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And strangely enough, not on Steam! Square Enix announced yesterday that the Kingdom Hearts series would make its debut on Windows PCs via the Epic Games store. The games will be released on March 30 of this year, with eleven games to be released across four packages.

The four packages mirror the most recent versions released of each; HD 1.5+2.5 ReMIX contains the first game, Re:Chain of Memories, the cinematics from 358/2 Days, Kingdom Hearts II, Birth By Sleep, and the cinematics from Re:Coded. HD 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue includes Dream Drop Distance, 0.2 Birth By Sleep ~a fragmentary passage~, and the cinematics for Kingdom Hearts χ Back Cover. The Kingdom Hearts III release contains the Re Mind DLC, and then the final release is of the rhythm game Melody of Memory.

First, I hope you enjoy this news because it was a lot of effort to type out those wild game subtitles. Second, I hope that if you're interested you have deep enough pockets, because the preorder price is $50 for the first game compilations and $60 for each of the remaining three releases. Preorders are open now.

Source: Square Enix

The newest mobile, turn-based strategy game from Square Enix is releasing in under two weeks now, and as of yesterday pre-downloads were made available on both Apple and Google app stores. Released last year in Japan, Dragon Quest Tact is a monster-collecting, monster-training, grid-based strategy game developed by Aiming. It looks to be pretty standard mobile tactical RPG fare, but the Dragon Quest IP is really cute in context and the design and animation look pretty impressive too.

Anyone who pre-downloads the app before the release on January 27 will get a free King Slime monster for their party, too. Who could say no to that?

Source: Dragon Quest Tact

Just before Christmas, Square Enix applied for three new trademarks in Japan, all related to Final Fantasy VII; the filings were made public on Monday of this week.

Two were for text use: "Ever Crisis" and "The First Soldier." It seems reasonable to believe that these two are both related to the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, given the use of the terms "Crisis" and "Soldier" in other ways related to FF7. The third is more explicit - it's a trademark application for the logo used by Shinra Electric Power Company. The two text trademarks were filed on December 17, and the visual on December 22.

There's no other information about how these marks might be used, as only the Shinra logo has been used in the past in its current form. The other marks could refer to remakes, remasters, or new games in the FF7 universe for any platform. They could even refer to upcoming books based in the same. They could even be for projects that never actually happen. We will just have to see what happens with them in the future.

Source: Gematsu

Sony put on their video presser for the 2021 Consumer Electronics Show yesterday, which I semi-watched for my own reasons at the time, but here's one thing that Kotaku caught that I definitely missed: as part of a sizzle roll of upcoming PlayStation 5 games, Square Enix' biggest mystery title got a release window. That window is currently "January 2022."

Of course, this was tossed out in fine print at the end of the visuals, and it's definitely a target more so than a locked-in date, but it's good to see it nonetheless to see Squenix getting some games ready to go for the new generation of consoles. Now, in this case, it's really just one of the new gen, because Athia has a two-year exclusivity contract; this release date puts the game on Xbox no sooner than 2024.

Source: Kotaku

The original The World Ends With You is one of the cult-ier games made by Square Enix in its recent history; released originally in 2007, the game has mainly been published for mobile devices only with the exception of the 2018 release on Nintendo Switch. That said, it did get its cult status largely by being a well-recieved and quality game (full disclosure, the game never really grabbed me on Nintendo DS so I might not be the best person to speak to that).

After a week or so of leadup, the announcement came today that after these many years, a sequel to the game is now in the works, and it's been announced for both PlayStation 4 and Switch with a Summer 2021 release date. Entitled "NEO: The World Ends With You," the announcement trailer reveals several new characters as well as some returns. The new game keeps the comic book art aesthetic from the original, but puts the gameplay into a 3D space that evokes to me a bit of Kingdom Hearts feel.
Expect more news in the near future, with the release date coming relatively soon.

I'm a bit late to the post here, sorry - Hurricane Zeta decided to take out CoN headquarters for about eighteen hours right as this news broke. Yesterday, Square Enix published the official Final Fantasy XVI website in eight languages - multiple variants of English notwithstanding - which really reinforces the scope of a modern flagship Final Fantasy release.

The site exposes a lot of backstory to fill in some obvious gaps from the original trailer. We learn that the setting of the new game is a land called Valisthea, and as we could predict from the trailer, the Eikons exist around the largest settlements in the land near their "Mothercrystals," huge mountains of crystal from which magical aether spawns. Those who can command the Eikons are called "Dominants," like young Joshua, and each nation treats their Dominant in their own traditional style. There are six major kingdoms outlined on the website which explain a bit more, and interestingly there are redactions in the text for a couple of them to hide either Eikon or Dominant names.

In terms of characters, we now know that the protagonist's name is Clive Rosfield, the older brother to Joshua. As one can tell from the trailer, Clive is a noble soldier of the nation of Rosaria; it is further explained that the attack by Ifrit shown in the trailer must take place fairly early in the game, as it appears to be the catalyst for a mission of revenge. We also learn that the girl from the trailer is named Jill, and she hails from another region of Valisthea and is an emissary helping to keep the peace between her people and Rosaria. Apparently, she is also 12 years old, which seems like maybe she has way too stressful of a role for her age.

Reading between the lines a bit, it would seem that the Ifrit that attacks Joshua and Clive could be either a wild Eikon or possibly one from another nation; the site explains that the tenuous peace among the countries of Valisthea might be at risk due to "the Blight," which opens up a number of opportunities for storytelling. Hopefully, the level of worldbuilding already evident in this website means that the game is far enough along that more info will be coming soon.

Source: Final Fantasy XVI | Square Enix