Alainmendez

The patch rebalances the game in a variety of ways, but Nintendo have not yet provided a list of patch notes detailing what the exact changes it makes are. Fortunately, fans are on the case.

Read Fans Are Figuring Out What The Super Smash Bros. for 3DS 1.04 Update Does on Siliconera!

Earlier this year, news broke that the long whispered-about dinosaur feature from Pixar would be s tripped down and reworked top-to-bottom . And now the new direction for The Good Dinosaur has finally been revealed, along with some strange, past ideas.

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Secrets and mysteries come to Crunchyroll today in the form of Antiquarian Bookshop Biblia's Case Files, an 11 episode J-drama based on the novels by En Mikami that begins streaming today. 

Starting today at 3pm Pacific Time, Crunchyroll members in the following territories will be able to watch Antiquarian Bookshop Biblia's Case Files: USA, Canada, UK, Ireland, South Africa, Netherlands, Central and South America including the Caribbean, Australia, New Zealand, Scandinavia, Germany, Austria, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Belgium, Italy, Poland, Denmark, Hungary, Czech Republic, Romania, France and DOM/TOM, and Andorra.

Story

Shinokawa Shioriko is the proprietor of Biblia Antiquarian Bookshop, her sidekick Goura Daisuke, her lanky gofer and protector, has trouble reading books; they make him dizzy. Shioriko is demure and introverted, an expert on vintage books, a great storyteller, and of course, a lover of books; she also has amazing powers of logical deduction, and can solve big mysteries from the smallest of clues. The unlikely pair join forces to unravel secrets and hidden meanings to help people looking for answers, and the true answers are never what they expect.

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Patrick Macias is editor in chief of Crunchyroll News and Otaku USA magazine. He is also the author of the Paranoia Girls webcomic.

Yoshitoki Ōima's A Silent Voice (Koe no Katachi) manga is getting an anime adaptation, as announced on the cover page of the series' final chapter. Serialized in Kodansha's Weekly Shonen Magazine since last August—following a 2011 one-shot debut—the series ends in Japan this Wednesday, with the anime currently in the planning stages. 

Kodansha USA licensed the series back in July, and it's currently featured as a simulpub on Crunchyroll. Here's their synopsis of the manga:

I wish we had never met. I wish we could meet once again. A boy who can hear, Shoya Ishida, and a transfer student who can’t, Shoko Nishimiya. One fateful day, the two meet, and Shoya leads the class in bullying Shoko. But before long, the class shifts its target from Shoko to Shoya. Years later, Shoya feels strongly that he must see Shoko once again. The author Yoshitoki Oima’s comment: “People living in isolation. I wrote this story out of a desire to write about people living distant, isolated lives. Nothing would make me happier than if you all read my story.

Source: Anime News Network

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Joseph Luster is the Games and Web editor at Otaku USA Magazine. He also likes to draw comics. His blog can be found at subhumanzoids. Follow him on Twitter @Moldilox.

A first promo has gone online for Kunihiko Ikuhara's (Sailor Moon, Revolutionary Girl Utena, Penguindrum) winter anime Yuri Kuma Arashi. Set in the wake of the explosion of the Kumaria Asteroid, an existential war between humans and bear, and erection of a great Dividing Wall, the series opens with intimate friends and Arashigaoka (Wuthering Heights) Academy school mates visiting the "yuri flowers" when bear invasion alarm bells start ringing

Cast

Finko Yurishiro - Miho Arakawa

Lulu Yurigazaki - Yoshiko Ikuta

Kureha Tsubaki - Nozomi Yamane

Life Sexy - Junichi Suwabe

Life Cool - Mitsuki Saiga

Life Beauty - Kazutomi Yamamoto

Sumika Izumino - Yui Ogura

Mitsuko Yurizono - Aoi Yuki

Konomi Yurikawa - Ami Koshimizu

Staff
Director: Kunihiko Ikuhara
Assistant Director: Tomohiro Furikawa
Series Configuration: Kunihiko Ikuhara, Takayo Ikami
Original Character Design: Akiko Morishima
Character Design: Etsuko Sumimoto
Prop Design: Takao Abo
Color Design: Satoko Kimura
Art Director: Chieko Nakamura
Director of Photograpy: Takeo Ogiwara
Editing: Shigeru Nishiyama
Sound Director: Kunihiko Ikuhara, Yo Yamada
Music: Yukari Hashimoto
Sound Production: Media Factory (KADOKAWA)
Animation: SILVER LINK

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Scott Green is editor and reporter for anime and manga at geek entertainment site Ain't It Cool News. Follow him on Twitter at @aicnanime.

