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Games Entertainment

7 Games You Might Miss This Fall 46

Posted by Zonk from the why-do-they-hate-us dept.
Games Radar has up a piece trying to point out the top seven games you're likely to miss thanks to the many high-profile launches coming this fall. How can a quirky title like Eternal Sonata hope to survive opposite Mass Effect and Blue Dragon? Likewise, will cult status be enough to save NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams when it goes up against the likes of Mario Galaxy on the Wii platform? A list of titles to come back to early next year, or something to help if none of the big names are turning your head.
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7 Games You Might Miss This Fall More

7 Games You Might Miss This Fall

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  • Eternal Sonata (Score:3, Interesting)

    by atomicstrawberry ( 955148 ) on Tuesday August 21, 2007 @01:40AM (#20301157)
    Hopefully Eternal Sonata will survive against Blue Dragon by the simple fact that it appears to be a better game. At least, that was my judgement based off the two demos.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Wiseman1024 ( 993899 )
      Quirky? Eternal Sonata is awesome. Awesome music, awesome visuals, awesome setting, and for what I could see, awesome gameplay. On the other hand, the Blue Dragon demo confirmed why I'm not so interested in the game: nothing's really bad about it, but it doesn't fascinate me like Eternal Sonata does. The later looks and feels like a mix between a fairy tale and a Thomas Kinkade painting, and few settings can be more interesting than the dreams of a genius. The Chopin theme works wonderfully, and the 4 CD so

      • Re:Eternal Sonata (Score:4, Interesting)

        by atomicstrawberry ( 955148 ) on Tuesday August 21, 2007 @02:38AM (#20301459)
        RPGs never used to turn up in Europe because companies like Sony had a rule that the game had to be localised into French and German at least, and often Italian and Spanish as well. For your bog-standard shooter or similar that is not a major hurdle, but for a text-heavy RPG that's a huge (and expensive) undertaking. Additionally RPGs have traditionally not done as well here (though I think this is a bit of a catch-22).

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by edwdig ( 47888 )
          Additionally RPGs have traditionally not done as well here (though I think this is a bit of a catch-22).

          RPGs don't do nearly as well in the US as they do in Japan. The European game market is generally considered to be more like the US market than the Japanese market. I think that's the line of thought leading to less RPGs in Europe.
        • I know a guy who works for Sony on this stuff. It appears that locallization is quite a bit easier (if quirkier) using XML. His entire job is writing the XML to change "Sword of Manifest Destiny",etc. into what ever it's supposed to be in the other languages they want to sell in.
          • XML is the enterprise way. Which means bad, but gets the job done. INI files are just as good, only simpler.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ookaze ( 227977 )
        Eternal Sonata is NOT awesome. Every time I hear that, I see only 2 possibilities on why someone said that : he's astroturfing, or he never played a good RPG before.
        Trusty Bell (Eternal Sonata) had the potential to be awesome, but it's not. Perhaps it is to you, but it's far from being awesome for everyone (it highly interests me though).
        The music has nothing awesome in it, the visuals are very good, and the settings is included in the visuals.
        The gameplay is not awesome either. Basically, this game plays l
        • I love Japanese RPGs, and I have played about two dozens of them since the SNES era, including the rarer, fan-translated ones. And I can say Eternal Sonata is awesome to my personal standards.

          The 4-CD OST by Motoi Sakuraba is easily one of the best in the genre, all orchestral, inspired and complete with 40 minutes of Chopin performance by Russian pianist Stanislav Bunin, a Chopin specialist.

          The gameplay, as far as I could see in the demo, is simple and addictive, and the story sounds good enough to keep it
    • Who's to say you can't buy, play, and enjoy both?
      To me, Eternal Sonata is a bit more appealing because I am enamored with Tales-style Action RPGs...which Sonata brings quite effectually to the table. ...but that doesn't mean that I'm not picking up Blue Dragon.

  • NiGHTS Journey of (Broken) Dreams (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Psykechan ( 255694 ) on Tuesday August 21, 2007 @01:45AM (#20301185)
    NiGHTS Journey of Dreams is on the list.

    I love the original NiGHTS game and its spin-off Christmas NiGHTS. I will regularly hook up the Saturn and give it a good play through because it is that good of a game. Years ago I would've loved to have a sequel/remake on a newer system.

    However Sega has done such a bang up job at destroying practically every one of their franchises that I have very little hope for this game. I would love it if I'm wrong but I'm going to be reading many reviews before I even attampt to play this game let alone buy it. Sega has broken my heart too many times recently.
    • I actually thought Christmas Nights was cooler than the full game. They should really include a similar mode in this new one so you'd have more to play than just the one level.

