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Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker for Europe early next year
Square Enix's Dragon Quest spinoff (and one of about five hundred DS Dragon Quest games) Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker came out in Japan way back in December. It was well-received there, getting the highest compliment a game can get: lots of people's money. We're still waiting for it over here, but our wait, at least, is almost over. Now, for a little while, we can be waiting buddies with PAL gamers, since the game has been announced for a European release. According to the press release, "all PAL territories" can expect a release of Joker in early 2008. No idea if it'll bring along it's dazzlingly multipurpose preorder gift!
Wii Warm Up: Let's talk Wii Ware
We'll come right out and say it: we love the Virtual Console, but Nintendo has lagged behind a little when it comes to the next-gen online marketplace. Don't mistake us -- we love the chance to replay classic games, because we love classic games, but some of the features found, say, on XBLA, would make nice additions. We've also been waiting for original content ... and when it comes to that, it certainly appears that Nintendo is about to deliver. Fifteen bucks seems pretty reasonable for a full-fledged Square Enix title (we just hope it's more than five minutes long), and then we've got karaoke and Bomberman to look forward to. But what's best is the idea of a Dr. Mario with online multiplayer. Now we're starting to feel like we are about to get a full-fledged online marketplace of our own, and we like it. With all of this, plus Iwata's statement about the sheer volume of titles proposed for Wii Ware, we're pretty deeply enthused. You?
Live a lie with Hori's FFTA2 accessory set
Buying Final Fantasy Tactics A2: Grimoire of the Rift when it hits Japan in two weeks might not be economically feasible for you, what with shipping costs and jacked-up import pricing, but that doesn't mean you can't make everyone believe you've purchased and played the game.Hori's FFTA2 kit, available for preorder at Play-Asia for an affordable $17.90, includes everything we've come to expect with these supplementary kits -- a themed system case, an extendable stylus, a stylus pen casing, and a screenwipe strap -- enough branded stuff to convince any doubters out there that you're the proud owner of Square Enix's newest SRPG, even if you really aren't.As for why you'd want to live this double life, pretending you're in possession of a game you've never actually held, we're not sure what your motivation would be; we're just offering advice in case you ever find yourself caught up in the dilemma we've described. Click past the post break for more photos of the set.
First trailer for Wii Ware Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles
After checking out Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Young King and the Promised Land, we can only guess one thing: a hard drive or some other storage solution for the Wii is coming, and it's coming soon. With 512mb, we can barely handle the title of this Wii Ware game, and that's not even counting the game itself. The latest Crystal Chronicles looks like the result of a romantic evening between King Story and Chocobo's Dungeon, and we're behind that 100% ... especially when we see dancing moogles.
Vagrant Story a "natural" choice for next PSP makeover
In an interview recently, the Ivalice Alliance (the Square Enix development team behind the legendary titles Final Fantasy Tactics (Advance), Final Fantasy XII, and Vagrant Story) had a roundtable chat, so to speak, about the future of their games, of Ivalice, and what's going to happen on the PSP. Feel free to check out the discussion about all things Ivalice, but we're only interested in one segment of the discussion -- and that's Vagrant Story.Vagrant Story is the only game that hasn't gotten some form of remake or sequel and with the release of Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions, it seems like it would be logical for it to return. On this idea, the Ivalice Alliance responds: "Vagrant Story was a title that pushed the PS one to its limits. The technical hurdles in porting it to the PSP would be extremely high. Of course, I think it's the next natural candidate for such an update, and there's no denying its extreme popularity overseas." When asked if the hero, Ashley Riot, could appear in some other Ivalice title, there is a hint of a sequel if you're good at reading between these lines: "Even in Vagrant Story, there's really not that much we learn about Ashley Riot. Without knowing more about him, it would be difficult to include him in another title." We could learn more about him in, say, Vagrant Story 2: The Wanderer. Just an opinion.