Got the contract for Gundam: The ORIGIN vol 12 today. And I wanted to share the extras for the final volume:

• Casval 0057 (short story)
• Artesia 0083 (short story)
• Amuro 0082 (short story)
• Illustration Gallery
• Interview with YAS by literary critic Tatsuru Uchida
• The Scenery of THE ORIGIN Interview with YAS by Makoto Shinkai
• Afterword by Yoshikazu Yasuhiko

Expect to see this final volume in stores December 2015!

When Nintendo announced their third wave of Amiibo figurines yesterday, they mentioned that certain figurines would be exclusive to certain retailers.

Read Nintendo’s Shulk Amiibo Is Exclusive To GameStop on Siliconera!

Super Smash Bros. for Wii U can now be pre-loaded onto Wii U devices, Nintendo of America announced this morning.

Read Super Smash Bros. for Wii U Can Now Be Pre-Loaded Onto The System on Siliconera!

It looks like HBO is teaming up with Interstellar writer and Person Of Interest showrunner Jonathan Nolan to adapt the highly revered and beloved Foundation books into a TV series. Wow.

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by Sarah Vaughn

I have no idea why I heard almost nothing about Fantasy Life before it came out. A couple of my friends said they wanted to try it, but there just wasn’t a ton of info I could find online about what type of game it was or anything. I did know it was developed by Level-5, the makers of two of my all-time favorite games--Dragon Quest VIII and Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch--and was made for 3DS. So obviously, it was going to be good... and it is. After playing the game for 60+ hours, I finally feel kind of qualified to give my two cents on a very complete JRPG/life sim, which really feels a lot like a single player MMORPG, if such a thing can exist.

I have to start off by saying that this game is total easy-mode and knows it. Fantasy Life reminds me of more old-school JRPG’s such as Lunar, Chrono Trigger, and Dragon Quest (though combat isn’t turn- or menu-based), but it’s a ton easier than any of them. I ended up being hilariously over-levelled anyway, because that’s just how I play games like this, but I don’t think anyone ever will have any real problems getting through the main story part of the game. Because of this, it feels like you’re able to focus more on the story and and activities in the world, without worrying about constantly dying. And I also think it makes this a great beginner RPG for kids or for adults who just want to try out the genre.

In Fantasy Life, you play a silent protagonist, but it’s easy to forgot that you almost never say a word, since you’re paired up with an incredibly chatty butterfly, who does all the talking that could ever possibly need to be done. You start the game as an apparent amnesiac who knows nothing about this world, but somehow that never comes up again, and the really big news of the day seems to be that you’re starting a new Life, or class. As you derp around meeting people and having random adventures, it develops that the world is about to end and the only way to possibly save it is to unite the kingdoms of Reveria, the land that you love, who have been at odds for many years. So it's a fairly basic JRPG save the world or die trying story, but what makes this game special to me is the charm of enemies becoming friends and friends...staying friends. There’s no backstabbing or real bad guys in Fantasy Life, and I think that feels pretty amazing. The story is also played out through absolutely adorable art and really nicely-animated CG cut scenes, added to silly tongue-in-cheek dialogue and the result is a really cute game with a ton of charm.

