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| John McCarroll |
Talk about their non-playables at the show.
06.04.09 - 12:51 PM
XSEED, as opposed to having a giant booth at the front of the show floor, occupied a meeting room on the floor of West hall. Despite the appointment-only hidden booth, XSEED has the RPG selection this year to rival Atlus USA and Square Enix. We had a chance to take a look at quite a few of their games, including their Wii titles, but those impressions will be posted later today. None of XSEED's handheld titles were playable due to technical issues, but we had a chance to glean some details from the staff about Lunar: Silver Star Harmony, Ragnarok Online DS and Half-Minute Hero. There's not a whole lot of new information here, but more will trickle in as the games get closer to their release date.
XSEED happily picked up the rights to the Game Arts-developed Lunar: Silver Star Harmony last month - without ever seeing the game in action. They are incredibly happy to be working with a developer like Game Arts, and they were able to confirm a few staff details for us. Noriyuki Iwadare will have a direct hand in the soundtrack, although we are unsure if this refers to recompositions by him, or simply if he is supervising new mixes. As well, major staff members such as scenario writers have returned to work on the PSP port. Most importantly, XSEED was able to confirm that all the movies and songs from the various versions of Lunar: The Silver Star will be included because of the amount of space available with a UMD. It's unfortunate that we didn't get any hands-on time with the title, but we'll have more information as the game approaches its release date later this year.
Half-Minute Hero is the game that we had the chance to chat the least with XSEED about - but the game is shaping up well. In essence, the game is a mixture of RPG goodness and WarioWare-style craziness. Players will take down enemies in one of four modes and save the world - all in 30 seconds per mode. Unfortuately, with the game not playable, we didn't have a chance to get familiar with the US version of Yuusha 30, we are excited to see this game see release this fall.
Ragnarok Online DS was XSEED's only Nintendo DS title at the show and was also unplayable, but the staff of XSEED is excited to bring the popularity of the MMORPG to the DS handheld. The game will support up to three player multiplayer and will have hack-and-slash gameplay. In Japan, the game gives codes that are usable in the PC version of the game, and XSEED is working hard with Nintendo of America and Gravity to try and bring this compatibility into the US version of the game.
While it's not a great deal of new details on these titles, we will have more information on all of XSEED's console adventure and RPG offerings, including Fragile, Little King's Story, Arc Rise Fantasia, and Valhalla Knights: Elder Saga, later today.
