The solo player reigns supreme in this week’s Nintendo Download, with four games perfect for loners of all shapes, sizes, and dispositions. More »
Say what? Play Phantasy Star Universe with a Git-tar controller? Wow. I might need the Geek Squad to come over and install that. Thanks to reader sunpop7 for this pic of Best Buy’s mis-cased game.
If there’s one thing the DS is better at than providing remakes and re-releases of ancient JRPGs, then it’s gotta be the way it also provides brand new JRPGs. Even if they’re almost always sequels to those same ancient JRPGs. Coincidentally, Sega has just announced a new Phantasy Star title for the DS!
Shortly available on the Wii Virtual Console, two classic games from ages past about saving worlds and kicking arse. Girlfriends always be getting kidnapped, yo, and such is the case in River City Ransom (NES, 500 points), the beat-em-up RPG hybrid that sees Ryan off on a quest to rescue his girlfriend from the sinister Slick, with his friend Player Two Alex along for the ride. Then we have the game I was sincerely hoping for after last week’s Euro update, Phantasy Star III: Generations of Doom for the Sega Genesis (800 points).
This time around it’s a choose your own adventure of sorts, as you guide three generations via an innovative mate-picking mechanic that makes replaying the game nearly mandatory. Who you choose to marry decides who you’ll be playing in the next generation, and ultimately which ending you’ll receive when all is said and done. Love it or hate it, it’s a damn fine piece of RPG history. If I had any time to actually play games this week, this would be the one. A very good week for the Virtual Console.
Gamasutra contributor Kurt Kalata has the unenviable honour of determining what is surely to be a hotly contested list, a run-down of the best, most essential Japanese role-playing games, most of which have made it stateside. Kalata limits his list to the accepted RPG norm, leaving online and strategy RPGs for a possible future list. Sure, most of the genre’s best make appearances—Xenogears, Earthbound, Phantasy Star IV: End of the Millenium—but I’m sure vocal enthusiasts will have their own picks.
More ninja goodness! First we discover that N+ is hitting Xbox Live Arcade this Wednesday, and now the weekly Wii Virtual Console reveals the final chapter of the early life of everybody’s favorite ninja, Ryu Hayabusa, will be hitting today. Did someone announce a sequel to Day of the Ninja without telling me? Ninja Gaiden III: The Ancient Ship of Doom for the NES (500 points) finds Ryu framed for the murder of FBI agent Irene Lew, clearing his name by stealthily killing many things. As if this wasn’t enough, we’re also getting the RPG classic Phantasy Star II for the Genesis (800 points), one of the greatest console games of all time. If I had any doubts that there’s still some good stuff waiting in the wings for the Virtual Console, this week’s update put them to rest. One of the best release weeks yet!
The latest issue of Famitsu Weekly magazine reveals that Sega is planning to bring the Phantasy Star series—whose twenty year anniversary is just weeks away—to the PlayStation Portable. Now for the (potentially) bad news. Phantasy Star Portable won’t be a classic return to form as Sega established with the original Sega Master System/Genesis titles. Instead, it will follow in the mould of Phantasy Star Universe, providing a single-player campaign and four player co-operative play over local wireless play.
*sigh* I’m putting my Mogic Cap back in the drawer again, waiting for a proper Phantasy Star V. Hell, I’ll even take it on the Nintendo DS, Sega.
