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Shortly after its official announcement, Square Enix has gone ahead and shown off the first trailer to Chrono Trigger for the Nintendo DS. What have we learned so far? Well, let’s see. Akira Toriyama’s idenitfiable art style? Check. Yasunori Mitsuda’s memorable MIDI compositions? Also check. The Super NES quality-gaming grace we’ve come to know and love? A big red-marker colored check there. Assuredly, it doesn’t look all too different from its original iteration, but who cares? Time traveling, a fantastic battle-system, more than 12 unique endings, metal joints and silver points! If you don’t already own a DS, here’s Reason Number “A Billion and One” on why you should. If you have DS, buy another anyway and give it to your house pet.
Also, food for thought. What if Squenix decides to finally bring back Singing Mountain or Zeal Dungeon from the early prototype days as part of the newly planned content? Maybe even localise and pack in Radical Dreamers, while they’re at?
The World Ends With You (Subarashiki Kono Sekai or “It’s a Wonderful World”), is the odd-child of DS gaming. The antagonizing, “don’t-give-a-damn” gathering of anti-social dispositions set against innate Shibuya cultural musings has been done many times in Japan — the manga Gantz and Jet Set Radio come to mind. Though it received it’s fair share of media attention, thanks in part to the Kingdom Hearts team (led by Tetsuya Nomura) collaborating with developer Jupiter (Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories and the under-rated Picross DS), no one expected the game to be this technically impressive. However, with it’s eclectic mix of Shibuya youth culture, a varied and excellently orchestrated sound track, vivid visuals of anime-esque detailing and graffiti mantels, sharp 2D sprite animation and background design, The World Ends With You presents a compelling, addictive and lengthy package for any RPG and DS gamer alike. And if that weren’t enough, it perfectly follows the guidelines for stellar Japanese game design: easy to get into, full of depth; original yet still staying in it’s carefully constructed mold.
Checking out the new trailers for Square-Enix’s PS3 epics Final Fantasy XIII and Final Fantasy Versus XIII initiates a trademark Final Fantasy impeccable - enlightening, revealing, enticing and confounding any red-blooded gamer in one fell swoop. Bear in mind that these titles are still a ways off; FF XIII has only shown smidgeons of gameplay footage and is scheduled for release in late 2008. FF Versus XIII only has CG-animated cut-scenes to its credit and understandably hasn’t been given an official date. However, the fate of the franchise and the two pillars supporting the massive Fabula Nova Crystallis project are, make no mistake about it, drop-fucking-dead gorgeous in an age where looking gorgeous is about as passé as making an FPS.