August 13: wallet threat level yellow

Unfortunately, the Hong Kong action movie open-world game Sleeping Dogs is no real threat to your wallet. More specifics tomorrow. As for Darksiders II, after a few hours of play, I’m a bit worried about some of the choices developer Vigil Games has made. Can the first game’s novelty of “holy cats, it’s Zelda’s gameplay meets God of War’s gritty combat but with World of Warcraft’s graphics!” sustain itself for a second game with “also Diablo!” bolted on? But to be fair, the original Darksiders took a while to reveal its charms. More on Darksiders II later in the week.

So what’s the real potential wallet threat this week? A JRPG on the Wii.

I never would have thought a JRPG on the Wii would be a wallet threat, much less my favorite game of 2012 so far. But The Last Story, a JRPG on the Wii, comes out this week. This is the eagerly awaited North American localization of a game by Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi’s studio, Mistwalker. Mistwalker’s previous games, Lost Odyssey and Blue Dragon, were mostly by-the-numbers old-school designs. But my understanding of The Last Story — I haven’t actually played it yet — is that it has a few tricks up its sleeve, and may very well be one of those weirdly unique RPGs a la Dragon’s Dogma.