Press Release:

Become the representative of the famous B-Project in this unforgettable idol Visual Novel. Support a group of 14 idols from their humble beginnings through to stardom. Befriend them, influence their music and help them through their turbulent lives as they follow their dreams. 

The leader of the five piece group of MooNs, Kazuna is smart and competitive, but the need for success often gets in his own way. Despite everyone seeing him as highly successful and reliable, he has a distinct lack of self-worth that drives him to constantly do better.

Kazuna is voiced by Uemura Yuto.

The three-man group of THRIVE is known for its professional and dance-inducing songs. Their leader Kento is quite a ladies man with a happy go lucky attitude. Despite his lackadaisical attitude, he will do everything he can for his fans, even the things that he’s not particularly good at. Some see him as narcissistic and he can be very stubborn at times.

Kento is voiced by Kato Kazuki.

The final group to join B-PROJECT, KiLLER KiNG are a group of four that are juniors compared to the other idol groups.  Akane is the groups leader, and is easy to engage with. He is always willing to help others, but sometimes suffers from low self-esteem. However, his fellow members know how important he is to the group.

Fudo is voiced by Chiba Shoya.

The post B-PROJECT RYUSEI*FANTASIA – Release Date Announced appeared first on oprainfall.

A new trailer has been released for the upcoming RPG, Sky Oceans: Wings For Hire. The game follows Glenn and his crew of sky pirates as they set off on a journey. Set in a world where the surface of the planet was decimated, humanity has gone on to survive on pieces of land that were launched into the sky. The game features turn-based dogfights and the ability to upgrade and expand your airships.

Sky Oceans: Wings for Hire is currently set to be released for PlayStation 5, Steam, Switch, and Xbox Series S|X. Physical editions of the game are available for pre-order for the PlayStation 5 and Switch. A demo will be released during Steam Summer Next Fest on June 10.

SOURCE: Press Release

The post Sky Oceans: Wings for Hire Gets New Trailer appeared first on oprainfall.

As the latest installment in the RPG Maker series, RPG MAKER WITH features more tools and greater accessibility than ever before. The user-friendly interface and intuitive controls make it easy to choose between creating simple or complex assets and functions, so you can dive right in, regardless of skill level.

Not sure what to make? Head online to play other creators’ games and get inspired, then inspire others by sharing your own. And, for the first time ever in a console RPG Maker title, you can even share your assets and unfinished projects!

Key Details:

• Create Your Way: Making your own game has never been easier! Whether you’ve never made a game or are a seasoned professional, user-friendly controls and options for simple to complex creations make it easy to dive right in.

• Share with Others: Share custom assets and unfinished projects! Post your creations online and play other creators’ games to gain inspiration, feedback, and inspire others.

• Oodles of Assets: Utilize premade sample games and tons of assets to help you get started working on your ultimate RPG! Then, flex your creativity even further by crafting your own assets from scratch once you’ve become familiar with all the tools RPG MAKER WITH has to offer.

If you’d like to know more about RPG MAKER WITH, visit the game’s official website.

The post RPG MAKER WITH – Release Date Announced appeared first on oprainfall.

The previously announced demo for The Legend of Heroes: Trails through Daybreak is now available to download for PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch. While there is no native PlayStation 5 demo, the PS4 demo is playable on PS5. Players will be able to play through the Prologue in the Switch demo while those playing the PS4 demo will be able to also play through Chapter 1. Try out the series’ new battle system which allows you to change between action and turn-based combat on the fly. Save data from the demo can be carried over to the full game once it releases on July 5, 2024. PS4 demo save data will be compatible with the full PS5 version. As mentioned previously, there is no demo for the PC version.

You can check out the demo trailers for both the PS4 and Switch versions below.

PS4 Demo Trailer

Switch Demo Trailer

NIS America describes the game as follows:

About the Game:
In the aftermath of a brief war, Calvard is enjoying unprecedented economic prosperity. However, the public grows uncertain as the number of immigrants increases and questionable political reform runs rampant. Follow the spriggan Van Arkride on a unique request that will prove more than he bargained for. Will the nation fall into chaos?

The Story So Far…

The spriggan’s life is but one of many professions that has emerged from the Calvard Republic. Be it playing detective, negotiator, or bounty hunter, Van Arkride takes on the kind of work that legitimate sources can’t accept. Whether it’s best left out of the public eye or rooted in the dark corners of the underworld, almost any job is open for consideration.

The year is S.1208. A prim-and-proper young lady dressed in the uniform of an esteemed academy visits a rundown multi-tenant building in the Old Town district of Edith, the nation’s capital. With a most dignified gaze, she looks upon the plaque of the door before her. It reads: ‘ARKRIDE Solutions Office: Complicated Matters Only.’

Steeling herself, she knocks on the door three times.

“First thing in the morning…?” a relaxed yet surprisingly young voice grumbles with a yawn.

From the moment he opens the door to greet her, a new tale begins.

Key Details:

• A Case in Calvard: Follow the spriggan known as Van Arkride as he takes on a case that will change the nation’s fate…as well as his own. Explore the reaches of the Calvard Republic while immersing yourself in a rich story filled with action and intrigue.
• Spriggan to Action: Transition seamlessly between action field battles and turn-based combat with the revamped AT (Action Time) Battle system, and expand your arsenal with new Shard Skills, courtesy of the sixth-generation combat orbment, Xipha.
• Between Law and Chaos: Under the Alignment system, your choices and actions affect how your story unfolds. Your propensity towards Law, Chaos, and the shades in-between can influence your status in the city, who will ally with or oppose you, and even what jobs and dialogue options are available to you.

The Legend of Heroes: Trails through Daybreak is developed by Nihon Falcom Corporationa and published by NIS America, Inc. It is scheduled to launch in North America on July 5, 2024 for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, and PC. For more information on the game, you can check out its official website and follow NIS America’s official X account.

SOURCE: Press Release

The post Trails through Daybreak Demo Out Now for PS4 and Switch appeared first on oprainfall.

REYNATIS is an atmospheric urban fantasy set in a realistic recreation of Shibuya, Tokyo, where the ultimate clash between magic and order is about to unfold. Seeking freedom through strength, the wizard Marin heads to Shibuya, where he meets Sari, an officer of the M.E.A., an organization dedicated to keeping wizards under control.

In addition to the M.E.A. exists the Guild, an organization formed in 1923 to protect the citizens of Japan with the power of magic. They have invited the wizards of Shibuya to join them, and rumors suggest they are involved in the production of illegal drugs…

If you’d like to know more about REYNATIS, visit the game’s official website.

The post New Trailer for REYNATIS Crossover with NTWEWY appeared first on oprainfall.

NIS America has announced a demo for their upcoming release, The Legend of Heroes: Trails through Daybreak. The demo will be available on Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4, and it is scheduled to release on June 4th. The PlayStation 4 demo will also be available on PlayStation 5. Demo save data can be carried over to the game’s full version once it launches on July 5, 2024. Unfortunately, a demo will not be available for PC players.

In addition to the demo news, NIS America also released the opening movie for the game. You can check that out below.

NIS America describes the game as follows:

About the Game:
In the aftermath of a brief war, Calvard is enjoying unprecedented economic prosperity. However, the public grows uncertain as the number of immigrants increases and questionable political reform runs rampant. Follow the spriggan Van Arkride on a unique request that will prove more than he bargained for. Will the nation fall into chaos?

The Story So Far…

The spriggan’s life is but one of many professions that has emerged from the Calvard Republic. Be it playing detective, negotiator, or bounty hunter, Van Arkride takes on the kind of work that legitimate sources can’t accept. Whether it’s best left out of the public eye or rooted in the dark corners of the underworld, almost any job is open for consideration.

