Atlus Brings Persona 4 To The Vita

The Shin Megami Tensei series of RPGs is both phenomenally popular and critically-acclaimed, and Atlus has now announced that it is bringing a remastered version of Persona 4 to North American PlayStation Vitas this fall entitled Persona 4 Golden.

Persona 4 Golden will present an enhanced and expanded portable version of the original with remastered visuals that Atlus promise will take full advantage of the Vita's OLED display. They've also added voicework to offer one-and-a-half times the voiced dialogue of the original. There's a new online dungeon rescue feature that will let players call on other gamers to help them when they're about to die in the TV world. Other added content includes new Personas to collect, new story events, an all-new character, new anime cutscenes (including a new opening animation and song from Shiji Meguro) and a host of "fan suggested tweaks and changes."

Leave it to Atlus to not half-ass a portable port. They always go the extra mile to please the fans. That's why we love them so. Enjoy the first batch of screenshots below!

PAX East 2012: Cosplay Gallery

As always, PAX East was full of cosplay, whether from film, TV, games or anime/manga, and I have to say that the hotness was on full display this year. Seriously, there were some damn fine guys inside some of those damn fine costumes. (And girls, too! I don't discriminate!)

I would have been hard-pressed to pick a favorite until this guy who dressed as Rick from The Walking Dead. He was literally the last cosplay photo I took, as I was on my way out of the convention center on Sunday to go home when I ran into him. I knew who he was and asked for a picture, and didn't even see his sign until he held it up. But after I snapped the first photo and he flipped the sign over, I almost couldn't take the second picture I was laughing so hard. (Seriously, Carl is such a pain!)

Please to enjoy the elaborate costumes... and the hotness... after the jump!

PAX East 2012: Hands On: Hell Yeah!

One of the more... interesting games I saw at this year's PAX East was at the SEGA booth: Arkedo's Hell Yeah! Basically, it's a Metroidvania-style platformer full of over-the-top violence and gore. You're Ash, a devil rabbit and the prince of hell, but some scandalous photos of you and your rubber ducky in the tub were leaked on the hell-ternet, so it's up to you to find the person responsible for your humiliation, and take out everyone else on the way just for fun. There are 100 monsters to kill in 35 different ways across 10 huge game worlds. When you kill a monster, you'll enter a brief button-mashing mini-game (there are 35 of them) that lets you perform a completely insane finishing move. Not to mention the various weapons and upgrades you can buy with the money you collect... you can even change your outfit if you want to get all fashion-forward about it! It's all a bit much. And it's all a bit awesome and hilarious. What I played was bright, colorful, gory, violent, and most importantly, fun.

When I asked Arkedo's co-founder Camille Guermonprez what inspired this ridiculously insane platformer, he admitted that it emerged from their frustration at dealing with a publisher who refused to pay their studio for the work they'd done on a game. "So we had to start to work for hire for once," he said. "And we did not like it at all. We had to do exactly what other people wanted us to do and we hated every moment of that and we kept on promising each other every week... 'Okay, next game it's ours and we kill monsters... and there's gonna be blood, right? And we're gonna kill them real hard, yeah?' 'Yeah, I promise you. Let's finish this job and I promise you the next game we will kill monsters and do it in awful ways.' But that's the basic idea of the stuff, it was frustration."

The game is quite dark and violent, but infused with a lot of humor. "I was in charge of a bit of the writing of the game, and it's really hard," Guermonprez confessed. "Because we are trying to be irreverent, but not insulting. There are all the bad... the penis jokes, the boob jokes, the fart jokes... you've got them all in there. But we wanted also to make it the Pixar way. You know when you have parents and children and they are laughing at the same scene for two completely different reasons. And it's something that we are really trying to do and having quite a lot of difficulties translating stuff. Because it's a very fine balance, to be... that stupid!"

Hell Yeah! has been rated Pegi 12 in Europe, and was recently given a 17+ here in the US, but Guermonprez admitted that they would have to do quite a bit of tinkering to get some aspects of the game through censors in Japan. But he insists that while the game is dirty and violent, its "in a cute way. That's the thing. Being outrageous, but in a very cute way!"

