News

Just how prevalent is downloadable content these days? Well, think back a few weeks. You might have heard that Bioware took heat on Mass Effect 3 for offering day-one DLC that wasn't available to everyone for free. Final Fantasy XIII-2 is taking a bit of heat for the same thing, of course, so it's really awesome intercorporate synergy that you will soon be able to download Mass Effect content into Final Fantasy XIII-2, namely armor worn by the crew of the Normandy. In a separate pack, you can also download Ultros and Typhon to fight and add to your monster pack. Ultros is a SYN, and Typhon is a COM, for those already excited by the prospect.

With regards to other Squenix games with DLC, check out the news this week that Theatrhythm: Final Fantasy now is confirmed to come to the West. That link discusses Europe specifically, but the release was also confirmed for North America on the Square Enix Facebook page.

Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance is coming out in Japan next Thursday, a release that has been anticipated since the Nintendo 3DS was announced. With the game all but out now, video from the Premiere Event to show the game and celebrate the tenth anniversary of the franchise showed up online. Additionally, an advertisement made from game footage and clips of the event has been on the air in Japan. andriasang has both on one convenient page for KH fans.

Finally, a new domain has been registered and a teaser video produced for a mystery new game, apparently to be released this Summer in Japan. Rumor has it that the game will be called Crystal Conquest, but no other details are available. Kotaku guesses that it will be a smartphone game, and that seems like a pretty reasonable guess.

Source: andriasang, Square Enix Members Europe, Kotaku

It's been a while since the last Squenix tidbits, largely due to the number of hours put into the Final Fantasy V section revamp. Because of that, I'm going to assume that a lot of the news that came out in the meantime we all already know from sources that are less generally interesting than CoN, and I'll try to just get us caught up from the last couple weeks.

Just yesterday, the closed beta for Dragon Quest X began, for instance. Odds are you're not part of it, right? You can still see the beta testers' site for some minor details, though. Interestingly, it seems like you need to have a 16GB or larger flash drive to install the beta; having no Wii, I can't say if that's truly odd or not, but it seems that way to me. andriasang has a number of beta screenshots, so check them out; I'm sure video and more screenshots from testers will be emerging soon enough.

Theatrhythm: Final Fantasy also released in Japan a little over a week ago. Famitsu rated it pretty well, though people do seem to think that a good score from Famitsu isn't what it used to be. If you don't trust Famitsu, though, perhaps you might trust, say, Nobuo Uematsu? The composer of so many of the songs included in Theatrhythm posted to Twitter that the game made him so nostalgic that he wept. That seems like a pretty good endorsement if you've been playing Final Fantasy games since the eighties, like this author. At launch, the songs available for DLC were discounted from 150 yen (currently $1.86) to 100 yen ($1.24). Originally, that discount was meant to run for just about three weeks, but it's recently been extended for an extra month, into mid-April. The initial batch of DLC has songs from Final Fantasy II, IV, V. VII, VIII, IX, X, and XIII. There's also a promotional game where you can pseudo-play a bit of the game via Flash with some of your social media friends. Yeah, that's kind of hokey, since you don't get to actually play. However, I'm totally stumbling through the Japanese-only site right this second to try to figure it out - so far, I've discovered that it has the Final Fantasy VI ending theme in it somewhere!

You may have forgotten that Kingdom Hearts 3D is still a thing. It is, though, and it's coming out in Japan on 29 March, under five weeks from now. Even sooner, though, is 3 March, the day when Square Enix is planning a pre-launch event somewhere in Tokyo for the game. No other details as yet, but I would be surprised if they didn't show the 10th Anniversary Special Edition package for the game, which contains the new game, copies of both Nintendo DS Kingdom Hearts games, a 3DS shell cover, a dozen artwork postcards, and a truly cool looking box to hold it all. I can't believe it's been ten years since the original Kingdom Hearts already - the new one will release exactly ten years and one day from the original. That was on the PlayStation 2, kids.

To wrap it up for this week, on 30 March there will be another batch of cards for the Final Fantasy CCG in Japan. I don't really remember looking at too many of these in the past, but this batch has a focus on Final Fantasy VI, and has some really cute artwork. andriasang has a selection from the 320-card set; check page two for a hilarious Ultros (which is how he looks in Theatrhythm!).

Source: andriasang, Siliconera, Kotaku

The Tokyo Game Show will be back yet again this year, with the dates recently set to be 20-23 September, 2012 in the Chiba prefecture. This year, the show will be adding two new "corners," sections of the show set off for specific platforms - in this case, for PC and Smartphone/Tablet gaming.

Additionally this year, the show's organizers, CESA, will be producing video of the show for online viewing. No other details are available at this time, but it's likely that these will include booth tours and possibly game demo video. It's also likely that these will be produced only in Japanese, so brush up now.

The show expects nearly two hundred thousand visitors over the four days, split between industry professionals and the general public.

