Kemonomimi Master Race

Its title might be a bit of a mouthful to pronounce, but Utawarerumono is a good time. I've sung its praises over the years, and despite some missteps, I'd recommend the core series wholeheartedly...bar one problem: The original story is only available in English as a mediocre TV series adaptation. Atlus localized the two-part sequel for PS4 a couple of years back as Utawarerumono: Mask of Deception and Mask of Truth, but the 2002 original was too old and janky to make for a viable p?ort, leaving it Japan-exclusive?? but for some technically illegal fan translation patches.

Thankfully, developer Aquaplus opted to remaster the original recently as Utawarerumono: Prelude to the Fallen. An English version is on its way to PS4 this year courtesy of NIS America (who also published the Utawarerumono: ZAN spinoff).  

Which brings us to the even better news: All three games will be getting PC ports from ShiraVN (a team based at Kantai Collection publisher DMM games), starting with Mask of Deception and Mask of Truth debuting on Steam this January 23. Prelude to the Fallen is "planned" for PC this year, presumably coming sometime after NISA brings out the console edition. ShiraVN promises that the PC editions will preserve the lo??calization and translation work from the existing console editions, which is reassuring considering poor translation is a common complaint of Steam users perusing the store's "foreign language" offerings. 

All in all, good news for all three existing Utawarerumono fans (hi!). If you're new to the franchise and want to see what all the fuss is about, I'd actually recommend holding out for Prelude to the Fallen if you can stand to wait for it. Mask of Deception works decently as an entry point, but by necessity it spoils some background details that will blunt some key points in Prelude to the Fallen's story. 

The post The complete Utawarerumono trilogy is headed to P?C appeared first on Destructoid.

Fate/Stay Night: Heaven's Meal

Type-MOON's Fate franchise is a many-headed beast, but it's not all Holy Grail Wars and gacha hellscapes. Sometimes it's just a bunch of superpowered friends gathering for a nice meal. That's the premise of Today's Menu for the Emiya Family, the chillest, comfiest Fate/Stay Night spinoff there ever was. In it, nobody's fighting, dy?ing, or confronting t??heir inner death wish. Instead, they're just cooking delicious-looking food for New Year's Eve, birthdays, or just dinner.

Now it's coming to the Nintendo Switch, in game form. Announced by Aniplex and dated for a Spring 2020 release via the Japanese eShop, Everyday♪Today's Menu for the Emiya Family is billed as a "cooking adventure" game, involving little minigames, recipes from the manga and anime, and a great excuse to lovingly render Saber, Rin, Sakura and other Fate girls happily eating things.

I'm already sold on the idea, but personally I'm hoping they also have some kind of "Cookbook Mode" option for play. Some of my happiest Nintendo DS memories involve Personal Trainer: Cooking and following along as it taught me to make minestrone soup and an extremely Americanized version of Japanese katsudon. It would be pretty sweet if the new year brought me a way to both indulge my Fate&n??bsp;fandom and my cooking nostalgia simultaneously.

Check out the announcement trailer for the game below, courtesy of Gematsu.

The post The best Fate/?Stay Night spinoff is getting a cookin??g game on Switch appeared first on Destructoid.

Chaldea on Lockdown

There are only five days left until the New Year, but Fate/Grand Order isn't about to give its players rest. Right on the heels of its grind-heavy Christmas lotto event, FGO's website and social media feeds went into a dramatic lockdown, restricting network access while "the i?nquiry" progressed, with restoration promised by December 31.

Players logging into the game after a brief update also noti??ced a banner promoting a new main story chapter, titled "Part 2 Prelude: Prologue/December 26th, 2019." Access to the chapter is restricted to players who've completed the last portion of "Part 1," the "Final Singularity" chapter.

Presumably, the "Part 2" being referred to would be the next main campaign. This year's "Epic of Remnant" chapters were more of a 1.5, and based on the Japanese edition of the game (which is about 2 years ahead in terms of content), Part 2 will be titled Fate/Grand Order: Cosmos in the Lostbelt. Veter?ans who've played ahead a??re promising a wild ride.

Incidentally, a news post from the website also promises a localized English-language release for the one-shot episode Fate/Grand Order: Moonlight/Lostroom, an a??nimated prologue to Part 2 that originally aired at the ??beginning of 2018.

The post Fate/Grand Order d?elivers a Christmas miracle with i?ts Part 2 prologue appeared first on Destructoid.

Here comes the San(ta)

Oh sure, another month means yet another Fate/Grand Order event to grind, but this one's a biggie! Indeed, it's time for the third of FGO's Christmas special grindfests. This one is titled Merry Christmas in the Underworld, and sends Masters to the la?nd down underground to see what, besides climate change, is making Chaldea's Christmas revelries scorching instead of snowy. To that end they'll farm, farm, farm, tons of tokens to trade for draws from a goody-filled Christmas lottery box. Lotto events like this are the most generous times of the year for FGO, so players with time to spare will want to partake as much as they can to build a supply of much-needed materials. 

To sweeten the pot, the game's also giving away a new free 4-star rarity Servant, "Attila the San(ta)". She's a sheep-riding, mustachioed, Christmas-themed incarnation of everyone's favorite civilization-wrecking ancient alien, Altera (aka the "Wriggle Wriggle" meme girl some??one puts in every FGO post's comments).

Players with quartz up the wazoo can also roll the premium gacha for the divine favor of  Ereshkigal, the Mesopotamian goddess of death. She's a 5-star Lancer, and also happens to look almost exactly like another FGO Servant, Ishtar. As to why, the reasons would technically count as spoilers for ther currently airing Fate Grand Order: Babylonia anime series, so I'?ll refrain from divulging them here.

Merry Christmas in the Underworld kicked off at ??midnight today, and ??will run until midnight PST on Christmas Day (December 25).

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Foreigners welcome

Fate/Grand Order players have been having a hectic quarter, with back-to-back events threatening their supply of stamina-refilling Golden Apples. First there was Shimousa, then this year's Halloween event, then a rerun of last year's Christmas event, and then a useful, English-exclusive Thanksgiving giveaway period, and now, the masters of Chaldea will be returning to the New World, in Pseudo-Singularity IV: Heretical Salem.

Apparently based on the famous Salem Witch Trials, a spate of colonial-era persecutions of people accused of witchcraft, Salem is the fourth and final chapter of FGO's Epic of Remnant story campaign. Salem will also see the addition of the twelfth (and so far last)of the game's p??layable Servant classes: Foreigner. Defined as wielding powers "from beyond human comprehension", Foreigners are built to k??ill Berserkers, taking half damage from the class and dealing double damage to it. Interestingly, they're also infused with a dose of self-loathing, as they take double damage from other Foreigners, as well as from Alter Ego-class Servants like Mecha Eli-chan from the Halloween event.

The chapter should ?have gone live as of a few hours ago, but players eager to power through the missions or use their quartz on the banner are advised to think carefully. Delays in the content schedule compared to FGO's leading Japanese version allows rather detailed prediction of wh?at's to come, and besides this year's Christmas event, other very desirable Servants are close to the horizon, including a second Foreigner-class character.

In any case, masters still looking to be bewitched by FGO's wife casino can ch?eck out a trailer for the expansion below, or log in and feel the magic.

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Spooky Scary Credit Card Charges

We're not even a fortnight from the last significant Fate/Grand Order release, but time (and the event schedule) wait for no master. Plus, it's already late October, which means the yearly Halloween event wouldn't be timely if the game ?waited any longer to debut it. 

Which brings us to Halloween Strike! Demonic Climb ~Hime?ji Castle War~, the new seasonal event for this year. As with the previous two years' Halloween bashes, players will be reunited with famed serial killer Elizabeth Bathory as yet another batch of interlopers disrupts her plans to have a fun ol' Halloween Trick-or-Treat parade. Players will complete objective-based missions to progress up a spectral recreation of Japan's famous Himeji castle in search of the perpetrator, and eventually unlock access to "Mecha Eli-chan", a robotic incarnation of everyone's favorite wannabe-idol-slash-prolific-murderer. Notably, Mecha Eli-chan is the first "Alter Ego"-class Servant to be made available for players not rolling on the game's premium summon banners. Alter Egos debuted in this year's Fate/Extra CCC crossover and do bonus damage against Cavalry-??class enemies, making them versatile picks for mixed-class battles.

Premium gacha rollers will also have a new 5-star Assassin-class Servant to target: Osakabehime. With a name that translates roughly to "The Princess Of The Walls", Osakabehime is based on a famous youkai spirit that allegedly haunts the corridors and crawlspaces of Himeji castle. Naturally, FGO portrays her as a nerdy shut-in who prefers painting plastic?? models and playing video games to going out and being a productive member of heroic spirit society.

The event kicks off this week, on October 23rd??, at 0100 PDT, and lasts through November 7th. Check out previews of Osakabehim?e and Mecha Eli-chan's Noble Phantasm attacks below.

The post Fate/Grand Order’s Halloween event crawls out of the woodwork this week appeared first on Destructoid.

Any service game that aims to keep the lights on needs a steady flow of new things to do to survive, but even by those standards English-language Fate/Grand Order players have had a rather busy 2019, with content drops or?? events occurring almost weekly. Now a big new addition to the main story has just gone live.

