Level-5 held their annual conference, dubbed Vision 2009, earlier today. Did it turn out to be the major event I was hoping it would be? It’s a bit hard to say. I was hoping for an announcement concerning a new Dark Cloud title, or for more info about their upcoming RPG, Ushiro. Sadly, both titles were a no show, but Akihiro Hino (CEO of Level-5), stated that we should be expecting new details on Ushiro soon. Disappointment in my expectations aside, two particular announcements made during Vision 2009 reminded me why I love Level-5 so damn much.

The first big announcement was for a Professor Layton RPG, entitled London Life, which is actually unlocked after finishing the fourth game in the Layton puzzle series, Professor Layton and the Devil’s Flute. With this RPG just being unlockable, how substantial can the experience for it really be? Well, Hino touts that the game lasts for over 100 hours. Try and wrap your head around that — an RPG that lasts over 100 hours, and it’s just an unlockable for a different game. If that doesn’t blow your mind, then I don’t know what will. Maybe that it’s been developed by Brownie Brown, the same folks who developed the absolutely stellar Mother 3? That’s right, this game is starting to look better and better.

As for the gameplay, not much was revealed yet. As the title suggests, you get a chance to experience life in London as you try and make everyone’s lives better by completing quests with your own uniquely created character. The graphics are also adorable and very reminiscent of old-school RPGs.

Now, London Life looks like it will be a lot of fun, but Hino states that it will only be a taste for something new that they have in store for us, which leads me to the second big announcement of Vision 2009. Level-5 will be teaming up with Brownie Brown for a second game, this time it’s an original IP titled Fantasy Life. Hino described this game as a “slow life RPG.” What he means by this isn’t made clear yet, but he did offer up some other details.

For starters, Fantasy Life takes place in Fantazeal, which is a world where its moon is Mars. An ancient prophecy foretells of Fantazeal’s destruction when a shadow passes over Mars. The prophecy is starting to show its first signs of fruition, but the people of Fantazeal ignore its warnings and continue to live their peaceful lives.

To start your life in Fantazeal, you have to create your own character, which lets you choose all your basic features (name, gender, appearance), but it also let’s you select a “Life”. A Life is what your character does for a living in Fantasy Life, and there are 20 different “lives” to choose from. Each life also determines how your character’s story plays out, each with its own ending. With your specific Life chosen, it’s up to you and your character to complete the quests that are made specific for your job. Hino stated that these quests must be completed daily, whether he means that literally or if the quests must be completed within the game’s own time cycle isn’t clear. You also have to keep an eye on your “Rich” and “Happy” levels. The rich level would be how much wealth you have in your world, and your happy levels indicate your characters current happiness. Who you are able to talk to in Fantazeal is determined on your happy levels. Your rich level might also have an effect on your popularity within the world.

Fantazeal is also split up into two continents, Tripochi and Minnade. Tripochi is where your character resides in, and Minnade is the place where you can meet up with other players through WiFi, and from there they can visit your Tripochi world.

It was also revealed that legendary music composer Nobuo Uematsu will be behind the helm for Fantasy Life’s soundtrack. You can’t get much better than that. Uematsu for 20 “Life Songs,” with each one serving as a particular ending theme for whichever Life you’ve chosen for your character. The soundtrack will also feature 21 vocal tracks.

The rest of the announcement made at Vision 2009 weren’t as exciting as the two that were mentioned above. Here are the highlights:

• Soccer legend Hidetoshi Nakata will be in Inazuma Eleven 2
• Danbol Senki will be getting the anime and merchandising treatment
• Berryz Koubou performing the opening themes for Inazuma Eleven 2
• New game for their casual puzzle brand Atamania announced titled Mystery Room
• Ni No Kuni’s release date pushed back to Spring 2010
• They want Layton to become the big Winter movie, much like how Pokémon is the big summer movie

Well, that’s pretty much everything revealed during Vision 2009. As a huge Professor Layton fan, London Life is something I really want to play. But the second game was just released stateside, so I’m fairly disappointed that we won’t see the fourth game for a few years. The fact that it is a joint project with Brownie Brown makes the game just that much more tantalizing.

Hopefully their second project together, Fantasy Life, won’t take as much time to make it here. Anyone else get a major Animal Crossing vibe from that game? It seems like it’s Level-5’s version of that series, which I’m not complaining about at all since I really love the Animal Crossing games. I really do think the quests will have to be done daily in real world time since the two games share so many qualities, but for now we’ll just have to wait for more details to surface! I’m really loving everything that was revealed so far, from the Earthbound-esque graphics to the Uematsu orchestrated soundtrack. It really looks like a great expansion to the Animal Crossing formula.

