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City planning in Dragon Quest IV
The DS remake of Dragon Quest IV introduces some content new to the game: the Immigrant Town, seen in some form in both Dragon Quests III and VII. In this mode, people you meet during the game can be recruited from other towns to come live in yours. Their professions shape the services available in your town.Of course, the DS version takes this idea a little further, adding the ability to use the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection to send people to other players' towns bearing messages. You can customize your emissary's appearance and message, and even assign him or her a skill. If you're less practical-minded, we suppose you could send a legion of creepy children over to your friend and enjoy a little laugh as his party wanders, unsuspecting, into the Village of the Damned.
FFXI: The Allied Campaign is about to begin... Wings of the Goddess launches tomorrow!
Give it up for the holiday weeks that involve stuffing our gullets with chocobos and consuming new MMOG expansions for dessert. The next FFXI expansion, Wings of the Goddess, is hitting desktops tomorrow. I recommend current players clear some room -- you know, for the bird.... We didn't completely miss out on the FFXI Fan Festival either, one of our very own Jasob Dobson was able to meet up, and toss a few questions at some FFXI devs.If you haven't been in the Vana'diel loop over the past few years, some deleted characters were reverted to the back-burner. Meaning former FFXI players with inactive character(s) that were marked for deletion may be retrievable for play now. I don't know who is keeping the naughty or nice list, but the hits seem to be random. One hit occurred to fellow Massively writer, Dave Moss, his high-level Paladin wasn't spared, but his other lower-level character made the cuts. As for another friend who played FFXI, all his characters that were, according to Play Online, "permanently deleted," magically reappeared when he checked in several weeks ago. This is definitely worth looking into if you are thinking about playing FFXI again. One big feature upcoming in the new expansion, aside from the two brand-spanking new jobs: dancers, scholars; or the plethora of fabulous FFXI expansion information that 1up covered, which made Massively writers look like a bunch of MMOG nubs, (I challenged that writer @1up to a duel in EVE -- my Mining Corp versus The Scope, still waiting for a reply) is get ready, it's coming, cue the trumpets... The Allied Campaign! This one will be more epic than its predecessors, the last Besieged system was epic too, but this one is the epitome of epic... until... the next expansion! The new battle-system can be divvied up into four categories: Campaign Battles; Campaign Ops; Headhunting; Tactical Assessment. I summed up the deets after the jump, or you can check out the official word on the FFXI website.[Sincere Thanks, Xan!]
Final Fantasy XI Fan Fest live: devs speak out on Wings of the Goddess
It's odd to think that any one game could inspire players from all walks of life to set aside two days and flock to one location in celebration, but MMORPGs are unique in that they are as much instruments for social networking as they are video games. Because of this, perhaps it isn't all that surprising to see such fantastic devotion as we've seen here at Final Fantasy Fan Festival (say that five times fast), Square Enix's annual party celebrating all things Final Fantasy XI. The event, limited to just 1500 attendees, also doubles as a launch party of sorts for the MMO's latest expansion, Wings of the Goddess, which ships on November 20. Goddess adds a number of interesting changes to the existing formula, including two new jobs – Dancer and Scholar – as well as takes the setting back in time to let players take part in, and possibly change the events that helped shape the history of Vana'diel. To find out more about this game, as well as the other changes Square Enix has in store for the MMO, we went straight to the horse's mouth, and joined a handful of other journalists in a private interview session with the game's development team, including Hiromichi Tanaka, Akihiko Matsui, Mitsutoshi Gondai, Kouichi Ogawa, Kenichi Iwao, and Sage Sundi.%Gallery-10466%
Chocobo plushes wark with the best of them
Perhaps the only thing cuter than a chocobo plush is a chocobo plus with a mage outfit. Just look at him in his little hat! We want this so badly. If only we could justify spending $25 ($30 with shipping) on a plush. But hey, some of you might be more spendthrifty than us, so buy away!Also, if you like these sorts of things, check out the Santa Claus and white mage chocobos after the break.