The year is S.1208. A prim-and-proper young lady dressed in the uniform of an esteemed academy visits a rundown multi-tenant building in the Old Town district of Edith, the nation’s capital. With a most dignified gaze, she looks upon the plaque of the door before her. It reads: ‘ARKRIDE Solutions Office: Complicated Matters Only.’

Steeling herself, she knocks on the door three times.

“First thing in the morning…?” a relaxed yet surprisingly young voice grumbles with a yawn.

From the moment he opens the door to greet her, a new tale begins.

Key Details:

• A Case in Calvard: Follow the spriggan known as Van Arkride as he takes on a case that will change the nation’s fate…as well as his own. Explore the reaches of the Calvard Republic while immersing yourself in a rich story filled with action and intrigue.
• Spriggan to Action: Transition seamlessly between action field battles and turn-based combat with the revamped AT (Action Time) Battle system, and expand your arsenal with new Shard Skills, courtesy of the sixth-generation combat orbment, Xipha.
• Between Law and Chaos: Under the Alignment system, your choices and actions affect how your story unfolds. Your propensity towards Law, Chaos, and the shades in-between can influence your status in the city, who will ally with or oppose you, and even what jobs and dialogue options are available to you.

The Legend of Heroes: Trails through Daybreak is developed by Nihon Falcom Corporation and published by NIS America, Inc. It is scheduled to launch on July 5, 2024 for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, and PC in North America. It will support English text and both English and Japanese audio. For more information, you can follow NIS America’s official X account and check out the game’s official website.

SOURCE: Press Email

The post Trails through Daybreak Demo Coming in June, OP Movie Released appeared first on oprainfall.

Story  

While working for a major marriage agency named Cupid Corporation, Cupid the goddess of love herself, strived to become the top bridal advisor. She was assigned five hopeless clients known as the Parasite 5!

Even after guiding them through mock dates, matchmaking seminars, and the reality show “Parasite House,” all five abruptly canceled their memberships!

Yet their departures brought all their personal challenges to the surface. As she confronted these issues with them, they overcame many unexpected obstacles…

And she fell in love with “him.”

This is the continued love story of the goddess of love, Cupid, experiencing love firsthand. It’s the tale of when she becomes a goddess “only” for him.

Marriage wasn’t the end goal, but the start of a new chapter. Whether they began dating or got married, the only thing awaiting them is a series of unexpected challenges!

A mysterious new creature has appeared in Los York! Could it be a divine message or evidence of an unknown civilization?

A love story so sweet, it’ll make your heart melt! The whirlwind of feelings taking the world by storm is far from over!

An endearing, joyful, and chaotic tale that’s richer and more exhilarating than ever! This romance featuring a former goddess is so sweet and spicy, it’ll make your teeth ache and set your soul ablaze!

And in Merenice Levin’s route, her days as Cupid are far from over! A romantic and comedic story in the world of matchmaking is set to unfold!

Key Features

Sweeter and Spicier! – Return to Los York with the original cast of Cupid Parasite, plus an all new-character Merenice Levin. Rendezvous with seven of the sweetest and spiciest bachelors in up to 3 game modes and unlock over 80 CGs, including some that may be too hot to handle!

All Different Flavors to Choose From – Pick from three different modes that can satiate anyone with a sweet tooth. Select “After Drama” mode to follow-up with the original Parasite 6 and pick up from where you last left off. Go with “New Parasite” mode for a chance to experience Merenice Levin’s perspective of the events that take place after the common route of Cupid Parasite. You can also explore routes you unlocked in “Bonus Episode” mode for six bonus episodes with their own unlockable CGs!

In Sweetness and In Spiciness?! – You must choose the flavor of the next course. Will you go with the sweet? Or will you go with the spicy? When prompted with the choice during gameplay, select between sweet or spicy to impact the ending of your selected route. Manage to balance the flavors for a chance at something really appetizing.

Rich, Decadent Visuals and Savory Scenarios – The original scenario writer and illustrator of Cupid Parasite return! Ririka Yoshimura (scenario writer) and Yuuya (illustrator) join forces once again to bring fans a delectable addition to the Cupid Parasite universe.

The post Cupid Parasite: Sweet and Spicy Darling is Now Available appeared first on oprainfall.

Just when you think the rogues of the world have it made, the heroic hero Mario arrives! But he ain’t no everyday type of hero. This fella’s got brains, brawn, and he can fold into a paper plane! It’s almost enough to make a rogue start rootin’ for the good guy…

Join Mario on a paper-based RPG adventure as he travels the world, chases down baddies, and saves the day in the Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door game.

The post Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door – Launch Trailer appeared first on oprainfall.

Aksys Games has announced an official launch date for their localization of Tokyo Xanadu eX+ on Nintendo Switch. This port will have all extras added in the PS4 version, include all previously released DLC, and will feature an updated localization. It is scheduled to launch on July 25, 2024 in the west. The game was previously thought to release in June due to the February announcement trailer’s description.

You can check out the release date announcement trailer below.

Aksys Games describes the game as follows:

EXPLORE A BRAVE NEW WORLD!

10 years ago, a colossal earthquake devastated Tokyo and changed the lives of its inhabitants forever. The city has since been rebuilt and life has slowly returned to a semblance of normalcy.

However, behind the veil of this newly rebuilt metropolis lies another world, one with a sinister secret. The earth- quake that originally destroyed Tokyo was actually caused by the emergence of a mysterious and lethal shadow world known as the Eclipse.

Now, action must be taken to thwart the legions of the Eclipse and ensure the protection of peace!

KEY FEATURES

• This updated version of Tokyo Xanadu includes all additional content for the game and a revamped localization of the story.
• New Scenarios!
  Enjoy unique tales of the Wielders that weren’t depicted in the main story. Once you’ve completed the game, get access to an all new quest and carry on the adventure!
• New Playable Characters, New Monsters, Dungeons and Bosses!
  Play as the mysterious knight, White Shroud. Brandish unrivaled strength and the powers of light to take down vile monsters and vicious bosses! Plus, new dungeons filled with fierce new monster types and giant bosses to battle!
• New Modes: “Time Attack” and “Boss Rush”
  In Time Attack, defeat various bosses that appear in the main story as quickly as possible. In Boss Rush mode, you can battle each boss one after the other.

Tokyo Xanadu eX+ is available for pre-order now. An online exclusive edition is available in Aksys Games’ Online Store which includes a 4-CD soundtrack featuring 88 tracks from the game.

Tokyo Xanadu eX+ launches July 25, 2024 in the west for Nintendo Switch. For more information you can check out its official website.

The post Tokyo Xanadu eX+ Gets Official Launch Date for Switch in the West appeared first on oprainfall.

Lately, I’ve been playing a ton of mahjong and hopping between a couple of other games. A few weeks ago was the Whale Cup tournament in Riichi City, which I joined last year and yet again signed up for this year. I feel like I possibly did even worse than last year. However, Riichi City‘s helpful tip features, dora tile highlights, winning tile wait hints, etc., being turned off for the tournament, I didn’t find much of an inconvenience at all this year. Last year, that was a bit odd for me and I more significantly felt that change from how I usually play. This year, it didn’t really matter to me much at all. So I suppose in some ways I’ve improved. Although, I have been having horrendous luck in mahjong overall, all year.

Not only did I do miserably in that tournament for the second year in a row, but I’ve also managed to recently lose my rank in Mahjong Soul. I went from an Adept 3 star rank, back down to 2 star. I wasn’t even a high rank to begin with, but I just haven’t had much luck lately. Some of it is my own fault. Nonetheless, these last couple weeks I’ve been using the efficient discard method to try and rank back up and I haven’t been making significant progress without eventually losing it all simply due to bad luck. Sure, occasionally I’ve taken a risk or two and those losses have been my fault, but in the majority of my matches I’ve been making myself play efficiently and it’s been going extremely slow. I already felt like Expert 1 star and the gold ranked rooms were quite far away, now I feel like I won’t even ever rank back up to where I was. I’ve pretty much been losing all my points this year in both Mahjong Soul and Riichi City.

