Remember Earth Defense Force 3 Portable? Announced sometime around E3 and was pretty much completely overlooked because the world is a terrible place full of terrible people? Yeah, you probably don't. It's okay. I mean, I posted about it, but I really didn't, nor do I yet, know exactly what an Earth Defense (I keep spelling it as "Defence" and I don't know why) Force game is like. I have a rough image and such, and I could probably get a better understanding through some videos and the like, which is probably what I will end up doing now that I have a reason to do so. Because, as you might have read already, Earth Defense Force 3 Portable, known over here as Earth Defense Force 2017, is coming to North America. This is a triumph, as they say, since it's just one more game to throw at the nay-sayers that are going to spout off the "has no gaems" thing until....I dunno. I really don't, since the Vita -has- a really impressive library (more impressive first-party-wise than Nintendo at least, which is -saying something-) and doesn't really deserve the flak it gets, but that's neither here nor there.
If you'll recall (or if you re-read the post I initially linked) whether or the game would actually get localized was about as up in the air as any one game could be. On one hand, it's apparently a beloved franchise, even if it's not A quality, on the other hand, it's....very, very niche, so it's not going to sell gangbusters no matter what it's on. Still, what this means is a version that is in English and no matter what, that is a plus for most of the world that is not Japan. For instance, the game has only been mentioned as heading for North America so, say, angry PAL folks will still be able to import it and play it on their Region-Free Vitas. Because they are region-free. Unlike certain other handhelds that people are always complaining about not being Region-Free, but buying the hell out of them anyway. They will also be able to understand it, what with the whole English thing going on. As to -when- they'll be able to do this is up in the air, as the game has a release window of "Winter 2013" which.....seems like a long, -long- way away if you take it literally. As in, Q4 2013. Some have speculated this means January or February of 2013 which makes a lot more sense, but there's really no information about that out there yet.
Still, I suspect that no matter the release date, I have a while to fully get a grasp on just what this series is. If I had to put a rough estimate on it, I would suggest that it is Starship Troopers, but on Earth. I would also say that I have not seen Starship Troopers in like a decade and I should really try to keep up on my references instead of throwing them out blindly but....effort. Anyways, as a wholly expendable mook, you seem to be mowing down giant space bugs until....you can't. I guess? It does seem like the sort of thing that would be fun for short bursts and especially fun in a group of friends, so if the price and delivery is right, I might just go for it. I don't know what to think of on that front, however, as I really don't see it making it onto a Cart for its release over here. But I also don't see a Digital-only release for it going over $20, which I believe is what some Japanese Cart games that are DD-only over here are going for. Like Sumioni and Dokuro (if its price was even announced) and of that ilk. I'm sure that'll be seen as a pretty good bargain for fans of the series and the price-point might hook some who otherwise might not be interested. Like me. It'll be interesting to see, certainly!
Also worth noting as an announcement is the announcement that Rainbow Moon will be seeing a Vita port which pretty much makes all the sense in the world, really. As it is apparently billed as an RPG that will take a lot of your time. I think we've all sort of come to the realization that RPGs are fantastic for handhelds since you are likely in a position to put a lot more time into that than you are a console unless you....just have a lot of free time to spend with a console of your choice. If we could all be so lucky, I suppose, but my point is that, especially for short sessions of pick-up-and-play, RPGs work really nicely provided they aren't text-heavy as all get-out. But on the Vita, that's not so much an issue since you can Home Button out and put the machine to sleep if you just cannot get to a spot where you can save your progress. Which is mostly for older games, since new ones seem to have embraced the theory of being able to save anywhere since if you're playing on a portable, you're pretty much likely to have to pick it up and put it down a lot.
I could probably find a couple posts where I stated it, but when Rainbow Moon came out, I said that I would be interested in it if it ever made its way to the Vita, since I'm really not going to do a whole lot of RPG-playing on my PS3 I doubt. Aside from Final Fantasy XIII when I pick that up, but, well, according to who you listen to, it's not much of an RPG. (Canned laughter goes here.) I barely have the time to play the games I have, and I really don't need to compound that by throwing another game that'll require a 60-hour investment onto the pile. That pile, I should say since I more or less have -two- piles now which is absolutely, utterly ridiculous. On my PS3, I have the backlog that I have been oh-so-steadily working through, whereas on my Vita, I have a whole mess of PSP RPGs that I can go through at my leisure, I suppose, as well as Final Fantasy VII all by its lonesome while I await either Final Fantasy VIII or Xenogears to be up in the Playstation store proper since I believe I have purchased both and just need to download them. And I'm gonna, I assure you of that.
Something specific to note is that, unlike a lot of games that are featured between the PS3 and the Vita, Rainbow Moon will not have a sort of "Buy one, get one" deal. It's unfortunate for folks that have the PS3 version and would prefer it on the Vita, but to put it in perspective, the folks handling the port, their developing partner SideQuest Studios will have to literally port the entire game, as Rainbow Moon was built solely for PS3 and didn't use a sort of cross-platform engine which makes it so easy for other games to release on both services. Not to fret, as the developer knows that things change and the fans who already supported them were the ones that requested the port, so they fully don't intend on charging the same price for those folks who have the game already or who decide they like the game so much, they want to buy it for both at once. Exactly what the price-point is going to be in any scenario is up in the air, and how flexible they'll really be allowed to be is questionable, but at least their intent is there. Let's hope that them coming out and saying that doesn't bite them in the end.
No comments:
Post a Comment