Source: andriasang

Final Fantasy XIII-2 inches ever closer, so it's no surprise that the week's news is primarily related to the sequel inbound. Kotaku posted not one, but two articles this week with nothing but new screenshots, and it seems that the hottest thing revealed within (no pun intended) is the new merchant, Chocolina, who dresses up like a chocobo on fire - if the chocobo wanted to show some skin. I'm hoping that getup is all faux chocobo, or else PETA will be on Squenix' case now that they're done with Mario.

The sequel also changes up the battle system a bit, as well as the excellent battle music, from its predecessor. It looks like the changes are subtle - to me, the battles in the video seemed a little faster-paced from what I've seen so far in Final Fantasy XIII, and the addition of quick-time events with chained combos from different party members looks good. It appears that you might be able to change the party leader during combat as well, which perhaps will also mean a change in the "hey, your leader's dead, no reason to keep fighting now game over hahahaha" aspect of the first game.

Also, for some reason, there will be DLC to allow Noel to dress up as Assassin's Creed's Ezio. This paragraph is short because, really, what else are you going to say about that?

An interview by Destructoid with Yoshinori Kitase and Motomu Toriyama has been making the rounds since being published last week, and it seems to have caught a lot of people's attention for the fact that it seems to indicate the possibility of a Final Fantasy that is a first-person shooter. Naturally, this has a lot of people up in arms (again, no pun intended), but if the quote is correctly written, the interview really says nothing more than "anything could happen at any time." There could just as easily be a FPS Final Fantasy as there could be a cart racer set with Final Fantasy charact... okay, well, that's a bad example.

Last news of the week, breaking just today, is that there actually will be a new action-RPG IP coming from Square Enix in the near future, once they can finish all the hires they want to build the game out. The first image representing this game was released today, and it means very little. If you presented the image without content, I would have guessed Devil May Cry at first. Not sure what that means, to be honest, but, hey, there's a big white owl.

Source: Kotaku, Destructoid

Yep, hot on the heels of the launch to the PlayStation Network, Chrono Trigger is now coming to iOS "next month." An exact release date is not yet known, since it has to go through the iTunes store; the price is still unconfirmed as well (though other releases have been at around the sixteen-dollar price point). Eurogamer also claims that a port for Android is on the way, as well.

The game's going to be released worldwide, and will be available in seven different languages. It is not yet clear from which version this port will be derived, so the presence of the Toriyama animated cutscenes or Nintendo DS bonus content is, as yet, unconfirmed.

Source: Eurogamer.net, Kotaku

In what must seem like breakneck speed relative to the development of Final Fantasy XIII (or, of course, Versus), Final Fantasy XIII-2 is about to be released; it's almost exactly a month away in Japan, and it's due in the West in about twelve weeks. As it approaches, news of preorder bonuses collector's editions has broken, as seems to be the way with all blockbuster releases these days. In Japan, the Xbox 360 version will come bundled with a calendar showing stills and character renders from the game - just the kind of awesome bonus that is good for forever exactly a year. That's all the news from the land of the Big Red Dot, but, here in the United States the collectors editions are getting to be a bigger deal.

For an MSRP of eighty dollars, American gamers will have a crack at a pretty solid collection of goodies. The box art will have some very classy silver-on-white Amano artwork, and inside the package will rest an artbook and a four-CD soundtrack set. Beyond that, there are pre-order incentives being offered (it's not yet clear, but I assume these will be for both standard and collector's editions) at various retailers. I'll ignore for the moment that I really hate the idea of offering different bonuses for different retailers, and I'll just tell you what you can get: At Best Buy, you'll get a hardcover book that tells the story of the time between Final Fantasy XIII and its sequel; at Gamestop, you'll get a code for a DLC costume for Serah; at Amazon, you'll get a bonus boss battle against Omega - no indication if it's a similar Omega to a past Final Fantasy game, but this Omega can also become a playable character. Odds are that everything but the book will be available for free or as paid DLC eventually, though, so it would seem on the surface that Best Buy is the way to go.

Elsewhere, Final Fantasy Type-0 sold a half-million copies in its first week of Japanese release. That puts it roughly on par with some of Squenix' other big-time PSP releases, such as Crisis Core and the first Dissidia. That half-million number made Type-0 the best selling game on the market last week. And it still doesn't have a Western release date.

For those still excited about Dragon Quest X, the first MMO bearing the Dragon Quest name, we got beta details this week. If you're reading this, well, you're not in the beta. At least not yet. This initial round is only for Japanese players, and you must have a Japanese Square Enix Members account. The application process is kicking off soon and is competitive, not first-come, first-served. Also, since there's no such thing as a WiiU yet, this beta will be taking place solely on the current Wii.

Last, for the business-minded folks, Square Enix revised their projected earnings for the first half of the current fiscal year. The net sales only went up a bit, but the FY operating income and net income saw their projections double. Perhaps all is not yet lost for the company that seems to have lost its shine over the last five years or so?

Source: andriasang, Kotaku, 1up