I thought I would put out this year's edition. I did one similar last year for the many RPGs coming out, and everyone seemed to like the index. It seems that we have a ton of RPG fans on the X360 forums, which is always good, so I think we need an index of the upcoming RPGs with their respective launch dates, and such.
Spectral Force 3
Release Date: 7/29/08 (US). No EU Release Date. $59.99
Genre: Strategy RPG.
Story via IGN: Magic Era: 996. The ten kingdoms of the land, seizing the opportunity provided by Overlord Janus's death, are attempting to unify the continent under their own banners. This is the beginning of the Great Neverland War. In order to bolster their defenses, kingdoms have begun hiring mercenary units. As new members of the Norius Mercenaries, you and your friend Diaz are eager to prove yourselves. When the squad's commander Judo is mortally wounded in battle, the mantle of leadership is entrusted to you, and so the adventure begins...
My Take: Strategy RPGs on the X360 have, thus far, been at a premium. Only Operation: Darkness has come out, and it's been plauged with issues as far as the camera and game play unfortunately go. SF3 looks a little bit more solid. It doesn't look to be quite up to the level as Disgaea or Final Fantasy Tactics, but looks solid. I'll admit: I've never played the Spectra Force series, and at $59.99 to buy, I am going to rent this one, when possible.
You Might Be Interested If..Your an SRPG fan. Again, SRPGs don't come very often, and this one looks to be solid, but (obviously) not perfect. The game features 150+ missions, which should allow quite some time for it to be played, and beaten.
Hype Meter: 6/10. Looks better than Operation: Darkness by a long bit, and user reviews seem pretty favorable (around the 7.0 area). Buy if your a huge SRPG fan, rent if you enjoy the genre.
Tales of Vesperia
August 7th (JP), August 26th (US), 2009 (EU). $59.99
Genre: Japanese Action RPG
Story: (From Wikipedia)
The people of Terca Lumireis rely on Blastia, technology created from Core with a wide array of properties, to carry out their daily lives in peace. For example, cities use Blastia to perform day-to-day processes such as drawing water while knights and guild members use Blastia to kill monsters threatening ordinary citizens. Most importantly, Blastia is used to create barriers. Because monsters overindulge in Aer and become powerful and dangerous as a result, barriers are needed to hold them back from entering the cities. However, because Blastia protects and shelters people from the dangers of the world, it has prevented most citizens from exploring what lies beyond city walls.
Yuri Lowell, because he lives under the protection of barriers, longs to journey the outside world like his childhood friend Flynn Scifo. Flynn is a knight working for the capital, and thus is allowed to leave the city to protect citizens from harm. Yuri was once a knight with those same ideals as well, but because he hated the way the government enforced things, he retired and instead started up his own guild, Brave Vesperia, to serve the poor using his own sense of "justice." When a Blastia regulating the water supply is stolen from the lower quarters of the capital, Yuri takes matters into his own hands, only to be landed in jail. There, he encounters the sheltered Estelle, who decides to help him capture the Blastia thief so that she can leave the castle that has confined her for many years and explore the world herself. This marks the start of their adventure.
My Take: Well, it's a Tales game. Made by the Symphonia and Abyss teams. If your a newcomer to the Tales series, that's a very, very good thing. Known for many spinoffs (and poor Tales games), the fact is, this Tales game has great pedigree. As an Eternal Sonata owner, I loved the concept of a cell-shaded JRPG. Problem was, ES fell flat on it's face in so many areas, it wasn't funny. Fortunately, Tales of Vesperia seems to of fixed most of those problems, and looks to be a tour-de-force for Action RPGs - providing a decent (if not typical) Japanese RPG storyline, deep, good combat, and co-op play for (I assume) 4 players. We should get closer to the 80-85% reviewed Abyss and Symphonia-quality game play, rather than the crappier, 70% Legendia. I don't have this one pre-ordered yet, but it's day one for me.
You Might Be Interested If...You liked Eternal Sonata, or are a Tales fan. Either way, this would be a must-have for you. ARPG fans should also be strongly interested in this game, as the combat seems to be pretty awesome from the gameplay video, and be a much meatier game than the Xbox 360's Eternal Sonata. Don't expect it to be a be-all wonder game, but expect it to garner good reviews, and be worth your time playing.
Hype Meter: 8/10. Team Symphonia + Xbox 360 = Buy. Unfortunately, the cartoony anime style is most likely going to turn this deep, strategic game into a less-than-stellar storyline, but still will be a must-buy for a lot of fans. We only have 3 weeks to go before we find out how Japan likes this one. I alreay have my girlfriend and her niece ready for co-op, do you?