As Vision 2009 came to a close, Hino stated that more info about their upcoming games will be revealed during the Tokyo Game Show, which is set to take place next month. He didn’t state specifically what will be shown there, but Ni no Kuni demo stalls will be set-up at the Level-5 booth, along with demo cartridges being given out to TGS event goers. I’m sure we will see more info about London Life and Fantasy Life given at the event and hopefully something about Ushiro will be present there. Tokyo Game Show is going to be huge this year, with many different companies in attendance to show off their upcoming titles. Be sure not to miss any coverage of that event!

Related Entries:
Level-5 To Announce 3 New Projects At Level 5 VISION 2009

Julius guest blogger, japan, level-5, nintendo ds 1 comment

First up is this incredibly beautiful figure of Velvet. She was originally a garage kit crafted by legendary figure sculptor Bubba! and was presented way back in 2007 at Hobby Complex 07. Figure producer Yamato announced earlier this week that they picked up Bubba!’s sculpt and will be mass producing it. Yamato is also the company who will be producing the equally as gorgeous Mercedes figure, who is also from Odin Sphere. This figure also features a castoff skirt revealing a sexy pair of see-through panties.

When Odin Sphere was first announced by Vanillaware, it was Velvet’s incredibly sexy pose that originally got me interested in the game (as shameful as that sounds.) To see that same dynamic pose being immortalized into a PVC statue has made this particular piece a must-buy for me. She’s expected for a December 2009 release date with a 9,800 yen price tag. If the price seems a bit steep, it’s because this figure will be approximately 10 inches tall, giving her a good 2 inches over a regular 1/8 scale model. Needless to say, as soon as pre-orders open up for her, I’ll be the first in line.

More pics of Velvet @ T-ONO & NekoMagic.

Next up is this Alice figure. Now, I don’t want to upset all of you, but for now, this figure is only offered as an unpainted, un-assembled garage kit that can be bought at this years Wonder Fest 2009 for 5,800 yen. But don’t fret! All the wonderful Odin Sphere figures that have been – and will be – released all started out as garage kits. So it is very possible that this figure will be picked up for mass production. Quite possibly by either Alter, who handled the Gwendolyn figure, or Yamato who is handling both the Velvet and Mercedes figures mentioned above.

It would just be an utter shame not to put a custom figure of this quality into production for the fans of Odin Sphere. It’s also a fact that we just don’t see enough gothic lolita figures on the market. As a fan of the design, it’s a shame that there are currently no figures sporting that aesthetic in my collection. If this figure does happen to push its way into mass production, I’m hoping that Socrates will be castoffable. I’d still display him next to Alice, but I think the figure would look better without him on her lap. Maybe he can be interchanged with the book she reads the stories from? That’s an accessory I would definitely like to see packaged with this figure.

More pics of Alice @ NekoMagic.

Sure, we’ve had to wait quite a while after Odin Sphere’s initial release to start seeing some quality figures of the characters, but at least we’re getting some! Hopefully this isn’t a trend for Vanillaware titles, as I would hate to wait a long time for Muramasa figures to start showing up on the scene.

Related Entries:
All OMG Toys posts can be found here.

Julius atlus, figure, guest blogger, merchandise 2 comments

So, I recently picked up BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger. Maybe you heard of it? The beautiful 2D arcade fighter that has fighting game fans going crazy over it since it was released for the PS3/360 (or earlier if you were lucky enough to live near an arcade that had a BB machine)? Well, you know what the best part of that game is? It’s the music, which was composed by none other than the great Daisuke Ishiwatari, creator of the acclaimed Guilty Gear series of fighters. His usual blend of heavily symphonic orchestras mixed with blaring guitar riffs is very much present in this OST. It’s a style you will come to expect of Daisuke once you get to know his work, but it never gets old. It’s a redeeming quality of his talent that has kept me so enamored with his music for many years.

Thankfully, Aksys Games packaged all first-run copies of BlazBlue with a 2-Disc OST (along with a bonus DVD and a fancy doubled-width box to store it all in). Also, Aksys did something wonderful and put on six additional tracks featuring remixes by none other than Oh No. If you don’t know who Oh No is, than you don’t know what music is. The acclaimed hip-hop producer (though labeling him as just that is a major understatement to his talent) is the younger brother of Madlib, who himself is an acclaimed music producer. He is also a known gamer who often incorporates video game sounds into his music, so this type of project is perfect for him. I would have paid money just to have this OST with only the six remix tracks by him on it.