Titled Pseudo-Singularity III: The Stage of Carnage, Shimousa ~Seven Duels of the Swordmasters~,  the new chapter is the third of four in FGO's Epic of Remnant main campaign.  The chapter is set in 17th-century Japan's Shimousa province, and will feature a plot inspired by the 1960s samurai fantasy novel Makai Tenshou, with FGO's version of Miyamoto Musashi will sta?r here, in place of the novel's Yagyu Jubei. 

Naturally, the?? new additions extend to the playable roster of "Servant" characters, with the latest wave being drawn from Japanese history and folklore. Aside from the new Servants, returning limited-edition characters are also on the banner this month, including Minamoto-no-Raikou, Shuten-douji, and Musashi herself making up

The chapter went live at midnight on October 10, and will be available to any player that's finis??hed the first main story campaign. Check out a sweet anime commercial for the arc below.

The post It’s a Samurai Showdown in Fate/Grand Order’s new story chapter appeared first on Destructoid.

Vampire Savior

When reviewing a game, it's a given that one would play the game being reviewed to learn more about it, but it's decidedly less common that just posting a game review would make for a similar learning experience. That's what happened when I put up my initial take on Code Vein last week.

And just what did I learn? Mainly, I learned that there's a surprisingly diverse range of opinions on just what is most important in determining how much - or how little - a given game is like Dark Souls. And it's in those differences of standard that a player can decide whether Bandai ??Namco's vampiric action-RPG can live up to its clearest inspirations.

Code Vein (PlayStation 4 [Reviewed on a PS4 Pro], Xbox One, Windows)
Developer: Bandai Namco Games
Publisher: Bandai Namco Games
Released: September 27, 2019
MSRP: $59.99

This isn't to say I retract the claims I made previously. In terms of its actual structure, and the What-Do-You-Do-In-It that defines most games, Code Vein is very Dark Souls. 

And yet, I can concede that tone, narrative, storytelling, and the nebulous nitty-gritty of "combat feel" can and do matter quite a lot, not just to individuals, but to the more qualitative task of deciding whether a person who liked (or hated) Dark Souls might like (or hate) Code Vein. In those respects, more stark dif???ferences emerge.

Code Vein is exactly the sort of game that won't let silly things like "coherence" and "making sense" get in the way of its constant attempts to be awesome and over-the-top as often as possible. This is a world where the vampiric apocalypse hit hard enough to reduce the world to curiously arranged piles of rubble and craters, but somehow Tokyo's hottest goth and visual-kei haute couture stores survived long enough to gif??t everyone left a pretty rad clubb?ing outfit.

It's a world that, unlike Souls games, where most narrative and world-building details are l??eft unstate, the whole narrative is out-and-proud in its TV anime-style delivery. Amnesiacs, restorative hot springs, mysterious strangers with silver hair and golden eyes, and misused English terms abound. The act of getting new powers to use in combat involves a walk down a literal "memory lane", watching voiced tableaus of a companion or a stranger'?s tragic and affecting backstory.

It's a game where draining an enemy kicks off a cool cinematic takedown, where your awesome sci-fi gas mask is replaced by an another, even more awesome devil gas mask that you use, along with monster parts growing out of your armor, to tear into an enemy, drinking its "ichor" fuel your magic. Code Vein oozes style, and does its level best to let you be as stylish - or silly - as you want to be, ??thanks to its highly detailed character creator.

Already in the week after release, cus?tom creations resembling popular anime and game characters have made the rounds on social media. It's not quite as crazy as the editor found in, say, Soul Calibur VI, but it's more substantial than most of its genre peers. Better yet, the game seems proud of that fact, evidenced by little interaction points in the hub area that lock a character into a bespoke pose (such as lounging on a couch) and adjusting the camera angle to generate good screenshots. It's as if the developers didn't quite have the resources to implement a "true" photo mode, but just knew they had to sup??port players that would want to take hot screenshots of th?eir work. 

Narratively, Code Vein does keep a ??few bits and pieces close to the chest, keeping big-picture background details in the margins just long enough to spark curiosity and, importantly, the tiny bit of investment one needs to start being interested in a game for its own sake, rather than just in how it compares to the other things one could be playing.

If Code Vein is a radical departure from its inspiration when it comes to tone and storytelling, its mechanics will be familiar to those acquainted with the God Eater franchise, with which Code Vein shares a number of key figures, including Director Yoshimura Hiroshi and producer Iizuka Keita. God Eater, which owes as much of a debt to Monster Hunter as Code Vein does to Souls, plotted a similar basic strategy: Preserve and replicate some key ideas and core structural/mechanical elements, make it more approachable and permissive, then juice t??he aesthetic with plenty of appealing anime nonsense. 

In combat, Code Vein plays fast and loose, with weapons being much lighter and quicker to swing than their size would imply. Movement and dodge timing is closer to Bloodborne's end of the spectrum, favoring movement and flexibility over precision timing, stamina management, or any form of "block-and-poke" fighting. Bosses and even minor heavies swing wide and fast, with some larger foes having a nearly 360-degree coverage in their big swings. This would feel even less fair than expected for a Souls game, but Code Vein compensates by adding plenty of safety nets, not least of which is the constant presence of an AI-controlled buddy. These buddies don't quite last long enough in a pitched fight, but against most normal?? foes they're highly effective - perhaps a tiny bit too much so, given they can kill normal enemies a tad too quickly, maki?ng it annoying to try to augment one's Ichor supply using drain attacks or parries. 

Other safety nets include a convenient mini-map, more closely-spaced checkpoints, and powers that add extra damage mitigation, preemptively block status effects, and even teleport players back to the last checkpoint they used, with all their gathered Haze points in hand. Not to mention that over time, most players will accumulate so many Gifts, Blood Codes, and bonuses that they'll likely find an ideal, game-breaking combination of equipment and abilities that trivialize any encounter. And it's absolutely fine with that. It knows that the best Souls games (and Souls-likes) included being exquisitely "breakable" as part of their appeal, and Code Vein makes it easier to start on this ??indulgent path, opting not to punish the players who do so. ;

The level design, however, does leave something to be desired. Though the game's internalized the appeal of Dark Souls' multilayered, looping environments, the aesthetic is pretty flat more often than not. Perhaps it's because modern urban ruins are inherently less interesting than fantasy or period settings, but no single location stood out to me too much. Some standouts included a fog-chocked, flooded underground car park that had me dropping chemical lights to mark out safe zones, or a cliff-side labyrinth that was actually the dried-out bay, full of shipwrecks and dead coral. The optional "depths" dungeons aren't much help either, being even more mundane than the main areas and oriented around providing a convenient space to farm for cash and materials. The variety is there, but ultimately Code Vein's levels are spaces to fight enemies and grab loot, rather than real or interesting-feeling places. 

More esoterically, the game also doesn't bother to try very hard to implement a novel online component. Players can search for "distress signals" to join others' games or open their own up, but these liaisons are brief and generally unmemorable, mostly a form of finding extra help for a tough boss fight or to further trivialize a stage. There's nothing as uniquely interesting as Dark Souls' covenants or Demon's Souls' Old Monk in Code Vein's multiplayer blood, and I can't help but think th??at's a missed opportunity.

Other slightly baffling rough edges and seemingly cut corners help to bring down the mood. Characters don't emote much outside major story beats, and in many cases don't even animate their mouths when talking. The UI can make it hard to track which powers a player has unlocked, or explain adequately why a given equipment or stat choice might lock away access to a particular ability or gear piece. Even the hot springs area, which nominally serves as a spot to look up codex entries or review the story so far, doesn't let players replay viewed cutscenes, even though it feels like it totally should be the right spot for a "theater mode". Little though they may be, they do tend to crop up and underline that Code Vein?? isn't quite up to the same level as the games it?? emulates most closely.

So is Code Vein like Dark Souls? In some key senses, yes, but in others, it's quite different, and it's in those gaps that it manages to put some daylight between itself and its forebears, establishing its own place in an increasingly crowded field. It's a stylish action RPG that replicates the structure of Dark Souls while leavening its strict attitude towards mastery with fallbacks and safety nets, mak??ing it easier to pick up and persevere with. Players willing to embrace its over-the-top aesthetic and narrative sense - while overlooking its shortcomings in level design and combat tuning - will find an enjoyable, relaxed romp, a fun trifle whose spirit elevates it f??rom crude clone-job to loving send-up.

Ironically for a game about undead vampires, there's a strong pulse and beating heart at Code Vein's core.

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

The post Review: Code Vein appeared first on Destructoid.

Also, box

Today's contest is a sweet relief from the norm -- win a Halloween-themed package from Japan Candy Box!

I don't ??think I've ever given away food before! There was that one time I gave away plush ding don?gs, but I don't think that's the same as the snack cake.

Well, today I'm changing all of that. I know y'all like weird stuff from Japan, so how's about some of their exotic sweets? Japan Candy Box was all like, yo, want some candy and I was all like, yeah, and they were all like, well get in this van. So I did, and they gave me lots of candy! Too much. I've got extra. So I'm giving the rest to you. I'm saving you a trip to the van by giving away a Halloween box from Japan Candy Box!

