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When the Pixel Remaster games were released in physical editions for consoles a couple years ago, they sold out virtually overnight, leaving only digital downloads available for players. With a couple years' water under the bridge now, though, and the continued popularity of the remasters, Square Enix have announced that a wider release of the physical games will be available starting October 8.

Like the original limited edition release, this new one will be for Playstation and Switch only. Unlike the original, though, the pack-in bonuses are limited to just a sticker sheet. The release is priced at $75, which seems like a lot - but, thinking back on it, that's still less than I spent for Final Fantasy III (US) on SNES 30 years ago even accounting for inflation.

Source: Gematsu

This week, we got updates on two upcoming Final Fantasy games that were announced earlier this year. While they're not big news because we knew they were coming, now's the chance to get ready for them to drop.

First, Final Fantasy V Pixel Remaster will be releasing on November 10, only a couple weeks away now. Preorders have been available for this one for quite a while, and the preorder bonuses on Steam are still up. The versions for mobile are, as usual, not available for preorder.

Also, as of today, pre-registration for Final Fantasy VII: The First Soldier is ready to go. The exact release of the game is still no more specific than November 2021, but this Battle Royale-style game set in the Final Fantasy VII Remake universe can be accessed now in app stores and Square Enix are offering gifts to all players who pre-register based on the total number of users set up before launch.


Source: Square Enix

The Final Fantasy "Ultimania" guides have been lore for Western Final Fantasy fans for many years; I remember first hearing about their existence twenty years ago, but I've never seen one in person. Finally, though, those of us who want to see these guides in a format we can actually read ourselves - not you, smug Japanese-knowing CoN fans! - will get a chance to own them in English.

Next June, Dark Horse and Square Enix will release a 300+ page archive of Ultimania guides covering the first six games of the series in a hardbound edition. It's expected to be the first of three volumes encapsulating the entire series. Amazon, at least in the US, has it listed for just $34 currently, and I know I have already preordered my copy.

If you want to do the same, check this AmaCoN link: http://amzn.to/2xhj5SX

Source: Siliconera

Several years back, The Speed Gamers did a fun Final Fantasy marathon for charity, a goal with which CoN was happy to help. It's 2017 now, and it's time to start up again! At 6pm Eastern tonight, TSG will kick off a new marathon for the benefit of St. Jude's Children Research Hospital, with TSG players running through all of the main-series games over the course of a week. I'm posting this a bit before the start, of course, but look right below for a good place to watch if you want to tune in. I know I'll be watching a fair bit and will be doing so in CoN chat as often as I can, so come join me, won't you? They'll be doing the games in order, starting with Final Fantasy I tonight and targeting the next CoN game, Final Fantasy IV, tomorrow night.

This time around, we've provided a bit more support with promotion on social media, and our old friend Gabe provided a number of awesome fuse bead sprites for TSG to give away as donation prizes. We're not sure when they'll be given away, but keep an eye out if you're a Final Fantasy IV fan!

St. Jude has been a recipient of my own donation dollars for quite a while, so I personally think this is a great time to support people playing your favorite games for a fantastic cause. You can donate directly from here, even if you're not watching. Make sure you mention that you found out about their good cause from your friends at CoN! Don't forget that donations at particular times might also enter you for prizes like Gabe's, so pay attention, or, if you want to guarantee that you get something cool, check out these charity t-shirts on Fangamer, with $10 going to St. Jude on every shirt purchased.

Join us in wishing TSG luck over the next week, and have some fun coming up by checking out your favorite Final Fantasy games played at pace!

Source: The Speed Gamers

Final Fantasy V was the first game to be released for mobile platforms in the most recent in-game art style, back in 2013. Said art style is a bit polarizing among the fanbase, but one thing that it has going for it is that it appears to be pretty easy to scale for various devices - in fact, after these two years, it just dawned on me that this is probably one of the main reasons that the art was changed in the first place.

And, that might be relevant now, because after the ports of Final Fantasy III and Final Fantasy IV to Windows recently, the mobile version of Final Fantasy V is coming too. The game will be released on Steam on September 24 at a price point of $15.99 before a preorder discount of 10%. As a reminder, this game will have the same content as Final Fantasy V Advance (which of course means CoN can be your guide), but will have the updated look and feel of the iOS and Android ports. New to this version will be gamepad support, Steam achievements, and Steam trading cards.

No, they haven't announced the same for Final Fantasy VI yet. Yes, I expect they will, and probably quite soon.

Source: Siliconera

Obviously, this week's news of the long-teased Final Fantasy VII remake has stolen the Square Enix spotlight. But, what of other, similarly-teased projects like remakes of Final Fantasy V and VI?

As quoted at VentureBeat, when asked about remakes of other games in the series in the wake of Final Fantasy VII, Nomura responded, "Considering that we have remakes of Final Fantasy up to IV and then we have VII — I’ve been working with Mr. [Yoshinori] Kitase since Final Fantasy V, and we’ve noticed that V and VI are missing. That bothers me. How come we skipped over those two?"

This is idle chatter, of course, but if anyone's going to get those projects off the ground at this point, Nomura would be the prime candidate. Clearly, there's no other information about the status of these projects, but one could (and should, friendly CoN posters) speculate wildly in the comments below.

Source: VentureBeat