Potentially Useful Information For Your Many Adventures
Square-Enix announced in a press release today that a demo of Dungeon Siege 3 is currently available on the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Windows via Steam. The full version of the upcoming action RPG will be available on June 21st, 2011.
George Kamitani, director of the upcoming PS3/PSV RPG brawler Dragon’s Crown, spoke with Famitsu Magazine this week and laid bare a few new details about the game. Amongst the gameplay details and design notes comes the unexpected tidbit that Dragon’s Crown was in fact initially slated to appear on the Dreamcast, but that the developer could not find a publisher for the title. (more…)
After causing some surprise by appearing in the Playstation Vita’s coming attractions reel, Vanillaware has announced a new title called Dragon’s Crown. A 2D brawler RPG for both the PSV and the Playstation 3, Dragon’s Crown supports cross-platform multiplayer for up to four people. The game’s official site opened earlier today, and there’s a fancy trailer available for viewing on YouTube.
Close on the heels of Devil Survivor Overclocked, a remake of the first Devil Survivor game for the 3DS, comes the revelation that its sequel, Devil Survivor 2, will be seeing the light of day in North America in 2012. Further details about the game’s plot and characters have also been released, as well as some info about the creative team behind the title. (more…)
Square-Enix announced a general release date for Final Fantasy XIII-2 today, saying it will see the light of day in December 2011. This coincided with the opening of the game’s official site, which sports info on the game’s characters, music, and numerous other goodies.
Alongside this, Square-Enix also announced that the PS3 version of Final Fantasy XIII would see an update. This update will add the Easy Mode that the Xbox 360 version of the game received last year, and will be free of charge.
At Nintendo’s E3 conference today, Shigeru Miyamoto outlined the company’s future plans for The Legend of Zelda series. Alongside the release of The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening through the 3DS e-shop, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time will hit stores worldwide next weekend. Nintendo will also be releasing a free download version of The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventure over DSi Ware. Finally, Mr. Miyamoto announced that The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword will be available worldwide this holiday season, along with a golden Zelda-themed Wii Remote. (more…)
During its press conference earlier today, Electronic Arts spilled the beans on Mass Effect 3‘s release date. Previously scheduled for a release during the 2011 holiday season, the final entry in the space shooter/RPG series will now see the light of day on PC, Xbox 360 and PS3 on March 6, 2012.
A veritable sea of callbacks and references, Dissidia 012[duodecim] Final Fantasy is about what is expected from a massive crossover game. Whether this is a good thing or not depends a great deal on what your personal feelings are towards the Final Fantasy series, but thankfully, the underlying mechanics are solid enough that even those who find the constant self-reference tiresome should find something to enjoy. Dissidia Duodecim is a game with a steep learning curve, omnipresent loading times, and a rather disjointed plot, but it also presents a wonderfully deep combat system and a pool of content so huge that it borders on the absurd. But given how heavily the game relies on its combat system, how much a player will enjoy Dissidia Duodecim depends a lot on how eager they are for a fast paced battle. (more…)
An exceptionally influential tactical RPG, Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together is responsible for a large number of the more common elements found in the genre today. As the original printing has been more or less relegated to the status of collector’s item, the PSP remake of Let Us Cling Together is an excellent opportunity for fans of the genre to enjoy this seminal title. There have been a great deal of changes made to the game, and although the core mechanics remain basically unchanged, it has been heavily rebalanced, with new systems and ideas added in order to make it a bit more forgiving. The end result is that Let Us Cling Together is a more than worthwhile play, though the hugely complicated nature of the game, along with some lingering balance issues, makes it difficult to recommend without reservation. (more…)
From Pokemon Gold and Silver onward, each new generation of Pokemon has improved on the basic formula of the series, refining the execution bit by bit. Pokemon Black and White continue follow this tradition, although the improvements are nowhere near as huge as the shift between the GBA games and Pokemon Diamond and Pearl. Primarily a shift in interface and presentation, the core mechanics of the Pokemon series continue largely untouched from the previous cycle of Pokemon games, while the series’s habitually scattershot interface and connectivity receive the lion’s share of attention. Overall, it’s not quite the geological shift of Diamond and Pearl, but changes Pokemon Black and White introduce have been a long time coming, and they are most welcome. (more…)
This week, we’re going to be taking a look at Gravity, a move which, at first glance, does not really excite. However, as with many things in Pokemon, there’s more going on here than meets the eye. In this article, we’ll talk about why you should consider Gravity a threat, what your options are to get the move set up, and what you can then do with it. We’ll talk about other moves that work well in tandem with Gravity, and measure exactly how far up your opponent’s nose your team will get. So without further ado, let’s get started. (more…)
