The Last Story: In the middle of development
If you have been following this blog over the past few months you will know that one of the upcoming Wii titles I am really looking forward to is Mistwalker's new RPG title, The Last Story. Over the course of the past few months we have heard details about the game such as the importance of sound, the presence of airships, different classes in society, and much more; yet we haven't heard of a concrete date rather than an ambiguous 2010 release of the game in Japan.
Arc Fail Fantasia: How a poor localization might kill a game
When I last mentioned Arc Rise Fantasia here on Axis of Bozz it was in a somewhat festive mood. At the time not only had the game won an award from IGN at the 2009 E3 Expo as the Best Wii RPG, but the North American localization and publishing rights were transferred to Ignition Entertainment, the company responsible for the localization of Muramasa: The Demon Blade, from previous license holder Xseed Games. Although my interest in this series has waned over the course of the last several months, my initial interest was due to the presence composer Yasunori Matsuda and character designer Kenichi Yoshida amongst the game's staff, I was devasted when I first learned that the English audio for the game was fairly awful. After hearing the news I couldn’t help myself from asking, “If it’s true, how could things have gone so wrong?”
The Last Story: Heroic Details
It was only recently that Mistwalker began to release details on the in-game character classes for their upcoming Nintendo Wii-exclusive, The Last Story, via their blog on the game's official website. The development team followed this up by providing details on one of the landmarks in the game's setting of Ruli Island, namely The Star Gazing Tower. Since these two updates we've seen the development team finally shedding some light on the main character and his female companion in this upcoming RPG title.
The Last Story: Hero and Heroine REVEALED AT LAST
Mistwalker's development blog continues to surprise as they have released an illustration of the hero and heroine of their upcoming RPG, The Last Story. I'll be updating this with additional information when a translation is released.
Credit/Sources: The Last Story official website (日本語)
The Last Story: Star Gazing and Main Characters?
Earlier today Mistwalker posted yet another blog entry, although unlike previous entries this one contains only a single, fine piece of artwork displaying what very well might be the main character and potential love interest, whose appearance reminds me of Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New Age's heroine Marta Lualdi. In the new blog posting, the director and producer of the game discuss the Star Gazing Tower, a landmark on Ruli Island.
The Last Story: They Keep Rolling Rolling…
Since last time, Mistwalker has unleashed another series of updates to the official The Last Story website and shared with us new, beautiful artwork and additional details to their upcoming Wii-exclusive title. Amongst the more recent blog entries on the site the developers have released some details about in-game classes as well as discussion about some design principles they are focusing on.
The Last Story: More Beautiful than Beautiful
I think Mistwalker's staff are turning into masters of teasing as they've posted their second update on the official Last Story website. With their most recent developers' blog they posted up not only more artwork of the game locations but they also included a map of the city along with some text that sort of gives the impression of a sort of "Welcome to Ruli Island" sign (on a sidenote, the 'R' and 'L' sound are sort of interchangible in Japanese, explains the whole Ruri/Ruri thing).
Rise! Rise! Rise Arc Rise Fantasia!
Arc Rise Fantasia, an RPG for the Nintendo Wii that I've discussed before, looks to have finally been secured a release in North America. Ignition Entertainment, a company who has published the upcoming Nostalgia, Muramasa: The Demon Blade and has co-published King of Fighters XII with SNK Playmore, announced the acquisition of Arc Rise Fantasia last week. So far, with regards to the release date Ignition has so far only announced that it will be released some time during the summer next year.
Monopoly: A guilty pleasure
Originally posted: 07/02/2009
As of late I got a chance to play Monopoly on the 360 and I must say it was quite the experience to play the classic board game in 3D on a 50 inch HDTV. Obviously this game is in that lovely and often favoured category of gaming known as "causal gaming", but you know something, who cares if it's casual if it's fun!
This Monopoly plays out no differently then the board game. You still have a maximum of 4 players as you go around the board and buy up land and built houses and hotels. The Community Chest, Chance, Railroads, and Utilities are all here in glorious 720p! I can't remember if this was a rule in the board game or not, but in this version you can trade money and land between the different players, which helps when you are near bankruptcy and need to pay back a player whose land you had landed on, but if it is specific to the video game I must say it was a great addition. The graphics of the game are not too shabby when you consider this is a video game of a board game, but the colours and graphics of the board, icons (such as the player icon) and Uncle Pennybags/Mr. Monopoly are nice and sharp.
Arc Rise Fantasia
Originally posted: 04/24/2009
Have you ever had a case where you were interested in something, be it a novel, piece of music, TV show or movie based on the single criteria of one (or more) person whose work you respect is somehow involved? I've been guilty of this for numerous shows I watch and video games are no exception. All it took for me to get interested in Arc Rise Fantasia was the composer for the game, Yasunori Mitsuda. Mr. Mitsuda, in my books, is an amazing composer, having worked on my personal favourites Chrono Trigger and Xenogears, as well as their subsequent follow-ups Chrono Cross and the Xenosaga series.
Throw in Kenichi Yoshida, the character designer for Overman King Gainer (a rare TV series I own on DVD in full and was purchased as DVDs were released) and Eureka Seven, and you got a game that I will buy even if it turns out to be the Wii equivalent of Haze. Mind you, the Wii, much like the PS3, seems to be pretty derelict of RPGs, which to me is pretty sad considering the strong RPG line-up that was available on the PS2 and to a lesser extent on the GameCube (Skies of Arcadia, Tales of Symphonia). There being an RPG for the Wii, from a Japanese development firm (imageepoch), especially one whose games I have played before and enjoyed (Luminous Arc 1 for the DS), makes me salivate.
Pages
Categories
Blogroll
Archive
- September 2010
- August 2010
- June 2010
- May 2010
- April 2010
- March 2010
- February 2010
- January 2010
- November 2009
- October 2009