News

To anyone interested in the potential of a Chrono Trigger sequel, here is some news for you. It's not the good kind. But not bad, either, unless you were following it. You don't know what I'm talking about, do you?

Chrono Trigger: Crimson Echoes was a fan-made sequel created by hacking the original ROM. If you remember Chrono Resurrection, you'll see where I'm going with this. After over four years of production, the developer received a cease and desist letter from Square-Enix. The project was due to release at the end of this month. A bit of a harsh move on their part, in my opinion, but if you're an optimist, it may mean that they have plans for a CT sequel of their own...

Here's hoping.

Source: Slashdot

Final Fantasy XIII Producer Yoshinori Kitase recently revealed some interesting titbits on demos and PAL releases for FFXIII. Following the recent release of a blu-ray demo in Japan, the prospect of an English demo was always on the cards. Kitase however has stated that the demo would not be on a disc, but if there is one, they are thinking of making use of the Playstation Network and XBox Live to release the demos as downloads.

He also stated that localisation, translation and English voice recording is already underway partially, which hopefully means a fairly speedy translation to English and a release date for North America fairly soon after Japan. Those of us in PAL regions will be thrilled to hear Square's famed ability to quickly release their games in PAL regions after the Japanese and North American versions come out is being upheld, with Kitase saying those of us in such blighted regions can expect to see it "within a year" of the Japanese release.

The most interesting news of all this is of course the prospect of the demo, and sarcasm aside it is nice to at least hear something that can let us guess release dates for outside Japan. However, the word on the demo is still leaving the bases covered on Square-Enix's part. Potentially, this leaves up in the air the question of in what format, if any, American and EU gamers will see a Final Fantasy XIII demo.

Source:
FF Insider
Some new Demo screencaps

That's about all we have. A website went live a few hours ago, with the only clues being a city on a cloudy day and a quote from John F. Kennedy. Writers at Kotaku speculate that it is one of two existing S-E trademarks: either Front Mission Evolved or Vanguard Storm. We know nothing concrete about the game other than the info on that teaser site, but those two theories seem to be solid guesses.

Also, tomorrow at 2 PM ol' lasz will have taken his last exam as a college undergraduate. History of Rock and Roll. Woo.

Source:
Kotaku
The site

Final Fantasy VII International was released on the Japanese Playstation Network Store yesterday as downloadable content for PS3 and PSP devices. The asking price is 1500 yen, or about $15.

A lot of people having been talking about whether this one would actually happen or not. I'm surprised to see it did, and would now expect a US store release will follow suit in upcoming months.

Source: Japan Playstation Store

Starting next Tuesday, gamers worldwide who participate in Final Fantasy XI will have the option to purchase a physical key token that is purported to enhance account security for all aspects of the PlayOnline network (I know, that still exists. Crazy, right?)

This token appears to be similar to other security tokens that you may have seen in workplaces or other environments where active security is required for information techology; about the size of many USB flash drives, the key generates a "random" number every thirty seconds that is used as part of the server login process, thereby requiring a thief to have your username, password, and token in hand to access your account details.

It appears that this token will be optional for the near future, but as Squenix purports the token to be compatible with future online initiatives, it may someday be a requirement for S-E gaming online. Orders are being taken for the tokens now at a cost of $9.99 for American gamers; anyone who orders the token will be delivered a special FFXI item to increase their item capacity, the "Mog Satchel."

Hit the source link below to learn more and see an image of the token. I, for one, didn't realize that account security was such a problem for FFXI; however, given that Blizzard has had a similar option since last year seems to indicate that yet again Square is trailing behind in online gaming innovation (and actually charging a bit more for it, in this case!).

Source: PlayOnline - Final Fantasy XI

There had been speculation that putting Final Fantasy XIII onto the Xbox might cause some trouble if they wanted it on one disc. Now there's speculation as to whether the PS3 version will be a standard or dual-layered Blu-Ray disc. The dual-layered discs can potentially store up to 50GB of data, which means that there will be two scenarios for the 360 version. One, quality is severely reduced. Two, quantity is severely reduced. Of course, there's always the chance that both scenarios will occur, in which case I feel sorry for all 360 owners right about now. Although, you never had the game to begin with, so no loss there... I guess. In addition, the demo that players were given only used half of the PS3's power. According to Square-Enix, the final version will use all of it. It should be noted, though, that the developers admitted that they had trouble working with the limited 512MB of RAM.

Of course, this is just one of many things discovered upon the trial of the Playstation 3 demo of Final Fantasy XIII. Highlights include a significant increase in the quality of the graphics, spells creating after-effects during battle, and cutscenes being rendered in realtime, rather than in CG. Fun times? Not if you're with Microsoft.

Source: The Magic Box