Namco Bandai provided a big update on God Eater Burst today,
sharing new story and gameplay details, and even unveiling new
bonus items. Famitsu is promising its own update on all of this
year's Monster Hunter rivals (including Monster Hunter Portable
3rd!) for later this week, so let's get up to date!
In case you haven't been keeping up, God Eater Burst is an updated
version of God Eater, which was released just this past February.
The game makes gameplay adjustments that have been heavily
requested by users and ups the volume in all areas. Current owners
will be able to upgrade via a cheap expansion disc.
Here are some of the features that were detailed today:
New Character: Ren
Leading the way in today's updates is Ren, a mysterious new
character who's said to be central to Burst's new story
components. Ren is so mysterious that Namco Bandai isn't even
disclosing the character's gender. It's not even clear if Ren is an ally
or enemy.
The character is voiced by Ryoko Shiraishi, a female voice actress,
although that's not necessarily an indication of character gender.
Updated Subcharacters
If you played through the original God Eater storyline, Burst gives
some incentive to replay. The game's personable sub characters,
who fight alongside you during single player mode, have undergone
visual and voice changes. They also show a more personable side
through skills, potentially leading to greater effectiveness on the
battle field.
Shown here (from left to right): Tatsumi, Brendan, Kareru, Shun,
Geena and Kanon.
Changes & Adjustments to Gameplay
Burst updates the God Eater gameplay in a number of ways.
Examples include:
Air Guard
You can now guard while in the air.
Step Cancel Guard
In Burst, you can cancel your "step" evasion move and switch into a
guard. The game actually has a number of other such cancel moves
as well.
New "Burst Skill" Category
Burst adds a new "Burst Skill" category of skills. These can only be
used while in Burst Mode.
Avatar Cards
One new feature for Burst is the "Avatar Card" system. Using
Avatar Cards, players can exchange their characters with one-
another. Your friends characters appear as NPCs during single
player play, accompanying you in battle. This can be particularly
useful for beginner players, as you can have a friends' more
powerful character fight alongside you.
There's some incentive to keep on connecting with friends even
after you've exchanged data. When you play with a friend's NPC,
you'll earn materials. These can be exchanged with the friend the
next time you connect.
Reformed Bullet Edit System
God Eater lets you create your own bullets, setting such things as
bullet type. In Burst, the interface for doing this has been made
more user friendly. You can more easily preview multiple bullet
modifications, for instance.
Burst also gives you access to new bullet types. Included here are
new "Recovery Bullets." These appear in the game's single player
mode, where they're used heavily by medic characters like Sakuya.
In the Bullet Edit mode, you can make such things as a three way
recovery bullet that recovers multiple allies simultaneously, a
stationary "recovery ball" device, and a bullet that does damage to
the enemy while recovering your allies.
New Item Synthesis System
The original God Eater let you synthesize items from materials
that you earned while out on your god eating missions. Burst adds
the ability to split items apart back into their original components.
Some materials have upper and lower levels. For example, you can
combine multiple Mahogany Chips into Mahogany, or you can split up
Mahogany into multiple Mahogany Chips.
Movie Archive System
Burst adds an Archive section which includes movies, BGM, NPC
voices, Aragami voices and illustrations.
New Bonus Items
Namco Bandai previously shared details on the game's "Premium
Character Download Card," a first print run bonus item that gives
you access to special NPC characters.
Joining bikini Arissa, butler Soma and China Dress Sakuya, we now
have these two:
To the left, Kouta drssing up like Isamu, the main character of a
movie in the God Eater universe. To the right, sailor outfit Shio.
Here are the Arissa, Soma and Sakuya outfits in case you've
forgotten:
God Eater Burst arrives on October 28 in retail and download form,
costing respectively ¥5,229 and ¥4,700. Current God Eater
owners will be able to buy a retail expansion version for just
¥2,100.
For overseas players, your first exposure to the God Eater
franchise will be through Burst, which is being released by Namco
Bandai subsidiary D3 Publisher