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New Releases for the Week of Blue Slime and Frozen Angels

New Releases for the Week of Blue Slime and Frozen Angels

CB CB Droege 13 Jul, 2010 at 2:53pm ET Article published in Gaming

Disciples III: Renaissance

Fans of the Disciples franchise will get a new iteration of the cult hit this week, in Disciples III: Renaissance. Not much new stuff to see here. It’s still the same RPG with turn-based battle from the first two games, and even the graphics aren’t that much better. The new features of this version include character models that reflect their equipment, and thief commanders (in the past games thieves could not command other units). With such a small list of improvements over the last game, this one is really only for people who finished Disciples II, and want more plot.

DeathSpank

DeathSpank is touting itself as a truly funny and fun video game, claiming to have a real story, rather than a video game story. The protagonist of this dungeon crawl RPG is presented as being over-the-top violent (to the point of humor apparently), with supporting characters who will likely frequently quip about just how stabby he is. All the humor will likely revolve around killing things with funny voices, in ways that 12 year olds will think is grand. If you can’t tell, I don’t expect much from games which profess to be the first funny game ever. Perhaps I’m just jaded by my recent serious disappointment with another “funny” game, but I’m not even going to give this one a chance. I don’t know, maybe if you’re the kind of person who likes violently non-funny things (someone must, since they keep being made) you’ll like this too.

Toribash

Toribash is a good idea, but its execution may fall short. The concept here is that with simplified fighter models, one can have a fighting game in which the moves are not predefined. The players can use motion controls to fluidly make the fighter do whatever they want. Unfortunately, the designers over-simplified the character models, and they look like the fighters from that old Sega Genesis game, Ballz. There is no attention to character detail nor is there any background art. It’s just ball-and-stick fighters on a white background. The only other real feature of the game is dynamic dismemberment, which is fine, I guess, but not really exciting. Perhaps a developer with a bigger budget or better vision will take up this idea, and make it grand.

Dragon Quest IX: Sentintels of the Starry Skies

The Icrontic spotlight, this week is shines across the slimy skin of Dragon Quest IX: Sentintels of the Starry Skies. Many long-time fans of the franchise were suprised when, after the great success of Dragon Quest VIII, Nintendo announced that Dragon Quest IX would be a DS exclusive. The worry was that the epic nature of the Dragon Quest games might not translate well to the portable medium. Also, the graphics in the PlayStation 2 game were so beautiful, how could they think to top that with a DS game? Of course, the graphics have had to take a major hit, but other aspects of the game seem to have stepped up. The character creation process is much different from past Dragon Quest games, in that the entire party is customizable, from their hair style to their primary class. Every character will be designed by the player. This is a departure from previous games, in which the party was determined by the plot. The big deal here, and the seeming reason for the DS exclusivity is the multi-player modes—most notably, a co-operative mode which features random dungeons. I don’t personally get much opportunity to play multi-player DS games, but that feature alone makes me want to have a Dragon Quest party. I just need more friends with DSes.

Following is a list of this week’s announced North American releases:

Windows

  • Disciples III: Renaissance
  • pOnd

Wii

  • Balloon Pop Festival
  • Little League World Series: Double Play
  • The Bachelor
  • Toribash

DS

  • 24/7 Solitaire
  • 4 TRAVELLERS
  • Animal Planet: Vet Collection
  • Chuck E. Cheese’s Party Games
  • Dragon Quest IX: Sentintels of the Starry Skies
  • Hidden Objects: Mystery Stories
  • Junior Classic Books and Fairytales
  • Little League World Series: Double Play
  • Music on: Retro Keyboard
  • Paws & Claws Regal Resort
  • Pop Island – Paperfield
  • Primrose
  • The Bachelor
  • The Sorcerer’s Apprentice

Xbox 360

  • Deadliest Warrior: The Game
  • DeathSpank
  • Little League World Series Baseball 2010
  • NCAA Football 11

PS3

  • DeathSpank
  • Landit Bandit
  • Little League World Series Baseball 2010
  • NCAA Football 11

PSP

  • Madden NFL 11
  • Ys SEVEN

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Comments

  1. Koreish
    13 Jul 2010 ~ 3:06pm Koreish DQ9 is awesome highly recommend it to fans of RPGs J or otherwise.


    However CB it is not the first to build your own party. 3 allowed to you hire party members and 7 allowed you to choose any class for any member. 9 has taken both aspects and made them one.
  2. Lone_Wolf_28
    14 Jul 2010 ~ 7:15am Lone_Wolf_28 There have been some major changes in Disciples III which you seem to have overlooked. First and most important is the battle system: in the previous games you had to arrange your troops in a 3x2 grid and could not move them around in combat, so in order to reach your second line troops the enemy had to kill the ones in the first line or use ranged attacks (and same goes for enemy troops). In Disciples III the combat system is more like HoM&M, where you can move your troops in the battlefield and there are things like flanking bonuses and such (unthinkable in Dispiples II).
    Also the graphics have had a major overhaul and now everything is in 3D (Compared to pre-rendered and static image backgrounds present on the previos games).
    I'd like to try the 3rd title of the saga before passing judgment, but previous ones are worth checking out.

    BTW Disciples is more of a Turn-based strategy game in my opinion...
  3. CB
    14 Jul 2010 ~ 8:06am CB Thanks, Lone Wolf. I was hoping that someone who had played the games before would chime in. I've never played the franchise myself, and so was going off of their press releases and website (which are badly translated from Russian, BTW) for my information.

    Good to know that they've done a little bit more with it than it looks like they did from their own promotional material.
  4. Starman
    14 Jul 2010 ~ 12:54pm Starman I haven't played a Dragon Quest game since it was called Dragon Warrior on the NES, but I may pick up this new one.
  5. primesuspect
    14 Jul 2010 ~ 1:45pm primesuspect DQ8 is probably my favorite game of all time. If you can somehow get your hands on it, I HIGHLY recommend playing it. It's a brilliant piece of work.

    I have DQ9 here on my desk, review forthcoming.
  6. Koreish
    16 Jul 2010 ~ 3:38am Koreish
    primesuspect wrote:
    DQ8 is probably my favorite game of all time. If you can somehow get your hands on it, I HIGHLY recommend playing it. It's a brilliant piece of work.

    I have DQ9 here on my desk, review forthcoming.

    Can't wait to read it. I've been fairly impressed so far with it. Sure the graphics took a hit from the very beautifully created DQ8 but everything elses seems to have been much improved upon.

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