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Yep, Final Fantasy Tactics will see its App Store re-release this week. The European Square Enix blog dropped an update this morning stating it’ll hit the iPhone and the iPod Touch on Thursday, August 4t at £10.99, which should be around $15.99. An iPad version of the same re-released PS One classic will see a release “later this month,” the blog states.

We’ve been following this one pretty closely as it has creeped through its development cycle. Last week we pointed out that it cleared certification, while in weeks prior we made sure to tell you that the project was once again moving smoothly after several, several, and several soul-sucking delays.

We’ll probably never be exactly sure of what the hold-up has been, but it feels safe to speculate that a lot of it had to do with the implementation of touch and technical and graphical re-turning, of which you can catch a glimpse of in the following footage.

It’s looking as delicious as a protein shake on a hot afternoon, so we’ll definitely get our dirty little hands on it as soon as possible. Stay tuned for more.

[Via Square EU - Thanks, Jeremy!]

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Com2uS loves to party, apparently. The App Store publisher and owner of the trademark ‘tower defense’ isn’t above cutting the costs of its games in celebration of every single calendar holiday. But it also drums up weird reasons to price slash its games when there isn’t one on hand. Take now, for example. The publisher is 13 years old now and because of that, it has decided to drop a bunch of its games to 99 cents. Neat, I guess!

• Caligo Chaser – $2.99 → $.99
• Chocolate Tycoon – $1.99 → $.99
• Crazy Hotdogs – $1.99 → $.99
• Heavy Gunner 3D – $2.99 → $.99
• Heavy Gunner 3D HD – $2.99 → $.99
• Homerun Battle 3D – $4.99 → $.99
• Homerun Battle 3D HD – $4.99 → $.99
• Inotia 3: Children of Carnia – $4.99 → $.99 [Universal]
• Third Blade – $2.99 → $.99
• Trapped: Undead Infection – $1.99 → $.99
• Puzzle Family Starpack – $1.99 → $.99

Just as a little FYI, these deals started appearing before the weekend and they only extend into this afternoon. That makes today the last day you’ll be able to enjoy these prices… until Com2uS finds something else to celebrate. My cat's birthday is coming up soon, actually. Surely, Hannibal's name day is worth some good ol' fashion impromptu savings, right? You can thank me later.

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Kids vs. Goblins is an upcoming tactical action RPG being developed by Stolen Couch Games and being published by Crescent Moon. The crux of the gameplay revolves around controlling the 3 different main characters in the game and utilizing each of their unique sets of magic spells. There will be more than 80 spells in the game, and different situations that arise as you travel across the 7 locations in the game will call for the use of specific spells or tactics.

Stolen Couch has said in our forums that they took a cue from Mika Mobile’s Battleheart [$2.99] in regards to controls in Kids vs. Goblins, with what appears to be a similar line drawing-esque approach to moving and dishing out commands. Since Battleheart is one of the finest games around, I fully endorse this decision. It also employs similar real-time combat, and I’m looking forward to seeing just how deep the magic system is and how extensive the RPG elements are.

At the very least the 3D graphics are sure looking nice, and I’m really liking the general art style and character design used in the game. The developers plan on releasing Kids vs. Goblins in September, and I’m sure we’ll be bringing you plenty more details about the game in the weeks to come.

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The line-drawing genre has long been dominated by Firemint's outstanding Flight Control [$0.99 / HD]. It is the standard by which all similar games are inevitably judged, and with good reason — it's the granddaddy of the genre. But maybe there's room for new games in the market, and in our hearts. It's been over two years since Flight Control was released. Could it be time for a break, time to see other line-drawing games?

If so, you won't go wrong with Chillingo and Infinite Degree's Pollen Count [$0.99 / HD]. It's a game that didn't sell me with screenshots or trailers — the art is a bit clumsy — but it comes through where it counts.

By drawing a line on screen from bee A to point B, you direct your bees to collect pollen from flowers and deliver it to the hive. They need to reach both targets without running into anything en route. Though the obvious comparison is Flight Control, this is more in line with Harbour Master [$1.99] – you're moving cargo from place to place with a limited amount of space to deal with. In this case, there are only a few flowers to go around, and often bees are forced to wait in the wings. Managing the scarcity of the flowers adds a layer of strategy to a familiar formula.