What really makes the game is the Life system. Lives are simply classes, and there are a bunch, ranging from combat, to foraging, to crafting. Combat Lives include a basic sword and shield Paladin, a Mercenary who wields a two handed claymore, a Hunter with a bow, and my favorite, a Wizard with four different types of magic, including a healing spell from the get-go. Foraging Lives are Miner, Woodcutter, and Angler. Last, but definitely not least, are Cook, Blacksmith, Carpenter, Tailor, and Alchemist for the crafting Lives. The best part is, the classes all weave together nicely, so I think it’s really fun to just do all of them as soon as possible. Cook and Alchemist make items that can really help you out in combat or when you’re trying to deal with a tree or a rock that use masses of your SP. Angler is super important for getting ingredients for cooking, which kind of sucks for me since I honestly don’t enjoy the fishing in this game as much as in Animal Crossing or Harvest Moon, though it’s somewhat similar. Mining and Woodcutting get you a lot of materials for creating armor and weapons and tools for all the other Lives. And of course, you also get a lot of materials from the combat Lives to use in crafting. The system is definitely really similar to Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn. The only things I bought in the game (besides houses) were materials for crafting. I made every tool, every bit of armor, and every weapon I used. Totally doable, and totally fun. And made even easier by the ability to change your Life at any time in game, as long as you’re not currently in a story or Life quest. You can also use your basic skills from any Life while in any other.

Combat in all Lives is performed real-time by pulling out your weapon, choosing the type of move you want to use with the D-pad, and tapping or holding A or X, depending on which specific move you want to make--like I said, almost too easy. Movements are, of course, made with the circle pad. Crafting is done as simple mini games, which get easier as you level up your stats and make or buy better tools. One thing I loved is that if you fail your crafting you don’t lose the materials you were using, something that in other games has made me pull out my hair in frustration. Fantasy Life is also a bit hand-holdy with telling you where to go and what to do next. It would be kind of nice to need to use my brain a little more, but at the same time, it’s handy not having to constantly look up what I’m supposed to be doing. Anyone can play this game and unless they need major amounts of challenge in their games, anyone will probably love it.

It wouldn’t be an RPG without quests, and Fantasy Life definitely delivers on that front. There are Life quests that can level you from Novice to Hero and up your skills to make you seriously hardcore. There are Butterfly quests to earn you “bliss” which can be traded for storage upgrades, the ability to own pets, new items in the shops, and more. These quests also tend to move the story along, and without doing them you can’t advance the main story. In addition, there are tons of requests from the townspeople for items, monster killings, etc. The townspeople tend to generously reward you with dosh (money) and items, some of which really come in handy (I say "tend to" because some townsfolk are incredibly cheap). There’s no limit to the number of quests you accept at a time, so might as well take all that come up and turn them in as you accidentally complete them.

There are a ton of extra little things in Fantasy Life, such as the super customization, from the look of your character to your millions of houses. Not really millions, but you can have multiple houses and decorate them all, using furniture and things from crafting, buying, or gifts from friends you make. Another fun little thing in the game is the use of passwords at the post office. I know they’re posting some on Miiverse, but to be totally honest, I just googled a bunch. The passwords give you free items, including cute holiday themed furniture sets and outfits. Just make sure you get the passwords for your region, since they are different. I also love the ability to take screenshots any time in game, so you can memorialize any big events or fun things for posterity... or your Tumblr. Fantasy Life does include a multiplayer mode, where you can run around with friends and kill stuff and work on Life quests, though not story quests; as well as a cute streetpass thing that adds the people you StreetPass with to your town as random townspeople, and you can get friendly with them by talking and you might be given an item, though so far no one I’ve gotten has set their profile up with items.

