XSEED Publishing A Trio of Indie Games

In a press release today XSEED has come out ahead of E3 to announce that they are publishing three big indie games. Those games would be Shantae Half Genie Hero physically (WiiU/PS4/PS Vita), Touhou Scarlet Curiosity (PS4) and Exiles End (PS4/PS Vita/WiiU).

XSEED had the following to say about their new partnership:

“We always seek to publish games across a broad spectrum of genres and themes to ensure we’re bringing our loyal fans the games they most want to play, and we always hope we can introduce titles that may become new favorites for them,” said Executive Vice President Ken Berry at Marvelous USA. “We’re thrilled to be working with these talented independent developers to help share their unique games with our passionate community, and we look forward to fan feedback on these new offerings!”

-PR

It’s really awesome to see that XSEED is partnering up with indie developers to publish their games. XSEED has been on a roll lately, first having their best year on record, and now publishing some big name indie games. It will be interesting to see what other games XSEED has coming down the pipeline for us!

 

Odin Sphere Leifthrasir Review: Making a Good Game Great

Odin Sphere Lefithrasir

Platforms: PS Vita/PS4/PS3

Developer: Vanillaware

Publisher: Atlus USA

ESRB Rating:T

Thank you Atlus for providing a review copy.

Odin Sphere Leifthrasir is a remaster of the classic PS2 game, Odin Sphere. Odin Sphere is about an ongoing war in the fantastical world of Erion and how this world will soon come to an end due to an old prophecy.

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7th Dragon III Code VFD Your Customizable JRPG Adventure

7th Dragon III Code VDF is the latest entry in the 7th Dragon series (the fourth one to be exact), but it’s the first one being brought to the west by our friends at SEGA.  7th Dragon III Code VDF puts you in the shoes of the squad known as Unit 13 as they work for Nodens, a game development studio front to disguise their dragon hunting and research shenanigans. Here you are tasked with traveling through three different time periods to hunt down the dangerous high dragons to obtain the ingredients to forge a weapon to prevent an impending calamity of another high dragon destroying Tokyo and the rest of humanity with it… again. While this may seem all overwhelming at first, SEGA has your back on this one by providing you the best way you can possibly take down these dragons, and that’s by letting you create the team to do it.

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In 7th Dragon III Code VDF customization is your key to victory. You take the role of the leader of Unit 13 tasked of ridding the world of Dragons. So what does our protagonist and his squad look like? Well that is up to you. Every playable character in this game is fully customizable with a vast amount of different classes, looks and voices to choose from. This game gives you the freedom of creating your squad in the vision you want. And I have to tell you, it works rather well. While there are a lot of classes to choose from, you are free to experiment around and create team mates that you think suit your play style. Personally I found great success with the Samurai-Agent-God Hand combo, a well-balanced party, but as you progress further in the game you can unlock even more powerful classes. hackThe customization doesn’t even stop there. Each class has their own skill tree a character can progress down, meaning you can unlock different skills to adjust to your playstyle. Normally, I would say you should spread out your skills evenly, but, in this game’s case, I say prioritize the skills you want a certain character to learn to fit their playstyle. Want your agent class to be able to hack into every enemy and inflict nasty status ailments? Focus all your skills on hacking and the sub hack skills. Want your God-Hand to be able to take out a dragon in one punch? Level-up all of their offensive abilities and don’t worry about their defensive ones. Or don’t and do the opposite, it’s up to you to choose how you play this game.

There is, indeed, so much you can do in this game. You can create the team of your dreams, go on quests, slay dragons, or even name one after the boy or girl you like and take them on a romantic date. 7th Dragon III is definitely a game for 3DS owners to look into this summer if you are looking for a challenging, yet rewarding fully customizable experience.

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7th Dragon III Code VDF launches this summer on July 12th for $39.99, and each day one copy comes with a 28 page art book showing all of the different art of the character models and places in the game. Be sure to keep an eye for our full review of this game coming early in July. We will also be making a handy tips video for you noobie dragon hunters out there so you can get a good idea of what to do before you jump on into this game.

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Natsume Announces Harvest Moon Skytree Village for 3DS

Today Natsume has just announced Harvest Moon Skytree Village for the Nintendo 3DS, this is the third game in Natsume’s Harvest Moon series, and second to come to the 3DS, since Bokujō Monogatari went to XSEED Games. It will be interesting to see what Natsume does with their second 3DS, entry into this series. We will be sure to cover more about this game as it develops, as Natsume has confirmed there will be more shown off at E3, with a playable demo on the show floor.

Key Features of Harvest Moon: Skytree Village –

  • Play as a boy or a girl, woo bachelorettes and bachelors, and start a family!
  • Completely new story with tons of interesting new characters.
  • New crops and flowers to discover.
  • New fishing mechanics: expand waterways and catch rarer fish.
  • A full town with many residents, each with their own personalities and quirks.

