Big in Japan: Tales of Link and Song of Summoner sequels, plus Puzzle & Dragons plans for its own evolution

As well as being one of the largest mobile game markets by revenue, Japan is currently also one of the most dynamic.

It's a good opportunity, then, for PocketGamer.biz to hook up with Indie Navi, a site which is dedicated to the coverage of Japanese mobile and indie development.

Set up by two enthusiastic and experienced translators, you can find out more about the services they offer here or email info (at] indienavi.com.

Otherwise, let's get on with the show - the five most interesting stories from the Japanese mobile games industry.

Three games to keep an eye on

With the enormous number of new titles being released for smartphones every day, it can be tough to know what games to be on the look out for.

Three that are shaping up to be something special are Meow Meow Star Acres, Pandora, and Klee.

Meow Meow Star Acres - from Colopl - is a casual take on the farm sim meant to appeal to children and families. True to the formula, players raise poultry for eggs and grow crops to be made into special recipes to sell to the other feline citizens of Star Acres. With an adorable aesthetic and simple, touch-based controls, it will likely be a hit with casual crowd.

Next up: Pandora. With multi-player raid events inspired by MMORPGs and a JRPG setting, Pandora - from Donuts - puts its own spin on the Clash of Clans formula. (And if DeNA's successful launch of Attack on Titan: A Roar to Freedom is any indication, there's plenty of demand for new takes on the formula.)

And the best for last: many companies have tried to brew up a World of Warcraft for the smartphone crowd, but it looks like Klee may be the title that finally gets it right. Klee - co-developed by Aeria and Neillo - is fully 3D with customizable avatars, multi-player co-op, and a swords-and-sorcery aesthetic.

It's being produced under the guidance of Takeshi Hirai, formerly of Sega (where he worked on ShenMue and Space Channel 5 Part 2) and the mind behind the singular god sim/rhythm title Orgarhythm.

The Girl From Gunma: short, but MSXcellent

Games done in a retro style may not be in short supply, but it's rare to see one with the attention to detail in The Girl From Gunma. This game painstakingly recreates all of the ancient MSX's graphic foibles and limitations, from the "16 colors per screen" limitation to the hard sprite edges, right on down to the jittery background scrolling.

More important, it's also tons of fun! Seasoned schmup fans won't take long to get through the title and find all of its hidden items, but they'll have a blast while it lasts.

Best of all, The Girl From Gunma is available through the US App Store. Just do a search for "PHP Institute" to find it.

Guns 'N Souls: More Chinese Democracy than Appetite for Destruction

Square Enix's "hyper action RPG" follow-up to Song Summoner is a hodge-podge of smartphone staples: in-game currency, card collecting, avatar improvement, endless runner-style stages; the list goes on.

The graphics are gorgeous (naturally; this is Square Enix we're talking about) and the pace is frenetic, but between the tedious tutorials, frequent downloads, and the checklist approach to building a smartphone game, we found that Guns 'N Souls leaves a lot to be desired.

Famitsu interviews Tales of Link developers

Bandai Namco and developer Akatsuki are hard at work on the first native smartphone entry in the hugely popular Tales of series. In an interview with Famitsu App, four of the title's developers discussed the development process and gave gamers an idea of what to expect when Tales of Link hits smartphones this spring.

Fans will be particularly interested to know that there will be many familiar faces returning from previous Tales of titles, as Bandai Namco is considering Tales of Link a spiritual successor to the cameo-laden Radiant Mythology branch of the Tales of series.

From their comments, it's also clear the development staff have put a lot of time into making the swipe-based battle system something special.

GungHo Reveals Puzzle & Dragons follow up (sort of)

To celebrate the two-year anniversary of the release of Puzzle & Dragons, GungHo held an event in Tokyo, where it revealed Puzzle & Dragons W, a semi-follow up to the industry's first billion-dollar smartphone game.

Not exactly a sequel, P&D W is a combination of two play modes. The original P&D will be available as a play mode from within, and GungHo will continue to introduce updates and collaborations as it always has. The second mode is less dragons, more puzzles, stripping away the dungeon exploration to focus on puzzles.

The update turning Puzzle & Dragons into Puzzle & Dragons W is slated for this spring.