RandomNPC – Video Game RPG Reviews, Editorials, and Features

Square Enix has announced Heroes of Ruin for the Nintendo 3DS, a multiplayer adventure centering on four heroes – hence the first part of the title – brought together to do what RPG protagonists do best. Apart from the expected drop-in/drop-out coop play, the game will use the 3DS’ StreetPass and SpotPass functions to create an in-game trading network. This network will update based on other players passed in public, allowing players to access items in each others’ games.

Heroes of Ruin will launch sometime in early 2012, and will be playable at Square Enix’s E3 booth. For the curious, the official site is located hereabouts.

Goooooooood evening!  Hope all of you are braving the latest storm of the century, seems like we get one of those every five minutes.  And then the sun comes out at the end of it just to spite us, that’s just unfair.  But I digress.  It’s time for What Happened This Week, and all the unusual merriment the topic brings.  In tonight’s topics:

• China was revealed to have used prisoners for goldfarming in an unusual twist on forced labor.  Well, at least nobody can opt out of raid night.
• Zynga prepares for an IPO in two weeks.  Gamers and financial experts look at each other and shrug, gamers with financial knowledge (or vice versa) start panicking.
• Sony plans its bone-crushing five hour E3 event.  Someone’s compensating for something, like an unexpected loss even before the hack took place.
• On the other hand, the PS4 won’t see the Big McLargehuge development costs of the PS3.  So, hey, they learned something.  I hope.
• On BioWare looking for artists.  Yes, Dragon Age 2 dropped the ball in several areas.  Yes, Dragon Age III is still a day one pickup for me.  Yes, I am a consumer whore.
• Speaking of which, CD Projekt patches out DRM from retail copies of The Witcher 2.  Oh CDP, you had me at hello!
• President Obama gets strange (and awesome) gifts, GRIN blames Square for its bankruptcy, and more!

Continue reading ‘What Happened This Week – Trading the Weird for the Insolvent’ »

Between what’s in the Fallout bible and what made it to the games, it’s easy to forget how much of Fallout‘s established world remains unexplored. Enter Honest Hearts, a slice of post-war tribal politics aimed at filling in a few of New Vegas‘ blanks. The content doesn’t quite have a strong narrative thrust, and Zion National Park, though pretty, is lacking for environmental diversity. Still, it’s backed by some very interesting elements that tie smartly into the larger picture, and, more importantly, is more of what New Vegas did right: room to explore, people to deal with, and choices to make.

Continue reading ‘Fallout New Vegas: Honest Hearts – Staff Review’ »

Has life got you down? Is your job giving you grief? Did your neighbor buy a new subwoofer and decided to test it out by playing every Cheap Trick album back-to-back? If you answered yes to that last one, that’s actually me next door and this will continue until you give me back my newspaper. I can do this all week, man.

For the rest of the human race, we have some media for you: Grand Knight’s History, Growlanswer 4: Overload, and Tales of the Abyss 3DS. Check it out!

Continue reading ‘Mass Media 05/25/11’ »

Just in case you needed more news today, Atlus announced that the PSP adaptation of Persona 2: Innocent Sin will see a North American release.  The official site is taking preorders and lists the launch window as Fall of this year, though an exact date is not known.

A large Dengeki feature broke more details about Final Fantasy Type-0.

Continue reading ‘Yet More Type-0 Information’ »

Care of Twitter comes the not-too-surprising announcement that Dragon Age III is in the works. Specifically, one Alistair McNally, BioWare’s senior director of creative development, tweeted that they’re looking for “exceptional environment artists” to work on the next installment of the series.

Through this week’s Famitsu, Namco Bandai announced that Super Robot Taisen Original Generation is making its way to the Playstation 3. Mouthful-of-a-title Dai 2 Ji Super Robot Taisen OG is set for an August release in Japan, in both standard and limited editions; the latter includes the 26-episode anime of Super Robot Wars Original Generation: The Inspector on Blu-ray.

No US release has been announced.

Source: 1UP

Launching to poor critical reception, Hellgate: London was eventually shut down in North America in 2009. The rights to the game have since found a new home in Korean developer HanbitSoft, who intend to rerelease it worldwide as a free-to-play under the title Hellgate. With a short closed beta coming up next month, a full release is set for later this year.

Source: 1UP

Nothing like a dark and stormy night after a nice, warm Sunday.  Welcome back, people!  Hope you’re not too busy with last week’s offerings, because it’s time to recap the news, with a musical interlude reproduced by yours truly that originates from Get Your War On. In today’s episode:

• PopCap Games plans to go public, with Zynga, Facebook, etc. to follow.  Gee, you think this bubble will protect us from all those pins lying around up ahead?
• China makes its own backed-by-the-army shooter, much like America’s Army but with US troops as enemies.  Also with blackjack and hookers.  In fact, forget the shooter.
• Sony’s ongoing hacking woes, compounded by Howard Stringer ripping stuff from the movie Sneakers.  Someone get that man a Netflix account!
• Microsoft 360 update risks bricking consoles, after initial confusion as to which update it is.   It’s okay, the people behind Windows know what they’re… oh god.  Oh god.
• Sony announces plan to convert some PSP titles to the PS3.  See, now we’re getting somewhere.  Also, Jesus loves Valkyria Chronicles and so should you.
• Hideo Kojima and Metal Gear Solid art director Yoji Shinkawa have a dinner meeting.  With Tetsuya Nomura and Square Enix CEO Yoichi Wada.  So… yeah.
• Bad developer lists, used market scapegoating, Fox News being silly, and so much more!

