 |
| Mike Salbato |
What's a Fara? You'll probably want to find out. And yes, Final Fantasy Tactics is really here.
08.03.11 - 11:14 PM
While last week was a little slow in iOS news, this week is anything but. The major release is, of course, Square Enix's Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions, finally releasing after a lengthy development cycle. Several new RPGs were announced in recent days too. This is a long one, so let's get going!
Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions (iPhone/iPod touch)
by Square Enix
Price: $15.99 [iTunes link]
It's finally here. After being teased alongside Secret of Mana at E3 2010, the iPhone/iPod touch edition of Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions is now available. It's available at the same price point as March's release of Final Fantasy III, $15.99 USD. While it's certainly among the pricier iOS games, anyone who is familiar with the scale of the game wouldn't expect to pay 99 cents for it. For more on the game and its platform requirements, I point you to Liz's story from yesterday.
As we've known for awhile, this release is for the iPhone and iPod touch, with an iPad-native version expected to follow next month. We've updated our gallery (linked below) with new images and some lovely artwork, as well.
Ragnarok Violet (Universal?)
by Gravity Interactive
Price: FREE
Ragnarok Violet is a single-player action RPG spin-off of Gravity's immensely popular Ragnarok Online. We covered its impending release a few days ago, so check out that story for more details and a trailer. While the game is to support "iPhone and iPad," we don't know if this means a Universal binary or not. For what it's worth, the game is available as an iPhone/iPod touch version only in Japan. We'll find out for sure when it releases on August 5th. In any case, a seemingly polished free RPG is still a free RPG, so regardless of its platform preference, it might be hard to go wrong here.
Guardian Saga (iPhone/iPod touch)
by 9th Bit Games
Price: $1.99 [iTunes link]
Okay, I seem to have missed this last week - Guardian Saga is a retro RPG by two-man studio 9th Bit Games. Born of a love for the RPGs of the NES and SNES era, Guardian Saga looks more than a little similar to one of the NES Dragon Quest games. If all the action RPGs aren't your thing and you've been itching for a classic, traditional RPG on your iPhone, you may want to give this one a look. Here's a few screens and the game's trailer:
Kids vs. Goblins (iPad)
by Stolen Couch Games, Crescent Moon Games
If Crescent Moon Games takes an interest in your title as an iOS developer, odds are it's something special. This time the game in question is Stolen Couch Games' Kids vs. Goblins, a tactical action RPG in which, yes, you control a group of three kids battling evil. It doesn't look like there's going to be any melee combat here, as each kid has their own set of magic spells with which to fight. While each character has three active spells at a time, the final game is expected to have around 80 different spells to learn, and using the proper spell in each new location will be pivotal to success. So, unlike an Ogre Battle LARP, you won't be able to just spam lightning bolts.
Kids vs. Goblins is being developed for the iPad, Mac and PC and is expected to release in September. Below is the game's first trailer:
Fara (iPhone/iPod touch)
by Pixel and Texel
You've heard of Id Software, right? Andrew Strickland and Brett Estabrook were two members of Id Mobile until their recent decision to form their own development team, named after their pseudonyms Pixel and Texel. Their first title is an action RPG for the iPhone and iPod touch named Fara. According to the developers, the title was born as both an homage to retro titles, as well as the desire to develop a game that truly takes advantage of the hardware in the iPhone and iPod touch (instead of, say, implanting an awkward virtual D-pad or complex menu system on a touch screen game). Besides the developers' passion, Fara's hand-drawn pixel sprites, detailed painted backdrops and use of the Box 2D physics engine are coming together to create one impressive package thus far. I encourage you to watch the game's Kickstarter video below, which contains both game footage and some insight from 'Pixel' and 'Texel' themselves. Don't miss our gallery, as well.
Fara is due to release this fall.
Avernum: Escape From the Pit (iPad)
by Spiderweb Software
Finally, we have some news from Spiderweb Software, who recently brought their highly-rated PC RPG Avadon: The Black Fortress to the iPad. Coming in early 2012 (and late 2011 for Mac users) will be Avernum: Escape from the Pit, a from-the-ground-up rewrite of the first chapter of the company's long-running Avernum series. Originally released in 1999, Spiderweb wanted not only to bring this title to the iPad, but provide a more stable, working version for the PC and Mac as well (given that the title won't run on Mac OS X Lion, and Windows 7 performance is iffy).
Given the reception Avadon: The Black Fortress received, we're sure some of you are looking forward to Avernum: Escape From the Pit as well. The company has more information on the game's official page, and we have a small gallery, below.
Well that was content-filled. We don't know what's on the horizon next week, but we do know that both Mage Gauntlet and Emissary of War are expected to release between now and September, so look for more coverage on those two titles soon. In the meantime, go enjoy your Final Fantasy Tactics.
