Senran Kagura Burst Will See A Physical Release In Europe

Don’t worry, Europe—you’re getting Senran Kagura Burst, too. Marvelous AQL and Zen United announced this morning that they will jointly handle publishing duties of the Nintendo 3DS brawler in Europe.

That isn’t all, though. While Senran Kagura Burst will be a download-only title in North America, in Europe it will see both a physical retail and download release. The game will be available in Europe in Q1 2014.

As previously detailed, Senran Kagura Burst actually consists of two games—the original Senran Kagura story, titled Skirting Shadows, featuring the Hanzo Academy ninjas; and its sequel, Crimson Girls, starring the Hebijo Academy ninjas.

Read more stories about Nintendo 3DS & Senran Kagura Burst on Siliconera.

See An Expert Shooter Player Blast Through Ketsui

Mages is bringing Cave shooter Ketsui to PlayStation 3. Ketsui: Severing the Bonds of Hell Extra is a port of the Xbox 360 release with X-Mode. The limited edition of Ketsui includes a SuperPlay movie on Blu-ray and the video Mages shared has footage from that.

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Ketsui comes out in Japan on July 25. Since Mages is starting to release games like Corpse Party outside of Japan, we asked they if they will bring Ketsui outside of Japan.

Read more stories about Ketsui & PlayStation 3 & Videos on Siliconera.

This Week In Sales Earth Defense Force 2025 Takes The Top Spot

Period: The week of July 1st – July 7th (2013)

Top-seller: Earth Defense Force 2025 – 154,689

Nintendo 3DS sales: 14,506 | Total sales: 8,401,561

Nintendo 3DS XL sales: 29,716 | Total sales: 3,357,790

PlayStation Vita sales: 20,776 | Total sales: 1,691,867

Wii U sales: 8,251 | Total sales: 968,539

<< Last week’s software sales chart

Last week, D3 Publisher released Earth Defense Force 2025 in Japan, and the game sold nearly 155,000 copies on PlayStation 3, with another 23,000 copies sold on the Xbox 360.

Meanwhile, the hunting-action genre proves itself to be a stable source of income once again, as Tecmo Koei’s Toukiden sold another 43,000 copies for the week on the PS Vita, and an additional 33,000 copies on PSP. It should be interesting to see where the game ends up by the end of the year.

The top-20 chart for the week was as follows:

LwTwTitleWeekly SalesTotal SalesSys.PublisherNew01.Earth Defense Force 2025154,689NewPS3D3 Publisher02.02.Toukiden43,315166,110PSVTecmo Koei04.03.Toukiden33,12699,142PSPTecmo Koei01.04.Gundam Breaker32,030232,595PS3Namco Bandai07.05.Tomodachi Collection: New Life31,9961,233,7823DSNintendoNew06.Earth Defense Force 202523,371New360D3 Publisher09.07.Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D18,819193,3593DSNintendo08.08.The Last of Us14,085164,023PS3SonyNew09.Toriko: Gourmet ga Battle13,315New3DSNamco Bandai03.10.Etrian Odyssey Untold: The Millennium Girl12,765101,0443DSAtlus11.11.Animal Crossing: New Leaf11,3543,315,0353DSNintendo13.12.Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon10,813815,8423DSNintendo06.13.Digimon World Re:Digitize Decode10,69045,0413DSNamco Bandai05.14.Atelier Escha & Logy: Alchemists of the Dusk Sky10,29267,842PS3Gust18.15.Taiko no Tatsujin: Super Splendid Edition4,665511,663WiiNamco Bandai15.16.Sniper: Ghost Warrior 24,03410,847PS3Cyberfront23.17.Dragon Ball Heroes: Ultimate Mission3,732219,9743DSNamco Bandai21.18.Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate (Best Price!)3,683331,3663DSCapcom10.19.Date A Live: Rinne Utopia3,67827,018PS3Compile Heart24.20.Danganronpa (PSP the Best)3,66085,098PSPSpike Chunsoft

Sales data acquired from 4Gamer, Media Create and Geimin.net.

Read more stories about Earth Defense Force 2025 & Etrian Odyssey Untold: The Millennium Girl & Gundam Breaker & The Last of Us & This Week In Sales & Toriko: Gourmet ga Battle & Toukiden on Siliconera.

New Visual Novel Publisher MoeNovel Say They Won't Give Up On The West

There’s a new visual novel publisher on the block, and you may have heard of them. They call themselves MoeNovel, and their first English release is a game titled If My Heart Had Wings, which is one of the few HD visual novels to be translated and released in the west.

