Lost Dimension coming this summer to US

Atlus sent out a press release this morning to announce that they are going to bring Lost Dimension to the US (NISA is going to do the EU release).  Here's their information on the game:

IRVINE, Calif. ­­­-- March 11, 2015 -- In Lost Dimension, a tactical RPG published by ATLUS, an extraterrestrial being literally called "The End" is here to bring about the...uh... end of the world. Only a group of 11 psychically gifted warriors - each with unique abilities - are even remotely powerful enough to challenge this madman, but it won't take long for players to discover The End is not their only foe. As the protagonist, players have the extra special gift of psychic visions, a power that reveals that amongst his most trusted allies are traitors working to bring about the apocalypse. Lost Dimension will be available in stores and digitally beginning summer 2015, exclusively on the PlayStation®3 computer entertainment system and the PlayStation®Vita handheld entertainment system for $39.99.
To subdue the threat The End poses to the entire planet, several countries create a special forces group called SEALED, which is comprised of eleven psychics with superhuman abilities. Each soldier has their own talents and skillsets to use in combat, which can be expanded after gaining enough experience in the field. Bonds of friendship will form amongst the members of SEALED, but be mindful of which allies to keep close, as The End mandates the player must begin eliminating teammates.  Make sure to accuse the right teammate of being a traitor though - once the final battle with The End begins any remaining traitors will fight the main character alongside him.

KEY FEATURES:

• A Cataclysmic Whodunnit! - Not only will players have to keep their eyes focused on strategically defeating the enemies laying in wait on the field of combat, but they need to carefully watch party members' tendencies in order to expose the traitor. At the end of every floor, players will be forced to vote and eliminate one of their trusted allies, and the consequences for choosing incorrectly could be dire...

• Spoiler-Free Zone - In addition to a variety of game mechanics to help assess teammate loyalty, Lost Dimension's traitor system is randomly determined, assuring that no two players will be faced with the same playthrough. Sorry, kiddies, but it's impossible to look up the answers this time around.

• Psychic Warlords - Each character in the party is a master of a different sphere of powers. There's the girl who controls molecular behavior to burn or freeze anything/anyone in her path. There's the guy who can teleport all around (also with the bonus superpower of being satisfyingly cocky). And there's even someone with an identity crisis because all he knows how to do is steal everyone else's powers.

• Keep Your Friends Close... - In between battles, players will have the option to chat with teammates and develop closer bonds with them. Juggling these friendships and keeping track of who participates in battle will be the key to sussing out the traitors and assuring that, by the time you reach The End, it won't be... the end... for you and your allies!

Lost Dimension is a tactical RPG from ATLUS and developed by Lancarse. It will be available in the Americas beginning summer 2015. NIS America has publishing responsibilities for Europe, also slated for a summer 2015 release. For more details on the game, please visit the official website at http://www.atlus.com/lostdimension. This game is not yet rated by the ESRB.

When I read about the game late last year, it sounds really interesting.  I think the mysterious traitor aspect sounds like a unique idea, and could make each playthrough very different.  It is coming to the PS3 and PS Vita, and the title is PSTV compatible.  No word on cross-buy, but I'm thinking it will go the way of Dragon's Crown, and forego that awesome feature.

Mugen Souls Z (PS3) Review

Mugen Souls Z is the sequel to Mugen Souls, and stars a few newcomers while also retaining the main characters and all the peons from the first game.  This time, Chou-Chou leaves to subjugate a new set of planets, twelve this time, and add them to the long list of everything that is hers.  She quickly meets Syrma, who accidentally steals most of Chou-Chou's powers with her mysterious casket.  Not one to let something like that go, the undisputed god and her friends will tag along on Syrma's mission to beat all of the ultimate gods and steal their power, in the hopes of restoring Chou-Chou to her original size.

