The open beta for the PlayStation exclusive The Tomorrow Children has been dated- at least, if you live in Japan. Fans can play the open world sandbox adventure game from June 3 at 17:00 JST to June 6 at 17:00. The Japanese PlayStation Store already has the beta client available to download, but you can’t do much with it until June 3, when the beta actually begins.

Completing a set of objectives in the beta will entitle you to earn a ‘Lifetime Pension’ that you can use in the full game- and you’ll have three days to fulfil these objectives, which should be enough time.

As of right now, this beta is only for Japan- no similar open beta has been announced for anywhere else in the world, though we did have a closed beta held for the game for North American players earlier this year. The Tomorrow Children will launch exclusively on the PlayStation 4 some time around the end of this year.

You might have seen it in action at the PlayStation Experience but a new direct-feed trailer has been released recently for Rez Infinite, the PlayStation VR title which is a sequel to the musical shooter from years ago.

There are several different ways to play Rez Infinite. You can either check it out in standard 1080p resolution and 60 FPS or in 120 FPS using PlayStation VR. That Synaesthesia Suit showcased at PSX won’t be available to wear though so if you want to replicate the “Trance Controller” experience of the original game, you’ll have to seek alternative means.

We kid though. Please don’t.

Rez Infinite is pegged to release next year, most likely in the first quarter of 2016 to coincide with the launch of PlayStation VR. What are your thoughts on the game and the implementation of VR? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below and stay tuned for more information in the coming months.

In a new interview with EDGE (via Videogamer), Rez creator Tetsuya Mizuguchi talked about returning to game development. Mizuguchi left Q Entertainment in 2013 and occupied himself with other interests. He’s currently contemplating a new project for either this year or the next.

“I’m helping with a few games, but these aren’t like my past works. These are not like my created games. I’m helping with some social games in Japan; I can’t say anything about it just yet. But I’m just helping. So I want to start a new project [of my own] maybe this year or next.

“I can’t share details yet. At BitSummit, I shared my thoughts on synaesthesia, and this is a big thing for me. I started that kind of concept in games with Rez and this is a long journey, across Rez and Lumines and Child of Eden, and maybe Space Channel 5 too. That part of my DNA will never die, so this is kind of a life’s work for me. So I’m thinking about what is next, and what’s the future experience.”

Would you look forward to a new Rez or some other magical new title? Let us know in the comments.

Sony revealed its latest PlayStation Vita title from Q Entertainment, the minds which brought us titles like Ninety Nine Nights and the Lumines series, namely Destiny of Spirits. A trailer for the game has since been released for the same, and reveals Spirits is a free to play RPG with a social bent. It is being developed by Studio Japan, which is owned by Sony. Check out the screenshots below.

Destiny of Spirits has been described as “location-based strategy game… where players from around the world work cooperatively in turn-based action to battle fierce bosses to unlock an expansive virtual world.

“Using location technology, the game places players on a global map, creating a hyper-social experience, where the player is connected to and working with others collectively to progress and unlock powerful new Spirits that can be unleashed during combat to defeat enemies.”

The game will be out sometime in 2013 for the Vita.

Developed by Japan Studio and Q Entertainment. As of now, there’s not much information known about the game, other than the fact this was the “special PS Vita worldwide reveal” being hyped by Geoff Keighley earlier today. Special enough to turn the PlayStation Vita’s performance around? We’ll see about that.

The only thing you really need to know is that Q Entertainment had a hand in the highly addictive Lumines series along with Rez HD and the somewhat abysmal Ninety Nine Nights series for Microsoft’s consoles. We don’t hold it against them (too much), and we can’t wait to see what Destiny of Spirits holds in store for fans of the PlayStation Vita.

Stay tuned for more updates and stories from E3 2013.

The PS3 version of Child of Eden gets a new trailer titled Lumi. Check that above.

Child of Eden thrusts the player into the centre of a battle to save Project Lumi, a mission to reproduce a human personality inside Eden, the archive of all human memories. As the project nears completion, the archive is invaded by an unknown virus. The player’s mission is to save Eden from the virus, restoring hope and peace.

The game is due on  September 27th, 2011. Stay tuned to GB for more news and updates.

A Hack ‘N Slash game is all about in the game-play. Mash some buttons, watch a crazy string of attacks and send enemies flying. It’s what we play these games for and N3-II isn’t lacking at all. It’s extremely simple to get the hang of too: The X and Y Buttons are your main attack buttons, with X being Light Attack and Y being Heavy Attack. The B Button is your character-specific Ability. A Button is Jump. Right Trigger is used to roll in any direction using the Left Stick, and Left Trigger blocks attacks. Left Stick is used to move your character and Right Stick rotates the camera. You can even click the Right Stick to zoom the camera in or out. Left Bumper allows you to use an Active Skill and Right Bumper doesn’t do anything, so you don’t need to worry about that one. lol Pressing the Back Button zooms the map in to give a detailed display of your current location.

IT’S SO BRIGHT!

Active Skills (cast with the Left Bumper + either A, B, X or Y) are special attacks every character can do. They can be either melee or magic attacks, and once you find one, you can equip it to a slot (these are related to the button which triggers it) and you can use it in a mission as many times as you want  as long as you let it recharge between uses. You can equip up to four, and there are even some Skills that can be combined with others for devastating combos. Along with the four Active Skills you can have, you can equip four Passive Skills. These boost stats like total health or damage done, or can shorten the duration of status ailments. There are even some that allow you to use Active Skills faster.

