Bored of Street Fighter IV and too cheap to buy BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger? You may want to try Vanguard Princess, a freeware, 2D fighter with an all-girl cast that was quietly released last week. The credits point to someone named Tomoaki Sugeno who, according to his MobyGames profile, has worked on some King of Fighters titles as well as Resident Evil 3.

The 2D sprites are as crisp as any I've ever seen and Vanguard Princess seems to have already established itself as a surprisingly deep, albeit chaotic, fighter. I haven't played it yet (mostly because it kind of seems like a pain in the ass to install properly), but there are already tons of gameplay videos online, even though it's been out for less than a week. As far as I've been able to gather, each character controls differently and there are tons of loli assist characters to help you out.

If you read moonspeak, you can check out Sugeno's official blog, and you can download the game here (click the blue button). To get it running, follow these instructions. And, to get you started off on the right foot, check out a move list, here.

Hit the jump to see a gameplay video, and check the gallery for some screenshots.

[Via Alafista; thanks, Niero!]

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If you're a fan of tower defense games, you hopefully have already downloaded the excellent Crystal Defenders for your iPhone. Square must have noticed the heaps of praise the game recieved, because today they announced a new entry in the Crystal Defenders series, called Vanguard Storm. It goes on sale as of today in the App Store and will cost $4.99.

Played by turning the phone sideways rather than going with the vertical look of Crystal Defenders, the game features the same great gameplay as its predecessor and brings back the jobs from Grimoire of the Rift. There's a lite version you can also download through the App Store if you want to try it out first.

Even if the general gameplay is more of the same, I'm really digging the new look, so I think I may try this one out. Gonna pick it up?

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Sony Online Entertainment’s MMORPG Vanguard: Saga of Heroes was generally perceived as a huge letdown when it launched back in early 2007. Even so, that hasn’t kept SOE from trying to work the kinks out for the faithful few that continue to stick with it, as the recent Game Update 6 demonstrates. According to the patch notes, Update 6 includes fixes for over 1000 bugs. Yikes! It’s pretty sad that the game had so many problems this far after launch, but at least SOE is working on them.

In an attempt to try and make things more inviting for new players, a new starting location called the Isle of Dawn has also been included in the update. The Isle of Dawn is for characters level 1-10 and has a few of the more advanced features turned off. It’s rumored that the island will serve as the featured location in an upcoming Vanguard free trial.

Along with the bug fixes and new landmass, changes were also made to character models in an attempt to make them more “capable of looking much more heroic and contain a lot more personality.” The classes themselves have also seen some rebalancing; the damage output of each class was examined and then altered to more closely fit the range they should be in.

What do you think about SOE’s continued support of Vanguard? Is the game a ship that’s long since sunk, or is there a chance they could turn it around?

[Via Massively]

Speaking of MMO's, Colette, have I got a story for you! If I may speak bluntly, and I shall, it seems as no surprise that SOE's Vanguard: Saga of Heroes is not doing well. Or in their words: "...right now Vanguard is doing decently but not as well as we hoped." Don't you just love it when they pour sugar on cankers?

Let's reminisce back to when I sat down with the (SUPER NICE) Sigil folks back at CES. Before we even got started, I put my tactful foot in my mouth: "That looks like the old Everquest 2!" As expected, I got uber grilled for saying that and glaring looks from across the sofa. They were quick to point out the moving shrubbery, etc etc etc. Fine, so it was prettier. I shrugged apologetically and performed the upwards eyebrow shitface grin of honesty, letting them defend it without going for the jugular. Nobody wants to walk out of a nice PR meeting with a battle axe through their heads. I was civil to Sigil.

Vanguard was also by far more ambitious than EQ2 with its real estate and fellowship concepts. But it was still very EQ2ish; clearly. Did it appear to me like a game that filled a gaping void in the current MMO space? I just couldn't see it. Life is short, so I figured I'd shut my trap and watched how the Warcraftites would judge it when it hit in the market. Obviously, most didn't care for it. A breaking official statement from SOE now echoes my gut reaction...

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Vanguard database site VGNecro.com (now authored by that Lifebane guy, you EQ people might have heard of him) spotted this interesting piece in The New York Times on the MMO's corporate hot potato, their userbase aspirations for the year, and on what SOE realistically expects this game to be in the shadow of WoW. Head honcho Brad McQuaid noted that:

"I don’t expect to get six or seven million players, but if we have 500,000 by the end of the year and keep growing after that, I’ll be happy."

Let's do the math, shall we?  That's 500,000 people buying the game at $50 and paying $15 for an average of let's say 3 months. Heck Brad, I'd say that if I made a game that grossed $22.5 million, I'd be happy too. If only we all had such humble expectations.

Do we have any Vanguard: Saga of Heroes players that aren't spending every waking hour trying to level grind past 30? Please do kiss and tell on how that's working out for you.

I know we briefly mentioned Vanguard: Saga of Heroes in our rundown of games coming out this week, but when I saw the alert in my inbox today I was suddenly reminded that this game actually is coming out and that I hardly knew about it.

Now, I don't want to brag or anything, but I'm pretty connected with the gaming world -- going to events and previews and such -- and the amount of press and coverage SOE has been giving Vanguard has been piss poor at best. Sure we saw it at CES, but beyond that, there hasn't really been much action as far as a Vanguard push from Sony -- you see, when most high-profile games are at or near launch, there's usually a big to do about it from the publisher.

So, what gives? Is this thing such a complete bomb that Sony just wants to push it out and forget it ever happened? Has anyone here tried it yet? If so, what are your impressions? Wasn't this game supposed to be the ultimate WoW killer?

Sony Online Entertainment invited the Destructoid crew to their exclusive MGM suite, so with the helmet on our head, we showed up in style. A few minutes later I had a beer in one hand and a pen in the other as I sat down with Paul Luna from Sigil Games to talk about the upcoming MMORPG Vanguard: Saga of Heroes. We covered classes, servers, downloads, jobs, gameplay, mounts and more. I've got all the details for you after the jump, so hop on a griffin and keep up!

Also, check back later for some brand new screenshots from the game that they gave us.

Update 2: Ok, I lied. Here's a nice quality video of the flying mounts in action in the game. And below is a gallery of new pictures Sigil Games gave to us.

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In an unprecedented move, Electronic Arts has announced that they will be releasing another game in the ever-exciting World War II first-person-shooter series.

Building on the key tenets of the franchise including historical accuracy and authenticity, Medal of Honor Vanguard will ship to stores in March 2007 under the EA(TM) brand for the PlayStation®2 computer entertainment system, as well as the Nintendo Wii(TM).

Note the "as well as the Nintendo Wii(TM)" thrown in there at the end. This doesn't mean the Wii version will be a port of the PlayStation 2 game with sloppy, tacked on Wii controls? That's unheard of!

Featuring spectacular graphics adding to epic combat intensity, Medal of Honor Vanguard makes you the driving force in the struggle to liberate Europe. As the first game in the Medal of Honor series to be released on the Nintendo Wii platform, players can expect Medal of Honor Vanguard to take full advantage of Wii's one-of-a-kind controllers.

"Full advantage," eh? Well that's vague. Looks like we'll have to wait until March 2007 to see if EA is using all of the money (and time) they're saving developing for the Wii, and actually investing in creating innovative, worthwhile software. My money's on "No."