Out This Week: Divinity, Tales, and Mars

It’s another sparse week in the world of video game releases, and one dominated by three different flavours of RPG. Needless to say, for most gamers, there isn’t a lot on offer, which should at least give everyone a chance to catch up on their backlogs. However, it’s still early days, and as we steadily crawl towards September, we’ve got a solid line-up of sequels and original titles approaching release in the rest of this month.

Divinity: Dragon Commander | PC

Larian Studios is back once again with its popular role-playing series, Divinity. However, this time around the Belgian developer is swapping its open-world, action-heavy gameplay for something a little more on the tactical side.

Gameplay in Dragon Commander is split into three stages, each one affecting the next. First off, players will need to communicate with their advisers and allies whilst researching new abilities. You will then be dropped onto a tactical map in a bid to expand your territory and build an empire.

Battles will punctuate your road to conquest and can either be fought using the tactics earned in previous stages or manually, using the game’s RTS mechanics. The latter also sees you able to turn into a jetpack toting dragon, and support your forces from the skies.

Mars: War Logs | PS3

From Spiders, the developers of Sherlock and Faery, Mars: War Logs is a downloadable action RPG with a distinct cyberpunk aesthetic. Described as a “short story” with oodles of replay value, Mars casts players as Roy Temperance, a man caught in the midst of a chaotic downfall set soon after humans colonise the red planet.

Borrowing from other Western RPGs, War Logs will feature choice-and-consequence dialogue trees as well as action-based combat. The latter can be approached in three unique ways, either directly with an arsenal of melee weapons, from afar with ranged and stealth attacks, or by using a hyrbid of magic and technology, thereby becoming a Technomant.

Tales Of Xillia | PS3

Rounding out this week’s list of new releases is the return of Namco’s revered JRPG series, Tales. Last seen on PS3 with the 2012 release of Tales of Graces f, it’s a series where the West generally has to wait for localisation before release, and Tales of Xillia has been out in Japan since 2011, ahead of this Western release.

Tales of Xillia tells the story of two warring factions, one dependent on magic and the other on technology. Though separated by a strange barrier, a terrorist cell known as Exodus manages to break through, igniting the conflict.

Xillia’s combat system straddles the line between conventional JRPGs and the more action-heavy model that’s becoming increasing popular. In battles, players take control of one character with the adjustable AI commanding up to three companions. Combining attacks and abilities is done in rapid succession and can even be linked with allies to create more powerful variations.

Our review will be coming shortly.

3 Comments

  1. Good to have another jRPG out ^^ never enough of them on consoles.

  2. Yay, have been looking forward to Tales of Xillia. More please!

  3. how have i not heard of Mars: War Log before now?

    sounds like something i’d enjoy, and i only find out it now?

    downloading the demo on live now.

    and i just have enough points to buy it if it’s good.

    the new Tales game looks good, but do you need to have played the previous titles or is it like the FF games?
    where they’re linked in name and common elements only?

Comments are now closed for this post.