Posts Tagged ‘lightning warrior raidy’

July 1st; usually known as the day that I’m up early and waiting for news to start filtering out of Anime Expo. A quick note that this year I am going to be at the day job for most of the weekend so there won’t be any (or hardly any) live coverage of the event. I will try to get news up as soon as I can but it’ll likely be in the form of nightly wrap up posts.

But alright, let’s get this game of Catch Up done so that I can get back to waiting for Google Reader to light up with updates!

NEW ANIME

Arakawa Under the Bridge Season 2: At the close of the Arakawa season 1, an announcement went up for a second season. – Yay I guess. Really didn’t like this one.

Beelzebub Special Episodes: Two special anime episodes will be made based off the manga Beelzebub. The two episodes will be shown at major cities around Japan in September as part of the Jump Super Anime Tour. – MyAnimeList notes that premieres of this nature are usually followed by online premieres to stay tuned for further updates.

ToHeart2 Bonus OVA: The first release of ToHeart2 is now scheduled to include a special bonus episode which will focus on the character Manaka. The disc will be released on September 23rd and will also have a special edition which includes other goods such as a pillow cover and drama/character song CD. – Are they STILL making ToHeart???

Sekai-ichi Hatsukoi ~Onodera Ritsu no Baai~ OAD: The last anime announcement to squeak out this week is for the boys love manga Sekai-ichi Hatsukoi. In the announcement, it was revealed that the fifth volume would be bundled with a 20 minute anime episode when it is released next year. – Two male shoujo editors becoming romantically entangled? Is this as common a theme in BL as it sounds?

Getting away from new anime and into the news that slipped through the cracks this week, we see some new DVD releases and a delay that can’t be blamed on Bandai!

Black Butler DVD Release Date: Like last week, Funimation has sneakily opened another official website with a brand new DVD announcement. According to the new official site, Black Butler (Kuroshitsuji) will be released January 11th 2011. – I’m curious to know why Funimation hasn’t been announcing these with a bit more fanfare.

Gainax Working on Dantalian no Shoka: Originally announced at the beginning of June, it’s finally been revealed that Gainax will be the studio working on the anime adaptation of Bibliotheca Mystica de Dantalian. The light novel series takes place in 1920’s London when a man meets a girl in charge of protecting the forbidden books of demonic wisdom.

Future Diary (Mirai Nikki) Delayed: The DVD release of Mirai Nikki has been delayed from September to December for an unknown reason. – Disappointing after they released a cool trailer only a few days ago.

Lightning Warrior Raidy 2 and Moero Downhill Night 2 Shipping: In a quick dip into the eroge news, the newest localized eroge from JAST USA are now shipping from J-List. Physical copies of Lightning Warrior Raidy 2 and Moero Downhill Night 2 are heading out to everyone who preordered first with download versions being made available to everyone next week. – Really want to play both of these games!

Six Ghost in the Shell Features at Viz Cinema: Stuck in No. California this weekend? Viz Cinema is offering something for you as well by showing six different Ghost in the Shell movies from July 3rd to July 8th. – Wow, can you imagine what kind of shape your brain would be in after watching 6 GitS movies over 5 days??

It’s been quite awhile since I’ve gotten to post any real news about localized eroge but a surge of activity has surfaced over at JAST USA which have made two big announcements: Both Lightning Warrior Raidy II and Demonbane are either complete or almost complete and will be released in the near future! Lightning Warrior Raidy II: Temple of Desire from eroge studio ZyX is the sequel to the original translated and released in the US on the G-Collections label in 2008. The fantasy adventure game follows a heroine named Raidy through a dungeon crawl to save the poor village girls who have been kidnapped by monsters. The game is currently set to be released at the end of June just in time for Anime Expo and is currently available for preorder.

Also announced at the official English Nitro+ site is the planned summer release of the highly anticipated Demonbane. The first joint production between eroge company Nitro+ and JAST USA, the dark story centers on a down on his luck private detective who stumbles upon the dark world of magic, giant mechs called grimoires and a fight between the Miskatonic University which protects magic and the Black Lodge Society which seeks to control it. Demonbane is also currently available for preorder here.

Any eroge fans out there looking forward to these as much as I am? Lightning Warrior Raidy was a surprisingly fun (if not ridiculously difficult) title and Demonbane has all the makings to be an epic title.

Purchase From J-List Purchase From Right Stuf

Lightning Warrior Raidy Released By: G-Collections Released: 4/8/08 Reviewed: 5/11/08

Further proof that ero games and strategy games just don’t work well together.

Story

After arriving in the small village of Saad, the traveling warrior Raidy learns that monsters in a nearby tower have kidnapped the women of the village. All of the men who went in to save the women never returned. Now it’s up to Lightning Warrior Raidy, who earned her name because of her ability to wield thunder in battle, to save the girls and return them from the village. It won’t be easy though, Raidy has to fight her way through six floors in order to defeat the evil demon who resides at the top.

