Enix Announces U.S. Line UpEnix America issued a press release today in which they officially announced the first four titles they plan on publishing this year; three for Playstation and 1 for Game Boy Color.Valkyrie Profile, developed by Tri-Ace Inc., is due for release 3rd Quarter of this year for the Playstation. The game has sold almost 600,000 copies in Japan alone. The game is set in a world of Norse mythology. The war goddess Valkyrie must come to earth to recruit the souls of defeated warriors and train them for the war between the gods. The player will encounter many characters, all with their own unique history, and must choose whether or not to accept and train them. There is a total of three possible endings. The game's battle system lets you use any and all the charactes under your control, making for many interesting combination attacks. Valkyrie Profile will be released on 2 CDs with over 2 hours of voice acting and an OAV quality anime opening. RPGFan has two reader reviews of the import of Valkyrie Profile if you would like to check out their impressions. Jeremy Tan's is here and Chief Ug's is here. We also have several different types of media from it. We have screenshots, artwork, packaging, and even a calendar. For the first time since 1990, Dragon Warrior I and II will be available in North America, this time for Game Boy Color. The two games, combined on one cart, will be available sometime during the 3rd Quarter of this year. The series, called Dragon Quest in Japan and featuring character design by Akira Toriyama (better known for Chrono Trigger and the Dragonball anime series), was a pioneer of the console RPG and the entire series, soon to number seven games total, have sold over 22 million worldwide. Both Dragon Warrior I and II were originally released for the NES. The game follows the descendents of the legendary hero Loto. His descendents must face evil monsters threatening the lands of Alefgard. You do the typical things; meet new characters, find treasure, travel to foreign lands, and wield lethal weapons and magic, all in the name of bringing peace. You may think all this sounds way cliched, but Dragon Warrior is the granddaddy of the genre. Enix has increased the detail of both games' graphics, as the characters are larger and more detailed, backgrounds are more complex, and both games' have brand new openings. Even the Game Boy Color's sound chip has been used to replicate the original music. Also set for a 3rd Quarter release (are you noticing a trend here?) is the Dragon Quest spin-off game, Torneko: The Last Hope for the Playstation. The game melds dungeon exploration with an RPG-esque storyline, character design from Akira Toriyama, clay-based stop-motion animation, and a full orchestral score by Koichi Sugiyama. The story starts out with the hero of Dragon Quest IV, warrior merchant Torneko. As the setting unfolds, Torneko has returned back to his village to live the peaceful existence of a trader. Unforeseen events, however, force Torneko to revert back to his old ways to save his village from a curse. While exploring the dungeons, you will face monsters, discover magic and treasure, and find the secret of ridding Torneko's village of the curse. Toriyama hand-drew 130 unique monsters, all featured in previous installments of the Dragon Quest series. Torneko also has almost 150 weapons and items to collect, plus an item creation system; Torneko can synthesize weapons and magic he finds from the dungeon. Enix will be releasing all these games, plus the dance game Bust-A-Groove 2, during the 3rd Quarter of this year. It seems that Enix America has come up with a really solid line up to debut as a new third party in the U.S. Now hopefully it won't take Enix America as long to translate Dragon Quest VII as it took Enix of Japan to actually make it.
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