For those of you with a low tolerance for hit points, the dynamic duo will also be showing off XSEED's first DS games, Populous DS based on the classic PC game, KORG DS-10, a music creation program, and Retro Game Challenge, a mini-game title based on the Japanese Game Center CX TV series. Perhaps these three non-RPG titles will calm me enough to keep the Rune Factory fan in me from dry-humping their booth.

Marvelous Entertainment USA and XSEED Games

Join Forces to Announce E3 2008 Line Up

Independent Game Publishers to Showcase Stellar Portfolio of Titles on Wii™ and Popular Handheld Systems

Torrance, Calif., (July 11, 2008) – Marvelous Entertainment USA and XSEED Games today announced its E3 plans which include a stellar line up of games for both Nintendo platforms, the Nintendo DS and Wii, as well as the PSP® (PlayStation®Portable) system. Both companies will display their portfolio of upcoming titles at E3 2008 which will be held at the Los Angeles Convention Center from July 15th – 17th. E3 attendees are invited to visit the Marvelous Entertainment USA and XSEED Games booth located at Concourse Hall Pavilion #427.

”We’re very pleased to be able to give the North American audience a sneak peak at our upcoming lineup,” stated Yasuhiro Wada, Managing Director of Marvelous Entertainment. “This is just the beginning of some of the great games that we’ll be releasing in the US under our Marvelous Entertainment USA banner.”

“It’s been an amazing year for us, and we feel that we’re well positioned going into E3,” said Jun Iwasaki, President of XSEED Games. “We’ve got a fantastic partnership with Marvelous Entertainment which we greatly appreciate, and the overall line up of titles we’re showcasing is strong and diverse, which we’re exceptionally excited about.”

Games being shown under the Marvelous and XSEED Games partnership are:

Avalon Code DS

From the creative minds behind Rune Factory and Harvest Moon with the development studio responsible for the Final Fantasy III and Final Fantasy IV DS remakes comes Avalon Code, an action RPG boasting incredible graphics, a deep and engrossing story, and innovative game play mechanics. Using the main character’s ‘Book of Prophecy’, players can modify the rules of engagement during battle as well as weapon and monster attributes. The player even has control over the story as it changes depending on which gender the player chooses to play as, enhancing the ability to immerse themselves into the story. Avalon Code DS is scheduled for release Q1 2009. The game will be published in Europe by Rising Star Games*, a subsidiary of Marvelous Entertainment.

Rune Factory: Frontier Wii

From the creators of Harvest Moon and Rune Factory for the DS comes the first installment of Rune Factory for a home console. Developed exclusively for Wii, Rune Factory: Frontier features stunning graphics and takes full advantage of the Wii’s unique controls to fully immerse players in the Rune Factory universe. Rune Factory: Frontier incorporates an open-ended structure that allows players to choose the type of game they wish to experience. Whether it’s growing crops, expanding the town, fighting (or befriending) monsters or even falling in love, the experience is unique to each player. Rune Factory: Frontier Wii is scheduled for release Q1 2009. The game will be published in Europe by Rising Star Games*, a subsidiary of Marvelous Entertainment.

LITTLE KING’S STORY Wii

Little King’s Story has an art style that is very ‘story-book’ in look and a magical fairy tale quality that will intrigue and delight gamers. The storyline, visual look, and lyrical music of Little King’s Story, work in concert to transport players to an interactive, enchanting, fairy tale world. By combining gameplay elements from life-simulation, real-time strategy, and adventure genres, the many aspects of creating a vast kingdom come to life! As King, players will manage and involve their townspeople in the goals of creating this new territory; enlisting them to dig for treasure, build new buildings and otherwise better their community. Of course, leadership is a two-way street, so as King, players will try to conquer rival nations to create a single unified kingdom, while also granting the requests of townspeople at whim. The game transforms the Wii Remote™ to a royal scepter and offers players the chance to be the best king in the world! Little King’s Story Wii is scheduled for release Winter 2008. The game will be published in Europe by Rising Star Games*, a subsidiary of Marvelous Entertainment.

VALHALLA KNIGHTS 2 PSP system

Sequel to the popular Valhalla Knights, Valhalla Knights 2 promises to give fans of the original game a vast and expansive world to explore, and the customization tools to create the ultimate battle party. This action RPG (Role Playing Game) sequel adds new races, job classes, weapons, magic spells, foes, armor and more to the Valhalla Knights universe, all within an engrossing story arc. Controlling and choosing character aspects such as skills, race and appearance, players engage in real-time 6 on 6 battles, reliant on tactical combat strategies to achieve success. Supporting 2 player ad hoc network play, gamers can engage in Co-op and Versus modes with friends, or simply trade items and weapons. Valhalla Knights 2 PSP system is scheduled for release Fall 2008.