While the game is absolutely awesome, there are a few things I really didn’t like. I found the music to be very lackluster. It’s not bad, but very few of the pieces actually stand out. It’s especially shocking since Fantasy Life’s music was composed by Nobuo Uematsu, who is known for putting a lot of personality into the games he’s written for. Also, as in many games, the running back and forth can be infuriating. Some monsters drop bounties, which you have to carry to a bounty clerk to redeem for dosh and items, and you can’t fast travel while dragging them. The worst part of that is when you get attacked by monsters and they go after the bounty and destroy it instead of fighting you head on. There is no spoken dialogue in Fantasy Life, which may bother some people, though I’m just as happy, since a lot of the portable games I play also lack it, and bad voice acting drives me insane. Also, I did run into some glitches. Most of them were very minor, like me firing wind at nothing because I didn’t seem to auto-lock onto the enemy, or things moving a little weirdly. Really, those glitches weren’t bad at all, compared to a lot of games I’ve seen. But the worst was definitely when I became a Master in Woodcutting and my screen just went black instead of going to the cut-scene and wouldn’t come back on. Everything was fine after I turned off my 3DS and turned it back on; luckily I had saved about ten minutes before (there is no auto-save) and when I went through it all again everything proceeded along normally, and I haven’t seen anyone else mention this problem online. There’s also some day one DLC that includes a new area and new quests and a ton of other stuff, but day one DLC that came out in Japan ages ago feels like it really could have just been thrown on the cartridge instead of making us pay another $8.99.

There are a ton of games you can compare Fantasy Life to, but it’s about as life-sim as Rune Factory, has a very similar look and feel to Dragon Quest VIII, and the way the Life/class system works is definitely a lot like Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn, and those are all great things. This is the kind of game you can sink days and even weeks into. I started this review at 61 hours, but because I just can’t seem to keep away I’m up to 72 now, and I’m pretty sure it’s gonna tide me over the twelve days until Pokémon as well, since there is just so much to DO. I doubt it’s going to make it onto many lists of best RPG’s of all time, but it will definitely be on some best games of 2014 lists, and hopefully Fantasy Life will work its way onto some of your holiday wish lists!

REVIEW ROUNDUP

+ Super cute animation style and dialogue

+ Lots of cosmetic customization to make the game feel like it’s your story

+ So much to do, in a good way

+ Incredibly fun Life system can easily become the main focus of the game for some players

+ Appeal for a wide range of players

+/- No spoken dialogue can kill it for some, but at least there’s no jarringly bad voice acting either

- Day-one DLC really feels like it should have just been part of the game already

- Most of the music is kind of boring

Next week's December issue of Bessatsu Margaret is set to announce that Kazune Kawahara and Aruko's award-winning shoujo manga My Love Story!! is set to be adapted into a TV anime.

Viz, who publishes the series in North America, describes it:

Takeo Goda is a GIANT guy with a GIANT heart. Too bad the girls don’t want him! (They want his good-looking best friend, Sunakawa.) Used to being on the sidelines, Takeo simply stands tall and accepts his fate. But one day when he saves a girl named Yamato from a harasser on the train, his (love!) life suddenly takes an incredible turn! Takeo can hardly believe it when he crosses paths with Yamato again, and he finds himself falling in love with her… But with handsome Sunakawa around, does Takeo even stand a chance?

via Anime News Network

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Scott Green is editor and reporter for anime and manga at geek entertainment site Ain't It Cool News. Follow him on Twitter at @aicnanime.

Koei Tecmo Games said tapping the Zelda amiibo on the Wii U gamepad unlocks a weapon too, but they didn't specify the weapon players will get.

Read Zelda Amiibo Unlocks A Hyrule Warriors Weapon Too on Siliconera!

It's been 25 years since Twin Peaks was last on the air, and now that it's coming back to TV, Agent Dale Cooper is looking for a new partner. But when he interviews the detectives of Sleepy Hollow, Fargo, Hannibal, Sherlock, and True Detective, he finds they may actually be too weird for the freaky town.

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Look, we all know the worst part of Thanksgiving is dealing with your family. So if you're not into watching football, then you should be happy that MST3K's Turkey Day marathon is returning on the show's official YouTube channel, including special intros from creator/star Joel Hodgson!

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A site has launched for the 2015 TV anime adaptation of Yasuhiro Nightow's supernatural action series Blood Blockade Battlefront. Rie Matsumoto, the young director of Kyousogiga, helms the Bones production. Kazunao Furuya is script writer with studio mainstay Toshihiro Kawamoto (Cowboy Bebop) on character design.  