The graphics are similar to last time, with high quality pictures of the characters used for story scenes and 3D super-deformed models for the exploration and battles.  There's also some nice pictures for a few story scenes, which can be unlocked for viewing on the G-Castle.  The story pictures for characters have more movement than last time, which is a step in the right direction.  Also, the 3D models are not just the one type, and created characters can have different chest sizes.  In an effort to be equal, males can also have the same chests.  So if you want to recreate the famous Pokemon episode with James and his inflatable boobs, you can!  It might seem minor, but I like that not every character is basically a little boy, so they look different from each other.  As far as I can tell, the voice cast from the previous game reprise their roles, although each of Syrma's moe types does not have a separate voice.  If you prefer to hear the audio in Japanese, there is dual language support as well.

The flow of the game and battles are pretty similar to last time.  You arrive on a planet with the intent of finding the ultimate god of the place and putting them into Syrma's casket to steal some of their power.  Usually this involves beating them up first.  Battles take place on a small field, and your movement is defined as a circle from your starting area.  Once you move into position, you can attack anyone in your attack radius, which is different for each weapon type.  You can also select various skills you have learned and use that instead of a regular attack.  Crystals that grant various bonuses or penalties are scattered around the battlefield to add spice to each encounter.

The battles might not be the most revolutionary thing to happen to RPGs, but they are fun.  Planning where to move and positioning attacks can make encounters much easier.  Blast Off attacks make their return, which allow you to knock enemies into another place, into each other, or even into the air!  Using this can move any pesky crystals, or destroy them.  Unfortunately, the easy bonus from hitting an air item seems gone in Mugen Souls Z.  Even so, battles, leveling and the flow of the game in general seems a lot faster than the original Mugen Souls.  I still did a little grinding in spots, but it wasn't near as much as the first game.

Moe Kills are still intact, which can use the type of girl the enemy is interested in to make them a peon.  You can change your type once per turn to better match any opponents you wish.  You can still subjugate several Planet Spots on each location for bonus money and to unlock other areas.  This time, the locations are on the map when they are available, without having to discover them first.  They also seem easier to "peonify" than in the last game.  G Castle battles are back and even better than before.  How?  Well, the G Castle now transforms into a giant robot for the fights.  As we know, robots make everything better, and I really like that change for the G Castle battles, which I was already a fan of.  The Mugen Field also returns, which helps get experience and unlock other useful functions like more job classes for peons, more slots to equip armor and other goodies.  Sadly, fighting in the Mugen Field did lock up my PS3 on several occasions, so be careful when using it... and hopefully it gets patched soon.

A new thing added to field movement are various skills.  Besides being able to jump (not new), certain Planet Spots make your jump higher, which opens up shortcuts or leads to treasures.  There are other powers that unlock during the story, like the ability to grab higher chests, unlock special ones or teleport to some hard to reach places.  On another happy note, you can change the camera's rotation speed!  It felt really slow to turn in the original, so I was glad to see I could increase it.

Being an RPG, there is a good amount of playtime in Mugen Souls.  I got about halfway through the planets in 25 hours.  This also included some time spent returning to worlds and subjugating every available point, some grinding and even a Peon Fusion or two.  While the game clock showed I was spending lots of time playing, it felt really quick.  There's also other things you can do to occupy your time in the game, like the Mugen Field and other unlockable areas, plus stat maxing with Peon Fusion.  The trophy list is also similar to the previous game.  There's one for each planet completed, ones for reaching certain levels and doing lots of damage.  A good spread of things to do to earn them, but there will be more than a few that will require lots of time to get.

I liked the original Mugen Souls, but I'm certain I like Mugen Souls Z even more.  It feels faster and more fun than its predecessor, and the story is much more lighthearted.  If you haven't played the first, they even cover the events for you, so newcomers can jump right in.  There are lots of things to do in the game, and timely tutorials to explain them.  I'd recommend the game to any fans of JPRGs looking for another game to sink many hours into.

Demon Gaze (Vita) Review

Demon Gaze is dungeon-diving first person RPG where players must defeat several powerful demons and seal them away in keys.  The game is very old school, and is a lot like Wizardry, Etrian Odyssey or Class of Heroes.  Admittedly, I don't really like those game, even if my wife absolutely loves them.  However, a strange thing happened when I spent time playing the game...I actually started liking it.

