News from Lik Sang

This week a legend is reborn as Square Enix's epic Mana series of action RPG's touches the NDS. Earning a very impressive 10, 10, 8 and 8 from Famitsu, the events kick off when the island of Illuja suffers a terrible natural disaster and the only survivors are three children who gather around the last remaining Mana tree. Frick who's 15, Tumble, a 16 year old girl, and little 9 year old Pop will all work together as the story unfolds into an unforgettable fantasy experience.



Each character can be equipped with three weapons of differing ranges, including a sword, a flail and a bow and arrow. Using these fills your Fever Gauge and works towards unleashing fantastical limit weapons. Character abilities can also be changed with specific items, and as in past titles you can summon the eight different elemental spirits. Adding an extra helping of strategy, you and each of your partners can only equip one spirit at a time in each town. These can be used for either devastating magical attacks, or by being touched, to regain hit points or bless your weapons. Already in stock now, pre-orders have been shipped and anyone else wanting to once more step back into the memorable world of Mana can do so at any stage. ...

News from Lik Sang

This week a legend is reborn as Square Enix's epic Mana series of action RPG's touches the NDS. Earning a very impressive 10, 10, 8 and 8 from Famitsu, the events kick off when the island of Illuja suffers a terrible natural disaster and the only survivors are three children who gather around the last remaining Mana tree. Frick who's 15, Tumble, a 16 year old girl, and little 9 year old Pop will all work together as the story unfolds into an unforgettable fantasy experience.



Each character can be equipped with three weapons of differing ranges, including a sword, a flail and a bow and arrow. Using these fills your Fever Gauge and works towards unleashing fantastical limit weapons. Character abilities can also be changed with specific items, and as in past titles you can summon the eight different elemental spirits. Adding an extra helping of strategy, you and each of your partners can only equip one spirit at a time in each town. These can be used for either devastating magical attacks, or by being touched, to regain hit points or bless your weapons. Already in stock now, pre-orders have been shipped and anyone else wanting to once more step back into the memorable world of Mana can do so at any stage. ...

News from Lik Sang

Mario is always risking life and limb to save Princess Peach, but what does he get in return? To live happily ever after? No. How about a vacation to a beautiful tropical isle? Nope, not even that. But this week the tables have been turned and the Princess must save the two kidnapped Mario brothers! An entirely new 2D Mario-style platformer from Nintendo, this is a fairly rare event indeed, and the game's fun, bright and colorful design is very reminiscent of Yoshi's Island. Armed with her *cough* umbrella, Peach travels across eight worlds to rescue her *cough* dream man (sorry, I seem to be coming down with something this morning!), and can use her magical brolly to gracefully float, or viciously attack enemies.



Each creature she takes out increases her "Vibe Meter", which when filled, can be converted to one of four emotions. Float through the air when she's happy, burn through walls when she's mad, make vegetation grow with her tears, or chill and regain health when she's got a good calm going, Peach is an emotional gal. Knowing how girls love to shop too, Nintendo added the ability to buy new moves at Toad's store, and thereby finally also gave more of an incentive to grab those golden coins. The Japanese version has been in stock for a while now, and all 7 customer reviews gave a solid . In stock now, all pre-orders for this US version have already been cleared, but everyone else better hurry up, Mario and Luigi need you! ...

News from Lik Sang

Mario is always risking life and limb to save Princess Peach, but what does he get in return? To live happily ever after? No. How about a vacation to a beautiful tropical isle? Nope, not even that. But this week the tables have been turned and the Princess must save the two kidnapped Mario brothers! An entirely new 2D Mario-style platformer from Nintendo, this is a fairly rare event indeed, and the game's fun, bright and colorful design is very reminiscent of Yoshi's Island. Armed with her *cough* umbrella, Peach travels across eight worlds to rescue her *cough* dream man (sorry, I seem to be coming down with something this morning!), and can use her magical brolly to gracefully float, or viciously attack enemies.



Each creature she takes out increases her "Vibe Meter", which when filled, can be converted to one of four emotions. Float through the air when she's happy, burn through walls when she's mad, make vegetation grow with her tears, or chill and regain health when she's got a good calm going, Peach is an emotional gal. Knowing how girls love to shop too, Nintendo added the ability to buy new moves at Toad's store, and thereby finally also gave more of an incentive to grab those golden coins. The Japanese version has been in stock for a while now, and all 7 customer reviews gave a solid . In stock now, all pre-orders for this US version have already been cleared, but everyone else better hurry up, Mario and Luigi need you! ...

