Sega of America and Europe have announced that Shining Resonance Refrain will be released in the West on PS4, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One and PC. The game was previously released on PlayStation 3 exclusively in Japan. The localized version features dual audio with English and Japanese voices, as well as all of the original’s DLC. A new addition to the game is the “Refrain Mode,” which unlocks the Imperial Princess Excella and Dragonslayer Jinas as party members.
Of the Shining Resonance characters, Sonia was always a clear favorite. She ended up overtaking the other heroine Kirika in popularity despite Kirika receiving slightly more promotion leading up to Shining Resonance‘s release.
So if there were a Shining Resonance character to be included in Blade Arcus from Shining EX, it’d naturally be Sonia. Sega recently uploaded a 2 minute showcasing a bit of Sonia’s fighting style. She is purely a short-ranged fighter, but some of her attacks come out quickly, and she has a handful of options with wide range (especially one of her aerial attacks!) The closer she is to the opponent, the more dangerous she becomes, as Sonia has some follow-up options even if her opponent is blocking. Unique to her character is the ability to play her Armonic (the sword that doubles as an instrument, unique to Resonance) as a violin. In addition, she can also access her “Dress Armor”, the golden armor that shows up sporadically towards the end of the trailer. On the flip side, she seems to move rather slowly when not attacking. So while Sonia is strong once she’s next to her opponent, Sonia also has to get in first.
Continue reading to watch the trailer for Sonia! Do remember that she is a bonus character exclusive to first print copies of Blade Arcus from Shining EX.
This past weekend, the Summer Wonder Festival 2015 (second Wonder Festival of the year) showed off a variety of garage kits. Sega and Atlus properties were well represented at this event. Shockingly, there are figures for 7th Dragon III Code: VFD! Also, besides the previously announced figma for Kazuma Kiryu, a figma was also announced for Goro Majima to be in production at this event, as shown above.
Find a list below of Sega and Atlus related figures, with links to teaser images courtesy of myfigurecollection.net. Please keep in mind that some of the material is NSFW (as noted), and some of the images are promotional/serve as teasers for the art that is later to come. Some links will not display near-final renders of a figure.
Interestingly, it seems Sega is listed as manufacturing a handful of anime-related figures. None are so important as this one below:
Yahari Ore no Seishun LoveCome wa Machigatteiru. Zoku’s Yui Yuigahama
Only making a figure of Yui, of all characters from that series? Sega solidifies themselves as arbiters of taste by choosing the best character. After all, she was brought to us to bring justice to this world. If you are a fan of Iroha Isshiki, you are probably pretty cool, but if you are a fan of Yukino Yukinoshita, I am beyond disgusted.
This week’s Famitsu has revealed the first console port of the Blade Arcus from Shining series, to be titled “Blade Arcus from Shining EX.” The game is coming to both Playstation 4 and Playstation 3, which is in keeping with Japanese developers’ greater adoption of the Playstation 4 as a platform moving forward. It is set to release on November 26, and is receiving both a standard edition (¥6,990) and a limited edition (¥9,990.) The limited edition includes a Shining Heroine art book, a special art box designed by Tony Taka (current Shining series artist), Shining Blade OST, Shining Ark character songs, and a Heroine swimsuit calendar.
First print copies of all Blade Arcus from Shining EX will include a code for a new playable character – Sonia from Shining Resonance. Sonia is one of the more popular characters from Shining Resonance, so it is not too surprising to see her here. Other new characters are set to come to the game too, though it’s not specified if they’ll be revealed in the months leading to the release, and whether or not they’ll be on the disc or featured as DLC.
Beyond that, this game will feature all of the characters available in the most recent version of the game, which was scheduled for a summer release in arcades.
Blade Arcus isn’t a major name in fighting games in Japan, though it is consistently supported. Arcades may be dwindling in japan, but they still remain a strong social force and can be a great place to get in long hours of practice. Console versions of fighting games are typically expected to sell to passionate high-level competitors of a certain game in Japan. Let’s see how this does.
Credit for the information goes to this Gematsu article, and Hachima Kikou. Featured image is credited to Famitsu.
