Sonic the Hedgehog Cover Artist Cooks Up Some Delicious Classic Style Fanart

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Nathalie F, an illustrator and concept artist who works for IDW comics and BOOM! Comics, posted some excellent fanart of the classic Sonic the Hedgehog character designs from the Sega games on her official Twitter account:

The standouts are naturally Dr. Robotnick (aka "Eggman") and Amy Rose, who look quite different from their modern counterparts. But Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles look just as great now as they've always have. IDW Publishing took over the Sonic the Hedgehog American comics IP from Archie Comics and began circulation of their own series back in April 2018. Nathalie is one of the cover artists for the current series.

To celebrate Sonic the Hedgehog's 30th anniversary, Sega has announced a slew of new merchandising partnerships, including the Sonic Encyclo-Speed-Ia, a new line of Funko Pop! figures, jewelry, comics, toys, clothing, pins, and a partnership with Bang Energy drinks. Sega also created a fantastic logo for the upcoming anniversary. Sega also stated that the iconic speedster will be appearing in multiple new games throughout the year.

In April of this year Sega added Sonic the Hedgehog 2 to their Sega Ages collection. This title alone is already a classic and beloved game that many will be happy to finally have on Nintendo Switch as it is. That said, some new gameplay editions make this version particularly enticing. Sega Ages Sonic the Hedgehog 2 adds the drop dash from Sonic Mania to players' arsenals which could open up several new speedrunning and platforming opportunities.

Even if the addition of the drop dash isn't too important for you, this new version of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 also features a Super Sonic Mode that lets you play as Super Sonic right away, a time trial mode with leaderboards, and will have a playable Knuckles built right into the game.

And if you wanted to ever check out the Sonic the Hedgehog live action movie that released right on Valentine's Day this year, read our favorable review of the film here.

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AI: The Somnium Files One Year Anniversary Celebrated With Plot Brainstorming Session Thread

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It's the one year anniversary since the launch of AI: The Somnium Files and Spike Chunsoft's lead editor/localization producer energia posted a Twitter thread in celebration. Said thread chronicles the brainstorming sessions that kicked off the game's development (warning for some story spoilers in the later replies):

We can see how the staff plotted out what would happen during the major story beats depending on the path players took and how it would lead up to the endings. It's really cool seeing a bit of the process behind the game's storyboarding, even if it's incomprehensible to those who haven't played the game yet. Also shoutout to that one Reddit user who figured out how the marketing campaign would be setup on Twitter and how it would correlate the plot and characters in-game.

AI: The Somnium Files launched to quite the positive critical reception. It had been delayed several times last year, including to September 17th in North America (and September 20th in Europe) due to quality concerns. The physical version was also delayed to September 24th because of manufacturing delays.

The final gameplay trailer for the game is here, which gives us an extended look into the story and characters as well as how actual gameplay mechanics work. The title was first revealed during a panel at Anime Expo 2018 in Los Angeles and the collaboration has been receiving occasional updates since then. Uchikoshi and Spike Chunsoft finally unveiled the project in full last year, which was previously code-named Project Psync.

In a near-future Tokyo, Special Agent Kaname Date is on the case of a mysterious serial killer. Date must investigate crime scenes as well as dreams on the hunt for clues by diving into a person's psyche and uncovering their hidden memories. All within a strict time limit.

The game starts with the following scenario: one rainy night in November, a woman's body is found at an abandoned theme park, mounted on a merry-go-round horse. She had been stabbed repeatedly, and her left eye was gouged out. Kaname Date of the Metropolitan Police Department arrives on the scene. He recognizes the woman. Suddenly, he hears a noise from inside the merry-go-round. He breaks into the merry-go-round's central column to find a young girl. And in her hands, she grips a bloody ice pick.

You can order both the standard and limited edition for PS4 and Switch.

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Monster Hunter Rise Amiibo Coming Next Year, Exclusive to Gamestop in US and My Nintendo Store in Europe

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During the recent Nintendo Direct Mini: Partner Showcase, Capcom revealed Monster Hunter Rise for Nintendo Switch. The game will be releasing worldwide on March 26th, 2021 and alongside that launch are several amiibo figures depicting the new riding companion Palamute, the classic fighting companion Palico, and the big bad monster of the game Magnamalo.