News from Lik Sang

Mario is always risking life and limb to save Princess Peach, but what does he get in return? To live happily ever after? No. How about a vacation to a beautiful tropical isle? Nope, not even that. But this week the tables have been turned and the Princess must save the two kidnapped Mario brothers! An entirely new 2D Mario-style platformer from Nintendo, this is a fairly rare event indeed, and the game's fun, bright and colorful design is very reminiscent of Yoshi's Island. Armed with her *cough* umbrella, Peach travels across eight worlds to rescue her *cough* dream man (sorry, I seem to be coming down with something this morning!), and can use her magical brolly to gracefully float, or viciously attack enemies.



Each creature she takes out increases her "Vibe Meter", which when filled, can be converted to one of four emotions. Float through the air when she's happy, burn through walls when she's mad, make vegetation grow with her tears, or chill and regain health when she's got a good calm going, Peach is an emotional gal. Knowing how girls love to shop too, Nintendo added the ability to buy new moves at Toad's store, and thereby finally also gave more of an incentive to grab those golden coins. The Japanese version has been in stock for a while now, and all 7 customer reviews gave a solid . In stock now, all pre-orders for this US version have already been cleared, but everyone else better hurry up, Mario and Luigi need you! ...

News from Lik Sang

After the recent remake success of Megaman Maverick Hunter X on PSP, Capcom have brought back another classic in the almost 20 year old series, this time the very first Megaman game. Absolutely jam packed with features, to begin with you can choose to play in classic or new style mode, offering the best of both worlds. Each with 3D graphics, classic mode stays true to the original's gameplay, while the new style has different level layouts, plus two entirely new levels and bosses themselves, Oil Man and Time Man.



Then what fans will surely go crazy over is that you can build your own levels, and what's more share them online! Capcom also added cinematics and a proper narrative to the title, and remixed music. Far from being stuck in your robo-suit, you now have the ability to actually play as bosses after defeating them, and the Megaman Challenge Mode puts a fresh objective into all the levels. Don't let the cutesy big heads fool you, "Rockman Rockman" is still as tough as nails, and due in stock later this week. ...

News from Lik Sang

As Square Enix work towards releasing Valkyrie Profile: Silmeria late this year for the PS2, they've also been busy bees porting the incredible 1999 original from the PSOne to the PSP. Based on Norse mythology, you play Lenneth Valkyrie who collects the souls of those who die tragic deaths, then converts them into powerful soldiers ready for a final apocalyptic battle between the Æsir and Vanir, Ragnarok. Taking you back to the good old days, dungeons play out as 2D side scrolling affairs with non-random turn based fight scenes and a whole lot of magic. The fantastic fighting system was one of the reasons this game achieved such a cult following in the first place, and thankfully still holds up brilliantly today.



There's over 20 playable characters to be found, and as you progress through the adventure your strength builds up to a truly incredible amount, where later in the game you'll be dishing out damage points in the millions! The game has been re-designed to take full advantage of the PSP's 16:9 widescreen, and replacing the original static cut scenes are completely animated FMV sequences. Several brand new scenes also help tie this and upcoming prequel together. Coming late this week, even if you don't know Japanese, if you've played the original you can experience all the benefits of this PSP edition, and still understand the story. ...

Lik Sang have a big article on the release of Magical RPG Kingdom Hearts 2:

Now that there's less than a month to go till the US release of Kingdom Hearts II, we take a look at exactly why this game deserves your attention. Last December the Japanese edition came out to score a truly amazing 39/40 from Famitsu magazine, only a breath away from being just the sixth game ever to receive a perfect 40/40 in 20 years.

Selling 727,591 copies in its first week alone, there's no doubt the untouchable RPG experience of Square Enix combined with the magic of Disney resulted in one of the greatest team ups of videogame history. Rather than have their hands tied by a specific story from a certain movie, the developers were free to create an entirely new adventure including all of Disney's most famous works, not to mention a couple of Square's too! Due for release on March 28th, pre-orders can be placed anytime, and of course the game ships free worldwide.



Set after Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories on the GBA, the original lead character Sora, and Disney comrades Donald and Goofy have slept for a solid year while regaining their lost memories. Waking up, Sora puts on some fresh clothes (we should hope so!) and continues on his quest to seal the keyholes of each world, protecting their innocence from the dark forces of the Heartless, Organization XIII and Nobodies. With a much more complex plot development than that of the original awaiting you, players of the GBA sequel will get the absolute most out of this title. The developers however have gone to great lengths to ensure you won't feel left out at all if you haven't played the portable adventure, and newcomers who missed both that and the first game need not worry either, you'll quickly be brought up to speed.

The original drew content from Alice in Wonderland, Hercules, Tarzan, Aladdin, Pinocchio, The Little Mermaid, The Nightmare Before Christmas, The Lion King, Peter Pan, Winnie the Pooh, 101 Dalmatians, Beauty and the Beast, and more. Here there's more of those classics, plus Lilo & Stitch, Chicken Little, Mulan, Pirates of the Caribbean, Tron, The Return of Jafar, Fantasia and others. In fact they range all the way back to 1928's Steamboat Willie, which of course takes place in black and white.