Y'all should know how this works by now. This is a mystery box service where you get cool nerdy stuff every month! They do themed ones, for su?re, but yo it's Halloween. That means it's the best time of year for candy, and the best time of year ??for themed treats. Suck it, Easter. Japan Candy Box collects all of the tastiest, most colorful, weirdest stuff from Japan and sends it to your doorstep so you can experience all the cool stuff from the Land of the Rising Sun. Like green tea and matcha and stuff like that.

Look, I'm not creative, that's all I got. Just deal with it. It?'s candy, and everyone likes candy. Couldn't be easier?.

We're giving away one Halloween-themed Japan Candy Box so ??you can get into the holiday spirit. To enter, use the widget below. There are a bunch of different ways to enter, so just click around and you'll find something that suits you. Or do them all for more entries. That's kinda like cheating, but legally.

We've got one prize to split between Dtoid and our sister site, Japanator. Winner will be drawn October 21. There are no shipping restrictions since JCB is sending out the prize, so int??ernational entries are welcome! Just ?if you have any food allergies or whatever look into what you're eating, yeah?

Japan Candy Box has multiple subscription models if you're interested in checking them out, so head over to their website to see what they've got to offer!

Destructoid Japan Candy Box Giveaway

The post Contest: No tricks, all treats, in this Halloween-themed treat fro?m Japan Candy Box appeared first on Destructoid.

Cut from the timeline

When reviewing a game, it's usually a good idea to try to ask the question "Who is this game for?" Sure, it's a bit presumptuous, but attempting to figure out what theoretical audience a given game is trying to serve can shed light on what it's trying to do — and consequently,? help a reviewer decide?? how successful the game is at meeting that goal.

Utawarerumono: ZAN's answer to that question should be relatively simple: It's for fans of the venerable Utawarerumono franchise, right?

Th??at answer might be a slam dunk in most other situations, but given its shortcomings, I'm not all that sure, anymore.

Utawarerumono: ZAN (PS4 [reviewed])
Developer: Tamsoft
Publisher: NIS America
Released: September 10, 2019
MSRP: $59.99

If Utawarerumono: ZAN's target audience has become weirdly hard to suss out for this reviewer, its design and structure are more easily grasped: ZAN is a Dynasty Warriors-style 3D brawler based on Utawarerumono: Mask of Deception, half of the two-part sequel released back in 2017.   

Following in the footsteps of licensed brawlers like One Piece: Pirate Warriors, Fire Emblem Warriors, and Arslan: Warriors of Legend, Utawarerumono: ZAN pits the cast of Mask of Deception — namely protagonist Haku and his passel of animal-eared allies — against large crowds of? easily-dispatched goons and critters, punctuated by th?e occasional boss fight. 

Any player that's touched a musou-style game over the years, especially ones from Tamsoft's own Senran Kagura franchise, will find ZAN ??instantly familiar. The rhythm of rotating light, heavy, and special strikes quickly becomes? second nature.

ZAN's main twists lie in the inspirations it takes from the core tactical combat system of the mainline Utawarerumono games. Players can deploy up to four characters in any given level, able to switch between party members freely once the battle is joined. This level of control helps make the experience feel less solitary, as well as lending each group a greater feeling of mechanical depth than provided in the typical Warriors-alike. The main games also touch ZAN in the way they inspire characters' special chain attacks. Folding in an element of rhythm-game-like timing, chains increase damage and bestow special effects on each character's unique combos. The combos can be expanded upon and customized, their eff??ects increasing in potency as players level and gear up between battles.  

Further twists on the venerable formula arise in the game's approach to mission design. Rather than the sort of map-conquest firefighting dynamic that's underpinned everything from Dynasty Warriors Gundam to Fate/Extella, most of Utawarerumono: ZAN's campaign missions follow an objective-based model, having players barrel from waypoint to waypoint, taking out specific characters, slaying certain numbers of grunt enemies, or even destroying objects and colle?cting items, all the while hassled by large numbers of mooks in need of a beatdown.

Though varied and creative, this simplistic approach to structure ends up undermining the game, in that it means there's usually no reason to use every tool available to the player. There's not much point to, say, maximizing one's gear or secret attacks when a good button-mashing will do the job nine times out of ten. This also tends to hamstring the effectivene?ss of the more support-oriented characters in the game, with the design favoring direct combatants with lots of crowd-control techniques. 

If merely being a somewhat unremarkable musou game were Utawarerumono: ZAN??'s only sin, that would be one thing, but the hard??er thing to gloss over are its crimes against the very franchise it's based on.

One might assume that the game is designed to tickle the nostalgia of Utawarerumono superfans the way Hyrule Warriors or the Smash Bros. roster can, but the level content doesn't hold up to what a fan would expect. The limited set of characters available doesn't come close to covering the breadth of the franchise, and the campaign's plot only covers points from the first, more boring half of the core story, with little deviation or original plotting. Further, the storytelling itself lacks style, with the visual novel scenes lacking the impact of the original. The rest of the story is told via narration, skipping over character interactions and key plot points to result in an experience so condensed it makes a Cliffnotes pamphlet look like an unabridged transcript. I never thought I'd have to suggest it, but even the thoroughly underwhelming Utawarerumono: The False Faces anime adaptation is a better ga??teway to the franchise, if ??a prospective newcomer just couldn't be bothered to play the games themselves.

Lastly, this one might just be me, but for whatever reason, some combination of the animations and camera seemed to trigger a motion sicknes??s for me that I don't usually feel with this sort of game. Folks with sensitive stomachs may wish to see some footage of the gameplay before deciding to buy.

Ultimately, it doesn't feel like Utawarerumono: ZAN effectively serves any part of its potential audience. It's inadequate as a gateway game for newcomers to the franchise, and despite some decent graphics and interesting musou-gameplay twists, ??it lacks the substance to attract and retain existing fans, while its storytelling shortcuts border on outright under??mining the appeal of the original material.

It feels like a game created mainly to remind people that the franchise still exists, rather than actually satisfy those who'd deign to play it. Utawarerumono fans are better off waiting for Utawarerumono: Prelude ot the Fallen (a remake of the first game in the trilogy due out next year), while newcomers are advised to pick up Mask of Deception and Mask of Truth, or even just watch the anime instead. 

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

The post Review: Utawarerumono: ZAN appeared first on Destructoid.

Waifu Bartending meets Waifu Gunfighting

Alcohol and firearms rarely make for a sensible matchup, but they often do make for an entertaining one. So what do you get when you combine two games that couldn't more intimately alcoholic and trigger-happy? You get the upcoming crossover event between Girls' Frontline and VA-11 Hall-A!

This pairing between Sukeban Games' retro cyberpunk bartending adventure and Mica-team's hit mobile tactical RPG seems rather unlikely at first glance, but on further examination, the two games are surprisingly alike, in spirit, if not in mechanics. VA-11 Hall-A stars a bunch of quirky characters in the middle of a futuristic dystopian metropolis who get by and sling rounds of drinks. Girls' Frontline stars a bunch of quirky characters pat?rolling warzones on the fringes of dystopian metro-zones who...also get by and sling rounds of a mo??re literal sort.

As you may have noticed, our collaboration with @SukebanGames's VA-11 Hall-A: Cyberpunk Bartender Action will commence on August 6th! It's time to mix drinks and change lives, Commanders!#GirlsFrontline pic.twitter.com/i3FAT8NDO3

— Girls' Frontline-EN Official (@GirlsFrontlineE) July 22, 2019

The event promises a number of useful goodies like costumes, dorm decorations, and supplies, but the headline additions are no less than six new playable "T-dolls" (read: characters) based on the VA-11 Hall-A cast.

The unlockable characters include shotgun-packing tanker Dana Zane, Dorothy Haze with a versatile submachine gun, bespectacled hacker Alma (who totes laser drones but counts as a "machine gun" unit), the Cat Boomer Stella (whose drones are best for sniping as a rifle unit), and Sei, an ex-"White Knight" cop who wields a Judge Dredd-like handgun. Cyberpunk bartender Jill Stingray herself is also playable, but serves cold booze instead of hot lead. Other additions include a series of combat and narrative missions, and even a minigame replicating the core gameplay of VA-11 Hall-A itself. 

The event will kick off on August 6th, and runs through August 26th, leaving plenty of time for interested VA-11 Hall-A fans to check out Girls Frontline (and vice-versa!). Those leery of trying an anime gacha game may be heartened to know that unlike many of its peers, Girls Frontline is fairly friendly to free players. New characters are acquired mainly with in-game resources rather than microtransaction currencies, which are reserved for trying to acquire cosmetic costumes and decor. You might even enjoy its core story of very depressed androids wielding - and named after - vintage real-world ?guns, as they try to make it in a world that at times seems built like their own personal trauma palace.

The post Mix drinks and change lives with Girls’ Frontline and VA-11 Hall-A’s crossover appeared first on Destructoid.

Now this is podracing!

Australians and other residents of the deeper southern hemisphere may be midway through their winters right about now, but it's sunny and bright where it matters - inside mobile gacha games like Fate/Grand Order, whose English edition just debuted its second annual summ??er ev?ent.

