Fairy Fencer F Gets September Street Date

Get Your Fairy Dust Ready for Fairy Fencer F™ In September!

Originally Published and Copyrighted by Blast Away the Game Review

Written by Dustin Murphy

Any fan of import games should be excited, especially when the names Yoshitaka Amano (concept artist) and Nobuo Uematsu (composer) are mentioned. Both are well known for their renowned and classic works with the Final Fantasy series. As of today, NIS America has announced that Fairy Fencer F will be flying its way onto your PlayStation 3's this September on the 23rd for North America. Europe will see it dropping by on the 26th! So shine off those controllers and get ready for another amazing turn-based RPG title by famed developer COMPILE Heart. Stay tuned for our review and for those unfamiliar with the title, read below for the official information from the amazing doods over at NIS America!

About the game:

Long ago, a dreadful war was fought between the Goddess and the Vile God. Because they were equally matched, they both created a vast number of special weapons imbued with their godly energy, each containing the life force of a fairy. Armed with these weapons, the deities continued their conflict until they finally sealed each other away into the great unknown. A long time has passed since this ancient conflict, and the weapons created by the Goddess and the Vile God have since been scattered across the world. These weapons—now known as “Furies”—are highly sought after by warriors who call themselves “Fencers”. It is said that whoever collects a Fury will be granted one wish. When a young man named Fang decides to rashly pull a Fury from a stone, he inadvertently becomes a Fencer himself, forever altering the course of his destiny.

Key Features:

Robust Combat System – Witness the next evolution of Hyperdimension Neptunia's battle engine! Move your characters in a fully 3-D environment as you link combos in thrilling turn-based combat! Exploit enemy weaknesses to trigger Avalanche Attacks and watch your party gang up on opponents! Send your enemies sky high with Launch Attacks, then follow up with an Air Attack to send them crashing back to Earth! And if fights get really tense, simply transform into your upgraded Fury Form and really bring the pain!

Untold Levels of Customization – Use the Furies you collect to give your characters powerful abilities, or use them to customize dungeons to your exact specifications! Need a little more "oomph!" in your swing? We've got a Shaping Effect for that! Want some extra experience points after battle? We've got a Shaping Effect for that too! But what if you're a masochist who wants everyone—allies and enemy alike—to deal DOUBLE damage? Oh, you best believe we've got a Shaping Effect for that!

Artistic Pedigree – Enjoy the dulcet tones of renowned composer Nobuo Uematsu, the composer for many of the Final Fantasy titles. With character designs by Tsunako (Hyperdimension Neptunia) and Yoshitaka Amano (Final Fantasy I-VI), the line between cute and menacing has never been more blurred!

WARRIORS OROCHI 3 Gets Street Dated

Unleash Your Inner Warrior in September With WARRIORS OROCHI 3 Ultimate

Originally Published and Copyrighted by Blast Away the Game Review

Written by Dustin Murphy

 Does your inner warrior cry for the heat of intense and large scale battles? If so, your wait is almost over. As of today, Tecmo Koei has announced that WARRIORS OROCHI 3 will be returning to home consoles September 2nd, 2014. What does this mean for those of you whom played the earlier version? Content, tons of new content, which means much more fighting to partake in.

 For those interested, WARRIORS OROCHI 3 Ultimate will be headed to PlayStation®3 and PlayStation®4 computer entertainment systems, PS®Vita and Xbox One. Those consoles will also feature a pre-order bonus for earlier adopters. Players who do get it will get a special Halloween costume set for the character Zhao Yun from DYNASTY WARRIORS, Mitsunari Ishida from SAMURAI WARRIORS. Think that's it? Nope! GameStop is also offering you all a chance to get the well renowned character Kaguya exclusively at GameStop, and of course costumes for Kaguya, Nuwa, and Taigong Wang at Amazon and Best Buy, in their respective order mentioned.

 Wait, that's not all! We've also learned that our friends over at TECMO KOEI America will be attending Anime Expo starting July 3rd, through July 6th, 2014, and they will be showing off the following titles for you to see: WARRIORS OROCHI 3 Ultimate, Atelier Rorona Pus: The Alchemist of Arland (check out our review here: Blast Away the Game Review: Atelier Rorona Plus ~ The Alchemist of Arland Review), and their upcoming title SAMURA WARRIORS 4. All of these titles will be playable and will be enjoyed by anyone. Additionally. TECMO KOEI would also like us to let you know, especially you cosplayers, that you are highly invited to their booth, especially if in TECMO KOEI or Team NINJA characters so that you can enter for a daily raffle! Their booth will be located at 1521 and 1523.

Official Information from TECMO KOEI:
 Fans will experience WARRIORS OROCHI 3 in a brand new light as they enter the fray with the implementation of new generation console features, new storylines and scenarios. There is enough new gameplay content and depth of replayability to satisfy warriors of all levels including special cross over characters such as Sophitia from the SOULCALIBUR series and battle stages from Atelier, DYNASTY WARRIORS, NINJA GAIDEN Sigma 2 and SAMURAI WARRIORS.

