PS3 Fanboy

The downloadable Japanese PSN title Dark Mist is getting an expansion: Dark Mist: The Depths of Darkness. Priced at ¥500 ($4.75), this update adds three new characters and a four-player online mode. The download is 148MB large.

Dark Mist is an action adventure game that was supposed to hit the EU PSN, but has not yet made it's way over there. A North American release had never even been mentioned; however, we're hoping this interest in making new content for the game might somehow spark an interest in bringing it over our way. Optimistically hopeful much? Yes.

In a recent interview with PSU, Folklore producer Eric Fong talked not only about some interesting details regarding the game, but also gave his own personal take on design choices as well as his favorite moments. It's an interesting read, so we'll summarize the best points below for fun.

• The two characters, Ellen and Keats, view the same events from different perspectives, but eventually end up working together towards the same resolution. We're sort of sad to hear this -- we wanted branching storylines, but so long as it wraps up well, we won't complain.
• Fong's favorite battle is against the Fleshrum. We've no idea what that means, but now when we play the game and get to that boss battle, we'll squeal in delight knowing it's going to be a lot of fun.
• When asked about the use of Blu-ray, Fong declared proudly: "Blu-ray allows us to provide a high-def audio and video experience without cutting corners or inconveniencing users with disc swaps."

In addition to those funky points, Fong tells us that there is a US and UK version of the demo planned to hit the PS Store, but he didn't say whether it would be before or after the October 9th release of the game. Either way, Folklore is one of the PS Fanboy's most anticipated games, so we're ready to grab us some souls.
[Thanks, Justin!]

Sure, the game launched in Japan to rather confusing reception (supposedly selling only 7,000 copies its first day, but proclaimed sold out in numerous locations), but we still love to see new information surface about the game. We don't know if it's a system-seller, but we do know the game is sporting some incredibly stylish art direction and positively stunning visuals. A third movie was released, detailing a new level, new summons, and a new way to grab the soul of boss monsters. If you just can't get enough of this game, feel free to look over the recently updated official website for some more art, screenshots, monsters, and game details. If you can read Japanese, of course.

[Update: fixed the first week supposition to first day. In that light, not all too shabby, really.]

Also known as FolksSoul in Japan, Game Republic's PS3 exclusive title Folklore has been jamming the internet full of hype-cookies ever since an impressive demo was released on the Japanese PS Store. Following that path, Game Republic has updated its site to give you a glimpse of some game artwork, demons, and of course, Ellen's many different outfits.

Since the site is in Japanese, we'll help you out and guide you along. After you hit the main page, the brackets appearing under Ellen that say [6/07] are the new additions. The first link takes you to the character pages, where you can scope out some pretty neat outfits for the main heroine, or a couple demo shots of Keats. The second link takes you to some character and location art -- all of which is worth a gander. The third link sends you to demon artwork, showing you some of the things you'll encounter in your quest. We're very excited for this game and every piece of art just shows how much effort was put into this. They really want to erase Genji from our minds.

Make a Japanese PSN account. Now. If you haven't, you're going to continue missing out on all the free demos the Japanese gamer crowd get. It's not tough -- sign up for one in your own language, make notes about what information goes on each page, then make a Japanese one. Why are we insisting you do this? So you can test drive FolksSoul along with us this Friday when a demo hits the Japanese PS Store.

Also known as Folklore in the US, the game had kept a very low key until Gamer's Day, when a new trailer and multiple screens made an entrance and blew a lot of people away. Sure, it's absolutely a Japanese game -- lacking muscular men with big shiny guns, but it does look incredibly fun to play. So that's why we're telling you about the demo. It's rumored to be over an entire gigabyte, so make sure you've got something else to do. Try it out, then decide if it's for you or not!

Following last week's announcement that a FolksSoul demo would be released in June, Game Republic also sent out a new batch of screenshots. They look pretty good, but suffer from an unfortunate amount of JPEG compression issues and look a bit washed out. We do get a rare shot of the UI in the first screenshot though, giving a tantalizing peek at what it might be like to actually play the game.

We haven't really seen much about this game since TGS 2006, but with a Japanese release date of June 21st, we should start hearing more about this intriguing title soon.

Before you ask yourself what exactly "enjoymulation" is, we'll answer. It is the act of enjoymulating, which is where someone enjoys something so greatly they actually excrete a juice from their eyes and armpits known only as "joy-juice" -- this is the primary ingredient in many desserts, like cake. There's a reason it tastes so good. There's enjoymulant fluids inside.

With the explanation out of the way, we present some new Folks Souls scans from Famitsu for you. The game looks great, but will it play great? We won't know until we get our hands on it! We're excited about weakening and using monsters to do our dirty work, but we're more excited to see if Game Republic, the fellows behind Genji, will get it together and make a tight gameplay experience.

[via Jeux-France]