As the fellow once described as the world’s foremost Kemcologist, I knew one place I had to visit at the Tokyo Game Show this year was KEMCO’s booth. While I don’t review each and every game from the prolific publisher as I once did, I do like to keep up on my Kemcos for the sake of reference. The publisher had four primary titles it was showing off, with one already released globally and one it was only set to publish in Japan. That left two games, and I put my grubby mitts on both of them. First up is RideOn’s Cross Tails.
KEMCO has worked with RideOn before on titles such as Marenian Tavern Story ($7.99) and Blacksmith of the Sand Kingdom ($3.99), and you may also know the developer from its popular strategy RPG series Mercenaries Saga ($2.99). The company makes solid, workman-like entries into genres that haven’t always gotten a lot of attention, and I’ve personally found most of its releases quite good for the price.
Cross Tails is going to be immediately familiar to those who have played any of the recent Mercenaries games on consoles. It’s a turn-based tactical RPG featuring demihuman characters where battles play out on isometric fields. I cannot express enough how bad a busy exhibition show floor is for enjoying a game like this, but I liked what I played of it. Very meat and potatoes stuff, with a decent presentation to boot.
Cross Tails doesn’t have an exact release date yet, but it will be coming to consoles first sometime this winter. A mobile release should follow some time after. A global release was confirmed by KEMCO, but that’s no surprise as very little of what it releases in Japan doesn’t make it over to the West these days. Fans of the genre, especially those playing on mobile, will want to keep an eye on it. We see so little in the premium space in this genre in recent times, and RideOn’s efforts in particular tend not to come out on mobile outside of Japan. We’ll let you know when this one gets closer to release.
