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Some scans have been released for Final Fantasy Dissidia, the Final Fantasy game headed for the PSP. In a bit of a shocking twist, the game appears to be a 3D brawler, now there's not much to go on other than the scan from Jump Magazine, but it does definitely have the looks of a brawler.

The game shot seems to have two pictures of two seperate fights, one involving what appears to be Cecil and Golbez, and the next featuring Zidane and Kuja. On second glance the first two might actually be Garland vs The Emperor from FF1 and FF2 respectively. I can't be certain.

Source: Jump Magazine scan

Any chance we could get one of our resident CoNners that can understand Japanese to translate this?

After a few days of rumors and speculation, confirmation regarding a new remake of Final Fantasy IV has been provided by Shonen Jump. With a page of screen shots and other information, there seems to be little doubt that Square-Enix is indeed working on a new version of their first Super Nintendo Final Fantasy.

The DS remake will reportedly use the same engine as Final Fantasy III DS. There's no word yet of a release outside of Japan, but, hopefully, details will be forthcoming in the next few days.

Source: ds fanboy via Ronin (thanks!)

Yeah, yeah, I know. Another remake! And this game just came out on the GBA less than two years ago! And aaaaaaah! AAAAAH! Square is doing ANOTHER REMAKE!

Capitalist scum aside, I have to admit that I'm excited about this. Final Fantasy IV was one of my favorite games (I thought I'd died and gone to heaven when Final Fantasy Chronicles was announced, back in the day), and reviving it with a fresh new style could be a very good thing. Maybe it's not the Square game that most deserves a remake, and maybe the remake will completely destroy a classic... but I can't help but hope that this will be terrific!

While I wouldn't bet that this spells the end of Square Enix's penchant for churning out remakes of popular games, the company that brings us the Final Fantasy series is set to give PSP owners something worth coveting: a brand-new Final Fantasy game.

Tentatively titled Dissidia, the new game in the franchise may represent a break from the rest of the series. For one thing, it lacks a number, and, for another, the tagline on the site states that "fantasy has no limited form."

Will this be a real Final Fantasy game, or is the name being borrowed to test-drive a new series? Sadly, it seems that only PSP owners will be in a position to find out.

Source: GameSpot

According to Square-Enix representative Shinji Hashimoto, Square-Enix doesn't have that much incentive to release any games on the Nintendo Wii's Virtual Console at present. From 1UP.com:

"We feel that the Japanese game market still requires [physical] media. Also, FF and Dragon Quest are played by a wide range of users, from children to adults, so there are limitations when you consider the problems that we would have with billing systems."

Bottom line, if consumers are paying up to 30 USD for remakes of older Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest games, why should Square-Enix put them on the VC for a quarter of that? That's what Squenix is thinking, and that statement might unfortunately be evidence that our favorite Japanese developer isn't going to have any downloadable content on the Wii anytime soon.

Source: 1UP

And the rest of the world wonders if one man could possibly have been responsible for all of the mistakes Sony's been making in the past year.

Ken Kutaragi, chairman and CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment, Inc. and the man who brought us the original Playstation,will formally announce his retirement in June at the annual shareholder's meeting. He will retain an honorary title of chairman of SCEI as well as an advisory role to some of the other higher-ups.

Source: Gamers Reports via Elessar, GameSpot

Unfortunately, with Sony slowly strangling their video game market share, it's hard to view this as a successful leader leaving in triumph. It will be interesting to see what, if any, changes the new management of SCEI decides to undertake.

Despite rumors to the contrary following its announcement last year, Dragon Quest IX: Protectors of the Starry Sky will not be featuring an action-oriented battle system and will stick to the tried-and-true turn-based system that has been a feature of every game in the Dragon Quest main series.

However, there are still a few adjustments being made to the DQ formula. Enemies will now be visible in the open field and running into an enemy will trigger a battle, not unlike the battle systems from Chrono Trigger (which had several traditional Dragon Quest staff on its team). Battles will be in full 3D in the same vein as the PS2's Dragon Quest VIII, and DQ IX will also support multiplayer co-op at any stage of the game using the DS's wireless multiplayer capabilities. Also, for the first time in the series, the main character's appearance will be fully customizable by the player - everything from a character's weight to facial features is player-controlled.

Dragon Quest IX is shaping up to be quite different from many of its predecessors, but it is being made by virtually the exact same team that created Dragon Quest VIII - the studios of Yuji Horii, Akira Toriyama, and Koichi Sugiyama, as well as the independent developer Level-5. Dragon Quest IX is scheduled for a 2007 release in Japan.

Source: 1UP