One Piece Unlimited World Red Trailer Shows Off The Nine Playable Characters

One Piece Unlimited World: Red is slated for release on Nintendo 3DS in Japan this November, and will have nine playable characters, as previously detailed. This morning, Nintendo released a new Japanese trailer for the game, which you can check out below:

One Piece: Unlimited World: Red will be released on November 21st in Japan. The game hasn’t been announced for a western release so far, but Europe will be getting One Piece: Romance Dawn on Nintendo 3DS.

Read more stories about Nintendo 3DS & One Piece Unlimited World: Red & Videos on Siliconera.

Professor Layton vs. Ace Attorney Coming Westward In 2014 [Update]

Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney is coming to North America and Europe in 2014, Nintendo have announced.

Nintendo made the announcement during a Nintendo Direct presentation this morning.

Update: Trailer added.

Read more stories about Nintendo 3DS & Professor Layton vs. Ace Attorney & Videos on Siliconera.

Sega Should Make More Games Like Hero Bank

Sega has mostly been playing it safe this year with their slate of 3DS classics and the yearly Sonic the Hedgehog game. Their biggest risk is either releasing Hatsune Miku: Project Diva f in North America or developing Hero Bank.

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Hero Bank's protagonist owes a whopping billion yen and he plans on paying it off by becoming a Hero Battler. These fights take place in a virtual world where you collect heroes with different skills to use in battle. The trailer shows Kaito controlling a bunch different heroes like a conductor, a bulldog cop, and is… that a salaryman with a lance?' Winning a fight isn't enough, you have to keep the crowd excited by using special moves if you want to rake in dough.

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Hero Bank is slated for release on December 19 on Nintendo 3DS.

Read more stories about Hero Bank & Nintendo 3DS on Siliconera.

Final Fantasy Agito Producer Talks All About The Game And Its Story

Hajime Tabata, who has directed several of Square Enix’s high profile PSP titles in Final Fantasy Type-0, The 3rd Birthday, and Before Crisis: Final Fantasy VII, will be busy this year, as he will be co-directing Final Fantasy XV and producing Final Fantasy Agito.

In the latest issue of Famitsu magazine, Tabata discusses the upcoming mobile game. Tabata begins the interview by talking about how work on Final Fantasy Agito began.

“I wanted to write a story that depicted different fates for the main characters of Final Fantasy Type-0,” starts Tabata. “Those who played Final Fantasy Type-0 were very vocal in that regard, and there were also many staff members who said ‘I want to do that,’ as well.”

He continues, “Final Fantasy Type-0 was originally going to be for mobile phones, and we were fond of the title ‘Agito,’ so with that in mind, we began production of the project. Since then, some time has gone by, and we decided that if we were going to release it, it should be for smartphones, and have it be different from Final Fantasy Type-0, by allowing users to experience to story in a live fashion.”

Famitsu asks if the game has an actual ending, to which Tabata replies that it does, and it is actually similar to Before Crisis: Final Fantasy VII, except that once you complete the story, it starts over from the beginning, as history repeats itself in the game.

“The ‘Decision’ system we wanted to use while working on the original mobile version, which allows players to decide on the story’s direction, will also be in it, so the story should gradually change over time,” says Tabata. “This will appear in the form of turning point choices in the story, where players can pick their choices, which will change the story, accordingly. On your second play-through, you might make different choices, or the number of choices you can make may increase altogether. That is the type of live-feeling you’ll have in this game.”

While Final Fantasy Agito will be similar to Before Crisis: Final Fantasy VII, it won’t be completely the same, especially when it comes to the game’s pace.

“Unlike Before Crisis: Final Fantasy VII that had 24 chapters that were delivered in the span of two years, I am thinking of having something shorter, that is repeatable-yet-enjoyable, as the base,” explains Tabata. “We’re currently reviewing how many chapters will constitute an entire cycle, but we’re expecting to have a chapter delivered once every two weeks.”

As seen in our earlier report, Final Fantasy Agito will offer various abilities, including some that are exclusive to job classes.

“Yes, jobs will have exclusive abilities, for example if you’re a Knight, they specialize in the ‘Cover’ ability that lowers all allies’ chances of being hit,” explains Tabata. “During the Solo Play Phase, you’ll accumulate job points, which can be used to acquire abilities. These job abilities can then be used during the Team Play Phase’s boss fights, by tapping the ‘Squad’ button to activate it, and the entire team will benefit from its effect.”

Famitsu asks whether you’ll be required to be on top of the game and make sure your character’s level is always high enough to do their job right.

“Even if you slack or don’t level up much, we made a system that still allows you to play along your allies with ease,” replies Tabata. “I wanted to make something that allows you to contribute, no matter what your play-style is.”

In addition to wanting the game to show off a school life, along with the decision making system, Famitsu asks if there was anything else that Tabata wanted to do and accomplished in Final Fantasy Agito.

“Being able to get to the end of the game with just free-to-play,” replies the producer. “I actually never spend money on those,” he adds with a laugh.

Final Fantasy Agito is slated for release this winter for Android and iOS devices.

Read more stories about Android & Final Fantasy Agito & iPhone on Siliconera.

How Forza Motorsport 5 Handles Griefer Drivatars

Forza Motorsport 5 records how you race and translates that information into a Drivatar. It's kind of like Tekken's Ghost Battle system, but for cars and Drivatars will replace AI racers in Forza Motorsport 5. It's an interesting idea to have more realistic racers, but what happens if other players just aren't competitive racers or players make Griefatars? Siliconera asked the Forza 5 team while we were checking out the game.

