Hello my friend, come on in! I’ve got a pot of coffee brewing, do you have a minute to catch up on the latest? It’s been a busy week, that included business meetings but also a nice dinner with former colleagues, that turned into friends over the years. Isn’t that the best, when you’ve known each other for 10 years, haven’t worked together for some time now but still find the incentive to see each other a couple of times a year? How was your week? A busy one too?
- At least my week included a lot of train travels too, so ample time to enjoy the game I’m currently playing, Bravely Second End Layer. I’m pretty enthusiastic about this game. It’s not released yet in America, but if you get a chance to download the demo you’ll get some 10 hours of free gaming fun.
- Good news for Disney fans too, as the mobile game Disney Magical Kingdoms is now live, both on iOS and Android. In this mobile game you help Mickey reclaim the amusement park from the evil curse that has chased all the happiness away, and as always you will need several in game currency to progress. I’ve played a little bit of it now, and it looks good. Same mechanics as every free to play app game, with patience it won’t cost you a penny in real money to play it and enjoy it. In this link to Gamelofts website you will find both a button to download from the App Store or Google Play for Android. Not to be confused with Magical World for the 3DS. Still waiting for the second instalment for that game with anticipation, but although it’s been out in Japan for some time now, there’s still no word on localisation.
- Yesterday MiiTomo, plus the My Nintendo Accounts were released in Japan. They both should be up and running here in the West before the end of March, but no definite date yet. I’ve read a lot of negative reactions from Nintendo fans on MiiTomo, and I’m afraid I just don’t understand. What’s wrong with Nintendo trying to bridge the gap between dedicated gaming on handheld devices and consoles, mobile gaming? Although I do recognise you can’t really call MiiTomo a game, it looks like it will deliver what I hope for. If you watch the English trailer below you will see that it’s a lot like Tomodachi Live. You can customise your Mii and send it out among you friends to interact. Should be fun; I’ve said it before, maybe this will make me miss Swapnote (Letterbox) a little less.
- Good news for fans of Atelier games: Koei Tecmo made a statement about releasing Atelier Sophie: The Alchemist of the Mysterious Book. It’s been out in Japan for some time, but now it will release for PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita in North America on June 7 and Europe on June 10, 2016. If you’d like some more background info on the game, you can find it here.
- The last game I wanted to talk to you about is Zero Escape, ZeroTime Dilemma. A game that’s the sequel to Virtues Last Reward and that been set for release in America and Europe for 3DS and the Vita. This is a escape adventure game that revolves around people trapped in a facility by the mysterious “Zero.” To escape you will need to pass through the central elevator hall, but it’s locked by a door that requires six passwords to unlock. To unlock a password, one of your group must die. The player will face the decision of whether they should go along with the game or find another way to escape…Sounds a bit grim, still, I’m curious about this game. Not sure yet if it will be my cup of tea though.
That’s it for this week. Thank you so much for reading, and I hope we will meet again next week. Have a good week, my friend!
Ah, the Zero Escape series. Honestly, I’m not good at puzzle games… On the news of puzzles, did you hear that one of the guys who worked on Professor Layton died? I wasn’t a big fan of those games (I suck a puzzles.), but I did have a respect for the series for bringing in some good stories.
Back onto the topic of Zero Escape, the original games were on the DS, I believe. I’d recommend the series, but warning, it’s not for the weak of heart. It’s not a horror game per say, but it’s pretty freaky.
Well, I did watch the trailer, and that made me doubt if it was for me. By the way, I’m not great at puzzle games either, too much hard work. But the Layton series is something else, good storylines. I had heard about his passing, he was 90 years old, right?
I’m totally hyped for Sophie!!
It promises to be another good one!
I am looking forward to the new Zero Escape game, as the story of the previous titles is awesome. If you don’t like puzzles you could download the iOS version of 999. It is pretty much the DS game with the puzzles removed.
But tell me, doesn’t the game have a kind of grim atmosphere? A bit of a horror game? That what I pick up from watching the trailer.
It’s more of a mystery game rather than horror. The stories feature a group of people trying to escape from a location. As you can imagine, in a stressful situation, some people try to help the party and others are selfish. Both 999 and Virtue’s Last Reward have multiple endings – some are more grim than others.
Honestly, if you’re unsure about Zero Escape, hunt down it’s DS original, 9 persons 9 hours 9 doors. I did that after I got the sequel, Virtue’s Last Reward, for the Vita for about 8 euros. Or, if you don’t mind not playing the original, you can also wait for another sale on the Vita, that tittle goes on sale pretty often for low prices as the one I got. I haven’t played it yet either, but now that I have two games of it, there’s no way I’m not going to finish the trilogy. I’m just gonna wait for a good sale as usual.
I’m pretty excited for the new Atelier, but I’m gonna wait until they release the plus version of atelier Shallie on the vita, probably early next year or at the end of this one. Then I’ll be done with the Dusk trilogy and can go on to this new iteration in the franchise. The two artstyles in this one mesh pretty well and make the game look very pretty.
A good tip about the prequel to Zero Escape, Kumiko!
Atelier Sophie has me more exited, though I have yet to play Totori and Mereru. And I should wait for Shalie too. I’m wondering about the timeline, as it seems that Sophie gets a Vita release immediately!
Well, for the other trilogies, Gust always released the PS3 version first and then about a year later ported the games to Vita with all the DLC included and called them plus versions. But they must have realized that their Vita fanbase was huge, so now the start of this new trilogy (maybe?) gets to come out on the Vita right away. Which in one way it’s good, we get to have it right away, but on the other hand it’s bad, because now the Vita users will have to buy DLC from now on.
This is why Shallie is coming out later, because the Vita port of it was only released this year in Japan, whereas Sophie was released last year. So Koei Tecmo got to work on Sophie’s localization first. The PS3 version of Shallie came out one year before Sophie and closed off the Dusk trilogy, hence the timeline.
I’m awaiting the arrival of Miitomo. I do not really know if I like this movement to phone/mobile for Nintendo (Mostly because I don’t own a mobile phone. I’m hoping that I can access and play the game anyway via google play on my tablet.) but I’m not so biased that I’m not willing to even see if I might like the mobile games.
It’s funny really, Tomodachi Life didn’t thrill me – I didn’t like that it seemed too much work and didn’t really let you get to learn much about your friends’ personality. I see Miitomo as less trouble, and more immediately interactive fun with friends. I’m really hoping I can get full functionality out of the game via googleplay despite not owning a cell phone and having a cell phone number.
Good point, I wonder too whether it’ll be available on a tablet too. I do see that it will be most fun on a mobile phone, being able to react immediately, but having it on my tablet to play it at leisure should prove nice too. We will have to wait and see!