To kick off the North American release of The Darkside Chronicles for the Wii Capcom released what they dub as the first interactive game trailer. While being very similar in style to the Super Mario Youtube smash video, Capcom get us ready for some zombie killing. Have your mouse ready…

[GameTrailers]

Found by way of Joystiq, Capcom’s Keiji Inafune remarked Japan’s games industry is over; then followed up by stating Capcom is one notable exception. Similar to how Gundam creator Yoshiyuki Tomino had said “games are evil”, it’s easy to brush off the Mega Man creator’s comments. However, when looking at the bigger picture,  I think it points to something more interesting.

Using Mega Man and Gundam both as the example, we can see how games have evolved. Clearly there are technical advancements taken into account, but the actual gameplay and method of delivery has changed; you must also not ignore the ever morphing gamer tastes.While it’s simple baiting to say casual games have killed the hardcore genre; I’d argue casual games are now sustaining the industry. The Tokyo Game Show (TGS) may have had a dip in attendance, but saying Japan’s industry is dead is like saying there will no longer be any more Final Fantasies.

There is an ebb and flow in every industry. Consider how newly released Shadow Complex was praised as a classic because of its side scrolling action. In the not too distant future the PS3 Motion Wand will be released and you’ll be playing the next Capcom Street Fighter like you do in the arcade. Standing, frantically moving the “joystick” around for combos. It’s like you’re really there, will herald reviewers on Metacritic. Don’t worry, Japan’s gaming industry is alive and well, the industry as a whole is still finding it’s maturity.

It seems that gamers who are tired of the same “hide n’ shoot” FPS clones or the “Angsty teen with effeminate looks” RPG are getting a real treat next 2010. It’s Okami, the game that got a lot of positive reviews as not just a great videogame in all aspects but a fantastic work of art, and it’s making a somewhat glorious return, now in Nintendo DS form.

The story takes place some months after the first game, with Chibiterasu, a (take a guess. . .) chibified version of Amaterasu (the wolf you used on the first game) and unlike the full-grown counterpart, Chibiterasu still has to awaken most of his power. Add to that the comedic relief of wandering samurai Susano’s son and we may have another Japanese-culture-overloaded masterpiece.

Since the virtual brush is essential for this game to preserve its delicacy and charm, you will use the DS stylus to paint your way out of puzzles and dead-ends. Release date is yet to be confirmed but developers say it’s going to be in 2010 no doubt. *Sigh* I still need to finish the first game, need some 15 hours more or so. . .

[NintendoWorldReport]

I was wandering around central London on Thursday (in the rain) and thought I’d pop into Uni-Qlo to buy some colourful boxers and socks. And once my under-roo’s got scanned and rung-up at the till; they got bagged in this cool Yatterman bag! Uni-Qlo always have really cool J-themed prints on their bags. I got a drawer full of ‘em, because I’m sad like that. This bag makes me want Tatsunoko vs. Capcom so badly…

My friends and I were due to go back to Kyoto to check out the thousand red gates and more of the area that we didn’t get to see on our first visit. But one of my friends and I made no effort to rush and get ready that morning, having clubbed it up the night before. So I said I’d hit the other fella’s up on the keitai when we reach Kyoto, and then rendezvous with them here. As we were getting ready to leave, my friend couldn’t find his Japan rail pass. So Kyoto was a no go. I could’ve left him, but I’m not that much of an bastard (despite what some of my friends say), so I said I’d stick around with him. We decided to make a day out of checking out the local area, mingling with the random people we come across and head back to Den Den town, seeing as we didn’t get to see the best of it the first time we went a couple of days ago.

Two purchases in an Adidas store and one wrong subway stop later we finally ended up at our destination of Den Den town. We doubted ourselves at first and started to curse and cuss we’d gotten off at the wrong train stop (again) because the area looked NOTHING like the Den Den town we’d visited before. But after asking a local in the nearest shop where Den Den town was and being told we were in it, the exclamation mark appeared above both of our heads like a Genome soldier: we hadn’t been to Den Den town before, and we were in it for the first time! Suddenly our second trip to Kyoto didn’t seem like something we’d badly missed out on.

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They’re yellow, they’re happy, they’re 500 strong and Capcom’s Keiji Inafune is giving them a personal send off. The creator of everyone’s favorite little Blue Bomber, Mega Man, is personally signing each and every one of these 500 Kobun (Servbot) mugs to celebrate the Korean release of Dead Rising.

Keep an ever vigilant eye on Ebay for one of these ultra-rare mugs to surface, but don’t expect them to go for mere lunch money, we’re sure they’ll fetch a pretty penny.

Hit the jump to check out some sweet close-up shots. Read more!

Lets get away from E3 for a bit to watch something that wasn’t made by a big company, no multi-million dollar budget, hell its not even exactly legal. This is Mega Man 2.5, a homebrew game in development by Peter Sjostrand. The game, much like Paper Mario, gives a 3D twist to a 2D word. Based mainly on Mega Man 2 with a co-op mode based on Mega Man 3. This is the kind of project that shows the talent of rogue homebrew developers, too bad most of them don’t survive a Cease and Desist from the original company.

Capcom, give this guy a job, I’d pay for this.