In the newest PSO Live Stream event, Sega announced new collaboration content with the Guilty Gear and Blazblue franchises, prominent fighting game IPs that belong to Arc System Works. Of course, Sega is no stranger to collaborating with franchises that aren’t in-house as far as Phantasy Star Online 2 is concerned.
However, a fun fact: Guilty Gear was owned by Sega for a couple of years following the merger of Sammy and Sega. While Arc System Works developed the Guilty Gear games, Sammy owned the IP. In any event, years later Arc System works would reclaim the IP and eventually develop the Guilty Gear Xrd series. And in the meantime, they launched another popular fighting game series called Blazblue.
Blazblue itself was party to a collaboration with Sega’s Border Break a year ago. The campaign was stylized as “BB X BB.” By visiting the respective game websites at the time of the collaboration, fans could unlock special items or treats for each game. It’s hard to figure out what prompted such a collaboration as the franchises are noticeably dissimilar, but in the end perhaps nothing gets in the way of true love.
The newest edition of the PSO2 Live Broadcast aired not too long ago. While it announced plenty of news regarding game elements such as Scratches, Quests, and the Casino, I’d like to take a moment to focus on this broadcast’s announcement of Sega collaboration content. Phantasy Star Online 2 is no stranger to promotion with franchises outside of Sega ownership, of course, but I personally think it’s nice to see Sega celebrating the franchises and people within the company.
The featured image shown above describes Scratch content for Shining Resonance. This includes weapon skins, character accessories, and costumes themed after Yuuma, Sonia, Kirika, Rinna, and Marion. Voice clips or “tickets” will also be available for these characters, too. This content is planned for release in the middle of June.
Continue reading to check out more of the upcoming Sega-themed content for PSO2!
Media.Vision, the developers of Shining Resonance (and the same team that worked on Valkyria Chronicles III,) have continued to support Shining Resonance with DLC since its launch in Japan last year. The team is releasing its sixteenth and final batch DLC on the 30th Japan time; continue reading to see what’s to be expected. The Japanese official website for Shining Resonance chronicles each release of DLC in its own Downloadable Content section, which can be viewed here.
We know that Sony, through their relatively recently-formed Third Party Productions division is assisting with the localization process of Yakuza 5. However, Siliconera wrote recently that Sony also assisted with the Chinese localization of Shining Resonance. The Chinese localization of Shining Resonance was first announced in August of last year, and now the game can be purchased through PSN for accounts registered in Taiwan. The product page (in English) on the PS Store for the Asia region can be seen here.
There aren’t any publicly released accounts talking about how Sony contributed to Shining Resonance’s localization into Traditional Chinese. Regardless, it is interesting to see that Sony is assisting Sega with localization of a product for a second time. Hong Kong and Taiwan are countries with many who speak Chinese, so perhaps this localization is designed to see if Sega can consistently localize their mid to big budget titles for this region and see satisfactory returns.
Siliconera linked to a playlist of YouTube videos from a player demoing the Chinese localization. The first of the set of 18 videos can be seen here. Be warned that they contain a significant amount of footage and show off lots of the game.
BeastNote continues to diligently track news on Shining Resonance on their blog. During the beginning of December, BeastNote wrote about a couple of new videos uploaded by Sega showing off costumes and some slice-of-life interaction skits. On Christmas Day, BeastNote wrote about the announcement of two characters as DLC extras: Princess Excella, the leader of Lombardia and the Drag Machina, and Jenius, the solitary warrior with a grudge. Excella and Jenius will be released on January 8th, 2015 and are priced at ¥925 each.
Continue reading to check out the videos! Please note that these videos are not subtitled, but I’ll provide some comments underneath each video, based off of a combination of BeastNote’s descriptions and my own watching of the video.
SEGA uploaded two commercials being used to promote Shining Resonance to their Youtube channel. Both commercials are included in the following clip. The first one features an introduction sequence that should seem familiar to players of the first Valkyria Chronicles game. The second features the introduction of the game’s theme song, Niji no Senritsu. The game is releasing this week – December 11th in Japan.
Additionally, Explosion’s new post here features a gallery, some of which contain screenshots of the seventh playable character. The character does indeed wield the seventh weapon featured on the main website before it’s latest overhaul. Not that it’s a particularly well-kept secret at this point, but those wishing to avoid spoilers should not click on the article.
Continue reading to check out the commercials!