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Nintendo has announced a new title this week, Kurikin Nano Island Story for the Nintendo DS. This game will be another step in the creature capture genre Nintendo has created, only this time you won't be capturing lovable monsters, you'll be scooping up bacteria.

You play the game as a young inhabitant of Nano Island home to one hundred different types of bacteria. As the game progresses you'll be exploring the island, and be able to both capture and train new types of bacteria. The game's story mode is mission based, and will be 24 chapters long. Of course, to succeed in your missions you're going to have to engage in some germ warfare. That's right, you'll be fighting other teams of bacteria.

In battles players will control an army of germs that first appear as a single pixel on the DS's touch screen. You'll be able to instruct your troops by circling part of the group and then drawing a line, instructing them to go there. You'll also be able to disperse the group you've circled by blowing into the DS microphone. When your germs engage the enemy in combat the top screen will show a zoomed in view, allowing you a nice view of the germ combat. Bacteria of course, will divide and multiply the entire time, keeping your troops with a steady stream of combatants.

Each battle will feature a different requirement from winning, going from things like simply wiping out the enemy, to having the most remaining bacteria.

Kurikin Nano Island Story will release May 24 in Japan, a US launch date has not yet been announced, and it is unknown whether the game will make it here.

Source: RPGamer

According to Famitsu, the main character from Final Fantasy Tactics A2 (the DS sequel to FF Tactics Advance) is going to make an appeareance in the PSP remake of Tactics, Final Fantasy Tactics: Shisho Sensou. This new character, Russo (or possibly Luso or something similar, depending on how it's localized in English), encounters and takes on Ramza while he's on the way to rescuing Alma; it isn't clear exactly where in the game this takes place.

This marks the second character from a recent FF game announced to have a supporting role in the FF Tactics remake, after Balthier from FF XII was announced as playable a few months ago. Is Square-Enix taking this cross-promotion a bit too far, or do we want even more? Depends on the person, I guess.

Source:
RPGFan

Earlier today Nintendo announced that the Wii Virtual Console would support Neo-Geo and MSX games in future releases. There is no such announcement for the release of MSX or Neo-Geo games in Virtual Consoles of any other regions, but it may only be a matter of time at this point.

SNK's Neo-Geo is a very expensive cult-favorite system, with specs almost identical to SNK arcade machines; the Neo-Geo was probably most notable for featuring iterations of SNK's chief franchises such as King of Fighters, Metal Slug, and Samurai Spirits. The MSX was a personalized home computer borne from Microsoft's Japanese branch that had four different versions between 1983 and 1992; the MSX had a great deal of early successes but soon fell behind Nintendo and Sega's early systems in the 1980s. However, its legacy is significant, as several storied series such as Metal Gear, Dragon Quest, and Bomberman all had their debuts on MSX technology.

In related news, earlier today the European Virtual Console received the iconic N64 game The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. It's probable that Ocarina of Time will become part of the North American Virtual Console when it undergoes its scheduled update on Monday.

Source: Japan's Virtual Console website

Around four months ago, Capcom dissolved its Clover Studios development team, citing financial reasons. Clover Studios had been behind Capcom's Viewtiful Joe series, as well as the 2006 hits Okami and Godhand.

However, we may have seen a new beginning for Clover Studios in the form of SEEDS - an independent studio run by Shinji Mikami (the mastermind behind Resident Evil), Hideki Kamiya (creator of Devil May Cry and Viewtiful Joe), and Atsuhi Inaba (of Steel Battalion fame). Those three developers, all of whom have produced blockbuster titles as part of Capcom's production studios and the late Clover Studios, announced yesterday that they were leaving Capcom to work as a freelance developer - given the track record of those three producers, and the fact that they are essentially severing official ties with Capcom, this is some pretty big news.

Also of interest is that they haven't assembled a team yet. The revealing of their new studio also came with sort of a casting call. Here's a translation of their announcement:

Sounds a little self-indulgent, doesn't it? Of course, even though they are no longer iwth Capcom, it isn't out of the question for any of these designers to work on Capcom games, or even further sequels to their signature franchises. If Nobuo Uematsu can still provide musical numbers to FF games (he was credited as Smile Please Inc. for his work on FF VII: Advent Children and his contributed song to FF XII) and Masahiro Sakurai can direct and design SSB: Brawl despite leaving Nintendo and HAL Laboratories nearly four years ago, then the SEEDS team can still work for Capcom, but not as part of Capcom.

SEEDS hasn't revealed any games in development, as they are still working on personnel, after all.

Sources:
WIRED
SEEDS official website (Japanese)

This will be my shortest newspost ever, but I didn't want any punk wannabe newsposters beating me to the info this time.

Square-Enix recently revealed that Balthier (also known as Balflear), the loveable air pirate from Final Fantasy XII, will have a storyline role in the PSP remake of Final Fantasy Tactics. It is unconfirmed if he will be playable or not, but he will have a storyline role.

In the same announcement, Square-Enix revealed one of the new job classes for the remake: Dark Knight. Let the moveset speculation run wild.

Source: RPGFan

A recent developer blog post by Square-Enix's Tetsuya Nomura revealed a great deal of new information regarding the Fabula Nova Crystalis project, which comprises the PS3 games Final Fantasy XIII and Final Fantasy Versus XIII, as well as the cell phone game Final Fantasy Agito XIII.

The world of Final Fantasy XIII is called "Cocoon," and it uses crystal technology to create a highly advanced society. It is also completely surrounded by a large shell, which protects Cocoon and its inhabitants from all manner of evil residing outside of the shell, whose space is collectively called "Pulse." Cocoon's government reacts to the threat of the Pulse lurking monsters with "drastic measures," and uses the threat of exiling Cocoon citizens to Pulse as a means of controlling the people. Lightning, FF XIII's protagonist, is "chosen by the Crystal" to stop "those who would destroy the world," but Nomura (who is working on FF XIII as a character designer) was vague on any details otherwise.

Summons are going to be handled very differently in Final Fantasy XIII than in past FF games. They still serve as allies of our protagonist, but have some very unusual abilities; for example, the summon Shiva can now be transformed into a motorcycle, which Lightning can ride during battle. Somehow, this action-oriented feature is going to be implemented in a classic ATB system, but Nomura also stated that the game's developers are having "difficulties" implementing these new features.

Final Fantasy Versus XIII, an entirely separate game on its own, is supposedly set in a single kingdom within the same universe as Final Fantasy XIII and features a conflict centered over the last remaining crystal of said kingdom. The still-unnamed main character is a silver-haired swordsman who can teleport to any location where his sword is thrown. FF Versus XIII is being directed by Nomura himself and will use an action-oriented game engine based on the Kingdom Hearts series. Neither FF XIII nor FF Versus XIII has received a release date yet.

Final Fantasy Agito XIII is going to be a fully-3D cell phone game that centers on protecting another one of these crystals. That's essentially all that is known about Agito thus far, that and the fact that it doesn't have a release date either.

Source: RPGFan