    • Re:NiGHTS Journey of (Broken) Dreams (Score:5, Interesting)

      by G Fab ( 1142219 ) on Tuesday August 21, 2007 @01:55AM (#20301247)
      Don't get too down, pal.

      The cool thing about this business is that it's not hard at all to rise from the ashes. Sega has fallen painfully, but that's what it takes sometimes to get some kid in there with some good ideas and a soul to make some new content. They have the brands, all they need are the ideas.

      Look at Nintendo. Barely holding on five years ago. If Nintendo had succeeded witht he Gamecube and N64, there would be no Wii. You take risks when you have nothing to lose. EA will never release that awesome ground breaking game - the most they can hope for is frames per second on the 2 point conversion. Is EA going to take manpower off of Nascar 2009 to make the next Katamari? It's profits per quarter might suffer!

          But Sega... Sega has nothing to lose and might just take a low budget risk that adds something to the industry. It's only a matter of time.

      I may sound like an idiot hippie, but I'm right. The losers become the winners in this industry.

      It's like Olivia. She had no body, but she gave me all she had. What she was, actually. And if you ask Seth Able to sing, your bank account might double. Those with less produce more. The zen is the dao is the buddha buddie (holy shit, I'm drunk).

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Khuffie ( 818093 )
        Two points to note: - EA is working on Spore, and while I can't pass judgement on that, you can't say they are not taking a risk - Nintendo was far from 'barely holding on'. They've made healthy profits in the N64 and GameCube days.

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Look at Nintendo. Barely holding on five years ago.

        Nintendo as of August 2002 was kicking just a little more ass than you might be capable of remembring in your current intoxicated state. GBA was going like a freight train and GameCube was closer to head-to-head with Xbox than it ended up being when Xbox production stopped completely. Not to mention that their first unprofitable ever was yet to occur. High times, actually.

        Nintendo's "comeback story" with the Wii is nice. They zigged when the rest of the

        • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

          by G Fab ( 1142219 )
          oh yeah, the gameboy.

          good point, good point.

          Nintendo was doing a lot better than "barely holding on". That was lame hyperbole on my part.

          Not to rain on Nintendo at all, I love Nintendo, but your comment that they have returned to the top is simply wrong, I'm afraid. Nintendo is a game maker, ans Sony is just an electronics company, so it's easy to have nostalgia and think Nintendo is the true leader over the course of consoles. But Sony is (which makes their current console a shocking failure). The wii

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Orion_ ( 83461 )
            You really should do a [vgchartz.com] little [vgchartz.com] research [vgchartz.com] before you invent statistics to back up your claims.

            You can add all the SNES and NES systems sold together and come millions short of the Playstation, and tens of millions short of the Playstation 2.

            SNES+NES: 110.87 million shipped
            PS1: 102.49 million
            PS2: 117.89 million (as of March)

            Of course, they are still selling PS2's. So it appears that, by the time the PS2 is retired, the difference between PS2 and SNES+NES will be in the tens of millions. So you're right on that point, at least.

            No Gameboy brand has approached 100 million either.

            False. In fact, if you count the DS as a "Gameboy brand", then there are significantly more GBs out there than Playstations.

            Sony is still selling more consoles than Nintendo.

            Even


            • The gameboy isn't relevant. If you want to compare sales of audio players or game playing laptops, I'm sure Sony wins, and if you want to use sales of handhelds, of course Nintendo wins. It's silly to bring them up unless you have confirmation bias and just want to bolster a company, which is cute but not for me. Nintendo is in two markets, and has done better in one than the other lately. I think we can agree that Sony sells far more stuff than ten Nintendos. We're just talking about consoles right no

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by 7Prime ( 871679 )
            Not to mention, we're talking "creative bankruptcy" not financial bankruptcy. Nintendo, as far as I'm concerned, has NEVER been in creative bankruptcy. SEGA, on the other hand, has just been going downhill ever since the Genesis left us. It poked its head out of the clouds (no pun intended) once to give us Skies of Arcadia, and maybe a few other times. But for the most part, they've shown themselves to be entirely creatively bankrupt. ESPECIALLY the Sonic Team (who I believe is doing NiGHTs).
      • Long time I don't see a LORD joke in the wild.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ookaze ( 227977 )

        The cool thing about this business is that it's not hard at all to rise from the ashes

        You got to be kidding... There are rare examples of that (Squaresoft mainly), and no, Nintendo was never a company that's gone to ashes.

        Look at Nintendo. Barely holding on five years ago. If Nintendo had succeeded witht he Gamecube and N64, there would be no Wii

        Your premises are flawed and clueless. Nintendo was never "barely holding" on any year. They were making profits all the time.
        And the Gamecube is not the reason the Wii appeared, Nintendo explained why. The Wii appeared, because while the GC was disappointing sales wise, they had time to look at the market, and saw that the japanese videogame market was dangerously declin

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Pxtl ( 151020 )
      Sonic Team has, according to some reports, redeemed themselves a little recently. Their Wii and DS offerings are actually quite popular. Still, I don't have high hopes for this. Looks like my Wii shopping will be Mario Galaxy and Smash. No interest in single-player Metroid, and no interest in more minigames (even Olympic-themed ones).

