News

As recently as yesterday, Final Fantasy VI Pixel Remaster had a release date of "2021" on Steam - I know, because I checked it after seeing the latest screenshots in Famitsu. Last night, though, Square Enix published an update on social media announcing that the game would be pushed back to February 2022.

The announcement simply says that "in order to bring you the best experience possible, we're allowing the necessary time to apply final polish while finishing development on the game." So, the typical amount of detail in such an announcement, but no reason to think that things are wildly out of control.

As a make-good, two more tracks have been added to the soundtrack available for pre-orders: a Timelapse Remix of Locke's Theme, and a new instrumental of Aria di Mezzo Carattere. The Timelapse Remixes are a blended version of the original OST and the new soundtrack.

Source: Final Fantasy on Twitter, Final Fantasy VI on Steam

The Final Fantasy "Ultimania" guides have been lore for Western Final Fantasy fans for many years; I remember first hearing about their existence twenty years ago, but I've never seen one in person. Finally, though, those of us who want to see these guides in a format we can actually read ourselves - not you, smug Japanese-knowing CoN fans! - will get a chance to own them in English.

Next June, Dark Horse and Square Enix will release a 300+ page archive of Ultimania guides covering the first six games of the series in a hardbound edition. It's expected to be the first of three volumes encapsulating the entire series. Amazon, at least in the US, has it listed for just $34 currently, and I know I have already preordered my copy.

If you want to do the same, check this AmaCoN link: http://amzn.to/2xhj5SX

Source: Siliconera

Several years back, The Speed Gamers did a fun Final Fantasy marathon for charity, a goal with which CoN was happy to help. It's 2017 now, and it's time to start up again! At 6pm Eastern tonight, TSG will kick off a new marathon for the benefit of St. Jude's Children Research Hospital, with TSG players running through all of the main-series games over the course of a week. I'm posting this a bit before the start, of course, but look right below for a good place to watch if you want to tune in. I know I'll be watching a fair bit and will be doing so in CoN chat as often as I can, so come join me, won't you? They'll be doing the games in order, starting with Final Fantasy I tonight and targeting the next CoN game, Final Fantasy IV, tomorrow night.

This time around, we've provided a bit more support with promotion on social media, and our old friend Gabe provided a number of awesome fuse bead sprites for TSG to give away as donation prizes. We're not sure when they'll be given away, but keep an eye out if you're a Final Fantasy IV fan!

St. Jude has been a recipient of my own donation dollars for quite a while, so I personally think this is a great time to support people playing your favorite games for a fantastic cause. You can donate directly from here, even if you're not watching. Make sure you mention that you found out about their good cause from your friends at CoN! Don't forget that donations at particular times might also enter you for prizes like Gabe's, so pay attention, or, if you want to guarantee that you get something cool, check out these charity t-shirts on Fangamer, with $10 going to St. Jude on every shirt purchased.

Join us in wishing TSG luck over the next week, and have some fun coming up by checking out your favorite Final Fantasy games played at pace!

Source: The Speed Gamers

It's not 3D, and it's definitely not the direction of Final Fantasy VII Remake, but that wonderfully polarizing mobile release of Final Fantasy VI is now coming to Steam. Of course, we all pretty much knew that was coming - any idiot could have told you that.

What to expect from this? The same thing that we got with Final Fantasy V, naturally; a version of the game with the new, wispy-sprite art style and generic font, configured to run under Windows and with the general layer of Steaminess like achievements, trading cards, and Steam Cloud. The game releases on December 16 and does not have a published price yet, though Final Fantasy V released at $15.99 a few months back.

Source: Kotaku

Obviously, this week's news of the long-teased Final Fantasy VII remake has stolen the Square Enix spotlight. But, what of other, similarly-teased projects like remakes of Final Fantasy V and VI?

As quoted at VentureBeat, when asked about remakes of other games in the series in the wake of Final Fantasy VII, Nomura responded, "Considering that we have remakes of Final Fantasy up to IV and then we have VII — I’ve been working with Mr. [Yoshinori] Kitase since Final Fantasy V, and we’ve noticed that V and VI are missing. That bothers me. How come we skipped over those two?"

This is idle chatter, of course, but if anyone's going to get those projects off the ground at this point, Nomura would be the prime candidate. Clearly, there's no other information about the status of these projects, but one could (and should, friendly CoN posters) speculate wildly in the comments below.

Source: VentureBeat

It's been a while since I did a Distant Worlds update - I suspect it's because I'm still a little bitter for not pulling the trigger and going myself last October! The concert series well known by Final Fantasy fans worldwide has some new information to share this month, though, and some of the news is sure to be particularly interesting to CoN readers.

There are three Distant Worlds concerts on the books for this year at the moment; for our South American readers, two dates in Chile are scheduled for May 31 and June 1 in Rancagua and Santiago respectively.

On August 24, a special performance will take place in Chicago, a favorite destination for the Distant Worlds crowd - not only will Arnie Roth and Nobuo Uematsu be in attendance, they will also be performing solos during the set, and the setlist will focus on Final Fantasy VI in honor of its 20th anniversary. Dancing Mad, the Opera, and a never-heard arrangement of character themes are confirmed to be part of the new setlist.

The final date for 2014 at the moment returns to Toronto, with a performance at the Sony Centre. Roth and Uematsu will attend this show as well, though they won't perform and the setlist apparently will be more typical than the FF6-centric one in Chicago a few months earlier.

The new spinoff of Distant Worlds will debut this weekend, though, also in Chicagoland. It's called A New World, and it will be performed in smaller venues and conventions with a thirteen-member ensemble. In all the performances scheduled so far, both Arnie Roth and Nobuo Uematsu will be in attendance and will perform as well, with Roth on violin and Uematsu on keyboard. The series starts this Friday at Anime Central in Rosemont, IL, with a 4pm show on the 16th and a 1pm matinee on the 17th. After that, the show moves to Omaha for two shows on this Sunday, the 18th of May, and a pair of Montreal shows in August. All arrangements will be new to suit the new ensemble, so even folks who have seen Distant Worlds will get to experience something new.

If you line up a visit to any of these shows, make sure to give us a report after!

Source: Final Fantasy: Distant Worlds, Final Fantasy: A New World