Record of Agarest War, a strategy RPG from Idea Factory, Red Entertainment, and Compile Heart, will be coming stateside soon according to Aksys Games' teaser site here. The site only has a teaser image for fans at the moment. Already released in Japan and confirmed for release in Europe, Record of Aagarest War seems to be coming to the US a little late. The game features a battle system like Cross Edge, where players will use AP to attack and must gain SP to use special attacks. The game also features a "Soul Breed" system, where players can engage in romantic relationships with other characters to create new characters. This process can also be repeated. We'll update this with more information as it trickles through.
Rockin Android, a company based in Los Angeles, specializes in licensing and publishing niche genre games. Recently, they were at Anime Expo 2009, showing off this game at the booth. We thought it looked interesting and checked it out. Suguri Perfect Edition includes both Suguri, a side scrolling shooter, and Acceleration of Suguri, the multi player expansion set that will give players a completely new experience.
After a quick introduction of Daisuke Ishiwatari, the original creator of Guilty Gear and composer for BlazBlue's music, and Toshimichi Mori, a producer for several of the past Guilty Gears and BlazBlue, the panel went straight into a Q&A with the fans and the two guests.
The Tournament
This year, online pre-registration was required, so the pools were set up and posted two days before the tournament was even set to begin. In order to make it to the top 32 of the competition, players first had to make it out of their pools. Cries of many players were heard online as they saw their positions in their respective pools rife with talented opponents. Names like Justin Wong, Ohnuki, and John Choi effectively spelled doom for any players who weren't seasoned with their games. These people are accomplished members of the community, consistently placing high in, if not winning both local and major tournaments.
Sunday: Top 8
All the tournaments came to their conclusion on Sunday, when the top 8 players from all games played it out. EVO organizers shot interviews with each of the competitors who made top 8, all of which were shown before the players' matches on Sunday. The interviews' tones ranged from friendly - with Mike Watson telling Joey Cueller "Fuck you" - to prideful - with Justin Wong saying that two words defined his skill in MvC2: “Justin Wong.”
Interviewer: Chung Kwan "Davis" Fan
Interviewee: Joey Cueller (Senior EVO Director)
T-ono: Hello. Can you give a brief intro of yourself and what you do with Capcom Unity?
Seth Killian: Well, my name is Seth Killian and I've been organizing the EVO tournaments for a long time. Formerly a top ten, but not so much anymore - haven't had time to play or practice. I'm also the senior manager for community at Capcom, where I run the Capcom Unity website.
Evolution (EVO) is, without a doubt, the premiere fighting game event in America. Once a year in early August, some of the best fighting game players gather in Las Vegas to play against each other in a tournament to prove who's the best. Evolution has a long history of bringing together players all the way from both coasts of America, as well as bringing international players from Japan, the United Kingdom, and several other countries. For the last three years, EVO has used several different hotels in Vegas as latter-day arenas, such as the Red Rock or Green Valley Ranch hotel, but this year it finally moves onto the strip by taking place in the Tropicana.