Other than mahjong, I’ve done a smidgen of console gaming here and there, but not a lot lately. Finishing up Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, has been going a bit slow. I’m nearing the end, but also trying to finish up various side adventures. I’m attempting to not simply rush through the end like I did Gaiden, back when I wanted to finish it and be ready for Infinite Wealth right at launch. I mostly want to finish Infinite Wealth simply because it’s been months now, in addition to the fact that I finally got my hands on Persona 3 Reload a while ago during a sale and have been anxious to start that. Persona 3 was always my favorite Persona. Also, this past week I managed to get my hands on Endless Ocean Luminous as well, thanks to Nintendo. I’m playing that with the purpose of reviewing it, so I won’t say too much about it now. I’ve gone on some solo dives, made a bit of story progress and have done some online dives as well, plus I checked out the first online event this past weekend. But once again, if you want to hear more about my thoughts on Endless Ocean, you’ll have to wait for my future review. – Jenae

What games have you been playing this week? Let us know in the comments!

You can read previous Week in Gaming entries here!

The post oprainfall Week in Gaming: May 5 – 11 appeared first on oprainfall.

You can check out more about Arzette at the game’s official website.

Arzette: The Jewel of Faramore is available for purchase NOW: Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PC

Finally, you can check out my impressions of a hands-on demo here.

This interview has been edited for content and clarity.

Operation Rainfall: My name is Quentin H. with oprainfall, and you are?

Seth Fulkerson: Seth Fulkerson, developer and creator of Arzette from Seedy Eye Software.

OR: Can you tell us a bit about Arzette: The Jewel of Faramore?

SF: It is a spiritual successor to a pair of infamous fantasy-adventure games from the early 90s, like CD-ROM era. The game has full motion cutscenes, is full of crazy animation, hand-painted backgrounds, and it is done in a familiar [and] beloved style.

OR: What is your personal history with the Phillips CD-i?

SF: So, a few years ago, I made a fan remaster of Link: The Faces of Evil and Zelda: Wand of Gamelon. I did that to fulfill an in-joke with friends, but also to explore the potential of ‘Well, what if those games were cleaned up a little bit, they might be a little better?’. The response to that was a lot better than what I thought. I was lucky enough that I had a lot of animators and artists that are my close friends. So, we were always sort of kicking around doing our own take on those games. And the time was right, so yeah, it was where the genesis of Arzette started. My producer, Audun Sørlie, got in contact with me and we started working together to make Arzette to what it is.

“I know a lot of people looked at Arzette and thought ‘Why is he making this? Is he making this as a joke?’

No, I wouldn’t spend three to four years of my life making a joke- I want to make a good game.”

OR: You mentioned a little bit ago, and in a prior interview in a January 2024 interview with Game Developer, you said that you took on the challenge of remastering two CD-i Zelda games: Link: The Faces of Evil and Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon as an in-joke. What kind of in-joke makes you want to develop a game for four years?

SF: So, in 2016, that’s around the time that Twilight Princess HD came out, me and some friends were literally joking ‘What if that, but The Faces of Evil?’. And so, I started trying to scope it out, and I’ve been making games for a long time – mostly really small stuff like game jam type stuff. But I had a hard time finishing projects – especially that were not bigger scope, but along the lines of that.

So, it was a dual purpose: ‘Hey, I’ll finish the joke but also finish a game.’ And in the course of developing those [remastered CD-i The Legend of Zelda games], I learned how to make a game for real and I also learned the development history behind the games and the circumstances that lead to them being the way they were. I found it really inspiring, and it really had a profound effect on me and how I wanted to approach future projects and also what I wanted to do with Arzette.

OR: CD-i aficionados will tell you that there is a third CD-i title out there – Zelda’s Adventure. Why did you not take on remastering [that] game as well? Did you use that particular third game any when creating Arzette: The Jewel of Faramore?

SF: Basically, the duology of games – The Faces of Evil and Wand of Gamelon – they share the same engine, they are almost the same game. Zelda’s Adventure is a lot different; it is a top-down game. But personally, it is going to sound controversial, but I do not care for Zelda’s Adventure. I know it has a lot of its fans, but for a game, basically The Faces of Evil and Wand of Gamelon, for all their flaws, had a pretty solid gameplay loop – especially for Western games released in 1993.

It’s very prototypical Metroidvania – multilayer levels – you collect items through people or collect powerups, you go back through levels with new powerups. Zelda’s Adventure does not really have that at all. In fact, there are lots of items that are red herrings – it’s a very mean game to the player. I do not like it.

OR: Let’s follow up on the gameplay loop. You’re taking gameplay from games published in 1993, and putting it into a 2024 gaming atmosphere. We have had at least two generations of gamers come up during that time period. How do you take that and make that relevant to a modern-day audience while still staying true to the original 1993 releases?

SF: So, right away, when I was prototyping, I identified a lot of elements that I knew I would include in Arzette. The gamefeel, how it looks – a lot of things. For instance, if someone were to look at Arzette from a distance, they would say ‘Oh, I know what that is’ or ‘That looks familiar’ and pick it up. Maybe they will get the feeling that this is like a CD-i like game, but they aren’t aware that they are getting the five-star hotel treatment of CD-i. There’s a lot of lives, there’s generous checkpointing, the gameplay’s a lot faster, there’s certain design elements that are intended to be more player friendly.

For instance, keys are always found in the same area if there is a locked door. But in the original game, keys could open whatever door they wanted across the entire world, [and so] it was a lot more obtuse. So, take the essence of those original games and apply a lot of modern sensibilities – ‘cause I don’t want to frustrate the player, I don’t want them to want to give up or think this is poorly designed on purpose.

I know a lot of people looked at Arzette and thought ‘Why is he making this? Is he making this as a joke?’ No, I wouldn’t spend three to four years of my life making a joke – I want to make a good game. It is a delicate balance of jumping, how you attack – it has to feel a certain way and [I] sort of dial it in. Because if I give too many lives, then I can go too far in the opposite direction. But, if you try to stay true to what those games were while polishing off the rough edges, then that is the sweet spot.

“Part of me being sincere and serious about making this a spiritual successor was to get some of the legacy staff on board.”

OR: How did you develop Arzette: The Jewel of Faramore‘s story, and keep the game from falling into an awful parody of the classic CD-i games instead of paying an earnest homage to it?

SF: From the beginning, I knew that I didn’t want to make a wink wink, nudge nudge meme game that was mean-spirited. This was an earnest homage to those games. I wanted to make sure the writing was sincere – it is a strange world with strange characters, but they don’t know that. They are just kind of living their lives. It was important to me and my co-writer to make sure that the atmosphere was Saturday morning cartoons. Sometimes the humor didn’t land, but for the most part, it was a good-spirited world with a good-spirited antagonist.

To me, Arzette would never work if it was mean to itself. It’s a loving homage, and everyone that worked on the game – they all knew what we were doing, they all have the same sort of strange fondness for the [CD-i] games.

OR: About how many minutes of cutscenes are there in this game?

SF: There are 45 minutes of animation in the game.

OR: How do you decide when to use an animation to tell the story and when not to use animation in developing your story?

SF: The original games, for all their flaws, they had a really clever way of delivering player information – and that was through the cutscenes. A lot of the scenes in Arzette deliver gameplay information, like it might seem nonsensical at first, but the drunk guy at the bar is actually telling you that you can reflect projectiles by stabbing them, even though it seems like he is just going on a drunk rant. We added a few minor quests in the game that don’t have animation, but for the most part, I wanted to make sure that the entire thing was fully voice acted and animated.