Slew of new titles announced for Wii Ware
Though its potential can't be denied, Nintendo's Wii Ware channel, an upcoming download service for new Wii games, didn't impress us much with the seemingly low-budget titles announced for it so far. Nintendo amended that worriment today at its Tokyo conference by revealing a lineup of impressive projects in progress, turning our "Excitement Level" knob to eleven, one measure greater than what we previously thought the mechanism allowed. Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Little King and the Promised Land (1500 Wii Points, March), a "country-building sim," stands out from the bunch, promising an exclusive side story which takes place after the original GameCube game. This marks the fourth entry to the series and the second Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles title announced for the Wii. Square Enix has already made a teaser site for you to load up and immediately close once you've realized that there's almost nothing there yet. Hudson, having kept things on and poppin' on the Virtual Console side for some time now, demonstrated its commitment to the new service by announcing new games like Bomberman, Star Soldier R, and Joysound, the last of which will be a karaoke title. Namco Bandai also chimed in with Mojipittan, a Japanese word puzzle game. As for Nintendo's contributions to the Wii Ware channel, the company announced Dr. Mario (!!!), Pokemon Farm, Puzzloop for Everyone, and Maruboushikaku, all of which appearing to have some form of Mii integration. You can preview screenshots for those titles at the Famitsu links below. Read - FFCC: The Little King and the Promised Land teaser site Read - FFCC: The Little King and the Promised Land screenshots Read - Star Soldier R screenshots Read - Mojipittan screenshots Read - Dr. Mario, Pokemon Farm, Puzzloop for Everyone, and Maruboushikaku screenshots
Front Mission DS site slowly explodes into the internet
Two weeks away from Front Mission DS's release, Square Enix has introduced the SRPG's official North American site with a bang -- a drawn-out, "exploded bits hanging in the air for what seems like an eternity" bang. A bang that consists of a five-plus-minute movie in which nothing about the game is revealed.If you poke around the site, though, there's a lot of material there to help you get hyped up about this remake of the Front Mission series' first title. In addition to information about its setting, story, and characters, you'll find four short clips demonstrating Wanzer (mecha) customization and combat, all of them significantly more substantial than the explosion video arbitrarily embedded on the main page. %Gallery-4781%
Final Fantasy Tactics A2 advances
With Final Fantasy Tactics A2 hitting Japan this month, FFXII: Revenant Wings out for US gamers next month, and the PSP's Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions out this week, the Ivalice Alliance ... uh, alliance seems to be going strong. Of the set, FFTA2 seems to be the most controversial, with lines drawn between the fans of straight Tactics and Tactics Advance, and fans of both on the sidelines shaking their heads. Reviews on this one should be interesting! In the meantime, you can check out the latest screens in our updated gallery. %Gallery-5422%
A mysterious hero emerges from the dungeon
In the showdown of Wii Mysterious Dungeon games, Chocobo's Dungeon has one major advantage over Shiren the Wanderer 3: the awwwwww factor. The adorableness of the Chocobo protagonist and pretty much everything else in the game may help sway roguelike fans who are on the fence about which title to buy.As if the game didn't already overload on the cute, these new screenshots reveal a new character named Dungeon Hero X. Where did he come from? Is he friend, enemy, or both? No one knows (although we doubt he's firing the "Mog Beam" at the poor Chocobo out of friendship). It is a mystery of the Mystery Dungeon. A cute mystery.
Dragon Quest IV remake bridges generations
Being a port of a Playstation remake of the NES game, Dragon Quest IV falls between the old-school presentation of the older Dragon Quest games and the more detailed 3D in Level-5's Dragon Quests VIII and IX. The environments are all 3D, but your party is composed of sprites.Nowhere is the somewhat awkward dichotomy more evident than in the battle system. While exploration takes place in the aforementioned 3D landscapes, which can be fully rotated, you're sent right back to the beginning of the series in a battle. 2D monster sprites, narrative text windows, and all. It would be interesting to see how the DS audience reacted to having both IV and IX on the market at the same time, as we thought would happen for a while, but that's not to be. This way, we'll have plenty of time to buy both.
Rumors ahoy: Parasite Eve and Konami and bears, oh my!
