What was perhaps the more important story of December didn’t involve the new hotness consoles – it was that the Nintendo DS, a well-entrenched two-year-old system with no manufacturing issues, no constant executive potshots and a general lack of fiasco. Even without the drama, the DS was the top-selling hardware in December in the US, selling 1.6 million units bringing life-to-date US sales to 9.2 million units.
It’s a story that is a testament to the all-ages appeal of the DS and the strength and innovation of its 2006 releases. But it also sets the stage for the system’s 2007. Perhaps consumers were preparing for the DS’ future, because its next twelve months look to be absolutely massive.
An Abundance of Roles
If 2006 was the year of the platformer on the DS, 2007 is undeniably the year of the RPG for the handheld. This is primarily because the long awaited Pokemon Diamond and Pearl (4/22/07), perhaps the most eagerly anticipated games of both the system and the year, have finally been given a stateside launch date. It almost doesn’t matter that these games are the best yet in the series – though all indications say that this is the case, particularly because of the phenomenally intuitive and vibrant online trading system. It’s Pokemon. It sold over a million copies in Japan is just its first few hours on the market. Expect a similar sellout here; and while you’re at it, expect no game to touch its sales numbers for 2007, and expect the DS to sell out alongside it.
Against any other title, the huge announcements RPG mavens Square-Enix made in December would steal the genre’s show. The presence of Pokemon naturally doesn’t make these announcements any less huge – particularly the statement that Dragon Quest IX: Protectors of the Starry Sky (TBA) would be a DS exclusive. Perhaps that’s not the biggest deal in the west – if so, the addition of multiplayer modes and action-RPG elements probably also won’t set off a Pavlovian response. That’s fine; it’s not particularly likely that the game will make it here in 2007 anyway. Instead, set your sites on Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates (TBA 2007) (still slated for release this year, though very little has been said or shown since its announcement months ago) or the DS games Square announced as part of the “Ivalice Alliance”. The handheld is set to return to brilliant developer Yasumi Matsuno’s fully-realized fantasy world not once, but twice – once as a strategy RPG sequel in the form of Final Fantasy Tactics A2 (TBA), and again as a side story in Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings (TBA). Not much is known about the former (besides what can be inferred given its excellent series pedigree), but the latter looks to retain some of FFXII’s most innovative features such as the gambit system while also focusing on the endless entertaining pastime of air piracy. It must be noted however that with Matsuno no longer working for Square-Enix, the Ivalice Alliance project likely doesn’t involve him, and while the games still look promising this is of significant concern to his cult fanbase. While none of these titles have solid release dates yet, it wouldn’t be unreasonable to expect at least one of them this year.
Buena Vista Games is likewise expecting to land a hit with Spectrobes (3/13/07). Developed by Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories creators Jupiter, BVG is naturally aiming at their core child audience, and thus the game smacks of Pokemon – players will be expected to collect creatures by digging up their fossils in what looks to be an entertaining archeological minigame, then regenerating them and waking them up (by shouting “Wake up!” at the DS – a perfect indication of the age group this game is supposed to be for) to do battle with an alien menace. There should be a good solid push behind this one, and BVG has proven it knows how to find its audience.
For the other extreme of the genre’s market, however, Atlus is as always reliably putting out games with strong hardcore appeal. Etrian Odyssey’s (Q2 2007) most salient feature is that the player will be using the touchscreen to draw their own maps, while the rarely reported on but still on the way Izuna: Legend of the Unemployed Ninja (2/20/07) is an uncompromisingly difficult Mysterious Dungeon game of the type that rarely sees stateside release. But while there’s plenty on offer for any type of RPG player on the DS this year, it would still be nice if the big companies surprised us with some of their Japanese exclusives – particularly Square Enix’s Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker and Nintendo’s delightfully unmarketable Fresh-Picked Tingle’s Rose-Colored Rupee Land, a Zelda spin-off with content as unfathomable as its title. Hey, we can all dream.
Next: Casual appeal and action adventuring