Separately, XSEED Games will unveil the company’s first official support of the Nintendo DS with three titles:

Populous™ DS

Based on the original Populous PC classic from Electronic Arts, Populous DS brings a re-imagination of the classic game, which pioneered the God simulation genre. Featuring touch-screen controls that utilize the dual-screens, players manipulate 5 elementally-imbued gods, each with their own unique miracles, within an extensive single-player campaign. Within the multiplayer wireless mode, up to 4 players can unleash earthquakes, tidal waves and raging volcanoes onto rival players’ lands. Populous DS is scheduled for release Fall 2008. The game will be published in Europe by Rising Star Games*, a subsidiary of Marvelous Entertainment.

KORG DS-10

Designed after the famous KORG MS-10 music synthesizer, KORG DS-10 is a music-creation program for professional and aspiring musicians alike. The sound sources in the KORG DS-10 come from KORG, one of the world’s top musical instrument producers, and no effort was spared in the replication of creating high-quality sounds. The Nintendo DS’s touch-screen controls are utilized to the fullest to provide an authentic feel and operability across a dual-screen layout that is unsurpassed in portable music creation. A 6-track/16-step sequencer enables precise control and provides a wide range of musical possibilities, and up to eight DS units can be linked via wireless connection to play together or to exchange sounds and songs. KORG DS-10 is scheduled for release Fall 2008.

Retro Game Challenge

An original game based on the popular Japanese GAME CENTER CX TV series, Retro Game Challenge reinvents how classic games are played. Featuring a story-driven progression, players complete short challenges in a wide-variety of fictional retro-games. Specific challenges in shooting, racing, action and even an epic role-playing game are integrated into the story, while the in-game magazines offer cheat codes as well as fake 80’s news stories paying tribute to the rich history of the gaming industry. Released to raving reviews as Game Center CX: Arino’s Challenge in Japan, the game received a Gold Award from Famitsu with a 33/40 review score. Retro Game Challenge is scheduled for release Winter 2008.

Wait, there's more: The all-star team behind the game includes Yasuhiro Wada (Harvest Moon), Yoshiro Kimura (HM & Chulip), Youichi Kawaguchi (Dragon Quest VIII) AND Hideo Minaba, art director for FFXII.

I got to see an early demo of the kingmaking of little Corobo, the shy boy who the player must nurture into a wise and strong ruler.

The first thing that jumped out at me was the beautiful watercolor-pencil style of the cute, humorous cutscenes (we published the trailers a while back here) - and how well they transitioned immediately into the brightly-colored game world. I watched as a wacky looking old knight came riding up on a cute, bulbous cow (yes, it was the much-revered Harvest Moon cow) in his search for the true king.

Corobo then discovers a crown, suddenly prompting his friends to prostrate in homage. Next thing you know, you're in a throne room, and as you start the game as a level one "rookie" king, your mailbox soon fills up with all sorts of mundane requests, like getting rid of a red mushroom that's annoying the townsfolk, or filling in a mysterious hole behind someone's house.

In the scene I watched, the charming, fancily-mustachioed Bull Knight explained to Corobo that the neighboring lands are under siege by Oni devils and under the rulership of false kings, which, of course, it falls to you to rally your folk to deal with. Any time you want to know the state of your kingdom or what needs doing, you return to your throne.

But, of course, you're the King, so you don't have to do this dirty work yourself. Waving your sceptre at townspeople will recruit them to your aid - you can have a few or up to a throng of fifty following you from place to place, ready to do your bidding. Many townsfolk will have different specialties; for example, a team of carpenters will build something when instructed much faster and more efficiently than a group of regular individuals.

You can often earn respect by completing these quests; the more renowned you are as a ruler, the more people will obey you. And your obedient subjects are not just faceless nobodies. They've got HP and attack points, can gain in abilities, and will even show their relationship status - given enough time, your townspeople will marry and propagate. If you don't treat them well, though, if you battle too recklessly or work them too hard, they can permanently die, and as their King, you'll have to attend their funerals. That could be very interesting.