Titled Dead Heat Summer Race, the new event breaks from last year's tropical island coloniza??tion getaway by leaning into a desert rally race - the Ishtar Cup - hosted by none other than everyone's favorite Mesopotamian-deity-slash-possessed-Fate-alumnus. 

Opened earlier today, the event will have players e??xperiencing silly missions and grindy battles to "promote" their favorit??e pairs of servants in a race across the desert.

For their trouble, they'll receive g  various ?goodies like Craft Essences, ascension materials, and an exclusive 4-Star Rider-??class version of Ishtar herself.

O?f course, it's not a summer gacha game event without some swimsuit-clad microtransaction bait, so the event also has no less than seven limited summer servants available from the premium summoning banner. Headliners include a Caster-class version of Fate/Extra heroine Nero, and Saber Alter in a motorcycle-riding, gun-toting maid getup.

Dead Heat Summer Raceruns through late August and is ope?n to any FGO player that's completed th??e tutorial chapter.

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It's still the Taisho era in my heart

As promised by the "Sega Propaganda Department", a scheduled livestream has dumped more details about New Sakura Taisen (its tenta??tive title), the upcoming sequel to Sega's long-dormant steampunk series. 

And what details they are! As was announced previously, the new game will continue to be set in Sakura Taisen's "Taisho era," an alternate version of 1920s and '30s Imperial Japan where steam power runs everything from cars to computers to Koubu, demon-fighting mecha suits that look like a cross between VOTOMS and a vending machine. Piloting them are members of the Combat Revues, psychically empowered youngsters th?at also do double duty as performing celebrities. Tokyo's Imperial Combat Revue works out of Ginza's Imperial Theater, ev??en.

New to the series is a time shift (it's set some years after the last game), a new cast (including player character Seijuro Kamiyama), and a shift in genre, from turn-based strategy to what appears to be 3D action. The trailer still does showcase the daily living and ?relationship-building that proved core to the original series, so it looks like those elements are still being kept despite the change to combat. 

Also revealed was a Japanese release date of December 12, 2019 on the PS4, with a Spring 2020 window for international editions. As a longtime Sakura Taisen fan, I'm glad that Sega appears to be supporting an overseas release out of the gate. The fifth game only came over years after the fact under the aegis of NIS America. With luck, New Sakura Taisen - or whatever it ends up being called - will turn out to be cool and revive inte?rest in the ??franchise at home and abroad.

The post The new Sakura Taisen is an actio?n game now, releasi?ng this year appeared first on Destructoid.

You Can (Not) Port

In a surprise reveal, Bandai Namco has announced that Super Robot Wars V and X will be ported to Nintendo Switch and PC. While details are scarce at this time, the company has promised more details will arrive in the upcoming issue of Weekly Famitsu. It should be noted that Bandai Namco Southeast Asia has not announced anything yet, meaning there is a chance these may not release outside of Japan with their English translations, just like SD Gundam G Generation Genesis with its Switch port.

For those unfamiliar with these entries and the differen??ces between them, here is a quick rundown.

Super Robot Wars V released on February 23, 2017 for PlayStation 4 and Vita, and was the first licensed title to be translated into English. We reviewed the game, awarding it a 7.5/10, highlighting a lack of difficulty holding it back. The series ?included are as follows, with franchise debuts highlighted in bold:

• Invincible Super Man Zambot 3
• Invincible Steel Man Daitarn 3
• Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam
  
• Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ
• Mobile Suit Gundam Char's Counterattack
• Mobile Suit Gundam: Hathaway's Flash
• Mobile Suit Crossbone Gundam
• Mobile Suit Crossbone Gundam: Skull Heart
• Mobile Suit Crossbone Gundam: The Steel Seven
• Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny
• Mobile Suit Gundam 00: A Wakening of the Trailblazer
• Mobile Suit Gundam UC
• Brave Express Might Gaine
• Martian Successor Nadesico: The Motion Picture - Prince of Darkness
• Getter Robo Armageddon
• Mazinger Edition Z: The Impact!
• Shin Mazinger ZERO vs. Great General of Darkness
• Fullmetal Panic!
• Fullmetal Panic? Fumoffu
• Fullmetal Panic! The Second Raid
• Fullmetal Panic! (Original novels)
• Evangelion: 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone
• Evangelion: 2.0 You Can (Not) Advance
• Evangelion: 3.0 You Can (Not) Redo
• Space Battleship Yamato 2199
• Cross Ange: Rondo of Angel and Dragon

The following year, on April 26, 2018, Super Robot Wars X released for PlayStation 4 and Vita. We had a review for it as well, awarding it a 7.5/10, citing improvements in mechanics, difficulty, and visuals but a major mishandling of the story for? the series included. The properties included are as follows, with first-time appearances in the franchise highlighted in bold:

• Aura Battler Dunbine  
• Brave Express Mightgaine
• Buddy Complex
• Buddy Complex Final Act: Into the Skies of Tomorrow
• Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion R2
• Cross Ange: Rondo of Angels and Dragons
• Gurren Lagann
• Gurren Lagann the Movie: The Lights in the Sky are Stars
• Mazinkaiser
• Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam
• Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ
• Mobile Suit Gundam: Char’s Counterattack
• Mobile Suit Gundam: Char’s Counterattack – Beltorchika’s Children
• Mobile Suit Gundam F91
• Mobile Suit Gundam Wing: Endless Waltz
• Mobile Suit Crossbone Gundam: The Steel Seven
• Gundam Reconguista in G
• Mashin Hero Wataru
• Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water
• New Story of Aura Battler Dunbine
• Invincible Steel Man Daitarn 3
• Mazinger Edition Z: The Impact!
• Shin Mazinger ZERO vs. Great General of Darkness

It should be noted that while I favor the more recent Super Robot Wars T for newcomers due to solid storytelling, presentation, and difficulty options, that could pot????????????????????????????entially change with these ports.

If V has the expert difficulty mode introduced in X, and the Super Expert mode that a recent patch added to T, then its major flaw will have been addressed. In turn, V will be just as much of an ideal entry point as T is currently.

Of course, that's also assuming these will ports will be released?? to regions that have the translations, so don't get your hopes up yet.

The post Super Robot Wars V an??d X coming to Switch, PC in Japan appeared first on Destructoid.

JIBUN WTF

Granblue Fantasy Versus might be grabbing the headlines as the hot new anime fighter, but the game it's based ?on isn't about to give up all the attention, and its newest targets are otaku with nostalgi?a for the halycon days of 2008 and thereabouts.

Cygames' mobile moneymaker has just kicked off a crossover event between none other than Code Geass, the landmark Sunrise anime series, which recently staged a comeback via a series of feature adaptations and a quasi-sequel Code Geass: Lelouch of the Re;ssurection. The event, which started today, features an original story stemming off the 20th episode of the original series, and starring principal characters Lelouch, C.C., Kallen, and Suzaku, piloting their respective "Knightmare Frame" mecha through the fantasy sky-world of Granblue Fantasy. 

Weird crossovers are, of course, the order of the day for many gacha games, but Granblue is particularly prolific, featuring crossovers with practically anything: Other games (Persona 5), kid-oriented shows like Detective Conan and Precure. Heck, Granblue's skybound universe is one of the few places where warring tribes of idol anime fandom can sit down for peace talks as they grind.

The event runs from today ?through June 26th. If you're not up to joining, you can watch a convenient showcase of most of the gam??e's playable crossover characters (as of late 2018) below.

The post Granblue Fantasy recruits the Black?? Knights in ??Code Geass crossover appeared first on Destructoid.

Every Extend Extra

"What will you do after the end of the world?"

This might be the most answered question in contemporary game history, so rife is the medium with stories set after the collap??se of civilization as we know it. Beyond being a convenient escape hatch from the strictures of law and norm that govern human society, the post-apocalypse can be a space to ask and answer q?uestions whose answers would be unneeded or obvious in any other situation.

It's into this rather crowded niche that Danganronpa alums Yoshinori Terasawa and Takayuki Sugawara launch their latest effort: Zanki Zero: Last Beginning, a survival-theme??d adventure set just beyond the end. Their answer to the above question? 

"Get to the bottom of this, dying a lot along?? the way, and dragging all our baggage with us."

Zanki Zero: Last Beginning (PS4 [reviewed], PC)
Developer: Spike Chunsoft
Publisher: Spike Chunsoft
Released: April 9, 2019
MSRP: $59.99

Post-apocalyptic settings may be a dime a dozen in games, but Zanki Zero impresses with some obvious originality. Players take control of eight individuals marooned for unknown reasons on the mysterious Garage Island, the last refuge for humanity after the overnight annihilation of the rest of civilization. There they must not only worry about the daily grind of just surviving the island and its dangers, but also the greater mystery behind just what happened, and why everyone is on the island in the first place. The narrative quickly shows the roots it shares with the likes Zero Escape and Danganronpa. Wild reveals, dar??k secrets, and sci-fi twists abound, not least of which involves a crazy cycle of human cloning. 