New Features in WARRIORS OROCHI 3 Ultimate:

- One Warrior against a Thousand— Densely populated battlefields with up to 100 enemies on screen, each with progressive AI add to the exhilarating battle, amplified by new moves including Aerial Special attacks, Triple Rush (a system which allows the player the ability to switch between individual characters or unleash attacks as a party of 3) and True Musou Burst, the powerful finishing move executable by up to 6 characters

- New and Crossover characters— The legion of warriors is larger than ever with 145 playable characters including the introduction of Tamamo and Yinglong, just 2 of 9 that are new to the series, cameos include Xu Shu from the DYNASTY WARRIORS franchise and Kasumi from DEAD OR ALIVE 5 with more to be announced including the Atelier and SAMURAI WARRIORS series

- Captivating Lands and Stages— Lands and battlefields are dramatically rendered drawing from the dark, sinister imagery in the OROCHI series totaling 51 distinct stages with cross-over stages melding universes including Atelier, DYNASTY WARRIORS, NINJA GAIDEN Sigma 2 and SAMURAI WARRIORS, furthermore, Musou Battlefields allow for customization including character models and battle cries

- The mythology of the OROCHI universe expands— A new main storyline brings the heroes together again after the death of the Demon Snake as they are called upon by a mysterious stone to return to the chaotic din of battle. Additionally, new side stories provide a multitude of new scenarios and uncover secrets, the story extends with the ability to battle from a different point of view or even “what if” hypothetical stages that exist in a parallel world

- Gameplay modes— Adding to both Online and Offline competition, new modes include Duel Mode, a fusion of team battles (up to 3 vs 3) and card battles, Craft Weapons function to alchemy even more powerful weapons, Officer Requesting and Summoning, Formation Skills and Dragon Portals that can be used to escape the battlefields, weaken enemies or recover party members Life Gauge

- Share experiences Online— PS4™ system players will be able to capture screenshots and live stream, share and see live comments which can impact either players’ games or co-op in Story mode, Free Mode and the new Gauntlet Mode

- Cross-Play and Cross Save functionality— Co-op, data sharing and saving, and save data is now possible between PS3™ system, PS4™ system and PS Vita system versions, including save data importing of the original WARRIORS OROCHI 3 on PlayStation

WARRIORS OROCHI 3 Ultimate is developed by Omega Force and published in North America by TECMO KOEI America. The PlayStation 3 and PS Vita versions will be available exclusively through the PlayStation® Store for $49.99 (PS3) and $39.99 (PS Vita) respectively and the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions will be available for $59.99 on September 2, 2014. This title has not yet been rated by the ESRB..

For the latest WARRIORS OROCHI 3 Ultimate news follow us on www.facebook.com/koeigames or @TecmoKoeiUS or visit http://www.tecmokoeiamerica.com/wou3.

PlayStation Vita Loses First Party Support - Does it Really Need it?

Does the PS Vita Really Need First Party Support?

Originally Published and Copyrighted by Blast Away the Game Review on 6/21/2014

Written by Dustin Murphy

 When games are being made by first party, we as gamers have heavy expectations, and some that just can't be fulfilled. As many of us know, Sony Entertainment has decided to cut back on how much they want to do as "first party developers" and have decided they won't be doing much in the means of development. The question is; does the PlayStation Vita really need their support as developers? In my honest opinion, the answer is truly this - NO.

 Many of you may actually expect me to have said the easy answer of yes. The reason I've stated no? Because of the amazing third-party developers and publishers who have decided to really show through. With companies such as XSeed Games, NIS America, Tecmo Koei, Atlus, AKSYS and many indie developers, the PlayStation Vita has more games than I would have imagined. Sure there are not a lot of physical titles out there, but don't let that fool you. With a currently 76 games on my Vita, it's been no doubt as a writer and gamer that I have been busy. These games have ranged from indie titles, full retail titles, to PlayStation One Classics as well as PSP digital titles. This truly isn't disappointing. The approach reflects something similar to what Nintendo has done with the Wii U and Nintendo 3DS in recent years. Why do I say this? Go check out the indie game support as well as third party digital distribution support. That's not also leaving out the support for Nintendo DS support as well as the virtual console that's bringing back games from all sorts of platforms.

 One of the biggest surprises that may come out of the PlayStation Vita for many of you is the RPG library. As many of us know, the PlayStation 4 has had a seemingly large lack of RPG's and JRPG's all together. When it comes to this, the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita have become the go-to items for JRPG's as well as American RPG's, but that's not without saying there are some limitations to turn based titles. With many of these gaps having been filled by the teams mentioned above that are publisher and developers, there is no lack of support on the PlayStation Vita, but what it does lack are some triple A rated titles. The last true one the Vita could say it saw was the release of Killzone Mercenary, which in many ways, is the one of the best looking game on the PlayStation Vita at this time. What the PlayStation Vita could use is the appearance of a few franchises we've seen before, which means Square-Enix, Naughty Dog, and a few others would truly need to kick it into gear. What franchises might I be thinking you may wonder. That is one we ourselves could easily answer. A new Parasite Eve, Brave Story, and of course a noticeable absence of Tales of titles! Hopefully these are ones we will see make way to the PlayStation Vita in the future.