PSP Game News

A bit of a slow week for new releases in Japan coming up — gamers over there are still mostly excited about Monster Hunter Frontier Online on the Xbox 360, which has been out for a bit but finally got reviewed in Famitsu this week, earning 36 out of 40 points.

The remaining highlights:

- Fire Emblem: Shin Monshou no Nazo (9/8/9/8, 34 points): The DS Fire Emblem remake, which inserts your own character into the story of Marth’s campaign across the land, seems to be a big success. “It’s a remake at the core, but the way your player-character intertwines with the story makes things interesting even for past players,” said one reviewer. “The interstitial conversations are also nice, and the controls are as solid as always.”

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It’s always a bit of an enigma, what Hideo Kojima has up his sleeve next. We know that he’d like to make something new, and that it might be a PS3 exclusive, but otherwise? Your guess is as good as mine, really — we do know he’s a busy man, though, what with his involvement in Castlevania: Lords of Shadow, Metal Gear Solid Rising, and the Nintendo 3DS game shown off at E3, to say nothing of whatever hasn’t been announced yet.

Luckily, Kojima gave a longform interview to Hirokazu Hamamura of Famitsu magazine in this week’s issue where he gave updates on pretty much everything he’s working on. Here are the highlights:

- As Konami creative producer Shigenobu Matsuyama discussed elsewhere, Kojima isn’t directly involved with development on Rising. “I’m serving as executive producer and leaving the game to the younger staff — although they really aren’t that young,” he said. “Do you remember the technical research outfit we used to have in Kobe? Matsuyama, the producer on Rising, joined the company around the time I moved to that studio in 1991. He sat in the cube next to mine, though he wound up moving to the arcade division later. Mineshi [director Mineshi Kimura], meanwhile, joined on during the second half of the original Metal Gear Solid project and worked on that for me.”

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Lord of Arcana, the Monster Hunter-y PSP game Square Enix announced last week, is set to get a very extensive (and very free) demo — in Japan, anyway. The downloadable demo, which debuts August 19 in that region, is set to feature new scenarios added on regular occasions, allowing you to play right on up until the day of release. What’s more, you’ll be able to take the hunter…er, sorry, “Slayer” data you build in the demo and carry it over to the retail game unscathed, should you buy it. Kind of them.

Square Enix also spent some time in this week’s run of Japanese game magazines to discuss Lord of Arcana’s battle system. The game takes a more traditional JRPG-like approach to fighting than Monster Hunter, it turns out, at least when it comes to the encounter system. Battles kick off only when you touch a monster on the main game map, rather than in pseudo-realtime — and if one of your fellow players touches a monster during multiplayer, all players in the area are also thrown into the battle.

Your Slayer will have four action commands available during a fight, one assigned to each PSP button. The Square button is your basic attack; Triangle is reserved for “skill attacks” (no details on those yet); X is guard, and Circle lets you fire magic attacks that deplete a mana gauge at the bottom of the screen. When this gauge is full, you’re able to unleash an “Ultimate Spell” that’s unique to your character; these ultimates can be combined between Slayers in multiplayer for even more power.

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Obsidian is teaming up with Square Enix to create Dungeon Siege III, but what if the studio behind Fallout New Vegas had a chance to work on one of Square Enix’s classic properties?

Siliconera posited that scenario to Obsidian CEO Feargus Uquhart, who joked that he would love to work on Chocobo Racing.

But thinking about it more seriously, he said, “If I could come across everything that I played I would have to go with Chrono Trigger. I think Chrono Trigger was one I really enjoyed.”

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It isn’t quite out in the US yet (that won’t be for another couple of months or so), but the Japanese edition of PSP monster-hunt-’em-up God Eater is about to get a major upgrade — large enough that they’re releasing it as a whole new retail package instead of a downloadable update.

The so-called God Eater Burst will feature a variety of tweaks to the visuals, player animations, and game balance, all in an effort to make the learning curve a little less steep for beginners. The weapon and player costume counts have both been doubled, and NBGI is working on a variety of gameplay upgrades, from Phantasy Star Online-style tradable player profile cards to a brand-new story chapter.

“Since the release of the first God Eater, we’ve received a tremendous amount of feedback from gamers,” producer Yusuke Tomizawa told Famitsu magazine this week. “It’s been very valuable for us to listen to their voices, and naturally there are things that we ourselves wanted to improve on with the game as well. That’s where the Burst project began — we wanted to create a more perfect God Eater, something gamers could enjoy all over again.”

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Patapon 3 was only just officially revealed at E3 last month, but it didn’t take long for Sony to give PSP owners a chance to try it out. A post on the PlayStation Blog has announced that a free multiplayer demo will be released on the PlayStation Store this Tuesday, July 6.

Patapon 3’s big new feature will be online multiplayer, which PSP owners will be able to get a taste of in this demo. Also teased in the post are new characters being added to the series, including “Superhero Patapon,” although there weren’t any details on how they’ll affect gameplay.

Patapon 3 doesn’t have a release date yet, but it’s planned for release sometime this year. Hopefully with a demo coming next week, that means the release won’t be too much farther out.

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If you’re an Eye of Judgement fan, you might want to play as many online games as possible in the next couple months.

Sony Computer Entertainment Europe recently served notice that they plan to shut down the game’s servers this fall, noting that “offline play will be available even after the conclusion of online service.”

If you want to play with a friend though, you’ll have to play the old-fashioned way.

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If you’re an Eye of Judgement fan, you might want to play as many online games as possible in the next couple months.

Sony Computer Entertainment Europe recently served notice that they plan to shut down the game’s servers this fall, noting that “offline play will be available even after the conclusion of online service.”

If you want to play with a friend though, you’ll have to play the old-fashioned way.

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Another multiplayer RPG is on the way to the PSP, this time from Square Enix.

According to the European PlayStation Blog, Lord of Arcana will star characters known as slayers in their bid for the power of “Arcana.” The four-player multiplayer looks to be reminiscent of Monster Hunter.

Lord of Arcana was announced for Japan in the most recent issue of Famitsu. Its appearance on the European PlayStation Blog appears to confirm it for the west.

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The NPD group has released its sales results for May of 2010, with Red Dead Redemption leading the charts at over 1.5 million copies sold in its debut month. Amusingly, this figure already exceeds the lifetime sales of the game’s predecessor, Red Dead Revolver.

Nintendo’s Super Mario Galaxy 2 also had a strong debut, selling over half a million units of its own. Other new games to crack the top ten include UFC 2010: Undisputed, Alan Wake, Pokemon Soulsilver Version and Skate 3.

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