The RPG elements of the game come in the form of a level up system. You can level up three things. Your characters level, which when increased gives you more health. Your characters weapon, which makes that particular weapon stronger, and all 8 Skills, the four Active and four Passive you can equip. You need Soul Points to level up anything and to get them, all you have to do is kill an enemy. Red orbs will appear and automatically fly towards you, giving you Soul Points. The harder the enemy is to kill, the more Soul Points you get. The platforming and puzzle elements come through in each level. Just like most Hack ‘N Slash games, characters share levels throughout the story. Certain areas in each level are inaccessible to certain characters the first time through. To get to them, you need to play as a different character and solve a simple puzzle like hitting a switch or destroying a wall, which will then allow the other character to access that area. It’s a simple way to give each level a sense of replay value.

N3-II has only 5 playable characters, compared to the first game’s 7.

The one thing I can say the gameplay lacks is character variety. The actual characters themselves are different enough, but each uses two weapons, and there’s only 5 characters, compared to the first game’s 7. Not much of a difference, but enough to leave you wanting more. The combination of simple game-play with the RPG and platforming/puzzle elements thrown in make this a unique take on Hack ‘N Slash games and fans of the genre will certainly enjoy this. But, despite how easy it is to pick the game up and play, it’s HARD in the later levels. Like, frustratingly so at times. You may find yourself angry enough to throw your controller if you aren’t patient enough and rush head first into some fights unprepared. As hard as the game can become, if you work at it and try different approaches, you’ll get through it. The story follows the same basics as the first one. There’s an Orb of Light, and an Orb of Darkness, with Elves protecting the Light and Goblins protecting the Dark. What’s different in the sequel is how the Orbs are used in the story. Rather than trying to stop the enemy from getting the Orb of Darkness and summoning the Lord of The Night, you’re trying to stop him from obtaining the Orb of Light and preventing himself from being sent back to his realm.

The main focus of the story centers around Galen as he tries to repel the Lord of The Night’s forces. Along the way he meets up with the 4 other playable characters, and while Galen’s story covers the main piece, to get the full story, you need to play through each character’s story. They all take place at the same time, but each gives a different perspective on the events and a nice look into the reason each character is fighting. The over-lapping stories give you both a different look on each level as well as details to the events outside of Galen’s story, which serves a great way to bring the whole thing together. But again, the lack of characters leaves more to be desired. One or two more characters could have easily expanded the story an extra few hours.

UNLIMITED POWAH!!1 /Palpatine

N3-II has definite improvements to graphics over the first one. There’s more detail in things like armor and weapons, as well as the level designs and textures. The enemies are simple cut and paste units of varying type, but while one foot solider looks just like the other, there’s enough detail there to make them not boring to look at as you cut them down. And there’s a nice effect of blood splatter on your screen when you do particularly extreme damage to a group of enemies. The effects on attacks are well done too. Melee and magic attacks are enjoyable to see over and over again. The level environments aren’t particularly diverse, but each one does have its own unique look to it, so it’s not bad to see them more than once. And due to the sheer scale of some of the levels, and the fact that no two characters play the same level the same way makes some of them seem like an entirely new level with a different character. And while the basic enemies may look the same, there are unique bosses each character fights throughout their own story and the designs on these more than make up for the cut and paste enemy designs.

The sounds fit nicely. A sword hitting metal sounds just like a sword hitting metal would. A shot from a crossbow sounds just like one. Lightning sounds like lightning, and an explosions sounds like an explosion. And the voice acting, something this genre isn’t praised for, is probably the biggest improvement N3-II has over N3. There’s actual tone and emotion behind the voices, and it’s made even better by the character animations during cut-scenes. The music has it’s highs and lows. The highs being when you can hear it while you go from one area to the next, it’s pretty good. The lows being when you’re in the middle of a large fight and doing nothing but hitting enemies and using Skills, those sound effects can overshadow the music.

Elf – Check. Pirate Outfit – Check. Magic Attacks – Check. Oh Japan, never change…

The improvements to the graphics and sounds of N3-II are certainly noticeable, and while the environments and enemies may not be entirely unique, the handful of bosses and character design on the major characters make up for that, as well as the nice effects for attacks. As a general rule, Hack ‘N Slash games are heavy on the action, light on the story, and this leads many of them to be somewhat short on the initial play-through, but the game-play is what brings us back for more. The same applies with N3-II, though to a lesser extent. A complete play-through for all 5 characters could run you anywhere from 15-25 hours, since some levels are so huge that they can take up to an hour or longer on your first run through them. Subsequent runs through these levels though are much faster, but it’s those sometimes hour long levels that add time to the game. And not in a bad way either since the game-play is certainly enjoyable. And since certain areas can only be accessed by a character AFTER playing as a different one, it pays to go back to each level at least once after playing with every character. There’s also a nice online co-op mode that can add to the overall time spent playing the game, and it offers good replay value since you can always try to bet your previous score and hit the top of the leaderboards.

You just know that one of them will not be walking away.

While there’s not much to do besides hacking and slashing, there’s enough to keep you busy for a few days and longer if you decide to play online. As mentioned, this game improves on practically everything the first one offered. It’s got solid gameplay, online co-op, overlapping stories and ONE MILLION ENEMY TROOPS. I’m sorry, I just had to get that in here somewhere. While the game doesn’t actually have that many enemies to cut down, it is on a very large scale for the genre. If you’re a fan of the first game, or just the genre itself, N3-II: Ninety-Nine Nights is a must play. And even if you aren’t a fan, how can mindlessly cutting up enemies be boring?

This game was reviewed on the Xbox 360.