Some games I'm interested for next year

Some games I'll be keeping an eye on in the coming year:

Pier Solar HD

This one is an updated version of Pier Solar, which Watermelon released a year or two ago for the Genesis I believe. They are updating the game to "HD" and adding some content, as well as ports to different consoles (PC, Mac, Linux, Dreamcast, 360.) I was really on the fence about whether I would put down money for this. I'm not a huge fan of kickstarter as it can be used in ways I don't particularly trust. They really need paypal options for one thing.
Anyway, I was considering going for one of Watermelon's $125 physical collector's editions, because they do some amazing quality stuff for such a fledgling company. In the end I figured it was too close to Christmas to shell out at least £80 for a game which got fairly mixed reviews and a game that I could get for 10x less than that high price tag. Ended up pledging $10 or 15, I can't remember. This game looks really good, and they smashed all of their stretch goals in the end, I didn't think they'd make half of them :o The kickstarter ends today.

Rainfall: The Sojourn

I nearly missed out on this one, the artstyle and polished look to this SNES inspired RPG really interest me. Check out their kickstarter, which also ends today. It should hopefully be available afterwards if this post is a bit late for you reading it. Really nice sprites and production values, and looks really nostalgic.

Secrets of Grindea

This one is an indie(?) title that has been greenlit through Steam. Again, its another retro-ish RPG, and it has a really detailed fast paced action battle system, complete with features like charging attacks, special moves, frame cancelling and other stuff that is normally more at home in fighting games. Beautifully presented, this one looks like an RPG to keep an eye on, despite the rather silly name (half RPG cliche, half attempt at humour.) The game itself looks really crisp and well done, the only other things that I think could use some work potentially are the character portraits (bit generic RPG-maker look, almost.)

Secrets of Grindea Youtube

Games on my Radar #2

Ok, thought I'd continue this idea. I do a lot of posts with games I am looking forward to (well, I used to) and I reckon if I get some regularity and structure to the posts, the blog will benefit. 

So I was reading up about a few things online and there are many rumours surrounding a new Castlevania game for the Xbox Live Arcade. Initially the key words 'Harmony of Despair' were trademarked and this led people to speculate about whether it would be a Castlevania game, whether or not it would be related to Harmony of Dissonance, whether it might be HD (like Dawn of Sorrow meant 'for DS') and a whole bunch of other stuff. I don't particularly follow rumours and whatnot, but the mere mention of Castlevania of course had me interested. 

Take any of this stuff on Castlevania: Harmony of Despair (XBLA) with a pinch of salt. Little has actually been confirmed. 

http://www.gamingbits.com/content/view/7794/2/

http://www.xboxic.com/news/6024

http://www.destructoid.com/rumor-6-player-castlevania-harmony-of-despair-revealed-172497.phtml

There are a couple links and images in those. The site which initially posted details on this '6 player co-op game' had to pull their story for some reason. Apparantely it will feature many of the characters from the series, similar to Castlevania: Judgment (hopefully it is a bit better than that though. Tbh, I didn't mind it much, but many people hated it)

Ok, next up. What've we got? Another game from the rather awesome developer Sting. It has the rather awkward name Hexyz Force (PSP). I challenge you to think of another game with x, y and z in the title. =p

I've been really impressed with the depth and artistic direction in Sting games, ie Riviera, Yggdra Union and Knights in the Nightmare. To be honest, this one looks a lot more generic, which worries me. Some of the character designs are quite cool, but some do look actually kinda bad...like that lion type creature. Check it at around 1:17 in the below video. It's eyes, or something just seems really bad. 

Regardless, I am still keeping this on the fringes of my radar. Sceptical, but interested.

Here is a gameplay trailer from Atlus:

Niiice, that chick has an attack called Purple Haze. Fricken awesome song. 

During the time that I was writing this, a hands on impression of the game got posted over at RPGamer.

There aren't actually that many games on the way that I am looking forward to, I mean there are a few, like Final Fantasy Gaiden: Four Warriors of Light (or whatever it will be called in America and here) and Castlevania: Lords of Shadow, but most of the games that I am looking to get are out already really. God of War Collection, Fragile Dreams, Shin Megami Tensei: Lucifer's Call, Infinite Space and Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey are a few I might be getting eventually. Right now I've got too many games though, gonna try getting through some of my stack before buying much new.