The Epic Column 9.30.07

Posted by Nathan Grayson on 09.30.2007

Despite a Halo 3-sized cork in the bottle that holds gaming news, a few interesting tidbits about role-playing games still managed to find their way onto the internet. Between Square Enix's expansion beyond their homeland, a troubled MMORPG, and Blue Dragon moving onto another console, what's not to like? And most importantly, this week's installment ends on a cliffhanger!

*Gazes at the barren landscape around him and sights a tumble-weed*

Success! I've found an audience in this Halo 3-infected portion of human creation known as the internet! And despite the utter lack of new releases this week, the RPG world did not come to a screeching halt in the face of a Warthog intent on turning it into a road pizza. Why is that, you ask? Well, Japan – where many RPG-related happenings occurred this week – is part of an odd rift in the space-time continuum known as "The Halo-Free Zone." It's a scary place in which few people desire to finish fights. Nay -- the majority of those people have scarcely even begun the aforementioned fights! With that said, let us begin.

New items available in the shop

Nada, zip, zero, zilch, nil, null, and any other synonyms for "nothing" you can think of.

Things that happened while you were out saving the world (from the Covenant, in this case)

Square Enix Looks at Map; Notices U.S.

As reported by Gamespot, Square Enix president Yoichi Wada issued a statement about his company's current plans in regards to foreign markets. To put it succinctly, he wants our money. Wada stated that in a mere three to five years, he wants seventy-five percent of Square Enix's revenues to come from countries not known as Nihon to people residing in those countries. Big words coming from such a typically Japan-focused company, but they've already begun work on titles aimed at the U.S. in Last Remnant and Infinite Undiscovery -- so at the very least, Wada's statement is far from empty. Hopefully this means fewer whiny, pretty-boy heroes in Square Enix games, and more Balthiers (FFXII). Wait – scratch that – every Square Enix game should just star Balthier – that'd do the trick.

Gods and Heroes Defeated By Lay-Offs and Delays

Hey – there's MMORPG in this primarily single player RPG-based soup/column! But wait – don't demand a refund just yet! You might just find this interesting. Joystiq recently broke the news that Perpetual, developer of Gods and Heroes: Rome Rising, not only laid-off 30-40 employees, but also delayed the aforementioned game into the unknown waters of 2008. Now -- as Joystiq goes on to say – this isn't the first time Perpetual has unceremoniously tossed-out employees during a transitional period; but that doesn't stop it from being a ruthless move. What does all of this spell for the game itself, though? If based solely on other games with troubled development cycles, it probably spells b-a-d. To top it all off, any game hoping to compete in the MMORPG market while WOW rampages around in a Godzilla-esque manner needs to have its act together; or else it's likely to get trampled after letting loose a badly-lip-synced, "It's WOWjira!"

DS Stands for (Blue) Dragon System

A recent Shonen Jump scan (provided by Kotaku) is definitive proof that a version of Mistwalker's (a development studio headed-up by Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi) first RPG is headed to the unstoppable Nintendo DS. Blue Dragon -- as the game was known – was released in America on the Xbox360 last month to middling reviews and disappointing sales. However, Microsoft's console isn't exactly the ideal audience for a Dragon Quest-alike with cutesy characters and a fairly lighthearted plot. And thus, a DS iteration of the franchise makes perfect sense – both because many younger people own DSes, and well, so does nearly everyone else on this planet. It appears that the game will be using a cel-shaded graphical engine, which makes perfect sense given the DS' lack of bleeding-edge technology.

Items you might've missed – even using a strategy guide

Ok, everyone – be gentle. This is a trial run for a possible new section in this column, in which I give you a quick overview and thumbs-up or thumbs-down of an RPG I've been playing recently. This week's subject is the surprisingly excellent Jeanne D'Arc for the PSP.

Going into Jeanne, I wasn't expecting much due to the game's apparent lack of depth. Upon playing through a couple of battles, however; I'm happy to say that my fears were assuaged. Despite an unfortunate lack of character customization (characters can only equip one type of weapon, each, and can't change classes), Jeanne still manages to be an extremely solid turn-based strategy RPG.

The battles are packed with little nuances that don't appear in similar titles. If you strike an enemy, the space behind that enemy will glow and allow your next attacking character to deal extra damage when attacking the same enemy. On the other hand, if your characters are touching each other vertically, horizontally, or diagonally, they'll form a defensive chain of sorts. The more characters in that chain, the more powerful their defense becomes. Thanks to those gameplay elements, battles require you to make use of teamwork and formations – as opposed to just leveling a few characters to power your way through the entire game.

Outside of battle, characters can equip weapons and armor, of course, and also skills and stat increases. Characters can only use a certain number of skills and stat increases at a time, though, so you're forced to choose wisely. Those skills open up all kinds of strategic opportunities. For instance, using a couple of spearmen with "Impale" (an attack which strikes up to seven spaces ahead of the character using it) and an archer, you could become a long-range powerhouse – not to mention annoy your enemies to no end.

Oh – it's also incredibly beautiful. Level 5 (Jeanne's developer) has proven their skill with cel-shading many times over, but with Jeanne they've reached a whole new level. Without a doubt, it's the most vibrant portable game available on store shelves.

Jeanne D'Arc earns a well-deserved thumbs-up. If you need something to tide you over until Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions arrives, you really can't do any better.

And that's it for this week. Next week I'm going to supplement the column's normal format with a discussion about a genre issue/problem. Even better, that discussion will hopefully prompt some audience participation in the column. How, you ask? You'll have to wait until next week to find out.