What I saw was mostly exposition and early stages of play, but this is a title I'll personally watch with enthusiasm, because life-sim/adventure hybrids rate pretty high up among my favorite genres.

So will Valhalla Knights 2 change things up a bit? Make things a little bit easier, more accessible? Add some simple modes, some auto-leveling, some easy outs?

Not so much.

"This one's actually a little bit harder," the Xseed rep told me when I went to go see Valhalla Knights 2 today. And, I'm told, that's exactly how the core JRPG fanbase wants things. In fact, the entire game's been built to accommodate the fanbase's feedback, and is shaping up to be a veritable wishlist of JRPG elements that could conceivably blow some minds when it hits PSP, likely in September.

Valhalla Knights 2 will be a sequel to the first only as much as, say, the Final Fantasy titles are sequels - incorporating some of the same magic systems and thematic elements, but existing in its own new world. More of a successor than a sequel, then.

Though VH2 adds more cinematic cutscenes than the previous Valhalla Knights, story takes somewhat of a back seat to quest-based gameplay, it seems. "There's more stuff to do, and more is better," said the rep.

I'm not done mentioning Final Fantasy, either. VK2's story's being written by Miwa Shoda, scenario designer for FFXII as well as Sword of Mana and SaGa Frontier, while the music's done by Advent Children soundtracker Shojiro Nakaoka.

The basic premise for VH2 involves a Goddess of Judgment, who appears every thousand years to evaluate the world and see how humans are doing. Oops, I'm showing my race bias - there are dwarves, halflings and robots, too. Anyway, this time, the Goddess determines that there's just too much war going on, and decides, in a Biblical Flood-type scenario, to eradicate all life as we know it. A witch with just a little more faith in mankind (and dwarfkind, and halflingkind, et cetera) decides to wound the Goddess to stay her hand, and yes, now it's up to you to save the world.

We know that VH2 will add three new job classes not seen in its predecessor, and two new races - in the demo I saw, you can play as one of various breeds of dog. Dogs using tennis rackets, statues and giant mallets as weapons. The rep told me that the franchise's hallmark is its character customizations; in addition to being able to select your characters' race and job class and customize their look and ability with armor and accessories, VH2 now adds the ability for you to customize faces and hair, too.

There are significantly more options across the board for VH2 - its predecessor had some 200 weapons and armor altogether, and this one's got 300. There are now over 100 items and over 70 spells, and from where I sat, the possibilities looked virtually endless. You can have up to six characters active in your party at a time, and can switch out the leader in realtime, and their entire outfit and equipment on the fly.

You can also change a character's job class at any time. Let's say you're a level 10 Priest. You can switch to being a Level 1 fighter - and keep all of your leveled-up Priest spells and your stats, too. In fact, the rep told me it'll be necessary to switch classes periodically to develop well-rounded characters. At any given time, you occupy one primary class and two sub-classes.

A grid in your menu lets you decide your battle formation - i.e., who stands in front and who stands in back. VH2's battles aren't random - all enemies are visible in the game world. If they see you, they'll try to engage you, but you can stealth-sneak past them by crouching down while you walk if you're hoping to avoid a fight. A small map on the upper right corner of the screen shows you where enemies are in relation to you, so that they don't sneak up on you, too.

If you do happen to get attacked from the back, your back row becomes your front row - but you can rapidly switch your team around in real time too, to get the mages behind the fighters and so forth. And as the battle progresses, each character builds up a gauge to use a special attack (think Limit Breaks) , and the type of attack depends on the type of weapon equipped.

Right now, said the rep, gameplay stands at a hefty 80 hours, but I was told this may be reduced somewhat for the U.S. audience. The length and intensity, said the rep, was aimed more at the Monster Hunter type of fan, so some edits might get made to suit the specifics of North American taste.

One artist will be chosen among 100 winners submitting an original picture of a creature, person, ghost, beast, or anything like that - the chosen design will become a character in the game, while the other 99 will be featured in the in-game museum exhibit.

The requirements for a valid entry are pretty specific, and all info and submission instructions are included after the jump. Pens, pencils, paint, go!

Marvelous Entertainment USA and XSEED Games are Pleased to Announce Fan Art Contest for Little King’s Story

Marvelous Entertainment USA and XSEED Games are holding an artwork contest where winning entries will appear in the upcoming Little King’s Story

Torrance, Calif., (June 13, 2008) –Marvelous Entertainment USA and XSEED Games announced today that they are holding a fan artwork contest where winning entries will appear in their newly announced video game title Little King’s Story for Wii™.