OR: Did you direct the voice acting?

SF: I had a professional voice director that worked alongside me while voice casting for the game.

OR: And I think you brought back some classic voice actors from the CD-i era. Can you tell us about that?

SF: Part of me being sincere and serious about making this a spiritual successor was to get some of the legacy staff on board. I managed to network and find contact info for some of the original voice actors and one of the original artists that worked on The Faces of Evil and Wand of Gamelon, Rob Dunlavey – he did the world map for Arzette and one of her levels. He was one of the background painters for Faces of Evil and he did the world map for the game as well.

Jeffrey Rath, who voiced Link in the original games and Bonniejean Wilbur who voiced Zelda – I explained the project, and that yes, it’s been 30 years [but] I promise I’m not crazy. I outlined that it’s an homage, right? They understood, because they’re fully aware of the reputation that the games have. I think for them, it’s really rewarding to see people wanting to revisit their work. They were very receptive [to this], and a joy to work with.

OR: Can you tell us about your partnership with Limited Run Games to publish this title?

SF: After I decided that I wanted to do this game, I started pitching it to various publishers. I sat down with Josh Fairhurst, the CEO of Limited Run, to pitch a physical version of the game. He saw approximately 30 seconds of an early version of the shopkeeper scene, and he decided this was a game they wanted to do. Limited Run seems to want to take risks on games that nobody else would, because Zelda CD-i spiritual successor is certainly a risk. But I think he knew exactly what I wanted to do and how it would be a special game. The game has been a success, so it certainly has been a wonderful relationship with Limited Run Games.

OR: In a 2020 interview with Eurogamer, you mentioned that it took you about four years to develop the remasters of Link: The Faces of Evil and Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon. Did any of that experience play into developing Arzette: The Jewel of Faramore?

SF: Absolutely. I learned a lot more about programming, project management, and how to structure a game from those. They also share the game engine – Gamemaker Studio 2 – I’ve been using Gamemaker since I was 12 years-old, so a fairly long time and I’m fairly familiar [with it].

But it’s learning lessons from those games as well. Even remastering those games – I learned what works and what doesn’t for Arzette to give a modern gameplay experience for players.

OR: There is also a new CD-i controller that was released through Limited Run Games. Can you tell us about that and why would you want to do that yourself?

SF: That was one of the things that we had a discussion about, was doing that controller. It’s just one of those silly, fun things that Limited Run loves to do. For the authentic homage, you can pick up one of those retro controllers. It’ll work on any Switch game. I would not recommend players playing through Arzette the first time with the controller, but it is certainly playable. I’ve played through the whole game with that.

OR: And how was that experience playing with the CD-i controller?

SF: I will say…interesting. I will say, interesting.

OR: That is a loaded statement.

SF: Yes, it is.

OR: Now with Arzette: The Jewel of Faramore released, what’s next? More CD-i inspired titles? Are you going in a different direction entirely? Or what are you planning on doing in the future?

SF: I would love to keep exploring lesser-loved games and everything else. But really, a lot of it depends on the success of Arzette for where I would go next. But yeah, I’m pretty much up for anything.

OR:  Thank you.

Arzette: The Jewel of Faramore is available for purchase NOW: Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PC

Have you ever played either of the classic The Legend of Zelda CD-i titles?

What do you think about the new retro-style controller?

Let us know in the comments below!

The post PAX EAST 2024 INTERVIEW: Seth Fulkerson on Arzette: The Jewel of Faramore appeared first on oprainfall.

The post Switch Successor Announcement Upcoming – Nintendo Free to Plan June Direct in Peace appeared first on oprainfall.

This interview about Shantae Advance: Risky Revolution was originally supposed to go live during the time window while you could still pre-order a physical Game Boy Advance copy of the game from Limited Run Games. Unfortunately, due to unforeseen circumstances, this interview ended up being delayed into May for publication. However, Shantae Advance: Risky Revolution will be coming to home consoles, and so you can still definitely pick up a copy of the game then.

You can find out more about WayForward and Shantae Advance: Risky Revolution on the official website, on Discord, on Facebook and Instagram, on X, on TikTok, on YouTube, and on Twitch. 

You can also check out my impressions of a hands-on demo of Shantae Advance: Risky Revolution here.

Shantae Advance: Risky Revolution is set to release in 2024 on Game Boy Advance, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and PC.

This interview has been edited for content and clarity.

Operation Rainfall: My name is Quentin H. with oprainfall, and could you two introduce yourselves?

Matt Bozon: I’m Matt Bozon, I’m the director of the Shantae series — but specifically here, Shantae Advance: Risky Revolution.

Erin Bozon: And I am Erin Bozon, the creator of Shantae.

OR: Shantae Advance: Risky Revolution started at a Game Boy Advance title in 2002. What can you tell us about this title, and why was it never released?

MB: Well, it is a sequel to the original Shantae game — early, early ideas for this game started in November of 2000, which was when we got our dev kits. Shantae 1 was still in development, so we were starting to think about what a sequel might be. I actually started to have some of its early, early framework — or I guess design ideas, I should say — getting worked on even while the first game was not quite done.

You asked why it was not released. So, Game Boy Advance was very difficult at retail. It was very license driven, toy aisle, movie tie-ins, TV show tie-ins. It was very challenging. And prices of those cartridges were very expensive, so it was very hard to get publishers to want to take a gamble on an expensive cartridge for a completely unknown property. [And] the first game hadn’t even come out yet. And by the time it did come out, it had proven to not be a great seller. It was a fan favorite-

EB: -it only sold 10,000 copies.

MB: So yeah, it got cult [classic] status.

EB: It had a limited release.

MB: Yeah, it had a fan following, but not really a lot. Not enough to prove it would be successful as a Game Boy Advance game. Which, as I mentioned, was so much more expensive to manufacture and produce. Margins were very slim, and so, ultimately, there were a couple of places that looked at it and went ‘Maybe we could do something with this if you can get it on the cheapest cartridge and you can cut the content down.’ Really nice people who tried their best. But we’re like ‘We can’t even fit the demo on one of these tiny cartridges, much less the whole game — there’s just no way.’

EB: We [had] maxed out all the features, so to cut it down wouldn’t have worked.

MB: So, it just got put away and Shantae didn’t really come back again until digital distribution, which was like a rebirth — that was Shantae: Risky’s Revenge, which was a completely different game. This one just kind of went away and stayed away.

EB: And waited for more updated technology.

MB: For us, Risky’s Revenge was the third game we developed. But it’s the second game anyone ever saw.

“We’re always trying to do the next Shantae game, always. It’s always on the forefront.”

OR: How much progress was actually made in Shantae Advance: Risky Revolution before the project was shelved? How much of what WayForward did back in 2002 was actually still usable for this upcoming release?

EB: I think 50 percent?

MB: Fifty percent of the game’s systems, all of the player mobility, transformations, animations, big ideas that had already been built — engine, all that kind of stuff. What it didn’t have was the Golden Path adventure. You could only do 25 percent of it. So, if you’re speaking purely of game development, that is about halfway through the development process. Usually, the back half is a lot of ‘Now you’ve got to mass produce your content.’ We had done all the legwork, but we hadn’t done all the other stuff where you build out the full game experience.

This was really, really important at the beginning of the project: ‘Were we going to just resume work?’ And we ended up doing that. It’s just the same work, same code, same tools — tried to put our computers in the state they were in 20 years ago, back when resolutions of 1024 by 768 was as big as your computer monitor could possibly display. We had to go back in time and actually work in those constraints. Stuff and tools that were not even Windows-compatible yet, they were in DOS. Animations were made in DOS. A lot of this stuff — we’re working on stuff that is old, even back then. In the early ’90s, we were working on tools from the ’80s.

