Square Enix has trademarked a few items in Japan, but there’s one filing that’s particularly interesting. “Circle of Mana” is now in the company’s possession.
The Mana series hasn’t been revisited since Square Enix released Heroes of Mana for DS back in 2007. Perhaps this trademark is a sign that the IP could be making a return?
Monster Hunter 4 will have a big showing at the Tokyo Game Show this year. It’ll be playable for the first time, and Capcom will even be revealing “surprising information” during the show.
Specifics on this haven’t been announced yet, for obvious reasons. All that’s known is that details will be shared during the game’s stage event, which will also cover an introduction to new systems and actions.
Those who try out the Monster Hunter 4 demo will be able to battle three monsters and experience the new ruins field. Additionally, the “Controllable Insect Bow” weapon will be available.
Capcom will hand out the following bag to demo players, which includes a booklet and another novelty item:
BGG Productions’ indie PC game Death’s Apprentice is apparently heading to consoles.
Strangely, it looks like the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions will be available early next year. But the Wii U version? That won’t be out until 2015.
We’re waiting for further information, but the console versions will offer multiplayer support for up to four players.
High Voltage Software has answered a few questions over at GameFAQs. One of the staffers provided a status update on the company’s health overall, what they’ve been working on, and what lies ahead.
There are a couple of tidbits in particular we’d like to make note of. First, it sounds like High Voltage will be exploring a higher number of IP in the future. Fans of the Conduit series can also look forward to some sort of news before the end of the year.
The full Q&A can be found below.
Well, I’d say that this rumor makes a fair amount of sense! I don’t know anything about the techno-jargen, but it seems that the bottom line is that Mario Kart 7 and Super Mario 3D Land are headed to the 3DS eShop as downloadable titles. Of course this is just a rumor for now, but it’s one that I’d say has a fair bit of clout given the online strategy Nintendo is pursuing.
For those interested, here’s the forum post that the rumor stems from:
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Well I was running my weekly scan of Nintendo’s CDN (the server where Nintendo hosts eShop Titles), and the EUR version of Mario Kart 7’s title ID was added, sometime between now and last thursday.
You might call me wrong, but if you look at the TMD, it says the title has a manual and DLP Child, just like Mario Kart 7. And the NCCH files on CDN are very close to the size of the NCCH files from the EUR version of the ROM:
Executable NCCH: CDN/ROM = 609/611mb
Manual NCCH: CDN/ROM = 2.69/2.52mb
Dlp Child Container NCCH: CDN/ROM = 26.5/26.5mb
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You can actually investigate the truthiness of this claim by downloading the “TMD” yourself.
This comes from Gamestop CEO Paul Raines…
“We’ve thought about this vintage thing as an online initiative, and that’s where we’re doing most of our work. Part of what we have to do is we have to go source a lot of this product, get customers to trade some of their old product with us, and go find some old consoles, but we also own a lot of old product.”
How much old product do they have?
“Well, we don’t have a lot of NESes or Dreamcasts. That’s some pretty old stuff. But we just took Game Boy Advance out of stores recently, about a year and a half ago. Original Xbox, I think we took out of stores in 2009, as I recall. We’re reducing the footprint of PlayStation 2. We’re thinking about everything. Nothing we’d really want to call out yet. Our dotcom team is right now grinding through a lot of opportunities to see what’s out there and see what we can get our hands on and what we can merchandise.”
“A lot of what we do today is we let the PowerUp community tell us what they want to see, so we’ll be doing some contests around that and you can tell your readers to look for that upcoming pretty soon through PowerUp Rewards,”
“When I talk to PowerUp members they tell me, boy, it would be cool if you could have someone make new versions of old gear and old consoles, kind of a retro version of stuff. That’s an interesting one too. We also have relationships with every major publisher in the world and console maker in the world, that we can talk to about what they have and what they can make.”
Capcom has shared details on a slew of weapons that will be included in Monster Hunter 4. Details about all known weapons can be found below.