100 winners will be selected – One (1) Grand Prize Winner’s illustration will become an actual in-game character, while ninety-nine (99) other illustrations will be displayed in the in-game museum exhibit! The theme of the competition is some kind of UMA, or an Unidentified Mysterious Animal. The illustration can be any kind of creature, beast, ghost, a weird man, etc; the only thing limiting the creativity of the creation is your own imagination!

The contest may be entered by e-mailing an original digital work of art in the form of a .gif, .jpg, .bmp, .tiff, or.eps file to comments@xseedgames.com with the subject heading “Little King’s Story UMA Contest.” Your illustration must be an unpublished, original work of art and the image should have dimensions of 148mm x 105mm with a resolution of 300 DPI.

Please provide the following information in the body of your e-mail:

· Name of your UMA

· Your name

· Your age

· Your address

· Your phone number

· Your e-mail address

· Name that you wish to appear with the illustration (real name or pen name)

If you prefer to send in your submission by mail, mail a standard 4.25” x 6” postcard with the UMA illustration or a CD containing the digital artwork and above listed information to:

Little King’s Story UMA Contest

XSEED Games

21515 Hawthorne Blvd., Suite 1020

Torrance, CA 90503

All entries must be e-mailed or post-marked by August 1, 2008

For more information and to read the full official contest rules please visit:

http://www.littlekingsstory.com

or

http://www.xseedgames.com

Marvelous Entertainment Inc.

Marvelous Entertainment is a leading Japanese creator of interactive entertainment with such esteemed franchises as Harvest Moon, Rune Factory, Luminous Arc and No More Heroes under their corporate umbrella. More information on Marvelous Entertainment can be found at http://www.mmvus.com.

XSEED Games

XSEED Games was formed in November 2004, by a small group of industry veterans led by president Jun Iwasaki with a common vision; to cross pollinate the avid gaming culture of Japan and North America. Delivering unique, innovative titles across multiple platforms and genres, XSEED Games is dedicated to publishing products that appeal and enrich the North American market. More information on XSEED Games can be found at http://www.xseedgames.com.

The all-star team behind the game includes Yasuhiro Wada (Harvest Moon), Yoshiro Kimura (HM & Chulip), Youichi Kawaguchi (Dragon Quest VIII) AND Hideo Minaba, art director for FFXII. Pretty exciting, if you ask me!

It's the story of a shy little boy named Corobo who suddenly becomes a king, and gameplay sounds a little bit life sim, a little bit real-time strategy and adventure, as you might expect from Marvelous.

Luton– 12th June 2008– Rising Star Games is pleased to confirm the 2009 publication of the much anticipated fantasy adventure RPG title formerly known as‘Project O’ and now confirmed as Little King’s Story exclusively for Nintendo Wii. Developed by Rising Star Games’ Tokyo based parent company Marvelous Entertainment, Little King’s Story is scheduled for a Q1 2009 release in the PAL territories.
“Little King’s Story has an art style that is very‘story-book’ in look and one that we feel will be universally loved,” stated Yasuhiro Wada, Managing Director of Marvelous Entertainment Inc.“The game has a fairytale quality that will intrigue and delight gamers the world around.”
“Little King’s Story is a project we’re incredibly excited about bringing to the PAL territories. There’s been a massive groundswell of enthusiasm for this title since being showcased at last year’s Tokyo Games Show,” commented Richard Barclay, Rising Star Games’ UK&international marketing manager.“The game perfectly reflects the quality of gaming experience and design creativity fans of this genre now demand.”
Little King’s Story begins with the story of young boy named Corobo. Shy, and without many friends, Corobo stumbles upon a mysterious, powerful crown while walking in the forest near his village. He soon discovers that the crown grants him the ability to charm any person, and make them follow his orders. Suddenly, Howzer, the bull-knight appears informing Corobo that he is now King of the village and that he must not take this responsibility lightly. Returning to his sleepy village as a King instead of a shy little boy, Corobo begins a quest to turn his small hamlet into a noble, fantastic kingdom.
The storyline, visual look and lyrical music of Little King’s Story work in concert to transport players to an interactive, enchanting, fairytale world. By combining gameplay elements from life-simulation, real-time strategy and adventure genres, the many aspects of creating a vast kingdom come to life. As King, players will manage and involve their townspeople in the goals of creating this new territory; enlist them to dig for treasure, build new buildings and otherwise better their community. Of course, leadership is a two-way street, so as King, players will try to conquer rival nations to create a single unified kingdom as well as grant the requests of townspeople at whim. With the Wii Remote™ as a royal scepter, 2009’s Little King’s Story allows players the chance to be the best king in the world.

