News

I've missed a lot of news recently, I get that, but it's far too late to catch up now. So instead, let's have a nice easy one to get back into things: today, Square Enix Music announced that they've released a baker's dozen of their Piano Collections albums from the Final Fantasy series to streaming platforms. It's not just a few services, either; while many of the big expected ones are there, like Spotify, Apple, Amazon, and YouTube, there are five other streaming services included as well as three storefronts where the albums can be purchased and downloaded instead.

The Piano Collections albums started with Final Fantasy IV, and so too does the list of released albums. It then moves to each mainline game in the series all the way up to Final Fantasy XV; the final album included is from the original Crystal Chronicles from the GameCube.



Source: Square Enix Music

Sony's recently-announced State of Play just wrapped up a few minutes ago, with Square Enix serving as the penultimate spectacle. After a brief bit of Foamstars (open beta coming in two weeks, release early 2024 if you're here for that news), the stream jumped straight into Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. Before I break down the trailer, though, you can get the release date: Leap Day 2024. That's a bit later than I'd hoped, but at least it gives me more time to catch up on games before it releases.

Based on these three minutes, there is going to be a lot packed into this game, and this is going to be completely spoilery if you haven't gotten around to playing Remake and Intermission. The trailer starts with Zack carrying Cloud through a wrecked Midgar, showing yet again that there are some sort of timeline or universe shenanigans at play. It then cuts straight to Rufus ordering the Junon cannon to fire, and some brief snippets of combat, including some with Red XIII in the primary battle party. Cait Sith returns from his brief cameo in the prior game, complete with accent and giant Moogle, and the first confirmation that he will indeed be available for combat too.

The buggy appears, as well as some of our favorite colors of chocobo; REUNION gets some focus, as well as Midgardsormr and the Bottomswell boss under Junon. Yuffie shows off a partner technique with Barret, and Aerith does one with Cait Sith, and then we get a little bit of Cloud and Sephiroth fighting... as teammates. A couple quick cuts show us new summons, namely Alexander and Odin, and then we get a longer sequence of Gold Saucer, with everyone's favorite minigames.

We then get another brief shot of Zack, this time dropping off the still-unconscious Cloud with, of all people, apparently Kyrie? The strange shenanigans continue anon. Finally, a couple more big reveals - Emerald Weapon, Vincent, and at last, Sephiroth speaking of REUNION... "When worlds merge."

Sorry if this sounds a little breathless, but frankly, it is a bit. There was a lot packed into three short minutes, a lot more than I expected to see today. And preorders are open now.

I've been remiss for quite a while at keeping everyone up on Distant Worlds (and A New World) dates. However, for the former, the Final Fantasy 35th Anniversary Program has continued apace, and there are eleven future dates coming up across the US, Canada, and Brazil:

• Los Angeles, August 13, 2023
• Cleveland, Ohio, September 9
• São Paulo, September 28
• Rio de Janeiro, October 1


• Austin, Texas, November 10
• Montreal, December 3
• Seattle, January 20, 2024
• Charlotte, North Carolina, February 3
• Washington, DC, March 2
• Hartford, Connecticut, March 23
• San Francisco, May 31 and June 1

The smaller chamber orchestra for A New World currently has only three shows through the rest of 2023:

• Boston, September 29
• Cincinnati, October 1
• San Diego, December 8

All shows for both series are available for ticket purchase or preorder right now.

Source: Final Fantasy: Distant Worlds, A New World: Intimate Music from Final Fantasy

The North American Final Fantasy XIV Fan Fest began today, and as expected, producer and director Naoki Yoshida's keynote featured the announcement of the next expansion planned for the game:Dawntrail.

The theme of the expansion is "Summer Vacation", as the Warrior of Light and friends travel to what's been known previously as "The New World":Tural, an area located in the Far West. The premise for the Warrior of Light traveling there is an invitation to a contest that will help decide the next ruler of its hub city, Tuliyollal. The Scions will be pitted against each other during the contest--just who will be on the Warrior of Light's side?

Other revelations included:

• Urqopacha, a mountainous region home to "peoples both exceedingly large and unusually small in nature."
• Yak Tel, a forest region accessible by dirigible.
• The Pelupelu, an allied tribe.
• A level cap increase to 100.
• Two new jobs, both DPS: one melee and one magical ranged caster.
• A "whiteboard" feature which will let players plan raid strategies.
• More details on the previously announced graphical update.
• A cross-over event withFall Guys, including new content to the Gold Saucer in Final Fantasy XIV.
• The expansion of the free trial to now include the entirety ofStormblood.

There was one other huge announcement: the game is making its way to the Xbox Series X|S. Open beta will be in spring of 2024, before Dawntrail is released.

Here's the teaser trailer for your enjoyment:
Source:Final Fantasy XIV Official YouTube Channel,USA Today,Game Informer

Rumors had been bouncing around for the last couple days that a remaster or remake of the classic Squaresoft/Nintendo collaboration for SNES would appear at today's Direct, and so it was.The original game released in 1996 and the original was packaged up for Virtual Console on Wii and Wii U, but never for Switch, and perhaps now we know why. The game's been redone with a very nice new engine, even with the slightly-squished look of the original isometric visuals intact.

The new version of the game will release on November 17, 2023. Digital preorders are available now; I assume there will be a physical release of the game as well, but those details are not yet available.

Source: Nintendo of America YouTube

After the mild disappointment of the Sony Showcase, in which we got no Final Fantasy VII, the Summer Game Fest stream that just ended gave us a little bit more of what we're looking for: a brand-new trailer for Final Fantasy VII Rebirth.

This had been expected for the last week or so, when the official Twitter accounts in both Japanese and English started posting semi-cryptic updates about the progress of the game, and users noticed that they started exactly seven days before Keighley's SGF. Bad news out of the way, first - the trailer locks in a mostly-assumed bit of news, that the game is delayed now until "Early 2024." That same title card has some surprising news, too - the game is shipping on two discs. This obviously means that it's going to be a larger game than the first one, which shipped on a single disc for Playstation 5 even including Yuffie's Intermission. I'm going to do something odd for CoN news here and put my impressions of the trailer in a separate thread so they can be more easily avoided for users who want no chance of spoilers. For this post, I'll just suffice to say that my kid got very excited very quickly.

The other Final Fantasy VII game that's on the way, Ever Crisis, also got a new trailer and updated release information. In this case, the new information is that players can pre-register for the game now; additionally, players on Android devices can sign up to get into a closed beta starting today and running until just about the end of June. It seems like this game should make it to Switch, eventually, but unfortunately that was not part of today's announcment.The way I see it, if you're not completely sold on Final Fantasy XVI yet, there is at least a lot of good Final Fantasy VII coming... but probably not soon enough.