News

The development team for Final Fantasy IV DS, beyond simply having a blog, is opening itself up for a web-based question and answer session with us, the fans, starting now. This is all being facilitated by the Square-Enix Members Blog, and you have to have an account to participate, but if you don't have one and don't feel like signing up, please feel free to ask your question right here and I'll be happy to submit it on your behalf.

They're a bit nebulous on the deadlines for submitting questions and the posting of the collection of answers, but I would imagine that all of this will be happening over the next couple weeks so that they can publish the final article no later than the North American release date of the DS game, which is still currently scheduled for July 22.

Source:
Square-Enix Members Blog

We're a little late on this, but it's still worth a newspost. Saturday morning, at Blizzard's European expo in Paris, Blizzard announced the third installment in one of their three flagship series: Diablo. Diablo III will continue the tradition set by its predecessors, with intrepid adventurers exploring dungeons and seeking to defeat some unspeakable evil, using an action-oriented combat system with RPG elements that usually proves to be incredibly addictive for players.

Diablo III has no release date as of yet, but several trailers and gameplay videos are available on Blizzard's website. Specific plot and storyline details don't seem to be available. Diablo III will have five playable classes, and for the first time players must select a sex for their character, rather than having specific classes associated with specific sexes. Two of the classes are the Barbarian and the Witch Doctor; the former seems very similar to its Diablo II counterpart, while the latter seems to combine elements of the Necromancer and Sorceress classes from Diablo II.

Now that Blizzard has new games in development for each of their primary franchises, fans of just about any Blizzard game have something to look forward to in the coming years. Personally, I hope that by the time this comes out I'll be finished with school, because goodness knows I'll throw at least a hundred hours at it. It makes me feel like tracking down my Diablo II CDs and taking my old antipode-Sorceress for a spin.

Source: Blizzard

In advance of the upcoming North America release, now under two months away, the official Square-Enix blog has now published the first English-voiceover video from the game. This video is meant to be an in-store promo, so you should also be able to see it quite soon at your favorite game shop.

Far be it from me to comment on the voice acting, as I'm no expert on the matter, but it sounds solid enough to me. If anything, it's just good to finally hear it in English; they could have Bobcat Goldthwait and Gilbert Godfried doing the lead roles and it would still be nice to finally see the progress towards launch.

Finally, of course, I have to ask, why haven't you pre-ordered it from AmaCoN yet?

Source:
Square-Enix Members Blog

After months of speculation on the part of its fans, Squenix has finally confirmed the upcoming North American release of three legacy Dragon Quest titles on the Nintendo DS.

Remakes of Dragon Quest IV, V, and VI are in the works, and North American audiences can expect to see the first of these, Dragon Quest IV: Chapters of the Chosen, on 16 September 2008. The three remakes will feature updated 3D graphics in a similar vein to Final Fantasy III DS and the upcoming Final Fantasy IV DS remakes.

Source: GameSpot

RPGamer.com has discovered that the ESRB has re-rated Earthbound as an 'E for Everyone' title (replacing its old K-A rating, which no longer exists) and has it marked as a Wii title. A quick search on the ESRB's website confirms these findings, which as of this posting have not been covered up or hidden. This is being taken as a sign that Earthbound will soon be released on the Wii's Virtual Console. There has been no official announcement made by either Nintendo or Ape Software, so no more details are known.

This is fantastic news. The Virtual Console, while a great concept with a few gems, has been sorely lacking in a lot of my favorite games, most notably SNES RPGs. With this release of an old classic and cult favorite, perhaps the doors will be opened for more games and companies to jump on the Virtual Console train and try to get a few more bucks out of their older titles. However, for those hoping for Final Fantasy releases, with the rate that Square-Enix is pumping out remakes, I wouldn't get your hopes up for any of those. For now, fans of the series can enjoy the game once more, and people new to the game will be able to discover their love for New Age Retro Hippies and Multi Bottle Rockets.

Those links again:
RPGamer.com
Re-Rating and Wii platform for Earthbound
The ESRB's website

Recently, bit-tech.net conducted an interview with Yoshinori Kitase, who some gamers may recognize as the director of Final Fantasy 7. The interview is mainly about the recently released Final Fantasy 7: Crisis Core, a spin-off game for the PSP. However, the most interesting bit of the interview comes near the end, when the question is raised about whether or not there will be more prequels or sequels in the FF7 series. Kitase remains noncommittal, but mentions that they wouldn't even look at a remake of the initial game unless they could bring together the core of the FF7 development team, who are split among various projects, most notably FFXIII, so the idea won't be explored until at least after that game is completed.

Though I think a lot of good could come from a remake of FF7 on a system with much more power than the original PS1, I think I would much rather have the development team of such a great game working on newer projects. FF7 is getting a tremendous amount of overexposure as a new title within the universe seems to be released every year. It appears that the idea of a remake is at least put aside until after the completion of Final Fantasy XIII, so gamers who, like me, would rather see new content, will be placated to that end.

Those links again:
bit-tech.net
Interview with Yoshinori Kitase