Rise of the Argonauts
Release Date: "September" (Possibly Sept. 1st)
Story (from Wikipedia): In Rise of the Argonauts, you play as Jason, the Greek king. Jason's wife, Alcmene, is assassinated and Jason avenges her by killing the assassin. He sealed her body in the temple where they were supposed to marry. Jason learns that the golden fleece, a magical artifact known to carry the power of resurrection, is the only way to bring her back to life. He leaves his land under the rule of his uncle and sets out on the newly constructed Argo to bring back the golden fleece, and possibly, his bride. Jason recruits the Argonauts, including Hercules (or Heracles as he was called by the Greeks), Pan, Achilles, and Atalanta. The trailer shows various mythical creatures one of which is a giant boar. The Levels or islands in the game are all based on different Greek gods. For examples, the island based on Artemis has a woodland type area based on hunting, while the island based on Apollo is an enormous desert and the island based on Ares is a volcanic island with a gladiator arena at its center.
Infinite Undiscovery
September 2nd (US), 5th (PAL), 11th (JP)
Story: Deep in a forest, in one of the Order's prisons, a young boy named Capell was being held captive. His captors called him the "Liberator," though he had no clue as to what they meant. On the third day of his imprisonment, he was rescued by a spirited young woman named Aya. She was a member of a small band of brave warriors who had gathered under the banner of Sigmund the Liberator to free the world from the iron grip of the Order. Upon meeting Sigmund, he was surprised to find a man who shared his very face and appearance. This meeting would change Capell's life forever and shake the foundation of the world itself.
Gameplay:
Infinite Undiscovery envelops you in a lush real-time world where any decision can unveil a myriad of discoveries and affect every encounter without the need to transition to another screen and can occur at anytime, even while the player is going through inventory in the menu. An action based battle system allows up to 4 characters that can be on the field at once is used. The player controls the main character Capell from a third-person perspective while the other 3 characters are controlled by AI, however using connect actions Capell can use another character's skill. Faced with a variety of episodic situational battles, you will discover that you may have to try various methods to defeat the enemy, where the most obvious solution is rarely the right move.
The game transitions between day and night about every 10 minutes and the player must use this to their advantage. For instance, at night the player might have a better chance of infiltrating an enemy base stealthy as oppose to barging in during the day. Light stealth elements like this are hidden throughout the game, director Hiroshi Ogawa explains: “As an example, when you’re running away from a hunting dog, you can distract him by dropping apples from the trees. However, the guards may catch you when they hear the thud of the apples.
My Take:
This one, like Tales of Vesperia, looks very promising. The IGN hands-on (as well as GameSpots) seemed to both be pretty positive of the game. The soundtrack is superb, and the game actually has a decent bit of innovation behind it (night-day cycle, using the environment as a weapon, ect), and is an Action RPG to boot. Although this one could fall on it's face, if done properly, could be incredible. The first 4 minutes of game play (in the YouTube video) looked very solid.
You Might Be Interested If...You like ARPGs. Unlike Tales of Vesperia, theres a much bigger risk factor to IU: Its darker, a new IP, and made by Tri-Ace. To me, it's the polar opposite of what Tales is doing for the ARPG genre. Couple the pedigree of Tri-Ace (who are doing Star Ocean) with the superb soundtrack, this could be a huge winner for ARPG fans where.
Hype Meter: 8/10. A more risky RPG than Tales since it's new, it has a good chance to really impress. I'm buying it Day-1, which will be hard as I will have bought Tales a week before. I really wish they'd spread out these RPGs so I could spend more time on them. The same thing happened last year with Two Worlds, Blue Dragon and Eternal Sonata.
Zoids Assault
September 9th (US), Unknown PAL Release Date
Story:
When war broke out between the world's two main superpowers, the Guylos Empire and the Republic of Helic, the effects rippled across the globe, dragging other nations into the fight. Two such nations were Maroll and Jamil.
During the war, Maroll's attacks on the neighboring Jamil were devastating, and even a decade after the war had ended, Jamil's economy and infrastructure hadn't fully recovered. Animosity, paranoia, and mutual mistrust between the two nations hindered their ability to find a common ground and complete their peace talks. For ten long years, the two nations found themselves in the middle of a cold war.
