Retro Wrap-Up: .hack Edition

I’ve been watching Sword Art Online lately. So far, I think it’s like .hack//SIGN, except not nearly as obtuse or stupid (bring it on, fanboys). But then I’m reminded of the .hack games, which I kind of do want to go back and play. I’ve only played a little bit of it before I decided to trade it in, for some reason. But, I digress. The Operation Rainfall Retro Commercial Research Team (in other words, me) has decided to show you the English commercial for .hack//Infection in this week’s Retro Wrap-Up.

Here are the highlights of this past week.

In an OpRainfall exclusive, AckkStudios announces that Two Brothers will also be coming to the PlayStation Network.

Namco Bandai announced that Tales of Xillia 2 will be given an international release! Get excite!

In addition, Tales of Symphonia Chronicles will feature both English and Japanese audio.

Hailee Kenney talks about the development of Naoto Shirogane in Persona 4 in this week’s Building Character.

Final Fantasy VII is now available on Steam!

In addition, Square-Enix announced that you can get Cloud Strife’s outfit and sword as a pre-order bonus for Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII, taking the lead character’s development to her logical conclusion.

Nomura also shares some more details about Kingdom Hearts III’s graphics, including the Luminous engine and the Kingdom Shader tool.

Daymon Trapold talks about how Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga made him the gamer he is today in this week’s Operation Rainfall Origins.

Don Mattrick leaves Microsoft to join Zynga’s ranks. And nothing of value was lost.

Justin Graham reviews Roujin Z in this week’s Anime of the Past review.

Sadly, Warrior’s Lair for the PS3 and Vita has officially been cancelled.

Ubisoft still continues to praise the Wii U, but states it’ll be focusing on the Xbox One and PS4 for now.

Brad Williams reviews The Night of the Rabbit for the PC.

Takashi Iizuka, the head of Sonic Team, stated in an interview that Super Mario Galaxy was an inspiration for some of the levels in Sonic Lost World. As if that wasn’t already obvious.

Atlus’ parent company recently registered a domain related to Persona 5. Hopefully, this will lead to an announcement regarding that game.

There’s also been an update regarding the rehabilitation of Atlus’ parent company, Index Corporation.

Atlus also dropped the price of Devil Summoner: Soul Hackers to $29.99 on the eShop this week for those who haven’t purchased it yet. The sale will last until July 14^th, so take advantage of this deal while you can.

On the subject of Atlus, the Downpour Podcast crew talk about the company, along with having discussions about the Final Fantasy series, Tails Adventure, music in both video games and anime, and much more in this week’s episode of The Downpour Podcast.

Finally, Nintendo stands firm on its stance regarding region-locking. However, the campaign to get Nintendo to drop this practice is still ongoing.