For our very lucky brothers and sisters living in Japan, this one's for you. Dated for this August is the release of Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure, Nippon Ichi's SRPG. This has little weight with those of us living outside of the country, who're forced to wait until SRPGs are localized. We know, it's just horrible.
Spencer over at Siliconera is of the mind that the title could wash up on North American shores come the end of the year, however. So for those of you looking to throw down in a very careful and meticulously plotted manner, cross your fingers. You just might get your wish.
Man, the boxart for this Japanese baby-care game (or whatever you call that kind of thing) is totally cute. We didn't think there was a way to get jaded non-little-girl gamers like us interested in seeing screens of a baby game, but publisher Brain Toys has done just that for Konnichiwa Akachan (Hello Baby). If the whole game were to look like this, it would be a confirmed Cute Overload.
We have got to see screenshots right -- oh, no, it's Baby Pals. Oh, man, they got us to look at Baby Pals again. That's like the baby-game equivalent of the Rickroll. There hasn't been this much of a mismatch between boxart and a game's real appearance since Dragon Power.
European shooter fans (and people who listen to us) will be playing MP3s into their DS Lites along with us this August. D3 Publisher of Europe announced today that they will publish Treasure and ESP's Bangai-O Spirits in Europe. While no actual day was named, the release is planned for August, which is, at least, more specific than "Summer," "Q3," or "Soon." Just save some of your game budget for an August expenditure.
We couldn't be happier to see Bangai-O Spirits being released so soon in Europe, because it means that (as long as you guys buy it) we'll have even more players hard at work making us awesome stages.
Except for the (necessarily) strange aspect ratio, Ninja Studio's Windy x Windam seems as straightforward a 2D fighter as you could get. Completely 2D sprites and backgrounds depict a fighting tournament in which each participant enters for their own personal reasons.
Thanks to character profiles, we know a bit more about a few of the non-Izuna characters: Ashley sells flowers on the street (and is fighting for equality in the world or something). Kiriku is a self-taught swordsman who enters the fighting tournament to help his injured sister. Stein is a robot who wants freedom and searches for his creator. (Izuna, of course, is in the tournament for money.)
It's a good thing story doesn't matter in fighting games, because Windy x Windam is turning out to be a pastiche of fighting game cliches so far. Oh, maybe it's parody!
Wow, they're pretty much the same! We were sure that after years of waiting, the new European version of Shaberu! Cooking Navi, or at least its marketing, would be the subject of a significant facelift. But if the boxart is any indication, Nintendo is presenting Cooking Guide in exactly the same way they did Cooking Navi.
The title fonts are similar, the layouts are similar, and even the food photographs are similarly lit and focused. The only differences, really, are that the European box has more food photographs on it, and lacks the playful "Shaberu!" ("Talk!") that bounces out from the title in the Japanese box. Really, it looks even more like a training game. After the break, we've prepared a heartier, lumberjack-style serving of Cooking Navi boxart.
Just yesterday, NCSX began taking preorders on adorable Dragon Questslime DS Lite styli. Today, they've revealed a thematically appropriate companion piece: this Dragon Quest V DS protector. Much like otherHori Protect Cases, this is a transparent hard plastic cover for the DS, with attractive monochrome artwork on the top. This one features artwork of the Hero and the game's logo, and looks cooler than we expect things with Akira Toriyama art on them to look. This one doesn't come with any other accessories, which in our minds is just another excuse to go ahead and spend the $7 on a Slime Stylus.
The Dragon Quest V Accessory will ship in July for $13.90. Try not to scuff up your DS before then!
Sting is offering a special limited-edition package of their DS strategy game Knights in the Nightmare that honors the game's history, and (sort of) serves fans of the Dept. Heaven series to which the game belongs. We say "sort of" because the Knights in the Nightmare Dept. Heaven Episodes Series Special Pack includes the new DS game (Episode IV in the Dept. Heaven series) and the Game Boy Advance Yggdra Union (Episode II). There has yet to be an Episode III, and Episode I (Riviera: the Promised Land) isn't included.
If you're a fan of Sting's series of tactical RPGs, chances are you have Yggdra Union. And if you're willing to pay 8,190 yen ($79) for a new DS strategy game, you're already a fan. Which means a bunch of Japanese collectors are going to end up with extra copies of Yggdra Union that will never come out of the package.
For people growing up in the U.K. who are familiar with all of this signage, Driving Theory Training looks like it will be Obvious Information Training, at least in the lessons focusing on identifying various road signs. At least, we hope, for the sake of our friends over there. For the most part, the road signs are immediately obvious to people who haven't seen them as well, and some are fairly universal. Others ... we'd need explained to us.
Speaking of things we'd need explained to us, how does matching two identical signs help you learn anything about driving? We suppose it's important to train your ability to look at things. Or maybe this game of looking at signs is an 'entertaining' break from the business of looking at signs?
