Update: A trailer and two gameplay videos taken from the stream have been added to the bottom of the post.

The wait is over! We finally have details on the next Dragon Quest game and things have certainly gone an interesting direction. It’s titled Dragon Quest X Mezameshi Itsutsu no Shuzoku Online which already seems to have translations ranging from Andriasang’s The Five Awakening Races to 1up’s Rise of the Five Tribes.

The important word, though, is “online”. Dragon Quest X will evolve the ideas established in the previous game by allowing you to play with a customized character teamed up with several friends online. This includes cross-platform multiplayer between players on both the Wii and the freshly announced Wii U version. In addition to this, there will also be some kind of 3DS connectivity which seems to be in the brainstorming phase.

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Final Fantasy XIII was a highly divisive game when it released last year. I found myself enjoying its finer points, but also finding fault in some of its design leading me to write a rather mixed review. With a sequel on the way, the opportunity for a more consistent experience has been opened.

Final Fantasy XIII-2 takes place three years after the first. Lightning has disappeared and Serah (her previously unplayable little sister) is out to find her with the help of a new character named Noel. The demo wasn’t heavy on exposition, but there was enough talk of “points in time” and “anomalies between dimensions” to pique my interest.

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I would say I’ve always had a love/hate relationship with strategy games, but I’d be lying to you. We just met. I don’t want to do that. No, I’ve never liked strategy games much. Just couldn’t work ‘em. Too many buttons.

I only started playing Starcraft 2 with any regularity over the past couple of months, and my skills are shaky at best. Some would say that this makes me an awful candidate to review King Arthur: Fallen Champions. I would say it makes me the perfect choice. After all, if I can figure it out and enjoy it, so could anybody!

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A great idea draws near! Command?

Hopefully you cast “Read On,” because it sounds like NEStalgia creator, Ben Mallahan, has made something really special. Described as “Dragon Warrior 3 meets World of Warcraft,” NEStalgia combines all the charm of 8bit RPGs with the MMO genre.

More than just a superficial hybrid, the game also brings the turn based mechanics of old school RPGs into an MMO setting. You can team up with a party of other players across one of the available small scale servers or fight each other in some PvP battles. There’s even an auction house where you can trade your epic loot between other players. (more…)

The Last Story Diary is a series of articles in which I will chronicle my adventures while playing the Japanese version of Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi’s The Last Story. While there will be no spoilers of the story’s dialogue (I don’t know Japanese), there will be descriptions of certain situations I encounter that could be considered spoilers.

After playing awhile, I came to realize the best control scheme is the Classic Controller Pro. There are no motion controls or IR sensor controls, so the Wii Remote & Nunchuck hold no advantage. In fact, that scheme doesn’t have free camera movement, though you can still snap the camera behind you. The standard Classic Controller is almost perfect, but the second L & R buttons (which the game makes use of) are next to the first L & R instead of underneath like the Pro. Both of these schemes still work adequately, but the Classic Controller Pro is by far the most comfortable.

But I digress. Back to the story!

It was time for me to enter Ruli City. Immediately, I found myself in the town’s bar. This appeared to be the main base of operations for my rag tag crew. Seiren, my dual sword-wielding warrior, seemed to be in a constant state of drunkenness everytime I talked to her.

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The Last Story Diary is a series of articles in which I will chronicle my adventures while playing the Japanese version of Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi’s The Last Story. While there will be no spoilers of the story’s dialogue (I don’t know Japanese), there will be descriptions of certain situations I encounter that could be considered spoilers.

After fighting the glowing blue tiger until he retreated, I decided to explore The Last Story‘s online modes a bit. There are two types of online modes. Versus mode has six players fighting each other in a deathmatch while Online Raid groups you with a party to play cooperatively.

I decided to try versus mode first. Unlike story mode (which has you controlling only Elza), I was able to choose from a rather large list of characters in versus. While the basic controls were the same for each, I found each character had unique strengths and abilities.

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The Last Story Diary is a series of articles in which I will chronicle my adventures while playing the Japanese version of Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi’s The Last Story. While there will be no spoilers of the story’s dialogue (I don’t know Japanese), there will be descriptions of certain situations I encounter that could be considered spoilers.

As I booted up my imported copy of The Last Story, I was greeted by its elegant title screen. A beautiful piece by legendary composer Nobuo Uematsu plays as the screen fades to white and the title appears.

Upon choosing New Game, I was shocked to find myself in direct control within seconds. There were no incredibly long cutscreens explaining the world to me or seemingly endless segments in a peaceful town, waiting for some ancient evil to show up. Instead, a short camera pan showing my location, Lizard’s Cave, was the only thing preceding my journey through the first dungeon.

A very brief, optional video tutorial showed me the basics of the controls. Always on the lookout for treasure, I decided to venture in the opposite direction from the game’s initial starting point. I came across a weakened part of a wall which I was able to break open. This revealed a treasure chest. Yes, there was already a secret to find before I had ever gone in the direction the game wanted me to.

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The Mojave wasteland is a dangerous place. It’s full of giant mutated animals, raiders, and warring factions, all vying for the same small pieces of dust that are still livable. In other words, it’s just an average day in the Fallout universe.

This time around, Obsidian Entertainment is at the helm, and their team has some of the guys from the original PC Fallout games. While I’ve only briefly experienced the first two games, I was very interested to see what they would bring to the table for Fallout: New Vegas.

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I’m not going to lie. Most of the time I spend playing games on my iPod Touch is when I’m either bored waiting in a line somewhere or on the can. This doesn’t so much reflect poorly on the quality of games on the platform as it does on me as a consumer.

On rare occasion, a game for my beloved music/audiobook/podcast machine will come out that is so addictive I actually choose to play it on my couch under “normal” gaming conditions.

Game Dev Story is such a game.

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"Looking for treasure... just like the Goonies."

In any given RPG, the wooden sword and cardboard shield you start with aren’t going to be the ones you keep forever. Usually you get rid of them by the time you hit your first town. But when you buy that new set of gear and equip it, only to find your character has only changed in numbers and not in appearance, it is a bit of a letdown.

If you are talking about old school sprite based games, I will concede that it was more trouble than it was probably worth to put visible loot into a game. Re-drawing that many sprites would be time consuming and prohibitively costly. Where 3D character models are involved, there aren’t a lot of excuses left when you are dealing with stat driven games and RPG mechanics.

There is nothing quite as addictive to me as a progressive, well thought out loot system that is reflected on your character.

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