Even if you don’t pick up BlazBlue, passing up on the OST would be a big mistake, which is why I included download links for both discs of the Calamity Trigger Limited Edition OST at the bottom of the post. Enjoy!

Tracklist

Disc 1:
01. Calamity Trigger (Arcade Opening)
02. Nocturne (Title Screen)
03. Blue Beating (Character Select)
04. VS (Versus Screen)
05. Challenger (Challenger Music)
06. Bright (Console Credits 1)
07. Rimelight (Story Mode BGM)
08. The Road to Hope (Arcade Credits 1)
09. Limited Again (Arcade Credits 2)
10. Continue (Continue Screen)
11. Game over (Game Over Screen)
12. Winner (Winning Music)
13. Glow-Up (Psych-Up Music)
14. Impulse (Astral Heat music)
15. Rebellion (Ragna)
16. Imperial Code (Noel vs. Jin)
17. Weak Executioner (Litchi vs. Arakune)
18. White Requiem (Ragna vs. Rachel)
19. Under Heaven Destruction (Ragna vs. Jin)
20. Lust SIN (Jin)

Disc 2:
01. Bullet Dance (Noel Vermillion)
02. Queen Of Rose (Rachel Alucard)
03. Catus Carnival (Taokaka)
04. MOTOR HEAD (Iron Tager)
05. Oriental Flower (Litchi Faye Ling)
06. Thin RED Line (Arakune)
07. Gale (Bang Shishigami)
08. Marionette Purple (Carl Clover)
09. SUSANOOH (Haku-men)
10. Awakening The Chaos (v-13)
11. Black Onslaught (Boss Ragna)
12. Blood Pain (Mirror Match)
13. Open The Gate (When The Gate Opens Theme)
14. Altar (Story Mode BGM)
15. Highlander (Story Mode BGM)
16. Curse (Story Mode BGM)
17. DJ Oh No Remix 1
18. DJ Oh No Remix 2
19. DJ Oh No Remix 3
20. DJ Oh No Remix 4
21. DJ Oh No Remix 5
22. DJ Oh No Remix 6

Download Disc 1 | Download Disc 2

Julius guest blogger, merchandise, ost 3 comments

What’s this? Yet another Shin Megami Tensei? Yup! Hot off the heels of the recently released Shin Megami Tensei games Devil Summoner 2 and Devil Survivor comes Strange Journey, which will be yet another venture to the DS for the SMT series.

Last week a new teaser site came up on the Atlus Japan website. All it showed was an image of the Earth with a large black hole where the South Pole is located (pictured above). What this teaser site’s message tried to convey was supposed to be revealed on July 24th, but thanks to someone who went through the page source, a small image file was found that gave the secret away a bit earlier than Atlus Japan originally planned. The image revealed the site to be about an upcoming Shin Megami Tensei game called Strange Journey, complete with a tentative release date of October 8th.

Of course, Famitsu has the first details about Strange Journey, sprawled on six total pages. Let me give you a rundown on the info:

You play a nameless Japanese elite soldier who, along with various other soldiers and scientists, have been sent by the country to investigate a strange rift that has appeared over Antarctica. The people of the planet has named the other world the rift leads to as the Schwarz-verse. However, once you and your team reach the other world, you find out it’s much worse than anything anyone could have imagined. The Schwarz-verse is overrun by demons and mythical beasts who threaten to pass through the rift and destroy your home planet. The ship you’ve arrived in, the Red Sprite No. 1, serves as home base while your in the demon-infested world. Three other ships also exist; the Blue Jet No. 2, Elves No. 3, and Gigantic No. 4. Whether these are unlocked as you go along or if your original ship is just upgraded isn’t made clear.

Your exploration crew is made up of many different specialists, and three of them are revealed:

Captain Gore – The Captain of the Schwartz-verse exploration team. On account of his exceptional skills and leadership abilities, he was appointed to be the leader of the team that determines the fate of mankind. “So long as all in this ship cooperate, investigation is not an impossibility.”

Himenez – An American who has had experience in campaigns. He’s worked his way up from the bottom and, looking forward to the rewards after this is all done and over with, he volunteered for the team. “As long as I get what I deserve, I plan on contributing what I can as long as I’m not dead.”

