America has finally received a game from the long-running Sakura Wars series. It may have taken a decade or so longer than the fans had anticipated, but I’ve got a copy of the PS2 Premium Edition in my grubby little paws right now, and can confirm that, yes, this this release has actually happened, after years of false hope, wild rumors, and constant delays.

We’ve written about this game before, but for those of you who haven’t been playing along at home during the thirteen-year wait to see one of these games in English, here’s the short version: Sakura Wars is a strategy RPG series that started out on the Saturn and was one of the few landmark titles that Sega was able to develop for their ailing competitor to the original Sony PlayStation, and quickly grew to popularity in Japan because of its (then) unique combination of sexy, steampunk robots and sexy, talkative women, with game mechanics that rewarded the player for their ability to chat up girls with better units to use in the strategy RPG portion of the game. While it did well enough to get live theater performances in Japan, anime hadn’t yet hit any sort of popularity in America and at the time no one was willing to take the chance on what would be an incredibly niche product.

Times have changed, though, and Nippon Ichi’s American branch announced they were bringing over Sakura Wars 5 as Sakura Wars: So Long, My Love on both the PlayStation 2 and the Wii, and unlike all the other false starts over the years, I have physical evidence that the game is out in my native language. After all these years, it’s finally here.. While our younger audience probably fails to appreciate why Sakura Wars’ strategy RPG gameplay paired with visual-novel style focus on relationships was so shocking to gamers on this side of the Pacific back in the nineties, old men like myself (23 years old) remember when both strategy RPGs and dating sims were extremely niche genres, never mind a game containing both. Seeing a game in the series make it to market not only fulfills a personal dream of mine, it also shows how cosmopolitan the video game marketplace has become. So what are you waiting for? Grab either the PlayStation 2 or Wii versions now!

Expect us to review this at some point in the future, although given the site’s nature, we’ll probably have more to say about the pretty robots than the pretty girls.

Courtesy of our good friends at HobbyLink Japan, we’ve been sent the Variable Action Zephyr from Hao Taikei Ryu Knight, a very successful anime series from the mid-90′s. The Zephyr was also recently featured in the quite excellent Super Robot Wars Neo. Interestingly, due to its already rather distorted proportions, the Zephyr wasn’t rendered in SD in Neo compared to many of the other featured mecha.

Due to the nature that this is a toy, all pictures shown are of the item out of the box. Click on to read more…

Courtesy of our good friends at HobbyLink Japan, we’ve been sent the latest in Bandai’s Armor Plus toy range; Tekkaman Blade. This titular mecha was also repackaged abroad as Teknoman and, due to the series’ high production standards, enjoyed a large amount of popularity across the world. Earlier this week, Capcom finally released Tatsunoko vs Capcom Ultimate All Stars (which you can buy here) and it features Blade as a playable character. So Bandai’s release of this toy is timely indeed.

Due to the nature that this is a toy, all pictures shown are of the item out of the box. However, we’ve also included comparison shots of the recently released Soul of Chogokin Spec Tekkaman and Pegas set (sold separately). In any case, it’s worth clarifying here that this toy is one of the few that falls under the category of “impossibly awesome”. Click on to read more…

The Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas used to be where video game movers and shakers in North America made all their grand announcements, until a dedicated game show, the Electronic Entertainment Expo, came along. But now that E3′s stock has significantly decreased for a variety of reasons, a few publishers have come back, though mostly American based ones. Like Microsoft, with the only real news being their avatar arcade initiative, hence why this year’s CES was a bit of a snoozer. So it was easy to miss Capcom’s presence, who passed along a few new images from Lost Planet 2. Click on to read more…

Much like the other Valken figure we recently mentioned, this one features the same booster pack but in the traditional green colours (instead of desert camouflage). This was released at last year’s Winter Comiket as a special figure. Thankfully, Tokyo Hunter is taking orders and at 1000 yen it’s a very nice bargain to boot.

Sakura Wars: So Long, My Love, the steampunk mecha SRPG from Nippon Ichi America, has a pre-order for the game available at their store, Rosenqueen. Most notable is the fact that Sakura Wars preorders from Rosenqueen include a hardcover art book, which is a different item from the PS2 Premium Package’s artbook, so if you pre-order the PS2′s Premium edition from Rosenqueen you walk away with no less than two different artbooks, as well as a poster and an extra disc containing the Japanese voices (the standard edition is English dub only). Considering that the price point for all this is currently only $50, this feels like one of the old Working Designs packages, just without that old Working Designs premium price. Definitely a good last hurrah for the ageing PS2 platform.

The Wii version is also still a go, but other than the hardcover artbook you get from pre-ordering at their store, you don’t get any of the extras the PS2 version gets. To make up for this, it’s available for $40, pretty nice for a next-gen release and a lot better than the other shovelware that gets released for the system at the same price. There’s also a fan art contest (more info here) for you artistic types.

You may remember a while back that we posted about a collection of classic mecha gaming gashapon released by Takara Tomy. Truth be told, most of the figures in the set were pretty woeful but a few weren’t. Notably, that of the assaults suits from both Leynos and Valken. It seems that the Japanese online shop, AmiAmi, is releasing a custom desert camouflage Valken figure from the same line. In addition to sporting a new colour scheme the toy also has the booster pack attached to its rear. This was seen in the second mission of Assaults Suits Valken (or Cybernator as it was released in the West). The figure will be released in March 2010 for 1000 yen, though you can pre-order it now from AmiAmi. Many thanks to Matthew Hawkins (aka Fort90) for pointing this out.

We mentioned not that long ago about a new line of commemorative gaming releases for Gundam’s 30th Anniversary. Well, they’re now out with places like Play Asia stocking a fair few. Our personal recommendations would be Gundam MS Sensen 0079 an FPS on the Wii, pictured above, and Gundam Battle Universe a third person shooter on the PSP. Neither of these games will probably see a Western release so you’d best acquire them now whilst they’re available at their new reduced price point. We will be reviewing both games in the new future though, so also keep an eye out for that.

Nippon Ichi America sent out a release giving the release date for Sakura Wars in the US as March 23rd, 2010. There seems to have been a bit of confusion early on, as some sites were reporting February, but the March date is the more recent one and straight from the horse’s mouth. I’m actually glad for the delay, as I think it’s wise to give Sakura Wars a bit of space from the other January and February releases, which given the amount and quality of the games coming out after Christmas, I’d be worried an already niche title like Sakura Wars could get crowded out.

Unfortunately, it seems that the previously announced Special Edition will be PS2 only, and that the Wii version will only have a standard edition available. The Special Edition comes with a bonus artbook, poster, and special outer cover, along with both the English and Japanese voices, while the regular edition will only feature the English dub. To try to compensate for the lack of a special edition for Wii owners, however, Nippon Ichi America is saying they’ll offer the Wii version at an “attractive price point.”

To commemorate Gundam’s 30th Anniversary, Bandai Namco are re-releasing a selection of best selling Gundam games at a reduced price in Japan. Some of these games are still Japanese exclusives, which is a shame as the recent Wii game developed by Team White Dingo was superb and it never made the jump abroad. Likewise, Artdink’s excellent PSP games are still without a Western release. These anniversary versions will hit Japanese stores on the 17th December.