Update: First images of the book and the package it all comes in have made their way online! Head past the break to catch a glimpse.
Level-5 and Studio Ghibli's upcoming DS RPG, Ni no Kuni: The Another World is sure to be a big success. Why? Uh, have you watched the video above yet? The game looks awesome. With the visual presence that Studio Ghibli provides with its great animation and wonderful character design, along with Level-5's RPG experience, this is going to be a game you want to keep your eyes on.
Know what else is cool? The game is going to come with a custom spellbook specific to that copy of the game. What's inside? Spells, of course (among other things, such as a bestiary)! You can see a bit of it in the video above, where the weird symbols are drawn. After the video, hit up this link to read the Level-5 president's interview with Famitsu about the game.
Okay, we know what you're going to say: "OMG WHERE IS LAYTON 2 IN THE US!?!?!?!?" Short answer: we don't know. Long answer: we don't know, and we're flattered that you'd think we have access to that kind of information. But maybe sometime in the next few years we can look forward to seeing this Professor Layton 3 trailer in support of an English release. Maybe.
Professor Layton and the Last Time Travel puts Layton and Luke in a fanciful clockwork interpretation of the future, guided by an adult Luke who looks exactly like a slightly lankier version of Luke. As the title suggests, an experimental time machine breaks when it sends the duo on their journey. The game is set for a November 27 release in Japan, but we can just watch the beautiful animation for a while here.
Well, it's Friday, and as promised, Level-5 has sent out some juicy screens for their upcoming game with Studio Ghibli, Ni no Kuni: The Another World. As you can see above, Studio Ghibli's amazing animation is present and the their wonderful imagination means the game will have some incredibly inspired characters. Head past the break for some more screens, courtesy of Famitsu.
Akira Tago's Brain Exercise Vol. 1: Travel Around the World Solving Puzzles and Sloane and McHale's Mysterious Story were both listed in the same issue of Famitsu in which the other games were announced, though these two were buried in the schedule for 2009. We don't know much about Sloane and McHale, but Akira Tago is the puzzle master whose works inspired Professor Layton. That's all we need to know!
Good news, fan of all things DS. The handheld is getting some more love from Level-5, in the form of more games. Level-5 pres and all around handsome dude, Akihiro Hino, has made public his company's intent to rock the DS right out of your hands. How? Well, first is a proposed partnership with Studio Ghibli, the folks behind awesome animated films like Spirited Away.
It's one of the DS-related mysteries that keeps us up at night: what is the dealio with Dragon Quest IX? Square Enix claimed the game was "almost finished" back on February 1st, developer Level 5 has long been targeting a 2008 release, and the game's official page still has the title down for a launch this year.
Despite this, Spencer at Siliconera points out that there has been no recent press coverage of the game, never mind a concrete release date from Square Enix, who plan to make an unholy amount of wonga from the game. Maybe we'll find out more at the Tokyo Game Show next month, though just to confuse matters further, the game won't be playable there. It's all very bizarre.
Source: Dragon Quest IX might make 2008 ...
Source: ... but it won't be playable at TGS.
The low cost of DS game development and the extraordinarily high popularity of the system make the DS an excellent way for new developers to find an audience. 5th Cell is a notable company who has done great with the DS -- which is why they've made this Gamasutra list of breakthrough developers. Level-5 has been huge for a while, thanks to Dragon Quest VIII, but Professor Layton upped their profile significantly.
Have any developers come to your attention since you started playing the DS? Old or new, have you become a fan of a company for their DS output? We're sure there are some out there without the number 5 in their name.
Nintendo is finally taking aggressive action against piracy, as the company is suing five Japanese firms over flash cart equipment. The Big N is just one of many plaintiffs in the case, though, with fifty-three others joining in to aid the fight -- just a few companies that you may have heard of, like, oh, Square Enix, Sega, Level-5, Hudson, Pokemon, Capcom, Namco Bandai, SNK Playmore, Koei, and so forth.
While details are scarce, we can imagine a lot of popular carts (like the R4), if not all carts, will be affected. Should Nintendo and friends win the suit, selling and importing such carts will be illegal, meaning that people would have to resort to the black market to get their hands on one.
We understand why Nintendo and other companies would want to fight the good fight against piracy, but we can't help but fret over the impact on our precious homebrew hobby. At any rate, we'll give you more information as this case unfolds.
It's true -- Inazuma Eleven looks great, and each piece of media has been drooled upon by RPG, anime and even general soccer fans alike. With the imminent Japanese release on August 22nd, Level-5 has begun advertising on television, and this commercial is a perfect place for gamers in the dark about Inazuma to take a first look and become ultra-interested.
