Awesome TWEWY DS Was A Present From Nomura

So the other day when I was visiting Xseed, checking out Valhalla Knights 2 and Little King's Story, I espied this sweet The World Ends With You DS. My photo quality is poor, so the little caption beside it says "It's A Wonderful World."

Turns out that Square Enix's Tetsuya Nomura gave the TWEWY DS as a gift to Xseed's company president, Jun Iwasaki, who was Square's CEO before he left to found Xseed. Nomura also gave Iwasaki one of those Crisis Core PSPs, but apparently, while Iwasaki decided to keep the TWEWY DS, he gave the PSP to one of his colleagues.

The DS is even more awesome-looking in person; it's gloss silver, and the logo is nice and shiny.

We've heard Xseed is publishing Marvelous' Little King's Story on the Wii this Winter (you can stop calling it "Project O" now), and between the gorgeous art style, charming look and the somewhat Harvest Moon-influenced gameplay blend of real-time strategy, adventure and RPG, there's a lot to clasp our hands in hopeful anticipation about.

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.

Publisher XSeed admits that the first Valhalla Knights was just a wee bit of a hardcore grind, targeted squarely at that sector of the Japanese audience - and the non-Japanese fans who share their tastes.

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.

Have Your Art In Little King's Story

Marvelous' upcoming Little King's Story, formerly known as "Project O," has some gorgeous art, so it's not a stretch to guess it might inspire some fan art. With that in mind, Marvelous and its publisher, Xseed, have announced an art contest, with the winner's design to appear in the game.

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!

Japanese RPG fans, rejoice. Japan-based publisher Marvelous Entertainment announced a co-publishing partnership with L.A.-based XSeed, who's best known for Shadow Hearts: From The New World and Wild Arms 4 and 5. Through the deal, Marvelous, who among other titles publishes Natsume's Harvest Moon series, gains more North American presence, while XSeed gets to publish some of Marvelous' upcoming games here in the U.S.

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.

Fake Boxing, Real Boxers

Frankenreview: Valhalla Knights (PSP)