Pollen Count distinguishes itself in progression. Rather than throwing down a set of maps for players to challenge themselves on, Infinite Degree has put together a series of unlockable levels that give the game a more traditional difficulty curve. To unlock them, you need to earn at least one star in the previous level. This usually isn't easy, and even the most experienced Flight Control fans will find earning a full three stars a challenge on most levels. Unlocking stages also gives less experienced players something to work toward, if the top of the leaderboard looks completely out of reach.

So how do you keep 24 levels fresh when you're dealing with a single-screen drawing game? Pollen Count handles that challenge by bringing in obstacles, powerups and other clever elements. Spiders, birds and zombees are all out to get your bees. While you're busy guiding them to avoiding those enemies and deliver pollen, you'll find environmental obstacles to deal with. And some bees are just plain picky about the flowers they'll harvest. It all contributes to keeping the game from getting stale.

If you want more, Pollen Count includes Crystal and Game Center achievements to earn and leaderboards to challenge. The iPad version also includes local multiplayer, both co-op and versus, with configurable levels. If you're really dedicated, you can unlock two special modes — a zom-bee survival mode and an odd 3D racing mode called 999mph — but neither offers leaderboards.

I wouldn't write Pollen Count off as nothing more than a clone. It makes great use of an established mechanic, and I'd have a hard time holding that against it. Running with an existing idea is an App Store tradition by now — the important thing is that it's been done well and it's been done respectfully. Pollen Count is a little rough around the edges, but it has the vital element covered: fun, and lots of it. Check it out, and give our discussion thread a buzz.

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We originally checked out the first Hungry Shark way back in April of last year, and found it to be a really enjoyable arcade game. You played the role of a shark swimming through several interesting sea environments chomping on lesser sea creatures and humans alike in an effort to satiate your hunger and increase your size. Hungry Shark got more than twice as big with a gigantic Part 2 update that was released a couple of months later, and earlier this year in February they brought the series into the HD realm along with another completely new environment to play through with Hungry Shark Part 3.

Back in June, Hungry Shark developer Future Games of London quietly released new versions of Part 1 and Part 2 with the HD graphics treatment as well as some bonuses available as in-app purchases. All of the various Hungry Shark games have been available for free for a while barring Part 3 and the all-encompassing Hungry Shark Trilogy HD for iPad. To celebrate Shark Week this week, they have temporarily made Part 3 free as well and dropped the iPad game down from $4.99 to 99¢.

There may be a confusingly large number of Hungry Shark games to choose from, but as long as you can figure out which features you need then these games are a ton of fun and totally worth grabbing for free. If you have a Retina Display device, you’ll want to pick up Part 1+ or Part 2+ to take advantage of the high resolution graphics. Owners of 1st and 2nd generation devices will want to grab the original Part 1 or Part 2. If you’re looking to play on the iPad, then the HD trilogy is a steal for just a buck, as it includes all 3 episodes in one app and has high resolution assets. Whichever versions apply to you, make sure to at least pick up one of the Hungry Shark games and assert your oceanic dominance while watching all the cool shows during Shark Week this week.

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Back in March, Bow Mobile and Brizo Interactive released their remake of the classic arcade beat ‘em up DoubleDragon [$1.99]. As a huge fan of these kinds of games for most of my life, I actually really enjoyed this new DoubleDragon quite a bit in our review. In fact, the biggest negative for me was the poorly thought out virtual control area that was basically an unnecessary gigantic panel that blocked about a third of the screen. My other problem was the fact that the Game Center integration in the game didn’t seem to be working at all.

Well, several months later and DoubleDragon has received its first update, and at least one of these problems has been partially corrected. Game Center still seems to be defective, but the developers have tweaked the obnoxious control area to be just slightly less obnoxious. The default setting now has the same control panel but it’s translucent, so enemies or deadly pits can still be seen if they’re at the bottom of the screen.

The second option does away with the decorative panel altogether, and just shows translucent buttons only. There’s still about a third of the screen that is basically dead space, most likely to keep a certain aspect ratio of the gameplay screen, but both of these options are much better than they were originally. You can see the new translucent controls in the left screen below, compared to how it was originally on the right. The "no overlay" option can be seen in the large screen above.

