News

Because I've missed a couple Fridays, here's an off-schedule Tidbits post of Square Enix news to cover the gap for a bit.

In case you missed the last post, there are big releases for PSP coming from the Final Fantasy franchise very soon. Over the past couple weeks, the company has had a media blowout to share new shinies with the gaming public from both Final Fantasy IV Collection and Dissidia Duodecim. These probably aren't new to the fans who most eagerly await these two releases, but if you're still on the fence or don't have a PSP... well, you're probably not reading this thread, are you? Okay, in that case, it's just for those of you who might be bored.

Here's a list of the new stuff by game:

• Final Fantasy IV Collection
  • New trailer with "Interlude" content bridging the two games
  • Screenshots from andriasang
• Dissidia Duodecim
  • More screenshots from andriasang
  • Low-quality video of the new Desperado Chaos character

Additionally involving both Dissidia and FFIV Collection is the detail released last week regarding some free DLC for Dissidia. Some of it is free to all from the Playstation Store, two new costumes for Cecil can be gotten for free with purchase of Collection, and the last is just for people who belong to the Mobile Square Enix site, which will bring some free new music into the game. All of these promotions are obviously just for the Japanese Dissidia players; does anyone know from other sources or from the treatment of the first game if similar promotions will run here in the West?

Finally, a bit of bolt-on news, unrelated to the PSP; Square Enix tweeted today that they have another new Facebook game in the works. This one will be set in Japan and will center around some sort of group of fairies. I'm trusting someone else's translation, here, possibly to my chagrin. I think that previous Square Enix Facebook games have been modestly successful, though, so whatever's good for the company, why not go for it?

Source: andriasang

Final Fantasy VI is on the way to yet another release, but it's still not the rumored 3D remake for the Nintendo 3DS. As close as you're getting now is the Wii, and Japan is as close as it is getting to Western gamers, at least for now.

Coming sometime in March, Final Fantasy VI will cost 900 Wii Points, a little higher than the standard cost for Super Famicom games. Like other VC games, this will be a largely-untweaked port of the original SFam/SNES release. There's no word yet whether it will get the same treatment for the West, though I wouldn't be shocked to see it over here quite soon.

Who knows, perhaps it will have some bearing on that FF6 remake that so many people want to see on the new Nintendo portable. If you have a Wii and under ten bucks to drop, maybe give it a go if and when it gets here, eh?

Source: andriasang

It would be more convenient for everyone if they would just add all their dates at once, don't you think? The Distant Worlds team left some gaps in the 2011 schedule when we last heard from them, but it's now time to start filling a few in.

First up is the first time that Distant Worlds will hit the five boroughs of New York City: 1 and 2 April 2011. Uematsu will attend, as will FFXIV vocalist Susan Calloway for these Friday and Saturday night shows. It appears that these shows will be the first Distant Worlds shows to play Final Fantasy XIII and XIV music in North America.

Between New York and Chicago, Atlanta is getting two shows too, on 6 and 7 May. There's no further information as yet as to who might attend those shows as a celebrity guest, but since they're not saying, that doesn't look good. Still, if you're in the South, it's probably a much easier concert to see than New York!

And, if you just can't get to any of these shows, you're not alone. But on April 1, you'll be able to get a live performance DVD on AmaCoN for both North America and Europe. They're not up for preorder yet, but we'll provide the links just as soon as we have them!

Source: Distant Worlds

A cool week for Square Enix News Tidbits, by and large, but two upcoming PSP games from long-running Squenix franchises got North American release dates this week.

For those who haven't been turned off by the series' lack of desire to maintain a consistent game genre or play style, The 3rd Birthday got a release date as well as a lead voice actress for fan favorite Aya Brea. The game will be available to North American players on 29 March 2011 (which just happens to be this humble author's birthday, so hint, hint); if you pick the game up, you'll hear Aya voiced by Yvonne Strahovski. You might well recognize her name from her work both as a voice actress in Mass Effect 2, as Miranda, as well as her leading role in NBC's "Chuck." If you'd like to get your preorder in for this game via AmaCoN, look no further.

Another game getting a release date this week is the PSP remake of Final Fantasy IV. This one will be dropping on 19 April 2011; if you haven't seen the news, you can note that this remake will be a rollup of Final Fantasy IV with previously-Wii-only The After Years. We know that the game will get a bit of visual polish and new CG, and will probably look a bit like previous Final Fantasy remakes on the handheld, but other than that we're not quite sure which Final Fantasy IV we're getting, exactly. Picking up the game? Let us know, and do it from AmaCoN.

This is shaping up to be a massive year for Squenix on the PSP. Beyond these two games, don't forget that owners of the now-first-generation Sony handheld will be getting Tactics Ogre and the Dissidia sequel, all before the end of Spring. Keeping up will be painful.

Source: IGN, Kotaku

If you've been at the forums recently, you not only know about the Square Enix 1st Production Department Premier, and you've probably also read some bits and pieces about the contents of the mini-exposition, too. For your convenience, though, we'll roll it up a bit for you here in the news section. Where we ask people to post new news and such!

Anyway, here's the big stuff. As just about everyone knows by now, there's going to be a Final Fantasy XIII-2, and it has a trailer already. This game's still not Versus. That's still its own game, and it has a new trailer too. And after all this time, that's still all it has. If that doesn't get you excited for its prospects, well, there's not much more I can do for you.

In other Final Fantasy XIII news, the game that we always knew as Agito is Agito no longer; the newly mentioned Type-0 is the new name. The other Final Fantasy XIII news is that Type-0 won't actually be a Final Fantasy game any more, but instead is the starting point for a new series.

Square Enix also showed Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep Final Mix, which is an extended version of the Birth By Sleep game released last year. Previous Final Mix releases in the series have been Japan-only, and have mostly been Japanese releases of the American version, with a bit of bonus content.

The newest Kingdom Hearts will be coming out for Nintendo's new 3DS, and at this meeting, it got a name: Dream Drop Distance. You see what they did there? There are three "D"s in that name. It's on a 3-D system. Et cetera. Sora and Riku both will star.

Duodecim got some significant play as well, with new characters announced, including Gilgamesh. There's going to be a paid demo in Japan, and folks who buy the demo can get Aeris as an assist character in the full game. No word yet on whether that will be a possibility elsewhere, of course. The American release date was announced separately, too - the game will hit stores here on 22 March, for thirty bucks, and it's ready for pre-order on AmaCoN now, as is The 3rd Birthday, which happens to come out a week later.

Yeah, that's a lot of stuff for a meeting that only happened for about three hours. Not knowing Japanese, hey, I might have missed some stuff, too. Feel free to let me know in the comments.


Source: Kotaku, andriasang, Kingdom Hearts Insider

In case you don't already own one of the many, many PSP bundles released in Japan already (and, come on, who doesn't have at least two?), you might be interested to know that there's yet another one coming, this time for everyone's favorite Final Fantasy universe fighting game. Well, the sequel to everyone's favorite, at least. I expect that it will need to be at least released before it's everyone's favorite in general.

Anyway, it looks as if this bundle, in a striking black and white, features artwork by Yoshitaka Amano on the front and the Dissidia 012 [duodecim] logo on the back battery case. Naturally, it's the PSP-3000 model. This is the first bundle to be designed with Amano artwork, and only the second specially-designed bundle for a Final Fantasy game (the first being for Crisis Core) and third for Square-Enix (Star Ocean got one too).

No word yet on whether this one will make it to the West. Keep your fingers crossed, Dissidia fans, or pony up the 23,000 yen!

Source: Kotaku