If you haven't been reading up on today's news about Jump Festa 2009 -- the annual Japanese festival about all things involving gaming, anime, and Japan geekery -- you may not yet know about some of the awesome trailers presented by Square Enix.
We've been trolling the Internet all day, and found a few interesting videos that make us eager for the upcoming year -- especially for the Nintendo DS front on RPGs.
Blood of Bahamut
Let's just start praying now that Square Japan sees fit to bring this game overseas in a hurry. Hell, I just want to play as that giant Ogre guy. Now, my Japanese is pretty crappy, but I can at least determine that Blood of Bahamut is going to be a likely mix between Shadow of the Colossus and Final Fantasy -- which means that I've already forfeited $40-50 to Square Enix for an import copy of this game.
(Curses! Foiled again.)
Dragon Quest IX: Protectors of the Sky
Having played a handful of Dragon Quest games in the last few years, I'm excited that DQIX is going to push the 3D modeling limits of the Nintendo DS. It's been done by Atari on Dragon Ball: Origins, and DQIX already looks almost as good. Unlike Blood of Bahamut, we know for certain that this game will see an American release, and you can bet that all us RPG nerds will be slobbering for it.
Blue Dragon: Ikai no Kyojyuu
(YouTube Vid courtesy of the fine folks at Siliconera.)
Okay, there's three good reasons why we're excited for this new Blue Dragon game. 1) Akira Toriyama is doing art for both this game and Dragon Quest IX. 2) There will be real MMO-style battle that take place in real time. 3) Dragon Shadows are exchangeable between characters, meaning that anyone can rock Zola's cool critter. We're hoping that Blue Dragon Plus, also coming to the DS, does well enough that this game ports over here, too.
Congratulations, Square Enix! You're finally releasing some new games that aren't remakes! Now how about that Final Fantasy XIII, hmm?
