then, once established in their own right, join together to fight the ultimate challenge awaiting them. Conceptually, it's pow??erful. In reality, it can be a delicate dance.

For a full disclosure, I wasn't too keen on the first Octopath Traveler. A soaring soundtrack and gorgeous presentation couldn't lift the stories high enough to make me want to see things through to the finale myself. So I'm not sure what it was that drew me in, almost last-minute, to Octopath Traveler 2. It could have been lingering good-will from the Live A Live remake. Or maybe it was the idea that Acquire and Square Enix could take the criticisms of the first Octopath and craft a better version of it, where the eight-legged story wasn't weighed down by its writing. Ultimately, I'm glad I did, because Octopath Traveler 2 feels like making good o??n the blueprint laid out by i?ts predecessor.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgmLN1NHXyE

Octopath Traveler 2 (PS5[reviewed], PS4, PC, Switch)
Developer: Square Enix, Acquire Corp.
Publisher: Square Enix
Released: February 24, 2023
MSRP: $59.99

From the outset, much of Octopath Traveler 2 is the same as the first. There are eight travelers, each with ??their own backstory and class for combat, as well as Path Actions. Journey around town, fight through the occasional dungeon and boss fight, and use Path Actions on NPCs to move the story forward. The framework is very familiar. It's how Square Enix and Acquire built up over the top that's impressing me.

Day and night

The addition of a day-and-night cycle means everyone has two Path Actions now. While Throne can knock someone out at night, she has to be a little more polite in the sunlight and simply pick their pockets. Osvald can scrutinize someone, gambling on a chance to uncover their deepest held secrets, during the day. At night, he just mugs them. NPC interactions broadly fall into a few categories: get information, follow me, get items, or knockout. (For Hikari, that's knockout and steal your skills, a la Rogue.)

The Octopath team has done a really great job, though, of making sure you're doing a lot of different things with the vocabulary set out before you. Some chapters may?? never see you engage in combat. Others might have you try to solve a small mystery. And still, others might just be wading into gladiatorial bout after bout. I'm writing this review-in-progress from the halfway point, as we got code just ahead of launch. But even at roughly 35 or so hours in, I've found I'm doing something a little different in every chapter, for every character. Stories rarely ever feel too one-note.

[caption id="attachment_366361" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

It helps that Octopath Traveler 2's cast is, o?n the whole, much more endearing than the first game. Importantly, you don't need to have played the first game to follow anything happening here. And that jump ??allows these tales to, outside a few scant gestures towards previous events, tell a story that's in a much different world state altogether.

Brave new world

Rather than just fantasy fare, Octopath Traveler 2 sees a fantasy world approaching industrialization. Pioneers and merchants venture to the silver-mining town of Oresrush, spurred on by whispers of a shifting standard in currency. Agnea, the dancer from a small forest town, is caught awestruck when seeing the ?lights and sounds of the bustling New Delsta. At one point, a shipwright laments how investors have left her work, proc?laiming that steam engines might be the future.

This world is a fascinating one, and the characters wh?o give you their viewpoints into the world give ?you a wide variety of views. Partitio the Merchant struggles with wages and fair earnings, as his desire to pay workers an honest living leads to tensions with the higher-ups who want to scrape out the most profit for themselves. Hikari finds himself caught in a struggle for the throne, as his nation comes to grips with its history of conquering and bloodshed.

[caption id="attachment_366363" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

My personal favorite is Temenos, the doubtful Inquisitor for the Church of the Sacred Flame. A string of bad luck sees him caught up in a murder-mystery, and so he sets to work, investigating his way through the JRPG equivalent of the movie Seven. But what I enjoy isn't just the detective vi??bes, but the entire inquisitorial nature of Temenos; ??his job, as he says, is to doubt. He casts aspersions on the way church officials wield their power over the more naïve.

Many paths, one road

This curiosity lends itself well to Octopath Traveler 2's very open approach to role-playing. Dotted throughout the world are sidequests. They operate similar to Octopath 1, in that t?hey usually require a bit of problem solving and using Path Actions. Yet in the sequel, I'm finding them so much more rewarding. They give you just enough threads to let y??ou solve something by yourself, while not being too difficult to discern.

[caption id="attachment_366364" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

Moreover, there are dungeons all over the map. Altars await, offering additional abilities for your eight travelers. Guilds in cities now mete out subclass options, and subclasses themselves are available earlier and feel more interesting to dig into. I've yet to venture onto the Crossed Paths, which see two travelers spend time with each other, a common request from those who felt Octopath 1's party felt too distant. But even within chapters, the party will get optional moments of banter, reminiscent of skits from the Tales Of series. Some have genuinely made me laugh, or given ?me pause to thi??nk about what's happening at the moment.

All of this builds to a world that feels so much more alive in Octopath Traveler 2. There are always new sights to see, towns to explore, quests to undertake, and ob?jectives to task myself with. I'm sure there's what some might consider grinding, but it's under enough layers of interesti??ng meta-interactions and systems that I'm barely even noticing it.

Take to the field

Even combat has seen a pretty noteworthy shift. Sure, all eight characters maintain the same classes and general dispositions from the first game. The Scholar will cast magic, the Warrior wields weapons, and the Cleric heals and casts holy light magic. But alongside a fairly diverse set of abilities and support skills that can change how each character approaches a fight, every traveler has their own Latent Power. This Limit Break-adjacent skill lets a traveler do what they do best. Castti can freely mix up a massive, tide-turning concoction, without using up ingredients. HIkari taps into a well of probably-definitely-corrupting?? power to un??leash heaps of damage.

Again, I turn back to Temenos, whose Latent Power ensures that whatever hits he doles out will break Shield Points on the enemy. Octopath Traveler 2 still uses the Boost and Break systems, encouraging you to Break enemies by hitting their weaknesses, opening them up for attacks, and using Boost points to either time those breaks or capitalize on them with massive damage. Well, subclassing Temenos into Scholar means I can give him the Elemental Barrage ability, which doles out anywhere from three to five blasts of ??magic in one burst, and more if I boost him. Coupled with his Latent Power, he shreds through shields in a single turn.

[caption id="attachment_366356" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

Little tweaks and optimizations like that make the Octopath Traveler 2 combat feel so much more lively in its earlier hour??s than the first ever managed. Battles can provide a decent challenge, but a smart and tactical player could take on enemies well above their level if they plan and prepare right. That's the sign of an engaging turn-based combat system to me, at least.

All roads lead home

As I said before, I'm still at roughly the halfway point. I've cleared half of all the available character chapters, but still have a ways to go to see this through to its end, and how exactly all these travelers will come together. But where Octopath Traveler 2 is succeeding is making the journey feel so worthwhile. I think with Octopath 1, much of my focus was on the destination. That's no??t really on my mind? in the second game.

Instead, I'm scouring the map for more opportunities for Partitio to strike a bargain. I'm trying to snatch all the guild subclasses and class statues I can locate. With each new screen, I'm filling in the blank outlines on my blank canvas of a map, while inviting new dangers at every bend. The soaring theme of Octopath Traveler always makes me think of grand adventure, spanning across lands and towns. With Octopath Traveler 2,? that world feels vibrant, exciti?ng, and ripe for exploration.

The post Review in Progress: Octopath Traveler 2 appeared first on Destructoid.

Currently only available to U.S. members

Square Enix' Octopath Traveler II, now out and in the hands of eager adventurers everywhere, is known for its varied and colorful cast of characters all on their own respective paths to destiny �?And, perhaps knowing that players will have their own chosen one, Nintendo has released eight alternate covers, representing the party o??f protagonists venturing out into the world of Solistia.

//twitter.com/NintendoAmerica/status/1629224655973122049?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1629224655973122049%7Ctwgr%5Ee925b5fc20ee7963e23f7932e??7e969f35b74ea0e%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nintendolife.com%2Fnews%2F2023%2F02%2Fmy-nintendo-offering-exclusive?-reversible-switch-box-art-covers-for-octopath-traveler-ii-us

The eight covers are available to for MyNintendo members to download and print out, so you can replace the original boxart with your choice of hero �?emblazoning the box with the cheerful dancer Agnea, the smooth-tongued merchant Partitio, the vengeful Osvald, or the sultry thief, Throne. All of the covers feature the beautiful artwork of Naoki Ikushima, and are sure to brighten up your gaming shelf. The set of eight covers will set yo?u back 30 Platinum Points??.

