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At least three shops are offering unique pre-order bonuses in the States for Dissidia: Final Fantasy, which ships on 25 August in North America. Obviously, pre-order bonuses are nothing new, but the fact that there are already three announced, and you can only get them at particular retailers, is a bit more novel (and, dare I say it, moneygrubbing?).

If you're looking to get a pre-order in, here are your options: Best Buy is offering a desk calendar; GameStop has custom cover slipcases that, it appears, slide over the top of the retail case for the game; AmaCoN will ship you a CD with musical selections from the game. And, since we play favorites here, we wholeheartedly support you getting the CD.

Source: Square Enix Members Blog

For those of you wanting to see yet more pretty pictures of the pretty...prettiness of Final Fantasy XIII, you will be please to hear that thirteen new screenshots have recently been released on the net. This fitting number of screens serve to showcase more of the exteriors in which players will presumably fight monsters and the Helghast/Jin-Roh-looking soldiers seen in previous screens and clips.

The new images show off some spell effects as well as a variety of environments. What seems to be an inner city battle at night (it's at least similar to what we have seen before in many early trailers), a snowy mountainside, some barren rocky grasslands, and the obligatory lush forests and dark caves.

With these new screens, Square-Enix's dedication to making it all look very pretty continues, for as is plain to see the world of FF13 certainly looks like a nice place to go sightseeing if you don't mind the occasional angry monster or space nazi jumping out at you.

Source: Final Fantasy Insider

It's far from confirmation of a re-release, but Final Fantasy Tactics has appeared on the ESRB rating list. This isn't, however, the first game to appear on ESRB. Final Fantasy IV: The After, prior to E3, for example. Square-Enix have come through in the past, why not again? If you're curious as to the price tag, Final Fantasy VII was released at $10, so it's probably fair to assume that Tactics will be in the same range.

Although, to be fair, most people who were interested in Final Fantasy Tactics picked it up when it was released on the PSP. Hoorah for yet another re-release. Next up, Final Fantasy IV! Again!

Source: RPGamer

Coloring Dragons, a website dedicated primarily to the hosting and discussion of webcomics, has just published an interview of Rangers51 of the Caves of Narshe (yes, that's me speaking in the third person). The initial interview took place in spring of 2008, and I sat down again with them just today to refresh the content after seeing the interview recently posted featuring CoN member Orinocou. Will you find it interesting? Well, probably not, because as a CoN reader you have already heard me spouting off my philosophies for many a year; however, since this is the first time that I can recall being interviewed simply for being an awesome webbish guy, you might as well check it out.

Source: Coloring Dragons

After ignoring it for far too long, I've now gone through and reconfigured the wallpaper section of CoN to be database-driven; additionally, I've rebranded all the offerings so they're more recognizably CoN. What this means to you, the visitor, is that you can now search through all our wallpapers by size or game, and that we've expanded the total collection from just forty-one total wallpapers across all sizes and designs to over two hundred, including the first wallpapers for both Chrono Trigger and the site itself. So, please, install a wallpaper. Don't let my work be in vain.

That's right, all of you Wii owners out there can see what Cecil and Rosa's son Ceodore as well as the rest of the Final Fantasy IV cast's progeny are up to today, by downloading Final Fantasy IV: The After Years for 800 Wii points (approximately $8 US).

Originally released for Japanese mobile phones, The After Years is the first of an unknown number of chapters of a new adventure. The planet's second moon has reappeared out of nowhere, and a mysterious blue-clad woman is attempting to steal the world's eight crystals. Kain has also exiled himself to Mount. Ordeals, where he hopes to return as someone cleansed of his inner darkness. If you want to find out how all of this new plot goes down, then it's time to get downloading.

Source: Kotaku