The survivors are, through a weird little device implanted in their navels, tied to something called the "Extend" system, which grants them functional immortality for as long as it takes them to solve the mystery and escape the island (or save the world, depending on who you believe). "Extend" is basically on-demand cloning - They can die over and over again, but ??can be resurrected, popping out of a strange arcade cabinet in a de-aged child form, their memories intact. There's a catch, of course - their clone lifespan is locked to just thirteen days. Even if they sit quietly at home, they'll grow, age, and die in less than a fortnight. The only way to break that cycle is to rebuild the rest of the machine, exploring the island and its labyrinthine ruins for parts. 

In all this, they're heckled and motivated by Sho and Mirai, a Goofus and Gallant-like pair of classic-style cartoon characters inhabiting "Extend TV," a show that plays on monitors scattered throughout the environs and forming the main vehicle for Zanki Zero's storytelling. Sho and Mirai, much like a certain two-tone bear?, give the characters missions, challenges, and at regular intervals, air secret "conquest videos", stylized production delving into each chara??cter's dark, often tragic past.

The writing and characterization of each of the eight cast members are top-notch, and their backstories delve into some surprisingly dark places, contrasting heavily with the absurd, colorful visuals and character designs used to present the scenes. Sensitive topics like incest, suicide, and sexual coercion are explored, putting it beyond the pale for the relatively teen-friendly Danganronpa. The vignettes are made more intense by t?he fact that each?? chapter shifts point-of-view, letting the story be experienced through the eyes and from the thoughts of the character that part of the story is about. 

The narrative may be great, but what I feel more let down by is the game it's all couched in. For all I've said about the story and characters, Zanki Zero's gameplay is somewhat less obviously memorable. Featuring the involvement of Lancarse, creators of Etrian Odyssey, Zanki Zero is structured as a Japanese-style roguelike first-person dungeon crawler. Players will move their party in first-perso?n through the corridors of the island's many and varied ruins, opening doors, solving puzzles of varying complexity, scavenging for supplies, and fighting monsters. They'll also be dying, quite a lot. 

Thankfully, the Extend ??system keeps the game from descending down the rabbit hole of being as torturous as more famous roguelikes and dungeon-crawler titles. Players can pay a cost in points (earned through combat) to revive any dead party members whenever they're back at base, bringing them back to life as children (who eventually grow up, and grow old, over the span of their thirteen-day lifespan). The kicker to Extending is in the "Shigabane," optional bonuses that can be added to a resurrected character (increasing their Extension's point cost), and unlocked by the character's experiences in their previous life. Killed by a boar? The ne??xt live's Shigabane set might improve that character's resistance to damage inflicted by boars or blunt trauma. Died as a kid? Next time around, that character might have a longer Child phase in their lifestyle. Shigabane make for a fascinating inversion of the old saying "Whatever doesn't kill me makes me stronger." Indeed, whatever did kill you last time gives you a chance in your next life.

Besides exploration, there are a host of classic-style survival mechanics to worry about. On the normal and higher difficulties, steadily declining hunger, thirst, and bladder meters force the party to swap out regularly to give the others time to eat, drink, and use the toilet. Ingredients for crafting equipment, cooking food supplies, and building improvements to the home base are scattered throughout the island and ruins, and lots of exploration and combat is neede?d to gather up everything required to ease the grind.

Working to ease the grind can be important, because without it, the combat in Zanki Zero largely fails to engage. Rather than settle for a more traditional turn-based combat system, Zanki Zero keeps it simple...by making everything real-time. Players will strafe and hop their party about?? on the grid-style map, dodging attac?ks and charging their own in an attempt to kill various monsters and bosses infesting Garage Island's environments. Despite the addition of various weapons and more exotic equipment types (with their own risks and rewards), the combat never grows in complexity beyond the rote "dodge, charge, and target weak spots" pattern, and combat really only gets difficult when hemmed in by narrow corridors or facing more than a couple of enemies simultaneously. 

Having somewhat mundane mechanics isn't all bad, but it's telling that the game effectively makes them optional through its difficulty settings. The lowest difficulty level all but removes the need for combat or even survival maintenance, allowing players to treat the experience as the equivalent to a Danganronpa-style adventure game rather than an RPG. I'd normally be quite impressed that the devs were bold enough to allow that choice from the get go (the minimum difficulty was a post-launch addition in Japan), but that the game, through its narrative, can still feel complete and satisfying at this difficulty level (which can be toggled on and off at will) speaks to how little the story and mechanics actually mesh. Most times, Zanki Zero feels like two or even t??hre??e different games welded together and never gelling into a united whole. 

Considering that I've never been all that fond of traditional dungeon-crawlers myself, I found the path of least resistance all too tempting to take, and regularly bopped the difficulty down to no apparent consequences. Sure, that helped me finish, but I'd have liked Zanki Zero to make a case for me to start getting interested in its style of play, rather than allowing me to just opt out of engaging except when pro??fessionally obligated to do so. 

In the end, Zanki Zero: Last Beginning is a credible and entertaining adventure, but its pote??ntial to stand alongside its developers' best works is hampered by its systems and story's inability to come together and elevate the experience beyond the sum of its parts.

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

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But is the world ready?

The material-hungry Masters of Fate/Grand Order may still be days away from finishing off the ongoing "Gudaguda Meiji Restoration" spring event, but the cruel intelligences at Aniplex have opted to announce none other than the next event coming to the game: a collaboration with Fate/Extra CCC, titled BB Strikes Back: Let's Meet In the Digital Sea!. 

Fate/Extra CCC is based on Fate/Extra, the 2010 JRPG that also serves as the setting for Fate/Extella, Extella Link, and the Fate/Extra: Last Encore anime series. Though characters from Extra and CCC, such as Nero Claudius and Tamamo-no-Mae, have been present in Fate/Grand Order's roster since launch, BB Strikes Back is the first full FGO event based on the Extra setting. That's interesting because CCC itself was never actually picked up for localization by anyone, not even XSEED, which released Fate/Extra, Extella, and Extella Link. The reason why not could have to do with the dire state of the PSP market in 2014, or even the dire state of Extra's developer Imageepoch, which declared bankruptcy in 2015. It could also be because CCC is completely bonkers, even by Fate standards.

Starring a quartet of characters who all look uncannily similar to Fate/Stay Night alum Sakura Matou, CCC is a surrealist fever-dream o?f a JRPG with themes focusing on love and sexuality, and all its associated psychodrama. It's the sort of title that proves that even in this day and age, it's entirely possible for a non-pornographic game to be Too Horny For Consumption. Such is its reputation that many FGO fans speculated the event would be skipped entirely in the English version. Luckily, they were wrong.

In any case, as of press time, there's no explicit schedule for the event's release, but Aniplex have already kicked off a pre-release promotion campaign, along with the teaser trailer below. Smart quartz is on it coming out in a week or two. With it will come several new servants, including two entirely new playable classes: The Alterego, represented by CCC characters Meltryliss, Passionlip and the infamous Sessyoin Kiara, and the MoonCancer, a clas?s of one represented solely by the titular BB.

Masters who aren't still busy farming out the remainder of the current event can prep for their first date with CCC by improving their Fate/Extra-related Servants, such as Nero Claudius, Hans Christian And?ersen, Elizabeth Bathory, and Tamamo-no-Mae. 

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Is this the Switch version?

Atlus has launched a teaser website for a project called Persona 5 S. Much like how Persona 5 R ended up becoming Persona 5: The Royal, this new project is likely to be another version of the popular JRPG. Whether this will become the rumored Switch ve??rsion is yet to be seen, but I think ?it is incredibly likely at this point.

What makes me believe that is a date of "April 25, 2019" on the website. Since Joker will be coming to Super Smash Bros. Ultimate sometime this month, we may have just gotten confirmation ??of a port to Nintendo's console and a release date for the new fighter all at once. Or maybe this is a Steam version since the S could mean?? a lot of things.

Gematsu dug into the source code of the? website and found this message:

Calling Card

April 25, 2019.

We will show you a?? new Phantom Thieves that will turn the world's cognition on its head.

We are energized by voices that seek satisfact??ion.

Once a??gain, we will take your heart at the Ryougoku Kokugikan.

—From the Phantom Thieves.

That doesn't clear up much, but something is coming at the end of the month. We'll just have t??o be patient.

Persona 5 S teaser website launched [Gematsu]

The post Persona 5 S gets a teaser site with vague info appeared first on Destructoid.

April Fools, right?..

Whenever something is announced on April 1, you have to take it with a grain of salt. Lots of publishers and developers like to have fun by announcing things that will never see the light of day, regardless of how cool they may be. Others like to mock-up some trailers for features that will never come to be, even if they look fun as hell. For Ryu Ga Gotoku Studios, creators of the Yakuza series, there seems to be a mixture of both go?ing on here.

The only reason I claim that is because series producer Toshihiro Nagoshi stated this past weekend that he'd love to "change the game drastically" for the follow-up to Kiryu's exploits. What better way to mix things up than by making a full-on RPG? As you can see in the video below, it appears as though the next Yakuza game will feature some kind of RPG mechanics.

I'm going to guess this is a mini-game in the vein of what the series has done in the past. It's not unlike Yakuza to include fully fleshed out side-activities for players to dig into, so why can't an RPG with Persona menus be included? This could also be an elaborate joke, but that is a considerable amount of effort to go through just to make people?? laugh.

