News

Whoa, buddy. Square Enix woke up this week - there's buckets of tidbits coming down the pipeline. Again, they tend to be mostly hand-held, but that's just where the company is right now; they're working to get their foot into a market that is more lucrative than console gaming, and I'm pretty sure this one is.

Let's start with the biggest one: we already talked about Final Fantasy VI coming to the Wii Virtual Console in Japan. Next month, it's getting a new partner in crime: Chrono Trigger. Like Final Fantasy VI, it seems a total no-brainer to bring this one to the States soon; however, there's no announcement yet for anyone in the West. I think you probably can hold your breath, though, if you really want to; again, kind of a no-brainer to bring one of the best RPGs of the 16-bit era over and make a bit of cash from it.

There's new info for Final Fantasy Type-0 this week; it appears that Jump and Dengeki Playstation beat Famitsu to the ball. There's a bit of gameplay info and some new screens from Jump, and Dengeki published some battle screenshots and a bit of early description of how the battle system will work. To me, it sounds a bit like a multi-member-party Crisis Core, with the battles resembling the missions of Crisis Core a bit, as they seem to contain a series of battles which end only when you find and defeat the "lead enemy." To explain the difference in the characters, Dengeku also goes a bit into three of the characters' fighting styles: Ace tosses cards a la Setzer for both attack and defense, Nine is a lancer, and Queen is a swordswoman. Famitsu did catch up at the end of the week, with a big blowout of new screens and even more battle, story, and character information than the other two, including some extrapolation on the party setup - while parties will include three members, you will control only one at a time - switching between the three can be done mid-stream, though. Anyway, my favorite part of info from that rollup is that there might actually be a playable Tonberry character. How great would that be?

Final Fantasy III dropped for iOS this week, at the low, low price of $15.99. When you consider that the DS version is still twenty bucks from Amazon, maybe that's not so bad. The reviews on iTunes are really great so far, but really, how much can you trust reviews like that? I will say that the game looks pretty fantastic based on the screens and video I've seen, but I just can't really fathom using my phone that much for a game. The release of III pays dividends for those who want other FF games on their Apple devices, though: Squenix is dropping the prices of their other games until the end of the month to celebrate. For instance, Final Fantasy is down to $3.99, and Song Summoner is $4.99, both the cheapest they've ever been, by far. Something that's not going on sale is the gallery/calendar/clock Dissidia Duodecim app, which rings in at $5.99 and has some pretty pictures and some functionality that is like what is already on your iOS device, just not as useful. Well played, Squenix.

Final Fantasy IV: Complete Collection released in Japan yesterday, too. andriasang brings us all of the launch info for the game, from adverts to related Dissidia Duodecim content to downloadable wallpaper, the second of which is really pretty awesome.

In Square Enix business news, the company announced this week that they launched a new subsidiary on 7 March called Hippos Lab, with an adorable logo to match. This company allegedly will be tasked with creating original content for smartphones - what this really means remains to be seen, but it could be interpreted that either the wash of smartphone remakes is at its end, or that it might just continue while the new company focuses solely on new games and new IPs. Simultaneously, the company said that the announcement regarding what Canadian city would get the new Squenix studio would come in May, but there's still no word on what games the studio might produce.

Source: andriasang, Kotaku, Gamasutra

While shaken as a nation, quite well battered as individuals, Japan and specifically Square Enix are not about to give up and walk away. Even in the midst of disaster, the company is sending news out worldwide for gamers, with more to come in the following weeks. Here's what is up right now for the gaming megalith.

The best-selling Dragon Quest game of all time, DQIX, managed to move 5.3 million units worldwide as of the end of December of last year; that's nearly ten percent of the sum of all Dragon Quest sales, which I suppose makes sense, given that there have been almost ten of them (some with a few re-releases, of course). It's the first game in the series to cross the 5 million mark, though, and one has to compare that with the massive 9.8 million number of Final Fantasy VII for a benchmark.

In other news from the Enix side of the house, it appears that the sequel to the game released as Dragon Quest Heroes: Rocket Slime in the west will be coming for the Nintendo 3DS. There's no annoucement for the US or Europe as yet, but it looks like it will be coming to Japan before the end of this year. It's going to have a lot of action at sea, a change of pace from the tank battles of the second game (the one we got here).

The demo for Duodecim is out in North America this week; hilariously, the demo for Europe was also announced - two days before the launch of the full game. Enjoy!

