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Japan’s RPG Releases: J-Shop Watch June 2011

By Heath | June 6, 2011 at 2:46 am

Now that Russ has given us a look at the domestic, here’s the rundown of RPGs Japan will get this month.

Titles shipping the June 9
PS3-exclusive Yakuza: Of the End will make its long-awaited debut. Originally scheduled to drop in March, it was delayed due to the disaster in Northeastern Japan. Because of this, Sega is donating part of its profits from the game to disaster relief and shipping the first print with special edition “Be strong like a dragon, Japan!” stickers.

Titles shipping the June 16
Not much on this day other than Level-5’s PSP arena-battling RPG Danboru (known as Tiny Battlers outside of Japan). The Tokyo Game Show demo proved the potential for short-term portable fun but I don’t see it getting huge reception in the West.

Titles shipping the June 23
Look out for Atelier Meruru on this day, as this series always has smashing sales. Japan will also finally get the PS3 port of Mass Effect 2 that North Americans got in January. The 360/PC versions of this game were our best multiplatform RPG of 2010. Atlus and Sting will pump out the next Union game, Gloria Union for PSP. Blaze Union never came stateside so this one probably won’t either. Damn shame.

Titles shipping the June 30
Valkyria Chronicles goes greatest hits on this day, dropping to about $30. Really, anyone with a PS3 should have this game already, but now there’s officially no excuse, at least in Japan.

This last day of June is also the day that the one and only non-PlayStation RPG comes out, in the form of Tales of the Abyss for 3DS. The game was originally released on the PlayStation 2.

Console sales of late have been heavily in the favor of the PSP, with the 3DS constantly in second place for the last six weeks in a row. This definitely has something to do with the software. Japan’s most popular genre is the RPG, and right now, only the PS3 and PSP are even touching it; that yields benefits for Sony. True, Mass Effect 2 is a port, but its original version was not a system seller in Nippon. The PS3 version is almost a lock to outsell its original version.

It will be interesting to see how long this trend keeps up and which developers will finally bring some RPG love to something that doesn’t have a PlayStation logo on it.

Topics: Shop Watch