News Roundup – 12/14/2011

Malicious, a nifty action title from Alvion (which I believe I talked about here before…ah, yes), appears to be on its way to Korea with the curious subtitle “Eng ver”, which likely means we’ll see it soon, too.  Sony is publishing it there.  Siliconera has more details.

Persona 4: The Golden has new costumes.  Yukiko is unsurprisingly fitted with a maid costume, which Siliconera has shots of here.  That piece also discusses a new summer scenario with Teddie and what new character Marie is about.  And while on the topic of Persona 4, here’s some footage of The Ultimate in Chopsocky Arena.

Capcom announced a new retail disc with some of their digital efforts for the Xbox 360 only (no PS3 love?  I’d consider buying it if it was), including Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix, Final Fight: Double Impact, Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo HD Remix, 1942: Joint Strike, Bionic Commando: Rearmed 2, Flock!, Wolf of the Battlefield: Commando 3, and Rocketmen: Axis of Evil.  Apparently the set includes all of the features online and off, and will run $40 when it lands in Spring 2012.  I wonder why Bionic Commando Rearmed was not part of the set, but its sequel is…anyway, more info here.

Nintendo revealed the full Game Boy Advance Ambassador lineup for early 3DS owners – it’s not shabby at all.  You’ll get The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap, Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones, F-Zero: Maximum Velocity, Kirby and the Amazing Mirror, Wario Land 4, Mario Kart Advance, Mario vs. Donkey Kong, WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgame$!, Yoshi’s Island: Super Mario Advance 3 and Metroid Fusion.  Japan and Europe are receiving them on Friday, and I’d imagine America is, too.  I’ll have some thoughts on them for you soon.

Sonic CD is out on Xbox Live today, and will be on PSN on December 20th!

ULTIMATE Marvel Vs. Capcom 3′s Heroes and Heralds mode will be live on December 19th!

Gravity Dash/Rush has a new “how to control” clip:

And I think that’s it for now.

News Roundup: 11/16/2011

Ni no Kuni is about to launch for the PS3 in Japan, so Level-5 has unveiled another promo.  This one is about….beef curry?

Persona 4: The Ultimate in Smack-a-decky Arena is adding more Persona 3 characters to join Aigis – Akihito and Mitsuru will be joining up as well.

Sony is going to re-release the Sly Cooper Collection on PSN, but will be breaking the three games into three separate downloads – I may pick up the first, as I’ve not tried it yet.  In Sly: Thieves in Time news, Sly’s ancestors will be playable, and you can meet Rioichi Cooper here.

New Gravity Rush screens.  I’m still excited for this one!

With ULTIMATE Marvel Vs. Capcom 3 on the eve of launch, there’s two items of note to mention – the DLC costumes have been leaked (and some of them are awesome), and the full intro:

Rayman Origins Wii footage:

Seems fairly comparable to the PS3 demo I played.

And since I’ve been on Skyrim so much, some humor.  Note that Update 1.1 is available!

Rocket Raccoon and Frank West are unveiled for ULTIMATE MvC3

And let me say that Rocket looks like a blast and a half to play as.

Frank West also has seen significant changes since his Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom appearance – he’s almost completely different.

Two additional clips follow after the jump.

ULTIMATE Marvel Vs. Capcom 3 News of the Day – Heroes and Heralds DLC, CG Trailer, H&H Cards

First of all, let’s hit upon this new DLC.  Heroes and Heralds mode will come post-launch, is free, and enables players to grant their teams new abilities, which the trailer above reveals several.  For those at work or unable to watch Youtube, some of these include parrying (!), invisibility, speed and/or jumping boosts, projectile invincibility (!), super armor and a myriad of other possibilities.  These bonuses are done by assigning cards to your characters, which are Capcom and Marvel heroes and villains that didn’t make it into the game as playables.  Here’s some examples (click to enlarge):

