Atlus

Persona 4 Arena Ultimax North and South American releases not region locked, preorder bonuses revealed

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Earlier today, Atlus announced on their website for Persona 4 Arena Ultimax that the North and South American releases of the game will not be region locked. While this news is appreciated, it’s appreciable because the first iteration of the game, Persona 4: Arena, was one of a small number of region locked games on PS3. This was a move that sparked much ire especially from European gamers, who received their release of the game under publisher Zen United and several months after North American gamers had received their copy of the game. The concepts of timely releases and maintaining fan hype are especially important for fighting games; the absence of properly handled releases threaten the development of scenes.

In any case, it seems that European gamers who are unwilling to wait for a European release will be able to import the games without worry of playability. It’s worth noting that there is currently no official news on a European release, though a release may be possible. The Persona Europe Facebook page has made posts for Persona 4 Arena Ultimax among other games recently, and shared an image last September saying “More info soon!” but of course what was meant by that can’t be known for certain.

In that same news posting today Atlus also revealed the preorder bonuses for the game and the spread is thus: a Teddie bop bag, the first of two sets of Persona Tarot cards (the other set to be included with the release of Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth), and the Tohru Adachi DLC pack that unlocks both the character and an accompanying story mode episode. These goodies will also be available to first-run copies of the game

Persona 4 Arena Ultimax releases on Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 in Japan on August 28 and in North America on September 30.

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First episode of Persona 4: The Golden Animation can now be streamed

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If you hadn’t had enough Persona 4 stuff in the past week or so, the new anime based on the enhanced Vita re-release Persona 4 Golden just started. If you have a premium Crunchyroll account you can watch it on their site right now. If you don’t have one, you can watch the full episode for free in six days or you can watch the first two minutes. Alternatively, you can also watch it on Daisuki.net, though chances are that if you don’t live in the US or the UK you’ll get a region error.

Having watched it, I do recommend only seeing this adaptation if you’ve either played the game or watched the first anime. The pacing is a lot quicker with scenes that were covered in the first anime adaptation being skimmed over or changed. That being said, you might find this fun to watch if you’re a Persona 4 fan.

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Persona Q coming to Europe not half a year after it comes to the US with Premium Edition

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Sounds like Europeans won’t have to wait much longer than Americans do for the new Persona game for once thanks to NIS America. According to their European store, Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth will be coming to Europe on November 28th. And not only that, we’ll be getting a Premium Edition as well. This edition includes a 3DS XL case, the Sounds of the Labyrinth CD, an art book and eleven Tarot cards. Pricing hasn’t been revealed yet.

As for the US, it seems like the game may come out there three days earlier on November 25th. The release date isn’t official though, as it comes from Amazon rather than an official announcement. Still, seeing how close it is to the European release date it’s either accurate or it will actually be released at an earlier date. The premium edition will be sold there as well for $79.99.

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Atlus opens up a teaser site for a new game

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Seems that Atlus isn’t done announcing new titles, they have just opened a teaser site for a new game. The pages title says: “This is not broccoli #ATLUS.” So what could it be? 

Lots of people seem to think that this is going to be a new entry to the long running Etrian Odyssey franchise. After the jump we have some assets ripped from the teaser page.

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SEGA in the Charts: MediaCreate charts for June 09 – 15 June 2014

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After debuting in the charts so impressively, SEGA’s first major title since the Atlus takeover continues its fine performances in the Japanese charts. Last week the title debuted as the best selling piece of software in Japan but did it have enough steam to continue it’s strong sales into the second week? And what about Hero Bank? The game that seemed destined to be a major flop finally appears in the charts again but has it crossed the 50,000 barrier? All these questions answered after the break!

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Segabits at E3: Interview with Ryan Vandendyck and Jason Ruper

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While on the E3 showfloor, Nuckles87 talked to Eden Industries, Ryan Vandendyck who is the director of development on “Citizens of Earth”. An old-school style of RPG in the vein of Earthbound, but with some new twists. With him was project coordinator, Jason Ruper of Atlus. During the interview they discussed several aspects of the game, how it went from a Kickstarter campaign to a published game and the wacky antics of the Vice President of the world. Enjoy!

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SEGAbits at E3 Preview: Citizens of Earth (PlayStation 4, PSVita, Wii U, 3DS, & PC)

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Some games just have this irresistible charm about them. The moment you see it, you just know you want to play it and see if it lives up to just how awesome it looks. At E3, Atlus’s Citizens of Earth was one of those games. As a man who is interested in politics and is always open to some political satire, and the concept on display here is way too hilarious to ignore.

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SEGA in the Charts: MediaCreate charts for June 02 – 08 June 2014

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This is the first time “SEGA in the Charts” will be covering an Atlus game and what a time to start! As it is, this is SEGA’s first number one since Hatsune Miku released back in March and the first title published in Japan under SEGA’s ownership of the Atlus brand. It’s also the first time the Persona series has appeared on a non-Playstation console, so it will be interesting to see how things develop after the first week of sales. I think both Atlus and SEGA can be extremely happy with how it has turned out for them. Hit the break to see the full lowdown!

