News

This will be my shortest newspost ever, but I didn't want any punk wannabe newsposters beating me to the info this time.

Square-Enix recently revealed that Balthier (also known as Balflear), the loveable air pirate from Final Fantasy XII, will have a storyline role in the PSP remake of Final Fantasy Tactics. It is unconfirmed if he will be playable or not, but he will have a storyline role.

In the same announcement, Square-Enix revealed one of the new job classes for the remake: Dark Knight. Let the moveset speculation run wild.

Source: RPGFan

A recent developer blog post by Square-Enix's Tetsuya Nomura revealed a great deal of new information regarding the Fabula Nova Crystalis project, which comprises the PS3 games Final Fantasy XIII and Final Fantasy Versus XIII, as well as the cell phone game Final Fantasy Agito XIII.

The world of Final Fantasy XIII is called "Cocoon," and it uses crystal technology to create a highly advanced society. It is also completely surrounded by a large shell, which protects Cocoon and its inhabitants from all manner of evil residing outside of the shell, whose space is collectively called "Pulse." Cocoon's government reacts to the threat of the Pulse lurking monsters with "drastic measures," and uses the threat of exiling Cocoon citizens to Pulse as a means of controlling the people. Lightning, FF XIII's protagonist, is "chosen by the Crystal" to stop "those who would destroy the world," but Nomura (who is working on FF XIII as a character designer) was vague on any details otherwise.

Summons are going to be handled very differently in Final Fantasy XIII than in past FF games. They still serve as allies of our protagonist, but have some very unusual abilities; for example, the summon Shiva can now be transformed into a motorcycle, which Lightning can ride during battle. Somehow, this action-oriented feature is going to be implemented in a classic ATB system, but Nomura also stated that the game's developers are having "difficulties" implementing these new features.

Final Fantasy Versus XIII, an entirely separate game on its own, is supposedly set in a single kingdom within the same universe as Final Fantasy XIII and features a conflict centered over the last remaining crystal of said kingdom. The still-unnamed main character is a silver-haired swordsman who can teleport to any location where his sword is thrown. FF Versus XIII is being directed by Nomura himself and will use an action-oriented game engine based on the Kingdom Hearts series. Neither FF XIII nor FF Versus XIII has received a release date yet.

Final Fantasy Agito XIII is going to be a fully-3D cell phone game that centers on protecting another one of these crystals. That's essentially all that is known about Agito thus far, that and the fact that it doesn't have a release date either.

Source: RPGFan

Yes, you heard correctly. The ninth entry of the fabled RPG series is going to be on the Nintendo DS. Very little concrete info has been released thus far, but we know that it's going to be called Dragon Quest IX: Defenders of the Stars and it's going to be co-developed by the Dragon Quest dearm team (Yuji Horii, etc.) and Level-5, virtually the same team that brought us Dragon Quest VIII for the PS2 a year ago. Horii himself stated in the press release that this DS game is "not a gaiden or side-story, but a true part of the series."

This is great news for fans of the series, who are unfortunately accustomed to long delays in between DQ titles (there were five years between the releases of DQ VI and DQ VII, followed by four years between DQ VII and DQ VIII). It is certainly unexpected for Square-Enix to put the next iteration of such a major series on a handheld system, but it might just be a testament to the overwhelming popularity and developer support of the Nintendo DS in Japan. In any case, the tentative release date for Dragon Quest IX is "mid-2007."

source: N-sider

First of all, thanks everyone that took part in our little CoNtest. We had around two dozen entries, with some of them surprisingly close and some of them hilariously off-course. In any case, we had two entries in particular that came awfully close to a perfect four for four. So, I hereby offer heartiest of congratulations to...

Zeromus_X and Nytecrawla!

Both users guessed two correct and had a third guess that was one of the four fakes in the wrong place. No users had more than two correct answers. Still, in any case, both Nytecrawla and Zeromus_X each earned twenty dollars in the form of an amazon.com gift certificate! If there had been a single winner or if the winning entries had been more correct the prize probably would have been greater, but hey, it's twenty bucks! What's not to love?

Also, the staff members of Caves of Narshe would like to thank all of the participants and other interested parties. We had a blast conducting this CoNtest (mostly laughing at the antics of the four fakes) and you can probably expect a new CoNtest sometime next year, but not one like this. Seriously, we'll probably never be able to pull this off ever again now that all of you have experienced it.

And yes, I know what you guys want to hear. Who exactly were those four? Which staff members went incognito? Well, we'll let them tell you themselves. Keep an eye on this thread for the final posts of chou, kimono==kitsune, Inque, and Green Mage for the truth!

The Caves of Narshe forum community has seen a number of very interesting and amusing new users. There's the Kimono^_^Kitsune the Japanophile, The Green Mage the aspiring author, Inque the capitalizer, and chou the obnoxious jerk. Just one thing you should know about those four....

Each of them was a staff member posting in disguise.

This is where the contest comes in - we will be awarding Amazon.com gift certificates to anyone who can correctly guess the true identity of those four users. Each of them is one and only one unique staff member - no staffer did more than one fake, and no staff member shared a fake with any other staff members. The prizes will be Amazon gift certificates ranging from $20 to $30, depending on how many perfect entries we receive, but we will guarantee that at least one user will win one, even if no one gives a perfect entry. We'll stop accepting entries and determine the contest winners two weeks from today's date. If you aren't sure who's a staff member and who isn't, then check the staff link here - any current staff member on that list is a possible candidate.

To enter, just send an email to [email protected], with a subject line of "CoNtest". Your entry should clearly and concisely show who you are and what your guesses are, sort of like this:

laszlow's guesses

chou is Rangers51
Kimono^_^Kitsune is Tiddles
Inque is Neal
The Green Mage is Mr_Thou

Now, I'll give you an extra hint and say that the above entry isn't 100% correct. Aren't I generous? Anyway, have fun! You guys didn't actually think chou was for real, did you?

That's right, for the first time in over a year, Caves of Narshe is holding a contest. The exact nature of this contest won't be revealed until later this month. At the moment all I'll say is that it's only open to forum members (not staff members) and that your chances of winning will *probably* be higher if you've been frequenting these forums for some time.

In any case, the prizes will be Amazon.com gift certificates and the contest will be unveiled sometime around Thanksgiving (the USA's version), with the winner selected a week or two after the contest's announcement. Let the speculation begin!