Saiyuki: Kinkaku, Ginkaku no Inbou

Sun Wukong aka Son Goku journeys with two guardians to rescue a third compatriot who's been kidnapped in D3 Publisher's take on the Saiyuki work. Instead of going the route of adventure game or interactive novel, NDS Saiyuki is a side scrolling platform game where players trudge, swim, and soar through 9 stages to defeat mighty armored bosses and their minions. Goku's fellow travelers don't tag along or walk ahead. They're actually within him and may be toggled to at any time by pressing the "X" button to utilize their special gifts and skills. For powerful offensive attacks, a fighting spirit gauge may be filled up by defeating foes and collecting dropped gems. Once full, special attacks may be ignited. «more»

Memories Off 5 Encore

For a while, NCS assumed that Memories Off 5 Encore would never get released since KID declared bankruptcy late last year and shuffled off the gaming landscape. CyberFront saw an opportunity however and snapped up KID's game brands and resumed development on Memories Off 5 Encore earlier this year.

Taking place six months after the events in Memories Off 5, a 20 year-old named Haruto Kawai reprises his role as a film student at Chihaya University. In the original Memories Off 5 game, Haruto's fellow auteur Samasuke Hina was killed and Haruto abandoned a film he was making due to despondency. He later learned from Samasuke's sister Asuka that a girl named Mahiro Sendou was responsible for his death. In Encore, both Asuka Hina and Mahiro Sendou return but they're joined by a third gal named Akina Ichijo who's a 17 year-old photography buff. Asuka is a cheerful girl who's studying for her college entrance exams while Mahiro is the same age as Haruto and is a mothering sort. Played like other romance games, gamers interact with the girls and build an affinity with one of them. Each girl offers multiple game routes with good endings and bad endings at the conclusion of the adventure. «more»

Memories Off 5 Encore Limited Edition

The Limited Edition of Memories Off 5 Encore includes a BGM soundtrack which contains the following tracks:

01) キミが居た証拠に
02) ASUKA -petit idol-
03) MAHIRO2 -challenge-
04) AKINA -arc-
05) The always
06) Memories Off -Piano #5-
07) Encore
08) Screen wiz you -after-
09) The always -Piano-
10) Christmas -type A-
11) Christmas -type B-
12) Memories Off -Christmas-
13) ロマンシングストーリー＜トランス Ver.＞
14) AKINA -arc- Piano (Bonus Track)
15) Honky Christmas (Bonus Track)

009-1 Mylene Hoffman PVC Figure

Sometime in the far flung future in an alternate reality version of Earth, the Cold War never ended and the world has been divided into two partitions - the Eastern Bloc and the Western Bloc. A semblance of civility is maintained by the ruling powers but underneath the surface, snappish gamesmanship and subterfuge are afoot. Then there are the threats of nuclear bombardment. The agents who carry out the dirty work outside of the big bomb are female agents that look like transplants from the disco era of the 70s.

One of the agents is a female cyborg named Mylene Hoffman who wears a blonde pageboy and clothing that draws inspiration from the decade of flower power and free love. Mylene carries a raygun and possesses extremely pendulous attributes. The figure measures 22cm tall and the sculpt by Heihati Honda is pleasing although there are some paint defects.

Pixar Formation Arts

Pixar's movies have won seven Academy Awards through the years starting with Toy Story in 1995 when John Lasseter brought home the Academy's Special Achievement Award. Toy Story was the first feature-length computer-animated film and it opened the door for more films that would be created entirely on computers.

Square tried their hand at a CG film in 2001 with a major disappointment called Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within which suffered losses of $124 million and knocked Square Pictures out of business. It is somewhat ironic then that Square Enix releases a collection of toys based on Pixar's highly successful computer-animation films. The toys were first displayed at the Tokyo Game Show 2006 in prototype form and the movies represented in the set are as follows:

Toy Story, a bug's life, Toy Story 2
Monsters Inc, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles

The figure-dioramas measure 12-14cm (4.72 to 5.51") tall and are surprisingly heavy. The sculpts are beautiful and each toy captures the spirit of each film. The toys packaged six per factory carton and pricing is set at US$79 per factory sealed box. «photos»

Clamp in 3-D Land Vol. 3 Trading Figures

Clamp's assortment of cutesy characters have caught the fascination of many admirers around the world. Those same characters have been parlayed into merchandise, video games, and toys. The Clamp in 3-D Land toy series reaches its third release with six more characters from the world of manga and anime. We're partial to the super-ebullient redhead known as Sumomo who hails from the Chobits property but all six of the ~5cm (1.96") tall characters in the set are round, innocuous, and aesthetically pleasing.

The cast of characters featured in the Clamp in 3-D Land trading figure set are as follows:

» Ashura from the manga serial known as RG Veda
» Kimihiro Watanuki hails from the xxxHolic manga and animation series
» Hinata Asahi with two teddy bears from the Suki: A Like Story manga
» Sumomo & Kotoko from the Chobits manga and anime
» Subaru Sumeragi who's the lead protagonist in Tokyo Babylon

Preorders will ship today and new orders are welcome at US$50 per factory sealed box of 10. «photos»

Rockman ZX Advent

Nearly five years after the events of Rockman ZX, Irregulars are still facing off against humanoids and Hunters are still trying to fend off their attacks. During a fire fight between two factions, one of the Hunters is blown backwards into a cryogenic stasis chamber which holds a humanoid named Grey. Once damaged, the chamber goes into activate mode and slowly empties itself of liquid. After the soldiers have gone, the chamber opens up and Grey slumps onto the floor. A floating Irregular appears and sends a beam of energy at him but it doesn't do much. Grey then counterattacks before running off. Control is handed over to the player after this point and an exciting new action-adventure set in the Rockman ZX universe begins. «more»

Monster Farm DS

The first Monster Farm game from 1997 featured an innovative creature creation system where the tracks from a music CD were read to generate a beast. Subsequent sequels to Monster Farm used the same creation scheme. Until now. Since the NDS can't spool audio from a CD or a DVD, Tecmo makes use of the touchpen, the built-in microphone, and the Gameboy cartridge slot for the process of monster genesis. The software contains a database of over 200 monsters and a certain combination of the requisite ingredients for creating a monster will pluck a beast from the database which you'll call your own. Once a beast is created, it may be fed and trained to become a sleek fighting machine to compete against other beasts in tournaments. «more»