News

Full Metal Alchemist, the anime that both Square Enix and Bandai have been working on, is a smashing success in Japan according to Anime News Network.com Already up to episode 31, it has a cast of popular characters, wonderful themes, and unconventional plots, with a new twist on Alchemy that hasn't been seen often, if at all, in an anime.

It's so big that profits from the manga itself are one of the top three sources for all the extra funding that Square-Enix has sitting around, the other two being the recent FFX-2, and Dragon Quest V.

Furthermore, for those of you who haven't had a chance to see it yet, Full Metal Alchemist was licenced at E3, meaning that soon there will be an Americanized version to air on CN this October. Let's hope that it's for Adult Swim, so too much Americanization and editting doesn't need to happen.

Second article source: ign.com

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I really love this anime, and have been watching it since the fansubs first started coming out. I'm glad to see that it's been finally licenced, I've been wondering when that was going to happen. Although I don't have high hopes of CN being nice to it, editting wise, I'm sure that DVDs for the anime will soon follow, as well as translated manga.

Now on the site, in the FF6 Fanfiction Section is the newest complete fanfiction by Zephir, who is currently working on two others that can be found in the Site Submissions section.

As with his last piece, Ikiiri does not centre around a main character from the game. Instead, Zephir has created a whole new species to grace the world of FF6. This is a sad, yet satisfying, tale of a young female named Ikiiri, who is trying to make sense of the world around her.

In other fanfiction news, the results of the Gogo Fanfiction Contest are in, and will be posted in the near future.

Courtesy our friends at RPGamer:

Square-Enix has announced a prequel to their blockbuster hit, Final Fantasy VII, named Before Crisis: Final Fantasy VII. Unlike Advent Children, which is a movie, this is an actual game with battles and action and everything you'd expect from an RPG. What you wouldn't expect is the platform of the game -- Square-Enix has decided that the cell phone market is good enough to release the game there. This raises questions about the ability to bring Before Crisis to the United States, because as anyone who has been to Japan can attest, the cell phone technology in Japan is much more advanced than what is available stateside.

Personally, I think that it's a good idea for Squenix to do the prequel, because it will sell. I think it's a horrible idea to release the game on cellphones. I don't know if their plan is to goad people into buying their cellphone technology or what, but I certainly wouldn't buy a phone just to play a game. This should be a big thing to discuss -- please do it here!

Recently, there was a concert of Final Fantasy music performed in LA, for the E3 convention. According to the article by Gamespot.com , it was a smashing success, and even had a surprise perfomance of One Winged Angel, from FFVII

Among the compositions played, there was:

* Terra's Theme (Final Fantasy VI)
* Theme of Love (Final Fantasy IV)
* Dear Friends (Final Fantasy V)
* Aeris's Theme (Final Fantasy VII)
* Not Alone (Final Fantasy IX)
* New Melody From Final Fantasy VII Advent Children
* Final Fantasy (Theme)

Apparently, there were also many video cameras in the audience, so there is a chance that the taped version will be released to the public (or illegally to the internet) sometime in the future.

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I'm sure there are plenty of Final Fantasy fans that wish they could have been at this concert, it sounds like it was a wonderful evening. The article does say that there may be more concerts like this in the future, so keep your ear to the ground if you're interested!

There is new a FFVII: Advent Children magazine scan floating about the internet. Newsworthy is that it appears to feature the first images of Tifa, Marlene, and the Turks. There are also pictures of Vincent, Cloud, and the Sephiroth clones as well.

Don't mind the goofy pirate. He is just Jump magazine's mascot.

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I think the character shots like great. Tifa's proportions seem to be a little more realistic now. The only real gripe I have with the scan is something that Elena99 pointed out in CoNchat. Cloud and Sephiroth's eyes appear to missing their glow.

In order to help maintain the high quality of Final Fantasy games, Square Enix has moved forward the release dates for the next installation of the series. Originally to come out in Japan this summer, it will be pushed back a few months.

The game should arrive on American shores sometime between this winter and next spring.

Full article: Gamespot.com

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I'm a little disappointed to hear this, but the delay isn't by that much. The game will still be coming in due time, and if they want time to get quality, that sounds like a fair deal.