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SEGAbits at E3 Preview: Abyss Odyssey (Xbox 360, PS3 and PC)

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This is going to be an interesting year for us here at SEGAbits, as we try to get accustomed to covering Atlus games. I’ve been trying to familiarize myself with the company, but I haven’t truly begun to introduce myself to their catalog until today, when I played several of their games on the showfloor. I’m going to do my best to provide coverage of this company, but I am somewhat out of my depth here. First on my docket? Abyss Odyssey!

I had a fun time with this game. It’s essentially a Smash Bros game with rogue-like elements. So pretty much a side scrolling brawler that can be really, really hard and brutal. Allies can hit and damage each other in this game, the labyrinth quickly becomes much more difficult the deeper you go, and dying will result in you going back to your previous checkpoint, sans all of your equipment and items. Death in this game carries a serious consequence! For a rogue-like this game is actually pretty generous, as you get to keep all of your collected experience, skills and gold.

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SEGAbits at E3 2014 coverage begins – previews and interviews from the show floor coming soon

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Another Electronic Entertainment Expo is upon us, and once again SEGAbits is attending on location at the Los Angeles Convention center to bring you previews of the latest SEGA games and interviews with the people behind them! No secondhand reporting here. This year, SEGA has a small but highly unique assortment of games on display which we’ll be playing and talking about as the week goes on. At the SEGA booth are Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric (Wii U), Sonic Boom: Shattered Crystal (3DS), Alien: Isolation (PS4, Xbox One, PS3, Xbox 360, PC), and Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA F 2nd (PS3, Vita, PSN). We’ll also be covering Bayonetta 2 (Wii U), which will likely be on display at the Nintendo booth.

SEGA’s recent acquisition Atlus will also be receiving coverage from us, with Atlus showing off Persona 4 Arena Ultimax (PS3/360), Persona Q (3DS), Persona 4: Dancing All Night (PS Vita), Abyss Odyssey (PC, PS3, 360), Citizens of Earth (3DS, Wii U, PC, PS Vita, PS4) and an unannounced Title (PC, PS Vita, PS4). In addition to all of that, we’ll be attending a VIP event held by SEGA’s mobile division where we’ll be playing and talking to the developers of the upcoming Sonic the Hedgehog, Crazy Taxi, and Super Monkey Ball mobile games.

You can view all of our E3 coverage here throughout the week, and you can find live updates on our Twitter and Facebook accounts. We also have a live from E3 podcast in the works, which we plan to release during the show. The countdown is over, welcome to E3 2014!

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Persona 4 Arena and its DLC removed from PSN in Europe

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It seems like Persona 4 Arena and Europe just don’t go well together. Atlus usually doesn’t publish it’s own games in Europe, so their games are often released far later there than in other countries. But Persona 4 Arena in particular had a problem with this, as it was also one of the few region locked games on PS3. So Europeans couldn’t import it and had to wait for it to be released in May 2013, nine months after Americans could get their hands on it.

Publisher Zen United brought it over back then, but now the downloadable version along with all of the DLC has been taken off PSN. While no response was given for this, a Facebook post from late last month tells us that Atlus is now handling the game in Europe. Which suggests that Zen United no longer has the publishing rights to the game. This is just speculation though, of course. This article will be updated when an official response will be given.

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Persona 4: the Golden Animation announced

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While Persona 4 has already had an animated series, it wasn’t exactly of high quality. Particularly the quality of the animation. So for those who weren’t pleased with it, Atlus has announced that there will be a new anime based on the Vita version: Persona 4 Golden. It’s being produced by A-1 Pictures, who are perhaps best known for Sword Art Online.

This re-doing of the animation will mostly cover the same story, though the Golden version did add a new character called Marie who will be in the new anime. If this is a good thing or not depends on who you ask, as the fanbase seems to be kinda split on if she’s a good character or not. The real important question is though: will this anime be able to do a better job covering the Kings Game? It will start airing in Japan this July.

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Atlus set for another Persona announcement on May 2nd

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Right after the SEGA buyout was confirmed, Atlus went ahead and confirmed that they where working on four Persona titles. Seems that isn’t enough, since we will be getting another announcement come May 2nd.

Atlus will be having a live Persona-related stream on NicoNico on May 2nd, 11:30pm JST. What is this stream about? They will have guests, preview material for the upcoming Persona 3: Midsummer Knight’s Dream movie, and this teased announcement.

The last event was when Atlus announced those upcoming Persona games. What do they have in store this time? Another movie? More games? I guess we will find out soon.

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Yuzo Koshiro will compose music for Persona Q

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Yuzo Koshiro has worked on music for a lot of games, but SEGA fans will always know him for his amazing work on the Streets of Rage series. In my opinion, this is what made Yuzo Koshiro a legend. Want more music from him? Don’t worry, it has been revealed that he will be composing tracks for the upcoming Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth.

Also announced to be working on the game is Yuji Himukai who is being brought aboard to design some monsters along with Shin Nagasawa. All three (including Yuzo Koshiro) worked on Etrian Odyssey (and Persona Q is basically Etrian Odyssey with Personas…).

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