Squenix is up to all sorts of new things...

Posted on Friday 11th July 2008 at 18:56 by karasuman

...and even though we won't have all the details until E3, here's a preview to whet your appetite.

Let's get the big one out of the way: Final Fantasy XIII. Yes, they're still making it. ... That's about it. Anyone who thought that was headed anyone's way this year clearly doesn't remember how long it took the previous installment to make it to market, though, and, this time, there are two games to look forward to. With FFXIII/FFVsXIII still at least a year away, maybe it's time to branch off into some of Squenix's other offerings.

For 360 and PS3 owners, the next great RPG comes in the form of The Last Remnant. Microsoft's deal with the devil means that the game will be exclusive to the 360 for a limited time, but, never fear, Sony fans will eventually get a crack at it. The game will feature a new mixture between large-scale tactics and individual battle control in a quest to save the world.

Sadly, Microsoft might manage to hold onto Infinite Undiscovery. Due in September, it stars Capell (a boy who looks like a boy!) and Aya in a (surprise!) quest to save their world.

The return of the Star Ocean series is the next big thing looming on the horizon. While is seems that The Last Hope might end up a 360 exclusive, remakes of the first two games are slated for the PSP. Star Ocean: First Departure will be available in late October of this year, and Star Ocean: Second Evolution will launch in January 2009. Both games will feature enhanced graphics and sound over the originals, which were for the Super Famicom and PlayStation, respectively.

There's plenty for DS fans to look forward to, too. Chrono Trigger and Dragon Quest IV will be making their remade ways to the handheld this winter, and a full remake of Final Fantasy IV is due at the end of this month.

Lastly, if you've always wanted to play an RPG on your iPod, now's your chance--Song Summoner has arrived. The title appears to be a tactical RPG that draws on your iPod playlist to create party members...or "Tune Troopers", as the case may be. If that sounds intriguing, it's only $4.99 to satisfy your curiosity.

Posted in: Square-Enix News

Written by	karasuman
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	Member Since: 2003-07-31
	News articles posted: 51
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Comments

dont chocobos rule?	Comment 1: 2008-07-11 19:11
	im looking forward to chrono trigger, ff xiii, ff Vs xiii, and the last remnant most of all, but the song summoner one sounds intriguing
leilong	Comment 2: 2008-07-11 23:30
	Quote (karasuman @ 11th July 2008 12:56) Lastly, if you've always wanted to play an RPG on your iPod, now's your chance--[dohtml]<a href="http://www.square-enix.co.jp/songsummoner/">Song Summoner</a>[/dohtml] has arrived. The title appears to be a tactical RPG that draws on your iPod playlist to create party members...or "Tune Troopers", as the case may be. If that sounds intriguing, it's only $4.99 to satisfy your curiosity. I've always wanted an RPG wherever I can get it! I can't imagine that it would be a long game, but then again, I have an 80G iPod, so it could be massively expansive. Either way, $5 is cheap. I'm going to check it out, much like I did for Phase, which I haven't played in forever, and then began complaining about how there was no portable guitar hero until Guitar Hero: On Tour came out. I suppose this game will entertain me for 45 minutes spaced out through a 2 week period, and then I will complain about how they don't have Tactical RPGs for handhelds, and then I'll facepalm and go back to playing FFTA2.
Harlequin	Comment 3: 2008-07-12 02:52
	Quote (karasuman @ 11th July 2008 18:56) Lastly, if you've always wanted to play an RPG on your iPod, now's your chance--[dohtml]<a href="http://www.square-enix.co.jp/songsummoner/">Song Summoner</a>[/dohtml] has arrived. The title appears to be a tactical RPG that draws on your iPod playlist to create party members...or "Tune Troopers", as the case may be. If that sounds intriguing, it's only $4.99 to satisfy your curiosity. Why look forward to FFXIII that only satisfies one of my hobbies when I can have a game that combines two of my loves? This game can go either way (as in it can be terrible or terrific), but man, I can think of all of these songs I want to make people out of.
leilong	Comment 4: 2008-07-12 08:51
	Well, I sat down, and ended up doing my "45 minutes" in an hour long fest on Song Summoner. This game makes me wonder why I spent $30 on FFTA2, and $5 on SS. They could milk this game for $20... EASILY. Thank god the man has restrictions (ala $5 iPod games), or else this could've gotten ugly. So I spent the first 10 minutes getting through the required, "Oh Em Gee! You stolded my little brother! I'm gonna get you!" But then I was able to get into the Tune Trooper creation, which is essentially just scrolling through your music library. I'm not sure what it uses to determine power, but the characters all have base stats, with music-generated quirks on stats (both higher and lower), and then are assigned a rating. I picked through some of my favs, and got a couple of good troopers out of it. All troopers are bronze, silver, gold, or platinum rated, with an advancement system for those characters that aren't born platinum. For the record, I was able to pull a Platinum "Her Majesty" character off of Bloc Party's song, "The Prayer." It pretty much kicks butt and takes names. The check and balance against overpowered teams is the option of limiting a Tune Trooper's use to X number of turns before it's "used up." Platinums get 2 uses, Golds 3, Silvers 4-5, and Bronzes 5-6. It doesn't take much to level up a character, so you essentially get about 2 uses out of a character by the time they reach platinum, but leveled characters have higher stats, so the investment is worth it if the battle is wicked enough. Actually, the only bad thing I noticed about the game was all the terrible puns and cliches. The game starts off with a kidnapping, that leads to a galliant rescue... 5 YEARS LATER!!! I'm sorry, but in the real world, if you wait 5 years to go after someone that is kidnapped, they're already dead. Most of the Skills/Spells/Abilities that characters use are puns on Song Names and Lyrics. I giggled when I saw that one character had "Burnin' Love" and "Love Gun" as abilities. Menu navigation is a cinch with the scroll wheel, whereas the grid positioning during battle is not delayed by it, but made annoying by it. If you think of the grid as a chess board numbered 1-8 vertically, and a-h horizontally, you always scroll from 1a to 8h, looping back at 1h to get to 2a (Left to right, down the page, like english books). The speed of the spin makes it a moot point, but it is how movement is done. I've also noticed that most skills will auto target, as well as only allow their use if a proper target is in range. I'm slightly saddened however, by the lack of idiot-proof-ness. By this, I mean that most Tactics games Squenix releases have the manditory, "Are you really sure that this is the action you want to do?" followed by the "Are you really, really sure?" menu, but this game is very to the point, and will do what you say, which really isn't a bad thing... But I'm one of those players that moves my pawn, and then keeps my hand on it for the next 10 seconds as I see how that changes the board altogether before I fully commit. My synopsis is this: If you have an iPod that is compatable with games: Buy the friggin' game. If you don't have money, rob your parents, friends, families, etc. to get some. If you don't have an iPod, go buy one for this game. The $150+ cost is worth it to buy a game for $5. I'm astounded that Squenix allowed people to put time and energy into this game to release it digitally for $5 a pop. (This may be why is so pun-laden and cliche however) If you like FFT, FFTA, or FFTA2, buy this game. If you like Square, buy this game. If you like Enix, buy this game. If you like cute, adorable puppies, um... pretty sure you should buy this game.
Death Penalty	Comment 5: 2008-07-15 23:51
	I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft kept Infinite Undiscovery (that needs to get abreviated) as an exclusive, but I really hope SO4 is multiplatform.
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