Week in Review: Endings, shadows and conquests

April 8, 2012

This week, the RPG news kept rolling, from both East and West.

TOP STORY: Kingdom Hearts 3D dropping this summer

Square Enix is obviously in no hurry to start working on Kingdom Hearts 3, but for now fans of the series can look forward to playing the next intermediary title, Dream Drop Distance. Described as the opening of the final act in the current storyline, Kingdom Hearts 3D follows Sora and Riku as they attempt to become keyblade masters. Gamers will be able to get their hands on it on July 31.

Nintendo localizing Pokemon Conquest

When Nintendo announced a new Pokemon spin-off crossover with Nobunaga’s Ambition, many assumed it would never get an English release. However, that assumption was proved incorrect this week when Nintendo of America announced that Pokemon + Nobunaga’s Ambition would be coming over here as Pokemon Conquest on June 18. The game is more of a tactical RPG than previous efforts.

Mass Effect 3‘s ending getting ‘extended’

The controversy over Mass Effect 3‘s ending should come to an end soon, as BioWare announced this week that rather than changing the ending, they plan on releasing a free update that will expand upon the already-included finale. The goal is for this DLC to answer any questions fans had about the ending, along with showing more of the effects the decisions made throughout the series meant.

More games getting Kickstarted

It’s almost not even newsworthy at this point when big games go to Kickstarter for funding, but these projects are still worthy of mention. First, Harebrained Schemes has launched a Kickstarter to produce a new Shadowrun game, titled Shadowrun Returns. Unlike the ill-fated Xbox 360/PC title, this game will be a single-player turn-based RPG. This project was seeking $400,000 and has already reached $680,000 as of this writing.

The other big project is an attempted remake of the first Leisure Suit Larry game, led by Replay Games and the creator of the LSL series, Al Lowe. The plan is to update it with a modern point-and-click interface, along with voice work and HD graphics. They are looking for $500,000 and have so far raised just over $215,000.