Dawn of Mana (PS2)
Etrian Odyssey (DS)
Generation of Chaos: Aedis Eclipse (PSP)
Innocent Life: A Futuristic Harvest Moon (PSP)
Odin Sphere (PS2)
Rune Factory: Fantasy Harvest Moon (DS)

All of the above are scheduled for release in May...barring delays...
So, are you going to be picking up any? Does anyone really have  time to play all those???
I remember during the NES and SNES days, when the release of just ONE rpg was cause for celebration!

cheers,

-avatar!

Summer of RPGs confirmed.  I'll be getting:

Odin Sphere (5/22)
Atelier Iris 3 (5/29)
Grimgrimoire (June)
Soul Cradle (f--- the localized name - August)
Persona 3 (Better include Fes but it's not looking good - Q3)

Edit: I sure hope NIS decides to bring over Dragon Shadow Spell.

I'm interested to see what they've done with the gameplay in Dawn of Mana, but I won't go out and buy it to find out... I plan on getting Wild Arms 5 in the fall since xSeed Games confirmed its localization on their website, but I'll probably be disappointed with it. I haven't been goo-goo-ga-ga over any Wild Arms game since the 1&2 for the PS1 - you think I'd learn the magic is over after three fair-okay PS2 titles but I just can't give up on the series.

Overall, I'm not much of an RPG player as I once was... when the PS1 was out I'd play anything I could get my hands on, even backtracking to SNES RPGs I missed out on. Now starting to play an RPG, even my favorites from the past seems more like a chore than anything else - first few hours are always touch and go until I get into it playing it regularly.

Absolutely not.

Absolutely not.

Heh, tell me about it.  Actually I probably <i>do</i> have enough time to invest in one but I still have Valkyrie Profile 2 and Okami lying around and haven't even started either (well I did start Okami but wasn't able to get 'into' it.)  For some reason I have much more fun trying to set a high score in Gradius V or try to make a lap record in F-ZERO GBA for countless hours then playing a new RPG...

Yeah, I generally don't buy RPGs any more. I'm still making my way through Valkyrie Profile 2 and Final Fantasy XII, and I don't see myself finishing either of those anytime soon. There just isn't enough room in life for more than a couple of RPGs every year or two. Not anymore anyway.

Odin Sphere isn't so much an RPG, but it IS the effective sequel to Princess Crown, a supposed-legendary 2D beat-em up (available as a PSP import). I'm already following screenshots and I'll be getting this one on day one.

I have yet to find one positive impression of Dawn of Mana yet and given Square's output of the last...Well, for awhile, I'm not expecting a miracle.

Square's golden crown from the 16-32 bit era isn't nearly as shinny as it use to be... I've been coming to this realization ever so slighty thoughout the previous generation of games

Well, the soundtrack is composed by Oscar winning Ryuichi Sakamoto. I wouldn't call that an impression, rather a positive fact. Otherwise, I can't say anything much about the game since I don't follow the Mana series. I do know the series has a strong following, but then again it seems to me that no matter what crap Square releases you have a bunch of people saying it's the greatest thing since the discovery of fire...

cheers,

-avatar!

No such luck...He had one (very nice) track, which was the main theme. The rest was mostly done by Kenji Ito and Tsuyoshi Sekito (and not particularly well, IMO). The last part of the score was highlighted by some remakes of past Mana themes (contributed by various Square composers, which were pretty decent overall.

You've already heard the soundtrack for Mana? Sounds like you enjoyed it...

-avatar!

Well, if you consider 7-8 tracks (none of which were by the feature composers) out of 4 full-length CD's of music good...Yeah, I did kinda enjoy it. ;p

I do want to hear Shimomura's new Mana score though, which coincidentally comes out today.

None of those games interest me. "Dawn of Mana" is the only one I've even heard of and it is considered a turd by pretty much everyone who has played it. Some of the music is okay but it's one of those soundtracks that would have been more palatable as two discs rather than four.

Just a heads up though...Sakimoto is scoring Odin Sphere.

I wouldn't call it a beat'em up, I have PC for saturn and it's definitely an Action/Rpg.