Selenin – A Russian scientist, she was recruited based on her knowledge related to the Schwarz-verse. “The populace is being deceived with the false information that there is a large blizzard storm, but the truth is…”

An interesting aspect of Strange Journey is that everything is seen through a first person perspective on the top screen. Your character has a device on his wrist that is similar to a Pip-Boy 3000 from Fallout 3. This device is viewed on the bottom screen, and its only confirmed functions so far is a map display, but more are expected to be present in the game. Members of the exploration team also don a special kind of suit called a Demonica Suit. The suit has many different capabilities, such as adjusting to the atmosphere more capably depending on the area you’re in, searching for hidden enemies, and a system that lets the suit improve itself. The full details aren’t known about this yet, but it almost seems like the Demonica Suit will be doing all the leveling and ability learning, as opposed to the character who’s actually wearing it. I find this to be a very intriguing feature to Strange Journey, and look forward to learning more about the Demonica Suit’s role in the game.

The rest featured in the Famitsu article are just some small tidbits, here are the highlights:

• Over 300 demons are featured, more than any other SMT game to date
• Demon conversations return to aid you in their recruitment
• Relationships with your crew play a huge role in the story – so big that the world can either be saved or be destroyed at the end depending on how you interact with them

Something else that’s worth a mention is that Strange Journey is the beginning of yet another spin-off series of the Shin Megami Tensei games, as it isn’t part of the Persona, Digital Devil Saga or Devil Summoner spin-offs, nor is it Shin Megami Tensei IV. Strange Journey has quite a lot to live up to since it’s bearing the MegaTen name. With the absolutely stellar releases in the SMT series for the past 10+ years or so, I have no worries that Strange Journey will be able to follow suit with its predecessors and provide us with an experience we’ve come to expect from the franchise.

Source: Nintendo Everything, Siliconera

Julius atlus, guest blogger, nintendo ds, preview 3 comments

XSEED announced earlier this week that they will be localizing The Wizard of Oz: Beyond The Yellow Brick Road (called RIZ-ZOAWD in Japan, which is an anagram for Wizard and Oz) for North American shores. This isn’t very surprising, as XSEED has made their interest for the title quite clear before it was even released in Japan back in December of 2008. Even so, to get official word from XSEED that they will in fact be localizing it makes this RPG fan incredibly happy.

The great thing about TWoO:BTYBR is that it follows the original story of The Wizard of Oz, but only up until a certain point. The story is followed accurately up until Dorothy, along with her new party in the form of Scarecrow, Tin Man and Lion, arrive in Emerald City to talk to the Wizard. From that point on, the game gives it’s own imaginative spin on the series and what happens next.

Artistically, everything about TWoO:BTYBR is top-notch. From the colorful and very beautifully 3D rendered game world to the charming, uniquely designed characters. For instance, Tin Man’s design gives him a much more robust appearance which goes perfectly with his job as the heavy hitter of the group. And I really can’t stress enough how beautiful the graphics are for this game. They just might be the best the DS has to offer so far.

As for the gameplay, everything is controlled with the stylus. The player moves Dorothy through the game world with a giant trackball on the bottom screen. There are no random encounters, instead the player must make contact with the enemy while traversing an open field. Once a battle is initiated, it will be carried out in a first-person perspective, much like in the Dragon Quest or Earthbound series. Characters’ abilities are also heavily influenced by their storybook counterparts, i.e. one of Lion’s special abilities is giving your party the chance to flee from battle, which is inspired by his cowardly attitude. Check out the first Japanese trailer, as well as a gameplay video to get a better look at TWoO:BTYBR.

Honestly, after the announcement of this localization by XSEED, I think they might be one of my favorite American publishers of Japanese gaming. Not only are they bringing over one of my most anticipated Japanese games of the past year, but they’ve practically read through my personal wish list of wanted games and are seeing to it that they get a proper release stateside. We have Fragile, The Sky Crawlers, and Ju-on to look forward to by the end of 2009. Not to mention Beyond The Yellow Brick Road is expected for a Fall release here, so we certainly have a great deal to look forward to thanks to XSEED. The only problem they made so far is their choice for the American TWoO:BTYBR boxart… yeah. American publishers really need to learn to just keep the original Japanese boxart:

Julius artwork, guest blogger, japan, nintendo ds, xseed 1 comment