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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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God i treat you lot well, here's another great RPG coming out called Atelier Iris: Eternal Mana (working title). A long running series in Japan finally getting exposed to the Western Audience by those great chaps at Atlus. Here's a brief news story about it
[URL]http://www.gamespot.com/ps2/rpg/atelieririseternalmana/news_6106985.html[/URL]
[URL]http://www.gamespot.com/ps2/rpg/atelieririseternalmana/news_6106985.html[/URL]
FinalFantasyFanatic wrote:
> Your feelings are mutual, I just wanted to play the Mercenaries demo,
> although I should have been paid the £6 this awful rag cost me.
> Haven't bought a PS2 mag for as long as I can remember, after my
> terrible experience with Play's utter demise, lest alone OPSM2 which
> is the king of crap.
No demo is worth the shame of purchasing that rag :-D
Glad i'm not the only one who thinks Play has slid down the slippery slope of crapness. Read last month's copy when i was round my mates and saw them doing a feature asking whether games are racist and giving Pro Evo 4 3% less than Ribbit King. Bloomin morons
> Your feelings are mutual, I just wanted to play the Mercenaries demo,
> although I should have been paid the £6 this awful rag cost me.
> Haven't bought a PS2 mag for as long as I can remember, after my
> terrible experience with Play's utter demise, lest alone OPSM2 which
> is the king of crap.
No demo is worth the shame of purchasing that rag :-D
Glad i'm not the only one who thinks Play has slid down the slippery slope of crapness. Read last month's copy when i was round my mates and saw them doing a feature asking whether games are racist and giving Pro Evo 4 3% less than Ribbit King. Bloomin morons
And I quote:
"Phantom Brave is the sequel to the actually rather excellent Disgaea: Hour of Darkness"
Ahaharr.
At least they got the excellent bit right.
Your feelings are mutual, I just wanted to play the Mercenaries demo, although I should have been paid the £6 this awful rag cost me. Haven't bought a PS2 mag for as long as I can remember, after my terrible experience with Play's utter demise, lest alone OPSM2 which is the king of crap.
"Phantom Brave is the sequel to the actually rather excellent Disgaea: Hour of Darkness"
Ahaharr.
At least they got the excellent bit right.
Your feelings are mutual, I just wanted to play the Mercenaries demo, although I should have been paid the £6 this awful rag cost me. Haven't bought a PS2 mag for as long as I can remember, after my terrible experience with Play's utter demise, lest alone OPSM2 which is the king of crap.
They called it a proper sequel to Disgaea?
Idiots, Phantom Brave has different characters, set in a different world, uses a different battle system etc etc The only connection it has to Disgaea is the extra bit at the end and the fact they're made by the same company.
Cements my opinion of that horrible rag
Idiots, Phantom Brave has different characters, set in a different world, uses a different battle system etc etc The only connection it has to Disgaea is the extra bit at the end and the fact they're made by the same company.
Cements my opinion of that horrible rag
Ahhh .. you see.
I bought OPSM2 for the Mercenaries demo and made the mistake of actually reading the mag. One of their lesser mistakes.
I bought OPSM2 for the Mercenaries demo and made the mistake of actually reading the mag. One of their lesser mistakes.
Nope it's not a direct sequel it's just another game made by Nippon Ichi Software. It does however have a few Disgaea surprises ;-)
Phantom Brave isn't the sequel to Disgaea, is it?
11th January for Suikoden IV by the way
Another title to look out for being brought to an english speaking audience by those great guys at Atlus is Stella Deus. If anyone has ever played Hoshigami on the PSX (now that was a hard game) the same team behind that is doing this which should mean a very, very good (but hard) strategy RPG.
Darwock wrote:
> Funny, I heard about Suikoden 4 about a year ago and all has been
> quiet since.
Came out in August in Japan, January at the moment is the American date
> Funny, I heard about Suikoden 4 about a year ago and all has been
> quiet since.
Came out in August in Japan, January at the moment is the American date
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