The amiibo will be available for preorder next year at Gamestop in the US, EB Games in Canada, and the My Nintendo store in Europe:

Reportedly, according to a picture of a flyer the Amiibo Alerts Twitter posted, the prices for the Palamute and Palico amiibo will be $19.99 while the Magnamalo amiibo will be $24.99. The higher prices might indicate that they're larger than normal-sized amiibo:

Monster Hunter Rise was first rumored about back in August, though the rumor most likely didn't count on the other title Monster Hunter Stories 2 being announced during the same Nintendo Direct.

The most recent entry in the Monster Hunter franchise was Monster Hunter World: Iceborne. Its latest developer diary starred executive/art director Kaname Fujioka and director Ichihara Daisuke and covered a slew of topics and updates for the title. It includes Rajang, Layered Armor, a new volcanic region for the Guiding Lands, and more. Players also received two new patches called update versions 11.00 and 11.01, which included bug fixes and balance adjustments among other gameplay improvements

Recently Monster Hunter producer Ryozo Tsujimoto discussed the future of the franchise. "Regardless of the success of Monster Hunter: World, we've always taken the approach of focusing on two things: action and communication," says Tsujimoto. "Regardless of what we work on in the future, I feel like that's a foundation we're probably not going to change. We also understand that we do have a bigger player base, and yet, there are still many people who don't know about the franchise."

Overall Monster Hunter World has sold over 14 million copies, including sales of the recent expansion pack Iceborne. In other news Resident Evil 2 came to Iceborne back in November along with some hilariously out of place Claire Redfield and Leon Kennedy costumes. Of course the series has always been rather touch-in-cheek about these things, so it's definitely part of its weird sense of humor.

Monster Hunter World is available now on PS4, Xbox One, and PC. The Iceborne expansion for the title we found to be phenomenal and is available now on consoles. The expansion came out for PC in January and you can check out our review for that here.

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Breath of the Wild Meets Princess Mononoke in a Perfect Marriage of Art

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The legend of gifted The Legend of Zelda fanartists continues, this time with illustrator @comfycorduroy, who drew several gorgeous The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild pieces reenacting several iconic scenes from Studio Ghibi's Princess Mononoke:

The art is absolutely stunning and it's hauntingly fitting how well these scenes from the movie fit with the characters, aesthetic, and plot of the game. The artist also has their own website if you want to check out more of their fantastic works. You can also support them through their ko-fi page here.

Back in August, another talented artist by the name of Jo (@BigSkyCastle on Twitter) created several Breath of the Wild illustrations in the breezier and lighter Studio Ghibli style. Then there's this nifty 3D printed breakable pot one fan made and showed off. If you're a chef in the making, you can pick up a copy of the The Unofficial Legend of Zelda Cookbook. An extremely talented artist combined scenes from the upcoming Breath of the Wild 2 with the artstyle from the recent Link's Awakening remake. Another artist created A Link Between Worlds diorama using the shell of a Gameboy. There's an absolutely stunning Studio Ghibli-style Breath of the Wild fan animated trailer, while a dedicated fan spent two years recreating Breath of the Wild weapons.

We also have an animated pixel art mockup of a dungeon scene from Zelda II. The winner for last year's official Link's Awakening fanworks contest was revealed, with some great submissions from plenty of talented artists. And if you want something incredible from outside this contest, there's this fantastic 3D printed recreation of Koholint Island from the game. The artist even provides a tutorial at the end of their video in case anyone else wanted to make one for themselves.

Some other works include Link's house from Breath of the Wild faithfully created using Lego blocks, this lovely Sheikah runes phone charger, art of Twilight Princess meets Breath of the Wild, fanart of Link in the vibrant forest from Majora's Mask, a recreation of the Breath of the Wild lantern, a bottle of Lon Lon milk from Ocarina of Time, and an alarm clock that plays A Link to the Past's theme.

