Retro Wrap-Up: Sell-Out Edition

When a video game becomes popular enough, cross-promotional advertizing is sure to follow. Some people tend to think that this sort of thing is a recent development. But like warfare and the development of agriculture, this has been around since the video game industry’s inception, and I’m not just talking about gaming-branded merchandise. Don’t believe me? Here are some old promotional tie-ins that the Operation Rainfall Retro Commercial Research Team (in other words, me) found for this week’s Retro Wrap-Up.

Here are the highlights of this past week.

An HD port of Final Fantasy VIII is coming to the PC, like Final Fantasy VII before it.

Steve Baltimore reviews Project Diva 2^nd for the PSP in this week’s Import Review and Jeff Neuenschwander reviews Fragile Dreams: Farewell Ruins of the Moon for the Wii in this week’s Games of the Past review.

Ace Attorney 5 is being released internationally as Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Dual Destinies…as an eShop exclusive. Capcom explains why it has to be this way.

Speaking of Ace Attorney, both Miles Edgeworth and Trucy Wright make return appearances in Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Dual Destinies.

We compiled all the tidbits about Pandora’s Tower we released in April into one article for your convenience.

Rumor has it that a remastered Tales of Symphonia and Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World will be coming to the PS3 in the form of Tales of Symphonia: Perfect Edition.

Jeff, Jared, Randy and Jon talk about the Year of Awesome, what they’ve been playing, and more in this week’s episode of the Downpour Podcast.

WayForward is making a new Adventure Time game with Pendleton Ward and a Regular Show game with JC Quintel this year.

Charlotte Buckingham gives us another chapter of her Xenoblade Chronicles novelization. This week, the Attack on Colony 9!

Square Enix posts a huge financial loss, totaling in at 13.7 billion yen. Ouch!

In other Square-related news, Final Fantasy XIII-2 will be re-released in Japan with nearly all DLC included.

Guy Rainey gives a history lesson regarding Nintendo and its relationships with third-party developers.

Namco Bandai announced that they will be going all out with the promotion of Dark Souls 2.

Justin Graham reviews Gall Force: Eternal Story in this week’s Anime of the Past.

Konami explained that they changed up the Castlevania formula while giving a low-blow to Mega Man fans.

Raymond Dwyer shows us some sweet deals on various gems, including Super Metroid, Runner2, Persona 4 Golden and more in this week’s Pricefall.

An HD collection of Yakuza 1 & 2 is coming to the Wii U in Japan.

We have the summary for this week’s Nintendo Direct.

Finally, we ask you what you’d like to see in the Wind Waker HD remake for the Wii U.