Continue reading ‘What Happened This Week – The Future Makes People Stupid’ »

The Thompson from Honest Hearts inspires in me a reaction very much like this. Grab one and you’ll understand.

Anyway! Media time. In today’s update: Dark Souls, Devil Survivor 2, Forgotten World, and Noora to Toki no Koubou.

Continue reading ‘Mass Media 05/20/11’ »

In an interview with PC Gamer, executive producer Casey Hudson stated that Mass Effect 3’s sidequests will have a significant effect on the ending. Referencing the possibility of character death in Mass Effect 2, Hudson stated that this aspect “became the grade of scale of your success of the end game, and we have something similar here.”

Continue reading ‘Mass Effect 3’s Endgame Linked Heavily to Sidequests’ »

As long as we’re talking earnings statements, Nippon Ichi announced a 4.4% sales increase, with operating income up from a prior loss of 235 million to a gain of 315 million. Citing strong domestic sales, the company expects a 3.2% increase this fiscal year. As part of the announcement, Nippon Ichi plans to release titles for the 3DS and upcoming NGP.

Source: Andriasang

Related to its forecast revision, Square Enix has released information from a recent earnings briefing that sheds more light on its future plans. Of particular note is the intent to double its major IPs: two from its main Tokyo studio (Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, Kingdom Hearts, etc.) and one each from subsidiaries Eidos Montreal, IO Interactive, and Wimbledon.

The company also aims to become more “network centric,” by way of strengthening downloadable content and digitizing catalog titles. “Revitalizing our major MMO titles” is its own bullet point in this subsection, which likely refers to the ongoing renovation effort in Final Fantasy XIV.

Lastly, the presentation also covered sales projections, revealing the numbers behind the revision: 16.85 million total sales in 2011, down from 26.66 million in 2010, with a projected 14.50 in 2012. This in spite of a marked increase in investment abroad, with spending in North America and Europe up to 8.4 billion yen from the prior year’s 5.7 billion.

Source: Andriasang

Replaying Fallout New Vegas in preparation for Honest Hearts makes me realize I could listen to Chief Hanlon talk for hours. Anyway, on with the media: 7th Dragon 2020, Gloria Union, Grand Knight’s History, Growlanser 4: Overload, and Hexyz Force.

Continue reading ‘Mass Media 05/16/11’ »

I miss Dr. Weird.

What’s happening, everybody?  Hope you’re braced for the coming week, what with Witcher 2 and New Vegas DLC coming up.  In the meantime, let us discuss the many interesting things that have happened since last Sunday:

• The Economist speculates on a possible tech/internet bubble, driven by overconfident investors and unproven business models.  And here we thought time travel was impossible.
• Microsoft pays $Texas for Skype.  Learn at siptrunk.com, Why would they buy a largely free VOIP service as a tech bubble is being built?  Why, indeed.
• PSN is finally back up, bringing the catastrophic train wreck to at least partial closure.  Which means we can now focus on Sony’s harmless and entertaining train wrecks.
• Eidos and Deus Ex: Human Revolution websites get hacked.  Hey, hackers, that’s not funny.  Deus Ex has been delayed enough.
• Square Enix has a rough week, owing in part to Final Fantasy XIV‘s amazingly poor launch condition. Really now, are high-res catgirls and magic midgets that hard to deliver?
• The National Endowment for the Arts classifies games as art, thus solving all problems with the games industry forever.
• Call of Duty vs. Battlefield at launch, the US Navy makes an anti-piracy MMO, the Harvest Moon folk join up with some weird colleagues, and much more!

Continue reading ‘What Happened This Week – It’s Not Different At All, Is It Steve?!’ »

DS RPG 7th Dragon is turning into a series with the announcement of 7th Dragon 2020 for the PSP.  Apart from making the handheld jump, 2020 takes place in Tokyo’s not-too-distant future, in contrast to the first game’s fantasy setting.  That aside, the same team is behind both games, and 2020 is set to release this fall in Japan.  No US release has been announced.

Source: 1UP

Grand Knight’s History producer Yoshifumi Hashimoto offered a few tidbits about the upcoming PSP game.  The game will feature both offline and online play, with server time running constantly; presumably this means a persistent world of some kind, though this was not explicitly stated.  Additionally, the battle system is titled to reference the curved combat area – an English translation comes to something like “Spheral Battle” – but it’s not known to what extent the fighting plane will affect gameplay, if at all.

History is set for a summer release in Japan, with no US release currently on the books.

Source: Andriasang

By way of press release, Square Enix has confirmed that a Wii collection of the first three Dragon Quest games is in development.  Specifically, the bundle will include both Famicom and Super Famicom versions of all three, and they appear to be straight ports of their original releases.  The collection is scheduled to release this year in Japan, though the date is not known and no US release was announced.

Source: Andriasang

While Noora to Toki no Koubou was not explicitly stated to have a battle system, the safe money was on “of course it does.”  Sure enough, producer Shigeo Komori has seen fit to say so on the game’s official blog, where he briefly explained his role in testing battle balance.  However, no actual details of the system were given.

Source and translation: Andriasang