The DS has seen a huge rise, recently, in the number of RPGs in development for the system. It all started with the release of Final Fantasy III, which, judging by reviews of the game, has turned out to be a spectacular re-make of a classic, however;not without its flaws. Square Enix didn’t stop there, however. Next up on their list were Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings and Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates, both for the DS, both also sequels to existing Final Fantasy storylines.
However, not only have we been seeing a large number of announcements in this regard, we’ve also seen a recent flow of news about these games, complete with screenshots, gameplay information and even videos. It’s not just Final Fantasy, though. Square is also in the process of developing not one, but two Dragon Quest titles for Nintendo: one for the Wii, and one for the DS. While Dragon Quest Swords seems to be a spinoff of the series, Dragon Quest IX will be the next installment in the series, and will be exclusive to the DS. While Nintendo hasn’t really enjoyed any exclusive franchises from Square that weren’t spinoffs (I hate you, Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles), it looks like this might be about to change soon.
Even more surprising, is the fact that Square has chosen the DS as their platform of choice to continue their Dragon Quest franchise on. Considering DQ is one of the most popular games of all time in Japan, this is a huge deal for Nintendo, which hasn’t exactly enjoyed a very intimate relationship with Square since the days of the SNES.
Dragon Quest IX itself will be developed by Level-5, who also produced the previous game in the series on the PlayStation 2. The game appears to feature impressive 3D graphics for the Nintendo DS, as well as more action based battles compared to the normally very traditional turn-based series. The game was shown in playable form and is due to be released next year in Japan.
Definitely good news for Nintendo fans. Now, hopefully Square can fix the Crystal Chronicles formula on the DS.
[Via Gamasutra]
