News

Square-Enix had a few gems to reveal to the public at the Tokyo Game Show regarding their upcoming RPG releases. Among them, character names! Yes, finally, some of the CG beauties you've been marveling at all this time have names other than "Lightning... or is that the attack she's using?" Well... sorta. So far, only a few have been sorted through, and it's not entirely clear where the Engrish ends and the localized names begin...

Source: Final Fantasy Insider

For fans of Enix's Star Ocean series, it should come as pleasant news that the Star Ocean: First Departure website is up and running. First released on the Super Famicom only in Japan, the beginning of the Star Ocean series will finally be making its way to North American audiences on the PSP later this year.

Furthermore, the 360-exclusive Star Ocean 4: The Last Hope has been dated for March 2009.

Source: GameSpot

Trademarked some time ago, Konami recently announced a new title in the cult-favorite Suikoden series of RPGs. The game is about 50% complete, and "Tierkreis" is a German word meaning "Zodiac," - a few sparse details about the game have been released (it stars a young main named Jail and uses a four-member party of sorts) but for the most part very little is known to the public and fan forums are blazing with rumor and anticipation. There is also no word on the game being published outside of Japan.

Source: RPGFan

We're a little late on this, but it's still worth a newspost. Saturday morning, at Blizzard's European expo in Paris, Blizzard announced the third installment in one of their three flagship series: Diablo. Diablo III will continue the tradition set by its predecessors, with intrepid adventurers exploring dungeons and seeking to defeat some unspeakable evil, using an action-oriented combat system with RPG elements that usually proves to be incredibly addictive for players.

Diablo III has no release date as of yet, but several trailers and gameplay videos are available on Blizzard's website. Specific plot and storyline details don't seem to be available. Diablo III will have five playable classes, and for the first time players must select a sex for their character, rather than having specific classes associated with specific sexes. Two of the classes are the Barbarian and the Witch Doctor; the former seems very similar to its Diablo II counterpart, while the latter seems to combine elements of the Necromancer and Sorceress classes from Diablo II.

Now that Blizzard has new games in development for each of their primary franchises, fans of just about any Blizzard game have something to look forward to in the coming years. Personally, I hope that by the time this comes out I'll be finished with school, because goodness knows I'll throw at least a hundred hours at it. It makes me feel like tracking down my Diablo II CDs and taking my old antipode-Sorceress for a spin.

Source: Blizzard

RPGamer.com has discovered that the ESRB has re-rated Earthbound as an 'E for Everyone' title (replacing its old K-A rating, which no longer exists) and has it marked as a Wii title. A quick search on the ESRB's website confirms these findings, which as of this posting have not been covered up or hidden. This is being taken as a sign that Earthbound will soon be released on the Wii's Virtual Console. There has been no official announcement made by either Nintendo or Ape Software, so no more details are known.

This is fantastic news. The Virtual Console, while a great concept with a few gems, has been sorely lacking in a lot of my favorite games, most notably SNES RPGs. With this release of an old classic and cult favorite, perhaps the doors will be opened for more games and companies to jump on the Virtual Console train and try to get a few more bucks out of their older titles. However, for those hoping for Final Fantasy releases, with the rate that Square-Enix is pumping out remakes, I wouldn't get your hopes up for any of those. For now, fans of the series can enjoy the game once more, and people new to the game will be able to discover their love for New Age Retro Hippies and Multi Bottle Rockets.

Those links again:
RPGamer.com
Re-Rating and Wii platform for Earthbound
The ESRB's website

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Famitsu information

As far as I can tell, this information must be taken with a grain of salt, given that no writing that this newsposter can read is visible in either screen. Given the translation or further information at the info link, it appears that we will be getting a new attorney game in the Phoenix Wright world, but this time it's through the (third-person!) eyes of Miles Edgeworth, "Perfect Prosecutor." The game appears to be similar to the Phoenix Wright and Apollo Justice series, except you're on the other side of the courtroom. Returning characters thus far are Edgeworth and detective Dick Gumshoe.

As a HUGE fan of the series, I can't begin to write how excited I am to see a game from the prosecution's side. Since Edgeworth captured my heart and became one of my favorite characters in the first few games of the series, I always hoped for a game where we would be able to play as the ruthless prosecutor. It looks like this wish will finally be granted. Though they could very well be a new sort of cutscene, it appears that the action outside of the courtroom will be third person, allowing you to move Edgey around and search for "overlooked" clues.

I can't wait.

At a news conference earlier today, the big N made an announcement that for the past couple of years seemed like an inevitability: the Fire Emblem series of strategy RPGs will have an incarnation on the Nintendo DS. No additional info was provided with that announcement, not even a title or screen; just the knowledge that the long-running series will be on the world's most popular handheld in the future.

Source: Kotaku