After a mysterious explosion at one of Maroll's military bases, two covert ops teams are sent into Jamil territory, their exact mission details never disclosed. Somehow, the events of the present are inextricably linked to the past--to the final days of the war, ten years ago...
Gameplay Features & Notes (via IGN):
You Might Be Interested If....You want another Spectral Force-quality game. Atlus is finishing it's trifecta of SRPGs on the Xbox 360 with this one. Although it's mech-based, it's still rooted in traditional SRPG-ery, from what I've seen. Obviously not the best SRPG ever made, it is supposedly more polished, and of better quality than either Spectral Force 3, or Operation: Darkness - - At the expense of length (around 15hrs).
Hype Meter: 5/10. I'm not going to lie - I really don't care too much about this one. I would LOVE to rent it for the achievements, and the fact it's supposedly 10-15hrs to beat. But with a $59.99 price tag......Oh man, that's too much when I can pay the same price for the title above, or below this one on the list.
Fallout 3
October 7th (US), 2008 (Europe). No JP Date.
Story:
Similar to previous Fallout games, Fallout 3 takes place in post-apocalyptic United States. The player character is a member of Vault 101, a fallout shelter serving Washington, D.C. The player character lives with his father (his mother having died in childbirth) until, one day, the player wakes up finding that his father has left the vault and ventured into the wasteland for unknown reasons. The vault overseer becomes suspicious that the player had something to do with the father's disappearance, and the character decides to go out into the Capital Wasteland in search of him.[14] Along the way, the player will encounter organizations seen in the previous games, including the Brotherhood of Steel, a group of technology-coveting survivors, and the Enclave, the elitist and genocidal remnant of the U.S. government.
Gameplay:
Initial previews of Fallout 3 revealed that the game will feature both first-person and third-person perspective. Main character creation occurs as the player experiences the character's childhood. The character's mother dies in labor in the Vault 101 hospital, immediately after which the player decides the character's general appearance through a DNA analysis conducted by the father. Afterwards, the father removes his surgeon's mask to reveal a face similar to the one chosen by the player for the character. As a child in the Vault, the character receives a book titled "You're SPECIAL," whereupon the player can set the character's seven primary aptitudes. The character receives training weapons and a PIP-Boy 3000 later on during childhood, and the player's performance in various tests determines the rest of the attributes. Additionally, several quests inside the Vault will be able to influence the player character's relationship with his or her father. Skills and Perks are similar to those in previous games: the player chooses three Tag Skills out of 14 to be the character's specialties. Four skills have been cut out from the game (Fallout and Fallout 2 had 18 skills) but it is unknown which skills have been removed. The maximum level the player can achieve is level 20.[8] The Traits from the previous Fallout installments were combined with Perks in Fallout 3, and the player can choose a new Perk each time after gaining a level.[9]
The Vault-tec Assisted Targeting System, or VATS, will play an important part in the fighting phases of the game. While using VATS, real-time combat is paused creating a combat system that the Bethesda developers have described as a hybrid between turn-based and real-time combat. VATS will also allow the gory deaths in the game to be shown in slow motion and great detail. Various actions cost action points, limiting the actions of each combatant during a turn, and both the player and enemies can target specific body areas for attacks to inflict specific injuries. The game will feature a new health and radiation system as well. The player can measure an object's radioactivity and gauge the effect it will have on the character.[8]
Another facet of gameplay is that firearms wear out over time: as a weapon degenerates, its rate of fire slows and it loses accuracy. However, worn out firearms can be combined to make more reliable and powerful weapons. Weapon schematics can also be found and used to create various devices such the Rock-it Launcher, created by combining a leaf blower and a wood chipper, that can fire various items such as lunchboxes and stuffed animals, or the Clever Shrapnel Bomb, made out of a Vault-Tec lunchbox and bottlecaps.[10] Along with equipping various weapons, the player can also utilize different armors and clothing that may have effects that can alter various skills. For example, a pair of mechanic's coveralls may boost the player's repair skill while it is worn. Armor and clothing come in two main parts for the head and body, allowing a player to wear different combinations of hats and armor. Also, a player's inventory has a specified weight limit, preventing a player from carrying too many items. Items like weapon ammo have no weight, due to the developer not wishing to bog down inventory management.[9]
The player will have a maximum party of three, consisting of himself/herself, Dogmeat, and a single NPC. In addition to having Dogmeat in your party you will be able to send him out on his own to search for items such as arms and ammo, radiation medicine, and stimpacks. Dogmeat can be killed during the game if the player misuses him or places him in a severely dangerous situation and he cannot be replaced.[11][12] Only one NPC can travel with the player at any time, and in order to get another NPC to travel, the first one must be "fired" by the player.
