Coming one day in advance of the announced May 30th reveal date, a new trailer for No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle has just captured the hell out of our attention. Yes, that is a random shot of a luchador as a backdrop for Suda 51’s credit – why not.
If you wanted to see more of the dual-sword moves seen in the Famitsu scans, well, here you go — this video is loaded with shots of an older-looking Travis Touchdown swinging two Beam Katanas around. It also introduces the new assassin Nathan Copeland, who starts his fight with Travis by throwing ladies at him. Even with that weirdness, the tone of this trailer is much more serious than before — though it ends in a very No More Heroes way.
If that’s not enough for you, check Famitsu for new screens! [Thanks, Mr Khan!]
Culdcept DS has been confirmed for Japan and will be hitting sometime in 2008, developed as always by OmiyaSoft. Western fans will probably have to wait until mid or late 2008 before it sees release here . . . if it does, but hopefully it will due to the release of Culdcept previously on Playstation 2 in the States. Which even though it didn’t receive strong sales it has regardless built-up a strong fanbase here, which includes one of my friends who raves about the game.
Another entry in the series, called Culdcept Saga, is also set for U.S. release (it’s already out in Japan) on January 15, 2008 at the “budget” price of $39.99 (so far Culdcept Saga does not have a European or Australian release date). That game is published both in Japan and the US by Namco, who hopefully will pick up Culdcept DS for US release since they have taken an interest in the franchise.
If you’ve never heard of Culdcept, it’s an intriguing mishmash of a Monopoly-style board game, Magic the Gathering-style card game (i.e. TCG which stands for Trading Card Game) and the look of Japanese-style RPGs like Disgaea: Hour of Darkness on PS2. The game is extremely popular in Japan where Culdcept games have also been released on the PS1, Sega Saturn and Dreamcast in addition to PS2 and now Xbox 360.
The game itself is played like Monopoly, where you roll dice and move around a game board, attempting to claim spaces and assess fees against other Cepters who land there. Unlike in Monopoly, squares are claimed by summoning creatures (using cards in the deck you build) to guard them, and players who land on them can opt to challenge this creature with one of their own cards from their deck rather than pay the toll. If successful, the challenger claims ownership of the square. The winner of the game is the first player to return to the starting location after amassing a sufficient quantity of magic/mana.
Creatures are summoned from customized decks (”books”) of cards which players design ahead of time from an available pool of cards. Other cards in these decks bestow items to enhance creature abilities, or represent spells which can influence movement on the game board as you’d expect. Although there are nearly 500 different cards in total, players must earn many of these through skillful play and story mode progression before they can be used.
The Xbox 360 version, Culdcept Saga, adds support for online multiplayer play against up to three other players via Xbox Live, complete with leaderboards and rankings, in addition to card and rule tweaks and upgraded high-resolution (partially 3D) graphics. Also new in the Xbox 360 version is the ability to unlock various items that players can use to customize their in-game avatars.
Here’s a developer walkthrough of Culdcept Saga from E3 ‘07. For the DS version you can likely expect to have the same basic gameplay with stylus controls tacked on. But hopefully there will be some unique DS features as well as online play via Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection.
E3, or at least the shadow of the former expo, “min-E3,” will be held this year from July 11th to the 13th at the Barker Hangar in Santa Monica, California. The ESA recently released a schedule of events for the show on the official E3 website.
Microsoft will get things started this year with their pre-E3 conference at 8:30pm on July 10th. Nintendo will be up next, hosting their conference at 9:00 the next morning. Sony will take up the rear with a conference at 11:30am on the 11th.
Third parties will be granted conference time, as well. The full show schedule follows:
7/10/07:
8:30pm - Microsoft Press Conference
7/11/07:
9:00am - Nintendo Press Conference
9:00am-5:30pm - Meeting suites open at the Fairmont Hotel
11:30am - Sony Press Conference
1:00-6:30pm - Barker Hanger open to view games
2:00pm - Electronic Arts conference
3:15pm - Activision conference
4:30pm - Midway conference
5:45pm - Konami conference
7/12/07:
8:00am - Take-Two conference
9:00am-5:30pm - Meeting suites open at the Fairmont Hotel
9:15am - THQ conference
10:30am - Ubisoft conference
1:00-6:30pm - Barker Hanger open to view games
1:00pm - Namco Bandai conference
3:30pm - Disney Interactive conference
7/13/07:
9:00am-3:30pm - Meeting suites open at the Fairmont Hotel
11:00am-3:30pm - Barker Hanger open to view games
On the hangar floor, booths will be set up for over 30 companies. Some notables who won’t have formal conferences include Capcom, Square-Enix, and SEGA, among others.
Stand at attention for this No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle trailer originally appeared on Joystiq on Fri, 29 May 2009 15:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.