Souchuukon
– From ancient times
– Can control insects
– The “hunting insects” suck up energy from monsters that can strengthen the user
– Light weapon
– Allows the player to be very mobile
Great Sword
– Huge sword
– Like the tusk from a monster killed by a hunter
– Slow weapon
– If it hits a monster, it’ll kill it
– Can be used to guard
Long Sword
– Made for fast and consecutive strikes
– “Spirit” is accumulated after each strike which allows players to use a a spirit slash
Sword and Shield
– Versatile weapon
– Can execute a whirlwind slash
– Fast and constant attacks with few breaks in between
– Can use items while unsheathing the sword
Twin Swords
– Dual Sword users wield two small swords in both hands that can rapidly strike enemies
– Demon transformation mode adds more power
Hammer
– Best offensive power out of all weapons
– Hit a monster on its head to make it dizzy
Hunting Horn
– Play songs that change status effects
– Play a tune while attacking a monster so you can simultaneously be an attack and support character
Lance
– Has a gigantic shield and long lance
– Guard and counter-attack
Gunlance
– Powerful weapon
– Adds explosive shells to a solid lance
– There is a “full burst” attack that unloads all of the bullets in the weapon
Bowgun
– Lightweight and mobile gunner
– Can hit monsters from afar
– Bowgunners have different rounds of ammunition
– One type gives you rapid fire
Bow
– Agile weapon
– Target weak points from a variety of differences
Switch Axe
– Sword and an axe in one
– Switch to axe mode to do powerful strikes
– Sword mode used for speed
I sort of wish I would have typo’d “launch” and instead wrote “lunch” so that it said “Straight Right talks making lunch”. Oh well. Here’s some good stuff about Mass Effect 3 for Wii U, as well as some (re-confirmation of) information that we heard about earlier:
“It’s going to be a launch title, but of course we don’t know quite yet when the hardware will launch. We intend to be there that same day. It’s challenging [to meet an unannounced launch date].” – Straight Right boss-o man Tom Crago
He also talked a bit more about things they’ve touched on in the past and said that the Wii U is “sophisticated”:
“This is the biggest title we’ve worked on in a long time. There’s a significant technical challenge bringing the game from its original format to the Wii U. It’s a new, different and sophisticated piece of hardware, so there’s a good deal of technical energy that’s been expended making that happen. We’ve made a number of bets on the Wii U, so we’re certainly hoping that the platform comes strongly out of the gate. We’ve got two other titles in development. One of them is original, our own IP, and another is based on another big franchise that will come out in 2013. It’s a big title and you will have heard of it.”
New games are always good, especially for a new platform! Here’s to them succeeding with all of their Wii U endeavors.
The followings Rock Band Music Store songs will be made available on September 11:
Matchbox Twenty – “Bent” – keyboard support
Matchbox Twenty – “How Far We’ve Come” – keyboard support, Pro Guitar and Pro Bass expansions available for $0.99
Matchbox Twenty – “She’s So Mean” – keyboard support
Each song can be purchased for $1.99 on PlayStation 3/Xbox 360 and $2.00 on Wii.
Source: Harmonix PR
You know what I really appreciate in a developer? Humility. The understanding that they aren’t perfect and that they’re trying their hardest to do the best that they can. Self-awareness, I guess would be the way to phrase it, and Mass Effect 3 Wii U developer Straight Right has just that.
“We’re very conscious of not wanting to mess up given the level of expectation and the fact that we’re taking something which, on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 and PC, was exceptionally good.” – Straight Right boss Tom Crago
He went on to talk specifically about what their thought process has been with Wii U:
“You look at the game and think ‘how could I possibly make this better?’ The Wii U gives you that opportunity with the GamePad. But first and foremost you say, ‘well, I don’t want to screw this up’. You want to replicate the experience on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 as sympathetically as possible. But then you say, ‘how can I enhance this experience?’. We tried to get the game looking great and singing on Wii U, and then use the GamePad to complement this.”