EB: Dpaint! [OR Note: Also known as Deluxe Paint.]

MB: Dpaint, yeah!

EB: DPaint was our go-to for the first game and the second one.

MB: All that stuff was still the same stuff. While we made improvements, we didn’t ditch the old things. We just continued. And that’s kind of like having one or two hands tied behind your back, honestly. So, you get none of the advantages of modern game development, other than being able to communicate with Teams and talking and chatting on a video call. But not the game.

EB: You were saying that there was no ‘undo’, right?

MB: There’s no undo! *laughs* We didn’t have that kind of technology yet! It’s Game Boy Advance, through and through. That’s what it is.

OR: Why look to the past to bring Shantae Advance: Risky Revolution back now instead of working on the next ‘big thing’ after Shantae: Seven Sirens and after the re-release of the first two Shantae games?

MB: That’s the best question ever.

EB: We’re always trying to do the next Shantae game, always. It’s always on the forefront. But you have to find someone to help fund it, you have to find the time and the staff and a slot — because a lot of times, you have to work on other titles in order to afford to do something that’s an indie game. So we came to a point where’s it’s like ‘Okay, we can afford to work on another Shantae game because he had just finished working on — I’m not sure we can say it-‘

MB: *laughs* I help out a lot at the studio! I was between projects I was helping out on.

EB: Yeah, we can’t say exactly what he was working on, but he had been on something for a year, and then he was going to have a time where he could actually work on maybe a Shantae game. So, we did talk about doing the next one in the series. But there was this one that had never been released, and it told us a little more of the story. It’s like — it’s there, and when can we release it? And retro stuff is really on the rise right now. So, it’s like ‘Yes, we could do a new one, but when are we ever going to go back to finish this one?’ And so, it just seemed like a good time.

And we did ask different companies if they could help fund it, and we did show them different games. And they were like ‘Yes! Let’s do this!’ and we were so thankful that someone will help fund it so we can get another Shantae game out.

So things lined up — Michael Stragey was available, and he did the engine for the first game, and Matt was available, and we had a lot of the art already done. So instead of maybe taking a year or two to do the whole new game, this one could fit into a slot that was less than a year. So timewise too, for Shantae fans, you don’t want them to go too long before a new game comes out. So to know that it had already been since 2020 or 2019 since the last Shantae game came out, we were like ‘Ahhh, if we can just get another one to play while we work on the next one, that would be great!’

MB: Completely along with that — Limited Run Games had been doing more reproduction cartridges — like that great thing with Shantae on Game Boy Color. It was like everything aligned nicely.

EB: Josh [Fairhurst] is such a fan that he was all for it, and that they would come on board and help us make another game. We can’t do it ourselves.

MB: He totally believed in us and in the preservation mission that he has. ‘Yeah, we’re finding an old game — here is an old copy laying around on a hard drive, and it should have existed but it didn’t.’ And so, he gave it another shot.

And like you said — Mike Stragey — we weren’t working together anymore. He had gone on to do other things, and it had been 20 years. So, he was between projects, and the timing was right. He’s like ‘I could do it, is it real?’ and we were like ‘Maybe it’s real! I don’t know!’ And then all the pieces fell into place. Super cool, also kind of a now-or-never thing. I feel if this was five years later, I’m not sure it would have made any sense — I feel like it would have gone away again.

EB: Especially as we continue to make more and more advancements with the Shantae series, I feel like now is a good time because we’re still [re]-releasing some of the older ones.

MB: Definitely.

OR: You streamed Shantae Advance: Risky Revolution demo as part of the Kickstarter campaign for Shantae: Half-Genie Hero in 2013. During that demo, you mentioned “I’m playing this game with an analog stick — this game was not designed for an analog stick” — and obviously, platforming with a D-Pad is way different than platforming with a Switch [Joy-Con] or PS4/PS5 controller, and this game has been announced for modern consoles.

How difficult was it to adapt the game’s GBA controls to modern console controllers?

MB: So, I guess I’ll say that that is a work in progress. The closest thing to this game, and I know it’s very strange — once this game is done, it will be as though it was done 20 years ago. Pretend that it was remembered fondly by people who played it — even though they didn’t — and now pretend that it is now time for the port by Carbon Engine team to modern consoles. It will be very similar to how they did the port for Shantae Game Boy Color. And since we’re working on it together — WayForward and Limited Run — it’ll also be very similar to when we ported Shantae and the Pirate’s Curse from the Nintendo 3DS with that upscaler kind of look to it. Not upscaling the pixels, the pixels are clean — I don’t like blurry pixels, it’s a thing of mine I can’t stand that, I like clean pixels — but the illustrations.

Erin’s group has artists redrawing everything at 4k resolution, and it will be beautiful. Your Carbon Engine port will have your Shantae and the Pirate’s Curse­-like, if you’re playing that game on a modern console, similar. You have your pixel art in the middle, your beautiful portrait art on the edges, your illustrations. And if you want, you can still play the cartridge version on [modern consoles], too.

So, if you are like ‘I want the way it really looked without all the high-res art’ — same with the controls. Just like on Pirate’s Curse, you can use the control stick to move around. If that’s what is comfortable for you, you can do that. But for, I think a lot of players, they are going to reach down lower on the controller and get the control pad and use that for the more traditional controls. So you can use both.

For me? I actually tend to play it both ways. When I’m getting into the precision-type fighting moments, I go down on my control pad. When I’m starting to wonder about, I’m taking a little rest and using my analog stick for my thumb. So, you can do both. But traditionally though, people are gonna wanna use the control pad.

Or I’ll plug in my Super Nintendo controller — I use that all the time for Switch stuff. I love plugging that thing in — any device that will support my SNES controller. I love it.

OR: Something interesting for a Game Boy Advance game — you can’t really patch it after release. We saw that when Nintendo tried to Berry patch Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire. How does it feel knowing that you have to get it right now?

MB: I’m nervously laughing. The reason I’m nervously laughing is — okay, Erin and I have done so many games. We have a Sabrina game that got 25 percent of the game deleted the day before the game shipped. Not the day before — at midnight, it was shipping in the morning to manufacturing. You really made 25 percent of the games, between midnight and 6 a.m.? Does that sound familiar?

EB: And I was pregnant — I was eight- or nine-months in.

MB: So, you’re making levels and people at the same time? *laughs* That’s crazy. It is a completely different mindset that I think is kind of gone from the world today. You have to live with everything that’s going out there. When it’s done, it’s not done. You have people who play it — as many people as can get hands on it.

EB: That’s why, after beta, we have a playtesting phase that goes for a month or something. You have as many people get their hands on it to try to find as many bugs. Our son was a play tester for years, and now he animated some of the Shantae characters. But he was a play tester since he was 15, until a couple of years ago.

MB: He’s good with the glitch theory-type stuff.

EB: He tries to break it.

MB: He’s like ‘If this is a game that is built on these types of things, then theoretically, they will probably do these things.’ And then he goes checks it.

EB: He’s a genius — he is like ‘I can break it, I know I can!’

MB: So there’s ‘Yeah, we’re gonna do the traditional Q&A looking for bugs’, and we’re also more like the quality — is it fun? And then there’s a whole other thing that Limited Run is going to do — and I had never heard of such a thing, and I thought it was actually crazy when I heard this. They have a fairly involved manufacturing process, because they are creating a specific chip set to make sure this thing runs just right on the card. And then they are going to individually test each individual cart by hand. I have never heard of such crazy stuff before.

EB: Just such quality assurance.

MB: I guess what that means is — and back in the day, old school development, you always shipped knowing there was a bug. Not one you knew of, but you knew. Once this thing expands out into the hands of [the public], something will be found. When it’s found, it will probably have to be like ‘Yeah, that’s part of the game’ and you hope it isn’t some egregious thing.

