I couldn’t be more thankful for Mistwalker’s existence right now. As a long-time JRPG fan, these last few years with my once beloved Square-Enix have been like watching a much-loved family dog slowly die while a relationship goes sour and a shiny red balloon deflates, – Sorry, I won my own body-weight in metaphors at a raffle last night and I need to offload them – and I’ve thus found my love of the genre turn into a slightly mouldy gray apathy. It used to be the case that the announcement of a Square/Squenix game would be the highlight of my year, but now we get twelve a day and hardly any of them get me excited.
So regardless of whether Blue Dragon floated your boat or not, the fact that Mistwalker is around as competition can only be a good thing. With BD already out and ASH and Lost Odyssey up soon, we’re seeing the kind of variety from Misty that used to make the old man of RPGs so interesting, and I for one want lots more. And more I’ve got, for two new DS games are on their way, and neither is far off.
Due next March in Japan is Blue Dragon DS, and in January we can expect to see AWAY: Tsuresarareta Hitobito, which translates to AWAY: Kidnapped People. At the moment very little is known about either game except that they exist and are being developed by FeelPlus+ and Artoon respectively, although it has been announced that original Sonic and Robotnik designer Naoto Oshima has been brought on board as character designer for the latter.
Interested? Yay? Nay?