Unfortunately, it's not all good news. As noted in the replies, the alternate Octopath Traveler II covers are only available on the North American MyNintendo Store, so European players are out of luck. But hopefully, this offer will soon be extended globally, so that we can all have Throne our favorite Octopath Traveler spotlit on our ??respective copies of this �?pretty durn good �?release.

Octopath Traveler II is available now on PlayStation??,?? PC, and Nintendo Switch platforms.

The post MyNintendo offers Octopath Traveler? II character covers appeared first on Destructoid.

Spoiler-free tips for every Octopath you’ll travel

Octopath Traveler 2 is finally here, devoid of the three-hour time limit that impeded us before. I said it was looking like a treat for RPG fans, and I remain confident in that assertion.

Octopath Traveler 2 is much more than another dose of the first game. While commonalities are here (for better or for worse), there are many new skills and secrets that firmly break the mold set by Octopath Traveler. In fact, you could miss some crucial features if you intend to play this exactly like its predecessor. Octopath Traveler 2’s open ended structure is all about the joy of discovery, so you don’t have to follow a perfect path to enjoy the game. Still, if you like to optimize your progress (since you play RPGs and clicked this article, I’m guessing you do), there are a fe?w key tips you should know about. Below are my favorite finds.

[caption id="attachment_365236" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

Agnea is an SP battery

One of my cornerstone strategies from Octopath Traveler involved the Thief class�?Steal SP and Share SP skills. It was so easy to tear through random battles using my most powerful abilities while Therion topped off everyone’s magic. The Thief class is stripped of these skills in Octopath Traveler 2, whic?h made me worried this strategy became obsolete. Fortunately,?? that isn’t the case.

The Dancer Agnea might not have Share SP in her kit, but she arguably? has something even better: NPCs she recruits with her Allure Path Action grant additional effects to her Dancer skills. The moment you finish her prologue, you can find a villager in the southwest corner of Cropdale who restores a small amount of SP as a Dance Session perk. This makes every dance restore 40 SP to the target, letting you easily top off heavy hitters like Hikari and Osvald. Flamechurch also houses an apothecary that ups that amount to 75 SP per cast, so look out for her!

[caption id="attachment_365235" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

Protagonists are split into complementary groups of four

If you played the demo, you know Octopath Traveler 2 gives all characters brand new Path Actions that only work at night. While this ups the total count of Path Actions to 16, they all boil down to four effects: Getting items, obtaining info, knocking out NPCs, and recruiting followers. Some NPCs will only appear at certain times of day, so you’ll be forced to use night or day actions specifically to interact wi?th the?m.

Why am I telling you all this? Well, you likely noticed that the protagonists are split into two groups on op??posite sides of the world. This is no accident. With the way Path Actions are mixed and matched, using travelers from one side of the world guarantees access to all four possible effects regardless of the time of day. This can be immensely helpful if you initially want to focus on one core pa??rty but don’t want to miss out on any quests along the way. That said, you can absolutely mix and match travelers from the east and west. There’s some amazing combat synergy you won’t want to ignore, like Agnea topping off Osvald’s SP.

If you need to decide between an eastern or a western party, both have pros ??and cons. The west party members veer towards a generalist playstyle, relying harder on Path Actions and jack-of-all-tr?ades base kits. The east party has more defined party roles, and their base talents emphasize traveling at night. Each are strong, so pick whoever appeals to you the most.

[caption id="attachment_363855" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

You can get a secondary job really early

One of the biggest surprises about the demo was the easy access to the Inventor class. This can be found on the Eastern New Delsta Highroad near Throné’s starting town. Check out our guide here for more details.

This is a great find for the early game. The inventor class will give its user bonus stats? in addition to making Swords and Axes equipable. I personally stand by Partitio being a great candidate for Inventor. He benefits from both added weapon types, and Changeable Catapult gives him a party-wide attack that his kit natively lacks. Secondary jobs can be reassigned at any time, so give Inventor to whoever needs it most on your team.

[caption id="attachment_365234" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

Optimize your sales with Partitio

Speaking of Partitio, the Mer??chant class is unsurprisingly good at buying and selling things. This was true in the first game, but there are some added mechanics that make Partitio worth strategizing around.

Partitio’s new night Path Action is Hire, which allows Partitio to pay NPCs and recruit them. NPCs recruited by Partito come with exclusive “Merchant Talents�?that give various money-related benefits. The most notable effects in the early game are wholesale discounts on purchases and bonus money from sales. By strategizing around Partitio’s followers, you can save a ton o?f money by purchasing items with a discount and holding sellable items until you have a follower with an ample sale bonus. Even if you aren’t actively using Partitio, it’s easy to get a decent follower for him without spending too much. Which conveniently brings us to our last point...

[caption id="attachment_363882" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

Visit the black market

For an early game power boost, there’s a not-so-hidden set of shops located in the New Delsta Flats (north of where the Inventor job is). Near the northern side of the map, you’ll see a torch lit during the night where a group of NPCs will gather. This is the black market, which we’ve discussed in more detail here.

As I’ve tested this further, I’ve noticed four possibl??e iterations of the black market: one shop keeper with bogus items, two shop keepers with accessories and defensive equipment, another two shopkeepers with Soulstones and bottled dusts, and three shop ??keepers with a spread of items, weapons, and armor. That last set is the one you’ll want to look out for, since you can score some powerful weapons for your lead attacker. I found that rapidly cycling through the day and night cycle will also reroll the market that appears. In other words, peruse the black market as much as you want.

Secrets like these aren’t mandatory to progress, but? they're well worth the time to check o?ut. Stay tuned as we learn more about the game and uncover every corner of Solistia!

The post 5 early game tips for Octopath Traveler 2 appeared first on Destructoid.

June 5 at 7AM ET

An Acquire (the Akiba's Trip studio) showcase is coming, helping to kick off "E3" a bit earlier this? year, on June 5 at 7AM ET.

The news was announced via their Twitter account, and they're taking questions, provided that you use the hashtag "#アクワイアへの質�?" As a reminder, w??e have a f??ull list of all of the "E3" streams for June 2022 here, and Acquire is actually one of the first, which will help kick things off. Before them, Sony is doing their thing with a State of Play on June 2, followed by a June 9 Sum??mer Game Fest kickoff.

Acquire is one of those Japanese companies that's been around forever, quietly making games. It blew up immediately after the release of Tenchu 1 and 2, before the series was taken away from them shortly after (oh what could have been). From there they continued down a similar path with Way of the Samurai and Shinobido, before hitting it big in 2011 with Akiba's Trip.

Since then they've been collaborating with various studios (including doing some co-development work on Octopath Traveler), and supplementing their income with multiple Akiba's Trip titles. As Gematsu points out, we can expect at least one new reveal following a leak: Class of Heroes Quest.

Where to watch the Acquire June 2022 showcase:

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rz1f2ULi_L4

The post Akiba’s Trip studio Acquire is having a showcase stream soon appeared first on Destructoid.

Show me how you strip

The Akiba’s Trip series is one that I think many people know based on premise alone. It has never reviewed very well in the West, but it’s hard to ignore a game whose central mechanic is undressing people in Akihabara. Undressing people. Stripping them to the nude. ?Putting them in thei?r flesh tuxedo. They’ve even contrived a reason to do so, but we’ll get to that.

We never got the original Akiba’s Trip over here in North America. It was originally released in 2011 on the PSP, which was close enough to the launch of the Vita to be ignored. Instead, we jumped straight into the sequel, Akiba’s Trip: Undead & Undressed.

Now, however, we’re getting a chance to travel back to 2011’s Akihabara with Akiba’s Trip: Hellbound & Debriefed (oh, ?I get it, “HD�? and see ho?w the stripping began.

Akiba's Trip: Hellbound & Debriefed (Nintendo Switch [reviewed], PC, PS4)
Developer: ACQUIRE Corp.
Publisher: XSEED Games, Marvelous USA, Inc.
Released: July 20, 2021
MSRP: $39.99

Let’s address the whole “HD�?part of this package. Akiba’s Trip was a mighty fine-looking PSP game for its time. It is not, however, a good-looking Switch, PS4, or PC game. Models are angular, textures are blurry, and if you look too far off, you can see the cars disappear into the 2D backdrops. It’s an improvement over the original, don’t get me wrong. Textures and lighting have been touched up, but they didn’t go as far as even matching Undead & Undressed’s graphical fidelity.

