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OK, Square-Enix concluded their E3 presentation a few minutes ago, and here's the jist of what they brought to the floor:

Their presentation opened up with several trailers, including Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth, an FF XI expansion, and a full English trailer for FF XII, which is indeed coming out this October in the US. There were also trailers for FF V Advance, FF VI Advance, and several mobile phone titles.

The two new Seiken Densetsu games, Dawn of Mana and Children of Mana, for the PS2 and DS respectively, are still in the works, with Dawn of Mana taking place ten years before Children of Mana. Dawn of Mana is allegedly the "real" Seiken Densetsu IV.

Also, FF: Crystal Chronicle will come to life on both the DS and the Wii, with the DS version featuring wifi connectivity and the Wii version implementing the Wii's controller in some way. We don't have any release date mentioned, just a premise and a promise.

Speaking of handhelds, there was little new information in the initial presentation regarding the two Advance titles or FF III DS, but Square-Enix showed some trailers and promised "to have new surprises" for the two GBA titles. FF III DS is being billed as "the only Final Fantasy to have never reached Western shores" and urges fans to "complete the fantasy" by playing it, but precious little concrete info was revealed, other than a trailer. It is possible that the Square-Enix booth could have more information on the other show days, but right now we only have more trailers, which will probably be all over the interent within days. We didn't receive specific information about FF IV Advance's new features until less than a month before its release; it's looking increasingly likely that that's the case here, too.

The two Valkyrie Profile games have now been dated with the PSP port of the original (Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth) coming this July and the new PS2 sequel (Valkyrie Profile: Silmeria) coming this September.

After a brief appearance by Dragon Quest Heroes: Rocket Slime, the presentation goes into FF VII Compilation material. The PS2's Dirge of Cerberus has been given a US release date (August 22nd of this year), and the PSP's Crisis Core (starring Zack) put up some cutscenes, but no in-game footage.

And now for major announcement #1 - Dragon Quest is going to the Wii. We have no footage and next to zero details on the game, but we do know that it's going to be a launch title and that it's called Dragon Quest Swords: The Masked Queen and the Tower of Mirrors. It's unclear if this is truly Dragon Quest IX or if it's a spinoff like Rocket Slime or Dragon Quest Yangus.

And now, for the hugest piece of news - Final Fantasy XIII is in the works, and it's going to be on the Playstation 3. The trailer showed a woman fighting dozens of robots using a gun and a sword; evidentally FF XIII is set in the most technologically advanced world in FF history. It's going to be directed by Motomu Toriyama, who was an associate director for Final Fantasy X and X-2, and we know little about the game other than its logo (which is linked to below). Along with the PS3 game Square-Enix is bringing on two more games that appear to be set in the FF XIII universe: FF XIII Versus and FF XIII Agito, which are for the PS3 and mobile phones, respectively. The entire FF XIII project is being called "Fabula Nova Crystalis".

While the Toriyama and the FF X team are working on the "real" FF XIII, it seems that that Tetsuya Nomura and the Kingdom Hearts team are working on Versus, which is a game that possesses "extreme action elements" and a focus on "bonding". The latin words in the new game evidently mean "to change direction".

So yeah, that's Square-Enix's big news: The Wii gets Dragon Quest, the PS3 gets FF XIII, and the XBox 360 gets... FF XI. Let the hype begin.

Sources:
Gamespot
Wired

Pictures:
FF XIII trailer pic
Another FF XIII trailer pic
Yet another FF XIII trailer pic
FF XIII Logo
Fabula Nova Crystalis logo
Agito logo

EDIT: the three logo links got cut for some reason but here's a good picture of FF XIII's logo for now: FF XIII logo

This post has been edited by laszlow on 10th May 2006 08:58

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this is a blog mostly about comics and videogames
END SPOILER

Yay!! I'm happy just knowing VP: Lenneth is coming to the US. And the other FF Ports. Now to prepare for the whining that FFXIII is too technological...

Oh yeah, and the logo isn't appearing, it has some bandwidth warning or something when I open it.

And, I hope that that is DQIX, though it probably is just a spin-off game or something.

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OSonic Rave
/ \Last Arcanum
[ ]Strike Raid
XRagnarok

Crisis Core, starring Zack?
Yes please.

FFXIII looks absolutely sick, in ways video games shouldn't be allowed to.
I'm definately hoping the PS3 won't be too far out of my price range now, because I'm going to have to pick it up for sure now, thanks to this.