Plenty of other cameos to be had – Ryu (Breath of Fire), Godot (Ace Attorney), Akira and Batsu (Rival Schools), Jin Saotome (Cyberbots), Nightcrawler (X-Men), Howard the Duck, Spider-Ham (seriously?), and tons of others can be seen in the trailer beyond these screengrabs (which have an EXTREME Mega Man bias…I didn’t see classic Mega Man, mind…).  This is a BIG plus in Capcom’s favor to release an extensive mode like this for free, so perhaps they’ve realized the error of their ways and will never screw over their fans again (ha ha)?  Kidding aside, this is nice of them to do.  The opening CG trailer follows after the jump.

HOLD IT! Phoenix Wright and Nova’s debuts for ULTIMATE Marvel Vs. Capcom 3

O_O

Wow.  I am astounded at how awesome Phoenix plays in this game.  They nailed his character so well.  Kudos (I’m still not buying it new, though :p ).

As for Nova, he seems decent…but I know so little about him that he doesn’t really interest me…especially after Phoenix’s stunning trailer.

A couple of fight clips follow after the jump.

ULTIMATE MVC3 Reveals for Vergil and Iron Fist, plus a version for the Vita @ Launch

Let’s get the reveals out of the way first – both look fun to play as!

Also, in the midst of Sony’s PSP conference last night, Capcom unveiled a PS Vita version of the game that will be out at launch in Japan.  Here’s what it looks like.

UPDATE – And, because I love you, more trailers after the jump.  Vergil, Iron Fist and a new Shinriko poster will be up in the Imagery ASAP.

Imagery Updates – Xenoblade, Metroid, Breath of Fire, Marvel Vs. Capcom, and Castlevania!

Lots and lots of Imagery updating to be had today.  Let’s just break it down by title:

Xenoblade – I put up a lot of new posters and some futuristic looking female cast members that I have no clue who exactly they are. :p  But, hey, they’re there to check out!

Metroid – The pieces I’ve added to the Metroid 25th are now in the Imagery, too.

Breath of Fire – I’ve gotten a start of the BoFIII section.  It’ll likely grow more once the other games are done.

Marvel Vs. Capcom – I stealth updated on this yesterday, but Dr. Strange and Nemesis are up now.

Castlevania – As the image to the left attests, I’ve gotten the Dracula X Chronicles artwork I like up, plus a cool Japanese Dracula X box that appears to be early Kojima in style, but a little rougher…if that makes any sense. XD

Enjoy!

ULTIMATE MvC3 Character Reveals for Dr. Strange and Nemesis (T-Type)

Oodles of clips here – I’ll throw the newest promotional clip in front – the character trailers and combat will follow after the jump.  The character art is now in the Imagery.  These two are very impressive looking in these trailers, and I am excited to try them both out.

Imagery Updates!

First of all, I’ve created a new category for Imagery-related posts.  I haven’t synced it up with all of the old posts covering updates, but I’ll do that this weekend.

Secondly, and more importantly, we’ve got a few updates in the Marvel Vs. Capcom (now minus the 3) and Misc. Imagery pages.  I’ve stuck Strider, Firebrand, Ghost Rider and Hawkeye into the MvC page and reorganized it to reflect the ULTIMATE upgrade – I’ve got renders for the rest of Capcom’s side, but I’d like to wait to host them until I get higher quality/larger versions.  For the Misc. Imagery, I’ve expanded two of the galleries – Monster Tale features some more shots of Ellie’s emotional states, as well as this nice piece to the left, and Muramasa: The Demon Blade sees some enemy artwork and two more pieces of promotional material added to its section.  I’ll periodically do this with other galleries in the Misc. Imagery as well, depending on time, of course.  Enjoy!

Impressions: Marvel Vs. Capcom 3 (PS3)

Marvel Vs. Capcom 3 (PS3)
Pub/Dev: Capcom
ESRB: T/Players: 1 – 2

I’ve been putting up news and art for this game for nearly a year now – now that I have the game in my hands, was it worth all that salvating?

