Marvellous Entertainment USA and XSEED games are teaming up for E3, showing off their line up of upcoming titles together as one united force of goodness. While the focus is mainly on the Nintendo DS and Wii, there is a PSP game in the form of RPG sequel Valhalla Knights 2 to spice things up. The name of the game here is RPGs, and the two combined have them in spades. For the Wii they've got three outstanding offerings - Rune Factory: Frontier, which takes the RPG/farming sim combo from the DS games to the console market, Avalon Code, a new RPG from the team behind Rune Factory and the Final Fantasy III and IV DS remakes, and the recently announced Little King's Story.

For those of you with a low tolerance for hit points, the dynamic duo will also be showing off XSEED's first DS games, Populous DS based on the classic PC game, KORG DS-10, a music creation program, and Retro Game Challenge, a mini-game title based on the Japanese Game Centre CX TV series. Perhaps these three non-RPG titles will calm me enough to keep the Rune Factory fan in me from dry-humping their booth.

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Marvellous' upcoming Little King's Story for the Wii looks brilliant. A delightful fairy-tale aesthetic, gameplay that promises to be a hands-on version of The Settlers and cow knights? All exciting stuff. Made even more exciting by the announcement today of one of your rival kingdoms in the game. Which is...the Kingdom of the Drunkards. Led by King Duvroc, he "wishes for everyone in the world to be happy" and "thinks it's Mardi Gras all year round". Duvroc has a daughter, Princess Bouquet. She loves science. And is trapped in a pot. Once you beat Duvroc, "the princess will appear from inside the pot". Can't wait.

Pre-E3 2008: Little King's Story [IGN]

We've heard Xseed is publishing Marvellous' Little King's Story on the Wii this Winter (you can stop calling it "Project O" now), and between the gorgeous art style, charming look and the somewhat Harvest Moon-influenced gameplay blend of real-time strategy, adventure and RPG, there's a lot to clasp our hands in hopeful anticipation about.

Wait, there's more: The all-star team behind the game includes Yasuhiro Wada (Harvest Moon), Yoshiro Kimura (HM & Chulip), Youichi Kawaguchi (Dragon Quest VIII) AND Hideo Minaba, art director for FFXII.

I got to see an early demo of the kingmaking of little Corobo, the shy boy who the player must nurture into a wise and strong ruler.

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Publisher XSeed admits that the first Valhalla Knights was just a wee bit of a hardcore grind, targeted squarely at that sector of the Japanese audience - and the non-Japanese fans who share their tastes.

So will Valhalla Knights 2 change things up a bit? Make things a little bit easier, more accessible? Add some simple modes, some auto-leveling, some easy outs?

Not so much.

"This one's actually a little bit harder", the Xseed rep told me when I went to go see Valhalla Knights 2 today. And, I'm told, that's exactly how the core JRPG fanbase wants things. In fact, the entire game's been built to accommodate the fanbase's feedback, and is shaping up to be a veritable wishlist of JRPG elements that could conceivably blow some minds when it hits PSP, likely in September.

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Marvellous' upcoming Little King's Story, formerly known as "Project O", has some gorgeous art, so it's not a stretch to guess it might inspire some fan art. With that in mind, Marvellous and its publisher, Xseed, have announced an art contest, with the winner's design to appear in the game.

One artist will be chosen among 100 winners submitting an original picture of a creature, person, ghost, beast, or anything like that - the chosen design will become a character in the game, while the other 99 will be featured in the in-game museum exhibit.

The requirements for a valid entry are pretty specific, and all info and submission instructions are included after the jump. Pens, pencils, paint, go!

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We just found out that Marvellous Entertainment's Wii-exclusive"Project O" has a real name, if you haven't heard: Little King's Story. It's due for a May 2008 release in North America, and today we learn that it will hit the PAL territories in the first quarter of 2009, being published by Rising Star Games (Xseed handles North America for Marvellous.)

The all-star team behind the game includes Yasuhiro Wada (Harvest Moon), Yoshiro Kimura (HM & Chulip), Youichi Kawaguchi (Dragon Quest VIII) AND Hideo Minaba, art director for FFXII. Pretty exciting, if you ask me!

It's the story of a shy little boy named Corobo who suddenly becomes a king, and gameplay sounds a little bit life sim, a little bit real-time strategy and adventure, as you might expect from Marvellous.

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Marvellous just rang our doorbell, dropped off a press release that's got my day started off on the right foot. They've announced that King-simulator Little King's Story - the title formerly known as Project O - is getting a US release, and should be on shelves in time for "Spring 2008". If you need reminding, this is good news. The game was one of the most charming things I saw at last year's TGS, being a neat, avatar-driven take on The Settlers, with a deliciously quaint art style to boot. After jump's a presser with a few more details on the game, including the fact it'll (surprisingly) include some kind of combat system for conquering rival kingdoms.

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Marvellous have gone and announced another Harvest Moon game (and no, it's not the "online game" series boss Yasuhiro Wada has spoken of previously). Just in case Harvest Moon fans were feeling a little left out in the cold. Harvest Moon: Sun and Friends is for the DS, and features some Sunflower Islands, wild animals that help you out on the farm and the ability to trade items (sadly not wives) over wi-fi. Oh, it's got voice-chat too, so anyone looking to save a buck or two on international calls, you have been advised.

Harvest Moon Plants Another on DS [1UP]