You Might Be Interested If...You were any remote fan of Oblivion, or the Fallout series. Fallout purists aren't the happiest about Bethsada's interpretation of the Fallout universe, but the quality that Bethsada has put into it is hard to ignore. Although it looks to combine a lot of Oblivion concepts with the Fallout series, it looks like it can all mesh, as Bethsada has always done a great job at the games they make (well, aside from Star Trek Legacy).
Hype Meter: 9/10. Lets face it: Oblivion was awesome, and so is Fallout. Has a good chance to be this year's Mass Effect in terms of awesomeness.
Fable 2
October 2008 - US & PAL
Story: (from Wikipedia:
Fable II is an upcoming role playing video game exclusively for the Xbox 360, which is being developed by Lionhead Studios and will be published by Microsoft Game Studios. It is a sequel to Fable and Fable: The Lost Chapters. Announced in 2006, the game will take place in Albion, 500 years after Fable's setting, in a colonial era resembling the time of highwaymen or the Enlightenment. Guns are still primitive, and the entire area is broken into 20 large regions and more developed large castles and cities in the place of towns.[2] Unlike in the original, the player may choose to be either male or female. Peter Molyneux announced at E3 2008 that the game will be released in October 2008.
Gameplay (from Wikipedia):
Character morphing
Fable II enhances the innovative system of morphing one's character based on their actions. Character morphing revolves around two main alignments: Good and evil. New aspects of the character alignment system include corruption, purity, kindness, and cruelty which will enhance a character's features. Purity and Corruption are more representative of what the character is like socially. The player can be good but a loner, or unpopular socially, or be evil yet charming, etc.[3]
Combat
Announced at E3 2007, all melee combat takes place on the X button. All ranged combat runs on the Y button and magic on the B button. Flourishes will be shown in a different perspective and time will slow down to show finishing moves. Moves done in melee combat are also dependent on where the player is located. For example, if a player is on top of a tower, pressing the X button may cause the player to throw a certain enemy off of the tower rather than attack with a weapon. If an enemy is above the player, such as on stairs, they have a tactical advantage [1]. Also, the X06 edition with a currently incomplete combat engine shows that the player can use the environment which leads to different combat reaches. The character can get into a bar fight shown in the combat demo (the first tested engine). A player's combat style will change according to the kind of weapon they're using. The player can also unlock more skills and combos with particular weapons as they become better at fighting. While using a gun, the player can aim more accurately by using a crosshair.[4]
There are multiple different weapon types known of so far: guns, axes, swords, hammers, staves and maces. It has been confirmed on the Lionhead blogs that the longbows will not be in Fable II due to the appearance of guns in Albion. However, crossbows will still be available.[5]
Dog
The player will encounter a pet dog that will stay with him or her for the rest of the game, regardless of the character's wishes. Molyneux has stated that the dog is an entity that will get the player to care, to experience love or hatred, when he announced this feature at the GDC 2007. Every dog will be unique in some way and morph depending on a variety of factors, such as the player's alignment. The dog will assist the player by performing a variety of tasks. The dog can alert the player to threats without alerting enemies of the player's presence. In performing this task, the dog has replaced the mini-map which was present in Fable. The dog can also attack whichever enemy the player is most vulnerable to. The enemy chosen will depend on various factors, for instance, which weapon the player has drawn. For example, there are two enemies ahead, one has a gun and one has a sword. If the player decides to attack with a sword they would be vulnerable to the enemy with the gun, so the dog would attack the gunman, and vice versa. In a recent interview and game demonstration Molyneux showed some of the interactions players can have with their dog, including buying toys, playing fetch and rewarding or punishing their dogs for their actions. The dog will morph according to the player's alignment; A pleasant character's dog will appear pleasant while an evil character's dog will appear scary. [6]
Obeying three main laws (do not irritate the player, unconditionally love the player and self-preservation), the dog features advanced AI. Although the dog is not directly controllable, it will respond to the player's actions; moving to attack will bring it to attack, running somewhere will have the dog run. Behavior is context-specific, and the dog will stay much closer in towns or when the player is hurt in battle. If the player goes to a shop the dog will wait outside until the player leaves the shop. He is, to a degree, trainable using expressions.[7] Molyneux also revealed that if the player does not want a dog, they have to run away from it; preferably when it is injured, although the dog will track down the player, causing him or her to run away again. One example given is of the dog being injured and the player leaves and goes to the pub, later there will be a scratching at the door. Someone will open the door for it and observers will react negatively upon seeing the abused dog faithfully return to its undeserving owner.
