Square Enix branches away from RPGs with Snoopy and Pingu on DS
New brand Pure Dreams to publish cartoon animal titles
Square Enix is about to head off in a whole new direction away from the hardcore RPGs such as the Final Fantasy series it's famous for.
The publisher has announced the creation of a new sub-brand called Pure Dreams, which will focus on several different well-known characters. First up to debut in the series is cartoon dog Snoopy and Pingu the penguin, both of which feature in their own games.
The licensed Snoopy game, entitled Snoopy DS: Let's Go Meet Snoopy and his Friends (which suggests it's going to be aimed at a pretty young audience) enables players to create their own avatar, then take part in mini-games and other activities with characters from the cartoon.
The second game is Pingu's Wonderful Carnival. This involves playing as Pingu and completing jobs and other tasks in order to create a dream carnival.
According to a story at IGN, Snoopy is set for release in Japan on October 9th and Pingu will follow on November 6th.
Currently, neither game has been confirmed for release in the west. But given that both characters are known worldwide, we can't see there's any reason the games would be confined to Japan only. So we'll hopefully get to experience Square Enix's softer, more kid-centric side ourselves as well.
Of course, whether we actually want that over a new Kingdom Hearts game to hurry up and arrive along with Chrono Trigger is another discussion.