Even still, the framerate tends to chug on the Switch version when you position the camera just right or there’s lots of stripping going on. I never found ??it too intrusive, but it was hard to ignore.

That’s not the end of the world, but it doesn’t bode well for any other upgrades. Indeed, the combat, which has been a sticking point for the series in general, is just as clunky as ever. The idea is that you have to damage?? the enemy’s clothing before you can rip it off, exposing their supple flesh to the world. There’s headwear, upper body, and lower body, a?nd they are all worn down with their individual attacks. As such, you have high, mid, and low attacks, but they can’t be chained together in any advantageous way, so you’re stuck with just kicking them in the shins until their pants break.

The biggest issue is the targeting, which is essentially non-existent. You can’t lock on, so you’re at the mercy of your character’s attention span, and they’re easily distracted. Even when fighting only one enemy, you’ll often find yourself attacking off to the side for no reason, or striking behind your target. In groups, things can get hopeless, and kamisama help anyon??e who joins you as an ally. Just flail in the direction of the enemies you want to strip? and start tearing every once and a while. See what you can catch.

The whole reason for the stripping? Akiba’s Trip tells you it’s because the??re are vampires preying on the citizens of Akihabara, but it gets a little murky. You’re turned vampire at the outset, so you’re just as susceptibl?e to sunlight as everyone else. Lose your clothes, and you dissolve. Take off a vampire’s outfit, and they dissolve. Strip a bystander, and they just run off in embarrassment.

The weird thing is, the story isn’t all that committed to this concept. It plays along with the whole hidden threat angle, but often when you strip a character with a name, they’re just like, “Hah, I’m too tough to be killed by the sun!�?Then they run off because no one has heard of restraints. You can also just strip down to a pair of headphones and be perfectly fine. As long as you’re wearing an article of clothing, the sun can’t hurt yo?u. Your underwear doesn��t count. Thankfully?

Why are all these vampires out in the daylight, anyway? Have they? never heard of coffins? I’m pretty sure Akihabara has a n??ightlife to prey on.

The story of Akiba's Trip: Hellbound and Debriefed involves you investigating the disappearance of a friend and getting beaten up i??n an alley. A woman takes pity on you and shares her blood with you by way of a kiss, and you become a vampire �?sorry, Shadow Soul �?like her. An organization dedicated to the eradication of Shadow Souls, NIRO, recruits you by force to stop their diabolical scheme.

The plan? Vampire bites apparently turn people into shut-ins. It’s not very well explained, but from what I gather, I may have been a victim of these Shadow S??ouls. I’m also not really certain of the grand plan. Drive down human birth rates in Japan so v??ampires can thrive? I’m not sure they need help with that, especially not in Akihabara.

I poke fun at some of the more nebulous elements, but the foundation does a decent job of moving things along. While it seems from the outset that NIRO has you by the crotch of the pants, as the plot moves along, you’re given some agency in who you help. Your primary concern is protecting the people? of the Tokyo neighborhood, but who has its best interests in mind? Is it really NIRO? Are all vampires bad?

Likewis?e, the characters are enjoyable, if not a fair bit archetypal. It does tend to get a bit overly wordy, especially towards the end. There’s a po??ssible romance in the game that I enjoyed, but every so often she’d start to drop analogies that I just didn’t understand. I’m sorry, but an analogy is supposed to clarify a subject, not mystify it further. Poor use of poetic license is a turn-off for me.

At its core, Akiba’s Trip is about being an otaku, which I guess also means being a pervert. Throughout the game, you’ll be subjected to fetishes laid bare. I consider myself to be pretty open-minded, but I found myself feeling somewhat uncomfortable when I had to utilize the protagonist’s little sister to awaken a schoolgirl fantasy in him. Likewise, when I had to find a “cherry�?on the street, deceive her, and deliver her to the local BDSM queen, I kind of felt a bit disconnected. But the game reward?ed me for being a predator! Not sure what message that sends.

It’s nothing worse than you’d find in some of the lewder anime out there, just be ready to dip your toes into other people’s kinks. Some that you might not be into, but others that you might be! What’s your game, friend? Crossplay, maids, moe, catgirls, bunny girls, fox girls? You’re covered. Just don’t be surprised when it skirts a little near sexu??al assault territory, as if the core theme wasn’t close enough.

Akiba’s Trip: Hellbound & Debriefed is a horny game if nothing else. It’s not explicit ecchi, but it? knows exactly what it’s doing, and it succeeds in a lot of ways. It’s an interesting satire of the otaku lifestyle, both poking fun at and embracing it.

Most of the time, though, it’s like playing a stripped-down version of Yakuza. You wander a Japanese neighborhood, shop, do side-quests, build up your character, much like in that venerated series. But then the combat sucks and the story is poorly paced. On the other hand, I can’t deny it grew on me. It feels like one of those janky, Japanese, early PS2 titles like Mr. Mosquito or Robot Alchemic Drive. It mi?ght not be ??the most fun to play, but it’s unique enough to captivate.

_{[This review is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.]}

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'We have some power in our corner now.'

Blue Mammoth Games, the indie-studio behind free-to-play fighter Brawlhalla,? are an indie no more. The 21-strong team have announced that they have been acquired by big-time publisher Ubis??oft.

Matt Woomer, head honcho of the Georgia-based studio, excitedly announced the news via a statement to the press, where he spoke of how pleased the studio were to have been picked up, also stressing that they would continue to push forward with Brawlhalla, and that it would remain a free-to-play title.

"The list of ways this is good for Brawlhalla is so long, I literally don’t know where? to start," stated Woomer. "We have some power in our corner now; we’re now backed by a big ten publisher known for many of the best and most creative games out there."

"So, what does this mean for Brawlhalla? Only good things... We will have more stability and more resources to improve the game and add new features... We will get opportunities to raise Brawlhalla’s profile among gamers. And we’ll be able to confidently share a roadmap with you for the next years of Brawlhalla development."

Brawlhalla is available now on PS4 and PC. 

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Offbeat

My honeymoon period for reviewing games just ended. After two short games, one great and the other average, I now know the horror of slogging through a soulless role-playing game. While constantly longing to play other games like Breath of the Wild or Persona 5, I had to slave away at Akiba's Beat the last couple of weeks.

Successor to Akiba's Trip, but officially unrelated, Akiba's Beat is shallow due to an obviously tight budget and lack of self-identity. Gone are the elements of stripping, dressing up, fighting in the streets, romancing, advanced techniques, and even weapons. Akiba's Beat is basically Akiba's Trip with all the things that made the previous game addicting replaced with blander alternatives. It also kept the bland bits of Trip, unfortunately.

Akiba's Beat (PS4 [reviewed], Vita)
Developer: Acquire
Publisher: XSEED (NA), PQube (EU), Acquire (JP)
Released: May 16, 2017 (NA), May 19, 2017 (EU), December 15, 2016 (JP-PS4), April 27, 2017 (JP-Vita)
MSRP: $49.99 (PS4), $39.99 (Vita)

As the name implies, Akiba's Beat takes place in Tokyo, Japan's Akihabara (Akiba for short), a mecca of otaku culture including anime, manga, video games, idols, maids, and electronics. Recreating Akihabara as genu?inely as possible has been a selling point?? for the series, but this is the worst version of it.

The things you can interact with in this game's Akiba are scarce. Having narrow areas to move in with many invisible walls is nothing new, but there are fewer areas than in Undead and Undressed. T?he bigger issue, however, is the lack of people and interaction therewith. Instead of entering stores and seeing a unique shop owner, you just open a lifeless menu. Instead of NPCs walking about, waiting to run or fight at your provocation, here they are replaced with inanimate silhouettes.

Rarely, you'll see one of these colored ghosts shaking his hand, but the vast majority of them are completely frozen and faceless. When you run by them they will utter a single line of dia??logue, but they are wholly non-interactable: you cannot engage in conversation nor fisticuffs with them. In fact, you do not participate in dialogue at all. Even in the main story and sub-events, there is no dialogue nor any sort of romance options.

Not that a game must have romance, ??but people tend to expect it in titles like this, especially when the main story and characters are uninteresting. There are optional sub-events where you follow a quest-line with both main and ancillary characters. These sub-events are divided into chapters per character (eight for party members, three for side-cha?racters) that unlock as the game progresses.

