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Classic JRPG Dragon Quest 2 out now on iOS, Android
A mobile port of Square Enix's 8-bit era RPG Dragon Quest 2 is now available on iTunes and Google Play, following up on an adaptation of its predecessor released last month. Debuting for the Famicom back in 1987, Dragon Quest 2 introduced many features that quickly became staples for the genre, including multi-character parties, battles against hordes of monsters, and vehicles that aid navigation across an expansive overworld. Today's release is part of Square Enix's ongoing plans to bring a number of Dragon Quest games to mobile platforms, and joins previously released ports of Dragon Quest 4 and Dragon Quest 8. Dragon Quest 3 is next in line to receive the mobile treatment. A Hyrule Warriors-style series spinoff, Dragon Quest Heroes, is due to launch next year for PlayStation platforms in Japan. [Image: Square Enix]
Persona's demon designer wants your opinion
Shigenori Soejima is the man behind the distinctive look behind super stylish games like Persona 4, Persona 5 and Catherine. Yes, he's the man you thank for the nightmare-inducing Immoral Beast, but he's also the one who gave us Chie, Teddie, Kanji, Koromaru as well as the bevvy of fascinating demons that populate the games of the Persona universe. Soejima was on hand at E3 for a rare autograph signing, and fans lined up for hours to meet him and thank him for his work on the art of the Persona games. I asked him, through a translator, how he felt about the outpouring of appreciation, and his answer was both humbling and surprising: "He was very happy to be able to come into contact with such fans but to be honest, he wanted to talk to them more. Because he's Japanese and he can speak to the Japanese fans, he knows what kinds of things that they think about his artwork, versus, he's not sure what foreign audiences think, because he can't speak with them. He wishes he had a little bit more one-on-one time and could ask each of the people what do you like about it, what is it that draws you to my artwork? So because he wants to know that, he says for your readers to actually write to him, he would love to hear from your fans." We confirmed with Atlus that this offer is completely legit, so if you've ever wanted to let Mr. Soejima know what you thought about his work - or to ask what the real deal is with Teddie - now's your chance. We'll collect the comments below and send them off to Atlus for translation so that they can be passed along to Soejima himself. First question: Mr. Soejima, have you ever considered a micropig sidekick for Persona 5? Just something to think about. [Image: Atlus]
What Final Fantasy X did differently over X years ago
I've been replaying Final Fantasy X in its remastered form on PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita, curious to see if it matches my memory of the original. These are some of the things it did differently back in 2001: "Listen to my story." The story of Final Fantasy X is told from the perspective of Tidus, a young sports star who looks like a bleary-eyed Meg Ryan cosplaying as Prince. On the eve of his big game of Blitzball, a sadistic, underwater spin on soccer, the hosting city of Zanarkand is pulverized by a mercurial blob. Tidus gets sucked into its amorphous mouth and wakes up 1,000 years into the future, as you do. None of this is especially weird for Final Fantasy, but making the protagonist and the narrator the same person is a unique choice for Final Fantasy X, which ironically casts expert swimmer Tidus as the fish out of water. His personal telling is tinged with bitterness over being flung so far from home, and it colors our view of how religion rules the new land of Spira. Tidus plays along when he's taught a religious gesture for greeting the devoted, for example, but awkwardly recognizes it as a Blitzball cheer from the old world. As an additional indignity, nobody believes Tidus anyway: The hero doesn't have amnesia for a change, but everyone thinks he does.
