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Shop Watch March

By Russ | March 1, 2009 at 5:54 pm

The Wii has games coming out for it. True story.

Phantasy Star Portable for the PSP, shipping March 3. Sega starts off another strong month of RPG releases with their most recent iteration of the Phantasy Star Online/Universe games. This one is surprisingly fun, too. PSP owners can grab a demo on the Playstation Network and find out for themselves.

Avalon Code for the DS, shipping March 10. Xseed fortifies the DS with steel, beef, and other hearty measures in this off-beat RPG about re-writing parameters to your advantage. Maybe this game can re-write consoles with better RPGs? Or any RPGs?

Mana Khemia for the PSP, shipping March 10. A direct port of the PS2 game, NISA adds a little WiFi and the ability to utilize a memory card to help the game load faster.

Resident Evil 5 for the 360 and PS3, with a spooky street date of Friday the 13th. This is not an RPG. This is merely what everyone else will be playing this month instead of RPGs.

Valkyrie Profile: Covenant Plume for the DS, shipping March 16. The first of four offerings from Square-Enix this month, Valkyrie Profile: Covenant Plume finds a young soldier ready to avenge the death of his father, even if it means forcing his way into Valhalla itself.

Rune Factory: Frontier for the Wii, maybe but possibly shipping March 17. Xseed has some decent games coming out like Avalon Code featured above, but finding release dates for them is a bother. Regardless, Frontier takes place between the two Rune Factory DS titles. Good luck, Farmboy Swordsman.

Suikoden Tierkreis for the DS, shipping March 17. Not a core Suikoden title, 108 stars will be available nonetheless in Konami’s latest addition to the franchise. Despite the game existing in a separate place and time altogether, I’ll bet money Vicki shows up.

Pokemon Platinum for the DS, with a street date of March 22. Platinum certainly is the record color for Nintendo’s long-running series of games about monstrous cock-fights. Platinum also kicks off a very busy week for releases in March, though none of this month’s titles will come close to matching its sales.

Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Echoes of Time for the Wii and DS, shipping March 23. A double-whammy of linkage is released from Square-Enix. Players can play together regardless of which system they own, proving we can all indeed get along – as long as you have the same manufacturer.

Last Remnant for the PC, shipping March 24. I have all confidence the PC can do something for this game the 360 can’t. And that’s run it properly.

Sacred 2: Fallen Angel for the 360 and PS3, shipping March 24. The release date for this might slip, but it will be nice to see a co-op hack’n’slash on the consoles.

Some Advice: Dragon Age: Origins for the PC has been delayed until November 4th like its console cousins. Once again, that leaves the month firmly in the hands of portable gaming but minus Sega’s Infinite Space, which is delayed until July. Pokemon is this month’s clear winner, being an absolute beast in the way of sales. Resident Evil 5 will also own sales and souls to a slightly lesser degree.

The Future: Look forward to tons of kids and quite a few adults crying about bad trades in Pokemon Platinum, and a fairly woeful first half of the year for the console RPG gamer. At least the recently released Star Ocean: The Last Hope and it’s 900+ battle trophies will help ease the pain.

All games (with the exception of those marked as street-dated) will be in stores one day after their release. Release dates also tend to be shipping dates. All release dates are subject to change.

Topics: Shop Watch