In these sub-events you learn more about the characters and develop platonic bonds with them, but without any dialogue options, it feels tedious. The character writing isn't awful, but it's not exactly Persona. Even the designs are for the most part sub-par. With an attentive eye, one can see that, yes, these characters are gi?ven certain traits no more cliché than other title??s and they complete arcs. However, they just don't stitch together to form any sort of emotional connection. 

Thanks to dual-audio, we don't have to suffer through the English voice acting. Stil??l, I'm not a fan of the liberties taken with the translation. Often times fluff -- typically obnoxious memes or lame jokes -- is added where no such Japanese was used. Where the character may just say something like "I like anime" in Japanese, the translation might be "Yo I'm da anime king boi, I got tons of DVDs. DVDS FOR DAYS!" The translation is error-free, but the extra flavoring is distasteful. Sorry, XSEED. 

The story's premise revolves around people who have unattainable dreams that become delusions and manifest. Those people become stuck in their delusion as the same Sunday repeats over and over. Similar to how you help characters overcome their shadows in Persona 4, Asahi and the gang help people with their delusions. Though rather than having a focused moment of coming t??o terms with reality to overcome the delusion, you just beat up some monsters and literally kill it.

This premise and the overall story are slightly better than that of Akiba's Trip: Undead and Undressed, but the interesting angle of delusions isn't explored enough. Worse yet, scenes seem to drag on forever without much being said. Stripping vampires in the streets is so ridiculous it's easy to forgive the overall weak story. Akiba's Beat plays it a little too straight-faced, too safe.

Ultimately, the story isn't intriguing on its own, but where Akiba's Trip had fun gameplay to make up for its lackluster tale, Akiba's Beat complements the bland st??ory with bland play.

The phrase "game feel" makes me shudder with its vagueness, but if someone said Akiba's Beat had "bad game feel," I would understand. Everything feels stilted, stiff, and slow. You can walk or run, but nothing in between. The jump is at a set hang-time, with no ability to control its height. You can't make it over small objects due to invisible walls. NPC dialogue locks to the side of the screen where it is quite hard to read in the half-second it's there. Of course Pinkun, the li??ttle mascot bear thing, is this game's Navi, constantly repeating the same things whenever you pass something. He can be replaced by a maid early on, but they'll all ask you to save every time you're within 10 feet of a save point (incidentally where you spawn when you fast travel, if you ever need to in this small map). Even minor things like the map -- which cannot be zoomed in or out -- are tedious.

Combat doesn't feel much better. Unlike Akiba's Trip where you fought people on the Akiba streets actively, Akiba's Beat sends you through Persona-like dungeon areas with uninspired monsters in separate battl??e zones. Attacking either on the field to get an advantage or in battle feels slow and inhibiting; you're locked into the animation and the couple-second paralysis your controlled character suffers afterwards once you attack. But fear not, for mashing square (standard attack) and sometimes X (skill) until your foe is dead is about all you can do. There's a special "Imagine" mode you can activate, but not much changes: you're still just spamming square like Kratos.

The themed delusionscapes are interesting, but it just feels like every other JRPG, especially Persona. This game is not meant to be Akiba's Strip, but it could have learned something from Strip's originality and "I don't care what anyone thinks, this is what I'm doing" attitude. I don't understand why'd they stop something unique to make such a cookie-cutter RPG. Perhaps some were put off by the sexual themes. Is some??thing dull yet safe really the better alternative? No. A game made for everyone is a game made for no one.

Likely due to the budget, there's just not many things to do in Akiba's Beat. There are no weapons, no poses or walking animations, no ca??mera, no mini-games, no dialogue opti?ons or romance. There is armor in the form of clothing, but there isn't any cosmetic change (only in DLC), and every store of a certain type (clothing, items, etc.) sells the same stuff. This game easily could have just been a visual novel and not change much.

Every now and then there will be an enjoyable moment; a small gag that makes you grin or the moment when you step back and notice what's happening on screen -- J-pop playing and hearts flashing as idols and maids fight an Optimus Prime-looking robot while a little puffy dog cheers you on -- and you think "this is the most Japanese thing since the end of Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker." Most of the time, however, you will be bored and?? looking at your phone.

Even if Akiba's Beat had a higher budget and more time, it lacks any unique features, mimicking what other games do, but worse. For 40 hours you'll mash X through slow dialogue, then run around a dead environment, and then do more dialogue until you get to mash square against sponges. If Akiba's Trip is the shirtless jock who kicks the door in with beers in hand, Akiba's Beat is the timid cocktail-dr??inker standing i??n the corner with one hand in his pocket. Technically functional, but spiritually dead.

_{[This review is based on a retail build of the game prov?ided by the publish?er.]}

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What a hill to die on

Localization is the process of adapting incidental details of a work to better fit the region it is being exported to. Sometimes it is done inelegantly, like when Pokemon's Brock holds a handful of onigiri (rice balls wrapped with dried seaweed) and expresses his love for jelly-filled donuts, but generally it is a useful process for pre??serving the intent of? the original work.

Let's take the upcoming Akiba's Beat, developed by Acquire and published by XSEED. One of the people who worked on localizing the game is Tom Lipschultz, though he is not credited in the game, nor will he be credited in future XSEED-published games, he explained in a lengthy forum post.

There was a sign in Akiba's Beat that read "KKK witches," a play on Japanese light switch manu??facturer "NKK switches." It is not an intentional joke about the Ku Klux Klan; it's similar to when an anime has a burger joint in the background that's an upside down version of McDonald's golden arches. Take the familiar thing (NKK is ??Akihabara-based), then make sure you don't get sued. XSEED told Acquire via email that three sequential Ks, to an American audience, references the Ku Klux Klan.

"Acquire immediately responded that they had no idea the sign could be taken that way in English," XSEED executive vice president Ken Berry told Kotaku. After ??being informed of the meaning, and without further conversation, the develo?per changed the sign to read "ACQ witches."

Lipschultz decided to take a stand, however, calling the rewritten sign, "the most egregious change" in the game. Even though it was not an intentional reference by the developer, he thought, "'KKK witches'? was pretty funny for its shock value" and considered, "the forceful change of this as an act of censorship," even though it was an accident on the developer's part and the developer chose to make the change when they were informed of the different meaning in this region.

Accordingly, Lipschultz asked to be removed from the Akiba's Beat credits, though partly because he initially thought XSEED had asked for the sign to be changed, rather th?an Acquire having done so of its own volition. Because of XSEED company policy, which Lipschultz knew in advance, he will no longer be credited on any XSEE?D game.

"Since the whole XSEED team is credited on each project by our official company title...we cannot be selective about which games people are credited in. If someone is ashamed to be associated with one of our games, then they are ashamed to be associated with the company as a whole and won't be credited in future games eit??her," it reads.

Lipschultz, who previously almost quit the company over the character ages in the horny titty anime brawler Senran Kagura Burst being changed from the original 15-years-old to 18-years-old during localization, said of his "KKK witches" stand, "I feel it's a good symbolic gesture on my part, showing my commitme??nt to my principles on this matter."

Localizer Asks???? To Be Removed From Game's Credits After Developers Erase KKK Reference [Kotaku]

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So, can you move? Uru, Karen.

Here I was starting to think people take game roles more seriously when this new Akiba's Beat story trailer came along and slapped me in the face. Its predecessor, Akiba's Trip: Undead and Undressed, also ha??d a?? pathetic English dub, but since it was dual-audio I just played with Japanese audio. Looks like that's what we'll have to do with this one as well.

Seriously, even kids could do a better job. It's so bad you'd think they're making it awful on purpose...Wait?, is that the point? Are they banking on the fact that no one who plays these games would want to listen to an English dub anyway, or that they can't afford good voice actors and instead try to make it as intentionally awful as possible for extra publicity? Have I been swafferdonked?

No, they couldn't possibly think it's good publicity to show how bad the English voice acting is. But surely they are aware, especially after Akiba's Trip. Might as well not even have the English track if its so bad ????you'll make everyone use the Japanese audio track.

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New trailer

If you were starting to wonder when the successor to the Akiba's Trip games was going to release in west, the answer is finally here: May 16 in America and May 19 in Europe, 201??7. The ESRB has rated it T for teen while it is PEGI 12 in Europe.

Akiba's Beat does not appear to be as well received as Akiba's Trip: Undead and Undressed, but what I've played of it seems decent enough for a budget title. Anime is anime is anime, but the ??warm color palette resonates with me as well.

Releasing more than a month after Persona 5 is wise, but when RPGs are such long games (especially Persona) is that enough of a time cushion? 

