News

Yesterday the long-awaited Patch 2.45 launched for Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn. The biggest addition is the new Eternal Bonding ceremony, or, um, marriage. As announced at E3 this past summer, gay Eternal Bonding will indeed be an available option. Most of the rest of the content is minor, so if you're interested check out the source link below. This will likely be the last significant update prior to the massive Heavensward expansion due out next spring.

In addition to the ongoing PC free trial offer, a Playstation free trial is set to become available at the end of the month.

Source: Official FFXIV Site, Siliconera

For a brief period yesterday / this morning (depending on where you're reading this from), Square Enix's official French store website prematurely listed a version of the HD remastered Final Fantasy X and Final Fantasy X-2 combo for PS4. This hasn't been officially announced yet - hence the "likely" in this story's title - but the fact that it showed up on an official company webpage makes it seem a pretty safe bet. That and, of course, the fact that it isn't a particularly surprising move.

In the meantime, I'll just go back to pining for a FFX-3 (cue my topic on the audio drama "Will" included with the HD re-release.)

Source: IGN

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