M2 are having a serious amount of fun with the Aleste franchise at the moment. Following on from their brand new release of GG Aleste 3 that featured in the recent Aleste Collection, M2 are bringing another new Aleste title called Senxin Aleste to arcades. This title is very much a throwback to the 16 bit tate shooters of the early 90s and features 4 playable characters. You can check out a trailer for the game below:
There is currently no release date set for Senxin Aleste, but it will be arcade exclusive; specifically to SEGA arcades in Japan for the time being. Fingers crossed the game doesn’t stay Japan exclusive for long. Western fans will be more familiar with the Aleste series through games like Power Strike and M.U.S.H.A.
Phantasy Star Online 2 is coming to Nintendo Switch, in the form of Phantasy Star Online 2: Cloud. The game’s been known about for a while now, but thanks to the recent Nintendo Direct we now know it’ll be landing on April 4th.
The game is, as ever, Japan-exclusive. It’s worth noting that the Switch is region-free, meaning those outside of Japan could technically get the game anyway – but as well as there being a huge language barrier that can be as easily circumvented as on PC, the game is actually streamed to the Switch, hence the “Cloud” moniker. As such there’s only a 40MB cloud-based application to download, but outside of Japan we can’t exactly imagine it’ll be a smooth experience, as all the servers the game will be streamed from are likely to be in Japan.
That being said, Phantasy Star Online 2’s Switch version does include a new set of items based on The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, which is a pretty wild thing to type. From the looks of things you’ll be able to get Link’s Champion duds, as well as the Master Sword and Hylian Shield. Also rather neat is that the game supports keyboard and mouse peripherals for the Switch, just in case you’ve got nostalgia for that one gigantic keyboard controller for Gamecube.
When Tracker isn’t playing SEGA games, he’s talking about SEGA games. Or drawing about SEGA games. Or all of the above. You can also catch him over on Twitter.
Hear that? That’s the sound of me weeping into a pillow at the thought of Japanese 3DS owners being able to purchase this incredible new theme based on the Dreamcast (as well as many other retro SEGA consoles). Check out video of the theme in action and marvel at the attention to detail (VMU and disc drive sounds!):
The current range of SEGA console themes for 3DS are sadly exclusive to Japan at the moment. Fingers crossed they eventually make it West.
The previously Japanese exclusive action RPG Rent-a-Hero is now available to play in English for the first time.
A team of dedicated ROM hackers have created an English language patch for the game from ROMHacking.net have been working off the previously released patch by Edison Translation Group which only partially translated the game.
Having a man scream, “HEEEEEROOOOOOOOO BANKUUUU” will never get old for me. Below is the new trailer to Hero Bank 2 and it features a load of new gameplay footage as well as colourful anime lunacy, a lot of shouting and a child being flushed down a toilet for good measure. This game has it all:
Hero Bank 2 is a turn based fighting game and will launch on 3DS on the 27th of November. It is currently Japan exclusive.
A new game in the Shining series has been revealed in Weekly Famitsu. The new title is an action RPG from Media.Vision; the creators of Wild ARMs. The new game features a dragon as the game’s protagonist and the game will be themed around “dragons and musical instruments”.
Random encounters appear to be out in favour of a seamless transition between the game’s overworld and battles. A party of up to 4 characters can be taken into battle.
As with most games in the Shining franchise, a Western release has not been announced and will probably not happen.
Japan exclusive arcade fighting game Dengeki Bunko Fighting Climax will receive an update which adds two new characters.
The 2 characters in question are Taiga Aisaka from Toradora! and Miyuki Shiba from The Irregular in Magic High School. You can see screenshots of the two in action above.
There are currently no plans to bring Dengeki Bunko Fighting Climax to the West and a console version has not been announced. TOUGH LUCK LOSERS
If you’re not aware of SEGA’s Japanese media franchise Sakura Wars then we might need to explain before move on: the Sakura Wars series mainly consists of a series of video games based around tactical warfare and keeping character relationships positive through a dating simulation element. The series has largely stayed Japan exclusive but has also strayed into other media like film, television, novels, manga and stage shows.
The stage show aspect is where today’s news comes from as SEGA have released an adaptation of the most recent stage show on DVD. You can see a trailer for the release below (WARNING: there is a lot of singing and overly cute voices):
UPDATE
A big thanks to Patrick Gardner on our Facebook page who has explained that this show is the first to showcase the Paris and New York Divisions of the series. The show follows the events of Sakura Wars 3 and features 3 new characters.
A surprise release from SEGA Japan! The Japanese branch of SEGA are currently location testing a new arcade fighting game based on the Shining franchise. The game is called Blade Arcus from Shining and features a surprisingly small cast of 6 characters, especially for a modern fighting game.
The characters are:
Rage from Shining Blade
Sakuya from Shining Blade
Xiao-Mei from Shining Hearts
Altina from Shining Blade
Ryuga Wong (new character exclusive to Blade Arcus)
Pairon Wong (new character exclusive to Blade Arcus)
Hero Bank, the upcoming RPG/fighter for the 3DS will be getting its own anime series in Japan. The series starts broadcasting in April, only a month after the games Japanese release.
Hero Bank is currently Japan exclusive but here’s hoping SEGA West pull their finger out and start giving us some new games to play. The game launches on March 20th.
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