A personal favorite of mine, Trick Room is one of many tactics that has gained significant new tools in Pokemon’s 5th generation. The generation-wide trend of slow but powerful offensive Pokemon combines with new Trick Room users and a number of useful support abilities to make Trick Room teams easier to build. Overall, Trick Room is now easier to use, and the skill as a whole more effective. This week, we’ll take a look at the new toys it has access to, and talk about how to make use of this unusual move. (more…)
Perhaps the most significant change that Pokemon Black and White have introduced to the metagame is the availability of automatic weather starters for Sun and Rain. Where only Sandstorm and Hail had access to infinite weather generators in the 4th gen, Sun and Rain now have them in Ninetales and Politoed with Dream World-available Drizzle and Drought abilities. What this means for the metagame is that weather is now not just another viable strategy, it is the black hole at the center of the game. (more…)
As the release of Pokemon Black and White draws ever nearer, we pause to take a look at some of the new defensive options it brings to the competitive table. Though offensive teams undoubtedly got a big boost with this generation, defensive teams have gotten some significant increases as well, ranging from new Pokemon with useful defensive type combinations and excellent base stats, to new moves and abilities which make stalling a bit easier. Though, as usual, stall lags a bit behind offense in the metagame, Pokemon Black and White adds more than enough to stave off the endlessly repeated “Stall is Dead!” cliche. (more…)
With the release of Pokemon Black and White in North America drawing closer and closer, I thought it might be a good idea to take a look at what this new generation will be bringing to the table, competitively speaking. Though the pace and structure of battle hasn’t changed all that much, Black and White brings a huge number of new ‘mons to the table, and with them, a wide variety of new competitive tactics. (more…)
The end-of-year “Best of” awards are a widespread tradition amongst gaming sites, a nice way to close the year out by looking back. We have toyed occasionally with the idea of doing our own awards, but the sheer scope of RPGs released during each year has to give one pause. How do you go about settling on one title to call the best RPG of 2010? Certainly no one can claim to have played them all, and there’s always the nagging suspicion that something has been forgotten. So instead of a straight up and down awards, this year we’re taking a short look back the games we’re glad we played in 2010. Not all of them were released last year, and many of them would never have appeared in an awards feature, but in the end, the important thing about playing video games is simply that you enjoyed them. (more…)
It should come as no surprise that gamers, by our very nature, are competitive creatures. We argue and debate amongst ourselves constantly, which more often than not is the reason gaming is such a vibrant subculture. No, arguing is not an inherently bad thing, but there are a series of discussions which pop up from time to time that serve no real purpose other than to divide. These are invariably circular arguments which should be purged from our collective dialogue, pointless disagreements that use our competitive natures against us, that serve no purpose other than as springboards for even more irritating secondary bickering about other people’s grammar and what they “really meant” by what was said. In short, these are the four most destructive arguments gamers have. (more…)
Perhaps related to the success of Matrix Software’s DS remakes of Final Fantasy 3 and 4, Final Fantasy: Four Heroes of Light is a stand-alone Final Fantasy game deeply ingrained in the old school tradition. Unfortunately, the developer seems to have taken all the wrong lessons from the old school. Four Heroes of Light does push for overall simplicity of design, and that does capture something of the spirit of older RPGs, but it also features an obtuse interface, inconsistent difficulty, and direction so vague that it borders on the incomprehensible. Four Heroes of Light does do some things right — the class system is interesting, if a bit basic, and the game’s visuals are exceptional — but the game is unfriendly on a basic level and doesn’t offer the player much reward for getting past that. (more…)
The controversial successor to a short yet venerable gaming dynasty, Fallout 3 generated a lot of backlash amongst older fans. Frankly, there’s a lot of wiggle room as to whether or not Fallout 3 constitutes a worthy sequel (whatever that means) to the Fallout series. The combat system has been changed from an almost tactical turn-based affair to a first person shooter with a sort-of-kind-of turn based option, and the mainline plot is very inflexible, both aspects previously considered hallmarks of the series. However, by not relying too heavily on established conventions, Fallout 3 pushes itself further towards being a stand-alone title, which allows it far more creative freedom. (more…)
In the world of gaming, it’s fairly common for titles to focus far too much on abstract gameplay concepts and not enough on setting the stage. So often, fighting legendary monsters feels absolutely nothing like being in a fantasy world, as players are simply too aware of the multitude of systems that surround the experience. Fragile Dreams: Farewell Ruins of the Moon is an odd reversal of this issue. It is supremely easy to get lost in the sheer beauty and tragedy of the crumbling world the game presents, only to have that illusion come crashing to the ground when asked to do something practical, like press a switch. (more…)
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