MoeNovel even went to the extent of having the game rated by both the ESRB in America and the PEGI in Europe, making a concentrated effort to go through the same channels that regular games do, in order to encourage the image of a more “mainstream” visual novel.

Now that the publisher has released their first game, the question that remains is: will we see more? It’s all too easy to underestimate just how hard it can be to find success in the western visual novel market, and so, we caught up with MoeNovel producer Fujisan to ask what the publisher’s future plans are.

One of the questions I asked Fujisan was about the difficulties of breaking into the western market, and how that affects the company’s future. Is If My Heart Had Wings a one-time deal, or are MoeNovel in this for the long haul?

As it turns out, MoeNovel seem well aware of the difficulties associated with the west.

“In working on this project, of course I discussed this with many industry people, but I was repeatedly told, over and over, that ‘The Western market is difficult’,” Fujisan replied to my question. “Thinking of it business-wise, I’m sure it’s not uncommon to not see any results for a long time, and we have to move projects along somewhat blindly, so I’m sure it won’t be easy.”

“I fully understand that this isn’t going to be an easy ride. But our number one motivation is in wanting people all over the world to know about the Japanese-born game genre known as visual novels. Business is important, too, but that motivation is stronger.  Rather than quitting because we hear that the Western market is a difficult, we’re going to give it a try. We at MoeNovel really take this to heart.”

So, why the focus on HD games in particular? Because MoeNovel feel that the west is being deprived of visual novels with high-resolution visuals, and in an age where even smartphones have high-res screens, they feel this is an oversight.

“The reason we’re sticking to high resolution graphic visual novels is because of the changing user environment,” Fujisan explains. “Nowadays even smart phones have high-resolutions, and PC monitor resolutions continue to get better as well. Amidst such circumstances, we thought that customers might feel unfortunate about being stuck with titles in the 800 x 600 size resolution, so we decided to stick to high-resolution visual novels.”

“That’s not to say there aren’t interesting visual novel titles in the 800 x 600 resolution,” he went on to clarify. “MoeNovel runs on the idea that it wants to spread to visual novel genre to people that might not know about it, so it’s not as though we’re only going to release high-resolution visual novels like If My Heart Had Wings. If there are any titles that we really feel we want people from around the world to play, there’s always the possibility that we might release such titles even if they aren’t high-resolution.”

We’ll have more from MoeNovel about their views on the western visual novel market in the near future.

Read more stories about If My Heart Had Wings & MoeNovel & PC on Siliconera.

Shantae Half-Genie Hero Reaches Funding Goal

Shantae: Half-Genie Hero has reached its 400,000 goal on Kickstarter and is officially funded, WayForward Technologies have announced. Additionally, the studio revealed two more stretch goals for the game today.

At $900,000, the game will allow you to play as three more characters—Rottytops, Bolo and Sky—each with their own story and abilities. Meanwhile, at the $1 million mark, a bonus chapter with be added to the game, featuring a “Nega-Shantae”.

It’s unlikely that either of these stretch goals will be hit, but with ten days to go before the Kickstarter ends, WayForward could reach the $500,000 stretch goal, which will add Risky Boots to the game as a playable character, complete with her own campaign.

Shantae: Half-Genie Hero is in development for PC, Wii U, Xbox 360, Xbox One, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4 and Vita.

Read more stories about PC & PlayStation 3 & PlayStation 4 & PlayStation Vita & Shantae: Half-Genie Hero & Wii U & Xbox 360 & Xbox One on Siliconera.

River City Ransom Sequel In Development For PC From Indie Studio

Last year, Miracle Kidz, the developer behind Downtown Smash Dodgeball, said they canceled River City Ransom 2 which was in development for WiiWare and PC. Enter Combit Studios that developed a cross-platform 2D gaming engine for casual titles called FWD.

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The Canadian-based indie developer contacted Million that holds all of the Technos licenses like Double Dragon and Kunio-kun (i.e. the original series River City Ransom is based on) and got a license to develop'River City Ransom 2. Combit says they will work closely with Million on the title.

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River City Ransom 2 is slated for release in August 2014 for PC with other platforms under consideration. Combit will launch a crowdfunding campaign this summer to buy Karma Jolt raise money for the game.

Read more stories about PC & River City Ransom 2 on Siliconera.

Get Ready For A Second Project X Zone Demo

A second demo for Project X Zone is available in Europe today. In Europe, it’s dubbed the “Dark Hours” demo.

North America is getting the demo as well. In North America, it will be dubbed the “Ghost” demo, and will be available on July 2nd.

Project X Zone is available in North America now. Europe will get the game on July 5th.

Read more stories about Nintendo 3DS & Nintendo eShop & Project X Zone on Siliconera.