Square Enix just officially released two versions of the TV spot/commercial that has been airing on TV & on YouTube ads. The version that I nabbed from Nico Douga was the “Hard” cut version…but like many others have already voiced, the other “Normal” cut seems much superior!!

TV COMMERCIAL – NORMAL CUT

TV COMMERCIAL – HARD CUT

For anyone who has tried to use YouTube within Japan, I’m sure you’re are more than aware of the annoying commercials that will randomly play at the beginning of almost every video you try to watch.  There are ways to block these ads with ad-ons to your browsers and such.  But I don’t think you’ll want to miss out on this one commercial:

This is a new 15 second commercial for DOD3 that has been appearing in random commercials on YouTube and also on TV in Japan.  It’s excruciatingly short but we’re able to see a couple new things in here!  Let’s take a look!!

Here’s a crazy image of Mikhail drenched in an eerie, blue light. It’s difficult to see much emotion on a dragon’s face, but with her mouth open wide like this, I can’t imagine it could be due to anything good. I doubt she’s just hungry for grazing cows.

This is such a sweet image of Zero gently caressing Mikhail’s face. We’ve only seen Zero’s harsh side, but this proves that there is a feeling heart inside there somewhere… Maybe this makes her close herself off from others while wearing her unfeeling warrior’s mask.

Here we see a rather sorrowful and/or weak image of Two, seemingly exploding into a ball of light.  We can see many glyphs behind her as well. These look quite similar to the rings of light that surround enemies in past gameplay videos.  Could this be Two’s final moments…?

And here is an image of Five also expelling yellow energy bursts similar to Two above.  We can also see that she may be drenched in her own blood, with a pool of red behind where she stands.  It may not be anything at all, but it almost seems like there are several dark lines (possibly swords?) being thrown at her from multiple directions. Eeek! Poor Five!  This image also calls back to her retched condition that we saw in the 2nd Promotional Video.  *ahem*  Huge sword through the chest…

Holy angry rage, One!  Even though we cannot see who she’s engaged in battle with in this scene, I can only imagine that she’s fighting Zero here. It would be very satisfying to find out that she is the one who destroys Zero’s left arm.

There’s not much detail in this image but it is amazing.  I believe this is Zero, with her hair and white garments blowing in the from a gigantic explosion or fire in the distance.  You can almost feel the heat from that blaze.

And again we see the historical drawings of the five winged Utautai Goddesses with a scary looking head in the center of their circle.  What could that be!?

Lastly, here’s a nice closeup of Zero with her sword raised in defiance while Mikhail looks on from behind. Could this be the paired image with One above?

So, what do you think about this short commercial video?  There weren’t any huge surprises here–how could there be in such a short running time?  But it was very nice to see something new!  It feels like it’s been a long time since we had any new footage, so this was greatly appreciated!

More News and Updates Below!

Nico Nico Live Broadcast #6 – Monday, December 16 at 9:00PM (Japan Time)
Don’t forget to tune into the live broadcast tomorrow night!

Various Time Zones
————————–—————–
Eastern Time Zone 7am
Central Time Zone 6am
Mountain Time Zone 5am
Pacific Time Zone 4am
Australia (Brisbane) 10pm
Europe (London) 12pm

Well, we’re finally down to the final 2-week stretch before the Japanese release of Drag-on Dragoon 3 aka Drakengard 3!  There hasn’t been much in terms of new info out there recently, but there are a few bits that are worth mentioning.

Today’s issue of Famitsu ought to have something in it about DOD3.  I tried to pick it up late last night–just before midnight from my local convenience store–but they said it wouldn’t be for sale until tomorrow.  It was like 30 minutes early! -_-;  Anyway, so I will pick that up on the way to work today and see if there’s anything DOD3 related in it.

As far as Famitsu Online goes, they have another article written about a few impressions after completing the game–Yes, apparently they were able to play the game ahead of all of us!  Lucky journalists!  xD

I will write up a translation for the short article later today, but here are the main points:

Written by Giant Kuroda, Edited by S
http://ex.famitsu.com/dod3/2013/12/05/62/

*  Fast paced battles
*  Changing weapons are easy and don’t upset the flow of battle
*  Missions last around 20-30 minutes
*  Difficulty level is well balanced – Even if you die or find it difficult to complete a stage, it’s easy to level up in extra missions or save strong Utautai attacks for difficult enemies.
*  Fans of the original series or Nier will be quite pleased with this game.

*  Mikhail provides a nice contrast with Zero’s tough personality.
*  Mikhail (probably female) appears to be a great, nobel beast of a dragon… but she’s quite innocent and young-spirited.  She always wants to help Zero when she’s in trouble.
*  Sometimes she is more engrossing than the Utautai sisters.
*  You can freely switch between ground and air battles with Mikhail;  air battles feel more like a shooting game.
*  The freedom of the battleground with the high-speed nature of battles keeps the game interesting and fun!

I will edit this post to add any additional information later. 🙂

Well, the first day of December has been officially over for roughly 2 hours now…and we’re that much closer to the inevitable release of DOD3 in 18 days!  Now that we’re heading into the final stretch, recent news has not been all that astounding, although we have had a couple awesome tid-bits!

More Soundtrack News!
Emi Evans has finally been given the official go-ahead to announce that she is indeed back performing vocals for the DOD3 soundtrack.  You may recall her from the exquisite work she did for the Nier soundtrack.  A sample of her newest work for DOD3 can be streamed directly from Square Enix’s page with other info about the soundtrack.  As I’ve mentioned before, you can see that there is still room to hear 3 extra tracks on the page….but they are currently unavailable.  Maybe they will upload a new track weekly until the release?  Hmmm!  Definitely bookmark this page:
http://www.square-enix.co.jp/music/sem/page/dod3/

Next up:
The two manga series.

Volume 1 of both Utahime Five and Red Obtained by Death will be released on December 20th.  The biweekly publication of the latter in Young GanGan has been pushed back until the December 25th issue due to possible spoilers for the game.

Also on the subject of the manga, I find the latest coloration for “One” quite interesting. At the beginning of the Red Obtained by Death manga, we’re introduced to a character who calls himself “One”.  He apparently wears a lot of white, has a somewhat similar hood/cloak as the Utautai Sister One…but he has very pale eyes and hair color; you could argue that both LACK color at all, although I would call his eyes gray and hair white–BUT, maybe my perception is wrong!  The white fluffy stuff that I thought was hair could have simply been the feathery trimming around the hood that he used to hide his hair?  That’s all very interesting, but then why would his eyes change color?  Hmmm… 

* Story Speculation *
I’m going to throw out a speculation idea and see where it goes.  Quite some time ago, someone suggested that we might learn more about the two-faced Goddess design that appeared in the original DOD1.  I thought on this and a couple other ideas, but I keep coming back to this one idea–In the video in which Zero says that those with such great powers as the Utautai Sisters, there need not be six of them when just one will do.  What if she succeeds in killing her younger siblings but is unable to completely defeat One and in the end, somehow, they merge.  I really don’t think Zero has it in her head that SHE will be the one to survive in the end.  Maybe she was very literal (not so much in Japanese) when she said, “Only one will suffice.”  Hmm.  What, if anything, that would have to do with the characters in the Red Obtained by Death manga, I have no idea…

Moving on…

Display Kit
I was recently able to obtain a complete store display kit and am in the process of scanning the images.

Hmmm, maybe that’s about it for news tonight/this morning.  😉