Square Off
Jump Festa is this Saturday in Japan and there’s quite a bit of Square Enix news.
Perhaps the biggest of all news comes in the announcement of two new Dragon Quest games for the Nintendo DS and in arcades.
The DS game is entitled Dragon Quest IX: Protectors of the Sky is being developed by Level-5 which worked on the DQVIII and Dark Cloud. There will be four-player network enabled play and the battles appear to be action-based. DQ creator Yuji Horii acknowledged the limitations of the DS but is hopeful to make a groundbreaking adventure for the platform that should be ready in 2007.
Square Enix also announced the card-based arcade game Dragon Quest: Monster Battle Road which is set to hit Japanese arcades next summer.
Famitsu magazine reports that the Final Fantasy XII spinoff Revenant Wings –which is expected to debut a trailer at the Jump Festa– will continue the adventures of Vaan, now as an air pirate with girlfriend Panelo as his navigator. The story in a island chain above Ivalice called Remless which in inhabited by the Eagle race of Humes.
The battle system appears to have real-time strategy elements based as your party faces off with enemies on a 2D map. Screenshots imply that the Gambit system may make it’s way into the DS game with some references to a “Gambit” system in some form. The games director did also announce that the second screen will be used to display some data and you would switch which screen displays what part of the game.
Yet another DS game Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates will be featured at Jump Festa and the a playable version is expected to be present. The PSP will receive love also as Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII will also be playable at the game show.