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Intellectual Elitist ( 706889 )
      > However Sega has done such a bang up job at destroying practically every one of their franchises that I have very little hope for this game.

      Virtua Fighter and Virtua Tennis seem to be chugging along just fine, and Shinobi & Nightshade on the PS2 have a strong cult following. True, Sega screwed the pooch with the Sonic franchise a long time ago, but I can't think of any other botched franchises off the top of my head...
    • > However Sega has done such a bang up job at destroying practically every one of their franchises that I have very little hope for this game.

      Shining Force:
      started as a standard dungeon crawl, spawned a bunch of awesome (at least to my friends and I) at the time tacticsy games. Shining Force 1, 2 and Sword of Hajya (GG), then the slap in the face. You can have 3 part 1, but not parts 2 or 3. Shining Force 1 has been re-released how many times now? Shining Force 2 has been rereleased at least 2-3 time
  • The truth is most of the games on this list would never get notice, and frankly the Wii and DS selections were a little weak. Come on guys, tell me how you managed to guess Radar Readers wouldn't be buying kiddie and tweener rhythm games.
    Nights and Fred are pretty obviously going to get trampled.

    They actually have interesting points about the shooters though. 51 looks like the next FEAR, which did great, and there's no reason it couldn't kill if released in Jan-June. More than any other game 51 is caught

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by donaldm ( 919619 )
      It appears "Kane and Lynch" and "army of Two" are cross-platform games and since Halo may take the lions share of the Xbox360 market in the months leading up to Christmas this may result in poor sales for this game on the Xbox360 (although it may pick up in the New Year). These games may actually do well on the PC and the PS3 platforms which could make developers think twice before developing on a console that does not return a profit. Still releasing on the Xbox360 at a similar time to Halo is IMHO asking
  • These games might have a chance if they sold them cheaper then the competition. The problem with this quarter is that these games are coming out one week after another. And at $60 a game you can easily kill through your spending cash quite fast.

    Heck, if your just shooting for the Guitar 3 and Rock band, your down almost $300.
  • While some of those games I've genuinely never heard of (Dead Head Fred looks cool), quite a few games on that list are high-profile titles that are bound to sell well. I don't know about you but anyone I've seen who has a 360 and is into RPGs is looking forward to Eternal Sonata over Blue Dragon. Heck, I rarely buy JRPGs, and I might pick up Eternal Sonata. I think NiGHTS has enough fans to allow it to be a success, as for BlackSite, I played the demo, and in terms of frame rate, it was one of the worst ga

  • Great times (Score:2, Insightful)

    by p4rri11iz3r ( 1084543 )
    Right now is indeed a great time to be a gamer. The only problem is, come December, I'm going to be so broke it'll be sad. Heck, even the most spoiled, rich kids are going to have a tough time. Right now I have plans to buy the "big 3" for the Wii and maybe a few others. I really wish I could afford a 360 so I could pick up many of the games for it as well.

    Naturally, the fanboys will argue which console has better games, but my question is: does that even matter? Just enjoy the plethora of good games a

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by BarneyL ( 578636 )
      No rush, it's cheaper if you take your time rather than buy more than you can play. I'm just playing through a cheap copy of Prey right now, and have FEAR plus the last two Broken Sword adventures on the the shelf after that.
      All good games and cost me less than one new one would.
      Staying a year out of date save a fortune on hardware upgrades too...
  • ...would be Duke Nukem Forever! :p

  • Eternal Sonata will do fine... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by 7Prime ( 871679 ) on Tuesday August 21, 2007 @05:09PM (#20310667) Homepage Journal
    We're talking about ALL huge titles by large game developers, here. The buzz behind Eternal Sonata (Trusty Bell) has been huge, possibly almost as much as Blue Dragon. In fact, it's Blue Dragon that's by a fairly small, indy company: Mistwalker (and no, Mistwalker is not owned by Microsoft). Eternal Sonata is made by Tri-Crescendo, a branch of Tri-Ace, which is a huge company, comparitively. In the RPG community, you don't hear much about Blue Dragon these days, but ES is getting more hype than anything else. It'll do fine. I, for one, am buying an XBox360 the day ES comes out.

    And NiGHTS? That's being produced by Sega's Sonic Team, one of the most (in)famous console development teams in the history of gaming. Yes, it won't outsell Myamodo's franchises... and really, can you really justify that happening?

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