If you've been interested in Final Fantasy Type-0 since the last time we talked about it, we hope to have more news next week. According to andriasang, Famitsu will have a new preview in their issue next Thursday. If the translators get to work, we could have some new info in time for tidbits next week. Wouldn't that be lovely? I missed this somewhere along the way, but it looks like there might be a playing card theme to the names of many of the twelve main characters: Rem, Machina, Cinque, Seven, Trey, Eight, Nine, Jack, and Queen.

Finally for this week, if you're a Canadian looking for work, Squenix might have something for you next year. Eidos Montreal, home of the new Deus Ex, is still in play, but apparently the company is in talks with several provinces for a new studio in the Great White North. Way too early to know what games the company might be thinking for this new location.

Source: andriasang, Joystiq

In the wake of the devastating earthquake and tsunami that caused horrendous damage and loss of life in Japan not yet a week ago, there have been a number of game companies who, even with their own ability to work and earn money curtailed, have picked up the mantle to donate funds to the relief effort. Level-5, Konami, Capcom, Nintendo, Namco Bandai, this list goes on and on, and as of today it now includes Square Enix, who are throwing 100 million yen of their own into the effort (for the rest of us, that means a little over 1.25 million American dollars, or just over 900,000 Euros).

Have you been wanting to donate money to the cause of rescuing Japan from the aftereffects of this quake? I know Japan has a special place in many of our hearts as video gamers, so I can't blame you for it. If so, maybe you should take a look at Siliconera, who are hosting a raffle with a Cecil Harvey Dissidia figure and some other assorted swag, with all proceeds from the raffle going to the Red Cross for disaster relief in Japan. Alternatively, you can also visit Google's donation page and donate directly.

Source: andriasang, Siliconera, Google

It was just a couple weeks ago that we found out about Final Fantasy III for iOS devices. Well, okay, the CoN News Team missed it entirely, but member Aeris-Logan did not. For those who have missed it, the Final Fantasy III release for Apple hardware will be a port of the Nintendo DS version, altered obviously to allow the use of a single touch screen without control pad.

Things have been moving fast since then, though; not only is the game going to drop in March (and March is over one-third over already!), it's going to get a simultaneous worldwide release on iTunes in eight languages. In addition to the obvious Japanese and English, players who read French, Italian, German, Spanish, or two variants of Chinese will get a localized version as well - that's significant effort going into this release.

The final release date hasn't been announced, and iTunes does things on its own schedule anyway. Pricing isn't out yet either, but other similar Squenix games on the service sit at $8.99 in the United States, even older games. Expect that price or your local equivalent.

Source: Siliconera

Dissidia 012: Duodecim is set to be released quite soon; March 3 in Japan, March 22 in North America, and March 25 in Europe. In recognition, Squenix is holding a launch event - and it will be streamed on the internet. I hope you speak Japanese, though, because it will be in Japanese and the site it's being streamed on is NicoNico Live - a Japanese video site. You'll need to make an account on NNL if you want to watch it, so, again, I hope you speak Japanese.

The event is to release information about the game, show how the competitions will work, and star some "special guests". Whether or not they'll be announcing new characters or just giving information on ones they've already announced remains to be seen.

Actually, I've never played Dissidia. To me, Final Fantasy is an RPG series, not a fighting game series, and I don't do fighting games too much. But I know a lot of people like it, and it is always exciting when anything new that's Final Fantasy-related is released.

Source: Final Fantasy Union

It would be more convenient for everyone if they would just add all their dates at once, don't you think? The Distant Worlds team left some gaps in the 2011 schedule when we last heard from them, but it's now time to start filling a few in.

First up is the first time that Distant Worlds will hit the five boroughs of New York City: 1 and 2 April 2011. Uematsu will attend, as will FFXIV vocalist Susan Calloway for these Friday and Saturday night shows. It appears that these shows will be the first Distant Worlds shows to play Final Fantasy XIII and XIV music in North America.

Between New York and Chicago, Atlanta is getting two shows too, on 6 and 7 May. There's no further information as yet as to who might attend those shows as a celebrity guest, but since they're not saying, that doesn't look good. Still, if you're in the South, it's probably a much easier concert to see than New York!

And, if you just can't get to any of these shows, you're not alone. But on April 1, you'll be able to get a live performance DVD on AmaCoN for both North America and Europe. They're not up for preorder yet, but we'll provide the links just as soon as we have them!

Source: Distant Worlds