News

E3 is next week, y'all. It seems to me that some of the luster has fallen off of E3 in general over the last few years, but it's still a major event, and as such our favorite game company has been doing a lot to get new information in front of us in preparation for what they'll have on the show floor. We mentioned earlier this week one big pre-3 announcement, of course; since then, there have been a number more.

The biggest one, because it's the flagship, is the next Final Fantasy XV Active Time Report. It's called "Day Zero Edition," as it is happening the day before E3 officially begins - June 13th in the evening - likely too late for my old bones, so I'll try to catch everyone up the following morning. I'm really not sure what they might have to talk about in this ATR, given the massive scope of the Uncovered event from March, so I assume it will essentially be a preview of what will be on the show floor.

Another big game coming soon for Squenix is the bridge between the past Kingdom Hearts games and the future Kingdom Hearts III: Kingdom Hearts II.8. For that game, there's a new trailer that rolls up new cinematic footage from all of the included remasters, as well as more from the brand new content in 0.2 Birth By Sleep.

If you like things to be way super cuter than even Disney characters, though, you're looking for World of Final Fantasy, the new sideline Final Fantasy game with chibi characters from across the series. There's another new trailer for that game, with lots of cutscenes and what also appears to be some combat video (albeit, without any sort of UI). Watch the trailer to see interactions with Celes, Edgar, Tidus, Yuna, Lightning, Cloud, Squall, Vivi, and even many more. There's a release date, as well, and it's world-wide: October 25, 2016.

Dragon Quest Builders is coming to E3, as well, as it was announced for a Western release last week. It will also be coming this October, and also got a new trailer just like everything else. There's no actual English in it besides the end cap, but there's no dialogue in it at all so you're really not missing much!

If you're looking to see what's going to be on the show floor, you're in luck because Square Enix Presents will be livestreaming from the show again this year, on both Twitch and YouTube. In my opinion, I've found most of what they've shown in the past to be heavy on fluff and light on breaking news, but they will be showing a lot of games from all of their series. There will be content from all the games already mentioned in this post, as well as Tomb Raider, Deus Ex, Star Ocean, Setsuna, Brave Exvius, and just way too many more to mention.

As always, CoN chat will be talking about E3 live... probably. So feel free to stop in during next week even if you're not a regular!

Source: Gematsu, Siliconera, Square Enix Blog

In this week's news out of left field, Square Enix announced over the weekend that Final Fantasy XII is getting a full remaster for Playstation 4, to be released next year. In the vein of Final Fantasy X, this new remaster, subtitled "The Zodiac Age," will be based on the previous Japan re-release "International Zodiac Job System," which changed the original License Board system into one divided by the signs of the zodiac. As befitting a remaster, the game contains a large number of improvements, including:

• High-resolution upgrades for the world, characters, and UI
• High-resolution upgrades for movie cutscenes
• 7.1 channel surround sound
• Voiceovers in English and Japanese
• Remastered soundtrack
• Decreased load times
• Autosave settings

Despite having been just announced, the game will be playable at E3 next week. Click through to Gematsu to see a gallery of screenshots, which look very, very good, especially in battle. So far, the game has been announced just for PS4, but I would be rather surprised if a Windows release did not follow fairly close behind.

Source: Gematsu

In somewhat unsurprising news, the smartphone Square Enix RPG Final Fantasy: Brave Exvius was announced yesterday for a global release. The game has been downloaded six million times already in Japan since its release last October. Brave Exvius is a story-driven, turn-based title that follows two knights, Rain and Lasswell, and their young companion Fina on a very-Final-Fantasy quest to bring light back to the crystals of their world. The game supports parties of up to six, with slots available to guest characters pulled from other Final Fantasy games, such as Vivi and Terra.

The game is sprite-based for battle and exploration, while cutscenes and summon animations appear to be pre-rendered. The battles appear to be fast-paced, but not to the chaotic and frankly pointless level of All the Bravest, which alleviates some of my previous concern for the title.

There's no release date set for the worldwide release, but a playable version of the game in English will be at E3 next month. Six languages will be available at launch. Players can pre-register now to get bonuses and in-game items, with registration available at the game's official worldwide site.


