News

Late last year, we noted that a leak on an online store made it appear that the high-definition remasters of the Final Fantasy X series might make it to PS4. Not only has this week proven that to be true, the games are coming to the West, and they're coming quite soon, May 12 to be exact. (For Europe and Australia, the date is the 15th.)

This new release will allow transfer of savegames from the previous releases on PS3 and PS Vita; additionally, it will contain all the features of the previous HD releases plus the additional option to switch from the remastered soundtracks back to the original PS2 versions. Preorders of the limited edition in North America, via the official store and "selected retailers," will also include a 2015 calendar with Amano illustrations from the X games. Preorders in Europe will receive a steelbook copy of Amano art.

The price is currently listed at 49.99 for the US and Eurozone, and 39.99 in the UK.

Source: Square Enix Official Store (NA), IGN

Time to do a proper weekly Square Enix News Tidbits! Mostly for the same reason that we always do - because we run out of time to keep up during the week.

This week, we've got two new announcements for game releases coming West from Japan. First up is a mobile app called Final Fantasy Record Keeper that you might have noticed in the Final Fantasy magazine. Record Keeper appears to be a retelling of critical events from the Final Fantasy canon as evoked by a boy tasked with keeping the memories of those adventures alive, presumably in some sort of alternate universe. Characters from the series are rendered in SNES-era sprites and the player will control them in battle. The battles look similar to All the Bravest... so all we can do is hope that this app isn't quite so much a joke! Pre-registration for the app is available now from the official site.

The second announcement is from the Dragon Quest series. Dragon Quest Heroes for PlayStation 3 and 4 has just come out in Japan, and Squenix commemorated the release in a way by announcing it also for release in the West. DQ Heroes is a "Warriors" style game - think Hyrule or Dynasty - and is the first entry of the series on a Sony console in quite a while. Simultaneously, a load of free DLC was announced for the Japanese release, and one can safely assume that it will also make it over here. One of the DLC packs looks to include Zoma, from Dragon Quest III; I note that specifically because I always thought his giant eye-helmet was pretty creepy. At the moment, it appears that there will be no PS3 version of the game outside of Japan, merely PS4.

Finally, let's turn back to last week's biggest news, Final Fantasy XV. With the demo livestream done, the XV team has turned back to handing out small bits of news for the full game. In an interview this week, Hajime Tabata noted that the demo coming out next month will be roughly 5GB in total disk size; of course, that doesn't do much for explaining how much real content there will be, but it's worth noting that is only about a tenth of a double-layer Bluray's capacity. In the same interview, Tabata implied that there would be some shocking moments in the plot and some brutal scenes, and it's worth noting that Tabata also worked on Crisis Core, so he's probably not bluffing.

In another, separate interview, Tabata discussed some of the other differences between the demo and the full game. The equipment selections, for weapons, armor and accessories alike, will be a small subset of the full game's functionality in terms of equipping and customization. While the (famous) cars and the (heretofore unknown) trains will not be in the demo, both methods of transport will be available in the full game in different contexts. Chocobos will also appear, of course. Additionally, the new content came with a video with some new scenes, notably exploration and battle inside a claustrophobic cave. A second new video emulates the feel of a nature documentary and shows more landscapes and creatures. Tabata also noted that the team is still refining the demo and will be continuing to do so.

More random news is cropping up today, though, so we might be able to throw some more good stuff at you in the near future. Or we might get lazy. It's Friday.

Source: Final Fantasy Record Keeper, Square Enix Europe, Siliconera

The schedule for panel discussions at PAX East 2015 was recently announced, and a couple of them this year are of particular interest to CoN readers. On Saturday at lunchtime, Naoki Yoshida, producer and director of Final Fantasy XIV, will spend an hour discussing the first expansion pack to A Realm Reborn, titled "Heavensward." As described on the official site:

"Join FINAL FANTASY XIV Producer/Director Naoki Yoshida as he takes the stage to discuss details on the first expansion - Heavensward. Also, Yoshida has a habit of announcing things he shouldn't, so you won't want to miss this! (We'll keep the PR team distracted so they won't interfere.)"