Artwork

Really playing up the fantasy setting of this game, the characters in this game are all very well designed. Raidy herself is a strong lead character complete with the typical armor that covers hardly any of her body while all of the bosses have their own unique look and class.

The supporting characters in this game were also mostly very well designed. On every floor there are three different types of enemies that Raidy will have to face. One of the ways that the game keeps things innovative though is their tongue in cheek enemies. To cite a perfect example would be the second floor which features a Minotaur. In this game though, a

Minotaur is simply a cute brunette with small cow horns and wearing a skimpy black and white suit that is torn from her body upon her defeat. Another great example of enemy design was the sylphs on floor four.

The girls that Raidy are trying to rescue could’ve been designed with a bit more variety. While they are all very nicely designed and all of them are attractive characters, it felt as though there wasn’t enough variety in them. After a couple of floors a lot of the girls just started to look the same which made me start to care less about saving them and more about just fighting the enemies and getting to the bosses so that I could see their designs instead.

The ero level of this game is fairly low. All of the enemies that you defeat will strike a sexy pose upon defeat but they are never graphic. The ero scenes with the bosses are where the most sex is seen actually. Every boss has a different fetish to get around such as whips or enemas. These scenes are never overly graphic themselves either but are well drawn and fun to look at.

Writing and Story

The initial story outline for this game didn’t sell me on this game. Going through it after receiving my copy of the game, I found that the writing and story didn’t get any better. While the story itself isn’t exactly innovative, the writing that it follows doesn’t do any better. While every floor has a few scenes here and there to keep the story moving along, most of this game is going to be about fighting and puzzle solving.

The scenes that are played out though really come across as odd and awkward due to cultural differences. A primary example of this would be Raidy fighting through the tower and yet every time she comes across a boss or enemy that she has to interact with, the speech patterns go right back into humble Japanese speech patterns. While it is completely understandable that the game would be written this way, it still struck me as odd that a fantasy warrior maiden who is fighting through a tower would have time to speak so politely. It really took me out of the element as a gamer and made it harder to get into the game and story.

Music

The dungeon crawl music is well composed and does a great job of sinking into the background without becoming annoyingly repetitive. The battle music on the other hand did start to come across as annoying by the time I had reached the third floor though so that got turned off fairly quickly afterwards. Perhaps the reason why this is though is simply because the battle music gets started and stopped every few steps while the dungeon music is on a constant loop.

I really was hoping to hear some nice tunes for the music but none of it stood out as particularly impressive.

Bad Points

The battle system is where this game loses most of its points. To be blunt, the battle system is terribly boring and becomes a repetitive chore every single time you start a new level. With only two different attacks to use (either a sword attack or a lightning attack) battles became constant button pushing on my mouse until the battle was over. Occasionally I would glance up and use a healing potion but most of the time all I had to do to finish any battle (including boss battles) was to just keep hitting the sword button and wait a few minutes.

The navigation in this game is also one of the most frustrating experiences I’ve ever had while playing an ero game. The puzzles in this game are frustratingly difficult to get your way around at first since you have to collect the map for each floor after you get onto the floor (which is usually one of the very last items that you find on each floor). This leads to a ton of blind wandering around and hoping that you stumble upon it eventually. Even on the first floor I had already felt the need to open up notepad on my laptop in order to notes about which doors led where. But with floor tiles that will change your direction without you even realizing it and trick walls that you can’t find unless it’s an accident, this game will challenge your mind.

Though this becomes a silent point at certain points throughout each level since once you do find the map for that floor the levels become insanely easy in an instant. If this game had managed to find the balance between maddeningly difficult and pathetically easy, it would have gone a long way towards making this a much more enjoyable game.

Replay Value

With only six floors to get through and enemies that are quite easy to defeat, anyone who is good at puzzles will be able to get through this game within a couple of nights (possibly one if they’re diligent about it). If you’re not good at puzzles, this game is going to drive you nuts for many nights. Once you do get through the game though, you’ll have access to the extras menu which will tell you if you’ve managed to catch all the CG. There are only a few hidden rooms within the game though so one more trip through the game will likely net you everything there is to see. After that, there won’t be much reason to pick this game up again.

Overall

After some less than positive experiences with ero games trying to mix in some strategy in the past, I was wary about this game going in. Very quickly though, I found that this is a game worth killing a weekend with if you’re bored. While the fantasy setting is fun and the character designs are wonderful, the boring battle system and frustrating puzzles make this game one that will be more suited for experienced gamers and collectors. Newcomers to the genre can find much better games to start with and are better off waiting for some of the other upcoming releases instead.

Final Grade: 78% – C