Slated for a Fall 2008 launch, the first title they'll co-publish is Valhalla Knights 2 for PSP, a sequel to the April 2007 RPG that the two companies also co-published.

Full release follows the jump.

Torrance, Calif., (May 9, 2008) - Japan-based game publisher Marvelous Entertainment Inc. and Los Angeles-based game company XSEED Games announced today their entering into a strategic co-publishing partnership. The deal will help to establish a US publishing presence for Marvelous Entertainment and will provide XSEED Games an opportunity to access and bring to market titles from Marvelous' portfolio of high quality, popular games. Under the agreement, XSEED Games will support key Marvelous Entertainment titles for publishing and distribution in North America, with the first title to be announced under this partnership, Valhalla Knights 2 for the PlayStation® Portable (PSP), scheduled to launch in fall 2008. "We're pleased to be able to announce our new expansion into the largest gaming market in the world, the United States. I'm confident that together with our co-publishing agreement with XSEED Games, we will be able to hit the ground running as we ramp up our US operations," stated Yasuhiro Wada, Managing Director of Marvelous Entertainment. Jun Iwasaki, President of XSEED Games, shared Mr. Wada's sentiments. "We're honored to get the chance to partner with Marvelous Entertainment as they establish and grow their presence in the US market. They have an exceptional library of original and creative games many of which should prove a hit with Western gamers."

Sequel to the popular Valhalla Knights, Valhalla Knights 2 promises to give fans of the original game a vast and expansive world to explore, and the customization tools to create the ultimate battle party. This action RPG (Role Playing Game) sequel adds new races, job classes, weapons, magic spells, foes, armor and more to the Valhalla Knights universe, within an engrossing story arc. Controlling and choosing character aspects such as skills, race, and appearance, players can engage in real-time 6 on 6 battles, reliant on tactical combat strategies to achieve success. Supporting 2 player ad hoc network play, gamers can engage in Co-op and Versus modes with friends, or simply trade items and weapons.

"Valhalla Knights 2 will carry on the legacy its predecessor established as a beloved game in any RPG player's library," remarked Ken Berry, Marketing and Sales at XSEED Games. "We appreciate this game being the first in our co-publishing partnership with Marvelous Entertainment as it will help to set the quality standard high for all future games coming out of this deal."

Marvelous Entertainment and XSEED Games will be announcing additional titles under this co-publishing deal in the near future, as well as more specific game details and assets for Valhalla Knights 2.

Marvelous Entertainment Inc.

Marvelous Entertainment is a leading Japanese creator of interactive entertainment with such esteemed franchises as Harvest Moon, Rune Factory, Luminous Arc and No More Heroes under their corporate umbrella. More information on Marvelous Entertainment can be found at http://www.mmvus.com.

XSEED Games

XSEED Games was formed in November 2004, by a small group of industry veterans led by president Jun Iwasaki with a common vision; to cross pollinate the avid gaming culture of Japan and North America. Delivering unique, innovative titles across multiple platforms and genres, XSEED Games is dedicated to publishing products that appeal and enrich the North American market. More information on XSEED Games can be found at http://www.xseedgames.com.

So what did the critics think? Hit the jump for our Frankenreview to find out: not quite every review, but probably more than you're going to read anyway.

IGNYou've got the GTA free-roaming that is used for doing individual missions, exploring the city of Santa Destroy, and hitting up a few shops and training areas, which leads the way for the action-oriented story. If the game was based only on the open world style, it would have been a pretty sizable disappointment as far as we're concerned, as there are constant frame issues, pop-in everywhere, very little NPC activity, and a huge overall lack of polish...What it all boils down to is about 10 or so stores and buildings to go into, a handful of mission points that bring you into new loading zones, and some mini-game jobs which are fun, but hardly necessitate an entire open world.

Gamespot
The crux of the action is found in No More Heroes' numerous and impressive boss encounters, where you'll use these subtleties to your advantage, though they don't usually present a foreboding challenge until the final few fights. Yet they're still enormously entertaining, thanks to your opponents' melodramatic (and often hysterical) soliloquizing, interesting attacks, and pure wackiness. Holly Summers launches missiles at you from her fake leg, while Stage magician Harvey Moiseiwitsch Volodarskii locks you up in the box used for his disappearing act...