The globe stops spinning in RPG Earthlock for PC, next-gen
Snowcastle Games recently achieved its funding goals on Kickstarter for Earthlock: Festival of Magic, the developer's turn-based RPG for PC, Mac, Linux, Wii U, PS4 and Xbox One. As the first of three chapters planned for the JRPG-inspired saga, Snowcastle earned $178,193 on the funding platform and will continue to accept donations for the game on its website to achieve its numerous stretch goals. The game is set on the planet Umbra, which "mysteriously stopped spinning ages ago." Players guide a scavenger known as Amon as he tracks down a warlock's army, stopping regularly at Amon's home Plumpet Island to farm for magical items used during battles. The turn-based battles also feature a pairing system in which attackers are directly matched with healing specialists known as protectors. Previously known only as Festival of Magic, the game turned up on Kickstarter in November before Snowcastle canceled the campaign in December. It was also shown off by Nintendo in a Wii U montage video in August. Snowcastle is planning to launch the game in Q1 2015 on PC, Mac and Linux with console launches planned for the following quarter. [Image: Snowcastle Games]
Square Enix to focus on JRPGs, niche appeal following Bravely Default's success
Square Enix president Yosuke Matsuda mused on a potential shift in the company's focus in a recent interview with Nikkei Trendy (via Siliconera), admitting that the publisher "lost [its] focus" during recent attempts to engineer mass-market games for a worldwide audience. "Regardless of whether they're for smartphone or console, there's a difficult element to developing global titles, so we'll be making them without focusing too much on the 'global' aspect," Matsuda told Nikkei Trendy. "For example, in the past, when we developed console games with a worldwide premise, we lost our focus, and not only did they end up being games that weren't for the Japanese, but they ended up being incomplete titles that weren't even fit for a global audience." Matsuda specifically cited Io Interactive's Hitman: Absolution as a victim of this practice. "The development team for Hitman: Absolution really struggled in this regard," Matsuda admitted. "They implemented a vast amount of 'elements for the mass' instead of for the core fans, as a way to try getting as many new players possible. It was a strategy to gain mass appeal. However, what makes the Hitman series good is its appeal to core gamers, and many fans felt the lack of focus in that regard, which ended up making it struggle in sales." Square Enix reported disappointing sales for Hitman: Absolution and fellow mainstream-appeal effort Tomb Raider last year, resulting in a corporate restructuring and a shift in its publishing strategy. The worldwide commercial success of Square Enix's Nintendo 3DS JRPG Bravely Default has since made Matsuda reconsider the company's approach. "Bravely Default [...] ended up selling well all around the world," he notes. "For the new games we'll be developing from this point on, while this may sound a bit extreme, we've been talking about making them as heavy JRPGs. I believe that way, we can better focus on our target, which will also bring better results." [Image: Square Enix]
Mugen Souls Z launching May 20; limited edition detailed
Mugen Souls Z, the Compile Heart-developed Japanese RPG for PlayStation 3, will arrive in North America on May 20 and in Europe on May 23, publisher NIS America confirmed to Gematsu. A limited edition of the game is currently available for pre-order on the NIS America online store. The $70 bundle includes the PS3 game in a special edition collector's box, along with a hardcover art book, large 16"x26" poster, and Zodiac keychain. Much like the release of the original Mugen Souls, publisher NIS America opted to remove a select amount of content for the Western release of Mugen Souls Z. At the time the cut material was confirmed, NIS America noted it was due to "the sensitive nature of some content." According to a forum post regarding the Western release's edits, the snipped stuff includes a bathing mini-game. Whether or not you can battle evil as Omega Tom Hanks in this version is still unclear, but ... actually, we're thinking of a different game. [Image: NIS America]
'Stiq Tips: A Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII Guide
The conclusion of Final Fantasy XIII's three game narrative is finally here, and it ends with Lightning. As the savior of a dying world, Lightning must save as many souls as possible by way of sidequests, while she battles the main evils of the world in the core storyline. It sounds simple enough, but even on Easy the game is extremely punishing -- not to mention that the end of the world comes with a real-world time limit. Here are some tips to help you make it to the end of the world.