Check out our glowing review of the first BOTW by our Editor-in-Chief. The sequel is on its way and the cast recently revealed that all voice work has been recorded.

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Supergiant's Hades Has Sold Over One Million Copies

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It's official, Hades, Supergiant's latest masterpiece, is a massive success. The game just launched last week, and that full release has given the roguelike a final big push over one million copies sold. Obviously, the team already had a solid start given it had sold around 700,000 copies in early access. That said, this is already a big win for Supergiant.

The fact that Hades started in early access makes the numbers a little wonky, but, by my count, this puts it in line with even Bastion in terms of quickly sales are moving. Though math was never my strong suit, so I could be missing something. Regardless, we know it took nearly a year and a half for Transistor to surpass one million copies sold. Bastion looks like it took a similar chunk of time to do the same. So, at worst, Hades is right there with Supergiant's usual output.

And it makes perfect sense. Hades is phenomenal. If you have any interest in roguelikes or just something that nails gameplay nearly perfectly, you owe it yourself to check it out. From the jump, Hades is a great game that handles like a dream. And it only gets better the more you progress. The PC version currently sits at a 91 on Metacritic, while the Nintendo Switch is at stunning 95. So, don't just take my word for it. Hades rules.

Hades is out now on Nintendo Switch and PC. Our own Kris Cornelisse should have our review out relatively soon. I don't want to steal his thunder too much, but word on the street is that he likes it quite a bit.

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Cyberpunk 2077 Will Have A Shorter Campaign Because Many People Didn't Finish The Witcher 3

Cyberpunk 2077

I think plenty of you out there reading this can agree with me. Some games are really long. Some take over a hundred hours to beat without even doing everything in the game and many people never even beat the game because it would take to long. Everyone who has played The Witcher 3 may have experienced this and CD Projekt Red has noticed when designer Cyberpunk 2077.

Spotted by Reset Era User Saucycarpdog on CohhCarnage's Twitch stream, Patrick K. Milles stated on the post-show of the third episode of Cyberpunk 2077 Night City Wire that the game will be slightly shorter than The Witcher 3. The reason being that their internal metrics showed a lot of people played very far into the game but never actually got to the end. He stated:

"The difference between a completionist run and a main story run… we do know that the main story run in Cyberpunk 2077 is slightly shorter than The Witcher 3 because we got a lot of complaints about Witcher 3's main story just being too long. Looking at the metrics, you see tremendous numbers of people played through that game really far, but never made it to the end. We want you to see the full story, so we did shorten the main story, but we have lots to do, and in terms of a completionist campaign, I just don't have that number."

Thanks to How Long To Beat, The Witcher 3's main story takes just over 50 hours to beat. If you are going for a full completion run, it will take around 172 hours.

Cyberpunk 2077 is set to release on November 19 for PC, PS4, and Xbox One. The game will also be playable on the Xbox Series X and PS5. The game will obviously run better on the new hardware, but CD Projekt Red has stated that a free upgrade will be offered later down the line that optimizes the game for next-gen hardware.

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Muv-Luv Next Event Set For October 24, New TDA04 Artwork

Muv-Luv TDA04 Marimo artwork

aNCHOR is currently holding the "Final Exam Muv-Luv" event from September 19 to 20th. You can find the YouTube streams of the September 19 part here and here. The event is accompanied with 2 hours long streams of the seiyuu Maria Noda and Chisato Konno live playing Muv-Luv Alternative. We've got a list of the announcements so far below.

Muv-Luv october 24 event

First off, the next big Muv-Luv event was announced, an online event titled the "aNCHOR Academy Web Student Meeting" (tentative title), held on October 24, 2020. It'll feature Yoshimune Kouki, and new information on games including Project Immortal and Project Mikhail. Live concerts will be held as well.

Muv-Luv world cosplay event

A Muv-Luv cosplay contest will be held through cosplaying site World Cosplay (Previously known as Cure WorldCosplay). This is in order to promote the Muv-Luv franchise and make it discovered by a bigger audience. Details on the contest will be revealed at the above-mentioned October 24 aNCHOR Academy Web Student Meeting event.

