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DeviantArt, the well-known online artistic community that has a lot of nice Final Fantasy fanart, a lot of nice Final Fantasy fan artists, and increasingly toes the line of defining the phrase "too much Anime fanart" is currently hosting a competition that might be of quite a lot of interest to the people here who make nice Final Fantasy fanart and our own nice Final Fantasy fan artists.

DA want people to submit works based on the upcoming Square-Enix game "The World Ends with You" and to make this very intresting, they're doing it in conjuction with Square-Enix themselves. Square-Enix have given DA special permission to distribute concept art from the game for use in this contest. Your role as the artist asks for your best works inspired by the art. Ten winners will recive a copy of the game, a six month subscription to DA, a DA t-shirt and a DA Accessory pack. The grand prize winner recives all that plus a written critque of their prize-winning submission from members of the game's development team. For the full information and rules, check the Announcement for the contest on DeviantArt.

"The World Ends with You" is an Action RPG from the same team behind Kingdom Hearts, set in and inspired by the Shibuya district of Tokyo. The game sees amnesiac Neku awake in Shibuya, and told that he must play the "Reaper's Game" or face erasure. Presumably, this is some sort of code for "you're dead," so obviously Neku wants to avoid said erasure (and as the player of the game so do you). To do so, he (and you) must complete a series of missions, and find badges that will let him (again, you) unlock new powers and abilities to help him (that's probably still you) succeed. The game is for the Nintendo DS and will be released in North America on the 22nd of April and in PAL regions on April 18th.

External Links:
Contest Rules and Information
DeviantArt Homepage
Official US Site for The World Ends with You
Official EU Site for The World Ends with You

Some of you will note that it is April Fools' Day. Some of you may also note that we have dropped the ball, as usual. We throw our hands up: we simply didn't have any good ideas for this April 1st. But, we figure, our members are an imaginative bunch. And so, we have decided to hold a quick CoNtest to find next year's gag and spare us the embarrassment 365 days hence.

The rules are simple: Suggest a joke in 3000 words or less by midnight tonight. The entries will be read by CoN staff and we'll pick out the best one for use next year. The lucky winner shall receive a small prize as well as the knowledge that they will be in on the joke next year!

Entering is also simple: Just fire off your idea to [email protected], before midnight Eastern time. Note that we won't accept any jokes that might be offensive or illegal, as even a joke must have limits. But other than that, anything goes, so get the ideas coming fast!

Good luck, and hope we get some good suggestions!

Final Fantasy Tactics A2: Grimoire of the Rift, the DS sequel to the GBA game Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, will hit the United States on June 24th, 2008. FFTA2 boasts touchscreen mechanics, more character classes than its predecessor, and several tie-ins to the larger Ivalice Alliance spinoff-series. For example, Vaan, Penelo, Al-Cid, and several other characters from Final Fantasy XII will also play a role in this storyline.

FFTA2 stars a hunter named Luso, who players of Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions may have already seen in a playable cameo role. FFTA2 also marks the fourth Square-Enix game as part of the Ivalice Alliance and the third to be released in the United States, after FFT: War of the Lions, FF XII: Revenant Wings, and the Japan-only FF XII International. Set those calendars and charge those DSes for June 24th.

Source: RPGFan

This coming June, American gamers will be able to pick up an 80-gig Sony PlayStation 3, a single DualShock 3 controller, and a copy of the hotly-anticipated Metal Gear Solid 4 at a price point of $499.99 US. If anyone was already planning on eventually picking up a PS3 and MGS4, then it just got a little cheaper.

Source: IGN

According to Famitsu, the storyline of Final Fantasy XIII will center on the roles of two races within a caste system - the Falsi are an extremely wise people that built the Cocoon protecting the city from the outside, and the Lusi are humans chosen to work for the Falsi. It's unclear where the game's protagonist falls in this cultural hierarchy, but the young woman shown as a friend of the main character is confirmed to be one of the Lusi. Details on the exact nature of the Falsi-Lusi relationship are unclear, but it will take an important role in Final Fantasy XIII's plot.

In addition, summons are revealed to be tools created to assist the Lusi in whatever tasks they need to perform, In addition to Shiva (as in Shiva the motorcycle), traditional Final Fantasy summoned monsters Ifrit, Siren, and Carbuncle are slated to be in the game.

Final Fantasy XIII has no release date in any region thus far, but Famitsu mentioned that FF XIII "begins in earnest" in 2008, whatever that's supposed to mean.

Source: RPGFan
A nifty image
A second nifty image

Due to technical difficulties, the latest fanfic update appears to have lived up to it's name. But at long last, Del, who is now talking of himself in the third person, has updated!

First up is evidence of his developing egomania and apparent split personality disorder is one of his own fics.In Final Fantasy I's fanfic section he has cursed us all with the Zulu parody Goblin.

Next up are four offerings to Final Fantasy VI. The first is "Fantasy in the Shell", which as indicated by it's title is a Ghost in the Shell inspired AU fic from Tetsuken, putting familiar faces into a cyberpunk setting. Manoftyr gives us "The Spinning Wheel of Fate", a fiction dealing with a character's own personal demons following the death and burial of a person who has played a key role in their life. Elessar has given us "For Glory", a short but intruging look into the character of General Leo via his orders to a sentry. Next, L. Cully gives us the poetic "Century Sleep", a piece of fanfiction that I wager even those who normally do not read fanfiction will enjoy. Finally in the FF6 section, Flik gives us two stories about a certain pickpocket. "Life on the other side" and "The Further Adventures of Lone Wolf"

In the Final Fantasy VII section we have a single offering from Shotgunnova, an exploration of the human side of the Turks in "Lovemore".

And last but not least, Shotgunnova's second fic of the update completes today's delayed offerings over in Final Fantasy Tactics with the tale of a knight who has made a desperate, and mistaken, move in "Twenty-Four Hours".

That concludes our update, so please, read them. Enjoy them. Comment here or in their original threads. Send abusive PM's to Del about the slow update so he can become depressed and finish the rest of his Vodka supply. And since the idiot who is meant to do the updates is not longer being a lazy waste of oxygen and bad jokes, why not submit your own fanfiction work at the site submissions section of the forums?