Square Enix News Tidbits: Touch to Continue

Square Enix released its latest iPhone OS game since our last tidbits, a new IP called Chaos Rings. The game was developed with some of the developers responsible for the Wild ARMs series; with such a pedigree, you would assume that the game would be pretty special. And, if the early reviews are right, well, it kind of is within the scope of iPhone games. So far, nearly seven hundred reviewers on iTunes give the game an average of 4.5/5, and sites like Kotaku have plenty of good things to say as well. Visually, this game looks easily on par with console games of, say, eight years ago, and that alone will set it apart from most of its brethren (though it also might require fairly new Apple hardware to play at full strength). It also is a bit pricey for a iPhone game, at $12.99, but that still makes it a lot cheaper than a new game for your Nintendo or Sony handheld.

Final Fantasy XIII is already getting re-published in portions of Asia. To sweeten the deal for late adopters, they're getting a Lightning-themed PlayStation 3 controller in their bundle. It's nothing groundbreaking, just a Dual Shock in the general style that you might have seen before. Seems like the screenprint would wear off pretty quickly with it being on the handle like that, doesn't it?

As you no doubt know by now, Square Enix has become as big a name in games publishing as they have in games development, particularly in Japan, where they have released Western games such as Modern Warfare 2 on behalf of their original publishers. The "controversy" of games like MW2 might have led directly to our next tidbit—the company is soon to create a new imprint for the games that might be a bit extreme for the company's image in Japan. Called "Square Enix Extreme Edges," the label will be used exclusively for games that get Japan's equivalent of the ESRB "Mature" rating label. There appear to be no immediate games that will get the label.

In sales news, while Western gamers appear to be a bit reticent towards Nier, there's no such issue in Japan. The Japan-only PS3 game starring Nier, called Replicant, started off its lifespan at the top of the Famitsu sales charts. The 360 game, Gestalt (the one we'll be getting in the West), started in 11th place for the week—not bad, being for a console that doesn't sell all that well over there. If you want to get your hands on the hot Replicant, try PlayAsia, through our new affiliate partnership: Buy Nier Replicant. We'll be working to add more items from PlayAsia to the site as we can. Having bought from there myself in the past, it's a pretty great place to get all sorts of imported gaming accouterments that you can't get from AmaCoN. Among those items might be these Kingdom Hearts figures, which were announced this week for release in August in Japan. They'll be hard to come by here, I'm sure, but if we can find them on PlayAsia for you, we'll definitely get you hooked up.

Finally for these long-winded tidbits, we return to the Dragon Quest bar. This time, for a giant, slime-shaped meat bun. You can not even think about saying that isn't cool.

Source: iTunes, SiliconEra, Kotaku