Just something I've heard through the internet (laughtrack), but the current producer of the Mana series is actually working to distance himself from Secret of Mana and SD3 because he'd rather rebuild the series with his own brilliant vision (longer laughtrack).

But yeah, what Goldfish said, I only know one of these and even that ain't really appealing. I'm looking forward to playing Blue Dragon on my sister's 360 down the line however, and maintain a lighted-candle-of-hope that Squix USA will take advantage of their impending release lull (past Mana, what do they have this year that isn't FF or DQ?) to go back and give us Front Mission 5, the way they gave us FF Chronicles on PS2 back in '01.

In the meantime, I still have a shelf loaded with RPGs I bought but haven't played 2 hours into. And that's only if I'm interested in doing so, which outside of FF5 Advance, I'm really not, lately.

Well that doesn't sound like anything new, especially considering who's involved...Wikipedia has Masato Kato listed as the scenario writer for most of the "World of Mana" games (who basically did the same thing with Chrono Trigger -> Chrono Cross).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masato_Kato

I'm very interested in Etrian Odyssey, which I probably would have bought already if I owned a DS. Maybe I'll buy one for this game. It's one of the few RPGs that got my attention lately. The create your own map system looks like a lot of fun, and the game is said to be rather difficult and require a lot of strategy.

I've already preordered Atelier Iris 3 (and was not amused that my credit card was charged at the time of the pre-order... but anyway) and got the artbook and soundtrack (two CDs, woot, maybe it'll be a NA pressing of the Japanese one?)

I'll probably purchase Dawn of Mana near the release date, but for some reason, it's getting more and more difficult to drop 49.99 on a PS2 title.

For me, the question of whether or not a game will be played has never been an issue.  I know 99% of the time the games will just sit on the shelf until I reach boredom of mass proportions (which ain't happenin' with a fulltime job), so I guess I've come to terms with the fact that I'm an obsessive collector, though not as much lately.

I suppose I'll eventually own all of these RPGs, but I'll most likely be waiting for price drops for all of them.

The latest market trends have been inspiring; I can't name a single PS2 RPG that's commanding over retail price right now... that was released in the last year, anyway, and definitely not a single PSP one. (I still need to pick up a copy of Blade Dancer, however hideous it is.)

DS games seem to lead as far as the current "zomg rare" trends are concerned.  Hopefully the publishers will learn from this and learn to judge the games' audiences better (considering future series releases, for example - Wario Ware: Touched comes to mind... the demand went way up after the Wii title came out, I think.)

Seconded, I still feel the burn on my soul from dropping $50 on FFXII and $16 on the book, and VP2 was ok but not worth $50 on release day

You know, I don't think I payed that much for a single PS2 game. The most I remember paying was $40 for Dark Cloud 2. I can't justify more than $20 any more, considering how much I tend to play.

-Joshua

If you're going to get a lot of pleasure out of the game it's worth the money.
As for prices, well things take strange turns, and it wouldn't surprise me if eventually, some of these games will go UP, UP, and AWAY with prices! Just look at Suikoden II and Valkyrie Profile for the PSX. Hundreds of dollars for a game which you could have purchased new for $40, maybe $30. Of course, this is many years down the road, and there's never a guarantee... but it's interesting how sinusoidal prices are.  They start high, then drop, then down the road they (sometimes) go way up! Just like an underdamped harmonic oscillator, well if you read the graph it from right to left

cheers,

-avatar!

at $80+ (with tax) for a new snes rpg, one was all it took to shoot your entire budget,,,

Dawn of Mana (05/22/07)
Odin Sphere (05/22/07)
Atelier Iris 3 (05/29/07)
Grim Grimoire (06/26/07)
Persona 3  (07/24/07)

Here's some releases dates... again baring delays

The only one of these I'll be buying is Dawn of Mana which I fully expect to be a complete piece of shit.  The reason I'm buying it is because I want to know exactly how and why it is a piece of shit and I'm too lazy to try renting it.

Heh, I remember when I used to be exited about most RPGs coming on the PSX.