Death
The initial design was for the player character to die for good when he or she was taken advantage of, and have the character's children take over as being playable (if they had any). This did not work, however, as playtesters harvested children as dozens of extra lives, prompting Lionhead developers to create another new "death" system.
The second design was that the player's character would not die upon advantage taken. Rather, he or she would fall unconscious once he or she loses all of his or her health. The enemies would then injure the character while they were unconscious by beating, kicking or stabbing them, which would have left permanent and humiliating scars. Falling unconscious could be avoided with one of three sacrifices: gold, reputation or experience gained.
At GDC 08, Molyneux indicated in interviews that the design for death had changed due to player feedback during play testing. It was found that players would rather turn off their console than subject their character to permanent disfigurement.
On the 24th of June 2008, Dene Carter, creative director of Fable II, revealed the new design. Upon losing all health, the hero falls and loses an unspecified amount of experience. This experience is exchanged for a 'burst' of energy, allowing one last 'heroic struggle' in which the player rises to their feet and knocks all enemies away, leaving the player momentarily safe from harm. The area is not reset and the player does not replay the scene upon death, they simply carry on from the moment of death.[8]
Family
The family aspect of the Fable series will be further built upon, around the love and emotion themes touted by Molyneux. This was demonstrated in the GDC '08 demo, where Peter's female character returned to her home, greeted by a small child and her husband.
The sex aspect, relatively unimportant in the first game, has also been built upon significantly. Players will be able to choose to have protected or unprotected sex, and by extension choose whether or not to have a child. Female player characters also by extension will become pregnant, and they will also undergo the relevant physical changes[9]. Sex will, however, fade-to-black as in Fable.[10].
The player's child or children will look upon the player as an example and will also follow their alignment, looks, etc. A player's family can also be killed by a henchman co-op player, only if friendly fire is made active by the host player.[11]
Same-sex marriages, as in the first game, will be possible.[10]
Content
Albion is expected to be 10 times the size from the original game with 20 fully free-roaming regions and roughly 30 dungeons to explore. There are around 100 augmentable weapons, 70 augmentable clothes, and 20 different tattoos and haircuts. There are only eight basic spell types, but they are upgradeable to varying degrees, allowing for around 80 spells. There will be more than 160,000 lines of "AI-driven dialogue", over 150 unique quests and more than 6 minigames.[10] While Molyneux has stated that the player can complete the main story in 12 hours if they rush through it, it would take much longer to complete everything in the game.[12]
Co-op
A co-op mode was announced and shown at the 2008 GDC.[14] The mode of co-op is somewhat similar to that of Lego Star Wars: The Video Game; in that players will be able to drop in and out of other player's games at will. The host player can set certain rules; eg. how loot gained is split between the players and if friendly fire is active or not. Guest players will get an hourly rate of pay for helping the host out. Guest players can keep all the gold and experience they earn to take back with them into their own game world. On July 14th 2008, Molyneux demonstrated 'Albion orbs'. These orbs show where other players are in their respective worlds and allow you to, at the press of a button, bring them into your world to co-op with. Molyneux also demonstrated the possible consequences of active friendly fire in the GDC demo; the "henchman" player killed his character's husband, leaving his (female) character's son an orphan. Molyneux mentioned that the player will be able to visit his/her son/daughter in the town orphanage, however to also expect the child's disposition to possibly go to the extreme of resentment. Molyneux demonstrated this as a degree of the freedom available in the game. The actions of the henchman player are permanent in the host player's game, so killed NPCs will not be revived. Also, the henchman player's dog will not be able to join the host player's game. Molyneux also mentioned that the host player will be able to give items to any visitors that enter their world during co-op.
