Sunsoft’s WiiWare manga viewer, through which users can download manga for a fee, is a great idea. At least, Shonen Jump seems to think so. At their Jump Festa event, the publication offered demos of a WiiWare service called Mangaon, branded with the name of Jump’s online manga site Jumpland.
Posters indicate that the service, also available on DSi, will have some kind of “game” element — a 3D world with original characters to interact with. This could be the navigation system for the manga. The real draw here is Jump’s stable of manga: One Piece and Dragon Ball were on display in the demo.
Surprisingly, the web version of Jumpland actually includes a site for English-language manga, and, of course, Shonen Jump is outrageously popular in the West, so it’s not entirely unbelievable for Jump to consider bringing this service over.
Daiseiou, which means “Great Sage King” or “Great Wise King” is a manga based on the Chinese Monkey King story that has been adapted and remade countless times, most recently in the game world as Starfish’s The Monkey King: The Legend Begins.
It appears that the legend is continuing: Starfish is working on a game based on Daiseiou, which is also a 2D side-scrolling shooter with the player as the Monkey King flying on his cloud (though this one also features Space Harrier-style segments). For two games in the exact same genre about the same subject matter from the same developer, the styles couldn’t be more different — Daiseiou’s detailed, painted-looking style is a sharp contrast from the colorful chibiness of The Monkey King. There’s nothing but a single (but pretty excellent) piece of artwork on the official website right now, but you can see plenty of screens at Famitsu.
The Xbox 360-exclusive Naruto: Rise of a Ninja takes place in a world where ninja are the ultimate power. Infused with the spirit of a once fearsome Nine-Tailed Fox demon, Uzumaki Naruto is a ninja-in-training who is learning the art of ninjutsu with his classmates Sakura and Sasuke. The trio studies under the instruction of their teacher, Kakashi, who helps the group face a series of dangerous and daunting tests and challenges. Through their adventures, the young ninjas learn the importance of friendship, teamwork, loyalty, hard work, creativity, ingenuity and right versus wrong.
A good Naruto game? Believe it! Watch the Naruto: Rise of a Ninja video review.
Japanese games developer Cyber Connect has announced they are working on a Naruto PS3 Project action-adventure game based on the popular anime series. The game’s release date is set for sometime in 2008.
Barely a week after the launch of the Xbox 360-exclusive Naruto: Rise of a Ninja, there’s now a PlayStation 3-exclusive Naruto game, good times for fans of the manga/anime show/games.
While the screenshots on the official site are new, it turns out the game was on display at the Tokyo Game Show 2007 on September 20th. Take a look at the video:
Ubisoft told us that their Xbox 360-exclusive Naruto: Rise of a Ninja will have the voices by the official Naruto Japanese cast available post-launch as free downloadable content on Xbox Live Marketplace.
The voice cast includes:
* Junko Takeuchi as Uzumaki Naruto
* Kazuhiko Inoue as Hatake Kakashi
* Chie Nakamura as Haruno Sakura
* Noriaki Sugiyama as Uchiha Sasuke
* Kujira as Orochimaru
* Akira Ishida as Sabaku no Gaara
Now let’s join the Fight Game Design Director Massimo Guarini and Animation Director Khai Nguyen in this second dev diary that shows the adventure-RPG’s Fight Design in action. Watch how Ubisoft looks to recreate the fast-paced ninja combat and unique style of the popular anime.
Naruto: Rise of a Ninja is an Xbox 360-exclusive game being developed at Ubisoft Montreal. Not only is it the first time a Naruto game is developed by a non-Japanese company, but the game itself is specifically based off the English dubbed version of the anime, with the option to use the original Japanese voice actors in the game.
Rise of a Ninja takes place in the world of Naruto, where ninja are the ultimate power. Let’s join the game Designer Phillipe Therien and Lead Programmer Francois Massein in this first dev diary that shows the adventure-RPG’s Character Progression in action.
The next dev diary will be about the Fighting System, so we’ll hopefully find out more about the online Versus multiplayer via Xbox Live. The release date in America is on October 23rd and in Europe on November 1st, 2007.