Cast includes Akira Ishida, Unshou Ishizuka, Akio Ohtsuka, Shinji Ogawa, Ai Orikasa, Rie Kugimiya, Yu Kobayashi, Rikiya Koyama, Daisuke Sakaguchi, Kazuya Nakai, Keiji Fujiwara, Hikaru Midorikawa, Mamoru Miyano, and Mitsuru Miyamoto.

Dark Horse, who publishes the manga in North America, describes the series:

A breach between Earth and the netherworlds has opened up over the city of New York, trapping New Yorkers and creatures from other dimensions in an impenetrable bubble. They've lived together for years, in a world of crazy crime sci-fi sensibilities. Now someone is threatening to sever the bubble, and a group of stylish superhumans is working to keep it from happening.

公式サイトも同時開設です。キャラクターデザインの川元利浩さんによる描き下ろしティザービジュアルより、先行して線画を公開中！http://t.co/ZPx5CkHgQd #kekkai_anime

— TVアニメ『血界戦線』 (@kekkaisensen) November 4, 2014

Volume 9 was released in Japan in October

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Scott Green is editor and reporter for anime and manga at geek entertainment site Ain't It Cool News. Follow him on Twitter at @aicnanime.

Whether you've been a long-time admirer of Nintendo's Fire Emblem series of strategy games, or you just like playing as Marth and the gang in Super Smash Bros., Did You Know Gaming? is here with some interesting facts about the series in their latest trivia-packed video.

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Joseph Luster is the Games and Web editor at Otaku USA Magazine. He also likes to draw comics. His blog can be found at subhumanzoids. Follow him on Twitter @Moldilox.

Recently established Cinelicious Pics has announced plans to restore the original 35mm camera negative and sound elements of 1973 Japanese animated masterpiece Belladonna of Sadness in anticipation of a 2015 theatrical, VOD, and home video re-release in North America.

The last film in the groundbreaking Animerama trilogy produced by the godfather of Japanese anime & manga, Osamu Tezuka and directed by his long time collaborator Eiichi Yamamoto, Belladonna is described by Cinelicious as a a mad, swirling, psychedelic lightshow of medieval tarot-card imagery with horned demons and haunted forests.

Belladonna  "unfolds as a series of spectacular still watercolor paintings that bleed and twist together like an animated version of Chris Marker’s LA JETEE."

An innocent young woman, Jean (voiced by Katsutaka Ito) is savagely assaulted by the local lord on her wedding night. To take revenge, she makes a pact with the Devil himself (voiced by Tatsuya Nakadai, from Akira Kurosawa’s RAN) who appears as an erotic sprite and transforms her into a black-robed vision of madness and desire. The film is fueled by a Japanese psych rock soundtrack by Masahiko Sato.

“It took months of negotiations to convince the Japanese rightsholders to entrust us with the original camera negative of the film which we’re restoring in-house,” says Cinelicious Pics’ President Paul Korver. “People will be simply blown away by the wild, hallucinatory images and soundtrack,” he adds. “BELLADONNA OF SADNESS belongs on a short list with Rene Laloux’s FANTASTIC PLANET and Ralph Bakshi’s WIZARDS as one of the trippiest animated films ever conceived,” adds Cinelicious Pics’ EVP of Acquisitions & Distribution Dennis Bartok. “This is a major rediscovery – and I have to give credit to Hadrian Belove at The Cinefamily here in L.A. for bringing the film to our attention.”

WARNING... NSFW

 via @indiewire

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Scott Green is editor and reporter for anime and manga at geek entertainment site Ain't It Cool News. Follow him on Twitter at @aicnanime.

Since pretty much page one of A Game of Thrones, a terrible threat has been hanging over the land of Westeros — the Others, those supernatural butchers who raise the dead. And now at last, in his new book The World of Ice & Fire, George R.R. Martin gives us details about what would happen if the Others win. Spoilers ahead...

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The internet's desperate bid to ensure every part of Firefly makes its way into real life (I'm sure there's a Browncoat somewhere out there building their own Firefly-class in their shed) continues with a new card game based on the weird Space-fruit-poker the crew of the Serenity play on the show. Tall Card, anyone?

