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It took more than a little while, but the action RPG Pandora's Tower, first mentioned here almost two years ago, has been given a new lease on life with an announced North American release. Announced just yesterday, the North American release will fill the final major gap in the game's worldwide coverage, as Australia and Europe both got the game in 2012.

The game will be published by Xseed, famous for bringing The Last Story here as well. It's assumed that there will be no new localization given that an English-language version of the game already exists, as described above. It's assumed further that the driving force behind getting the game published here was Operation Rainfall, a grass roots gaming group famous also for their campaign to get The Last Story.

Xseed says that the game will be released this spring.

Source: Siliconera

Contrary to what we (and many others) proposed yesterday, the new iOS release isn't Final Fantasy V, Final Fantasy VI, or a bundle release of both; it is, as laszlow mentioned after the original post, "All the Bravest."

What does that mean, "All the Bravest?" Well, it pretty much does what it says on the tin. This game is all-combat, all-the-time, with you controlling ten or more characters - I think I count twenty in one of the screenshots - at once by tapping them when their ATB gauge is full. The combat will progress through "stages" in which you battle various monsters followed by a boss. It looks to be pretty low-strategy, as well. There's no indication that you pick attacks per character (which, admittedly, would get pretty frustrating, pretty fast with that many folks in the battle party), merely that you tap them when they're ready and tap multiple characters in succession to create attack chains. The base set of characters appear to be generics, with jobs culled from the history of the Final Fantasy series. There are twenty of these, some of which are unlockable through play.

I think this game has a few things against it, personally. First, with most of the sprites being recycled from other games, odds are there's going to be no coherent art direction in the battles, and it's going to look like a third-grader's collage project - I mean, just look at the title screen. Second, and this won't surprise anyone, but much of the content, including 35 premium characters, are available via in-app purchase, and not for the initial buy, which is expected to be about three US dollars. Finally, if there's really not much more to it than "tap things when you're prompted," it seems like this is a mashup of Theatrhythm and Airborne Brigade, two other recent iOS offerings from Squenix, which doesn't seem terribly innovative when you think about it.

The game's out in New Zealand now, given the magic of world time. Since New Zealand has about nine people, none of whom I know to be CoN members, we might have to wait a little bit to see if my first impressions are indeed accurate.

Sources: Kotaku, Official All the Bravest Site

In Square Enix' illustrious history of countdown clocks and teaser sites, few things might be more interesting than one potentially offering new releases of Final Fantasy V and VI, even if those releases are for iOS. We talked about that possibility a few weeks back, and the internet in general seemed to take it as a foregone conclusion. Some folks even were leaning towards the notion that these releases might be brand-new, never-before-seen 3D treatments of those two games in the vein of the Final Fantasy IV just released.

The liklihood of new iOS re-releases now seems to be much more likely, as Siliconera noticed a new teaser page on the Japanese Square Enix site today with sprites silhouetted in the classic red gradient linked to Final Fantasy VI and the numbers "1.17." The larger sprites are quite clearly Final Fantasy VI Behemoths, while on the right, the smaller sprites are a bit more ambiguous, though it seems like they are probably Final Fantasy VI sprites (even though they don't look like a perfect match to anything that I can see). They could also be Final Fantasy V sprites, as the top one looks quite a bit like Bartz. Additionally, it seems like this page might reference the "All the Bravest" mark that Squenix trademarked last year, but it's still unclear why. (Thanks, laszlow, for that reminder!)

It should also be noted, though it's obvious, that these are in fact sprites. Would Square Enix use sprite art for a game they're about to release in 3D? Well, I wouldn't, if it were me. But we all know that sometimes Squenix have... interesting ways of going about their marketing. Either way, it looks like we only have about a day from the time of this posting to wait and see, as 17 January is only about thirty-six hours away in Akihabara.

Source: Siliconera, Square Enix Japan Teaser Site

The original Final Fantasy XIV crashed and burned, and was shut down a couple months back. Even before that, though, the reboot of the Final Fantasy XIV universe, subtitled "A Realm Reborn," was announced and put into alpha. The buzz around the new version is pretty positive so far, with the proposed changes and media released to the public all being met with reactions that I would categorize as "generally pleased."