And yeah, you’re right, you cannot patch it. The only thing that can happen is you could — in this case, there is something a little slightly different because there is a Carbon Engine port coming [and] you could patch that original game. And then include it — that would be the fixed or patched version of the game. But even that is even a little bit unusual, because we’ve done re-releases of games in the past — like Shantae 1. Shantae 1 has some well-known bugs or weird exploits.

EB: We’ve seen people do run-throughs where they could skip stuff because they went through a wall. But it’s kind of fun to see people break the game.

MB: And if they like it, we want to leave it in. It’s only the things that would spoil the experience — we don’t want to spoil the experience for anyone. If there are some things that are kind of fun to break, then it probably is best that it be left in there. But you’re right, you can’t patch it, so you gotta check it and check it and check it again. But from the beginning of time, until only around not so long ago, you couldn’t patch anything anyway.

So, all we’re doing is going back to how you had to do things before, when you had to be absolutely sure before you hit that submit button — that you were absolutely done.

OR: Something else mentioned during the livestream was that [Shantae Advance: Risky Revolution] would be 20+ hours, which would make it the lengthiest Shantae game by far. Has that length been retained for this coming release?

MB: No, no. I think that would have been based on everything we had come up with to that point. Now that we’ve actually made the game, and it’s full quest line, I can say, I think with a fair amount of confidence, that that would have been a fairly drawn out 20 hours. This clocks in with much better pacing right around…I would say a little longer than, considerably longer than, Risky’s Revenge and a little shorter than Pirate’s Curse. Not as long as Half-Genie Hero with all of its DLC options. Right around in that sweet spot is where it lands. I think it’s going to be a satisfying length and move at a good pace for most of the people who are going to be into it.

EB: Not including the speedrunners.

MB: Yeah, without overstaying its welcome. Another way to put it is that every Shantae game has a ‘How fast can you beat it time?’ seems to be clocking in at about all of the other Shantae games. What you don’t want is a 20-hour game where it’s 10 hours of backtracking. A nice, clean, streamlined, respect-your-time game. As a result, shorter, but I think, more dense. Less watered-down flavor.

“And so, what happens, of course, with all of the Shantae games is when something finally doesn’t happen, all of those animations don’t get thrown away because I don’t like to waste anything.”

OR: Let’s talk about some other Shantae cancelled projects.

In an April 2021 interview with Nintendo World Report, you said that “CAPCOM did entrust us with a Dolphin development unit sometime around 2002 in hopes that we could come up with a Shantae GameCube sequel” and that “[w]e did some very early exploration into this idea, but ended up focusing on Shantae Advance instead ‘because that was where the work-for-hire jobs are and you have to keep the lights on’.”

Can you talk any about that early exploration with the GameCube? How far along did you get, and what was the concept behind the title? What was it like to essentially tell CAPCOM ‘thank you, but no’?

EB: GameCube is like my favorite console.

MB: This one is tricky. The reason it’s tricky is because I don’t know all of the facts. So, [CAPCOM was] very happy with Shantae Game Boy Color. That was excellent, they weren’t worried that it didn’t sell well. They were just happy with the quality — for them, it was very high. I was aware of a whole CAPCOM thing, they were trying to greenlight five CAPCOM games at the time. What was it? Viewtiful Joe, P.N.03, Resident Evil 4, and a mystery cancelled game. [OR Note: The cancelled title was ‘Dead Phoenix’, and the fifth unmentioned title was ‘Killer7’.]

So, we found out about that too. We didn’t know if we were one of those five, or not. I always wondered if we were supposed to be, but the timing was always the same — ‘oh, that’s why they gave us a kit.’ But we were new to 3D [and] we were trying to figure it out. And so we didn’t have a ton of confidence — there was a lot of R&D and experimentation phase during that time.

So, what ended up happening there was ‘Well, Shantae shouldn’t probably be the experiment — we should go straight into the thing that’s working that at the time was our core business.’ Which was the handheld team. So that’s why I went in that direction, and just let some of the — handheld was a small part of the studio at the time. About six out of the 20 or 30 people. So, I was like ‘Okay, we’re going to huddle up, focus on this, get really good at handheld’ — which is what evolved from Game Boy Advance into the DS.

Other parts of the company were going more 3D, PC — trying out various things on console, testing our reach as a studio. And those early, I guess, experiments, just kind of kept shifting from one thing into the next. So, while it was Shantae, I can tell you that the theme of the [GameCube] game was river rafting. The concept was revisited for Nintendo DS, which would have been Risky Waters.

There was concept art, there were some test videos made using really crude 3D. Not anything that was put through an actual art team — just ‘Hey, let’s make some basic geometric shapes and try moving a raft through it.’ And the concept of that was ‘What can the controller do, and what’s that like?’. And it’s like ‘oh, it’s fun to squeeze those analog triggers, it could feel like paddling through the water. Maybe this is what we do. Put all four characters on a raft, have four inputs, you’ll paddle paddle paddle, you’ll smack monsters, you’ll pull over off onto the shore, go into a dungeon, do traditional Shantae gameplay, pop out of the dungeon, get back onto the raft.’

That was the concept, and in that era, a lot of games were doing sort of strange and unusual things. It felt like experimentation was in the air, and it was a fun time.

OR:  You mentioned in a 2007 interview with MTV that you assembled a treatment for Shantae: Risky Waters on the DS after the console was announced, but you couldn’t find a publisher for it. Can you tell us more about that treatment? How close was it to the GameCube version?

MB: Okay, I can talk about that! No one’s ever asked about this as far as I know — this is a really funny one.

So, it was very similar. Our early test kits for Nintendo DS did show that you could do things that were very similar to GameCube. Like, ‘that’s very similar — let’s get this design out and bring it back in!’. So, what I had for that was — it was dual screen, which we didn’t end up doing until Contra 4 — I designed and directed Contra 4, so a lot of those same designs and ideas — I was like ‘I want to play with this and that for Shantae’ — did get experimented with. It was dual screen gameplay, so what you had gameplay on the top and bottom, and you had to manage both.

So, when you’re on the bottom, rafting in 3D, on the top, you had Sky on her bird. I don’t recall what the task was, but you were doing flyby things. You could target and drop powerups onto the crew below on the raft. When you pull over to a place to go into a battle area or a labyrinth or a dungeon, then you would have the action on the bottom. You’d be exploring, and your team members would be on the top. And you could manage them also just using L and R buttons. It’s like, ‘Can you play two games at once? Can you do platforming while managing some light gameplay on the top?’.

And the way that worked was that you had Uncle up top mixing potions and health items, and then he would throw them down into the dungeon for you. And each character had its own sort of thing. Rottytops would play almost like a tower defense thing where a bad guy would would come in, and she would be ripping off her leg and beating up the bad guys as they’re trying to get in — which would keep the number of bad guys down in the labyrinth in the bottom of the screen from getting overwhelming.

And so, what happens, of course, with all of the Shantae games is when something finally doesn’t happen, all of those animations don’t get thrown away because I don’t like to waste anything. Those animations got all put into Risky’s Revenge. So, the reason that you fight Uncle Mimic in that game is — you get to a point where you’re like ‘What’s the boss of this area going to be?’. Well, we had this full animation set of Uncle Mimic fighting and mixing potions, throwing bombs, all of this stuff. That was him as a helper character from what would have been the Shantae dual screen game. But instead, it’s like ‘Well, we’ll make up a new guy, he’s the Hypno Baron, he is making Shantae think she is fighting her uncle.’ There, I’ve got all the animations and I don’t have to throw them out and I can use them. And that’s what that was.