The game starts out by picking a character graphic, voice and name for the main character, then you are thrust into the story.  Compared to other similar types of RPGs, this one has a lot more focus on story.  While the main character (the Gazer) and his or her party aren't very outspoken, they added a bunch of other characters to move the story along and provide all the dialogue.  I also appreciate that there are lines that mention your other party members, making them feel like part of the story.  Considering the other similar games that I have some very limited experience with are very light on story, it's refreshing to see it included in Demon Gaze.

Dungeons are basically laid out on a grid, although the environments don't look like it.  Each dungeon has a different motif, be it graveyard, underwater city or castle.  There's also several hidden items, secret passageways and traps to make it all more interesting.  The damaging floors are really annoying until you beat the second boss, Chronos, since equipping her will negate those.  And sadly, there are damaging floors you have to step on before fighting both bosses...yuck.  The first demon you acquire will show most hidden passages when nearby, so it's helpful to have her equipped early on, or your first run through somewhere.  I do like that there is some focus on exploration and not just combat.

So how are the fights?  Well, they are turn-based old-school goodness.  You select every party member's action at once, and then the turn will play out.  You have to plan in advance, which can make things harder depending on what the enemy does.  Abusing class skills really helps the fights go faster, especially the ones that allow you to hit entire rows of enemies at once.  Artifacts will allow characters to use skills that aren't native to their class.  If there's a particular skill you like (like the various "Slash"es), make sure to aim for those to increase your damage output.  To add other characters past the first two, you will have to fork up cash to rent the room for them.  This also increases your rent, which is due whenever you return to the inn.  At least you get fully healed!

The most unique mechanic in the game is the demon keys.  The bosses you fight are usually the "raging" form of a demon, and beating it will allow you to equip the demon's key and use them in combat.  There's a meter that shows how long you can keep them out before they go out of control and slaughter your party instead, to keep you from needlessly throwing them out there.  The skills they provide are very useful (especially Chronos' immunity to damage floors), and you can eventually equip up to three at a time.  Learn when to use them, and fights become much easier... sometimes even the boss ones.

Each dungeon contains several magic circles that must be purified before the boss appears.  You place 1-3 gems that will determine the type of loot you get and then fight some monsters.  Winning will purify the circle and allow you to save there.  Any time you leave the dungeon, the circle will stay purified, but you can place gems again to do another fight.  Take advantage of this, since you can better control what types of equipment you get as loot at the end of the fight.  You get plenty of gems, so use them frequently, and either sell or break down the extra weapons and armor you acquire.  The artifact gems are limited, so use them sparingly.  Be warned, that one of the unpurified circles will contain the normal form of the demon boss.  These fights are obviously harder than normal ones, so be careful when doing them for the first time.

Demon Gaze is hard, make no mistake about it.  Regular fights are usually painless, especially when you have a full party and some good equipment and skills.  Sometimes, enemies will summon other enemies, and battles can quickly get out of control.  Bosses are a different story altogether.  They are strong, fast, and have a lot of HP.  Even if you can quickly dispatch all enemies in the dungeon, the boss is a big challenge.  Add in that most have little minions (I call them bits for some reason... probably because of Lavos) that will take hits for them, the boss' ability to summon them as much as they want, and the frequent auto-heals they do can drive you up the wall.  At least it did that to me.  It felt like trying to stop a waterfall with your bare hands.  Most times you end up hacking away and hope they either stop summoning the bits, or get knocked out for a few turns so you can make actual headway in the battle.

The game will take awhile to beat, but most of that is because it takes a lot of grinding to be able to purify all circles in the dungeon and beat the boss.  There are several dungeons to complete and even some extra content after the main story.  Most of the trophies will come while just playing the game.  Things like beating each boss, reaching certain points in the story and killing certain amounts of enemies will reward you with various trophies.  You'll also get some for doing various side quests.  All in all, nothing more difficult than actually beating all the bosses.  So, probably pretty hard, or at least long for all the grinding.

Demon Gaze was for me, the easiest and most enjoyable old-school first person dungeon crawler game I've played.  The demon key mechanic was fun to use and added a new twist to the old formula.  Bosses are frequently frustrating, but the game was oddly engaging, despite me not liking the genre.  If you are a fan of games like Wizardry and Etrian Odyssey, like my buddy DTJAAAAM is, you will really like the game.