Another nice change is an increased hit box for the whip, which actually makes it a usable weapon now. Before it was nearly impossible to line up with an enemy correctly to hit them with the whip, but now, especially with its reach, the whip is a formidable weapon. There are a couple of other minor fixes to round out this update, but the improved control display is definitely the big one. It would really be nice if Game Center could get fixed too, but at least the game keeps track of your high scores and achievements in-game too so you can still get some enjoyment out of them.

If you are a fan of beat ‘em ups and haven’t checked out DoubleDragon yet, now would be a good time as it’s currently on sale for half off at $1.99. Hardcore purists may scoff at the new graphics, but the brawler gameplay is actually really solid and is worth having a look at if you're a fan of the genre.

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On this week’s episode of The TouchArcade Show, we fight through the appeal of talking about weird people who use library computers in ‘interesting’ ways in order to bring you discussion of the latest and hottest on the App Store. I think Groove Coaster takes center stage, but we also end up talking a little Angry Birds, and again, the “masocore” genre. The latter is due to Jared’s inability to play fun, wholesome games. Dude likes to lose — a lot.

As usual, you can hit us up just below through all of these fancy links. Additionally, you can support the show by subscribing to us on iTunes or the Zune Marketplace and then rating us sixteen stars out of five. We’re good like that.

iTunes Link: The TouchArcade Show
Zune Marketplace: TouchArcade.com Podcasts
RSS Feed: The TouchArcade Show
Direct Link: TouchArcadeShow-010.mp3, 37MB

Here’s your show notes! And prepare for another bonus podcast this coming Monday, as well as the regularly scheduled show this Friday. If you’d like to get in touch, podcast@toucharcade.com is the best way to do it, but you can also hit us up via the Twitters and the Facebooks.

GAMES

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If you haven't been following general gaming news lately, Nintendo recently shocked 3DS early adopters with a significant price cut to the system in the wake of troubling hardware sales figures in their recent earnings report. Globally, both Wii and DS sales are down 50%, which wouldn't be that big of a deal if the 3DS was flying off shelves. However, in the previous quarter, Nintendo has only managed to move 710,000 3DS units, worldwide. Total, they've sold less than 1 million units in the USA, which traditionally has always been a massive market for the gaming juggernaut. Taking full responsibility for the 3DS, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has taken a 50% pay cut with other executives taking similar 20-30% pay cuts.

But surely you're asking yourself, "Why is this relevant on TouchArcade," as you mentally prepare your scathing comment to this story. Well, as we discuss in this week's podcast (which will be posted shortly) we're reaching a point where comparing the portable iOS family to dedicated gaming devices is totally appropriate. The era of the App Store where games were described as "good" with the requisite suffix of "for a cell phone game" is over. This last year has been filled with incredible game release after incredible game release. Unity and similar engines are advancing at incredible rates, and through the Unreal Engine we're even starting to see games simultaneously releasing on the PC as well as iOS devices.

So let's look at what's going on with the big N. The 3DS launched with what initially seemed like a strong game lineup that was oddly devoid of first party titles, which historically have amounted to the "system sellers" of the Nintendo hardware family. In fact, the closest thing to a "system seller" to many core gamers was the port of Ocarina of Time, a 1998 Nintendo 64 game, which came months after the launch and wasn't even developed in house. Since then, the 3DS has been plagued with delays and cancellations from third party developers, instilling even further doubt in the platform.

Further yet, Nintendo has taken an incredibly puzzling stance towards indie developers, with Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime flat out saying that they have no intention of doing business with "garage developers." Comparatively, Apple has fully embraced the so called "garage developer," and for $99 a year has facilitated titles like Tiny Wings [99¢] and Doodle Jump [99¢] that have gone on to make millions upon millions of dollars while still providing a place for high-end show pieces like Infinity Blade [$4.99] to thrive.

