This has turned into a general mash-em-up thread.
Chaos Wars: Shadow Hearts and Growlanser and Gungrave OH MY!! (PS2)
Well, actually, it has those plus Spectral Force and a bunch of other stuff, coming out in the US in May.
From the wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_Wars
Chaos Wars is a tactical role-playing video game that was released by Idea Factory for the Playstation 2 in Japan in 2006. Promotional art for the game is by Nishimura Kinu. Currently, the North America release is scheduled for April 24 of 2008.
Chaos Wars is a crossover between several companies' console role-playing game series: Aruze's Shadow Hearts, Atlus's Growlanser, Idea Factory's Blazing Souls, Gakuen Toshi Vara Noir, Spectral Force, Spectral Souls and Hametsu no Mars, and RED Entertainment's Gungrave and Samurai Police/Shinsengumi Gunrouden.
The game's opening theme Shūtan no Ou to Isekai no Kishi ~The Endia&The Knights~ was done by Sound Horizon.
In the same vein as Namco X Capcom, we've got a veritable mashup of different anime games and genres into one crazy tactical RPG.
Full trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1C7pRaq_mM
That's the good news. The bad news?
It is a GameStop exclusive:
http://www.gamestop.com/chaoswars
Since we haven't gotten Disgaea 3 yet and we're never gonna get Namco X Capcom, I'd say this is a sweet deal.
Edit: Well, it's no Namco X Capcom...
CROSS-EDGE (PS3)http://kotaku.com/387992/capcom-nippon-ichi-namco-bandai-gust-and-idea-factory-team-for-rpg
Not too many details yet, but it appears to be a side-battling action RPG...which looks a LOT like Valkyrie Profile.
And a new Capcom/anime crossover versus game!?
http://kotaku.com/5010122/capcom-vs-legendary-anime-company
The upcoming issue of Famitsu announces an interesting 2D fighting game match-up: Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: Cross Generation of Heroes. Yes, that Tatsunoko, you know, the studio behind TV anime Speed Racer, Casshern and what Westerners know as Robotech.
Ryu, Chun Li, and the iconic characters of Capcom clash with classic anime series made by Tatsunoko: Gatchaman, Speed Racer and others.
I wonder if Superbook is in this.
To see the list of stuff Tatsunoko has done, go here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tatsunoko#Anime_series
Posts
2008 appears to be the year that all the good games come out in.
No way is this getting a PAL release.
And since it's probably the nearest we'll ever get to another Shadow Hearts game, I want.
Namco X Capcom seemed decent, at least visually. It was mostly marred by it's strange "action" combat system.
This game appears to be sticking to the Disgaea tactical RPG roots.
But don't take my word for it. Check out this glowing review that I found:
Added to my "reasons to buy a US PS2" list.
EDIT
Those fuckers.
Or actually more of the same except x10.
CROSS-EDGE (PS3)
http://kotaku.com/387992/capcom-nippon-ichi-namco-bandai-gust-and-idea-factory-team-for-rpg
Not too many details yet, but it appears to be a side-battling action RPG...which looks a LOT like Valkyrie Profile.
It was alright. It had a lot of potential to make the combat really interesting with its kind of quasi Valkyrie Profile engine, but unlike VP, you couldn't mix and match characters around to create wacky combos and every single enemy was basically the same. No flying ones or super heavy ones or whathaveyou. You were more or less doing the same combos on stage 3 as you were doing on stage 30, which gets old fast. Almost all of the later stages are also giant tortuous clusterfucks. Just too many enemies and too many characters all thrown at you at once.
Have you heard anything about Cross-Edge?
It looks like the Valkyrie Profile combat system with multiple characters in a side-view, and plenty of combos. It seems to address that problem you just listed for Namco X Capcom.
NNID: Glenn565
(except for Gungrave I guess but I guess it's too much to ask for for the only game I know of to not suck)
EDIT: Assuming it gets a PAL release.
Umm...Cross-Edge IS basically the new Namco X Capcom...except it's Namco/Bandai X Capcom X Nippon Ichi X Gust X Idea Factory...
I liked NxC for the most part.
Crazy repetitive, but good music, and it's fun to play.
The CEO is Chris Jelinek.
Voice Actors on this game include.....
Quest Jelinek
Tyler Jelinek
Special Thanks go to...
Kay Jelinek and Lee Jelinek
VA's also include Joe O'Donnell
Voice Caster is...Joe O'Donnell.
Voice Director is....yep, you guessed it, Frank Stallone...I mean, Joe O'Donnell.
PSN: Wstfgl | GamerTag: An Evil Plan | Battle.net: FallenIdle#1970
Hit me up on BoardGameArena! User: Loaded D1
I've seen worse, but it ain't good.
edit: onoz how will I recognize cj iwakura posts without Minato Arisato avatar?
it'd be nice if that cross edge would find its way to us weeaboos in North America.
Umm...this IS the Chaos Wars thread?
Anywho I'll quote your review here:
It's a really, really sloppy port, but I'm still having fun with the game.
I have no idea what went through the heads of O~3 to think that they'll do decently with this kind of barebones staff. Trying to penetrate the Atlus/NIS niche market?
Maybe it's just a bunch of Working Designs fans.
Shikigami 2's been dethroned.
KEEE KEEE
KEEE KEEE
I think the problem is that people expect an anime dub. Not an American cartoon dub, which this is totally reminiscent of.
Chaos Wars just reeks of laziness.
Is t.. is there the option of turning that OFF? Japanese VA track or something?
What I really like about the game are the skills. All the characters have a couple innate traits that help determine their effectiveness in the battle. Equippable items also have different traits. Battle skills will occasionally shift into different ones, allowing you to develop new attacks. This could have been a very bad thing since you could potentially shift out a really good attack for a really bad one, but there is an option to lock skills. The Realize ability also adds more skills to your characters when activated. One particularly useful skill that two characters have is in their realize form they can dodge and counterattack enemies if you enter a very short button combo.
Edit: Oh wow. Ryoma's Critial Attack reminds me of Musashi Gundou. I really hope you can get him on your team.
But wait. THERE'S MORE.
Sakura Taisen in the US? I never, ever thought I'd see the day.
If not NISA, then who? Atlus? XSeed?
Aksys?
Destineer.
O3 Entertainment.
Phoenix Games.
Hahaha. I've been going through the Sakura Wars LP on SA this past week. Having a Sakura Wars game in the US would be...tempting. Unfortunately all the awesome dialogue from the LP would be in it, obviously.
That was three years ago I think.
Maybe longer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDek6SPFuhU
http://nisamerica.com/games/crossedge/
Some of the VA is hilarious, and not in a good way.