-PR

XSEED Has Highest Sales on Record Thanks to Story of Seasons and Senran Kagura

In a recent investor’s meeting with Marvelous AQL, they reported that their United States subsidiary company XSEED Games has posted their best fiscal year in the companies history. This was due to Story of Seasons for the 3DS (formerly known as Harvest Moon) and Senran Kagura Estival Versus for PS4 and PS Vita. You can see the full statement in regards to XSEED here.

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It’s good to see that XSEED is doing extremely well since being acquired by Marvelous AQL in 2008. It’s also refreshing to see the success of Story of Seasons despite the re-branding and customer confusion over the name change. It’s also good to see Senran Kagura doing well in the west as well. Hopefully XSEED will continue this trend as they localize more of Marvelous’s library of games.

Dragon Quest Builders Comes to the West this October

The latest Dragon Quest spin-off game Dragon Quest Builders will be making it’s way to the west this October on PlayStation Vita (digital only) and PlayStation 4. This announcement comes today in celebrating of the series 30th Anniversary. The Minecraft inspired Dragon Quest game has been a hit with many players in Japan, it will be interesting to see how well this game does in the west.

We will be sure to keep you guys up to date on any other Dragon Quest news and announcements as they come in!

In the meantime you can check out the official announcement trailer here:

GameStop Anticipates $7.5B in Sales From the NX in its First Two Years

In a recent release from GameStop via their corporate twitter account they had this to say about the Nintendo NX

GameStop seems to be extremely optimistic about the Nintendo NX, anticipating it to bring in half the sales of that of the Wii in the systems first two years on the market. This information comes in after GameStop lays out a plan to get into the Virtual Reality market. While it’s good to see that GameStop is optimistic, it should be taken with a grain of salt, after all they also believed the Wii U would take off to be the next big thing as well. However it may be safe to assume GameStop may be privileged to some information on the NX that has not been disclosed to the public yet, sparking this level of optimism from them.

Nintendo expects to fully unveil the NX at a press event later this year. We will keep you posted on any official news about the NX as it develops.

What’s Old is New Again: A Odin Sphere Leifthrasir Preview

Platform: PSV/PS3/PS4

Developer: Vanillaware

Publisher: Atlus USA/SEGA

Rated: T

Release Date:June 7th, 2016

Thank you, Atlus for providing an early copy of the game.

Odin Sphere is a series of books with each book while all connected offer a completely different perspective on the same on-going tale about the war in Erion.  This title was originally released on the Playstation 2 back in 2007 and since then has gained a cult following. Odin Sphere Leifthrasir, is a remaster of said game that offers much more than just a simple resolution upscale.

The main emphasis of this remaster is certainly the upgrade in gameplay. Odin Sphere Leifthrasir is an Action Role Playing Game on a 2D plane with its combat has been completely revamped. It’s much, much faster paced than the original as combos are extremely fluid to a point where getting a 100 hit combo on a wave of enemies is incredibly easy and yet incredibly fun to pull off as you’ll be constantly juggling your enemies. In the original game, hoarding seeds weren’t an option as you couldn’t hoard Phozons – a material released by a certain type of plant, butterflies, and mainly defeated enemies, or something you can make it yourself using alchemy. In Leifthrasir you can hoard Phozons, so you can grow plants whenever you want. This is incredibly beneficial as now you don’t have to plant a seed before battle and hope you defeated enough enemies to make it grow by the time the battle was over or just constantly using alchemy. Overall, the game is much more accessible now thanks to the traveling restaurant at resting points as well as a checkpoint system as well. Of course, if you don’t like any of these things you actually just play the original version right from the get-go when you start of up the game and plays just as you remember it.

 

Senran Kagura Shinovi Versus Launches on Steam June 1

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XSEED has confirmed today that Senran Kagura Shinovi Versus will be available on PC through Steam on June 1st. Originally a PS Vita exclusive, you can now enjoy the high action experience on PC for the low price of $29.99. XSEED is boasting a smooth 60fps and high definition “visuals” in this version of the game.If you pick up the game in the launch week on Steam, you get the launch discount of 10% off. Senran Kagura Shinovi Versus is one of two games XSEED will be bringing to PC this summer, the other being Little King’s Story.

Valkyria Chronicles Remastered Review Our Highest Honors

Valkyria Chronicles Remastered

Developer: SEGA

Publisher: SEGA

System: PS4

ESRB Rating: T

MSRP: $29.99

A Review copy was provided by SEGA

Valkyria Chronicles originally debuted on the PS3 and became a cult classic over time. Me, being a person who never got a PS3 until a couple of years ago, never got a chance to actually play the game. A lot of my friends would talk to me about how great the game is, and, I will admit, a game that is basically an anime rendition of World War II intrigued me. So when I heard the game was being remastered for the PS4, I thought I might as well give it a try after all these years. Now, I should mention that even though this is a remastered game, this is my first time ever playing it, so this review will be based on its overall presentation.

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