Aksys Games is running a sale in their online store until March 24th where 100% of what you spend there will be donated to charity efforts in Japan.

Here is a quote from their CEO, Akibo Shieh:

The thoughts and prayers of our staff are with the people of Japan. We have many friends, relatives, and business partners who have found themselves suddenly faced with a level of tragedy that most of us can scarcely imagine. The scale of destruction is immense, but we have no doubt that with a combined effort it can be reversed, and every contribution—no matter the size—will play an important part in doing so. We can all play a part in helping Japan overcome this crisis.
With that in mind, we at Aksys Games would like to announce the following sale. It will run from today until March 24th, and 100% of the proceeds will be donated to charity efforts in Japan. If you can’t afford to buy anything, spread the word. Together, we can help.

Aksys is awesome for putting so much effort into contributing to those in need in Japan.

Take a look around their store, they have many good games for sale. So if you were thinking of donating anyways, this is a large incentive to do so.

I purchased NyxQuest on Steam today after trying out the demo, and I must say it is quite an engaging game.

NyxQuest is a platform game with physics-based puzzles to solve that makes one think of Trine. The story is about Nyx, a winged girl that descends from the heavens in search of her friend Icarus. If you’re familiar with the Greek myth involving Icarus and his wax wings, then you should recognize elements of it in this game’s story.

The player controls the movement of Nyx via the WASD keys. Her flying consists of being able to flap her wings for a limited number of times to gain altitude and also being able to glide for a few seconds. Zeus helps Nyx on her quest by using his power to move objects. His power is controlled through the mouse, which is one reason why the game is so engaging since you have to use both your hands to play.

The visuals are simple and clean with a healthy dose of light bloom. As for the music and sound effects, they’re nothing out of the ordinary but they serve their purpose.

NyxQuest is a solid platform game that I can easily recommend to others due to its intuitive gameplay and fun puzzles. Although the game is somewhat short, it has a low price tag which makes it worth getting.

Now for a giveaway!

I bought the 10-pack of NyxQuest during today’s Steam sale, so I have a few extra copies to give out for free. Simply send me a direct message on Twitter with your email address so I can gift a copy to you. I’ll be doing this in the order I receive the messages until I run out of copies, so hurry!

Crescent Pale Mist was recently released on the PlayStation Network with a low price tag of $5.99.

Naturally, I picked it up because there are far too few Japanese games being localized here in the US. The game itself is a side-scroller with certain elements that remind me of Touhou. There are only six chapters, which makes it fairly short to play through.

However, I found the level design for a couple of the chapters to be frustrating and confusing. Maybe it was designed that way to increase the time played so the game seemed longer? Anyways, the main aspect of this game are the boss battles, which can take pretty long and be quite challenging on the higher difficulties.

So all in all, I’ll have to say that Crescent Pale Mist is worth purchasing. It has nice visuals, epic boss fights, and even a story based around taboo magic! Plus, you support the localization of Japanese games here in America by doing so.

Recettear: An Item Shop’s Tale is an indie jRPG made by EasyGameStation and recently localized by Carpe Fulgar.

It was released on Steam for $19.99 and has made decent sales while picking up good reviews. So I went and played the demo, and then promptly bought a copy on Steam afterward.

The premise behind Recettear is that your father has disappeared, leaving you with a massive debt to pay. You play as Recette, a little girl who pairs up with a debt collector fairy to open up an item shop in order to pay off her father’s debt.

Everything has been translated into English while keeping the original Japanese voices. There are numerous amusing cutscenes, dungeons to clear for loot, and sales to be made. Buy low, sell high, and profit!

Each boss at the end of a dungeon has a different mechanic to it, making the fights innovative and fun.

The normal game (paying off all your debt) took me around 6-7 hours to beat, which then unlocks the survival and endless modes. Survival mode is trying to pay off increasing debt every week while endless mode has no debt left and you’re free to do whatever.

This game is really addictive because you want to keep playing to increase your fortune, raise your merchant level, improve your store, clear all the dungeons, and get all the characters/cutscenes. Plus, you get to rip off townsfolk with a greater than 200% markup of the base price on an item.

For $20, Recettear is definitely worth it. It was an interesting experience playing as an item shop owner since we usually never think about those item shop NPCs when we play RPGs. Hopefully, Carpe Fulgar will be bringing over more indie jRPGs for us to play!

My backlog of mostly PS3 games has been building up quite rapidly.

Going back to my middle and high school years, I would only get money to buy a game when I got a report card with straight A’s. This resulted in me focusing on one game at a time until it was beaten, like Xenosaga Episode I: Der Wille zur Macht for the PS2 which I dropped over 80 hours into.

Now I have the opposite problem: enough money to buy any game I want, but no time to play them all. I keep purchasing new releases because they look interesting and I want to play them. However, I add it to the backlog pile and assume I’ll get around to it someday. Anyone else experience the same problem?

It doesn’t help that video games are horrible investments. The majority of them never increase in value, but instead plummet to the $20 or $30 mark within a few months. Of course, there are rare exceptions such as Suikoden II and Valkyrie Profile. This has prompted me to stop buying games on their release day and instead wait for the price drops.

A few games that I had to pick up right away were all the big titles such as Final Fantasy XIII and Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty. Most of my gaming time in the recent years has been devoted to MMOs like World of Warcraft along with the new SC2. The online community aspect of these games paired with the ability to play with your friends makes them easy choices to start up when there’s free time.