Dragon Quest IV poised to cause riots, hair-pulling
Uh oh -- a Japanese retailer posted this sign, warning Dragon Quest devotees that supplies of Dragon Quest IV for the DS may be limited. The game, which goes on sale November 22, is likely to be somewhat popular in Japan, and retailer Tsutaya is encouraging people to pre-order as soon as possible, because there's not likely to be enough copies to go around. This could become serious business; after all, no one wants to see cosplayers fighting it out in the streets. In the meantime, maybe we should start a betting pool on sales predictions ....
DS Fanboy Review: Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker
Whether you want to call it "fashionably late" or "missed the party," Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker has finally hit North America. During Q4 and its incredible torrent of releases, DQMJ still manages to stick out as one of the highest-profile titles releasing on the system this year. Is it the real deal, or just another imitator? Read on and find out! %Gallery-9915%
A new bard for Final Fantasy IV's Love Theme
After holding an open call, Square Enix found the singer for the new version of the Final Fantasy IV Love Theme. 25-year-old Megumi Ida from Hokkaido was the final choice to perform the vocals on the classic track. Of course, a CD single will be released featuring her performance will be sold in Japan, starting on December 5th, for 1500 yen. Before you decide to put down an order at CD Japan, you can get a tiny preview: a brief snippet of the new version can be heard in this video interview. Pretty haunting! It's definitely emotional, but not to the point of being spoony.
New Final Fantasy IV videos continue to impress
True to the form of Square Enix, we still haven't seen much gameplay for Final Fantasy IV. But, that doesn't mean we can't enjoy more videos showing off the prettiness. The company just added three of them to the game's official site, each one detailing a different character.We put the one featuring Kain up top, but check after the break to see the videos with Cecil and Rosa.*Note: The videos were enlarged from the ones on the official site, which is why they are low resolution.
RPG magazine scan time: DQIV, Card Hero, Soma Bringer
It's time again to reap the bounty from, uh, some dude with a scanner and access to Japanese magazines! Three games are shown off in today's crop (to continue the farming metaphor for some reason), all RPGs of various kinds.Most interesting (to us) is the first real blowout of images from Intelligent Systems' Kousoku Card Battle Card Hero, which we haven't heard from in about a month. Also in the "somewhat mysterious RPG project from Nintendo-owned developers" department is Soma Bringer, Monolith Soft's new RPG, which, according to NeoGAFfer charlequin, "has possibly the most generic character designs ever seen in a JRPG." It's probably going to be a pretty good game and all, but it does rather look like they put some money into a JRPG Character vending machine. "One EVIL LONGHAIRED GUY, and ... hmm, maybe GIRL IN ELABORATE DRESS."We initially thought it was a strategy RPG, but the magazine description pegs it as an action RPG.Finally, Dragon Quest IV gets a seven-page preview, which is thick with screens of, well, basically running around on the overworld and then also battling, which is what happens in Dragon Quest IV quite a bit.