The era of "traditional" portable gaming as dictated by Nintendo's vision seems like it could be coming to a close if they don't begin to adapt to what the instant accessibility of both development and distribution of current mobile games has provided gamers. While the 3DS's new $170 price tag is undoubtedly cheaper than even a refurbished iPod touch, the $40 price point of 3DS games flat out feels archaic in comparison. Wired's Chris Kohler raises a point that I could not agree with more: Once you've gotten a taste of the App Store, $40 is not a price point where you'll ever say to yourself, "Eh, what the hell, I'll try it."

Furthermore, as a kid, that price point means getting games only on special occasion. Birthdays, Christmases, or even as Kohler suggests, "maybe after getting a root canal if you cry enough." Comparatively, a pair of $20 iTunes gift cards could potentially buy 40 different games. Not only that, but non-stop freebie promotions has turned the iPod Touch into a portable gaming system with so much content that's available for free that it's an impossible task to download and play it all.

Nintendo is even dissuading customers further from buying these full-priced 3DS titles by bolstering their eShop with a full array of NES and Gameboy Advance games which likely will all sell for less than $10. Furthermore, they even seem to be distancing themselves from 3D with Nintendo's chief game maker Shigeru Miyamoto quoted as saying that playing with 3D disabled is "a perfectly acceptable way to play the games."

With previously successful hardware platform sales down 50%, their new flagship portable struggling to gain any significant marketshare and Nintendo executives taking pay cuts, it's safe to say that Nintendo is in dire straits. As Kotaku's Stephen Totilo puts it, "the 3DS era may not be over, but the era of untouchable Nintendo handhelds is now a thing of the past." Despite all this, Nintendo's Iwata has reiterated that Nintendo has no plans to sell its games to other non-Nintendo platforms.

Sega said the same thing.

I'm not sure anyone (including Nintendo) truly can predict the fate of the 3DS and Nintendo's future portable hardware, but it seems like this is the time for Nintendo to react to the App Store instead of dismissing it at every opportunity. As the lines between smartphones and "dedicated" gaming handhelds blur to near non-existence, Nintendo is going to need to take drastic measures. The 3DS price drop seems to be the first, and as a life-long Nintendo fan I can't wait to see what they do next.

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Of late, PopCap Games has been crossing its T’s and dotting it’s I’s. Just a few weeks ago, the publisher dropped a retina display support update into its monstrous hit, Peggle [$2.99]. Around roughly the same time, Plants vs. Zombies [$2.99 /HD] received the Zen Garden in a free update, bringing it on par with the other versions out there. Now, PVZ can boast retina display support, too. In a free update that just dropped, PVZ can be seen in all its fantastic, HD-y glory for those playing on an iPhone 4.

If PopCap was a person this kind of housecleaning behavior could be seen as a sign that it’s preparing for something new. Lord knows you won't catch me picking up quarters off my floor or dusting my molding unless I'm moving out an old couch and putting a new one in.

Is it plausible that we’re on the cusp of receiving a fresh game from the studio? Undoubtedly, it’s working on stuff. Games are kinda how a studio makes money, you know? I just wonder how soon we'll see something since both of these games are essentially in totally finished states, finally.

In the not-so-distant past, the media spotted a bunch of out-there PopCap Games trademarks. The one that caught my eye the hardest was Yeti Train, but there’s also Popcorn Dragon, Robodojo, and Vacation Quest.

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Arnold and Jared's obsession over the last six months saw another update this afternoon. If you haven't heard of Disc Drivin [Free / $1.99 / HD] yet, you should really check out our review. It's a really slick asynchronous online multiplayer racing game. Think of it as shuffleboard meets Mario Kart meets Words With Friends.

Anyway, Disc Drivin 1.7 is here, which brings a number of new tracks and obstacles that we detailed a few days ago:

This newest update adds another 3 brand new tracks, for a total of 18, as well as a new track element called the Flipper. You can see the overhead design of each of the tracks in the icons below:

As for the Flipper, pictured at the top of this post, you’ll come across this obstacle placed in various parts of the ground in each of the 3 new tracks. When you slide over it, it propels you forwards and upwards, catapult style. This can either be a very good thing or a very bad thing, mostly depending on where you end up finally landing. The faster you’re going when you hit the Flipper, the farther you’ll get launched, so there should be some good strategic uses of the new object if utilized correctly.

So what are you waiting for? You can play the game for free, and the update is now live. Go start some games on the new tracks and let us know what you think of them.

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