News

Courtesy RPGamer...

The title formerly known as Earthbound64 was feared dead as details ceased to emerge and the Nintendo64 died off. However, good news is here for fans of the series. Mother 3, the official title of the game, is approximately 60% complete, says the game's writer, Shigesato Itoi. It is not known if this means the writing or the programming of the game, but as the speculated release is late 2005, it can be assumed that it is the writing.

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As a fan of the series, this makes me extremely happy. I had a Nintendo64, and had the game come out when I owned it, I would've been doing flips. Now that it's back, I might have to buy a Gamecube if that's the platform.

Paper Mario RPG, sequel to the N64 title Paper Mario, is scheduled for release on the Nintendo Gamecube this Thursday in Japan.
According to Nintendo, the sequel employs many of the same aspects of the original game--most notably the Action-RPG genre twist and cheery feel intended to help open up the game to younger audiences.
Additionally, the unusual qualities of 2D characters placed into a 3D environment are again a key point of the game, with such updates as the ability to fold Mario into various origami shapes, including an airplane and a boat, to help him traverse obstacles he encounters.

Nintendo Japan has posted an official site for the game (Japanese), but as of yet have made no comment regarding an American release.

Paper Mario RPG will retail for 5800 yen ($53-55).

As earlier mentioned by Elena, Final Fantasy I + II Advance is slated for release later this month in Japan.
Aside from a convenient new "save anywhere" function in FFI and extensive graphical and audio overhauls in both games, each title will feature new items, story elements and dungeons unique to the GBA release.

Final Fantasy I will include a new dungeon accessible at the end of the game, where players will be able to begin the "Soul of Chaos" quest.
To complete this quest, players will be required to defeat, in sequence, more powerful versions of the game's four fiends: Lich, Marilith, Kraken, and Tiamat.
And during the quest, bosses from Final Fantasy III(j) through VI(j) will appear in battle, including FFIV's Four Fiends, FFV's Gilgamesh, and FFVI's Chupon.
Additionally, a span of new items will be available, including an Ultima Weapon sword and full set of Crystal armor.

Final Fantasy II will include an extra chapter in the game's story, entitled "Soul of Rebirth." During this chapter, players will follow the activities of a new party composed entirely of assisting characters from the original game: Ming Wu, Scott, Joseph, Richard, and Cid.
Enemies during this segment of the game will be equipped with powerful new spells, and will include a new boss named Ultima Weapon.

Final Fantasy I + II Advance's July 27 release date is still tentative, as Square Enix has already pushed back the release once (from it's original schedule of July 15) due to a coding glitch.
The game is set to retail for 6,090 yen ($55-58).

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Though it's nice to see some classics getting deserved attention, and the new features sound like fun, Square Enix seems to be pushing the early Final Fantasy titles a little far--along with this upcoming GBA release, official releases have recently been made for the PSX (Final Fantasy Origins), the Wonderswan Color, and even newer Japanese cell phone models using the NTT DoCoMo service.

It was recently announced that there will be a tweaked version of FF1, for the GBA. So far, the news includes bonus dungeons, a tentative release date in Japan of 29/07 of this year, and the fact that you can apparently fight Gilgamesh, Shinryuu, Ultros, Chupon, and the Four Fiends.

The Official Website for this release, though all in Japanese, provides some interesting screens to look at. Use the convenient gloved-hand menu navigator to load pictures.

(FF2 is also mentioned, but unfortunately we do not have further information on it at this time.)

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We hope to get more information on this from Phoenix, our newsie currently staying in Japan. And the character images are very cute, but that's to be expected from a GBA, for some reason.

As the title states, Square Enix has released new screenshots of the latest installment of the company's flagship franchise. The unique character art features the work of designer Akira Toriyama. The screenshot feature some new characters, but it is unclear as of yet how many of these will be playable.

In other Dragon Quest VIII news, there is still no word on a North American release date. Japanese gamers are not much better off, however, with a vague release date of Winter 2005.

Source: Games Are Fun

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Say whatever negative things one wants about Akira Toriyama's Dragonball and Dragonball Z anime series (and I'll most likely agree), but I have loved his video game character design work (for those who did not know, he was the man responsible for Chrono Trigger's art). Hopefully, the localization for the title will not take Square Enix nearly has long as it has taken them for Star Ocean 3.

We've hit another milestone, as can be seen further down in the main forums page. Del_S amazingly guessed correctly to nearly the exact date. Here's his quote, from the 30,000 post news thread:

“And also, i predict July 4-6th for the 50,000th post.”

Here is a quote from Del_S, upon learning that he guessed right, from the chatroom:

[16:42] that kinda freaks me out...
[16:43] coincidence or not.

Well, there you have it folks. By the way, the 50,000th poster was Mogmaster, posting in this Kefka fanart topic. As you can see, it was on the 4th of July at 7pm GMT.

Thank you all for visiting our forums, and continuing to help our community flourish.