I would have to say that yes, it is…with a couple of caveats.

Let’s get the negativity out of the way first.  I’m having issues with the new control scheme.  It’s an evolution from Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom’s, with some nice improvements (the tagging is much improved, and unlike Baroque, I do plan on using the air-combo tagging feature and X-Factor as I become more proficient with them), but the change of making a launch its own button is throwing me off big time.  I’m getting used to it, but it’s taking a lot of time and some rewiring of my reflexes to come to terms with the Special button.  The mapping of some special moves to it is also confusing me some.  This complaint I can slowly erode due to practice, but it has been a bit of a bother so far.  Secondly, and thank God for the option to switch the voices of Capcom’s cast, as there seems to be a lopsided bias towards annoyance from their side of things.  Marvel’s aces for the most part (save Dormammu’s OOOOOOHHHH whenever he does his Black Hole move, Taskmaster’s “YOU’RE IN FOR A WORLD OF HURT!” every time he does his Arrow Super, and, really, God bless Deadpool, because he is a great character, but his quips do grow tiresome), but there’s some oddities to be had for Capcom’s characters.  Trish is the biggest offender – she sounds bored and her delivery is very much from the “Here, read the lines from this sheet, understudy!” school of drama desperation.  Felicia, Tron, Hsien-Ko, Chun-Li (sorry, Laura – you’re great as Tohru in Fruits Basket, but hearing that voice as Chunny is just freaky), and Akuma all irritated me, so off to the much more tolerable Japanese they went.  Chris is borderline, but it’s not the actor so much as the repetition in his case…which is a potential thorn in any fighter.  And Morrigan…she’s got a great voice, but occasionally the delivery slips and I am a little repulsed I’m keeping her on English.  I could ramble on and on here, but I think my point is stated.  There are some standouts – Wesker is a badass, as he should be, and I think Johnny Yong Bosch nails Zero’s personality perfectly.  Hell, even Dante, whose voice actor Reuben Langdon got my panties all bunched up in Devil May Cry 3, is more than tolerable this go-around.  Mysterious.

That’s about it, though, in terms of griping.  The chaos of the Vs. series is in full swing here, and it’s become easier than ever to string together awesome combos.  Both sides of the roster are full of intriguing characters that I’ve found ones I like to use, and despite a couple of nit-picky “why is so-and-so here over who I really wanted?” mumblings, Marvel and Capcom both did a good job on mixing up the possibilities and bringing back some classics to join the mostly-new fighters.  I’m team-experimenting right now, but I’ve discovered a few characters I love playing as – Spenser is a riot, and I’ve been maining him most of the time.  Chun-Li is also great, and I’ve rounded my primary team with Zero.  I dabbled with the online modes, and since I’m an online gaming virgin, the lack of spectator modes and whatnot is irreverent to me (I’ll come back to characters in a moment).  I’ve done 9 ranked fights and had a marvelous time competing, no matter if I won or lost.  I don’t intend on chatting, so I’ve disabled that feature and am hoping my rivals haven’t been cussing me out for no real reason. :p  I need a lot more training, but I won a bit, so I’m content so far.  Sorry about that tangent – returning to characters, I also have enjoyed Wesker’s play style, although he’s hard to come to grips with as he’s fairly technical.  Amaterasu is also fun, but again, quite technical.  Deadpool, Super-Skrull and Magneto have been grand fun for Marvel’s side, and I’ve also liked X-23′s blistering speed and Dr. Doom’s myriad of projectile options.

I’ll leave off with some personal thoughts – I’m having a fun time with the game, and I’m happy with my purchase.  The online mode really excited me (my heart was racing!), I’m finding characters that I’m enjoying discovering, and the gameplay, while different enough to cause me some headaches, manages to keep my interest and I’m wanting to play this more to understand it.  I’ll expand upon these words once I get further into getting the new elements ingrained into my head and get better at it.