That’s about as much as I can get into without going back and re-reading that document.

OR: You were also the first e-Reader licensed in the United States.

MB: I think we were the only one, at least Nintendo told us at one point that we were the only person to ever ask for e-Reader.

OR: What was the process like to become a licensed e-Reader developer, and can you talk about that from the developer side? It’s a Nintendo product that really fell on the wayside.

MB: I love, I love the e-Reader, or Card e-Reader, or the e-Card Reader, depending on what region. We ran to the Celebi movie [OR Note: ‘Pokémon 4ever’] to get the cards to watch the little cartoon in the e-Reader. Totally loved that device. I was pushing really hard for a Shantae game on the cover of Nintendo Power — ‘I want to print the code, have people swipe their e-Reader cards through the Nintendo Power cover and get a little game.’

Because of that, I asked our CEO: ‘Can someone at Nintendo get us that dev kit?’. His response after awhile was ‘No one has ever asked for that dev kit, because who would want that?’ And I was like, ‘I want that!’. So, they sent us a dev kit, and I’m sure there is a lot of NDA stuff that is like ‘Don’t talk about what’s on the thing’, but it was a development kit with an e-Reader where you could look inside and see the guts of it, see what it was capable of doing.

We did some experiments. The experiments were Shantae battle cards, and you couldn’t physically do this, in theory what you would have done — is you’d swipe your move through. ‘I want fireball, I want hair whip, I want a high kick’, and you’d swipe them through. And there was just enough space to have really simple, tiny, tiny, I think the animations had to be down to 14k or something — like barely anything — but we did make a tiny animation set of Shantae. She looked just like the Game Boy Color Shantae for all practical purposes, but she could just do one of a few actions. And you’d just swipe in a bad guy card and swipe in up to, I think, three Shantae moves, and you’d be able to combat a thing and see if you would win or lose.

Not sure why it never went anywhere — I think it was because, honestly, that era ended so quickly. We had those Super Mario Bros. 3 cards come out, and then it very quickly became Pokémon Battle-e, and then they were kinda gone. So, it had its really cool moment, and there was just no catching up to it and getting into the card manufacturing. Man, if we could do that today? Because we do card manufacturing. I mean, actual trading cards- cards. We can do Shantae cards now. But no one had those anymore.

EB: We love all that old school stuff — Pogs, etc.

MB: The Shantae Advance: Risky Revolution game is only available until April 7th, but there is no preorder. In the future, you can’t get it anymore. So, when the preorder closes-

EB: -You can get it on other systems, but if you want a cartridge, it’s the only time you can get it. They aren’t going to reprint it. So, the collectors who really want to play it on the system, you really have to get the cartridge before April 7th when its gone.

MB: Yeah, after that, you’re just waiting on the Carbon Engine. Which I have a lot of confidence that will be a great port, but the port is not the same as the game. Even if the port has all these cool bells and whistles.

EB: I think a lot of Shantae fans are collectors, and sometimes they will get upset: ‘Oh, you need to re-release this thing!’, so if they can hop on when its actually pre-orderable, that’s the best.

OR: Lastly — there is a four-player mode announced for Shantae Advance: Risky Revolution. Can you tell us briefly about it?

MB: Yeah, the four-player battle mode is for two to four players. You only need one cartridge, so you don’t need to go buy four. You can plug in anywhere up to four Link Cables. Once you do that, it transmits the game to all the empty devices, and then you’ve got four people playing in a combat arena. It’s a constantly rotating play field, where if you don’t grab onto the fence, you will fall off and land on some spikes and die. It’s kind of last-man-standing, like Bomberman.

Everyone has a different animation, but you basically have a punch attack, a character-up-and-release attack that will clobber a guy and send him bouncing all around, and then you’ve got to watch out for when that arena is about to rotate. Then you grab a fence, or you’re going to fall and get knocked out. It’s just fun, light-hearted Link Cable stuff [that] the world hasn’t seen in a long time.

OR: Thank you very much.

Are you excited for Shantae Advance: Risky Revolution? What is your favorite Shantae title?

Did you ever play with the e-Reader?

Let us know in the comments below!

The post GDC 2024 INTERVIEW- WayForward Talks Shantae Advance: Risky Revolution, the Nintendo e-Reader, and Other Cancelled Shantae Games appeared first on oprainfall.

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When I played a demo of Arzette: The Jewel of Faramore at PAX East 2024, the biggest impression I walked away with was that Seedy Eye Software had done the impossible: they created a game that invoked the heart and soul of the CD-i console platform and made it into a quality gaming product for 2024. Set in the land of Faramore, Arzette: The Jewel of Faramore has the titular hero go out on a quest to stop the evil Daimur.

The creator behind the game, Seth Fulkerson, has repeatedly stated that Arzette: The Jewel of Faramore is inspired by The Legend of Zelda CD-i games, and I certainly believe that. The gameplay is a 2D adventure where you jump and slash your way through enemies towards the end of the level. The gameplay itself fits well in 2024, and I was happy to find out that the enemy hitboxes were on point, and the platforming controls worked well. Even as I killed enemies and fought a boss at the end of the demo, I found myself becoming thoroughly engrossed by the gameplay itself. The game bills itself as Arzette being able to unlock more abilities as it progresses, and I am personally curious to see what all she can do when she is fully unleashed. During my demo, I was able to try out the bombs, and I ended up using them to great effect to help destroy the stage-end boss.

Of course, the hallmark of the CD-i was the animated cutscenes, and Arzette: The Jewel of Faramore does not disappoint. The distinct, low quality art style of the CD-i games has been lovingly recreated for Arzette: The Jewel of Faramore. The voice acting is over the top, and the cutscenes pop up to tell the story more frequently than what you would expect. The world levels themselves are beautifully done, and you can tell that a lot of care went into them. The more I kept playing, the more it reminded me of Working Designs’ Popful Mail in terms of gameplay quality and charm.

There is one other important note to mention: I tried the game with both the 2024 controller option and the remade CD-i controller option that was released through Limited Run Games. Unfortunately, that CD-i controller is awful, and I found it difficult to control Arzette with it. Using that controller really made me appreciate joysticks and other video game innovations in the past 20-plus years.

Ultimately, the PAX East 2024 demo I played of Arzette: The Jewel of Faramore takes inspiration and heart from a long-dead, barely remembered home console, while simultaneously transcending it into a final product that is far better than its inspiration. The final product was released back in February, and I think it is well-worth trying it out if the demo is any indication of the final game…and thankfully, it is out now!

Did you ever play any CD-i titles? Are you planning on picking up Arzette: The Jewel of Faramore?

Let us know in the comments below!

The post PAX EAST 2024 IMPRESSIONS- Arzette: The Jewel of Faramore appeared first on oprainfall.

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Renaine is a Kickstarter-originated title that bills itself as “a game about overcoming failure.” The protagonist, Aine, is able to come back to life an infinite number of times, but also has to defeat a Dragon as an act of revenge while traveling across the Kingdom of Lineria. You jump, roll, and attack with your sword in order to move across the 2D map in an action-adventure, platforming, adventure with very busy pixelated graphics.

I am going to just open with my favorite two parts of my Renaine demo: the writing and the music. The NPC dialogue is frequently snarky and fantastic, and I kept wanting to laugh while playing. For example, when you enter the dojo at the start of the demo to learn how to play the game, one of the NPCs gives the cliché statement that how anyone can become a pro with enough hard work and determination. Immediately to the right, another NPC states a more realistic answer of how SOME can become a pro with enough hard work and determination. After training and learning basic combat, a different NPC explains that advanced lessons are for the full game, and you’ll even run into an NPC with an upside-down head who talks about it and tries to get you to relate to him. This style of snarky and fourth-wall break humor was peppered throughout the demo without wearing out its welcome. The music, which is a very jazzy set of tunes, is incredible as well and is a fairly unique aspect for a platforming title. I actually found myself wanting to buy a copy of Renaine’s soundtrack to just put on in the background while I am living my day-to-day life. If you listen to the above linked trailer, you’ll see what I mean!

