Marvelous Entertainment and Grasshopper Manufacture (Killer 7, No More Heroes) have confirmed that the Nintendo DS port of the PS2 adventure, Flower, Sun, and Rain, will be making its way to North America after all. Featuring extras and add-ons exclusively for the DS, Japanese gamers should expect the game to hit their shores on March 6th, while the US version will follow “shortly”. We have not heard any word regarding a European release date either, but we will keep you updated as more information comes our way.

Storyline: Sumio Mondo is an assassin who arrives on the resort island of Lospas and takes a room at the F.S.R. hotel after being given the assignment to detect and defuse a time bomb planted on a plane which is soon to leave the island’s only airport. On the way to the airport however, Sumio encounters other hotel guests and island residents requesting his help with various problems, including searching for missing items. While Sumio is distracted by them, the airplane with the bomb on board takes off and explodes, crashing into the island. The next morning, however, Sumio awakens in his hotel room and discovers that something strange has happened - not only has not even headed to the airport yet, the airplane explosion and crash have not happened either. Sumio attempts to head to the airport to prevent the explosion and once again people who need his help appear, distracting him long enough to lead to a repeat of the previous days explosion, and Sumio once again awakening in his hotel room with the previous events having yet to unfold. As the same fateful day repeats itself over and over, Sumio finds his hotel room becomes more and more warped and twisted, reflecting the fact that he is slowly losing his mind from the repetition.

Players will control Sumio Mondo, to seek out other people’s items while using a suitcase-shaped instrument named “Katherine” to solve the mysteries about said items. Sumio can crack any secret code by using “Katherine” with a “Dial” for inputting numbers and to get the information needed, players will get hints from what people say, combined with a tourbook of Lospas Island. The DS version will feature over 50 missions in 18 scenarios, and the touch screen will be imperative when solving many of the puzzles in the game.

For more information on Ground Hog Day Flower, Sun, and Rain, check back with us often and visit two sites related to the game here and here. Hopefully, you will get the pages translated before you decide to try and decipher them yourselves.

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Rising Star Games have announced that they are now the official publishers of No More Heroes, the action game by game designer, Goichi Suda. The project has been developed by Grasshopper Manufacture and Rising Star Games’ parent company, Marvelous Entertainment. No More Heroes is set to arrive in Europe in February 2008 exclusively for Nintendo Wii.

No More Heroes tells the story of Travis Touchdown, an animé fan who lives in the fictional town of Santa Destroy, California. After an unexpected turn of events, Travis finds himself being approached by the head hunter of an assassins’ organization. Travis is challenged to prove himself worthy by defeating ten other bloodthirsty killers to make his way to the top of the assassins’ league.

“Rising Star Games is very excited to be bringing Suda’s latest project to the European market,” commented Martin Defries, Managing Director, Rising Star Games. “He is without doubt a legendary creative powerhouse within the gaming industry. No More Heroes is shaping up to be a widely anticipated Q1 title for both the trade and consumers alike. It’s a massively engaging and immersive gaming experience for the Wii. This is exactly the right product to broaden the format’s appeal to a wider, more serious gaming audience.”

“With No More Heroes, we wanted to create a game that allows players to be able to jump right in and play,” said Suda, president of Grasshopper Manufacture. “The Wii allows us to create an open world where movement and gameplay feel very natural.”

Already available in Japan, the North American release of No More Heroes will be published by Ubisoft. For more information on No More Heroes, check out our previous posts.

Via: Press release

Harvest Moon creator Yasuhiro Wada says that his new Wii exclusive Project O, will be a single-player life-sim set in Europe. The game is being developed by Marvelous Entertainment, or what Wada calls the ’seven samurai of the gaming world’, who as we all know worked on Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy titles. The list of these game geniuses reads like a “who’s who” of the gaming world:

• Executive Producer: Yasuhiro Wada (Harvest Moon)
• Producer: Yoshirou Kimura (Harvest Moon, Chulip)
• Character Design: Hideo Minaba (Final Fantasy XII)
• Monster Design: Kazuyuki Kurashima (Freshly-Picked Tingle’s Rosy Rupeeland, Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars)
• Game Design: Norikazu Yasunaga (World Neverland)
• Director: Youichi Kawaguchi (Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King)
• Composer: Yoko Shimomura (Kingdom Hearts series, Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars)

Project O is the title so far, until they come up with a new one. Although it has been reported that it may end up being called King’s Story, this is untrue; and despite the low-budget porn sound of the working title, ideas are still being tossed about as to what this should be called.

MORE DETAILS AND SCREENSHOTS AFTER THE BREAK

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