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Chocobo's Dungeon kweh-ming to North America in July
Be sure to check your teeth for cavities after this post, as Square Enix will bring an extra dose of saccharine sweetness to the Wii this summer by way of Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo's Dungeon. The game, designed for both RPG enthusiasts and fans who spend their nights imagining dressing up the company's iconic yellow birds, will ship on July 8, and its asking price of just $39.99 won't leave your wallet looking for a phoenix down.According to Squeenix, this overdose of cute will find Final Fantasy stalwarts Cid and Chocobo hunting for treasure while trying to solve the mystery of a strange town full of people who have lost their memories. The game will even take the cute online via Wi-Fi card battles featuring a darling "3D pop-up book style." Kweh![Via Nintendo Wii Fanboy]
Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo Sale
Chocobo Tales, Square Enix's Final Fantasy spinoff, made for a great release to pass the Spring months with, but it can be hard for a minigame-filled RPG to elbow its way to the front of a crowd filled with must-have DS titles. If you haven't had a chance to pick up Chocobo Tales yet, maybe Amazon's latest sale will be what finally motivates you. The online shop has slashed $10 off of the game's usual cost, bringing it down to a budget price of $19.99. This bargain ends today though, so quit being lazy about buying it!See also: DS Fanboy Review: Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo Tales[Via CAG]
Comparing Square Enix's Japanese and US boxart
In a recent interview with 1UP, Square Enix's marketing communications manager gave us some insight on the process behind adapting Chocobo Tales' packaging for the US. We happen to prefer the Japanese version's modest artwork over North America's chaotic cover, but we understand that the company had a younger audience to appeal to and a different message it needed to convey. We've collected DS covers from Square Enix's Japanese and US releases after the post break for you to compare and decide which one you like best. To its credit, the company hasn't completely mangled its DS boxarts so far (The same can't be said about Nintendo's bastardization of Hotel Dusk's cover). How do you feel about Children of Mana's simplified design? Does Final Fantasy 3's stripped packaging appeal to your western tastes? And do you agree with 1UP that publishers have been doing a better job with dressing their products?
Metareview: Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo Tales [update 1]
We've had our eye on Chocobo Tales for quite some time now, watching with fevered anticipation that the spin-off game would provide us with some more entertainment on our handheld system already populated by other highly-entertaining games. Now that the game has hit retail and been reviewed, we can finally see if the full NTSC version is for us. Not that imports aren't our thing, mind you, just we usually steer clear of the Square-Enix titles (lots of text, don'tchaknow).So, what did the critics have to say? Let's check it out: IGN (83/100) doesn't want the presentation to fool you, the game is fun for older gamers: "The game might feel a bit "kiddy" in its focus, what with those great, big, cute Chocobo eyes peeking at you from the box art. But even though the idea might skew young, the product is surprisingly enjoyable for the older crowd." GamePro (80/100) finds the game to be a melting pot of good ideas: "Chocobo Tales is about quick and easy fun. The Crayola art style, pop-up book style graphics and fable stories may make it seem like a kiddie title and technically, it is. However, the game is fun enough that and packed with enough nods to diehard fans that Final Fantasy fans of all ages should give it a look." New York Times (75/100) has issues with the card system: "Tales has a ridiculously cumbersome system in which you can't easily swap one card for another or compare two cards; even finding a particular card in your collection requires a tedious search. The designers would find it challenging to come up with a worse system. This flaw is surprising in a game that is otherwise beautifully designed." The other remaining reviews come from Japanese import copies of the game, so as soon as more reviews of the English NTSC version come in, we'll update the post. In the meantime, discuss!Update: Added the New York Times review.
DS releases for the week of April 2nd
What a week! At this rate, we could almost use a DS drought, just to give us time to save up some cash! But we shouldn't complain, since our counterparts in the UK and Australia aren't having much of a week as far as releases go. Isn't that always the way of it? One week, we get a ton of games and they get none, and the next week it's reversed. The only thing we can ever count on is that Japan is going to debut a veritable truckload of new titles. No matter what's going in the rest of the world, the Japanese must have their new DS games.US releases Cake Mania Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo Tales Honeycomb Beat Konami Classics: Arcade Hits
More Chocobo Tales videos than you can shake a gysahl green at
By the time Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo Tales hits shelves next month, we'll hardly even need to play it! We've already seen several of the minigames in action, and GameVideos has added even more to the collection.And we know, we're not fooling anyone. We're going to play this one until our fingers cramp. That little chocobo is just too cute to resist, and we're helpless when it comes to Final Fantasy.
Kweh! Or, fresh new Chocobo screens
Oh, that little scamp of a Chocobo -- what will he get into next? If these screens are any indication, it looks like he's getting into a giant beanstalk. Considering the upcoming Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo Tales is peppered with references from children's stories, that's probably exactly what it is ... but really, how many times do we need to see the beanstalk here? It's all over this latest batch of screens!Check after the jump for selected screens -- only one beanstalk included.
Chocobo Tales breaks out this April
This year's contender for Most Precious Game finally has a release date stateside: Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo Tales is slated to hit shelves April 3. Since we are suckers for everything Final Fantasy-related, it's a sure bet that we've already got the date circles in our calendars ... and if you saw all these trailers, you probably want to borrow our marker.