Inazuma Eleven is incredibly original, featuring real-time strategy gameplay on the field, as players draw on the touch screen to direct positions of team members. Hopefully the gameplay is easy enough to understand for keen importers, because the chances of localization are not that great. Well, anything less than 100 percent won't be good enough!
The latest issue of CoroCoro Comic has taken a long, hard look at Level-5's forthcoming soccer RPG, Inazuma Eleven. Mostly this involves displaying large quantities of the title's pretty fantastic character art (there's a definite Layton feel to it), but there are a number of screenshots dotted about the pages.
These show off several aspects of the title, from your common or garden dialog screens to shots of the matches that take place (and in which players control the movement of players by drawing on the touchscreen). Combining soccer with a real-time SRPG is fascinating to us, not to mention ridiculously original -- the closest comparison we can think of is International Superstar Soccer 2000 for the Nintendo 64, which included RPG-lite elements in its single-player mode, but nothing quite as in-depth as Inazuma Eleven.
Anyway, we digress: Jeux France was kind enough to pop CoroCoro in the scanner and show us the entire preview, so hit the "Source" link below for the full skinny.
Is Dragon Quest IX really "almost done"? And does it even matter? We're not so sure, because Square Enix still isn't budging on a release date for the game. Company President Yoichi Wada announced at Square Enix's recent earnings briefing that the game will be released at some point in the current fiscal year, which ends on March 31, 2009. Are we about to see that hopeful 2008 release date cruelly taken away from us? How much longer will we be writing paragraphs consisting almost exclusively of questions?
However long we wait, Square Enix is confident of one thing: Dragon Quest IX is going to sell like cakes of the exceedingly hot variety. "With the DS, 10 million units is a possibility," proclaimed Wada to a bunch of no doubt beatific investors. He's presumably talking about global sales rather than Japan-only figures, but even so, isn't that a touch optimistic? We think it is, anyway -- as it stands, no game published by a third-party has come even close to the magical eight digit mark.
Level 5's Inazuma Eleven looks utterly fantastic. Combining a sports title with RPG themes, that alone was enough to sell us on the game. Of course, it also doesn't hurt that Level-5 is developing it. Looks like Japan will find out how awesome Inazuma Eleven is this August.
For those of you who're as intrigued by this title as we are, know there is some new media around the net. First up, Game Watch has some lovely screens for you to check out. After that, get some full-motion excitement from the extended trailer up at GameSpot Japan. After that, we'd suggest changing your pants. We had to.
Read - Inazuma Eleven trailer at GameSpot Japan
Read - Inazuma Eleven screens at Game Watch
Everyone who dug Professor Layton and the Curious Village (see: the entire DS Fanboy staff and its readers), then you'll be happy to know the series continues on unabated in Japan, as Professor Layton and the Last Time Travel has been announced for the region. Level 5 has confirmed that the title will release to eager gamers in Japan sometime in the fall of this year. As it stands right now, this is believed to be the last entry in the series of games.
A teaser site has launched, which you can check out here (or by clicking the "Read" link below). Who else is ready for another dose of Layton goodness?
Professor Layton/Dragon Quest VIII developer Level-5 has announced a release date for their next big project, Inazuma Eleven: August 22nd. The developer has been building interest in their soccer RPG for a long time in a lot of unconventional ways: offering demos on DS cards which also feature exclusive Layton content, creating a pop group, going so far as to buy naming rights to a soccer stadium.
Will the marketing overkill pay off for Level-5? We were pretty sure Inazuma Eleven was going to be huge even before they started doing this stuff, just because of the massive amounts of cred the company has picked up in Japan since Layton and DQVIII.
Here's a puzzle for you, and we think you'll find it to be an absolute humdinger: if you haven't already purchased Professor Layton and the Curious Village, then why not? There are several different answers to this brainteaser, but you'll have to go past the break to find them.
Anyway, Level 5's gorgeous adventure is now available at Target for $26, a minuscule price to pay for what is easily one of the best DS games of 2008 so far. Also in Target's bargains line-up this week: Brain Age 2 (for $17), Flash Focus: Vision Training in Minutes a Day (also $17) and, um ... Petz Bunnyz 2 ($26 too much).
While we're not sure why these two weren't announced with the same fanfare as 
The low cost of DS game development and the extraordinarily high popularity of the system make the DS an excellent way for new developers to find an audience. 
Is Dragon Quest IX really "
Level 5's 
