News

With Final Fantasy XIV looming very slowly towards us like a slightly sped up glacier, some new screenshots have been released. And like a glacier, they're very pretty.

The screenshots showcase a handful of the new environments for the MMO-inclined to grind and grief in, as well as showing off the fashion models of the races which as previously noted, have been renamed from FF XI, and are now the Not-Humes (Hyur), the Not-Mithra (Miqo'te), the Not-Tarutaru (Lalafell), the Not-Galkan (Roegadyn), and the Not-Elvaan (Elezen).

These screens add very little to what is already known about the game except to assist the Eorzea tourist board in selling their region to tourists, presumably Americans, Europeans and Japanese with the ability to pay a monthly fee and not, say, an invading Imperial army with flamethrowers.

For those who were not previously interested in this game or MMORPG's in general, the screens of the glacier are unlikely to interest you, but for those wanting their next dose of monthly fee MMO, Square-Enix ought to have you salivating. Personally, I think they should liven up this glacier with a polar bear or two. Or telling us more about the people with the flamethrowers.

Source: FF Insider

New or old?

Admittedly, not a whole lot to see, but it's a start! Oh, and they're revamping all the race names again. So, what was Human and then Hume, is now Hyuran. So, based on this formula, Final Fantasy XXVII online will have so many vowels in the name of the human race it'll be pronouncable only by those who have no tongue.

Sarcasm aside, i'm sure these announcements are very important to fans of Final Fantasy XI. And they can tell us just how different things seem so far. As a pure observer of both, they look pretty similar. I'm personally more interested in XIII - it seems prettier. And cheaper. And single player.

Source: Kotaku

As posted earlier today by bigfootmike, Square-Enix has a new countdown clock up on their Japanese site.

While the mystery will be revealed in approximately five days, the internet may have some clues. Members of the Neogaf forums believe this countdown to be related to Lord of Vermillion, a popular arcade game that Square-Enix operates in Japan. While the game is over a year old and no home version or port looks likely, Square-Enix did register Lord of Arcana with the U.S. Patent and Trademark office.

Anything at this point is speculation, but the art styles of the game and the teaser site do look similar, and the URL for the countdown does not mention anything Final Fantasy-related. Time will tell, but it doesn't look like this is news will mean much to non-Japanese gamers.

Source: Neogaf Forums, Siliconera, Lord of Vermillion Site

Well, what have we here. A number of assorted snippets from this week, some interesting, some annoying, and some just silly. Let's looking!

Number One
Final Fantasy Anedote Release Date
The Anecdote will be released in Japan on October 29th, so it will reach international shores in 2010. If we're lucky.

Number II
0807
Remember how countdown clocks were used for Final Fantasy Anecdote, and everyone groaned because it's the most boring way to announce a new game? Square Enix are NOT LEARNING! We have about VI days and XXII hours before we know what this, so be sure to throw a brick or II through their official building's windows before that time.

Number Three
Final Fantasy XIII Screenshots
And there are many of them. They look cool; and by cool, I mean totally sweet.

Number Four
Star Ocean 3 != PS3?
Star Ocean 3 being listed as a PS3 game temporarily was confirmed as a database error. All seventeen PS3 owners that play Star Ocean can hang their heads in disappointment.

Well, that's all, folks. Isn't there more important event today you should be reading about?

Source: Kotaku

Edit: Josh can take his news system and put it where the sun don't shine.

The site's twelve now. As many of you know, this means that the Caves of Narshe is certainly what the media folks call a "tween," and I believe it; just the other day, Climmy threw a temper tantrum when I wouldn't buy him a Jonas Brothers poster.

He then proceeded to murder a bystander. The analogy only goes so far.

All that aside, the site is indeed twelve - however, to my eye, she's got the lustre of a site only half her age, and the vitality to boot. It's been a pretty shiny year for CoN, even though some might have wondered last year how many more good years we had under our belts. We might have even wondered it ourselves, and as such, we made the second half of 2008 the catalyst for change and carried that through to now. In terms of development, I think we turned the last year of the site into a pretty significant one, with the launch of the big new Chrono Trigger section. We'd thought about covering Chrono Trigger almost from the very day that we put Final Fantasy IV on the site, and as the stars aligned with the impressive DS port, we took the leap. The result was CoN progress like we hadn't seen in years, with a large group all coming together and really banging it out (in this case, "it" being the first major collection of data for the SNES/PSX and DS versions all in one spot). Not only did we do that, we also put together a new wallpaper section, giving some love to a section of the site that hadn't been loved in over a year and a half. It's the only place to find wallpapers designed with the CoN user in mind, and there are over two hundred wallpapers there among all sizes and designs. Not content with those two big projects, we even rolled out a new way to publish gaming news to you folks, including better ways to organize and browse and even a way to get you guys more involved by submitting your own.