Source: GameSpot

Here's some non-Square Enix news that you folks are likely to appreciate: Nippon Ichi Software, sires of the well-regarded Disgaea series of tactical isometric RPGs (among other games), announced today that Phantom Brave about to be ported to Steam for Windows. Phantom Brave is a more under-the-radar title from NIS, though it's generally very well-regarded, with reviews of 8.6/10 and 9/10 from IGN and Eurogamer respectively. It's been released in the West before, first for PlayStation 2, then later for the original Wii, and finally for the PSP, with enhanced and expanded content each time. The Windows version will roll up all of the content into a new package to be released in July, specifically on the 25th.

It's worth noting while this post is going, by the way, that Phantom Brave will be the second PC port released here by NIS. It looks as if the first Disgaea (Afternoon of Darkness) is already here, which is something I completely missed. The version of Disgaea released to PC included upgraded graphics and Steamworks integration and is currently selling for $19.99, so one can expect the same from Phantom Brave this summer.

Source: Gematsu, Steam

After the many years of success enjoyed by the Distant Worlds concert tour, playing orchestral arrangements of Final Fantasy music worldwide, Square Enix has paired with concert promoter La Fee Sauvage to offer a similar show with the music of Kingdom Hearts.

The general setup is that of Distant Worlds, featuring a 70-plus piece orchestra that is local to the venue performing songs from the game series. One might assume that there won't be as much variety available as for Distant Worlds, but the Kingdom Hearts series does itself span eight distinct games now, not including remixes, remakes, and re-imaginings. I've never played a KH game myself, but I did do some sampling of the soundtracks for this post and I think it's safe to say that fans will no doubt find some very lovely music performed on stage. As a note, the Kingdom Hearts series features music composed by Yoko Shimomura, one of gaming's most prolific composers and the composer for the upcoming Final Fantasy XV.

The World Tour won't begin until next year, and is currently scheduled to appear in seven cities worldwide: Tokyo, Paris, London, Singapore, Shanghai, Los Angeles, and New York. The European shows all take place in March of 2017; the American shows are in June.

The latest Final Fantasy XV Active Time Report was yesterday at an insanely-early hour, so I (and likely all of you) missed it. It looks like we didn't miss that much, really, as there were no new earth-shattering pieces of news around the game, but mainly updates on things that we had seen before. For instance, the team expressed how the sideline video content in the anime or movie isn't strictly necessary to understand the game; the Justice Monsters V app will be out for Android next week, iOS in June, and Windows 10 sometime in the summer; the game will have a New Game + mode; and the next ATR will take place at E3. Also, if you wanted the very expensive ultimate edition, it sounds like Squenix are aiming to put together another ten thousand copies worldwide.

Valkyrie Anatomia is getting some more press as its release nears. The game got a new trailer last week and this week both. The first one is very much a teaser, with nothing more than extremely dramatic narration and music. The newer one actually shows some art and even the briefest glimpse at a battle scene.

Somehow I missed that there's a Theatrhythm game in the works for arcades in Japan, a second game to follow the handheld-to-arcade flow of Dissidia. The game is far enough along to be location-tested in a half-dozen locations, and to prepare users the company produced a tutorial video. This is a niche game if there ever was one: rhythm, Square Enix, arcade, arcade with intense custom controllers to emulate touch, multi-console co-op, yeah, we're probably never going to see this over here. Looks pretty, though, and the co-op scene at 2:50 in the video is intense.

Speaking of Dissidia in arcades, the next update to that game brings Garland in as the first villain to this big-screen version. If you ever thought he didn't look malicious enough in any of the iterations of Final Fantasy I, you can put that thought to rest; he's a heavy-type character here and is a seriously hulking brute. And since I missed it a while back, Ramza's in there now too. He's in his squire gear and carries a light fencing sword. And he has a nose.

Back to mobile games, where last week Square teased "Project: Rising" for Android and iOS. Turns out that the game is called "Samurai Rising," and is an action RPG; it looks to be a mashup of a lot of different things from the Squenix canon, with art style in-game reminiscent of the 3DS Final Fantasies, character artwork that could have come from Bravely Default, and an overhead action combat model that could be from a Mana game.

Let's wrap up these tidbits with "I am Setsuna". I mentioned before that the game would be playable at PAX East, which starts today (and, by the way, appears to be an utter mess; my friends were reporting lines of fifteen minutes just to cross the street to get to the convention hall earlier today). Today's news details the basic plot and a release date of July 19th for both PlayStation 4 and Windows/Steam. This game looks to be gorgeous and the fact that it's now coming for Windows makes me quite happy.

Source: Gematsu, Siliconera, Polygon