Free-to-play JRPG Tales of Phantasia launches for iOS
Namco Bandai has resurrected its 1995 Super Famicom RPG Tales of Phantasia as a free-to-play IOS app supported by in-game microtransactions. The iOS version of Tales of Phantasia retains the classic JRPG's storyline and unique side-scrolling battle system, but ramps up its difficulty to encourage players to purchase optional status boosts and items that revive characters after death. Touch Arcade reports that the game's microtransaction system requires a constant online connection. Tales of Phantasia has seen numerous ports over the last two decades, including enhanced remakes for the PSOne and PSP. The majority of these ports were exclusive to Japan, however. Previously, the only existing English-language version of Tales of Phantasia was a Game Boy Advance port published by Nintendo in North America in 2006. Phantasia is the first of several Tales of... series games debuting stateside in 2014. Tales of Symphonia Chronicles will launch in February, followed by the release of Tales of Xillia 2 later this year. The latest series entry, Tales of Zestiria, was recently announced for the PlayStation 3 in Japan.
Conception 2 hits North America on April 15, spawns new trailer
Conception 2: Children of the Seven Stars will launch April 15 in North America. Atlus recently gave players a glimpse at the seven eligible heroines in the 3DS and Vita game, and offered a teaser trailer for baby-making RPG today. Conception 2 has players assuming the role of a young Disciple with powers gifted to him by a Star God, who must birth monster-fighting kiddos to save the world by befriending the aforementioned heroines. The trailer includes brief looks at how Conception 2's combat system looks in action, using footage from the 3DS version. First-run editions of the game will include a 10-track album by composer Masato Kouda of Devil May Cry and Monster Hunter fame, which features the song heard in the trailer.
Alchemy RPG Atelier Ayesha Plus heads to Vita in March for Japan
Atelier Ayesha Plus is on its way to Vita, due out on March 27 in Japan for 5,800 yen. Plus will include the downloadable content from the PS3 version of Atelier Ayesha: The Alchemist of Dusk, plus a hard mode and balance tweaks, Gematsu reports. A limited edition will come with a mini crystal paperweight, or if you don't use paper anymore, an excessively heavy mini crystal. There's no word on a North American release just yet, but two previous Vita Atelier games have made the journey westward on Vita: Atelier Totori and Atelier Meruru.
Child of Light is Ubisoft's whimsical ode to JRPGs
Child of Light has its roots in Japanese role-playing games, which creative director Patrick Plourde hopes to honor in his whimsical dream come true. Coming to Xbox 360, Wii U, PS3, PC, Xbox One and PS4, Child of Light focuses on a young princess named Aurora who is whisked away to the kingdom of Lemuria, only to find its inhabitants turned into crows. The girl, along with her mystical blue orb companion, called Igniculus , must discover what has taken the land down a strange path.
Trails in the Sky coming to Steam, Carpe Fulgur translating sequel for PSP and PC
Indie localization studio Carpe Fulgur (Recettear, Fortune Summoners) is heading up an English translation of Falcom's JRPG Trails in the Sky SC for a PSP and Steam release in 2014, the team announced today. The project is developed in collaboration with XSEED Games, who previously published a localized version of The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky for the PSP in North America in 2011. "This marks many things for us: our largest and perhaps most 'important' game to date, the proper realization of the other half of our business model, and the end of our long silence," Carpe Fulgur founder Andrew Dice explains. Dice notes that the commercial success of the Ys series on Steam paved the way for Trails in the Sky SC's localization. "Though [Carpe Fulgur] did not participate directly in the localization of [Ys: The Oath In Felghana], I, myself, did have a small hand in making that release happen," he writes. "Getting Felghana, and its siblings, onto Steam to help prove a market even existed for a product like SC was pivotal to the project moving forward. There were so many pitfalls that the project could have faced that announcing it would have been, until very recently, premature." The series will launch on Steam as "two separate, back-to-back installments," publisher XSEED notes. A port of the first entry in the Trails in the Sky series will hit PC platforms this winter.