[Peter Sjostrand / Via Offworld]

Poor suckers who only own Wii’s exclusively were made to feel a little left out and like pieces of rubbish when Capcom announced Marvel vs. Capcom 2 would be releasing for the Xbox Live marketplace and the PS network, but not the Virtual console (blame Nintendo and their file size restrictions). But now they can perk right up and rejoice, because Tatsunoko vs. Capcom is breaking out of Japan and is heading for the US and the UK! Can I get a “Yaaaaay!”

After a good 6 months of shedding tears over never getting the opportunity to play this game, Capcom have done what we thought was impossible and gotten the game green lit for a US and UK release. Still no word on if Australia will see the game. But given Capcom being full of awesome as of late – I’m sure gamers down under will be in on some cross over battle action.

Capcom have noted that the game may see additional features not included in the Japanese release of the game. Notably the possibility of extra characters and the all important online play.

If Capcom do not add online for the US release, then I will spit in the face of a Capcom employee. Not any of the ones who helped get the Western release though. Just a miscellaneous one who looks weedy enough that he won’t be able to beat me up. You cannot release a beat ‘em up in this day and age without online play. Unless of course, it’s released on Wii. I guess we best gets to praying again that Capcom include it. Sure, the Wii version would have those bastard Friend codes and be kept in check by Nintendo’s “No communication” policy. But it can’t be any worse than Street Fighter IV. Nobody talks on that game during matches, nobody wants to add you as a Friend or a contact, and the match making and lack of a proper lobby system is crap anyway. So Wii owners will hardly be missing out.

This is great news. Day 1 purchase for me. I may even buy some component cables so I can witness the awesome in ‘not true HD, only up-scaled to 720, but still better than composite signal’ glory.

Square Enix have gone on the record to say that Final Fantasy XIII will not be a typical J-RPG and that it will straddle genre’s. Game producer Yoshinori Kitase said…

“There’s a trend these days to strictly categorize games as western RPGs or Japanese RPGs, but Final Fantasy is something that we don’t try to categorize as either, or. For us, the game straddles genre’s”.

If Final Fantasy XIII isn’t a J-RPG, then Princess Peach is black and from Kijuju. We all know full well Final Fantasy XIII will feature a theme song sung by a female J-Pop artist, complete with warbilicious vocals. That there will be magic. There will be a love interest that will never fully come to fruition. There will be a kakkoii boy or two. There’ll be a girl with big eyes, pig tails, mini skirts and boots. Some Mecha’s. A couple dozen beasts. Bahamut. And shit loads of FMV. Shoot, with seen 90% of this stuff in trailers! Of course it’s a J-RPG!! Final Fantasy had continued to pretty much define a J-RPG all by itself.

I know games developers in Japan are currently feeling the crunch to lob loads of western appeal into their games. But there’s nothing wrong with a full on, unashamed Japanesey title. I just hope Square don’t bastardize Final Fantasy further than they have up until now. Although given the hash job they’ve made of the series so far, there’s not much more Square can do to make things any worse. (Although I wouldn’t put it past them!) And no matter what they do, whether the end results are good or bad – Square Enix will rack a shit loads of sales, a broken record or two and commercial success. With XIII releasing on 2 successful platforms this is already guaranteed. Square’s so called straddling genre’s and injection of western influences is probably making the lead main character a white female and chucking in a black guy with a gun and an afro. I hope it ends there. The last thing I want is for Square to try and deviate too much and ruin the game as a result.

The problem with Final Fantasy has never been it’s never been western enough. It’s been that Square seem to have lost sight of what made the games so good originally. I just hope that Final Fantasy fans do not end up greatly disappointed. This could easily go the Resident evil 5 route: a game which sells loads, gets decent reviews across the board, but ultimately ends up a game that falls really short. Although XIII has something in its favour and one less burden that Capcom had: the game that came before it wasn’t all that brilliant, and can easily be bettered.

[CVG]

When it shits on Wii, it blasts out in a stream – just like diarrhea. Wii already missed out on Marvel VS Capcom 2 – which is bad enough given the console is actually powerful enough to run the game. Now it’s missing out on Tekken 6 and Soul Calibur IV. Sure, these games wouldn’t be able to run on Wii. But that didn’t stop Namco developing them for the PSP. Yes… Tekken 6 and Soul Calibur IV will be releasing for the PSP!!

Tekken 6 for PSP will just be the standard version of Tekken 6, and not the updated version: Bloodline rebellion which will release for consoles later this year. But the game will not be some badly cut down affair. It will feature the full Tekken 6 character roster, character customization, new items not featured in the arcade version of the game and ad-hoc play.

I lied a little when I said Soul Calibur IV was heading for PSP. The PSP soul game is titled Soul Calibur: Broken destiny. Not a direct port of Soul Calibur IV, but a game which will retain many of the gameplay elements of IV. Returning characters from IV will also have their IV move sets and costumes. The game will feature new game modes and also a couple of new characters. The only new character to be confirmed so far is Dampierre. Who looks like a money swindling, knife wielding gay pimp from a Dicken’s novel.

Namco may as well fly a blimp over Nintendo, Kyoto which reads “F**K Wii!” The Wii flogs more units than the PSP and is more powerful, yet loses out on 2 high profile, blockbuster beat ‘em ups to it! Looks like that PlayStation love still runs deep. Real deep.

PSP owners, rejoice! You just got a couple of good games to look forward to. I guess a Wii port wouldn’t be out of the question entirely. Namco Bandai could always just port the PSP version. It’s not like the Wii version would look THAT much better. (Tee-hee!)