Now...I think the last one I bought was ROmancing Saga, and played it all of two hours.

Only game not get released I'm probably gonna buy in  the near future is Taito Legends 2.

-Joshua

So I decided to pick up Etrian Odyssey along with a DS to play it on, and it's a really great game. It's really old-school and hard as hell. There are no towns except for the one your start off in, which functions as a central hub where you can hire new party members (at the beginning of the game you pick a party of 5 characters from 9 different classes) buy armor, weapons and items, rest and save, and take on optional extra missions. It's a really straightforward game: your only goal is to explore the different layers (floors) of the forest labyrinth, which pretty much look the same everywhere from what I've seen so far. It might turn some people off, but considering the game is built around the battle system and exploration I don't care much myself. The color palette is nice and colorful, and enemies look detailed and interesting. Character portraits (there are four different portraits to choose from per class) and NPC portraits are also nice although I'm not sure if some of my party members are boys or girls (not that I particularly care). 

Battles are with a few exceptions random, turn-based and generally very hard, especially if you choose the wrong party setup. The map making feature is fun and useful, especially since you can write your own notes to place on the map. Money is obtained the same way as in FFXII, that is, enemies drop items which you can exchange for money in the town. These items also function as raw materials for items, weapons, armor and accesories, which will appear in the store for you to buy. This encourages you to take on some rarer strong enemies (which are the only ones to actually appear on the map) since beating them can get you rare items which might get you stronger weapons etc.

You can also get items from special locations on the map where you can either dig, gather or lumber for stuff. You need to unlock skills to do so, though. Going up one level will earn you one skill point. Each character has a unique set of skills, most of which, when acquired, take tech points (TP) to use. For instance, an Alchemist character can learn the skill 'flame mastery' which unlocks the skill 'flame technique' which, when learned, will allow him to cast a fire spell that takes up 4 TP to use. The fact that skill points are so hard to come by makes it important to really think about how you want to distribute them.

Everything in the game, including the battles, is presented in first person view. That means you never see your characters; their portraits only show up in battles when you select your commands. On the map you move step by step on a square grid, though the environments are actually 3D (so it looks like moving in a FPS, only along fixed distances). While exploring you come across events which are described to you in a pen and paper roleplaying book style rather than shown through graphics (something like: 'Making your way through a narrow path through the bushes you come across a rocky wall with clear water flowing from one of its cracks. Will you drink it?'). There are also some NPC's standing around in the labyrinth, though you can't see them until you're on their tile (which is where your map comes in handy).

Although the game feels very old-school, it's all really polished and nicely presented. It  basically takes some of the cool features from existing RPG's and mixes them all together to create something that's fresh and familiar at the same time. It's a lot more honest about what it is too, compared to dungeon crawlers in disguise like FFXII, which makes it a lot more enjoyable to me since you don't have to deal with all the superfluous nonsense surrounding those games. Oh, and lest I forget, Yuzo Koshiro's did a great job with the music, the battle themes in particular are awesome.

"One town as central hub" "First person"

Sounds like Shining in the Darkness. Ew.

-Joshua

I never played that, or any other first person dungeon RPG for that matter. I feel it's practically the same as any grid based RPG except for the fact that you can't see your characters, which doesn't bother me much for this game. It's very bare bones, but that's really the point. I hope at least some people will check it out.

I LOVED Shining in the Darkness! Great music, great characters, very hard though...
But, it sounds like Etrian Odyssey comes with a great map system, which is the one thing missing from SitD. I hope that game (Shining) gets an update and a rerelease, but knowing Sega if it will ever come to that they'll make an announcement, get everyone excited, and then quietly cancel the game (just like they did with the Phantasy Star remakes, those bastards!)

cheers,

-avatar!

I know exactly what you mean... I try not to get excited about any games anymore as I usually end up disappointed... when I go into an EB it only takes two seconds to wonder what the hell I'm doing there.

There's a nifty flash based map demo on the game's website (http://www.atlus.com/etrian/) by the way, under the 'Labyrinth' tab. For some insight into the how and why of the game's creation, the director's diary is also a nice read.