Publisher: Her Interactive
Developer: Her Interactive
System requirements: Windows XP/Vista/Win 7/OSX 10.5, 1.5 GHz Pentium 4 or better CPU, 512 MB RAM, 3 GB hard-drive space, 128 MB DirectX 9.0-compatible graphics card, 16 bit DirectX-compatible sound device
Genre: Adventure
ESRB rating: Everyone
Release date: May 9, 2012

Nancy Drew has a long history as a book series. More recently, the PC game series is making a name for itself as a continuation of the tradition. As the 26th game in the collection, Tomb of the Lost Queen has a well established framework to not just match, but also hopefully to surpass.

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Publisher: Electronic Arts
Developer: 38 Studios
Genre: Action RPG
ESRB rating: Mature
Release date: Available now

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning is the first adventure in the brand new world of Amalur, brought to us by 38 Studios, Big Huge Games and the mind of fantasy legend R.A. Salvatore. An action RPG with the Salvatore pedigree to live up to, KoA:R promises fast-paced, customizable gameplay and an epic story set in a colorful, high-fantasy world.

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Publisher: Namco Bandai Games
Developer: From Software
Genre: Action RPG
ESRB rating: Mature
Release date: Available now

I’ll be the first to admit I have a problem when it comes to games: I’m a gaming masochist. The first thing I always do is crank up the difficulty. But I wasn’t prepared for Dark Souls, the spiritual successor to Namco Bandai and From Software’s Demon’s Souls. The sequel takes everything you thought you knew about fairness in games and crushes it under hordes of undead and massive dragons.

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Publisher: Square Enix
Developer: Square Enix
Genre: RPG
ESRB rating: Everyone 10+
Release date: Available now

Final Fantasy IV has been released at least eight times that I know of, and I might be miscounting. Despite the original North American release featuring simplified difficulty, heavy censoring and a hilariously poor translation, FFIV is widely considered to be the first truly great Final Fantasy; it helped set the standard for all RPGs for years to come. Final Fantasy IV: The Complete Collection features the fully remastered original game as well as the mobile phone and WiiWare sequel The After Years. An all-new, in-between chapter has been added to bridge the gap between the two, but does this version really make the game worth purchasing yet again?

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Publisher: Square Enix
Developer: HexaDrive
Genre: Action RPG
ESRB rating: Mature
Release date: Available now

Square Enix games share a lot of features: fantastic graphics, strange hairstyles and highly dramatic cutscenes, to name a few. But they also frequently get spin-offs, strange games that have little to do with the core series and explore otherwise unrelated or alternate situations in ways only vaguely connected to them. The 3rd Birthday, a tactical over-the-shoulder shooter with RPG elements, is one of these spin-offs. While technically considered part of the Parasite Eve series, 3rd Birthday is definitely not Parasite Eve 3.

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Publisher: Square Enix
Developer: Square Enix
Genre: Action RPG
ESRB rating: Teen
Release date: Available now

Square Enix’s Final Fantasy series is one of the most extensive of all time if you count all the side series and spin-offs that bear the name. Dissidia 012 (spoken as “duodecim”) is the second entry in the Dissidia side series. An action RPG/fighting crossbreed, Dissidia is the ultimate Final Fantasy tribute.

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Publisher: Square Enix
Developer: Square Enix
Genre: RPG
ESRB rating: Teen
Release date: Available now

Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together has long been considered one of the best tactical RPGs ever made. Originally released in Japan on the Super Famicom in 1995 and North America on the Playstation in 1998, Tactics Ogre was long overdue and more than deserving of a remake. Square Enix has provided one, bringing it to the PSP.

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Publisher: Alawar Entertainment
Developer: Alawar Entertainment
System requirements: Windows XP/Vista/Win 7, 1.7 GHz CPU, 256 MB RAM, DirectX 9.0-compatible graphics card, DirectX 9.0-compatible sound
Genre: Horror Adventure
ESRB rating: Not rated at press time
Release date: Available now

I’ve never been a huge fan of point-and-click adventures, preferring a more active style of game, but I know they’re extremely popular as mystery or horror games. Stray Souls: Dollhouse Story is a new horror puzzle adventure from Alawar, and I found myself a lot more engaged by it than I expected to be.