I'm also really excited to see FF VI and V advance, but patience is key I guess.



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Okay, but there was a goat!

Quote (Dragon_Fire @ 8th May 2006 19:26)

I'm definately hoping the PS3 won't be too far out of my price range now, because I'm going to have to pick it up for sure now, thanks to this.

That'll be 500 for the 20 GB and 600 for the 60 GB. A BIT heavy on the price side. But hey, they have totally new innovative motion sensing technology in their controller! Who could have ever come up with such a unique idea?

Yes guys, it's official. Sony is one giant anus.

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"We're not tools of the government or anyone else. Fighting... fighting was the only thing I was ever good at, but at least I always fought for what I believed in." - Frank Yeager (a.k.a. Grey Fox)

Quote (FallingHeart @ 8th May 2006 20:50)

That'll be 500 for the 20 GB and 600 for the 60 GB. A BIT heavy on the price side. But hey, they have totally new innovative motion sensing technology in their controller! Who could have ever come up with such a unique idea?

Yes guys, it's official. Sony is one giant anus.

Wow, we posted the prices at exactly the same minute

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this is a blog mostly about comics and videogames
END SPOILER

Quote (Zeromus_X @ 9th May 2006 01:40)

Now to prepare for the whining that FFXIII is too technological...

Attention to anyone who will complain: Shut up now, beacuse a three round burst of 5.56 ruins anyones day much more than a sword. Thank you.

And FH, you know you had a good idea when some other bastard steals it. Shame that's all Revolution had to offer to non-Nintendo fans. An idea.

Anyway, key word there, gun. GUN. GUUUN! And Sword. 40K style close combat alert!

Edit

It's come to my attention it's not at the same time, it's just a bloody gunblade. Laaaame.

But now for the shocker. Nomura in characters not looking retarded shocker? Hopefully that is a woman. And the blokes have sensible hair.

Still, can't have it all I suppose.

This post has been edited by Del S on 10th May 2006 20:04

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"Only the dead have seen the end of their quotes being misattributed to Plato."
-George Santayana

"The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here..."
-Abraham Lincoln, prior to the discovery of Irony.

Here's a link to the trailer. Looks pretty neat, if you ask me. It has a mix of real-time and cutscene footage, and it all looks really good.

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this is a blog mostly about comics and videogames
END SPOILER

much props on the news lasz, youre the master. that FFXIII trailer looks INCREDIBLE, let the hype begin indeed! lookin real forward to the advance GBA FFs as well! Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth looks promising too! even tho i dont have a psp, it still looks good! wow.....

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"The answer is, of course, that it would be best to be both loved and feared. But since the two rarely come together, anyone compelled to choose will find greater security in being feared than in being loved."
- Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince

Man...FFXII and XIII..at the same time announced and showed off! Plus the mana games and crystal chronicles! Thisll be tough to decide between the Wii and the PS3 on games alone...ill have to try to save up nearly 1000.00 for both! hehe...ya never know...

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<DrkMagimaster282> MWAHAHA. I,
DrkMagimaster282, shall wreak havoc and destroy...
<Mother>TIIIIIIMMYYY...are you planning evil, unkind revenge again in the bathroom??
<DrkMagimaster282>UMMMMMMMM...NO.

CoN day is May 27th, 2005
Join elder-geek.com for unbiased reviews, no console wars here...

PS3...Wii...too hard to... decide! I think I'll go for the Wii, but their's still some time left to decide. XBox 360... let's just heave that alone shall we?

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Dead Winter. A nice comic.

Nice, i am definetly getting a Wii and a PS3... The graphics on FFXIII are nice!

No PS3 for me, at least not for now. With the new titles coming out for it (Dawn of Mana ) and all the other older games I still want to play, I'll be plenty happy just to get the PS2.

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Console RPG Cliches

The FFXIII trailer pics look dead sexy. And no, I don't mean the girl, I mean the light reflections off of the background wall. Look at that hotness.

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I find your lack of faith disturbing...

Ha! Like I could afford a Ps3! It'll have to be a revolution for me. But with dragon quest, I cant complain.

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Can you pull down the dawn?
It's been so dark since you've been gone
and we've been begging for the morning to come.
We were so optimistic,
wasn't it so easy to be?
We were young and naive.
-The Hush Sound: Eileen