It’s the Ides of March, and you know what that means! It’s time to open our Ides of March presents! Hey, wait… why did you get me a sharp, stabby thing? Ow! That really hurts!

Wait, I get it. You’re trying to draw a parallel to the most important Ides of March gift of all: SQUARE-ENIX releasing CHAOS RINGS II ($17.99 for iPhone/$19.99 for iPad)!

CHAOS RINGS is a series of JRPGs (that’s a role-playing game in the Japanese–rather than Western–style, such as FINAL FANTASY or CHRONO TRIGGER) exclusively available on iOS. While the original was not as robust as most traditional SQUARE-ENIX RPGs, it had an engaging story, beautiful graphics, incredible music, and a rather intelligent combat system the focuses on pairs of heroes taking on monsters individually or as a duo, inflicting (and receiving) damage based on if they were paired up or not. It is actually a very fun system that requires players to decide if they wish to do one action on their turn with significant performance gains (at the risk of taking more damage, as attacks will hit both characters), or take two separate, but weaker, actions and potentially split the attacks between the two characters.

Since CHAOS RINGS was initially released, SQUARE-ENIX has followed it up with a prequel that delivered much of the same gameplay as the original, but with (mostly) new characters and a larger campaign that was added to over time via regular updates. CHAOS RINGS Î© ($11.99 for iPhone/$14.99 for iPad) was an excellent little taster to hold over fans of the series while they waited for a true sequel. Well, that time has arrived. Late last night, CHAOS RINGS II was released into the App Store. I haven’t had a chance to play it yet, but considering how excellent the first two games in the series were, I’m expecting great things. I highly recommend fans of the series scoop this up quickly.

Also, to celebrate the death of Julius Caesar (and probably the release of CHAOS RINGS II), SQUARE-ENIX has also put the original CHAOS RINGS on sale for the day. Pick it up for the iPhone for $3.99 and the iPad for $4.99.

UPDATE (3/16/12): CHAOS RINGS Î© is now also on sale. You can grab it for $4.99 on the iPhone and $5.99 on the iPad.