Square Enix continues mapping the world
Apparently Square Enix did decent business on the first series of World Walking travel guide things, or at least made back their teensy budget. Maybe the team knows a guy who travels a lot and has a poor sense of direction. Whatever the reason, they're expanding the line, with another set of DS cards with maps and helpful cultural information.The World Walking non-games provide travelers with maps with landmarks and touristy points of interest marked. They also include pictures of attractions, information about local culture and food, and even niceties like dual time zone clocks. Oh, and also minigames, but you surely knew that.Read - World Walking: ShanghaiRead - World Walking: EnglandRead - World Walking: Seoul Read - World Walking: Hong Kong
Scouting out Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker
Square Enix's Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker is out this week for gamers in North America, and to celebrate, we have a few things for you. Oh, wait, did we say a few? Basically, we have half the game in our gallery below. On top of that, the latest ad is out, and you can watch it here as well. Don't say we didn't do anything for you, because oh, we did. [Via press release] %Gallery-9915%
Final Fantasy IV comes with nice soundtrack treat
Having a jukebox feature is not unique to video games, but it's not often (or never) that we have this pleasure with a Final Fantasy title. Fortunately, though, the Final Fantasy IV remake for the DS will have a jukebox component, hosted by none other then everyone's favorite spoony bard.Once you make Edward play your tune of choice, you can close up your DS, listen, and relax. If all of our DS games let us do this, we probably wouldn't have any need for our iPods anymore (okay, that's a lie).It's important to note, however, that the soundtrack for the DS version is slightly different from that of the original game because of sound issues on the handheld. Regardless, we find this to be a nice little feature for the game.[via Siliconera]
DQIV: better than actual questing, says commercial
The adorable little layabout in this Dragon Quest IV commercial sells the central message quite well: playing the garish, hokey adventures of some medieval types on the DS is way better than stepping into a real cartoon adventure.This silly commercial nails the Dragon Quest aesthetic and mood: always goofily happy and bright, with that endless, bouncy march music. We also definitely get a Famicom-era vibe from it: if not for the, you know, Nintendo DS, the ridiculous live-action interpretation of game graphics could easily have tricked us into thinking we were watching a commercial from the late '80s. This is one of the rare cases in which we don't mind the relative lack of in-game graphics in a commercial!
DS wine guide helps you get started drinking wine immediately
... by including wine! Square Enix's Wine no Hajimekata DS (Beginner's Wine DS) will ship in two packages: the standalone game, and what will no doubt prove to be a very popular limited-edition set containing a bottle of Dourthe No. 1 Bourdeaux. The bottle and game come packaged together in a very handsome box, which will no doubt lead to the open-and-drink/keep-LE-package-pristine dilemma.This is exactly the kind of training game we like to see: it is a handy reference to a subject that not a lot of people know about; gamers, in particular, may not be well-versed in this particular area of the culture. Being non-drinkers ourselves, we can't tell one glass of wine from another, finding them all kind of disgusting. A little education would probably help in that department, a little.Of course, we imagine the people raging about Manhunt 2, who assume that all games (and "games," we assume) are for children, would begin breaking glass with their screeches if they saw a DS game that included alcohol.
Torneko's Great Introduction
Chapter 3 of Dragon Quest IV introduces one of the series' most famous characters, the jovial merchant Torneko. How famous is Torneko? Pretty famous. How famous is Torneko, with illustrative examples of his fame? He got two spinoff games of his very own. In fact, the first Torneko game, Torneko no Daibouken: Fushigi no Dungeon, was the first game in Chunsoft's Fushigi no Dungeon Roguelike series.As in those games, Torneko embarks on a quest to improve his shop by finding rare items. Along the way, he traverses dungeons and fights monsters-- you know, basic Dragon Quest stuff. But, unlike most Dragon Quest characters, Torneko is brave enough to face down the slimes and whatevers all alone-- probably because he doesn't care to share his earnings.
Scholar job to be introduced in FFXI: Wings of the Goddess
Insert jokes about study groups; pen is mightier than the sword; and dance/scholar is a stripper at university. What exactly am I referencing to? The two jobs (classes) to be released alongside Final Fantasy XI's upcoming Wings of the Goddess expansion scheduled to launch on November the 20th. Play Online recently announced the Scholar with a nifty back-story (worth reading for any Final Fantasy XI player); the second job revealed thus far, the first being the Dancer. I guess there is a third class rumored, always some rumor going around and I've seen Geomancer bandied about. For those hardcore Final Fantasy players, you may remember the Scholar originally appeared in Final Fantasy III, at their initial inception their primary objective was to scan enemies and I forget what else, hey it's been awhile since I played it. I believe it wasn't until another Final Fantasy game where they could use White and Black magic. In Final Fantasy XI, Scholars will be able to cast some curative, White Magic, and some offensive, Black Magic. Scholars use Grimoires when engaging in battle because they got book smarts. Under the effect of White Grimoire, cast time and mp usage is reduced, and abilities for the White Grimoire are activated. Under the effect of Black Grimoire, cast time is increased, and MP usage is slightly increased. Changing between the two schools is instantaneous; a similar comparison to how the switch between the two schools might be better visualized for non-Final Fantasy XI players if they think of each one as a different stance. Does scholar equal mandatory leveling as a mage sub job? So what level will your scholar be 37 or 75?[Thanks, Xan!]
