News

Warning: these snippets are very snippety. Also, they do not include a FFVII remake.

In a recent interview, Kingdom Hearts 3 co-director Tai Yasue said that Marvel and Star Wars are available for use in the game. Everything in the Disney stable is on the table, Yasue says, and that the team is having a hard time deciding what to and what not to include. It's really busting my brain to imagine Darth Vader in KH, but we've already seen Disney's liberal employment of their franchises in the pursuit of cash-money, so perhaps it isn't so crazy as it sounds.

This next news is already a week old, but worth throwing in: a new trailer has been released for Final Fantasy Type-0, which will be released in March of 2015. It's safe to say that Square Enix is entering the pre-release build-up phase with this one. Hajime Tabata, the game's director and recently-appointed director has expressed the desire to make them into a series in their own right ('Type-1,' 'Type-2,' and 'Type-3' have all been trademarked for several years now), so there's a fair bit hinging on the upcoming title - aside from the oft-alluded-to financial pressure on Square Enix. Perhaps to encourage early purchases, this trailer says for the first time that the afore-promised FFXV demos will be included with Type-0 "while supplies last."

Finally, Square Enix has done a soft-release of a new, free-to-play, mobile PvP strategy RPG, Heavenstrike Rivals. As part of its soft-release, the title isn't available at all in the US; it is available on iOS in Canada, however, and I *think* on Android in the UK. At any rate: not available in US, currently exists in English, and will eventually be available for both mobile platforms. The art style is quite pleasant (check the third link below) and it boasts "over 230 units." Early reviews seem mixed, many agreeing that the game doesn't seem finished yet - no surprises there! - but seem to be positive enough that it's worth keeping an eye on. For our members in territories / with the appropriate platforms, see if you can check it out and let us hear your thoughts!

Source: Kotaku, Siliconera, Google Store

That's right, another great moment (read: not so much) in Final Fantasy VII Compilation history. At Sony's Playstation Experience event this Saturday, Square Enix big-man Shinji Hashimoto (corporate executive of the company's Production Department #1) announced that the PS4 would be seeing Final Fantasy VII, in re-release - not, repeat, not remake - form.

This prompted lots of people to all sorts of grumbling, probably because it was announced with the worst delivery possible. Hashimoto announced the title ambiguously enough that it can easily be mistaken mistaken for the announcement of an actual remake; that is, just before showing a trailer that made evident the fact that we would only be getting those same old beloved, clunky polygons ported over to a new box.

The company, understandably, is getting some (largely good-humored... maybe) flack for the move. We've certainly had a tendency here at CoN to be critical of Square Enix's money-grabbing tendencies when it comes to re-(re-re-re-re-re-)releases, but it stands to fact that these ports remain an important part of the company's profits - if they weren't, we wouldn't continue seeing them. And while some of these purchases are likely old fans re-buying, I'd be willing to bet they're reaching a lot of new audiences this way as well. To further play devil's advocate, Hashimoto is clearly not in perfect command of his English. All the same - let's rehearse that delivery a bit more next time. For the sake of my heart. My achy breaky heart.

It has nuns! No, it's just a pun! Ugh. Shoot me.

I'd been thinking about advent calendars recently because they're fun and it's that time of year. Some folks have LEGO ones, some (like me, blessedly) have them full of beer. For this holiday season, we're doing our own filled with fanart. It's not fancy yet, though hopefully I can work on that sometime before the calendar's all open - for now, though, we'll be adding a new fanart each day from now until Christmas, and logged-in users who place a vote on all of them before the end of the year will get a limited edition award on their account.

Here's the first, from one of the many new fanartists we've found recently, Aena. Vote on it now below!

Edited to add, the CoNvent Calendar page is now live - you can now see the calendar fanart as it's added so you can see all the things for which you want to vote. That link's below too!

Source: "Terra" by Aena, CoNvent Calendar 2014

Though it's already a bit late in the day, we want to let you all know that Square Enix has hit the cyber Monday thing pretty hard, and a whole lot of stuff on their online store is on sale! This includes a lot of hard copies as well as digital downloads.

A few of the titles included are Deus Ex: Human Revolution, FFXV: A Realm Reborn, FFX/FFX-2 HD (also the collector's edition), FFVII, FFVIII, Thief, Tomb Raider, Theatrhythm: Curtain Call, Dissidia, FFXIII, FFXIII-2, and more. Happy pickings!

Source: Square Enix Online Store

Well, that's pretty much the gist of it, I guess. It's not an unknown phenomenon for game franchises to have periodicals in their names, produced by their publishers; apparently Persona has already gotten the same treatment.

The first all-Final Fantasy, all-the-time magazine will be out sometime in December in Japan and will be dated as "Winter 2014," implying that it will be a quarterly magazine if published on a schedule; it's possible that it will instead be a "whenever we feel like it" sort of thing from Squenix as well.

The real question is, will these magazines have any news that isn't covered by Famitsu or its brethren well in advance? The first issue purports to have info on Type-0 HD, G-Bike, and the new mobile games, so we shall see.

Source: Siliconera

As is their way, the Distant Worlds team releases a massive burst of concert information about once a quarter. Now is that time. It makes for a long news post. Now is that time as well!

Our last post talked about the upcoming shows in Toronto and New Jersey - I didn't realize until now, though, that the first of the New Jersey set of shows will actually be the centennial show for the traveling performance. That might make those tickets a bit more precious.

The new announcement for Distant Worlds this time around is to fill the gap between the New Jersey shows and the previously-announced pair of St. Louis concerts. I'm excited about this one because it's April 24 in Boston, the current (approximate) headquarters of CoN. Tickets go on sale on December 3, and I'm really hoping to snag some.

Also from our last post, we noted that A New World, the chamber music series, was wrapping up its season in Europe. What was then the final show for 2014 is still next week in Paris. But now, they've booked a new date for December 12 in Houston at Rice University. They'll also start 2015 with two February shows in St. Paul, Minnesota and one at the University of Michigan. It seems like it's potentially easier to arrange the chamber style of A New World than it is a full orchestra like Distant Worlds, so I wouldn't be surprised to see a lot more dates showing up in our next update.

Good luck to those going for tickets! Don't take mine.

Source: Distant Worlds, A New World