411mania talks about this week's game releases. Highlights include Domino Rally, Melty Blood: Actress Again, Shuffle!, Osmos, Shadow Complex, Wolfenstein, and Shorts.

Melty Blood: Actress Again (PS2 Import)

The original Melty Blood came out for the PC back in 2002. The story and characters were based on Tsukihime, a visual novel created by Type-Moon (the in-game story takes place about a year after the events in Tsukihime). Some are under the impression that Melty Blood borrowed heavily from Guilty Gear X, but in reality, the game took many of its cues from the Queen of Heart fighting game series. In fact, Queen of Heart '98 was released by French-Bread, then called Watanabe Seisakujo, in 1998, a few months BEFORE the first Guilty Gear saw the light of day. The sequel, Melty Blood: Act Cadenza, came out three years ago and did pretty well for itself. It was even featured at Super Battle Opera, which is pretty good considering its humble roots as a doujin game. Actress Again, the newest revision, added new characters, the ability to choose from three different fighting styles, a guard crush meter, and a wider play area.

This PS2 port further adds balance tweaks and voiced cutscenes as well as the ability to play as Ryougi Shiki from Kara no Kyoukai. So, this should be the definitive version of the game, at least until Ecole releases another arcade revision or PC port.

frostyhudson via 411mania.com »