Far Cry 3 creative director discusses JRPG-inspired Child of Light
As expected, Far Cry 3 Creative Director Patrick Plourde revealed a few details on his JRPG project Child of Light at GDC Europe. Described as a mix between Limbo and Final Fantasy 6, the game will feature both turn-based combat and side-scrolling gameplay. The Ubi Art Framework will be the foundation of Child of Light, the same engine used for Rayman Origins and Rayman Legends. Child of Light will explore a woman's "coming of age" story, using fairy tale-like art inspired by artists such as Arthur Rackham and Edmund Dulac. While he didn't list which platforms the game will arrive on, Plourde noted it will be downloadable and will not be on mobile devices, nor will it be free to play.
Veteran RPG devs launch Project Phoenix Kickstarter with Nobuo Uematsu in tow [Update: Funded!]
Project Phoenix, a JRPG with squad-based real-time strategy trappings and an all-star cast, is now on Kickstarter. Among those working on the game are Lead Composer Nobuo Uematsu, Art Director Kiyoshi Arai and Director/Producer Hiroaki Yura. Uematsu is best known for his work in creating music for the Final Fantasy series, and Arai illustrated worlds for Final Fantasy 3, 12 and 14. Yura is the founder of Project Phoenix's developer, Creative Intelligence Arts, and worked on Diablo 3 and Valkyria Chronicles. The credited list of developers includes as-yet-unannounced lead programmers and art supervisors, the latter of which has been credited with work on "some very famous anime that everyone knows." Creative Intelligence Arts is aiming to launch Project Phoenix in mid-2015, and is starting with PC, Mac and Linux as its primary platforms. It will develop separate iOS and Android versions, and is "working to have the game released on PlayStation 4 and other platforms." The developer is seeking $100,000 on Kickstarter by September 11, of which it has already raised $25,921. (As of this writing. Given how quickly that ticker is going up, however, by the time you read this, it'll likely be higher.) Update: We weren't lying about how quickly this thing was getting funded – Project Phoenix passed its $100,000 goal in less than nine hours and shows no sign of slowing down. The first stretch goal is $300,000, and it doubles the number of monster and character models, and adds extended musical numbers from Uematsu.
Crowdfunded PSone-style JRPG Soul Saga adds Wii U stretch goal
As part of an ongoing Kickstarter campaign for its retro-styled JRPG Soul Saga, indie developer Disastercake has added an $80,000 stretch goal that will fund the creation of a Wii U port. Soul Saga cites inspiration from the PSone-era Final Fantasy and Suikoden games, and promises to deliver a similar character-driven experience for Windows, Mac and Linux platforms. The Wii U version is the only confirmed console port so far, but Disastercake is currently in talks with Sony regarding a potential PS Vita release. As of this writing, Soul Saga has earned more than $48,000 toward its initial funding goal of $60,000. Soul Saga is also up for vote at Steam Greenlight.
Parasite Eve and the RPG road less traveled
In his weekly column, writer Bob Mackey will alternate between two of his passions: the Japanese RPG genre and classic games. As a lifelong follower of Square Enix – through both good times and bad – Parasite Eve stands as the first of its US-released games that left me feeling pangs of disappointment. Parasite Eve deviates wildly from the prescribed JRPG format, and even though its battle system introduced elements the developer would expand upon in the future, Square's take on Resident Evil features one playable character involved in a story that barely squeaks past the 10-hour mark. To some, Parasite Eve's focus on streamlining Square's expected RPG design can't be seen as anything but sacrilege, and you can count me in with those who initially felt burned after blowing through the game over the course of a weekend. But it should be noted that Square created this new brand of "cinematic RPG" (as they would call it) to draw in an audience larger than the hardcore JRPG stalwarts who had supported them up to that point. Final Fantasy VII might have sold based on its impressive CGI-laden advertisements, but it did so at the cost of alienating players unprepared for menu-driven gameplay.