Later in the day, a second panel will feature Square Enix personnel, this time "Behind the Game Designs of Final Fantasy XV." The two lead game designers of the upcoming flagship title will discuss the process of designing the latest game in the core Final Fantasy series; again, from the official PAX site:

"Join two of FINAL FANTASY XV's lead game designers, Wan Hazmer and Prasert Prasertvithyakarn, as they share their experiences working on one of the most anticipated games of all time. Hazmer and Prasertvithyakarn are attending PAX EAST from SQUARE ENIX's Tokyo Studios where they work in tandem to bring FINAL FANTASY XV to life. Fans will also be in for a treat with additional information revealed on the upcoming title, FINAL FANTASY TYPE-0 HD!"

Of particular interest to readers here, by the way: yours truly will be in attendance that day, and I plan to visit both these panels as well as the Square Enix booth, where I plan to collect both photos and experiences around Squenix games (to share with you) and hopefully swag (which I won't). If you have requests of things to look for, or just want to see a bit of the show floor, let me know.

Source: PAX East Schedule

Later this week, Square Enix Japan will be running a live stream to present real, live gameplay from the Final Fantasy XV demo, which will be released next month with Type-0. Game director Hajime Tabata will host the stream, which is said to show both gameplay and the "systems" comprising XV, which likely means the combat style and user interfaces both inside and outside of combat.

The demo will begin at 6am Eastern time on Friday, February 20, and will be shown on the streaming services NicoNico and YouTube Live. There's no indication as to whether the stream will be geoblocked, so if you're an early riser or a night owl, it'll be worth seeking out in a few days.

On a similar note, Square Enix also released the "release trailer" for Final Fantasy Type-0 HD last night. The trailer remains in Japanese, but the company is quick to point out that the release version will allow the gamer to switch between languages. I would presume this trailer to be the last we'll see, as the game now releases in exactly one month and counting in the United States - the Japanese and European releases come a few days later.

Source: Siliconera, Square Enix Youtube

The new king (aka director) of the core Final Fantasy franchise, Hajime Tabata, is showing up everywhere right now. As the face of the series going forward, including being the director of the next two big releases, Tabata is now the man as far as such things are concerned, and as such he's making some media rounds.

Last week, Tabata spoke to Kotaku's Jason Schreier about Type-0 HD; among the tidbits of information uncovered is the implication that the game is progressing well towards release, with the bulk of the current work being dedicated towards refining parts of the original game to be more playable and in refining the content seen previously. Even more interesting, it appears that with the help of automatic and human translators, Tabata might actually be reading what the English-language gamers are saying about is games on the internet. Does that mean he's found us? No. Probably not. Just in case, though: hi!

Schreier also pushed to get a little bit of Final Fantasy XV information on the table; while cagey, Tabata was willing to speak to trying to maintain the March date of the XV demo, and also the timeline of the switch from the Versus to the XV name. There's even a little more detail that is new - the demo for XV, when it lands, is not likely to be part of the actual game's storyline, or might be a remix of a couple disconnected sections of the final game.

That's a lot of information, of course, and it's only a snippet of the full interview. But, if it's still not enough, and you're a Redditor, you're in luck; Tabata also has planned for Friday an "Ask Me Anything" about Type-0 HD on the IamA subreddit. It kicks off at 1pm Eastern time on Friday, but Tabata's people have warned that there will be no questions about Final Fantasy XV involved.

Let us know if you're going to participate in the AMA so we can keep an eye out, otherwise watch this space for future Type-0 and XV news coming up very soon in what is certain to be a busy few months for those two properties!

Source: GameInformer, Kotaku

As is their way, the Distant Worlds team releases a massive burst of concert information about once a quarter. Now is that time. It makes for a long news post. Now is that time as well!

Our last post talked about the upcoming shows in Toronto and New Jersey - I didn't realize until now, though, that the first of the New Jersey set of shows will actually be the centennial show for the traveling performance. That might make those tickets a bit more precious.

The new announcement for Distant Worlds this time around is to fill the gap between the New Jersey shows and the previously-announced pair of St. Louis concerts. I'm excited about this one because it's April 24 in Boston, the current (approximate) headquarters of CoN. Tickets go on sale on December 3, and I'm really hoping to snag some.

Also from our last post, we noted that A New World, the chamber music series, was wrapping up its season in Europe. What was then the final show for 2014 is still next week in Paris. But now, they've booked a new date for December 12 in Houston at Rice University. They'll also start 2015 with two February shows in St. Paul, Minnesota and one at the University of Michigan. It seems like it's potentially easier to arrange the chamber style of A New World than it is a full orchestra like Distant Worlds, so I wouldn't be surprised to see a lot more dates showing up in our next update.

Good luck to those going for tickets! Don't take mine.

Source: Distant Worlds, A New World