Koei’s Warriors Claim Another Number One In Japan

The Japanese sales charts have seen one of the closest races for the number one spot in many months, with Koei’s Sengoku Musou 2: Mushouden on PlayStation 2 just edging out Square Enix’s Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles - Ring of Fates on Nintendo DS at 182,000 unit sales to 178,000. Although no Western release has been confirmed, Koei’s new title would be known as Samurai Warriors 2: Xtreme Legends in the West, and is the second of two traditional spin-offs (the other being the more strategy orientated Empires) that usually follow the release of a new game in the Dynasty/Samurai Warriors series. As such it is likely to be the last of the games for the PlayStation 2, as Koei’s focus moves to the next generation consoles. Although it has had to make do with second place in this week’s charts, Square Enix’s Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles – Ring of Fates has performed well, especially considering the limited success of the original GameCube version. A Wii companion title, subtitled The Crystal Bearers, is still due for release, but has no confirmed release date. The third highest new entry of the week is what is known in the West as Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Trials and Tribulations. The game has already been released in Japan on the Game Boy Advance in 2004, but the new Nintendo DS version has still performed strongly with 57,000 unit sales – illustrating the franchise’s continued popularity in Japan. The final new entry in the top ten is role-playing game Dragoneer's Aria from Nippon Ichi Software at number six, with 24,000 units sold. The publisher is better known for tactical role-playing games such as the Disgaea series and, unusually, the game was actually released in the U.S. a few days earlier than Japan. The highest ranked PlayStation 3 title is Hot Shots Golf 5 at number seventeen, while there are no Xbox 360 titles in the top thirty. Overall the Nintendo DS had twenty games in the top thirty, the Wii and PlayStation 2 both had four titles and the PSP just one.

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