Making things massive: worlds we crave
As the holiday season approaches and our favorite videogame genre bulges with new titles, it seems like many of them are intellectual properties (IP) that have been made massive: that is, an IP that somebody, somewhere thought would be cool (or profitable) to turn into an online experience. Past MMOGs based on well-known IPs have had mixed success. Star Wars Galaxies, for instance, converted arguably the world's best known IP into an MMOG but fizzled. The Matrix Online tried to take advantage of a pop-culture phenomenon but that didn't work out either. City of Heroes/Villains cashed in on our love of comic books – not an IP exactly, but close. Lord of the Rings Online has had some success, as well, but not overwhelmingly so. In the near future, Games Workshop's Warhammer IP will be making its MMO debut as Warhammer Online (developed by EA-Mythic), along with Age of Conan (Funcom's ambitious interpretation of Robert E. Howard's barbarous world). Even MMOGs based on other videogames could fit into this 'make-massive' trend: Blizzard Entertainment turned its own real-time strategy Warcraft franchise into an online world, as did Square-Enix with Final Fantasy.That got me thinking: if I had the power to make an MMOG, what would it be? A series of books, or a movie? Personally, I think that Perpetual Entertainment's Star Trek Online has great potential, but that could be due to the fact that I always thought I would look really good in a red and black uniform commanding a starship. Maybe Harry Potter? Though who knows how that one would work. As Matt points out, fans don't always make the best game developers, and it's certainly true that converting a big, complex IP into an MMOG can have its pitfalls. But ideally, in your most secret heart of hearts, which world would you love to see be made massive? Where would your dream MMOG be set?
Chocobo's Dungeon screens are disgustingly cute
We were trying to resist showing you screens of Chocobo's Dungeon: Toki-Wasure no Meikyuu. Then, the cuteness of it all overpowered us, turning us into sniveling piles of mush with a one-word vocabulary of "awwwwwwww!"Then again, for us cynical folks at Nintendo Wii Fanboy, cuteness is like kryptonite. You know, since we can't resist it. Bad metaphor or not, the newest entry in the Chocobo series is being released in Japan this December. We don't know what's cuter: this game, or chocobo baby. You decide. %Gallery-9664%
DS Fanboy Review: Front Mission
Good things often come in small packages (see also: the DS), and sometimes, they even come in small doses. That's the best way to describe Front Mission, the tactical strategy title that originally debuted on the Super Nintendo, and has now come to the DS. The re-packaged port looks good in its transition to the DS, even without having too much done to it -- not that the series, which hasn't ever achieved major popularity despite being fully awesome -- really needed much more than a spit-shine.But just what is Front Mission? It's an epic tale of giant stompy robots, known here as "wanzers." The story begins in 2090, and two major powers, the O.C.U. and U.C.S., are about to undertake a war of epic proportions. In this version, you can choose either side in battle, though the game recommends that newcomers not only go through the tutorial, but begin with O.C.U. as well.%Gallery-4781%
New at Japanese DS stations: Yosumin, Winning Eleven
Japanese DS owners (i.e. everybody) will have some new demos to try at DS download stations this month, in the form of Square Enix's puzzle game Yosumin and Konami's adorably named World Soccer Winning Eleven DS Goal x Goal! We're hoping that the availability of both of these games will lead to more information, especially about Yosumin. We've already learned from the screens that Winning Eleven features a slot machine that dispenses attribute points.Yosumin is the rectangle-clearing puzzle game first seen here as a demo, which, being a puzzle game, is somewhat of a departure for SE. We're watching this one with interest, because if it's successful, Square Enix's DS offerings may begin to diversify further. Also it's cute.
