Blueside Announces Shining Legend

Blueside, the Korean developers best known for their Kingdom Under Fire series, have just announced a new DS action-RPG called Shining Legend (apparently no relation to the Shining Force games).

They have launched the game's official site in Korean, Japanese, and English, and though there are no gameplay screens released yet, the site does cover details on the game's story and characters.

According to the site, the game follows the exiled Prince Luchs of the small Kingdom of Alterrain as he returns to his homeland. Unfortunately, upon the Prince's return, he discovers the kingdom owes a great debt and his father, the King, has mysteriously fled.

In these circumstances, Luchs meets a talking cat named Morgan who helps him out, after which the two depart for neighboring country of Junon, whose seven princesses have run away in hopes of finding them for the reward.

The seven princesses are (in order from oldest to youngest):

Erika (19), who is the rightful heir to the Kingdom of Junon, and has trained rigorously for the position. She is also a childhood friends of Luchs. (She is the one in with the blue winged dress.)

Pofosh (18), who outwardly only cares about extravagant parties and traveling in her golden wagon, but inwardly feels very empty. (She is the one in the revealing pink party dress.)

Nana (16), who is obsessed with searching for ruins and relics, then keeping them in her room. Her collection is so large, she apparently lends some of her relics to museums. (She is the one in the short red dress holding the rabbit.)
NOTE: The English site has her description the same as Arphen's, presumably in error. The above description is from the Japanese site.

Elara (16), who dislikes magic, and thinks the world would be a better place through the spreading of alchemy. She sometimes forces people to participate in her strange experiments. (She is the one in the green dress with glasses.)

Thimu (16), who was adopted from the fallen Kingdom of Sosan, and dreams of becoming a great pirate after reading about the legendary "Bloody Rose." (She is the one with the long pirate jacket.)

Arphen (16), who is a half-elf, and obsessed with the lost elven civilization, hoping to rebuild their kingdom some day. (She is the tanned half-elf with light blue hair.)

Lorna (12), is the youngest of the princesses, and very shy. She enjoys sketching, and has the ability to predict the future through her drawings. (She is the blonde one with the sketchbook.)

According to Famitsu's article about the game, your character will be able to face off against hordes of enemies at once in real time. The game also purports to have a high level of freedom, with hundreds of quests to take on at your leisure (presumably to help you pay off your kingdom's debt), as well as the opportunity to build romantic relationships with the various princesses.

It's all a bit confusing at this point, to be sure. But I have to say, I love the concept art they have up on the site. I hope the game's graphics and gameplay can live up to them, as my interest is definitely piqued.

Shining Legend will be available for Nintendo DS sometime this Winter.

As a side note, this appears to be related to Blueside's previously announced Princess and Knight (if not the same game with a different title).

[Shining Legend Official Site]
[Famitsu]

Act Suprised: Blueside Announces Kingdom Under Fire II for Xbox 360

So, Kingdom Under Fire II is in development. We know this. It is supposedly some kind of MMO-meets-RPG-meets-RTS. We know this too. What we didn't know (until now) was what platform they were developing the game for other than PC. They said "consoles."

Well Korean developer Blueside has come forward this week to officially announce that they game will indeed be for Xbox 360. Considering all of the previous console iterations of this series have been on Xbox, and considering that Microsoft has published their games in at least North America, I don't see how this is actually news. But maybe someone didn't see this coming?

However, the game is apparently still knee-deep in development, and reportedly won't be out until sometime in the last half of 2010.

The concept of the game is interesting, but after Circle of Doom, I'm personally going to reserve judgement until I see it in motion.

[Dengeki]

Kingdom Under Fire II Still Alive, Has Screens to Prove It

Korean developer Blueside has recently released a new dump of screenshots for their upcoming (?) RTS/action-RPG hybrid, Kingdom Under Fire II. The new screens also include shots of the second revealed hero (of which there are reportedly 18 in total), Isabella, an albino dark elf who leads a resistance faction known as Kaedes. She also apparently doesn't bother wearing clothes very much.

Kingdom Under Fire II is reportedly the direct sequel to Blueside's PC RTS-RPG Kingdom Under Fire (released as Kingdom Under Fire: A War of Heroes in North America), and is supposed to combine elements of real-time strategy, action-role-playing, and massive multiplayer online games. Exactly how that works or how the game plays remain a mystery.

Kingdom Under Fire II is reportedly in development for PC and "consoles" (though precisely which "consoles" is unconfirmed) for sometime either this year or next year.

Any diehard KUF fans here that can fill us in on how closely related these games are?

You can view the whole screenshot gallery here, courtesy of Kotaku.

Kingdom Under Fire II Trailer has Fighting in it

Blueside and Phantagram's official sequel to their Xbox RTS / RPG, Kingdom Under Fire, has received its first official trailer which is reportedly running with on the game's realtime engine. Impressive.


Blueside is touting this new installment's genre as MMOARTS (massive multiplayer online action real-time strategy), whatever that means.

No platform or release date has been confirmed at this point, but since Microsoft has published all of the Kingdom Under Fire games that I'm aware of, I would be pretty surprised to see this anywhere besides Xbox 360.

Blueside Announces Princess and Knight

The Korean developers behind the RTS / RPG series Kingdom Under Fire, Blueside, have recently announced via Famitsu that they have begun development on Princess and Knight, an action-RPG on the Nintendo DS aimed at a worldwide audience.

Princess and Knight, though functioning behind the scenes as an RPG, will reportedly handle more like an action game, pitting the hero of the story against hordes of enemies using the touch screen and stylus.

Though there is little information available at the moment, the game seems like it will play out more like Blueside's recent Kingdom Under Fire: Circle of Doom for the Xbox 360, though reportedly with more emphasis on the story.

On one hand, Blueside can certainly handle action games and have a great eye for artistic detail, but on the other, I found Circle of Doom rather underwhelming, mostly due to the real lack of story or motivation to accomplish much. I want to believe that Knight and Princess will be good, but I suppose we'll just have to wait for more information to trickle out.

Princess and Knight is being made with a worldwide release in mind (as the English screens will no doubt convey), but no solid release date has been confirmed at this time.