Article: Here's your "Prequel Trilogy", folks (Chaos Rings III announced)

[Linnaete]

[04/08] Here's your "Prequel Trilogy", folks (Chaos Rings III announced)

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Oh hey, that recently trademarked "Prequel Trilogy" has nothing to do with Final Fantasy or Kingdom Hearts as it turns out. Wild ARMs developer Media.Vision has once again been contracted by Square-Enix to make another Chaos Rings game, the fourth in the series of premium mobile RPGs. This time it is being made not only for iOS and Android, but also for the PS Vita (the latter being the first instance of a Chaos Ring sold at retail as well).

Chaos Rings III is due out on the 16th October in Japan for 2,800 yen on smartphones and 4,300 yen on PS Vita.

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Siliconera 1 | 2

 

[Shaissa]

figures it would be something like this.

Yeah didn't hold my breath for it being anything good

 

[Paddy McGee]

such wow, much smartphone game.

Glad we've cleared up this mystery- I'm sure we saved quite an amount of lives.

 

[Razberry Knight]

What doesn't make sense to me about this is that they already had a prequel called Chaos Rings Omega, although that prequel takes far before the original. so it could be that this prequel is more related to the first. i'm not so sure about this one.

 

[AuronX]

Holy cow, I am seriously pumped for this! Anyone who laughs/facepalms about this needs to go and buy the current three games right now. Yeah, now. They're amazing. You'll forget you're actually playing a game on a smartphone, not because they play like console games, but because they aren't the type that you play for 5 minutes and forget about. Yep, you'll actually want to play a game on your smartphone or tablet. These games take a decent number of hours to complete, and Chaos Rings II has one of the most heart-wrenching stories I've yet experienced in a JRPG. Oh, and the soundtracks are so good they were released to iTunes by popular demand. They are the real deal.

There for a while SE was talking about Chaos Rings III being one of those dumb card-based social RPGs, so I had pretty much written the future of the series off. To see now that it's actually being fleshed out as an even deeper game is terrific! Like @Razberry Knight said, there's already been a prequel game, so I'll be interested to see where in the timeline this trilogy falls. Chaos Rings II was actually set in the distant future from the first game, so maybe this trilogy fills in that gap? The style definitely looks the most like II, but that is most likely just the evolution of the series more than a conscious decision. Without spoiling anything, I can see how it would make sense for it to take place prior to Chaos Rings Omega (the other prequel) too, though.

On a gameplay note, I find it interesting that there are three people in the party now instead of two, and apparently there's room for a party of 5, judging by the last shot. If they maintain their solo/pair batle system (which I really hope and expect they will) that could make things very interesting, as you could pair up based on different people's abilities.

Hope SE brings out the English version quickly!

 

[Razberry Knight]

I enjoy the Chaos Ring games, but i enjoyed the first one a little more. now that you can control three characters makes me more optimistic than pessimistic.

 

[.Mosh]

Kirito is pestering me to play these games....maybe just maybe. This one looks pretty ok to be honest.

 

[AuronX]

Bishamon yes you should

And to Razberry Knight and anyone else wondering about the prequel thing, actually I just discovered that "the prequel trilogy" is the original three games we already have (I, II, and Omega) which will be ported to the Vita and included with III. So Chaos Rings III is actually a true sequel, not a prequel as previously speculated. This is also why the Vita version costs twice the smartphone/tablet version, as it is actually four games rolled into one package. I'll be interested to see if they spruce up the existing Vita port of Chaos Rings I--it was pretty much a one-man job and had several performance issues that were not the Vita's fault.