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There’s not much that compares to the disappointment I experience when I attempt to have a conversation about a great game I’m playing and get nothing but blank stares in return. Too often I find myself with an amazing little gem of a game that no one in creation has heard of. Why? Searching the Internet shows that nearly every game news site simply has no information about them at all. No hype, no previews. If I’m lucky, there’s a name and an inaccurate release date.

This got me wondering. How many amazing games have been lost to obscurity simply because no one bothered to care or get the word out? Too many. With that in mind, I felt the need to share some of the gems I own that the world has never heard of. These games deserve far more than the dismissive, innacurate information pages about them.

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Publisher: Nintendo
Developer: Camelot Software Planning
Genre: RPG
ESRB Rating: Everyone 10+
Release date: Available now

Camelot’s original Golden Sun series is considered by fans to be the best portable RPG series of all time, and Golden Sun: Dark Dawn is the long awaited third entry that fans have been craving since the closing credits of Golden Sun: The Lost Age. Taking full advantage of the NDS hardware, Dark Dawn promises to be the best game in the series. The question is, can it really live up to the cult-like status of its predecessors?

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On Thursday, February 3, Atlus PR Manager Aram Jabbari hosted a live web demo of their upcoming DS RPG Radiant Historia. Everything I’d seen of it showed promise, so I was more than happy to attend. I went in optimistic, eager to get not only the closest to hands-on I could until the release, but also participate in an open forum and ask the team behind the US release anything concerning the game, from localization decisions to quality control.

The first thing we were treated to was a roughly half hour walkthrough of the introductory portions of the game. Aram provided intel on its technical aspects, story background information, and commentary about the translation and localization of dialogue.

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Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment
Developer: Ready At Dawn Studios
Genre: Action-Adventure
ESRB Rating: Mature
Release date: Available now

God of War is one of the most gory, gratuitously violent game series I’ve ever seen. In an industry driven by scantily clad fan-service (male or female) and trying to force as much carnage into one screen as possible, that says a lot. The original God of War came out back in 2005 and the mayhem hasn’t stopped since. God of War: Ghost of Sparta tells of what happened between God of War and God of War II.

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Publisher: Atlus
Developer: Sting
Genre: RPG/RTS
ESRB rating: Teen
Release date: Available now

I can’t say I often go into a system port expecting it to be as good as it was the first time I played it. The port to the PSP from the DS for Knights in the Nightmare seems puzzling to me, given the nature of the control scheme, which relies almost entirely on the DS stylus. As a unique combination of RPG and RTS, Knights in the Nightmare’s first impression on either system is baffling at best and intimidating at worst.

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Publisher: Atlus
Developer: Atlus
Genre: RPG
ESRB rating: Everyone 10+
Release date: Available now

While dungeon-delving RPGs used to be standard fare, everyone has been trying to make them different, new and exciting in some way so that they will appeal to new generations of gamers with different standards. From adding some unique system to overcompensating for the “old” gameplay with flashy graphics, there’s always a gimmick to spruce up the tired formula. Atlus’s Etrian Odyssey series stands out in that it does just the opposite. It takes the classic, first person, dungeon-exploring, turn-based RPG formula and wholeheartedly embraces it. Etrian Odyssey III: The Drowned City tries to add some subtle twists without straying too far from its core principles.

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Not all that long ago, I sat down to have a look at the upcoming games of 2011, and I found myself sad to see the inevitable and expected decline of the DS and the PSP. I didn’t see much on the list to excite me, either. Most that looked interesting to me are for systems I don’t yet own, but with a little searching I found some genuinely interesting games that I’m really looking forward to play.

High on my list is Jikandia: The Timeless Land. From the same team that made Half Minute Hero, Jikandia looks like a kind of RPG platformer that features time-based gameplay. The time you set for a dungeon determines what can be found there (enemies, loot and traps), and the more times you play through the game, the more story events are unlocked. I’m looking forward to a lot of replay value.

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