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Back in 2008 when Super Smash Bros. Brawl was released, it was a bittersweet victory. While the new game was huge, and it had a ton of amazing new characters (King Dedede! Captain Olimar!), it came at the expense of one of my favorite Pokemon of all time and my favorite character to play in the previous game Super Smash Bros. Melee, Mewtwo. How cool was it that Mewtwo didn’t hold items with his hands but with his mind? How great was it that Mewtwo was voiced by Ichimura Masachika, his actor from the original movie and also the original Japanese Phantom of the Opera? I wasn’t depressed about his exclusion or anything, but I’d hoped he would be back next time.

Fast forward a few years to the impending release of a new Smash Bros. Not only did they announce another long time wishlist character of mine in Mega Man, but 2013 was a different time for Mewtwo. While it hadn’t really gotten anything new back when its position was essentially supplanted by Lucario, Mewtwo had developed further within its own games. It received the devastating Psystrike as its signature technique. It was upgraded to have two Mega Evolutions. It even appeared in a new Pokemon movie (albeit that Mewtwo was different from the first one). Surely Mewtwo had a chance now, right?

After another year, after closely following all Smash Bros. updates looking for any hints and being taken for a ride (the Greninja trailer not only makes it look like Mewtwo at first, but also conspicuously does not feature Mewtwo as part of the background Pokemon), the 3DS game was released and the final roster revealed. The bad news: no Mewtwo. I said to myself, “It’s not so bad, I at least got Mega Man, which in a way I’d hoped for even more.” And I’ve been having a ton of fun using Mega Man, getting used to all of his odd quirks. I also began using Palutena, who is sort of like Mewtwo. I was content.

Then came Thursday and the 50-Fact Extravaganza (not really 50). Mewtwo as DLC.

I freaked. Inside, that is. I’m not the type who loses all control of himself even in emotionally exciting times. The dream is real, Mewtwo strikes back, and he has a fancy new 3D model to boot. I have my most desired dual mains. The only thing left for me to do is buy a Wii U.

Now, given Mewtwo’s inclusion in Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS & Wii U, one question still remains in my mind: how will the game implement Psystrike? Will it be a Final Smash, or will that be reserved for one (or both?) of its Mega Evolutions? If it’s a special move, how would they translate the particular properties of Psystrike, if at all?

Here’s my idea. In the Pokemon games, there are different forms of offense, Physical Attacks, which are resisted by Physical Defense, and Special Attacks, which are resisted by Special Defense. Mewtwo in those games has long been famous for having an absurdly high Special Attack stat, and so the best way to combat it would be to use Pokemon with high Special Defense. However, Psystrike flips that relationship on its head. Instead, if calculates Special Attack against the opponent’s Physical Defense, allowing Mewtwo to more effectively attack opponents that it might have trouble with otherwise. While Super Smash Bros. doesn’t have Physical and Special stats, what it does have is horizontal survivability and vertical survivability. Mewtwo’s Smash rendition of Psystrike could play off of this distinction by having it be a vertical KO move but calculate its launching power based on the opponent’s horizontal survivability (or vice versa).

The easiest way to understand horizontal vs. vertical survivability is to look at some examples. Take Bowser vs. Dedede, for instance, where Bowser is generally the heaviest character in the Smash series without modifications and is thus the most difficult to KO off the left and right sides of the screen. Dedede, while also very heavy, isn’t quite as robust in this regard. However, try to take them out by launching them off the top of the screen, and Dedede lives longer. There are even more extreme casse: Samus is very difficult to KO horizontally but quite easy to dispatch vertically, while Fox and Falco are the opposite. Thus, assuming that Psystrike KOs vertically based on the opponent’s horizontal survivability, it would mean that the move is relatively ineffective against Samus but great for taking out team Star Fox.

I also decided to try and express these thoughts in audio, just as a fun test. Tell me what you think!

So in short, Mewtwo hype all around. See you on the Battlefield.