Hell Yeah! is slated for download later this summer on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC.

PAX East 2012: Hands On: Quantum Conundrum

Well, now that PAX East 2012 is over, I have to sort through all the information I gathered so that I can pass it on to you. I played plenty of games, and there's the annual cosplay gallery of cute guys in costume to post later on, but I wanted to start with the game that was to me, the surprise of the show.

Coming from Square Enix this summer on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC as a downloadable game, Quantum Conundrum is a first-person puzzle game. You play as a 10-year-old kid dropped off at his uncle's house, and this uncle is a mad scientist who has gone missing. It's up to you to use your uncle's invention, the IDS device, to manipulate the world around you and solve physics-based puzzles to proceed. You can make things fluffy (light), heavy, slow down time and reverse gravity. And you'll need to cleverly switch between each of these powers in order to figure out how to get out of the room you're in, past doors, switches, glass windows, laser beams, and whatnot.

If this sounds a little bit like Portal, there's a very good reason for this. The creative director of Quantum Conundrum is Kim Swift, who was the lead designer on Portal. So while it has a similar kind of feel to it, moving through a series of rooms and solving puzzles using physics, it's more than different enough. First off, there's no portals anywhere! Seriously, though, the time I played with the demo was super-fun and I loved the lighthearted humor and creativity of the puzzles. Granted, it was only a demo, but when you suddenly figure out what you need to do to proceed, those "ah hah!" moments are always worth it.

Unfortunately, I wasn't actually able to finish the entire demo, because at the very end, there was a lot of jumping, and I was playing the PC version, so I wasn't as good with the keyboard and mouse as I would have been with the PS3 gamepad at the other station. And I was running out of time with my appointment and decided to cut the demo short so I could talk to Swift and find out more about the game for you. See, I'm always thinking of you guys.

Quantum Conundrum should be out this summer on the 360, PS3 and PC, and there's no price point yet, but I should think it would be reasonable since we're talking about an average of 10 hours of gameplay depending on your skill level. I'll keep you updated when we do get a confirmed release date, though! Don't worry!

Pokémon Conquest Set To Conquer The US

The highly unusual Pokémon title Pokémon + Nobunaga's Ambition is headed for a North American release on June 18, under the title Pokémon Conquest. Developed by Tecmo Koei, the DS game is a hybrid of their Nobunaga's Ambition series of historical strategy RPGs and Nintendo's Pokémon series. So basically, all the warlords will battle with Pokémon!

"Pokémon fans are always interested in playing in new environments and experiencing new adventures," said Scott Moffitt, Nintendo of America's executive vice president of Sales & Marketing. "Pokémon Conquest gives them an entirely new way to enjoy this beloved series, with exciting new settings, fierce battles and nearly 200 Pokémon to team up with."

The game takes place in the new region called Ransei, and your warlord must travel with their Pokémon to recruit other warriors and Pokémon. Who knew Pokémon existed back in feudal Japan! Pokémon Conquest will feature various Pokémon from the entire series. And you're going to want to have as many as you can get, because this time the battles are going to be six-on-six!

You can see some of the warlords and their Pokémon in the gallery below as well as a few little screenshots of the game. And by little, I do mean little. Sorry they're so tiny, but that's the size Nintendo released!

Gallery: Pretty Pretty Kingdom Hearts 3D

Apparently, it's been 10 years since the release of the first Kingdom Hearts game (great — now even my newer videogames are making me feel old!), and Square Enix decided to mark the occasion by releasing a handful of screenshots from the upcoming Kingdom Hearts 3D [Dream Drop Distance].

Instead of gameplay, these lovely images are the CGI cutscenes that will be coming at you when you play the game on your Nintendo 3DS. I remember being underwhelmed by the demo of the DS Kingdom Hearts game back when I played it at E3 a couple years ago, so I'm hoping to be able to play this one at PAX East to see if it's an improvement. I'll let you know!

Square Enix Is Bringing The Final Fantasy Rhythm Game To The US

If you're a regular reader, you know how much I love my music/rhythm games, so when I heard about a Final Fantasy-themed music game, I naturally assumed it would never see the light of day outside of Japan. Well, Square Enix has proved me wrong by announcing a Summer 2012 release date for Theatrhythm Final Fantasy on the Nintendo 3DS!