At any rate, this does appear to be keeping the series tradition of absurdity alive. It's also clearly the same engine the game will be running on, so you know this isn't a total hoax. Maybe we'll see this whenever Shin Ryu Ga Gotoku gets officially unveiled.

New Yakuza game starring Ichiban Kasuga video shows command-b?ased RPG ?battle [Gematsu]

The post Here’s a potential look at the new Yakuza game appeared first on Destructoid.

Talk of sequel not happening

During a live stream event yesterday, Sega's chief creative officer Toshihiro Nagoshi spoke about Judgment and the recent scandal with Pierre Taki. Starting things off on a positive note, Judgment has sold through 97% of its worldwide stock, though a lot of that was a last-minute surge after the news with Taki. Nagoshi was glad for th??ose numbers, but jokingly stated, "Why didn't you just buy from the start?"

Regarding Taki, Nagoshi was surprised to hear he was arrested. After hearing the news, Nagoshi was reading details on Yahoo! Japan while his phone was being constantly rung. Soon after, discussions as for what course of action to take began. The team decided fairly quickly to halt sales of Judgment, though it ultimately came down to a vote.

As Nagoshi said, "There is no correct way to deal with the situation." He then explained how some of the team expressed to him that stopping sales was going too far and unrelated to the game, which Nagoshi did stress isn't unreasonable. "I can see it from both sides. When it comes to why I voted for halting sales, it's because it was just after release. If it was an older game released a considerable amount of time ago??, our priorities may have been different."

Going further, Nagoshi elaborated, "Just because you use a celebrity, it doesn't mean that these kinds of situations are easy to get into at all. Even if our own staff crosses a dangerous bridge, these kinds of things could happen—it is not just celebrities. If you do something bad, you have to take responsibility." Needless to say, any sequel to Judgment ?will not be featuring Taki or his character in it.

As for a sequel, there are currently no plans for such at Sega. Apparently, news was breaking that Judgment 2 and 3 were being written, but Nagoshi squashed those rumors. "Who the hell?" he laughingly said. "They're talking nonsense; absolutely none of that is true."? I wouldn't doubt some kind of follow-up releases in the future, but it isn't happeni?ng just yet.

While I'm still torn over the decision to cut Taki from Judgment, at least Ryu Ga Gotoku Studios is seeing some success with its latest game. The team deserves more success after the last decade of producing quality games. I hope they can eventually get back to creating more experiences like Binary Domain instead of focusing solely on Yakuza.

Judgment sold-through? ab??out 97 percent of stock, reports of sequels inaccurate [Gematsu]

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Adol's got a grappling hook

As announced in early February, Falcom debuted some footage of Ys IX at the Dengeki Games Festival yesterday. It's not as exciting as you'd think, but it does show off the expanded traversal options that Ys IX will have. Adol has something that looks similar to a grappling hook, which is likely one of those Monstrum powers that promotional materials have been hinting at.

There is wall running, as well as gliding through the air, and the general size of the city seems to be quite large. In the live stream from Dengeki, the devs hinted that around 40-50% of the game world will be this city location, which could be a good or bad thing depending on how populated it is. There are also different things Adol needs to do to live within the city walls, seeing as how his form is dramatically different from past Ys titles. I'm not sure exactly wha??t that entails, but the live stream hints at this being a part of the "Guild Management??" system.

There's really not much else to glean from this footage. The game is still in an alpha state, so everything is quite sparse. With Ys IX targeting a fall release, we should ?hopefully be able to see a better-realized version of it in a few months.

Ys IX first gameplay, new details [Gematsu]

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Dancing in 60 FPS

After yesterday's announcement of a release date for Yakuza 5 on PS4, it was only a matter of time that we'd see an official trailer. I was very eager to see how this would run on Sony's current-gen system, considering it ran pretty poorly on PS3. Even if there are some change??s to content, one can't deny that this PS4 port is a massive improvement.

Sadly, there are only seconds of actual gameplay, but the boosted resolution and faster framerate really bring out the carnage that Yakuza 5 has. It'll be so nice to have the chase sequences not pause for 3-5 seconds after you hit a QTE prompt or have a consistent framerate while doing a heat action. That increased speed is what blew me away with Yakuza 0.

We still have no word on a Western release for these ports, but I suppose it's only a matter of time. Yakuza series producer Toshihiro Nagoshi did state that the ports were done for "new overseas fans," so it? would be kind of silly for Sega to keep these as Japanese exclusives.

Yakuza 5's First T??railer For PS4 Highlights Kiryu And The Crew With Plenty Of Gameplay [Siliconera]

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YOSH!

Japan's Weekly Famitsu magazine has revealed that the Yakuza 5 PS4 port will be hitting shelves on June 20, 2019, for 3,990 yen. Being a mere port instead of a remaster, the game will only update the resolution to 1080p and bring the framerate up to 60 FPS. You'll also be able to have the entire Yakuza saga on one console, which is great for spur?? of the moment replays.

While the changes are minor, Yakuza 5 only really needed a boost in performance. Next to Yakuza 0, 5 could be considered the pinnacle of the series. It has a ridiculous amount of content, a super long campaign, and some very satisfying side quests. It's also loaded with action and a staggering amount of different cities to explore. The one weak point is that the story is pretty trash (??possibly the worst of the series).

Still, when you can stomp faces with four different characters and dance around as Haruka, a crappy story is easy to accept. It's not like the acting sucks, so it's at least compelling to watch the cutscenes. Out? of all of the PS3 games, this is the one I'd ?say you absolutely should play.

The post Yakuza 5’s PS4 port heats up Japan this June appeared first on Destructoid.

Made for Mainlining

The last time The Caligula Effect was considered a new game release, things didn't exactly go well for it. 

But a rather mixed reception didn't stop FuRyu and Aquria from sticking with the brand, and the game is now back, remade for modern platforms and renamed to The Caligula Effect: Overdose. 

The on??ly question that remains n??ow is whether or not a do-over will be any good for what was originally an ambitious, profoundly flawed experience.

The Caligula Effect: Overdose (PS4 [reviewed on a PS4 Pro], Switch, PC)
Developer: Aquria
Publisher: FuRyu (JP), NIS America (NA, EU)
Release Date: May 17, 2018 (JP), March 12, 2019 (NA), March 15, 2019 (EU)
MSRP: $49.99

Well, there is also the question of why, after giving the original release a 4/10, I'd be willing to subject myself to it a second time. Truth be told, I always wanted to like The Caligula Effect. Coming from veterans of the Persona series, the PS Vita original could have been a cult hit, but its compromised performance and inability for it to grasp as far as it could reach were just too much to make it worth recommending to all but those most ready to ignore those deficiencies. In a word, when Overdose was announced, I was hopeful that Aquria would be able to remake the game and make The Caligula Effect all it needed to be.

And how did it turn out? I'll say this at first: Most of my complaints as raised in the original review remain relevant. If some factor caused problems in The Caligula Effect, on PS Vita, in 2017, the same things cause problems for The Caligula Effect: Overdose on PS4, PC, and Switch in 2019.

You might think that in light of the above statement, I may as well go ahead, give it the same score, and move on, but therein lies the hope. Overdose may not reinvent The Caligula Effect, but it manages the next best thing, by papering over its flaws? enough to make it worth putting up with. The strategy has largely paid off.

The game itself is much the same as before. A Hatsune Miku-like AI called "μ" (Myu) has gained sentience an?d created a virtual world called Mobius. In it she's trapped the souls of people who can't cope with life in the real world: the broken, lost, or outcast, letting them live out an endless fantasy of anime teenage high school life, away from all of life's problems. Players and their allies form the "Go-Home Club", a squad of students dedicated to breaking out of Mobius and returning to thei??r real lives, whatever the cost. Opposing them are Ostinato Musicians, μ composers devoted to keeping people from leaving Mobius. Both sides are empowered with "Catharsis Effects", externalized and weaponized emotional traumas that take the form of rad body-altering weapons.

The most obvious changes between Overdose and the original Caligula Effect are graphical. Where the PS Vita regularly struggled to render the game's battles at a playable framerate, on a PS4 at least, nary a frame is dropped, even in the busiest and flashiest battles. Anti-aliasing and improved textures, set on a much cleaner and more readable UI, set off the game's stark sense of style and minimalist approach to color. Most everyone in the main cast appears deliberately washed out in grayscale tones, barring a colorful flower-themed accessory. It's a good look, and sets The Caligula Effect apart from the sometimes too-busy aesthetic of its Persona cousins. Overdose can't quite hide the game's origins on the Vita, though. Character models lack much detail or expression in their animation, and the environments and world assets were clearly originally created to work on a lower-resolution screen with fewer polygons to spare. Still, The Caligula Effect: Overdose looks quite a bit better for the transition.

