News

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

Tecmo, the Japanese publisher of video games such as Ninja Gaiden, Tecmo Bowl, and Fatal Frame, has not had a very good year. After releasing XBox 360 action title Ninja Gaiden 2, game designer Tomonobu Itakagi and several other employees sued the company for unpaid overtime work relating to Ninja Gaiden 2. Other headaches included disappointing sales for Fatal Frame IV and the resignation of several top company officials.

But here comes Square-Enix to the rescue! According to Kotaku, Square-Enix is planning a friendly takeover of Tecmo in a similar manner to which happened to Taito in 2005. If the takeover is successful, Tecmo would become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Square-Enix, and if the wage issue is resolved, Tecmo's successful Team Ninja studio (Ninja Gaiden, Dead or Alive) would be making games for the big S-E.

Source: Kotaku

Also: wtf? Kingdom Hearts Gaiden?

Trademarked some time ago, Konami recently announced a new title in the cult-favorite Suikoden series of RPGs. The game is about 50% complete, and "Tierkreis" is a German word meaning "Zodiac," - a few sparse details about the game have been released (it stars a young main named Jail and uses a four-member party of sorts) but for the most part very little is known to the public and fan forums are blazing with rumor and anticipation. There is also no word on the game being published outside of Japan.

Source: RPGFan

So we know that it's been discussed a bit already, but this is news big enough that it simply must be brought onto our front page: Chrono Trigger is coming to the Nintendo DS.

Of course, the new version is going to be somewhat different, very likely in terms of a new dungeon, since that tends to be the stock addition to all of the Square-Enix remakes coming out these days. However, I'd also expect it to contain all of the additional data tables found in the PSX version, and of course the animated cut scenes. Finally, since this is coming out for the DS, there's no reason not to expect a great deal of interactivity between top and bottom screens. Heck, they even say that in the press release.

The final big news for today is that we now have an English-titles trailer; it's nothing amazing, but it does show that the gameplay and in-game graphics won't be changing, and it does give a launch window of Winter 2008, surely meant to imply that it will be launching just before Christmas. We will have, of course, links for you to preorder the game as we get them.

Source: Square-Enix North America