It has been hinted at repeatedly for some time after the show casing of "couch co-op" at the GDC that there may be a multiplayer element. After months of hinting and speculation on the Fable 2 forums at Lionhead's website an interview was posted where Peter Molyneux said that Fable 2 did indeed have some sort of online interaction and that it would be something that has never been done before as far as he knows. At E3 2008 Molyneux gave a demonstration of the co-op as part of Microsoft's conference. The co-op system appears to have been redesigned slightly with no menus or lobbys that would detract from the feel of the game. Instead, when connected to Xbox Live the game will check to see whether any of the players friends are playing Fable II. If they are they will be represented as a purple floating orb within the game. The player can communicate with the orbs, give them items and eventually invite them into their own world. [15]
Dynamic world
The world in Fable II will be fully dynamic. For instance, the player will be able to jump over fences and climb certain objects. [10] The player will not be assigned a set path or quest to follow. Since the game will take place over a hero's lifetime, many things will change; Molyneux gave an example of a trade camp that the player could either help or destroy. Trading in such camps would increase their profit, resulting in a small town growing around them, while stealing from the camp or massacring the camp will result in the abandonment of the area. Additionally, every accessible property (properties that can be entered by the player) in the world is ownable by the player, often unlocking further content such as quests. Molyneux also announced that players will be able to purchase furniture and fully customize their houses and property. Titles will be awarded for buying property; if one were to buy every building and piece of land in a town, they may become known as the mayor, king, and eventually emperor of the entire land of Albion. [16]
The environment in Fable II will feature trees with branches and leaves that are individually animated according to their own unique physics, each tree having roughly 120,000 leaves. There are also around 15 million poppies, a common flower, in Albion. [17]
My Take: Fable 2 looks to of fixed many of my personal issues with the first one: It's longer, deeper, and the gameplay elements have become more robust (main issue was the length of the game). IMO, Fable is a more "mature" Zelda in most ways: Taking the action/advenure genre, and taking it to the M-Rated level. This game looks, plays, and sounds gorgeous, and with co-op being available at any time, should be a great game.
You Might Be Interested If...You like RPGs. Fable was a pretty good RPG last time around, but flawed. All the gripes have been fixed, it seems, and should that really, truely be the case, Fable 2 could be the gem of the RPG genre in oh-so many ways. Lionhead better give us what they are promising, because it looks really, really good.
Hype Meter: 9/10. A sequel to a very very good Western Action/Adventure game, with the X360 treatment should allow this one to be a huge, blockbuster exclusive RPG for the Xbox 360 this year. Too bad I'm going to have to play far too much Fallout 3 before I get to this one :-p
The Last Remnant
Worldwide Release Date: November 20th
Story:
The Last Remnant follows the tale of Rush Sykes, a young chap who has had his sister kidnapped. He sets out after her and the adventure begins. Rush's world is one of fantasy where remnants of an unknown civilization are scattered about. These remnants provide a sort of power to the various races that inhabit the world. A character named David, for instance, uses a remnant-based weapon that looks like a gun. He comes from a city where there is another massive sword shaped remnant that the city has been built around. In its immediate surroundings, the city thrives.
Gameplay: (IGN's E3 Preview)
The battle system in The Last Remnant makes use of what Square is calling unions. There will be multiple members in your party that can be grouped into these unions. Up to five characters can be put in each union and up to five unions can be commanded at once. The team is in the final stages of crafting and tweaking the system, but it says that the goal of the game is to build unions based on character's strengths and to then use them strategically. Though it is a command based RPG, each union is given a strategy command and then the AI acts upon it.
We're told that there's a single main storyline that The Last Remnant follows, but the team has created a lot of side stories to give the player more freedom. This, along with input from the localization teams in North America and Europe, give The Last Remnant what Square hopes will be a style that the whole world will enjoy. Further catering to the western audience was done with all of the motion capturing and lip synching done in the US and Europe. That means all of the lips will match the voices in this Japanese made game. And you can thank those Europeans for the game coming to PC. There was apparently a strong request from that region to bring the game to the home computer.
You Might Be Interested If....Your interested in an East-Meets-West JRPG. This one is hard to define. It's a Japanese Action-RPG, but has been heavily influenced by Square North America, and Square Europe. Guess what the last game to combine both styles was? Secret of Evermore. The game seems like it's going to break the JRPG mold and go for less linear storytelling via good sidequests. Like Infinite Undiscovery, this could be one of the best RPGs that Square has put out for quite some time, or be mediocre.
Hype Meter: 8/10. It's Square doing a non-franchise RPG - So it will either be really good (Chrono Trigger), or really bad (insert lame Square-Enix cashin RPG). Definately going to be a neat one to check out, as the combat looks rather intense.
I'll update with more upcoming RPGs soon, as I have other stuff to do :-p
Hopefully this gives some good inclination as to if you may be interested in the next few RPGs coming out very shortly for the Xbox 360, as we're getting around 2 RPGs per month on the Xbox 360 from July through November.
Back from the dead, I'm afraid.