The improved graphics also make it easier to engage with the game's signature feature, its battle system. As before, battles take place in quasi-real time, with the Go-Home Club facing off against the Ostinato Musicians and their Digihead minions (or vice-versa, but more on that in a bit). Combatants can queue up to three actions each cycle, from attacks to buffs or defensive maneuvers, and each takes a specific amount of time to animate. The timing is laid out in a grid, and players can preview each action in an "Imaginary Chain". Timing can be adjusted down to the millisecond, allowing for intricately arranged combos to execute. A typical turn might involve an action that la??unches an enemy up into the air, while allies open fire with ranged attacks to juggle the foe while others charge up special attacks to unleash the moment that foe hits the ground.

Bosses and powerful enemies can complicate matters, as their stat bonuses, abilities, and plain old randomness can sometimes override the results previewed in the Imaginary Chain, allowing for a player's well-laid plans to be fouled up. When it's firing on all cylinders, the battle system can make for exhilarating moments of tactical brilliance, leaving players feeling as clever as if they'd come off the JRPG version of Into the Breach or some other "Perfect Information"-style tactical game. The downside comes?? from the low-level battles, which thanks to the detail of the battle system end up taking far longer than they should. With up to twelve actions needing to be queued and managed per cycle, the system just isn't suited to the grindy design of the average digihead encounter. Thankfully, a newly added auto-battle function allows players to at least steamroll their way through the least engaging battles with less necessary input.

As I mentioned, many of the issues that caused problems for the original Caligula Effect remain relevant today, but Overdose's accomplishment is in re-tuning the whole thing to make those flaws less egregious, and thus easier to lo?ok past. Yes, the level design is still largely boring and maze-like, but an improved mini-map and an added run button make it much easier to navigate around, as well as slip past any unnecessary fights. Yes, battl?es with standard enemies still take too long, but the auto-battle, as well as the faster framerate and loading times afforded by modern platforms make them less of a chore to get over with. Even non-combat systems, like the Causality Link social system, get a once-over, ending up less tiresome to engage with.

For the uninitiated, Causality Links are The Caligula Effect's attempt to expand Persona-like relationship systems beyond the named main cast. Each of the more than 500 regular student characters in the game can be befriended, and can give quests to the player to solve in exchange for equipment or stat boosts, and even join the party on demand for a spot of combat. As before, in practice the system is paper-thin, and predicated on grinding out snippets of seemingly random dialog, only to end up with a boring fetch quest for one's trouble. And yet, even this got a bit of redeeming valu?e added, as the quests themselves were made easier to understand, as well as the friendship-grinding made less onerous. It's still not a system any but the most dedicated completionist would devote time to, but it's at least been improved.

A less mixed bag is the way the narrative's been rearranged. The main plot exists as it did before, but Overdose adds an entire new storyline, allowing players to opt to side with the Ostinato Musicians over the Go-?Home Club, choosing to support them in their mission to keep people from leaving Mobius. Better?? yet, the choice of path doesn't require anything so onerous as a full replay. Instead, the new scenario is woven into the flow of the main plot, with new characters (two for each side of the conflict) and locations added to appropriate points in the timeline. The result is a story that feels more fully integrated, its differences only apparent to people who played the original incarnation.

As for the characters themselves, they work well enough, but unfortunately for fans of nuance and the notion that dark topics need sensitive or nuanced treatment, the writing misses as much as it hits. Each character has a personal arc that can be explored as the game progresses, and each character's arc touches on some pretty heavy topics, taking advantage of the fact that the characters only look like anime high schoolers, but in the real world, could be anyone, of any age or gender. Unfortunately, the ??arcs take a tad too long to really get going, and in the early stages lean too much on cliche stereotypes an??d gags.

Having the Musicians as playable, with their own arcs to explore, helps complicate the narrative in some cool ways, but also has the side effect of having the writing double down on some of its most problematic elements, particularly the way it characterizes one character that can be read as LGBT, or another that's basically just a sex predator. For all the potential The Caligula Effect has to really touch on moving, even important topics and lines of storytelling, it's frustrating to se??e it reach for the lowest-hanging fruit?? as often as it does.

In light of all this, it's oddly ironic that the game is called Overdose. The word implies that w?e're getting too much? of everything, but it works precisely because Aquria have, in their persistence, found a more balanced, even restrained "dosage" of the game's compromised elements.

The Caligula Effect: Overdose is still definitely a flawed, frustrating work. Its shortcomings are many, and might still be too intractable for some, but the refinements and additions have,for me at least, papered over the cracks just en?ough to make it worth putting up with. Patient and curious JRPG enthusiasts will find plenty to appreciate, if not necessarily love, if they try for a quick stay in Mobius.

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

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Steelbooks are my kryptonite

Nintendo will be releasing a special edition of Fire Emblem: Three Houses in Japan. Called the "Fódlan Collection," it will contain special packaging (designed by Kazuyuki Koda), an artbook, a soundtrack selection disc, and a steelbook. It will be available the same day as Three Houses' standard edition on July 26, 2019.

Alongside the announcement, Nintendo showed off a few shots from the artbook and uploaded some of the soundtrack to YouTube. It looks exactly like the stuff that mega fans will eat up. I may not be the biggest fan of Fire Emblem, but I'm all about steelbook cases. I may just have to im?port this version of the game for myself.

Amazon JP currently has pre-orders up for ï¿¥10,778 (roughly $96). They do ship internationally, so there shouldn't be any problem getting one sent to the US.

Fire Emblem: Three Houses Japanese Box-??Art & Fodlan Collection Contents Reve??aled [Nintendo Soup]

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Adol looks edgy

Ys IX: Monstrum Nox will be releasing at some point in Fall ?2019 for t??he PS4. Nihon Falcom broke the news on Twitter with a post that revealed some new concept art for the game. I'm not exactly sure if the shadowy figure is series protagonist Adol, but it certainly looks a bit edgy. His shadow has some crazy arm action going on and it's likely to be some new mechanic in the sequel.

We'll get our first glimpse of footage on March 24, 2019, at the Dengeki Games Festival. I'm excited to see what comes next for this series since they've ?all been relatively good. Hopefully, it doesn't remain a PS4 exclusive.

Nihon Falcom [Twitter]

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You have your (Grand) orders, folks

Fate/Grand Order just recently debuted a new addition its story with the opening of the Epic of Remnant expansion the other day, but that doesn't mean people with the wisdom not to play the game are left out in the cold. Aniplex have something for owners of PS VR headsets, in the form of the English debut of Fate/Grand Order VR feat. Mash Kyrielight, which is a??vailable now ?for the low price of free on the PSN store.

Best regarded as a short experience than any kind of full game, Fate/Grand Order VR contains a set of skits starring FG??O heroine (and Strongest Kouhai), the Shielder-class Demi-Servant Mash Kyrielight. A second scenario, previously exclusive to Japanese PS Plus subscribers, features OG Saber herself, Altria Pendragon. 

The whole thing's been out for a while for Masters with their own Japanese PSN accounts, but it's worth noting that the English release comes with the Altria scenario as well as an English-language dub courtesy of actresses Erica Mendez (Mash, Konosuba's Megumin), and Kari Wahlgren (Altria, Durarara!!'s Celty). That's good because even Japanese audio purists might find it a bit diff??icult to read subtitles in a VR headset.

Even f??olks without a VR headset can benefit, as new free themes and avatars have also been added to the PSN store in commemoration of the release. 

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2/25 Shinjuku Scramble

It hasn't been too long since the Masters of Chaldea finished off Fate/Grand Order's main story quest by blowing up a ton of weird tentacles and putting human history on the correct path, but the fight isn't over yet. Detailed at this weekend's Fate/Grand Order USA Tour event, the game's next major storyline, titled Epic of Remnant has just gone ??live after an? impromptu maintenance break on Sunday evening.

More specifically, Epic of Remnant is an umbrella title for four new chapters in the story to be released over the next year. Called "Pseudo-Singularities", the first is called Shinjuku Phantom Incident, and takes place in Shinjuku, Japan, in the year 1999, making it the first major FGO plotline set in a contemporary location (not counting the prologue, where the city of Fuyuki is mostly a smoking ruin). Epic of Remnant also brings back an old staple of Fate/Stay Night, which is the hiding of its Servants' identities until they're revealed in the storyline. Back in the day, it was a big deal to learn a Servant's true identity, as knowing who they were in life could give a big advantage in anticipating their abilities. Until Epic of Remnant, FGO tended to play fas??t and loose with the true names.

Of course, given that FGO's English release lags a year or more behind Japan, that informa??tion is already all out there in the wild, so it's not as if it's a huge surprise if you're the type o?f player to do research, but spoiler-averse may find plenty to like as they contemplate rolling for Shinjuku's banner Servants, which include a new 5-Star Archer, 4-Star Assassin, and 4-Star Avenger. 

Even players not inclined to roll will be taken care of, as the update also debuts new game mechanics, like "Break Bars" designed to make powerful bosses a little less simple to defe?at, and UI updates (like a music player in the "My Room" section), as well as an increase to the player's Master level, allowing an increase in the friends list limit as well as extra Cost to allow equipping more high-rarity Servants and Craft Essences.

You check out trailers for both Epic of Remnant and Shinjuku Phantom Incident below. Who do you plan to roll for?

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Juvenile Devour Fantasy

Sometimes it's good to be in second place. That's been the case with God Eater, Bandai Namco's would-be challenger to Capcom’s juggernaut Monster Hunter series.

