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Square-Enix let loose several new news tidbits in their recent end-of-fiscal-year statement that are of interest to fans of their two most popular series.

First of all, Final Fantasy XIII for the Playstation 3 will be released no sooner than the end of the current fiscal year (March 31st, 2008). Thus, the earliest that we'll see FF XIII on Japanese store shelves is Apri of 2008. FF XIII never had a concrete release date to begin with, but now we know at least when not to expect it.

Dragon Quest IX for the DS, however, reportedly is progressing along ahead of schedule. This could mean that the TBA 2007 release date is a guarantee rather than a mere estimation.

And according to the same end-of-fiscal-year reports, sales were around 32% up while profits were around 32% down. The sales jump was in large part due to excellent North American and European releases of Final Fantasy XII; this marked the first fiscal year in Square-Enix history where a majority of its sales came from outside Japan.

Source: RPGFan

Among the other delightful tidbits released by Square-Enix during their two-day event is their intention to remake the first two Star Ocean games for the PSP.

Star Ocean, originally for the Super Famicom and released only in Japan, and Star Ocean: The Second Story, for the Playstation, will feature brand-new voice work, a new script, updated graphics and FMVs, and more. The two games will be full remakes, not mere ports with a few tweaks.

Furthermore, Star Ocean 4 was announced to be in the works.

Source: GameSpot

I loved Star Ocean 2, and it's still one of my favorite PS1 games. As long as they leave the item creation and skill systems intact (or improve them!), I'm there.

Some scans have been released for Final Fantasy Dissidia, the Final Fantasy game headed for the PSP. In a bit of a shocking twist, the game appears to be a 3D brawler, now there's not much to go on other than the scan from Jump Magazine, but it does definitely have the looks of a brawler.

The game shot seems to have two pictures of two seperate fights, one involving what appears to be Cecil and Golbez, and the next featuring Zidane and Kuja. On second glance the first two might actually be Garland vs The Emperor from FF1 and FF2 respectively. I can't be certain.

Source: Jump Magazine scan

Any chance we could get one of our resident CoNners that can understand Japanese to translate this?

While I wouldn't bet that this spells the end of Square Enix's penchant for churning out remakes of popular games, the company that brings us the Final Fantasy series is set to give PSP owners something worth coveting: a brand-new Final Fantasy game.

Tentatively titled Dissidia, the new game in the franchise may represent a break from the rest of the series. For one thing, it lacks a number, and, for another, the tagline on the site states that "fantasy has no limited form."

Will this be a real Final Fantasy game, or is the name being borrowed to test-drive a new series? Sadly, it seems that only PSP owners will be in a position to find out.

Source: GameSpot

According to Square-Enix representative Shinji Hashimoto, Square-Enix doesn't have that much incentive to release any games on the Nintendo Wii's Virtual Console at present. From 1UP.com:

"We feel that the Japanese game market still requires [physical] media. Also, FF and Dragon Quest are played by a wide range of users, from children to adults, so there are limitations when you consider the problems that we would have with billing systems."

Bottom line, if consumers are paying up to 30 USD for remakes of older Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest games, why should Square-Enix put them on the VC for a quarter of that? That's what Squenix is thinking, and that statement might unfortunately be evidence that our favorite Japanese developer isn't going to have any downloadable content on the Wii anytime soon.

Source: 1UP

Despite rumors to the contrary following its announcement last year, Dragon Quest IX: Protectors of the Starry Sky will not be featuring an action-oriented battle system and will stick to the tried-and-true turn-based system that has been a feature of every game in the Dragon Quest main series.

However, there are still a few adjustments being made to the DQ formula. Enemies will now be visible in the open field and running into an enemy will trigger a battle, not unlike the battle systems from Chrono Trigger (which had several traditional Dragon Quest staff on its team). Battles will be in full 3D in the same vein as the PS2's Dragon Quest VIII, and DQ IX will also support multiplayer co-op at any stage of the game using the DS's wireless multiplayer capabilities. Also, for the first time in the series, the main character's appearance will be fully customizable by the player - everything from a character's weight to facial features is player-controlled.

Dragon Quest IX is shaping up to be quite different from many of its predecessors, but it is being made by virtually the exact same team that created Dragon Quest VIII - the studios of Yuji Horii, Akira Toriyama, and Koichi Sugiyama, as well as the independent developer Level-5. Dragon Quest IX is scheduled for a 2007 release in Japan.

Source: 1UP