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Shop Watch June

By Russ | May 31, 2009 at 12:03 am

June opens with some old friends and ends in war.  Again.

Final Fantasy IV: The After Years for WiiWare, available for download June 1.  Square-Enix brings its FFIV cell phone sequel to the US courtesy of Nintendo’s online store.  The After Years will more than likely to be released in chapters similar to the game’s cell phone roots, so avid fans may have to wait a while for the whole game.  On another note, it feels pretty good to type ‘available for download’ instead of ‘shipping this date.’

Knights in the Nightmare for the DS, shipping June 2.  Atlus brings Sting’s latest offering; a strategy time-based RPG with shoot’em up elements guaranteed to make a player’s hand spastic.  A strange marketing move from Atlus had the demo online and only available to play for a weekend, but the end result was still an interesting mash-up of the aforementioned elements.

Black Sigil: Blade of the Exiled for the DS, shipping June 9.  Graffiti Entertainment’s love song to SNES RPGs should be released on this date if the stars are right.

Class of Heroes for the PSP, shipping June 9.  This anime-inspired dungeon romper is brought stateside courtesy of Atlus.

Monster Hunter Freedom Unite for the PSP, shipping June 23.  Capcom tries again with the insanely popular (in Japan) Monster Hunter series.  Supposedly this series saved the PSP’s lifespan in the Asian markets single-handedly, but it remains to be seen if North American players will care.  Protip: They didn’t last time.

Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor for the DS, shipping June 23.  Atlus’ flagship series goes tactical.  More in line with the Persona series than the regular Megami Tensei games, players control a series of high school students bent of surviving a demon outbreak in a quarantined city.

Mytran Wars for the PSP, shipping June 30.  This title is being developed for the PSP by Stormregion, the team who worked on the Codename: Panzer games normally found on the PC.  A typical strategy RPG whose story is told with a comic book style, Mytran Wars revolves around mechs battling alien golems.  It’s also the only game on this month’s list without any inspiration from JRPGs.  If western style games are more your flavor, give this one a once-over.

Some Advice:  The more interesting titles this month are also the titles more capable of hitting the bargain bin relatively quick.  I’m referring to Black Sigil and Mytran Wars.  This isn’t a criticism on their quality; this is just the fate of smaller publishers in a retail environment.  Outside of Devil Survivor and the FFIV sequel, the other titles will receive price drops over time.  Class of Heroes will have an excessively small print run, though.

The Future:  E3 is currently ruining release dates with tons of new announcements, but it will be the Christmas season before any possible big titles hit the market.  Console owners should take the time to finish old games.  The portable market is the only market with a readily available supply of RPGs for the summer.

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