Good news for European RPG gamers out there: Devil Survivor 2 is in fact coming to Europe.

Publisher Ghostlight wanted to hit a pre-order target of 1,800 in order to bring the game over. Thankfully, the final result ended up meeting their expectations.

Those who pre-ordered will have their name featured in the manual. Anyone reserving Devil Survivor 2 going forward will not be offered a similar benefit, but will receive the “Gold Edition”.

Source

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The #1-ranking Japan eShop game Bike Rider DX is now available in the North American eShop. Let’s see just what makes this game hailed as “the one-button platformer” such a big hit.

System: Nintendo 3DS
Release Date: August 1st, 2013 (NA) – August 15th, 2013 (EU)
Developer: Spicysoft
Publisher: Spicysoft

Author: Spencer

As far as gameplay goes, Bike Rider DX is quite simple. You control a stick figure riding a bike on 2D plane while jumping onto platforms and over gaps and obstacles,. The bike rides automatically, so the only real control is pressing the A button to jump. You can also double-jump, as indicated by one of the loading screen tooltips (of which there are only two, due to the simplicity of this game), and even triple-jump if timed correctly, although I found this out completely by accident. Optionally, you can use left and right on the directional pad to adjust your bike’s position on the screen, which is helpful for this game as it is for the most part about timing jumps from platform to platform. You complete each course by reaching the finish pole, and you fail courses by falling into pits or crashing into walls or obstacles.

One-button gameplay might work in a game with more depth, involvement, or variety– like Kirby Air Ride, which had several different gameplay modes, objectives, maps, etc– but in a game where you are simply jumping over holes on 2D maps where the only real variance is the aesthetics, it just comes off as monotonous and repetitive.

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Sorry that this is going up on the site a tad late. I was out of office (“office”) yesterday and couldn’t post it, but here it is now! Two glitches from Mario Kart Wii, another highly requested title. Enjoy!

A whole slew of details from Hideki Kamiya’s Wonderful 101 panel at PAX Prime 2013 are now available. You can find a summary of what was shared below.

Main panel

– Kamiya goes over what the game is
– Says: “don’t be worried, it’s a 100% pure action game”
– Unite Morph was inspired by a picture book he saw when he was a kid, “Swimmy”
– Swimmy has lots of little fishies coming together to form a big strong fish
– Nintendo wasn’t too fond of the original all-star idea
– A year later thought about it, liked it too much and went original
– Kamiya’s design philosophy is “Crash and Build”
– This involves making the fun idea right away, break what isn’t until it is fun
– Kamiya can’t make a game “by blueprint” hence lots of crashing and building as it inspires him
– Kamiya next showed concept art for the game
– Originally had a much darker style
– Didn’t like the original prototype character designs at first but eventually settled on iterating the second one, an early Wonder Red
– Heroes that didn’t make it into the final game include Wonder-Giant, one of his personal favorites
– Kamiya created posters during early development to inspire the team working on The Wonderful 101
– Prototype version shown, looks visually rougher but similar in concept
– Portion where characters unite to form a bridge is why the game got shelved
– Nintendo was shown concept art of Peach, Luigi, Yoshi as bridge with Mario walking over them
– Nintendo went “eh, we can’t make that”
– Prototype with original art style had a much heavier inky look
– The Unite Morph was not originally a drawing a mechanic, but triggered by something else
– A conversation system was introduced in the second prototype
– The trigger for Unite Morph was originally based on selecting icons. However selecting icons was not fun and the drawing mechanic replaces it.
– Finished character designs were put on a board shared among the developers to keep track of them
– Kamiya didn’t want a typical protagonist vs. antagonist plot
– Wanted the protagonists to face their own personal problems in the story too
– 13 script revisions
– Seeing how scripts were matched with visuals to block out the story details in The Wonderful 101
– The script helped to determine elements of the game that needed to be created. Also determined the schedule
– Character slides where created containing details about each character for voice acting
– For voices, wasn’t keeping track of popular voice actors in the west but went with submissions sent and decided on what they liked
– The casting matrix was how they kept track of the auditions for voices
– “What makes The Wonderful 101 Platinum?” Kamiya: We view everything as teamwork, everyone has a say.
– Teamwork and open communication are signature elements of Platinum; is the core of their game development process
– They can create something amazing that way, and that’s what they feel happened with The Wonderful 101

Audience questions

– Kamiya first met Miyamoto while he was complaining to Nintendo about releasing Donkey Kong or Mario Bros. on the Virtual Console
– Kamiya asked for ideas for The Wonderful 102 in case they ever get to make it
– Kamiya would love to make Viewtiful Joe 3 and Okami 2 if Capcom gave him permission

Via

More Scribblenauts Unmasked details have emerged. Today’s batch of information mainly pertains to the game’s Batcomputer.

Here’s the latest bits on Scribblenauts Unmasked:

General

– Game has 2,000 characters, vehicles and items f
– Over 30 Batman variations
– Over 130 Green Lanterns

Batcomputer

– Filters objects into categories like heroes, villains, teams, vehicles and objects, and its use of hyperlinks
– Access the Batcomputer through an icon on the Wii U’s touchscreen
– Search through the DC database for the exact Superman you’re looking for
– Ex: Red Son, Darkseid Superman, Superman Red/Blue, Thought Robot, etc.
– Batcomputer offers information on some of the game’s more obscure comic book references
– Ex: evil Yellow Lantern Hal Jordan has links to other game objects, like Yellow Lantern rings, Sinestro Corps and Parallax
– The Wikipedia-like nature of the Batcomputer’s entries can lead to some deep DC references, like Mogo, The Living Planet of the Green Lantern Corps, the furry superhero team the Zoo Crew and Flash’s Cosmic Treadmill

Source

Thanks to Jake for the tip.

Square Enix has opened the official Bravely Default: For the Sequel site open. You can find it here. First screenshots are attached above.

One piece of encouraging news: the site confirms multiple languages. Japanese, English, Spanish, French, Italian, and German are all supported. When it comes to voice acting, the game can be played in English or Japanese. This gives off a strong indication that North America and Europe will be receiving For the Sequel as Bravely Default’s localization – not the original game that released in Japan last year. That’d be fantastic if true!