That uptick in user opinion hit its first peak yesterday, as the XIV team at Squenix released an extended Realm Reborn trailer. This trailer is not completely new, but it must be said, it is one of the most visually impressive CG scenes I've seen Squenix ever do. I spent a lot of time watching it and wishing that it was actually a scene from a Final Fantasy Tactics sequel, given the varied job classes and armored chocobos on display throughout. Having that sort of FFT feel even makes me want to try it out a bit, and I've never had any interest in an MMO at all.

Perhaps I could try it out a bit, in fact - as part of this information release yesterday, applications for the Western beta phase were also opened. As mentioned before, there will be four beta phases in all, with the first phase starting in Japan only sometime around the middle of February. The current deployment schedule allows for between seven and eighteen weeks across all four phases; the short end of that window seems really aggressive and pretty unrealistic to me, while eighteen weeks seems more managable and would result in an early-summer release. Only the final two phases will include gamers outside of Japan, and only the final phase will include PlayStation 3 gamers. The final phase will also allow characters created to be imported into the released game.

If you're interested in having a go at this, there are signup pages for both North America and Europe. Good luck to all those who apply!

Source: IGN

The festivities surrounding the 25th anniversary of Final Fantasy didn't stop just with the official Squenix push. Along with the tributes and news posted at sites like ours, and the thousands of tweets and Facebook posts congratulating the company, one consortium came together to go a little further. The fansites Nova Crystallis, RPGSite, and UFF got together to create a massive fanzine with retrospectives, interviews, and lots of imagery to celebrate the event, and the results came out very nicely indeed.

Beyond retrospectives of the games and some of the ancillary Final Fantasy materials, there are profiles of many of the biggest Square names over the years, feature articles, opinion pieces, and even a few interviews. The magazine came out to nearly 130 pages, and is available in a variety of formats so that everyone can enjoy it. It's a really impressive piece of work and everyone involved should be commended for it. Hey, I'm not even going to be (too) bitter about the fact that we didn't get invited to be a part of it - it's really worth it that these folks stepped forward to do something so cool.

The full PDF is a shade over 40MB - there's no reason not to check it out.

Source: Nova Crystallis

First off, some sentimental news: the Playstation 2 has finally come to the end of its sales lifespan in Japan. The system will still be available in many regions worldwide, however. If you're reading this in Brazil, for instance, the PS2 was only first made available to you in 2009. Desculpa.

Speaking of the PS2, Square Enix's long-running MMO native to that system, Final Fantasy XI, will be getting yet another expansion on March 26th to the tune of $29.99. The expansion, however, will only be available to westerners on PC and Xbox. If you're interested in taking this opportunity to first start playing Square Enix's MMO that worked the first time, a bundle edition of the original game and the other four expansions will be made available as well.

Next up, super important news from FFXIV: A Realm Reborn: THERE ARE BABY BEHEMOTHS. If you're wondering why this is such fantastic news, it's only because you haven't yet clicked on the first source below. Seriously. Cutest things ever.

In more serious news concerning FFXIV: A Realm Reborn, Square Enix has released a timetable for beta testing and debugging. Beta will begin in February with the PC version only, with PS3 beta being added in later. The plan is divided into four phases, each of which involves an increased number of available worlds and accessible features. Each phase will last somewhere around three weeks, followed by a 1-2 week session of debugging. Take my word for it, it's a rather detailed plan.

Square Enix is preparing to introduce a new bonus for those in the Japanese Square Enix Members program: a browser-based game in which Members avatars fight against various enemies from the Final Fantasy series. As said, it appears to be Japan-only, but there's always the chance that we'll see it over here if it's successful.

Finally, some Lightning Returns: FFXIII news. Lightning has been and fought for a lot of things over the course of her trilogy. In a recent Famitsu interview, Lightning's final role was revealed: liberator. If that sounds a bit odd, given that she spent her first title overthrowing a couple gods and rejecting 'divine' missions, you aren't alone. Now, though, she's working for a good god, Bhunivelze, and her goal is not to destroy the world as a sacrifice but to save as many as possible from the impending destruction of the world (the thirteen days thing we've reported on previously), liberating them to a new world.

Source: Siliconera, Siliconera, Siliconera