Square-Enix at E3 - DQ on Wii, FF XIII on PS3

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