Though it never quite left Monster Hunter’s long shadow, God Eater thrived by offering players intimidated by that game’s infamous levels of busywork a speedier, streamlined alternative dressed in sexed-up sci-fi anime style, without compromising the genre’s core appeal of mastering an arsenal of huge weapons and carving an armo??ry’s worth of gear off the corpses of large monsters.

God Eater 3, for its part, was hyped early on as a “rethink” of the series' values, ostensibly to reorient the franchise around what they felt players wanted out of a game developed natively for current-generation platforms (the most recent God Eater titles being of PS Vita lineage). To that end, Bandai Namco even switched development houses for the project, from God Eater’s original stewards at Shift to Marvelous' First Studio, under Soul Sacrifice veteran Ittetsu Suzuki.

To hear all that would imply much has changed between installments, but aft??er playing the game, I can’t help but wonder just what’s different this time around.

God Eater 3 (PS4 [reviewed on a PS4 Pro], PC)
Developer: Marvelous First Studio
Publisher: Bandai Namco Games
Released: December 12, 2018 (JP), February  8, 2019 (NA/EU/SEA)
MSRP: $59.99

In all honesty, when I wrote my initial impressions of the game, I hadn't known that First Studio was on God Eater 3’s case rather than Shift, and had I never found out, I'd just as easily assumed the new game came from the same hands that made the old, so similar are the experiences. If, during the course of this game’s development, the team at First Studio really did try to “rethink” God Eater’s core gameplay, I can only imagine that they came to the conclusion that things are mostly fine the ??way they are??.

I’m actually inclined to agree! I liked the way God Eater played, and First Studio has delivered more of that, with some meaningful expansions on the changes wrought by God Eater 2: Rage Burst. Translated, that means that God Eater 3 is still the same speedy, action-heavy hunter as the previous games were, now with an additional emphasis on moving quickly, thanks to a new Dive maneuver that can c??over an entire stage i??n just a few leaps.

As before, players s??tep into the improbable clothing of the titular God Eaters and use their massive transforming “God Arc” weapons to chop bits off of monstrous Aragami creatures, then use those bits to craft better and wilder-looking God Arcs. Every melee weapon from the previous games has returned, with two new additions to the arsenal.

The Biting Edge is my favorite of these new additions, and has replaced the Short Blade as my God Arc of choice. Somewhat counterintuitively, the Biting Edge is actually less mobile than the Short Blade, and replaces that weapon’s added steps and air-walk abilities with a blazingly fast attack rate, which can be sped up even further by combining the Biting Edge’s twin swords into a double-bladed “Glaive” mode, which amplifies speed, power, and hit count at the cost of locking out stamina regeneration and devouring attacks while linked up. Given God Eater 3’s emphasis on increased tempo in combat and flashy, elaborate attacks, it’s no surprise that the Biting Edge is the gam??e’s poster weapon, featured in the promo art and even the Studio Ufotable-animated intro clip.

This prominence isn’t to take away from the other new melee God Arc, the Heavy Moon, though. By default, it’s a big axe with a short reach and a surprisingly mobile attack set, but players can really bring out the weapon’s teeth - literally - by finding a spot to stand their ground and extend a serrated chainsaw-like maw from the edge of the blade to whip out some vicious extended combos. Finally, a weapon to surpass Metal Gear Gears of War's Lancer as “best playable chai?nsaw.”

The returning weapons are no slouches, either, from God Eater’s Short, Long, and Buster Blades, to God Eater 2’s Boost Hammer and Variant Scythe. And all the weapons benefit from God Eater 3’s new “Burst Arts” system. Refined from the Blood Arts of God Eater 2, Burst Arts are additional attacks that add to or modify the default move sets of the various melee weapons. Unlocked through use and active as long as a player remains in Burst Mode, any given loadout can equip up to three Burst Arts, modifying a weapon’s attacks on the ground, in mid-air, and after a dodge step. These alterations can be significant, such as changing a mid-air strike into a powerful ??ground-pound, or adding a lengthy stinger combo to the end of a step attack, the better to punish an Aragami with when it deigns to attack.

The Burst Arts can be even further augmented with Effects that send out shockwaves or directional attacks that extend a player’s reach. Between Burst Arts and the series signature Bullet Editor (allowing God Eaters to create custom projectiles for their Gun forms), God Eater 3?? has doubled down on the franchise’s flair for letting players tailor the combat system to their preferences.

Graphical upgrades worthy of modern platforms have been thrown in as well. Cutscenes actually have a modicum of cinematic direction, and character models no longer look like they were upscaled from the previous console generation. Aragami designs, particularly the?? new species of “Ashborn” Aragami, wield flashy, effects-heavy powers, finally looking like the “gods” players are implied to be capable of eating. It’s one thing when the so-called “God” looks a bit like a scary dinosaur, and another when it looks like a multi-armed Buddhist statue floating a pair of miniature Suns that can morph into burning chain cho??mps. Battle effects have also gotten an upgrade, and are bigger than ever. That last bit isn’t entirely praiseworthy, though, as the effects can sometimes obscure the fight for all their color.

At its core, though, God Eater 3 remains largely t??he same in structure as its predecessors, with players picking their missions from a list and jetting off to various locations to slaughter monsters, gather up their remains, and use those remains to upgrade their gear. Though larger and more detailed than they were in the older games, even the maps remain geared towards funneling parties towards the mission’s target Aragami with a minimum of fuss. There's little faffing about with material collection or stealth. You&r??squo;re a God Eater, not a God Follower or a God Negotiator. Go chop those monsters up and have yourself a meal.

The profession ain't what it used to be, if the story is anything to go by. Where God Eaters in the first two games were admired almost as celebrity supersoldiers, the “Adaptive” God Eaters (AGEs) of God Eater 3 are feared, hated, envied, and even enslaved for their ability to survive in the new status quo. Years after God Eater 2, yet another apocalypse has been inflicted on the already post-apocalyptic setting. The Ashlands, roving storms of all-consuming microbes, have eaten humanity out of house and home. Nothing is left on the surfac??e, and the survivors cower in underground “Ports,” scavenging to survive and with nothing left to wear but the most impracticality sexy cosplay outfits and suggestively placed strips of electrical tape. It’s a bad scene, to say the least, and the AGEs, along with roaming surface caravans, are the only forces around to make it one worth enduring for a bit longer.

That’s the premise, at least, and if you think that sounds a bit familiar, you’re not wrong. The story beats seem to have been cribbed from any number of recent anime and games, with particular creative debt seemingly owed to Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans (you're the "Mikazuki Augus" in this scenario, if you get my meaning), and even a bit to Freedom Wars, a God Eater-like developed by Shift itself for Sony and the PS Vita. For what it’s worth, originality and narrative depth was never God Eater’s forte,? and the story that’s there does the job right, providi?ng enough motivation and interesting characters to supplement the core grinding motivation, as well as a flow for players who want more natural entry and exit points for their involvement.

If all these words feel like they could’ve been written about, say, God Eater 2 or even God Eater Burst a few years ago, that’s sort of the issue at hand. God Eater 3 may be an exemplary God Eater game, but it’s nothing more than that. I consider it bad form to blame a game for not being like its competitors, but in this case the comparison is impossible not to bring up: The vast improvements made by the likes of Monster Hunter: World in terms of presentation and accessibility make God Eater 3 look like the lesser game, even if it's arguably the best it has ever been. True, the game still has a denser story, moves faster, and has a different look than Monster Hunter, but in all honesty, the gulf between them is much narrower, and I can't help but think that players coming off of World in search of "something like that" may play God Eater 3 and wonder why this just-released game already feels s??o old-fashioned.

Taken on its own terms, though, with God Eater 3 we have a pretty h??unting game that moves like lightning and makes its stylish combat feel like something worth mastering. Players willing to adjust their e?xpectations will find plenty to fill up on, but those seeking a novel new taste rather than a bit of comfort food may want to keep looking.

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

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KUPO!

If you happen to live in Japan, are a big Final Fantasy XIV fan, and have a wedding coming up, the stars have just aligned in your favor. Square Enix is teaming up with Bridal Hearts to offer a Final Fantasy XIV-themed Weddin??g Service for prospective couples in the country. The service will allow people to enjoy elements from the game and recreate the "Eternal Bonding Ceremony" with all the proper outfits and decor and legal autho?rity of a wedding.

The full package will include a wedding dress and tuxedo modeled after Final Fantasy XIV's equivalent garbs, various in-game assets recreated for background images and videos, and replicas of the Bride and Groom's weapons of choice. Obviously, music from the popular MMO will be played and a gigantic themed cake will be shared with guests along with a fully catered menu of Final Fantasy food and drink.

A standard plan, which includes the service with 70 guests, will run couples 3.5 million Yen (roughly $31,500). That sounds like a lot, but weddings aren't cheap. The very first ceremony took place on Valentine's Day in Japan and the service will soon be open to the general public for booking. You can view photos from the wedding here (with a few shots uploaded in our gallery).

While I'm surprised this is being offered specifically for Final Fantasy XIV, I thin??k this is a great idea. To certain people, gaming means a lot to their lives. W??hy not combine your favorite hobby with what should be the happiest day of your life?

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