How real is virtual reality?

If you can see, feel and touch it, does it still count as virtual? If the events that happen there result in gaining the one thing you’ve always wanted most in the world, does that make it more authentic?

What if your actions in that artificial space could kill you?

Fate/Extra poses those kinds of questions. After a somewhat mysterious prologue, in which people are dropped into what seems to be an ordinary situation with no explanation, things happen that reveal the entire opening affair to be a lie.

Instead, players have found themselves participating in a very real war in an ephemeral place…

The PSP still lives on! Yes, Sony seems to be neglecting the handheld in its final hour, even moving on with PSP Remasters of existing games for the PS3, but there are still companies who want to show their love for PSP owners. NIS America is among them. It turns out the somewhat niche action RPG Black Rock Shooter: The Game is going to defy all odds and be released in North America. Yay us!

NIS America’s only just announced that it will be bringing the game to both North America and Europe, but that’s it…

Perhaps you’ve made a long road-trip with your friends. You’re piled in a car with people you generally like, but there’s that one guy who’s so annoying that his very voice makes you want to crash headlong into a concrete divider just to shut him up. Well, that guy is half the characters in Ignition Entertainment’s Arc Rise Fantasia. And that’s a shame, because they’re spoiling an otherwise memorable trip.

NIS and Image Epoch, creators of Arc Rise Fantasia and Luminous Arc are working on a new RPG together. An RPG that’s full of fan service and guaranteed to appeal to a niche segment of society. It’s called Criminal Girls and it’s a PSP RPG that deals with going through dungeon trials and punishment of scantily clad, sinful girls…

One of Ignition’s two playable games at E3 2010 was the Wii RPGArc Rise Fantasia, from Luminous Arc creators Image Epoch. When I stopped by the booth, I got to see just how Arc Rise Fantasia plays from the beginning to the first town.

L’Arc is with a crew of other warriors fighting dragons from an airship. The first battle is a rush attack on a dragon that swoops down on the ship. All I could do was attack, and attack I did until the beast fell. Unfortunately, the dragon knocks him to the ground as well.

When the dragon hits the ground, it starts to release a noxious gas called Feltburst which could poison the land and all people near it…

Sands of Destruction comes with a pretty impressive pedigree. It was developed by Imageepoch, creators of Luminous Arc 1-3 (DS), 7th Dragon (DS) and Arc Rise Fantasia (Wii) and published by Sega. It also enjoyed quite a bit of success in Japan, inspiring aWorld Destruction: Sekai Bokumetsu no Rokunin anime and World Destruction: Futari no Tenshi manga series. Now North American audiences get the chance to see what exactly makes Sands of Destruction stand out.

Humans aren’t on top anymore, the beastmen are. And, sadly, many of the beastmen overlords aren’t compassionate rulers. Most of the world is covered in sand, and humans are regarded as second-class citizens or slaves. It kind of helps you understand why there is a group called the World Annihilation Front (WAF) is out to destroy the world.

Kyrie is a young man living in a small town with his uncle. Things are more stable there, as the beast lord for the area is kind towards human and beastmen and humans get along pretty well. One day, after running an errand for his uncle, he comes back to town to find fliers have been dropped from above stating that he has joined WAF…

Good news for Ignition Entertainment! Marvelous Entertainment has once again given the company the opportunity to bring a stunning new Wii game to North America. Ignition has just announced that it will be translating, localizing and releasing Arc Rise Fantasia, a RPG from Luminous Arc creators Image Epoch, in summer, 2010.

Conversely, our heartfelt condolences go out to XSEED, which was supposedly going to be working on the North American release of Arc Rise Fantasia. This marks the second instance where Marvelous Entertainment has taken a title from XSEED and given it to Ignition instead. The same thing happened previously with Muramasa: The Demon Blade…