The post Akiba’s Beat release date announced for May appeared first on Destructoid.

Pin cushion?

You may not be ripping clothes off of demons, but Akiba's Beat still looks like one of the better role-playing experiences in that mid/low-development budget range. Whereas many games, including Akiba's Trip, just give you a soundtrack or keychain for pre-ordering, European buyers will receive a "Pinkun Plushie?."

I had to do a triple-take before remembering that?? Pinkun (Pin-kun) is the mascot character of the game, and that they weren't trying to give out pin cushions. Though, no one will stop you if you want to store your pins in Pinkuns head.

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ATT and Dubya Bee, sittin' in a tree

In case you hadn't heard, AT&T announced Saturday that it intends to purchas??e Time Warner, Inc. for $85.4 billion. The deal is far from final, and if approved, wouldn't take place until sometime in 2017. It's an absolutely enormous merger, and it appears AT&T is looking to diversify its business so that it controls both t??he distributi?on and the creation of entertainment content. Assuming it's approved though, what effect would the merger have on gamers?

To start with, AT&T would be acquiring all of Warner's intellectual property, including DC comics, Harry Potter, and the movie versions of the Lord of the Rings universe. All of Warner's movies, TV divisions, and cable channels would become part of AT&T, meaning both The Big Bang Theory and HBO shows like Westworld and Game of Thrones could be changing hands. Warner owns the Turner group of channels, so anything you watch on Cartoon Network (including Adult Swim), TNT, TBS, or CNN would be affected. This also includes Warner's extensive back catalog, movies and shows as diverse as Christopher Nolan's Inception, DC TV shows like Flash and Supergirl, old Looney Tunes cartoons, Freakazoid!, and even Space Jam.

It'd also be in control of Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment (WBIE), one of Warner's most profitable divisions. According to the Washington Post, this division alone brought in over $2 billion in revenue last year.?? WBIE owns TT Games (formerly Traveler's Tales), Rocksteady Studios, NetherRealm Studios,? Monolith Productions, Turbine, WB Games Montreal, and WB Games San Francisco.

TT Games is responsible for every Lego game, including the toys-to-life game Lego Dimensions. Rocksteady is best known as the creator of the Batman: Arkham games, though it has said that Arkham Knight will be the last entry in that series. NetherRealm makes the Mortal Kombat and Injustice fighting games, and was also responsible for the Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe mashup that came out eight years ago. Warner acquired the rights to the Mortal Kombat franchise along with many others when it purchased Midway Games in 2009. Turbine creates and maintains Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) games, including Dungeons and Dragons Online, The Lord of the Rings Online, and upcoming MMOs set in Game of Thrones' Westeros and Batman's Gotham City. Monolith Productions are known for the Condemned and F.E.A.R. franchises, as well as 2014's well-received Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor. 

Warner also handles publishing for some games it doesn't produce, like The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt last year. Finally, Adult Swim Games isn't directly owned by WBIE, but is related because of its link to Cartoon Network. It produces its own games, like Robot Unicorn Attack, and has also handled publishing for games like Jazzpunk and Headlander.

In the short term, I'd expect very little to change if the merger is approved. The old adage "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" applies here, and Warner's games division is one of the bright spots on its ledger sheet. You may see some older Warner content delisted, at least temporarily, as the new rights holders reevaluate contracts. If you haven't downloaded the Freddy Krueger DLC for Mortal Kombat or started watching Animaniacs on Netflix, for example, now might be a good time to start. It's also possible that retro games published by Bally/Midway or Midway Games on services like Steam or Nintendo's Virtual Console might be affected. These include classics like Joust, Rampage, and Defender as well as slightly more recent titles like the Cruis'n games, Mortal Kombat, NBA Jam, and Gauntlet Legends.

TT Games might be the studio most impacted by the merger. Disney, which owns Marvel, has allowed it to use Marvel characters like Spider-Man and Hulk in its Lego games, but a new corporate overlord might cause Disney to reexamine their relationship with TT Games. The same is true of Universal, which owns the movie rights to franchises like Jurassic Park. Disney already gave EA exclusive rights to make games in the Star Wars universe after its acquisition of Lucasfilm in 2012. It's speculated that the success of Star Wars Battlefront may have contributed to Disney closing down the Disney Infinity toy and game line, since Disney saw a greater profit from Battlefront than Infinity generated, and assumed none of the risk.

That being said, TT Games is probably generating a healthy profit for Disney with games like Lego Marvel's Avengers, so it's likely to be left alone. Disney's current deal seems to keep their characters separate, preventing Captain America, Chewbacca, or Donald Duck from joining Lego Dimensions. Even without other studios' properties, TT Games would still have access to all of Warner's other intellectual property in its games, which is how Sloth from The Goonies can share screen space with Legolas, Ron Weasley, and Batman in Dimensions. Incidentally, this is also why there was a Midway Arcade level pack in Dimensions earlier this year.

The other part of the merger that might affect gamers has to do with how you get your internet. This would mostly only impact people in the United States, though AT&T offers internet services in Mexico as well. AT&T purchased DirecTV in 2015, and that made it the largest provider of pay-TV services in the country. It's the third-largest internet service provider in North America, behind Comcast and Charter Communications. Time Warner Cable isn't a part of this deal, since it was purchased by Charter earlier this year. After its merger with DirecTV, AT&T announced DirecTV Now, a competitor to Sling that offers live and on-demand base packages with premium add-ons, including much of DirecTV's current satellite content. This is intended to appeal to cord cutters, allowing them to watch cable programs without needing a cable subscription. In a similar vein, we might see AT&T offer benefits to customers who use more than one of its services. It's likely that Warner's content would end up being the enticement to get people to choose AT&T's U-verse internet over one of its competitors. For example, in the future you might enjoy a few days early access to Shadow of Mordor 3 ?if you preorder it using your U?-verse internet access.

It's worth repeating that nothing is final yet, and any merger would likely have to pass antitrust scrutiny from the federal government. If the acquisition is successful, AT&T would have a huge advantage in rolling out anything Warner's studios produce, including games. As NBC noted, "It's almost a throwback to when the film studios owned the movie theaters. Except the film studio makes 55-minute epic fantasy TV segments and the movie theater is now your iPad." It'll be interesting to see how this all shakes out. I, for one, never dreamed I'd see enormous corporations battling to the death over the rights to fantasy realms and fictional universes. What a time to be alive.

The post How will the AT&T / Warner merger change games? appeared first on Destructoid.

Roll for initiative on September 4

I've written before about how much I've enjoyed the Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) over the last several years. For me, one of the highlights of every show is the live Dungeons & Dragons game featuring Penny Arcade's creators, Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins, PVP creator Scott Kurtz, and a rotating cast of geek roy?alty. The games follow the exploits of the Acquisitions Incorporated adventuring group as they fight monsters and seek pro?fit. 

Fathom Events recently announced that this year's game would be live-streamed to theaters across the country, and tickets are available now. Writing on the Penny Arcade website, Jerry Holkins advised that anyone attending the stream will receive "a real??ly solid Acquisitions Incorporated adventure to take ho?me and play with your own group that’s tied into the campaign."

If you've never watched one of these shows, you might be surprised at how compelling it can be. D&D at its core is all about collab?orative storytelling, and all of the people involved with this are professional storytellers. The secret sauce here is Dungeon Master Chris Perkins, who?? keeps the story moving along but gives the other participants enough slack to be funny and true to their characters.

The first game started all the way back in 2008 and was recorded in podcast form as a promotional tool for Wizards of the Coast, which owns the Dungeons & Dragons brand. In 2010, a live version of the podcasts made its debut at PAX West, and it quickly became one of the most popula?r events at the convention.

Once the live shows proved popular, Wizards of the Coast began providing more and more elaborate props and scenery for them, including character-appropriate costumes for the participants. Previous guests have included Kris Straub, Wil Wheaton, and Morgan Webb filling the fourth cha??ir at the table. For the last couple of years, Patrick Rothfuss h??as rounded out the crew.

_{[I was in the audience for this show. My friend nearly got pegged in the head by Wil Wheaton's D20 at 38:47 of part two. We looked for it in the darkened theater after the show, but for all we know, it's still in there.]}

D&D is one of the clearest influences on video game development, and the merging of role-playing game mechanics with other genres was one of the defining trends of the last generation of console games. If you're interested in getting caught up with the story before the show begins, there's a weekly YouTube series that will continue to run all ??the way up to the big show on September 4.