Despite some movies being used again, every level is brand spanking new, often taking place in completely separate settings than before. For example instead of on the streets of Agrabah for Aladdin, you'll be exploring the Cave of Wonders. Some franchises like Beauty and the Beast and Mulan which were only represented with characters in the original have been fleshed out with entire worlds here too.

At least 16 different Final Fantasy characters will appear here, including Auron, Yuna, Rikku, Cloud Strife, Yuffie, Sephiroth and more. Taking on a larger role, Cloud also has his own side quest now, and each of the FF VII stars take their looks from the more recent Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children movie. The Disney side has its fair share of cameos too, such as Scrooge McDuck, Yen Sid from Fantasia, Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather from Sleeping Beauty and a whole heap more.

The all star English voice cast is just as impressive as it was in the original, with almost all actors reprising their roles once again here. Highlights include the now 18 year old Haley Joel Osment, David Gallagher, Dan Castellaneta, Sean Astin, Mena Suvari, Christopher Lee, Rachael Leigh Cook, Jesse McCartney, Zach Braff and many others.

Moving onto gameplay, at certain times Reaction Commands will pop up, which with good timing let you pull off bonus attacks with different moves for specific situations. Also while you could summon characters in the first game, these play a larger part in this round, and you can bring in the likes of Peter Pan, the Genie from Aladdin, and Stitch from Lilo & Stitch. Working together with his fellow team mates, Sora can now pull off linked attacks with each combination resulting in a different effect.

Also by merging with Donald or Goofy, Sora can unleash other styles of play. For example merging with Goofy has you wielding dual Keyblades with extra attacks, but takes away your ability to perform magic. On the other hand, intertwining with Donald greatly boots your magic, increases the length of your Keyblade, and has you gliding through levels instead of running. Or if you prefer the best of both worlds, what's known as the 'Master Form' can be achieved by all three characters joining, and along with two Keyblades you gain the ability to fly. Such power comes at a price however, as your drive bar will be drained faster. Lastly there's the 'Final Form', although we won't spoil that for you

Certain levels like Atlantica, and gameplay moments like summoning Stitch, will now make use of music and button coordination, again bringing new elements into the already winning gameplay. The soundtrack is also again composed by the brilliant Yoko Shimomura, ...

Big news article from Lik Sang

It's about time that Sony's brilliant handheld gets its own Naruto title. Bandai holds responsible for Naruto Narutimate Portable (aka Mugenjo no Maki), which seems to turn into a revamped port of the very popular Narutimate Hero 3 which was released earlier on for PS2. Now, what can we expect from this first Uzumaki visit on PSP? Details are still somewhat scarce yet, still, looking at its PS2 counterpart and screenshots thrown to the media so far, Narutimate Portable is likely to become another perfect blend of Beat'em Up and RPG. A cel-shaded design was chosen to render the game a style as close as possible to its Anime origin. This PSP game ain't no mere handheld version of Narutimate Hero though: innovations include, above all, a cool multiplayer mode via Wi-Fi! Aiming for a release on March 30th, Naruto Narutimate Portable is already open for pre-orders and will ship for just US$ 59.90, eligible for our Free Shipping Worldwide promotion.



A Castle in the Heavens, an Evil Princess to defeat...

An interesting addition represents the exclusive story background of a mysterious citadel (dubbed "Infinite Castle") hovering in the skies above Ninja village Konoha. One of the game's modes (sort of a scenario option) will involve saving all village inhabitants from the castle princess Kirihime and all her enigmatic misdoings. Said citadel seems to absorb chakra energy from above, not something Naruto and his fellow fighters Sakura, Sikamaru, Ino and Choji will tend to ignore. Choji will likely revel in lots of opportunities to unleash his Nikudan Sensha (Meat Tank) technique, while Sakura can now show off what Kakashi has taught her in the past. How this plays out here still needs to be revealed, the potential lack of chakra for one thing, might provide an intriguing twist to fighting tactics. Judging by the screenshots available, we are in for explosive Beat'em Up action deluxe with a fascinating RPG story to boot.



An Exclusive Naruto PSP Bag for Pre-Orders

As has become common practise now for Bandai, for Naruto Narutimate Portable there will also be a cool bonus item in Japan for people who pre-order the game. This time it's no Ninja headband or another small trinket, instead you will be able to protect your PSP in style with a dedicated Naruto PSP bag, sporting the franchise logo. We at Lik Sang cannot guarantee the availability of this neat case for every single reservation, but we will do our utmost as usual to get our hands on as many as we possibly can for customers. Placing your pre-order right away sure will give you a better chance to secure you one of these elusive gifts.

Lots more on this news at Lik Sang ...