Pokemon Origins, the new anime short series that will cover the Kanto saga as depicted in the generation one Pokemon games Pokemon Red and Pokemon Blue, is coming to Pokemon TV starting November 15.

For those not in the know, Pokemon Origins is a Pokemon anime miniseries that follows the adventures of Red and Blue as they try and win the Kanto Pokemon League. Unlike the show, which majorly deviated from the plot of the games, this short looks to be more faithful to the story of the original games.

The entire four part anime miniseries will be uploaded on Pokemon TV on Pokemon.com starting November 15th. Nintendo and The Pokemon Company remind us that you can watch the series not just on your computer but also on the go by downloading the Pokemon TV app from the App Store and the Google Play store. No, as of yet, there’s no way to watch them on your 3DS, which is admittedly hilarious.

The Titans themselves move incredibly quickly and are suitably powered. But the soldiers aren’t at a disadvantage. Using jetpacks and wall running, they can navigate the terrain to out-manoeuvre the Titans and effectively cut them off from the neck. I mean, shoot the pilot inside the Titan from behind. Through the neck.

In fact, players can enter their own Titans by just sliding through and being sucked right inside. This allows them control of increased firepower. Of course, the Titans have cool-down periods. It’s not like you can just go in and out of the Titan form at a fast pace. I’m sorry, did I say “Titan form”? I meant the Titan mech.

At this point, Titanfall just reminds me too much of something completely different. In fact, it’s something that has only now seen enormous popularity thanks to a recent anime series.

I’m talking about Hajime Isayama’s Shingeki no Kyojin aka Attack on Titan. Note the word “Titan” in the title.
See if this sounds familiar: A young boy, his adopted sister and their best friend join the military in order to force away enormous beings known as Titans.

These Titans are huge hulking beasts which can be outmanoeuvred but out power the humans significantly. The humans fight against the Titans by using powerful equipment to wall run and leap from one obstacle to another seamlessly. Heck, the Titans are even killed by striking at their most vulnerable part: The back of the neck.

Of course, in a surprise twist, it is revealed that some humans, including our young hero, possess the ability to turn into Titans, and utterly wreak havoc on enemy Titans. They can revert in and out of Titan form, although they are easily as subject to targeting at the neck as normal Titans. In fact, they can even eject from their Titan shell and continue fighting on.

Even more hilariously? Titan form has a cool down period. It can be used more and more, but at the risk of the user’s health.

By now, this is just getting awfully too coincidental to even be a coincidence. But while the Attack on Titan manga started in 2009, Respawn Entertainment was founded in 2010. By then, the manga would’ve had sufficient enough chapters released to provide half the ideas currently seen in Titanfall.

Of course, all the conspiracies and plot-twists weren’t showcased in the E3 trailer. Could it be that they somehow made their way into the game as well? Or is it just a case of Respawn using the basic template of Attack on Titan to craft its game?

Or is it all really just one big misunderstanding?

Regardless, these are some burning questions. As impressive as Titanfall looked, it’s impossible to shake the similarities to Attack on Titan, no matter how much more futuristic you make it.

The first, Kagura Mutsuki fights using a heavy-handed style while wielding a large blunt blade. On the other end is Yuki Terumi, a hand to hand fighter who seems to utilize chains to trap and juggle his opponents while beating the tar out of them. Both fighters exhibit the same kind of detailed design and animation that defines the series.

Meanwhile, if you follow the trailer all the way to the end, you’ll see an announcement for BlazBlue: Alter Memory debuting in Autumn 2013. This is a new anime based on the game, and will focus on Ragna the Bloodedge as he takes on various fighters trying to claim his bounty while interacting with various weird characters.

The first tweet seen below translates to: “Yu Suzuki declares to be thinking about a Kickstarter-like model to fund Shenmue 3!”

The second tweet translates to: “Yu Suzuki would also like to continue the story of Shenmue in anime or manga form.”

Now this one appears to be a better possibility. However, it is apt to mention that there are several angles to the Shenmue universe as a whole. It could be that Shenmue 3 – if it happens – won’t mean the universe’s end. And certainly not the end of Ryo Hazuki.

What say you? Would you finally like to see Shenmue 3? Or has the idea overstayed its welcome?

The intro hits you straight in the face, it looks like a Japanese anime, with a very slick visual presentation. You immediately mute your television because the most cringe-inducing pop song is layered over the on-screen action and you are scared of your girlfriend walking in and thinking you are a tool. The thing is Tales of Graces F is very immature, which is ironic considering the story is at its heart about a young boy becoming a man and assuming responsibility.