See Acquisitions Incorporated in Theaters! [Penny Arcade]
Dungeons and Dragons Live from PAX West [Fathom Events]

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But it's a PlayStation exclusive for now

While in Los Angeles last week for E3, I had an opportunity to sit down with Acquire's Kohta Takano, the director behind the Tenchu and Way of the Samurai studio's latest project, Akiba's Beat.

Akiba's Beat is a continuation of sorts of Acquire's Akiba's Trip series, taking pla??c??e in a similarly detailed recreation of otaku paradise Akihabara, Tokyo, but with a different premise and genre.

This time around, Acquire is using the setting as a backdrop for an action role-playing game starring a new group of teens who must rescue the city from a mysterious individual who is causing time to loop endlessly in a Groundhog Day-esque event dubbed the "Repeating Sunday."

During a brief hands-off demonstration, I noticed Takano was playing the game with an Xbox 360 control??ler and asked if th?e game was running off a PC. "Yes," he replied, while mentioning the title has only been announced for PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita at the present time, and adding that the build was designed with the express purpose of showcasing the game at E3.

I then pointed out Akiba's Trip: Undead and Undressed was eventually released on PC after debuting on PlayStation systems and inquired if history would end up repeating itself with the latest entry of the Akiba's family. "We're thinking about it," Takano said, with a head nod, before turning h?is attention back to the television screen and continuing on with his presentation.

Akiba's Beat will arrive in Japan this? autumn and in North America this w?inter.

The post Akiba’s Beat team ‘thinking about’ PC port appeared first on Destructoid.

Brace yourselves, E3 is coming

XSEED Games revealed its sp??icy E3 lineup today, and it includes some things we already knew about and some things we fig??ured XSEED was working on but couldn't yet say for sure.

Among the new confirmations are Fate/Extella: The Umbral Star, a PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita action game based on Type-Moon's Fate series of visual novels (and everything else, really). Should everything go to ??????????????????????????plan, th??at will be released on western shores sometime this winter.

Also coming in the cold months (or hot ones, if you live Down Under) is Akiba's Beat, PS4 and Vita action role-playing game from Tenchu-maker Acquire, that looks like a mashup of Persona 3 and Akiba's Trip.

Finally, the new Bokujō Monogatari (the series formerly known as Harvest Moon) is a-comin' west as Story of Seasons: Trio of Towns for Nintendo 3DS in the year of our Lord 2017.

Those will join previously-?announced XSEED titles ??like The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel II, which is slated to arrive on PS3 and Vita this fall, this summer's Nintendo 3DS port of Corpse Party, and the trio of indie games XSEED announced last week (Shantae: Half-Genie Hero, Touhou: Scarlet Curiosity, and Exile's End) at? the publishe??r's E3 booth in Los Angeles next week.

The post XSEED localizing new Story of Seasons, Fate/Extella, and Akiba’s Beat appeared first on Destructoid.

The Vita loses another exclusive

Once upon a time, it seemed as though many Japanese game studios were perfectly content to ignore the PC market. But times a?re a-changin'. More and more all the time?, eastern developers are porting their wares from consoles to computers in an effort to broaden their reach.

The latest game to embrace this trend is Mind Zero, the Persona-esque dungeon crawler from Acquire (Akiba's Trip, Tenchu, Rain) and ??ZeroDiv is coming to Steam next month, on March 8.

The role-playing game originally released for the Pl?ayStation Vita in Japan on August 1, 2013, and was published by localization outfit Aksys Games in the West the following year.  

For more information on Mind Zero, you can check out our full review right here.

The post Mind Zero dungeon crawls to PC this March appeared first on Destructoid.

Where is my mind?

At a glance, it's easy to look at Mind Zero and compare it to the Persona series given its art style and the narrative advertised within early trailers and promotional materials. And you wouldn't be incorrect in declaring that it ?borrows several elements from the popular role-playing s?eries.

Still, it's unfair to call Mind Zero a copycat when its most fundamental elements are much different from the Shin Megami Tensei spinoff. That doesn't mean the game is? actually all that impressive, however. Acquire and ZeroDiv's Vita RPG features an interesting premise, but in the end it's ??a weaker product than those that obviously inspired it.

Mind Zero (Vita)
Developer: Acquire, ZeroDiv
Publisher: Aksys Games
MSRP: $39.99
Released: May 27, 2014 

Step into a world where bizarre creatures known as MINDs occasionally cross over into the human dimension from the Inner Realm and take over hosts. In Mind Zero, they're found forming contracts with a group of unassuming high school students after they stumble into a strange old shop where th??ey're faced with a harrowing decision: choose a MIND "weapon" or be killed.

The obvious choice is to go with a MIND, but perhaps that's a curse in itself, as they become bound to their host. The group of teenagers is tasked with getting to the bottom of a rash of crimes caused by those who have misused their own MIND contracts. In a world where the police think they're dealing with some? sort of illegal drug, this is easier said than done.

The plot does an admirable job of holding your attent?ion, despite the fact that some of the characters do their best to push you away -- especially protagonist Kei, whose apathy is frustrating. The rest of the cast, including Sana Chi?kage, suffer from voice actors delivering repetitive dialogue and performances that grate on the nerves.

It's tough to stay engaged when the game seems to do everything it can to ensure that you're not, but the premise is interesting enough that you'll want to push through and continue playing to see what kind of resolution awaits. And given the fact that there's an overabundance of talking and exposition, this is an impressive feat. Thankfully, you can switch between the ?Japanese and English voice tracks for a reprieve from th?e latter's irritating nature.

But of course, you won't be standing around reading and listening to the characters talk amongst themselves the entire time. Mind Zero is comprised of story missions and dungeon-crawling. You can engage specific characters' stories to find out more about them, and earn extra equipment and sojourns back into dungeons. Otherwise, most of your time is spent excavating dungeons via a first-person perspective. This is a strange design choice, but one that does enhance the "alien" feel that Mind Zero exudes out of nearly every pore.

As you travel throughout each dungeon's grid in four directions, you'll come across treasure chests, enemies, and exits to subsequent floors. It's akin to other games of this ilk like Demon Gaze or even Shin Megami Tensei: Soul Hackers, but it will take some getting used to if you're a Persona fan entranced by the possibility of this being similar -- this is one way in which it's incr??edibly div?ergent.

Combat is a turn-based affair with three party members. You can attack, defend, use items, attempt to escape, or use "burst" move twice. MINDs step in much like the Stands of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, protecting those who have summoned them and absorbing damage. They can also go on the offensive, with elemental attacks and special moves that you can use to fell enemies much quicker. The variation between MINDs is interesting, as are their attack illustrations, but using them is nowhere near as dynamic or ?engaging as, say, the Personas they resemble.

The one saving grace that Mind Zero has going for it is its absolutely gorgeous character designs, which channel the work of the great Kazuma Kaneko. It's a sight to behold, and undoubtedly one of the main reasons buyers will have been drawn to the project in the first place. Regrettably, multiple typos and a bizarre font choic??e brings forth the feeling that the editors didn't care about creating a translated project so much as a finished one.

Mind Zero is in no way a travesty, but despite glaring shortcomings, it's very average. A premise that sets the stage for an exciting thrill ride gives way to a rickety dungeon crawler with little to offer in the way of combat genius, looting, or even life sim elements. A game will collapse if there's nothing in it, and while it's not "nothing" per se here in Mind Zero, there certainly isn't enough good to recommend it as even a Persona competitor, let alone imitator.

The post Review: Mind Zero appeared first on Destructoid.

NIS America publishing brawler for PS3 and Vita in October

Akiba's Trip: Undead & Undressed is confirmed for Europe, NIS America announced today. The PlayStation 3 and Vit?a game will launch in the region on October 1??0.

Set in Tokyo's famous electronics district, Akihabara, the brawler sees players take on a legion of vampires that prey on the city's otaku. In order to do so, players will need to expose the demons to sunlight by evis??cerating their clothes. Yes, you read that cor??rectly.

XSEED previously revealed plans to distribute Undead & Undressed in North America. The publisher has not specified an official release date for the ter??ritory, but it's coming sometime this summer.

An enhanced edition of the title debuted on PlayStation 4 earlier this month in Japan. It has thus far garnered a tepid domestic sales, moving just north of 3,600 units in its opening week. This versi?on has yet to be confirmed for a western release.

The post Akiba’s Trip: Undead & Undressed coming to Europe appeared first on Destructoid.