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"It's funny that you say that because we recognize that there are people out there who are – there are two different problems there. One is that some people aren't that good. The way we solve that is the game is always learning. As your skills improve, the Drivatar's skills improve, as well. Inevitably the more you play the better you are going to get. It's not like if you have a bum race here and there your Drivatar is going to be a terrible driver. It's almost like a rubber band, your skills will stretch out, expand and contract as you go and so too will your Dirvatar's ability," answered Brian Ekberg, Forza Motorsport community manager.

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Eckberg continued, "For people who just want to get online and grief people, if you were to turn around and drive against traffic the Drivatar would stop paying attention to that. It does not record that kind of griefing behavior. That's how we get around that because we recognize that there are people that do that, people that like to get online and grief"

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"The Drivatars you will go up against are a huge range of skill levels. If you're a beginner and you don't want to go up against expert Drivatars you can select that difficulty range you are comfortable with. Just like previous Forza games, the more you challenge yourself the more you'll be rewarded at the end of the race."

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Since announcing the game, Microsoft shifted gears and dropped requirements to always connect Xbox One online. Drivatars are still a part of Forza Motorsport 5 and in the beginning of the game you will race against Drivatars that were shipped on disc trained by the Forza team and certain members of the community. The game will ask players to connect to Xbox Live to download a fresh set of player created Drivatars. A representative from Microsoft said this won't be a lot of data and the initial download should cover all difficulty settings.

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Also, if you upload your Drivatar and then play offline for a few weeks Forza Motorsport 5 continues to record how you play and will synchronize Drivatar data whenever you log online again.

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Forza Motorsport 5 is a launch title for Xbox One.

Read more stories about Forza Motorsport 5 & Xbox One on Siliconera.

Dragon Ball Z Battle Of Z Adds Super Saiyan Vegeta, Android 18, Dr. Gero, And Gohan

Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Z is a team based fighting game developed by Artdink. Unlike other Dragon Ball Z fighting games there are no transformations so Trunks and Super Saiyan Trunks are different characters. Each character is a different type too like fighting type or ki blast type. The game's producer explained how the four character types work to Siliconera.

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Super Saiyan Vegeta – Ki Blast Type

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Trunks (Sword) – Fighting & Support Type

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Super Saiyan Trunks (Sword) – Fighting Type

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Super Saiyan Trunks (Combat Suit) – Ki Blast Type

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Super Trunks – Fighting Type

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Kid Gohan – Support Type

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Super Saiyan Kid Gohan – Fighting & Support Type

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Super Saiyan 2 Kid Gohan – Fighting Type

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Android 16 – Fighting Type

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Android 17 – Fighting & Support Type

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Android 18 – Support Type

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Android 19 – Interference Type

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Dr. Gero – Interference Type

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Great Ape Vegeta

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Goku, Raditz, Frieza, and Super Saiyan God Goku are also confirmed for Dragon Ball: Battle of Z. Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Z is slated for release in early 2014 for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PlayStation Vita (download only in North America).

Read more stories about Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Z & PlayStation 3 & PlayStation Vita & Screenshots & Xbox 360 on Siliconera.

Capcom's Plan Is To Make Every Character In Ultra Street Fighter IV A Threat

Most of the discussion about Ultra Street Fighter IV has been about the enigmatic fifth character; however, Capcom are also putting effort into rebalancing the fighting game and we asked how they are going about that process.

'Our philosophy this time around has been to make everybody a threat,' said Matt Dahlgren, fighting game manager at Capcom. We don't want to say these characters are the best in the game and nerf them—that isn't fair to the players that put a lot of time and effort in learning those tactics. The super powerful characters will have slight modifications, but our real intent is to take the lesser used characters and make them an equal threat as the top tier characters.'

I followed up and asked which characters will be more of a threat in Ultra Street Fighter IV.

'T-Hawk was considered [one of the] bottom five in the game. Some of the requests were to make him faster and give him more tools so he didn't necessarily have to rely on his command throw,' explained Peter Rosas, Assistant Battle Director on Ultra Street Fighter IV. 'We gave people what they were requesting in terms of giving him more focus cancel options, giving him stronger attacks, and things like that. All in an effort to give him a better fighting chance against characters you usually see at the end of a fighting tournament in the top eight.'

Capcom listened to suggestions from fans when rebalancing Street Fighter IV. There was a priority in addressing feedback that was requested more often, but not all feedback could be used.

'What we found was sometimes there was a mob mentality where some guy would request something radical and then everybody would jump in on that and that would make the character a little too strong, so we couldn't go with those. Things that did made sense that people latched on to such as make Ken walk faster so he has a difference between him and Ryu. Because he's supposed to have more flair, more speed, more kicks, and things like that. We took that in account. Ken walks faster and his Ultra 1 does a little more damage so it is more of a threat because if you get hit with it now, nobody cares, but they will care in the future,' detailed Rosas.

Rosas continued, 'For Cammy, people wanted to nerf her Cannon Spike, but in doing that we would take away the flair of the character, so we couldn't do that. We did reduce other things that gave her momentum like the heavy attacks that gave her stun and the damage on that because those are instrumental in her combos so she will have to work a little harder to get the same effect she gets now.'

'Another common theme has been unblockables and we are looking at a way of addressing that as well,' Dahlgren chimed in.

Meanwhile, on the new characters front, why were Rolento, Poison, Hugo, and Elena added to Ultra Street Fighter IV instead of other characters from the series?

'When we did open up for suggestions a lot of fans did request to have the characters from Street Fighter X Tekken into Ultra Street Fighter IV. That was one of the big deciding factors as to why they are making an appearance,' said Dahlgren.

'As for the new character, this is a character that I don't think is on anyone's radar. It was just something R&D was really passionate about and wanted to put in the game.'

Read more stories about Interviews & PC & PlayStation 3 & Ultra Street Fighter IV & Xbox 360 on Siliconera.