It's time to get back into the business of speculation and rumors that don't consist of different PlayStation SKU's. While everyone loves talking about the convoluted and outright confusing backwards compatibility issue with the new 40GB model, we think it's better to continue pushing forward and offering some rumors that have surfaced in the latest EGM.Konami and Hideo Kojima might be working on another PS3 exclusive, first off. We know what you're thinking, but no, supposedly the game is not the third Zone of the Enders title. We wish we had any more to say, but that's all we know. Secondly, long time fans of the amazing and amazingly under-appreciated Parasite Eve titles cried foul when it turned out a new game was being made exclusively for mobile phones. Square Enix is apparently listening to these cries and have begun work on a console version, though the consoles it will appear on is unknown. We don't see why they wouldn't continue shoving Aya onto Sony platforms -- exclusive or not. Thirdly, bears are frightening, unless qualified by a humorous story. That is all.[Thanks, Joe!]
The yoga-game arms race heats up
As part of the second series of DS Style cards, Square Enix released a yoga trainer called DS de Hajimeru: Tipness no Yoga (Begin with the DS: Tipness's Yoga) in collaboration with Tipness, a fitness club chain. Naturally, it looks a lot like Konami's Let's Yoga, but it would pretty much have to. We think we prefer Square's aesthetic, which uses some cut-paper-style mascots and full-motion video yoga demonstrations.And we say that without being invited to the yoga class Square Enix held in Shibuya for the press. We look forward to seeing how the Great Yoga Game Wars of '07 play out.
Square Enix teases Front Mission 2089
Square Enix has released a short teaser video for Front Mission 2089. Before you watch, a warning: this video contains no mecha. No giant robots, no "gears", no mechs, no wanzers, or any of that. We assume they're in the game (it's a Front Mission game! Besides, the mobile version had them.) but that Square Enix decided it wouldn't be enough of a tease if we actually got to see any big robots.Instead, we get an introduction to the story, with English voice acting. For such a short video full of static character portraits and no mechs, which advertises a DS remake of a cellphone game, we think it works pretty well! We want to know what happens along the ... BORDER OF MADNESS. [Via NeoGAF]
TGS07: Joystiq chronicles some crystals
Even though the game is already out in Japan, Square Enix was happy to show off Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates at this year's TGS. Joystiq's TGS contingent happened upon the game and engaged in a multiplayer session with Square Enix booth staff, for our edification, and found the experience "very shallow".The game hews closely to the Gamecube original, without the restrictive hardware requirements, of course, Your team picks character classes and explores a dungeon together, finding magic in the form of powerup items along the way. The magic is equippable from a menu on the touchscreen. Players have the ability to "boost" each other in order to make difficult jumps, which sounds fun, but could lead to split parties very easily (how does the last guy get up?) What the Joystiq team saw as "shallow," we see as "intriguing." They decry the lack of anything to do other than defeat wave after wave of enemies, but that sounds quite like bliss to us, especially when the movement is "quite free" as described. Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles sounds like it might be unexpectedly action-oriented.
Dressed for Quest
Famitsu received some images of Dragon Quest IX's protagonist in four different costumes. They didn't actually get any information about the significance or identity of the job associated with each outfit, but, being people who have played a video game before, their crack staff was able to make some educated guesses. They guessed pretty much like we did: from left to right, Magic Guy, Curing Magic Guy, Martial Arts Guy, and Sword Fighty Guy. Hey, it's like the Dress Sphere system in Final Fantasy X-2! And Final Fantasy III, and lots of other games, but its funnier and more satisfying if we make you respect Final Fantasy X-2 a little.