Some people may like the games innocence, but it is caught in an identity crisis. You see TOG has a pretty complex and deep fighting system, and most of its intricacies are taught to you by blink-and-you’ll-miss-it dialogue boxes at the end of your first 100  or so battles. So if the game was trying to appeal to a younger audience why make the mechanics so deep and vague?

You start as a young boy called Asbel, who is the heir to the lordship of his hometown Lhant. Asbel is the elder sibling to a younger brother called Hubert, the latter is a coward and the former is brave, borderlining stupidity. The pair take a trip into the woods, where they find an amnesiac girl laid among the flowers near the edge of a cliff. The young prince comes to visit from the capital, and things suddenly take a turn for the worse for the young siblings. Your character becomes an adult after what can only be described as a lengthy tutorial; adulthood promotes you from wooden swords to full-fledged steel, which is much more satisfying in battle.

This is about as exciting as it gets.

Battles are initiated by walking into monsters in the field, or naturally if they make contact with you.  This is a much less frustrating system than the random battles of yesteryear. The aforementioned combat system is quite satisfying once you discover its intricacies: you advance by pushing the left stick forward, you retreat by pulling it back, you attack with X, holding square brings up your guard; whilst guarding you build up CC which are basically action points. When you are holding guard you can use the left stick to evade in any direction; you must evade in different directions to avoid horizontal and vertical strikes.

As the game progresses the combat gets deeper and you unlock “B artes” where you draw your sword and land damaging strikes with the circle button. You can mostly rely on your allies to take care of the healing, but in a sticky situation you can also use items manually. Your “artes” are unlocked by assigning “titles” to your character; each “title” has a set amount of learnable “artes” and as you gain experience in battle these are unlocked.

In-engine cinematics suffer from bad character animation, and the game would have benefitted from sticking to the anime sequences.

Outside of combat you will be mostly running around and talking to people, or spending Gald (read gold) in the shops. You will walk into every accessible house to see if the occupants have any spare meat in their cutlery drawers, and the tenants will stare at you with glassy-expressionless faces and repeat the same line of dialogue at you ad-infinitum.

The art style is quite pleasant, mainly because it is extremely colourful, which is a rarity. Some of the visuals don’t hold up very well though; the sea in particular looking very bland compared to the amazing water effects we see in most modern titles. Also there are some pop-in issues, I think this is the first game where I have experienced cow pop-in; two cows in front of me suddenly becoming six cows after taking a couple of steps. The camera is not controllable, but it is not exactly fixed and it does its best to keep your character in the centre of the screen.

When you encounter enemies in the field they may look like a solitary enemy, but when the battle starts they may be flanked by two intimidating lettuces; much like when travelling alone, only for your companions to appear in the next cinematic. I know this is a small detail, but this is something Final Fantasy 8 got right two generations ago. There is actually a section in the game where you are getting chased by a giant mechanical spider, nostalgia was all like hells yeah this is like FF8, but in retrospect FF8 did the scene much better.

Another little niggle I had in the game was that when you are in a town the map has no objective marker, in my opinion this was an intentional design decision to artificially extend the length of the game. It is annoying and detrimental to the experience as you run around a town speaking to everyone, all the while being force-fed the awful soundtrack.

I used to be a big fan of the Japanese Role Playing Game, but anyone hoping this is the game to take them back to a time when spikey hair was en-vogue in a game will most likely leave with their mouth tasting like a Chocobos behind. For the hardcore JRPG fan there is probably a lot to love, but for anyone else beware – the game is a dinosaur and if FF8 was a T-Rex this would be its breakfast.

This game was reviewed on the PlayStation 3.

Vega leads an elite Special Forces squad into battle against a mysterious alien threat known as The Collectors. Stationed at a colony in a remote star system, Vega and his soldiers must protect the civilians from a ruthless invasion determined to capture the population for unknown purposes. Learn more about the Mass Effect universe with an unprecedented glimpse into the haunted past of Mass Effect’s newest hero!

Tell us what you think in the comments section below.

The Master Chief remains an Xbox 360 loyalist for now, but PS3 owners will for the first time next month get the chance to bring Bungie’s universe to their consoles with the DVD and Blu-ray release of anime Halo Legends.

Three SKUs will be hitting the market – the standard DVD version ($19.98), a two-disc special edition ($29.98) and the HD Blu-ray iteration ($34.99).

The SE and Blu-ray versions include a ‘making of’ documentary, a special feature on the history of the franchise and audio commentary.