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Related to laszlow's recent newspost, Final Fantasy VI and Chrono Trigger have been confirmed for released in North America. FFVI will be released both on the Playstation Network and the Wii Virtual Console, whereas CT will be solely on the PSN. This information was leaked by the ESRB recently. No date has been specified for their release, nor any information about European releases.

FFVI and CT? Two of the board at large's favorite games. Squenix knows what they're doing here, and all you old fogeys who remember when these games came out first are gonna get the chance to relive all that without resorting to emulation (or handhelds). I can't wait either!

Source: RPGamer

It really does seem like yesterday that the first trickles of news about the Revolution started showing up, even though in reality it's been very nearly seven years. Today, though, while Nintendo won't cop to it, gaming news outlets have begun to report that the Wii's successor will be out late next year.

It appears that Nintendo is willing to admit that they will no longer be able to survive on first-party console games, and that the new box will be better equipped to deal with, at the very least, the current competition. Of course, there's no way to know how Nintendo's next outing might cope against the next Xbox or Playstation, as there are just way too many variables way too off in the future. However, it does seem that the specs or even prototypes might already be in the hands of some third-party developers, which provides a nice bit of lead time into day-one titles for next Christmas.

Lending further credence to this still-not-official news is the fact that the current Wii is looking to get a price cut in May. This will be only the second price drop for the system, and the new price will settle in at $150.

For more information, it's probably going to be E3, which is in early June. However, it's all but certain that someone will break more concrete information sometime in the next eight weeks.

Source: Game Informer

Final Fantasy VI, one of the most beloved SNES games and the namesake for this very website, will hit the Japanese PlayStation Network on April 20th. This will be (perhaps obviously) the Playstation version of FF VI, which was released in the United States as part of Final Fantasy Anthology along with Final Fantasy V. There is no concrete information about a North American or European release on PSN available at this time.

When will this come to North America's PSN? Probably sometime after Final Fantasy V makes it; FFV was announced to be in the North American PSN pipeline one week ago. Before too long PS3 and PSP owners worldwide will be able to enjoy these two classics disc-free.

Source: Kotaku
Kotaku again (FF V news)

It may come as some surprise that there's a Wii RPG in the works; it might come as further surprise that now that the details have begun to emerge and a bit of gameplay video has surfaced, that it looks a bit promising.

The game is called "Pandora's Tower," and it's an action RPG. Despite having little experience with games like Devil May Cry, I have to say that my very first impression of the snippets of game play remind me of that sort of game. There are some large beasts, some rapid-fire combat, and fairly expansive environments in which to fight.

The storyline begins at the harvest festival of the nation of Elysium, where a young girl performing for the crowd falls stricken as monsters attack the festival. This girl, named Ceres, is rescued by her (considerably older) friend Ende and a merchant named Graiai. However, Ceres has been cursed by the monsters, and Ende must immediately begin some dungeon crawls in an effort to break the curse forever before Ceres is consumed.

The game's out in a little over a month in Japan, but no American or European release has been announced. With the dearth of RPGs for the Wii, though, it would seem like there's a decent chance it will make it over. To see more, check out the writeup and the video from andriasang.


Source: andriasang

While I usually put up a new set of quizzes each month, this month we decided to take a brief break to focus on bringing in new quiztakers. We're going to be working on a minor makeover to make sure that all of you reading this want to get in on the quizzes every month to compete against your fellow CoN members!

With that said, you all can look for the next new set of quizzes at the start of May!

The April 2011 edition of Dengeki Playstation is out in Japan, and a sidebar article in it breaks the news of a new Sony Playstation 3 controller that seems to have remained under the radar until recently. The new controller, says the sidebar, is a joint effort between the two Japanese gaming giants, the first time a developer has worked with Sony directly on a custom controller.

The controller is called the DualShock3 SE (for "Square Enix", not "Special Edition"), and it is expected to list at about 5,500 Yen (currently about $67 US), about the same as a standard DualShock3, shares a lot of physical characteristics with the original PS3 pad. It will, at least for now, be offered only in black, just as the original DualShock3, with the standard general layout and handgrips. After that, though, the pad is departs wildly from the standard controller - the article quotes a Squenix source as saying "we determined that the best way to play games from the modern Final Fantasy series was to streamline the controller so that the most necessary buttons are always front and center." The development team for the new controller realized that most of the action in Final Fantasy games in the last decade results from either pressing the up arrow or tapping X, to either progress through the linear maps or dismiss repetitive dialogue or cutscenes, and as such they made those buttons the focus of the pad.

The team realizes that the new style of the pad is not for everyone, and suggests that gamers choose the pad that works best for them individually. "We know that this isn't what you'll want to use for Gran Turismo [or other games], but we think that our pad will make sense for those who love Final Fantasy games." The controller will be released in Japan concurrently with Final Fantasy Versus XIII; there's no indication yet whether it will come to the West, or if Square Enix are working with Microsoft or even Nintendo on a similar device.

Below is a scan from the issue of Dengeki, as well as a higher-resolution render also released by the magazine.


Source: Dengeki Playstation