RandomNPC – Video Game RPG Reviews, Editorials, and Features

Nintendo has announced it will be bringing the Fire Emblem footprint experience to Anime Boston, in addition to its appearance at Anime Central. In celebration of the release of Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon, they’ve constructed a life-size display for fans to interact with, which will be present at both the Boston and Chicago suburban events. They have also released preliminary renderings of how the display will appear on the floor. Continue reading ‘Fire Emblem Footprint Making Tracks for Chicago, Boston’ »

In 2001 Super Smash Bros. Melee arrived on this side of the Pacific and with it an unlockable character unfamiliar to most North Americans, the Falchion-wielding Marth of Fire Emblem for the NES. Years after its release in Japan, the original Fire Emblem has come to North America, fully remade for the Nintendo DS as Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon. Continue reading ‘Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon – Staff Review’ »

North American gamers can pick up some portable gaming this week. Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and Dragon Quest V: Hand of the Heavenly Bride, both DS remakes of games that never made it overseas until now, hit store shelves today. Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon is rated E for Everyone while Dragon Quest V is rated E10+. The PSP meanwhile is getting some action, dood, in the form of Prinny: Can I really be the Hero, which is rated T for Teen.

We had a chance to participate in an interview with three of the developers of Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon. They were: Tohru Narihiro and Masayuki Horikawa from Intelligent Systems and Masaki Tawara from Nintendo. Continue reading ‘Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon – Developer Interview’ »

Nintendo announced its North American Q1 lineup today and a couple of titles may be of interest to RPG fans. Pokémon Platinum for the Nintendo DS has been officially dated for March 22. Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon, also for the Nintendo DS, was confirmed for February 16.

The press release also listed third party games. For the Nintendo Wii, players can expect Little King’s Story on February 17 and Rune Factory: Frontier in March. The DS can look forward to Legacy of Ys: Books I & II on February 10, and Puzzle Quest: Galactrix and Suikoden Tierkreis in the first quarter.

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Source: Destructoid

Nintendo held a press conference today and announced some pretty big news.  For starters, the newest iteration of the DS has been revealed.  It’s slightly thinner and features a camera, a 17% bigger screen, and an SD card slot.  These improvements do not come without a cost; it will not have a GBA slot.  Japan gets it Nov 1 of this year, and we here in the Americas will be waiting until sometime “late next year.”  Continue reading ‘Big Day for DS Today: New Hardware Revision, Two RPGs’ »

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Source: Game Watch

The Xbox 360 has long been the black sheep of the console war in Japan, but it got a bit of a boost this week with the release of Tales of Vesperia. The latest installment of the Tales series debuted on the charts at #4 selling 108,000 copies in its first week. The 360 meanwhile quadrupled its normally low weekly sales numbers, moving 20,000 units rather than the regular 5,000.

Tales of Vesperia is one of five RPGs on the top ten for the week of August 4-10 in Japan. Phantasy Star Portable for the PSP took top spot with 148,000 units sold (for a total of 490,000). Fire Emblem DS was close behind with 145,000 in its first week on the market. Dragon Quest V DS stands at #5, selling 73,000 units this week, putting its total sales past the one million mark. And Summon Night 2 for the DS, also released this week, managed to sell 30,000 and grab spot #7.

Source: Gamekyo

The Fire Emblem series is returning to a portable system. The newest installment, Fire Emblem: The New Shadow Dragons & the Blade of Light, is a remake of the first Fire Emblem game, which was released on the Famicom in 1990. The game features Prince Marth, who has been popularized in North America via the Smash Bros. series, in his quest to defeat a great enemy and rescue his kidnapped sister. The remake will feature additional characters, classes, and battle systems that were not in the original. It will also offer online play via the Nintendo Wi-Fi service. Continue reading ‘New Fire Emblem DS Details Surface’ »