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It's that time of the quarter again, where a new list of live Final Fantasy orchestral music shows up. There are some good venues cropping up this time around - while I haven't gone back to see all the shows that have ever been, some of these seem like brand-new locations for the concerts, which should help expose even more listeners to these great concerts.

There's just one new Distant Worlds show that's been announced, and it's for July 23rd in Houston. The show will be at Jones Hall, but as yet there are no special guests announced. Distant Worlds shows seem to have somewhat haphazard announcements, though, so don't be surprised if more show up between now and July. Tickets go on sale April 8th for Houston.

A New World seems to be blowing up this year, though - this latest update brings six new shows for 2016, starting just ten days from now! Tickets are on sale now for all six:

• Overland Park, Kansas: March 11 (An old CoN headquarters, sad to be missing it!)
• Boston, Massachusetts: May 6 (Ditto!)
• Winston-Salem, North Carolina: May 8
• Brookville, New York: June 17
• Hartford, Connecticut: June 19
• St. Paul, Minnesota: September 17

Are any of these shows near you? Let us know if you plan to go!

Source: Distant Worlds, A New World

Are you worried that you won't get enough video games during the Super Bowl weekend? Is the Super Bowl not enough of a "game" for you?

Don't worry, because you're in luck! Starting at 7:00 pm PST this Friday, game developers Teddy Dief (Hyper Light Drifter) and Adriel Wallick (Train Jam) are hosting the second Square Bowl – a 48-hour event to benefit the Able Gamers charity.

Last year they did Final Fantasy VII, and they are following up with Final Fantasy VIII. The two indie game developers will be joined throughout their 48-hour playthrough by other game developers.

From the looks of it, watching the stream will be free, but there will be a donate button under the video and chat. You can find the stream in the following link.

http://squarebowl.tv/

The AbleGamers Foundation is a charitable organization "that aims to improve the overall quality of life for those with disabilities through the power of video games." They do this by outreach to gamers with disabilities, "consultation for AAA and indie developers, free of charge, to assist in making each game as accessible as possible," and by providing grants for "assistive technology" in order to give gamers with disabilities access to technology and equipment to make their playing easier.

Now, what will it be like? Fun? Informative? ... (Boring?) I'm not sure. I was unaware of the first Square Bowl, so I can't tell you what this one will be like. But it's for a good cause, so tune in.

You can find more information on Teddy Dief and Adriel Wallick from the same website where you can reach the stream above.

Source: Game Informer, The AbleGamers, Square Bowl

A lot of new Final Fantasy XV information was revealed in Active Time Report 7.0 last weekend, and I missed it all due to moving. In case you missed it too, read on and watch the ATR at your leisure.
The main focus of ATR7 is that the game is now 80% complete and that they consider development to be close to the final build, meaning there will likely be no further updates until after they consider the game to have gone gold.

There are a lot of mechanics and minor updates wrapped up in the beginning, almost like a visual changelog. There are a couple things I hadn't seen anything of yet, such as the snare combat mechanic and the fluid dynamics of characters in deep water, that looked pretty great. Also... frogs! Additionally, the overall updates show that the camera and UI have been drastically changed since the original demo, improving the overall battle mechanics.

This update showed more of Niflheim and its role and personnel, introducing in particular a dragoon officer named Aranea Highwind - it's worth noting that she has a pretty cool take on some classic Kain Highwind-style armor. The story frames Niflheim as a controlling, mechanically oriented kingdom expanding over Lucis, in a manner that echoes a bit of the plot setup for Final Fantasy VI.

A huge gameplay mechanic introduced this time around has been nicknamed "Final Fantasy Solid" in some circles; a stealth mechanic in which Noctis and crew infiltrate and take down Niflheim bases from within appears to be a significant part of the plot this time around. Destructible and otherwise interactive environments play a role in these takedowns as well, both in terms of destroying and commandeering Niflheim equipment.

With regards to magic, the typical magic system has been modified in XV to be more focused on a few elementals and "ring" magic, which is available only later in the game. The elemental spells have improved efficacy in certain environments, and have the ability to use the environments to spread to wider ranges and therefore envelop more targets.

Coming up next: the Uncovered event. This is the big one, and it's happening in Los Angeles (and free tickets are available, Californian readers!). In this event, the final demo will be announced, the 2016 release date for the final game will be announced, as well as price and "other details."

If that's not enough for XV for you, Gematsu collected a gallery of screenshots to check out too.

Source: Siliconera, Gematsu, Game Informer

The Star Ocean and Dragon Quest franchises both have updates coming soon in the form of new games; as both enter 2016, January's been a good month for updates on the progress them all. This week in particular had a new livestream broadcast for Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness, and with it came new gameplay footage and discussion of gameplay tweaks, a new trailer to introduce more background on Fidel, the main protagonist, and new screenshots and background information on how the game's skillsets will work.

In the Dragon Quest universe, there's always a lot more going on. The Dragon Quest franchise turns thirty years old this year, and as such, there's a new website for the franchise in Japan. A demo for Builders, the Minecraft-esque building RPG set in the Dragon Quest universe, will be out next week in Japan for Playstation 4 and Vita. The 3DS game Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker 3 (name just rolls off the tongue, by the by) will be coming out on March 24 in Japan, but the company is also aiming for a demo to come out a few weeks earlier. Another sideline franchise in the DQ universe, Heroes, will see its sequel released for all three living Sony platforms right on the 30th anniversary in Japan. That date is May 27th of this year.

Finally, the biggest game in the franchise, Dragon Quest XI, was announced as having a release date sometime during the anniversary year. That means that it won't be out before the start of the anniversary year, and possibly not out until next May 27th, should they hit the window at all. This news was met with great disdain by the anniversary event's followers, who expected something more concrete.

Source: Siliconera, Gematsu

There hasn't been a ton of Final Fantasy XV news lately, but what has been coming out has been small and positive.

Last week, Director Hajime Tabata took to Famitsu to announce that the 2016 release date for the game would be announced at an event in March, and that the team was shifting into the debugging phase.

Just yesterday, a few of the game's developers participated in a Q&A on the game's official forums. They once again emphasized the visit-ability of the game's cities, and discussed the warp ability, which will constitute a significant part of combat -- particularly against large-scale and aerial enemies. The main takeaway from this Q&A, however, was the announcement that FFXV will have two different battle modes, one that is more "action-oriented" and another that is more "relaxed." It's hard to tell exactly what this means -- is this a distinction between fast-paced as opposed to strategic, or is it a distinction between hard vs. easy? -- but we'll have to wait (perhaps for the March event?) to learn more.

Source: Siliconera

We're behind on news again, but I didn't want to miss the chance to reuse a headline: Final Fantasy IX, the Final Fantasy packed to the gills with homage and protagonists resembling monkeys, is headed to both Windows and mobile in 2016. This version is going to be similar to the PC and mobile release of Final Fantasy VII insomuch as it is the original PlayStation release with control tweaks added for touch devices and some ease-of-play functions like autosave and optional random encounters. There's no official release window set forth as yet, and very little media.

This release of IX differs from that of VII, though, given that there is an announcement at all; the Final Fantasy VII release on iOS came as a surprise, so there's no way to extrapolate any further details regarding a potential release window based on what we know now.

Source: Famitsu