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Lover of all things RPG that i am (apart from anything with Final Fantasy X or X-2 in the title) i thought i'd bring to your attention a couple of more great RPG titles in the wings that will hopefully reach the shores of Europe (if not ah well i'll have them anyway :-D)
First on the list is Radiata Stories done by the folks at Tri-Ace who did the great Star Ocean 3. It keeps the same battle system from SO3 and you can see the enemies before they attack so you can decide whether to charge in or save your energy and give them a miss.
It apparantly has a playable cast of characters of around 150 characters although whether it'll be like Suikoden 3 where quite a few of them were only support characters and not actually fighters remains to be seen.
Speaking of which it does seem to have quite a similar graphical feel to Suikoden so should be quite impressive visually if that sort of stuff determines whether you buy a game or not.
Release date is January in Japan so probably be waiting a while for that one :-D
and next to bring your attention to is the successor to the great Shining Force series on the Megadrive - Shining Tears.
First off graphics zealots (damn censors) may as well go now as you won't be getting ultra realistic 3D graphics with this one, instead you get the far better cartoony style graphics which are very crisp and smooth (i prefer this and sprites to the FFX style graphics anyway)
Big selling point i think of this is the co-op 2 player mode, so if you and a mate have about 40-50 free hours you can give it a blast :-D
One thing putting me off slightly is that they've done away with the strategy elements of the previous games and gone for a more action orientated style of fighting, but then i liked it in SO3 so maybe i'll like it in this.
Release date is March 2005 for America so at least there'll be a english version sooner then Radiata
and lastly the grand daddy - Dragon Quest VIII (Dragon Warrior in the west)
again using cartoony, cel shaded graphics my favourite RPG series finally comes onto the little black box. Still has pretty much the same battle system as old so basically it's good old turn based combat with random encounters although larger more powerful enemies appear on the screen (kind of like Ruby weapon in FF7 in a way) follows the traditional RPG mantra of head into town, talk to people and buy stuff, leave town, beat up monsters until you get to another town. Lovely :-D
big improvement though over the old games which may seem small and quite a weird thing to mention in this day and age is the fact you can now speak to characters with a press of a button instead of having to go to the menu and selecting 'Talk' very glad they've added that in, it was the only thing i hated in the previous games.
January/Feb American release date for this me thinks. Again can't wait.
First on the list is Radiata Stories done by the folks at Tri-Ace who did the great Star Ocean 3. It keeps the same battle system from SO3 and you can see the enemies before they attack so you can decide whether to charge in or save your energy and give them a miss.
It apparantly has a playable cast of characters of around 150 characters although whether it'll be like Suikoden 3 where quite a few of them were only support characters and not actually fighters remains to be seen.
Speaking of which it does seem to have quite a similar graphical feel to Suikoden so should be quite impressive visually if that sort of stuff determines whether you buy a game or not.
Release date is January in Japan so probably be waiting a while for that one :-D
and next to bring your attention to is the successor to the great Shining Force series on the Megadrive - Shining Tears.
First off graphics zealots (damn censors) may as well go now as you won't be getting ultra realistic 3D graphics with this one, instead you get the far better cartoony style graphics which are very crisp and smooth (i prefer this and sprites to the FFX style graphics anyway)
Big selling point i think of this is the co-op 2 player mode, so if you and a mate have about 40-50 free hours you can give it a blast :-D
One thing putting me off slightly is that they've done away with the strategy elements of the previous games and gone for a more action orientated style of fighting, but then i liked it in SO3 so maybe i'll like it in this.
Release date is March 2005 for America so at least there'll be a english version sooner then Radiata
and lastly the grand daddy - Dragon Quest VIII (Dragon Warrior in the west)
again using cartoony, cel shaded graphics my favourite RPG series finally comes onto the little black box. Still has pretty much the same battle system as old so basically it's good old turn based combat with random encounters although larger more powerful enemies appear on the screen (kind of like Ruby weapon in FF7 in a way) follows the traditional RPG mantra of head into town, talk to people and buy stuff, leave town, beat up monsters until you get to another town. Lovely :-D
big improvement though over the old games which may seem small and quite a weird thing to mention in this day and age is the fact you can now speak to characters with a press of a button instead of having to go to the menu and selecting 'Talk' very glad they've added that in, it was the only thing i hated in the previous games.
January/Feb American release date for this me thinks. Again can't wait.
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What's Growlanser? Keep hearing about it... Any good?
Well in America this month we've got Digital Devil Saga: Avatar Tuner and Shining Tears coming out and over in Japan Growlanser IV along with of course Phantom Kingdom :-D
I think YS and Wild Arms have just come out as well in yankee doodle land
I think YS and Wild Arms have just come out as well in yankee doodle land
None that i care about :-D
I'll have a look later
I'll have a look later
Indeeed.
Any other RPGs on the horizon apart from Phantom Kingdom?
Any other RPGs on the horizon apart from Phantom Kingdom?
True PB does seem to go for the little character sprite holding massive weapon thing but it still look good. I'd take it over the FFX graphics anyday (hurrah for sprites, long may they live)
Aye, but it's just not the same :'(.
It still has the sprite based graphics in it
Aye, but a bit more advanced so it losses a bit of Disgaea's wierd Japanese 1990 sprite charm.
Which is a shame.
Which is a shame.
I'd buy it but then again i am a strategy RPG fanboy so but it is a very good game in its own right, not quite as good as Disgaea but then i would say that :-D
It has done away with the annoying aspect in Disgaea in the Item World where you would have huge maps and only a couple of enemies on it. In the Failure Dungeons (PB's version of the Item World) on this you can choose the size of the maps and the amount of enemies you want which i thought was very handy and allowed for quicker levelling up.
Slightly more free roaming as well as instead of the chess like grid system you have a movement sphere which you can move inside of so you've got 360 degree movement open to you.
It has done away with the annoying aspect in Disgaea in the Item World where you would have huge maps and only a couple of enemies on it. In the Failure Dungeons (PB's version of the Item World) on this you can choose the size of the maps and the amount of enemies you want which i thought was very handy and allowed for quicker levelling up.
Slightly more free roaming as well as instead of the chess like grid system you have a movement sphere which you can move inside of so you've got 360 degree movement open to you.
I'm not too far behind the times then.
Buy / not buy?
How similar / worse / better is it to Disgaea?
Buy / not buy?
How similar / worse / better is it to Disgaea?
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