So I guess the issue here isn’t about not having enough free time, but instead about which games are appealing enough to actually play. The video game market is oversaturated with new releases every month. Unless it’s a blockbuster title, a game has to be innovative and polished enough for me to even consider trying it out.

Most games just seem to be variations of other games in their genre. Plus, my gaming experiences has probably altered my mind to find games with similar and unoriginal concepts to be boring. At least Steam gives independent developers an easier way to bring their products onto the market, which I find are usually more innovative than the stuff from larger companies.

I’m still waiting for a full immersion virtual reality gaming system though.

osu! is a free rhythm game for the PC that is somewhat in the style of DDR except with clicking.

I discovered this game after watching a Starcraft II stream where the player was warming up with osu! before playing his matches.

There is a built-in editor that allows you to create your own beatmaps, which has resulted in a large selection of user-generated content. Plus, there are online rankings and even multiplayer mode!

I’m pretty impressed so far with what I’ve seen, and it looks like this game will last me quite a while considering that normal difficulty is challenging enough already.

Level-5 teams up with Studio Ghibli to bring us Ni no Kuni (The Another World), a jRPG in development for the Nintendo DS and PS3.

After Level-5′s somewhat disappointing White Knight Chronicles, I have high hopes for this game. From what I’ve seen so far, teaming up with Studio Ghibli has produced some impressive results.

Ni no Kuni PV (PS3)

The in-game graphics look amazing! It’s as if you’re playing through a Ghibli movie. Add on the fact that Joe Hisashi is behind the music, and what’s there not to like?

Maybe if this joint venture turns out to be a great success, we’ll see more game and anime studios working on projects together.

Since the release date in Japan for the PS3 version is some time in 2011, we probably won’t be seeing it for a while here in the US.

Image Source: Ni no Kuni Official Site

After playing the StarCraft II Beta for a while, it still holds up as a solid successor to the original StarCraft.

Battle.net has been completely revamped with Achievements added in and a ladder/match-making system similar to that of World of Warcraft Arena.

New teams play 5 placement matches that will land you in a league ranging from Copper to Platinum. I love this new system since it saves me the trouble of finding matches against players of around equal skill level. You can still play private matches against friends, but those aren’t ranked.

My only gripe with the new Battle.net is that you invite your friends to a “party” and you get a tab that pops up into a small chatbox. I miss having the channels in the old Battle.net where large groups of people could meet up.

As for the game itself, it’s mostly the original StarCraft with updated graphics similar to WarCraft III. There are of course new units, abilities, and structures, but the core gameplay remains largely the same. The pace of the game feels quicker with units and buildings being destroyed more easily.

Protoss is my race of choice, and I must say that Void Rays are amazing. They’re basically flying glass cannons that annihilate buildings in a blink of an eye, but can easily be destroyed itself. I haven’t played Zerg or Terran much since I was mainly a Protoss player in SC1, but I’ll still give them a try.

Look at how long StarCraft has lasted. StarCraft II will be played for many years to come, making this a definite purchase for me. I can’t wait to do some 4v4 matches with my friends!

As promised, here’s a preview of Witch on the Holy Night from the Type-Moon Magazine, volume 4.

Witch on the Holy Night was a novel written by the Type-Moon co-founder Kinoko Nasu and released way back in 1996. They decided to turn it into a visual novel that will be released sometime this year.

Fans of Melty Blood should recognize Aozaki Aoko, who is one of the main characters from the novel. Her sister Toko Aozaki will probably also be in the game. If that name doesn’t ring a bell, think Kara no Kyoukai.

Type-Moon really likes having their priest/priestess characters.

His character design reminds me of some other characters. Maybe that one guy from True Tears? (it’s the hair!)

This is the Type-Moon Magazine where these pages came from. The Type-Moon 2010 calendar was also included as well.

What can I say? There was a plethora of good games released this month.

• Final Fantasy XIII (PS3)
• Final Fantasy XIII Limited Edition Strategy Guide
• Final Fantasy XIII OST
  
• God of War III: Ultimate Edition (PS3)
  
• Battlefield Bad Company 2 (PC)

FFXIII is the shiniest gem out of all the March releases. Graphics are so amazing that it’s hard to tell the FMV sequences apart from the in-game graphics, and the combat system is innovative and actually gets fun deeper into the game. Some people might complain about the linear plot and endless sprawl of dungeon maps, but it’s really not that bad. I actually prefer the way the maps are structured and that there’s only one ending. Well, I’ll share my thoughts in an actual post focused on FFXIII later on.

Moving along, the FFXIII Limited Edition Strategy Guide is one out of a total of 210,000 printed. Mine is numbered 103,100 and worth every dollar I paid. As for the OST, I haven’t had a chance to listen to all of it yet, but what I heard so far was superb. Figure Haven will actually be carrying a few copies once I update the store with the new inventory we received. Square Enix decided to drop the price of the OST from $49.99 to $34.99 since they were pleased with FFXIII‘s reception in North America. We’ll probably offer it for $29.99 or something, but I digress.

Ah yes, the God of War III: Ultimate Edition. It naturally comes with the game, an art book, and a replica of Pandora’s Box. Basically you pay extra for a rather realistic-looking, but plastic box. I was surprised at the size and how it looks to be made of metal, but you realize it’s simply plastic once you touch it.

Then finally I got Bad Company 2 for the PC after reading great reviews about it and watching gameplay videos on Youtube. Fully destructible terrain? Sounds perfect to me.

Now I just need to find time for all this. FFXIII takes priority of course.