The game will bring together more than 70 musical scores spanning Final Fantasy's 25 years in a hybrid of music rhythm gameplay with RPG elements. The re-designed characters are absolutely adorable, as you'll see in the artwork and screenshots below. You'll set out on an adventure to battle classic FF villains by tapping your 3DS stylus!

Go figure, but I might actually be excited for a Final Fantasy game again. My interest is further piqued because Theatrhythm Final Fantasy is being developed by indies zero who were responsible for the wonderfully quirky DS title Electroplankton. (I hope I get a chance to play this at PAX East so I can tell you more about it!)

Gallery: Kingdom Hearts 3D [Dream Drop Distance]

I know we've got some Kingdom Hearts fans out there, so even though this is just a tiny little trickle of screenshots and artwork that Square Enix has released, I'm still going to post them just for you! The character art is of the Disney characters returning to Kingdom Hearts 3D [Dream Drop Distance], including Mickey, Goofy and Donald. Then there are a few screenshots of some of the mini-games featured in the upcoming Nintendo 3DS title. While one looks like a standard slot machine kind of thing, the other one seems to be an AR game of some sort, battling creatures on top of your desk or whatnot. It's always nice when developers use some of the additional features of a system! The game will be out later this year, and until then, I'll keep updating you as Square Enix sends me stuff!

The Devil May Cry Is In The Details

Capcom released some new information about the upcoming DMC Devil May Cry (still nothing about what's up with the redundant title), but honestly, what more do you need to know besides the fact that the new Dante is younger and hotter?

Okay, fine. He's not human, but he's also not like the demons that tortured him throughout his life. Seems he grew up in a variety of orphanages and institutions, but they were mostly operated by demons. So that's gotta suck. This is why he hates demons and wants to kill them, I suppose.

He has two weapons: the Rebellion sword and his guns, Ebony and Ivory. The game's designers tried to make them look both modern and ancient, and used the same elements on the sword's hilt and the guns' grips to link them together. However, the origins of the weapons are a mystery. The sword was given to Dante by his father to protect him from the demon hunters, but the guns? Who knows?

You can take a look at Dante and his weapons in the artwork and the screenshots below! DMC Devil May Cry is due out in 2012 for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

Gallery: Persona 4 Arena

Stop fighting monsters and fight each other! That's what you'll be able to do when Atlus releases spin-off Persona 4 Arena this summer on North American Xbox 360s and PlayStation 3s. Developed with Arc System Works (of BlazBlue and Guilty Gear fame), P4A will have an original fighting engine, and feature hand-drawn HD anime-style fighters with the requisite over-the-top special effects.

"The Persona series has had tremendous success in North America, and Persona 4 in particular opened the series up to wider audiences than ever before," said Tim Pivnicny, Vice President of Sales and Marketing at ATLUS. "Now we're looking to expand Persona even further by teaming up with a very strong partner, Arc System Works, to move the franchise outside of the RPG genre and develop its potential in new and exciting ways."

P4A will feature characters from the popular Persona 3 and Persona 4, but as yet, no list has been released. I'm sure die-hard fans of the series will recognize some of the characters in the screenshots, though!

Heads Or Tails DLC For FFXIII-2

Square Enix has announced that another DLC episode for Final Fantasy XIII-2 will be available starting on February 28. The episode, called Sazh: Heads or Tails?, features the popular FFXIII character in a story that runs parallel to the main storylien. And as with the previous DLC, once you finish the story, you can add Sazh to your party. The DLC also includes two new card games for the Serendipity casino, Chronobind and Serendipity Poker. The DLC is priced at 400 Microsoft Points/$4.99.

On the same day, new outfits for Noel and Serah will be made available for 240MP/$2.99. Of course, being a girl, Serah gets a "Beachwear" outfit and Noel gets a "Spacetime Guardian" outfit. So typical. Why can't the guy get a skimpy bathing suit? Heck, I'd even accept board shorts. (Although the press release doesn't indicate that these alternate costumes grant new abilities, so is this another horse armor situation? Or is it like FFX-2, where the costume changes had a point?)