Zodiac: Orcanon Odyssey is a promising-looking JRPG that's headed to the App Store thanks to kobojo - and if the involvement of Final Fantasy VII writerKazushige Nojima and Final Fantasy Tactics composerHitoshi Sakimoto weren't enough to get you interested, how does a shift from free-to-play to a premium release sound?
Kobojo has announced details for their newest game, Zodiac - a 2D persistent online RPG.
Kobojo has put together a crack team of developers including composer Hitoshi Sakimoto and scenario writer Kazushige Nojima, whose work includes many of the Final Fantasy games and the Kingdom Hearts series, as well as Basiscape who have done audio work for RPG's such as Dragon's Crown, Muramasa: the Demon Blade, and Valkyria Chronicles.
"Working with iconic developers such as Sakimoto-san and Nojima-san has pushed us to perfect every element of the RPG experience for mobile and handheld devices," said Mario Rizzo, CEO, Kobojo, "The combination of their deep knowledge and history along with our company's experience and artistic style is leading to the creation of Zodiac, our dream cross-platform RPG."
You can check out the gorgeous graphics in the trailer video below and whet your appetite for when Zodiac is released in 2015.
:: SHALLOW SPLICINGMutants: Genetic Gladiators from Kobojo is a monster battling/breeding game that looks like it might make a fair number of waves. It's sort of like a combination of monster training games like Pokemon and the battle system from games like Final Fantasy VI, with a really nifty art style and some pretty crazy-looking characters.
As your mutants battle they'll level-up and store up energy that they can use to 'breed' with other mutants in order to (potentially) create stronger fighters. It has a lot of player-versus-player elements to it, but there's also a fair amount on hand for those who'd prefer to avoid fighting other people. There's a pretty hefty collection aspect to it, with most of the available mutants sporting three or four different forms/skins. That's all in addition to the planned monthly rare recipe additions and player tournaments.
Mutants: Genetic Gladiators should be coming to the App Store as a universal release in mid-April, for free.
:: JOBS OF THE NILE
This is looking to be more than a mere straight port, however. While the developers have indeed carried the Ancient Egyptian city-building and citizen-gathering mechanics over, they've gone and added some new stuff as well. Players will be able to find special items that allow them to build special structures such as the Great Sphinx, as well as take part in a new collection of mini-games that can actually reduce the amount of real-time waiting required for various actions. And, of course, the entire interface has been redesigned for iOS with touch controls and the like.
Those looking to become the next Ramses (or Cleopatra!) will still have to wait a bit before they can experience the 6 million player strong Facebook phenomena on the go. PyramidVille Adventure isn't set to come out for another month or so, towards the tail end of January. It'll be free-to-play, and universal, so once it does come out there won't be much of a reason to avoid it. Aside from the obvious ones like "free time" and "loved ones" anyway.