NGamer
Never before have we played a game that felt so completely in love with being a game - text is rendered in an eighties pixellated font, your map's a sloppy digital display, the whole HUD ripped from Grand Theft Auto without mercy or apology; the ten best assassins table is the high score chart from a 1984 coin-op and the pause menu is like a scene from Tron.

4 Color RebellionThe music in is excellent. The No More Heroes theme is catchy and runs in several variations throughout the game. Fans of Lumines will recognize the song "Heavenly Star" by the Genki Rockets and you can even watch the song's music video from a tape in Travis's apartment...The voice acting is over the top and often hilarious. People have ridiculous accents, crazy rants, and seem to be doing nothing but spouting catch phrases. The dialogue is not good in an Oscar Wilde sort of way, but it is good in an "Army of Darkness" sort of way. No one really sounds like a real person, but nothing in this game ever feels very real to begin with.

InsomniaIn regards to the first point, what's happened here is that the remote/nunchuk functionality is used to mask how terribly shallow the fighting system is. So shallow, that it is quite possible to win half the fights in the game by — get this — turning your back on the TV and mashing the A button while vigorously shaking the remote in random directions.

Back to us—not dissimilarly from the public's reaction to Killer7, No More Heroes garners polar reactions. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't give it a shot.

Eventually, I'd like to make something like Spore, where you create something, and from there, new stuff is going to be created again and again and again. In a micro world, like The Sims for example, you have the city expanding but you can't see it. But you want to be one of the people living in the city, and to be a part of this growing too.

Make the jump for the other two videos.

Shh. You had us at "umm."

Heads up, Halo-playing comic book geeks. Sure, last summer Marvel announced Halo: Uprising, but then the comic was quietly moved from an ongoing monthly to a four issue mini-series, reports 1Up. What happened? Marvel editor Ruwan Jayatilleke explains that's not really the case:

It is a monthly series of mini-series that will explore different aspects of the Halo mythos. It was always planned to be a series of contained stories that Bungie and Marvel felt would further entertain fans of the epic videogame franchise as well as provide a gateway for new fans to step in and be captivated.

That actually seems smarter on Marvel and Bungie's part: Keep it short and focused. Currently, Marvel's Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev are hard at work on the first mini. Looking forward to it. Brian Ashcraft

Halo Comics [1Up]

Hit the jump for our Frankenreview. We take little parts of every review and shove them together like the classical monster you all know and love - better known as Swamp Thing.

G4
Chop off the realtime combat system, replace the graphics with a primitive first-person view, and you have Wizardry, The Bard's Tale, or any number of other PC adventures. You have to have been there to get in on the joke, but a few players over on the shady side of 30 should some pleasant reminder of their youths...As for everybody else, well, there's not as much here.


GamesRadar
... what little story is present, involving your main player's loss of memory and speaking in ellipses, won't be enough to keep most players mashing buttons. Not that we consider all thumb workouts unnecessary, but if enemies are going to successfully melee attack you regardless of their proximity, rendering any dynamic evasion moot, it makes us wonder why they didn't just keep it turn-based.


1UP
...Valhalla Knights becomes pure torture. You see, in order to change classes, you must remove all of a character's equipment. Since you've only got 30 free inventory spots, though, that doesn't leave much free space to actually hold this equipment. Thus, switching jobs — a simple task that should be as easy as accessing a menu option — becomes a tedious, drawn-out game of hot potato as you swap armor, weapons, and healing flasks between characters for what seems like hours on end...Oh, wait — it is hours on end.


Total Playstation
[With] Ad-Hoc-only multiplayer modes...Though you can't quest through the main game in any sort of proper co-op, you can go on specific quests to gain experience and items to help out in your solo adventure...you can also duel someone, winner take all. They're decent additions to be sure, but actually having a full-time co-op mode would have made trudging through those dungeons and doing all that backtracking a whole lot easier.


GameZone
...even with these flaws, the game's best features shine through. You'll love the fact that the game includes a wide range of weapons and equipment (all which even alters the appearance of your character). You'll adore the fact that you can add than one job class to your character, allowing your fighter to have some Priest healing abilities or a Ninja's ability to successfully sneak past enemies...Plus, the story is not bad once you get past the complex beginning.

Despite those who ripped the game (basically everyone), I still really want to play it. I miss designing my own characters and building my own teams. Plus, I love tedium. It's just great. Mark Wilson