Class of Heroes 2 available on PSN June 4
Class of Heroes 2, MonkeyPaw's PSP game from 2009, is finally coming to North America on June 4. PSN users can snag the fully localized JRPG dungeon crawler – which is playable on both PSP and PS Vita – for $25 from the PSN store. The effort to localize Class of Heroes 2 began in 2012 with a Kickstarter campaign seeking $500,000 in funding. Ultimately, only $96,951 was raised, though MonkeyPaw CEO John Greiner wasn't too down in a follow-up interview with Joystiq. Greiner said that even though the Kickstarter campaign failed, "we were able to educate people about the game and its features. That will help immensely when we release the digital version."
Grandia: How a forgotten JRPG solved the problem of repetitive combat
This is a weekly column from freelancer Rowan Kaiser, which primarily focuses on "Western" role-playing games: their stories, their histories, their mechanics, their insanity, and their inanity. This week, however, Rowan focuses on a forgotten JRPG: Grandia. One of the core issues facing most role-playing games is how they deal with repetitive combat. Since RPGs tend to be so much longer than normal games, with a wider scope, it's much more difficult for them to create unique battles like a shorter action game can. So RPGs tend to have constant, similar, repetitive fights. These are often derided by players and critics under umbrella terms like "random battles," "grinding," or in massively multiplayer games, "trash." Yet RPGs need those regular battles to keep the games interesting. With rare exceptions, the player skills are unlikely to be tested in terms of skill outside of combat, and most RPG stories depend on violence and its consequences. This makes combat an integral component of the pacing of RPGs. Successful RPGs tend to strike a balance between combat, exploration, and storytelling. When one of those three part is left unchecked, the game can become boring – and it's usually excessive repetitive fighting that's the issue. For decades now, RPGs have attempted to make their regular battles more interesting, and less likely to be described as trash or grinding. Japanese RPGs have historically tended to experiment with different combat forms more aggressively than their Western counterparts. Some games, like the Suikoden series, tries to avoid the combat issue by making combat smooth and unobtrusive, as I wrote about in a prior column. But not every RPG can, or should, de-emphasize combat. When combat works, even in common random battles, it can be the best part of an RPG. How can RPGs avoid having combat be too repetitive and meaningless?
Why the PlayStation 4 reveal doesn't mean much for JRPG fans yet
This is a column by Kat Bailey dedicated to the analysis of the once beloved Japanese RPG sub-genre. Tune in every Wednesday for thoughts on white-haired villains, giant robots, Infinity+1 swords, and everything else the wonderful world of JRPGs has to offer. As we look ahead to the next generation of games, a lot of Japanese role-playing game fans figure to be looking somewhere other than the new PlayStation for whatever the future holds for the genre.Seven years ago, that would have been inconceivable, but times have obviously changed. It's fair to assume that Japanese developers will stick with the PlayStation 3 and Nintendo 3DS for the time being, only occasionally venturing over to the next generation.A lot of it has to do with the fact that Japan simply doesn't digest their games in the same way they did back in 2006. Mobile platforms have come to dominate what is a centralized culture that spends a lot of its time on trains, with home consoles increasingly relegated to a nerdy niche. The Nintendo 3DS, for instance, has reached 8 million units sold in Japan, and has already surpassed the lifetime sales of the PS3 on that side of the ocean. It's only natural that developers go where the customers are going, and that isn't likely to be the new PlayStation – at least in Japan.
GBA's Fire Emblem is a great strategy RPG for beginners
This is a column by Kat Bailey dedicated to the analysis of the once beloved Japanese RPG sub-genre. Tune in every Wednesday for thoughts on white-haired villains, giant robots, Infinity+1 swords, and everything else the wonderful world of JRPGs has to offer. In 2001, Nintendo of America had a decision to make that would have a huge impact on what at the time was one of its least known properties in the U.S.: Fire Emblem.Super Smash Bros. Melee was set for release that fall, and among its cast were Marth and Roy, whom most westerners had never heard of before. Nintendo of America weighed cutting them for a time, but eventually relented and decided to leave them in. In the early going, I had no clue who they were; soon enough, I grew to like them, just like everyone else. The stage was set for Fire Emblem to make a surprise leap to the U.S.
