Square Enix News Tidbits: Handhelds Are Your Gods

Whoa, buddy. Square Enix woke up this week - there's buckets of tidbits coming down the pipeline. Again, they tend to be mostly hand-held, but that's just where the company is right now; they're working to get their foot into a market that is more lucrative than console gaming, and I'm pretty sure this one is.

Let's start with the biggest one: we already talked about Final Fantasy VI coming to the Wii Virtual Console in Japan. Next month, it's getting a new partner in crime: Chrono Trigger. Like Final Fantasy VI, it seems a total no-brainer to bring this one to the States soon; however, there's no announcement yet for anyone in the West. I think you probably can hold your breath, though, if you really want to; again, kind of a no-brainer to bring one of the best RPGs of the 16-bit era over and make a bit of cash from it.

There's new info for Final Fantasy Type-0 this week; it appears that Jump and Dengeki Playstation beat Famitsu to the ball. There's a bit of gameplay info and some new screens from Jump, and Dengeki published some battle screenshots and a bit of early description of how the battle system will work. To me, it sounds a bit like a multi-member-party Crisis Core, with the battles resembling the missions of Crisis Core a bit, as they seem to contain a series of battles which end only when you find and defeat the "lead enemy." To explain the difference in the characters, Dengeku also goes a bit into three of the characters' fighting styles: Ace tosses cards a la Setzer for both attack and defense, Nine is a lancer, and Queen is a swordswoman. Famitsu did catch up at the end of the week, with a big blowout of new screens and even more battle, story, and character information than the other two, including some extrapolation on the party setup - while parties will include three members, you will control only one at a time - switching between the three can be done mid-stream, though. Anyway, my favorite part of info from that rollup is that there might actually be a playable Tonberry character. How great would that be?

Final Fantasy III dropped for iOS this week, at the low, low price of $15.99. When you consider that the DS version is still twenty bucks from Amazon, maybe that's not so bad. The reviews on iTunes are really great so far, but really, how much can you trust reviews like that? I will say that the game looks pretty fantastic based on the screens and video I've seen, but I just can't really fathom using my phone that much for a game. The release of III pays dividends for those who want other FF games on their Apple devices, though: Squenix is dropping the prices of their other games until the end of the month to celebrate. For instance, Final Fantasy is down to $3.99, and Song Summoner is $4.99, both the cheapest they've ever been, by far. Something that's not going on sale is the gallery/calendar/clock Dissidia Duodecim app, which rings in at $5.99 and has some pretty pictures and some functionality that is like what is already on your iOS device, just not as useful. Well played, Squenix.

Final Fantasy IV: Complete Collection released in Japan yesterday, too. andriasang brings us all of the launch info for the game, from adverts to related Dissidia Duodecim content to downloadable wallpaper, the second of which is really pretty awesome.

In Square Enix business news, the company announced this week that they launched a new subsidiary on 7 March called Hippos Lab, with an adorable logo to match. This company allegedly will be tasked with creating original content for smartphones - what this really means remains to be seen, but it could be interpreted that either the wash of smartphone remakes is at its end, or that it might just continue while the new company focuses solely on new games and new IPs. Simultaneously, the company said that the announcement regarding what Canadian city would get the new Squenix studio would come in May, but there's still no word on what games the studio might produce.

Source: andriasang, Kotaku, Gamasutra