You should think this was enough, right? Wrong, sucka. Got even a little bit more, going up today. First, we're broadening the avatar gallery with a wider array from our newest game, Chrono Trigger and a huge selection of pins from Square's big 2008 hit, The World Ends With You. For those of you who have a thing for CoN History, like we do, we also decided to put together, well, pretty much every page from every previous version of CoN and put it back online. It's goofy, sure, but no more goofy than the quality of the code on most of it, which I've managed to largely leave unadulterated. The CoN History page has links to all four previous design iterations just waiting for you. Please, visit and mock the skills I had back in the time of the ancients.

Finally, and I think this is the big one (hence it being last, and in friggin' bold, duh), is the return of a feature that people loved many a year ago: the CoN quiz is now back on the road and ready to abuse you, with a twist. Now the questions aren't just from our covered games - those only make up the first tier, called "Local" since the questions are, y'know, local to the site. We've got two new tiers of questions, "Regional" and "Global," which are pulled from the entire Square Enix canon and all of gaming, resepectively. So, if you think you know your stuff, there are quizzes open right now. Get started. And, hey, since we like giving away AmaCoN money, here's the new CoNtest for the rest of this year: whoever ends this calendar year (as of 23:59:59 GMT on 31 December 2009) on top of the Top Scorers page for all quizzes (with at least ten quizzes taken) will take home $25 in AmaCoN dollars or their local equivalent. Also, let me take this time to personally thank all the folks who participated in the closed beta for this new project over the last couple weeks; we made some significant improvements that everyone will appreciate, and we'll look to do more of that in the near future.

So, there we go, we have another year's worth of work in place. And it's surely enough to convince everyone that we, unlike most everyone else out there, have yet to give up the ghost. So we'll go into our lucky thirteenth year, knowing that the experience of the previous twelve years will keep us going with new projects and new ways to keep the site going and useful to you guys. We, of course, have a few things planned already to make things better. However, we have also come to learn that you also know what you want, and we're always willing to hear what those things are (even if we don't ever actually, you know, do them). So here's a thread perfect for you to tell us what you liked and disliked this year, and also to tell us what you want to see next year to keep you here and happy. As usual, while we certainly love CoN, it's a lot less lovable if the people who really make it fun, you folks, stop coming. So, I'll wrap up this year by saying that you should keep posting good threads, and keep submitting new content to the site, and that should the mood strike you this summer or any time hence, to come visit us in chat (which has been a bit quiet lately, which makes me quite bored at work), and throw some commentary our way about most anything.

And, speaking of work, well, I'm quite busy today trying to get through the most difficult of my office work so that I have time to put some more effort into CoN yet today. Cheerio, friends, and I hope to see you checking in quite soon to celebrate another great year of CoN with us!

At the San Diego Comic-Con, a model of a large horse was unveiled by Square Enix as Sleipner: Odin's armour-clad, red-eyed mount. Odin himself will be in Final Fantasy XIII, but not atop his trusty steed of old. Rather, he will transform into it for Lightening et al to ride, much like Shiva changing into a motorbike.

According to certain sources, familiar summons Ifrit, Carbuncle and Siren have been revealed in non-public trailers of Final Fantasy XIII. What could they possibly transform into? Siren the dolphin? Ifrit the bull? I, personally, would be thrilled to see Carbuncle the helicopter.

Aside from this, there have been more screenshots made available for our collective criticism to feed on. Most notably, we see Hope's dual boomerangs and Vanille's fishing hooks in action. The battles do indeed seem very similar to those of Final Fantasy X-2, with individual positions changing and a more fluid succession of actions than the typical Active Time Battle. Interestingly, we can also see what looks like Bravery and Faith from Final Fantasy XII returning on the character's status in the battle alongside old favourites such as Protect. Overall it still looks like The Bouncer, but with more to do in battle.

Final Fantasy XIII is currently due for a Japanese release in the fourth quarter of 2009, and the second quarter of 2010 for all other regions.

Source: FF-XIII.net, Destructoid (screenshots), Destructoid (Odin)