News

OPGaming.com reopened on March 1st, 2003, at around 5:00 PM Eastern time. The site was reworked since November by R51, Tiddles, and myself, along with my personal staff who helped fill in content. So what's new?

The Latest Gaming News & Media
Coverage for Gaming on ALL major Platforms, as well as old ones.
New Forums
An Extensive Games Database
Weekly polls
A huge, 64 character tournament, which is already underway.

Plus lots more to come. R51 told me to be a spammer, so yell at him, AFTER you check out the new OPGaming.com.

None of these really warrent an update in themselves, but some may be of interest to a few of you CoN-ers.

Starting off with some non-Final Fantasy or RPG news,  Konami has announced that Silent Hill 3 will be released in Europe first.  The tentative date is May 23.  Gamers in Japan and North America are the ones that will have to be waiting this time around.  European gamers usually have to wait months for PAL versions of their games.  Speaking of the North American version, though, its release is planned sometime in August.

For those that don't know,  Silent Hill 3 is popular action/horror series that is similar to the Resident Evil series (correct me if I'm wrong on this one guys.).
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Tidbit numero dos:  Final Fantasy Tatics Advance has already moved over 250,000 copies in Japan.  And it was only released on Valentine's Day.  One copy of FFTA was sold for every single GameBoy Advance SP (also released on that day) that was sold.  

Considering the popularity of the original FFT among North American gamers, it should be a hit here as well.
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Tidbit number three:  A new Zelda game is on the works for the GameBoy Advance.  Shigeru Miyamoto talked about in a recent interview.  The game will be developed for Nintendo by Capcom.  Besides being a developer of generally high regard, they have developed the three most recent Zelda GameBoy games (The two Oracale games for GB Color and the port of Link To Past for the GBA).  

The game has been actually development since 2001.

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Links to Tidbit source articles:
Tidbit 1: http://gamespot.com/gamespot/stories/news/0,10870,2911343,00.html
Tidbit 2: http://www.ffinsider.net/news/news.php?id=324
Tidbit 3: http://www.gamesarefun.com/cgi-bin....,29872,

Lamest headline ever.

Anyway, three new art packages make their debut on the site today. We have two from Narratorway, both featuring Palom and Porom from FF4, and a layout from current queen of the Fanart Hall of Fame, A-Chan, featuring Faris from FFV. I will be adding all of these pieces to the main fanart section just as soon as I can. About half are already up.

Bandai, the manufacturer of the SwanCyrstal, WonderSwan Color and WonderSwan, announced that they will stop mass production of the SwanCrystal (their latest version of the handheld device).  Furthermore, they have no future hardware plans as of now.

http://www.gamesarefun.com/cgi-bin....,30952,

While it was never brought over to the North American market, the WonderSwan was able to establish a nice little niche market over in Japan.  Sales have really sagged in recent weeks though.  Bandai is to the point where they are only moving 800 to 1,000 units weekly.  

The WonderSwan Color garnered much of its attention through ports of popular game made to the system, particularly those by Square and Capcom.  Square ported Final Fantasy I, II and IV, and Romancing SaGa to the system while Capcom brought its Ghouls 'n Ghosts, Pocket Fighter, and Mega Man and Bass.

Bandai handheld plans are now to develop software for the GameBoy Advance, hoping to release a game this coming fall in Japan.  

Source: GamesAreFun
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This is just one less competitor to Nintendo's dominance in the handheld market.  As already stated up above, it was never released in the North American market and only established a niche in Japan.  Every bit of competition against Nintendo helps it though.  On the positive side, this will result in the GameBoy Advance getting another quality developer in the form of Bandai.  

Next up for Nintendo (about a year or so away though): Nokia's N-Gage.

In a recent issue of VJump, There are two pages dedicated to FF: Crystal Chronicles. They show new artwork of the main characters and a moogle carrying a letter.

Here are the Scans :

Scan 1
Scan 2
Source: Square Insider

Apparently Mog Central has returned to the Final Fantasy world, with Moogles in Multi-Colored trousers and no arms.

Also, the skills / magic system seems to be based on the FF7 Materia System. You will be able to add various crystals to gain new magic and skills, and also to increase your stats.
Source 2: Square Insider

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The moogles in these scans scare me. They look like some kinda pieced together genetic creature or something.

The Materia-esque gameplay will make this game really interesting, IMO. Giving it a depth to the character customization and allowing everyone to have a differnt type of character if they wanted. I wonder if they will have to have a Phoenix-Final Attack combo. heh.

People have asked for a more clear-cut definition of the rules here at CoN for quite a while. We finally have them fully outlined at http://www.cavesofnarshe.com/forums/rules.php for your review.

These rules are really just a written form of the common-sense regulations the moderators of the CoN forums and the ops of CoNChat have been using for a very long time.

If for some reason we find you in violation of one of these rules in the forums, we will do our best to educate rather than simply prosecute. If there is anything we can do to make your stay better, please let us know.