Muv-Luv TDA04 Marimo artwork Muv-Luv TDA04 maybe Yuuhi Meiya Takeru artwork

Two new artwork of Muv-Luv Unlimited: The Day After Episode 4 were revealed. The first one showcases Marimo Jinguuji  giving a speech. The second one features someone who look like Takeru being held at sword range by someone who looks like Yuuhi Koubuin or Meiya Mitsurugi.

As a reminder, Muv-Luv Unlimited: The Day After is a series of multiple games, included inside the Muv-Luv Alternative Chronicles releases since 2010. The latest game, Muv-Luv Unlimited: The Day After Episode 03, is included in Muv-Luv Alternative Chronicles Vol.4, released in 2013 in Japan. The next game, Muv-Luv Unlimited: The Day After Episode 04, is currently in development, and will launch in English at around the same time as in Japan.

An official site and Twitter account for the Muv-Luv Alternative The Animation anime adaptation have been opened. The site has a countdown towards October 24.

muv-luv marichi Maria Noda and Chisato Konno

An event is being held on September 21 with the seiyuu Maria Noda and Chisato Konno. A special edition of the age Archives～20th Box Edition～  released on March 27, 2020, will be sold there with special goods featuring the seiyuu's Marichi characters. Marichi is their live stream where they play Alternative. If you're curious, the box contains:

  • Kaseki no uta
  • Kimiga ita Kisetsu
  • âge maniax
  • Kimi ga nozomu eien
  • Muv-Luv
  • Muv-Luv Alternative
  • Muv-Luv Alternative Chronicles
  • The Day After
  • Duty Lost Arcadia
  • Bive-ru, Total Eclipse
  • Teito moyu
  • Schwarzesmarken

You can read more on Muv-Luv with our past coverage. We'll be covering the rest of the "Muv-Luv Final Exam" event tomorrow, September 20th.

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Poison Control Announcement Trailer Reveals Gameplay and 2021 Western Release

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Poison Control, known as Shoujo Jigoku no Doku Musume in Japan, will be getting a western release for early 2021 thanks to NISA. The announcement trailer shows off gameplay as well as the English voicework, which is solid as always. The action RPG title was first revealed in March and will be coming out for both PS4 and Nintendo Switch. You can watch the trailer below, which shows off the third-person shooter mode:

Nippon Ichi Software previously revealed a bunch of new screenshots, info and a trailer for Poison Control, a new IP action RPG coming to PS4 and Switch. Long story short the game is about a male or female protagonist who ends up in hell and gets possessed by a cute girl named Doku Musume. Together, they infiltrate other hells created by various cute girls in order to purify poison swamps.

The battle system requires players to defeat enemies and purify poison swamps. You control Doku Musume and everything enclosed within her path will get purified, including enemies who will be destroyed. To do that, the protagonist needs to trace a trajectory to guide Doku Musume, and circle around the poison to purify it. Overall, the game flow of Poison Control is exploring hell, fighting monsters, having dialogues with Doku Musume and picking story changing meaningful dialogues choices, looking for poison swamps, and purifying them.

Enemies who get circled in Doku Musume's trajectory ends up being defeated, and they can turn into new weapons the protagonist can use. However, your character gradually loses HP themself when in a poison swamp. The protagonist can also get new weapons to fight, as well switch to third-person shooter mode with Doku Musume possessing their arm and changing into a gun.

The character designs are by Madoka Hanagi, who previously worked on games such as the Disgaea series, The Witch and the Hundred Knight 2, and The Princess Guide. Madoka Hanagi also illustrated many cards in Z/X — Zillions of enemy X-, the card game by Nippon Ichi Software and Broccoli.

