Archive for the ‘News’ Category

A little news

Je n’ai rien a dire! My weekend has been filled with non-otome stuff – I was hoping to get Desert Kingdom or Meikyuu Grimm on Friday but no such luck.

Anyways, new game announcements from Otomate!
Clock Zero – November PS2 (I love the genre description for this one – “Living in a broken world with you”)
Wand of Fortune II – December PS2
Hakuouki Reimeiroku – PS2 September (this seems to be a prequel to Hakuouki featuring Ryuunosuke?)

Scared Rider Xechs

First things first. I *think* it’s supposed to be Scarred not Scared, which makes a little more sense (if anyone knows for sure let me know!).This is the first otome game from Reds Entertainment, scheduled for release this summer on the PS2. The “Scared Riders” is a military team, based in Okinawa, formed to protect Earth from a mysterious group of alien beings from Mars called Night Fly Onoto. The Scared seem to refer to Night Flys that are helping the humans. In battle, the Riders transform with their Substance  Night Flys and become Scared Riders. Fighting has been so intense that five teams have been destroyed already.
The new sixth unit is called IS (pronounced eyes), or the Scared Rider Xechs. The heroine is the advisor to this team, and the player will direct them in battle, and protect the Earth.

After all this fighting, as IS was getting ready to fight, the enemy Night Flys disappeared. While waiting for them to make an appearance, the members of IS formed a band called Odd-I’s – of course, what else would they do?

Characters:

Asagi Akira: The genius heroine, she graduated high school at 10 and university at 15. Perhaps because she sped through school, she has no friends, and is a little naive and very serious. The very unserious members of IS often tease her.

Komae Christoph Yosuke CV: Suzuki Tatsuo

Hobby: Cooking
Noise Render: Vicious (a sword shaped like a guitar)
Band Position: Backup Guitar
Codename: Z.2 Zahl zwei
He’s half German, and his parents are dead. He’s cool, calm and very skilled. His guitar playing is pro level as well, but he doesn’t like it that much.
He also knows martial arts, and had top marks at the LAG acadedemny.

Substance: Fernandes CV: Takemoto Eiji
The classic impulsive, hotheaded hero type.

Kirisawa Takt   CV: Miyano Mamoru
Hobby: none
Noise Render: Paige (Guitar-shaped spear)
Band Position: Vocal/Main Guitar
Codename: Z.1 Zahl eins
Acts as IS’s leader. Serious and a perfectionist, he’s always trying to fix things, which sometimes causes conflict with the others.
He’s very proud, and has absolute confidence in himself.

Substance:  Lespouri   CV: Namikawa Daisuke
A childish type that loves pranks, he can also be quite coldhearted. Takuto often scolds him like a parent.

Tsuga Yuji   CV: Kondou Riku
Hobby: Soccer
Noise Blender: Bacchus (a bass-shaped axe)
Band Position: Bass
Codename: Z.3 Zahl drei
The oldest member of IS who acts as the ‘older brother’ of the team, he’s easygoing but shrewd. He also ends up being the mediator in team conflicts.

Substance: Deviser   CV: Koyama Rikiya
Extremely proud and arrogant, he thinks of the world as his oyster, but values his comrades highly.

Kurama Hiro  CV: Shimono Hiroo
Hobby: Reading (especially Japanese culture and philosophy)
Noise Blender: Campbell (drum-shaped weapon that makes energy waved)
Band position: Drums
Codename: Z.4 Zahl vier
The youngest member of IS, Hiro is meek and bashful. Because he’s so socially inept, he often says things that sound harsh unintentionally.

Substance: Duesenberg   CV: Takahashi Naozumi
He is male but his heart, actions, and speech patterns are feminine. He loves beautiful things, and loves that IS’s members are bishounen.

Suzuki Kazuki   CV: Takahashi Hiroki
Hobby: PC
Noise Blender: Gureko (a gunlike long-range weapon)
Band Position: Keyboards
Codename: Z.5 Zahl funf
Kind of a narcissist, he often does and says strange things, and his teammates have a hard time understanding him.
He’s very straightforward in what he likes. He calls himself an artist, and is very serious about the band. He also thinks of himself as a hero, and takes his role in IS seriously. He writes lyrics and songs for the band, but has no talent for lyrics.

Substance: RickenBacker  CV: Okamoto Nobuhiko
For some reason (maybe he can’t remember the words), he’s never been to converse with anyone. He mostly only has outbursts of snickering or other sounds. However, apparently he and the other Substances and he and Kazuki can talk.

Mutsuki Hijiri  CV: Kenn
Hobby: Gambling
Noise Blender: Casino (a mic-shaped bladed weapon)
Band Position: None
Codename: Z.6 Zahl Xechs
The most recent member of IS. He’s friendly with a stray cat Ochzuke. He is a playboy and not very serious, and sometimes will go ff somewhere without warning. He has also been suspected of being a spy for the Night Fly.

Substance: Epiphone  CV: Fujiwara Yuuki
Apparently he was the first Night Fly to come to Earth. He doesn’t speak much and is often alone. He is very cool in battle. Only recently did he choose to become Hijiri’s Substance.

The character art is very long and lean, and on the (heavy Flash)site there are a few mini-movies to watch that are mostly little teasers, but fun. No info yet on gameplay, but the idea of having the guys’ ‘mecha’ actually be characters as well is quite cool!

Lijaka / Lijakaca: This blog/website

Is it common to do a post explaining the site? I dunno, but I’m going to do it.

Lijaka / Lijakaca: Basically these are both my web aliases, I used to use Lijaka, but sometime either forgot the passwords (aha, oops) or someone else registered on the sites I wanted with that name, so I added a ‘CA’ to the end (’cause I’m from Canada, eh?)

In this site, I’m using Lijakaca as the blog / personal gaming title. This is where I have been blabbing about otome gaming news and reviews for a few years now.

and Lijaka.com is the title of the blog’s sister site where I…am working on an otome game! Yes, the first project of Lijaka Games is an original otome game in English, that should be out this summer. It took a long time to formulate, originally I was trying to translate a fan-made game from Japanese, but I had trouble getting responses (maybe they thought I would try to sell it or something, I don’t blame them for being careful). And I thought about trying to license a commercial game from Japan, but, uh…I’m not that rich. So I started thinking of making my own game, and got pretty excited about ideas and stuff, but in addition to not being rich, I’m not a programmer! My real job is actually of no help whatsoever in making otome games. But I heard about games being made in Flash, and I thought that I could start off with a simple one just ‘for practice’. So I bought the whole Adobe Creative Suite, and am currently learning Flash (I was pretty optimistic about how simple it is, haha). I also started looking for artists, because out of all the requirements for making a videogame, art is the one thing I know I will never be able to do myself. Well, art and voices ^_^. And somehow, my stumbling along has developed into a real game! Other surprises have come along to delay things (thank you faulty plumbing and car accident!), but I am trying to get back on track.

So right now the outline is done, the art is coming along (I will try and get a mini-site up soon), now I’m working on the programming and script! Wish me luck!