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The next 1 megabyte Saturn ram card game after SNK's Real Bout Special will be Sunsoft's Astra Superstars. Astra is a fast paced fighting game with an extremely wacky cast of characters. In the picture to the left, we have a muted winter scene where two female combatants duke it out. The girl dressed in the Santa suit is named Rouge and may be compared to Bulleta from Vampire Saviour. She's angelic at times and looks cherubic but her dark side can be devastating. The other fatale is Stella, a slinky witch who is resplendent in her pointy, broad brimmed hat. Her long red hair is a powerful, tensile weapon that she uses to whip and lash her opponents |
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| In the sequence above, the resident Samurai character in Astra known as Sakamoto fights against himself. Sakamoto's special attack consists of an energy blade that he uses to inflict harm on others. As we close out our first preview of Astra Superstars, we'll mention two other memorable characters in the game. Lettuce is an agile character with elastic limbs who can extend his punch 1/3 of the screen's length for a long distance attack. Fooly is a gaunt vampire with tiny bat wings that extrude from his upper back. Fooly's special gift is an incendiary attack that causes major sparks to radiate from the center of his target. If nothing else, Astra's characters are charming and dare we say, simply awesome. They're pretty fabulous and would probably give Villagers some ideas for the next Halloween parade. We'll take another look at Astra later this month when we get the second, more complete beta of the game. Sunsoft plans a February '98 release for Astra Superstars and NCS is now accepting pre-orders from retail and wholesale for this title. | |
| Elf's Yu-No will be shipping this week but there is a slight problem. Elf is limiting the distribution of this game to 30,000 units and will only make it available to retail stores in Japan. Our distributor will not have the game available so we will be hand carrying a small quantity of the limited edition from our Japanese retail partners. More details next week when we stock the game. |  |
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R-Type is planned for the Playstation next year, sometime in early February. The R-Type compilation will contain both R-Type and R-Type II but R-Type Leo won't be included in the mix. Leo will probably be released on it's own one day since it is deserving of it's own Playstation (or Saturn) CD. R-Type is a defining shooter that set new trends and introduced one of the coolest power-up schemes ever. Few shooters since then have had the same perfect balance of visuals and gameplay to stir the imagination. |
| Square has pushed the release date of Front Mission Alternative back by 10 days to Dec. 12. We were expecting the game next week but the much delayed game will be delayed a bit longer. Pre-orders will be kept on hold pending the game's eventual release. |  |
| In keeping in the Front Mission frame of mind, we still have the excellent Front Mission Second in stock for the Playstation. We have sold hundreds of this game since it's release but since Alternative is due soon, we are lowering the price from $65 to US$55 effective today. |
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| NCS Daily Journal © NCS 1997 |
| Tomorrow's journal: D&D Collection |