News

At a press conference a few hours ago, Sony announced that both the WiFi and 3G versions of the PlayStation Vita will receive price drops down to 19,980 yen. This is a price reduction of 5,000 and 10,000 yen respectively, bringing the Vita's Japanese price down to approximately $214 US or 138 GBP. It is unknown if this change will be carried over to other territories as of yet.

At the same press conference, Sony and Square-Enix showed off the Vita version of Final Fantasy X, apologizing for the long delay between announcements. The last we heard of this HD re-release was in summer of 2012 in what amounted to yet another "please wait." Square-Enix was unprepared to provide a release date, but claimed that it would be coming shortly and to "wait for that."

So... Square-Enix told us nothing about this anticipated port, except that they're working on it and to wait some more. Gee, thanks.

Source: Kotaku, Kotaku again

For the large number of users who haven't caved in front of the Apple iOS megalith, it is disappointing to have a mobile platform that doesn't have many Square Enix games. (I wouldn't know, I'm already far too invested in the Apple appconomy.)

Squenix are now taking at least one step to rectify that - Final Fantasy Tactics is being refreshed and released for Android. So far, this is just for Japan, but there's no reason to expect that it won't be localized.

This Android release is very similar to the Apple release, with touchscreen controls for selecting options, and multitouch gestures to navigate the battlefields. The gestures are disconcerting at first if you are used to the console and PSP versions, but they work pretty well once you adapt. The Android version will even leapfrog the iOS port with crisper graphics and a higher framerate, though those features will be released to iOS as well sometime in the future.

Final Fantasy Tactics is becoming one of the more-ported games in the series now, and it's with good reason. If you haven't played this game before and have an Android device, it's definitely worth grabbing as soon as it's available.

Source: Siliconera

Starting today, the North American PSN store has a series of Final Fantasy games half off. Which games, you might ask? Well, a bucket of them. You can get a version of every numbered Final Fantasy game up through IX (not including III, which never has had a Sony release). Most of the games are the PS One versions, including Origins, Anthology, and the three released originally for the first PlayStation. Final Fantasy IV's PSP version is included, as is Tactics: War of the Lions. Rounding out the set are three games from the Dissidia series.

This sale is 50% off the top and will be running for two weeks. The game selection is a little different than the European-region sale that we, uh, forgot to post about until right now. That sale's over, though. Sorry about that.

Source: US PlayStation Blog

Do you like CoN's fanart galleries? Of course you do. Do you follow CoN on Twitter? Of course you... okay, you probably don't, yet. I'm not judging.

If you said yes to the former but no to the latter, you should rectify that situation now, because we now update our followers each time we add a new fanart to the galleries. Similar to how we've done with news for the last couple years, the CoN twitter account will publish to its feed the artist's name, the title of the work, and a handy link to let you get directly to it for your commenting and rating pleasure. And, if you're an artist who has added Twitter information into your CoN profile, you'll even get your Twitter handle mentioned in our tweet so you can easily favorite and retweet it to your own followers.

Of course, this is only really big news if we start getting more art submitted from more artists. So, don't wait! It's a good time to contribute!

Death Penalty asked me to make a note about Final Fantasy VI here, too, while I have a post going. You probably noticed our thread looking for help, which is still going - it might look like we've gotten a lot of help, but there is certainly more work than free time among the folks who have responded. For all that, though, we're making good progress. I'm hoping that by the summer we can have something new and fun to show you and all Final Fantasy VI players, but don't hesitate to offer to lend a hand in pursuit of that goal. We've made fantastic progress so far this winter, and we're looking forward to keeping up the pace!

To celebrate their Indonesian, Korean, and Thai language releases, Final Fantasy I and Final Fantasy II are each only $3.99 on iOS devices - for this week only, so get 'em while they're hot!

If you've always been wanting to try one - or both - these historic titles, or even just a new game to tinker around with on your Apple device, this is probably as good an opportunity as you'll ever get. And don't forget to make use of CoN's FF1 guide while you're playing it!

To start things off, an incredible boxed set of Amano art, "The Sky: The Art of Final Fantasy," has been made available once more for the price of $89.99, printed by publisher Dark Horse. The set consists of three volumes of art encompassing the Final Fantasies I through X, and they're pretty darn slick.

Theatrhythm: Final Fantasy is now available for iOS devices, but it's got a couple new features up its sleeve. The first is Edit Mode, where players around the world can create their own tunes and access those created by others. The second is Quest Medley, which enables players to select and play through a playlist of songs at a time. The iOS version also has a few additional songs available from series spin-offs Final Fantasy Tactics and Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles. When asked about these inclusions, the mobile development team responded that, should such a move had sufficient popular backing, they hope to add songs from other Square Enix series, potentially from the Chrono or Mana games.

Final Fantasy Type-O has been in a purgatory of sorts. Released in Japan back in late 2011 for the PSP, it sorta fell off the radar as far as us in the West are concerned. In November of last year, a company official said that, while they had no current plans regarding release, they felt the game would be well received in North American and European markets, and that they hoped . Thanks to a bit of looking, some fellow over at operation-suzaku.com got in touch with one of the voice actors hired for the English localization. The source revealed that, while he knew no more of the game's future than anyone else on this continent, most if not all of the English localization had already been finished. So... still shelved for now, but at least we know a bit more about its fate.

A lot of the information hitting the web this past week from Square Enix surrounds Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII. Perhaps the biggest Lightning Returns news has been the introduction of a major character, Lumina. Lumina looks like she could be Lightning's second sister: pink hair, etc. Her role in the game looks like it'll be a bit complex, however, as Lumina will support Lightning at some times but deter her at others.

Citizens too seem to be divided on how to treat Lightning and her role as Liberator. As previously reported, NPC interaction is intended to be a large part of the game. In a recent Famitsu interview, developers explained that, just as many characters are willing to wait calmly for the promised end of the world, many others seek to prevent it - in part by interfering with Lightning's mission.

On the topic of annoying friends/helpful enemies, Lightning is shown actually duking it out with FFXIII-2 protagonist Noel in a trailer released yesterday. Not sure what that means, but perhaps any of you who have played FFXIII-2 to its conclusion could have a guess?

Seems like everyone's changing these days, so why shouldn't Lightning? Change clothes, that is. It has been announced that players will be able to select from one of a few different outfits for Lightning. It is unclear yet whether clothing options will be provided in the original release or whether they'll be available for additional cost afterwards, but the way the company seems to be doing things these days, I can venture a guess.

There's quite a lot of buzz surrounding the decision to make Lightning Returns a pseudo-Action RPG. It has been confirmed for some time now that players will only be able to control one character during the game, Lightning, and that, while still an ATB battle system, things will be more fast-paced. Amongst its more action-oriented elements, it appears that there will be a system for evading and blocking in combat. Regarding how the single-character party will impact the player's investment in the game's cast as compared to most previous FF titles, which featured many characters, Toriyama responded that they wanted to create a game focusing directly on Lightning. He added, however, that characters from both previous FFXIII titles will fill major NPC roles throughout the story.

It also appears that Lightning Returns will feature some variety of quest/hunt/mark board, as did the original FFXIII. I wasn't sure what topic to put that in, so I just saved it for the end. Enjoy!

Source: Siliconera, Operation-Suzaku, Siliconera