Persona-like

Mind Zero is a dungeon crawler wherein high?? schoolers with mind powers battle against a seedy government, alternating between the real and spirit world. And it's out today in North America, physical and digital, and will be out in Europe right after, exclusively as a digita??l title.

The post Hope you don’t mind: Mind Zero now available on Vita appeared first on Destructoid.

But will XSEED publish it here?

Akiba's Trip: Undead & Undressed is a game where you, erm, beat the clothes of vampires. You see, their skin is weak to sunlight, so forcibly removing their clothes makes perfect sen??se actually.

Earlier this year, XSEED revealed plans to publish the PlayStation 3 and Vita brawler in North America this summer. The localization house says Undead & Undressed is its largest voice-over project to date, as nearly 10,000 lines of dialogue were recorded for the English-language release. 

Meanwhile in J?apan, Acquire is developing a PlaySta??tion 4 version of the title, which will launch on July 3. No word on whether XSEED has designs to bring that rendition stateside, though.

The post Akiba’s Trip 2 acquires a flashy PlayStation 4 trailer appeared first on Destructoid.

The God of Destruction is back for a spinoff

The latest installment in Acquire's What Did I Do To Deserve This, My Lord!? franchise (formerly known as "Holy Invasion of Privacy, Badman!") sadly isn't a dungeon s??trate??gy game like its quirky predecessors. But it still looks all right, for a match-three game.

No Heroes Allowed: No Puzzles Either! is available starting today as a free-to-play title for PlayStation Vita. To that end, the PS Blog mentions "There will also be a slew of add-on content for purchase, ranging from power boosts and expanded monster qu?arters to digging abilities."

I'm mostly just hoping that if the series' standard gameplay formula has been done away with for this game, the fun dialogue is still there. It wouldn't be a proper Badman game without it.

No Heroes Allowed: No Puzzles Ei??ther! Out Today on PS Vita [PlayStation Blog]

The post Download No Heroes Allowed for free on PS Vita appeared first on Destructoid.

XSEED wants you to save Tokyo by disrobing vampires

The sweltering summer heat is just around the corner and with it comes Akiba's Trip: Undead & Undressed, an action rol??e-player with a surprising??ly apt title.

Tokyo's famous electronics district, Akihabara, has been ove?rrun with vampire-like creatures that prey on the city's otaku and it's up to you to stop the undead menace. To do just that you'll need to expose the vile monsters to sunlight... by shredding their clothes. Yes, really.

So yeah, XSEED is targeting a summer launch in North America. The "flashy" PlayStation 3 and Vita title wi?ll have a physical release and feature Japanese voicework. The publisher is also currently looking into the possibility of dual-audio.

The post Akiba’s Trip: Undead & Undressed flashing PS3 & Vita this summer appeared first on Destructoid.

Killer Instinct and Strider developer purchased by e-commerce company

It's been known that Amazon has had its eye on diversifying into the gaming space. Not just from a sales standpoint, but for publishing and producing its own unique titles. And now, the mega online retailer has made its first major move to that g?oal by purchasing independent developer Double Helix Games.

In a statement just after the news broke, Amazon provided some insight into the deal: "Amazon has acquired Double Helix as part of our ongoi?ng commitment to build innovative games for customers."

Founded in 2007, Double Helix Games has made some notable titles from a variety of different franchises -- such as Silent Hill: Homecoming, Front Mission Evolved, and most recently its work on the well-received Killer Instinct reboot.

With Strider still on the way, its unclear what the future holds for Double Helix?. Stay tuned to Destructoid for more information as it develo??????????????????????????ps.

Am??azon Acquires Video Gaming Studio Double Helix Ga??mes [Tech Crunch]

The post Amazon acquires Double Helix Games appeared first on Destructoid.

Hydroeclectic

Sony has a stable of impressive top-tier game franchises -- Uncharted, Killzone, God of War, the kind of blockbuster productions every console needs to open eyeli??ds among the mainstream users. I, however, will remember Sony's impact on this generation in terms of wha??t it delivered in the shadows of its titans. 

Flower, Journey, Unfinished Swan -- the less glorified g??ames that gave the PlayStation 3 more personality and charm than any of its glossy, big-budget properties. Games often as beautiful as? they are bleak, understated games that nonetheless make more of an impact on the player than any billion-dollar explosion could.

Games like Rain, a latecomer that nonetheless deserves to be counted among the PlayStation 3 games that?? truly m?attered in the last five years. 

Rain (PS3)
Developer: PlayStation CAMP, Acquire
Publisher: Sony
Released: October 1, 2013
MSRP: $14.99

Rain is the story of a?? little boy who accidentally becomes invisible. More than that, the town that once was so familiar is shrouded in darkness, assailed by a downpour of rain, and plagued by mysterious beasts intent on doing him harm. Visible only when the rainfall covers his body, he comes into a contact with a similarly afflicted girl, and together they must try to find their way through the storm and avoid the sinister forces out to get them. 

PlayStation CAMP's tale is a simple one, but it's delivered with a subtlety and poignance that manages to hit the right note, whether it aims to m??ake you sad or delighted. With no voice acting to speak of, the narrative unfolds by way of text placed stylishly around the game's world, something I always appreciate in a game, but one that can prove just a touch distracting during the more platform-oriented sections. Neverth??eless, it's a pleasingly presented, thoughtfully told story that ends on a most enamoring note. 

Drawing from platformers, stealth, and puzzle games, Rain smartly turns its central conceit into a variety of interesting ideas, never dwelling on one neat trick for long. The unnamed boy cannot fight?? back against the beasts that stalk? him, but he is only visible to the creatures when standing directly in rain. The most common way of avoiding peril, therefore, is to sneak past by walking underneath roofing, canvas, and anything else that provides shelter from the water. Of course, since the boy is invisible in such circumstance, spatial awareness (and an eye on wet footprints) is crucial to ensure one knows where they're going. 

New twists on this idea are dripped into the adventure as time progresses. Creatures themselves start wandering, invisible and deadly, in sheltered areas. Large puddles can give the boy's position away, while mud clings to him and renders him visible in any condition. Some monsters must ?be lured away from passages by noise, or huge passive crea?tures may be walked under for moving cover. Worst of all, the lurching Unknown is constantly in pursuit, and his regular harassment makes for some surprisingly frightening sequences. 

When the boy and the girl unite, they'll need to cooperate to progress. Rain doesn't go out of its way to be too inventive here, with a whole bunch of block puzzles, boosting to higher ledges, and mutual opening of gates providing some standard environmental hindrances. Despite the relatively unimaginative puzzles, however, it's a unique pleasure to watch the two invisible friends interact with and help? each other. 

Rain excels at providing moments of serenity punctuated harshly by jarringly sad or scary occurrences. When the game's calming music is playing, and the children are padding through the drumming of the rain, it's hard not to smile. Such elegant sequences are, however, tinged with? fear of the Unknown rearing its misshapen head, or soured by the evocatively animated sadness and confusion of the silent heroes. Bittersweet is a word best reserved for experiences such as this. 

While Rain is a largely pleasant experience, some blemishes dampen the adventure in less literal ways. Controls are a little finicky, with the boy sometimes either feeling not responsive enough for his jumps, or too responsive and twitching off a ledge or away from an interactive object. A few of the chase and stealth sequences are overly reliant on trial and error too, albeit without it being as smartly woven into the design à la something like Limbo. There's nothing that will ever keep you stumped for more than a minute or two, but sometimes t?he game suffers from making you try to predict what the developers were thinking. 

It's also a shame that, for all its clever little tricks, none of Rain's ideas quite feel as fleshed out as they could have been. The first time you see just a mudstained pair of feet clomp in a roofed corridor, it's a joy. However, such unique spins on the central premise are showcased once or twice, and never really given much time to shine or reach their potential. Some of the simpler uses of Rain's gimmicks seem to exist purely to showcase how clever the whole idea is, and make you look at ?the cool visual style. While it is, indeed, cool, it?? can be frustrating to think about how shallow the use of these ideas are, when juxtaposed against the possibilities. 

I will also say that, as much as I found the Unknown to be an intimidating enemy, the sheer number of times he pops up to spook the player tends to have a diminishing effect over the cour??se of the game. By the end of it, he's come back more times than Jason Voorhees, and he starts to make eyes roll rather than close up tight. Still, he's ve?ry unsettling for the first half of the game. 

