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Since its Japanese release on September 14th, Square-Enix's Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, the movie continuation to the critically acclaimed RPG, has sold over 700,000 copies. In addition, it's been reported by the company that the limited edition DVD Box and first print limited edition have all been sold out, and the UMD version is also selling very strongly, although its offical sales numbers were not announced.

This overwhelming popularity has served to encourage Square-Enix to surpass this success in the future, according to the CG movie's producer Shinji Hashimoto, who added that expectations for the North American and European releases are extremely high.

Source: RPGFan

Yoichi Wada, the current president of Square-Enix, made what many fans would consider an exciting announcement yesterday at Japan's Nintendo DS Conference: Final Fantasy V and Final Fantasy VI are now in the process of being re-released on the Game Boy Advance. Much like Final Fantasy IV Advance, the games will receive extra content unfamiliar to both their Super Nintendo and PlayStation versions. Both titles are scheduled to be released sometime next year.

On an interesting note, Wada added that the Final Fantasy III remake for Nintendo DS is indeed well into development. The reason for the slower than anticipated progress? The graphics, specifically those of the characters and fields, are now being made up with polygons, giving the game an authentic 3D look.

(Big thanks to SSJ_Cloud for providing the link)

Source: Games Are Fun

The developer of familiar hits including Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and the Baldur's Gate series, BioWare, has announced a brand new action-RPG entitled Mass Effect for the upcoming Xbox 360.

Set centuries into the future, Mass Effect tells of an intergalactic society made up of advanced humans and alien races. Players will explore and battle their way across undiscovered alien worlds as they control an agent bent on halting a great evil threatening this coexistence.

No release date has been set, but a gameplay trailer can be viewed at BioWare's official website.

Source: RPGamer

As reported by a recent article in Shonen Jump magazine regarding the Game Boy Advance port of Final Fantasy IV, the game will indeed, for the most part, remain largely unchanged from its original Super Nintendo form. As indicated by early images of the game, graphical improvements have been made as well as the addition of character portraits inside dialogue boxes.

Nintendo and Square Enix reportedly display interest in porting more Final Fantasy titles to the Game Boy Advance in the near future as part of their "Final Fantasy Series Port Project", although no official announcements have been made.

Final Fantasy IV for the GBA will be in North American stores on December 12th, 2005. Japan has yet to receive a specific release date, but sources confirm it will be available sometime in Winter 2005.

Source: RPGamer

Two new installments to the beloved Seiken Densetsu series are on the way, and it's about time! Seiken Densetsu DS: Children of Mana and the long awaited Seiken Densetsu 4 were recently announced by Square Enix as part of the company's World of Mana project. As the title of the first game implies, Children of Mana will be released on the Nintendo DS heldheld, continuing the series tradition of 2D graphics. Seiken Densetsu 4 will feature highly-detailed 3D graphics, but it is currently unknown on what platform it will appear.

While no US release dates are in sight for either game, Seiken Densetsu DS: Children of Mana will be on sale in Japan in 2006. No release date has been confirmed for Seiken Densetsu 4.

Source: RPGFan