From the consistently high Brain Training sales in the UK, we have to assume that at least some of you Brits are nuts for the kind of games that give you a mental workout. Lexicon Entertainment is even banking on that assumption, as the company is releasing five different trivia games under the Super Brain Tease license. Each game will have a different subject, giving you a choice from the following:
Football (aka soccer, for those of us in the U.S.)
History
Geography
Music
Movies
We find it amusing that you Brits are so crazy about your soccer, er, football, that Lexicon has ditched a broader "Sports" category in favor of something so specific. All poking fun aside, though, should these titles sell well enough they'll only be the first of many.
The main allure of such games, we're sure, will be their budget price points, as each edition will be offered for £9.99. If the idea of trivia at such a cost interests you, you can expect to see the Super Brain Tease series hit retail in Q4.
[Update: you just get one! Blue or orange. I am a sad slime.]
There just aren't enough Slime products for us. The hundred bajillion or so that currently exist fail to completely cover every aspect of our lives. Square Enix is working to make sure that we never have to not look at a Slime again, starting with the outside of our DS Lite.
For just $7, you can get one of two adorable Slime styli that fit into the Lite just like the normal ones, with one important difference: a pleasantly vacant little Slime peeking out from the stylus slot. Preorders are set to ship in July, just in time (we think) for the Dragon Quest IV remake.
We haven't heard much about Climax's Steal Princess other than, well, that Climax is working on it and that it's a dungeon/puzzle game of some kind based on finding a key to exit each room of a dungeon (sort of a roguelike-lite?)
With Climax and publisher Marvelous preparing Steal Princess for a July 31 release, we've been given more reason to pay close attention. First, they've released four pieces of artwork that we wish were wallpaper-sized, which can be found at Inside-Games. Of course, the game doesn't use the same high-contrast anime look as these images, but they're still effective advertising (in that they are really cool). Second, if you want to know more about the actual game, Marvelous has released a commercial, featuring several simultaneous tiny gameplay clips.
We may have reason to be interested in Steal Princess. AQ Interactive's announcement of their U.S. publishing plans includes a lot of Marvelous games whose identity has yet to be revealed. It seems likely that they'd pull from their DS lineup.
Remuooru no Alchemist DS is a remake of a PC strategy game about running an alchemy shop to get out of debt. It's a pretty specific situation, and one you're probably not likely to run into -- although debt is certainly prevalent enough.
Alchemist involves securing stock from farmers and wandering adventurers, then filling your shelves with a combination of unaltered materials and alchemically-combined products. You can use your profits to pay off your debts and also to expand your shop.
The cute graphics and rather bizarre subject matter lift Remuooru no Alchemist above more mundane simulators. We're a lot more likely to want to run a fake shop to get out of fake debt if it's a magical fake shop.
This comes as little surprise, since AQ Interactive announced that Blue Dragon Plus would release in the U.S. by the end of the fiscal year, but we're still glad to see a firm Japanese release date for Mistwalker/feelplus's strategy-RPG sequel. It's scheduled to be out September 4, for 5,229 yen ($50).
We're slightly less enthused by what AQ Interactive decided to do with the box. It's less "grand adventure" (which is the feeling that most Blue Dragon artwork evokes for us) and more "horrific See 'N Say." The giant, blue, snake-tailed, winged horse says "Neigh! See you in your nightmares!"
Now, for some less ... awkwardSNK news: this trailer for Metal Slug 7 is so not about harassing schoolgirls that you could probably be seen looking at it. You may even be able to bring yourself to buy this game in a store, without a disguise on.
There's enough content in the trailer to motivate us to make such a non-incognito purchase, as well. The animation looks wonderful, at least as far as we can tell from YouTube, and there are at least two awesome new vehicles: the Slug Truck, a mine cart thing, and Slug Giganto, a giant robot! Even minor features like the prisoner database sound great.
Final Fantasy and card games go together like ... well, the other part of that simile depends on how much time you wasted trying to get rare items by playing Final Fantasy VIII's Triple Triad. In any case, card games and Final Fantasies go way back.
The Japanese version of the Square Enix Members site now has two Final Fantasy IV-themed card games available for free play, requiring only that players sign up. Daifugo is a popular Japanese card game in which players put down sequentially stronger cards with the goal of emptying their hands. Pochika Sodatsusen is, according to Game|Life's Jean Snow, played "in a style similar to Old Maid, with a few new twists, like the ability to capture cards." It is associated with the new Whytkin character.
For our very lucky brothers and sisters living in Japan, this one's for you. Dated for this August is the release of Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure, Nippon Ichi's SRPG. This has little weight with those of us living outside of the country, who're forced to wait until SRPGs are localized. We know, it's just horrible.
European shooter fans (and people who listen to us) will be playing MP3s into their DS Lites 
Except for the (necessarily) strange aspect ratio, Ninja Studio's 
For people growing up in the U.K. who are familiar with all of this signage, 
From the consistently high 
Remuooru no Alchemist DS is a remake of a PC strategy game about running an alchemy shop to get out of debt. It's a pretty specific situation, and one you're probably not likely to run into -- although debt is certainly prevalent enough.
