We recently talked to David Silviera, Product Coordinator for agetec, about their three new titles coming to the US this year. The first was the latest in agetec’s RPG creation series, RPGMaker 3. This installment will improve tremendously on RPGMaker 2, according to Silviera, in that it will be simpler to use than its predecessor. One of the biggest complaints players of the second game had was the difficulty in using the creation tools. RPGMaker 3 will simplify the interface to be more intuitive. Silviera even made the claim that players would not even need a manual to start playing and using the features present in the game.

Speaking of the game's features, there will be a robust terrain generation system which will allow the player to "paint" on terrain, though textures will not be open to the creation process. Character creation will be accomplished by choosing from different art styles of characters, for example, a fantasy style dwarf or an anime style dwarf. Each customization for the characters will look distinct from each other, and there wll be over 3000 animations per character, so players will not just feel as if they were changing minor things.

Also included will be a day/night system and weather effects, which will affect textures in the game. There will not be an option to change the music in the game, but rather players will choose from a variety of musical tracks already implemented in the game engine. Finally, players will be able to download new updates and content for the game to the PlayStation 2's hard drive via an internet connection, so that the creation experience will remain fresh.

On the handheld front, Popolocrois, the cute, fairytale-style RPG for PSP, is being translated by the agetec team. The game will be an amalgamation of the first and second PSOne games, along with some entirely new content. The localization of the game is proceeding apace, and will include American voice acting and new cutscenes from the creators of the Popolocrois anime series. Popolocrois is a fantasy-themed strategy-RPG similar to Rhapsody, in that players encounter enemies in the world and then switch to a strategy battle format to defeat them.

When asked why agetec decided to bring this title to American shores, seeing as how none of the other games in the series were, Silviera answered that it would provide a traditional RPG title during a time when there is very little competition in that genre on PSP.

Finally, we have Wild ARMS Alter Code: F info to share. The localization is almost complete, with only some text fixes to be done. Some of the characters have received a name change to reflect the idea that this is a new game, not just a remake of Wild ARMS. One of the changes is from Zed to Jet, who will be a playable character this time around. And yes, there is a Wild ARMS 4 in development, but not many details about it.

RPGMaker 3 will be available the first week of August, 2005. Popolocrois is set for an August 2005 release. Wild ARMS Alter Code: F is slated for early fourth quarter 2005. Thanks to David Silviera and agetec for the interview.