Nevertheless, Rain is a pleasure, and its visuals are indeed sublime. Aside from the general enjoyment one gets from the weather and invisibility effects, the profound animation is what really makes Rain as go??rgeous as it is. The way the children slide on rain-slicked tiles, or cover their faces from the incoming? water make them feel incredibly alive, giving them a sense of believability and sympathy that most photorealistic, Hollywood-acted games would kill to achieve. 

The art desig?n is impeccable??, too, most notably with the monsters. Abstract, and yet unnervingly familiar, the vaguely formed beasts that hound the player are wonderfully designed to resemble common animals while maintaining an alien and utterly cold form. It's an effective style, that works well against the great, dreary, yet hauntingly pretty background. 

Rain is not quite the model of refinement that some of its PlayStation Network peers have been, but it's an overwhelmingly amiable, effectively cultivated little adventure. Calming and scary, amusing and sorrowful, Rain is a game that jogs calmly through a gamut of emotions, rather than sprints headlong into mood whiplash, and it's incredibly difficult to ever dislike it, even during its twitchier moments. Rain is, above all, a most balmy experience. 

??Also, it's nice to see the PS3 finally getting a rain-themed exclusive with a good story.

The post Review: Rain appeared first on Destructoid.

Are you alive?

When Acquire started teasing a new PS Vita game with satellite photos, Jonathan Holmes suspected they who made Way of the Samurai were making a sequel to PSN Centipede classic The Last Guy. I, on the other hand, figured it was a sequel to their PSP vampire-stripping "classic??" Akiba's Trip. We were both wrong.

Acquire, in collaboration with Class of Heroes developer Zerodiv, are making Mind 0 (stylized as MIND≒0), which Famitsu is calling a "stylish school dungeon RPG" taking place in two worlds, a regular one and a freaky "Mental" one filled with crazy demonic versions of ourselves. Players and their crew will summon Persona-esque alter egos to do turn-based battles using a power called MIND, which stands for "Mental Inside Nobody Doll". Settings include various urban Japanese locations, including Akihabara, Yokohama, Omiya, and Nip??pori. The four satellite photos and GPS coordinates from ??the teases are of those locations' respective train stations.

Besides that, Acquire also revealed some of the Japanese voice cast, including a number of notable anime performers including Tomokazu Sugita (Kyon from The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya), Rina Sato (Negi from Negima!), Yuichi Nakamura (Gundam 00's Graham), and Takehito Koyasu (Zechs from Gundam Wing).

So far, so Persona, but that's not exactly a problem ?in my book, at least. 

Acquire announces Mind 0 [Japanator]

The post Acquire’s next PS Vita title is called Mind 0 appeared first on Destructoid.

Orgar-orgar-orgar-rhythm!

The mysterious strategy rhythm game Orgarhythm is here, and boy does it have a pedigree. First you have Tak Hirai (Space Channel 5 Part 2, Shenmue, Meteos) at the development helm, and Ayako Minami in charge of music direction. Then you add equal parts Acquire and Neilo, and stir until you have a concoction of hype.

Orgarhyhtm is a mix of rhythm and strategy -- two genres that don't normally take place in the same space. The development team has stated that the marriage is a bit hard to explain, but I don't think it's too difficult a concept to grasp, provided you have experience in the genre. To be blunt, it's a 3D Patapon.

You with me so far? Onto the game!

Orgarhythm (PlayStation Vita)
Developer: Neilo, Acquire
Publisher: XSEED
Released: October 23, 2012
MRSP: $29.99

Orgarhythm functions very similarly to a lot of classic RTS games, but there's one major caveat: you play the role of a god controlling your army, and that god walks a set, non-negotiab??le path through each map. As you stomp through each area, you'll have to take things on as they come, as you don't get a zoomed out view of the rest of the world -- as a result, things are very frenetic, and more action-oriented than most strategy titles.

The god is able to deal with his enemies with his three troop colors: blue, red, and yellow. Blue counters red, r?ed counters yellow, and yellow counters blue. All of the enemies are set up the same way, so you'll have to order them accordingly to both take o??ut opposite colors and stay out of harm's way when the AI sends counter forces back at you.

All three troop colors have the option to utilize hand-to-hand combat, ranged a??ttacks, and siege weapons. Essentially, you're playing a strategic game of rock paper scissors (color) inside of another game of rock paper scissors (troop choice).

For instance, you may need red melee troops at the drop of a hat, then quickly order out some blue ranged troops somewhere else on the map. On higher difficulty levels, it can get intense, and as a result, more satisfying. Even though he is essentially on-rails, the god himself can use five abilities, which range from buffs, to heals, to a "heavenly bolt" attack. Your god does have a health meter?? -- if it r??eaches zero, the game is over.

To order your troops around, you have to hit their icons with the beat, earning a "bad," "good," or "excellent" rating for each choice. If you hit all "excellents," your troops level up and grow in number. I can't stress how cool this is, as it keeps you on your toes constantly. If you can't keep a beat, your army is going to be weak, and you will struggle. As you can imagine, Orgarhythm is best played with high-quality headphones.

Once you get used to it, it's not t??erribly taxing. All you have to do is choose your color, type, and tap the area where you want them to go. If this does sound too confusing, there are 10 tutorials to get you acclimated to how the game operates, so it doesn't just throw?? you to the wolves.

First thing you might notice after jumping in is that there are no button inputs. Everything, even the menus, are controlled entirely with touch controls -- and you know what? They actually work pretty well. When you hit that groove, and everything comes  up "perfect," Orgarhythm is not only fun, but it's rewarding as well -- kind of like a tactical Demon's Souls.

Each stage features the god stomping through the level to the beat, encountering various enemy troop types (which mirror your own), until you reach the boss encounter at the end -- which, in my opinion, is easily the best p??art of the game.

B??oss fights get really intense, to the point where you're ordering all three colors around at breakneck speeds, changing their tactics, positions, and troop type on the fly. They often take you by surprise as well; the big bads themselves are varied fro??m stage to stage, all of which require different tactics.

For a musical game, the soundtrack obviously has to be good -- thankfully, it's beautiful. Featuring a solid selection of electronic and rock tracks, the music will not only get you pumped, but ease you into hitting the beats at the right time. Oh, and the better you do, the more musical tracks are laid onto the level. Ayako Minami's experience really shows here and I'm eager to pick up the Orgarhythm soundtrack as we speak.

The only major problem, gameplay wise, is that doing the same thing over?? and over can be draining if you don't increase the difficulty. At the end of the day, like most strategy games, you can still distill the experience to "ordering around troops," and with the god's limited role/requirement to stay on-rails, gameplay variety isn't really the name of the game here. More than a few times I found myself putting the game down for a while -- but when I reached those boss fights, it was all worth it in the end.

Additionally, Orgarhythm is very short. (On normal, you can beat it in under five hours.) So unless you plan on going the score attack/completionist route, you probably won't get your money's worth. If you choose to dig, however, you'll find a ton of new skills to earn (48 in total). There's also a Co-op and Versus option available via ad-hoc local play, but sadly, I was not able to test this out since I don't know anyone within 20 square miles that owns a PlayStation Vita.

If you're willing to go at it again and again with Orgarhythm, you'll find that it's a pretty rewarding experience, and you'll have a ton of fun in the process. Sadly, your purchasing options are limited: you cannot obtain the game through retail means in the US, as it's only available via download.

The post Review: Orgarhythm appeared first on Destructoid.

NIS America has plans to release Acquire's latest multiplayer action title, Clan of Champions, later this summer on the PlayStation Network in bot??h North America and Europe. Later this year the game will also launch on Steam.

Clan of Champions is a medieval style hardcore multiplayer action game where you'll play as either a human, elf, or orc, taking on missions in either solo or 3-player co-op play. There is also a? 3-vs-3 battle mode to enjoy. NIS says that you can strip your enemy of their gear in mid-battle and take it as your own to use. 

Does this seem like something you?'d get down with?

The post NIS announces Clan of Champions for PSN and Steam appeared first on Destructoid.

You'll see that they mean business with this new Way of the Samurai 4 trailer. There's the typical blowing sakura?? petals and sword slashes in the beginning, sure, but the action and pace continually ramp up as the trailer progresses, eventually ending in a bombastic harmonizing semi-scream from dueling female vocalists. Wo??ah!

Way of the Samurai 4 is due out this summer as a digit??al download for PS3. 

The post Cut? a fool with this new Way of t??he Samurai 4 trailer appeared first on Destructoid.