Of course, Renaine is more than just music and humor, and thankfully it also delivers in gameplay. The platforming and combat controls were pretty tight, and I felt like I could accurately judge where Aine was going to land when he jumped, and that if I was fast enough, I could hit what I was aiming at with my weapon. The real surprise though was that there is a fairly unique powerup gameplay loop. Whenever you kill enemies, you get money to collect. And fairly frequently, you run across an NPC shop that gives you different weapons or abilities to buy for a price — and you could get one at a time. You’re making choices between a fire rod that shoots flames, bombs that walk around, and so much more. There are even more surreal items such as different mushroom powerups that…well…turn you into an actual mushroom. All of this actually incentivized me to kill all the enemies I could find in order to get more money to keep trying out new powers as I would come across them. In the second half of the demo, I actually was partnered up with another, much larger, NPC, who helped me to fight enemies all throughout a sand area and I loved how it mixed up the gameplay.

Overall, Renaine was a blast to play and to experience. I was not expecting such sharp humor and writing while demoing it, but that, along with the constant powerups gameplay loop, really drew me into wanting to see more and more of the kingdom of Lineria and its inhabitants when it eventually releases for PC and for Nintendo Switch.

Are you excited for Renaine? What powerups are you hoping to find and use in the game?

Let us know below!

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Your underwater journey is about to begin! Dive into the Veiled Sea, where you can discover over 500 species of oceanic creatures. Take a relaxing solo swim or explore in groups of up to 30 players online. A mysterious underwater world awaits in the Endless Ocean Luminous game. Available now, only on the Nintendo Switch system.

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Bread & Fred is deceptively simple: two people, each controlling a penguin, have to work together to climb higher and higher in the snowy mountain environment until you reach the top and finish the game. Oh, and you’re tied to each other by a rope. However, Bread & Fred is anything but simple in practice. During my hands-on demo during PAX East 2024 with one of the developers as my co-penguin, I found a brutally difficult — yet incredibly fun — game that required us to count in unison to time jumps, swings, and wall grabs.

The pixel art is beautiful, and I loved how the colors popped off of the screen. The controls were also incredibly fair, and every time we fell down, it was absolutely deserved. The gameplay though? Brutal. A lot of the jumps and rope swings have almost no room for error, and everything has to be perfectly timed in order to climb further upwards. If you and your partner do not have excellent communication and a willingness to plot the next several jumps ahead of time, then you won’t get far in Bread & Fred. This game is incredibly challenging in gameplay execution versus mechanics, and I think that really works to show off Bread & Fred’s strengths to force people to cooperate to succeed. As you climb higher and higher, the terrain can get more and more difficult with environmental hazards, such as the blowing wind, that can derail even the most calculated of jumps.

As a side note, I did not try the single player mode — Bread & Fred is clearly meant to be a co-op experience.

During my PAX East 2024 Bread & Fred demo, I also was able to try out the new race content. In this, you and your partner penguins are competing against a polar bear in a closed map environment to see who can get to the end first. During the race I tried out, it felt like it was more complicated than the gameplay environment I was previously in, and it was less forgiving with how far you ‘drop’ if you miss a jump. The polar bear also repeatedly fell, surprisingly, and so it did not make me feel like the race was over the moment I or my partner miscued a jump or swing from platform to platform. Ultimately, I think it is a nice little add-on to Bread & Fred.

New content for Bread & Fred includes competitive races on new maps!
They are harder than they look. (Images courtesy of Apogee Entertainment.)

So, I’ll be honest: I loved Bread & Fred and the new race content, but it definitely isn’t for those who cannot communicate with their partner penguin well. It took me and one of the developers (who made the game!) time to connect well enough to get our penguins partway up the mountain and to try to (but fail at) crushing the polar bear during the race. Bread & Fred’s already out now, so definitely give it a try!

What do you think of difficult co-op games? Have you tried out Bread & Fred?

Let us know in the comments below!

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Aniplex has announced that the artbook included in the PlayStation 4 physical limited edition for the English release of TSUKIHIME -A piece of blue glass moon- will have two modified pages. The artbook will not be altered for the limited edition on Nintendo Switch.

Aniplex went on to state that while the artbook would be altered for the PlayStation 4 release, the game itself will not be altered for both the PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch versions.

You can check out the full statement below (via the game’s official X account).

Notice regarding the English release of TSUKIHIME -A piece of blue glass moon- pic.twitter.com/o27E2wlpux

— TSUKIHIME -A piece of blue glass moon- (@tsukihime_en) May 1, 2024

This isn’t the first time something has been altered due to Sony Interactive Entertainment’s policies. Senran Kagura Burst Re:Newal had an entire game mode removed prior to its release on PlayStation 4. Not even more well known titles were safe, as Devil May Cry 5 was also hit with extra light censors in its western PS4 release, though those were eventually removed. This, however, is an interesting situation as Aniplex is owned by Sony Music Entertainment Japan, which is under the same parent company (Sony) as Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE). It appears other companies under the Sony umbrella are not exempt from SIE’s publishing policies.

TSUKIHIME -A piece of blue glass moon- launches June 27th, 2024 for PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch. If you’re interested in the visual novel, you can follow its official X account and check out its official website.

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SEGA Asia and Natsume Atari have released a new trailer for their upcoming release Shadow of the Ninja – Reborn. This is the fourth of the “16-bit style remakes” Tengo Project have worked on following Pocky and Rocky Reshrined, the Ninja Saviors and Wild Guns Reloaded. Below is a description of the game from SEGA Asia’s youtube channel.

The Supreme 16-bit Aesthetic Brand new NINJA ACTION!

TENGO PROJECTO 16-bit remake 4th work「Shadow of the Ninja」Special trailer released.

Experience the magic of “TENGO PROJECT,” the innovative creators renowned for their unforgettable 16-bit revivals like “Pocky & Rocky Reshrined”! Prepare for the 4th chapter of their newest classical Ninja action!

In a distant future, there exists a legendary Ninja…
Race through the dark skyscrapers, unleash ninja skills to defeat the threats of tanks and robots!
Liberate humanity from the tyranny of the Four Demonic Generals! Experience super realism in classical gaming!

Confront formidable foes using a range of dynamic maneuvers, mastering 7 ninja weapons and unleashing special ninjutsu!
Jump into challenging battles with an ally with co-op mode!

With the original “KAGE: Shadow of the Ninja” (titled ”SHADOW OF NINJA” in North America and “BLUE SHADOW” in Europe) launched in 1990, Natsume earned its stripes as the master of action games – now, that same creative team brings you the newest chapter in the series

・Acclaimed composer Iku Mizutani scores the immersive soundscape of this game, drawing from his experience on beloved classics like KAGE: Shadow of the Ninja, Shatterhand, and the Metabots franchise.

・Following the original version, Dynamic Planning crafts vibrant key visuals and character designs, celebrated for their iconic contributions to Mazinger Z and Grendizer.

Shadow of the Ninja – Reborn will be launching in Japan and Asia on August 29th for PlayStation 5, PS4 and Nintendo Switch. Physical versions will be distributed by SEGA in those regions. This release will also support multiple languages including English, Japanese, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Korean, Simplified and Traditional Chinese.

SOURCE

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It’s Mario, and he’s…uh, paper?! Leaf through a storybook world made of paper as you set off to find legendary treasure! Team up with a colorful cast of charming characters, battle in epic scraps against shadowy foes, harness paper abilities to find surprises around every fold, and more!

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