News

Announced at a Tokyo press conference Wednesday, Square-Enix and Gakushuukenkyuusha (aka Gakken) have teamed up to establish a new company, named SG Lab, designed to develop and publish "serious" game titles - that is, video games with teaching purposes such as educational research, government, medicine, and more.

As unappealing a move as this endeavor may sound, some of these so-called serious games will be unintended for regular gamers. According to the presidents of both companies, SG Lab will develop the educational software after receiving and accepting orders from various clients, a task they've only recently begun. Currently there's no telling just what sort of game themes SG Lab is likely to expect in the future, but they're already working on expanding their market to include topics ranging from health care to public relations dealt within private enterprises.

Due to the amount of expert knowledge required to tackle such a business, this is one field Square-Enix would not be able to handle alone being strictly an entertainment developer; therefore entailed the decision to partner-up. As Youichi Wada, president of Square-Enix explained, video games aimed at entertaining players and serious games are of two very different leagues. Gakken, in search of a skillful and influential company within the gaming industry, found the idea of an education-based joint effort by the two rather intriguing.

With an overall lack of competition in the genre as of now, it's extremely likely SG Lab's desire to be the global market leader will be well within reach.

Source: RPGFan

Famitsu Magazine, reputed to be the #1 gaming review magazine in Japan has recently reviewed and ranked Final Fantasy XII giving it a perfect score across the board, which apparently is a rare thing, when you consider that with this game included, they've only ever given 6 games a perfect 40 points.

The game looks, appears, and sounds better and better with every morsel of it I hear.

Source: Imgup (Thanks to Phunbaba for the link)

The third (fourth if you count the PS1 RPG Koudelka) game in the Shadow Hearts series, subtitled From the New World, will be released for the PS2 in the United States on March 7th of this year at a retail price of $39.99. Developer XSeed released this information some time yesterday, along with releasing an American official website for the game. The previous two games (particularly the second, Shadow Hearts: Covenant) received critical acclaim and a strong cult following due to their unusual twists on real-life settings, bizarre and entertaining characters, deep and dark storylines, and unusual and innovative gameplay mechanics.

FTNW will play similarly to Covenant and will feature Shadow Hearts' signature setting and style, but there are a number of important changes being made. First of all, this game does not appear to be a completely obvious sequel. The first two games both starred the shapeshifter Yuri Hyuga and were set in World War I-era Europe. FTNW fast-forwards approximately fifteen years and travels a few thousand miles, being set in America in 1929, starring a young New York gumshoe named Johnny Garland, and featuring Native American bounty hunters, a American ninja-wannabe, a young vampire girl, a Mexican mariachi, and fat, alcoholic talking cat as supporting cast members.

FTNW brings back the Judgement Ring system, but also adds something called the Stock system to Shadow Hearts' gameplay. Stock meters work similarly to several other passive meters in other RPGs (ie Limit Meters, Overdrive Gauges, IP Bars) in that it will build up over time (in this case building up whenever a character deals or takes damage) to be spent later for special attacks. If you build up a character's Stock meter to maximum, they accumulate one Stock (maximum 2). Characters can spend one or two Stock to perform special attacks, or even combine Stock with other characters to perform combination special attacks. This should add a new element of strategy to the already-innovative and interesting SH battle system.

I personally really enjoyed the first two SH games (especially Covenant), so I have been waitng for this information for quite some time. I am extremely excited about this game, and consider the Shadow Hearts games to be one of the best RPG series of this current generation of consoles. Any of you with a PS2 would be doing themselves a service by checking this game and its predecessors out. With From the New World, Kingdom Hearts II, Tales of Phantasia, and Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion call coming out in March of this year, RPG players have a lot to look forward to next month.

Sources: RPGFan
Shadow Hearts: From the New World's official website

Just yesterday Square-Enix unleashed their new Promotion Video Podcast website. The purpose of the site is to provide promotional trailers of the developer's many upcoming games for download and viewing on iPods or similar devices free of charge. At the moment the only available trailer is that of Front Mission 5: Scars of War, a title currently unreleased in North America, but the plan is to update the site on a regular basis, adding more and more trailers throughout each month.

The fact that the website is mostly in Japanese should prove not to be an impediment, but it is unknown at this time if an English version or a multiple language option will eventually be introduced.

Source: GameSpot

Shonen Jump magazine recently offered a more in-depth look at the RPG based on Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King, starring a much younger (and much thinner) version of the hero's ex-bandit sidekick named Yangus, aptly but oddly entitled Dragon Quest Yangus.

First revealed visually at Jump Festa in December, the prequel - in league with Square-Enix's Mysterious Dungeon series - will fixate on the childhood adventures of Yangus and the trials which molded him into the, uh, "hero" he became. The story kicks off with Yangus insolubly appearing in an alternate world where he begins his quest through the true meat of the game - the ever-changing dungeons.

Just like the Mysterious Dungeon titles it takes after, Dragon Quest Yangus will contain ample dungeons to tackle and traverse that are generated randomly with each playthrough. That is, their regeneration would be limited as such if not for a new feature implemented within the game: To be blunt, this time around the dungeons will also regenerate with a purely chance outcome each time they're exited and then re-entered. Players will be forced to think twice before stepping outside of one; it will be as if a new dungeon took its place upon returning back inside.

Update! Dragon Quest Yangus is now scheduled to hit the PlayStation 2 in Japan on April 20th, 2006.

Screenshots

Source: RPGamer

Courtesy of an interview with EuroGamer.net, Dragon Quest (or, for those who care little about the continuity of titles, Dragon Warrior) producer Yuji Horii, like many other series heads before him - including Konami's Metal Gear mastermind Hideo Kojima - made it evident at an event held in London last week to commemorate the launch of Square-Enix's largely successful Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King that his reaction toward the prototype controller for Nintendo's up-and-coming Revolution console could be summarized as something more than slightly thrilled, as described by the site's attending journalists.

When prompted by a question regarding the Revolution's controller, Yuji Horii divulged quite a bit of eagerness in response: "I loved the fact that it was interactive, that you do something and you get feedback." According to Horii, a novel concept behind the greatest video game would involve complete interactivity and dictate that consequences are received from the player's every action. Because of the Revolution controller's function, the interactivity isn't limited simply to the gameplay, but extends to the hardware itself. "You do something, and it reacts to you," he stated. "It's human nature that to have some feedback from your actions is rewarding."

So what does all this toying with the idea really amount to? Frankly, the details are too few to draw a solid conclusion, but not too vague to speculate. Oddly enough, the question "Are there any plans to release this title (Dragon Quest VIII) on different platforms or game consoles?" that sprung up on the event's press notes was met with a curious "TBA" (To Be Announced) printed next to it, although nothing yet is confirmed.

The highest selling series in Japan, the very last major Dragon Quest title to be released on a Nintendo console was in 1995, and it's been even less recent for gamers outside its country of origin. But whether or not it's by a gambler's chance, an emergence of the Dragon Quest series on the Revolution may very well have its potential.

Sources: CVG
EuroGamer