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The World Ends With You – The Animation Gets New Trailer, Teases Anime's Opening

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A new trailer for the The World Ends With You – The Animation has been released, teasing the opening scene of the anime. We see Neku wake up in the middle of Shibuya's famous Scramble Crossing with no memories of how he arrived there. Even more worrisome is the fact that both pedestrians and vehicles phase right through him:

The World Ends With You – The Animation was revealed back in July during a panel at Anime Expo Lite. The panel included Producer Tomohiko Hirano, Director Tatsuya Kando, Character Designer Gen Kobayashi, and Composer Takeharu Ishimoto. Kando, Kobayashi, and Ishimoto are all returning to their original roles from the game for the anime. You can watch the full panel over on YouTube.

The official website for The World Ends With You – The Animation is live and features more information regarding the main cast of characters that the anime will focus on. The project is set to release worldwide in 2021. A portion of the original development team helped with the production team, namely Game Producer and Character Designer Tetsuya Nomura (primarily known as the creator of the Kingdom Hearts franchise) taking on the role of Creative Producer. The original Japanese voice cast will also be reprising their roles. The anime is being made in 3D by Domerica and Shin-Ei animation. It was confirmed that there will be changes to the story from the game, but there will also be new things to explore and more depth added to the characters.

For more information about The World Ends With You – The Animation, you can follow the official Twitter for updates. If you are interested in trying out The World Ends With You for the first time you can purchase the game for Nintendo DS or Nintendo Switch over on Amazon. You can also read our review of the Switch title here.

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The Witcher: Blood Origin Writer's Room Revealed; Featuring Swamp Thing, Iron Fist, Snowpiercer Veterans

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The Witcher: Blood Origin, the prequel series announced back in July, will be getting plenty more talent in their writer's room. The Redanian Intelligence: The Witcher Twitter account revealed the full writer's room today:

This group of writers are incredibly talented and are well known for wide range of works ranging from Swamp Thing, Carnival Row, Moon Knight, Snowpiercer, Mandy, Iron Fist, and more. And also very importantly, this writer's room is very diverse which will lend itself well to creativity and variety in ideas. If you want to read more information about each one, you can read up on Redanian Intelligence's blog post here.

The series follows the path of "The First Witcher" and is set 1200 years before the tale of Geralt of Rivia that we've all come to know and love. The series comes from Declan De Barra, who wrote an episode from Season One of The Witcher, alongside work on Marvel's The Iron Fist and Lauren Schmidt Hissrich, who has a very impressive list of credits, including work on The Witcher, The Umbrella Academy and Daredevil.

According to news site Redanian Intelligence, Netflix is looking to cast Aquaman and Game of Thrones star Jason Momoa as the lead character in The Witcher: Blood Origin. Netflix has officially announced that Kim Bodnia will be playing the role of Vesemir in the upcoming season 2 of The Witcher. This news comes after the reveal that the animated series The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf will be starring the same character.

Netflix also revealed more of the season 2 cast, which was drawn from Game of Thrones and other shows. The Witcher in general is one of the most popular releases of 2019 and has garnered plenty of attention from fans, to the point of the show still being in high demand even now. Following the show's success, the book publisher has announced they'll be reprinting 500,000 copies of the original novel to meet demand. Henry Cavill, the actor who plays Geralt of Rivia, confirmed on his Instagram that season two will be in pre-production soon.

Showrunner Lauren S. Hissrich addressed some criticisms of The Witcher in an extensive and informative Twitter thread about the creative process and how certain decisions are made when adapting any sort of media. However, in a recent interview with TV Guide Hissrich stated that the multiple timelines of The Witcher's first season was "obviously one of the most controversial aspects of the show," and while she defended this approach to telling the story, she acknowledged that some audiences found this storytelling device to be confusing.

In that regard, Hissrich explained that Season 2 of the show "will be a lot easier to follow," and that the next season "aligns all of our characters on a similar timeline." While the show seemingly will still utilize a structure taking place over different periods of time, Hissrich stated that its approach will be done "in a different way" that should hopefully be more appealing to audiences.

It seems the series's launch has had a positive affect on the games, as it caused a large resurgence in The Witcher 3′s player count — which hit over 100,000 concurrent players on Steam, more players than during its launch. Be sure to check out our own review for the Netflix series The Witcher here.

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