News

The identity of the game in the countdown clock some of you are still hypothesising about has already been announced. Some of you just can't read, so to make it easy, i'll post it in big letters on the main page, to see if that helps.

We don't have much info yet (unless you can read Japanese), but it is not FFI or FFV, so stop with the guessing games.

Source: Kotaku
Source: 5 Days Ago

http://www.square-enix.co.jp/0706/

It's Square-Enix up to their usual shenanigans of giving us a mysterious page with a countdown clock and supposedly relevant info to the new game at hand. Sources suspect a remake of the original Final Fantasy, possibly on the Nintendo DS. This news poster is not so convinced. Unless they're introducing new music, the song that plays over the countdown page is not from any Final Fantasy so far (Unless it's from XI, in which case, nobody cares). The obvious reality? They're preparing to unveil Final Fantasy XV.

...What? You never know. Square-Enix also copyrighted "The Four Warriors of Light" (Well, the Japanese phrase, anyway), so believe what you will. It's fair to say that this is going to be Final Fantasy related, regardless of what it actually is. Only 220 hours to go.

Source: Kotaku
Source: Siliconera

Apparently Japan isn't running out of ways to transform nostalgia into gold, because we have another handheld remake of a popular RPG on our hands. Lunar: The Silver Star, which has already seen remakes on the PlayStation, Sega Saturn, and Game Boy Advance, is receiving a new coat of paint on the PlayStation Portable as Lunar: Harmony of Silver Star. The game is being remade from the bottom up, with new visuals, gameplay, cutscenes, and voice work.

All we have on the game so far is a magazine ad and a few screenshots (right here), but really, it's a remake. You should probably know what to expect, and if you're a longtime Lunar fan like I am, then you have another difficult choice on your hands: do I like this game enough to buy a remake and play it again, or have all the times I've played it in the past been enough? Gamers in the West can probably expect to receive this remake, since goodness knows we have a thousand other PSP remakes lying around (From Ape Escape: On the Loose to Ys Chronicles I and II) and most of the games in the Lunar series have made the trip across the Pacific. Personally, I'm not sure if I have any nostalgia left at this point.

Source: Kotaku

Final Fantasy XIII Producer Yoshinori Kitase recently revealed some interesting titbits on demos and PAL releases for FFXIII. Following the recent release of a blu-ray demo in Japan, the prospect of an English demo was always on the cards. Kitase however has stated that the demo would not be on a disc, but if there is one, they are thinking of making use of the Playstation Network and XBox Live to release the demos as downloads.

He also stated that localisation, translation and English voice recording is already underway partially, which hopefully means a fairly speedy translation to English and a release date for North America fairly soon after Japan. Those of us in PAL regions will be thrilled to hear Square's famed ability to quickly release their games in PAL regions after the Japanese and North American versions come out is being upheld, with Kitase saying those of us in such blighted regions can expect to see it "within a year" of the Japanese release.

The most interesting news of all this is of course the prospect of the demo, and sarcasm aside it is nice to at least hear something that can let us guess release dates for outside Japan. However, the word on the demo is still leaving the bases covered on Square-Enix's part. Potentially, this leaves up in the air the question of in what format, if any, American and EU gamers will see a Final Fantasy XIII demo.

Source:
FF Insider
Some new Demo screencaps

Final Fantasy XIII may remain a far off dream, but the distant echoes of series spin-off Crystal Chronicles are quickly approaching. "Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Echoes of Time" has been given an official release date of January 29 in Japan, and is expected to hit the North American market sometime this Spring.

Like the rest of the Crystal Chronicles series, the gameplay of Echoes will heavily rely on action-RPG aspects and puzzles, rather than the traditional turn-based combat of the main Final Fantasy series. Echoes will be available on both the Wii and the Nintendo DS, and the game will take advantage of the two systems' interconnectivity to allow online multiplayer. Additionally, Nintendo seems to have realized that we're tired of letting those dozens of Miis we made on launch day languish without a purpose in life; players of the Wii version will be able to import their favorite Miis into the game.

Source: GameSpot

I've never been a fan of the Crystal Chronicles series, but even I'm tempted by this. The short blurb about the story in the above link sounds like it could be interesting... as long as we don't find out that the heroine is sick because she ate dragon grass not once, but twice. Stupid princesses who eat dragon grass two--count 'em, TWO--times deserve what they get. Really, the Crystal Chronicles line always seemed to me like a kiddie version of the (occasionally) more mature main series storylines. These saccharine tales of precocious fourteen-year-olds aren't quite as cute now that I'm not fourteen, yanno?

Square-Enix had a few gems to reveal to the public at the Tokyo Game Show regarding their upcoming RPG releases. Among them, character names! Yes, finally, some of the CG beauties you've been marveling at all this time have names other than "Lightning... or is that the attack she's using?" Well... sorta. So far, only a few have been sorted through, and it's not entirely clear where the Engrish ends and the localized names begin...

Source: Final Fantasy Insider

For fans of Enix's Star Ocean series, it should come as pleasant news that the Star Ocean: First Departure website is up and running. First released on the Super Famicom only in Japan, the beginning of the Star Ocean series will finally be making its way to North American audiences on the PSP later this year.

Furthermore, the 360-exclusive Star Ocean 4: The Last Hope has been dated for March 2009.

Source: GameSpot