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Well, I think we all got what we wanted there, yes? Short and sweet as promised, today's stream clocked in at just under fifteen minutes long but included a bucket of Final Fantasy VII detail. The stream led a montage of clips from Remake and Intergrade, with the announcement of a release on Steam tomorrow, June 17, with Steam Deck compatibility. They followed with an introduction from Yoshinori Kitase, and a bit of merch.

The merch shown was not groundbreaking by and large, though I think it's the first time I've seen the jewelry they showed. A Compilation of Final Fantasy VII vinyl album looked new to me, too, and it's planned for release this August as well as a special CD album and streaming playlists.

Kitase followed up with a brief video of the upcoming third season of The First Soldier, the Final Fantasy VII battle royale mobile fighter. Like every seasonal game in the genre, there's new content coming. That was followed by a moderately long look at Ever Crisis, the mobile game that runs through the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII in a new way. It's kind of hard to describe what I think this game is going to be exactly, as it styles things a little differently in various clips, but it appears to be a Final Fantasy VII version of the Final Fantasy XV game released for Switch, where everything was a bit simplified and a lot more chibi to present the plot to a new audience. It's coming for a closed beta sometime in 2022 for both iOS and Android.

Kitase returned again to lead into the first truly big news of the stream, a remaster of Crisis Core. To me, you can obviously see it's not a full remake, as the graphical quality doesn't look like it got the full Final Fantasy VII Remake treatment; that said, it's hard to say how much of that might be due to the stream itself. We should see some stills very soon. Called "Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core Reunion," it's going from official announcement today, in June, to a targeted release in "this Winter" across all current consoles and Steam.

Then, finally, one more lead-in from Kitase to give us what I called last week: Final Fantasy VII is getting its next part in Winter 2023. It's now called "Rebirth," meaning that "Remake" has been retired as the name for solely the first part; and, as has been widely considered, it's the second part of a trilogy. The third part is as yet un-named (may I suggest "Resolution?") and of course has nothing resembling a release window, so for now we will have to content ourselves on part two. This new episode looks like it's going to go heavy into Cloud's mental troubles as depicted in the middle part of the original, with a lot of content that feels like misdirection in the voiceovers from Aerith, Cloud, and Tifa, subtitles asking "What is Fact and What is Fiction?," and very brief glimpses of Meteor and... well, you all know the scene. Of course, it's releasing only for PlayStation 5 at launch. Kitase, along with confirming the name and the trilogy, mentioned that the team is still "hard at work" on Rebirth.

And that was it - I have to say it's probably everything we wanted and expected from 15 quick minutes. I no longer lament the loss of E3. Here's the video if you missed it:

Square Enix announced today that on June 16, next Thursday, they will do a brief livestream for "the latest information relating to the 25th Anniversary of Final Fantasy VII." Tetsuya Nomura made a statement that the stream will be only around ten minutes long but will contain lots of information. The broadcast will take place at 6pm Eastern time.

Of course, the information could just be more details on Final Fantasy VII mobile titles, but I've been privately speculating to friends and Discord since the new Final Fantasy XVI trailer that we should now expect news on Remake Part 2 essentially any time. I was targeting the Tokyo Game Show window, but now would be a fine time too...

Source: Gematsu

This week, we got updates on two upcoming Final Fantasy games that were announced earlier this year. While they're not big news because we knew they were coming, now's the chance to get ready for them to drop.

First, Final Fantasy V Pixel Remaster will be releasing on November 10, only a couple weeks away now. Preorders have been available for this one for quite a while, and the preorder bonuses on Steam are still up. The versions for mobile are, as usual, not available for preorder.

Also, as of today, pre-registration for Final Fantasy VII: The First Soldier is ready to go. The exact release of the game is still no more specific than November 2021, but this Battle Royale-style game set in the Final Fantasy VII Remake universe can be accessed now in app stores and Square Enix are offering gifts to all players who pre-register based on the total number of users set up before launch.