Joystiq vs. the Square Enix store
One of the greatest pieces of advice ever imparted by a space-faring amphibian comes directly from the Rebel Alliance's lovable but frequently surprised Admiral Ackbar. Whenever questioned about what exactly Japan's official Square Enix store is and what it represents, we feel compelled to swivel dramatically in our chairs, face the camera and blurt out, "It's a trap!"And it's a sneaky one too. Don't march into the modest Shinjuku building expecting alarms to sound and a metal trellis to drop behind you, as the incredibly polite and professional cashiers aren't the least bit interested in capturing your body (that happens in another part of Tokyo, we hear). No, these people are silently clawing at the contents of your wallet -- and you'll find that very often the "people" are nothing more than androgynous CG citizens. If the life-sized Sephiroth trapped beneath the glass floor is pondering anything, it's the unusual business of selling real things from a fake place.Here you'll find merchandise mined from a plethora of planets in the Square Enix universe, with every cellphone strap, shirt, figurine, lighter and necklace accounted for. If your favorite Squalls and Clouds and Soras have worn or wielded it, it's probably in a display case here with an exorbitant price tag to keep it company. Oh, and there are spoons -- yet another item meant to stir up your strange emotional attachment to places and characters that are, in reality, nothing more than reams of code and purveyors of profit.You'll never catch us falling for it.%Gallery-7994%
TGS hands-on: Final Fantasy Ring of Fates multiplayer
Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles for the Gamecube was a bit of a hit-and-miss title. Touted as a multiplayer roleplaying experience, the game required you to have access to four Gameboy Advances (and three friends) to fully enjoy. The lackluster single player mode meant many were put off before they even started calling through their little black books looking for GBA owning friends.The franchise has survived, however, and has moved onto the Nintendo DS in the form of Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates. We took advantage of the strangely short line (the game being out in Japan might have something to do with it) and played a 4-player multiplayer game with the Square Enix booth attendants. Multiplayer seems to consist of co-operative dungeon crawler, with no sign of story or non-battle gameplay. Players can choose their character class, which affects their base attack style. Magic can be used by all players by picking up giant materia orbs, just like in the original. The action all takes place on the top screen while the bottom screen contains your stats. The bottom screen also shows how many of each materia you have and allows you to change between the different magics by tapping the desired orb on the screen.
Japanese hardware sales, Sept. 17 - Sept. 23: Crisis edition
It is with trembling hands and an overwhelming sense of insecurity (more so than usual) that we bring you this week's Japanese sales charts. It's as if someone flipped our world upside down, yanked the carpet off our heads and welcomed us to a zone where doors float in space and wild fantasies become startling truth. What hath Square Enix and Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII wrought? - PSP: 277,794 182,307 (190.92%) - DS Lite: 70,523 9,451 (11.82%) - Wii: 24,992 1,189 (4.54%) - PS2: 11,373 1,755 (13.37%) - PS3: 10,732 2,369 (18.08%) - Xbox 360: 1,687 444 (35.72%) - Game Boy Micro: 243 471 (65.97%) - GBA SP: 106 16 (13.11%) - Gamecube: 68 29 (29.90%) - GBA: 33 33 (N/A) - DS Phat: 15 -- 0 (0.00%) [Source: Media Create] See: Previous Japanese hardware sales charts
Nomura on PS3: "all your visions are belong to us"
Nope, not a direct quote, but worth slapping up nonetheless. Tetsuya Nomura gets yet another Famitsu interview and he once again remains as silent as ever on Final Fantasy Versus XIII, but that's okay. We generally like surprises so long as they don't end up severing one of our limbs. Still, he talked a little about his involvement in the game and some about the PS3.Nomura claims he's never been so deeply involved in the development of a game and enjoys the freedom to take FF Versus XIII wherever he wants. He reminded everyone also that this game is exclusively and only for the PlayStation 3, as the end of the TGS trailer (which we're not allowed to see yet) the phrase "on PS3 ONLY" appears. He says despite some fan disappointment, there are huge advantages to focusing on only one console.About the PS3, Nomura seemed to gush a little bit. The hardware plays a huge part in both XIII titles, and by using it properly "all visions can come true". The visuals, he says, are above anything else seen in the franchise and are very close to perfection in his eyes. But really, if the graphics were worse than XII, we'd have a problem anyway. We're glad the Square Enix developers are finally screaming PlayStation 3 exclusivity for the big FInal Fantasy titles, as not having those exclusive was a source of fuel for those who wished failure upon Sony.[via PS3Forums]
First glimpse of the upcoming Kingdom Hearts
var digg_url = 'http://digg.com/gaming_news/First_glimpse_of_the_upcoming_Kingdom_Hearts_on_DS '; Information on games has been coming lately at a fast and furious pace, even without the overflow from Tokyo. We only just found out that multiple Kingdom Hearts titles were confirmed for numerous systems, and now we've caught our first images of Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days in the pages of Famitsu. While these scanned screens are early, as well as rough and grainy, they do offer a nice glimpse of the look we can expect from the DS action-RPG.Details thus far are slim, but apparently cooperative multiplayer is in the cards, and the game focuses on the story of Roxas and his time with Organization XIII.