Source: Square Enix

Earlier this week, a data leak that came from Nvidia's GeForce Now service heavily implied that there could be some really exciting Square Enix games coming available for PC gamers. As a leak, it's of course speculative and possibly straight-up incorrect, but if we can be allowed to dream for a bit, this could mean fun times for Final Fantasy gaming on your favorite computing device.

Two games appear on the list that are essentially no-brainers for some point in the future: Final Fantasy VII Remake and Final Fantasy XVI. There's no reason to think that both of these games won't eventually appear on PC no matter what, and in the case of the former, it's not even the first time it's been seen in a leak. Of course, with no further details, there's no way to know when FF7R might come about, or if it will be the enhanced version released for PS5 with Intergrade. Final Fantasy XVI is almost surely even further down the line, since the game's not complete and will have some level of timed exclusivity to PlayStation 5 anyway.

The other two games might be more interesting, anyway, or at least they would be for me. As described in the leak, those games are titled "Final Fantasy Tactics Remastered" and "Final Fantasy 9 Remake." I, for one, have been wanting a PC port of FFT since the original came out over 20 years ago, and would probably line up to buy that game for the fifth time if such a port were released. For Final Fantasy IX, this would be a really shocking addition if it were a genuine remake. I would suspect that this part of the leak is the result either of a typo or a misinterpretation, honestly; either might suggest that it's another port that matches the existing PC version of FF9, which seems more realistic than a genuine redux of the entire game. If it is a genuine remake, though, that will probably be one spectacular game.

I'll be watching for more information regardless, as this is all potentially exciting stuff!

Source: Game Rant

Have you been cooped up in pandemic mode for the last year and a half like the rest of us? Do you want to get out and see some live Final Fantasy music before everything gets shut down again because we're still not winning against said pandemic? The Final Fantasy VII Remake concert series has an absolute shedload of dates coming up in North America that might be just for you. Check out this big list:

• August 27/28: Fort Worth, Texas
• October 16: Orlando
• October 23: Los Angeles
• November 12: Boston
• November 20: St. Petersburg, Florida
• November 27/28: Honolulu
• December 28/29: Atlanta
• January 28, 2022: Nashville
• February 6: Chicago (with a matinee and evening show)
• February 12: Montréal
• February 25: Omaha
• March 2/3: Toronto
• March 5: Guadalajara
• March 18/19: Denver
• March 23: Phoenix
• TBA: Two dates at Carnegie Hall, New York

Most of these dates are already on sale or will be on sale in the next few weeks. So, if one of these dates are near you, go check it out now!

Also, with Final Fantasy IV celebrating its 30th birthday this year, Square Enix have also announced a new vinyl album featuring original tracks and new arrangements of the classic Uematsu tracks. I'm not sure if they have sold through their quantity for pre-order already, but the official site is currently showing a "Waitlist" button. While I personally feel that Final Fantasy IV has one of the better overall soundtracks in the series - come watch me also gush about Celtic Moon in Discord sometime - the $40 price point for vinyl plus digital download dissuades me just a bit. The album is tentatively slated to release on August 25, so if you manage to get a copy please come let us know how it is!

Gematsu brings us news this morning that the long-assumed version of Final Fantasy VII Remake for PCs might well be on the way. Via Wario64 on Twitter, it looks like the Epic Game Store JSON configuration data contains an entry for a game called "Pineapple QA" that is in reality a placeholder for FF7R.

The screenshot does not indicate whether the game is the original, or the Intergrade edition including the Yuffie episode, though if this information is accurate it will certainly become clear over time. Gematsu postulate that because Integrade has a minimum six-month PS5 exclusivity, the game could release as early as December. If it is instead the original version, I'm not sure if the same exclusivity would apply, but at this point I can't imagine Squenix wanting to release any version other than the newest upgrade to any other platforms.

Source: Gematsu